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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/27342-8.txt b/27342-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ef1ebf --- /dev/null +++ b/27342-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14068 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Athalie, by Robert W. Chambers + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Athalie + +Author: Robert W. Chambers + +Illustrator: Frank Craig + +Release Date: November 27, 2008 [EBook #27342] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATHALIE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Jen Haines and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +Transcribers Note: Spelling variations and colloquial +spellings have been retained as they appear in the +original. + + + ATHALIE + + + [Illustration: "'Clive is a good deal of a man.... I never + had a better companion.'" [PAGE 242.]] + + + + + ATHALIE + + + BY + ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + + + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + FRANK CRAIG + + + NEW YORK AND LONDON + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + 1915 + + + COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY + ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + + + COPYRIGHT, 1914, 1915, BY THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY + + + Printed in the United States of America + + + TO + MY FRIEND + MESSMORE KENDALL + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + "'Clive is a good deal of a man.... I never had a + better companion.'" _Frontispiece_ + + FACING PAGE + + "'Boy?' inquired Ledlie, resting one soil-incrusted + boot on his spade." 2 + + "'I'd like to come down here for the summer vacation,' + said the boy, awkwardly." 34 + + "'I'm glad I saw you,' said the girl; 'I hope you + won't forget me.'" 40 + + "C. Bailey, Jr., and Athalie Greensleeve ... had + supped together more than once at the Regina." 78 + + "Beside her, eager, happy, flattered, walked C. + Bailey, Jr., very conscious that he was being + envied." 80 + + "'I like her,' repeated Clive, Jr., a trifle annoyed." 82 + + "It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil + Reeve one stormy midnight." 114 + + "He rather liked being with his own sort again." 116 + + "'Wasn't a civil bow enough?'" 126 + + "One lovely morning in May she arose early in order + to write to Clive." 148 + + "Mr. Wahlbaum ... was very quiet, very considerate, + very attentive." 150 + + "Doris continued to haunt agencies and theatrical offices." 154 + + "With him she visited the various museums and art + galleries." 168 + + "With a basket containing Hafiz, her suit-case, and a + furled umbrella she started for her new lodgings." 178 + + "'Wasn't it suicide?' asked Athalie." 180 + + "She said in a low voice, still watching intently: + 'Blue sky, green trees, a snowy shore, and little + azure wavelets....'" 210 + + "Mrs. Bailey, Jr., looked pale and pretty sitting + there." 232 + + "During convalescence he read 'Under Two Flags' + and approved the idea." 234 + + "His theme happened to be his own wonderful trap + record, that evening." 244 + + "'There is your extra,' she said pleasantly." 266 + + "Once more, the old happy companionship began." 284 + + "Finally ... he cut the envelope and seated himself + beside the lamp." 300 + + "When he saw her he sprang out and came forward." 316 + + "She suddenly sat upright, resting one slender hand on + his shoulder." 330 + + "Clive nodded: 'Keep them off the place, Connor.'" 346 + + "'Sure I was that worritted,' burst out Mrs. Connor." 348 + + "'Michael,' she said, smiling." 372 + + "And then her hands were in his and she was looking + into his beloved eyes once more." 378 + + "Sometimes Athalie lunched there in the garden with + him." 400 + + + + + +ATHALIE + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +When Mrs. Greensleeve first laid eyes on her baby she knew it was +different from the other children. + +"What is the matter with it?" she asked. + +The preoccupied physician replied that there was nothing the matter. +In point of fact he had been admiring the newly born little girl when +her mother asked the question. + +"She's about as perfect as they make 'em," he concluded, placing the +baby beside her mother. + +The mother said nothing. From moment to moment she turned her head on +the pillow and gazed down at her new daughter with a curious, +questioning expression. She had never gazed at any of her other +children so uneasily. Even after she fell asleep the slightly puzzled +expression remained as a faint crease between her brows. + +Her husband, who had been wandering about from the bar to the office, +from the office to the veranda, and occasionally entirely around the +exterior of the road-house, came in on tiptoe and looked rather +vacantly at them both. + +Then he went out again as though he was not sure where he might be +going. He was a little man and mild, and he did not look as though he +had been created for anything in particular, not even for the purpose +of procreation. + +It was one of those early April days when birds make a great fuss over +their vocal accomplishments, and the brown earth grows green over +night--when the hot spring sun draws vapours from the soil, and the +characteristic Long Island odour of manure is far too prevalent to +please anybody but a native. + +Peter Greensleeve, wandering at hazard around the corner of the +tavern, came upon his business partner, Archer B. Ledlie leisurely +digging for bait in the barn-yard. The latter was in his +shirt-sleeves--always a good sign for continued fair weather. + +"Boy?" inquired Ledlie, resting one soil-incrusted boot on his spade. + +"Another girl," admitted Greensleeve. + +"Gawsh!" After a moment's rumination he picked up a squirming +angle-worm from the edge of the shallow excavation and dropped it into +the empty tomato can. + +"Going fishing?" inquired Greensleeve without interest. + +"I dunno. Mebbe. Your boy Jack seen a trout into Spring Pond." + +Ledlie, who was a large, heavy, red-faced man with a noticeably small +mouth, faded blue eyes, and grey chin whiskers, picked a budding sprig +from a bush, nibbled it, and gravely seated himself on the edge of the +horse-trough. He was wearing a cigar behind his ear which he +presently extracted, gazed at, then reconsidering the extravagance, +replaced. + +[Illustration: "'Boy?' inquired Ledlie, resting one soil-incrusted +boot on his spade."] + +"Three gals, Pete--that's your record," he remarked, gazing +reproachfully out across the salt meadows beyond the causeway. "They +won't bring you in nothin'," he added, shutting his thin lips. + +"I kind of like them," said Greensleeve with a sigh. + +"They'll eat their heads off," retorted Ledlie; "then they'll git +married an' go off some'rs. There ain't nothin' to gals nohow. You +oughtn't to have went an' done it." + +There seemed to be no further defence for Greensleeve. Ledlie +continued to chew a sprig of something green and tender, revolving it +and rolling it from one side of his small, thin-lipped mouth to the +other. His thin little partner brooded in the sunshine. Once he +glanced up at the sign which swung in front of the road-house: "Hotel +Greensleeve: Greensleeve and Ledlie, proprietors." + +"Needs painting, Archie," he volunteered mildly. + +"I dunno," said the other. "Since the gunnin' season closed there +ain't been no business except them sports from New York. The bar done +good; that's all." + +"There were two commercial men Wednesday week." + +"Yes, an' they found fault with their vittles. They can go to the +other place next time," which was as near as Ledlie ever came to +profanity. + +After a silence Ledlie said: "Here come your kids, Pete. I guess I'll +let 'em dig a little bait for me." + +Down the road they came dancing, and across the causeway over Spring +Pond--Jack, aged four, Doris, three, and Catharine, two; and they +broke into a run when they caught sight of their father, travelling as +fast as their fat little legs could carry them. + +"Is there a new baby? Is there a new baby?" shouted Jack, while still +at a distance. + +"Is it a boy? I want another brother! Is it a boy?" shrilled Doris as +she and baby Catharine came panting up with flushed and excited faces. + +"It's a girl," said Greensleeve mildly. "You'd better go into the +kitchen and wash your faces." + +"A girl!" cried Jack contemptuously. "What did mamma do that for?" + +"Oh, goodness!" pouted Doris, "I didn't want any more girls around. +What are you going to name her, papa?" + +"Athalie, I believe," he said absently. + +"Athalie! What kind of name is that?" demanded Jack. + +"I dunno. Your mamma wanted it in case the baby was a girl." + +The children, breathing hard and rapidly, stood in a silent cluster +looking up at their father. Ledlie yawned frightfully, and they all +instantly turned their eyes on him to discover if possible the +solitary tooth with which rumour credited him. They always gazed +intently into his mouth when he yawned, which irritated him. + +"Go on in and wash yourselves!" he said as soon as speech became +possible. "Ain't you heard what your papa told you!" + +They were not afraid of Mr. Ledlie; they merely found him +unsympathetic, and therefore concerned themselves with him not at all. + +Ignoring him, Jack said, addressing his father: "I nearly caught a +snake up the road. Gee! But he was a dandy." + +"He had stripes," said Doris solemnly. + +"He wiggled," asserted little Catharine, and her eyes became very +round. + +"What kind was he, papa?" inquired Jack. + +"Oh, just a snake," replied Greensleeve vaguely. + +The eager faces of the children clouded with disappointment; dawning +expectancy faded; it was the old, old tragedy of bread desired, of the +stone offered. + +"I liked that snake," muttered Jack. "I wanted to keep him for a pet. +I wanted to know what kind he was. He seemed very friendly." + +"Next time," suggested Ledlie, "you pet him on the head with a rock." + +"What?" + +"Snakes is no good. There's pizen into 'em. You kill every one you see +an' don't ask questions." + +In the boy's face intelligence faded. Impulse lay stunned after its +headlong collision with apathy, and died out in the clutch of +ignorance. + +"Is that so, papa?" he asked, dully. + +"Yes, I guess so," nodded Greensleeve. "Mr. Ledlie knows all about +snakes and things." + +"Go on in an' wash!" repeated Ledlie. "You don't git no supper if you +ain't cleaned up for table. Your papa says so, don't you, Pete?" + +Greensleeve usually said what anybody told him to say. + +"Walk quietly," he added; "your poor mamma's asleep." + +Reluctantly the children turned toward the house, gazing inquiringly +up at the curtained window of their mother's room as they trooped +toward the veranda. + +Jack swung around on the lower step: + +"Papa!" he shouted. + +"Well?" + +"I forget what her name is!" + +"Athalie." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Her first memories were of blue skies, green trees, sunshine, and the +odour of warm moist earth. + +Always through life she retained this memory of her early +consciousness--a tree in pink bloom; morning-glories covering a +rotting board fence; deep, rich, sun-warmed soil into which her baby +fingers burrowed. + +A little later commenced her memory of her mother--a still, +white-shawled figure sewing under a peach tree in pink bloom. + +Vast were her mother's skirts, as Athalie remembered them--a wide +white tent under which she could creep out of the sunlight and hide. + +Always, too, her earliest memories were crowded with children, hosts +of them in a kaleidoscopic whirl around her, and their voices seemed +ever in her ears. + +By the age of four she had gradually understood that this vaguely +pictured host of children numbered only three, and that they were her +brother and two sisters--very much grown up and desirable to play +with. But at seven she began to be surprised that Doris and Catharine +were no older and no bigger than they were, although Jack's twelve +years still awed her. + +It was about this time that the child began to be aware of a +difference between herself and the other children. For a year or two +it did not trouble her, nor even confuse her. She seemed to be aware +of it, that was all. + +When it first dawned on her that her mother was aware of it too, she +could never quite remember. Once, very early in her career, her mother +who had been sewing under the peach tree, dropped her work and looked +down at her very steadily where she sat digging holes in the dirt. + +And Athalie had a vague idea in after life that this was the +beginning; because there had been a little boy sitting beside her all +the while she was digging; and, somehow, she was aware that her mother +could not see him. + +She was not able to recollect whether her mother had spoken to her, or +even whether she herself had conversed with the little boy. He never +came again; of that she was positive. + +When it was that her brother and sisters began to suspect her of being +different she could not remember. + +In the beginning she had not understood their half-incredulous +curiosity concerning her; and, ardently communicative by nature, she +was frank with them, confident and undisturbed, until their child-like +and importunate aggressiveness, and the brutal multiplicity of their +questions drove her to reticence and shyness. + +For what seemed to amaze them or excite them to unbelief or to jeers +seemed to her ordinary, unremarkable, and not worthy of any particular +notice--not even of her own. + +That she sometimes saw things "around corners," as Jack put it, had +seemed natural enough to her. That, now and then, she seemed to +perceive things which nobody else noticed never disturbed her even +when she became aware that other people were unable to see them. To +her it was as though her own eyesight were normal, and astigmatism the +rule among other people. + +But the blunt, merciless curiosity of other children soon taught +Athalie to be on her guard. She learned that embarrassed reserve which +tended toward secretiveness and untruth before she was eleven. + +And in school she learned to lie, learned to deny accusations of being +different, pretended that what her sisters accused her of had been +merely "stories" made up to amuse them. + +So, in school, she made school-life endurable for herself. Yet, +always, there seemed to be _something_ between her and other children +that made intimacies impossible. + +At the same time she was conscious of the admiration of the boys, of +something about herself that they liked outside of her athletic +abilities. + +She had a great many friends among the boys; she could out-run, +out-jump, out-swim any of them in the big country school. She was +supple and trim, golden-haired and dark-eyed, and ready for anything +that required enterprise and activity of mind or body. Her ragged +skirts were still short at eleven--short enough not to impede her. And +she led the chase for pleasure all over that part of Long Island, +running wild with the pack from hill to tide-water until every farmer +in the district knew "the Greensleeve girl." + +There was, of course, some deviltry among cherry trees and apple +orchards--some lawlessness born of sheer exuberance and superb +health--some malicious trespassing, some harrying of unpopular +neighbours. But not very much, considering. + +Her home life was colourless, calm, comfortable, and uneventful as she +regarded it. Business at the Hotel Greensleeve had fallen off and in +reality the children had very little. But children at that age who +live all day in the open, require little except sympathetic +intelligence for their million daily questions. + +This the Greensleeve children found wanting except when their mother +did her best to stimulate her own latent intelligence for their sakes. + +But it rested on the foundation of an old-fashioned and limited +education. Only the polite, simpler, and more maidenly arts had been +taught her in the little New Jersey school her father had kept. And +her education ceased when she married Greensleeve, the ex-"professor" +of penmanship, a kind, gentle, unimaginative man, unusually dull even +for a teacher. And he was a failure even at that. + +They began married life by buying the house they were now living in; +and when Greensleeve also failed as a farmer, they opened the place as +a public tavern, and took in Ledlie to finance it. + +So it was to her mother that Athalie went for any information that her +ardent and growing intellect required. And her mother, intuitively +surmising the mind-hunger of youth, and its vigorous needs, did her +limited best to satisfy it in her children. And that is really all the +education they had; for what they got in the country school amounted +to--well it amounted to what anybody ever gets in school. + + * * * * * + +Her most enduring, most vivid memories of her mother clustered around +those summer days of her twelfth year, brief lamp-lit scenes between +long, sunlit hours of healthy, youthful madness--quiet moments when +she came in flushed and panting from the headlong chase after +pleasure, tired, physically satisfied, to sit on the faded carpet at +her mother's feet and clasp her hands over her mother's knees. + +Then "what?" and "why?" and "when?" and "how?" were the burden of the +child's eager speech. Nothing seemed to have escaped her quick ears or +eyes, no natural phenomena of the open; life, birth, movement, growth, +the flow, and ebb of tides, thunder pealing from high-piled clouds, +the sun shining through fragrant falling rain, mists that grew over +swamp and meadow. + +And, "Why?" she always asked. + +Nothing escaped her;--swallows skimming and sheering Spring Pond, +trout that jumped at sunset, the quick furry shapes of mink and +muskrat, the rattling flash of a blue-winged kingfisher, a tall heron +wading, a gull mewing. + +Nothing escaped her; the casual caress of mating birds, procreation in +farm-yard and barn-yard, fledgelings crying from a robin's nest of mud +and messy refuse, blind kittens tugging at their blinking mother. + +Death, too, she saw,--a dusty heap of feathers here, a little mound of +fur, there, which the idle breezes stirred under the high sky,--and +once a dead dog, battered, filthy and bloody, shot by the roadside; +and once some pigs being killed on a farm, all screaming. + +Then, in that school as in every school, there was the sinister +minority, always huddling in corners, full of mean silences and +furtive leering. And their half-heard words, half-understood +phrases,--a gesture, a look that silenced and perplexed her--these the +child brought also to her mother, sitting at her feet, face against +her knees. + + * * * * * + +For a month or two her mother had not been very well, and the doctor +who had brought Athalie into the world stopped in once or twice a +week. When he was with her mother the children were forbidden the +room. + +One evening in particular Athalie remembered. She had been running her +legs off playing hounds-and-hares across country from the salt-hay +stacks to the chestnut ridge, and she had come in after sunset to find +her mother sewing in her own bedroom, her brother and sisters studying +their lessons in the sitting-room where her father also sat reading +the local evening paper. + +Supper was over, but Athalie went to the kitchen and presently +returned to her mother's room carrying a bowl of bread and milk and +half a pie. + +Here on the faded carpet at her mother's feet, full in the lamplight +she sat her down and ate in hungry silence while her mother sewed. + +Athalie seldom studied. A glance at her books seemed to be enough for +her. And she passed examinations without effort under circumstances +where plodders would have courted disaster. + +Rare questions from her mother, brief replies marked the meal. When +she had satisfied her hunger she jumped up, ran downstairs with the +empty dishes, and came slowly back again,--a slender, supple figure +with tangled hair curling below her shoulders, dirty shirt-waist, +soiled features and hands, and the ragged blue skirt of a sailor suit +hanging to her knees. + +"Your other sailor suit is washed and mended," said her mother, +smiling at her child in tatters. + +Athalie, her gaze remote, nodded absently. After a moment she lifted +her steady dark blue eyes: + +"A boy kissed me, mamma," she remarked, dropping cross-legged at her +mother's feet. + +"Don't kiss strange boys," said her mother quietly. + +"I didn't. But why not?" + +"It is not considered proper." + +"Why?" + +Her mother said: "Kissing is a common and vulgar practice except in +the intimacy of one's own family." + +"I thought so," nodded Athalie; "I soaked him for doing it." + +"Who was he?" + +"Oh, it was that fresh Harry Eldon. I told him if he ever tried to get +fresh with me again I'd kill him.... Mamma?" + +"Yes?" + +"All that about poor old Mr. Manners isn't true, is it?" + +Her mother smiled. The children had been taught to leave a morsel on +their plates "for manners"; and to impress it upon them their mother +had invented a story about a poor old man named Manners who depended +upon what they left, and who crept in to eat it after they had retired +from table. + +So leaving something "for Manners" had been thoroughly and +successfully inculcated, until the habit was formed. And now Athalie +was the last of the children to discover the gentle fraud practised +upon her. + +"I'm glad, anyway," concluded the child. "I never thought we left him +enough to eat." + +Her mother said: "I shall tell you only truths after this. You are old +enough to understand reason, now, and to reason a little yourself." + +"I do.... But I am not yet perfectly sure where babies come from. You +said you would tell me _that_ some day. I'd really like to know, +mamma." + +Her mother continued to sew for a while, then, passing the needle +through the hem she looked down at her daughter. + +"Have you formed any opinion of your own?" + +"Yes," said the child honestly. + +"Then I'd better tell you the truth," said her mother tranquilly, +"because the truth is very wonderful and beautiful--and interesting." + +So she related to the child, very simply and clearly all that need be +told concerning the mystery of life in its beginnings; and Athalie +listened, enchanted. + +And mostly it thrilled the child to realise that in her, too, lay +latent a capability for the creation of life. + + * * * * * + +Another hour with her mother she remembered in after years. + +Mrs. Greensleeve had not been as well: the doctor came oftener. +Frequently Athalie returning from school discovered her mother lying +on the bed. That evening the child was sitting on the floor at her +mother's feet as usual, just inside the circle of lamplight, playing +solitaire with an ancient pack of cards. + +Presently something near the door attracted her attention and she +lifted her head and sat looking at it, mildly interested, until, +suddenly, she felt her mother's eyes on her, flushed hotly, and turned +her head away. + +"_What_ were you looking at?" asked her mother in a low voice. + +"Nothing, mamma." + +"Athalie!" + +"What, mamma?" + +"_What_ were you looking at?" + +The child hung her head: "Nothing--" she began; but her mother checked +her: "Don't lie, Athalie. I'll try to understand you. Now tell me what +you were--what you thought you were looking at over there near the +door." + +The child turned and glanced back at the door over her shoulder. + +"There is nothing there--now," she muttered. + +"Was there anything?" + +Athalie sat silent for a while, then she laid her clasped hands across +her mother's knees and rested her cheek on them. + +"There was a woman there," she said. + +"Where?" + +"Over by the door." + +"You saw her, Athalie?" + +"Yes, mamma." + +"Did she open the door and come in and then close it behind her?" + +"No." + +"How did she come in?" + +"I don't know. She--just came in." + +"Was she a young woman?" + +"No, old." + +"Very old?" + +"Not very. There was grey in her hair--a little." + +"How was she dressed?" + +"She wore a night-gown, mamma. There were spots on it--like medicine." + +"Had you ever seen her before?" + +"I think so." + +"Who was she?" + +"Mrs. Allen." + +Her mother sat very still but her clasped hands tightened and a little +of the colour faded from her cheeks. There was a Mrs. Allen who had +been suffering from an illness which she herself was afraid she had. + +"Do you mean Mrs. James Allen who lives on the old Allen farm?" she +asked quietly. + +"Yes, mamma." + + * * * * * + +In the morning they heard of Mrs. Allen's death. And it was several +months before Mrs. Greensleeve again spoke to her daughter on the one +subject about which Athalie was inclined to be most reticent. But that +subject now held a deadly fascination for her mother. + +They had been sitting together in Mrs. Greensleeve's bedroom; the +mother knitting, in bed propped up upon the pillows. Athalie, +cross-legged on a hassock beside her, was doing a little mending on +her own account, when her mother said abruptly but very quietly: + +"I have always known that you possess a power--which others cannot +understand." + +The child's face flushed deeply and she bent closer over her mending. + +"I knew it when they first brought you to me, a baby just born.... I +don't know how I knew it, but I did." + +Athalie, sewing steadily, said nothing. + +"I think," said her mother, "you are, in some degree, what is called +clairvoyant." + +"What?" + +"Clairvoyant," repeated her mother quietly. "It comes from the French, +_clair_, clear; the verb _voir_, to see; _clair-voyant_, seeing +clearly. That is all, Athalie.... Nothing to be ashamed of--if it is +true,--" for the child had dropped her work and had hidden her face in +her hands. + +"Dear, are you afraid to talk about it to your mother?" + +"N-no. What is there to say about it?" + +"Nothing very much. Perhaps the less said the better.... I don't know, +little daughter. I don't understand it--comprehend it. If it's so, +it's so.... I see you sometimes looking at things I cannot see; I know +sometimes you hear sounds which I cannot hear.... Things happen which +perplex the rest of us; and, somehow I seem to know that they do not +perplex you. What to us seems unnatural to you is natural, even a +commonplace matter of course." + +"That's it, mamma. I have never seen anything that did not seem quite +natural to me." + +"Did you know that Mrs. Allen had died when you--thought you saw her?" + +"I did see her." + +"Yes.... Did you know she had died?" + +"Not until I saw her." + +"Did you know it then?" + +"Yes." + +"How?" + +"I don't know how I knew it. I seemed to know it." + +"Did you know she had been ill?" + +"No, mamma." + +"Did it in any way frighten you--make you uneasy when you saw her +standing there?" + +"Why, no," said Athalie, surprised. + +"Not even when you knew she was dead?" + +"No. Why should it? Why should I be afraid?" + +Her mother was silent. + +"Why?" asked Athalie, curiously. "Is there anything to be afraid of +with God and all his angels watching us? Is there?" + +"No." + +"Then," said the child with some slight impatience, "why is it that +other people seem to be a little afraid of me and of what they say I +can hear and see? I have good eyesight; I see clearly; that is all, +isn't it? And there is nothing to frighten anybody in seeing clearly, +is there?" + +"No, dear." + +"People make me so cross," continued Athalie,--"and so ashamed when +they ask so many questions. What is there to be surprised at if +sometimes I see things _inside_ my mind. They are just as real as when +I see them _outside_. They are no different." + +Her mother nodded, encouragingly. + +"When papa was in New York," went on Athalie, "and I saw him talking +to some men in a hotel there, why should it be surprising just because +papa was in New York and I was here when I saw him?" + +"It surprises others, dear, because they cannot see what is beyond the +vision of their physical senses." + +Athalie said: "They tease me in school because they say I can see +around corners. It makes me very cross and unhappy, and I don't want +anybody to know that I see what they can't see. I'm ashamed to have +them know it." + +"Perhaps it is just as well you feel that way. People are odd. What +they do not understand they ridicule. A dog that would not notice a +horse-drawn vehicle will bark at an automobile." + +"Mamma?" + +"Yes, dear." + +"Do you know that dogs, and I think cats, too, see many things that I +do; and that other people do not see." + +"Why do you think so?" + +"I have noticed it.... The other evening when the white cat was dozing +on your bed, and I was down here on the floor, sewing, I +saw--something. And the cat looked up suddenly and saw it, too." + +"Athalie!" + +"She did, mamma. I knew perfectly well that she saw what I saw." + +"What was it you saw?" + +"Only a young man. He walked over to the window--" + +"And then?" + +"I don't know, mamma. I don't know where they go. They go, that's all +I know." + +"Who was he?" + +"I don't know." + +"Did he look at us?" + +"Yes.... He seemed to be thinking of something pleasant." + +"Did he smile?" + +"He--had a pleasant look.... And once,--it was last Sunday--over by +the bed I saw a little boy. He was kneeling down beside the bed. And +Mr. Ledlie's dog was lying here beside me.... Don't you remember how +he suddenly lifted his head and barked?" + +"Yes, I remember. But you didn't tell me why at the time." + +"I didn't like to.... I never like to speak about these--people--I +see." + +"Had you ever before seen the little boy?" + +"No, mamma." + +"Was he--alive--do you think?" + +"Why, yes. They all are alive." + +"Mrs. Allen was not alive when you saw her over by the door." + +The child looked puzzled. "Yes," she said, "but that was a little +different. Not _very_ different. They are all perfectly alive, mamma." + +"Even the ones we call dead? Are you sure of it?" + +"Yes.... Yes, I'm sure of it. They are not dead.... Nothing seems to +die. Nothing stays dead." + +"What! Why do you believe that?" + +Athalie said slowly: "Somebody shot and killed a poor little dog, +once,--just across the causeway bridge.... And the dog came into the +garden afterward and ran all around, smelling, and wagging his tail." + +"Athalie! Athalie! Be careful to control your imagination." + +"Yes," said the child, thoughtfully, "I must be careful to control it. +I can imagine almost anything if I try." + +"How hard have you ever tried to imagine some of the things you +see--or think you see?" + +"Mamma, I never try. I--I don't care to see them. I'd rather not. +Those things come. _I_ haven't anything to do with it. I don't know +these people, and I am not interested. I _did_ try to see papa in New +York--if you call that imagination." + +But her mother did not know what to call it because at the hour when +Athalie had seen him, that mild and utterly unimaginative man was +actually saying and doing what his daughter had seen and heard. + +"Also," said Athalie, "I _was_ thinking about that poor little yellow +dog and wondering whether he was past all suffering, when he came +gaily trotting into the garden, waving his tail quite happily. There +was no dust or blood on him. He rolled on the grass, too, and barked +and barked. But nobody seemed to hear him or notice him excepting I." + +For a long while silence reigned in the lamp-lit room. When the other +children came in to say good night to their mother she received them +with an unusual tenderness. They went away; Athalie rose, yawning the +yawn of healthy fatigue: + +"Good night, mamma." + +"Good night, little daughter." + +They kissed: the mother drew her into a sudden and almost convulsive +embrace. + +"Darling, are you sure that nothing really dies?" + +"_I_ have never seen anything really dead, mamma. Even the 'dead' +birds,--why, the evening sky is full of them--the little 'dead' ones +I mean--flock after flock, twittering and singing--" + +"Dear!" + +"Yes, mamma." + +"When you see me--_that_ way--will you--speak?" + +"Yes." + +"Promise, darling." + +"Yes.... I'll kiss you, too--if it is possible...." + +"Would it be possible?" + +The child gazed at her, perplexed and troubled: "I--don't--know," she +said slowly. Then, all in a moment her childish face paled and she +clung to her mother and began to cry. + +And her mother soothed her, tenderly, smilingly, kissing the tears +from the child's eyes. + +The next morning after the children had gone to school Mrs. +Greensleeve was operated on--without success. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The black dresses of the children had become very rusty by spring, but +business had been bad at the Hotel Greensleeve, and Athalie, Doris, +and Catharine continued to wear their shabby mourning. + +Greensleeve haunted the house all day long, roaming from bar to +office, from one room to another, silently opening doors of unoccupied +chambers to peer about in the dusty obscurity, then noiselessly +closing them, he would slink away down the dim corridor to his late +wife's room and sit there through the long sunny afternoon, his weak +face buried in his hands. + +Ledlie had grown fatter, redder of visage, whiter of hair and beard. +When a rare guest arrived, or when local loafers wandered into the bar +with the faint stench of fertilizer clinging to their boots, he +shuffled ponderously from office to bar, serving as economically as he +dared whoever desired to be served. + +Always a sprig of something green protruded from his small tight +mouth. His pale eyes, now faded almost colourless, had become weak and +red-rimmed, and he blinked continually except in the stale +semi-darkness of the house. + +Always, now, he was muttering and grumbling his disapproval of the +children--"Eatin' their heads off I tell you, Pete! What good is all +this here schoolin' doin' 'em when they ought to git out some'rs an' +earn their vittles?" + +But if Greensleeve's attitude was one of passive acquiescence, he made +no effort to withdraw the children from school. Once, when life was +younger, and Jack, his first baby, came, he had dreamed of college for +him, and of a career--in letters perhaps--something dignified, +leisurely, profound beyond his own limits. And of a modest corner +somewhere within the lustre of his son's environment where he and his +wife, grey-haired, might dream and admire, finding there surcease from +care and perhaps the peace which passes all understanding. + +The ex-"professor" of penmanship had been always prone to dream. No +dull and sordid reality, no hopeless sorrow had yet awakened him. Nor +had his wife's death been more real than the half-strangled anguish of +a dreamer, tossing in darkness. As for the children, they paid no more +attention to Ledlie than they might have to a querulous but +superannuated dog. + +Jack, now fifteen, still dawdled at school, where his record was not +good. Perhaps it was partly because he had no spending money, no +clothing to maintain his boyish self-respect, no prospects of any +sort, that he had become sullen, uncommunicative, and almost loutish. + +Nobody governed him; his father was unqualified to control anybody or +anything; his mother was dead. + +With her death went the last vestige of any tie that had held the boy +to the home anchorage--of any feeling of responsibility concerning +the conduct expected and required of him. + +He shirked his studies, came home only to eat and sleep, remained out +late without explanation or any home interference, except for the +constant disputes and quarrels with Doris and Catharine, now aged +respectively fourteen and thirteen. + +To Athalie he had little to say. Perhaps he did not realise it but he +was slightly afraid of her. And it was from her that he took any pains +at all to conceal his irregularities. + +Once, coming in from school, she had found the house deserted, and +Jack smelling of alcohol just slouching out of the bar. + +"If you do that again I shall tell father," she said, horrified. + +"What do I care!" he had retorted sullenly. And it was true; the boy +no longer cared what anybody might think as long as Athalie already +knew and detested what he had done. + +There was a garage in the neighbouring village. He spent most of his +time hanging around it. Sometimes he came home reeking of oil and +gasoline, sometimes his breath was tainted with tobacco and alcohol. + +He was so much bigger and older than Athalie that the child had never +entirely lost her awe of him. His weakness of character, his failings, +and the fact that he was a trifle afraid of her opinion, combined to +astonish and bewilder her. + +For a long while she tried to understand the gradual but certain +reversal of their relations. And one night, still more or less in awe +of him, she got out of bed and went softly into his room. + +He was not asleep. The sudden apparition of his youngest sister +considerably startled him, and he sat up in his ragged night-shirt and +stared at her where she stood in the moonlight. + +"You look like one of your own spooks!" he said. "What's the matter +with you?" + +"I wanted to talk with you, Jack." + +"What about?" + +"You." + +For a moment he sat there eyeing her uneasily; then: + +"Well, go ahead!" he said ungraciously; and stretched himself back on +the pillows. + +She came and seated herself on the bed's edge: + +"Jack, please don't drink beer." + +"Why not? Aw, what do you know about men, anyway? Don't they all smoke +and drink?" + +"Mamma asked you not to." + +"Gee-whiz! I was a kid then. But a man isn't a baby." + +Athalie sighed. Her brother eyed her restlessly, aware of that slight +feeling of shame which always invaded his sullen, defiant discontent +when he knew that he had lowered himself in her estimation. + +For, if the boy was a little afraid of her, he also cared more for her +than he ever had for any of the family except his mother. + +He was only the average boy, stumbling blindly, almost savagely +through the maze of adolescence, with no guide, nobody to warn or +counsel him, nothing to stimulate his pride, no anchorage, no +experience. + +Whatever character he had he had been born with: it was environment +and circumstance that were crippling it. + +"See here, Athalie," he said, "you're a little girl and you don't +understand. There isn't any harm in my smoking a cigarette or two or +in drinking a glass of beer now and then." + +"Isn't there, Jack?" + +"No. So don't you worry, Sis.... And, say! I'm not going back to +school." + +"What?" + +"What's the use? I can't go to college. Anyway what's the good of +algebra and physics and chemistry and history and all that junk? I +guess I'll go into business." + +"What business?" + +"I don't know. I've been working around the garage. I can get a job +there if I want it." + +"Did you ask papa?" + +"What's the use? He'll let me do what I please. I guess I'll start in +to-morrow." + + * * * * * + +His father did not interfere when his only son came slouching up to +inform him of his decision. + +After Jack had gone away toward the village and his new business, his +father remained seated on the shabby veranda, his head sunken on his +soiled shirtfront, his wasted hands clasped over his stomach. + +For a little while, perhaps, he remembered his earlier ambitions for +the boy's career. Maybe they caused him pain. But if there was pain it +faded gradually into the lethargy which had settled over him since his +wife's death. + +A grey veil seemed to have descended between him and the sun,--there +was greyness everywhere, and dimness, and uncertainty--in his mind, in +his eyesight--and sometimes the vagueness was in his speech. He had +noticed that--for, sometimes the word he meant to use was not the word +he uttered. It had occurred a number of times, making foolish what he +had said. + +And Ledlie had glanced at him sharply once or twice out of his sore +and faded eyes when Greensleeve had used some word while thinking of +another. + +When he was not wandering around the house he sat on the veranda in a +great splint-bottomed arm-chair--a little untidy figure, more or less +caved in from chest to abdomen, which made his short thin legs hanging +just above the floor seem stunted and withered. + +To him, here, came his daughters in their soiled and rusty black +dresses, just out of school, and always stopping on impulse of +sympathy to salute him with, "Hello, papa!" and with the touch of +fresh, warm lips on his colourless cheek. + +Sometimes they lingered to chatter around him, or bring out pie and +cake to eat in his company. But very soon his gaze became remote, and +the children understood that they were at liberty to go, which they +did, dancing happily away into the outer sunshine, on pleasure +bent--the matchless pleasures of the very young whose poverty has not +as yet disturbed them. + +As the summer passed the sunlight grew greyer to Peter Greensleeve. +Also, more often, he mixed his words and made nonsense of what he +said. + +The pain in his chest and arms which for a year had caused him +discomfort, bothered him at night, now. He said nothing about it. + +That summer Doris had taken a course in stenography and typewriting, +going every day to Brooklyn by train and returning before sunset. + +When school began she asked to be allowed to continue. Catharine, too, +desired to learn. And if their father understood very clearly what +they wanted, it is uncertain. Anyway he offered no objections. + +That winter he saw his son very seldom. Perhaps the boy was busy. Once +or twice he came to ask his father for money, but there was none to +give him,--very little for anybody--and Doris and Catharine required +that. + +Some little money was taken in at the Hotel Greensleeve; commercial +men were rather numerous that winter: so were duck-hunters. Athalie +often saw them stamping around in the bar, the lamplight glistening on +their oil-skins and gun-barrels, and touching the silken plumage of +dead ducks--great strings of them lying on the bar or on the floor. + +Once when she came home from school earlier than usual, she went into +the kitchen and found a hot peach turnover awaiting her, constructed +for her by the slovenly cook, and kept hot by the still more slovenly +maid-of-all-work--the only servants at the Hotel Greensleeve. + +Sauntering back through the house, eating her turnover, she noticed +Mr. Ledlie reading his newspaper in the office and her father +apparently asleep on a chair before the stove. + +There were half a dozen guests at the inn, duck-hunters from New York, +but they were evidently still out with their bay-men. + +Nibbling her pastry Athalie loitered along the hall and deposited her +strapped books on a chair under the noisy wall-clock. Then, at hazard, +she wandered into the bar. It was growing dusky; nobody had lighted +the ceiling lamp. + +At first she thought the room was empty, and had strolled over toward +the stove to warm her snow-wet shoes, when all at once she became +aware of a boy. + +The boy was lying back on a leather chair, stockinged feet crossed, +hands in his pocket, looking at her. He wore the leather shooting +clothes of a duck-hunter; on the floor beside him lay his cap, +oil-skins, hip-boots, and his gun. A red light from the stove fell +across his dark, curly hair and painted one side of his face crimson. + +Athalie, surprised, was not, however, in the least disturbed or +embarrassed. She looked calmly at the boy, at the woollen stockings on +his feet. + +"Did you manage to get dry?" she asked in a friendly voice. + +Then he seemed to come to himself. He took his hands from his pockets +and got up on his stockinged feet. + +"Yes, I'm dry now." + +"Did you have any luck?" + +"I got fifteen--counting shell-drake, two redheads, a black duck, and +some buffle-heads." + +"Where were you shooting?" + +"Off Silver Shoal." + +"Who was your bay-man?" + +"Bill Nostrand." + +"Why did you stop shooting so early?" + +"Fifteen is the local limit this year." + +Athalie nodded and bit into her turnover, reflectively. When she +looked up, something in the boy's eye interested her. + +"Are you hungry?" she asked. + +He looked embarrassed, then laughed: "Yes, I am." + +"Wait; I'll get you a turnover," she said. + +When she returned from the kitchen with his turnover he was standing. +Rather vaguely she comprehended this civility toward herself although +nobody had ever before remained standing for her. + +Not knowing exactly what to do or say she silently presented the +pastry, then drew a chair up into the red firelight. And the boy +seated himself. + +"I suppose you came with those hunters from New York," she said. + +"Yes. I came with my father and three of his friends." + +"They are out still I suppose." + +"Yes. They went over to Brant Point." + +"I've often sailed there," remarked Athalie. "Can you sail a boat?" + +"No." + +"It is easy.... I could teach you if you are going to stay a while." + +"We are going back to New York to-morrow morning.... How did you learn +to sail a boat?" + +"Why, I don't know. I've always lived here. Mr. Ledlie has a boat. +Everybody here knows how to manage a cat-boat.... If you'll come down +this summer I'll teach you. Will you?" + +"I will if I can." + +They were silent for a few minutes. It grew very dark in the bar-room, +and the light from the stove glimmered redder and redder. + +The boy and girl lay back in their chairs, lingering over their peach +pastry, and inspecting each other with all the frank insouciance of +childhood. + +Athalie still wore the red hood and cloak which had represented her +outer winter wardrobe for years. Her dull, thick gold hair curled +crisply over the edges of the hood which framed in its oval the lovely +features of a child in perfect health. + +The boy, dark-haired and dark-eyed, gazed fascinated and unembarrassed +at this golden blond visitor hooded and cloaked in scarlet. + +"Does your father keep this hotel?" he asked after a pause. + +"Yes. I am Athalie Greensleeve. What is your name?" + +"C. Bailey, Junior." + +"What is the _C_ for?" + +"Clive." + +"Do you go to school?" + +"Yes, but I'm back for the holidays." + +"Holidays," she repeated vaguely. "Oh, that's so. Christmas will come +day after to-morrow." + +He nodded. "I think I'm going to have a new pair of guns, some books, +and a horse. What do you expect?" + +"Nothing," said Athalie. + +"What? Isn't there anything you want?" And then, too late, some +glimmer of the real state of affairs illuminated his boyish brain. And +he grew red with embarrassment. + +They had finished their pastry; Athalie wiped her hands on a soiled +and ragged and crumpled handkerchief, then scrubbed her scarlet mouth. + +"I'd like to come down here for the summer vacation," said the boy, +awkwardly. "I don't know whether my mother would like it." + +"Why? It is pleasant." + +[Illustration: "'I'd like to come down here for the summer vacation,' +said the boy, awkwardly."] + +He glanced instinctively around him at the dark and shabby bar-room, +but offered no reason why his mother might not care for the Hotel +Greensleeve. One thing he knew; he meant to urge his mother to come, +or to let him come. + +A few minutes later the outer door banged open and into the bar came +stamping four men and two bay-men, their oil-skins shining with +salt-spray, guns glistening. Thud! went the strings of dead ducks on +the floor; somebody scratched a match and lighted the ceiling lamp. + +"Hello, Junior!" cried one of the men in oil-skins,--"how did you +make out on Silver Shoals?" + +"All right, father," he began; but his father had caught sight of +Athalie who had risen to retreat. + +"Who are you, young lady?" he inquired with a jolly smile,--"are you +little Red-Riding Hood or the Princess Far Away, or perhaps the +Sleeping Beauty recently awakened?" + +"I'm Athalie Greensleeve." + +"Lady Greensleeves! I _knew_ you were somebody quite as distinguished +as you are beautiful. Would you mind saying to Mr. Greensleeve that +there is much moaning on the bar, and that it will still continue +until he arrives to instil the stillness of the still--" + +"What?" + +"We merely want a drink, my child. Don't look so seriously and +distractingly pretty. I was joking, that's all. Please tell your +father how very thirsty we are." + +As the child turned to obey, C. Bailey, Sr., put one big arm around her +shoulders: "I didn't mean to tease you on such short acquaintance," he +whispered. "Are you offended, little Lady Greensleeves?" + +Athalie looked up at him in puzzled silence. + +"Smile, just once, so I shall know I am forgiven," he said. "Will +you?" + +The child smiled confusedly, caught the boy's eye, and smiled again, +most engagingly, at C. Bailey, Sr.'s, son. + +"Oho!" exclaimed the senior Bailey laughingly and looking at his son, +"I'm forgiven for your sake, am I?" + +"For heaven's sake, Clive," protested one of the gunners, "let the +little girl go and find her father. If I ever needed a drink it's +now!" + +So Athalie went away to summon her father. She found him as she had +last noticed him, sitting asleep on the big leather office chair. +Ledlie, behind the desk, was still reading his soiled newspaper, which +he continued to do until Athalie cried out something in a frightened +voice. Then he laid aside his paper, blinked at her, got up leisurely +and shuffled over to where his partner was sitting dead on his leather +chair. + + * * * * * + +The duck-hunters left that night. One after another the four gentlemen +came over to speak to Athalie and to her sisters. There was some +confusion and crowding in the hallway, what with the doctor, the +undertaker's assistants, neighbours, and the New York duck-hunters. + +Ledlie ventured to overcharge them on the bill. As nobody objected he +regretted his moderation. However, the taking off of Greensleeve +helped business in the bar where sooner or later everybody drifted. + +When the four-seated livery wagon drove up to take the gunning party +to the train, the boy lingered behind the others and then hurried back +to where Athalie was standing, white-faced, tearless, staring at the +closed door of the room where they had taken her father. + +Bailey Junior's touch on her arm made her turn: "I am sorry," he said. +"I hope you will not be very unhappy.... And--here is a Christmas +present--" + +He took the dazed child's icy little hand in his, and, fumbling the +business rather awkwardly, he finally contrived to snap a strap-watch +over the delicate wrist. It was the one he had been wearing. + +"Good-bye, Athalie," he murmured, very red. + +The girl gazed at him out of her lovely confused eyes for a moment. +But when she tried to speak no sound came. + +"Good-bye," he said again, choking slightly. "I'll surely, surely come +back to see you. Don't be unhappy. I'll come." + +But it was many years before he returned to the Hotel Greensleeve. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +She was fifteen years old before she saw him again. His strap-watch +was still on her wrist; his memory, unfaded, still enshrined in her +heart of a child, for she was as yet no more than that at fifteen. And +the moment she saw him she recognised him. + +It was on the Sixth Avenue Elevated Station at Twenty-third Street one +sunny day in April; he stood waiting for the downtown train which she +stepped out of when it stopped. + +He did not notice her, so she went over to him and called him by name; +and the tall, good-looking, fashionably dressed young fellow turned to +her without recognition. + +But the next instant his smooth, youthful face lighted up, and off +came his hat with the gay college band adorning it: + +"Athalie Greensleeve!" he exclaimed, showing his pleasure +unmistakably. + +"C. Bailey, Junior," she rejoined as steadily as she could, for her +heart was beating wildly with the excitement of meeting him and her +emotions were not under full control. + +"You have grown so," he said with the easy, boyish cordiality of his +caste, "I didn't recognise you for a moment. Tell me, do you still +live down--er--down there?" + +She said: + +"I knew you as soon as I set eyes on you. You are very much taller, +too.... No, we went away from Spring Pond the year after my father +died." + +"I see," he said sympathetically. And back into his memory flashed +that scene with her by the stove in the dusky bar. And then he +remembered her as she stood in her red hood and cloak staring at the +closed door of the room where her dead father lay. And he remembered +touching her frosty little hand, and the incident of the watch. + +"I never went back there," he mused, half to himself, looking +curiously at the girl before him. "I wanted to go--but I never did." + +"No, you never came back," she said slowly. + +"I couldn't. I was only a kid, you see. My mother wouldn't let me go +there that summer. And father and I joined a club down South so we did +not go back for the duck-shooting. That is how it happened." + +She nodded, gravely, but said nothing to him about her faith in his +return, how confidently, how patiently she had waited through that +long, long summer for the boy who never returned. + +"I did think of you often," he volunteered, smiling at her. + +"I thought of you, too. I hoped you would come and let me teach you to +sail a boat." + +"That's so! I remember now. You were going to show me how." + +"Have you learned to sail a boat?" + +"No. I'll tell you what I'll do, Athalie, I'll come down this +summer--" + +"But I don't live there any more." + +"That's so. Where do you live?" + +She hesitated, and his eyes fell for the first time from her youthful +and engaging face to the clothes she wore--black clothes that seemed +cheap even to a boy who had no knowledge of feminine clothing. She was +all in rusty black, hat, gloves, jacket and skirt; and the austere and +slightly mean setting made the contrast of her hair and skin the more +fresh and vivid. + +"I live," she replied diffidently, "with my two sisters in West +Fifty-fourth Street. I am stenographer and typewriter in the offices +of a department store." + +"I'd like to come to see you," he said impulsively. "Shall I--when +vacation begins?" + +"Are you still at school?" + +He laughed: "I'm at Harvard. I'm down for Easter just now. Tell me, +Athalie, would you care to have me come to see you when I return?" + +"If you would care to come." + +"I surely would!" he said cordially, offering his hand in adieu--"I +want to ask you a lot of questions and we can talk over all those +jolly old times,"--as though years of comradeship lay behind them +instead of an hour or two. Then his glance fell on the slim hand he +was shaking, and he saw the strap-watch which he had given her still +clasped around her wrist. + +"You wear that yet?--that old shooting-watch of mine!" he laughed. + +She smiled. + +"I'll give you a better one than that next Christmas," he said, taking +out a little notebook and pencil. "I'll write it down--'strap-watch +for Athalie Greensleeve next Christmas'--there it is! And--will you +give me your address?" + +She gave it; he noted it, closed his little Russia-leather book with a +snap, and pocketed it. + +"I'm glad I saw you," said the girl; "I hope you won't forget me. I am +late; I must go--I suppose--" + +[Illustration: "'I'm glad I saw you,' said the girl; 'I hope you won't +forget me.'"] + +"Indeed I won't forget you," he assured her warmly, shaking the +slender black-gloved hand again. + +He meant it when he said it. Besides she was so pretty and frank and +honest with him. Few girls he knew in his own caste were as +attractive; none as simple, as direct. + +He really meant to call on her some day and talk things over. But +days, and weeks, and finally months slipped away. And somehow, in +thinking of her and of his promise, there now seemed very little left +for them to talk about. After all they had said to each other nearly +all there was to be said, there on the Elevated platform that April +morning. Besides he had so many, many things to do; so many pleasures +promised and accepted, visits to college friends, a fishing trip with +his father,--really there seemed to be no hour in the long vacation +unengaged. + +He always wanted to see her when he thought of her; he really meant to +find a moment to do it, too. But there seemed to be no moment +suitable. + +Even when he was back in Cambridge he thought about her occasionally, +and planned, vaguely, a trip to New York so that he might redeem his +promise to her. + +He took it out in thinking. + +At Christmas, however, he sent her a wrist-watch, a dainty French +affair of gold and enamel; and a contrite note excusing himself for +the summer delinquencies and renewing his promise to call on her. + +The Dead Letter Office returned watch and letter. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +There was a suffocating stench of cabbage in hallway and corridor as +usual when Athalie came in that evening. She paused to rest a tired +foot on the first step of the stairway, for a moment or two, quietly +breathing her fatigue, then addressed herself to the monotonous labour +before her, which was to climb five flights of unventilated stairs, +let herself into the tiny apartment with her latch-key, and +immediately begin her part in preparing the evening meal for three. + +Doris, now twenty-one, sprawled on a lounge in her faded wrapper +reading an evening paper. Catharine, a year younger, stood by a +bureau, some drawers of which had been pulled out, sorting over odds +and ends of crumpled finery. + +"Well," remarked Doris to Athalie, as she came in, "what do _you_ +know?" + +"Nothing," said Athalie listlessly. + +Doris rattled the evening paper: "Gee!" she commented, "it's getting +to be something fierce--all these young girls disappearing! Here's +another--they can't account for it; her parents say she had no love +affair--" And she began to read the account aloud while Catharine +continued to sort ribbons and Athalie dropped into a big, shabby +chair, legs extended, arms pendant. + +When Doris finished reading she tossed the paper over to Athalie who +let it slide from her knees to the floor. + +"Her picture is there," said Doris. "She isn't pretty." + +"Isn't she?" yawned Athalie. + +Catharine jerked open another drawer: "It's always a man's doing. You +bet they'll find that some fellow had her on a string. What idiots +girls are!" + +"_I_ should worry," remarked Doris. "Any fresh young man who tries to +get me jingled will wish he hadn't." + +"Don't talk that way," remonstrated Athalie. + +"What way?" + +"That slangy way you think is smart. What's the use of letting down +when you know better." + +"What's the use of keeping up on fifteen per? I could do the Gladys to +any Percy on fifty. My talk suits my wages--and it suits me, too.... +God!--I suppose it's fried ham again to-night," she added, jumping up +and walking into the kitchenette. And, pausing to look back at her +sisters: "If any Johnny asks me to-night I'll go!--I'm that hungry for +real food." + +"Don't be a fool," snapped Catharine. + +Athalie glanced at the alarm clock, passed her hands wearily across +her eyes, and rose: "It's after six, Doris. You haven't time for +anything very much." And she went into the kitchenette. + +Once or twice during the preparation of the meal Doris swore in her +soft girlish voice, which made the contrast peculiarly shocking; and +finally Athalie said bluntly: "If I didn't know you were straight I +wouldn't think so from the way you behave." + +Doris turned on her a flushed and angry face: "Will you kindly stop +knocking me?" + +"I'm not. I'm only saying that your talk is loose. And so it is." + +"What's the difference as long as I'm not on the loose myself?" + +"The difference is that men will think you are; that's all." + +"Men mistake any girl who works for a living." + +"Then see that the mistake is their fault not yours. I don't +understand why a girl can't keep her self-respect even if she's a +stenographer, as I am, or works in a shop as Catharine does, or in the +theatre as you do. And if a girl talks loosely, she'll think loosely, +sooner or later." + +"Hurry up that supper!" called Catharine. "I'm going to a show with +Genevieve, and I want time to dress." + +Athalie, scrambling the eggs, which same eggs would endure no other +mode of preparation, leaned over sideways and kissed Doris on her +lovely neck. + +"Darling," she said, "I'm not trying to be disagreeable; I only want +us all to keep up." + +"I know it, ducky. I guess you're right. I'll cut out that rough stuff +if you like." + +Athalie said: "It's only too easy to let down when you're thrown with +careless and uneducated people as we are. I have to struggle against +it all the while. For, somehow I seem to know that a girl who keeps +up her grammar keeps up her self-respect, too. If you slouch mentally +you slouch physically. And then it's not so difficult to slouch +morally." + +Doris laughed: "You funny thing! You certainly have educated yourself +a lot since school,--you use such dandy English." + +"I _read_ good English." + +"I know you do. I can't. If somebody would only write a rattling story +in good English!--but I've got to have the story first of all or I +can't read it. All those branch-library books you lug in are too slow +for me. If it wasn't for hearing you talk every day I'd be talking +like the rest of the chorus at the Egyptian Garden;--'Sa-ay, ain't you +done with my make-up box? Yaas, you _did_ swipe it! I seen you. Who's +a liar? All right, if you want to mix it--'" + +"Don't!" pleaded Athalie. "Oh, Doris, I don't see why you can't find +some other business--" + +Doris began to strut about the kitchenette. + +"Please don't! It makes me actually ill!" + +"When I learn how to use my voice and my legs you'll see me playing +leads. Here, ducky, I'll take the eggs--" + +Athalie, her arms also full, followed her out to the table which +Catharine had set very carelessly. + +They drank Croton water and strong tea, and gravely discussed how, +from their several limited wardrobes sufficient finery might be +extracted to clothe Catharine suitably for her evening's +entertainment. + +"It's rotten to be poor," remarked the latter. "You're only young +once, and this gosh-dinged poverty spoils everything for me." + +"Quit kicking," said Doris. "I don't like these eggs but I'm eating +them. If I were wealthy I'd be eating terrapin, wouldn't I?" + +"Genevieve has a new gown for to-night," pouted Catharine. "How can I +help feeling shabby and unhappy?" + +"Genevieve seems to have a number of unaccountable things," remarked +Doris, partly closing her velvet eyes. "She has a fur coat, too." + +"Doris! That isn't square of you!" + +"That isn't the question. Is Genevieve on the square? That's what +worries me, Kit!" + +"What a perfectly rotten thing to say!" insisted Catharine +resentfully. "You know she's on the level!" + +"Well then, _where_ does she get it? You know what her salary is?" + +Athalie said, coolly: "Every girl ought to believe every other girl on +the square until the contrary is proven. It's shameful not to." + +"Come over to the Egyptian Garden and try it!" laughed Doris. "If you +can believe that bunch of pet cats is on the square you can believe +anything, Athalie." + +Catharine, still very deeply offended, rose and went into the bedroom +which she shared with Doris. Presently she called for somebody to +assist her in dressing. + +Doris, being due at the theatre by seven o'clock, put on her rusty +coat and hat, and, nodding to Athalie, walked out; and the latter +went away to aid Catharine. + +"You _do_ look pretty," she insisted after Catharine had powdered her +face and neck and had wiped off her silky skin with the chamois rag. + +The girl gazed at her comely, regular features in the mirror, patted +her hair, moistened her red lips, then turned her profile and gazed at +it with the aid of a hand-glass. + +"Who else is going?" inquired Athalie. + +"Some friends of Genevieve's." + +"Men?" + +"I believe so." + +"Two, I suppose." + +Catharine nodded. + +"Don't you know their names?" + +"No. Genevieve says that one of them is crazy to meet me." + +"Where did he see you?" + +"At Winton's. I put on some evening gowns for his sister." + +Athalie watched her pin on her hat, then held her coat for her. +"They'll all bear watching," she remarked quietly. "If it's merely +society they want you know as well as I that they seek it in their own +circles, not in ours." + +Catharine made no audible response. She began to re-pin her hat, then, +pettishly: "I wish I had a taxi to call for me so I needn't wear a +hat!" + +"Why not wish for an automobile?" suggested Athalie, laughing. "Women +who have them don't wear hats to the theatre." + +"It _is_ tough to be poor!" insisted Catharine fiercely. "It drives me +almost frantic to see what I see in all those limousines,--and then +walk home, or take a car if I'm flush." + +"How are you going to help it, dear?" inquired Athalie in that gently +humorous voice which usually subdued and shamed her sisters. + +But Catharine only mumbled something rebellious, turned, stared at +herself in the glass, and walked quickly toward the door. + +"As for me," she muttered. "I don't blame any girl--" + +"What?" + +But Catharine marched out with a twitch of her narrow skirts, still +muttering incoherencies. + +Athalie, thoughtful, but not really disturbed, went into the empty +sitting-room, picked up the evening paper, glanced absently at the +head-lines, dropped it, and stood motionless in the centre of the +room, one narrow hand bracketed on her hip, the other pinching her +under lip. + +For a few minutes she mused, then sighing, she walked into the +kitchenette, unhooked a blue-checked apron, rolled up her sleeves as +far as her white, rounded arms permitted, and started in on the +dishes. + +Occasionally she whistled at her task--the clear, soft, melodious +whistle of a bullfinch--carolling some light, ephemeral air from the +"Review" at the Egyptian Garden. + +When the crockery was done, dried and replaced, she retired to her +bedroom and turned her attention to her hands and nails, minutely +solicitous, always in dread of the effects of housework. + +There was an array of bottles, vials, jars, lotions, creams, scents on +her bureau. She seated herself there and started her nightly grooming, +interrupting it only to exchange her street gown and shoes for a +dainty negligée and slippers. + +Her face, now, as she bent over her slender, white fingers, took on a +seriousness and gravity more mature; and there was in its pure, fresh +beauty something almost austere. + +The care of her hands took her a long time; and they were not finished +then, for she had yet her bath to take and her hair to do before the +cream-of-something-or-other was applied to hands and feet so that they +should remain snowy and satin smooth. + +Bathed, and once more in negligée, she let down the dull gold mass of +hair which fell heavily curling to her shoulders. Then she started to +comb it out as earnestly, seriously, and thoroughly as a beautiful, +silky Persian cat applies itself to its toilet. + +But there was now an absent expression in her dark blue eyes as she +sat plaiting the shining gold into two thick and lustrous braids. + +Perhaps she wondered, vaguely, why the spring-tide and freshness of a +girl's youth should exhale amid the sere and sordid circumstances +which made up, for her, the sum-total of existence; why it happened +that whatever was bright and gay and attractive in the world should be +so utterly outside the circle in which her life was passing. + +Yet in her sober young face there was no hint of discontent, nothing +of meanness or envy to narrow the blue eyes, nothing of bitterness to +touch the sensitive lips, nothing, even, of sadness; only a +gravity--like the seriousness of a youthful goddess musing alone on +mysteries unexplained even on Olympus. + +Seven years' experience in earning her own living had made her wiser +but had not really disenchanted her. And for seven years now, she had +held the first position she secured in New York--stenographer and +typist for Wahlbaum, Grossman & Co. + +It had been perplexing and difficult at first; so many men connected +with the great department store had evinced a desire to take her to +luncheon and elsewhere. But when at length by chance she took personal +dictation from Wahlbaum himself in his private office--his own +stenographer having triumphantly secured a supporting husband, and a +general alarm having been sent out for another to replace her--Athalie +suddenly found herself in a permanent position. And, automatically, +all annoyances ceased. + +Wahlbaum was a Jew, big, hearty, honest, and keen as a razor. Never +was he in a hurry, never flustered or impatient, never irritable. And +she had never seen him angry, or rude to anybody. He laughed a great +deal in a tremendously resonant voice, smoked innumerable big, fat, +light-coloured cigars, never neglected to joke with Athalie when she +came in the morning and when she left at night, and never as much as +by the flutter of an eyelid conveyed to her anything that any girl +might not hear without offence. + +Grossman's reputation was different, but except for a smirk or two he +had never bothered her. Nor did anybody else connected with the firm. +They all were too much afraid of Wahlbaum. + +So, except for the petty, contemptible annoyances to which all young +girls are more or less subjected in any cosmopolitan metropolis, +Athalie had found business agreeable enough except for the +confinement. + +That was hard on a country-bred girl; and she could scarcely endure +the imprisonment when the warm sun of April looked in through the +windows of Mr. Wahlbaum's private office, and when soft breezes +stirred the curtains and fluttered the papers on her desk. + +Always in the spring the voice of brook and surf, of woodland and +meadow called to her. In her ears was ever the happy tumult of the +barn-yard, the lowing of cattle at the bars, the bleat of sheep. And +her heart beat passionate response. + +Athalie was never ill. The nearest she came to it was a dull feeling +of languor in early spring. But it did not even verge on either +resentment or despondency. + +In winter it was better. She had learned to accept with philosophy the +noises of the noisiest of cities. Even, perhaps, she rather liked +them, or at least, on her two weeks' vacation in the country, she +found, to her surprise, that she missed the accustomed and incessant +noises of New York. + +Her real hardships were two; poverty and loneliness. + +The combined earnings of herself and her sisters did not allow them a +better ventilated, or more comfortable apartment than the grimy one +they lived in. Nor did their earnings permit them more or better +clothing and food. + +As for loneliness, she had, of course, her sisters. But healthy, +imaginative, ardent youth requires more than sisters,--more even than +feminine friends, of which Athalie had a few. What she needed, as all +girls need, were acquaintances and friends among men of her own age. + +And she had none--that is, no friends. Which is the usual fate of any +business girl who keeps up such education and cultivation as she +possesses, and attempts to add to it and to improve her quality. + +Because the men of her social and business level are vastly inferior +to the women,--inferior in manners, cultivation, intelligence, +quality--which seems almost to make their usually excellent morals +peculiarly offensive. + +That was why Athalie knew loneliness. Doris, recently, had met a few +idle men of cultivated and fashionable antecedents. Catharine, that +very evening, was evidently going to meet a man of that sort for the +first time in her career. + +As for Athalie, she had had no opportunity to meet any man she cared +to cultivate since she had last talked with C. Bailey, Jr., on the +platform of the Sixth Avenue Elevated;--and that was now nearly four +years ago. + + * * * * * + +Braiding up her hair she sat gazing at herself in the mirror while her +detached thoughts drifted almost anywhere--back to Spring Pond and +the Hotel Greensleeve, back to her mother, to the child cross-legged +on the floor,--back to her father, and how he sat there dead in his +leather chair;--back to the bar, and the red gleam of the stove, and a +boy and girl in earnest conversation there in the semi-darkness, +eating peach turnovers-- + +She turned her head, leisurely: the electric bell had sounded twice +before she realised that she ought to pull the wire which opened the +street door below. + +So she got up, pulled the wire, and then sauntered out into the +sitting-room and set the door ajar, not worrying about her somewhat +intimate costume because it was too late for tradesmen, and there was +nobody else to call on her or on her sisters excepting other girls +known to them all. + +The sitting-room seemed chilly. Half listening for the ascending +footsteps and the knocking, partly absorbed in other thoughts, she +seated herself and lay back in the dingy arm-chair, before the +radiator, elevating her dainty feet to the top of it and crossing +them. + +A gale was now blowing outside; invisible rain, or more probably +sleet, pelted and swished across the curtained panes. Far away in the +city, somewhere, a fire-engine rushed clanging through cañons, +storm-swept, luminously obscure. Her nickel alarm clock ticked loudly +in the room; the radiator clicked and fizzed and snapped. + +Presently she heard a step on the stair, then in the corridor outside +her door. Then came the knocking on the door but unexpectedly loud, +vigorous and impatient. + +And Athalie, surprised, twisted around in her chair, looking over her +shoulder at the door. + +"Please come in," she said in her calm young voice. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +A rather tall man stepped in. He wore a snow-dusted, fur-lined +overcoat and carried in his white-gloved hands a top hat and a +silver-hooked walking stick. + +He had made a mistake, of course; and Athalie hastily lowered her feet +and turned half around in her chair again to meet his expected +apologies; and then continued in that attitude, rigid and silent. + +"Miss Greensleeve?" he asked. + +She rose, mechanically, the heavy lustrous braids framing a face as +white as a flower. + +"Is that _you_, Athalie!" he asked, hesitating. + +"C. Bailey, Junior," she said under her breath. + +There was a moment's pause, then he stepped toward her and, very +slowly, she offered a hand still faintly fragrant with "cream of +lilacs." + +A damp, chilly wind came from the corridor; she went over and closed +the door, stood for a few seconds with her back against it looking at +him. + +Now under the mask of manhood she could see the boy she had once +known,--under the short dark moustache the clean-cut mouth unchanged. +Only his cheeks seemed firmer and leaner, and the eyes were now the +baffling eyes of a man. + +"How did you know I was here?" she asked, quite unconscious of her +own somewhat intimate attire, so entirely had the shock of surprise +possessed her. + +"Athalie, you have not changed a bit--only you are so much prettier +than I realised," he said illogically.... "How did I know you lived +here? I didn't until we bought this row of flats last week--my +father's company--I'm in it now.... And glancing over the list of +tenants I saw your name." + +She said nothing. + +"Do you mind my coming? I was going to write and ask you. But walking +in this way rather appealed to me. Do you mind?" + +"No." + +"May I stay and chat for a moment? I'm on my way to the opera. May I +stay a few minutes?" + +She nodded, not yet sufficiently composed to talk very much. + +He glanced about him for a place to lay coat and hat; then slipping +out of the soft fur, disclosed himself in evening dress. + +She had dropped into the arm-chair by the radiator; and, as he came +forward, stripping off his white gloves, suddenly she became conscious +of her bare, slippered feet and drew them under the edges of her +negligée. + +"I was not expecting anybody,--" she began, and checked herself. +Certainly she did not care to rise, now, and pass before him in search +of more suitable clothing. Therefore the less said the better. + +He had found a rather shaky chair, and had drawn it up in front of the +radiator. + +"This is very jolly," he said. "Do you realise that this is our third +encounter?" + +"Yes." + +"It really begins to look inevitable, doesn't it?" + +She smiled. + +"Three times, you know, is usually considered significant," he added +laughingly. "It doesn't dismay you, does it?" + +She laughed, resting her cheek against the upholstered wing of her +chair and looked at him with shy but undisguised pleasure. + +"You haven't changed a single bit, Athalie," he declared. + +"No, I haven't changed." + +"Do you remember our last meeting--on the Elevated?" + +"Yes." + +"Lord!" he said; "that was four years ago. Do you realise it?" + +"Yes." + +A slight colour grew on his cheeks. + +"I _was_ a piker, wasn't I?" + +After a moment, looking down at her idly clasped hands lying on her +knees: "I hoped you would come," she said gravely. + +"I wanted to. I don't suppose you'll believe that; but I did.... I +don't know how it happened that I didn't make good. There were so many +things to do, all sorts of engagements,--and the summer vacation +seemed ended before I could understand that it had begun."--He scowled +in retrospection, and she watched his expression out of her dark blue +eyes--clear, engaging eyes, sweet as a child's. + +"That's no excuse," he concluded. "I should have kept my word to +you--and I really wanted to.... And I was not quite such a piker as +you thought me." + +"I didn't think that of you, C. Bailey, Junior." + +"You must have!" + +"I didn't." + +"That's because you're so decent, but it makes my infamy the +blacker.... Anyway I _did_ write you and _did_ send you the +strap-watch. I sent both to Fifty-fourth Street. The Dead Letter +Office returned them to me."... He drew from his inner pocket a +letter and a packet. "Here they are." + +She sat up slowly and very slowly took the letter from his hand. + +"Four years old," he commented. "Isn't that the limit?" And he began +to tear the sealed paper from the packet. + +"What a shame," he went on contritely, "that you wore that old +gun-metal watch of mine so long. I was mortified when I saw it on your +wrist that day--" + +"I wear it still," she said with a smile. + +"Nonsense!" he glanced at her bare wrist and laughed. + +"I _do_," she insisted. "It is only because I have just bathed and am +prepared for the night that I am not wearing it now." + +He looked up, incredulous, then his expression changed subtly. + +"Is that so?" he asked. + +But the hint of seriousness confused her and she merely nodded. + +He had freed the case from the sealed paper and now he laid it on her +knees, saying: "Thank the Lord I'm not such a piker now as I was, +anyway. I hope you'll wear it, Athalie, and fire that other affair out +of your back window." + +"There is no back window," she said, raising her charming eyes to +his,--"there's only an air-shaft.... Am I to open it?--I mean this +case?" + +"It is yours." + +She opened it daintily. + +"Oh, C. Bailey, Junior!" she said very gently. "You mustn't do this!" + +"Why?" + +"It's _too_ beautiful. Isn't it?" + +"Nonsense, Athalie. Here, I'll wind it and set it for you. This is how +it works--" pulling out the jewelled lever and setting it by the tin +alarm-clock on the mantel. Then he wound it, unclasped the woven gold +wrist-band, took her reluctant hand, and, clasping the jewel over her +wrist, snapped the catch. + +For a few moments her fair head remained bent as she gazed in silence +at the tiny moving hands. Then, looking up: + +"Thank you, C. Bailey, Junior," she said, a little solemnly perhaps. + +He laughed, somewhat conscious of the slight constraint: "You're +welcome, Athalie. Do you really like it?" + +"It is wonderfully beautiful." + +"Then I'm perfectly happy and contented--or I will be when you read +that letter and admit I'm not as much of a piker as I seemed." + +She laughed and coloured: "I never thought that of you. I only--missed +you." + +"Really?" + +"Yes," she said innocently. + +For a second he looked rather grave, then again, conscious of his own +constraint, spoke gaily, lightly: + +"You certainly are the real thing in friendship. You are far too +generous to me." + +She said: "Incidents are not frequent enough in my life to leave me +unimpressed. I never knew any other boy of your sort. I suppose that +is why I never forgot you." + +Her simplicity pricked the iridescent and growing bubble of his +vanity, and he laughed, discountenanced by her direct explanation of +how memory chanced to retain him. But it did not occur to him to ask +himself how it happened that, in all these years, and in a life so +happily varied, so delightfully crowded as his own had always been, he +had never entirely forgotten her. + +"I wish you'd open that letter and read it," he said. "It's my +credential. Date and postmark plead for me." + +But she had other plans for its unsealing and its perusal, and said +so. + +"Aren't you going to read it, Athalie?" + +"Yes--when you go." + +"Why?" + +"Because--it will make your visit seem a little longer," she said +frankly. + +"Athalie, are you really glad to see me?" + +She looked up as though he were jesting, and caught in his eye another +gleam of that sudden seriousness which had already slightly confused +her. For a moment only, both felt the least sense of constraint, then +the instinct that had forbidden her to admit any significance in his +seriousness, parted her lips with that engaging smile which he had +begun to know so well, and to await with an expectancy that approached +fascination. + +"Peach turnovers," she said. "Do you remember? If I had not been glad +to see you in those days I would not have gone into the kitchen to +bring you one.... And I have already told you that I am unchanged.... +Wait! I am changed.... I am very much wealthier." And she laughed her +delicious, unembarrassed laugh of a child. + +He laughed, too, then shot a glance around the shabby room. + +"What are you doing, Athalie?" he asked lightly. + +"The same." + +"I remember you told me. You are stenographer and typist." + +"Yes." + +"Where?" + +"I am with Wahlbaum, Grossman & Co." + +"Are they decent to you?" + +"Very." + +He thought a moment, hesitated, appeared as though about to speak, +then seemed to reject the idea whatever it might have been. + +"You live with your sisters, don't you?" he asked. + +"Yes." + +He planted his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, his head on his +hands, apparently buried in thought. + +After a little while: "C. Bailey, Junior," she ventured, "you must not +let me keep you too long." + +"What?" He lifted his head. + +"You are on your way to the opera, aren't you?" + +"Am I? That's so.... I'd rather stay here if you'll let me." + +"But the _opera_!" she protested with emphasis. + +"What do I care for the opera?" + +"Don't you?" + +He laughed: "No; do you?" + +"I'm mad about it." + +Still laughing he said: "Then, in my place, _you_ wouldn't give up the +opera for _me_, would you, Athalie?" + +She started to say "No!" very decidedly; but checked herself. Then, +deliberately honest: + +"If," she began, "I were going to the opera, and you came in +here--after four years of not seeing you--and if I had to choose--I +don't believe I'd go to the opera. But it would be a dreadful wrench, +C. Bailey, Junior!" + +"It's no wrench to me." + +"Because you often go." + +"Because, even if I seldom went there could be no question of choice +between the opera and Athalie Greensleeve." + +"C. Bailey, Junior, you are not honest." + +"Yes, I am. Why do you say so?" + +"I judge by past performances," she said, her humorous eyes on him. + +"Are you going to throw past performances in my face every time I come +to see you?" + +"Are you coming again?" + +"That isn't generous of you, Athalie--" + +"I really mean it," said the girl. "Are you?" + +"Coming here? Of course I am if you'll let me!" + +The last time he had said, "If you _want_ me." Now it was modified to +"If you'll _let_ me,"--a development and a new footing to which +neither were yet accustomed, perhaps not even conscious of. + +"C. Bailey, Junior, do you want to come?" + +"I do indeed. It is so bully of you to be nice to me +after--everything. And it's so jolly to talk over--things--with you." + +She leaned forward in her chair, her pretty hands joined between her +knees. + +"Please," she said, "don't say you'll come if you are not coming." + +"But I am--" + +"I know you said so twice before.... I don't mean to be horrid or to +reproach you, but--I am going to tell you--I was disappointed--even +a--a little--unhappy. And it--lasted--some time.... So, if you are not +coming, tell me so now.... It is hard to wait--too long." + +"Athalie," he said, completely surprised by the girl's frank avowal +and by the unsuspected emotion in himself which was responding, "I +am--I had no idea--I don't deserve your kindness to me--your +loyalty--I'm a--I'm a--a pup! That's what I am--an undeserving, +ungrateful, irresponsible, and asinine pup! That's what all boys in +college are--but it's no excuse for not keeping my word--for making +you unhappy--" + +"C. Bailey, Junior, you were just a boy. And I was a child.... I am +still, in spite of my nineteen years--nearly twenty at that--not much +different, not enough changed to know that I'm a woman. I feel exactly +as I did toward you--not grown up,--or that you have grown up.... Only +I know, somehow, I'd have a harder time of it now, if you tell me +you'll come, and then--" + +"I _will_ come, Athalie! I _want_ to," he said impetuously. "You're +more interesting,--a lot jollier,--than any girl I know. I always +suspected it, too--the bigger fool I to lose all that time we might +have had together--" + +She, surprised for a moment, lifted her pretty head and laughed +outright, checking his somewhat impulsive monologue. And he looked at +her, disturbed. + +"I'm only laughing because you speak of all those years we might have +had together, as though--" And suddenly she checked herself in her +turn, on the brink of saying something that was not so funny after +all. + +Probably he understood what impulse had prompted her to terminate +abruptly both laughter and discourse, for he reddened and gazed rather +fixedly at the radiator which was now clanking and clinking in a very +noisy manner. + +"You ought to have a fireplace and an open fire," he said. "It's the +cosiest thing on earth--with a cat on the hearth and a big chair and a +good book.... Athalie, do you remember that stove? And how I sat there +in wet shooting clothes and stockinged feet?" + +"Yes," she said, drawing her own bare ones further under her chair. + +"Do you know what you looked like to me when you came in so silently, +dressed in your red hood and cloak?" + +"What did I look like?" + +"A little fairy princess." + +"_I?_ In that ragged cloak?" + +"_I_ didn't see the rags. All I saw was your lithe little fairy figure +and your yellow hair and your wonderful dark eyes in the ruddy light +from the stove. I tell you, Athalie, I was enchanted." + +"How odd! I never dreamed you thought that of me when I stood there +looking at you, utterly lost in admiration--" + +"Oh, come, Athalie!" he laughed; "you are getting back at me!" + +"It's true. I thought you the most wonderful boy I had ever seen." + +"Until I disillusioned you," he said. + +"You never did, C. Bailey, Junior." + +"What! Not when I proved a piker?" + +But she only smiled into his amused and challenging eyes and slowly +shook her head. + +Once or twice, mechanically, he had slipped a flat gold cigarette case +from his pocket, and then, mechanically still, had put it back. Not +accustomed to modern men of his caste she had not paid much attention +to the unconscious hint of habit. Now as he did it again it occurred +to her to ask him why he did not smoke. + +"May I?" + +"Yes. I like it." + +"Do you smoke?" + +"No--now and then when I'm troubled." + +"Is that often?" he asked lightly. + +"Very seldom," she replied, amused; "and the proof is that I never +smoked more than half a dozen cigarettes in all my life." + +"Will you try one now?" he asked mischievously. + +"I'm not in trouble, am I?" + +"I don't know. _I_ am." + +"What troubles you, C. Bailey, Junior?" she asked, humorously. + +"My disinclination to leave. And it's after eleven." + +"If you never get into any more serious trouble than that," she said, +"I shall not worry about you." + +"Would you worry if I were in trouble?" + +"Naturally." + +"Why?" + +"Why? Because you are my friend. Why shouldn't I worry?" + +"Do you really take our friendship as seriously as that?" + +"Don't _you_?" + +He changed countenance, hesitated, flicked the ashes from his +cigarette. Suddenly he looked her straight in the face: + +"Yes. I _do_ take it seriously," he said in a voice so quietly and +perhaps unnecessarily emphatic that, for a few moments, she found +nothing to say in response. + +Then, smilingly: "I am glad you look at it that way. It means that you +will come back some day." + +"I will come to-morrow if you'll let me." + +Which left her surprised and silent but not at all disquieted. + +"Shall I, Athalie?" + +"Yes--if you wish." + +"Why not?" he said with more unnecessary emphasis and as though +addressing himself, and perhaps others not present. "I see no reason +why I shouldn't if you'll let me. Do you?" + +"No." + +"May I take you to dinner and to the theatre?" + +A quick glow shot through her, leaving a sort of whispering confusion +in her brain which seemed full of distant voices. + +"Yes, I'd like to go with you." + +"That's fine! And we'll have supper afterward." + +She smiled at him through the ringing confusion in her brain. + +"Do you mind taking supper with me after the play?" + +"No." + +"Where then?" + +"Anywhere--with you, C. Bailey, Junior." + +Things began to seem to her a trifle unreal; she saw him a little +vaguely: vaguely, too, she was conscious that to whatever she said he +was responding with something more subtly vital than mere words. +Faintly within her the instinct stirred to ignore, to repress +something in him--in herself--she was not clear about just what she +ought to repress, or which of them harboured it. + +One thing confused and disturbed her; his tongue was running loose, +planning all sorts of future pleasures for them both together, +confidently, with an enthusiasm which, somehow, seemed to leave her +unresponsive. + +"Please don't," she said. + +"What, Athalie?" + +"Make so many promises--plans. I--am afraid of promises." + +He turned very red: "What on earth have I done to you!" + +"Nothing--yet." + +"Yes I have! I once made you unhappy; I made you distrust me--" + +"No:--that is all over now. Only--if it happened again--I should +really--miss you--very much--C. Bailey, Junior.... So don't promise me +too much--now.... Promise a little--each time you come--if you care +to." + +In the silence that grew between them the alarm went off with a +startling clangour that brought them both to their feet. + +It was midnight. + +"I set it to wake myself before my sisters came in," she explained +with a smile. "I usually have something prepared for them to eat when +they've been out." + +"I suppose they do the same for you," he said, looking at her rather +steadily. + +"I don't go out in the evening." + +"You do sometimes." + +"Very seldom.... Do you know, C. Bailey, Junior, I have never been out +in the evening with a man?" + +"What?" + +"Never." + +"Why?" + +"I suppose," she admitted with habitual honesty, "it's because I don't +know any men with whom I'd care to be seen in the evening. I don't +like ordinary people." + +"How about me?" he asked, laughing. + +She merely smiled. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Doris came in about midnight, her coat and hat plastered with sleet, +her shoes soaking. She looked rather forlornly at the bowl of hot milk +and crackers which Athalie brought from the kitchenette. + +"I'd give next week's salary for a steak," she said, taking the bowl +and warming her chilled hands on it. + +"You know what meat costs," said Athalie. "I'd give it to you for +supper if I could." + +Doris seated herself by the radiator; Athalie knelt and drew off the +wet shoes, unbuttoned the garters and rolled the stockings from the +icy feet. + +"I had another chance to-night: they were college boys: some of the +girls went--" remarked Doris disjointedly, forcing herself to eat the +crackers and milk because it was hot, and snuggling into the knitted +slippers which Athalie brought. After a moment or two she lifted her +pretty, impudent face and sniffed inquiringly. + +"_Who's_ been smoking? You?" + +"No." + +"Who? Genevieve?" + +"No. Who do you suppose called?" + +"Search _me_." + +"C. Bailey, Junior!" + +Doris looked blank, then: "Oh, that boy you had an affair with about a +hundred years ago?" + +"That same boy," said Athalie, smiling. + +"He'll come again next century I suppose--like a comet," shrugged +Doris, nestling closer to the radiator. + +Athalie said nothing; her sister slowly stirred the crackers in the +milk and from time to time took a spoonful. + +"Next time," she said presently, "I shall go out to supper when an +attractive man asks me. I know how to take care of myself--and the +supper, too." + +Athalie started to say something, and stopped. Perhaps she remembered +C. Bailey, Jr., and that she had promised to dine and sup with him, +"anywhere." + +She said in a low voice: "It's all right, I suppose, if you know the +man." + +"I don't care whether I know him or not as long as it's a good +restaurant." + +"Don't talk that way, Doris!" + +"Why not? It's true." + +There was a silence. Doris set aside the empty bowl, yawned, looked at +the clock, yawned again. + +"This is too late for Catharine," she said, drowsily. + +"I know it is. Who are the people she's with?" + +"Genevieve Hunting--I don't know the men:--some of Genevieve's +friends." + +"I hope it's nobody from Winton's." + +There had been in the Greensleeve family, a tacit understanding that +it was not the thing to accept social attentions from anybody +connected with the firm which employed them. Winton, the male milliner +and gown designer, usually let his models alone, being in perpetual +dread of his wife; but one of the unhealthy looking sons had become a +nuisance to the girls employed there. Recently he had annoyed +Catharine, and the girl was afraid she might have to lunch with him or +lose her position. + +Doris yawned again, then shivered. + +"Go to bed, ducky," said Athalie. "I'll wait up for Catharine." + +So Doris took herself off to bed and Athalie sank into the shabby +arm-chair by the radiator to wait for her other sister. + +It was two o'clock when she came in, flushed, vague-eyed, a rather +silly and fixed smile on her doll-like face. Athalie, on the verge of +sleep, rose from her chair, rubbing her eyes: + +"What on earth, Catharine--" + +"We had supper,--that's why I'm late.... I've got to have a dinner +gown I tell you. Genevieve's is the smartest thing--" + +"Where did you go?" + +"To the Regina. I didn't want to--dressed this way but Cecil Reeve +said--" + +"Who?" + +"Cecil--Mr. Reeve--one of Genevieve's friends--the man who was so +crazy to meet me--" + +"Oh! Who else was there?" asked Athalie drily. + +"A Mr. Ferris--Harry Ferris they call him. He's quite mad about +Genevieve--" + +"Why did you drink anything?" + +"I?" + +"You did, didn't you?" + +"I had a glass of champagne." + +"What else?" + +"Nothing--except something pink in a glass--before we sat down to +supper.... And something violet coloured, afterward." + +"Your breath is dreadful; do you realise it?" + +Catharine seemed surprised, then her eyes wandered vaguely, drowsily, +and she laid her gloved hand on Athalie's arm as though to steady +herself. + +"What sort of man is your new friend, Cecil Reeve?" inquired Athalie. + +"He's nice--a gentleman. And they were so amusing;--we laughed so +much.... I told him he might call.... He's really all right, +Athalie--" + +"And Mr. Ferris?" + +"Well--I don't know about him; he's Genevieve's friend;--I don't know +him so well.... But of course he's all right--a gentleman--" + +"That's the trouble," said Athalie in a low voice. + +"What is the trouble?" + +"These friends of yours--and of Doris, and of mine ... they're +gentlemen.... And that is why we find them agreeable, socially.... But +when they desire social amusement they know where to find it." + +"Where?" + +"Where girls who work for a living are unknown. Where they never are +asked, never go, never are expected to go. But that is where such men +are asked, where such men are expected; and it is where they go for +social diversion--not to the Regina with two of Winton's models, nor +to the Café Arabesque with an Egyptian Garden chorus girl, nor--" she +hesitated, flushed, and was silent, staring mentally at the image of +C. Bailey, Jr., which her logic and philosophy had inevitably evoked. + +"Then, what is a business girl to do?" asked Catharine, vaguely. + +Athalie shook her golden head, slowly: "Don't ask me." + +Catharine said, still more vaguely: "She must do +something--pleasant--before she's too old and sick to--to care what +happens." + +"I know it.... Men, of that kind, _are_ pleasant.... I don't see why +we shouldn't go out with them. It's all the chance we have. Or will +ever have.... I've thought it over. I don't see that it helps for us +to resent their sisters and mothers and friends. Such women would +never permit us to know them. The nearest we can get to them is to +know their sons." + +"I don't want to know them--" + +"Yes, you do. Be honest, Catharine. Every girl does. And really I +believe if the choice were offered a business girl, she would rather +know the mothers and sisters than the sons." + +"There's no use thinking about it," said Catharine. + +"No, there is no use.... And so I don't see any harm in being friends +with their sons.... It will hurt at times--humiliate us--maybe +embitter us.... But it's that or nothing." + +"We needn't be silly about their sons." + +Athalie opened her dark blue eyes, then laughed confidently: "Oh, as +for anything like _that_! I should hope not. We three ought to know +_something_ by this time." + +"I should think so," murmured Catharine; and her warm, wine-scented +breath fell on Athalie's cheek. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Before February had ended C. Bailey, Jr., and Athalie Greensleeve had +been to more than one play, had dined and supped together more than +once at the Regina. + +The magnificence of the most fashionable restaurant in town had +thrilled and enchanted Athalie. At close range for the first time she +had an opportunity to inspect the rich, the fashionable, and the +great. As for celebrities, they seemed to be merely a by-product of +the gay, animated, beautifully gowned throngs: people she had heard +of, people more important still of whom she had never heard, people +important only to themselves of whom nobody had ever heard thronged +the great rococo rooms. The best hotel orchestra in America played +there; the loveliest flowers, the most magnificent jewels, the most +celebrated cuisine in the entire Republic--all were there for Athalie +Greensleeve to wonder at and to enjoy. There were other things for her +to wonder at, too,--the seemingly exhaustless list of C. Bailey, +Jr.'s, acquaintances; for he was always nodding to somebody or +returning salutes wherever they were, in the theatre, or the street, +in his little limousine car, at restaurants. Men sometimes came up and +spoke and were presented to Athalie: women, never. + +But although she was very happy after her first evening out with C. +Bailey, Jr., she realised that a serious inroad upon her savings was +absolutely necessary if she were to continue her maiden's progress +with this enchanting young man. Clothing of a very different species +than any she had ever permitted herself was now becoming a necessity. +She made the inroad. It was worth while if only to see his surprise +and his naïve pride in her. + +And truly the girl was very lovely in the few luxuries she ventured to +acquire--so lovely, indeed, that many heads turned and many eyes +followed her calm and graceful progress in theatre aisle, amid +thronged tables, on the Avenue, anywhere and everywhere she moved +along the path of life now already in flowery bloom for her. + +And beside her, eager, happy, flattered, walked C. Bailey, Jr., very +conscious that he was being envied; very proud of the beautiful young +girl with whom he was so constantly identifying himself, and who, very +obviously, was doing him honour. + +Of his gratified and flattered self-esteem the girl was unconscious; +that he was really happy with her, proud of her appearance, kind to +her beyond reason and even beyond propriety perhaps,--invariably +courteous and considerate, she was vividly aware. And it made her +intensely happy to know that she gave him pleasure and to accept it +from him. + +It _was_ pleasure to Clive; but not entirely unmitigated. His father +asked him once or twice who the girl was of whom "people" were +talking; and when his son said: "She's absolutely all right, father," +Bailey, Sr., knew that she was--so far. + +[Illustration: "C. Bailey, Jr., and Athalie Greensleeve ... had supped +together more than once at the Regina."] + +"But what's the use, Clive?" he asked with a sort of sad humour. "Is +it necessary for you, too, to follow the path of the calf?" + +"I like her." + +"And other men are inclined to, and have no opportunity; is that it, +my son? The fascination of monopoly? The chicken with the worm?" + +"I _like_ her," repeated Clive, Jr., a trifle annoyed. + +"So you have remarked before. Who is she?" + +"Do you remember that charming little child in the red hood and cloak +down at Greensleeve's tavern when we were duck-shooting?" + +"Is _that_ the girl?" + +"Yes." + +"What is she?" + +"Stenographer." + +Bailey, Sr., shrugged his shoulders, patiently. + +"What's the _use_, Clive?" + +"Use? Well there's no particular use. I'm not in love with her. Did +you think I was?" + +"I don't think any more. Your mother does that for me.... Don't make +anybody unhappy, my son." + + * * * * * + +His mother, also, had made very frank representations to him on +several occasions, the burden of them being that common people beget +common ideas, common associations corrupt good manners, and that +"nice" girls would continue to view with disdain and might ultimately +ostracise any misguided young man of their own caste who played about +with a woman for whose existence nobody who was anybody could account. + +"The daughter of a Long Island road-house keeper! Why, Clive! where is +your sense of fitness! Men don't do that sort of thing any more!" + +"What sort of thing, mother?" + +"What you are doing." + +"What am I doing?" + +"Parading a very conspicuous young woman about town." + +"If you saw her in somebody's drawing-room you'd merely think her +beautiful and well-bred." + +"Clive! Will you please awake from that silly dream?" + +"That's the truth, mother. And if she spoke it would merely confirm +the impression. You won't believe it but it's true." + +"That's absurd, Clive! She may not be uneducated but she certainly +cannot be either cultivated or well-bred." + +"She is cultivating herself." + +"Then for goodness' sake let her do it! It's praiseworthy and +commendable for a working girl to try to better herself. But it +doesn't concern you." + +"Why not? If a business girl does better herself and fit herself for a +better social environment, it seems to me her labour is in vain if +people within the desired environment snub her." + +"What kind of argument is that? Socialistic? I merely know it is +unbaked. What theory is it, dear?" + +[Illustration: "Beside her, eager, happy, flattered, walked C. Bailey, +Jr., very conscious that he was being envied."] + +"I don't know what it is. It seems reasonable to me, mother." + +"Clive, are you trying to make yourself sentimentalise over that +Greensleeve woman?" + +"I told you that I am not in love with her; nor is she with me. It's +an agreeable and happy comradeship; that's all." + +"People think it something more," retorted his mother, curtly. + +"That's their fault, not Athalie's and not mine." + +"Then, why do you go about with her? _Why?_ You know girls enough, +don't you?" + +"Plenty. They resemble one another to the verge of monotony." + +"Is that the way you regard the charming, well-born, well-bred, +clever, cultivated girls of your own circle, whose parents were the +friends of your parents?" + +"Oh, mother, I like them of course.... But there's something about a +business girl--a girl in the making--that is more amusing, more +companionable, more interesting. A business girl seems to wear better. +She's better worth talking to, listening to,--it's better fun to go +about with her, see things with her, discuss things--" + +"What on earth are you talking about! It's perfect babble; it's +nonsense! If you really believe you have a penchant for sturdy and +rather grubby worthiness unadorned you are mistaken. The inclination +you have is merely for a pretty face and figure. I know you. If I +don't, who does! You're rather a fastidious young man, even finicky, +and very, very much accustomed to the best and only the best. Don't +talk to me about your disinterested admiration for a working girl. You +haven't anything in common with her, and you never could have. And +you'd better be very careful not to make a fool of yourself." + +"How?" + +"As all men are likely to do at your callow age." + +"Fall in love with her?" + +"You can call it that. The result is always deplorable. And if she's a +smart, selfish, and unscrupulous girl, the result may be more +deplorable still, as far as we all are concerned. What is the need of +my saying this? You are grown; you know it already. Up to the present +time you've kept fastidiously clear of such entanglements. You say you +have, and your father and I believe you. So what is the use of +beginning now,--creating an unfortunate impression in your own set, +spending your time with such a girl as this Greensleeve girl--" + +"Mother," he said, "you're going about this matter in the wrong way. I +am not in love with Athalie Greensleeve. But there is no girl I like +better, none perhaps I like quite as well. Let me alone. There's no +sentiment between her and me so far. There won't be any--unless you +and other people begin to drive us toward each other. I don't want you +to do that. Don't interfere. Let us alone. We're having a good +time,--a perfectly natural, wholesome, happy time together." + +[Illustration: "'I _like_ her,' repeated Clive, Jr., a trifle +annoyed."] + +"What is it leading to?" demanded his mother impatiently. + +"To nothing except more good times. That's absolutely all. That's all +that good times lead to where any of the girls you approve of are +concerned--not to sentiment, not to love, merely to more good times. +Why on earth can't people understand that even if the girl happens to +be earning her own living?" + +"People don't understand. That is the truth, and you can't alter it, +Clive. The girl's reputation will always suffer. And that's where you +ought to show yourself generous." + +"What?" + +"If you really like and respect her." + +"How am I to show myself generous, as you put it?" + +"By keeping away from her." + +"Because people gossip?" + +"Because," said his mother sharply, "they'll think the girl is your +mistress if you continue to decorate public resorts with her." + +"Would--_you_ think so, mother?" + +"No. You happen to be my son. And you're truthful. Otherwise I'd think +so." + +"You would?" + +"Certainly." + +"That's rotten," he said, slowly. + +"Oh, Clive, don't be a fool. You can't do what you're doing without +arousing suspicion everywhere--from a village sewing-circle to the +smartest gathering on Manhattan Island! You know it." + +"I have never thought about it." + +"Then think of it now. Whether it's rotten, as you say, or not, it's +so. It's one of the folk-ways of the human species. And if it is, +merely saying it's rotten can't alter it." + +Mrs. Bailey's car was at the door; Clive took the great sable coat +from the maid who brought it and slipped it over the handsome +afternoon gown that his handsome mother wore. + +For a moment he stood, looking at her almost curiously--at the +brilliant black eyes, the clear smooth olive skin still youthful +enough to be attractive, at the red lips, mostly nature's hue, at the +cheeks where the delicate carmine flush was still mostly nature's. + +He said: "You have so much, mother.... It seems strange you should not +be more generous to a girl you have never seen." + +His handsome, capable, and experienced mother gazed at him out of +friendly and amused eyes from which delusion had long since fled. And +that is where she fell short, for delusion is the offspring of +imagination; and without imagination no intelligence is complete. She +said: "I can be generous with any woman except where my son concerns +himself with her. Where anybody else's son is involved I could be +generous to any girl, even--" she smiled her brilliant smile--"even +perhaps not too maliciously generous. But the situation in your case +doesn't appeal to me as humorous. Keep away from her, Clive; it's +easier than ultimately to run away from her." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +The course of irresponsible amusement which C. Bailey, Jr., continued +to pursue at intervals with the fair scion of the house--road-house--of +Greensleeve, did not run as smoothly as it might have, and was not +unmixed with carping reflections and sordid care on his part, and with +an increasing number of interruptions, admonitions, and warnings on +the part of his mother. + +That pretty lady, flint-hardened in the igneous social lava-pot, +continued to hear disquieting tales of her son's doings. They came to +her right and left, from dance and card-table, opera-box and supper +party, tea and bazaar and fashionable reception. + +One grim-visaged old harridan of whom Manhattan stood in fawning fear, +bluntly informed her that she'd better look out for her boy if she +didn't want to become a grandmother. + +Which infuriated and terrified Mrs. Bailey and set her thinking with +all the implacable concentration of which she was capable. + +So far in life she had accomplished whatever she set out to do.... And +of all things on earth she dreaded most to become a grandmother of any +description whatever. + +But between Athalie and Clive, if there had been any doubts concerning +the propriety or expediency of their companionship neither he nor she +had, so far, expressed them. + +Their comradeship, in fact, had now become an intimacy--the sort that +permits long silences without excuse or embarrassment on either side. +She continued to charm and surprise him; and to discover, daily, in +him new traits to admire in a character which perhaps he did not +really possess. + +In this girl he seemed to find an infinite variety. Moods, impulsive +or deliberate, and capricious or logical, continued to stimulate his +interest in her every time they met. On no two days was she exactly +the same--or so he seemed to think. And yet her basic qualities were, +it appeared to him, characteristic and unvarying,--directness, +loyalty, generosity, freedom from ulterior motive and a gay confidence +in a world which, for the first time in her life, she had begun to +find unexpectedly exciting. + +They had been one evening to a musical comedy which by some fortunate +chance was well written, well sung, and well done. And they were in +excellent spirits as they left the theatre and stood waiting for his +small limousine car, she in her pretty furs held close to her throat, +humming under her breath a refrain from the delightful finale, he +smoking a cigarette and watching the numbers being flashed for the +long line of carriages and motors which moved up continually through +the lamp-lit darkness. + +"Athalie," he said, "suppose we side-step the Regina and try +Broadway. Are you in the humour for it?" + +She laughed and her eyes sparkled in the electric glow: "Are you, +Clive?" + +"Yes, I am. I feel very devilish." + +"So do I,--devilishly hungry." + +"That's fine. Where shall we go?" + +"The Café Arabesque?... The name sounds exciting." + +"All right--" as his car drew up and the gold-capped porter opened the +door;--so he directed his chauffeur to drive them to the Café +Arabesque. + +"If you don't like it," he added to Athalie, drawing the fur robe over +her knees and his, "we can go somewhere else." + +"That's very nice of you. I don't have to suffer for my mistakes." + +"Nobody ever ought to suffer for mistakes because nobody would ever +make mistakes on purpose," he said, laughing. + +"Such a delightful philosophy! Please remind me of it when I'm in +agony over something I'm sorry I did." + +"I'm afraid you'll have to remind me too," he said, still laughing. +"Is it a bargain?" + +"Certainly." + +The car stopped; he sprang out and aided her to the icy sidewalk. + +"I don't think I ever saw you as pretty as you are to-night," he +whispered, slipping his arm under hers. + +"_Are_ you really growing more beautiful or do I merely think so?" + +"I don't know," she said, happily; "I'll tell you a secret, shall I?" + +He inclined his ear toward her, and she said in a laughing whisper: +"Clive, I _feel_ beautiful to-night. Do you know how it feels to feel +beautiful?" + +"Not personally," he admitted; and they separated still laughing like +two children, the focus of sympathetic, amused, or envious glances +from the brilliantly dressed throng clustering at the two cloak rooms. + +She came to him presently where he was waiting, and, instinctively the +groups around the doors made a lane for the fair young girl who came +forward with the ghost of a smile on her lips as though entirely +unconscious of herself and of everybody except the man who moved out +to meet her. + +"It's true," he murmured; "you _are_ the most beautiful thing in this +beauty-ridden town." + +"You'll spoil me, Clive." + +"Is that possible?" + +"I don't know. Don't try. There is a great deal in me that has never +been disturbed, never been brought out. Maybe much of it is evil," she +added lightly. + +He turned; she met his eyes half seriously, half mockingly, and they +laughed. But what she had said so lightly in jest remained for a few +moments in his mind to occupy and slightly trouble it. + +From their table beside the bronze-railed gallery, they could overlook +the main floor where a wide lane for dancing had been cleared and +marked out with crimson-tasselled ropes of silk. + +A noisy orchestra played imbecile dance music, and a number of male +and female imbeciles took advantage of it to exercise the only +portions of their anatomy in which any trace of intellect had ever +lodged. + +Athalie, resting one dimpled elbow on the velvet cushioned rail, +watched the dancers for a while, then her unamused and almost +expressionless gaze swept the tables below with a leisurely absence of +interest which might have been mistaken for insolence--and envied as +such by a servile world which secretly adores it. + +"Well, Lady Greensleeves?" he said, watching her. + +"Some remarkable Poiret and Lucille gowns, Clive.... And a great deal +of paint." She remained a moment in the same attitude--leisurely +inspecting the throng below, then turned to him, her calm +preoccupation changing to a shyly engaging smile. + +"Are you still of the same mind concerning my personal +attractiveness?" + +"I _have_ spoiled you!" he concluded, pretending chagrin. + +"Is that spoiling me--to hear you say you approve of me?" + +"Of course not, you dear girl! Nothing could ever spoil you." + +She lifted her Clover Club, looking across the frosty glass at him; +and the usual rite was silently completed. They were hungry; her +appetite was always a natural and healthy one, and his sometimes +matched it, as happened that night. + +"Now, this is wonderful," he said, lighting a cigarette between +courses and leaning forward, elbows on the cloth, and his hands +clasped under his chin; "a good show, a good dinner, and good company. +What surfeited monarch could ask more?" + +"Why mention the company last, Clive?" + +"I've certainly spoiled you," he said with a groan; "you've tasted +adulation; you prefer it to your dinner." + +"The question is do _you_ prefer my company to the dinner and the +show? _Do_ you! If so why mention me last in the catalogue of your +blessings?" + +"I always mention you last in my prayers--so that whoever listens will +more easily remember," he said gaily. + +The laughter still made the dark blue eyes brilliant but they grew +more serious when she said: "You don't really ever _pray_ for me, +Clive. Do you?" + +"Yes. Why not?" + +The smile faded in her eyes and in his. + +"I didn't know you prayed at all," she remarked, looking down at her +wine glass. + +"It's one of those things I happen to do," he said with a slight +shrug. + +They mused for a while in silence, her mind pursuing its trend back to +childhood, his idly considering the subject of prayer and wondering +whether the habit had become too mechanical with him, or whether his +less selfish petitions might possibly carry to the Source of All +Things. + +Then having drifted clear of this nebulous zone of thought, and +coffee having been served, they came back to earth and to each other +with slight smiles of recognition--delicate salutes acknowledging each +other's presence and paramount importance in a world which was going +very gaily. + +They discussed the play; she hummed snatches of its melodies below her +breath at intervals, her dark blue eyes always fixed on him and her +ears listening to him alone. Particularly now; for his mood had +changed and he was drifting back toward something she had said earlier +in the evening--something about her own possible capacity for good and +evil. It was a question, only partly serious; and she responded in the +same vein: + +"How should I know what capabilities I possess? Of course I have +capabilities. No doubt, dormant within me lies every besetting sin, +every human failing. Perhaps also the cardinal, corresponding, and +antidotic virtues to all of these." + +"I suppose," he said, "every sin has its antithesis. It's like a chess +board--the human mind--with the black men ranged on one side and the +white on the other, ready to move, to advance, skirmish, threaten, +manoeuvre, attack, and check each other, and the intervening squares +represent the checkered battlefield of contending desires." + +The simile striking her as original and clever, she made him a pretty +compliment. She was very young in her affections. + +"If," she nodded, "a sin, represented by a black piece, dares to stir +or intrude or threaten, then there is always the better thought, +represented by a white piece, ready to block and check the black one. +Is that it?" + +"Exactly," he said, secretly well pleased with himself. And as for +Athalie, she admired his elastic and eloquent imagination beyond +words. + +"Do you know," she said, "you have never yet told me anything about +your business. Is it all right for me to ask, Clive?" + +"Certainly. It's real estate--Bailey, Reeve, and Willis. Willis is +dead, Reeve out of it, and my father and I are the whole show." + +"Reeve?" she repeated, interested. + +"Yes, he lives in Paris, permanently. He has a son here, in the +banking business." + +"Cecil Reeve?" + +"Yes. Do you know him?" + +"No. My sister Catharine does." + +Clive seemed interested and curious: "Cecil Reeve and I were at +Harvard together. I haven't seen much of him since." + +"What sort is he, Clive?" + +"Nice--Oh, very nice. A good sport;--a good deal of a sport.... Which +sister did you say?" + +"Catharine." + +"That's the cunning little one with the baby stare and brown curls?" + +"Yes." + +There was a silence. Clive sat absently fidgeting with his glass, and +Athalie watched him. Presently without looking up he said: "Yes, Cecil +Reeve is a very decent sport.... Rather gay. Good-looking chap. Nice +sort.... But rather a sport, you know." + +The girl nodded. + +"Catharine mustn't believe all he says," he added with a laugh. "Cecil has +a way--I'm not knocking him, you understand--but a young--inexperienced +girl--might take him a little bit too seriously.... Of course your sister +wouldn't." + +"No, I don't think so.... Are _you_ that way, too?" + +He raised his eyes: "Do you think I am, Athalie?" + +"No.... But I can't help wondering--a little uneasily at times--how +you can find me as--as companionable as you say you do.... I can't +help wondering how long it will last." + +"It will last as long as you do." + +"But you are sure to find me out sooner or later, Clive." + +"Find you out?" + +"Yes--discover my limits, exhaust my capacity for entertaining you, +extract the last atom of amusement out of me. And--what _then_?" + +"Athalie! What nonsense!" + +"Is it?" + +"Certainly it's nonsense. How can I possibly tire of such a girl as +you? I scarcely even know you yet. I don't begin to know you. Why you +are a perfectly unexplored, undiscovered girl to me, yet!" + +"Am I?" she asked, laughing. "I supposed you had discovered about all +there is to me." + +He shook his head, looking at her curiously perplexed: "Every time we +meet you are different. You always have interesting views on any +subject. You stimulate my imagination. How could I tire? + +"Besides, somehow I am always aware of reserved and hidden forces in +you--of a character which I only partly know and admire--capabilities, +capacities of which I am ignorant except that, intuitively, I seem to +know they are part of you." + +"Am I as complex as that to you?" + +"Sometimes," he admitted. "You are just now for example. But usually +you are only a wonderfully interesting and charming girl who brings +out the best side of me and keeps me amused and happy every moment +that I am with you." + +"There really is not much more to me than that," she said in a low +voice. "You sum me up--a gay source of amusement: nothing more." + +"Athalie, you know you are more vital than that to me." + +"No, I don't know it." + +"You do! You know it in your own heart. You know that it is a +straight, clean, ardent friendship that inspires me and--" she looked +up, serious, and very quiet. + +--"You know," he continued impulsively, "that it is not only your +beauty, your loveliness and grace and that inexplicable charm you seem +to radiate, that brings me to seek you every time that I have a moment +to do so. + +"Why, if it were that alone, it would all have been merely a matter of +sentiment. Have I ever been sentimental with you?" + +"No." + +"Have I ever made love to you?" + +She did not reply. Her eyes were fixed on her glass. + +"Have I, Athalie?" he repeated. + +"No, Clive," she said gently. + +"Well then; is there not on my part a very deep, solidly founded, and +vital friendship for you? Is there not a--" + +"Don't let's talk about it," she interrupted in a low voice. "You +always make me very happy; you say I please you--interest and amuse +you. That is enough--more than enough--more than I ever hoped or +asked--" + +"I said you make me happy;--happier than I have ever been," he +explained with emphasis. "Do you suppose for a moment that your regard +for me is warmer, deeper, more enduring, than is mine for you? Do you, +Athalie?" + +She lifted her eyes to his. But she had nothing more to say on the +subject. + +However, he began to insist,--a little impatiently,--on a direct +answer. And finally she said: + +"Clive, you came into a rather empty life when you came into mine. +Judge how completely you have filled it.... And what it would be if +you went out of it. Your own life has always been full. If I should +disappear from it--" she ceased. + +The quiet, accentless, almost listless dignity of the words surprised +and impressed him for a moment; then the reaction came in a faint glow +through every vein and a sudden impulse to respond to her with an +assurance of devotion a little out of key with the somewhat stately +and reserved measure of their duet called friendship. + +"You also fill my life," he said. "You give me what I never had--an +intimacy and an understanding that satisfies. Had I my way I would be +with you all the time. No other woman interests me as you do. There +_is_ no other woman." + +"Oh, Clive! And all the charming people you know--" + +"I know many. None like you, Athalie." + +"That is very sweet of you.... I'm trying to believe it.... I want +to.... There are many days to fill in when I am not with you. To fill +them with such a belief would be to shorten them.... I don't know. I +often wonder where you are; what you are doing; with what stately and +beautiful creature you are talking, laughing, walking, dancing."--She +shrugged her shoulders and gazed down at the dancers below. "The days +are very long, sometimes," she added, half to herself. + +When again, calmly, she turned to him there was an odd expression on +his face, and the next second he reddened and shifted his gaze. +Neither spoke for a few moments. + +Presently she began to draw on her gloves, but he continued staring +into space, not noticing her, and finally she bent forward and rested +her slim gloved fingers on his hand, lightly, interrogatively. + +"Yes; all right," he muttered. + +"I have to go to business in the morning," she pleaded. He turned +almost impatiently: + +"If I had my way you wouldn't go to business at all." + +"If I had my way I wouldn't either," she rejoined, smilingly. But his +youthful visage remained sober and flushed. And when they were seated +in the limousine and the fur rug enveloped them both, he said +abruptly: + +"I'm getting tired of this business." + +"What business, Clive?" + +"Everything--the way you live--your inadequate quarters--your having +to work all day long in that stuffy office, day after day, year after +year!" + +She said, surprised and perplexed: "But it can't be helped, Clive! I +have to work." + +"Why?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean--what good am I to you--what's the use of me, if I can't make +things easier for you?" + +"The _use_ of you? Did you think I ever had any idea of using you?" + +"But I want you to." + +"How?" she asked, still uneasily perplexed, her eyes fixed on him. + +But he had no definite idea, no plan fixed, nothing further to say on +a subject that had so suddenly taken shape within his mind. + +She asked him again for an explanation, but, receiving none, settled +back thoughtfully in her furs. Only once did he break the silence. + +"You know," he said indifferently, "that row of houses, of which +yours is one, belongs to me. I mean to me, personally." + +"No, I didn't know it." + +"Well it does. It's my own investment.... I've reduced rents--pending +improvements." + +She looked up at him. + +"The rent of your apartment has been reduced fifty per cent.," he said +carelessly; "so your rent is now paid until the new term begins next +October." + +"Clive! That is perfectly ridiculous!" she began, hotly; but he swung +around, silencing her: + +"Are you criticising my business methods?" he demanded. + +"But that is too silly--" + +"Will you mind your business!" he exclaimed, turning and taking her by +both shoulders. She looked into his eyes, searching them in silence. +Then: + +"You're such a dear," she sighed; "why do you want to do a thing like +that when my sisters and I can afford to pay the present rent. You are +always doing such things, Clive; you have simply covered my +dressing-table with silver; my bureau is full of pretty things, all +gifts from you; you've given me the loveliest furniture of my own, and +books and desk-set and--and everything. And now you are asking me to +live rent-free.... And what have I to offer you in return?" + +"The happiness of being with you now and then." + +"Oh, Clive! You know that isn't very much to offer you. You know that +our being together is far more to me than it is to you! I dare not +even consider what I'd do without you, now. You mould me, alter my +thoughts, make me such a delightfully different girl, take entire +charge and possession of me.... I don't want you to give me anything +more--do anything more for me.... When you first began to give me +beautiful things I didn't want to take them. Do you remember how +awkward and shy I was--how I blushed. But I always end by doing +everything you wish.... And it seems to give us both so much +pleasure--all you do for me.... But please _don't_ ask me to live +without paying rent--" + +The limousine drew up by the curb; Clive jumped out, aided Athalie to +descend; and started for the grilled door where a light glimmered. + +"This is not the house!" exclaimed Athalie, stopping short. "Where are +you taking me, Clive?" + +"Come on," he said, "I merely want to show you how I've had the new +apartment house built--" + +"But--it's too late! What an odd idea, taking me to inspect a new +apartment house at two in the morning! Are you really serious?" + +He nodded and rang. A sleepy night porter opened, recognised Clive, +and touched his hat. + +"Take us to the top, Mike," he said. + +"Have you the keys, sorr?" + +"Yes." + +They entered the cage and it shot up to the top floor. + +"Wait for us, Mike."... And to Athalie: "This is Michael Daly who will +do anything you ask of him--won't you, Mike?" + +"I will that, sorr," said the big Irishman, tipping his hat to +Athalie. + +"But, Clive," she persisted, bewildered, still clinging to his arm, "I +don't understand why--" + +"Little goose, hush!" he replied, subduing the excitement in his voice +and fitting the key into the door. + +"One moment, Athalie," he added, "until I light up. Now!" + +She entered the lighted hallway, walking on a soft green carpet, and +turned, obeying the guiding pressure of his arm, into a big square +room which sprang into brilliant illumination as he found the switch. + +Green and gold were the hangings and prevailing colours; there were +rugs, wide, comfortable chairs and lounges, bookcases, a picture or +two in deep glowing colours, a baby-grand piano, and an open fire +loaded for business. + +"Is it done in good taste, Athalie?" he asked. + +"It is charming. Is it yours, Clive?" + +He laughed, slipped his arm under hers and led her along the hallway, +opening door after door; and first she was invited to observe a very +modern and glistening bathroom, then a bedroom all done in grey and +rose with dainty white furniture and a white-bear rug beside the bed. + +"Why this is a woman's room!" she exclaimed, puzzled. + +He only laughed and drew her along the hall, showing her another +bedroom with twin beds, a maid's room, a big clothes press, and +finally, a completely furnished kitchen, very modern with its +porcelain baseboard and tiled walls. + +"What do you think of all this, Athalie?" he insisted. + +"Why it's exquisite, Clive. Whose is it?" + +They walked back to the square living-room. He said, teasingly: "Do +you remember, the first time I saw you after those four years,--that +first evening when I came in to surprise you and found you sitting by +the radiator--in your nightie, Athalie?" + +"Yes," she said, laughing and blushing as she always did when he +tormented her with that souvenir. + +"And I said that you ought to have an open fire. And a cat. Didn't I?" + +"Yes." + +"There's your fire, Athalie;" he drew a match from his tiny flat gold +case, struck it, and lighted the nest of pine shavings under the +logs;--"and Michael has the cat when you want it." + +He drew a big soft arm-chair to the mounting blaze. Athalie stood +motionless, staring at the flames, then with a sudden, nervous gesture +she sank down on the arm-chair and covered her face with her gloved +hands. + +He stood waiting, happy and excited, and finally he went over and +touched her; and the girl caught his hand convulsively in both of hers +and looked up at him with wet eyes. + +"How can I do this, Clive? How _can_ I?" she whispered. + +"Any brother would do as much for his sister--" + +"Oh, Clive! You are different! You are _more_ than that. You know you +are. How can I take all this? Will you tell me? How can I live +here--this way--" + +"Your sisters will be here. You saw their room just now--" + +"But what can I _tell_ them? How can I explain? They know we cannot +afford such luxury as this?" + +"Tell them the rent is the same." + +"They won't believe it. They couldn't. They don't understand even now +how it is with you and me--that you are so dear and generous and kind +just because you are my friend--and no more than my friend.... Not +that they really believe--anything--unpleasant--of _me_--but--but--" + +"What do you care--as long as it isn't so?" he said, coolly. + +"I don't care. Except that it weakens my authority over them.... +Catharine is very impulsive, and she dearly loves a good time--and she +is becoming sullen with me when I try to advise her or curb her.... +And it's so with Doris, too.... I'd like to keep my influence.... But +if they ever really began to believe that between you and me there +was--more--than friendship, I--I don't know what they might feel free +to think--or do--" + +"They're older than you." + +"Yes. But I seem to have the authority,--or I did have." + +They looked into the leaping flames; he threw open his fur coat and +seated himself on the padded arm of her chair. + +"All I know is," he said, "that it gives me the deepest and most +enduring happiness to do things for you. When the architect planned +this house I had him design a place for you. Ultimately all the row of +old houses are to be torn down and replaced by modern apartments with +moderate rentals. So you will have to move anyway sooner or later. Why +not come here _now_?" + +Half unconsciously she had rested her cheek against the fur lining of +his coat where it fell against his arm. He looked down at her, touched +her hair--a thing he had never thought of doing before. + +"Why not come here, Athalie?" he said caressingly. + +"I don't know. It would be heavenly. Do you want me to, Clive?" + +"Yes. And I want you to begin to put away part of your salary, too. +You might as well begin, now. You will be free from the burden of +rent, free from--various burdens--" + +"I--can't--let you--" + +"I want to!" + +"Why?" + +"Because it gives me pleasure--" + +"No; because you desire to give _me_ pleasure! _That_ is the reason!" +she exclaimed with partly restrained passion--"because you are +_you_--and there is nobody like you in all the world--in all the +world, Clive!--" + +To her emotion his own flashed a quick, warm response. He looked down +at her, deeply touched, his pride gratified, his boyish vanity +satisfied. Always had the simplicity and candour of her quick and +ardent gratitude corroborated and satisfied whatever was in him of +youthful self-esteem. Everything about her seemed to minister to +it--her attention in public places was undisguisedly for him alone; +her beauty, her superb youth and health, the admiring envy of other +people--all these flattered him. + +Why should he not find pleasure in giving to such a girl as +this?--giving without scruple--unscrupulous too, perhaps, concerning +the effect his generosity might have on a cynical world which looked +on out of wearied and incredulous eyes; unscrupulous, perhaps, +concerning the effect his too lavish kindness might have on a young +girl unaccustomed to men and the ways of men. + +But there was no harm in him; he was very much self-assured of that. +He had been too carefully brought up--far too carefully reared. And +had people ventured to question him, and had they escaped alive his +righteous violence, they would have learned that there really was not +the remotest chance that his mother was in danger of becoming what she +most dreaded in all the world. + + * * * * * + +The fire burned lower; they sat watching it together, her flushed +cheek against the fur of his coat, his arm extended along the back of +the chair behind her. + +"Well," he said, "this has been another happy evening." + +She stirred in assent, and he felt the lightest possible pressure +against him. + +"Are you contented, Athalie?" + +"Yes." + +After a moment he glanced at his watch. It was three o'clock. So he +rose, placed the screen over the fireplace, and then came back to +where she now stood, looking very intently at the opposite wall. And +he turned to see what interested her. But there seemed to be nothing +in particular just there. + +"What are you staring at, little ghost-seer?" he asked, passing his +hand under her arm; and stepped back, surprised, as she freed herself +with a quick, nervous movement, looked at him, then averted her head. + +"What is the matter, Athalie?" he inquired. + +"Nothing.... Don't touch me, Clive." + +"No, of course not.... But what in the world--" + +"Nothing.... Don't ask me." Presently he saw her very slowly move her +head and look back at the empty corner of the room; and remain so, +motionless for a moment. Then she turned with a sigh, came quietly to +him; and he drew her hand through his arm. + +"Of what were you thinking, Athalie?" + +"Of nothing." + +"Did you think you saw something over there?" + +She was silent. + +"What were you looking at?" he insisted. + +"Nothing.... I don't care to talk just now--" + +"Tell me, Athalie!" + +"No.... No, I don't want to, Clive--" + +"I wish to know!" + +"I can't--there is nothing to tell you--" she laid one hand on his +coat, almost pleadingly, and looked up at him out of eyes so dark +that only the starry light in them betrayed that they were blue and +not velvet black. + +"That same thing has happened before," he said, looking at her, deeply +perplexed. "Several times since I have known you the same expression +has come into your face--as though you were looking at something +which--" + +"Please don't, Clive!--" + +"--Which," he insisted, "I did not see.... _Could_ not see!" + +"Clive!" + +He stared at her rather blankly: "Why don't you tell me?" + +"I--can't!" + +"_Is_ there anything--" + +"Don't! Don't!" she begged; but he went on, still staring at her: + +"Is there any reason for you to--not to be frank with me? _Is_ there, +Athalie?" + +"No; no reason.... I'll tell you ... if you will understand. _Must_ I +tell you?" + +"Yes." + +Her head fell; she stood plucking nervously at his fur coat for a +while in silence. Then: + +"Clive, I--I _see clearly_." + +"What?" + +"I mean that I see a--a little more clearly than--some do. Do you +understand?" + +"No." + +She sighed, stood twisting her white-gloved fingers, looking away from +him. + +"I am clairvoyant," she breathed. + +"Athalie! _You?_" + +She nodded. + +For a second or two he stood silent in his astonishment; then, taking +her hand, he drew her around facing the light, and she looked up at +him in her lovely abashed way, yet so honestly, that anybody who could +recognise truth and candour, could never have mistaken such eyes as +hers. + +"Who told you that you are clairvoyant?" he asked. + +"My mother." + +"Then--" + +"It was not necessary for anybody to tell me that I saw--more +clearly--than other people.... Mother knew it.... She merely explained +and gave a name to this--this--whatever it is--this quality--this +ability to see clearly.... That is all, Clive." + +He was evidently trying to comprehend and digest what she had said. +She watched him, saw surprise and incredulity in conflict with +uneasiness and with the belief he could not avoid from lips that were +not fashioned for lies, and from eyes never made to even look +untruths. + +"I had never supposed there was such a thing as real clairvoyance," he +said at last. + +She remained silent, her candid gaze on him. + +"I believe that _you_ believe it, of course." + +She smiled, then sighed: + +"There is no pleasure in it to me. I wish it were not so." + +"But, if it is so, you ought to find it--interesting--" + +"No." + +"Why not? I should think you would!--if you can see--things--that +other people cannot." + +"I don't care to see them." + +"Why?" + +"They--I see them so often--and I seldom know who they are--" + +"They?" + +"The--people--I see." + +"Don't they ever speak to you?" + +"Seldom." + +"Could you find out who they are?" + +"I don't know.... Yes, I think so;--if I made an effort." + +"Don't you ever use any effort to evoke--" + +"Oh, Clive! _No!_ When I tell you I had rather not see so--so +clearly--" + +"You dear girl!" he exclaimed, half smiling, half serious, "why should +it distress you?" + +"It doesn't--except to talk about it." + +"Let me ask one more question. May I?" + +She nodded. + +"Then--did you recognise whoever it was you saw a few moments ago?" + +"Yes." + +"Who was it, Athalie?" + +"My mother." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Early in April C. Bailey, Jr., overdrew his account, was politely +notified of that oversight by the bank. He hunted about, casually, for +stray funds, but to his intense surprise discovered nothing +immediately available. + +Which annoyed him, and he explained the situation to his father; who +demanded further and sordidly searching explanations concerning the +expenditure on his son's part of an income more than adequate for any +unmarried young man. + +They undertook this interesting line of research together, but there +came a time in the proceedings when C. Bailey, Jr., betrayed violent +inclinations toward reticence, non-communication, and finally secrecy; +in fact he declined to proceed any further or to throw any more light +upon his reasons for not proceeding, which symptoms were +characteristic and perfectly familiar to his father. + +"The trouble is," concluded Bailey, Sr., "you have been throwing away +your income on that Greensleeve girl! What is she--your private +property?" + +"No." + +The two men looked at each other, steadily enough. Bailey, Sr., said: +"If _that's_ the case--why in the name of common sense do you spend so +much money on her?" Naïve logic on the part of Bailey, Sr., Clive +replied: + +"I didn't suppose I was spending very much. I like her. I like her +better than any other girl. She is really wonderful, father. You won't +believe it if I say she is charming, well-bred, clever--" + +"I believe _that_!" + +--"And," continued Clive--"absolutely unselfish and non-mercenary." + +"If she's all that, too, it certainly seems to pay her--materially +speaking." + +"You don't understand," said his son patiently. "From the very +beginning of our friendship it has been very difficult for me to make +her accept anything--even when she was in actual need. Our friendship +is not on _that_ basis. She doesn't care for me because of what I do +for her. It may surprise you to hear me--" + +"My son, nothing surprises me any more, not even virtue and honesty. +This girl may be all you think her. Personally I never met any like +her, but I've read about them in sentimental fiction. No doubt there's +a basis for such popular heroines. There may have been such paragons. +There may be yet. Perhaps you've collided with one of these feminine +curiosities." + +"I have." + +"All right, Clive. Only, why linger longer in the side-show than the +price of admission warrants? The main tent awaits you. In more modern +metaphor; it's the same film every hour, every day, the same +orchestrion, the same environment. You've seen enough. There's nothing +more--if I clearly understand your immaculate intentions. Do I?" + +"Yes," said Clive, reddening. + +"All right; there's nothing more, then. It's time to retire. You've +had your amusement, and you've paid for it like a gentleman--very much +like a gentleman--rather exorbitantly. That's the way a gentleman +always pays. So now suppose you return to your own sort and coyly +reappear amid certain circles recently neglected, and which, at one +period of your career, you permitted yourself to embellish and adorn +with your own surpassing personality." + +They both laughed; there had been, always, a very tolerant +understanding between them. + +Then Clive's face grew graver. + +"Father," he said, "I've tried remaining away. It doesn't do any good. +The longer I stay away from her, the more anxious I am to go back.... +It's really friendship I tell you." + +"You're not in love with her, are you, Clive?" + +The son hesitated: "No!... No, I can't be. I'm very certain that I am +not." + +"What would you do if you were?" + +"But--" + +"What would you _do_ about it?" + +"I don't know." + +"Marry her?" + +"I couldn't do that!" muttered Clive, startled. Then he remained +silent, his mind crowded with the component parts of that vague +sum-total which had so startled him at the idea of marrying Athalie +Greensleeve. + +Partly his father's blunt question had jarred him, partly the idea of +marrying anybody at all. Also the mere idea of the storm such a +proceeding would raise in the world he inhabited, his mother being the +storm-centre, dispensing anathema, thunder, and lightning, appalled +him. + +"What!" + +"I couldn't do _that_," he repeated, gazing rather blankly at his +father. + +"You could if you _had_ to," said his father, curtly. "But I take your +word it couldn't come to that." + +The boy flushed hotly, but said nothing. He shrank from comprehending +such an impossible situation, ashamed for himself, ashamed for +Athalie, resenting even the exaggerated and grotesque possibility of +such a thing--such a monstrous and horrible thing playing any part in +her life or in his. + +The frankness and cynicism of Bailey, Sr., had possibly been pushed +too far. Clive became restless; and the calm entente cordiale ended +for a while. + +Ended also his visits to Athalie for a while, the paternal +conversation having, somehow, chilled his desire to see her and +spoiled, for the time anyway, any pleasure in being with her. + +Also his father offered to help him out financially; and, somehow, he +felt as though Bailey, Sr., was paying for his own gifts to Athalie. +Which idea mortified him, and he resolved to remain away from her +until he recovered his self-respect--which would be duly recovered, +he felt certain, when the next coupons fell due and he could detach +them and extinguish the parental loan. + +For a week or two he did not even wish to see her, so ashamed and +sullied did he feel after the way his father had handled and bruised +the delicate situation, and the name of the young girl who so +innocently adorned it. + +No, something had been spoiled for him, temporarily. He felt it. +Something of the sweetness, the innocence, the candour of this +blameless friendship had been marred. The bloom was rubbed off; the +piquant freshness and fragrance gone for the present. + +It is true that an unexpected boom in his business kept him and his +father almost feverishly active and left them both fatigued at night. +This lasted for a week or two--long enough to excite all real estate +men with a hope for future prosperity not yet entirely dead. But at +the end of two or three weeks that hope began to die its usual, +lingering death. + +Dulness set in; the talk was of Harlem, Westchester, and the Bronx: a +private bank failed, then three commercial houses went to the wall; +and a seat was sold for $25,000 on the Exchange. Business resumed its +normal and unexaggerated course. The days of boom were surely ended; +and vacant lots on Fifth Avenue threatened to remain vacant for a +while longer. + +Clive began to drop in at his clubs again. One was a Whipper-Snapper +Club to which young Manhattan aspired when freshly released from +college; the others were of the fashionable and semi-fashionable sort, +tedious, monotonous, full of the aimless, the idle, or of that +bustling and showy smartness which is perhaps even less admirable and +less easy to endure. + +Men destitute of mental resources and dependent upon others for their +amusement, disillusioned men, lazy men, socially ambitious men, men +gluttonously or alcoholically predisposed haunted these clubs. To one +of them repaired those who were inclined to racquettes, squash, +tennis, and the swimming tank. It was a sort of social clearing house +for other clubs. + +But The Geyser was the least harmless of the clubs affected by C. +Bailey, Jr.,--it being an all-night resort and the haunt of the +hopeless sport. Here dissipation, futile, aimless, meaningless, was on +its native heath. Here, on his own stamping ground, prowled the +youthful scion of many a dissipated race--nouveau riche and +Knickerbocker alike. All that was required of anybody was money and a +depthless capacity. + +It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil Reeve one stormy +midnight. + +"You don't come here often, do you?" said the latter. + +Clive said he didn't. + +"Neither do I. But when I do there's a few doing. Will you have a high +one, Clive? In deference to our late and revered university?" + +Clive would so far consent to degrade himself for the honour of Alma +Mater. + +There was much honour done her that evening. + +Toward the beginning of the end Clive said: "I can't sit up all night, +Cecil. What do you do for a living, anyway?" + +"Bank a bit." + +[Illustration: "It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil +Reeve one stormy midnight."] + +"Oh, that's just amusement. What do you work at?" + +"I didn't mean that kind of bank!" said Reeve, annoyed. All sense of +humour fled him when hammerlocked with Bacchus. At such psychological +moments, too, he became indiscreet. And now he proposed to Clive an +excursion amid what he termed the "high lights of Olympus," which the +latter discouraged. + +"All right then. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give a Byzantine +party! I know a little girl--" + +"Oh, shut up!" + +"She's a fine little girl, Clive--" + +"This is no hour to send out invitations." + +"Why not? Her name is Catharine--" + +"Dry up!" + +"Catharine Greensleeve--" + +"What!" + +"Certainly. She's a model at Winton's joint. She's a peach. +Appropriately crowned with roses she might have presided for +Lucullus." + +Clive said: "By that you mean she's all right, don't you? You'd better +mean it anyway!" + +"Is that so?" + +"Yes, that's so. I know her sister. She's a charming girl. All of them +are all right. You understand, don't you?" + +"I understand numerous things. One of 'em's Catharine Greensleeve. And +she's some plum, believe _me_!" + +"That's all right, too, so stop talking about it!" retorted Clive +sharply. + +"Sure it's all right. Don't worry, just because you know her sister, +will you?" + +Clive shrugged. Reeve was in a troublesome mood, and he left him and +went home feeling vaguely irritated and even less inclined than ever +to see Athalie; which state of mind perplexed and irritated him still +further. + + * * * * * + +He went to one or two dances during the week--a thing he had not done +lately. Then he went to several more; also to a number of débutante +theatre parties and to several suppers. He rather liked being with his +own sort again; the comfortable sense of home-coming, of +conventionalism, of a pleasant social security, appealed to him after +several months' irresponsible straying from familiar paths. And he +began to go about the sheep-walks and enjoy it, slipping back rather +easily into accustomed places and relations with men and women who +belonged in a world never entered, never seen by Athalie Greensleeve, +and of the existence of which she was aware only through the daily +papers. + +He wrote to her now and then. Always she answered his letter the +following day. + +About the end of April he wrote: + + "DEAR ATHALIE, + + "About everything seems to conspire to keep me from seeing + you; business--in a measure,--social duties; and, to tell the + truth, a mistaken but strenuous opposition on my mother's + part. + + "She doesn't know you, and refuses to. But she knows me, + and ought to infer everything delightful in the girl who has + become my friend. Because she knows that I don't, and never + did affect the other sort. + +[Illustration: "He rather liked being with his own sort again."] + + "Every day, recently, she has asked me whether I have seen + you. To avoid unpleasant discussions I haven't gone to see + you. But I am going to as soon as this unreasonable alarm + concerning us blows over. + + "It seems very deplorable to me that two young people cannot + enjoy an absolutely honest friendship unsuspected and + undisturbed. + + "I miss you a lot. Is the apartment comfortable? Does Michael + do everything you wish? Did the cat prove a good one? I sent + for the best Angora to be had from the Silver Cloud Cattery. + + "Now tell me, Athalie, what can I do for you? _Please!_ What + is it you need; what is it you would like to have? Are you + saving part of your salary? + + "Tell me also what you do with yourself after business hours. + Have you seen any shows? I suppose you go out with your + sisters now and then. + + "As for me I go about more or less. For a while I didn't: + business seemed to revive and everybody in real estate became + greatly excited. But it all simmered down again to the usual + routine. So I've been going about to various affairs, dances + and things. And, consequently, there's peace and quiet at + home for me. + "Always yours, + "C BAILEY, JR." + + "P.S. As I sit here writing you the desire seizes me to drop + my pen, put on my hat and coat and go to see you. But I + can't. There's a dinner on here, and I've got to stay for it. + Good night, dear Athalie! + "CLIVE." + +His answer came by return mail as usual: + + "DEAR CLIVE, + + "Your letter has troubled me so much. If your mother feels + that way about me, what are we to do? Is it right for us to + see each other? + + "It is true that I am not conscious of any wrong in seeing + you and in being your friend. I know that I never had an + unworthy thought concerning you. And I feel confident that + your thoughts regarding our friendship and me are blameless. + Where lies the wrong? + + "_Some_ aspects of the affair _have_ troubled me lately. + Please do not be sensitive and take offence, Clive, if I + admit to you that I never have quite reconciled myself to + accepting anything from you. + + "What I have accepted has been for your own sake--for the + pleasure you found in giving, not for my own sake. + + "I wanted only your friendship. That was enough--more than + enough to make me happy and contented. + + "I was not in want; I had sufficient; I lived better than I + had ever lived; I was self-reliant, self-supporting, + and--forgive and understand me, Clive--a little more + self-respecting than I now am. + + "It is true I had saved very little; but I am young and life + is before me. + + "This seems very ungrateful of me, very ungenerous after all + you have done for me--all I have taken from you. + + "But, Clive, it is the truth, and I think it ought to be + told. Because this is, and has always been, a source of + self-reproach to me, whether rightly or wrongly, I don't + know. I am a novice at confession, but I feel that, if I am + to make a clean breast to you, partial confession is not + worth while, not really honest, not worthy of the very sacred + friendship that inspires it. + + "So I shall shrive myself as well as I know how and continue + to admit to you my further doubts and misgivings. They are + these: my sisters do not understand your friendship for me + even if they understand mine for you--which they say they do. + + "I don't think they believe me dishonest; but they cannot see + any reason for your generosity to me unless you ultimately + expect me to be dishonest. + + "This has weakened my influence with them. I know I am the + youngest, yet until recently I had a certain authority in + matters regarding the common welfare and the common policy. + But this is nearly gone. They point out with perfect truth + that I myself do, with you, the very things for which I + criticise them and against which I warn them. + + "Of course the radical difference is that I do these things + with _you_; but they can't understand why you are any better, + any finer, any more admirable, any further to be trusted than + the men they go about with alone. + + "It is quite in vain that I explain to them what sort of man + you are. They retort that I merely _think_ so. + + "There is a man who takes Catharine out more frequently, and + keeps her out much later than I like. I mean Cecil Reeve. But + what I say only makes my sister sullen. She knows he is a + friend of yours.... And, Clive, I am rather afraid she is + beginning to care more for him than is quite safe for her to + ever care for any man of that class. + + "And Doris has met other men of the same kind--I don't know + who they are, for she won't tell me. But after the theatre + she goes out with them; and it is doing her no good. + + "There is only one more item in my confession, then I'm done. + + "It is this: I have heard recently from various sources that + my being seen with you so frequently is causing much gossip + concerning you among your friends. + + "Is this true? And if it is, will it damage you? I don't care + about myself. I know very few people and it doesn't matter. + Besides I care enough about our companionship to continue it, + whatever untruths are said or thought about me. But how about + _you_, Clive? Because I also care enough for you to give you + up if my being seen with you is going to disgrace you. + + "This is my confession. I have told you all. Now, could you + tell me what it is best for us to do? + + "Think clearly; act wisely; don't even dream of sacrificing + yourself with your usual generosity--if it is indeed to be a + case for self-sacrifice. Let me do that by giving you up. I + shall do it anyway if ever I am convinced that my + companionship is hurting your reputation. + + "Be just to us both by being frank with me. Your decision + shall be my law. + + "This is a long, long letter. I can't seem to let it go to + you--as though when I mail it I am snapping one more bond + that still seems to hold us together. + + "My daily life is agreeable if a trifle monotonous. I have + been out two or three times, once to see the Morgan + Collection at the Metropolitan Museum--very dazzling and + wonderful. What strange thoughts it evoked in me--thrilling, + delightful, exhilarating--as though inspiring me to some + blind effort or other. Isn't it ridiculous?--as though _I_ + had it in me to do anything or be anybody! I'm merely telling + you how all that exquisite art affected me--_me_--a working + girl. And Oh, Clive! I don't think anything ever gave me as + much pleasure as did the paintings by the French masters, + Lancret, Drouais, and Fragonard! (You see I had a catalogue!) + + "Another evening I went out with Catharine. Mr. Reeve asked + us, and another man. We went to see 'Once Upon a Time' at the + Half-Moon Theatre, and afterward we went to supper at the + Café Columbine. + + "Another evening the other man, Mr. Reeve's friend, a Mr. + Hargrave, asked me to see 'Under the Sun' at the Zig-Zag + Theatre. It was a tiresome show. We went to supper afterward + to meet Catharine and Mr. Reeve. + + "That is all except that I've dined out once or twice with + Mr. Hargrave. And, somehow or other I felt queer and even + conspicuous going to the Regina with him and to other places + where you and I have been so often together...Also I felt a + little depressed. Everything always reminded me of you and of + happy evenings with you. I can't seem to get used to going + about with other men. But they seem to be very nice, very + kind, and very amusing. + + "And a girl ought to be thankful to almost anybody who will + take her out of her monotony. + + "I'm afraid you've given me a taste for luxury and amusement. + You _have_ spoiled me I fear. I am certainly an ungrateful + little beast, am I not, to lay the blame on you! But it is + dull, Clive, after working all day to sit every evening + reading alone, or lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling, + waiting for the others to come home. + + "If it were not for that darling cat you gave me I'd perish + of sheer solitude. But he is such a comfort, Hafiz; and his + eyes are the bluest blue and his long, winter fur the + snowiest white, and his ruff is wonderful and his tail + magnificent. Also he is _very_ affectionate to me. For which, + with perfect reverence, I venture to thank God. + + "Good night, Clive. If you've struggled through this letter + so far you won't mind reading that I am faithfully and always + your friend, + "ATHALIE GREENSLEEVE." + +Her letter thoroughly aroused Clive and he was all for going straight +to her--only he couldn't go that evening because he dared not break a +dinner engagement or fail to appear with his mother at the opera. In +fact he was already involved in a mess of social obligations for two +weeks ahead,--not an evening free--and Athalie worked during the day. + +It gave him an odd, restless sensation to hear of her going about with +Francis Hargrave--dining alone with him. He felt almost hurt as though +she had done him a personal injustice, yet he knew that it was absurd +for him to resent anything of that sort. His monopoly of her happened +to be one merely because she, at that time, knew no other man of his +sort, and would not go out with any other kind of man. + +Why should he expect her to remain eternally isolated except when he +chose to take her out? No young girl could endure that sort of thing +too long. Certainly Athalie was inevitably destined to meet other men, +be admired, admire in her turn, accept invitations. She was unusually +beautiful,--a charming, intelligent, clean-cut, healthy young girl. +She required companionship and amusement; she would be unhuman if she +didn't. + +Only--men were men. And safe and sane friendships between men of his +own caste, and girls like Athalie Greensleeve, were rare. + +Clive chafed and became restive and morose. In vain he repeated to +himself that what Athalie was doing was perfectly natural. But it +didn't make the idea of her going out with other men any more +attractive to him. + +His clever mother, possibly aware of what ferment was working in her +son, watched him out of the tail of her ornamental eyes, but wisely +let him alone to fidget his own way out of it. She had heard that the +Greensleeve girl was raising hob with Cecil Reeve and Francis +Hargrave. They were other people's sons, however. And it might have +worked itself out of Clive--this restless ferment which soured his +mind and gave him an acid satisfaction in being anything but cordial +in his own family circle. + +But there was a girl--a débutante, very desirable for Clive his mother +thought--one Winifred Stuart--and very delightful to look upon. + +And Clive had seen just enough of her to like her exceedingly; and, at +dances, had even wandered about to look for her, and had evinced +boredom and dissatisfaction when she had not been present. + +Which inspired his mother to give a theatre party for little Miss +Stuart and two dozen other youngsters, and a supper at the Regina +afterward. + +It was an excellent idea; and it went as wrong as such excellent ideas +so often go. For as Clive in company with the others sauntered into +the splendid reception room of the Regina, he saw Athalie come in with +a man whom he had never before seen. + +The shock of recognition--for it was a shock--was mutual. Athalie's +dark eyes widened and a little colour left her cheeks: and Clive +reddened painfully. + +It was, perhaps, scarcely the thing to do, but as she advanced he +stepped forward, and their hands met. + +"I am so very glad to see you again," he said. + +"I too, Clive. Are you well?" + +"And you?" + +"Quite," she hesitated; there was a moment's pause while the two men +looked coolly at each other. + +"May I present Mr. Bailey, Captain Dane?" Further she did not account +for Captain Dane, who presently took her off somewhere leaving Clive +to return to his smiling but enraged mother. + +Never had he found any supper party so noisy, so mirthless, and so +endless. Half the time he didn't know what he was saying to Winifred +Stuart or to anybody else. Nor could he seem to see anybody very +distinctly, for the mental phantoms of Athalie and Captain Dane +floated persistently before him, confusing everything at moments +except the smiling and deadly glance of his mother. + +Afterward they went to their various homes in various automobiles, and +Clive was finally left with his mother in his own drawing-room. + +"What you did this evening," she said to her son, "was not exactly the +thing to do under the circumstances, Clive." + +"Why not?" he asked wearily as her maid relieved her of her sables and +lace hood. + +"Because it was not necessary.... That girl you spoke to was the +Greensleeve girl I suppose?" + +"Yes, Athalie Greensleeve." + +"Who was the man?" + +"I don't know--a Captain Dane I believe." + +"Wasn't a civil bow enough?" + +"Enough? Perhaps; I don't know, mother. I don't seem to know how much +is due her from me. She's never had anything from me so far--anything +worth having--" + +"Don't be a fool, Clive." + +He said, absently: "It's too late for such advice! I _am_ a fool. And +I don't quite understand how not to be one." + +His mother, rather fearful of arousing in him any genuine emotion, +discreetly kissed him good night. + +"You're a slightly romantic boy," she said. "There is nothing else the +matter with you." + +They mounted the velvet-covered stairway together, her arm around his +neck, his encircling a slender, pliant waist that a girl of sixteen +might have envied. Her maid followed with furs and hood. + +"Come into my bedroom and smoke, Clive," she smiled. "We can talk +through the dressing-room door." + +"No; I think I'll turn in." + +The maid continued on through the rose and ivory bedroom and into the +dressing-room. Mrs. Bailey lingered, intuition and experience +preparing her for what a boy of that age was very sure to say. + +And after some fidgeting about he said it: + +"Mother, honestly what did you think of her?" + +His mother's smile remained unaltered: "Do you mean the Greensleeve +girl?" + +"I mean Athalie Greensleeve." + +"She is pretty in a rather common way." + +"Common!" + +"Did you think she is not?" + +"Common," he repeated in boyish astonishment. "What is there common +about her?" + +"If _you_ can't see it any woman of your own class can." + +[Illustration: "'Wasn't a civil bow enough?'"] + +Which remark aroused all that was dramatic and poetic in the boy, and +he spoke with a slightly exaggerated phraseology: + +"What is there common about this very beautiful girl? Surely not her +features. Her head, her figure, her hands, her feet are delicate and +very exquisitely formed; in her bearing there is an unconscious and +sweet dignity; her voice is soft, charming, well-bred. What is there +about her that you find common?" + +His mother, irritated and secretly dismayed, maintained, however, her +placid mask and her attitude of toleration. + +She said: "I distinguish between a woman to the manner born, and a +woman who is not. The difference is as subtle as intuition and as wide +as the ocean. And, dear, no young man, however clever, is clever +enough to instruct his mother concerning such matters." + +"I was asking you to instruct me," he said. + +"Very well. If you wish to know the difference between the imitation +and the real, compare that young woman with Winifred Stuart." + +Clive's gaze shifted from his mother and became fixed on space. + +After a moment his pretty mother moved toward the dressing-room: "If +you will find a chair and light a cigarette, Clive, we can continue +talking." + +His absent eyes reverted to her: "I think I'll go, mother. Good +night." + +"Good night, dear." + +He went to his own room. From the room adjoining came his father's +heavy breathing where he lay asleep. + +The young fellow listened for a moment, then walked into the library +where only a dim night-light was burning. He still wore his overcoat +over his evening clothes, and carried his hat and stick. + +For a while he stood in the dim library, head bent, staring at the rug +under foot. + +Then he turned, went out and down the stairs, and opened the door of +the butler's pantry. The service telephone was there. He unhooked the +receiver and called. Almost immediately he got his "party." + +"Yes?" came the distant voice distinctly. + +"Is it you, Athalie?" + +"Yes.... Oh, _Clive!_" + +"Didn't you recognise my voice?" + +"Not immediately." + +"When did you come in?" + +"Just this moment. I still have on my evening wrap." + +"Did you have an agreeable evening?" + +"Yes." + +"Are you tired?" + +"No." + +"May I come around and see you for a few minutes?" + +"Yes." + +"All right," he said briefly. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +The door of the apartment stood ajar and he walked in. Athalie, still +in her evening gown, rose from the sofa before the fire, dropping the +white Angora, Hafiz, from her lap. + +"It's so good of you, Clive," she said, offering her hand. + +"It's good of _you_, Athalie, to let me come." + +"_Let_ you!" There was a smile on her sensitive lips, scarcely +perceptible. + +He dropped coat, hat, and walking stick across a chair; she seated +herself on the sofa, and he came over and found a place for himself +beside her. + +"It's been a long time, Athalie. Has it seemed so to you?" + +She nodded. Hafiz, marching to and fro, his plumy tail curling around +her knees, looked up at his mistress out of sapphire eyes. + +"Jump, darling," she said invitingly. Hafiz sprang onto her lap with a +quick contented little mew, stretched his superb neck and began to rub +against her shoulder, purring ecstatically. + +"He'll cover me with long white hairs," she remarked to Clive, "but I +don't care. Isn't he a beauty? Hasn't he seraphic eyes and angelic +manners?" + +Clive nodded, watching the cat with sombre and detached interest. + +She said, stroking Hafiz and looking down at the magnificent animal: +"Did you have a pleasant evening, Clive?" + +"Not very." + +"I'm sorry. Your party seemed to be such a very gay one." + +"They made a lot of noise." + +She laughed: "Is that a very gracious way to put it?" + +"Probably not.... Where had you been before you appeared at the +Regina?" + +"To see some moving pictures taken in the South American jungle. It +was really wonderful, Clive: there were parrots and monkeys and +crocodiles and wild pigs--peccaries I think they are called--and then +a big, spotted, chunky-headed jaguar stalked into view! I was so +excited, so interested--" + +"Where was it?" + +"On the middle fork of the upper Amazon--" + +"I mean where were the films exhibited?" + +"Oh! At the Berkeley. It was a private view." + +"Who invited you?" + +"Captain Dane." + +He looked up at her, soberly: + +"Who is Captain Dane?" + +"Why--I don't know exactly. He is a most interesting man. I think he +has been almost everything--a naturalist, an explorer, a scout in the +Boer War, a soldier of fortune, a newspaper man. He is fascinating to +talk to, Clive." + +"Where did you meet him?" + +"In the office. Mr. Wahlbaum collects orchids, and Captain Dane looked +up some for him when he was on the Amazon a short time ago. He came +into the office about week before last and Mr. Wahlbaum introduced him +to me. They sat there talking for an hour. It was _so_ interesting to +me; and I think Captain Dane noticed how attentively I listened, for +very often he addressed himself to me.... And he asked Mr. Wahlbaum, +very nicely, if he might show me the orchids which are in the +Botanical Gardens, and that is how our friendship began." + +"You go about with him?" + +"Whenever he asks me. I went with him last Sunday to the Museum of +Natural History. Just think, Clive, I had never been. And, do you +know, he could scarcely drag me away." + +"I suppose you dined with him afterward," he said coolly. + +"Yes, at a funny little place--I couldn't tell you where it is--but +everybody seemed to know everybody else and it was so jolly and +informal--and such good food! I met a number of people there some of +whom have called on me since--" + +"What sort of people?" + +"About every interesting sort--men like Captain Dane, writers, +travellers, men engaged in unusual professions. And there were a few +delightful women present, all in some business or profession. Mlle. +Delauny of the Opera was there--so pretty and so unaffected. And there +was also that handsome suffragette who looks like Jeanne d' Arc--" + +"Nina Grey." + +"Yes. And there was a rather strange and fascinating woman--a +physician I believe--but I am not sure. Anyway she is associated with +the psychical research people, and she asked if she might come to see +me--" + +He made an impatient movement--quite involuntary--and Hafiz who was +timid, sprang from Athalie's lap and retreated, tail waving, and ears +flattened for expected blandishments to recall him. + +Athalie glanced up at the man beside her with a laugh on her lips, +which died there instantly. + +"What is the matter, Clive?" + +"Nothing," he said. + +His sullen face remained in profile, and after a moment she laid her +hand lightly, questioningly on his sleeve. + +Without turning he said: "I don't know what is the matter with me, so +don't ask me. Something seems to be wrong. _I_ am, probably.... And I +think I'll go home, now." + +But he did not stir. + +After a few moments she said very gently: "Are you displeased with me +for anything I have said or done? I can't imagine--" + +"You can't expect me to feel very much flattered by the knowledge that +you are constantly seen with other men where you and I were once so +well known." + +"Clive! Is there anything wrong in my going?" + +"Wrong? No:--if your own sense of--of--" but the right word--if there +were such--eluded him. + +"I know how you feel," she said in a low voice. "I wrote you that it +seemed strange, almost sad, to be with other men where you and I had +been together so often and so--so happily. + +"Somehow it seemed to be an invasion of our privacy, of our +intimacy--for me to dine with other men at the same tables, be served +by the same waiters, hear the same music. But I didn't know how to +avoid it when I was taken there by other men. Could you tell me what I +should have done?" + +He made no reply; his boyish face grew almost sulky, now. + +Presently he rose as though to get his coat: she rose also, unhappy, +confused. + +"Don't mind me. I'm a fool," he said shortly, looking away from +her--"and a very--unhappy one--" + +"Clive!" + +He said savagely: "I tell you I don't know what's the matter with +me--" He passed one hand brusquely across his eyes and stood so, +scowling at the hearth where Hafiz sat, staring gravely back at him. + +"Clive, are you ill?" + +He shrugged away the suggestion, and his arm brushed against hers. The +contact seemed to paralyse him; but when, slipping back unconsciously +into the old informalities, she laid her hands on his shoulders and +turned him toward the light, instantly and too late she was aware that +the old and innocent intimacy was ended, done for,--a thing of the +past. + +Incredulous still in the very menace of new and perilous relations--of +a new intimacy, imminent, threatening, she withdrew her hands from +the shoulders of this man who had been a boy but an instant ago. And +the next moment he caught her in his arms. + +"Clive! You _can't_ do this!" she whispered, deathly white. + +"What am I to do?" he retorted fiercely. + +"Not this, Clive!--For my sake--please--_please_--" + +There was colour enough in her face, now. Breathless, still a little +frightened, she looked away from him, plucking nervously, +instinctively, at his hands clasping her waist. + +"Can't you c-care for me, Athalie?" he stammered. + +"Yes ... you know it. But don't touch me, Clive--" + +"When I'm--in love--with you--" + +She caught her breath sharply. + +"--What am I to do?" he repeated between his teeth. + +"Nothing! There is nothing to do about it! You know it!... What is +there to do?" + +He held her closer and she strained away from him, her head still +averted. + +"Let me go, Clive!" she pleaded. + +"Can't you care for me!" + +"Let me go!" + +He said under his breath: "All right." And released her. For a moment +she did not move but her hands covered her burning face and sealed her +lids. She stood there, breathing fast and irregularly until she heard +him move. Then, lowering her hands she cast a heart-broken glance at +him. And his ashen, haggard visage terrified her. + +"Clive!" she faltered: he swung on his heel and caught her to him +again. + +She offered no resistance. + +She was crying, now,--weeping perhaps for all that had been said--or +remained unsaid--or maybe for all that could never be said between +herself and this man in whose arms she was trembling. No need now for +any further understanding, for excuses, for regrets, for any tardy +wish expressed that things might have been different. + +He offered no explanation; she expected none, would have suffered +none, crying there silently against his shoulder. But the reaction was +already invading him; the tide of self-contempt rose. + +He said bitterly: "Now that I've done all the damage I could, I shall +have to go--or offer--" + +"There is no damage done--yet--" + +"I have made you love me." + +"I--don't know. Wait." + +Wet cheek against his shoulder, lips a-quiver, her tragic eyes looked +out into space seeing nothing yet except the spectre of this man's +unhappiness. + +Not for herself had the tears come, the mouth quivered. The flash of +passionate emotion in him had kindled in her only a response as +blameless as it was deep. + +Sorrow for him, for his passion recognised but only vaguely +understood, grief for a comradeship forever ended now--regret for the +days that now could come no more--but no thought of self as yet, +nothing of resentment, of the lesser pity, the baser pride. + +If she had trembled it was for their hopeless future; if she had wept +it was because she saw his boyhood passing out of her life like a +ghost, leaving her still at heart a girl, alone beside the ashes of +their friendship. + +As for marriage she knew it would never be--that neither he nor she +dared subscribe to it, dared face its penalties and its punishments; +that her fear of his unknown world was as spontaneous and abiding as +his was logical and instinctive. + +There was nothing to do about it. She knew that instantly; knew it +from the first;--no balm for him, no outlook, no hope. For her--had +she thought about herself,--she could have entertained none. + +She turned her head on his shoulder and looked up at him out of +pitiful, curious eyes. + +"Clive, must this be?" + +"I love you, Athalie." + +Her gaze remained fixed on him as though she were trying to comprehend +him,--sad, candid, searching in his eyes for an understanding denied +her. + +"Yes," she said vaguely, "my thoughts are full of you, too. They have +always been since I first saw you. I suppose it has been love. I +didn't know it." + +"Is it love, Athalie?" + +"I--think so, Clive. What else could it be--when a girl is always +thinking about a man, always happy with her memories of him.... It +_is_ love, I suppose ... only I never thought of it that way." + +"Can you think of it that way now?" + +"I haven't changed, Clive. If it was love in the beginning, it is +now." + +"In the beginning it was only a boy and girl affair." + +"It was all my heart had room for." + +"And now?" + +"You fill my heart and mind as always. But you know that." + +"I thought--perhaps--not seeing you--" + +"Clive!" + +"--Other men--other interests--" he muttered obstinately, and so like +a stubborn boy that, for a moment, a pale flash from the past seemed +to light them both, and she found herself smiling: + +"A girl must go on living until she is dead, Clive. Even if you went +away I'd continue to exist until something ended me. Other men are +merely other men. You are you." + +"You darling!" + +But she turned shy instantly, conscious now of his embrace, confused +by it and the whispered endearment. + +"Please let me go, Clive." + +"But I love you, dear--" + +"Yes--but please--" + +Again he released her and she stepped back, retreating before him, +until the lounge offered itself as refuge. But it was no refuge; she +found herself, presently, drawn close to his shoulder; her flushed +cheek rested there once more, and her lowered eyes were fixed on his +strong, firm hand which had imprisoned both of hers. + +"If you can stand it I can," he said in a low voice. + +"What?" + +"Marrying me." + +"Oh, Clive! They'd tear us to pieces! You couldn't stand it. Neither +could I." + +"But if we--" + +"Oh, no, no, no!" she protested, "it would utterly ruin you! There was +one woman there to-night--very handsome--I knew she was your mother. +And I saw the way she looked at me.... It's no use, Clive. Those +people _are_ different. They'd never forgive you, and it would ruin +you or you'd have to go back to them." + +"But if we were once married, there _are_ friends of mine who--" + +"How many? One in a thousand! Oh, Clive, Clive, I know you so +well--your family and your pride in them, your position and your +security in it, your wide circle of friends, without which circle you +would wander like a lost soul--yes, Clive, lost, forlorn, unhappy, +even with me!" + +She lifted her head from his shoulder and sat up, gazing intently +straight ahead of her. In her eyes was a lovely azure light; her lips +were scarcely parted; and so intent and fixed was her gaze that for a +moment he thought she had caught sight of some concrete thing which +held her fascinated. + +But it was only that she "saw clearly" at that moment--something that +had come into her field of vision--a passing shape, perhaps, which +looked at her with curious, friendly, inquiring eyes,--and went its +way between the fire and the young girl who watched it pass with +fearless and clairvoyant gaze. + +"Athalie?" + +"Yes," she answered as in a dream. + +"Athalie! What is the matter?" + +She turned, looked at him almost blindly as her remoter vision +cleared. + +"Clive," she said under her breath, "go home." + +"What?" + +"Go home. You are wanted." + +"_What!!!_" + +She rose and he stood up, his fascinated eyes never leaving hers. + +"What were you staring at a moment ago?" he demanded. "What did +you--think--you saw?" + +Her eyes looked straight into his. She went to him and put both arms +around his neck. + +"Dearest," she said "--dearest." And kissed him on the mouth. But he +dared not lay one finger on her. + +The next moment she had his coat, was holding it for him. He took his +hat and stick from her, turned and walked to the door, wheeled in his +tracks, shivering. + +And saw her crouched on the sofa, her head buried in her arms. And +dared not speak. + + * * * * * + +There was an automobile standing in the street before his own house as +he turned out of Fifth Avenue; lighted windows everywhere in the +house, and the iron grille ajar. + +He could scarcely fit the latch-key his hands were so unsteady. + +There were people in the hall, partly clad. He heard his own name in +frightened exclamation. + +"What is it?" he managed to ask. + +A servant stammered: "Mr. Clive--it's all over, sir. Mrs. Bailey is +asking for you, sir." + +"Is my father--" but he could not go on. + +"Yes, sir. His man heard him call--once--like he was dreamin' bad. But +when he got to him Mr. Bailey was gone.... The doctor has just +arrived, sir." + +For one instant hope gleamed athwart the stunning crash of his senses: +he steadied himself on the newel post. Then, in his ear a faint voice +echoed: "Dearest--dearest!" And, knowing that hope also lay dead, he +lifted his young head, straightened up, and set his foot heavily on +the first step upward into a new and terrible world of grief. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Athalie ventured to send some Madonna lilies with no card attached; +but even the thought of her white flowers crossing the threshold of +Clive's world--although it was because of her devotion to him alone +that she dared salute his dead--left her sensitively concerned, +wondering whether it had been a proper thing for her to do. + +However, the day following she wrote him. + + + "CLIVE DEAR, + + "I do not mean to intrude on your grief at such a time. This + is merely a line to say that you are never absent from my + mind. + + "And Clive, nothing really dies. This is quite true. I am not + speaking of what faith teaches us. Faith is faith. But those + who 'see clearly' _know_. Nothing dies, Clive. _Nothing._ + That is even more than faith teaches us. Yet it, also, is + true. + + "Dear little boy of my childhood, dear lad of my girlhood, + and, of my womanhood, dearest of men, I pray that God will + comfort you and yours. + + "I was twelve years old the only time I ever saw your father. + He spoke so sweetly to me--put his arm around my + shoulders--asked me if I were Red Riding Hood or the Princess + Far Away. + + "And, to obey him, I went to find _my_ father. And found him + dead. Or what the world calls dead. + + "Later, as I stood there outside the door, stunned by what + had happened, back through the doorway came running a boy. + Clive, if you have forgotten what you said to that child + there by the darkened doorway of life, the girl who writes + this has never forgotten. + + "And now, since sorrow has come to you, in my turn I seek you + where you stand by a darkened door alone, and I send to you + my very soul in this poor, inky letter,--all I can + offer--Clive--all that I believe--all that I am. + "ATHALIE." + +So much for tribute and condolence as far as she could be concerned +where she remained among the other millions outside the sacred +threshold across which her letter and her flowers had gone, across +which the girl herself might never go. + +After a few days he wrote and thanked her for her letter, not of +course knowing about the lilies: + + "It is the first time death has ever come very near me. I had + been told and had always thought that we were a long-lived + race. + + "I am still dazed by it. I suppose the sharper grief will + come when this dull, unreal sense of stupefaction wears away. + + "We were very close together, my father and I. Oh, but we + might have been closer, Athalie!--I might have been with him + oftener, seen more of him, spent less time away from him. + + "I _did_ try to be a good son. I could have been far better. + It's a bitter thing to realise at such a time. + + "And I had so much to say to him. I cannot understand that I + can never say it now.... Athalie dear, my mother wishes me to + take her abroad. I made arrangements yesterday at the Cunard + office. We sail Saturday. Could I see you for a moment before + I go? + "CLIVE." + +To which she replied: + + "I shall be here every evening." + +He came Friday night looking very sallow and thin in his black +clothes. Catharine, who was sewing by the centre table, rose to shake +hands with him in sympathetic silence, then went away to her bedroom, +where, once or twice she caught herself whistling some gay refrain of +the moment, and was obliged to check herself. + +He had taken Athalie's slender hands and was standing by the sofa, +looking intently at her. + +"That night," he said with an effort, "you sent me home--saying that I +was needed." + +"Yes, Clive." + +"How did you know?" + +"I knew." + +"Did you see--anything?" + +"Yes, dear," she said under her breath. + +"Did you see _him_?" + +"Yes." + +"Tell me," he said, but his lips scarcely moved to form the words he +uttered. + +"I recognised him at once. I had never forgotten him.... It is +difficult to explain how I knew that he was not--what we call living." + +"But you knew?" + +"Yes," she said gently. + +"He--did he speak?" The young fellow turned away with a brusque, +hopeless gesture. + +"God," he muttered--"and I couldn't either see or hear him!" + +"He did not speak, Clive." The boy looked up at her, his haggard +features working. + +She said: "When I first noticed him he was looking at you. Then he +caught my eye. Clive--it was this time as it had been before--when I +was twelve years old--his expression became so sweet and winning--like +yours when I amuse you--and you laugh at me but--like me--" + +"Oh, Athalie--I can't seem to endure it! I--I can't be reconciled--" +His head fell forward; she put her arms around him and drew his face +against her breast. + +"I know," she whispered. "I also have passed that way." + +After a few moments he lifted his head, looked around, almost +fearfully. + +"Where was it that he stood, Athalie?" + +She hesitated, then took one of his hands in hers and he followed her +until she stopped between the sofa and the fireplace. + +"Here?" + +"Yes, Clive." + +"So _near_!" he said aloud to himself. "Couldn't he have spoken to +me?--just one word--" + +"Dearest--dearest!" + +"God knows why you should see him and I shouldn't! I don't +understand--when I was his son--" + +"I do not understand either, Clive." + +He seemed not to hear her, standing there with blank gaze shifting +from object to object in the room. "I don't understand," he kept +repeating in a dull, almost querulous voice,--"I don't understand +why." And her heart responded in a passion of tenderness and grief. +But she found no further words to say to him, no explanation that +might comfort him. + +"Will he ever come here--anywhere--again?" he asked suddenly. + +"Oh, Clive, I don't know." + +"Don't you know? Couldn't you find out?" + +"How? I don't know how to find out. I never try to inquire." + +"Isn't there some way?" + +"I don't really know, Clive. How could I know?" + +"But when you see such people--shadows--shapes--" + +"Yes.... They are not shadows." + +"Do they seem real?" + +"Why, yes; as real as you are." + +"Athalie, how _can_ they be?" + +"They are to me. There is nothing ghostly about them." + +For a moment it almost seemed to her as though he resented her clear +seeing; then he said: "Have you always been able to see--this way?" + +"As long as I can remember." + +"And you have never tried to cultivate the power?" + +"I had rather you did not call it that." + +"But it is a power.... Well, call it faculty, then. Have you?" + +"No. I told you once that I did not wish to see more clearly than +others. It is all involuntary with me." + +"Would you try to cultivate it because I ask you to?" + +"Clive!" + +"Will you, Athalie?" + +The painful colour mantled her face and neck and she turned and looked +away from him as though he had said a shameful thing. + +He continued, impatiently: "Why do you feel that way about it? Why +should you not cultivate such a delicate and wonderful sense of +perception? Why are you reluctant? What reason is there for you to be +ashamed?" + +"I don't know why." + +"There is no reason! If in you there happen to be faculties sensitive +beyond ours, senses more complex, more exquisitely attuned to what +others are blind and deaf to, intuitions that to us seem miraculous, a +spirituality, perhaps, more highly developed, what is there in that to +cause you either embarrassment or concern? That in certain +individualities such is the case is now generally understood and +recognised. You happen to be one of them." + +She looked up at him very quietly, but still flushed. + +"Why do you wish me to try--make any effort to develop this--thing?" + +"So that--if you _could_ see him again--and if, perhaps, he had +anything to say to me--" + +"I understand." + +"Will you try, Athalie?" + +"I'll try--if you wish it. And if I can learn how to try." + +Had he asked her to strip her gown from her shoulders under his steady +gaze, it had been easier than the promise she gave him. + + * * * * * + +And now the hour had come for him to bid her good-bye. He said that he +and his mother would not remain abroad for more than the summer. He +said he would write often; spoke a little more vaguely of seeing her +as soon as he returned; drew her cool, white hands together and kissed +them, laid his cheek against them for a moment, eyes closed wearily. + +The door remained ajar behind him after he had gone. Lingering, her +hand heavy on the knob, she listened to the last echo of the elevator +as it dropped into lighted depths below. + +Then, very far away, an iron grille clanged. And that ended it. + +But she still lingered. There was one more shape to pass through the +door which she yet held open;--the phantom of her girlhood. And when +at last, it had passed across the threshold, never to return, she +shut the door softly, sinking to her knees there, her pale cheek +resting against the closed panels, her eyes fixed on vacancy. + + * * * * * + +So departed those twain out of the room and out of her life, +together--her lover by brevet, and her lingering girlhood,--leaving +behind them a woman in a world of men suddenly strange and menacing +and very still. + +But Clive went back into a familiar world--marred, obscured, distorted +for the moment by shock and sorrow--but still a familiar world. +Because neither his grief nor his love--as he had termed it--had made +of him more than he had been,--not yet a man, yet no longer a boy, but +something with all the infirmities of both and the saving graces of +neither. + +In that borderland where he still lingered, morally and spiritually, +the development of character ceases for a while until such time as the +occult frontier be crossed. What is born in the cradle is lowered into +the grave, but always either in nobler or less noble degrees. For none +may linger in that borderland too long because the unseen boundary +moves for him who will not stir when his time is up--moves slowly, +inexorably nearer, nearer, passing beneath his feet, until it is lost +far in the misty years behind him. + + * * * * * + +He wrote her from the steamer twice, the letters being mailed from +Plymouth; then he wrote once from London, once from Paris; later again +from Switzerland, where he had found it cooler, he said, than +anywhere else during that torrid summer. + +[Illustration: "One lovely morning in May she arose early in order to +write to Clive."] + +Winifred Stuart and her mother had joined them for a motor trip +through Dalmatia. He mentioned it in a letter to Athalie, but after +that he did not refer to them again. In fact he did not write again +for a month or two. + +It proved to be a scorching summer in New York. May ended in a blast +of unseasonable weather, cooling off for a week or two in June, but +the furnace heat of July was terrible for the poor and for the +horses--both of which we have always with us. + +Also, for Athalie, it seemed to be turning into one of those curious, +threatening years which begin with every promise but which end without +fulfilment, and in perplexity and care. She had known such years; she +already recognised the symptoms of changing weather. She seemed to be +conscious of premonitions in everybody and everything. Little +vexations and slight disappointments increased; simple plans +miscarried for no reason at all apparently. + +Like one who still feels a fair wind blowing yet looking aloft, sees +the uneasy weather-cock veer and veer in varying flaws, so she, +sensitive and fine in mind and body, gradually became aware of the +trend of things; felt the premonition of the distant change in the +atmosphere--sensed it gathering vaguely, indefinitely disquieting. + +One lovely morning in May she arose early in order to write to Clive. +Then, her long letter accomplished and safely mailed, she went +downtown to business, still delicately aglow, exhilarated as always +by her hour of communion with him. + +Mr. Wahlbaum, as usual, received her with the jolly and kindly humour +which always characterised him, and they had their usual friendly, +half bantering chat while she was arranging the papers which his +secretary had laid on her desk. + +All the morning she took dictation; the soft wind fluttered the +curtains; sparrows chirped noisily; the sky was very blue; Mr. +Wahlbaum smoked steadily. + +And when the lunch hour arrived he did a thing which he had never +before done; he asked Athalie to lunch with him. + +Which so completely astonished her that she found herself going down +in the private lift with him before she realised that she was going at +all. + +The luncheon proved to be very simple but very good. There were a +number of other women in the ladies' annex of the Department +Club,--nice looking people, quiet, and well dressed. Mr. Wahlbaum also +was very quiet, very considerate, very attentive, and almost gravely +courteous. Their conversation concerned business. He offered Athalie +no cocktail and no wine, but a jug of chilled cider was set at her +elbow and she found it delicious. Mr. Wahlbaum drank tea, very weak. + +When they returned to the office, Athalie began to transcribe her +stenographic notes. It occupied most of the afternoon although she was +wonderfully rapid and accurate and her slim white fingers hovered +mistily over the keys like the vibrating wings of a snowy moth. + +[Illustration: "Mr. Wahlbaum ... was very quiet, very considerate, +very attentive."] + +Mr. Wahlbaum, always smoking, watched her toward the finish in placid +silence. And for a few moments, also, after she had finished and had +turned to him with a light smile and a lighter sigh of relief. + +"Miss Greensleeve," he said quietly, "I have now been here in the same +office with you, day after day--excepting our summer vacations--for +more than five years." + +A trifle surprised and sobered by his gravity and deliberation she +nodded silent acquiescence and waited, wondering a little what else +was to come. + +It came without preamble: "I have the honour," he said, "to ask you to +marry me." + +Still as a stone she sat, gazing at him. And for a long while his keen +eyes sustained her gaze. But presently a slow, deep colour began to +gather on his face. And after a moment he said: "I am sorry that the +verdict is against me." + +Tears filled her eyes; she tried to speak, could not, turned on her +pivot-chair, rested her arms on the back, and dropped her face in +them. + +It was a long while before she was able to efface the traces of +emotion. She did all she could before she forced herself to look at +him again and say what she must say. + +"If I could--I would, Mr. Wahlbaum," she faltered. "No man has ever +been kinder to me, none more courteous, none more gentle." + +He looked at her wistfully for a moment, and she thought he was going +to speak. But he was wise in the ways of the world. He had lost. He +understood it. Speech was superfluous. He was a quaint combination of +good sportsman and philosophic economist. + +He held his peace. + +When she left that evening after saying good night to him she paused +at the door, irresolutely, and then came back to his desk where he was +still standing. For he had never failed to rise when she entered in +the morning or took her leave at night. + +In silence, now, she offered him her hand, the quick tears springing +to her eyes again; and he took it, bent, and touched the gloved +fingers with his lips, gravely, in silence. + + * * * * * + +A few days later, for the first time in her experience there, Mr. +Wahlbaum was not at the office. + +Mr. Grossman came in, leered at her, said that Mr. Wahlbaum would be +down next day, lingered furtively as long as he quite dared, then took +himself off, still leering. + +In the afternoon Athalie was notified that her salary had been raised. +She went home, elated and deeply touched by the generosity of Mr. +Wahlbaum, scarcely able to wait for the morrow to express her +gratitude to this good, kind man. + +But on the morrow Mr. Wahlbaum was not there; nor did he come the day +after, nor the day after that. + +The following Tuesday she was seated in the office and generally +occupied with business provided for her by the thrifty Mr. Grossman, +when that same gentleman came into the office on tiptoe. + +"Mr. Wahlbaum has just died," he said. + +In the sudden shock and consternation she had risen from her chair, +and stood there, one hand resting on her desk top for support. + +"Pneumonia," nodded Mr. Grossman. "Sam he smoked too much all the +time. That is what done it, Miss Greensleeve." + +Her hands crept to her eyes, covered them convulsively. "Oh!" she +breathed--"Oh!" + +And, for a moment was not aware of the arm of Mr. Grossman around her +waist,--until it tightened unctuously. + +"Dearie," he murmured, "don't you take on so hard. You ain't goin' to +lose your job, because I'm a-goin' to be your best friend same like he +was--" + +With a shudder she stepped clear of him; he caught her by the waist +again and kissed her; and she wrenched herself free and turned +fiercely on him as he advanced again, smirking, watery of eye, arms +outstretched. + +Then in the overwhelming revulsion and horror of the act and of the +moment chosen for it when death's shadow already lay dark upon this +vast and busy monument to her dead friend, she turned on him her dark +blue eyes ablaze; and to her twisted, outraged lips flew, unbidden, +the furious anathema of her ragged childhood: + +"Damn you!" she stammered,--"damn you!" And struck him across the +face. + + * * * * * + +Which impulsive and unconsidered proceeding left two at home out of +work, herself and Doris. Also there was very little more for +Catharine to do, the dull season at Winton's having arrived. + +"Any honest job," repeated Doris when she and Athalie and Catharine +met at evening after an all-day's profitless search for that sort of +work; but honest jobs did not seem to be very plentiful in June, +although any number of the other sort were to be had almost without +the asking. + +Doris continued to haunt agencies and theatrical offices, dawdling all +day from one to the next, sitting for hours in company with other +aspirants to histrionic honours and wages, gossiping, listening to +stage talk, professional patter, and theatrical scandal until her +pretty ears were buzzing with everything that ought not to concern her +and her moral fastidiousness gradually became less delicate. +Repetition is the great leveller, the great persuader. The greatest +power on earth, for good or evil, is incessant reiteration. + +Catharine lost her position, worked at a cheap milliner's for a week, +addressed envelopes for another week, and was again left unemployed. + +Athalie accepted several offers; at one place they didn't pay her for +two weeks and then suggested she take half the salary agreed upon; at +another her employer became offensively familiar; at another the +manager made her position unendurable. + +By July the financial outlook in the Greensleeve family was becoming +rather serious: Doris threatened gloomily to go into burlesque; +Catharine at first tearful and discouraged, finally grew careless and +made few real efforts to find employment. Also she began to go out +almost every evening, admitting very frankly that the home larder had +become too lean and unattractive to suit her. + +[Illustration: "Doris continued to haunt agencies and theatrical +offices."] + +Doris always went out more or less; and what troubled Athalie was not +that the girl had opportunities for the decent nourishment she needed, +but that her reticence concerning the people she dined with was +steadily increasing. + +"Oh, shut up! I can look out for myself," she always repeated +sullenly. "Anyway, Athalie, _you_ are not the one to bully me. Nobody +ever presented me with a cosy flat and--" + +"Doris!" + +"Didn't your young man give you this flat?" + +"Don't speak of him or of me in that manner," said Athalie, flushing +scarlet. + +"Why are you so particular? It's the truth. He's given you about +everything a man can offer a girl, hasn't he?--jewellery, furniture, +clothing--cats--" + +"Will you please not say anything more!" + +But Doris was still smarting under recent admonition, and she meant to +make an end of Athalie's daily interference: "I will say what I like +when it's the truth," she retorted. "You are very free with your +unsolicited advice. And I'll say this, and it's true, that not one +girl in a thousand who accepts what you have accepted from Clive +Bailey, is straight!" + +Athalie's tightening lips quivered: "Do you intimate that I am not +straight?" + +"I didn't say that." + +"You implied it." + +There was a silence; Catharine lounged on the sofa, watching and +listening with interest. After a moment Doris shrugged her young +shoulders. + +"Does it matter so much, anyway?" she said with a short, unpleasant +laugh. + +"Does _what_ matter--you little ninny!" + +"Whether a girl _is_ straight." + +"Is that the philosophy you learn in your theatrical agencies?" +demanded Athalie fiercely. "What nauseating rot you do talk, Doris!" + +"Very well. It may be nauseating. But what is a girl to do in a world +run entirely by men?" + +"You know well enough what a girl is _not_ to do, don't you? All right +then,--leave that undone and do what's left." + +"What _is_ left?" demanded Doris with a mirthless laugh. "There's +scarcely a job that a girl can hold unless she squares some man to +keep it--and keep--her!" + +"Shame on you! I held mine for over five years," said Athalie with hot +contempt. + +"Yes, and then along came the junior partner. You wouldn't square him: +you lost your job! There's always a junior partner in every +business--when there isn't a senior. There's nothing to it if you +stand in with the firm. If you don't--good night!" + +"You managed to remain at the Egyptian Garden during the entire +season." + +"But the fights I had, my dear, and the tricks I employed and the lies +I told and the promises I made! Oh, it's sickening--sickening! But--" +she shrugged--"what are you to do? Thousands of girls go queer +because they're forced to by starvation--" + +"Nonsense!" cried Athalie hotly, "that is all stage twaddle and +exaggerated sentimentalism! I don't believe that one girl in a +thousand is forced into a dishonourable life!" + +"Then why do girls go queer?" + +"Because they want to; that's why! When they don't want to they +don't!" + +Catharine, very wide-eyed, said solemnly: "But think of all the white +slaves--" + +"They'd be that if they had been born to millions!" retorted Athalie. +"Ignorance and aptitude, that is white slavery. It's absolutely +nothing else. And in cases where the ignorance is absent, the aptitude +is there. If a girl has an aptitude for becoming some man's mistress +she'll probably do it whether she's ignorant or educated." + +Doris, who had taken to chewing-gum furtively and in private, +discreetly rolled a morsel under her tongue. + +"All I know is that your salary is advanced and you're given a part at +the Egyptian Garden if you stand in with Lewenbein or go to supper +with Shemsky. Of course," she added, "there _are_ theatres where you +don't have to be horrid in order to succeed." + +"Then," said Athalie drily, "you'd better find work in those +theatres." + +Doris glanced sideways at Catharine, who silently returned her glance +as though an understanding and sympathy existed between them not +suspected or shared in by Athalie. + +It was not very much of a secret. Some prowling genius of the agencies +whom Doris had met had offered to write a vaudeville act for her and +himself if she could find two other girls. And she had persuaded +Catharine and Genevieve Hunting to try it; and Cecil Reeve and Francis +Hargrave had gaily offered to back it. They were rehearsing in Reeve's +apartments--between a continuous series of dinners and suppers. + +And it had been her sister's going to Reeve's apartments to which +Athalie had seriously objected,--not knowing why she went there. + + * * * * * + +This was one of many scenes that torrid summer in New York, when +Athalie intuitively felt that the year which had begun so happily for +her with the entrance of Clive into her life, was growing duller and +greyer; and that each succeeding day seemed to be swinging her into a +tide of anxiety and mischance,--a current as yet merely perceptible, +but already increasing in speed toward something swifter and more +stormy. + +Already, to her, the future had become overcast, obscure, disquieting. + +Steer as she might toward any promising harbour, always she seemed to +be aware of some subtle resistance impeding her. + +Every small economy attempted, every retrenchment planned, came to +nothing. Always she was met at some corner by an unlooked-for +necessity entailing further expense. + +No money was coming in; her own and her sister's savings were going +steadily, every day, every week. + +There seemed no further way to check expenditure. Athalie had +dismissed their servant as soon as she had lost her position at +Wahlbaum and Grossman's. Table expenses were reduced to Spartan +limits, much to the disgust of them all. No clothes were bought, no +luxuries, no trifles. They did their own marketing, their own cooking, +their own housework and laundry. And had it not been that the +apartment entailed no outlay for light, heat, and rent, they would +have been sorely perplexed that spring and summer in New York. + +Athalie permitted herself only one luxury, Hafiz. And one necessity; +stamps and letter paper for foreign correspondence. + +The latter was costing her less and less recently. Clive wrote seldom +now. And always very sensitive where he was concerned, she permitted +herself the happiness of writing only after he had taken the +initiative, and a reply from her was due him. + +No, matters were not going very well with Athalie. Also she was +frequently physically tired. Perhaps it was the lassitude consequent +on the heat. But at times she had an odd idea that she lacked courage; +and sometimes when lonely, she tried to reason with herself, tried to +teach her heart bravery--particularly during the long interims which +elapsed between Clive's letters. + +As for her attitude toward him--whether or not she was in love with +him--she was too busy thinking about him to bother her head about +attitudes or degrees of affection. All the girl knew--when she +permitted herself to think of herself--was that she missed him +dreadfully. Otherwise her concern was chiefly for him, for his +happiness and well-being. Also she was concerned regarding the promise +she had made him--and to which he usually referred in his +letters,--the promise to try to learn more about this faculty of hers +for clear vision, and, if possible, to employ it for his sake and in +his unhappy service. + +This often preoccupied her, troubled her. She did not know how to go +about it; she hesitated to seek those who advertised their alleged +occult powers for sale,--trance-mediums, mind-readers, palmists--all +the heterogeneous riffraff lurking always in metropolitan purlieus, +and always with a sly weather-eye on the police. + +As usual in her career since the time she could first remember, she +continued to "see clearly" where others saw and heard nothing. + +Faint voices in the dusk, a whisper in darkness; perhaps in her bedroom +the subtle intuition of another presence. And sometimes a touch on her +arm, a breath on her cheek, delicate, exquisite--sometimes the haunting +sweetness of some distant harmony, half heard, half divined. And now and +then a form, usually unknown, almost always smiling and friendly, visible +for a few moments--the space of a fire-fly's incandescence--then +fading--entering her orbit out of nothing and, going into nothing, +out of it. + +Of these episodes she had never entertained any fear. Sometimes they +interested her, sometimes even slightly amused her. But they had never +saddened her, not even when they had been the flash-lit harbingers of +death. For only a sense of calmness and serenity accompanied them: +and to her they had always been part of the world and of life, nothing +to wonder at, nothing to fear, and certainly nothing to intrude +on--merely incidents not concerning her, not remarkable, but natural +and requiring no explanation. + +But she herself did not know and could not explain why, even as a +child, she had been always reticent regarding these occurrences,--why +she had always been disinclined to discuss them. Unless it were a +natural embarrassment and a hesitation to discuss strangers, as though +comment were a species of indelicacy,--even of unwarranted intrusion. + +One night while reading--she had been scanning a newspaper column of +advertisements hoping to find a chance for herself or Catharine--glancing +up she again saw Clive's father seated near her. At the same moment he +lifted his head, which had been resting on one hand, and looked across +the hearthstone at her, smiling faintly. + +Entirely unembarrassed, conscious of that atmosphere of serenity which +always was present when such visitors arrived, the girl sat looking at +what her eyes told her she perceived, a slight and friendly smile +curving her lips in silent response. + +Presently she became aware that Hafiz, too, saw the visitor, and was +watching him. But this fact she had noticed before, and it did not +surprise her. + +And that was all there was to the incident. He rose, walked to the +window, stood there. And after a little while he was not there. That +ended it. And Hafiz went to sleep again. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +In September Athalie Greensleeve wrote her last letter to Clive +Bailey. It began with a page or two of shyly solicitous inquiries +concerning his well-being, his happiness, his plans; did not refer to +his long silence; did refer to his anticipated return; did not mention +her own accumulating domestic and financial embarrassments and the +successive strokes of misfortune dealt her by those twin and +formidable bravos, Fate and Chance; but did mention and enumerate +everything that had occurred in her life which bore the slightest +resemblance to a blessing. + +Her letter continued: + + "My sisters Doris and Catharine have gone into vaudeville + with a very pretty act called 'April Rain.' + + "That they had decided to do this and had been rehearsing it + came as a complete surprise to me. Genevieve Hunting is also + in it, and a man named Max Klepper who wrote the piece + including lyrics and music. + + "They opened at the Old Dominion Theatre, remained there a + week, and then started West. Which makes it a trifle lonely + for me; but I don't really mind if they only keep well and + are successful and happy in their venture. Their idea and + their desire, of course, is to return to New York at the + earliest opportunity. But nobody seems to have any idea how + soon that may happen. Meanwhile the weather is cooler and + Hafiz remains well and adorable. + + "I have been out very little except to look for a position. + Mr. Wahlbaum is dead and I left the store. Sunday morning I + took a few flowers to Mr. Wahlbaum's grave. He was very kind + to me, Clive. In the afternoon I took a train to the Spring + Pond Cemetery. Father's and mother's graves had been well + cared for and were smoothly green. The four young oak trees I + planted are growing nicely. Mother was fond of trees. I am + sure she likes my little oaks. + + "It was a beautiful, cool, sunny day; and after I left the + Cemetery I walked along the well remembered road toward + Spring Pond. It is not very far, but I had never been any + nearer to it than the Cemetery since my sisters and I went + away. + + "Such odd sensations came over me as I walked alone there + amid familiar scenes: and, curiously, everything seemed to + have shrunk to miniature size--houses, fields, distances all + seemed much less impressive. But the Bay was intensely blue; + the grasses and reeds in the salt meadows were already tipped + with a golden colour here and there; flocks of purple grackle + and red-winged blackbirds rose, drifted, and settled, + chattering and squealing among the cat-tails just as they + used to do when I was a child; and the big, slow-sailing + mouse-hawks drifted and glided over the pastures, and when + they tipped sideways I could see the white moon-spot on their + backs, just as I remembered to look for it when I was a + little, little girl. + + "And the odours, Clive! How the scent of the August fields, + of the crisp salt hay, seemed to grip at my heart!--all the + subtle, evanescent odours characteristic of that part of Long + Island seemed to gather, blend, and exhale for my particular + benefit that afternoon. + + "The old tavern appeared to me so much smaller, so much more + weather-beaten and shabby than my recollection of it. The + sign still hung there--'Hotel Greensleeve'--and as I walked + by it I looked up at the window of my mother's room. The + blinds were closed; nobody appeared to be around. I don't + know why, Clive, but it seemed to me that I must go in for a + moment and take one more look at my mother's room.... I am + glad I did. There was nobody to stop me. I went up the stairs + on tiptoe and opened her door, and looked in. _She was there, + sewing._ + + "I went in very softly and sat down on the carpet by her + chair.... It was the happiest moment I have known since she + died. + + "And when she was no longer there I rose and crept down the + stairs and through the hallway to the bar; and peeped in. An + old man sat there asleep by the empty stove. And after a + moment I decided it was Mr. Ledlie. But he has grown + old--old!--and I let him sleep on in the sunshine without + disturbing him. + + "It was the same stove where you and I sat and nibbled peach + turnovers so many years ago. I wanted to see it again. + + * * * * * + + "So I went back to New York in the late golden afternoon + feeling very peaceful and dreamy,--and a trifle tired. And + found Hafiz stretched on the lounge; and stretched myself out + beside him, taking the drowsy, purring, spoiled thing into my + arms. And went to sleep to dream of you who gave me Hafiz, my + dear and beloved friend. + + * * * * * + + "Write me when you can; as often as you desire. Always your + letters are welcome messengers. + "ATHALIE." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +In her letters Athalie never mentioned Captain Dane; not because she +had anything to conceal regarding him or herself; but she seemed to be +aware that any mention of that friendship might not evoke a +sympathetic response from Clive. + +So, in her last letter, as in the others, she had not spoken of +Captain Dane. Yet, now, he was the only man with whom she ever went +anywhere and whom she received at her own apartment. + +He had a habit of striding in two or three evenings in a week,--a big, +fair, broad-shouldered six-footer, with sun-narrowed eyes of arctic +blue, a short blond moustache, and skin permanently burned by the +unshadowed glare of many and tropic days. + +They went about together on Sundays, usually; sometimes in hot weather +to suburban restaurants for dinner and a breath of air, sometimes to +roof gardens. + +Why he lingered in town--for he seemed always to be at leisure--she +did not know. And she wondered a little that he should elect to remain +in the heat-cursed city whence everybody else she knew had fled. + +Dane was a godsend to her. With him she went to the Bronx Zoological +Park several times, intensely interested in what he had to say +concerning the creatures housed there, and shyly proud and delighted +to meet the curators of the various departments who all seemed to know +Dane and to be on terms of excellent fellowship with him. + +With him she visited the various museums and art galleries; and went +with him to concerts, popular and otherwise; and took long trolley +rides with him on suffocating evenings when the poor slept on the +grass in the parks and the slums, east and west, presented endless +vistas of panting nakedness prostrate under a smouldering red moon. + +Every diversion he offered her helped to sustain her courage; every +time she lunched or dined with him meant more to her than he dreamed +it meant. Because her savings were ebbing fast, and she had not yet +been able to find employment. + +Some things she would not do--write to her sisters for any financial +aid; nor would she go to the office of her late employers and ask for +any recommendation from Mr. Grossman which might help her to secure a +position. Never could she bring herself to do either of these things, +although the ugly countenance of necessity now began to stare her +persistently in the face. + +Also she was sensitive lest Dane suspect her need and offer aid. But +how could he suspect?--with her pretty apartment filled with pretty +things, and the luxurious Hafiz pervading everything with his +incessant purring and his snowy plume of a tail waving fastidious +contentment. He fared better than did his mistress, who denied herself +that Hafiz might flourish that same tail. And after a while the girl +actually began to grow thinner from sheer lack of nourishment. + +It never occurred to her to sell or pawn any of the furniture, silver, +furs, rugs,--anything at all that Clive had given her. And there was +one reason why she never would do it: she refused to consider anything +he had given her as her own property to dispose of if she chose. For +she had accepted these things from Clive only because it gave him +pleasure to give. And what she possessed she regarded as his property +held in trust. Nothing could have induced her to consider these things +in any other light. + +One souvenir, only, did she look upon as her own. It had no financial +value; and, if it had, she would have starved before disposing of it. +This was the first thing he ever gave her--his boy's offering--the +gun-metal wrist-watch. + +And her only recent extravagance had been a sentimental one; she had +the watch cleaned and regulated, and a new leather strap adjusted. The +evening it was returned to her she wore it; and that night she slept +with the watch strapped to her wrist. + +So much for a young girl's sentiment!--for no letter came from him on +the morrow although the European mail was in. None came the next day; +nor the next. + +Toward the end of the week, one sultry evening, when Athalie returned +from an unsuccessful tour of job-hunting, and nearer depression than +ever she had yet been, Captain Dane came stalking in, shook hands with +his usual decision, picked up Hafiz who adored him, and took the +chair nearest to the lounge where Athalie lay. + +[Illustration: "With him she visited the various museums and art +galleries."] + +"Suppose we dine somewhere?" he suggested, fondling the purring Angora +and rubbing its ears. + +"Would you mind," she said, "if I didn't?" + +"You're very tired, aren't you, Miss Greensleeve?" + +"A little. I don't believe I have the energy to go out with you." + +Still fondling the willing cat he said: "What's wrong? Something's +wrong, isn't it?" + +"No indeed." + +He turned and gave her a square look: "You're quite sure?" + +"Quite." + +"Oh; all right. Will you let me have dinner here with you?" + +She said without embarrassment: "I neglected my marketing: there's +very little in the pantry." + +"Well," he said, "I'm hungry and I'm going to call up the Hotel +Trebizond and have them send us some dinner." + +She seemed inclined to demur, but he had his way, went to the +telephone and gave his orders. + +The dinner arrived in due time and was excellent. And when the remains +of the dinner and the waiter who served it had been cleared out, +Athalie felt better. + +"You ought to go to the country for two or three weeks," he remarked. + +"Why don't _you_ go?" she asked, smilingly. + +"Don't need it." + +"Neither do I, Captain Dane. Besides I have to continue my search for +a position." + +"No luck yet?" + +"Not yet." + +He mused over his cigar for a few moments, lifted his blond head as +though about to speak, but evidently decided not to. + +She had taken up her sewing and was now busy with it. From moment to +moment Hafiz took liberties with her spool of thread where he sprawled +beside her, patting it this way and that until it fell upon the floor +and Dane was obliged to rescue it. + +It had grown cooler. A breeze from the open windows occasionally +stirred her soft hair and the smoke of Dane's cigar. They had been +silent for a few moments. Threading her needle she happened to glance +up at him, and saw somebody else standing just behind him--a tall man, +olive-skinned and black-bearded--and knew instantly that he was not +alive. + +Serenely incurious, she looked at the visitor, aware that the clothes +he wore were foreign, and that his features, too, were not American. + +And the next moment she gazed at him more attentively, for he had laid +one hand on Dane's shoulder and was looking very earnestly across at +her. + +He said distinctly but with a foreign accent: "Would you please say to +him that the greatest of all the ancient cities is hidden by the +jungle near the source of the middle fork. It was called Yhdunez." + +"Yes," she said, unconscious that she had spoken aloud. + +Dane lifted his head, and remained motionless, gazing at her intently. +The visitor was already moving across the room. Halfway across he +looked back at Athalie in a pleasant, questioning manner; and she +nodded her reassurance with a smile. Then her visitor was there no +longer; and she found herself, a trifle confused, looking into the +keen eyes of Captain Dane. + +Neither spoke for a moment or two; then he said, quietly: "I did not +know you were clairvoyant." + +"I--see clearly--now and then." + +"I understand. It is nothing new to me." + +"You _do_ understand then?" + +"I understand that some few people see more clearly than the great +majority." + +"Do you?" + +"No.... There was a comrade of mine--a Frenchman--Jacques Renouf. He +was like you; he saw." + +"Is he living?--I mean as we are?" + +"No." + +"Was he tall, olive-skinned, black-bearded--" + +"Yes," said Dane coolly; "did you see him just now?" + +"Yes." + +"I wondered.... There are moments when I seem to feel his presence. I +was thinking of him just now. We were on the upper Amazon together +last winter." + +"How did he die?" + +"He'd been off by himself all day. About five o'clock he came into +camp with a poisoned arrow broken off behind his shoulder-blade. He +seemed dazed and stupefied; but at moments I had an idea that he was +trying to tell us something." + +Dane hesitated, shrugged: "It was no use. We left our fire as usual +and went into the forest about two miles to sleep. Jacques died that +night, still dazed by the poison, still making feeble signs at me as +though he were trying to tell me something.... I believe that he has +been near me very often since, trying to speak to me." + +"He laid his hand on your shoulder, Captain Dane." + +Dane's stern lips quivered for a second, then self-command resumed +control. He said: "He usually did that when he had something to tell +me.... Did he speak to me, Miss Greensleeve?" + +"He spoke to me." + +"Clearly?" + +"Yes. He said: 'Would you please say to him that the greatest of all +the ancient cities is hidden by the jungle near the source of the +middle fork. It was called Yhdunez.'" + +For a long while Dane sat silent, his chin resting on his clenched +hand, looking down at the rug at his feet. After a while he said, +still looking down: "He must have found it all alone. And got an arrow +in him for his reward.... They're a dirty lot, those cannibals along +the middle fork of the Amazon. Nobody knows much about them yet except +that they _are_ cannibals and their arrows are poisoned.... I brought +back the arrow that I pulled out of Jacques.... There's no analysis +that can determine what the poison is--except that it's vegetable." + +He leaned forward, as though weary, resting his face between both +hands. + +"Yhdunez? Is that what it was called? Well, it and everything in it +was not worth the life of my friend Renouf.... Nor is anything I've +ever seen worth a single life sacrificed to the Red God of +Discovery.... Those accursed cities full of vile and monstrous +carvings--they belong to the jaguars now. Let them keep them. Let the +world's jungles keep their own--if only they'd give me back my +friend--" + +He rested a moment as he was, then straightened up impatiently as +though ashamed. + +"Death is death," he said in matter-of-fact tones. + +Athalie slowly shook her head: "There is no death." + +He nodded almost gratefully: "I know what you mean. I dare say you are +right.... Well--I think I'll go back to Yhdunez." + +"Not this evening?" she protested, smilingly. + +He smiled, too: "No, not this evening, Miss Greensleeve. I shall never +care to go anywhere again--"... His face altered.... "Unless you care +to go--with me." + +What he had said she would have taken gaily, lightly, had not the +gravity of his face forbidden it. She saw the lean muscles tighten +along his clean-cut cheek, saw the keen eyes grow wistful, then steady +themselves for her answer. + +She could not misunderstand him; she disdained to, honouring the +simplicity and truth of this man to whom she was so truly devoted. + +Her abandoned sewing lay on her lap. Hafiz slept with one velvet paw +entangled in her thread. She looked down, absently freeing thread and +fabric, and remained so for a moment, thinking. After a while she +looked up, a trifle pale: + +"Thank you, Captain Dane," she said in a low voice. + +He waited. + +"I--am afraid that I am--in love--already--with another man." + +He bent his head, quietly; there was no pleading, no asking for a +chance, no whining of any species to which the monarch man is so +constitutionally predisposed when soft, young lips pronounce the death +warrant of his sentimental hopes. + +All he said was: "It need not alter anything between us--what I have +asked of you." + +"It only makes me care the more for our friendship, Captain Dane." + +He nodded, studying the pattern in the Shirvan rug under his feet. A +procession of symbols representing scorpions and tarantulas +embellished one of the rug's many border stripes. His grave eyes +followed the procession entirely around the five-by-three bit of +weaving. Then he rose, bent over her, took her slim hand in silence, +saluted it, and asking if he might call again very soon, went out +about his business, whatever it was. Probably the most important +business he had on hand just then was to get over his love for Athalie +Greensleeve. + +For a long while Athalie sat there beside Hafiz considering the world +and what it was threatening to do to her; considering man and what he +had offered and what he had not offered to do to her. + +Distressed because of the pain she had inflicted on Captain Dane, yet +proud of the honour done her, she sat thinking, sometimes of Clive, +sometimes of Mr. Wahlbaum, sometimes of Doris and Catharine, and of +her brother who had gone out to the coast years ago, and from whom she +had never heard. + +But mostly she thought of Clive--and of his long silence. + +Presently Hafiz woke up, stretched his fluffy, snowy limbs, yawned, +pink-mouthed, then looked up out of gem-clear eyes, blinking +inquiringly at his young mistress. + +"Hafiz," she said, "if I don't find employment very soon, what is to +become of you?" + +The evening paper, as yet unread, lay on the sofa beside her. She +picked it up, listlessly, glancing at the headings of the front page +columns. There seemed to be trouble in Mexico; trouble in Japan; +trouble in Hayti. Another column recorded last night's heat and gave +the list of deaths and prostrations in the city. Another column--the +last on the front page--announced by cable the news of a fashionable +engagement--a Miss Winifred Stuart to a Mr. Clive Bailey; both at +present in Paris-- + +She read it again, slowly; and even yet it meant nothing to her, +conveyed nothing she seemed able to comprehend. + +But halfway down the column her eyes blurred, the paper slipped from +her hands to the floor, and she dropped back into the hollow of the +sofa, and lay there, unstirring. And Hafiz, momentarily disturbed, +curled up on her lap again and went peacefully to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +To her sisters Athalie wrote: + + "For reasons of economy, and other reasons, I have moved to + 1006 West Fifty-fifth Street where I have the top floor. I + think that you both can find accommodations in this house + when you return to New York. + + "So far I have not secured a position. Please don't think I + am discouraged. I do hope that you are well and successful." + +Their address, at that time, was Vancouver, B. C. + + * * * * * + +To Clive Bailey, Jr., his agent wrote: + + "Miss Athalie Greensleeve called at the office this morning + and returned the keys to the apartment which she has + occupied. + + "Miss Greensleeve explained to me a fact of which I had not + been aware, viz.: that the furniture, books, hangings, + pictures, porcelains, rugs, clothing, furs, bed and table + linen, silver, etc., etc., belong to you and not to her as I + had supposed. + + "I have compared the contents of the apartment with the + minute inventory given me by Miss Greensleeve. Everything is + accounted for; all is in excellent order. + + "I have, therefore, locked up the apartment, pending orders + from you regarding its disposition,"--etc., etc. + + * * * * * + +The tall shabby house in Fifty-fourth Street was one of a five-storied +row built by a speculator to attract fashion many years before. +Fashion ignored the bait. + +A small square of paper which had once been white was pasted on the +brick front just over the tarnished door-bell. On it was written in +ink: "Furnished Rooms." + +Answering in person the first advertisement she had turned to in the +morning paper Athalie had found this place. There was nothing +attractive about it except the price; but that was sufficient in this +emergency. For the girl would not permit herself to remain another +night in the pretty apartment furnished for her by the man whose +engagement had been announced to her through the daily papers. + +And nothing of his would she take with her except the old gun-metal +wrist-watch, and Hafiz, and the barred basket in which Hafiz had +arrived. Everything else she left, her toilet silver, desk-set, her +evening gowns and wraps, gloves, negligées, boudoir caps, slippers, +silk stockings, all her bath linen, everything that she herself had +not purchased out of her own salary--even the little silver cupid +holding aloft his torch, which had been her night-light. + +[Illustration: "With a basket containing Hafiz, her suit-case, and a +furled umbrella she started for her new lodgings."] + +Never again could she illuminate that torch. The other woman must do +that. + + * * * * * + +She went about quietly from room to room, lowering the shades and +drawing the curtains. There was brilliant colour in her cheeks, an +undimmed beauty in her eyes; pride crowned the golden head held steady +and high on its slender, snowy neck. Only the lips threatened +betrayal; and were bitten as punishment into immobility. + +Her small steamer trunk went by a rickety private express for fifty +cents: with the basket containing Hafiz, her suit-case, and a furled +umbrella she started for her new lodgings. + +Michael, opening the lower grille for her, stammered: "God knows why +ye do this, Miss! Th' young Masther'll be afther givin' me the sack av +ye lave the house unbeknowns't him!" + +"I can't stay, Michael. He knows I can't. Good-bye!" + +"Good-bye Miss! God be good to ye--an' th' pusheen--!" laying a huge +but gentle paw on Hafiz's basket whence a gentle plaint arose. + +And so Athalie and Hafiz departed into the world together; and +presently bivouacked; their first étape on life's long journey ending +on the top floor of 1006 West Fifty-fifth Street. + +The landlady was a thin, anxious, and very common woman with false +hair and teeth; and evidently determined to secure Athalie for a +lodger. + +But the terms she offered the girl for the entire top floor were so +absurdly small that Athalie hesitated, astonished and perplexed. + +"Oh, there's a jinx in the place," said the landlady; "I ain't aiming +to deceive nobody, and I'll tell you the God-awful truth. If I don't," +she added naïvely, "somebody else is sure to hand it to you and you'll +get sore on me and quit." + +"What _is_ the matter with the apartment?" inquired the girl uneasily. + +"I'll tell you: the lady that had it went dead on me last August." + +"Is that all?" + +"No, dearie. It was chloral. And of course, the papers got hold of it +and nobody wants the apartment. That's why you get it cheap--if you'll +take it and chase out the jinx that's been wished on me. Will you, +dearie?" + +"I don't know," said the girl, looking around at the newly decorated +and cheerful rooms. + +The landlady sniffed: "It certainly was one on me when I let that jinx +into my house--to have her go dead on me and all like that." + +"Poor thing," murmured Athalie, partly to herself. + +"No, she wasn't poor. You ought to have seen her rings! Them's what +got her into trouble, dearie;--and the roll she flashed." + +"Wasn't it suicide?" asked Athalie. + +[Illustration: "'Wasn't it suicide?' asked Athalie."] + +"I gotta tell you the truth. No, it wasn't. She was feeling fine and +dandy. Business had went good.... There was a young man to visit her +that evening. I seen him go up the stairs.... But I was that sleepy +I went to bed. So I didn't see him come down. And next day at noon +when I went up to do the room she lay dead onto the floor, and her +rings gone, and the roll missing out of her stocking." + +"Did the man kill her?" + +"Yes, dearie. And the papers had it. That's what put me in Dutch. I +gotta be honest with _you_. You'd hear it, anyway." + +"But how could he give her chloral--" + +The anxious, excited little woman's volubility could suffer restraint +no longer: + +"Oh, he could dope her easy in the dark!" she burst out. "Not that the +house ain't thur'ly respectable as far as I can help it, and all my +lodgers is refined. No, Miss Greensleeve, I won't stand for nothing +that ain't refined and genteel. Only what can a honest woman do when +she's abed and asleep, what with all the latch keys and entertainin', +and things like that? No, Miss Greensleeve, I ain't got myself to +blame, being decent and law-abiding and all like that, what with the +police keeping tabs and the neighbourhood not being Fifth Avenoo +either!--and this jinx wished on me--" + +"Please--" + +"Oh, I suppose you ain't a-goin' to stay here now that you've learned +all about these goin's on and all like that--" + +"_Please_ wait!"--for the voluble landlady was already beginning to +sniffle;--"I am perfectly willing to stay, Mrs. Meehan,--if you will +promise to be a little patient about my rent until I secure a +position--" + +"Oh, I will, Miss Greensleeve! I ain't plannin' to press you none! I +know how it is with money and with young ladies. Easy come, easy go! +Just give me what you can. I ain't fixed any too good myself, what +with butchers and bakers and rent owed me and all like that. I guess I +can trust you to act fair and square--" + +"Yes; I am square--so far." + +Mrs. Meehan began to sob, partly with relief, partly with a general +tendency to sentimental hysteria: "I can see that, dearie. And say--if +you're quiet, I ain't peekin' around corners and through key-holes. +No, Miss Greensleeve; that ain't my style! Quiet behaved young ladies +can have their company without me saying nothing to nobody. All I ask +is that no lady will cut up flossy in any shape, form, or manner, but +behave genteel and refined to one and all. I don't want no policeman +in the area. That ain't much to ask, is it?" she gasped, fairly out of +breath between eloquence and tears. + +"No," said Athalie with a faint smile, "it isn't much to ask." + +And so the agreement was concluded; Mrs. Meehan brought in fresh linen +for bed and bathroom, pulled out the new bureau drawers and dusted +them, carried away a few anæmic geraniums in pots, and swept the new +hardwood floor with a dry mop, explaining that the entire apartment +had been renovated and redecorated since the tragic episode of last +August, and that all the furniture was brand new. + +"Her trunks and clothes and all like that was took by the police," +explained Mrs. Meehan, "but she left some rubbish behind a sliding +panel which they didn't find. I found it and I put it on the top shelf +in the closet--" + +She dragged a chair thither, mounted it, and presently came trotting +back to the front room, carrying in both arms a bulky box of green +morocco and a large paper parcel bursting with odds and ends of tinsel +and silk. These she dumped on the centre table, saying: "She had a +cabinet-maker fix up a cupboard in the baseboard, and that's where she +kept gimcracks. The police done me damage enough without my showin' +them her hidin' place and the things she kept there. Here--I'll show +it to you! It's full of keys and electric wires and switches--" + +She took Athalie by the arm and drew her over to the west side of the +room. + +"You can't see nothing there, can you?" she demanded, pointing at the +high wainscoting of dull wood polished by age. + +Athalie confessed she could not. + +"Look!" + +Mrs. Meehan passed her bony hand along the panels until her work-worn +forefinger rested on a polished knot in the richly grained wood. Then +she pushed; and the entire square of panels swung outward, lowering +like a drawbridge, and presently rested flat on the floor. + +"How odd!" exclaimed Athalie, kneeling to see better. + +What she saw was a cupboard lined with asbestos, and an elaborate +electric switchboard set with keys from which innumerable insulated +wires radiated, entering tubes that disappeared in every direction. + +"What are all these for?" she asked, rising to her feet. + +"Dearie, I've got to be honest with _you_. This here lady was a +meejum." + +"A--what?" + +"A meejum." + +"What is that?" + +"Why don't you know, dearie? She threw trances for twenty per. She +seen things. She done stunts with tables and tambourines and +accordions. Why this here place is all wired and fixed up between the +walls and the ceiling and roof and the flooring, too. There is chimes +and bells and harmonicas and mechanical banjos under the flooring and +in the walls and ceiling. There's a whispering phonograph, too, and +something that sighs and sobs. Also a machine that is full of singing +birds that pipe up just as sweet and soft and natural as can be. + +"On rainy days you can amuse yourself with them keys; I don't like to +fool with them myself, being nervous with a weak back and my vittles +not setting right and all like that--" Again she ran down from sheer +lack of breath. + +Athalie gazed curiously at the secret cupboard. After a few moments +she bent over, lifted and replaced the panelling and passed her slim +hand over the wainscot, thoughtfully. + +"So the woman was a trance-medium," she said, half to herself. + +"Yes, Miss Greensleeve. She read the stars, too, and she done cards on +the side; you know--all about a blond gentleman that wants to meet you +and a dark lady comin' over the water to do something mean to you. She +charged high, but she had customers enough--swell ladies, too, in +their automobiles, and old gentlemen and young and all like that.... +Here's part of her outfit"--leading Athalie to the centre table and +opening the green morocco box. + +In the box was a slim bronze tripod and a big sphere of crystal. Mrs. +Meehan placed the tripod on the table and set the crystal sphere upon +it, saying dubiously: "She claimed that she could see things in that. +I guess it was part of her game. I ain't never seen nothing into that +glass ball, and I've looked, too. You can have it if you want it. It's +kind of cute to set on the mantel." + +She began to paw and grub and rummage in the big paper parcel, +scratching about in the glittering mess of silk and embroidery with a +pertinacity entirely gallinaceous. + +"You can have these, too," she said to Athalie--"if you want 'em. +They're heathen I guess--" holding up some tawdry Japanese and +home-made Chinese finery. + +But Athalie declined the dead woman's robes of office and Mrs. Meehan +rolled them up in the wrapping paper and took them and herself off, +very profuse in her gratitude to Athalie for consenting to occupy the +apartment and thereby remove the "jinx" that had inhabited it since +the tragedy of the month before. + +A very soft and melancholy mew from the basket informed the girl that +Hafiz desired his liberty. So she let him out and he trotted at her +heels as she walked about inspecting the apartment. Also he did +considerable inspecting on his own account, sniffing at every +door-sill and crack, jumping up on chairs to look out of windows, +prowling in and out of closets, his plumy tail jerking with +dubiousness and indecision. + +The apartment was certainly clean. Evidently the house had been a good +one in its day, for the trim was dark old mahogany, rich and beautiful +in colour; and the fireplace was rather pretty with its acanthus +leaves and roses deeply carved in marble which time had toned to an +ivory tint. + +The darkly stained floor of hardwood was, of course, modern. So were +the new and very hideous oriental rugs made in Hoboken, and the +aniline pink wall-paper, and the brand new furniture still smelling of +department store varnish. Hideous, too, were the electric fixtures, +the gas-log in the old-time fireplace, and the bargain counter +bric-a-brac geometrically spaced upon the handsome old mantel. + +But there were possibilities in the big, square room facing south and +in the two smaller bed chambers fronting the north. A modern bathroom +connected these. + +To find an entire top floor in New York at such a price was as +amazing as it was comfortable to the girl who had not expected to be +able to afford more than a small bedroom. + + * * * * * + +She had a little money left, enough to purchase food and a few pots +and pans to cook it over the gas range in one of the smaller rooms. + +And here she and Hafiz had their first meal on the long world-trail +stretching away before her. After which she sat for a while by the +window in a stiff arm-chair, thinking of Clive and of his silence, and +of the young girl he was one day to marry. + +Southward, the lights of the city began to break out and sparkle +through the autumn haze; tall towers, hitherto invisible, suddenly +glimmered against the sky-line. A double vista of lighted street lamps +stretched east and west below her. + +The dusty-violet light of evening softened the shabby street below, +veiling ugliness and squalor and subtly transmuting meanness and +poverty to picturesqueness--as artists, using only the flattering +simplicity of essentials, show us in etching and aquarelle the romance +of the commonplace. And so the rusty iron balconies of a chop suey +across the street became quaint and curious: dragon and swinging +gilded sign, banner and garish fretwork grew mellow and mysterious +under the ruddy Hunter's Moon sailing aloft out of the city's haze +like a great Chinese lantern. + +From an unseen steeple or two chimes sounded the hour. Farther away in +the city a bell answered. It is not a city of belfries and chimes; +only locally and by hazard are bell notes distinguishable above the +interminable rolling monotone of the streets. + +And now, the haze thickening, distant reverberations, deep, mellow, +melancholy, grew in the night air: fog horns from the two rivers and +the bay. + +Leaning both elbows on the sill of the opened window Athalie gazed +wearily into the street where noisy children shrilled at one another +and dodged vehicles like those quick tiny creatures whirling on ponds. + +Here and there, the flare of petroleum torches lighted push-carts +piled with fruit or laden with bowls of lemonade and hokey-pokey. +Sidewalks were crowded with shabby people gossiping in groups or +passing east and west--about what squalid business only they could +know. + +On the stoops of all the dwellings, brick or brownstone, people sat; +the men in shirt-sleeves, the young girls bare-headed, and in light +summer gowns. Pianos sounded through open parlour windows; there was +dancing going on somewhere in the block. + +Eastward where the street intersected the glare of the dingy avenue, a +policeman stood on fixed post, the electric lights guttering on his +metal-work when he turned. Athalie had laid her cheek on her arms and +closed her eyes, from fatigue, perhaps; perhaps to force back the +tears which, nevertheless, glimmered on her lashes where they lay +close to the curved white cheeks. + +Little by little the girl was taking degree after degree in her +post-graduate course, the study of which was man. + +And for the first time in her life a new reaction in the laboratory of +experience had revealed to her a new element in her analysis; +bitterness. + +Which is akin to resentment. And to these it is easy to ally +recklessness. + + * * * * * + +There came to her a moment, as she sat huddled there at the window, +when endurance suddenly flashed into a white anger; and she found +herself on her feet, pacing the room as caged things pace, with a sort +of blindly fixed purpose, seeing everything yet looking at nothing +that she passed. + +But after this had lasted long enough she halted, gazing about her as +though for something that might aid her. But there was only the room +and the furniture, and Hafiz asleep on a chair; only these and the +crystal sphere on its slim bronze tripod. And suddenly she found +herself on her knees beside it, staring into its dusky transparent +depths, fixing her mind, concentrating every thought, straining every +faculty, every nerve in the one desperate and imperative desire. + +But through the crystal's depths there is no aid for those who "see +clearly," no comfort, no answer. She could not find there the man she +searched for--the man for whom her soul cried out in fear, in anger, +in despair. As in a glass, darkly, only her own face she saw, +fire-edged with a light like that which burns deep in black opals. + +Prone on the floor at last, her white face framed by her hands, her +eyes wide open in the dark, she finally understood that her clear +vision was of no avail where she herself was concerned; that they who +see clearly can never use that vision to help themselves. + +Fiercely she resented it,--the more bitterly because for the first +time in her life she had condescended to any voluntary effort toward +clairvoyance. + +Wearily she sat up on the floor and gathered her knees into her arms, +staring at nothing there in the darkness while the slow tears fell. + +Never before had she known loneliness. A man had made her understand +it. Never before had she known bitterness. A man had taught it to her. +Never again should any man do what this man had done to her! She was +learning resentment. + +All men should be the same to her hereafter. All men should stand +already condemned. Never again should one among them betray her mind +to reveal itself, persuade her heart to response, her lips to +sacrifice their sweetness and their pride, her soul to stir in its +sleep, awake, and answer. And for what the minds and hearts of men +might bring upon themselves, let men be responsible. Their +inclinations, offers, protests, promises as far as they regarded +herself could never again affect her. Let man look to himself; his +desires no longer concerned her. Let him keep his distance--or take +his chances. And there were no chances. + +Athalie was learning resentment. + + * * * * * + +Somebody was knocking. Athalie rose from the floor, turned on the +lights, dried her eyes, went slowly to the door, and opened it. + +A large, fat, pallid woman stood in the hallway. Her eyes were as +washed out as her faded, yellowish hair; and her kimono needed +washing. + +"Good evening," she said cordially, coming in without any +encouragement from Athalie and settling her uncorseted bulk in the +arm-chair. "My name is Grace Bellmore,--Mrs. Grace Bellmore. I have +the rear rooms under yours. If you're ever lonely come down and talk +it over. Neighbours are not what they might be in this house. Look out +for the Meehan, too. I'd call her a cat only I like cats. Say, that's +a fine one on your bed there. Persian? Oh, Angora--" here she fished +out a cigarette from the pocket of her wrapper, found a match, +scratched it on the sole of her ample slipper, and lighted her +cigarette. + +"Have one?" she inquired. "No? Don't like them? Oh, well, you'll come +to 'em. Everything comes easy when you're lonely. _I_ know. You don't +have to tell me. God! I get so sick of my own company sometimes--" + +She turned her head to gaze about her, twisting her heavy, creased +neck as far as the folds of fat permitted: "You had your nerve with +you when you took this place. I knew Mrs. Del Garmo. I warned her, +too. But she was a bone-head. A woman can't be careless in this town. +And when it comes to men--say, Miss Greensleeve, I want to know their +names before they ask me to dinner and start in calling me Grace. It's +Grace _after_ meat with _me_!" And she laughed and laughed, slapping +her fat knee with a pudgy, ring-laden hand. + +Athalie, secretly dismayed, forced a polite smile. Mrs. Bellmore blew +a few smoke rings toward the ceiling. + +"Are you in business, Miss Greensleeve?" + +"Yes.... I am looking for a position." + +"What a pretty voice--and refined way of speaking!" exclaimed Mrs. +Bellmore frankly. "I guess you've seen better days. Most people have. +Tell you the truth, though, I haven't. I'm better off than I ever was +before. Of course this is the dull season, but things are picking up. +What is your line, Miss Greensleeve?" + +"Stenographer." + +"Oh! Well, I don't suppose I could do anything for you, could I?" + +"I don't know what your business is," ventured Athalie, who, +heretofore had not dared even to surmise what might be the vocation of +this very large and faded woman who wore a pink kimono and a dozen +rings on her nicotine-stained fingers, and who smoked incessantly. + +The woman seemed to be a trifle surprised: "Haven't you ever heard of +Grace Bellmore?" she asked. + +"I don't think so," said Athalie with increasing diffidence. + +"Well, maybe you wouldn't, not being in the profession. The managers +all know me. I run an Emergency Agency on Broadway." + +"I don't think I understand," said the girl. + +"No? Then it's like this: a show gets stuck and needs a quick study. +They call me up and I throw them what they want at an hour's notice. +They can always count on me for anything from wardrobe mistress to +prima donna. That's how I get mine," she concluded with a jolly laugh. + +Athalie, feeling a little more confidence in her visitor, smiled at +her. + +"Say--you're a beauty!" exclaimed Mrs. Bellmore, gazing at her. +"You're all there, too. I could place you easy if you ever need it. +You don't sing, do you?" + +"No." + +"Ever had your voice tried?" + +"No." + +"Dance?" + +"I dance--whatever is being danced--rather easily." + +"No stage experience?" + +"No." + +"Well--what do you say, Miss Greensleeve?" + +Athalie coloured and laughed: "Thank you, but I had rather work at +stenography." + +Mrs. Bellmore said: "I certainly hate to admit it, and knock my own +profession, but any good stenographer in a year makes more than many a +star you read about.... Unless there's men putting up for her." + +Athalie nodded gravely. + +"All the same you'd make a peach of a show-girl," added Mrs. Bellmore +regretfully. And, after a rather intent interval of silent scrutiny: +"You're a _good_ girl, too.... Say, you _do_ get pretty lonely +sometimes, don't you, dear?" + +Athalie flushed and shook her head. Mrs. Bellmore lighted another +cigarette from the smouldering remnant of the previous one, and flung +the gilt-tipped remains through the window. + +"Ten to one it hits a crook if it hits anybody," she remarked. "This +is a fierce neighbourhood,--all sorts of joints, and then some. But I +like my rooms. I don't guess you'll be bothered. A girl is more likely +to get spoken to in the swell part of town. Well,--" she struggled to +her fat feet--"I'll be going. If you're lonely, drop in during the +evening. I'm at the office all day except Sundays and holidays." + +They stood, confronted, looking at each other for a moment. Then, +impulsively the fat woman offered her hand: + +"Don't be afraid of me," she said. "I may look crooked, but I'm not. +Your mother wouldn't mind my knowing you." + +She held Athalie's narrow hand for a moment, and the girl looked into +the faded eyes. + +"Thank you for coming," she said. "I _was_ lonely." + +"Good girls usually are. It's a hell of an alternative, isn't it? I +don't mean to be profane; hell is the word. It's hell either way for a +girl alone." + +Athalie nodded silently. Mrs. Bellmore looked at her, then glanced +around the room, curiously. + +"Hello," she said abruptly, "what's that?" + +Athalie's eyes followed hers: "Do you mean the crystal?" + +"Yes.... Say--" she turned to Athalie, nodding profound emphasis on +every word she uttered:--"Say, I _thought_ there was something else +to you--something I couldn't quite get next to. Now I know what's been +bothering me about you. You're clairvoyant!" + +Athalie's cheeks grew warm: "I am not a medium," she said. "That +crystal is not my own." + +"That may be. Maybe you don't think you are a medium. But you are, +Miss Greensleeve. _I_ know. I'm a little that way, too,--just a very +little. Oh, I could go into the business and fake it of course,--like +all the others--or most of them. But you are the real thing. Why," she +exclaimed in vexation, "didn't I know it as soon as I laid eyes on +you? I certainly was subconscious of something. Why you could do +anything you pleased with the power you have if you'd care to learn +the business. There's money in it--take it from me!" + +Athalie said, after a few moments of silence: "I don't think I +understand. Is there a way of--of developing clear vision?" + +"Haven't you ever tried?" + +"Never.... Except when a little while ago I went over to the crystal +and--and tried to find--somebody." + +"Did you find--that person?" + +"No." + +Mrs. Bellmore shook her fat head: "You needn't tell me any more. You +can't ever do yourself any good by crystal gazing--you poor child." + +Athalie's head dropped. + +"No, it's no use," said the other. "If you go into the business and +play square you can sometimes help others. But I guess the crystal is +mostly fake. Mrs. Del Garmo had one like yours. She admitted to me +that she never saw anything in it until she hypnotised herself. And +she could do that by looking steadily at a brass knob on a bed-post; +and see as much in it as in her crystal." + +The fat woman lighted another cigarette and blew a contemplative whiff +toward the crystal: "No: at best the game is a crooked one, even for +the few who have really any occult power." + +"Why?" asked the girl, surprised. + +"Because they are usually clever, nimble-witted, full of intuition. +Deduction is an instinct with them. And it is very easy to elaborate +from a basis of truth;--it's more than a temptation to intelligence to +complete a story desired and already paid for by a client. Because +almost invariably the client is as stupid as the medium is +intelligent. And, take it from me, it's impossible not to use your +intelligence when a partly finished business deal requires it." + +Athalie was silent. + +"_I'd_ do it," laughed Mrs. Bellmore. + +Athalie said nothing. + +"Say, on the level," said the older woman, "do you see a lot that we +others can't see, Miss Greensleeve?" + +"I have seen--some things." + +"Plenty, too, I'll bet! Oh, it's in your pretty face, in your +eyes!--it's in you, all about you. I'm not much in that line but I can +feel it in the air. Why I felt it as soon as I came into your room, but +I was that stupid--thinking of Mrs. Del Garmo--and never associating it +with you!... Do you do any trance work?" + +"No.... I have never cultivated--anything of that sort." + +"I know. The really gifted don't cultivate the power as a rule. Only one +now and then, and here and there. The others are pure frauds--almost +every one of them. But--" she looked searchingly at the girl,--"you're +no fraud! Why you're full of it!--full--saturated--alive with--with +vitality--psychical and physical!--You're a glorious thing--half +spiritual, half human--a superb combination of vitality, sacred and +profane!"--She checked herself and turned on the girl almost savagely: +"Who was the fool of a man you were looking for in the crystal?... Very +well; don't tell then. I didn't suppose you would. Only--God help him +for the fool he is--and forgive him for what he has done to you!... And +may I never enter this room again and find you with the tears freshly +scrubbed out of the most honest eyes God ever gave a woman!... Good +night, Miss Greensleeve!" + +"Good night," said Athalie. + +After she had closed the door and locked it she turned back into the +empty room, moving uncertainly as though scarcely knowing what she was +about. And then, suddenly, the terror of utter desolation seized her, +and for the first time she realised what Clive had been to her, _and +what he had not been_--understood for the first time in her life the +complex miracle called love, its synthesis, its every element, every +molecule, every atom, and flung herself across the bed, half +strangled, sobbing out her passion and her grief. + +Dawn found her lying there; but the ravage of that night had stripped +her of much that she had been, and never again would be. And what had +been taken from her was slowly being replaced by what she had never +yet been. Night stripped her; the red dawn clothed her. + +She sat up, dry-eyed, unbound her hair, flung from her the crumpled +negligée. Presently the first golden-pink ray of the rising sun fell +across her snowy body, and she flung out her lovely arms to it as +though to draw it into her empty heart. + +Hafiz, blinking his jewelled eyes, watched her lazily from his +pillow. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +As she came, pensively, from her morning bath into the sunny front +room Athalie noticed the corner of an envelope projecting from beneath +her door. + +For one heavenly moment the old delight surprised her at sight of +Clive's handwriting,--for one moment only, before an overwhelming +reaction scoured her heart of tenderness and joy; and the terrible +resurgence of pain and grief wrung a low cry from her: "Why couldn't +he let me alone!" And she crumpled the letter fiercely in her clenched +hand. + +Minute after minute she stood there, her white hand tightening as +though to strangle the speech written there on those crushed +sheets--perhaps to throttle and silence the faint, persistent cry of +her own heart pleading a hearing for the man who had written to her at +last. + +And after a while her nerveless hand relaxed; she looked down at the +crushed thing in her palm for a long time before she smoothed it out +and finally opened it. + +He wrote: + + "It is too long a story to go into in detail. I couldn't, + anyway. My mother had desired it for a long time. I have + nothing to say about it except this: I would not for all the + world have had you receive the first information from the + columns of a newspaper. Of that part of it I have a right to + speak, because the announcement was made without my knowledge + or consent. And I'll say more: it was made even before I + myself was aware that an engagement existed. + + "Don't mistake what I write you, Athalie. I am not trying to + escape any responsibility excepting that of premature + publicity. Whatever else has happened I am fully responsible + for. + + "And so--what can I have to say to you, Athalie? Silence were + decenter perhaps--God knows!--and He knows, too, that in me + he fashioned but an irresolute character, void of the initial + courage of conviction, without deep and sturdy belief, + unsteady to a true course set, and lacking in rugged purpose. + + "It is not stupidity: in the bottom of my own heart I _know_! + Custom, habit, acquired and inculcated acquiescence in + unanalysed beliefs--these require more than irresolution and + a negative disposition to fight them and overcome them. + + "Athalie, the news you must have read in the newspapers + should first have come from me. Among many, many debts I must + ever owe you, that one at least was due you. And I defaulted; + but not through any fault of mine. + + "I could not rest until you knew this. Whatever you may think + about me now--however lightly you weigh me--remember this--if + you ever remember me at all in the years to come: I was aware + of my paramount debt: I should have paid it had the + opportunity not been taken out of my own hands. And that debt + paramount was to inform you first of anybody concerning what + you read in a public newspaper. + + "Now there remains nothing more for me to say that you would + care to hear. You would no longer care to know,--would + probably not believe me if I should tell you what you have + been to me--and still are--and still are, Athalie! + Athalie!--" + +The letter ended there with her name. She kept it all day; but that +night she destroyed it. And it was a week before she wrote him: + + "--Thank you for your letter, Clive. I hope all is well with + you and yours. I wish you happiness; I desire for you all + things good. And also--for _her_. Surely I may say this much + without offence--when I am saying good-bye forever. + "ATHALIE." + +In due time, to this came his answer, tragic in its brevity, terrible +in its attempt to say nothing--so that its stiff cerement of formality +seemed to crack with every written word and its platitudes split open +under the fierce straining of the living and unwritten words beneath +them. + +And to this she made no answer. And destroyed it after the sun had +set. + + * * * * * + +Her money was now about gone. Indian summer brought no prospect of +employment. Never had she believed that so many stenographers existed +in the world; never had she supposed that vacant positions could be +so pitifully few. + +During October her means had not afforded her proper nourishment. + +The vigour of young womanhood demands more than milk and crackers and +a rare slab from some delicatessen shop. + +As for Hafiz, to his astonishment he had been introduced to +chuck-steak; and the pleasure was anything but unmitigated. But +chuck-steak was more than his mistress had. + +Mrs. Bellmore was inclined to eat largely of late suppers prepared on +an oil stove by her own fair and very fat hands. + +Athalie accepted one or two invitations, and then accepted no more, +being unable to return anybody's hospitality. + +Captain Dane called persistently without being received, until she +wrote him not to come again until she sent for him. + +Nobody else knew where she was except her sisters. Doris wrote from +Los Angeles complaining of slack business. Later Catharine wrote +asking for money. And Athalie was obliged to answer that she had none. + +Now "none" means not any at all. And the time had now arrived when +that was the truth. The chuck-steak cut up on Hafiz's plate in the +bathroom had been purchased with postage stamps--the last of a sheet +bought by Athalie in days of affluence for foreign correspondence. + +There was no more foreign correspondence. Hence the chuck-steak, and +a bottle of milk in the sink and a packet of biscuits on the shelf. +And a rather pale, young girl lying flat on the lounge in the front +room, her blue eyes wide, staring up at the fading sun-beams on the +ceiling. + +If she was desperate she was quiet about it--perhaps even at moments a +little incredulous that there actually could be nothing left for her +to live on. It was one of those grotesque episodes that did not seem +to belong in her life--something which ought not--that could not +happen to her. At moments, however, she realised that it had +happened--realised that part of the nightmare had been happening for +some time--that for a good while now, she had always been more or less +hungry, even after a rather reckless orgy on crackers and milk. + +Except that she felt a little fatigued there was in her no tendency to +accept the _chose arrivée_, no acquiescence in the _fait accompli_, +nothing resembling any bowing of the head, any meek desire to kiss the +rod; only a still resentment, a quiet but steady anger, the new and +cool opportunism that hatches recklessness. + +What channel should she choose? That was all that chance had left for +her to decide,--merely what form her recklessness should take. + +Whatever of morality had been instinct in the girl now seemed to be in +absolute abeyance. In the extremity of dire necessity, cornered at +last, face to face with a world that threatened her, and watching it +now out of cool, intelligent eyes, she had, without realising it, +slipped back into her ragged childhood. + +There was nothing else to slip back to, no training, no discipline, no +foundation other than her companionship with a mother whom she had +loved but who had scarcely done more for her than to respond vaguely +to the frankness of inquiring childhood. + +Her childhood had been always a battle--a happy series of conflicts as +she remembered--always a fight among strenuous children to maintain +her feet in her little tattered shoes against rough aggression and +ruthless competition. + +And now, under savage pressure, she slipped back again in spirit to +the school-yard, and became a watchful, agile, unmoral thing again--a +creature bent on its own salvation, dedicated to its own survival, +atrociously ready for any emergency, undismayed by anything that might +offer itself, and ready to consider, weigh, and determine any chance +for existence. + +Almost every classic alternative in turn presented itself to her as +she lay there considering. She could go out and sell herself. But, +oddly enough, the "easiest way" was not easy for her. And, as a child, +also, a fastidious purity had been instinctive in her, both in body +and mind. + +There were other and easier alternatives; she could go on the stage, +or into domestic service, or she could call up Captain Dane and tell +him she was hungry. Or she could let any one of several young men +understand that she was now permanently receptive to dinner +invitations. And she could, if she chose, live on her personal +popularity,--be to one man or to several _une maitresse +vierge_--manage, contrive, accept, give nothing of consequence. + +For she was a girl to flatter the vanity of men; and she knew that if +ever she coolly addressed her mind to it she could rule them, entangle +them, hold them sufficiently long, and flourish without the ultimate +concession, because there were so many, many men in the world, and it +took each man a long, long time to relinquish hope; and always there +was another ready to try his fortune, happy in his vanity to attempt +where all so far had failed. + +Something she _had_ to do; that was certain. And it happened, while +she was pondering the problem, that the only thing she had not +considered,--had not even thought of--was now abruptly presented to +her. + +For, as she lay there thinking, there came the sound of footsteps +outside her door, and presently somebody knocked. And Athalie rose in +the dusk of the room, switched on a single light, went to the door and +opened it. And opportunity walked in wearing the shape of an elderly +gentleman of substance, clothed as befitted a respectable dweller in +any American city except New York. + +"Good evening," he said, looking at her pleasantly but inquiringly. +"Is Mrs. Del Garmo in?" + +"Mrs. Del Garmo?" repeated Athalie, surprised. "Why, Mrs. Del Garmo is +dead!" + +"God bless us!" he exclaimed in a shocked voice. "Is that so? Well, +I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. Well--well--well! Mrs. Del Garmo! I +certainly am sorry." + +He looked curiously about him, shaking his head, and an absent +expression came into his white-bearded face--which changed to lively +interest when his eyes fell on the table where the crystal stood +mounted between the prongs of the bronze tripod. + +"No doubt," he said, looking at Athalie, "you are Mrs. Del Garmo's +successor in the occult profession. I notice a crystal on the table." + +And in that instant the inspiration came to the girl, and she took it +with the coolness and ruthlessness of last resort. + +"What is it you wish?" she asked calmly, "a reading?" + +He hesitated, looking at her out of aged but very honest eyes; and in +a moment she was at his mercy, and the game had gone against her. She +said, while the hot colour slowly stained her face: "I have never read +a crystal. I had not thought of succeeding Mrs. Del Garmo until +now--this moment." + +"What is your name, child?" he asked in a gently curious voice. + +"Athalie Greensleeve." + +"You are not a trance-medium?" + +"No. I am a stenographer." + +"Then you are not psychical?" + +"Yes, I am." + +"What?" + +"I am naturally clairvoyant." + +He seemed surprised at first; but after he had looked at her for a +moment or two he seemed less surprised. + +"I believe you are," he said half to himself. + +"I really am.... If you wish I could try. But--I don't know how to go +about it," she said with flushed embarrassment. + +He gazed at her it seemed rather solemnly and wistfully. "There is one +thing very certain," he said; "you are honest. And few mediums are. I +think Mrs. Del Garmo was. I believed in her. She was the means of +giving me very great consolation." + +Athalie's face flushed with the shame and pity of her knowledge of the +late Mrs. Del Garmo; and the thought of the secret cupboard with its +nest of wires made her blush again. + +The old gentleman looked all around the room and then asked if he +might seat himself. + +Athalie also sat down in the stiff arm-chair by the table where her +crystal stood on its tripod. + +"I wonder," he ventured, "whether you could help me. Do you think so?" + +"I don't know," replied the girl. "All I know about it is that I +cannot help myself through crystal gazing. I never looked into a +crystal but once. And what I searched for was not there." + +The old gentleman considered her earnestly for a few moments. "Child," +he said, "you are very honest. Perhaps you could help me. It would be +a great consolation to me if you could. Would you try?" + +"I don't know how," murmured Athalie. + +"Maybe I can aid you to try by telling you a little about myself." + +The girl lifted her flushed face from the crystal: + +"Don't do that, please. If you wish me to try I will. But don't tell +me anything." + +"Why not?" + +"Because--I am--intelligent and quick--imaginative--discerning. I +might unconsciously--or otherwise--be unfair. So don't tell me +anything. Let me see if there really is in me any ability." + +He met her candid gaze mildly but unsmilingly; and she folded her slim +hands in her lap and sat looking at him very intently. + +"Is your name Symes?" she asked presently. + +He nodded. + +"Elisha Symes?" + +"Yes." + +"And--do you live in Brook--Brookfield--no!--Brookhollow?" + +"Yes." + +"That town is in Connecticut, is it not?" + +"Yes." + +His trustful gaze had altered, subtly. She noticed it. + +"I suppose," she said, "you think I could have found out these things +through dishonest methods." + +"I was thinking so.... I am satisfied that you are honest, Miss +Greensleeve." + +"I really am--so far." + +"Could you tell me how you learned my name and place of residence." + +Her expression became even more serious: "I don't know, Mr. Symes.... +I don't know _how_ I knew it.... I think you wish me to help you find +your little grandchildren, too. But I don't know why I think so." + +When he spoke, controlled emotion made his voice sound almost feeble. + +He said: "Yes; find my little grandchildren and tell me what they are +doing." He passed a transparent hand unsteadily across his dim eyes: +"They are not living," he added. "They were lost at sea." + +She said: "Nothing dies. Nothing is really lost." + +"Why do you think so, child?" + +"Because the whole world is gay and animated and lovely with what we +call 'the dead.' And, by the dead I mean _all_ things great and small +that have ever lived." + +He sat listening with all the concentration and rapt attention of a +child intent upon a fairy tale. She said, as though speaking to +herself: "You should see and hear the myriads of birds that have +'died'! The sky is full of their voices and their wings.... +Everywhere--everywhere the lesser children live,--those long dead of +inhumanity or of that crude and temporary code which we call the law +of nature. All has been made up to them--whatever of cruelty and pain +they suffered--whatever rigour of the 'natural' law in that chain of +destruction which we call the struggle for existence.... For there is +only one real law, and it rules all of space that we can see, and more +of it than we can even imagine.... It is the law of absolute justice." + +The old man nodded: "Do you believe that?" + +She looked up at him dreamily: "Yes; I believe it. Or I should not +have said it." + +"Has anybody ever told you this?" + +"No.... I never even thought about it until this moment while +listening to my own words."... She lifted one hand and rested it +against her forehead: "I cannot seem to think of your grandchildren's +names.... Don't tell me." + +She remained so for a few moments, motionless, then with a graceful +gesture and a shake of her pretty head: "No, I can't think of their +names. Do you suppose I could find them in the crystal?" + +"Try," he said tremulously. She bent forward, resting both elbows on +the table and framing her lovely face in her hands. + +Deep into the scintillating crystal her blue gaze plunged; and for a +few moments she saw nothing. Then, almost imperceptibly, faint hues +and rainbow tints grew in the brilliant and transparent +sphere--gathered, took shape as she watched, became coherent and +logical and clear and real. + +She said in a low voice, still watching intently: "Blue sky, green +trees, a snowy shore, and little azure wavelets.... Two children +bare-legged, playing in the sand.... A little girl--so pretty!--with +her brown eyes and brown curls.... And the boy is her brother I +think.... Oh, certainly.... And what a splendid time they are having +with their sand-fort!... There's a little dog, too. They are calling +him, 'Snippy! Snippy! Snippy!' How he barks at the waves! And now he +has seized the little girl's doll! They are running after him, chasing +him along the sands! Oh, how funny they are!--and what a glorious +time they are having.... The puppy has dropped the doll.... The doll's +name is Augusta.... Now the little girl has seated herself +cross-legged on the sand and she is cradling the doll and singing to +it--such a sweet, clear, happy little voice.... She is singing +something about cherry pie--Oh!--now I can hear every word: + + "Cherry pie, + Cherry pie, + You shall have some bye and bye. + Bye and Bye + Bye and Bye + You and I shall have a pie, + Cherry pie + Cherry pie-- + +"The boy is saying: 'Grandpa will have plenty for us when we get home. +There's always cherry pie at Grandpa's house.' + +"And the little girl answers, 'I think Grandpa will come here pretty +soon and bring us all the cherry pie we want.'... Her name is +Jessie.... Her brother calls her 'Jessie.' She calls him 'Jim.' + +"Their other name is Colden, I think.... Yes, that is it--Colden.... +They seem to be expecting their father and mother; but I don't see +them--Oh, yes. I can see them now--in the distance, walking slowly +along the sands--" + +She hesitated, remained silent for a few moments; then: "The colours +are blurring to a golden haze. I can't see clearly now; it is like +looking into the blinding disk of the rising sun.... All splendour +and dazzling glory--and a too fierce light--" + +For a moment more she remained bent over above the sphere, then +raising her head: "The crystal is transparent and empty," she said. + +[Illustration: "She said in a low voice, still watching intently: +'Blue sky, green trees, a snowy shore, and little azure +wavelets....'"] + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +It was about five months later that Cecil Reeve wrote his long reply +to a dozen letters from Clive Bailey which heretofore had remained +unanswered and neglected: + + "--For Heaven's sake, do you think I've nothing to do except + to write you letters? I _never_ write letters; and here's the + exception to prove it. And if I were not at the Geyser Club, + and if I had not dined incautiously, I would not write this! + + "But first permit me the indiscretion of asking you why an + engaged man is so charitably interested in the welfare of a + young girl who is not engaged to him? And if he is + interested, why doesn't he write to her himself and find out + how she is? Or has she turned you down? + + "But you need not incriminate and degrade yourself by + answering this question. + + "Seriously, Clive, you'd better get all thoughts of Athalie + Greensleeve out of your head as long as you intend to get + married. I knew, of course, that you'd been hard hit. + Everybody was gossiping last winter. But this is rather raw, + isn't it?--asking me to find out how Athalie is and what she + is doing; and to write you in detail? Well anyway I'll tell + you once for all what I hear and know about her and her + family--her family first, as I happen to have had dealings + with them. And hereafter you can do your own philanthropic + news gathering. + + "Doris and Catharine were in a rotten show I backed. And when + I couldn't afford to back it any longer Doris was ungrateful + enough to marry a man who cultivated dates, figs, and pecan + nuts out in lower California, and Catharine has just written + me a most impertinent letter saying that real men grew only + west of the Mississippi, and that she is about to marry one + of them who knows more in half a minute than anybody could + ever learn during a lifetime in New York, meaning me and + Hargrave. I guess she meant me; and I guess it's so--about + Hargrave. Except for myself, we certainly are a bunch of + boobs in this out-of-date old town. + + "Now about Athalie,--she dropped out of sight after you went + abroad. Nobody seemed to know where she was or what she was + doing. Nobody ever saw her at restaurants or theatres except + during the first few weeks after your departure. And then she + was usually with that Dane chap--you know--the explorer. I + wrote to her sisters making inquiries in behalf of myself and + Francis Hargrave; but they either didn't know or wouldn't + tell us where she was living. Neither would Dane. I didn't + suppose he knew at the time; but he did. + + "Well, what do you think has happened? Athalie Greensleeve is + the most talked about girl in town! She has become the + fashion, Clive. You hear her discussed at dinners, at dances, + everywhere. + + "Some bespectacled guy from Columbia University had an + article about her in one of the recent magazines. Every paper + has had something to say concerning her. They all disagree + except on one point,--that Athalie Greensleeve is the most + beautiful woman in New York. How does that hit you, Clive? + + "Well, here's the key to the box of tricks. I'll hand it to + you now. Athalie has turned into a regular, genuine, out and + out clairvoyant, trade-marked patented. And society with a + big _S_ and science with a little _s_ are fighting to take + her up and make a plaything of her. And the girl is making + all kinds of money. + + "Of course her beauty and pretty manners are doing most of it + for her, but here's another point: rumour has it that she's + perfectly sincere and honest in her business. + + "How can she be, Clive? I ask you. Also I hand it to her + press-agent. He's got every simp in town on the run. He knows + his public. + + "Well, the first time I met her she was dining with Dane + again at the Arabesque. She seemed really glad to see me. + There's a girl who remains unaffected and apparently + unspoiled by her success. And she certainly has delightful + manners. Dane glowered at me but Athalie made me sit down for + a few minutes. Gad! I was that flattered to be seen with such + a looker! + + "She told me how it began--she couldn't secure a decent + position, and all her money was gone, when in came an old guy + who had patronised the medium whose rooms she was living in. + + "That started it. The doddering old rube insisted that + Athalie take a crack at the crystal business; she took one, + and landed him. And when he went out he left a hundred bones + in his wake and a puddle of tears on the rug. + + "She didn't tell it to me like this: she really fell for the + old gentleman. But I could size him up for a come-on. The + rural districts crawl with that species. Now what gets me, + Clive, is this: Athalie seems to me to be one of the + straightest ever. Of course she has changed a lot. She's + cleverer, livelier, gayer, more engaging and bewitching than + ever--and believe me she's some flirt, in a sweet, + bewildering sort of way--so that you'd give your head to know + how much is innocence and how much is art of a most + delicious--and, sometimes, malicious kind. + + "That's the girl. And that's all she is, just a girl, with + all the softness and freshness and fragrance of youth still + clinging to her. She's some peach-blossom, take it from + uncle! And she is straight; or I'm a million miles away in + the lockup. + + "And now, granted she's morally straight, how _can_ she be + square in business? Do you get me? It's past me. All I can + think of is that, being straight, the girl feels herself that + she's also square. + + "Yet, if that is so, how can she fool others so neatly? + + "Listen, Clive: I was at a dance at the Faithorn's; + tremendous excitement among pin-heads and débutantes! Athalie + was expected, professionally. And sure enough, just before + supper, in strolls a radiant, wonderful young thing making + them all look like badly faded guinea-hens--and somehow I get + the impression that she is receiving her hostess instead of + the contrary. Talk about self-possession and absolute + simplicity! She had 'em all on the bench. Happening to catch + my eye she held out her hand with one of those smiles she can + be guilty of--just plain assassination, Clive!--and I stuck + to her until the pin-heads crowded me out, and the rubbering + women got my shoulders all over paint. And now here's where + she gets 'em. There's no curtained corner, no pasteboard + trophies, no gipsy shawls and bangles, no lowering of lights, + no closed doors, no whispers. + + "Whoever asks her anything spooky she answers in a sweet and + natural voice, as though replying to an ordinary question. + She makes no mystery of it. Sometimes she can't answer, and + she says so without any excuse or embarrassment. Sometimes + her replies are vague or involved or even apparently + meaningless. She admits very frankly that she is not always + able to understand what her reply means. + + "However she says enough--tells, reveals, discovers, offers + sound enough advice--to make her _the_ plaything of the + season. + + "And it's a cinch that she scores more bull's eyes than + blanks. I had a séance with her. Never mind what she told me. + Anyway it was devilish clever,--and true as far as I knew. + And I suppose the chances are good that the whole business + will happen to me. Watch me. + + "I think Athalie must have cleared a lot of money already. + Mrs. Faithorn told me she gave her a cheque for five hundred + that evening. And Athalie's private business must be pretty + good because all the afternoon until five o'clock carriages + and motors are coming and going. And you ought to see who's + in 'em. Your prospective father-in-law was in one! Perhaps he + wanted inside information about Dominion Fuel--that damn + stock which has done a few things to me since I monkeyed with + it. + + "But you should see the old dragons and dowagers and + death-heads, and frumps who go to see Athalie! And the + younger married bunch, too. I understand one has to ask for + an appointment a week ahead. + + "So she must be making every sort of money. And yet she lives + simply enough--sky floor of a new office-apartment building + on Long Acre--hoisted way up in the air above everything. You + look out and see nothing but city and river and bay and haze + on every side as far as the horizon's circle. At night it's + just an endless waste of electric lights. There's very little + sound from the street roar below. It's still up there in the + sky, and sunny; silent and snowy; quiet and rainy; noiseless + and dark--according to the hours, seasons, and meteorological + conditions, my son. And it's some joint, believe me, with the + dark old mahogany trim and furniture and the dull rich + effects in azure and gold; and the Beluch carpets full of + sombre purple and dusky fire, and the white cat on the + window-sill watching you put of its sapphire blue eyes. + + "And Athalie! curled up on her deep, soft divan, nibbling + sweetmeats and listening to a dozen men--for there are + usually as many as that who drop in at one time or another + after business is over, and during the evening, unless + Athalie is dining out, which she often does, damn it! + + "Business hours for her begin at two o'clock in the + afternoon; and last until five. She could make a lot more + money than she does if she opened earlier. I told her this, + once, but she said that she was determined to educate + herself. + + "And it seems that she studies French, Italian, German, piano + and vocal music; and has some down-and-out old hen read with + her. I believe her ambition is to take the regular Harvard + course as nearly as possible. Some nerve! What? + + "Well, that's how her mornings go; and now I've given you, I + think, a fair schedule of the life she leads. That fellow + Dane hangs about a lot. So do Hargrave and Faithorn and young + Allys and Arthur Ensart. And so do I, Clive; and a lot of + others. Why, I don't know. I don't suppose we'd marry her; + and yet it would not surprise me if any one of us asked her. + My suspicions are that the majority of the men who go there + _have_ asked her. We're a fine lot, we men. So damn + fastidious. And then we go to sentimental pieces when we at + last get it into our bone-heads that there is no other way + that leads to Athalie except by marrying her. And we ask her. + And _then_ we get turned down! + + "Clive, _that_ girl ought to be easy. To look at her you'd + say she was made of wax, easily moulded, and fashioned to be + loved, and to love. But, by God, I don't think it's in her to + love.... For, if it were--good night. She'd have raised the + devil in this world long ago. And some of us would have done + murder before now. + + "If I had not dined so copiously and so rashly I wouldn't + write you all this. I'd write a page or two and lie to you, + politely. And so I'll say this: I really do believe that it + is in Athalie to love some man. And I believe, if she did + love him, she'd love him in any way he asked her. He hasn't + come along yet; that's all. But Oh! how he will be hated when + he does--unless he is the marrying kind. And anyway he'll be + hated. Because, however he does it, he'll get one of the + loveliest girls this town ever set eyes on. And the rest of + us will realise it then, and there will be some + teeth-gnashing, believe me!--and some squirming. Because the + worm that never dieth will continue to chew us one and all, + and never, never let us forget that the girl no man of our + sort could really condescend to marry, had been asked by + every one of us in turn to marry him; and had declined. + + "And I'll add this for my own satisfaction: the man who gets + her, and doesn't marry her, will ultimately experience a + biting from that same worm which will make our lacerations + resemble the agreeable tickling of a feather. + + "We're a rotten lot of cowards. And what hypocrites we are! + + "I saw Fontaine sending flowers to his wife. He'd been at + Athalie's all the evening. There are only two occasions on + which a man sends flowers to his wife; one of them is when + he's in love with her. + + "Aren't we the last word in scuts? Custom-ridden, + habit-cursed, afraid, eternally afraid of something--of our + own sort always, and of their opinions. And that offering of + flowers when the man who sends them hopes to do something of + which he is ashamed, or has already done it! + + "How I do run on! In _vino veritas_--there's some class to + pickled truth! Here are olives for thought, red peppers for + honesty, onions for logic--and cauliflower for constancy--and + fifty-seven other varieties, Clive--all absent in the canned + make-up of the modern man. + + "'When you and I behind the veil have passed'--but they don't + wear veils now; and now is our chance. + + "We'll never take it. Hall-marks are our only guide. When + absent we merely become vicious. We know what we want; we + know what we ought to have; but we're too cowardly to go + after it. And so are you. And so am I. + "Yours-- + "REEVE." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +During that first year Athalie Greensleeve saw a great deal of New +York society, professionally, and of many New York men, socially. + +But the plaything which society attempted to make of her she gently +but adroitly declined to become. She herself drew this line whenever +it was necessary to draw it, never permitting herself to mistake the +fundamental attitude of these agreeable and amicably demonstrative +people toward her, or toward any girl who lived alone in New York and +who practised such a profession. + +Not among the people who employed her and who paid her lavishly for an +evening's complacency; not among people who sought her at her own +place during business hours for professional advice or for lighter +amusement could she expect any other except professional recognition. + +And after a few months of wistful loneliness she came, gradually, to +desire from these people nothing except what they gave. + +But there were some people she met during that first year's practice +of her new profession who seemed to be unimpressed by the popular +belief in such an awesome actuality as New York "society." And some of +these, oddly enough, were the descendants of those who, perhaps, had +formed part of the only real society the big, raw, sprawling city +ever had. But that was long, long ago, in the day of the first +President. + +New York will always be spotted with the symptoms but will never again +have it. Paris has gone the same way. London is still flushed with it, +Berlin hectic, Vienna fevered. But the days of a "society" as a +distinct _ensemble_, with a logical reason for being, with authority, +with functions, with offensive and defensive powers and fixed +boundaries, is over forever; possibly never existed, certainly never +will exist in the series of gregarious aggregations and segregations +known to a perplexed and slightly amused world as the city of New +York. + +For Athalie that first year of new interests and of unfamiliar +successes passed more rapidly than had any single month ever before +passed in her life since the strenuous and ragged days of childhood. + +It was a year of novelty, of excitement, of self-development, and the +development of interests as new as they had been unsuspected. + +Like a gaily illuminated pageant the processional passed before her +with its constantly changing surroundings, new faces, new voices, new +ideas, new motives. + +And the new faces were to be scanned and understood, the new voices +listened to intently, the new ideas analysed, the new motives detected +and dissected. + +In drawing-rooms, in ballrooms, in boudoirs, new scenes constantly +presented themselves; one house was never like the next, one hostess +never resembled another; wealth itself was presented to her under +innumerable aspects ranging all the way from that false modesty and +smugness known as meekness, to fevered pretence, arrogance, and noisy +aggressiveness. + +Wonderful school for a girl to learn in!--the gilded halls of which +were eternally vexed and swept by the winds and whirlwinds of every +human passion. + +For here, under her still, clear scrutiny, was huddled humanity +itself, unconsciously bent on self-revelation. And Athalie's very +presence amid assemblies ever shifting, ever renewed, was educating +her eyes and ears and intellect to an insight and a comprehension she +had never dreamed of. + +In some the supreme necessity for self-ventilation interested her; in +others, secretiveness hermetically sealed fascinated her. Motives +interested or disinterested, sordid or noble; desires, aspirations, +hopes, perplexities,--whatever a glance, a word, an attitude, a +silence, suggested to her, fixed her attention, excited her +intelligence to curiosity, and focussed her interest to a mental +concentration. + +Out of which emerged deductions--curious fruits of logic, experience, +instinct, intuitiveness, and of some extraneous perception, outside of +and independent of her own conscious and objective personality. + +But in one radical particular Athalie differed from any individual of +either sex ever recorded in the history of hypnotic therapeutics or of +psychic phenomena. + +For those two worlds in which we all dwell, the supraliminal or waking +world, the transliminal, or sleeping world, were merged in this young +girl. + +The psychological fact that natural or induced sleep is necessary for +extraneous or for auto-suggestion, did not exist for her. Her psychic +qualities were natural and beautiful, as much a part of her objective +as of her subjective life. Neither the trance induced by mesmerism or +hypnotism, nor the less harmful slumber by induction, nor the sleep of +nature itself was necessary for the girl to find herself in rapport +with others or with her own higher personality--her superior spiritual +self. Nor did her clairvoyance require trances; nor was sleep in +others necessary before she ventured suggestion. + +A celebrated physician who had been eager to meet her found her +extremely interesting but rather beyond his ability to classify. + +How much of her he believed to be fraud might be suspected by what he +said to her that evening in a corner of a very grand house on Fifth +Avenue: + +"There is no such thing as a 'control'; there is no such thing as a +'medium.' No so-called medium has ever revealed anything that did not +exist either in her own consciousness or in the consciousness of some +other living human being. + +"Self-delusion induced by auto-suggestion accounts for the more +respectable victims of Spiritism. For Spiritism is a doctrine accepted +by many people of education, intelligence, refinement, and of +generally excellent judgment. + +"And it is a pity, because Spiritism is a bar to all real +intellectual, material, moral, and spiritual progress. It thrives only +because it pretends to satisfy an intense human craving--the desire +to re-establish personal relations with the dead. It never has done +this; it never will, Miss Greensleeve. And if you really believe it +has done this you are sadly and hopelessly mistaken." + +"But," said Athalie, looking at him out of blue eyes the chiefest +beauty of which was their fearless candour, "I do not concern myself +with what is called Spiritism--with trances, table-tipping, +table-rapping, slate-writing, apparitions, reincarnations--with +cabinets, curtains, darkened rooms, psychic circles." + +"You employ a crystal in your profession." + +"Yes. I need not." + +"Why do you do it, then?" + +"Some clients ask for it." + +"And you see things in it?" + +"Yes," said the girl simply. + +"And when your clients do not demand a crystal-reading?" + +"I can see perfectly well without it--when I can see clearly at all." + +"Into the future?" + +"Sometimes." + +"The past, too, of course." + +"Not always." + +She fascinated the non-scientific side of this famous physician; he +interested her intensely. + +"Do you know," she ventured with a faint smile, "that you are really +quite as psychically endowed as I am?" + +His handsome, sanguine features flushed deeply, but he smiled in +appreciation. + +"Not in the manner you so saucily imply, Miss Greensleeve," he said +gaily. "My work is sound, logical, reasonable, and based on +fundamental truths capable of being proven. I never saw an apparition +in my life--and believed that it was really there!" + +"Oh! So you _have_ seen an apparition?" + +"None that could have really existed independently of my own vision. +In other words it wouldn't have been there at all if I hadn't supposed +I had seen it." + +"You _did_ suppose so?" + +"I knew perfectly well that I didn't see it. I didn't even think I saw +it." + +"But you _saw_ it?" + +"I imagined I did, and at the same time I knew I didn't." + +"Yes," she said quietly, "you did see it, Dr. Westland. You have seen +it more than once. You will see it again." + +A heavier colour dyed his face; he started impatiently as though to +check her--as though to speak; and did not. + +She said: "If what I say is distasteful to you, please stop me." She +waited a moment; then, as he evinced no desire to check or interrupt +her: "I _am_ very diffident about saying this to you--to a man so +justly celebrated--pre-eminent in the greatest of all professions. I +am so insignificant in comparison, so unimportant, so ignorant where +you are experienced and learned. + +"But may I say to you that nothing dies? I am not referring to a +possible spiritual world inhabited perhaps by souls. I mean that here, +on this earth, all around us, nothing that has ever lived really +dies.... Is what I say distasteful to you?" + +He offered no reply. + +"Because," she said in a low voice, "if I say anything more it would +concern you. And what you saw.... For what you saw was alive, and +real--as truly living as you and I are. It is nothing to wonder at, +nothing to trouble or perplex you, to see clearly--anybody--you have +ever--_loved_." + +He looked up at her in a silence so strained, so longing, so intense, +that she felt the terrific tension. + +"Yes," she said, "you saw clearly and truly when you saw--her." + +"Who? in God's name!" + +"Need I tell you, Dr. Westland?" + +No, she had no need to tell him. His wife was dead. But it was not his +wife he had seen so often in his latter years. + +No, she had no need to tell him. + + * * * * * + +Athalie had never been inclined to care for companions of her own sex. +As a child she had played with boys, preferring them. Few women +appealed to her as qualified for her friendship--only one or two here +and there and at rare intervals seemed to her sufficiently interesting +to cultivate. And to the girl's sensitive and shy advances, here and +there, some woman responded. + +Thus she came to know and to exchange occasional social amenities with +Adele Millis, a youthful actress, with Rosalie Faithorn, a handsome +girl born to a formal social environment, but sufficiently independent +to explore outside of it and snap her fingers at the opinions of those +peeping over the bulwarks to see what she was doing. + +Also there was Peggy Brooks, a fascinating, breezy, capable young +creature who was Dr. Brooks to many, and Peggy to very few. And there +were one or two others, like Nina Grey and Jeanne Delauny and Anne +Randolph. + +But of men there would have been no limit and no end had Athalie not +learned very early in the game how to check them gently but firmly; +how to test, pick, discriminate, sift, winnow, and choose those to be +admitted to her rooms after the hours of business had ended. + +Of these the standards differed, so that she herself scarcely knew why +such and such a one had been chosen--men, for instance, like Cecil +Reeve and Arthur Ensart--perhaps even such a man as James Allys, 3rd. +Captain Dane, of course, had been a foregone conclusion, and John +Lyndhurst was logical enough; also W. Grismer, and the jaunty, obese +Mr. Welter, known in sporting circles as Helter Skelter Welter, and +more briefly and profanely as Hel. His running mate, Harry Ferris had +been included. And there was a number of others privileged to drift +into the rooms of Athalie Greensleeve when she chose to be at home to +anybody. + +From Clive she heard nothing: and she wrote to him no more. Of him she +did hear from time to time--mere scraps of conversation caught, a word +or two volunteered, some careless reference, perhaps, perhaps some +scrap of intentional information or some comment deliberate if not a +trifle malicious. + +But to all who mentioned him in her presence she turned a serene face +and unclouded eyes. On the surface she was not to be read concerning +what she thought of Clive Bailey--if indeed she thought about him at +all. + +Meanwhile he had married Winifred Stuart in London, where, it +appeared, they had taken a house for the season. All sorts of +honourables and notables and nobles as well as the resident and +visiting specimens of a free and sovereign people had been bidden to +the wedding. And had joyously repaired thither--the bride being +fabulously wealthy and duly presented at Court. + +The American Ambassador was there with the entire staff of the +Embassy; also a king in exile, several famished but receptive dukes +and counts and various warriors out of jobs--all magnetised by the +subtle radiations from the world's most powerful loadstone, money. + +They said that Mrs. Bailey, Sr., was very beautiful and impressive in +a gown that hypnotised the peeresses--or infuriated them--nobody +seemed to know exactly which. + +Cecil Reeve, lounging on the balcony by the open window one May +evening, said to Hargrave--and probably really unconscious that +Athalie could hear him if she cared to: "Well, he got her all +right--or rather his mother got her. When he wakes up he'll be sick +enough of her millions." + +Hargrave said: "She's a cold-blooded little proposition. I've known +Winifred Stuart all my life, and I never knew her to have any impulse +except a fishy one." + +"Cold as a cod," nodded Cecil. "Merry times ahead for Clive." + +And on another occasion, later in the summer, somebody said in the +cool dusk of the room: + +"It's true that the Bailey Juniors are living permanently in England. +I saw Clive in Scotland when I was fishing out Banff way. He says +they're remaining abroad indefinitely." + +Some man's voice asked how Clive was looking. + +"Not very fit; thin and old. I was with him several times that month +and I never saw him crack a smile. That's not like him, you know." + +"What is it? His wife?" + +"Well, I fancy it lies somewhere between his mother and his wife--this +pre-glacial freeze-up that's made a bally mummy of him." + +And still again, and in the tobacco-scented dusk of Athalie's room, +and once more from a man who had just returned from abroad: + +"I kept running into Clive everywhere. He seems to haunt the +continent, turning up like a ghost here and there; and believe me he +looks the part of the lonely spook." + +"Where's his Missis?" + +"They've chucked the domestic. Didn't you know?" + +"Divorced?" + +"No. But they don't get on. What man could with that girl? So poor old +Clive is dawdling around the world all alone, and his wife's +entertainments are the talk of London, and his mother has become pious +and is building a chapel for herself to repose in some day when the +cards go against her in the jolly game." + + * * * * * + +The cards went against her in the game that autumn. + +Athalie had been writing to her sister Catharine, and had risen from +her desk to find a stick of sealing-wax, when, as she turned to go +toward her bedroom, she saw Clive's mother coming toward her. + +Never but once before had she seen Mrs. Bailey--that night at the +Regina--and, for the first time in her life, she recoiled before such +a visitor. A hot, proud colour flared in her cheeks as she drew +quietly aside and stood with averted head to let her pass. + +But Clive's mother gazed at her gently, wistfully, lingering as she +passed the girl in the passage-way. And Athalie, turning her head +slowly to look after her, saw a quiet smile on her lips as she went +her silent way; and presently was no longer there. Then the girl +continued on her own way in search of the sealing-wax; but she was +moving uncertainly now, one arm outstretched, feeling along the +familiar walls and furniture, half-blinded with her tears. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: "Mrs. Bailey, Jr., looked pale and pretty sitting +there."] + +So the chapel fulfilled its functions. + +It was a very ornamental private chapel. Mrs. Bailey, Sr., had had it +pretty well peppered with family crests and quarterings, authentic and +imaginary. + +Mrs. Bailey, Jr., looked pale and pretty sitting there, the English +sunlight filtered through stained glass; the glass also was thoroughly +peppered with insignia of the House of Bailey. Rich carving, rich +colouring, rich people!--what more could sticklers demand for any +exclusive sanctuary where only the best people received the Body of +Christ, and where God would meet nobody socially unknown. + +Clive arrived from Italy after the funeral. The meeting between him +and his wife was faultless. He hung about the splendid country place +for a while, and spent much time inside the chapel, and also outside, +where he directed the planting of some American evergreens, hemlock, +spruce, and white pine. + +But the aromatic perfume of familiar trees was subtly tearing him to +tatters; and there came a day when he could no longer endure it. + +His young wife was playing billiards with Lord Innisbrae, known +intimately as Cinders, such a languid and burnt out young man was he, +with his hair already white, and every lineament seared with the fires +of revels long since sunken into ashes. + +He watched them for a while, his hands clenched where they rested in +his coat pockets, the lean muscles in his cheeks twitching at +intervals. + +When Innisbrae took himself off, Winifred still lounged gracefully +along the billiard table taking shots with any ball that lay for her. +And Clive looked on, absent-eyed, the flat jaw muscles working at +intervals. + +"Well?" she asked carelessly, laying her cue across the table. + +"Nothing.... I think I'll clear out to-morrow." + +"Oh." + +She did not even inquire where he was going. For that matter he did +not know, except that there was one place he could not go--home; the +only place he cared to go. + +He had already offered her divorce--thinking of Innisbrae, or of some +of the others. But she did not want it. It was, perhaps, not in her to +care enough for any man to go through that amount of trouble. Besides, +Their Majesties disapproved divorce. And for this reason alone nothing +would have induced her to figure in proceedings certain to exclude her +from one or two sets. + +"Anything I can do for you before I leave?" he asked, dully. + +It appeared that there was nothing he could do for his young wife +before he wandered on in the jolly autumn sunshine. + +So the next morning he cleared out. Which proceeding languidly +interested Innisbrae that evening in the billiard-room. + + * * * * * + +That winter Clive got hurt while pig-sticking in Morocco, being but an +indifferent spear. During convalescence he read "Under Two Flags," and +approved the idea; but when he learned that the Spahi cavalry was not +recruiting Americans, and when, a month later, he discovered how +much romance did not exist in either the First or Second Foreign +Legions, he no longer desired dangers incognito under the tri-colour +or under the standard bearing the open hand. + +[Illustration: "During convalescence he read 'Under Two Flags' and +approved the idea."] + +Some casual wanderer through the purlieus of science whom he met in +Brindisi, induced him to go to Sumatra where orchids and ornithoptera +are the game. But he acquired only a perfectly new species of fever, +which took six months to get over. + +He convalesced at leisure all the way from Australia to Cape Town; and +would have been all right; but somebody shot at somebody else one +evening, and got Clive. So it was several months more before he +arrived in India, and the next year before he had enough of China. + +But Clive had seen many things in those two years and had learned +fairly well the lesson of his own unimportance in a world which misses +no man, neither king nor clown, after the dark curtain falls and +satiated humanity shuffles home to bed. + +He saw a massacre--or the remains of it--where fifteen thousand yellow +men and one white priest lay dead. He saw Republican China, 40,000 +strong, move out after the banditti, shouldering its modern rifles, +while its regimental music played "Rosie O'Grady" in quick march time. +He saw the railway between Hankow and Pekin swarming with White Wolf's +bloody pack, limping westward from the Honan-Anhui border with +dripping fangs. He peered into the stinking wells of Honan where women +were cutting their own throats. He witnessed the levity of Lhasa +priests and saw their grimy out-thrust hands clutching for tips +beside their prayer-wheels. + +In India he gazed upon the degradation of woman and the unspeakable +bestiality of man till that vile and dusty hell had sickened him to +the soul. + +Back into Europe he drifted; and instantly and everywhere appeared the +awful Yankee--shooting wells in Hungary, shooting craps in Monaco, +digging antiques in Greece, digging tunnels in Servia,--everywhere the +Yankee, drilling, bridging, constructing, exploring, pushing, arguing, +quarrelling, insisting, telegraphing, gambling, touring, over-running +older and better civilisations than his own crude Empire where he has +nothing to learn from anybody but the Almighty--and then only when he +condescends to ask for advice on Sunday. + +And Clive, nevertheless, longed with a longing that made him sick, for +"God's country" where all that is worst and best on earth still boils +in the vast and seething cauldron of a continent in the making. There +bubbles the elemental broth, dregs, scum, skimmings, residue, +by-products, tailings, smoking corruption above the slowly forming and +incorruptible matrix in its depths where lies imbedded, and ever +growing, the Immam, the Hope of the World--gem indestructible, pearl +beyond price. Difficilia quae pulchra. + +And once, Clive had almost set out for home; and then, grimly, turned +away toward the southern continent of the hemisphere. + +In Lima he heard of an expedition fitting out to search for the lost +Americans, Cromer and Page, and for the Hungarian Seljan. And that +same evening he met Captain Dane. + +They looked at each other very carefully, and then shook hands. Clive +said: "If you want a handy man in camp, I'd like to go." + +"Come on," said Dane, briefly. + +Later, looking over together some maps in Dane's rooms, the big blond +soldier of fortune glanced up at the younger man, and saw a lean, +bronzed visage clamped mute by a lean bronzed jaw; but he also saw two +dark eyes fixed on him in the fierce silence of unuttered inquiry. +After a moment Dane said very quietly: + +"Yes, she was well, and I think happy, when I left New York.... How +long is it since you have heard from her?" + +"Three years." + +"Three years," mused Dane, gazing into space out of his slitted eyes +of arctic blue; "yes, that's some little time. Bailey.... She is +well--I think I said that.... And very prosperous, and greatly admired +... and happy--I believe." + +The other waited. + +Dane picked up a linen map, looked at it, fiddled with the corner. +Then, carelessly: "She is not married," he said.... "Here's the +Huallaga River as I located it four years ago. Seljan and O'Higgins +were making for it, I believe.... That red crayon circle over there +marks the habitat of the Uta fly. It's worse than the Tsetse. If +anybody is hunting death--_esta aquí_!... Here is the Putumayo +district. Hell lies up here, just above it.... Here's Iquitos, and +here lies Para, three thousand miles away.... Were you going to say +something?" + +But if Clive had anything to say he seemed to find no words to say it. +And he only folded his arms on the table's edge and looked down at the +stained and crumpled map. + +"It will take us about a year," remarked Dane. + +Clive nodded, but his eye involuntarily sought the irregular red +circle where trouble of all sorts might be conveniently ended by a +perfectly respectable Act of God. + + * * * * * + +Actus Dei nemini facit injuriam. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +There was a slight fragrance of tobacco in the room mingling with the +fresh, spring-like scent of lilacs--great pale clusters of them +decorated mantel and table, and the desk where Athalie sat writing to +Captain Dane in the semi-dusk of a May evening. + +Here and there dim figures loomed in the big square room; the graceful +shape of a young girl at the piano detached itself from the gloom; a +man or two dawdled by the window, vaguely silhouetted against the +lilac-tinted sky. + +Athalie wrote on: "I had not supposed you had landed until Cecil Reeve +told me this evening. If you are not too tired to come, please do so. +Do you realise that you have been away over a year? Do you realise +that I am now twenty-four years old, and that I am growing older every +minute? You had better hasten, then, because very soon I shall be too +old to believe your magic fairy tales of field and flood and all your +wonder lore of travel in those distant golden lands I dream of. + +"Who was your white companion? Cecil tells me that you said you had +one. Bring him with you this evening; you'll need corroboration, I +fear. And mostly I desire to know if you are well, and next I wish to +hear whether you did really find the lost city of Yhdunez." + +A maid came to take the note to Dane's hotel, the Great Eastern, and +Cecil Reeve looked up and laid aside his cigarette. + +"Come on, Athalie," he said, "tell Peg to turn on one of those +Peruvian dances." + +Peggy Brooks at the piano struck a soft sensuous chord or two, but +Francis Hargrave would not have it, and he pulled out the proper +phonographic record and cranked the machine while Cecil rolled up the +Beluch rugs. + +The somewhat muffled air that exuded from the machine was the lovely +Miraflores, gay, lively, languorous, sad by turns--and much danced at +the moment in New York. + +A new spring moon looked into the room from the west where like +elegant and graceful phantoms the dancers moved, swayed, glided, swung +back again with sinuous grace into the suavely delicate courtship of +the dance. + +The slender feet and swaying figure of Athalie seemed presently to +bewitch the other couple, for they drew aside and stood together +watching that exquisite incarnation of youth itself, gliding, bending, +floating in the lilac-scented, lilac-tinted dusk under the young moon. + +The machine ran down in the course of time, and Hargrave went over to +re-wind it, but Peggy Brooks waved him aside and seated herself at the +piano, saying she had enough of Hargrave. + +She was still playing the quaint, sweet dance called "The Orchid," and +Hargrave was leaning on the piano beside her watching Cecil and Athalie +drifting through the dusk to the music's rhythm, when the door opened +and somebody came in. + +Athalie, in Cecil's arms, turned her head, looking back over her +shoulder. Dane loomed tall in the twilight. + +"Oh!" she exclaimed; "I am so glad!"--slipping out of Cecil's arms and +wheeling on Dane, both hands outstretched. + +The others came up, also, with quick, gay greetings, and after a +moment or two of general and animated chatter Athalie drew Dane into a +corner and made room for him beside her on the sofa. Peggy had turned +on the music machine again and, snubbing Hargrave, was already +beginning the Miraflores with Cecil Reeve. + +Athalie said: "_Are_ you well? That's the first question." + +He said he was well. + +"And did you find your lost city?" + +He said, quietly: "We found Yhdunez." + +"We?" + +"I and my white companion." + +"Why didn't you bring him with you this evening?" she asked. "Did you +tell him I invited him?" + +"Yes." + +"Oh.... Couldn't he come?" + +And, as he made no answer: "Couldn't he?" she repeated. "Who is he, +anyway--" + +"Clive Bailey." + +She sat motionless, looking at him, the question still parting her +lips. Dully in her ears the music sounded. The pallor which had +stricken her face faded, grew again, then waned in the faint return of +colour. + +Dane, who was looking away from her rather fixedly, spoke first, still +not looking at her: "Yes," he said in even, agreeable tones, "Clive +was my white companion.... I gave him your note to read.... He did not +seem to think that he ought to come." + +"Why?" Her lips scarcely formed the word. + +"--As long as you were not aware of whom you were inviting.... There +had been some misunderstanding between you and him--or so I +gathered--from his attitude." + +A few moments more of silence; then she was fairly prepared. + +"Is he well?" she asked coolly. + +"Yes. He had one of those nameless fevers, down there. He's coming out +of it all right." + +"Is he--his appearance--changed?" + +"He's changed a lot, judging from the photographs he showed me taken +three or four years ago. He's changed in other ways, too, I fancy." + +"How?" + +"Oh, I only surmise it. One hears about people--and their +characteristics.... Clive is a good deal of a man.... I never had a +better companion.... There were hardships--tight corners--we had a bad +time of it for a while, along the Andes.... And the natives are +treacherous--every one of them.... He was a good comrade. No man can +say more than that, Miss Greensleeve. That includes about everything I +ever heard of--when a man proves to be a good comrade. And there is no +place on earth where a man can be so thoroughly tried out as in that +sunless wilderness." + +"Is he stopping at the Great Eastern?" + +"Yes. I believe he's going back on Saturday." + +She looked up sharply: "Back? Where?" + +"Oh, not to Peru. Only to England," said Dane, forcing a laugh. + +After a moment she said: "And he wouldn't come.... It is only three +blocks, isn't it?" + +"It wasn't the distance, of course--" + +"No; I remember. He thought I might not have cared to see him." + +"That was it." + +Another silence; then in a lower voice which sounded a little hard: +"His wife is living in England, I suppose." + +"She is living--I don't know where." + +"Have they--children?" + +"I believe not." + +She remained silent for a while, then, coolly enough: + +"I suppose he is sailing on Saturday to see his wife." + +"I think not," said Dane, gravely. + +"You say he is sailing for England." + +"Yes, but I imagine it's because he has nowhere else to go." + +"Why doesn't he stay here?" + +"I don't know." + +"He is American. His friends live here. Why doesn't he remain here?" + +Dane shook his head: "He's a restless man, Miss Greensleeve. That kind +of man can't stay anywhere. He's got to go on--somewhere." + +"I see." + +There came a pause; then they talked of other things for a while until +other people began to drop in, Arthur Ensart, Anne Randolph, and young +Welter--Helter Skelter Welter, always, metaphorically speaking, +redolent of saddle leather and reeking of sport. His theme happened to +be his own wonderful trap record, that evening; and the fat, +good-humoured, ardent young man prattled on about "unknown angles," +and "incomers," until Dane, who had been hunting jaguars and cannibals +along the unknown Andes, concealed his yawns with difficulty. + +Ensart insisted on turning on the lights and starting the machine; and +presently Anne Randolph and Peggy were dancing the Miraflores with +Cecil and Ensart. + +Welter had cornered Hargrave and Dane and was telling them all about +it, and Athalie went slowly through the passage-way and into her own +bedroom, where she stood quite motionless for a while, looking at the +floor. Hafiz, dozing on the bed, awoke, gazed at his mistress gravely, +yawned, and went to sleep again. + +[Illustration: "His theme happened to be his own wonderful trap +record, that evening."] + +Presently she dropped onto a chair by her little ivory-tinted Louis +XVI desk. There was a telephone there and a directory. + +When she had decided to open the latter, and had found the number she +wanted, she unhooked the receiver and called for it. + +After a few minutes somebody said that he was not in his room, but +that he was being paged. + +She waited, dully attentive to the far noises which sounded over the +wire; then came a voice: + +"Yes; who is it?" + +She said: "I wished to speak to Mr. Bailey--Mr. Clive Bailey." + +"I am Mr. Bailey." + +For a moment the fact that she had not recognised his voice seemed to +strike her speechless. And it was only when he spoke again, +inquiringly, that she said in a low voice: "Clive!" + +"Yes.... Is--is it _you_!" + +"Yes." + +And in the next heavily pulsating moment her breath came back with her +self-control: + +"Why didn't you come, Clive?" + +"I didn't imagine you wanted me." + +"I asked Captain Dane to invite you." + +"Did you know whom you were inviting?" + +"No.... But I do now. Will you come?" + +"Yes. When?" + +"When you like. Come now if you like--unless you were engaged--" + +"No--" + +"What were you doing when I called you?" + +"Nothing.... Walking about the lobby." + +"Did you find it interesting?" + +She heard him laugh--such a curious, strange, shaken laugh. + +She said: "I shall be very glad to see you, Clive. There are some of +your friends here, too, who will be glad to see you." + +"Then I'll wait until--" + +"No; I had rather meet you for the first time when others are here--if +you don't mind. Do you?" + +"No," he said, coolly; "I'll come." + +"Now?" + +"Yes, immediately." + +Her heart was going at a terrific pace when she hung up the receiver. +She went to her mirror, turned on the side-lights, and looked at +herself. From the front room came the sound of the dance music, a +ripple or two of laughter. Welter's eager voice singing still of arms +and the man. + +Long she stood there, motionless, studying herself, so that, when the +moment came that was coming now so swiftly upon her, she might know +what she appeared like in his eyes. + +All, so far, was sheer, fresh youth with her; her eyes had not lost +their dewy beauty; the splendour of her hair remained unchanged. There +were no lines, nothing lost, nothing hardened in contour. Clear and +smooth her snowy chin; perfect, so far, the lovely throat: nothing of +blemish was visible, no souvenirs of grief, of pain. + +And, as she looked, and all the time she was looking, she felt, +subtly, that the ordered routine of her thoughts was changing; that a +transformation was beginning somewhere deep within her--a new +character emerging--a personality unfamiliar, disturbing, as though +not entirely to be depended on. + +And in the mirror she saw her lips, scarcely parted, more vivid than +she had ever seen them, and her eyes two wells of azure splendour; saw +the smooth young bosom rise and fall; felt her heart, rapid, +imperious, beating the "colours" into her cheeks. + +Suddenly, as she stood there, she heard him come in;--heard the +astonished and joyous exclamations--Cecil's bantering, cynical voice, +Welter's loud welcome. She pressed both hands to her hot cheeks, +stared at herself a moment, then turned and walked leisurely toward +the living-room. + +In her heart a voice was crying, crying: "Let the world see so that +there may be no mistake! This man who was friendless is my friend. Let +there be no mistake that he is more or less than that." But she only +said with a quick smile, and offering her hand: "I am so glad to see +you, Clive. I am so glad you came." And stood, still smiling, looking +into the lean, sun-tanned face, under the concentrated eyes of her +friends around them both. + +For a second it was difficult for him to speak; but only she saw the +slight quiver of the mouth. + +"You are--quite the same," he said; "no more beautiful, no less. Time +is not the essence of your contract with Venus." + +"Oh, Clive! And I am twenty-four! Tell me--_are_ you a trifle +grey!--just above the temples?--or is it the light?" + +"He's grey," said Cecil; "don't flatter him, Athalie. And Oh, Lord, +what a thinness!" + +Peggy Brooks, professionally curious, said naïvely: "Are you still +rather full of bacilli, Mr. Bailey? And would you mind if I took a +drop of blood from you some day?" + +"Not at all," said Clive, laughing away the strain that still fettered +his speech a little. "You may have quarts if you like, Dr. Brooks." + +"How was the shooting?" inquired Welter, bustling up like a judge at a +bench-show when the awards are applauded. + +"Oh--there was shooting--of course," said Clive with an involuntary +and half-humorous glance at Captain Dane. + +"Good nigger hunting," nodded Dane. "Unknown angles, Welter. You ought +to run down there." + +"Any incomparable Indian maidens wearing nothing but ornaments of +gold?" inquired Cecil. + +"That is partly true," said Clive, laughing. + +"If you put a period after 'nothing,' I suppose," suggested Peggy. + +"About that." + +He turned to Athalie; but her silent, smiling gaze confused him so +that he forgot what he had meant to say, and stood without a word amid +the chatter that rose and ebbed about him. + +Anne Randolph and Arthur Ensart had joined hands, their restless feet +sketching the first steps of the Miraflores; and presently somebody +cranked the machine. + +"Come on!" said Peggy imperiously to Dane; "you've been too long in +the jungle dancing with Indian maidens!" + +Other people dropped in--Adele Millis, young Grismer, John Lyndhurst, +Jeanne Delauny. + +When Clive saw Rosalie Faithorn saunter in with James Allys he stared, +but that young seceder from his own set greeted him without +embarrassment and lighted a cigarette. + +"Where's Winifred?" she asked nonchalantly. "Still on the outs? Yes? +Why not shuffle and draw again? Winifred was always a pig." + +Clive flushed at the girl's frankness although he could have expected +nothing less from her. + +Rosalie continued to smoke and to inspect him critically: "You're a +bit seedy and a bit weedy, Clive, but you'll come around with feeding. +You're really all right. I'd have you myself if I was marrying young +men these days." + +"That's nice of you, Rosalie.... But I'm full of rare bacilli." + +"The rarer the better--if you must have them. Give me the unusual, +whether it's a disease or a gown. I believe I will take you, Clive--if +you are not expected to live long." + +"That's the trouble. Nothing seems to be able to get me." + +Dane said as he passed with Peggy: "He's immune, Miss Faithorn. The +prettiest woman I ever saw, he side-stepped in Lima. And even then +every man wanted to shoot him up because she made eyes at him." + +"I think I'll go there," said Cecil. "Her name and quality if you +please, Dane." + +"Ask Clive," he called back. + +Athalie, still smiling, said: "Shall I ask you, Clive?" + +"Don't ask that South American adventurer anything," interrupted +Cecil, "but come and dance this Miraflores with me, Athalie--" + +"No, I don't wish to--" + +"Come on! You must!" + +"Oh, Cecil--please--" + +But he had his way; and, as usual, everybody watched her while the +charming music lasted,--Clive among the others, standing a little +apart, lean, erect, his dark gaze fixed. + +She came back to him after the dance, delicately flushed and a trifle +breathless. + +"Do you dance that in England?" she asked. + +"It's danced--not at Court functions, I believe." + +"You never did care to dance, did you?" + +"No--" he shrugged, "I used to mess about some." + +"And what do you do to amuse yourself in these days?" + +"Nothing--much." + +"You must do _something_, Clive!" + +"Oh, yes ... I travel,--go about." + +"Is that all?" + +"That's about all." + +She had stepped aside to let the dancers pass; he moved with her. + +She said in a low, even voice: "Is it pleasant to be back, Clive?" + +He nodded in silence. + +"Nothing has changed very much since you went away. There's a new +administration at the City Hall, a number of new sky-scrapers in town; +people danced the Tango day before yesterday, the Maxixe yesterday, +the Miraflores to-day, the Orchid to-morrow. That's about all, Clive." + +And as he merely acquiesced in silence, she glanced up sideways at +him, and remained watching this new, sun-browned, lean-visaged version +of the boy she had first known and the boyish man who had gone out of +her life four years before. + +"Would you like to see Hafiz?" she asked. + +He turned quickly toward her: "Yes," he said, the ghost of a smile +lining the corners of his eyes. + +"He's on my bed, asleep. Will you come?" + +Slipping along the edges of the dancing floor and stepping daintily +over the rolled rugs, she led the way through the passage to her rose +and ivory bedroom, Clive following. + +Hafiz opened his eyes and looked across at them from the pillow, stood +up, his back rounding into a furry arch; yawned, stretched first one +hind leg and then the other, and finally stood, flexing his forepaws +and uttering soft little mews of recognition and greeting. + +"I wonder," she said, smilingly, "if you have any idea how much Hafiz +has meant to me?" + +He made no reply; but his face grew sombre and he laid a lean, +muscular hand on the cat's head. + +Neither spoke again for a little while. Finally his hand fell from the +appreciative head of Hafiz, dropping inert by his side, and he stood +looking at the floor. Then there was the slightest touch on his arm, +and he turned to go; but she did not move; and they confronted each +other, alone, and after many years. + +Suddenly she stretched out both hands, looking him full in the eyes, +her own brilliant with tears: + +"I've got you back--haven't I?" she said unsteadily. But he could not +speak, and stood savagely controlling his quivering lip with his +teeth. + +"I just want you as I had you, Clive--my first boy friend--who turned +aside from the bright highway of life to speak to a ragged child.... I +have had the boy; I have had the youth; I want the man, Clive,--honestly, +in perfect innocence. + +"Would you care what might be said of us--as long as we know our +friendship is blameless? I am not taking you from _her_, am I? I am +not taking anything away from her, am I? + +"I have not always played squarely with men. I don't think it is +possible. They have hoped for--various eventualities. I have not +encouraged them; I have merely let them hope. Which is not square. + +"But I wish always to play square with women. Unless a woman does, +nobody will.... And that is why I ask you, Clive--am I robbing her--if +you come back to me--as you were?--nothing more--nothing less, Clive, +but just exactly as you were." + +It was impossible for him to control his voice or his words or even +his thoughts just yet; he stood with his lean head turned partly from +her, motionless as a rock, in the desperate grip of self-mastery, +crushing the slender hands that alternately yielded and clasped his +own. + +"Oh, Clive," she said, "Clive! You don't know--you never can know what +loneliness means to such a woman as I am.... I thought once--many +times--that I could never again speak to you--that I never again could +care to hear about you.... But I was wrong, pitifully wrong. + +"It was not jealousy of her, Clive; you know that, don't you? There +had never been any question of such sentiment between you and +me--excepting once--one night--that last night when you said +good-bye--and you were very much overwrought. + +"So it was not jealousy.... It was loneliness. I wanted you, even if +you had fallen in love. That sort of love had nothing to do with us! + +"There was nothing in it that ought to have come between you and +me?... Besides, if such an ephemeral thought ever drifted through my +idle mind, I knew on reflection that you and I could never be destined +to marry, even if such sentiment ever inclined us. I knew it and +accepted it without troubling to analyse the reasons. I had no desire +to invade your world--less desire now that I have penetrated it +professionally and know a little about it. + +"It was not jealousy, Clive." + +He swung around, bent swiftly and pressed his lips to her hands. And +she abandoned them to him with all her heart and soul in an +overwhelming passion of purest emotion. + +"I couldn't stand it, Clive," she said, "when I heard you were at your +hotel alone.... And all the unhappiness I had heard of--your married +life--I--I couldn't stand it; I couldn't let you remain there all +alone! + +"And when you came here to-night, and I saw in your face how these +four years had altered you--how it had been with you--I wanted you +back--to let you know I am sorry--to let you know I care for the man +who has known unhappiness, as I cared for the boy who had known only +happiness. + +"Do you understand, Clive? Do you, dear? Don't you see what I see?--a +man standing all alone by a closed door behind which his hopes lie +dead. + +"Clive, that is where you came to me, offering sympathy and +friendship. That is where I come to you in my turn, offering whatever +you care to take of me--if there is in me anything that may comfort +you." + +He bent and laid his lips to her hands again, remaining so, curbed +before her; and she looked down at his lean and powerful head and +shoulders, and saw the hint of grey edging the crisp, dark hair, and +the dark stain of tropic suns, that never could be effaced. + +So far no passion, other than innocent, had she ever known for any +man,--nothing of lesser emotion, nothing physical. And, had she +thought of it at all she must have believed that it was that way with +her still. For no thought concerning it disturbed her tender, +tremulous happiness with this man beside her who still held her hands +imprisoned against his breast. + +And presently they were seated on the couch at the foot of her bed, +excited, garrulous, exchanging gossip, confidences, ideas long +unuttered, desires long unexpressed. + +Under the sweeping flashlight of her intelligence the four years of +his absence were illuminated, and passed swiftly in review for his +inspection. Of loneliness, perplexity, grief, deprivation, she made +light, laughingly, shrugging her smooth young shoulders. + +"All that was yesterday," she said. "There is only to-day, now--until +to-morrow becomes to-day. You won't go away, will you, Clive?" + +"No." + +"There is no need of your going, is there?--no reason for you to +go--no duty--moral obligation--is there, Clive?" + +"None." + +"You wouldn't say so just because I wish you to, would you?" + +"I wouldn't be here at all if there were any reason for me to +be--there." + +"Then I am not robbing her of you?--I am not depriving her of the +tiniest atom of anything that you owe to her? Am I, Clive?" + +"I can't see how. There is only one thing I can do for--my wife. And +that is to keep away from her." + +"Oh, Clive! How desperately sad! And, she is young and beautiful, +isn't she? Oh, I am so sorry for you--for you both. Don't you see, +dear, that I am not jealous? If you could be happy with her, and if +she could understand me and let me be your friend,--that would be +wonderful, Clive!" + +He remained silent, thinking of Winifred and of her quality of +"understanding"; and of the miserable matter of business which had +made her his wife--and of his own complacent and smug indifference, +and his contemptible weakness under pressure. + +Always in the still and secret depths of him he had remained conscious +that he had never cared for any woman except Athalie. All else had +been but a vague realisation of axioms and theorems,--of premises that +had rusted into his mind,--of facts which he accepted as +self-evident,--such as the immutable fact that he couldn't marry +Athalie, couldn't mortify his family, couldn't defy his friends, +couldn't affront his circle with impunity. + +To invite disaster would be to bring an avalanche upon himself which, +if it wounded, isolated, even marooned him, would certainly bury +Athalie out of sight forever. + +His parents had so reasoned with him; his mother continued the +inculcation after his father's death. And then Winifred and her mother +came floating into his cosmic ken like two familiar planets. + +For a while, far away in interstellar space, Athalie glimmered like a +fading comet. Then orbits narrowed; adhesion and cohesion followed +collision; the bi-maternal pressure never lessened. And he gave up. + +Of this he was thinking now as he sat there in her rose and ivory +room, gazing at the grey silk carpet underfoot; and all the while +exquisitely, vitally conscious of Athalie--of her nearness to him--to +tears at moments--to that happiness akin to tears. + +"Clive, do you remember--" and she breathlessly recalled some gay and +long forgotten incident of that never to be forgotten winter together +when the theatres and restaurants knew them so well, and the day-world +and night-world both credited them with being to each other everything +that they had never been. + +"Where will you live?" she asked. + +He said: "You know I have sold our old house.... I don't know--" He +looked at her gravely and ashamed: "I think I will take your old +apartment." + +She blushed to her hair: "Were you annoyed with me because I left it?" + +"It hurt." + +"But Clive!--I _couldn't_ remain,--after you had become engaged to +marry." + +"Did you need to leave everything you owned?" + +"They were not mine," she said in a low, embarrassed voice. + +"Whose then?" + +"Yours. I never considered them mine.... As though I were a girl of +little consideration ... who paid herself, philosophically, for what +she had lost.... Like a man's mistress after the inevitable break has +come--" + +"Don't say that!" + +She shrugged her pretty shoulders: "I am a woman old enough to know +what the world is, and what women do in it sometimes; and what men +do.... And I am this sort of woman, Clive: I can give, I can receive, +too, but only because of the happiness it bestows on the giver. And +when the sympathy which must exist between giver and receiver ends, +then also possession ends, for me.... Why do you look at me so +seriously?" + +But he dared not say. And presently she went on, happily, and at +random: "Of course I kept Hafiz and the first thing you ever gave +me--the gun-metal wrist-watch. Here it is--" leaning across him and +pulling out a drawer in her dresser. "I wear it every day when I am +out. It keeps excellent time. Isn't it a darling, Clive?" + +He examined it in silence, nodded, and returned it to her. And she +laid it away again, saying: + +"So you think of taking my old apartment? How odd! And how very +sentimental of you, Clive." + +He said, forcing a light tone: "Nothing has ever been disturbed there. +It's all as it was when you left. Even your gowns are hanging in the +closets--" + +"Clive!" + +"We'll go around if you like. Would you care to see it again?" + +"Y--yes." + +"Then we'll go together, and you can investigate closets and bureaus +and dressers--" + +"Clive! Why did you let those things remain?" + +"I didn't care to have anybody else take that place." + +"Do you know that what you have done is absurdly and frightfully +sentimental?" + +"Is it?" he said, trying to laugh. "Well that snivelling and false +sort of sentiment is about the best that such men as I know how to +comfort themselves with--when it's too late for the real thing." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Just what I am saying. Cheap minds are fed with false sentiment; and +are comforted.... I made out of that place a smug little monument to +you--while you were living alone and almost penniless in a shabby +rooming house on--" + +"Oh, Clive! You didn't know that! And anyway it would not have altered +things for me." + +"I suppose not.... Well, Athalie; you are very wonderful to +me--merciful, forgiving, nobly blind--God!" he muttered under his +breath, "I don't understand how you can be so generous and gentle with +me,--I don't, indeed." + +"If you only knew how easy it is to care for you," she said with that +sweet fearlessness so characteristic of her. + +He bit his lips in silence. + +Presently she said: "I suppose there'll be gossip in the other room. +Rosalie and Cecil will be cynical and they also will try to be witty +at our expense. But I don't care. Do you?" + +"Shall we go in?" + +"No.... I haven't had you for four years. If you don't care what is +said about us, I don't." And she looked up at him with the most +engaging candour. + +"I'm only thinking about you, Athalie--" + +"Don't bother to, Clive. Pretty nearly everything has been said about +me, I fancy. And, unless it might damage you I'll go anywhere with +you, do anything with you. _I_ know that I'm all right; and I care no +longer what others say or think." + +"But you know," he said, "that is a theory which will not work--" + +"You are wrong, Clive. Nobody cares what sort of character a popular +actress may have. Her friends are not disturbed by her reputation; the +public crowds to see her. And it's about that way with me, I imagine. +Because I don't suppose many people believe me to be respectable. +Only--there is no man alive who can say of his own knowledge that I am +not,--whatever he and his brothers and sisters may imagine." + +"So why should I care?--as long as the public affords me an honest +living! _I_ know what I am, and have been. And the knowledge, so far, +does not keep me awake at night." + +She laughed--the sweet, fresh, unembarrassed laugh of innocence,--not +that ignorance and stupidity which is called innocence, but innocence +based on a worldly wisdom which neither her intelligence nor her +experience permitted her to escape. + +After a short silence he bent forward and laid one hand on a crystal +which stood clasped by a tiny silver tripod on the table beside her +bed. + +"So you did develop your--qualities--after all, Athalie." + +"Yes.... It happened accidentally." And she told him about the old +gentleman who had come to her rooms when she stood absolutely +penniless and at bay before the world. + +After she had ended he asked her whether she had ever again seen his +father. She told him. She told him also about seeing his mother. + +"Have they anything to say to me, Athalie?" he asked wistfully. + +"I don't know, Clive. Some day--when you feel like it--if you will +come to me--" + +"Thank you, dear ... you are wonderful--wonderfully good--" + +"Oh, Clive, I'm not! I'm careless, pleasure-loving, inclined to +laziness--and even to dissipation--" + +"You!" + +"Within certain limits," she added demurely. "I dance a lot: I know I +smoke too much and drink too much champagne. I'm no angel, Clive. I +won altogether too much at auction last night; ask Jim Allys. And +really, if I didn't have a mind and feel a desire to cultivate it, I'd +be the limit I suppose." She laughed and tossed her chin; and the pure +loveliness of her child-like throat was suddenly and exquisitely +revealed. + +"I'm too intelligent to go wrong I suppose," she said. "I adore +cultivating my mental faculties even more than I like to misbehave." +She added a trifle shyly. "I speak French and Italian and German very +nicely. And I sing a little and play acceptably. Please compliment me, +Clive." + +But her quick smile died out as she looked into his eyes--eyes haunted +by the vision of all that he had denied his manhood and this girl's +young womanhood--all that he had lost, irretrievably and forever on +that day he married another woman. + +"What is the matter, Clive?" she asked with sweet concern. + +He answered: "Nothing, I guess ... except--you are very--wonderful--to +me." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +A May afternoon was drawing to a close; the last appointment had been +made for the morrow, and the last client for the day still lingered +with Athalie where she sat with her head propped thoughtfully on one +slim hand, her gaze concentrated on the depths of the crystal sphere. + +After a long silence she said: "You need not be anxious. Her wireless +apparatus is out of order. They are repairing it.... It was a bad +storm." + +"Is there any ice near her?" + +After a pause: "I can see none." + +"Any ships?" + +"One of her own line, hull down. They have been exchanging signals.... +There seems to be no necessity for her to stand by. The worst is +over.... Yes, the _Empress of Borneo_ proceeds. The _Empress of +Formosa_ will be reported this evening. You need not be anxious: +she'll dock on Monday." + +"Are you sure?" said the man as Athalie lifted her eyes from the +crystal and smiled reassuringly at him. He was a stocky, red-faced, +trim, middle-aged man; but his sanguine visage bore the haggard +imprint of sleepless nights, and the edges of his teeth had bitten his +under lip raw. + +Athalie glanced carelessly at the crystal, then nodded. + +"Yes," she said patiently. "I am sure of it, Mr. Clements. The +_Empress of Formosa_ will dock on Monday--about--nine in the morning. +She will be reported by wireless from the _Empress of Borneo_ this +evening.... They have been relaying it from the Delaware Capes.... +There will be an extra edition of the evening papers. You may dismiss +all anxiety." + +The man rose, stood a moment, his features working with emotion. + +"I'm not a praying man," he said. "But if this is so--I'll pray for +you.... It can't hurt you anyway--" he checked himself, stammering, +and the deep colour stained him from his brow to his thick, powerful +neck as he stood fumbling with his portfolio. + +But Athalie smilingly put aside the recompense he offered: "It is too +much, Mr. Clements." + +"It is worth it to the Company--if the news is true--" + +"Then wait until your steamer docks." + +"But you say you are certain--" + +"Yes, I am: but _you_ are not. My refusal of payment will encourage +you to confidence in me. You have been ill with anxiety, Mr. Clements. +I know what that means. And now your bruised mind cannot realise that +the trouble is ended--that there is no reason now for the deadly fear +that has racked you. But everything will help you now--what I have +told you--and my refusal of payment until your own eyes corroborate +everything I have said." + +"I believe you now," he said, staring at her. "I wish to offer you in +behalf of the Company--" + +A swift gesture conjured him to silence. She rose, listening intently. +Presently his ears too caught the faint sound, and he turned and +walked swiftly and silently to the open window. + +"There is your extra," she said pleasantly. "The _Empress of Borneo_ +has been reported." + + * * * * * + +She was still lying on the couch beside the crystal, idly watching +what scenes were drifting, mist-like, through its depths--scenes +vague, and faded in colour, and of indefinite outline; for, like the +monotone of a half-heard conversation which does not concern a +listener these passing phantoms concerned not her. + +Under her indifferent eyes they moved; pale-tinted scenes grew, waxed, +and waned, and a ghostly processional flowed through them without end +under her dark blue dreaming eyes. + +She had turned and dropped her head back upon the silken pillows when +his signal sounded in telegraphic sequence on the tiny concealed bell. + +The still air of the room was yet tremulous with the silvery vibration +when he entered, looked around, caught sight of her, and came swiftly +toward her. + +She looked up at him in her sweet, idly humorous way, unstirring. + +"This is becoming a habit with you, Clive." + +"Didn't you care to see me this afternoon?" he asked so seriously that +the girl laughed outright and stretched out one hand to him. + +"Clive, you're becoming ponderous! Do you know it? Suppose I didn't +care to see you this particular afternoon. Is there any reason why you +should take it so seriously?" + +"Plenty of reasons," he said, saluting her smooth, cool hand,--"with +all these people at your heels every minute--" + +"Please don't pretend--" + +"I'm _not_ jealous. But all these men--Cecil and Jimmy Allys--they're +beginning to be a trifle annoying to me." + +She laughed in unfeigned and malicious delight: + +"They don't annoy _me_! No girl ever was annoyed by overattention from +her suitors--except Penelope--and _I_ don't believe she had such a +horrid time of it either, until her husband came home and shot up the +whole _thé dansant_." + +He was still standing beside her couch without offering to seat +himself; and she let him remain standing a few minutes longer before +she condescended to move aside on her pillows and nod a tardy +invitation. + +"Has it been an interesting day, Clive?" + +"Rather." + +"And you have really gone back into business again?" + +"Yes." + +"And will the real estate market rally at the news of your august +reappearance?" she inquired mischievously. + +"I haven't a doubt of it," he said with gravity. + +[Illustration: "'There is your extra,' she said pleasantly."] + +"Wonderful, Clive! And I think I'd better get in on the ground floor +before values go sky-rocketing. Do you want a commission from me?" + +"Of course." + +"Very well. Buy me the old Hotel Greensleeve." + +He smiled; but she said with pretty seriousness: "I really have been +thinking about it. Do you suppose it could be bought reasonably? It's +really a pretty place. And there's a hundred acres--or there was.... I +would like to have a modest house somewhere in the country." + +"Are you in earnest, Athalie?" + +"Really I am.... Couldn't that old house be fixed over inexpensively? +You know it's nearly two hundred years old, and the lines are good if +the gingerbread verandas and modern bay windows are done away with." + +He nodded; and she went on with shy enthusiasm: "I don't really know +anything about gardens, except I know that I should adore them.... I +thought of a garden--just a simple one.... And some cows and chickens. +And one nice old horse.... It is really very pretty there in spring +and summer. And the bay is so blue, and the salt meadows are so +sweet.... And the cemetery is near.... I should not wish to alter +mother's room very much.... I'd turn the bar into a sun parlour.... +But I'd keep the stove ... where you and I sat that evening and ate +peach turnovers.... About how much do you suppose the place could be +bought for?" + +"I haven't the least idea, Athalie. But I'll see what can be done +to-morrow.... It ought to be a good purchase. You can scarcely go +wrong on Long Island property if you buy it right." + +"Will you see about it, Clive?" + +"Of course I will, you dear girl!" he said, dropping his hand over +hers where it lay between them. + +She smiled up at him. Then, distrait, turned her blue eyes toward the +window, and remained gazing out at the late afternoon sky where a few +white clouds were sailing. + +"'Clouds and ships on sky, and sea,'" she murmured to herself.... +"'And God always at the helm.' Why do men worry? All sail into the +same port at last." + +He bent over her: "What are you murmuring all to yourself down there?" +he asked, smilingly. + +"Nothing much,--I'm just watching the driftsam and flotsam borne on +the currents flowing through my mind--flowing through it and out +again--away, somewhere--back to the source of thought, perhaps." + +He was still bending above her, and she looked up dreamily into his +eyes. + +"Do you think I shall ever have my garden?" she asked. + +"All things good must come to you, Athalie." + +She laughed, looking up into his eyes: "You meant that, didn't you? +'All things good'--yes--and other things, too.... They come to all I +suppose.... Tell me, do you think my profession disreputable?" + +"You have made it otherwise, haven't you?" + +"I don't know. I'm eternally tempted. My intelligence bothers me. And +where to draw the line between what I really see and what I divine by +deduction--or by intuition--I scarcely know sometimes.... I try to be +honest.... When you came in just now, were they calling an extra?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you hear what they were calling?" + +"Something about the _Empress of Borneo_ being reported safe." + +She nodded. Then: "That is the hopeless part of it. I can sometimes +help others; never myself.... I suppose you have no idea how many, +many hours I have spent looking for you.... I never could find you. I +have never found you in my crystal, or in my clearer vision, or in my +dreams; ... never heard your voice, never had news of you except by +common report in everyday life.... Why is it, I wonder?" + +His expression was inscrutable. She said, her eyes still lingering on +his: "You know it makes me indignant to see so much that neither +concerns nor interests me--so much that passes--in this!--" laying one +hand on the crystal beside the couch ... "and never, never in the dull +monotony of the drifting multitude to catch a glimpse of you.... I +wonder, were I lost somewhere in the world, if you could find me, +Clive?" + +"I'd die, trying," he said unsmilingly. + +"Oh! How romantic! I wasn't fishing for a pretty speech, dear. I +meant, could you find me in the crystal. Look into it, Clive." + +He turned and went over to the clear, transparent sphere, and she, +resting her chin on both arms, lay gazing into it, too. + +After a silence he shook his head: "I see nothing, Athalie." + +"Can you not see that great yellow river, Clive? And the snow peaks on +the horizon?... Palms, tall reeds, endless forests--everything so +still--except birds flying--and a broad river rolling between +forests.... And a mud-bar, swarming with crocodiles.... And a dead +tree stranded there, on which large birds are sitting.... There is a +big cat-shaped animal on the bank; but the forest is dark and +sunless,--too dusky to see into.... I think the animal is a jaguar.... +He's drinking now.... Yes, he's a jaguar--a heavy, squarely built, +spotted creature with a broad, blunt head.... He's been eating a +pheasant; there are feathers everywhere--bright feathers, brilliant as +jewels.... Hark! You didn't hear that, did you, Clive? Somebody has +shot the jaguar. They've shot him again. He's whirling 'round and +'round--and now he's down, biting at sticks and leaves.... There goes +another shot. The jaguar lies very still. His jaws are partly open. He +has big, yellow cat-teeth.... I can't seem to see who shot him.... +There are some black men coming. One has a small American flag furled +around the shaft of his spear. He's waving it over the dead jaguar. +They're all dancing now.... But I can't see the man who shot him." + +"I shot him," said Clive. + +"I thought so." She turned and dropped back among her pillows. + +"You see," she said, listlessly, "I can never seem to find you, Clive. +Sometimes I suspect your presence. But I am never certain.... Why is +it that a girl can't find the man she cares for most in the whole +world?" + +"Do you care for me as much as that?" + +"Why, yes," she said, a trifle surprised. + +"And do you think I return your--regard--in measure?" + +She looked at him curiously, then, with her engaging and fearless +smile: "_Quantum suff_," she said. "You know you oughtn't to care +_too_ much for me, Clive." + +"How much is too much?" + +"You know," she said, watching his face, the smile still lingering on +her lips. + +"No, I don't. Tell me." + +"I'll inform you when it's necessary." + +"It's necessary now." + +"No, it isn't." + +"I'm afraid it is." + +There was a silence. She lay watching him for a moment longer while +the smile in her eyes slowly died out. Then, all in a moment, a swift +change altered her expression; and she sat up on the couch, supporting +herself on both hands. + +"What is happening to you, Clive!" she said almost breathlessly. + +"Nothing new." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Shall I tell you?" + +"Of course." + +"Then,"--but he could not say it. He had no business to, and he knew +it. It was the one thing he could refrain from saying, for her sake; +the one service he could now render her. + +He sat staring into space, the iron grimness of self-control locking +every fetter that he wore--must always wear now. + +She waited, her eyes intent on his face, her colour high, heart rapid. + +"What had you to say to me?" she asked, breaking the silence. + +He forced a laugh: "Nothing--except that sometimes being with you +again makes me--very contented--" + +"Is that what you had to say?" + +"Yes. I told you it was nothing new." + +She lowered her gaze and remained silent for a moment, apparently +considering what he had said. Then the uplifted candour of her eyes +questioned him again: + +"You don't imagine yourself in love with me again, do you, Clive?" + +"No." + +"Nothing like that could happen to you again, could it?... Because it +has not yet happened to me. It couldn't.... And it would be too--too +ghastly if you--if anything--" + +"Don't talk about it that way!" he said sharply. "If it _did_ +happen--what of it?"... He forced a smile. "But it won't happen.... +Things like that don't happen to people like you and me. We care too +much for each other, don't we, Athalie?" + +"Yes.... It would be terrible.... I don't know why I put such ideas +into your head--or into my own. But you--there was something in your +expression.... Oh, Clive, dear, it _couldn't_ happen to you, could +it?" + +She leaned forward impulsively and put both hands on his shoulders, +gazing into his eyes, searching them fearfully for any trace of what +she thought for a moment she had seen in them. + +He said gaily enough: "No fear, dear. I'm exactly what I always have +been. I'll always be what you want me to be, Athalie." + +"I know.... But if ever--" + +"No, no! Nothing can ever happen to worry you--" + +"But if--" + +"Nothing shall happen!" + +"I know. But if ever it does--" + +"It won't." + +"Oh, Clive, listen! If it _does_ happen to you, what will you do?" + +"Do?" + +"Yes.... If it does happen, what will you do, Clive?" + +"But--" + +"Answer me!" + +"I--" + +"Please answer me. What will you do about it?" + +"Nothing," he said, flushing. + +"Why not?" + +"Why not? What is there--what would there be to do? What could I have +to say to you if--" + +"You could say that you loved me--if you did." + +"To what purpose?" he demanded, red and astonished. + +"To whatever purpose you followed.... Why shouldn't you tell me? If it +ever happened that you fell in love with me again I had rather you +told me than that you kept silent. I had rather know it than have it +happen and never know it. Is there anything wrong in a man if he +happens to fall in love with a girl?" + +"He can remain silent, anyway." + +"Why? Because he cannot marry her?" + +"Yes." + +"If you ever fell in love with me--would you wish to marry me?" + +"If I ever did," he said, "I'd go through hell to marry you." + +She considered him, curiously, as though trying to realise something +inconceivable. + +"I do not think of you that way," she said. "I do not think of you +sentimentally at all.... Only that I care for you--deeply. I don't +believe it's in me to love. I mean--as the world defines love.... So +don't fall in love with me, Clive.... But, if you ever do, tell me." + +"Why?" he asked unsteadily. + +"Because you ought to tell me. I should not wish to die and never know +it." + +"Would you care?" + +"Care? Do you ask a girl whether she could remain unmoved, +uninterested, indifferent, if the man she cares for most falls in love +with her?" + +"Could you--respond?" + +"Respond? With love? I don't know. How can I tell? I believe that I +have never been in love in all my life. I don't know what it feels +like. You might as well ask somebody born blind to read an ordinary +book.... But one thing is certain: if that ever happens to you, you +ought to tell me. Will you?" + +"What good would it do?" + +"What harm would it do?" she asked frankly. + +"Suppose, knowing we could not marry, I made love to you, Athalie?" + +Suddenly the smile flashed in her eyes: "Do you think I'm a baby, +Clive? Suppose, knowing what we know, you did make love to me? Is that +very dreadful?" + +"My responsibility would be." + +"The responsibility is mine. I'm my own mistress. If I chose to be +yours the responsibility is mine--" + +"Don't say such things, Athalie!" + +"Why not? Such things happen--or they don't happen. I have no idea +they're likely to happen to us.... I'm not a bit alarmed, Clive.... +Perhaps it's the courage of ignorance--" She glanced at him again with +the same curious, questioning look in her eyes,--"Perhaps because I +cannot comprehend any such temptation.... And never could.... +Nevertheless if you fall in love with me, tell me. I would not wish +you to remain dumb. You have a right to speak. Love isn't a question +of conditions or of convenience. You ought to have your chance." + +"Chance!" + +"Certainly." + +"What chance?" + +"To win me." + +"Win you!--when I can't marry you--" + +"I didn't say marry; I said, win.... If you ever fell in love with me +you would wish to win my love, wouldn't you? And if you did, and I +gave it to you, you would have won me for yourself, wouldn't you? Then +why should you worry concerning _how_ I might love you? That would be +my affair, my personal responsibility. And I admit to you that I know +no more than a kitten what I might do about it." + +She looked at him a moment, her hands still resting on his shoulders, +and suddenly threw back her head, laughing deliciously: "Did you ever +before take part in such a ridiculous conversation?" she demanded. +"Oh, but I have always adored theoretical conversations. Only give me +an interesting subject and take one end of it and I'll gratefully +grasp the other, Clive. What an odd man you are; and I suppose I'm +odd, too. And we may yet live to inhabit an odd little house +together.... Wouldn't the world tear me to tatters!... I wonder if I'd +dare--even knowing I was all right!"... The laughter died in her +eyes; a swift tenderness melted them: "I do care for you so truly, +Clive! I can't bear to think of ever again living without you.... You +know it isn't silliness or love or anything except what I've always +felt for you--loyalty and devotion, endless, eternal. And that is all +there is or ever will be in my heart and mind." + +So clear and sweet and confident in his understanding were her eyes +that the quick emotion that leaped responsive left only a ruddy trace +on his face and a slight quiver on his lips. + +He said: "Nothing shall ever threaten your trust in me. No man can ask +for more than you give, Athalie." + +"I give you all I am. What more is there?" + +"I ask no more." + +"Is there more to wish for? Are you really satisfied, Clive?" + +"Perfectly;"--but he looked away from her. + +"And you don't imagine that you love me, do you?" + +"No,"--still looking away from her. + +"Meet my eyes, and say it." + +"I--" + +"Clive!" + +"There is no--" + +"Clive, obey me!" + +So he turned and looked her in the eyes. And after a moment's silence +she laughed, uncertainly, almost nervously. + +"You--you _do_ imagine it!" she said. "Don't you?" + +He made no reply. + +Presently she began to laugh again, a gay, tormenting, excited little +laugh. Something in his face seemed to exhilarate her, sending the +blood like wine to her cheeks. + +"You _do_ imagine it! Oh, Clive! _You!_ You think yourself in love +with your old comrade!... I _knew_ it! There was something about +you--I can't explain exactly what--but there was _something_ that told +me." + +She was laughing, now, almost wickedly and with all the naïve and +innocently malicious delight of a child delighting in its fellow's +torment. + +"Oh, Clive!" she said, "what are you going to do about it? And why do +you gaze at me so oddly?--as though I were angry or disconcerted. I'm +not. I'm happy. I'm crazy about this new relation of ours. It makes +you more interesting than I ever dreamed even you could be--" + +"You know," he said almost grimly, "if you are going to take it like +this--" + +"Take what?" + +"The knowledge that--" + +"That you are in love with me? Then you _are_! Oh, Clive, Clive! You +dear, sweet, funny boy! And you've told me so, haven't you? Or it +amounts to that; doesn't it?" + +"Yes; I love you." + +She leaned swiftly toward him, sparkling, flushed, radiant, tender: + +"You dear boy! I'm not really laughing at you. I'm laughing--I don't +know why: happiness--excitement--pride--I don't know.... Do you +suppose it actually is love? It won't make you unhappy, will it? +Besides you can be very busy trying to win me. That will be exciting +enough for both of us, won't it?" + +"Yes--if I try." + +"But you will try, won't you?" she demanded mockingly. + +He said, forcing a smile: "You seem to think it impossible that I +could win you." + +"Oh," she said airily, "I don't say that. You see I don't know the +method of procedure. I don't know what you're going to do about your +falling in love with me." + +He leaned over and took her by the waist; and she drew back +instinctively, surprised and disconcerted. + +"That is silly," she said. "Are you going to be silly with me, Clive?" + +"No," he said, "I won't be that." + +He sat looking at her in silence for a few moments. And slowly the +belief entered his heart like a slim steel blade that she had never +loved, and that there was in her nothing except what she had said +there was, loyalty and devotion, unsullied and spiritual, clean of all +else lower and less noble, guiltless of passion, ignorant of desire. + +As he looked at her he remembered the past--remembered that once he +might have taught her love in all its attributes--that once he might +have married her. For in a school so gentle and secure as wedlock such +a girl might learn to love. + +He had had his chance. What did he want of her now, then?--more than +he had of her already. Love? Her devotion amounted to that--all of it +that could concern a man already married--hopelessly married to a +woman who would never submit to divorce. What did he want of her then? + +He turned and walked to the open window and stood looking out over the +city. Sunset blazed crimson at the western end of every cross-street. +Far away on the Jersey shore electric lights began to sparkle. + +He did not know she was behind him until one arm fell lightly on his +shoulder. + +It remained there after her imprisoned waist yielded a little to his +arm. + +"You are not unhappy, are you, Clive?" + +"No." + +"I didn't mean to take it lightly. I don't comprehend; that's all. It +seems to me that I can't care for you more than I do already. Do you +understand?" + +"Yes, dear." + +She raised one cool hand and drew his cheek gently against her own, +and rested so a moment, looking out across the misty city. + +He remembered that night of his departure when she had put both arms +around his neck and kissed him. It had been like the serene touch of a +crucifix to his lips. It was like that now,--the smooth, passionless +touch of her cool, young face against his, and her slim hand framing +his cheek. + +"To think," she murmured to herself, "that you should ever care for me +in that way, too.... It is wonderful, wonderful--and very sweet--if it +does not make you unhappy. Does it?" + +"No." + +"It's so dear of you to love me that way, Clive. Could--could _I_ do +anything--about it?" + +"How?" + +"Would you care to kiss me?" she asked with a faint smile. And turned +her face. + +Chaste, cool and fresh as a flower her young mouth met his, lingered; +then, still smiling, and a trifle flushed and shy, she laid her cheek +against his shoulder, and her hands in his, calm in her security. + +"You see," she said, "you need not worry over me. I am glad you are in +love with me." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +It was in the days when nothing physical tainted her passionate +attachment to Clive. When she was with him she enjoyed the moment with +all her heart and soul--gave to it and to him everything that was best +in her--all the richness of her mental and bodily vigour, all the +unspoiled enthusiasm of her years, all the sturdy freshness of youth, +eager, receptive, credulous, unsatiated. + +With them, once more, the old happy companionship began; the Café +Arabesque, the Regina, the theatres, the suburban restaurants knew +them again. Familiar faces among the waiters welcomed them to the same +tables; the same ushers guided them through familiar aisles; the same +taxi drivers touched their caps with the same alacrity; the same +porters bestirred themselves for tips. + +Sometimes when they were not alone, they and their friends danced late +at Castle House or the Sans-Souci, or the Humming-Bird, or some such +resort, at that time in vogue. + +Sometimes on Saturday afternoons or on Sundays and holidays they spent +hours in the museums and libraries--not that Clive had either +inherited or been educated to any truer appreciation of things worth +while than the average New York man--but like the majority he admitted +the solemnity and fearsomeness of art and letters, and his attitude +toward them was as carefully respectful as it was in church. + +Which first perplexed and then amused Athalie who, with no +opportunities, had been born with a wholesome passion for all things +beautiful of the mind. + +The little she knew she had learned from books or from her +companionship with Captain Dane that first summer after Clive had gone +abroad. And there was nothing orthodox, nothing pedantic, nothing +simulated or artificial in her likes or dislikes, her preferences or +her indifference. + +Yet, somehow, even without knowing, the girl instinctively gravitated +toward all things good. + +In modern art--with the exception of a few painters--she found little +to attract her; but the magnificence of the great Venetians, the +sombre splendour of the great Spaniards, the nobility of the great +English and Dutch masters held her with a spell forever new. And, as +for the exquisite, naïvely self-conscious works of Greuze, Lancret, +Fragonard, Boucher, Watteau, and Nattier, she adored them with all the +fresh and natural appetite of a capacity for visual pleasure unjaded. + +He recognised Raphael with respect and pleasure when authority +reassured him it _was_ Raphael. Also he probably knew more about the +history of art than did she. Otherwise it was Athalie who led, +instinctively, toward what gallery and library held as their best. + +Her favourite lingering places were amid the immortal Chinese +porcelains and the masterpieces of the Renaissance. And thither she +frequently beguiled Clive,--not that he required any persuading to +follow this young and lovely creature who ranged the full boundaries +of her environment, living to the full life as it had been allotted +her. + +Wholesome with that charming and rounded slenderness of perfect health +there yet seemed no limit to her capacity for the enjoyment of all +things for which an appetite exists--pleasures, mental or physical--it +did not seem to matter. + +She adored walking; to exercise her body delighted her. Always she ate +and drank with a relish that fascinated; she was mad about the theatre +and about music:--and whatever she chanced to be doing she did with +all the vigour, intelligence, and pleasure of which she was capable, +throwing into it her entire heart and soul. + +It led to temporary misunderstandings--particularly with the men she +met--even in the small circle of friends whom she received and with +whom she went about. Arthur Ensart entirely mistook her until fiercely +set right one evening when alone with him; James Allys also listened +to a curt but righteously impassioned discourse which he never forgot. +Hargrave's gentlemanly and suavely villainous intentions, when finally +comprehended, became radically modified under her coolly scornful +rebuke. Welter, fat and sentimental, never was more than tiresomely +saccharine; Ferris and Lyndhurst betrayed symptoms of being +misunderstood, but it was a toss-up as to the degree of seriousness in +their intentions. + +[Illustration: "Once more, the old happy companionship began."] + +The intentions of men are seldom more serious than they have to be. +But they all were helplessly, hopelessly caught in the magic, gossamer +web of Athalie's beauty and personal charm; and some merely kicked and +buzzed and some tried to rend the frail rainbow fabric, and some +struggled silently against they knew not what--themselves probably. +And some, like Dane, hung motionless, enmeshed, knowing that to +struggle was futile. And some, like Clive, were still lying under her +jewelled feet in the very centre of the sorcery, so far silent and +unstirring, awaiting to see whether the grace of God would fall upon +them or the _coup-de-grâce_ that ended all. Eventually, however, like +all other men, Clive gave signs of life and impatience. + +"_Can't_ you love me, Athalie?" he said abruptly one night, when they +had returned from the theatre and he had already taken his leave--and +had come back from the door to take it again more tenderly. The girl +let him kiss her. + +She, in her clinging, sparkling evening gown was standing by her +crystal, the fingers of one hand lightly poised upon it, looking down +at it. + +"Love you, Clive," she repeated in smiling surprise. "Why, I do, you +dear, foolish boy. I've admitted it to you. Also haven't you just +kissed me?" + +"I know.... But I mean--couldn't you love me above all other +men--above everything in this world--" + +"But I _do_! Were you annoyed because I was silly with Cecil +to-night?" + +"No.... I understand. You simply can't help turning everybody's head. +It's in you,--it's part of you--" + +"I'm merely having a good time," she protested. "It means no more than +you see, when I flirt with other men.... It never goes any +farther--except--once or twice I have let men kiss me.... Only two or +three.... Before you came back, of course--" + +"I didn't know that," he said sullenly. + +"Didn't you? Then the men were more decent than I supposed.... Yes, I +let John Lyndhurst kiss me once. And Francis Hargrave did it.... And +Jim Allys tried to, against my wishes--but he never attempted it after +that." + +She had been looking down again at the crystal while speaking; her +attitude was penitential, but the faint smile on her lips adorably +mischievous. Presently she glanced up at him to see how he was taking +it. He must have been taking it very badly, for: + +"Clive!" she said, startled; "are you really annoyed with me?" + +The gathering scowl faded and he forced a smile. Then the frown +returned; he flung one arm around her supple waist and gathered both +her hands into his, holding them closely imprisoned. + +"You _must_ love!" he said almost roughly. + +"My dear! I've told you that I do love you." + +"And I tell you you don't! Your calm and cheerful friendship for me +isn't love!" + +"Oh. What else is it, please?" + +He kissed her on the mouth. She suffered his lips again without +flinching, then drew back laughingly to avoid him. + +"Why are you becoming so very demonstrative?" she asked. "If you are +not careful it will become a horrid habit with you." + +"Does it mean nothing more than a habit to you?" he asked, +unsmilingly. + +"It means that I care enough for you to let you do it more than once, +doesn't it?" + +He shrugged and turned his face toward the window: + +"And you believe that you love me," he said, sullenly and partly to +himself. + +"You amazingly sulky man, _what_ are you muttering to yourself?" she +demanded, bending forward and across his shoulder to see his face +which was still turned from her. He swung about and caught her +fiercely in his arms; and the embrace left her breathless and flushed. + +"Clive--please--" + +"_Can't_ you care for me! For God's sake show it if you can!" + +"Please, dear--I--" + +"_Can't_ you!" he repeated unsteadily, drawing her closer. "You know +what I am asking. Answer me!" + +She bent her head and rested it against his shoulder a moment, +considering; she then looked away from him, troubled: + +"I don't want to be your--mistress," she said. Truth disconcerts the +vast majority. It disconcerted him--after a ringing silence through +which the beating of rain on the window came to him like the steady +tattoo of his own heart. + +"I did not ask that," he said, very red. + +"You meant that.... Because I've been everything to you except that." + +"I want you for my wife," he interrupted sharply. + +"But you are married, Clive. So what more can I be to you, unless I +become--what I don't want to become--" + +"I merely want you to love me--until I can find some way out of this +hell on earth I'm living in!" + +"Dear, I'm sorry! I'm sorry you are so unhappy. But you can't get +free,--can you? She won't let you, will she?" + +"I've got to have my freedom! I can't stand this. Good God! Must a man +do life for being a fool once? Isn't there any allowance to be made +for a first offence? I've always wanted to marry you. I was a +miserable, crazy coward to do what I did! Haven't I paid for it? Do +you know what I've been through?" + +She said very sweetly and pitifully: "Dear, I know what people +suffer--what lonely hearts endure. I think I understand what you have +been through." + +"I know you understand! Fool that I am who enlightened you. But yours +was the injury of bruised faith--the suffering caused by outrage. No +hell of self-contempt set _you_ crawling about the world in agony; no +despicable self-knowledge drove _you_ out into the waste places. Yours +was the sorrow of a self-respecting victim; mine the grief of the +damned fool who has done to death all that he ever loved for the love +of expediency and of self!" + +"Clive!--" + +"That's what I am!" he interrupted fiercely, "a damned fool! I don't +know what else I am, but I can't live without you, and I won't!" + +She said: "You told me that being in love with me would not make you +unhappy. So I told you to love me. I was wrong to let you do it." + +"You darling! I am more than happy!" + +"It was a dreadful mistake, Clive! I shouldn't have let you." + +"Do you think you could have stopped me?" + +"I don't know. Couldn't I? I've stopped other men.... I shouldn't have +let you. But it was so delightful--to be really loved by _you_! All my +pride responded. It seemed to dignify everything; it seemed to make me +really a woman, with a place among other women--to be loved by such a +man as you ... and I was _not_ selfish about it; I did ask you whether +it would make you unhappy to be in love with me. Oh, I see now that I +was very wrong, Clive--very foolish, very wrong! Because it _is_ +making you restless and unhappy--" + +"If you could only love me a little in return!" + +"I don't know how to love you except the way I am doing--" + +"There is a more vital emotion--" + +"It seems impossible that I could care for you more deeply than I +do." + +"If you could only respond with a little tenderness--" + +"I _do_ respond--as well as I know how," she said piteously. + +He drew her nearer and touched her cheek with his lips: + +"I know, dear. I don't mean to complain." + +"Oh, Clive! I have let you fall in love with me and it is making you +miserable! And now it's making me miserable, too, because you are +disappointed in me." + +"No--" + +"You are! I'm not what you expected--not what you wanted--" + +"You are everything I want!--if I could only wake your heart!" he said +in a low tense voice. + +"It isn't my heart that is asleep.... I know what you miss in me.... +And I can't help it. I--I don't wish to help it--or to be different." + +She dropped her head against his shoulder. After a few moments she +spoke from there in a muffled, childish voice: + +"What can I do about it? I don't want to be your mistress, Clive.... I +never wanted to do--anything--like that." + +A deeper colour burnt his face. He said: "Could you love me enough to +marry me if I managed to free myself?" + +"I have never thought of marrying you, Clive. It isn't that I couldn't +love you--that way. I suppose I could. Probably I could. Only--I don't +know anything about it--" + +"Let me try to free myself, anyway." + +"How is it possible?" + +He said, exasperated: "Do you suppose I can endure this sort of +existence forever?" + +The swift tears sprang to her eyes. "I don't know--I don't know," she +faltered. "I thought this existence of ours ideal. I thought you were +going to be happy; I supposed that our being together again would +bring happiness to us both. It doesn't! It is making us wretched. You +are not contented with our friendship!" She turned on him +passionately: "I don't wish to be your mistress. I don't want you to +make me wish to be. No girl naturally desires less than she is +entitled to, or more than the law permits--unless some man teaches her +to wish for it. Don't make such a girl of me, Clive! You--you are +beginning to do it. And I don't wish it! Truly I don't!" + +In that fierce flash of candour,--of guiltless passion, she had +revealed herself. Never, until that moment, had he supposed himself so +absolutely dominant, invested with such power for good or evil. That +he could sway her one way or the other through her pure loyalty, +devotion, and sympathy he had not understood. + +To do him justice he desired no such responsibility. He had meant to +be honest and generous and unselfish even when the outlook seemed most +hopeless,--when he was convinced that he had no chance of freedom. + +But a man with the girl he loves in his arms might as well set a net +to catch the wind as to set boundaries to his desires. Perhaps he +could not so ardently have desired his freedom to marry her had he not +as ardently desired her love. + +Love he had of her, but it was an affection utterly innocent of +passion. He knew it; she realised it; realised too that the capacity +for passion was in her. And had asked him not awaken her to it, +instinctively recoiling from it. Generous, unsullied, proudly +ignorant, she desired to remain so. Yet knew her peril; and candidly +revealed it to him in the most honest appeal ever made to him. + +For if the girl herself suspected and dreaded whither her loyalty and +deep devotion to him might lead her, he had realised very suddenly +what his leadership meant in such a companionship. + +Now it sobered him, awed him,--and chilled him a trifle. + +Himself, his own love for her, his own passion he could control and in +a measure subdue. But, once awakened, could he control such an ally as +she might be to his own lesser, impatient and hot-headed self? + +Where her disposition was to deny, he could still fetter self and +acquiesce. But he began to understand that half his strength lay in +her unwillingness; half of their safety in her inexperience, her +undisturbed tranquillity, her aloofness from physical emotion and her +ignorance of the mastery of the lesser passions. + +The girl had builded wholesomely and wisely for herself. Instinct had +led her truly and well as far as that tangled moment in her life. +Instinct still would lead her safely if she were let alone,--instinct +and the intelligence she herself had developed. For the ethical view +of the question remained only as a vague memory of precepts mechanical +and meaningless to a healthy child. She had lost her mother too early +to have understood the casual morals so gently inculcated. And nobody +else had told her anything. + +Also intelligence is often a foe to instinct. She might, with little +persuasion accept an unconventional view of life; with a little +emotional awakening she might more easily still be persuaded to a +logic builded on false foundations. Add to these her ardent devotion +to this man, and her deep and tender concern lest he be unhappy, and +Athalie's chances for remaining her own mistress were slim enough. + +Something of this Clive seemed to understand; and the understanding +left him very serious and silent where he stood in the soft glow of +the lamp with this young girl in his arms and her warm, sweet head on +his breast. + +He said after a long silence: "You are right, Athalie. It is better, +safer, not to respond to me. I'm just in love with you and I want to +marry you--that's all. I shall not be unhappy about it. I am not, now. +If I marry you, you'll fall in love, too, in your own way. That will +be as it should be. I could desire no more than that. I _do_ desire +nothing more." + +He looked down at her, smiled, releasing her gently. But she clung to +him for a moment. + +"You are so wonderful, Clive--so dear! I _do_ love you. I will marry +you if I can. I want to make up everything to you--the lonely years, +your deep unhappiness--even," she added shyly, "your little +disappointment in me--" + +"You don't understand, Athalie. I am not disappointed--" + +"I _do_ understand. And I am thinking of what will happen if you fail +to free yourself.... Because I realize now that I don't propose to +leave you to grow old all alone.... I shall live with you when you're +old whatever people may think. I tell you, Clive, I'm the same child, +the same girl that you once knew, only grown into a woman. I know +right from wrong. I had rather not do wrong. But if I've got to--I +won't whimper. And I'll do it thoroughly!" + +"You won't do it at all," he said, smiling at her threat to the little +tin gods. + +"I don't know. If they won't give you your freedom, and if--" + +"Nonsense, Athalie," he said, laughing, coolly master of himself once +more. "We mustn't be unwholesomely romantic, you and I. I'll marry you +if I can; if I can't, God help us, that's all." + +But she had become very grave: "God help us," she repeated slowly. +"Because I believe that, rightly or wrongly, I shall one day belong to +you." + +He said: "It can be only in one way. The right way." Perhaps he had +awakened too late to a realisation of his power over her, for the girl +made no response, no longer even looked at him. + +"Only one way," he repeated, uneasily;--"the right way, Athalie." + +But into her dark blue eyes had come a vague and brooding beauty +which he had never before seen. In it was tenderness, and a new +wisdom, alas! and a faint and shadowy something, profound, starlike, +inscrutable. + +"As for love," he said, forcing a lighter tone, "there are fifty-seven +different varieties, Athalie; and only one is poisonous,--unless taken +with the other fifty-six, and in small doses." + +She smiled faintly and walked to the window. Rain beat there in the +darkness spattering the little iron balcony. Below, the bleared lights +of the city stretched away to the sky-line. + +He followed, and slipped his arm through hers; and she bent her wrist, +interlacing her slim fingers with his. + +"You know," he said, "that when I often speak with apparent authority +I am wrong. In the final analysis _you_ are the real leader, Athalie. +Your instincts are the right ones; your convictions honest, your +conclusions just. Mine are too often confused with selfishness and +indecision. For mine is an irresolute character;--or it was. I'm +trying to make it firmer." + +She pressed his hand lightly, her eyes still fixed on the +light-smeared darkness. + +He went on more gravely: "Candour and the intuition born of common +sense,--that is where you are so admirable, dear. Add to that the +tenderest heart that ever beat, and a proud ignorance of the lesser, +baser emotions--and, who am I to interfere,--to come into the sweet +order of your life with demands that confuse you--with complaints +against the very destiny I brought upon us both--with the clamour of +a selfish and ignoble philosophy which your every instinct rejects, +and which your heart entertains only because it _is_ your heart, and +its heavenly sympathy has never failed me yet.... Oh, Athalie, +Athalie, it would be a shameful day for me and a bitter day for you if +my selfishness and irresolution ever swerved you. What I have lost--if +I have indeed lost it--is lost irrevocably. And I've got to learn to +face it." + +She said, still gazing absently into the darkness: "Yes. But I am just +beginning to wonder what it is that _I_ may have lost,--what it is +that I have never known." + +"Don't think of it! Don't permit anything I have said or done to +trouble you or stir you toward such an awakening.... I don't want to +stand charged with that. You are tranquil, now--" + +"I--_was_." + +"You are still!" he said in quick concern. "Listen, Athalie--the +majority of men lose their grip at moments; men as irresolute as I +lose it oftener. Don't waste sympathy on me; it was nothing but a +whine born of a lesser impulse--born of emotions less decent than you +could comprehend--" + +"Maybe I am beginning to comprehend." + +"You shall not! You shall remain as you are! Dear, don't you realise +that I can't steady myself unless I can look up to you? You've raised +yourself to where you stand; you've made your own pedestal. Look down +at me from it; don't ever _step_ down; don't ever condescend; don't +ever let me think you mortal. You are not, now. Don't ever descend +entirely to my level--even if we marry." + +She turned, smiling too wisely, yet adorably: "What endless romance +there is in that boy's heart of yours! There always was,--when you +came running back to me where I stood alone by the closed door,--when +you found me living as all women who work live, and made a beautiful +home for me and gave me more than I wished to take, asking nothing of +me in return. Oh, Clive, you were chivalrous and romantic, too, when +you listened to your mother's wishes and gave me up. I understand it +so much better, now. I know how it was--with your father dead and your +beautiful mother, broken, desolate, confiding to your keeping all her +hope and pride and future happiness,--all the traditions of the +family, and its dignity and honour! + +"In the light of a clearer knowledge, do you suppose I blame you now? +Do you suppose I blame you for anything?--for your long and +broken-hearted and bitter silence?--for the quick resurgence of your +affection for me--for your love--Oh, Clive!--for your passion? + +"Do you suppose I think less of you because you love me--care for me +in the many and inexplicable ways that a man cares for a +woman?--because you want me as a man wants the woman he loves, as his +wife if it may be so, as his _own_, anyhow?" + +She let her eyes rest on him in a new and fearless comprehension, +tender, curious, sad by turns. + +"It is the romance of passion in you that has been fighting to awaken +the Sleeping Princess of a legend," she said with a slight smile; "it +is the same illogical, impulsive romance that draws back just as her +closed lids tremble, fearing to awaken her to the sorrows and +temptations of a world which, after all, God made for us to wake in." + +"Athalie! I am a scoundrel if I have--" + +"Oh, Clive!" she laughed, mocking the solemn measure of her own words; +"adorable boy of impulse and romance, never to outgrow its magic +armour, destined always to be ruled by dreams through the sweetest and +most generous of hearts, you need not fear for me. I am already +awake--at least I am sufficiently aroused to understand you--and +something, too, of my own self which I have never hitherto +understood." + +For a second, lightly, she rested her warm, fresh cheek against his. +When it was burning she disengaged her fingers from his and leaned +aside against the rain-swept window. + +"You see?" she said calmly but with heightened colour.... "I am very +human after all.... But it is still my mind that rules, not my +emotions." + +She turned to him in her old sweetly humorous and mocking manner: + +"That is all the romance of which I am capable, Clive--if there be any +real romance in a very clear mind. For it is my intellect that must +lead me to salvation or to destruction. If I am to come crashing down +at your feet, I shall have already planned the fall. If I am to be +destroyed, it will not be by any accident of romantic emotion, of +unconsidered impulse, or sudden blindness of passion; it will be +because my intelligence coolly courted destruction, and accepted +every chance, every hazard." + +So spoke Athalie, smiling, in the full confidence and pride of her +superb youth, certain of the mind's autocracy over matter, lightly +defying within herself the latent tempest, of which she as yet divined +no more than the first exquisitely disturbing breeze;--deriding, too, +the as yet unloosened bolts of the old gods themselves,--the white +lightning of desire. + +"Come," she said, half mockingly, half seriously, passing her arm +through Clive's;--"we are quite safe together in this safe and sane +old world--unless _I_ choose--otherwise." + +She turned and touched her lips lightly to his hair: + +"So you may safely behave as irrationally, irresponsibly, and +romantically as you choose.... As long as I now am wide awake." + +And then, for the first time, he realised his utter responsibility to +this girl who so gaily and audaciously relieved him of it. And he +understood how pitifully unarmed she really stood, and how imminent +the necessity for him to forge for himself the armour of character, +and to wear it eternally for his own safety as well as hers. + +"Good night, dear," he said. + +In her new and magnificent self-confidence she turned and put both +arms around his neck, drawing his lips against hers. + +But after he had gone she leaned against the closed door, less +confident, her heart beating too fast and hard to entirely justify +this new enfranchisement of the body, or her overwhelming faith in +its wise and trusted guardian, the mind. + +And he went soberly on his way through the rain to his hotel, troubled +but determined upon his new rôle as his own soul's armourer. All that +was in him of romance and of chivalry was responding passionately to +the girl's unconscious revelation of her new need. + +For now he realised that her boasted armour was of gauze; he could see +her naked heart beating behind it; he beheld, through the shield she +lifted on high to protect them both, the moon shining with its false, +reflected light. + +Never did Athalie stand in such dire need of the armour she supposed +that she was wearing. + +And he must put on his own, rapidly, and rivet it fast--the inflexible +mail of character which alone can shield such souls as his--and hers. + + * * * * * + +When he came into his own room, a thick letter from his wife lay on +the table. Before he broke the seal he laid aside his wet garments, +being in no haste to read any more of the now incessant reproaches and +complaints with which Winifred had recently deluged him. + +[Illustration: "Finally ... he cut the envelope and seated himself +beside the lamp."] + +Finally, when he was ready, he cut the envelope and seated himself +beside the lamp. She wrote from the house in Kent: + + "It was a very different matter when you were travelling + about and I could say that you were off on another exploring + expedition. But your return from South America was mentioned + in the London papers; and the fact that you are now not + only in New York but that you have also gone into business + there is known and is the subject of comment. + + "I shall be, as usual, perfectly frank with you; I do not + care whether you are here or not; in fact I infinitely + prefer your absence to your presence. But your engaging in + business in New York is a very different matter, and creates + a different situation for me. + + "You like to travel. Why don't you do it? I don't care to be + the subject of gossip; and I shall be--am, no doubt, + already,--because you are making the situation too plain and + too public. + + "It's well enough for one's friends to surmise the condition + of affairs; no unpleasantness for me results. But let it + once become newspaper gossip and my situation among people I + most earnestly desire to cultivate would become instantly + precarious and perhaps impossible. + + "It is not necessary for me to inform you what is the very + insecure status of an American woman here, particularly in + view of the Court's well known state of mind concerning + marital irregularities. + + "The King's views coincide with the Queen's. And the Queen's + are perfectly well known. + + "If you continue your exploring expeditions, which you + evidently like to engage in, and if you report here at + intervals for the sake of appearances, I can get on very + well and very comfortably. But if you settle in New York and + engage in business there, and continue to remain away from + this country where you are popularly supposed to maintain + residences in town and country, I shall certainly begin to + experience very disagreeably the consequences of your + selfish conduct. + + "Your reply to my last letter has thoroughly incensed me. + + "You always have been selfish. From the time I had the + misfortune to marry you I had to suffer from your selfish, + self-centred, demonstrative, and rather common + character--until you finally learned that demonstration is + offensive to decent breeding, and that, although I happened + to be married to you, I intended to keep to my own notions + of delicacy, reserve, privacy, and self-respect. + + "Of course you thought it a sufficient reason for us to have + children merely because _you_ once thought you wanted them; + and I shall not forget what was your brutal attitude toward + me when I told you very plainly that I refused to be saddled + with the nasty, grubby little brats. Evidently you are + incapable of understanding any woman who is not half animal. + + "I did not desire children, and that ought to have been + sufficient for you. I am not demonstrative toward anybody; I + leave that custom to my servants. And is it any crime if the + things that interest and appeal to you do not happen to + attract me? + + "And I'll tell you now that your subjects of conversation + always bored me. I make no pretences; I frankly do not care + for what you so smugly designate as 'the things of the mind' + and 'things worth while.' I am no hypocrite: I like well + bred, well dressed people; I like what they do and say and + think. Their characters may be negative as you say, but + their poise and freedom from demonstration are most + agreeable to me. + + "You politely designated them as fools, and what they said + you characterised as piffle. You had the exceedingly bad + taste to sneer at various members of an ancient and + established aristocracy--people who by inheritance from + generations of social authority, require no toleration from + such a man as you. + + "These are the people who are my friends; among whom I enjoy + an established position. This position you now threaten by + coolly going into business in New York. In other and uglier + words you advertise to the world that you have abandoned + your home and wife. + + "Of course I cannot help it if you insist on doing this + common and disgraceful thing. + + "And I suppose, considering the reigning family's attitude + toward divorce, that you believe me to be at your mercy. + + "Permit me to inform you that I am not. If, in a certain + set, wherein I now have the entrée, divorce is not + tolerated,--at any rate where the divorced wife of an + American would not be received,--nevertheless there are + other sets as desirable, perhaps even more desirable, and + which enjoy a prestige as weighty. + + "And I'll tell you now that in case you persist in + affronting me by remaining in business in New York, I shall + be forced to procure a separation--possibly a divorce. And I + shall not suffer for it socially as no doubt you think I + will. + + "There is only one reason why I have not done so + already--disinclination to be disturbed in a social milieu + which suits me. It's merely the inconvenience of a transfer + to another equally agreeable set. + + "But if your selfish conduct forces me to make the change, + don't doubt for one minute, my friend, that I'm entirely + capable and able to accomplish it without any detriment or + anything worse than some slight inconvenience to myself. + + "Whether it be a separation or a divorce I have not yet made + up my mind. + + "There is only one reason why I should hesitate and that is + the thought that possibly you might be glad of your freedom. + If I were sure of that I'd punish you by asking for a + separation. But I do not suppose it really matters to you. I + think I know you well enough to know that you have no desire + to marry again. And, as for the young woman in whose company + you made yourself notorious before we were engaged--well, I + think you would hesitate to offer her marriage, or even, + perhaps, the not unprecedented privilege of being your + _chère amie_. I do you the honour of believing you too + fastidious to select a public fortune teller for your + mistress, or to parade a cheap trance-medium as a specimen + of your personal taste in pulchritude. + + "Meanwhile your attitude in domestic matters continues to + annoy me. Be good enough to let me know, definitely, what + you propose to do, so that I may take proper measures to + protect myself--because I have always been obliged to + protect myself from you and your vulgar notions ever since + my mother and yours made a fool of me. + "WINIFRED STUART BAILEY." + +With his care-worn eyes still fixed on the written pages he rested his +elbow on the table and dropped his head on his hand, heavily. + +Rain swept the windows; the wind also was rising; his room seemed to +be full of sounds; even the clock which had a subdued tick and a most +discreet manner of announcing the passing of time, seemed noisy to +him. + +"God! what a mess I've made of life," he said aloud. For a moment a +swift anger burned fiercely against the woman who had written him; +then the flame of it blew against himself, scorching him with the +wrath of self-contempt. + +"Hell!" he said between his teeth. "It isn't the fault of that little +girl across the ocean. It's my fault, mine, and the fault of nobody +else." + +Indecision, the weakness of a heart easily appealed to, the +irresolution of a man who was not man enough to guard and maintain his +own freedom of action and the right to live his own life--these had +encompassed the wrecking of him. + +It seemed that he was at least man enough to admit it, generous enough +to concede it, even if perhaps it was not altogether true. + +But never once had he permitted himself, even for a second, to censure +the part played by his mother in the catastrophe. That he had been +persuaded, swerved, over-ridden, dominated, was his own fault. + +The boy had been appealed to, subtly, cleverly, on his most vulnerable +side; he had been bothered and badgered and beset. Two women, clever +and hard as nails, had made up their minds to the marriage; the third +remained passive, indifferent, but acquiescent. Wiser, firmer, and +more experienced men than Clive had surrendered earlier. Only the +memory of Athalie held him at all;--some vague, indefinite hope may +have remained that somehow, somewhere, sometime, either the world's +attitude might change or he might develop the courage to ignore it and +to seek his happiness where it lay and let the world howl. + +That is probably all that held him at all. And after a while the +constant pressure snapped that thread. This was the result. + + * * * * * + +He lifted his head and stared, heavy-eyed, at his wife's letter. Then, +dropping the sheets to the floor he turned and laid both arms upon the +table and buried his face in them. + +Toward morning his servant discovered him there, asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +The following day Clive replied to his wife by cable: "As it seems to +make no unpleasant difference to you I have concluded to remain in New +York. Please take whatever steps you may find most convenient and +agreeable for yourself." + +And, following this he wrote her: + + "I am inexpressibly sorry to cause you any new annoyance and + to arouse once more your just impatience and resentment. But + I see no use in a recapitulation of my shortcomings and of + your own many disappointments in the man you married. + + "Please remember that I have always assumed all blame for our + marriage; and that I shall always charge myself with it. I + have no reply to make to your reproaches,--no defence; I was + not in love with you when I married you--which is as serious + an offence as any man can perpetrate toward any woman. And I + do not now blame you for a very natural refusal to tolerate + anything approaching the sympathy and intimacy that ought to + exist between husband and wife. + + "I did entertain a hazy idea that affection and perhaps love + might be ultimately possible even under the circumstances of + such a marriage as ours; and in a youthful, ignorant, and + inexperienced way I attempted to bring it about. My notions + of our mutual obligations were very vague and indefinite. + + "Please believe I did not realise how utterly distasteful any + such ideas were to you, and how deep was your personal + disinclination for the man you married. + + "I understand now how many mistakes I made before I finally + rid you of myself, and gave you a chance to live your life in + your own way unharassed by the interference of a young, + ignorant, and probably aggressive man. + + "Your aversion to motherhood was, after all, your own affair. + Man has no right to demand that of woman. I took a very + bullying and intolerant attitude toward you--not, as I now + realise, from any real conviction on the subject, but because + I liked and wanted children, and also because I was + influenced by the cant of the hour--the fashion being to + demand of woman, on ethical grounds, quantitative + reproduction as a marriage offering to the Almighty. As + though indiscriminate and wholesale addition to humanity were + an admirable and religious duty. Nothing, even in the Old + Testament, is more stupid than such a doctrine; no child + should ever be born unwelcome to both parents. + + "I am sorry I could not find your circle of friends + interesting. I sometimes think I might have, had you and I + been mutually sympathetic. But the situation was impossible; + our ideas, interests, convictions, tastes, were radically at + variance; we had absolutely nothing in common to build on. + What marriage ties could endure the strain of such + conditions? The fault was mine, Winifred; I am sorry for + you. + + "I don't know much about anything, but, thinking as clearly + and as impersonally as it is in me to think, I begin to + believe that divorce, far from deserving the stigma attached + to it, is a step forward in civilisation. + + "Perhaps it may be only a temporary substitute for something + better--say for more wholesome and more honest social + conditions where the proposition for mating and the selection + of a mate may lie as freely with your sex as with mine. + + "Until then I know of nothing more honest and more sensible + than to undo the wrong that ignorance and inexperience has + accomplished. No woman's moral or spiritual salvation is + dependent upon her wearing the fetters of a marriage + abhorred. Such a stupid sacrifice is unthinkable to modesty + and decency, and is repulsive to common sense. And any god + who is supposed to demand that of humanity is not the true + God, but is as grotesque and false as any African idol or any + deity ever worshipped by Puritan or Pagan or by any orthodox + assassin of free minds since the first murder was perpetrated + on account of creed. + + "You are entitled to divorce. I don't know whether I am or + not, having done this thing. Nobody likes to endure unhappy + consequences. I don't. But it was my own doing and I have no + ground for complaint. + + "You, however, have. You ought to be free of me. Of course, + I'd be very glad to have my freedom; I shall not lie about + it; but the difference is that you deserve yours and I don't. + But I'll be very grateful if you care to give it to me. + + "Don't write any more bitterly than you can help. I don't + believe it really affords you any satisfaction; and it + depresses me more than you could realise. I know only too + well what I have been and wherein I have failed so miserably. + Let me forget it whenever I can, Winifred. And if, for me, + there remains any chance, any outlook, be generous enough to + let me try to take it. + "Your husband, + "C. BAILEY." + +The consequences of this letter did not seem to be very fortunate. +There came a letter from her so bitter and menacing that a cleverer +man might have read in it enough of menace between the lines to +forearm him with caution at least. + +But Clive merely read it once and destroyed it and tried to forget it. + + * * * * * + +It was not until some time afterward that, gradually, some instinct in +him awoke suspicion. But for a long while he was not perfectly sure +that he was being followed. + +However, when he could no longer doubt it, and when the lurking +figures and faces of at least two of the men who dogged him everywhere +had become sufficiently familiar to him, he wrote a short note to his +wife asking for an explanation. + +But he got none--principally because his wife had already sailed. + +The effect of Winifred's letters on an impressionable, sensitive, and +self-distrustful character, was never very quickly effaced. + +Whatever was morbid in the man became apparent after he had received +such letters, and took the form of a quiet withdrawal from the circles +which he affected, until such time as mortification and shame had +subsided. + +He had written briefly to Athalie saying that business would take him +out of town for a few weeks. Which it did as a matter of fact, landing +him at Spring Pond, Long Island, where he completed the purchase of +the Greensleeve tavern and took title in his own name. + +Old Ledlie had died; his only heir appeared to be glad enough to sell; +the title was free and clear; the possibilities of the place +fascinating. + +Clive prowled around the place in two minds whether he might venture +to call in a local builder and have him strip the protuberances from +the house, which was all that was necessary to restore it to its +original form; or whether he ought to leave that for Athalie to +manage. + +But there remained considerable to be done; May was in full bud and +blossom already; and if Athalie was to enjoy the place at all that +summer it ought to be made livable. + +So Clive summoned several people to his aid with the following quick +results: A New York general contractor took over the entire job +guaranteeing quick results or forfeiture. A local nurseryman and an +emergency gang started in. They hedged the entire front with privet +for immediate effect, cleared, relocated, and restored the ancient +flower garden on its quaint original lines; planted its borders +thickly with old time perennials, peonies, larkspurs, hollyhocks, +clove pinks, irises, and lilies; replanted the rose beds with +old-fashioned roses, set the wall beds with fruit trees and gay +annuals, sodded, trimmed, raked, levelled, cleaned up, and pruned, +until the garden was a charming and logical thing. + +Fortunately the newness was not apparent because the old stucco walls +remained laden with wistaria and honeysuckle, and the alley of ancient +box trees required clipping only. + +In the centre of the lawn he built a circular pool and piped the water +from Spring Brook. It fell in a slender jet, icy cold, powdering pool, +basin and grass with spray. + +Where half-dead locust and cedar trees had to be felled Clive set tall +arbor vitæ and soft maples. He was an expensive young man where +Athalie's pleasure was concerned; and as he worked there in the lovely +May weather his interest and enthusiasm grew with every fresh fragrant +spadeful of brown earth turned. + +The local building genius repainted the aged house after bay window and +gingerbread had been stripped from its otherwise dignified facade; +replaced broken slates on the roof, mended the great fat chimneys, +matched the traces of pale bluish-green that remained on the window +shutters, filled in the sashes with small, square panes, instituted +modern plumbing, drainage, sewage, and electric lights--all of which was +emergency work and not too difficult as the city improvements had now +been extended as far as the village a mile to the eastward. But it was +expensive. + +At first Clive had decided to leave the interior to Athalie, but he +finally made up his mind to restore the place on its original lines +with the exception of her mother's room. This room he recognised from +her frequent description of it; and he locked it, pocketed the key, +and turned loose his men. + +All that they did was to plaster where it was needed, re-kalsomine all +walls and ceilings, scrape, clean, mend, and re-enamel the ancient +woodwork. Trim, casings, wainscot, and stairs were restored to their +original design and finish; dark hardwood floors replaced the painted +boards which had rotted; wherever a scrap of early wall-paper remained +he matched it as closely as possible, having an expert from New York +to do the business; and the fixtures he chose were simple and graceful +and reflected the period as nearly as electric light fixtures can +simulate an era of candle-sticks and tallow dips. + +He was tremendously tempted to go ahead, so fascinating had the work +become to him, but he realised that it was not fair to Athalie. All +that he could reasonably do he had done; the place was clean and +fresh, and restored to its original condition outside and in, except +for the modern necessities of lighting, heating, plumbing, and running +water in pantry, laundry, kitchen, and bathrooms. Two of the latter +had replaced two clothes-presses; the ancient cellar had been cemented +and whitewashed, and heavily stocked with furnace and kitchen coal and +kindling. + +Also there were fire-dogs for the three fine old-fashioned fireplaces +in the house which had been disinterred from under bricked-in and +plastered surfaces where only the aged mantel shelves and a hole for a +stove pipe revealed their probable presence. + +The carpets were too ragged and soiled to retain; the furniture too +awful. But he replaced the latter, leaving its disposition and the +pleasure of choosing new furniture and new floor coverings to Athalie. + +Hers also was to be the pleasure of re-stocking the house with linen; +of selecting upholstery and curtains and the requisites for pantry, +kitchen, and dining-room. + +Once she told him what she had meant to do with the bar. And he took +the liberty of doing it, turning the place into a charming +sun-parlour, where, in a stone basin, gold-fish swam and a forest of +feathery and flowering semi-tropical plants spread a fretwork of blue +shadows over the cool stone floor. + +But he left the big stove as it had been; and the rather quaint old +chairs with their rush-bottoms renovated and their lustrous wood +stained and polished by years of use. + +Every other day he went to Spring Pond from his office in New York to +watch the progress of the work. The contractor was under penalty; +Clive had not balked at the expense; and the work was put through with +a rush. + +In the meanwhile he called on Athalie occasionally, pretending always +whenever she spoke of it, that negotiations were still under way +concerning the property in question, and that such transactions +required patience and time. + +One matter, too, was gradually effaced from his mind. The tall man and +the short man who had been following him so persistently had utterly +disappeared. And nobody else seemed to have taken their places. +Eventually he forgot it altogether. + +Two months was the period agreed upon for the completion of Athalie's +house and garden, and the first week in July found the work done. + +It had promised to be a hot week in the city: Athalie, who had been +nowhere except for an evening at some suburban restaurant, had begun +to feel fagged and listless and in need of a vacation. + +And that morning she had decided to go away for a month to some quiet +place in the mountains, and she was already consulting various folders +and advertisements which she had accumulated since early spring, when +the telephone in her bedroom rang. + +She had never heard Clive's voice so gay over the wire. She told him +so; and she could hear his quick and rather excited laugh. + +"Are you very busy to-day?" he asked. + +"No; I'm going to close up shop for a month, Clive. I'm hot and tired +and dying for a glimpse of something green. I was just looking over a +lot of advertisements--cottages and hotels. Come up and help me." + +"I want you to spend the day with me in the country. Will you?" + +"I'd love to. Where?" + +"At Spring Pond." + +"Clive! Do you really want to go there?" + +"Yes. As your guest." + +"What?" + +"If you will invite me. Will you?" + +"What do you mean? Have you bought the place for me?" + +"I have the deed in my pocket, all ready to be transferred to you." + +"You darling! Clive, I am so excited--" + +"So am I. Shall I come for you in my brand new car? I've invested in +an inexpensive Stinger runabout. May I drive you down? It won't take +much longer than by train. And it will cool us off." + +"Come as soon as you can get here!" she cried, delighted. "This is +going to be the happiest day of my entire life!" + + * * * * * + +And so it came about that Athalie in her pretty new gown and hat of +lilac lingerie, followed by a maid bearing three suit-cases, hat-box, +toilet satchel, and automobile coat, emerged from the main entrance of +the building where Clive sat waiting in a smart Stinger runabout. When +he saw her he sprang out and came forward, hat in hand. + +"You darling," she said in a low, happy voice. "You've made me happier +than I ever dreamed of being. I don't know what to say to you; I +simply don't know how to thank you for doing this wonderful thing for +me." + +He, too, was happier than he had ever been in all his life; and so +much in love that he found nothing to say for a moment save the few +trite phrases in which a man in love says many commonplaces, all of +which only mean, "I love you." + +[Illustration: "When he saw her he sprang out and came forward."] + +Doubtless she understood the complicated code, for she laughed and +blushed a trifle and looked around at her maid laden with luggage. + +"Where can we put these, Clive?" she asked. + +"What on earth is all that luggage?" he asked, surprised. + +"I'm going to remain a few days," she explained, "so I've brought a +few things." + +"But do you imagine there is anything to eat or anywhere to lay your +head in that tumble down old house?" he demanded, secretly enchanted +with her rash enthusiasm. + +"I propose to camp. I can buy milk, crackers, and sardines at Spring +Pond village; also sufficient bathroom and bed linen. That is all I +require to be perfectly comfortable." + +There was no rumble on the Stinger, only a baggage rack and boot. Here +he secured, covered, and strapped Athalie's impedimenta; the maid +slipped on her travelling coat; she sprang lightly into the seat; and +Clive went around and climbed in beside her, taking the wheel. + +The journey downtown and across the Queensboro Bridge was the usual +uncomfortable and exasperating progress familiar to all who pilot cars +to Long Island. Brooklyn was negotiated prayerfully; they swung into +the great turnpike, through the ugliest suburbs this humiliated world +ever endured, on through the shabby, filthy, sordid environment of the +gigantic Burrough, past ignoble villages, desolate wastes, networks +of railway tracks where grade crossings menaced them, and on along the +purlieus of suburban deserts until the flat green Long Island country +spread away on either side dotted with woods and greenhouses and +quaint farm-houses and old-time spires. + +"It is pretty when you get here," he said, "but it's like climbing +over a mile of garbage to get out of one's front door. No European +city would endure being isolated by such a desert of squalor and +abominable desolation." + +But Athalie merely smiled. She had been far too excited to notice the +familiar ugliness and filth of the dirty city's soiled and ragged +outskirts. + +And now the car sped on amid the flat, endless acres of cultivated +land, and already her dainty nose was sniffing familiar but +half-forgotten odours--the faintest hint of ocean, the sun-warmed +scent of freshly cut salt hay; perfumes from woodlands in heavy +foliage, and the more homely smell from barn-yard and compost-heap; +from the sunny, dusty village streets through which they rolled; from +village lanes heavy with honeysuckle. + +"I seem to be speeding back toward my childhood," she said. "Every +breath of this air, every breeze, every odour is making it more real +to me.... I wonder whatever became of my ragged red hood and cloak. I +can't remember." + +"I'd like to have them," he said. "I'd fold them and lay them away +for--" + +He checked himself, sobered, suddenly and painfully aware that the +magic of the moment had opened for him an unreal vista where, in the +false dawn, the phantom of Hope stood smiling. Her happy smile had +altered, too; and her gloved hand stole out and rested on his own for +a moment in silence. Neither said anything for a while, and yet the +sky was so blue, the wind so soft and aromatic, and the sun's +splendour was turning the very earth to powdered gold. And maybe the +gods would yet be kind. Maybe, one day, others, with Athalie's hair +and eyes, might smooth the faded scarlet hood and cloak with softly +inquiring fingers. + +He spoke almost harshly from his brief dream: "There is the Bay!" + +But she had turned to look back at the quiet little cemetery already +behind them, and a moment or two passed before she lifted her eyes and +looked out across the familiar stretch of water. Azure and silver it +glimmered there in the sun. Red-shouldered blackbirds hovered, +fluttered, dropped back into the tall reeds; meadow larks whistled +sweetly, persistently; a slow mouse-hawk sailed low over the fields, +his broad wings tipped up like a Japanese kite, the silver full-moon +flashing on his back as he swerved. And then the old tavern came into +sight behind its new hedge of privet. + +Athalie caught sight of it,--of the tall hedge, the new posts of stone +through which a private road now curved into the grounds and around a +circle before the porch; saw the new stone wall inclosing it ablaze +with nasturtiums, the brilliant loveliness of the old and long +neglected garden beyond; saw the ancient house in all its quaint and +charming simplicity bereft of bow-window, spindle, and gingerbread +fretwork,--saw the white front of it, the green shutters, the big, +thick chimneys, the sunlight sparkling on small square panes, and on +the glass of the sun parlour. + +The girl was trembling when he stopped the car at the front door, +sprang out, and aided her to descend. + +A man in overalls came up, diffidently, and touched his broad straw +hat. To him Clive gave a low-voiced order or two, then stepped forward +to where the girl was standing. + +"It is too beautiful--" she began, but her voice failed, and he saw +the sensitive lips tremulous in their silence and the eyes brilliant +with the menace of tears. + +He drew her arm through his and they went in, moving slowly and in +silence from room to room. Only the almost convulsive pressure of her +arm on his told him of a happiness too deep for expression. + +On the landing above he offered her the key to her mother's room. + +"Nothing is changed there," he said; and, fitting the key, unlocked +the door, and turned away. + +But the girl caught his hand in hers and drew him with her into the +faded, shabby room where her mother's chair stood in its accustomed +place, and the faded hassock lay beside it. + +"Sit here," she said. And when he was seated she dropped on the +hassock at his feet and laid her cheek on his knees. + +The room was very still and sunny; her lover remained silent and +unstirring; and the girl's eyes wandered from carpet to ceiling and +from wall to wall, resting on familiar objects; then, passing +dreamily, remained fixed on space--sweet, brooding eyes, dim with the +deepest emotion she had ever known. + +A new, profound, and thrilling peace possessed her--a heavenly sense +of tranquillity and security, as though, somehow, all problems had +been solved for her and for him. + +Presently in a low, hushed, happy voice she began to speak about her +mother. Little unimportant, unconnected incidents came to her +mind--brief moments, episodes as ephemeral as they had been +insignificant. + +Sitting on the faded hassock at his feet she lifted her head and +rested both arms across his knees. + +"It is all so perfect now," she said,--"you here in mother's room, and +I at your feet: and the sunny world waiting for us outside. How mellow +is this light! Always in the demi-dusk of this house there seemed to +me to linger a golden tint--even on dark days--even at night--as +though somewhere a ray of sun had been lost and had not entirely faded +out." + +"It came from your own heart, Athalie--that wonderful and golden heart +of yours where light and warmth can never die.... Dear, are you +contented with what I have ventured to do?" + +She looked silently into his eyes, then with a little sigh dropped her +head on his knees again. + +Far away somewhere in the depths of the house somebody was moving. And +presently she asked him who it was. + +"Connor, the man of all work. I sent him to Spring Pond village to +buy bed linen and bath towels. I ventured to install a brass bed or +two in case you had thought of coming here with your maid. You see," +he added, smiling, "it was fortunate that I did." + +"You are the most wonderful man in the world, Clive," she murmured, +her eyes fixed dreamily on his face. "Always you have been making life +delightful for me; smoothing my path, helping me where the road is +rough."... She sighed: "Clive, you are very wonderful to me." + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Jim Connor had come to help; and now, at high noon, she sought +them where they were standing in the garden,--Athalie in ecstasy +before the scented thickets of old-fashioned rockets massed in a long, +broad border against a background of trees. + +So they went in to luncheon, which was more of a dinner; and Mrs. +Connor served them with apology, bustle, and not too garrulously for +the humour they were in. + +High spirits had returned to them when they stepped out of doors; and +they came back to the house for luncheon in the gayest of humour, +Athalie chattering away blithe as a linnet in a thorn bush, and Clive +not a whit more reticent. + +"Hafiz is going to adore this!" exclaimed the girl. "My angel +pussy!--why was I mean enough to leave you in the city!... I'll have a +dog, too--a soft, roly-poly puppy, who shall grow up with a wholesome +respect for Hafiz. And, Clive! I shall have a nice fat horse, a safe +and sane old Dobbin--so I can poke about the countryside at my +leisure, through byways and lanes and disused roads." + +"You need a car, too." + +"No, no, I really don't. Anyway," she said airily, "your car is +sufficient, isn't it?" + +"Of course," he smiled. + +"I think so, too. I shall not require or desire a car unless you also +are to be in it. But I'd love to possess a Dobbin and a double +buckboard. Also I shall, in due time, purchase a sail-boat--" She +checked herself, laughed at the sudden memory, and said with +delightful malice: "I suppose you have not yet learned to sail a boat, +have you?" + +He laughed, too: "How you scorned me for my ignorance, didn't you? Oh, +but I've learned a great many things since those days, Athalie." + +"To sail a boat, too?" + +"Oh, yes. I had to learn. There's a lot of water in the world; and +I've been very far afield." + +"I know," she said. There was a subtle sympathy in her voice,--an +exquisite recognition of the lonely years which now seemed to lie far, +far behind them both. + +She glanced down at her fresh plate which Mrs. Connor had just placed +before her. + +"Clive!" she exclaimed, enchanted, "do you see! Peach turnovers!" + +"Certainly. Do you suppose this housewarming could be a proper one +without peach turnovers?" And to Mrs. Connor he said: "That is all, +thank you. Miss Greensleeve and I will eat our turnovers by the stove +in the sun-parlour." + +And there they ate their peach turnovers, seated on the old-time +rush-bottomed chairs beside the stove--just as they had sat so many +years ago when Athalie was a child of twelve and wore a ragged cloak +and hood of red. + +Sometimes, leisurely consuming her pastry, she glanced demurely at her +lover, sometimes her blue eyes wandered to the sunny picture outside +where roses grew and honeysuckle trailed and the blessed green grass +enchanted the tired eyes of those who dwelt in the monstrous and arid +city. + +Presently she went away to the room he had prepared for her; and he +lay back lazily in his chair and lighted a cigarette, and watched the +thin spirals of smoke mounting through the sunshine. When she returned +to him she was clad in white from crown to toe, and he told her she +was enchanting, which made her eyes sparkle and the dimples come. + +"Mrs. Connor is going to remain and help me," she said. "All my things +are unpacked, and the bed is made very nicely, and it is all going to +be too heavenly for words. Oh, I _wish_ you could stay!" + +"To-night?" + +"Yes. But I suppose it would ruin us if anybody knew." + +He said nothing as they walked back into the main hallway. + +"What a charming old building it is!" she exclaimed. "Isn't it odd +that I never before appreciated the house from an esthetic angle? I +don't suppose you'd call this architecture, but whatever else it may +be it certainly is dignified. I adore the simplicity of the rooms; +don't you? I shall have some pretty silk curtains made; and, in the +bedrooms, chintz. And maybe you will help me hunt for furniture and +rugs. Will you, dear?" + +"We'll find some old mahogany for this floor and white enamel for the +bedrooms if you like. What do you say?" + +"Enchanting! I adore antique mahogany! You know how crazy I am about +the furniture of bygone days. I shall squander every penny on things +Chippendale and Sheraton and Hepplewhite. Oh, it is going to be a +darling house and I'm the happiest girl in the world. And you have +made me so!--dearest of men!" + +She caught his hand to her lips as he bent to kiss hers, and their +faces came together in a swift and clinging embrace. Which left her +flushed and wordless for the moment, and disposed to hang her head as +she walked slowly beside him to the front door. + +Out in the sunshine, however, her self-possession returned in a pretty +exclamation of delight; and she called his attention to a tiny rainbow +formed in the spray of the garden hose where Connor was watering the +grass. + +"Symbol of hope for us," he said under his breath. + +She nodded, and stood inhaling the fragrance of the garden. + +"I know a path--if it still exists--where I used to go as a child. +Would you care to follow it with me?" + +So they walked down to the causeway bridge spanning the outlet to +Spring Pond, turned to the right amid a tangle of milk-weed in heavy +bloom, and grapevines hanging in festoons from rock and sapling. + +The path had not changed; it wound along the wooded shore of the pond, +then sloped upward and came out into a grassy upland, where it +followed the woods' edge under the cool shadow of the trees. + +And as they walked she told him of her childish journeys along this +path until it reached the wooded and pebbly height of land beyond, +which is one of the vertebræ in the backbone of Long Island. + +To reach that ridge was her ultimate ambition in those youthful days; +and when on one afternoon of reckless daring she had attained it, and +far to the northward she saw the waters of the great Sound sparkling +in the sun, she had felt like Balboa in sight of the Pacific, awed to +the point of prayer by her own miraculous achievement. + +Where the path re-entered the woods, far down the slope, they could +hear the waters of Spring Brook flowing; and presently they could see +the clear glint of the stream; and she told him tales of alder-poles +and home-made hooks, and of dusky troutlings that haunted the woodland +pools far in the dusk of leafy and mysterious depths. + +On the brink of the slope, but firmly imbedded, there had been a big +mossy log. She discovered it presently, and drew him down to a seat +beside her, taking possession of one of his arms and drawing it +closely under her own. Then she crossed one knee over the other and +looked out into the magic half-light of a woodland which, to her +childish eyes, had once seemed a vast and depthless forest. A bar of +sunlight fell across her slim shoe and ankle clothed in white, and +across the log, making the moss greener than emeralds. + +From far below came pleasantly the noise of the brook; overhead leaves +stirred and whispered in the breezes; shadows moved; sun-spots waxed +and waned on tree-trunk and leaf and on the brown ground under foot. A +scarlet-banded butterfly--he they call the Red Admiral--flitted +persistently about an oak tree where the stain of sap darkened the +bark. + +From somewhere came the mellow tinkle of cow-bells, which moved +Athalie to speech; and she poured out her heart to Clive on the +subject of domestic kine and of chickens and ducks. + +"I'm a country girl; there can be no doubt about it," she admitted. "I +do not think a day passes in the city but I miss the cock-crow and the +plaint of barn-yard fowl, and the lowing of cattle and the whimper and +coo of pigeons. And my country eyes grow weary for a glimpse of green, +Clive,--and for wide horizons and the vast flotillas of white clouds +that sail over pastures and salt meadows and bays and oceans. Never +have I been as contented as I am at this moment--here--under the sky +alone with you." + +"That also is all I ask in life--the open world, and you." + +"Maybe it will happen." + +"Maybe." + +"With everything--desirable--" + +She dropped her eyes and remained very still. For the first time in +her life she had thought of children as her own--and his. And the +thought which had flashed unbidden through her mind left her silent, +and a little bewildered by its sweetness. + +He was saying: "You should, by this time, have the means which enable +you to live in the country." + +"Yes." + +Cecil Reeve had advised her in her investments. The girl's financial +circumstances were modest, but adequate and sound. + +"I never told you how much I have," she said. "May I?" + +"If you care to." + +She told him, explaining every detail very carefully; and he listened, +fascinated by this charming girl's account of how in four years, she +had won from the world the traditional living to which all are +supposed to be entitled. + +"You see," she said, "that gives me a modest income. I could live here +very nicely. It has always been my dream.... But of course everything +now depends on where you are." + +Surprised and touched he turned toward her: she flushed and smiled, +suddenly realising the naïveté of her avowal. + +"It's true," she said. "Every day I seem to become more and more +entangled with you. I'm wondering whether I've already crossed the +bounds of friendship, and how far I am outside. I can't seem to +realise any longer that there is no bond between us stronger than +preference.... I was thinking--very unusual and very curious +thoughts--about us both." She drew a deep, unsteady, but smiling, +breath: "Clive, I wish you could marry me." + +"You _wish_ it, Athalie?" he asked, profoundly moved. + +"Yes." + +After a silence she leaned over and rested her cheek against his +shoulder. + +"Ah, yes," she said under her breath,--"that is what I begin to wish +for. A home, and _you_.... And--children." + +He put his arm around her. + +"Isn't it strange, Clive, that I should think about children--at my +age--and with little chance of ever having any. I don't know what +possesses me to suddenly want them.... Wouldn't they be wonderful in +that house? And they'd have that darling garden to play in.... There +ought to be a boy--several in fact, and some girls.... _I'd_ know what +to do for them. Isn't it odd that I should know exactly how to bring +them up. But I do. I know I do.... I can almost see them playing in +the garden--I can see their dear little faces--hear their voices--" + +His arm was clasping her slim body very tightly, but she suddenly sat +upright, resting one slender hand on his shoulder; and her gaze became +steady and fixed. + +Presently he noticed it and turned his head in the same direction, but +saw nothing except the sunlight sifting through the trees and the +golden half-light of the woods beyond. + +"What is it, Athalie?" he asked. + +She said in a curiously still voice: "Children." + +"Where?" + +"Playing in the woods." + +"Where?" he repeated; "I do not see them." + +She did not answer. Presently she closed her eyes and rested her face +against his shoulder again, pressing close to him as though lonely. + +"They went away," she said in answer to his question.... "I feel a +little tired, Clive.... Do you care for me a great deal?" + +"Can you ask?" + +"Yes.... Because of the years ahead of us. I think there are to be +many--for us both. The future is so bewildering--like a tangled and +endless forest, and very dim to see in.... But sometimes there comes a +rift in the foliage--and there is a glimpse of far skies shining. And +for a moment one--'sees clearly'--into the depths--a little way.... +And surmises something of what remains unseen. And imagines more, +perhaps.... I wonder if you love me--enough." + +"Dearest--dearest--" + +"Let it remain unsaid, Clive. A girl must learn one day. But never +from the asking. And the same sun shall continue to rise and set, +whatever her answer is to be; and the moon, too; and the stars shall +remain unchanged--whatever changes us. How still the woods are--as +still as dreams." + +[Illustration: "She suddenly sat upright, resting one slender hand on +his shoulder."] + +She lifted her head, looked at him, smiled, then, freeing herself, +sprang to her feet and stood a moment drawing her slim hand across her +eyes. + +"I shall have a tennis court, Clive. And a canoe on Spring Pond.... +What kind of puppy was that I said I wanted?" + +"One which would grow up with proper fear and respect for Hafiz," he +said, smilingly, perplexed by the rapid sequence of her moods. + +"A collie?" + +"If you like." + +"I wonder," she murmured, "whether they are safe for children--" She +looked up laughing: "_Isn't_ it odd! I simply cannot seem to free my +mind of children whenever I think about that house." + +As they moved along the path toward the new home he said: "What was it +you saw in the woods?" + +"Children." + +"Were they--real?" + +"No." + +"Had they died?" + +"They have not yet been born," she said in a low voice. + +"I did not know you could see such things." + +"I am not sure that I can. It is very difficult for me, sometimes, to +distinguish between vividly imaginative visualisation and--other +things." + +Walking back through the soft afternoon light the girl tried to tell +him all that she knew about herself and her clairvoyance--strove to +explain, to make him understand, and, perhaps, to understand herself. + +But after a while silence intervened between them; and when they spoke +again they spoke of other things. For the isolation of souls is a +solitude inviolable; there can be no intimacy there, only the longing +for it--the craving, endless, unsatisfied. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Over the garden a waning moon silvered the water in the pool and +picked out from banked masses of bloom a tall lily here and there. + +All the blossom-spangled vines were misty with the hovering wings of +night-moths. Through alternate bands of moonlight and dusk the jet +from the pool split into a thin shower of palely flashing jewels, +sometimes raining back on the water, sometimes drifting with the wind +across the grass. And through the dim enchantment moved Athalie, +leaning on Clive's arm, like some slim sorceress in a secret maze, +silent, absent-eyed, brooding magic. + +Already into her garden had come the little fantastic creatures of the +night as though drawn thither by a spell to do her bidding. Like a fat +sprite a speckled toad hopped and hobbled and scrambled from their +path; a tiny snake, green as the grass blades that it stirred, slipped +from a pool of moonlight into a lake of shadow. Somewhere a small owl, +tremulously melodious, called and called: and from the salt meadows, +distantly, the elfin whistle of plover answered. + +Like some lost wanderer from the moon itself a great moth with +nile-green wings fell flopping on the grass at the girl's feet. And +Clive, wondering, lifted it gingerly for her inspection. + +Together they examined the twin moons shining on its translucent +wings, the furry, snow-white body and the six downy feet of palest +rose. Then, at Athalie's request, Clive tossed the angelic creature +into the air; and there came a sudden blur of black wings in the +moonlight, and a bat took it. + +But neither he nor she had seen in allegory the darting thing with +devil's wings that dashed the little spirit of the moon into eternal +night. And out of the black void above, one by one, flakes from the +frail wings came floating. + +To and fro they moved. She with both hands clasped and resting on his +arm, peering through darkness down at the flowers, as one perfume, +mounting, overpowered another--clove-pink, rocket, lily, and petunia, +each in its turn dominant, triumphant. + +Puffs of fragrance from the distant sea stirred the garden's tranquil +air from time to time: somewhere honeyed bunches hung high from locust +trees; and the salt meadow's aromatic tang lent savour to the night. + +"I must go back to town," he said irresolutely. + +He heard her sigh, felt her soft clasp tighten slightly over his arm. +But she turned back in silence with him toward the house, passed in +the open door before him, her fair head lowered, and stood so, leaning +against the newel-post. + +"Good night," he said in a low voice, still irresolute. + +"Must you go?" + +"I ought to." + +"There is that other bedroom. And Mrs. Connor has gone home for the +night." + +"I told her to remain," he said sharply. + +"I told her to go." + +"Why?" + +"Because I wanted you to stay--this first night here--with me--in the +home of my youth which you have given to me again." + +He came to her and looked into her eyes, framing her face between his +hands: + +"Dear, it would be unwise for me to remain." + +"Because you love me?" + +"No." He added with a forced smile: "I have put on armour in our +behalf. No, that is not the reason." + +"Then--may you not stay?" + +"Suppose it became known? What would you do, Athalie?" + +"Hold my head high ... guilty or not." + +"You don't know what you are saying." + +"Not exactly, perhaps.... But I know that I have been changing. This +day alone with you is finishing the transformation. I'm not sure just +when it began. I realise, now, that it has been in process for a long, +long while." She drew away from him, leaned back on the banisters. + +"I may not have much time;--I want to be candid--I want to think +honestly. I don't desire to deny even to myself that I am now become +what I am--a stranger to myself." + +He said, still with his forced smile; "What pretty and unknown +stranger have you so suddenly discovered in yourself, Athalie?" + +She looked up at him, unsmiling: "A stranger to celibacy.... Why do +you not take me, Clive?" + +"Do you understand what you are saying!" + +"Yes. And now I can understand anything _you_ may say or do ... I +couldn't, yesterday." She turned her face away from him and folded her +hands over the newel-post. And, not looking at him, she said: "Since +we have been here alone together I have known a confidence and +security I never dreamed of. Nothing now matters, nothing causes +apprehension, nothing of fear remains--not even that ignorance of fear +which the world calls innocence. + +"I am what I am; I am not afraid to be and live what I have become.... +I am capable of love. Yesterday I was not. I have been fashioned to +love, I think.... But there is only one man who can make me +certain.... My trust and confidence are wholly his--as fearlessly as +though he had become this day my husband.... + +"And if he will stay, here under this roof which is not mine unless it +is his also--here in this house where, within the law or without it, +nevertheless everything is his--then he enters into possession of what +is his own. And I at last receive my birthright,--which is to serve +where I am served, love where love is mine--with gratitude, and +unafraid--" + +Her voice trembled, broke; she covered her face with her hands; and +when he took her in his arms she leaned her forehead against his +breast: + +--"Oh, Clive--I can't deny them!--How can I deny them?--The little +flower-like faces, pleading to me for life!--And their tender +arms--around my neck--there in the garden, Clive!--The winsome lips +on mine, warm and heavenly sweet; and the voices calling, calling from +the golden woodland, calling from meadow and upland, height and +hollow!--And sometimes like far echoes of wind-blown laughter they +call me--gay little voices, confident and sweet; and sometimes, +winning and shy, they whisper close to my cheek--mother!--mother--" + +His arms fell from her and he stepped back, trembling. + +She lifted her pale tear-stained face. And, save for the painted +Virgins of an ancient day he never before had seen such spiritual +passion in any face--features where nothing sensuous had ever left an +imprint; where the sensitive, tremulous mouth curved with the +loveliness of a desire as innocent as a child's. + +And he read there no taint of lesser passion, nothing of less noble +emotion; only a fearless and overwhelming acknowledgment of her +craving to employ the gifts with which her womanhood endowed her--love +and life, and service never ending. + + * * * * * + +In her mother's room they sat long talking, her hands resting on his, +her fresh and delicate face a pale white blur in the dusk. + +It was very late before he went to the room allotted him, knowing that +he could not hope for sleep. Seated there by his open window he heard +the owl's tremolo rise, quaver, and die away in the moonlight; he +heard the murmuring plaint of marsh-fowl, and the sea-breeze stirring +the reeds. + +Now, in this supreme crisis of his life, looking out into darkness he +saw a star fall, leaving an incandescent curve against the heavens +which faded slowly as he looked. + +Into an obscurity as depthless, his soul was peering, now, naked, +unarmoured, clasping hands with hers. And every imperious and furious +tide that sweeps the souls and bodies of men now mounted +overwhelmingly and set toward her. It seemed at moments as though +their dragging was actually moving his limbs from where he sat; and he +closed his eyes and his strong hand fell on the sill, grasping it as +though for anchorage. + +Now,--if there were in him anything higher than the mere clay that +clotted his bones--now was the moment to show it. And if there were a +diviner armour within reach of his unsteady hand, he must don it now +and rivet it fast in the name of God. + +Darkness is a treacherous councillor; he rose heavily, and turned the +switch, flooding the room with light, then flung himself across the +bed, his clenched fists over his face. + +In his ears he seemed to hear the dull roar of the current which, so +far through life, had borne him on its crest, tossing, hurling him +whither it had listed. + +It should never again have its will of him. This night he must set his +course forever. + +"Clive!" + +But the faint, clear call was no more real, and no less, than the +voice which was ringing always in his ears, now,--no softer, no less +winning. + +"Clive!" + +After a moment he raised himself to his elbows and gazed, +half-blinded, toward the door. Then he got clumsily to his feet, +stumbled across the floor, and opened it. + +She stood there in her frail chamber robe of silk and swansdown, +smiling, forlornly humorous, and displaying a book as symbol of her +own insomnia. + +"Can't you sleep?" she asked. "We'll both be dead in the morning. I +thought I'd better tell you to go to sleep when I saw your light break +out.... So I've come to tell you." + +"How could you see that my window was lighted?" + +"I was leaning out of my window listening to the little owl, and +suddenly I saw the light from yours fall criss-cross across the +grass.... Can't you sleep?" + +"Yes. I'll turn out the light. Will _you_ promise to go to sleep?" + +"If I can. The night is so beautiful--" + +With a gay little smile and gesture she turned away; but halfway down +the corridor she hesitated and looked back at him. + +"If you are sleepless," she called softly, "you may wake me and I'll +talk to you." + +There was a window at the end of the corridor. He saw her continue on +past her door and stand there looking out into the garden. She was +still standing there when he closed his door and went back to his +chair. + +The night seemed interminable; its moonlit fragrance unendurable. With +sleepless eyes he gazed into the darkness, appalled at the +future--fearing such nights to come--nights like this, alone with +her; and the grim battle to be renewed, inexorably renewed until that +day should come--if ever it was to come--when he dared take in the +name of God what Destiny had already made his own, and was now +clamouring for him to take. + +After a long while he rose from the window, went to his door again, +opened it and looked out. And saw her still leaning against the window +at the corridor's dim end. + +She looked around, laughing softly as he came up: "All this--the +night, the fragrance, and you, have hopelessly bewitched me. I can't +sleep; I don't wish to.... But you, poor boy--you haven't even +undressed. You look very tired and white, Clive. Why is it you can't +sleep?" + +He did not answer. + +"Shall I get my book and read aloud to you? It's silly stuff--love, +and such things. Shall I?" + +"No--I'm going back," he answered curtly. + +She glanced around at him curiously. For, that day, a new +comprehension of men and their various humours had come to enlighten +her; she had begun to understand even where she could not feel. + +And so, tenderly, gently, in shy sympathy with the powerful currents +that swept this man beside her,--but still herself ignorant of their +power, she laid her cool cheek against his, drawing his head closer. + +"Dearest--dearest--" she murmured vaguely. + +His head turned, and hers turned instinctively to meet it; and her +arms crept up around his neck. + +Then of a sudden she had freed herself, stepped back, one nervous arm +outflung as if in self-defence. But her hand fell, caught on the +window-sill and clung there for support; and she rested against it +breathing rapidly and unevenly. + +"Athalie--dear." + +"Let me go now--" + +Her lips burned for an instant under his; were wrenched away: + +"Let me go, Clive--" + +"You must not tremble so--" + +"I can't help it.... I am afraid. I want to go, now. I--I want to +go--" + +There was a chair by the window; she sank down on it and dropped her +head back against the wall behind. + +And, as he stood there beside her, over her shoulder through the open +window he saw two men in the garden below, watching them. + +Presently she lifted her head. His eyes remained fixed on the men +below who never moved. + +She said with an effort; "Are you displeased, Clive?" + +"No, my darling." + +"It was not because I do not love you. Only--I--" + +"I know," he whispered, his eyes fixed steadily on the men. + +After a silence she said under her breath: "I understand better now +why I ought to wait for you--if there is any hope for us,--as long as +there is any chance. And after that--if there is no chance for +us--then nothing can matter." + +"I know." + +"To-night, earlier, I did not understand why I should deny myself to +myself, to you, to _them_.... I did not understand that what I wished +for so treacherously masked a--a lesser impulse--" + +He said, quietly: "Nothing is surer than that you and I, one day, +shall face our destiny together. I really care nothing for custom, +law, or folk-way, or dogma, excepting only for your sake. Outside of +that, man's folk-ways, man's notions of God, mean nothing to me: only +my own intelligence and belief appeal to me. I must guide myself." + +"Guide me, too," she said. "For I have come into a wisdom which +dismays me." + +He nodded and looked down, calmly, at the two men who had not stirred +from the shadow of the foliage. + +She rose to her feet, hesitated, slowly stretched out her hand, then, +on impulse, pressed it lightly against his lips. + +"That demonstration," she said with a troubled laugh, "is to be our +limit. Good night. You will try to sleep, won't you?... And if I am +now suddenly learning to be a little shy with you--you will not +mistake me; will you?... Because it may seem silly at this late +date.... But, somehow, everything comes late to me--even love, and its +lesser lore and its wisdom and its cunning. So, if I ever seem +indifferent--don't doubt me, Clive.... Good night." + + * * * * * + +When she had entered her room and closed the door he went downstairs, +swiftly, let himself out of the house, and moved straight toward the +garden. + +Neither of the men seemed very greatly surprised; both retreated with +docile alacrity across the lawn to the driveway gate. + +"Anyway," said the taller man, good-humouredly, "you've got to hand it +to us, Mr. Bailey. I guess we pinch the goods on you all right this +time. What about it?" + +But Clive silently locked the outer gates, then turned and stared at +the shadowy house as though it had suddenly crumbled into ruins there +under the July moon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +A fine lace-work of mist lay over the salt meadows; the fairy trilling +of the little owl had ceased. Marsh-fowl were sleepily astir; the last +firefly floated low into the shrouded bushes and its lamp glimmered a +moment and went out. + +Where the east was growing grey long lines of wild-ducks went +stringing out to sea; a few birds sang loudly in meadows still +obscure; cattle in foggy upland pastures were awake. + +When the first cock-crow rang, cow-bells had been clanking for an hour +or more; the rising sun turned land and sea to palest gold; every +hedge and thicket became noisy with birds; bay-men stepped spars and +hoisted sail, and their long sweeps dripped liquid fire as they pulled +away into the blinding glory of the east. + +And Clive rose wearily from his window chair, care-worn and haggard, +with nothing determined, nothing solved of this new and imminent peril +which was already menacing Athalie with disgrace and threatening him +with that unwholesome notoriety which men usually survive but under +which a woman droops and perishes. + +He bathed, dressed again, dully uneasy in the garments of yesterday, +uncomfortable for lack of fresh linen and toilet requisites; little +things indeed to add such undue weight to his depression. And only +yesterday he had laughed at inconvenience and had still found charm to +thrill him in the happy unconventionality of that day and night. + +Connor was already weeding in the garden when he went out; and the +dull surprise in the Irishman's sunburnt visage sent a swift and +painful colour into his own pallid face. + +"Miss Greensleeve was kind enough to put me up last night," he said +briefly. + +Connor stood silent, slowly combing the soil from the claw of his +weeder with work-worn fingers. + +Clive said: "Since I have been coming down here to watch the progress +on Miss Greensleeve's house have you happened to notice any strangers +hanging about the grounds?" + +Connor's grey eyes narrowed and became fixed on nothing. + +Presently he nodded to himself: + +"There was inquiries made, sorr, I'm minded now that ye mention it." + +"About me?" + +"Yes, sorr. There was strangers askin' f'r to know was it you that owns +the house or what." + +"What was said?" + +"I axed them would they chase themselves,--it being none o' their +business. 'Twas no satisfaction they had of me, Misther Bailey, sorr." + +"Who were they, Connor?" + +"I just disremember now. Maybe there was a big wan and a little +wan.... Yes, sorr; there was two of them hangin' about on and off +these six weeks past, like they was minded to take a job and then +again not minded. Sure there was the two o' thim, now I think of it. +Wan was big and thin and wan was a little scutt wid a big nose." + +Clive nodded: "Keep them off the place, Connor. Keep all strangers +outside. Miss Greensleeve will be here for several days alone and she +must not be annoyed." + +"Divil a bit, sorr." + +"I want you and Mrs. Connor to sleep in the house for the present. And +I do not wish you to answer any questions from anybody concerning +either Miss Greensleeve or myself. Can I depend on you?" + +"You can, sorr." + +"I'm sure of it. Now, I'd like to have you go to the village and buy +me something to shave with and to comb my hair with. I had not +intended to remain here over night, but I did not care to leave Miss +Greensleeve entirely alone in the house." + +"Sure, sorr, Jenny was fixed f'r to stay--" + +"I know. Miss Greensleeve told her she might go home. It was a +misunderstanding. But I want her to remain hereafter until Miss +Greensleeve's servants come from New York." + +So Connor went away to the village and Clive seated himself on a +garden bench to wait. + +Nothing stirred inside the house; the shades in Athalie's room +remained lowered. + +He watched the chimney swifts soaring and darting above the house. A +faint dun-coloured haze crowned the kitchen chimney. Mrs. Connor was +already busy over their breakfast. + +[Illustration: "Clive nodded: 'Keep them off the place, Connor.'"] + +When the gardener returned with the purchases Clive went to his room +again and remained there busy until a knock on the door and Mrs. +Connor's hearty voice announced breakfast. + +As he stepped out into the passage-way he met Athalie coming from her +room in a soft morning negligée, and still yawning. + +She bade him good morning in a sweet, sleepy voice, linked her white, +lace-clouded arm in his, glanced sideways at him, humorously ashamed: + +"I'm a disgrace," she said; "I could have slain Mrs. Connor when she +woke me. Oh, Clive, I _am_ so sleepy!" + +"Why did you get up?" + +"My dear, I'm also hungry; that is why. I could scent the coffee from +afar. And you know, Clive, if you ever wish to hopelessly alienate my +affections, you have only to deprive me of my breakfast. Tell me, did +you get _any_ sleep?" + +He forced a smile: "I had sufficient." + +"I wonder," she mused, looking at his somewhat haggard features. + +They found the table prepared for them in the sun-parlour; Athalie +presided at the coffee urn, but became a trifle flushed and shy when +Mrs. Connor came in bearing a smoking cereal. + +"I made a mistake in allowing you to go home," said the girl, "so I +thought it best for Mr. Bailey to remain." + +"Sure I was that worritted," burst out Mrs. Connor, "I was minded to +come back--what with all the thramps and Dagoes hereabout, and no dog +on the place, and you alone; so I sez to my man Cornelius,--'Neil,' +sez I, 'it's not right,' sez I, 'f'r to be lavin' th' young lady--'" + +"Certainly," interrupted Clive quietly, "and you and Neil are to sleep +in the house hereafter until Miss Greensleeve's servants arrive." + +"I'm not afraid," murmured Athalie, looking at him with lazy amusement +over the big, juicy peach she was preparing. But when Mrs. Connor +retired her expression changed. + +"You dear fellow," she said, "You need not ever be worried about me." + +"I'm not, Athalie--" + +"Oh, Clive! Aren't you always going to be honest with me?" + +"Why do you think I am anxious concerning you when Connor and his +wife--" + +"Dearest!" + +"What?" He looked across at her where she was serenely preparing his +coffee; and when she had handed the cup to him she shook her head, +gravely, as though in gentle disapproval of some inward thought of +his. + +"What is it?" he asked uneasily. + +"You know already." + +"What _is_ it?" he repeated, reddening. + +"Must _I_ tell _you_, Clive?" + +"I think you had better." + +"_You_ should have told _me_, dear.... Don't ever fear to tell me +what concerns us both. Don't think that leaving me in ignorance of +unpleasant facts is any kindness to me. If anything happens to cause +you anxiety, I should feel humiliated if you were left to endure it +all alone." + +[Illustration: "'Sure I was that worritted,' burst out Mrs. Connor."] + +He remained silent, troubled, uncertain as yet, how much she knew of +what had happened in the garden the night before. + +"Clive, dear, don't let this thing spoil anything for us. I know about +it. Don't let any shadow fall upon this house of ours." + +"You saw me last night in the garden." + +Between diffidence and the candour that characterised her, she +hesitated; then: + +"Dear, a very strange thing has happened. Until last night never in +all my life, try as I might, could I ever 'see clearly' anything that +concerned you. Never have I been able to 'find' you anywhere--even +when my need was desperate--when my heart seemed breaking--" + +She checked herself, smiled at him; then her eyes grew dark and +thoughtful, and a deeper colour burned in her cheeks. + +"I'll try to tell you," she said. "Last night, after I left you, I lay +thinking about--love. And the--the new knowledge of myself +disconcerted me.... There remained a vague sense of dismay +and--humiliation--" She bent her head over her folded hands, silent +until the deepening colour subsided. + +Still with lowered eyes she went on, steadily enough: "My instinct was +to escape--I don't know exactly how to tell this to you, dear,--but +the impulse to escape possessed me--and I felt that I must rise from +the lower planes and free myself from a--a lesser passion--slip from +the menace of its control--become clean again of everything that is +not of the spirit.... Do you understand?" + +"Yes." + +"So I rose and knelt down and said my prayers.... And asked to be +instructed because of my inexperience with--with these new and +deep--emotions. And then I lay down, very tranquil again, leaving the +burden with God.... All concern left me,--and the restless sense of +shame. I turned my head on the pillow and looked out into the +moonlight.... And, gently, naturally, without any sense of effort, I +left my body where it lay in the moonlight, and--and found myself in +the garden. Mother was there. You, also, were there; and two men with +you." + +His eyes never left her face; and now she looked up at him with a +ghost of a smile: + +"Mother spoke of the loveliness of the flowers. I heard her, but I was +listening to you. Then I followed you where you were driving the two +men from the grounds. I understood what had happened. After you went +into the house again my mother and I saw you watching by your window. +I was sorry that you were so deeply disturbed. + +"Because what had occurred did not cause me any anxiety whatever." + +"Do you mean," he said hoarsely, "that the probability of your name +being coupled with mine and dragged through the public mire does not +disconcert you?" + +"No." + +"Why not? Is it because your clairvoyance reassures you as to the +outcome of all this?" + +"Dear," she said, gently, "I know no more of the outcome than you do. +I know nothing more concerning our future than do you--excepting, +only, that we shall journey toward it together, and through it to the +end, accomplishing the destiny which links us each to the other.... I +know no more than that." + +"Then why are you so serene under the menace of this miserable affair? +For myself I care nothing; I'd thank God for a divorce on any terms. +But you--dearest--dearest!--I cannot endure the thought of you +entangled in such a shameful--" + +"Where is the shame, Clive? The real shame, I mean. In me there are +two selves; neither have, as yet, been disgraced by any disobedience +of any law framed by men for women. Nor shall I break men's +laws--under which women are governed without their own consent--unless +no other road to our common destiny presents itself for me to +follow."... She smiled, watching his intent and sombre face: + +"Don't fear for me, dear. I have come to understand what life is, and +I mean to live it, wholesomely, gloriously, uncrippled in body and +mind, unmaimed by folk-ways and by laws as ephemeral--" she turned +toward the open windows--"as those frail-winged things that float in +the sunshine above Spring Pond, yonder, born at sunrise, and at +sundown dead." + +She laughed, leaning there on her dimpled elbows, stripping a peach of +its velvet skin: + +"The judges of the earth,--and the power of them!--What is it, dear, +compared to the authority of love! To-day men have their human will of +men, judging, condemning, imprisoning, slaying, as the moral fashion +of the hour dictates. To-morrow folk-ways change; judge and victim +vanish along with fashions obsolete--both alike, their brief reign +ended. + +"For judge and victim are awake at last; and in the twinkling of an +eye, the old world has become a memory or a shrine for those tranquil +pilgrims who return to worship for a while where love lies +sleeping.... And then return no more." + +She rose, signed him to remain seated, came around to where he sat, +and perched herself on the arm of his chair. + +"If you don't mind," she said, "I shall smooth out that troubled +crease between your eyebrows." And she encircled his head with both +arms, and laid her smooth hands across his forehead. Then she touched +his hair lightly, with her lips. + +"We are great sinners," she murmured, "are we not, my darling?" + +And drew his head against her breast. + +"Of what am I robbing _her_, Clive? Of the power to humiliate you, +make you unhappy. It is an honest theft. + +"What else am I stealing from her? Not love, not gratitude, not duty, +nothing of tenderness, nor of pride nor sympathy. I take nothing, +then, from her. She has nothing for me to steal--unless it be the +plain gold ring she never wears.... And I prefer a new one--if, +indeed, I am to wear one." + +He said, deeply troubled, "How do you know she never wears a ring?" +And he turned and looked up at her over his shoulder. The clear azure +of her eyes was like a wintry sky. + +"Clive, I know more than that. I know that your wife is in New York." + +"What!" he exclaimed, astonished. + +"I have been aware of it for weeks," she said tranquilly. + +He remained silent; she continued to caress his hair: + +"Your wife," she went on thoughtfully, "will learn much when she dies. +There is a compulsory university course which awaits us all,--a school +with many forms and many grades and many, many pupils. But we must die +before we can be admitted.... I have never before spoken to you as I +have spoken to-day.... Perhaps I never shall again.... The world is a +blind place--lovely but blind. + +"As for the woman who wears your name but wears no ring of yours she +has been moving through my crystal for many days;--I would have made +no effort to intrude on her had she not persisted in the crystal, +haunted it,--I cannot tell you why--only that she is always there, +now.... And last night I knew that she was in New York, and why she +had come here.... Shall you see her to-day?" + +"Where is she?" + +"At the Regina." + +"Are you sure?" + +The girl calmly closed her eyes for a moment. After a brief silence +she opened them: "She is still there.... She will awake in a little +while and ring for her breakfast. The two men you drove out of the +garden last night are waiting to see her. There is another man there. +I think he is your wife's attorney.... Have you decided to see her?" + +"Yes." + +"You won't let what she may say about me trouble you, will you?" + +"What will she say?" he asked with the naïve confidence of absolute +and childish faith. + +Athalie laughed: "Darling! I don't know. I'm not a witch or a +sorceress. Did you think I was?--just because I can see a little more +clearly than you?" + +"I didn't know what your limit might be," he answered, smiling +slightly, in spite of his deep anxiety. + +"Then let me inform you at once. My eyes are better than many +people's. Also my _other_ self can see. And with so clear a vision, +and with intelligence--and with a very true love and reverence for +God--somehow I seem to visualise what clairvoyance, logic, and reason +combine to depict for me. + +"I used to be afraid that a picturesque and vivid imagination coupled +with a certain amount of clairvoyance might seduce me to trickery and +charlatanism. + +"But if it be charlatanism for a paleontologist to construct a fish +out of a single fossil scale, then there may be something of that +ability in me. For truly, Clive, I am often at a loss where to draw +the line between what I see and what I reason out--between my +clairvoyance and my deductions. And if I made mistakes I certainly +should be deeply alarmed. But--I don't," she added, laughing. "And so, +in regard to those two men last night, and in regard to what _she_ and +they may be about, I feel not the least concern. And you must not. +Promise me, dear." + +But he rose, anxious and depressed, and stood silent for a few +moments, her hands clasped tightly in his. + +For he could see no way out of it, now. His wife, once merely +indifferent, was beginning to evince malice. And what further form +that malice might take he could not imagine; for hitherto, she had not +desired divorce, and had not concerned herself with him or his +behaviour. + +As for Athalie, it was now too late for him to step out of her life. +He might have been capable of the sacrifice if the pain and +unhappiness were to be borne by him alone--or even if he could bring +himself to believe or even hope that it might be merely a temporary +sorrow to Athalie. + +But he could not mistake her, now; their cords of love and life were +irrevocably braided together; and to cut one was to sever both. There +could be no recovery from such a measure for either, now. + +What was he to do? The woman he had married had rejected his loyalty +from the very first, suffered none of his ideas of duty to move her +from her aloofness. She cared nothing for him, and she let him know +it; his notions of marriage, its duties and obligations merely aroused +in her contempt. And when he finally understood that the only +kindness he could do her was to keep his distance, he had kept it. And +what was he to do now? Granted that he had brought it all upon +himself, how was he to combat what was threatening Athalie? + +His wife had so far desired nothing of him, not even divorce. He could +not leave Athalie and he could not marry her. And now, on her young +head he had, somehow, loosened this avalanche, whatever it was--a suit +for separation, probably--which, if granted, would leave him without +his liberty, and Athalie disgraced. And even suppose his wife desired +divorce for some new and unknown reason. The sinister advent of those +men meant that Athalie would be shamefully named in any such +proceedings. + +What was he to do? An ugly, hunted look came into his face and he +swung around and faced the girl beside him: + +"Athalie," he said, "will you go away with me and let them howl?" + +"Dearest, how silly. I'll stay _here_ with you and let them howl." + +"I don't want you to face it--" + +"I shall not turn my back on it. Oh, Clive, there are so many more +important things than what people may say about us!" + +"You can't defy the world!" + +"I'm not going to, darling. But I may possibly shock a few of the more +orthodox parasites that infest it." + +"No girl can maintain that attitude." + +"A girl can try.... And, if law and malice force me to become your +mistress, malice and law may answer for it; not I!" + +"_I_ shall have to answer for it." + +"Dearest," she said with smiling tenderness, "you are still very, very +orthodox in your faith in folk-ways. That need not cause _me_ any +concern, however. But, Clive, of the two pictures which seems +reasonable--your wife who is no wife; your mistress who is more and is +considered less? + +"Don't think that I am speaking lightly of wifehood.... I desire it as +I desire motherhood. I was made for both. If the world will let me I +shall be both wife and mother. But if the world interferes to stultify +me, then, nevertheless I shall still be both, and the law can keep the +title it refuses me. I deny the right of man to cripple, mar, render +sterile my youth and womanhood. I deny the right of the world to +forbid me love, and its expression, as long as I harm no one by +loving. Clive, it would take a diviner law than man's notions of +divinity, to kill in me the right to live and love and bring the +living into life. And if I am forbidden to do it in the name of the +law, then I dare do it in the name of One who never turned his back on +little children--" + +She ceased abruptly; and he saw her eyes suddenly blinded by tears: + +"Oh, Clive--if you only could have seen them--the little flower-like +faces and pleading arms around--my--neck--warm--Oh, sweet!--sweet +against my breast--" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Winifred had grown stout, which, on a slim, small-boned woman is +quickly apparent; and, to Clive, her sleepy, uncertain grey eyes +seemed even nearer together than he remembered them. + +She was seated in the yellow and white living-room of her apartment at +the Regina, still holding the card he had sent up; and she made no +movement to rise when her maid announced him and ushered him in, or to +greet him at all except with a slight nod and a slighter gesture +indicating a chair across the room. + +He said: "I did not know until this morning that you were in this +country." + +"Was it necessary to inform you?" + +"No, not necessary," he said, "unless you have come to some definite +decision concerning our future relations." + +Her eyes seemed to grow sleepier and nearer together than ever. + +"Why," he asked, wearily, "have you employed an agency to have me +followed?" + +She lifted her drooping lids and finely pencilled brows. "Have you +been followed?" + +"At intervals, as you know. Would you mind saying why? Because you +have always been welcome to divorce." + +She sat silent, slowly tearing into tiny squares the card he had sent +up. Presently, as at an afterthought, she collected all the fragments +and placed them in a heap on the table beside her. + +"Well?" she inquired, glancing up at him. "Is that all you have to +say?" + +"I don't know what to say until you tell me why you have had me +followed and why you yourself are here." + +Her gaze remained fixed on the heap of little pasteboard squares which +she shifted across the polished table-top from one position to +another. She said: + +"The case against you was complete enough before last night. I fancy +even you will admit that." + +"You are wrong," he replied wearily. "Somehow or other I believe you +know that you are wrong. But I suppose a jury might not think so." + +"Would you care to tell a jury that this trance-medium is not your +mistress?" + +"I should not care to defend her on such a charge before a jury or +before anybody. There are various ways of damning a woman; and to +defend her from that accusation is one of them." + +"And another way?" + +"To admit the charge. Either ruin her in the eyes of the truly +virtuous." + +"What do you expect to do about it then? Keep silent?" + +"That is still a third way of destroying a woman." + +"Really? Then what are you going to do?" + +"Whatever you wish," he said in a low voice, "as long as you do not +bring such a charge against Athalie Greensleeve." + +"Would you set your signature to a paper?" + +"I have given you my word. I have never lied to you." + +She looked up at him out of narrowing eyes: + +"You might this time. I prefer your signature." + +He reddened and sat twirling the silver crook of his walking-stick +between restless hands. + +"Very well," he said quietly; "I will sign what you wish, with the +understanding that Miss Greensleeve is to remain immune from any lying +accusation.... And I'll tell you now that any accusation questioning +her chastity is a falsehood." + +His wife smiled: "You see," she said, "your signature _will_ be +necessary." + +"Do you think I am lying?" + +"What do I care whether you are or not? Do you suppose the alleged +chastity of a common fortune-teller interests me? All I know is that +you have found your level, and that I need protection. If you choose +to concede it to me without a public scandal, I shall permit you to do +so. If not, I shall begin an action against you and name the woman +with whom you spent last night!" + +There was, in the thin, flute-like, and mincingly fastidious voice +something so subtly vicious that her words left him silent. + +Still leisurely arranging and re-arranging her little heap of +pasteboard, her near-set eyes intent on its symmetry, she spoke +again: + +"I could marry Innisbrae or any one of several others! But I do not +care to; I am comfortable. And that is where you have made your +mistake. I do not desire a divorce! But,"--she lifted her narrow +eyes--"if you force me to a separation I shall not shrink from it. And +I shall name that woman." + +"Then--what is it you want?" he asked with a sinking heart. + +"Not a divorce; not even a separation; merely respectability. I wish +you to give up business in New York and present yourself in England at +decent intervals of--say once every year. What you do in the +interludes is of no interest to me. As long as you do not establish a +business and a residence anywhere I don't care what you do. You may +come back and live with this woman if you choose." + +After a silence he said: "Is that what you propose?" + +"It is." + +"And you came over here to collect sufficient evidence to force me?" + +"I had no other choice." + +He nodded: "By your own confession, then, you believe either in her +chastity and my sense of honour, or that, even guilty, I care so much +for her that any threat against her happiness can effectually coerce +me." + +"Your language is becoming a trifle involved." + +"No; _I_ am involved. I realise it. And if I am not absolutely +honourable and unselfish in this matter I shall involve the woman I +had hoped to marry." + +"I thought so," she said, reverting to her heap of pasteboard. + +"If you think so," he continued, "could you not be a little generous?" + +"How?" + +"Divorce me--not by naming her--and give me a chance in life." + +"No," she said coolly, "I don't care for a divorce. I am comfortable +enough. Why should I inconvenience myself because you wish to marry +your mistress?" + +"In decency and in--charity--to me. It will cost you little. You +yourself admit that it is a matter of personal indifference to you +whether or not you are entirely and legally free of me." + +"Did you ever do anything to deserve my generosity?" she inquired +coldly. + +"I don't know. I have tried." + +"I have never noticed it," she retorted with a slight sneer. + +He said: "Since my first offence against you--and against +myself--which was marrying you--I have attempted in every way I knew +to repair the offence, and to render the mistake endurable to you. And +when I finally learned that there was only one way acceptable to you, +I followed that way and kept myself out of your sight. + +"My behaviour, perhaps, entitles me to no claim upon your generosity, +yet I did my best, Winifred, as unselfishly as I knew how. Could you +not; in your turn, be a little unselfish now?... Because I have a +chance for happiness--if you would let me take it." + +She glanced at him out of her close-set, sleepy eyes: + +"I would not lift a finger to oblige you," she said. "You have +inconvenienced me, annoyed me, disarranged my tranquil, orderly, and +blameless mode of living, causing me social annoyance and personal +irritation by coming here and engaging in business, and living openly +with a common and notorious woman who practises a fraudulent and +vulgar business. + +"Why should I show you any consideration? And if you really have +fallen so low that you are ready to marry her, do you suppose it would +be very flattering for me to have it known that your second wife, my +successor, was such a woman?" + +He sat thinking for a while, his white, care-worn face framed between +his gloved hands. + +"Your friends," he said in a low voice, "know you as a devout woman. +You adhere very strictly to your creed. Is there nothing in it that +teaches forbearance?" + +"There is nothing in it that teaches me to compromise with evil," she +retorted; and her small cupid-bow mouth, grew pinched. + +"If you honestly believe that this young girl is really my mistress," +he said, "would it not be decent of you, if it lies within your power, +to permit me to regularise my position--and hers?" + +"Is it any longer my affair if you and she have publicly damned +yourselves?" + +"Yet if you do believe me guilty, you can scarcely deny me the chance +of atonement, if it is within your power." + +She lifted her eyes and coolly inspected him: "And suppose I do _not_ +believe you guilty of breaking your marriage vows?" she inquired. + +He was silent. + +"Am I to understand," she continued, "that you consider it my duty to +suffer the inconvenience of divorcing you in order that you may +further advertise this woman by marrying her?" + +He looked into her close-set eyes; and hope died. She said: "If you +care to affix your signature to the agreement which my attorneys have +already drawn up, then matters may remain as they are, provided you +carry out your part of the contract. If you don't, I shall begin +action immediately and I shall name the woman on whose account you +seem to entertain such touching anxiety." + +"Is that your threat?" + +"It is my purpose, dictated by every precept of decency, morality, +religion, and the inviolable sanctity of marriage." + +He laughed and gathered up his hat and stick: + +"Your moral suasion, I am afraid, slightly resembles a sort of +sanctimonious blackmail, Winifred. The combination of morality, +religion, and yourself is too powerful for me to combat.... So if my +choice must be between permitting morality to publicly besmirch this +young girl's reputation, and affixing my signature to the agreement +you suggest, I have no choice but to sign my name." + +"Is that your decision?" + +He nodded. + +"Very well. My attorneys and a notary are in the next room with the +papers necessary. If you would be good enough to step in a moment--" + +He looked at her and laughed again: "Is there," he said, "anything +lower than a woman?--or anything higher?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Athalie was having a wonderful summer. House and garden continued to +enchant her. She brought down Hafiz, who, being a city cat, instantly +fled indoors with every symptom of astonishment and terror the first +time Athalie placed him on the lawn. + +But within a week the dainty Angora had undergone a change of heart. +Boldly, now he marched into the garden all by himself; fearlessly he +pounced upon such dangerous game as crickets and grasshoppers and the +little night moths which drifted among the flowers at twilight,--the +favourite prowling hour of Hafiz, the Beautiful. + +Also, early in July, Athalie had acquired a fat bay horse and a double +buckboard; and, in the seventh heaven now, she jogged about the +country through leafy lanes and thistle-bordered by-roads long +familiar to her childhood, sometimes with basket, trowel, and garden +gloves, intent on the digging and transplanting of ferns, sometimes +with field-glasses and books, on ornithological information bent. More +often she started out with only a bag of feed for Henry the horse and +some luncheon for herself, to picnic all alone in a familiar woodland, +haunted by childish memories, and lie there listening to the bees and +to the midsummer wind in softly modulated conversation with the little +tree-top leaves. + +She had brought her maid from the city; Mrs. Connor continued to rule +laundry and kitchen. Connor himself decorated the landscape with his +straw hat and overalls, weeding, spraying, rolling, driving the +lawn-mower, raking bed and path, cutting and training vines, clipping +hedges,--a sober, bucolic, agreeable figure to the youthful chatelaine +of the house of Greensleeve. + +Clive had come once more from town to say that he was sailing for +England the following day; that he would be away a month all told, and +that he would return by the middle of August. + +They had spent the morning driving together in her buckboard--the +happiest morning perhaps in their lives. + +It promised to be a perfect day; and she was so carefree, so +contented, so certain of the world's kindness, so shyly tender with +him, so engagingly humorous at his expense, that the prospect of a +month's separation ceased for the time to appal him. + +Concerning his interview with his wife she had asked him nothing; nor +even why he was going abroad. Whether she guessed the truth; whether +she had come to understand the situation through other and occult +agencies, he could not surmise. But one thing was plain enough; +nothing that had happened or that threatened to happen was now +disturbing her. And her gaiety and high spirits were reassuring him +and tranquillising his mind to a degree for which, on reflection, he +could scarcely account, knowing the ultimate hopelessness of their +situation. + +Yet her sheer good spirits carried him with her, heart and mind, that +morning. And when it was time for him to go she said good-bye to him +with a smile as tenderly gay and as happy and confident as though he +were to return on the morrow. And went back to her magic house of +dreams and her fairy garden, knowing that, except for him, their +rainbow magic must vanish and the tinted spell fade, and the soft +enchantment dissolve forever leaving at her feet only a sunlit ruin +amid the stillness of desolation. + +But the magic held. Every day she wrote him. Wireless messages came to +her from him for a while; ceased; then re-commenced, followed +presently by cablegrams and finally by letters. + +So the magic held through the long sunny summer days. And Athalie +worked in her garden and strayed far afield, both driving and afoot. +And she studied and practised piano, and made curtains, and purchased +furniture. + +Also she wrote letters to her sisters, long since wedded to husbands, +babies, and homes in the West. Her brother Jack, she learned, had +joined the Navy at Puget Sound, and had now become a petty officer +aboard the new battle-cruiser _Bon Homme Richard_ in Asiatic waters. +She wrote to him, also, and sent him a money order, gaily suggesting +that he use it to educate himself as a good sailor should, and that he +save his pay for a future wife and baby--the latter, as she wrote, +"being doubtless the most desirable attainment this side of Heaven." + +In her bedroom were photographs of Catharine's children and of the +little boy which Doris had brought into the world; and sometimes, in +the hot midsummer afternoons, she would lie on her pillow and look at +these photographs until the little faces faded to a glimmer as slumber +dulled her eyes. + +Captain Dane came once or twice to spend the day with her; and it was +pleasant, afterward, for her to remember this big, blond, sunburnt man +as part of all that she most cared for. Together they drove and walked +and idled through house and garden: and when he went away, to sail the +following day for those eternal forests which conceal the hearthstone +of the Western World, he knew from her own lips about her love for +Clive. He was the only person she ever told. + +A few of her friends she asked to the house for quiet week-ends; the +impression their visits made upon her was pleasant but colourless. + +And it seemed singular, as she thought it over, how subordinate, how +unaccented had always been all these people who came into her life, +lingered, and faded out of it, leaving only the impressions of +backgrounds and accessories against which only one figure stood clear +and distinct--her lover's. + +Yes, of all men she had ever known, only Clive seemed real; and he +dominated every scene of her girlhood and her womanhood as her mother +had been the only really living centre of her childhood. + +All else seemed to her like a moving and subdued background,--an +endless series of grey scenes vaguely painted through which figures +came and went, some shadowy and colourless as phantoms, some soberly +outlined, some delicately tinted--but all more or less subordinate, +more or less monochromatic, unimportant except for balance and +composition, as painters use indefinite shapes and shades so that the +eyes may more perfectly concentrate on the centre of their +inspiration. + +And the centre of all, for her, was Clive. Since her mother's death +there had been no other point of view for her, no other focus for the +forces of her mind, no other real desire, no other content. He had +entered her child's life and had become, instantly, all that the +child-world held for her. And it was so through the years of her +girlhood. Absent, or during his brief reappearances, the central focus +of her heart and mind was Clive. And, in womanhood, all forces in her +mind and spirit and, now, of body, centred in this man who stood out +against the faded tapestry of the world all alone for her, the only +living thing on earth with which her heart had mated as a child, and +in which now her mind and spirit had found Nirvana. + +All men, all women, seemed to have their shadowy being only to make +this man more real to her. + +Friends came, remained, and went,--Cecil Reeve, gay, charmed with +everything, and, as always, mischievously ready to pay court to her; +Francis Hargrave, politely surprised but full of courteous admiration +for her good taste; John Lyndhurst, Grismer, Harry Ferris, Young +Welter, Arthur Ensart, and James Allys,--all were bidden for the day; +all came, marvelled in the several manners characteristic of them, +and finally went their various ways, serving only, as always, to make +clearer to her the fadeless memory of an absent man. For, to her, the +merest thought of him was more real, more warm and vivid, than all of +these, even while their eager eyes sought hers and their voices were +sounding in her ears. + +Nina Grey came with Anne Randolph for a week-end; and then came Jeanne +Delauny, and Adele Millis. The memory of their visits lingered with +Athalie as long, perhaps, as the scent of roses hangs in a dim, still +room before the windows are open in the morning to the outer air. + +The first of August a cicada droned from the hill-top woods and all +her garden became saturated with the homely and bewitching odour of +old-fashioned rockets. + +On the grey wall nasturtiums blazed; long stretches of brilliant +portulaca edged the herbaceous borders; clusters of auratum lilies +hung in the transparent shadow of Cydonia and Spirea; and the first +great dahlias faced her in maroon splendour from the spiked thickets +along the wall. + +Once or twice she went to town on shopping bent, and on one of these +occasions impulse took her to the apartment furnished for her so long +ago by Clive. + +She had not meant to go in, merely intended to pass the house, speak +to Michael, perhaps, if indeed, he still presided over door and +elevator. + +And there he was, outside the door on a chair, smoking his clay pipe +and surveying the hot and silent street, where not even a sparrow +stirred. + +"Michael," she said, smiling. + +For a moment he did not know her, then: "God's glory!" he said +huskily, getting to his feet--"is it the sweet face o' Miss +Greensleeve or the angel in her come back f'r to bless us all?" + +She gave him her hand, and he held it and looked at her, earnestly, +wistfully; then, with the flashing change of his race, the grin broke +out: + +"I'm that proud to be remembered by the likes o' you, Miss Athalie! +Are ye well, now?--an' happy? I thank God for that! I am +substantial--with my respects, ma'am, f'r the kind inquiry. And Hafiz? +Glory be, was there ever such a cat now? D'ye mind the day we tuk him +in a bashket?--an' the sufferin' yowls of the poor, dear creature. +Sure I'm that glad to hear he's well;--and manny mice to him, Miss +Athalie!" + +Athalie laughed: "I suppose all your tenants are away in the country," +she ventured. + +"Barrin' wan or two, Miss. Ye know the young Master will suffer no one +in your own apartment." + +"Is it still unoccupied, Michael?" + +"Deed it is, Miss. Would ye care f'r to look around. There is nothing +changed there. I dust it meself." + +"Yes," said the girl in a low voice, "I will look at it." + +So Michael took her up in the lift, unlocked the door for her, and +then with the fine instinct of his race, forbore to follow her. + +The shades in the square living-room were lowered; she raised one. And +the dim, golden past took shadowy shape again before her eyes. + +[Illustration: "'Michael,' she said, smiling."] + +She moved slowly from one object to another, touching caressingly +where memory was tenderest. She looked at the furniture, the +pictures,--at the fireplace where in her mind's eye she could see +_him_ bending to light the first fire that had ever blazed there. + +For a little while she sat on the big lounge, her dreamy eyes fixed on +the spot where Clive's father had stood and she remembered Jacques +Renouf, too, and the lost city of Yhdunez.... And, somehow her +memories receded still further toward earlier years; and she thought +of the sunny office where Mr. Wahlbaum used to sit; and she seemed to +see the curtains stirring in the wind. + +After a while she rose and walked slowly along the hall to her own +room. + +Everything was there as she had left it; the toilet silver, evidently +kept clean and bright by Michael, the little Dresden cupids on the +mantel, the dainty clock, still running--further confirmation of +Michael's ministrations--the fresh linen on the bed. Nothing had been +changed through all these changing years. She softly opened the +clothes-press door; there hung her gowns--silent witnesses of her +youth, strangely and daintily grotesque in fashion. One by one she +examined them, a smile edging her lips, and, in her eyes, tears. + +All revery is tinged with melancholy; and it was so with her when she +stood among the forgotten gowns of years ago. + +It was so, too, when, one by one she unlocked and opened the drawers +of dresser and bureau. From soft, ordered heaps of silk and lace and +sheerest linen a faint perfume mounted; and it was as though she +subtly renewed an exquisite and secret intimacy with a youth and +innocence half-forgotten in the sadder wisdom of later days. + + * * * * * + +From the still and scented twilight of a vanished year, to her own +apartment perched high above the sun-smitten city she went, merely to +find herself again, and look around upon what fortune had brought to +her through her own endeavour. + +But, somehow, the old prejudices had gone; the old instincts of pride +and independence had been obliterated, merged in a serene and tranquil +unity of mind and will and spirit with the man in whom every atom of +her belief and faith was now centred. + +It mattered no longer to her what material portion of her possessions +and environment was due to her own efforts, or to his. Nothing that +might be called hers could remain conceivable as hers unless he shared +it. Their rights in each other included everything temporal and +spiritual; everything of mind and matter alike. Of what consequence, +then, might be the origin of possessions that could not exist for her +unless possession were mutual? + +Nothing would be real to her, nothing of value, unless so marked by +his interest and his approval. And now she knew that even the world +itself must become but a shadow, were he not living to make it real. + + * * * * * + +It was a fearfully hot day in town, and she waited until evening to go +back to Spring Pond. + +When she arrived, Mrs. Connor had a cablegram for her from Clive +saying that he was sailing and would see her before the month ended. + +Late into the night she looked for him in her crystal but could see +nothing save a blue and tranquil sea and gulls flying, and always on +the curved world's edge a far stain of smoke against the sky. + +Her mother was in her room that night, seated near the window as +though to keep the vigil that her daughter kept, brooding above the +crystal. + +It was Friday, the twenty-first, and a new moon. The starlight was +magnificent in the August skies: once or twice meteors fell. But in +the depths of her crystal she saw always a sunlit sea and a gull's +wings flashing. + +Toward morning when the world had grown its darkest and stillest, she +went over to where her mother was sitting beside the window, and knelt +down beside her chair. + +And so in voiceless and tender communion she nestled close, her golden +head resting against her mother's knees. + +Dawn found her there asleep beside an empty chair. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +One day toward the end of August, Athalie, standing at the pier's end, +saw the huge incoming liner slowly warping to her berth; waited amid +the throngs in the vast sheds by the gangway, caught a glimpse of +Clive, lost him to view, then saw him again, very near, making his way +toward her. And then her hands were in his and she was looking into +his beloved eyes once more. + +There were a few quick words of greeting spoken, tender, low-voiced; +the swift light of happiness made her blue eyes brilliant: + +"You tall, sun-bronzed, lazy thing," she said; "I never told you what +a distinguished looking man you are, did I? Well I'll spoil you by +telling you now. No wonder everything feminine glances at you," she +added as he lifted his hat to fellow passengers who were passing. + +And during the customs' examination she stood beside him, amused, +interested, gently bantering him when he declared everything; for even +in Athalie were apparently the ineradicable seeds of that original +sin--which is in all femininity--the paramount necessity for +smuggling. + +Once or twice he spoke aside to the customs' officer; and Athalie +instantly and gaily accused him of attempted bribery. + +But when they were on their way to Spring Pond in a hired touring car +with his steamer trunk and suit-cases strapped behind, he drew from +his pockets the articles he had declared and paid for; and Athalie +grew silent in delight as she looked down at the single and lovely +strand of pearls. + +All the way to Spring Pond she held them so, and her enchanted eyes +reverted to them whenever she could bring herself to look anywhere +except at him. + +"I wondered," she said, "whether you would come to the country or +whether you might think it better to remain in town." + +"I shall go back to town only when you go." + +"Dear, does that mean that you will stay with me at our own house?" + +"If you want me." + +"Oh, Clive! I was wondering--only it seemed too heavenly to hope for." + +His face grew sombre for a moment. He said: "There is no other future +for us. And even our comradeship will be misunderstood. But--if you +are willing--" + +"Is there any question in your mind as to the limit of my +willingness?" + +He said: "You know it will mark us for life. And if we remain +guiltless, and our lives blameless, nevertheless this comradeship of +ours will mark us for life." + +"Do you mean, brand us?" + +"Yes, dear." + +"Does that cause you any real apprehension?" she laughed. + +"I am thinking of you." + +"Think of me, then," she said gaily, "and know that I am happy and +content. The world is turning into such a wonderful friend to me; fate +is becoming so gentle and so kind. Happiness may brand me; nothing +else can leave a mark. So be at ease concerning me. All shall go well +with me, only when with you, my darling, all goes well." + +He smiled in sympathy with her gaiety of heart, but the slight shadow +returned to his face again. Watching it she said: + +"All things shall come to us, Clive." + +"All things," he said, gravely,--"except fulfilment." + +"That, too," she murmured. + +"No, Athalie." + +"Yes," she said under her breath. + +He only lifted her ringless hand to his lips in hopeless silence; but +she looked up at the cloudless sky and out over sunlit harvest fields +and where grain and fruit were ripening, and she smiled, closing her +white hand and pressing it gently against his lips. + +Connor met them at the door and shouldered Clive's trunk and other +luggage; then Athalie slipped her arm through his and took him into +the autumn glow of her garden. + +"Miracle after miracle, Clive--from the enchantment of July roses to +the splendour of dahlia, calendula, and gladioluses. Such a +wonder-house no man ever before gave to any woman.... There is not one +stalk or leaf or blossom or blade of grass that is not my intimate +and tender friend, my confidant, my dear preceptor, my companion +beloved and adored. + +[Illustration: "And then her hands were in his and she was looking +into his beloved eyes once more."] + +"Do you notice that the grapes on the trellis are turning dark? And +the peaches are becoming so big and heavy and rosy. They will be ripe +before very long." + +"You must have a greenhouse," he said. + +"_We_ must," she admitted demurely. + +He turned toward her with much of his old gaiety, laughing: "Do you +know," he said, "I believe you are pretending to be in love with me!" + +"That's all it is, Clive, just pretence, and the natural depravity of +a flirt. When I go back to town I'll forget you ever existed--unless +you go with me." + +"I'm wondering," he said, "what we had better do in town." + +"I'm not wondering; I know." + +He looked at her questioningly. Then she told him about her visit to +Michael and the apartment. + +"There is no other place in the world that I care to live +in--excepting this," she said. "Couldn't we live there, Clive, when we +go to town?" + +After a moment he said: "Yes." + +"Would you care to?" she asked wistfully. Then smiled as she met his +eyes. + +"So I shall give up business," she said, "and that tower apartment. +There's a letter here now asking if I desire to sublet it; and as I +had to renew my lease last June, that is what I shall do--if you'll +let me live in the place you made for me so long ago." + +He answered, smilingly, that he might be induced to permit it. + +Hafiz appeared, inquisitive, urbane, waving his snowy tail; but he was +shy of further demonstrations toward the man who was seated beside his +beloved mistress, and he pretended that he saw something in the +obscurity of the flowering thickets, and stalked it with every symptom +of sincerity. + +"That cat must be about six years old," said Clive, watching him. + +"He plays like a kitten, still." + +"Do you remember how he used to pat your thread with his paws when you +were sewing." + +"I remember," she said, smiling. + +A little later Hafiz regained confidence in Clive and came up to rub +against his legs and permit caresses. + +"Such a united family," remarked Athalie, amused by the mutual +demonstrations. + +"How is Henry?" he asked. + +"Fatter and slower than ever, dear. He suits my unenterprising +disposition to perfection. Now and then he condescends to be harnessed +and to carry me about the landscape. But mostly he drags the cruel +burden of Connor's lawn-mower. Do you think the place looks well +kept?" + +"I knew you wanted to be flattered," he laughed. + +"I do. Flatter me please." + +"It's one of the best things I do, Athalie! For example--the lawn, the +cat, and the girl are all beautifully groomed; the credit is yours; +and you're a celestial dream too exquisite to be real." + +"I am becoming real--as real as you are," she said with a faint smile. + +"Yes," he admitted, "you and I are the only real things in the world +after all. The rest--woven scenes that come and go moving across a +loom." + +She quoted: + + "Sun and Moon illume the Room + Where the ceiling is the sky: + Night and day the Weavers ply + Colour, shadow, hue, and dye, + Where the rushing shuttles fly, + Weaving dreams across the Loom, + Picturing a common doom! + + "How, Beloved, can _we_ die-- + We Immortals, Thou and I?" + +He smiled: "Death seems very far away," he said. + +"Nothing dies.... If only this world could understand.... Did I tell +you that mother has been with me often while you were away?" + +"No." + +"It was wonderfully sweet to see her in the room. One night I fell +asleep across her knees." + +"Does she ever speak to you, Athalie?" + +"Yes, sometimes we talk." + +"At night?" + +"By day, too.... I was sitting in the living-room the other morning, +and she came up behind me and took both my hands. We talked, I lying +back in the rocking chair and looking up at her.... Mrs. Connor came +in. I am quite sure she was frightened when she heard my voice in +there conversing with nobody she could see." + +Athalie smiled to herself as at some amusing memory evoked. + +"If Mrs. Connor ever knew how she is followed about by so many purring +pussies and little wagging dogs--I mean dogs and pussies who are no +longer what we call 'alive,'--I don't know what she'd think. Sometimes +the place is full of them, Clive--such darling little creatures. Hafiz +sees them; and watches and watches, but never moves." + +Clive was staring a trifle hard; Athalie, lazily stretching her arms, +glanced at him with that humorous expression which hinted of gentlest +mockery. + +"Don't worry; nothing follows you, Clive, except an idle girl who +finds no time for anything else, so busy are her thoughts with you." + +He bent forward and kissed her; and she clasped both hands behind his +head, drawing it nearer. + +"Have you missed me, Athalie?" + +"You could never understand how much." + +"Did you find me in your crystal?" + +"No; I saw only the sea and on the horizon a stain of smoke, and a +gull flying." + +He drew her closely into his arms: "God," he breathed, "if anything +ever should happen to you!--and I--alone on earth--and blind--" + +"Yes. That is the only anxiety I ever knew ... because you are blind." + +"If you came to me I could not see you. If you spoke to me I could +not hear. Could anything more awful happen?" + +"Do you care for me so much?" + +In his eyes she read her answer, and thrilled to it, closer in his +arms; and rested so, her cheek against his, gazing at the sunset out +of dreamy eyes. + + * * * * * + +They had been slowly pacing the garden paths, arm within arm, when +Mrs. Connor came to summon them to dinner. The small dining-room was +flooded with sunset light; rosy bars of it lay across cloth and fruit +and flowers, and striped the wall and ceiling. + +And when dinner was ended the pale fire still burned on the thin silk +curtains and struck across the garden, gilding the coping of the wall +where clustering peaches hung all turned to gold like fabled fruit +that ripens in Hesperides. + +Hafiz followed them out under the evening sky and seated himself upon +the grass. And he seemed mildly to enjoy the robins' evening +carolling, blinking benevolently up at the little vesper choristers, +high singing in the sunset's lingering glow. + +Whenever light puffs of wind set blossoms swaying, the jet from the +fountain basin swerved, and a mellow raining sound of drops swept the +still pool. The lilac twilight deepened to mauve; upon the surface of +the pool a primrose tint grew duller. Then the first bat zig-zagged +across the sky; and every clove-pink border became misty with the +wings of dusk-moths. + +On Athalie's frail white gown one alighted,--a little grey thing +wearing a pair of peacock-tinted diamonds on its forewings; and as it +sat there, quivering, the iridescent incrustations changed from +burnished gold to green. + +"Wonders, wonders, under the moon," murmured the girl--"thronging +miracles that fill the day and night, always, everywhere. And so few +to see them.... Sometimes, to me the blindness of the world to all the +loveliness that I 'see clearly' is like my own blindness to the hidden +wonders of the night--where uncounted myriads of little rainbow +spirits fly. And nobody sees and knows the living splendour of them +except when some grey-winged phantom strays indoors from the outer +shadows. And it astonishes us to see, under the drab forewings, a +blaze of scarlet, gold, or orange." + +"I suppose," he said, "that the unseen night world all around us is no +more wonderful than what, in the day-world, the vast majority of us +never see, never suspect." + +"I think it must be so, Clive. Being accustomed to a more densely +populated world than are many people, I believe that if I could see +only what they see,--merely that small portion of activity and life +which the world calls 'living things,' I should find the sunlit world +rather empty, and the night but a silent desolation under the stars." + +After a few minutes' thought he asked in a low voice whether at that +moment there was anybody in the garden except themselves. + +"Some people were here a little while ago, looking at the flowers. I +think they must have lived here many, many years ago; perhaps when +this old house was new." + +"Could you not ask them who they were?" + +"No, dear." + +"Why?" + +"If they were what you would call 'alive' I could not intrude upon +them, could I? The laws of reticence, the respect for privacy, remain +the same. I am conscious of no more impertinent curiosity concerning +them than I am concerning any passer in the city streets." + +"Have they gone?" + +"Yes. But all the evening I have been hearing children at play just +beyond the garden wall.... And, when I was a child, somebody killed a +little dog down by the causeway. He is here in the garden, now, +trotting gaily about the lawn--such a happy little dog!--and Hafiz has +folded his forepaws under his ruff and has settled down to watch him. +Don't you see how Hafiz watches, how his head turns following every +movement of the little visitor?" + +He nodded; then: "Do you still hear the children outside the wall?" + +She sat listening, the smile brooding in her eyes. + +"Can you still hear them?" he repeated, wistfully. + +"Yes, dear." + +"What are they saying?" + +"I can't make out. They are having a happy time somewhere on the outer +lawns." + +"How many are there?" + +"Oh, I don't know. Their voices make a sweet, confused sound like bird +music before dawn. I couldn't even guess how many children are playing +there." + +"Are any among them those children you once saw here?--the children +who pleaded with you--" + +She did not answer. He tightened his arm around her waist, drawing her +nearer; and she laid her cheek against his shoulder. + +"Yes," she said, "they are there." + +"You know their voices?" + +"Yes, dearest." + +"Will they come again into the garden?" + +Her face flushed deeply: + +"Not unless we call them." + +"Call them," he said. And, after a silence: "Dearest, will you not +call them to us?" + +"Oh, Clive! I have been calling. Now it remains with you." + +"I did not hear you call them." + +"_They_ heard." + +"Will they come?" + +"I--think so." + +"When?" + +"Very soon--if you truly desire them," she whispered against his +shoulder. + + * * * * * + +Somewhere within the house the hour struck. After a long while they +rose, moving slowly, her head still lying on his shoulder. Hafiz +watched them until the door closed, then settled down again to gaze on +things invisible to men. + + * * * * * + +Hours of the night in dim processional passed the old house unlighted +save by the stars. Toward dawn a sea-wind stirred the trees; the +fountain jet rained on the surface of the pool or, caught by a sudden +breeze, drifted in whispering spray across the grass. Everywhere the +darkness grew murmurous with sounds, vague as wind-blown voices; sweet +as the call of children from some hill-top where the stars are very +near, and the new moon's sickle flashes through the grass. + +Athalie stirred where she lay, turned her head sideways with infinite +precaution, and lay listening. + +Through the open window beside her she saw a dark sky set with stars; +heard the sea-wind in the leaves and the falling water of the +fountain. And very far away a sweet confused murmuring grew upon her +ears. + +Silently her soul answered the far hail; her heart, responding, echoed +a voiceless welcome till she became fearful lest it beat too loudly. + +Then, with infinite precaution, noiselessly, and scarcely stirring, +she turned and laid her lips again where they had rested all night +long and, lying so, dreamed of miracles ineffable. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Clive's enforced idleness had secretly humiliated him and made him +restless. Athalie in her tender wisdom understood how it was with him +before he did himself, and she was already deftly guiding his balked +energy into a brand new channel, the same being a bucolic one. + +At first he had demurred, alleging total ignorance of husbandry; and, +seated on the sill of an open window and looking down at him in the +garden, she tormented him to her heart's content: + +"Ignorant of husbandry!" she mimicked,--"when any husband I ever heard +of could go to school to you and learn what a real husband ought to +be! Why _will_ you pretend to be so painfully modest, Clive, when you +are really secretly pleased with yourself and entirely convinced that, +in you, the world might discover a living pattern of model +domesticity!" + +"I'm glad you think so--" + +"_Think!_ If I were only as certain of anything else! Never had I +dreamed that any man could become so cowed, so spiritless, so +perfectly house and yard broken--" + +"If I come upstairs," he said, "I'll settle _you_!" + +Leaning from the window overlooking the garden she lazily defied him; +turned up her dainty nose at him; mocked at him until he flung aside +the morning paper and rose, bent on her punishment. + +"Oh, Clive, don't!" she pleaded, leaning low from the sill. "I won't +tease you any more,--and this gown is fresh--" + +"I'll come up and freshen it!" he threatened. + +"Please don't rumple me. I'll come down if you like. Shall I?" + +"All right, darling," he said, resuming his newspaper and cigarette. + +She came, seated herself demurely beside him, twitched his newspaper +until he cast an ominous glance at his tormentor. + +"Dear," she said, "I simply can't let you alone; you are so bland and +self-satisfied--" + +"Athalie--if you persist in tormenting me--" + +"I torment you? _I?_ An humble accessory in the scenery set for you? +I?--a stage property fashioned merely for the hero of the drama to sit +upon--" + +"All right! I'll do that now!--" + +But she nestled close to him, warding off wrath with both arms +clasping his, and looking up at him out of winning eyes in which but a +tormenting glint remained. + +"You wouldn't rumple this very beautiful and brand new gown, would +you, darling? It was so frightfully expensive--" + +"I don't care--" + +"Oh, but you must care. You must _become_ thrifty and shrewd and +devious and close, or you'll never make a successful farmer--" + +"Dearest, that's nonsense. What do I know about farming?" + +"Nothing yet. But you know what a wonderful man you are. Never forget +that, Clive--" + +"If you don't stop laughing at me, you little wretch--" + +"Don't you want me to remain young?" she asked reproachfully, while +two tiny demons of gaiety danced in her eyes. "If I can't laugh I'll +grow old. And there's nothing very funny here except you and +Hafiz--Oh, Clive! You _have_ rumpled me! Please don't do it again! +Yes--yes--_yes!_ I do surrender! I _am_ sorry--that you are so +funny--Clive! You'll ruin this gown!... I promise not to say another +disrespectful word.... I don't know whether I'll kiss you or +not--_Yes!_ Yes I will, dear. Yes, I'll do it tenderly--you heartless +wretch!--I tell you I'll do it tenderly.... Oh wait, Clive! Is Mrs. +Connor looking out of any window? Where's Connor? Are you sure he's +not in sight?... And I shouldn't care to have Hafiz see us. He's a +moral kitty--" + +She pretended to look fearfully around, then, with adorable +tenderness, she paid her forfeit and sat silent for a while with her +slim white fingers linked in his, in that breathless little revery +which always stilled her under the magic of his embrace. + +He said at last: "Do you really suppose I could make this farm-land +pay?" + +And that was really the beginning of it all. + + * * * * * + +Once decided he seemed to go rather mad about it, buying agricultural +paraphernalia recklessly and indiscriminately for a meditated assault +upon fields long fallow. + +Connor already had as much as he could attend to in the garden; but, +like all Irishmen, he had a cousin, and the cousin possessed +agricultural lore and a pair of plough-horses. + +So early fall ploughing developed into a mania with Clive and Athalie; +and they formed a habit of sitting side by side like a pair of birds +on fences in the early October sunshine, their fascinated eyes +following the brown furrows turning where one T. Phelan was breaking +up pasture and meadow too long sod-bound. + +In intervals between tenderer and more intimate exchange of sentiments +they discussed such subjects as lime, nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and +the rotation of crops. + +Also Athalie had accumulated much literature concerning incubators, +brooders, and the several breeds of domestic fowl; and on paper they +had figured out overwhelming profits. + +The insidious land-hunger which attacks all who contemplate making two +dozen blades of grass grow where none grew before, now seized upon +Clive and gnawed him. And he extended the acreage, taking in woods and +uplands as far as the headwaters of Spring Pond Brook, vastly to +Athalie's delight. + +So the October days burned like a procession of golden flames passing +in magic sequence amid yellowing woods and over the brown and spongy +gold of salt meadows which had been sheared for stable bedding. And +everywhere over their land lay the dun-coloured velvet squares of +freshly ploughed fields awaiting unfragrant fertilizer and the autumn +rains. + +The rains came heavily toward the end of October; and November was +grey and wet and rather warm. But open fires became necessary in the +house, and now they regularly reddened the twilight in library and +living-room when the early November dusk brought Athalie and Clive +indoors. + +Hither they came, the fire-lit hearth their trysting place after they +had exchanged their rain-drenched clothes for something dry; and there +they curled up on the wide sofas and watched the swift darkness fall, +and the walls and ceiling redden. + +It was an hour which Athalie had once read of as the "Children's Hour" +and now she understood better its charming significance. And she kept +it religiously, permitting herself to do nothing, and making Clive +defer anything he had to do, until after dinner. Then he might read +his paper or book, and she could take up her sewing if she chose, or +study, or play, or write the few letters that she cared to write. + +Clive wrote no more, now. In this first year together they desired +each other only, indifferent to all else outside. + +It was to her the magic year of fulfilment; to him an enchanted +interlude wherein only the girl beside him mattered. + +Athalie sewed a great deal on odd, delicate, sheer materials where +narrowness and length ruled proportions, and where there seemed to be +required much lace and many little ribbons. Also she hummed to +herself as she sewed, singing under her breath endless airs which had +slipped into her head she scarce knew when or how. + +An odd and fragrant freshness seemed to cling to her making her almost +absurdly youthful, as though she had suddenly dropped back to her +girlhood. Clive noticed it. + +"You look about sixteen," he said. + +"My heart is younger, dear." + +"How young?" + +"You know when it was born, don't you? Very well, it is as many days +old as I have been in love with you. Before that it was a muscle +capable merely of sturdy friendship." + +One day a packet came from New York for her. It contained two rings, +one magnificent, the other a plain circlet. She kissed him rather +shyly, wore both that evening, but not again. + +"I am not ashamed," she explained serenely. "Folkways are now a matter +of indifference to me. Civilisation must offer me a better argument +than it has offered hitherto before I resign to it my right in you, or +deny your right to me." + +He knew that civilisation would lock them out and remain unconcerned +as to what became of them. Doubtless she knew it too, as she sat there +sewing on the frail garment which lay across her knee and singing +blithely under her breath some air with cadence like a berceuse. + + * * * * * + +During the "Children's Hour" she sat beside him, always quiet; or if +stirred from her revery to a brief exchange of low-voiced words, she +soon relapsed once more into that happy, brooding silence by the +firelight. + +Then came dinner, and the awakened gaiety of unquenched spirits; then +the blessed evening hours with him. + +But the last hour of these she called _her_ hour; and always laid +aside her book or sewing, and slipped from the couch to the floor at +his feet, laying her head against his knees. + + * * * * * + +Snow came in December; and Christmas followed. They kept the mystic +festival alone together; and Athalie had a tiny tree lighted in the +room between hers and Clive's, and hung it with toys and picture +books. + +It was very pretty in its tinsel and tinted globes; and its faint +light glimmered on the walls and dainty furniture of the dim pink +room. + +Afterward Athalie laid away tinsel and toy, wrapping all safely in +tissue, as though to be kept secure and fresh for another +Christmas--the most wonderful that any girl could dream of. And +perhaps it was to be even more wonderful than Athalie had dreamed. + + * * * * * + +December turned very cold. The ice thickened; and she skated with +Clive on Spring Pond. The ice also remained through January and +February that winter; but after December had ended Athalie skated no +more. + +Clive, unknown to her, had sent for a Shaker cloak and hood of +scarlet; and when it arrived Athalie threw back her lovely head and +laughed till the tears dimmed her eyes. + +"All the same," he said, "you don't look much older in it than you +looked in your red hood and cloak the first day I ever set eyes on +you." + +"You poor darling!--as though even you could push back the hands of +Time! It's the funniest and sweetest thing you ever did--to send for +this red, hooded cloak." + +However she wore it whenever she ventured out with him on foot or in +the sleigh which he had bought. Once, coming home, she was still +wearing it when Mrs. Connor brought to them two peach turnovers. + +A fire had been lighted in the ancient stove; and they went out to the +sun-parlour,--once the bar--and sat in the same old arm-chairs exactly +as they had been seated that night so long ago; and there they ate +their peach turnovers, their enchanted eyes meeting, striving to +realise it all, and the intricate ways of Destiny and Chance and Fate. + + * * * * * + +February was a month of heavy snows that year; great drifts buried the +fences and remained until well into March. April was April,--and very +much so; but they saw the blue waters of the bay sometimes; and +dogwood and willow stems were already aglow with colour; and a +premature blue-bird sang near Athalie's garden. Crocuses appeared +everywhere with grape hyacinths and snow-drops. Then jonquil and +narcissus opened in all their loveliness, and soft winds stirred the +waters of the fountain. + +May found the garden uncovered, with tender amber-tinted shoots and +exquisite fronds of green wherever the lifted mulch disclosed the +earth. Also peonies were up and larkspur, and the ambitious promise of +the hollyhocks delighted Athalie. + +Pink peach buds bloomed; cherry, pear, and apple covered the trees +with rosy snow; birds sang everywhere; and the waters of the pool +mirrored a sky of purest blue. But Athalie now walked no further than +the garden seat,--and walked slowly, leaning always on Clive's arm. + +In those days throughout May her mother was with her in her room +almost every night. But Athalie did not speak of this to Clive. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +Spring ploughing had been proceeding for some time now, but Athalie +did not feel equal to walking cross-lots over ploughed ground, so she +let Clive go alone on tours of inspection. + +But these absences were brief; he did not care to remain away from +Athalie for more than an hour at a time. So, T. Phelan ploughed on, +practically unmolested and untormented by questions, suggestions, and +advice. Which liberty was to his liking. And he loafed much. + +In these latter days of May Athalie spent a great deal of her time +among her cushions and wraps on the garden seat near the fountain. On +his return from prowling about the farm Clive was sure to find her +there, reading or sewing, or curled up among her cushions in the sun +with Hafiz purring on her lap. + +And she would look up at Clive out of sleepy, humorous eyes in which +glimmered a smile of greeting, or she would pretend surprise and +disapproval at his long absence of half an hour with: "Well, C. +Bailey, Junior! Where do _you_ come from now?" + +The phases of awakening spring in the garden seemed to be an endless +source of pleasure to the girl; she would sit for hours looking at the +pale lilac-tinted wistaria clusters hanging over the naked wall and +watching plundering bumble-bees scrambling from blossom to blossom. + +And when at the base of the wall, the spiked buds of silvery-grey iris +unfolded, and their delicate fragrance filled the air, the exquisite +mingling of the two odours and the two shades of mauve thrilled her as +no perfume, no colour had ever affected her. + +The little colonies of lily-of-the-valley came into delicate bloom +under the fringing shrubbery; golden bell flower, pink and vermilion +cydonia, roses, all bloomed and had their day; lilac bushes were +weighted with their heavy, dewy clusters; the sweet-brier's green +tracery grew into tender leaf and its matchless perfume became +apparent when the sun fell hot. + +In the warm air there seemed to brood the exquisite hesitation of +happy suspense,--a delicious and breathless sense of waiting for +something still more wonderful to come. + +And when Athalie felt it stealing over her she looked at Clive and +knew that he also felt it. Then her slim hand would steal into his and +nestle there, content, fearless, blissfully confident of what was to +be. + +But it was subtly otherwise with Clive. Once or twice she felt his +hand tremble slightly as though a slight shiver had passed over him; +and when again she noticed it she asked him why. + +"Nothing," he said in a strained voice; "I am very, very happy." + +"I know it.... There is no fear mingling with your happiness; is +there, Clive?" + +But before he replied she knew that it was so. + +"Dearest," she murmured, "dearest! You must not be afraid for me." + +And suddenly the long pent fears strangled him; he could not speak; +and she felt his lips, hot and tremulous against her hand. + +"My heart!" she whispered, "all will go well. There is absolutely no +reason for you to be afraid." + +"Do you _know_ it?" + +"Yes, I _know_ it. I am certain of it, darling. Everything will turn +out as it should.... I can't bear to have the most beautiful moments +of our lives made sad for you by apprehension. Won't you believe me +that all will go well?" + +"Yes." + +"Then smile at me, Clive." + +His under lip was still unsteady as he drew nearer and took her into +his arms. + +"God wouldn't do such harm," he said. "He _couldn't_! All must go +well." + +She smiled gaily and framed his head with her hands: + +"You're just a boy, aren't you, C. Bailey, Junior?--just a big boy, +yet. As though the God we understand--you and I--could deal otherwise +than tenderly with us. _He_ knows how rare love really is. He will not +disturb it. The world needs it for seed." + +The smile gradually faded from Clive's face; he shook his head, +slightly: + +"If I had known--if I had understood--" + +"What, darling?" + +"The hazard--the chances you are to take--" + +But she laughed deliciously, and sealed his mouth with her fragrant +hand, bidding him hunt for other sources of worry if he really was +bent on scaring himself. + +Later she asked him for a calendar, and he brought it, and together +they looked over it where several of the last days of May had been +marked with a pencil. + +As she sat beside him, studying the printed sequence of the days, a +smile hovering on her lips, he thought he had never seen her so +beautiful. + +A soft wind blew the bright tendrils of her hair across her cheeks; +her skin was like a little girl's, rose and snow, smooth as a child's; +her eyes clearly, darkly blue--the hue and tint called azure--like the +colour of the zenith on some still June day. + +And through the glow of her superb and youthful symmetry, ever, it +seemed to him, some inward radiance pulsated, burning in her golden +burnished hair, in scarlet on her lips, making lovely the soft +splendour of her eyes. Hers was the fresh, sweet beauty of ardent +youth and spring incarnate,--neither frail and colourlessly spiritual, +nor tainted with the stain of clay. + + * * * * * + +Sometimes Athalie lunched there in the garden with him, Hafiz, seated +on the bench beside them, politely observant, condescending to receive +a morsel now and then. + +It was on such a day, at noon-tide, that Athalie bent over toward him, +touched his hair with her lips, then whispered something very low. + +[Illustration: "Sometimes Athalie lunched there in the garden with +him."] + +His face went white, but he smiled and rose,--came back swiftly to +kiss her hands--then entered the house and telephoned to New York. + +When he came back to her she was ready to rise, lean on his arm, and +walk leisurely to the house. + +On the way she called his attention to a pale blue sheet of +forget-me-nots spreading under the shrubbery. She noticed other new +blossoms in the garden, lingered before the bed of white pansies. +"Like little faces," she said with a faint smile. + +One silvery-grey iris he broke from its sheathed stem and gave her; +she moved slowly on with the scented blossom lifted to her lips. + +In the hall a starched and immaculate nurse met her with a significant +nod of understanding. And so, between Clive and the trained nurse she +mounted the stairs to her room. + +Later Clive came in to sit beside her where she lay on her dainty bed. +She turned her flushed face on the pillow, smiled at him, and lifted +her neck a little; and he slipped one arm under it. + +"Such a wonderful pillow your shoulder makes," she murmured.... "I am +thinking of the first time I ever knew it.... So quiet I lay,--such +infinite caution I used whenever I moved.... That night the air was +musical with children's voices--everywhere under the stars--softly +garrulous, laughing, lisping, calling from the hills and meadows.... +That night of miracles and of stars--my dear--my dearest!--" + + * * * * * + +Close to her cheek he breathed: "Are you in pain?" + +"Oh, Clive! I am so happy. I love you so--I love you so." + +Then nurse and physician came in and the latter took him by the arm +and walked out of the room with him. For a long while they paced the +passage-way together in whispered conversation before the nurse came +to the door and nodded. + +Both went in: Athalie laughed and put up her arms as Clive bent over +her. + +"All will be well," she whispered, kissed him, then turned her head +sharply to the right. + +When he found himself in the garden, walking at random, the sun hung a +hand's breadth over the woods. Later it seemed to become entangled +amid new leaves and half-naked branches, hanging there motionless, +blinding, glittering through an eternity of time. + +And yet he did not notice when twilight came, nor when the dusk's +purple turned to night until he saw lights turned up on both floors. + +Nobody summoned him to dinner but he did not notice that. Connor came +to him there in the darkness and said that two other physicians had +arrived with another nurse. He went into the library where they were +just leaving to mount the stairs. They looked at him as they passed +but merely bowed and said nothing. + +A steady, persistent clangour vibrated in his brain, dulling it, so +that senses like sight and hearing seemed slow as though drugged. + +Suddenly like a sword the most terrible fear he ever knew passed +through him.... And after a while the dull, ringing clangour came +back, dinning, stupefying, interminable. Yet he was conscious of every +sound, every movement on the floor above. + + * * * * * + +One of the physicians came halfway down the stairs, looked at him; and +he rose mechanically and went up. + +He saw nothing clearly in the room until he bent over Athalie. + +Her eyes unclosed. She whispered: "It is all right, beloved." + +Somebody led him out. He kept on, conscious of the grasp on his arm, +but seeing nothing. + + * * * * * + +He had been walking for a long while, somewhere between light and +darkness,--perhaps for hours, perhaps minutes. Then somebody came who +laid an arm about his shoulder and spoke of courage. + +Other people were in the room, now. One said: + +"Don't go up yet."... Once he noticed a woman, Mrs. Connor, crying. +Connor led her away. + +Others moved about or stood silent; and some one was always drawing +near him, speaking of courage. It was odd that so much darkness should +invade a lighted room. + +Then somebody came down the stairs, noiselessly. The house was very +still. + +And at last they let him go upstairs. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Lights yet burned on the lower floors and behind the drawn blinds of +Athalie's room. The night was quiet and soft and lovely; the moon +still young in its first quarter. + +There was no wind to blow the fountain jet, so that every drop fell +straight back where the slim column of water broke against a strip of +stars above the garden wall. Somewhere in distant darkness the little +owl trilled. + + * * * * * + +If he were walking or motionless he no longer knew it; nor did he seem +to be aware of anything around. + +Hafiz came up to him through the dusk with a little mew of recognition +or of loneliness. Afterward the cat followed him for a while and then +settled down upon the grass intent on the invisible stirring +stealthily in obscurity. + +The fragrance of the iris grew sweeter, fresher. Many new buds had +unfolded since high noon. One stalk had fallen across the path and +Clive's dragging feet passed over it where he moved blindly, at +hazard, with stumbling steps along the path--errant, senseless, and +always blind. + +For on the garden bench a young girl sat, slender, exquisite, smiling +as he approached. But he could not see her, nor could he see in her +arms the little flower-like face, and the tiny hands against her +breast. + +"Clive!" she said. But he could not hear her. + +"Clive," she whispered; "my beloved!" + +But he could neither see nor hear. His knees, too, were failing; he +put out one hand, blindly, and sank down upon the garden bench. + +All night long she sat beside him, her head against his shoulder, +sometimes touching his drawn face with warm, sweet lips, sometimes +looking down at the little face pressed to her quiet breast. + +And all night long the light burned behind the closed blinds of her +room; and the little silvery dusk-moths floated in and out of the +rays. And Hafiz, sitting on the grass, watched them sometimes; +sometimes he gazed at his young mistress out of wide, unblinking eyes. + +"Hafiz," she murmured lazily in her sweetly humorous way. + +The cat uttered a soft little mew but did not move. And when she laid +her cheek close to Clive's whispering,--"I love you--I love you +so!"--he never stirred. + +Her blue eyes, brooding, grew patient, calm, and tender; she looked +down silently into the little face close cradled in her arms. + +Then the child's eyes opened like two blue stars; and she bent over in +a swift ecstasy of bliss, covering the flower-like face with kisses. + + + THE END + + + + + Novels by Robert W. Chambers + + Athalie + Who Goes There! + Anne's Bridge + Between Friends + The Hidden Children + Quick Action + Blue-Bird Weather + Japonette + The Adventures of a Modest Man + The Danger Mark + Special Messenger + The Firing Line + The Younger Set + The Fighting Chance + Some Ladies in Haste + The Tree of Heaven + The Tracer of Lost Persons + A Young Man in a Hurry + Lorraine + Maids of Paradise + The Business of Life + The Gay Rebellion + The Streets of Ascalon + The Common Law + Ailsa Paige + The Green Mouse + Iole + The Reckoning + The Maid-at-Arms + Cardigan + The Haunts of Men + The Mystery of Choice + The Cambric Mask + The Maker of Moons + The King in Yellow + In Search of the Unknown + The Conspirators + A King and a Few Dukes + In the Quarter + Ashes of Empire + The Red Republic + Outsiders + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Athalie, by Robert W. 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Chambers + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Athalie + +Author: Robert W. Chambers + +Illustrator: Frank Craig + +Release Date: November 27, 2008 [EBook #27342] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATHALIE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Jen Haines and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class='center'><br /> +<table class="prettytable" border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" width="35%" + summary="A listing of the chapters in this book with hyperlinks"> +<tr><td colspan="2"><h2>Chapter Listing </h2></td></tr> +<tr><td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a></td> + <td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a></td> + <td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a></td> + <td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a></td> + <td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a></td> + <td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a></td> + <td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a></td> + <td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>CHAPTER XXII</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a></td> + <td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXIII</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a></td> + <td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXIV</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a></td> + <td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b>CHAPTER XXV</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a></td> + <td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXVI</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a></td> + <td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXVII</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a></td> + <td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><b>CHAPTER XXVIII</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a></td> + <td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><b>CHAPTER XXIX</b></a></td> +</tr> +<tr><td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a></td> + <td class="tocchap"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><b>CHAPTER XXX</b></a></td> +</tr> +</table><br /><br /></div> + +<h1> Athalie </h1> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/dust_jacket.jpg" + width="500" height="327" alt="Dust Jacket" title="" /> +<span class="caption">Dust Jacket</span> +</div> + +<p><!-- Page 1 --><span class='pagenum'> + <a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<p><!-- Page 2 --><span class='pagenum'> + <a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> +<p><!-- Page 3 --><span class='pagenum'> + <a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<div class='center'><br /> +<table class="prettytable" +border="5" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" + summary="A listing of Novels by Robert W Chambers"> +<tr><td colspan="2"><h6>Novels by Robert W. Chambers</h6></td></tr> +<tr><td>Athalie</td> + <td>The Business of Life</td></tr> +<tr><td>Who Goes There!</td> + <td>The Gay Rebellion</td></tr> +<tr><td>Anne's Bridge</td> + <td>The Streets of Ascalon</td></tr> +<tr><td>Between Friends</td> + <td>The Common Law</td></tr> +<tr><td>The Hidden Children</td> + <td>Ailsa Paige</td></tr> +<tr><td>Quick Action</td> + <td>The Green Mouse</td></tr> +<tr><td>Blue-Bird Weather</td> + <td>Iole</td></tr> +<tr><td>Japonette</td> + <td>The Reckoning</td></tr> +<tr><td>The Adventures of a Modest Man</td> + <td>The Maid-at-Arms</td></tr> +<tr><td>The Danger Mark</td> + <td>The Haunts of Men</td></tr> +<tr><td>Special Messenger</td> + <td>The Mystery of Choice</td></tr> +<tr><td>The Firing Line</td> + <td>The Cambric Mask</td></tr> +<tr><td>The Younger Set</td> + <td>The Maker of Moons</td></tr> +<tr><td>The Fighting Chance</td> + <td>The King in Yellow</td></tr> +<tr><td>Some Ladies in Haste</td> + <td>In Search of the Unknown</td></tr> +<tr><td>The Tree of Heaven</td> + <td>The Conspirators</td></tr> +<tr><td>The Tracer of Lost Persons</td> + <td>A King and a Few Dukes</td></tr> +<tr><td>A Young Man in a Hurry</td> + <td>In the Quarter</td></tr> +<tr><td>Cardigan</td> + <td>Ashes of Empire</td></tr> +<tr><td>Lorraine</td> + <td>The Red Republic</td></tr> +<tr><td>Maids of Paradise</td> + <td>Outsiders</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<p><!-- Page 4 --><span class='pagenum'> + <a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<p><!-- Page 5 --><span class='pagenum'> + <a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/gs01.jpg" width="300" height="460" + alt=""'Clive is a good deal of a man.... + I never had a better companion.'"" + title=""'Clive is a good deal of a man.... + I never had a better companion.'"" /> +<span class="caption">"'Clive is a good deal of a man.... + I never had a better companion.'"</span> +<span class="caption"><span class="smcaps">[Page 242.]</span></span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<p><!-- Page 6 --><span class='pagenum'> + <a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p> + +<h5>ATHALIE</h5> + +<p class="center"> BY <br /></p> +<h1 class="center"> ROBERT W. CHAMBERS <br /><br /></h1> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 170px;"> +<img src="images/badge.png" width="170" height="205" + alt="Publisher Badge" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center"> WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY <br /></p> +<h1 class="center"> FRANK CRAIG <br /><br /></h1> +<h1 class="center"> NEW YORK AND LONDON <br /></h1> +<h1 class="center"> D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br /></h1> +<p class="center"> 1915</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p><!-- Page 7 --><span class='pagenum'> + <a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"> + <span class="smcap">Copyright, 1915, by</span><br /></p> +<p class="center"> ROBERT W. CHAMBERS<br /></p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p class="center"> <span class="smcap">Copyright, 1914, 1915, + by The International Magazine Company</span></p> + +<p><!-- Page 8 --><span class='pagenum'> + <a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center">Printed in the United States of America</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">To</span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">My Friend</span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">MESSMORE KENDALL</span> +<br /><br /><br /> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<p><!-- Page 9 --> +<span class='pagenum'> + <a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<p><!-- Page 10 --><span class='pagenum'> + <a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="List of Illustrations"> + +<tr><td colspan="2"><h3>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h3></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"'Clive is a good deal of a man.... + I never had a better companion.'"</td> + <td align='left'><a href="#Page_4"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'><br/> + <small>FACING <br/>PAGE</small></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"'Boy?' inquired Ledlie, resting one + soil-incrusted boot on his spade."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_15">2</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"'I'd like to come down here for the summer + vacation,' said the boy, awkwardly."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_48">34</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"'I'm glad I saw you,' said the girl; + 'I hope you won't forget me.'"</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_57">40</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"C. Bailey, Jr., and Athalie Greensleeve ... had + supped together more than once at the Regina."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_96">78</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"Beside her, eager, happy, flattered, walked C. + Bailey, Jr., very conscious that he was being envied."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_100">80</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"'I like her,' repeated Clive, Jr., a trifle + annoyed."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_104">82</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil + Reeve one stormy midnight."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_138">114</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"He rather liked being with his own sort again."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_142">116</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"'Wasn't a civil bow enough?'"</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_154">126</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"One lovely morning in May she arose early in + order to write to Clive."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_178">148</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"Mr. Wahlbaum ... was very quiet, very considerate, + very attentive."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_182">150</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"Doris continued to haunt agencies and + theatrical offices."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_188">154</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"With him she visited the various museums + and art galleries."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_204">168</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"With a basket containing Hafiz, her suit-case, + and a furled umbrella she started for her new lodgings."</td> +<td align='right'><a href="#Page_216">178</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"'Wasn't it suicide?' asked Athalie."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_220">180</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"She said in a low voice, still watching intently: + 'Blue sky, green trees, a snowy shore, + and little azure wavelets....'"</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_256">210</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"Mrs. Bailey, Jr., looked pale and pretty + sitting there."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_276">232</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"During convalescence he read 'Under Two Flags' + and approved the idea."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_280">234</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"His theme happened to be his own wonderful trap + record, that evening."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_292">244</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"'There is your extra,' she said pleasantly."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_316">266</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"Once more, the old happy companionship began."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_338">284</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"Finally ... he cut the envelope and seated + himself beside the lamp."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_354">300</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"When he saw her he sprang out and came forward."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_372">316</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"She suddenly sat upright, resting one slender + hand on his shoulder."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_388">330</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"Clive nodded: 'Keep them off the + place, Connor.'"</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_406">346</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"'Sure I was that worritted,' + burst out Mrs. Connor."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_412">348</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"'Michael,' she said, smiling."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_436">372</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"And then her hands were in his and she was + looking into his beloved eyes once more."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_444">378</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='left'>"Sometimes Athalie lunched there in the + garden with him."</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_468">400</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p><!-- Page 12 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h5><a name="ATHALIE" id="ATHALIE"></a>ATHALIE</h5> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<p class="cap">WHEN Mrs. Greensleeve first laid eyes on her baby she knew it was +different from the other children.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter with it?" she asked.</p> + +<p>The preoccupied physician replied that there was nothing the matter. +In point of fact he had been admiring the newly born little girl when +her mother asked the question.</p> + +<p>"She's about as perfect as they make 'em," he concluded, placing the +baby beside her mother.</p> + +<p>The mother said nothing. From moment to moment she turned her head on +the pillow and gazed down at her new daughter with a curious, +questioning expression. She had never gazed at any of her other +children so uneasily. Even after she fell asleep the slightly puzzled +expression remained as a faint crease between her brows.</p> + +<p>Her husband, who had been wandering about from the bar to the office, +from the office to the veranda, and occasionally entirely around the +exterior of the road-house, came in on tiptoe and looked rather +vacantly at them both.</p> + +<p>Then he went out again as though he was not sure where he might be +<!-- Page 13 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +going. He was a little man and mild, and he did not look as though he +had been created for anything in particular, not even for the purpose +of procreation.</p> + +<p>It was one of those early April days when birds make a great fuss over +their vocal accomplishments, and the brown earth grows green over +night—when the hot spring sun draws vapours from the soil, and the +characteristic Long Island odour of manure is far too prevalent to +please anybody but a native.</p> + +<p>Peter Greensleeve, wandering at hazard around the corner of the +tavern, came upon his business partner, Archer B. Ledlie leisurely +digging for bait in the barn-yard. The latter was in his +shirt-sleeves—always a good sign for continued fair weather.</p> + +<p>"Boy?" inquired Ledlie, resting one soil-incrusted boot on his spade.</p> + +<p>"Another girl," admitted Greensleeve.</p> + +<p>"Gawsh!" After a moment's rumination he picked up a squirming +angle-worm from the edge of the shallow excavation and dropped it into +the empty tomato can.</p> + +<p>"Going fishing?" inquired Greensleeve without interest.</p> + +<p>"I dunno. Mebbe. Your boy Jack seen a trout into Spring Pond."</p> + +<p>Ledlie, who was a large, heavy, red-faced man with a noticeably small +mouth, faded blue eyes, and grey chin whiskers, picked a budding sprig +from a bush, nibbled it, and gravely seated himself on the edge of the +horse-trough. He was wearing a cigar behind his ear which +<!-- Page 14 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +he presently extracted, gazed at, then reconsidering the extravagance, +replaced.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 15 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 273px;"> +<img src="images/gs02.jpg" width="273" height="500" +alt=""'Boy?' inquired Ledlie, resting one soil-incrusted +boot on his spade."" +title=""'Boy?' inquired Ledlie, resting one soil-incrusted +boot on his spade."" /> +<span class="caption">"'Boy?' inquired Ledlie, resting one +soil-incrusted boot on his spade."</span> +</div> + +<p><!-- Page 16 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Three gals, Pete—that's your record," he remarked, gazing +reproachfully out across the salt meadows beyond the causeway. "They +won't bring you in nothin'," he added, shutting his thin lips.</p> + +<p>"I kind of like them," said Greensleeve with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"They'll eat their heads off," retorted Ledlie; "then they'll git +married an' go off some'rs. There ain't nothin' to gals nohow. You +oughtn't to have went an' done it."</p> + +<p>There seemed to be no further defence for Greensleeve. Ledlie +continued to chew a sprig of something green and tender, revolving it +and rolling it from one side of his small, thin-lipped mouth to the +other. His thin little partner brooded in the sunshine. Once he +glanced up at the sign which swung in front of the road-house: "Hotel +Greensleeve: Greensleeve and Ledlie, proprietors."</p> + +<p>"Needs painting, Archie," he volunteered mildly.</p> + +<p>"I dunno," said the other. "Since the gunnin' season closed there +ain't been no business except them sports from New York. The bar done +good; that's all."</p> + +<p>"There were two commercial men Wednesday week."</p> + +<p>"Yes, an' they found fault with their vittles. They can go to the +other place next time," which was as near as Ledlie ever came to +profanity.</p> + +<p>After a silence Ledlie said: "Here come your kids, Pete. I guess I'll +let 'em dig a little bait for me."</p> + +<p>Down the road they came dancing, and across the +<!-- Page 17 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +causeway over Spring Pond—Jack, aged four, Doris, three, and Catharine, two; +and they broke into a run when they caught sight of their father, travelling as +fast as their fat little legs could carry them.</p> + +<p>"Is there a new baby? Is there a new baby?" shouted Jack, while still +at a distance.</p> + +<p>"Is it a boy? I want another brother! Is it a boy?" shrilled Doris as +she and baby Catharine came panting up with flushed and excited faces.</p> + +<p>"It's a girl," said Greensleeve mildly. "You'd better go into the +kitchen and wash your faces."</p> + +<p>"A girl!" cried Jack contemptuously. "What did mamma do that for?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, goodness!" pouted Doris, "I didn't want any more girls around. +What are you going to name her, papa?"</p> + +<p>"Athalie, I believe," he said absently.</p> + +<p>"Athalie! What kind of name is that?" demanded Jack.</p> + +<p>"I dunno. Your mamma wanted it in case the baby was a girl."</p> + +<p>The children, breathing hard and rapidly, stood in a silent cluster +looking up at their father. Ledlie yawned frightfully, and they all +instantly turned their eyes on him to discover if possible the +solitary tooth with which rumour credited him. They always gazed +intently into his mouth when he yawned, which irritated him.</p> + +<p>"Go on in and wash yourselves!" he said as soon as speech became +possible. "Ain't you heard what your papa told you!" +<!-- Page 18 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>They were not afraid of Mr. Ledlie; they merely found him +unsympathetic, and therefore concerned themselves with him not at all.</p> + +<p>Ignoring him, Jack said, addressing his father: "I nearly caught a +snake up the road. Gee! But he was a dandy."</p> + +<p>"He had stripes," said Doris solemnly.</p> + +<p>"He wiggled," asserted little Catharine, and her eyes became very +round.</p> + +<p>"What kind was he, papa?" inquired Jack.</p> + +<p>"Oh, just a snake," replied Greensleeve vaguely.</p> + +<p>The eager faces of the children clouded with disappointment; dawning +expectancy faded; it was the old, old tragedy of bread desired, of the +stone offered.</p> + +<p>"I liked that snake," muttered Jack. "I wanted to keep him for a pet. +I wanted to know what kind he was. He seemed very friendly."</p> + +<p>"Next time," suggested Ledlie, "you pet him on the head with a rock."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Snakes is no good. There's pizen into 'em. You kill every one you see +an' don't ask questions."</p> + +<p>In the boy's face intelligence faded. Impulse lay stunned after its +headlong collision with apathy, and died out in the clutch of +ignorance.</p> + +<p>"Is that so, papa?" he asked, dully.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I guess so," nodded Greensleeve. "Mr. Ledlie knows all about +snakes and things."</p> + +<p>"Go on in an' wash!" repeated Ledlie. "You don't git no supper if you +ain't cleaned up for table. Your papa says so, don't you, Pete?" +<!-- Page 19 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> + +<p>Greensleeve usually said what anybody told him to say.</p> + +<p>"Walk quietly," he added; "your poor mamma's asleep."</p> + +<p>Reluctantly the children turned toward the house, gazing inquiringly +up at the curtained window of their mother's room as they trooped +toward the veranda.</p> + +<p>Jack swung around on the lower step:</p> + +<p>"Papa!" he shouted.</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"I forget what her name is!"</p> + +<p>"Athalie." +<!-- Page 20 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p class="cap">HER first memories were of blue skies, green trees, sunshine, and the +odour of warm moist earth.</p> + +<p>Always through life she retained this memory of her early +consciousness—a tree in pink bloom; morning-glories covering a +rotting board fence; deep, rich, sun-warmed soil into which her baby +fingers burrowed.</p> + +<p>A little later commenced her memory of her mother—a still, +white-shawled figure sewing under a peach tree in pink bloom.</p> + +<p>Vast were her mother's skirts, as Athalie remembered them—a wide +white tent under which she could creep out of the sunlight and hide.</p> + +<p>Always, too, her earliest memories were crowded with children, hosts +of them in a kaleidoscopic whirl around her, and their voices seemed +ever in her ears.</p> + +<p>By the age of four she had gradually understood that this vaguely +pictured host of children numbered only three, and that they were her +brother and two sisters—very much grown up and desirable to play +with. But at seven she began to be surprised that Doris and Catharine +were no older and no bigger than they were, although Jack's twelve +years still awed her.</p> + +<p>It was about this time that the child began to be aware of a +difference between herself and the other +<!-- Page 21 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> + children. For a year or two it did not trouble her, nor even confuse her. +She seemed to be aware of it, that was all.</p> + +<p>When it first dawned on her that her mother was aware of it too, she +could never quite remember. Once, very early in her career, her mother +who had been sewing under the peach tree, dropped her work and looked +down at her very steadily where she sat digging holes in the dirt.</p> + +<p>And Athalie had a vague idea in after life that this was the +beginning; because there had been a little boy sitting beside her all +the while she was digging; and, somehow, she was aware that her mother +could not see him.</p> + +<p>She was not able to recollect whether her mother had spoken to her, or +even whether she herself had conversed with the little boy. He never +came again; of that she was positive.</p> + +<p>When it was that her brother and sisters began to suspect her of being +different she could not remember.</p> + +<p>In the beginning she had not understood their half-incredulous +curiosity concerning her; and, ardently communicative by nature, she +was frank with them, confident and undisturbed, until their child-like +and importunate aggressiveness, and the brutal multiplicity of their +questions drove her to reticence and shyness.</p> + +<p>For what seemed to amaze them or excite them to unbelief or to jeers +seemed to her ordinary, unremarkable, and not worthy of any particular +notice—not even of her own. +<!-- Page 22 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> + +<p>That she sometimes saw things "around corners," as Jack put it, had +seemed natural enough to her. That, now and then, she seemed to +perceive things which nobody else noticed never disturbed her even +when she became aware that other people were unable to see them. To +her it was as though her own eyesight were normal, and astigmatism the +rule among other people.</p> + +<p>But the blunt, merciless curiosity of other children soon taught +Athalie to be on her guard. She learned that embarrassed reserve which +tended toward secretiveness and untruth before she was eleven.</p> + +<p>And in school she learned to lie, learned to deny accusations of being +different, pretended that what her sisters accused her of had been +merely "stories" made up to amuse them.</p> + +<p>So, in school, she made school-life endurable for herself. Yet, +always, there seemed to be <i>something</i> between her and other children +that made intimacies impossible.</p> + +<p>At the same time she was conscious of the admiration of the boys, of +something about herself that they liked outside of her athletic +abilities.</p> + +<p>She had a great many friends among the boys; she could out-run, +out-jump, out-swim any of them in the big country school. She was +supple and trim, golden-haired and dark-eyed, and ready for anything +that required enterprise and activity of mind or body. Her ragged +skirts were still short at eleven—short enough not to impede her. And +she led the chase for pleasure all over that part of Long Island, +running wild with +<!-- Page 23 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> + the pack from hill to tide-water until every farmer +in the district knew "the Greensleeve girl."</p> + +<p>There was, of course, some deviltry among cherry trees and apple +orchards—some lawlessness born of sheer exuberance and superb +health—some malicious trespassing, some harrying of unpopular +neighbours. But not very much, considering.</p> + +<p>Her home life was colourless, calm, comfortable, and uneventful as she +regarded it. Business at the Hotel Greensleeve had fallen off and in +reality the children had very little. But children at that age who +live all day in the open, require little except sympathetic +intelligence for their million daily questions.</p> + +<p>This the Greensleeve children found wanting except when their mother +did her best to stimulate her own latent intelligence for their sakes.</p> + +<p>But it rested on the foundation of an old-fashioned and limited +education. Only the polite, simpler, and more maidenly arts had been +taught her in the little New Jersey school her father had kept. And +her education ceased when she married Greensleeve, the ex-"professor" +of penmanship, a kind, gentle, unimaginative man, unusually dull even +for a teacher. And he was a failure even at that.</p> + +<p>They began married life by buying the house they were now living in; +and when Greensleeve also failed as a farmer, they opened the place as +a public tavern, and took in Ledlie to finance it.</p> + +<p>So it was to her mother that Athalie went for any information that her +ardent and growing intellect required. And her mother, intuitively +surmising the mind-hunger of youth, and its vigorous needs, did her +<!-- Page 24 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +limited best to satisfy it in her children. And that is really all the +education they had; for what they got in the country school amounted +to—well it amounted to what anybody ever gets in school.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Her most enduring, most vivid memories of her mother clustered around +those summer days of her twelfth year, brief lamp-lit scenes between +long, sunlit hours of healthy, youthful madness—quiet moments when +she came in flushed and panting from the headlong chase after +pleasure, tired, physically satisfied, to sit on the faded carpet at +her mother's feet and clasp her hands over her mother's knees.</p> + +<p>Then "what?" and "why?" and "when?" and "how?" were the burden of the +child's eager speech. Nothing seemed to have escaped her quick ears or +eyes, no natural phenomena of the open; life, birth, movement, growth, +the flow, and ebb of tides, thunder pealing from high-piled clouds, +the sun shining through fragrant falling rain, mists that grew over +swamp and meadow.</p> + +<p>And, "Why?" she always asked.</p> + +<p>Nothing escaped her;—swallows skimming and sheering Spring Pond, +trout that jumped at sunset, the quick furry shapes of mink and +muskrat, the rattling flash of a blue-winged kingfisher, a tall heron +wading, a gull mewing.</p> + +<p>Nothing escaped her; the casual caress of mating birds, procreation in +farm-yard and barn-yard, fledgelings crying from a robin's nest of mud +and messy refuse, blind kittens tugging at their blinking mother. +<!-- Page 25 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>Death, too, she saw,—a dusty heap of feathers here, a little mound of +fur, there, which the idle breezes stirred under the high sky,—and +once a dead dog, battered, filthy and bloody, shot by the roadside; +and once some pigs being killed on a farm, all screaming.</p> + +<p>Then, in that school as in every school, there was the sinister +minority, always huddling in corners, full of mean silences and +furtive leering. And their half-heard words, half-understood +phrases,—a gesture, a look that silenced and perplexed her—these the +child brought also to her mother, sitting at her feet, face against +her knees.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>For a month or two her mother had not been very well, and the doctor +who had brought Athalie into the world stopped in once or twice a +week. When he was with her mother the children were forbidden the +room.</p> + +<p>One evening in particular Athalie remembered. She had been running her +legs off playing hounds-and-hares across country from the salt-hay +stacks to the chestnut ridge, and she had come in after sunset to find +her mother sewing in her own bedroom, her brother and sisters studying +their lessons in the sitting-room where her father also sat reading +the local evening paper.</p> + +<p>Supper was over, but Athalie went to the kitchen and presently +returned to her mother's room carrying a bowl of bread and milk and +half a pie.</p> + +<p>Here on the faded carpet at her mother's feet, full in the lamplight +she sat her down and ate in hungry silence while her mother sewed. +<!-- Page 26 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<p>Athalie seldom studied. A glance at her books seemed to be enough for +her. And she passed examinations without effort under circumstances +where plodders would have courted disaster.</p> + +<p>Rare questions from her mother, brief replies marked the meal. When +she had satisfied her hunger she jumped up, ran downstairs with the +empty dishes, and came slowly back again,—a slender, supple figure +with tangled hair curling below her shoulders, dirty shirt-waist, +soiled features and hands, and the ragged blue skirt of a sailor suit +hanging to her knees.</p> + +<p>"Your other sailor suit is washed and mended," said her mother, +smiling at her child in tatters.</p> + +<p>Athalie, her gaze remote, nodded absently. After a moment she lifted +her steady dark blue eyes:</p> + +<p>"A boy kissed me, mamma," she remarked, dropping cross-legged at her +mother's feet.</p> + +<p>"Don't kiss strange boys," said her mother quietly.</p> + +<p>"I didn't. But why not?"</p> + +<p>"It is not considered proper."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>Her mother said: "Kissing is a common and vulgar practice except in +the intimacy of one's own family."</p> + +<p>"I thought so," nodded Athalie; "I soaked him for doing it."</p> + +<p>"Who was he?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it was that fresh Harry Eldon. I told him if he ever tried to get +fresh with me again I'd kill him.... Mamma?"</p> + +<p>"Yes?" +<!-- Page 27 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> + +<p>"All that about poor old Mr. Manners isn't true, is it?"</p> + +<p>Her mother smiled. The children had been taught to leave a morsel on +their plates "for manners"; and to impress it upon them their mother +had invented a story about a poor old man named Manners who depended +upon what they left, and who crept in to eat it after they had retired +from table.</p> + +<p>So leaving something "for Manners" had been thoroughly and +successfully inculcated, until the habit was formed. And now Athalie +was the last of the children to discover the gentle fraud practised +upon her.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad, anyway," concluded the child. "I never thought we left him +enough to eat."</p> + +<p>Her mother said: "I shall tell you only truths after this. You are old +enough to understand reason, now, and to reason a little yourself."</p> + +<p>"I do.... But I am not yet perfectly sure where babies come from. You +said you would tell me <i>that</i> some day. I'd really like to know, +mamma."</p> + +<p>Her mother continued to sew for a while, then, passing the needle +through the hem she looked down at her daughter.</p> + +<p>"Have you formed any opinion of your own?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the child honestly.</p> + +<p>"Then I'd better tell you the truth," said her mother tranquilly, +"because the truth is very wonderful and beautiful—and interesting."</p> + +<p>So she related to the child, very simply and clearly all that need be +told concerning the mystery of life in its beginnings; +and Athalie listened, enchanted. +<!-- Page 28 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>And mostly it thrilled the child to realise that in her, too, lay +latent a capability for the creation of life.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Another hour with her mother she remembered in after years.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Greensleeve had not been as well: the doctor came oftener. +Frequently Athalie returning from school discovered her mother lying +on the bed. That evening the child was sitting on the floor at her +mother's feet as usual, just inside the circle of lamplight, playing +solitaire with an ancient pack of cards.</p> + +<p>Presently something near the door attracted her attention and she +lifted her head and sat looking at it, mildly interested, until, +suddenly, she felt her mother's eyes on her, flushed hotly, and turned +her head away.</p> + +<p>"<i>What</i> were you looking at?" asked her mother in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, mamma."</p> + +<p>"Athalie!"</p> + +<p>"What, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"<i>What</i> were you looking at?"</p> + +<p>The child hung her head: "Nothing—" she began; but her mother checked +her: "Don't lie, Athalie. I'll try to understand you. Now tell me what +you were—what you thought you were looking at over there near the +door."</p> + +<p>The child turned and glanced back at the door over her shoulder. +<!-- Page 29 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There is nothing there—now," she muttered.</p> + +<p>"Was there anything?"</p> + +<p>Athalie sat silent for a while, then she laid her clasped hands across +her mother's knees and rested her cheek on them.</p> + +<p>"There was a woman there," she said.</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Over by the door."</p> + +<p>"You saw her, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, mamma."</p> + +<p>"Did she open the door and come in and then close it behind her?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"How did she come in?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. She—just came in."</p> + +<p>"Was she a young woman?"</p> + +<p>"No, old."</p> + +<p>"Very old?"</p> + +<p>"Not very. There was grey in her hair—a little."</p> + +<p>"How was she dressed?"</p> + +<p>"She wore a night-gown, mamma. There were spots on it—like medicine."</p> + +<p>"Had you ever seen her before?"</p> + +<p>"I think so."</p> + +<p>"Who was she?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Allen."</p> + +<p>Her mother sat very still but her clasped hands tightened and a little +of the colour faded from her cheeks. There was a Mrs. Allen who had +been suffering from an illness which she herself was afraid she had. +<!-- Page 30 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you mean Mrs. James Allen who lives on the old Allen farm?" she +asked quietly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, mamma."</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>In the morning they heard of Mrs. Allen's death. And it was several +months before Mrs. Greensleeve again spoke to her daughter on the one +subject about which Athalie was inclined to be most reticent. But that +subject now held a deadly fascination for her mother.</p> + +<p>They had been sitting together in Mrs. Greensleeve's bedroom; the +mother knitting, in bed propped up upon the pillows. Athalie, +cross-legged on a hassock beside her, was doing a little mending on +her own account, when her mother said abruptly but very quietly:</p> + +<p>"I have always known that you possess a power—which others cannot +understand."</p> + +<p>The child's face flushed deeply and she bent closer over her mending.</p> + +<p>"I knew it when they first brought you to me, a baby just born.... I +don't know how I knew it, but I did."</p> + +<p>Athalie, sewing steadily, said nothing.</p> + +<p>"I think," said her mother, "you are, in some degree, what is called +clairvoyant."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Clairvoyant," repeated her mother quietly. "It comes from the French, +<i>clair</i>, clear; the verb <i>voir</i>, to see; <i>clair-voyant</i>, seeing +clearly. That is all, Athalie.... Nothing to be ashamed of—if it is +<!-- Page 31 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +true,—" for the child had dropped her work and had hidden her face in +her hands.</p> + +<p>"Dear, are you afraid to talk about it to your mother?"</p> + +<p>"N-no. What is there to say about it?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing very much. Perhaps the less said the better.... I don't know, +little daughter. I don't understand it—comprehend it. If it's so, +it's so.... I see you sometimes looking at things I cannot see; I know +sometimes you hear sounds which I cannot hear.... Things happen which +perplex the rest of us; and, somehow I seem to know that they do not +perplex you. What to us seems unnatural to you is natural, even a +commonplace matter of course."</p> + +<p>"That's it, mamma. I have never seen anything that did not seem quite +natural to me."</p> + +<p>"Did you know that Mrs. Allen had died when you—thought you saw her?"</p> + +<p>"I did see her."</p> + +<p>"Yes.... Did you know she had died?"</p> + +<p>"Not until I saw her."</p> + +<p>"Did you know it then?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know how I knew it. I seemed to know it."</p> + +<p>"Did you know she had been ill?"</p> + +<p>"No, mamma."</p> + +<p>"Did it in any way frighten you—make you uneasy when you saw her +standing there?"</p> + +<p>"Why, no," said Athalie, surprised. +<!-- Page 32 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Not even when you knew she was dead?"</p> + +<p>"No. Why should it? Why should I be afraid?"</p> + +<p>Her mother was silent.</p> + +<p>"Why?" asked Athalie, curiously. "Is there anything to be afraid of +with God and all his angels watching us? Is there?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Then," said the child with some slight impatience, "why is it that +other people seem to be a little afraid of me and of what they say I +can hear and see? I have good eyesight; I see clearly; that is all, +isn't it? And there is nothing to frighten anybody in seeing clearly, +is there?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear."</p> + +<p>"People make me so cross," continued Athalie,—"and so ashamed when +they ask so many questions. What is there to be surprised at if +sometimes I see things <i>inside</i> my mind. They are just as real as when +I see them <i>outside</i>. They are no different."</p> + +<p>Her mother nodded, encouragingly.</p> + +<p>"When papa was in New York," went on Athalie, "and I saw him talking +to some men in a hotel there, why should it be surprising just because +papa was in New York and I was here when I saw him?"</p> + +<p>"It surprises others, dear, because they cannot see what is beyond the +vision of their physical senses."</p> + +<p>Athalie said: "They tease me in school because they say I can see +around corners. It makes me very cross and unhappy, and I don't want +anybody to know that I see what they can't see. I'm ashamed to have +them know it." +<!-- Page 33 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is just as well you feel that way. People are odd. What +they do not understand they ridicule. A dog that would not notice a +horse-drawn vehicle will bark at an automobile."</p> + +<p>"Mamma?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear."</p> + +<p>"Do you know that dogs, and I think cats, too, see many things that I +do; and that other people do not see."</p> + +<p>"Why do you think so?"</p> + +<p>"I have noticed it.... The other evening when the white cat was dozing +on your bed, and I was down here on the floor, sewing, I +saw—something. And the cat looked up suddenly and saw it, too."</p> + +<p>"Athalie!"</p> + +<p>"She did, mamma. I knew perfectly well that she saw what I saw."</p> + +<p>"What was it you saw?"</p> + +<p>"Only a young man. He walked over to the window—"</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, mamma. I don't know where they go. They go, that's all +I know."</p> + +<p>"Who was he?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Did he look at us?"</p> + +<p>"Yes.... He seemed to be thinking of something pleasant."</p> + +<p>"Did he smile?"</p> + +<p>"He—had a pleasant look.... And once,—it was last Sunday—over by +the bed I saw a little boy. He was kneeling down beside the bed. And +<!-- Page 34 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +Mr. Ledlie's dog was lying here beside me.... Don't you remember how +he suddenly lifted his head and barked?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I remember. But you didn't tell me why at the time."</p> + +<p>"I didn't like to.... I never like to speak about these—people—I +see."</p> + +<p>"Had you ever before seen the little boy?"</p> + +<p>"No, mamma."</p> + +<p>"Was he—alive—do you think?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes. They all are alive."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Allen was not alive when you saw her over by the door."</p> + +<p>The child looked puzzled. "Yes," she said, "but that was a little +different. Not <i>very</i> different. They are all perfectly alive, mamma."</p> + +<p>"Even the ones we call dead? Are you sure of it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes.... Yes, I'm sure of it. They are not dead.... Nothing seems to +die. Nothing stays dead."</p> + +<p>"What! Why do you believe that?"</p> + +<p>Athalie said slowly: "Somebody shot and killed a poor little dog, +once,—just across the causeway bridge.... And the dog came into the +garden afterward and ran all around, smelling, and wagging his tail."</p> + +<p>"Athalie! Athalie! Be careful to control your imagination."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the child, thoughtfully, "I must be careful to control it. +I can imagine almost anything if I try." +<!-- Page 35 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<p>"How hard have you ever tried to imagine some of the things you +see—or think you see?"</p> + +<p>"Mamma, I never try. I—I don't care to see them. I'd rather not. +Those things come. <i>I</i> haven't anything to do with it. I don't know +these people, and I am not interested. I <i>did</i> try to see papa in New +York—if you call that imagination."</p> + +<p>But her mother did not know what to call it because at the hour when +Athalie had seen him, that mild and utterly unimaginative man was +actually saying and doing what his daughter had seen and heard.</p> + +<p>"Also," said Athalie, "I <i>was</i> thinking about that poor little yellow +dog and wondering whether he was past all suffering, when he came +gaily trotting into the garden, waving his tail quite happily. There +was no dust or blood on him. He rolled on the grass, too, and barked +and barked. But nobody seemed to hear him or notice him excepting I."</p> + +<p>For a long while silence reigned in the lamp-lit room. When the other +children came in to say good night to their mother she received them +with an unusual tenderness. They went away; Athalie rose, yawning the +yawn of healthy fatigue:</p> + +<p>"Good night, mamma."</p> + +<p>"Good night, little daughter."</p> + +<p>They kissed: the mother drew her into a sudden and almost convulsive +embrace.</p> + +<p>"Darling, are you sure that nothing really dies?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> have never seen anything really dead, mamma. Even the 'dead' +birds,—why, the evening sky is full of +<!-- Page 36 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> + them—the little 'dead' ones +I mean—flock after flock, twittering and singing—"</p> + +<p>"Dear!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, mamma."</p> + +<p>"When you see me—<i>that</i> way—will you—speak?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Promise, darling."</p> + +<p>"Yes.... I'll kiss you, too—if it is possible...."</p> + +<p>"Would it be possible?"</p> + +<p>The child gazed at her, perplexed and troubled: "I—don't—know," she +said slowly. Then, all in a moment her childish face paled and she +clung to her mother and began to cry.</p> + +<p>And her mother soothed her, tenderly, smilingly, kissing the tears +from the child's eyes.</p> + +<p>The next morning after the children had gone to school Mrs. +Greensleeve was operated on—without success. +<!-- Page 37 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p class="cap">THE black dresses of the children had become very rusty by spring, but +business had been bad at the Hotel Greensleeve, and Athalie, Doris, +and Catharine continued to wear their shabby mourning.</p> + +<p>Greensleeve haunted the house all day long, roaming from bar to +office, from one room to another, silently opening doors of unoccupied +chambers to peer about in the dusty obscurity, then noiselessly +closing them, he would slink away down the dim corridor to his late +wife's room and sit there through the long sunny afternoon, his weak +face buried in his hands.</p> + +<p>Ledlie had grown fatter, redder of visage, whiter of hair and beard. +When a rare guest arrived, or when local loafers wandered into the bar +with the faint stench of fertilizer clinging to their boots, he +shuffled ponderously from office to bar, serving as economically as he +dared whoever desired to be served.</p> + +<p>Always a sprig of something green protruded from his small tight +mouth. His pale eyes, now faded almost colourless, had become weak and +red-rimmed, and he blinked continually except in the stale +semi-darkness of the house.</p> + +<p>Always, now, he was muttering and grumbling his disapproval of the +children—"Eatin' their heads off I tell you, Pete! What good is all +<!-- Page 38 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +this here schoolin' doin' 'em when they ought to git out some'rs an' +earn their vittles?"</p> + +<p>But if Greensleeve's attitude was one of passive acquiescence, he made +no effort to withdraw the children from school. Once, when life was +younger, and Jack, his first baby, came, he had dreamed of college for +him, and of a career—in letters perhaps—something dignified, +leisurely, profound beyond his own limits. And of a modest corner +somewhere within the lustre of his son's environment where he and his +wife, grey-haired, might dream and admire, finding there surcease from +care and perhaps the peace which passes all understanding.</p> + +<p>The ex-"professor" of penmanship had been always prone to dream. No +dull and sordid reality, no hopeless sorrow had yet awakened him. Nor +had his wife's death been more real than the half-strangled anguish of +a dreamer, tossing in darkness. As for the children, they paid no more +attention to Ledlie than they might have to a querulous but +superannuated dog.</p> + +<p>Jack, now fifteen, still dawdled at school, where his record was not +good. Perhaps it was partly because he had no spending money, no +clothing to maintain his boyish self-respect, no prospects of any +sort, that he had become sullen, uncommunicative, and almost loutish.</p> + +<p>Nobody governed him; his father was unqualified to control anybody or +anything; his mother was dead.</p> + +<p>With her death went the last vestige of any tie that had held the boy +to the home anchorage—of any feeling of responsibility concerning +<!-- Page 39 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +the conduct expected and required of him.</p> + +<p>He shirked his studies, came home only to eat and sleep, remained out +late without explanation or any home interference, except for the +constant disputes and quarrels with Doris and Catharine, now aged +respectively fourteen and thirteen.</p> + +<p>To Athalie he had little to say. Perhaps he did not realise it but he +was slightly afraid of her. And it was from her that he took any pains +at all to conceal his irregularities.</p> + +<p>Once, coming in from school, she had found the house deserted, and +Jack smelling of alcohol just slouching out of the bar.</p> + +<p>"If you do that again I shall tell father," she said, horrified.</p> + +<p>"What do I care!" he had retorted sullenly. And it was true; the boy +no longer cared what anybody might think as long as Athalie already +knew and detested what he had done.</p> + +<p>There was a garage in the neighbouring village. He spent most of his +time hanging around it. Sometimes he came home reeking of oil and +gasoline, sometimes his breath was tainted with tobacco and alcohol.</p> + +<p>He was so much bigger and older than Athalie that the child had never +entirely lost her awe of him. His weakness of character, his failings, +and the fact that he was a trifle afraid of her opinion, combined to +astonish and bewilder her.</p> + +<p>For a long while she tried to understand the gradual but certain +reversal of their relations. And one night, still more or less in awe +<!-- Page 40 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> +of him, she got out of bed and went softly into his room.</p> + +<p>He was not asleep. The sudden apparition of his youngest sister +considerably startled him, and he sat up in his ragged night-shirt and +stared at her where she stood in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>"You look like one of your own spooks!" he said. "What's the matter +with you?"</p> + +<p>"I wanted to talk with you, Jack."</p> + +<p>"What about?"</p> + +<p>"You."</p> + +<p>For a moment he sat there eyeing her uneasily; then:</p> + +<p>"Well, go ahead!" he said ungraciously; and stretched himself back on +the pillows.</p> + +<p>She came and seated herself on the bed's edge:</p> + +<p>"Jack, please don't drink beer."</p> + +<p>"Why not? Aw, what do you know about men, anyway? Don't they all smoke +and drink?"</p> + +<p>"Mamma asked you not to."</p> + +<p>"Gee-whiz! I was a kid then. But a man isn't a baby."</p> + +<p>Athalie sighed. Her brother eyed her restlessly, aware of that slight +feeling of shame which always invaded his sullen, defiant discontent +when he knew that he had lowered himself in her estimation.</p> + +<p>For, if the boy was a little afraid of her, he also cared more for her +than he ever had for any of the family except his mother.</p> + +<p>He was only the average boy, stumbling blindly, almost savagely +through the maze of adolescence, with no guide, nobody to warn or +<!-- Page 41 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +counsel him, nothing to stimulate his pride, no anchorage, no +experience.</p> + +<p>Whatever character he had he had been born with: it was environment +and circumstance that were crippling it.</p> + +<p>"See here, Athalie," he said, "you're a little girl and you don't +understand. There isn't any harm in my smoking a cigarette or two or +in drinking a glass of beer now and then."</p> + +<p>"Isn't there, Jack?"</p> + +<p>"No. So don't you worry, Sis.... And, say! I'm not going back to +school."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"What's the use? I can't go to college. Anyway what's the good of +algebra and physics and chemistry and history and all that junk? I +guess I'll go into business."</p> + +<p>"What business?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I've been working around the garage. I can get a job +there if I want it."</p> + +<p>"Did you ask papa?"</p> + +<p>"What's the use? He'll let me do what I please. I guess I'll start in +to-morrow."</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>His father did not interfere when his only son came slouching up to +inform him of his decision.</p> + +<p>After Jack had gone away toward the village and his new business, his +father remained seated on the shabby veranda, his head sunken on his +soiled shirtfront, his wasted hands clasped over his stomach.</p> + +<p>For a little while, perhaps, he remembered his earlier ambitions for +<!-- Page 42 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +the boy's career. Maybe they caused him pain. But if there was pain it +faded gradually into the lethargy which had settled over him since his +wife's death.</p> + +<p>A grey veil seemed to have descended between him and the sun,—there +was greyness everywhere, and dimness, and uncertainty—in his mind, in +his eyesight—and sometimes the vagueness was in his speech. He had +noticed that—for, sometimes the word he meant to use was not the word +he uttered. It had occurred a number of times, making foolish what he +had said.</p> + +<p>And Ledlie had glanced at him sharply once or twice out of his sore +and faded eyes when Greensleeve had used some word while thinking of +another.</p> + +<p>When he was not wandering around the house he sat on the veranda in a +great splint-bottomed arm-chair—a little untidy figure, more or less +caved in from chest to abdomen, which made his short thin legs hanging +just above the floor seem stunted and withered.</p> + +<p>To him, here, came his daughters in their soiled and rusty black +dresses, just out of school, and always stopping on impulse of +sympathy to salute him with, "Hello, papa!" and with the touch of +fresh, warm lips on his colourless cheek.</p> + +<p>Sometimes they lingered to chatter around him, or bring out pie and +cake to eat in his company. But very soon his gaze became remote, and +the children understood that they were at liberty to go, which they +did, dancing happily away into the outer sunshine, on pleasure +<!-- Page 43 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +bent—the matchless pleasures of the very young whose poverty has not +as yet disturbed them.</p> + +<p>As the summer passed the sunlight grew greyer to Peter Greensleeve. +Also, more often, he mixed his words and made nonsense of what he +said.</p> + +<p>The pain in his chest and arms which for a year had caused him +discomfort, bothered him at night, now. He said nothing about it.</p> + +<p>That summer Doris had taken a course in stenography and typewriting, +going every day to Brooklyn by train and returning before sunset.</p> + +<p>When school began she asked to be allowed to continue. Catharine, too, +desired to learn. And if their father understood very clearly what +they wanted, it is uncertain. Anyway he offered no objections.</p> + +<p>That winter he saw his son very seldom. Perhaps the boy was busy. Once +or twice he came to ask his father for money, but there was none to +give him,—very little for anybody—and Doris and Catharine required +that.</p> + +<p>Some little money was taken in at the Hotel Greensleeve; commercial +men were rather numerous that winter: so were duck-hunters. Athalie +often saw them stamping around in the bar, the lamplight glistening on +their oil-skins and gun-barrels, and touching the silken plumage of +dead ducks—great strings of them lying on the bar or on the floor.</p> + +<p>Once when she came home from school earlier than usual, she went into +the kitchen and found a hot peach turnover awaiting her, constructed +for her by the slovenly cook, and kept hot by the still more slovenly +<!-- Page 44 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +maid-of-all-work—the only servants at the Hotel Greensleeve.</p> + +<p>Sauntering back through the house, eating her turnover, she noticed +Mr. Ledlie reading his newspaper in the office and her father +apparently asleep on a chair before the stove.</p> + +<p>There were half a dozen guests at the inn, duck-hunters from New York, +but they were evidently still out with their bay-men.</p> + +<p>Nibbling her pastry Athalie loitered along the hall and deposited her +strapped books on a chair under the noisy wall-clock. Then, at hazard, +she wandered into the bar. It was growing dusky; nobody had lighted +the ceiling lamp.</p> + +<p>At first she thought the room was empty, and had strolled over toward +the stove to warm her snow-wet shoes, when all at once she became +aware of a boy.</p> + +<p>The boy was lying back on a leather chair, stockinged feet crossed, +hands in his pocket, looking at her. He wore the leather shooting +clothes of a duck-hunter; on the floor beside him lay his cap, +oil-skins, hip-boots, and his gun. A red light from the stove fell +across his dark, curly hair and painted one side of his face crimson.</p> + +<p>Athalie, surprised, was not, however, in the least disturbed or +embarrassed. She looked calmly at the boy, at the woollen stockings on +his feet.</p> + +<p>"Did you manage to get dry?" she asked in a friendly voice.</p> + +<p>Then he seemed to come to himself. He took his hands from his pockets +<!-- Page 45 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +and got up on his stockinged feet.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm dry now."</p> + +<p>"Did you have any luck?"</p> + +<p>"I got fifteen—counting shell-drake, two redheads, +a black duck, and some buffle-heads."</p> + +<p>"Where were you shooting?"</p> + +<p>"Off Silver Shoal."</p> + +<p>"Who was your bay-man?"</p> + +<p>"Bill Nostrand."</p> + +<p>"Why did you stop shooting so early?"</p> + +<p>"Fifteen is the local limit this year."</p> + +<p>Athalie nodded and bit into her turnover, reflectively. When she +looked up, something in the boy's eye interested her.</p> + +<p>"Are you hungry?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He looked embarrassed, then laughed: "Yes, I am."</p> + +<p>"Wait; I'll get you a turnover," she said.</p> + +<p>When she returned from the kitchen with his turnover he was standing. +Rather vaguely she comprehended this civility toward herself although +nobody had ever before remained standing for her.</p> + +<p>Not knowing exactly what to do or say she silently presented the +pastry, then drew a chair up into the red firelight. And the boy +seated himself.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you came with those hunters from New York," she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I came with my father and three of his friends."</p> + +<p>"They are out still I suppose." +<!-- Page 46 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes. They went over to Brant Point."</p> + +<p>"I've often sailed there," remarked Athalie. "Can you sail a boat?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"It is easy.... I could teach you if you are going to stay a while."</p> + +<p>"We are going back to New York to-morrow morning.... How did you learn +to sail a boat?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I don't know. I've always lived here. Mr. Ledlie has a boat. +Everybody here knows how to manage a cat-boat.... If you'll come down +this summer I'll teach you. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"I will if I can."</p> + +<p>They were silent for a few minutes. It grew very dark in the bar-room, +and the light from the stove glimmered redder and redder.</p> + +<p>The boy and girl lay back in their chairs, lingering over their peach +pastry, and inspecting each other with all the frank insouciance of +childhood.</p> + +<p>Athalie still wore the red hood and cloak which had represented her +outer winter wardrobe for years. Her dull, thick gold hair curled +crisply over the edges of the hood which framed in its oval the lovely +features of a child in perfect health.</p> + +<p>The boy, dark-haired and dark-eyed, gazed fascinated and unembarrassed +at this golden blond visitor hooded and cloaked in scarlet.</p> + +<p>"Does your father keep this hotel?" he asked after a pause.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I am Athalie Greensleeve. What is your name?" +<!-- Page 47 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<p>"C. Bailey, Junior."</p> + +<p>"What is the <i>C</i> for?"</p> + +<p>"Clive."</p> + +<p>"Do you go to school?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I'm back for the holidays."</p> + +<p>"Holidays," she repeated vaguely. "Oh, that's so. Christmas will come +day after to-morrow."</p> + +<p>He nodded. "I think I'm going to have a new pair of guns, some books, +and a horse. What do you expect?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said Athalie.</p> + +<p>"What? Isn't there anything you want?" And then, too late, some +glimmer of the real state of affairs illuminated his boyish brain. And +he grew red with embarrassment.</p> + +<p>They had finished their pastry; Athalie wiped her hands on a soiled +and ragged and crumpled handkerchief, then scrubbed her scarlet mouth.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to come down here for the summer vacation," said the boy, +awkwardly. "I don't know whether my mother would like it."</p> + +<p>"Why? It is pleasant."</p> + +<p><!-- Page 48 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs03.jpg" width="500" height="337" +alt=""'I'd like to come down here for the summer vacation,' +said the boy, awkwardly."" + title=""'I'd like to come down here for the summer vacation,' +said the boy, awkwardly."" /> +<span class="caption">"'I'd like to come down here for the summer +vacation,' said the boy, awkwardly."</span> +</div> + +<p>He glanced instinctively around him at the dark and shabby bar-room, +but offered no reason why his mother might not care for the Hotel +Greensleeve. One thing he knew; he meant to urge his mother to come, +or to let him come.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later the outer door banged open and into the bar came +stamping four men and two bay-men, their oil-skins shining with +salt-spray, guns glistening. Thud! went the strings of dead ducks on +the floor; somebody scratched a match and lighted the ceiling lamp.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 49 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> +<p><!-- Page 50 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Hello, Junior!" cried one of the men in oil-skins,—"how did you +make out on Silver Shoals?"</p> + +<p>"All right, father," he began; but his father had caught sight of +Athalie who had risen to retreat.</p> + +<p>"Who are you, young lady?" he inquired with a jolly smile,—"are you +little Red-Riding Hood or the Princess Far Away, or perhaps the +Sleeping Beauty recently awakened?"</p> + +<p>"I'm Athalie Greensleeve."</p> + +<p>"Lady Greensleeves! I <i>knew</i> you were somebody quite as distinguished +as you are beautiful. Would you mind saying to Mr. Greensleeve that +there is much moaning on the bar, and that it will still continue +until he arrives to instil the stillness of the still—"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"We merely want a drink, my child. Don't look so seriously and +distractingly pretty. I was joking, that's all. Please tell your +father how very thirsty we are."</p> + +<p>As the child turned to obey, C. Bailey, Sr., put one big arm around her +shoulders: "I didn't mean to tease you on such short acquaintance," he +whispered. "Are you offended, little Lady Greensleeves?"</p> + +<p>Athalie looked up at him in puzzled silence.</p> + +<p>"Smile, just once, so I shall know I am forgiven," he said. "Will +you?"</p> + +<p>The child smiled confusedly, caught the boy's eye, and smiled again, +most engagingly, at C. Bailey, Sr.'s, son. +<!-- Page 51 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oho!" exclaimed the senior Bailey laughingly and looking at his son, +"I'm forgiven for your sake, am I?"</p> + +<p>"For heaven's sake, Clive," protested one of the gunners, "let the +little girl go and find her father. If I ever needed a drink it's +now!"</p> + +<p>So Athalie went away to summon her father. She found him as she had +last noticed him, sitting asleep on the big leather office chair. +Ledlie, behind the desk, was still reading his soiled newspaper, which +he continued to do until Athalie cried out something in a frightened +voice. Then he laid aside his paper, blinked at her, got up leisurely +and shuffled over to where his partner was sitting dead on his leather +chair.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>The duck-hunters left that night. One after another the four gentlemen +came over to speak to Athalie and to her sisters. There was some +confusion and crowding in the hallway, what with the doctor, the +undertaker's assistants, neighbours, and the New York duck-hunters.</p> + +<p>Ledlie ventured to overcharge them on the bill. As nobody objected he +regretted his moderation. However, the taking off of Greensleeve +helped business in the bar where sooner or later everybody drifted.</p> + +<p>When the four-seated livery wagon drove up to take the gunning party +to the train, the boy lingered behind the others and then hurried back +to where Athalie was standing, white-faced, tearless, staring at the +closed door of the room where they had taken her father. +<!-- Page 52 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> + +<p>Bailey Junior's touch on her arm made her turn: "I am sorry," he said. +"I hope you will not be very unhappy.... And—here is a Christmas +present—"</p> + +<p>He took the dazed child's icy little hand in his, and, fumbling the +business rather awkwardly, he finally contrived to snap a strap-watch +over the delicate wrist. It was the one he had been wearing.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Athalie," he murmured, very red.</p> + +<p>The girl gazed at him out of her lovely confused eyes for a moment. +But when she tried to speak no sound came.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," he said again, choking slightly. "I'll surely, surely come +back to see you. Don't be unhappy. I'll come."</p> + +<p>But it was many years before he returned to the Hotel Greensleeve. +<!-- Page 53 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p class="cap">SHE was fifteen years old before she saw him again. His strap-watch +was still on her wrist; his memory, unfaded, still enshrined in her +heart of a child, for she was as yet no more than that at fifteen. And +the moment she saw him she recognised him.</p> + +<p>It was on the Sixth Avenue Elevated Station at Twenty-third Street one +sunny day in April; he stood waiting for the downtown train which she +stepped out of when it stopped.</p> + +<p>He did not notice her, so she went over to him and called him by name; +and the tall, good-looking, fashionably dressed young fellow turned to +her without recognition.</p> + +<p>But the next instant his smooth, youthful face lighted up, and off +came his hat with the gay college band adorning it:</p> + +<p>"Athalie Greensleeve!" he exclaimed, showing his pleasure +unmistakably.</p> + +<p>"C. Bailey, Junior," she rejoined as steadily as she could, for her +heart was beating wildly with the excitement of meeting him and her +emotions were not under full control.</p> + +<p>"You have grown so," he said with the easy, boyish cordiality of his +caste, "I didn't recognise you for a moment. Tell me, do you still live +down—er—down there?" +<!-- Page 54 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> + +<p>She said:</p> + +<p>"I knew you as soon as I set eyes on you. You are very much taller, +too.... No, we went away from Spring Pond the year after my father +died."</p> + +<p>"I see," he said sympathetically. And back into his memory flashed +that scene with her by the stove in the dusky bar. And then he +remembered her as she stood in her red hood and cloak staring at the +closed door of the room where her dead father lay. And he remembered +touching her frosty little hand, and the incident of the watch.</p> + +<p>"I never went back there," he mused, half to himself, looking +curiously at the girl before him. "I wanted to go—but I never did."</p> + +<p>"No, you never came back," she said slowly.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't. I was only a kid, you see. My mother wouldn't let me go +there that summer. And father and I joined a club down South so we did +not go back for the duck-shooting. That is how it happened."</p> + +<p>She nodded, gravely, but said nothing to him about her faith in his +return, how confidently, how patiently she had waited through that +long, long summer for the boy who never returned.</p> + +<p>"I did think of you often," he volunteered, smiling at her.</p> + +<p>"I thought of you, too. I hoped you would come and let me teach you to +sail a boat."</p> + +<p>"That's so! I remember now. You were going to show me how." +<!-- Page 55 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Have you learned to sail a boat?"</p> + +<p>"No. I'll tell you what I'll do, Athalie, I'll come down this +summer—"</p> + +<p>"But I don't live there any more."</p> + +<p>"That's so. Where do you live?"</p> + +<p>She hesitated, and his eyes fell for the first time from her youthful +and engaging face to the clothes she wore—black clothes that seemed +cheap even to a boy who had no knowledge of feminine clothing. She was +all in rusty black, hat, gloves, jacket and skirt; and the austere and +slightly mean setting made the contrast of her hair and skin the more +fresh and vivid.</p> + +<p>"I live," she replied diffidently, "with my two sisters in West +Fifty-fourth Street. I am stenographer and typewriter in the offices +of a department store."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to come to see you," he said impulsively. "Shall I—when +vacation begins?"</p> + +<p>"Are you still at school?"</p> + +<p>He laughed: "I'm at Harvard. I'm down for Easter just now. Tell me, +Athalie, would you care to have me come to see you when I return?"</p> + +<p>"If you would care to come."</p> + +<p>"I surely would!" he said cordially, offering his hand in adieu—"I +want to ask you a lot of questions and we can talk over all those +jolly old times,"—as though years of comradeship lay behind them +instead of an hour or two. Then his glance fell on the slim hand he +was shaking, and he saw the strap-watch which he had given her still +clasped around her wrist.</p> + +<p>"You wear that yet?—that old shooting-watch of mine!" he laughed.</p> +<p><!-- Page 56 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> + +<p><!-- Page 57 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;"> +<img src="images/gs04.jpg" width="250" height="425" +alt=""'I'm glad I saw you,' said the girl; 'I hope you won't +forget me.'"" +title=""'I'm glad I saw you,' said the girl; 'I hope you won't +forget me.'"" /> +<span class="caption">"'I'm glad I saw you,' said the +girl; 'I hope you won't forget me.'"</span> +</div> + +<p><!-- Page 58 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> + +<p>She smiled.</p> + +<p>"I'll give you a better one than that next Christmas," he said, taking +out a little notebook and pencil. "I'll write it down—'strap-watch +for Athalie Greensleeve next Christmas'—there it is! And—will you +give me your address?"</p> + +<p>She gave it; he noted it, closed his little Russia-leather book with a +snap, and pocketed it.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad I saw you," said the girl; "I hope you won't forget me. I am +late; I must go—I suppose—"</p> + +<p>"Indeed I won't forget you," he assured her warmly, shaking the +slender black-gloved hand again.</p> + +<p>He meant it when he said it. Besides she was so pretty and frank and +honest with him. Few girls he knew in his own caste were as +attractive; none as simple, as direct.</p> + +<p>He really meant to call on her some day and talk things over. But +days, and weeks, and finally months slipped away. And somehow, in +thinking of her and of his promise, there now seemed very little left +for them to talk about. After all they had said to each other nearly +all there was to be said, there on the Elevated platform that April +morning. Besides he had so many, many things to do; so many pleasures +promised and accepted, visits to college friends, a fishing trip with +his father,—really there seemed to be no hour in the long vacation +unengaged.</p> + +<p>He always wanted to see her when he thought of her; he really meant to +find a moment to do it, too. But there seemed to be no moment +suitable. +<!-- Page 59 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<p>Even when he was back in Cambridge he thought about her occasionally, +and planned, vaguely, a trip to New York so that he might redeem his +promise to her.</p> + +<p>He took it out in thinking.</p> + +<p>At Christmas, however, he sent her a wrist-watch, a dainty French +affair of gold and enamel; and a contrite note excusing himself for +the summer delinquencies and renewing his promise to call on her.</p> + +<p>The Dead Letter Office returned watch and letter. +<!-- Page 60 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<p class="cap">THERE was a suffocating stench of cabbage in hallway and corridor as +usual when Athalie came in that evening. She paused to rest a tired +foot on the first step of the stairway, for a moment or two, quietly +breathing her fatigue, then addressed herself to the monotonous labour +before her, which was to climb five flights of unventilated stairs, +let herself into the tiny apartment with her latch-key, and +immediately begin her part in preparing the evening meal for three.</p> + +<p>Doris, now twenty-one, sprawled on a lounge in her faded wrapper +reading an evening paper. Catharine, a year younger, stood by a +bureau, some drawers of which had been pulled out, sorting over odds +and ends of crumpled finery.</p> + +<p>"Well," remarked Doris to Athalie, as she came in, "what do <i>you</i> +know?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said Athalie listlessly.</p> + +<p>Doris rattled the evening paper: "Gee!" she commented, "it's getting +to be something fierce—all these young girls disappearing! Here's +another—they can't account for it; her parents say she had no love +affair—" And she began to read the account aloud while Catharine +continued to sort ribbons and Athalie dropped into a big, shabby +chair, legs extended, arms pendant. +<!-- Page 61 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> + +<p>When Doris finished reading she tossed the paper over to Athalie who +let it slide from her knees to the floor.</p> + +<p>"Her picture is there," said Doris. "She isn't pretty."</p> + +<p>"Isn't she?" yawned Athalie.</p> + +<p>Catharine jerked open another drawer: "It's always a man's doing. You +bet they'll find that some fellow had her on a string. What idiots +girls are!"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> should worry," remarked Doris. "Any fresh young man who tries to +get me jingled will wish he hadn't."</p> + +<p>"Don't talk that way," remonstrated Athalie.</p> + +<p>"What way?"</p> + +<p>"That slangy way you think is smart. What's the use of letting down +when you know better."</p> + +<p>"What's the use of keeping up on fifteen per? I could do the Gladys to +any Percy on fifty. My talk suits my wages—and it suits me, too.... +God!—I suppose it's fried ham again to-night," she added, jumping up +and walking into the kitchenette. And, pausing to look back at her +sisters: "If any Johnny asks me to-night I'll go!—I'm that hungry for +real food."</p> + +<p>"Don't be a fool," snapped Catharine.</p> + +<p>Athalie glanced at the alarm clock, passed her hands wearily across +her eyes, and rose: "It's after six, Doris. You haven't time for +anything very much." And she went into the kitchenette.</p> + +<p>Once or twice during the preparation of the meal Doris swore in her +soft girlish voice, which made the contrast peculiarly shocking; and +<!-- Page 62 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +finally Athalie said bluntly: "If I didn't know you were straight I +wouldn't think so from the way you behave."</p> + +<p>Doris turned on her a flushed and angry face: "Will you kindly stop +knocking me?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not. I'm only saying that your talk is loose. And so it is."</p> + +<p>"What's the difference as long as I'm not on the loose myself?"</p> + +<p>"The difference is that men will think you are; that's all."</p> + +<p>"Men mistake any girl who works for a living."</p> + +<p>"Then see that the mistake is their fault not yours. I don't +understand why a girl can't keep her self-respect even if she's a +stenographer, as I am, or works in a shop as Catharine does, or in the +theatre as you do. And if a girl talks loosely, she'll think loosely, +sooner or later."</p> + +<p>"Hurry up that supper!" called Catharine. "I'm going to a show with +Genevieve, and I want time to dress."</p> + +<p>Athalie, scrambling the eggs, which same eggs would endure no other +mode of preparation, leaned over sideways and kissed Doris on her +lovely neck.</p> + +<p>"Darling," she said, "I'm not trying to be disagreeable; I only want +us all to keep up."</p> + +<p>"I know it, ducky. I guess you're right. I'll cut out that rough stuff +if you like."</p> + +<p>Athalie said: "It's only too easy to let down when you're thrown with +careless and uneducated people as we are. I have to struggle against +it all the while. For, +<!-- Page 63 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> + somehow I seem to know that a girl who keeps +up her grammar keeps up her self-respect, too. If you slouch mentally +you slouch physically. And then it's not so difficult to slouch +morally."</p> + +<p>Doris laughed: "You funny thing! You certainly have educated yourself +a lot since school,—you use such dandy English."</p> + +<p>"I <i>read</i> good English."</p> + +<p>"I know you do. I can't. If somebody would only write a rattling story +in good English!—but I've got to have the story first of all or I +can't read it. All those branch-library books you lug in are too slow +for me. If it wasn't for hearing you talk every day I'd be talking +like the rest of the chorus at the Egyptian Garden;—'Sa-ay, ain't you +done with my make-up box? Yaas, you <i>did</i> swipe it! I seen you. Who's +a liar? All right, if you want to mix it—'"</p> + +<p>"Don't!" pleaded Athalie. "Oh, Doris, I don't see why you can't find +some other business—"</p> + +<p>Doris began to strut about the kitchenette.</p> + +<p>"Please don't! It makes me actually ill!"</p> + +<p>"When I learn how to use my voice and my legs you'll see me playing +leads. Here, ducky, I'll take the eggs—"</p> + +<p>Athalie, her arms also full, followed her out to the table which +Catharine had set very carelessly.</p> + +<p>They drank Croton water and strong tea, and gravely discussed how, +from their several limited wardrobes sufficient finery might be +extracted to clothe Catharine suitably for her evening's +entertainment.</p> + +<p>"It's rotten to be poor," remarked the latter. +<!-- Page 64 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> + "You're only young +once, and this gosh-dinged poverty spoils everything for me."</p> + +<p>"Quit kicking," said Doris. "I don't like these eggs but I'm eating +them. If I were wealthy I'd be eating terrapin, wouldn't I?"</p> + +<p>"Genevieve has a new gown for to-night," pouted Catharine. "How can I +help feeling shabby and unhappy?"</p> + +<p>"Genevieve seems to have a number of unaccountable things," remarked +Doris, partly closing her velvet eyes. "She has a fur coat, too."</p> + +<p>"Doris! That isn't square of you!"</p> + +<p>"That isn't the question. Is Genevieve on the square? That's what +worries me, Kit!"</p> + +<p>"What a perfectly rotten thing to say!" insisted Catharine +resentfully. "You know she's on the level!"</p> + +<p>"Well then, <i>where</i> does she get it? You know what her salary is?"</p> + +<p>Athalie said, coolly: "Every girl ought to believe every other girl on +the square until the contrary is proven. It's shameful not to."</p> + +<p>"Come over to the Egyptian Garden and try it!" laughed Doris. "If you +can believe that bunch of pet cats is on the square you can believe +anything, Athalie."</p> + +<p>Catharine, still very deeply offended, rose and went into the bedroom +which she shared with Doris. Presently she called for somebody to +assist her in dressing.</p> + +<p>Doris, being due at the theatre by seven o'clock, put on her rusty +coat and hat, and, nodding to Athalie, +<!-- Page 65 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> + walked out; and the latter +went away to aid Catharine.</p> + +<p>"You <i>do</i> look pretty," she insisted after Catharine had powdered her +face and neck and had wiped off her silky skin with the chamois rag.</p> + +<p>The girl gazed at her comely, regular features in the mirror, patted +her hair, moistened her red lips, then turned her profile and gazed at +it with the aid of a hand-glass.</p> + +<p>"Who else is going?" inquired Athalie.</p> + +<p>"Some friends of Genevieve's."</p> + +<p>"Men?"</p> + +<p>"I believe so."</p> + +<p>"Two, I suppose."</p> + +<p>Catharine nodded.</p> + +<p>"Don't you know their names?"</p> + +<p>"No. Genevieve says that one of them is crazy to meet me."</p> + +<p>"Where did he see you?"</p> + +<p>"At Winton's. I put on some evening gowns for his sister."</p> + +<p>Athalie watched her pin on her hat, then held her coat for her. +"They'll all bear watching," she remarked quietly. "If it's merely +society they want you know as well as I that they seek it in their own +circles, not in ours."</p> + +<p>Catharine made no audible response. She began to re-pin her hat, then, +pettishly: "I wish I had a taxi to call for me so I needn't wear a +hat!"</p> + +<p>"Why not wish for an automobile?" suggested Athalie, laughing. "Women +who have them don't wear hats to the theatre." +<!-- Page 66 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> tough to be poor!" insisted Catharine fiercely. "It drives me +almost frantic to see what I see in all those limousines,—and then +walk home, or take a car if I'm flush."</p> + +<p>"How are you going to help it, dear?" inquired Athalie in that gently +humorous voice which usually subdued and shamed her sisters.</p> + +<p>But Catharine only mumbled something rebellious, turned, stared at +herself in the glass, and walked quickly toward the door.</p> + +<p>"As for me," she muttered. "I don't blame any girl—"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>But Catharine marched out with a twitch of her narrow skirts, still +muttering incoherencies.</p> + +<p>Athalie, thoughtful, but not really disturbed, went into the empty +sitting-room, picked up the evening paper, glanced absently at the +head-lines, dropped it, and stood motionless in the centre of the +room, one narrow hand bracketed on her hip, the other pinching her +under lip.</p> + +<p>For a few minutes she mused, then sighing, she walked into the +kitchenette, unhooked a blue-checked apron, rolled up her sleeves as +far as her white, rounded arms permitted, and started in on the +dishes.</p> + +<p>Occasionally she whistled at her task—the clear, soft, melodious +whistle of a bullfinch—carolling some light, ephemeral air from the +"Review" at the Egyptian Garden.</p> + +<p>When the crockery was done, dried and replaced, she retired to her +bedroom and turned her attention to her hands and nails, minutely +<!-- Page 67 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> +solicitous, always in dread of the effects of housework.</p> + +<p>There was an array of bottles, vials, jars, lotions, creams, scents on +her bureau. She seated herself there and started her nightly grooming, +interrupting it only to exchange her street gown and shoes for a +dainty negligée and slippers.</p> + +<p>Her face, now, as she bent over her slender, white fingers, took on a +seriousness and gravity more mature; and there was in its pure, fresh +beauty something almost austere.</p> + +<p>The care of her hands took her a long time; and they were not finished +then, for she had yet her bath to take and her hair to do before the +cream-of-something-or-other was applied to hands and feet so that they +should remain snowy and satin smooth.</p> + +<p>Bathed, and once more in negligée, she let down the dull gold mass of +hair which fell heavily curling to her shoulders. Then she started to +comb it out as earnestly, seriously, and thoroughly as a beautiful, +silky Persian cat applies itself to its toilet.</p> + +<p>But there was now an absent expression in her dark blue eyes as she +sat plaiting the shining gold into two thick and lustrous braids.</p> + +<p>Perhaps she wondered, vaguely, why the spring-tide and freshness of a +girl's youth should exhale amid the sere and sordid circumstances +which made up, for her, the sum-total of existence; why it happened +that whatever was bright and gay and attractive in the world should be +so utterly outside the circle in which her life was passing. +<!-- Page 68 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> + +<p>Yet in her sober young face there was no hint of discontent, nothing +of meanness or envy to narrow the blue eyes, nothing of bitterness to +touch the sensitive lips, nothing, even, of sadness; only a +gravity—like the seriousness of a youthful goddess musing alone on +mysteries unexplained even on Olympus.</p> + +<p>Seven years' experience in earning her own living had made her wiser +but had not really disenchanted her. And for seven years now, she had +held the first position she secured in New York—stenographer and +typist for Wahlbaum, Grossman & Co.</p> + +<p>It had been perplexing and difficult at first; so many men connected +with the great department store had evinced a desire to take her to +luncheon and elsewhere. But when at length by chance she took personal +dictation from Wahlbaum himself in his private office—his own +stenographer having triumphantly secured a supporting husband, and a +general alarm having been sent out for another to replace her—Athalie +suddenly found herself in a permanent position. And, automatically, +all annoyances ceased.</p> + +<p>Wahlbaum was a Jew, big, hearty, honest, and keen as a razor. Never +was he in a hurry, never flustered or impatient, never irritable. And +she had never seen him angry, or rude to anybody. He laughed a great +deal in a tremendously resonant voice, smoked innumerable big, fat, +light-coloured cigars, never neglected to joke with Athalie when she +came in the morning and when she left at night, and never as much as +by the flutter of an eyelid conveyed to her anything that any girl +might not hear without offence. +<!-- Page 69 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<p>Grossman's reputation was different, but except for a smirk or two he +had never bothered her. Nor did anybody else connected with the firm. +They all were too much afraid of Wahlbaum.</p> + +<p>So, except for the petty, contemptible annoyances to which all young +girls are more or less subjected in any cosmopolitan metropolis, +Athalie had found business agreeable enough except for the +confinement.</p> + +<p>That was hard on a country-bred girl; and she could scarcely endure +the imprisonment when the warm sun of April looked in through the +windows of Mr. Wahlbaum's private office, and when soft breezes +stirred the curtains and fluttered the papers on her desk.</p> + +<p>Always in the spring the voice of brook and surf, of woodland and +meadow called to her. In her ears was ever the happy tumult of the +barn-yard, the lowing of cattle at the bars, the bleat of sheep. And +her heart beat passionate response.</p> + +<p>Athalie was never ill. The nearest she came to it was a dull feeling +of languor in early spring. But it did not even verge on either +resentment or despondency.</p> + +<p>In winter it was better. She had learned to accept with philosophy the +noises of the noisiest of cities. Even, perhaps, she rather liked +them, or at least, on her two weeks' vacation in the country, she +found, to her surprise, that she missed the accustomed and incessant +noises of New York.</p> + +<p>Her real hardships were two; poverty and loneliness.</p> + +<p>The combined earnings of herself and her sisters did not allow them a +better ventilated, or more comfortable apartment than the grimy one +<!-- Page 70 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +they lived in. Nor did their earnings permit them more or better +clothing and food.</p> + +<p>As for loneliness, she had, of course, her sisters. But healthy, +imaginative, ardent youth requires more than sisters,—more even than +feminine friends, of which Athalie had a few. What she needed, as all +girls need, were acquaintances and friends among men of her own age.</p> + +<p>And she had none—that is, no friends. Which is the usual fate of any +business girl who keeps up such education and cultivation as she +possesses, and attempts to add to it and to improve her quality.</p> + +<p>Because the men of her social and business level are vastly inferior +to the women,—inferior in manners, cultivation, intelligence, +quality—which seems almost to make their usually excellent morals +peculiarly offensive.</p> + +<p>That was why Athalie knew loneliness. Doris, recently, had met a few +idle men of cultivated and fashionable antecedents. Catharine, that +very evening, was evidently going to meet a man of that sort for the +first time in her career.</p> + +<p>As for Athalie, she had had no opportunity to meet any man she cared +to cultivate since she had last talked with C. Bailey, Jr., on the +platform of the Sixth Avenue Elevated;—and that was now nearly four +years ago.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Braiding up her hair she sat gazing at herself in the mirror while her +detached thoughts drifted almost anywhere—back to Spring Pond and +<!-- Page 71 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +the Hotel Greensleeve, back to her mother, to the child cross-legged +on the floor,—back to her father, and how he sat there dead in his +leather chair;—back to the bar, and the red gleam of the stove, and a +boy and girl in earnest conversation there in the semi-darkness, +eating peach turnovers—</p> + +<p>She turned her head, leisurely: the electric bell had sounded twice +before she realised that she ought to pull the wire which opened the +street door below.</p> + +<p>So she got up, pulled the wire, and then sauntered out into the +sitting-room and set the door ajar, not worrying about her somewhat +intimate costume because it was too late for tradesmen, and there was +nobody else to call on her or on her sisters excepting other girls +known to them all.</p> + +<p>The sitting-room seemed chilly. Half listening for the ascending +footsteps and the knocking, partly absorbed in other thoughts, she +seated herself and lay back in the dingy arm-chair, before the +radiator, elevating her dainty feet to the top of it and crossing +them.</p> + +<p>A gale was now blowing outside; invisible rain, or more probably +sleet, pelted and swished across the curtained panes. Far away in the +city, somewhere, a fire-engine rushed clanging through cañons, +storm-swept, luminously obscure. Her nickel alarm clock ticked loudly +in the room; the radiator clicked and fizzed and snapped.</p> + +<p>Presently she heard a step on the stair, then in the corridor outside +her door. Then came the knocking on +<!-- Page 72 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> + the door but unexpectedly loud, vigorous and impatient.</p> + +<p>And Athalie, surprised, twisted around in her chair, looking over her +shoulder at the door.</p> + +<p>"Please come in," she said in her calm young voice. +<!-- Page 73 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<p class="cap">A RATHER tall man stepped in. He wore a snow-dusted, fur-lined +overcoat and carried in his white-gloved hands a top hat and a +silver-hooked walking stick.</p> + +<p>He had made a mistake, of course; and Athalie hastily lowered her feet +and turned half around in her chair again to meet his expected +apologies; and then continued in that attitude, rigid and silent.</p> + +<p>"Miss Greensleeve?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She rose, mechanically, the heavy lustrous braids framing a face as +white as a flower.</p> + +<p>"Is that <i>you</i>, Athalie!" he asked, hesitating.</p> + +<p>"C. Bailey, Junior," she said under her breath.</p> + +<p>There was a moment's pause, then he stepped toward her and, very +slowly, she offered a hand still faintly fragrant with "cream of +lilacs."</p> + +<p>A damp, chilly wind came from the corridor; she went over and closed +the door, stood for a few seconds with her back against it looking at +him.</p> + +<p>Now under the mask of manhood she could see the boy she had once +known,—under the short dark moustache the clean-cut mouth unchanged. +Only his cheeks seemed firmer and leaner, and the eyes were now the +baffling eyes of a man.</p> + +<p>"How did you know I was here?" she asked, quite +<!-- Page 74 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> + unconscious of her own somewhat intimate attire, so entirely had the +shock of surprise possessed her.</p> + +<p>"Athalie, you have not changed a bit—only you are so much prettier +than I realised," he said illogically.... "How did I know you lived +here? I didn't until we bought this row of flats last week—my +father's company—I'm in it now.... And glancing over the list of +tenants I saw your name."</p> + +<p>She said nothing.</p> + +<p>"Do you mind my coming? I was going to write and ask you. But walking +in this way rather appealed to me. Do you mind?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"May I stay and chat for a moment? I'm on my way to the opera. May I +stay a few minutes?"</p> + +<p>She nodded, not yet sufficiently composed to talk very much.</p> + +<p>He glanced about him for a place to lay coat and hat; then slipping +out of the soft fur, disclosed himself in evening dress.</p> + +<p>She had dropped into the arm-chair by the radiator; and, as he came +forward, stripping off his white gloves, suddenly she became conscious +of her bare, slippered feet and drew them under the edges of her +negligée.</p> + +<p>"I was not expecting anybody,—" she began, and checked herself. +Certainly she did not care to rise, now, and pass before him in search +of more suitable clothing. Therefore the less said the better.</p> + +<p>He had found a rather shaky chair, and had drawn it up in front of the +radiator. +<!-- Page 75 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<p>"This is very jolly," he said. "Do you realise that this is our third +encounter?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"It really begins to look inevitable, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>She smiled.</p> + +<p>"Three times, you know, is usually considered significant," he added +laughingly. "It doesn't dismay you, does it?"</p> + +<p>She laughed, resting her cheek against the upholstered wing of her +chair and looked at him with shy but undisguised pleasure.</p> + +<p>"You haven't changed a single bit, Athalie," he declared.</p> + +<p>"No, I haven't changed."</p> + +<p>"Do you remember our last meeting—on the Elevated?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Lord!" he said; "that was four years ago. Do you realise it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>A slight colour grew on his cheeks.</p> + +<p>"I <i>was</i> a piker, wasn't I?"</p> + +<p>After a moment, looking down at her idly clasped hands lying on her +knees: "I hoped you would come," she said gravely.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to. I don't suppose you'll believe that; but I did.... I +don't know how it happened that I didn't make good. There were so many +things to do, all sorts of engagements,—and the summer vacation +seemed ended before I could understand that it had begun."—He scowled +in retrospection, and she watched his expression out of her dark blue +<!-- Page 76 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +eyes—clear, engaging eyes, sweet as a child's.</p> + +<p>"That's no excuse," he concluded. "I should have kept my word to +you—and I really wanted to.... And I was not quite such a piker as +you thought me."</p> + +<p>"I didn't think that of you, C. Bailey, Junior."</p> + +<p>"You must have!"</p> + +<p>"I didn't."</p> + +<p>"That's because you're so decent, but it makes my infamy the +blacker.... Anyway I <i>did</i> write you and <i>did</i> send you the +strap-watch. I sent both to Fifty-fourth Street. The Dead Letter +Office returned them to me."... He drew from his inner pocket a +letter and a packet. "Here they are."</p> + +<p>She sat up slowly and very slowly took the letter from his hand.</p> + +<p>"Four years old," he commented. "Isn't that the limit?" And he began +to tear the sealed paper from the packet.</p> + +<p>"What a shame," he went on contritely, "that you wore that old +gun-metal watch of mine so long. I was mortified when I saw it on your +wrist that day—"</p> + +<p>"I wear it still," she said with a smile.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" he glanced at her bare wrist and laughed.</p> + +<p>"I <i>do</i>," she insisted. "It is only because I have just bathed and am +prepared for the night that I am not wearing it now."</p> + +<p>He looked up, incredulous, then his expression changed subtly.</p> + +<p>"Is that so?" he asked. +<!-- Page 77 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the hint of seriousness confused her and she merely nodded.</p> + +<p>He had freed the case from the sealed paper and now he laid it on her +knees, saying: "Thank the Lord I'm not such a piker now as I was, +anyway. I hope you'll wear it, Athalie, and fire that other affair out +of your back window."</p> + +<p>"There is no back window," she said, raising her charming eyes to +his,—"there's only an air-shaft.... Am I to open it?—I mean this +case?"</p> + +<p>"It is yours."</p> + +<p>She opened it daintily.</p> + +<p>"Oh, C. Bailey, Junior!" she said very gently. "You mustn't do this!"</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"It's <i>too</i> beautiful. Isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Athalie. Here, I'll wind it and set it for you. This is how +it works—" pulling out the jewelled lever and setting it by the tin +alarm-clock on the mantel. Then he wound it, unclasped the woven gold +wrist-band, took her reluctant hand, and, clasping the jewel over her +wrist, snapped the catch.</p> + +<p>For a few moments her fair head remained bent as she gazed in silence +at the tiny moving hands. Then, looking up:</p> + +<p>"Thank you, C. Bailey, Junior," she said, a little solemnly perhaps.</p> + +<p>He laughed, somewhat conscious of the slight constraint: "You're +welcome, Athalie. Do you really like it?"</p> + +<p>"It is wonderfully beautiful." +<!-- Page 78 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Then I'm perfectly happy and contented—or I will be when you read +that letter and admit I'm not as much of a piker as I seemed."</p> + +<p>She laughed and coloured: "I never thought that of you. I only—missed +you."</p> + +<p>"Really?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said innocently.</p> + +<p>For a second he looked rather grave, then again, conscious of his own +constraint, spoke gaily, lightly:</p> + +<p>"You certainly are the real thing in friendship. You are far too +generous to me."</p> + +<p>She said: "Incidents are not frequent enough in my life to leave me +unimpressed. I never knew any other boy of your sort. I suppose that +is why I never forgot you."</p> + +<p>Her simplicity pricked the iridescent and growing bubble of his +vanity, and he laughed, discountenanced by her direct explanation of +how memory chanced to retain him. But it did not occur to him to ask +himself how it happened that, in all these years, and in a life so +happily varied, so delightfully crowded as his own had always been, he +had never entirely forgotten her.</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd open that letter and read it," he said. "It's my +credential. Date and postmark plead for me."</p> + +<p>But she had other plans for its unsealing and its perusal, and said +so.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you going to read it, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—when you go."</p> + +<p>"Why?" +<!-- Page 79 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Because—it will make your visit seem a little longer," she said +frankly.</p> + +<p>"Athalie, are you really glad to see me?"</p> + +<p>She looked up as though he were jesting, and caught in his eye another +gleam of that sudden seriousness which had already slightly confused +her. For a moment only, both felt the least sense of constraint, then +the instinct that had forbidden her to admit any significance in his +seriousness, parted her lips with that engaging smile which he had +begun to know so well, and to await with an expectancy that approached +fascination.</p> + +<p>"Peach turnovers," she said. "Do you remember? If I had not been glad +to see you in those days I would not have gone into the kitchen to +bring you one.... And I have already told you that I am unchanged.... +Wait! I am changed.... I am very much wealthier." And she laughed her +delicious, unembarrassed laugh of a child.</p> + +<p>He laughed, too, then shot a glance around the shabby room.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing, Athalie?" he asked lightly.</p> + +<p>"The same."</p> + +<p>"I remember you told me. You are stenographer and typist."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"I am with Wahlbaum, Grossman & Co."</p> + +<p>"Are they decent to you?"</p> + +<p>"Very."</p> + +<p>He thought a moment, hesitated, appeared as though +<!-- Page 80 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> + about to speak, +then seemed to reject the idea whatever it might have been.</p> + +<p>"You live with your sisters, don't you?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>He planted his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, his head on his +hands, apparently buried in thought.</p> + +<p>After a little while: "C. Bailey, Junior," she ventured, "you must not +let me keep you too long."</p> + +<p>"What?" He lifted his head.</p> + +<p>"You are on your way to the opera, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Am I? That's so.... I'd rather stay here if you'll let me."</p> + +<p>"But the <i>opera</i>!" she protested with emphasis.</p> + +<p>"What do I care for the opera?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you?"</p> + +<p>He laughed: "No; do you?"</p> + +<p>"I'm mad about it."</p> + +<p>Still laughing he said: "Then, in my place, <i>you</i> wouldn't give up the +opera for <i>me</i>, would you, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>She started to say "No!" very decidedly; but checked herself. Then, +deliberately honest:</p> + +<p>"If," she began, "I were going to the opera, and you came in +here—after four years of not seeing you—and if I had to choose—I +don't believe I'd go to the opera. But it would be a dreadful wrench, +C. Bailey, Junior!"</p> + +<p>"It's no wrench to me."</p> + +<p>"Because you often go."</p> + +<p>"Because, even if I seldom went there could be no +<!-- Page 81 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> + question of choice +between the opera and Athalie Greensleeve."</p> + +<p>"C. Bailey, Junior, you are not honest."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am. Why do you say so?"</p> + +<p>"I judge by past performances," she said, her humorous eyes on him.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to throw past performances in my face every time I come +to see you?"</p> + +<p>"Are you coming again?"</p> + +<p>"That isn't generous of you, Athalie—"</p> + +<p>"I really mean it," said the girl. "Are you?"</p> + +<p>"Coming here? Of course I am if you'll let me!"</p> + +<p>The last time he had said, "If you <i>want</i> me." Now it was modified to +"If you'll <i>let</i> me,"—a development and a new footing to which +neither were yet accustomed, perhaps not even conscious of.</p> + +<p>"C. Bailey, Junior, do you want to come?"</p> + +<p>"I do indeed. It is so bully of you to be nice to me +after—everything. And it's so jolly to talk over—things—with you."</p> + +<p>She leaned forward in her chair, her pretty hands joined between her +knees.</p> + +<p>"Please," she said, "don't say you'll come if you are not coming."</p> + +<p>"But I am—"</p> + +<p>"I know you said so twice before.... I don't mean to be horrid or to +reproach you, but—I am going to tell you—I was disappointed—even +a—a little—unhappy. And it—lasted—some time.... +So, if you are not coming, tell me so now.... It is hard to wait—too long." +<!-- Page 82 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Athalie," he said, completely surprised by the girl's frank avowal +and by the unsuspected emotion in himself which was responding, "I +am—I had no idea—I don't deserve your kindness to me—your +loyalty—I'm a—I'm a—a pup! That's what I am—an undeserving, +ungrateful, irresponsible, and asinine pup! That's what all boys in +college are—but it's no excuse for not keeping my word—for making +you unhappy—"</p> + +<p>"C. Bailey, Junior, you were just a boy. And I was a child.... I am +still, in spite of my nineteen years—nearly twenty at that—not much +different, not enough changed to know that I'm a woman. I feel exactly +as I did toward you—not grown up,—or that you have grown up.... Only +I know, somehow, I'd have a harder time of it now, if you tell me +you'll come, and then—"</p> + +<p>"I <i>will</i> come, Athalie! I <i>want</i> to," he said impetuously. "You're +more interesting,—a lot jollier,—than any girl I know. I always +suspected it, too—the bigger fool I to lose all that time we might +have had together—"</p> + +<p>She, surprised for a moment, lifted her pretty head and laughed +outright, checking his somewhat impulsive monologue. And he looked at +her, disturbed.</p> + +<p>"I'm only laughing because you speak of all those years we might have +had together, as though—" And suddenly she checked herself in her +turn, on the brink of saying something that was not so funny after +all.</p> + +<p>Probably he understood what impulse had prompted her to terminate +<!-- Page 83 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +abruptly both laughter and discourse, for he reddened and gazed rather +fixedly at the radiator which was now clanking and clinking in a very +noisy manner.</p> + +<p>"You ought to have a fireplace and an open fire," he said. "It's the +cosiest thing on earth—with a cat on the hearth and a big chair and a +good book.... Athalie, do you remember that stove? And how I sat there +in wet shooting clothes and stockinged feet?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, drawing her own bare ones further under her chair.</p> + +<p>"Do you know what you looked like to me when you came in so silently, +dressed in your red hood and cloak?"</p> + +<p>"What did I look like?"</p> + +<p>"A little fairy princess."</p> + +<p>"<i>I?</i> In that ragged cloak?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> didn't see the rags. All I saw was your lithe little fairy figure +and your yellow hair and your wonderful dark eyes in the ruddy light +from the stove. I tell you, Athalie, I was enchanted."</p> + +<p>"How odd! I never dreamed you thought that of me when I stood there +looking at you, utterly lost in admiration—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, come, Athalie!" he laughed; "you are getting back at me!"</p> + +<p>"It's true. I thought you the most wonderful boy I had ever seen."</p> + +<p>"Until I disillusioned you," he said.</p> + +<p>"You never did, C. Bailey, Junior." +<!-- Page 84 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What! Not when I proved a piker?"</p> + +<p>But she only smiled into his amused and challenging eyes and slowly +shook her head.</p> + +<p>Once or twice, mechanically, he had slipped a flat gold cigarette case +from his pocket, and then, mechanically still, had put it back. Not +accustomed to modern men of his caste she had not paid much attention +to the unconscious hint of habit. Now as he did it again it occurred +to her to ask him why he did not smoke.</p> + +<p>"May I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I like it."</p> + +<p>"Do you smoke?"</p> + +<p>"No—now and then when I'm troubled."</p> + +<p>"Is that often?" he asked lightly.</p> + +<p>"Very seldom," she replied, amused; "and the proof is that I never +smoked more than half a dozen cigarettes in all my life."</p> + +<p>"Will you try one now?" he asked mischievously.</p> + +<p>"I'm not in trouble, am I?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. <i>I</i> am."</p> + +<p>"What troubles you, C. Bailey, Junior?" she asked, humorously.</p> + +<p>"My disinclination to leave. And it's after eleven."</p> + +<p>"If you never get into any more serious trouble than that," she said, +"I shall not worry about you."</p> + +<p>"Would you worry if I were in trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Naturally."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Why? Because you are my friend. Why shouldn't I worry?" +<!-- Page 85 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you really take our friendship as seriously as that?"</p> + +<p>"Don't <i>you</i>?"</p> + +<p>He changed countenance, hesitated, flicked the ashes from his +cigarette. Suddenly he looked her straight in the face:</p> + +<p>"Yes. I <i>do</i> take it seriously," he said in a voice so quietly and +perhaps unnecessarily emphatic that, for a few moments, she found +nothing to say in response.</p> + +<p>Then, smilingly: "I am glad you look at it that way. It means that you +will come back some day."</p> + +<p>"I will come to-morrow if you'll let me."</p> + +<p>Which left her surprised and silent but not at all disquieted.</p> + +<p>"Shall I, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—if you wish."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he said with more unnecessary emphasis and as though +addressing himself, and perhaps others not present. "I see no reason +why I shouldn't if you'll let me. Do you?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"May I take you to dinner and to the theatre?"</p> + +<p>A quick glow shot through her, leaving a sort of whispering confusion +in her brain which seemed full of distant voices.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'd like to go with you."</p> + +<p>"That's fine! And we'll have supper afterward."</p> + +<p>She smiled at him through the ringing confusion in her brain.</p> + +<p>"Do you mind taking supper with me after the play?" +<!-- Page 86 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Where then?"</p> + +<p>"Anywhere—with you, C. Bailey, Junior."</p> + +<p>Things began to seem to her a trifle unreal; she saw him a little +vaguely: vaguely, too, she was conscious that to whatever she said he +was responding with something more subtly vital than mere words. +Faintly within her the instinct stirred to ignore, to repress +something in him—in herself—she was not clear about just what she +ought to repress, or which of them harboured it.</p> + +<p>One thing confused and disturbed her; his tongue was running loose, +planning all sorts of future pleasures for them both together, +confidently, with an enthusiasm which, somehow, seemed to leave her +unresponsive.</p> + +<p>"Please don't," she said.</p> + +<p>"What, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"Make so many promises—plans. I—am afraid of promises."</p> + +<p>He turned very red: "What on earth have I done to you!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing—yet."</p> + +<p>"Yes I have! I once made you unhappy; I made you distrust me—"</p> + +<p>"No:—that is all over now. Only—if it happened again—I should +really—miss you—very much—C. Bailey, Junior.... So don't promise me +too much—now.... Promise a little—each time you come—if you care +to."</p> + +<p>In the silence that grew between them the alarm went off with a +<!-- Page 87 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +startling clangour that brought them both to their feet.</p> + +<p>It was midnight.</p> + +<p>"I set it to wake myself before my sisters came in," she explained +with a smile. "I usually have something prepared for them to eat when +they've been out."</p> + +<p>"I suppose they do the same for you," he said, looking at her rather +steadily.</p> + +<p>"I don't go out in the evening."</p> + +<p>"You do sometimes."</p> + +<p>"Very seldom.... Do you know, C. Bailey, Junior, I have never been out +in the evening with a man?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Never."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose," she admitted with habitual honesty, "it's because I don't +know any men with whom I'd care to be seen in the evening. I don't +like ordinary people."</p> + +<p>"How about me?" he asked, laughing.</p> + +<p>She merely smiled. +<!-- Page 88 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<p class="cap">DORIS came in about midnight, her coat and hat plastered with sleet, +her shoes soaking. She looked rather forlornly at the bowl of hot milk +and crackers which Athalie brought from the kitchenette.</p> + +<p>"I'd give next week's salary for a steak," she said, taking the bowl +and warming her chilled hands on it.</p> + +<p>"You know what meat costs," said Athalie. "I'd give it to you for +supper if I could."</p> + +<p>Doris seated herself by the radiator; Athalie knelt and drew off the +wet shoes, unbuttoned the garters and rolled the stockings from the +icy feet.</p> + +<p>"I had another chance to-night: they were college boys: some of the +girls went—" remarked Doris disjointedly, forcing herself to eat the +crackers and milk because it was hot, and snuggling into the knitted +slippers which Athalie brought. After a moment or two she lifted her +pretty, impudent face and sniffed inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"<i>Who's</i> been smoking? You?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Who? Genevieve?"</p> + +<p>"No. Who do you suppose called?"</p> + +<p>"Search <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>"C. Bailey, Junior!" +<!-- Page 89 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> + +<p>Doris looked blank, then: "Oh, that boy you had an affair with about a +hundred years ago?"</p> + +<p>"That same boy," said Athalie, smiling.</p> + +<p>"He'll come again next century I suppose—like a comet," shrugged +Doris, nestling closer to the radiator.</p> + +<p>Athalie said nothing; her sister slowly stirred the crackers in the +milk and from time to time took a spoonful.</p> + +<p>"Next time," she said presently, "I shall go out to supper when an +attractive man asks me. I know how to take care of myself—and the +supper, too."</p> + +<p>Athalie started to say something, and stopped. Perhaps she remembered +C. Bailey, Jr., and that she had promised to dine and sup with him, +"anywhere."</p> + +<p>She said in a low voice: "It's all right, I suppose, if you know the +man."</p> + +<p>"I don't care whether I know him or not as long as it's a good +restaurant."</p> + +<p>"Don't talk that way, Doris!"</p> + +<p>"Why not? It's true."</p> + +<p>There was a silence. Doris set aside the empty bowl, yawned, looked at +the clock, yawned again.</p> + +<p>"This is too late for Catharine," she said, drowsily.</p> + +<p>"I know it is. Who are the people she's with?"</p> + +<p>"Genevieve Hunting—I don't know the men:—some of Genevieve's +friends."</p> + +<p>"I hope it's nobody from Winton's."</p> + +<p>There had been in the Greensleeve family, a tacit understanding that +it was not the thing to accept social attentions from anybody +connected with the firm which employed them. Winton, the male milliner +and gown designer, usually let his models alone, being in perpetual +<!-- Page 90 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> +dread of his wife; but one of the unhealthy looking sons had become a +nuisance to the girls employed there. Recently he had annoyed +Catharine, and the girl was afraid she might have to lunch with him or +lose her position.</p> + +<p>Doris yawned again, then shivered.</p> + +<p>"Go to bed, ducky," said Athalie. "I'll wait up for Catharine."</p> + +<p>So Doris took herself off to bed and Athalie sank into the shabby +arm-chair by the radiator to wait for her other sister.</p> + +<p>It was two o'clock when she came in, flushed, vague-eyed, a rather +silly and fixed smile on her doll-like face. Athalie, on the verge of +sleep, rose from her chair, rubbing her eyes:</p> + +<p>"What on earth, Catharine—"</p> + +<p>"We had supper,—that's why I'm late.... I've got to have a dinner +gown I tell you. Genevieve's is the smartest thing—"</p> + +<p>"Where did you go?"</p> + +<p>"To the Regina. I didn't want to—dressed this way but Cecil Reeve +said—"</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Cecil—Mr. Reeve—one of Genevieve's friends—the man who was so +crazy to meet me—"</p> + +<p>"Oh! Who else was there?" asked Athalie drily.</p> + +<p>"A Mr. Ferris—Harry Ferris they call him. He's quite mad about +Genevieve—"</p> + +<p>"Why did you drink anything?"</p> + +<p>"I?" +<!-- Page 91 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You did, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"I had a glass of champagne."</p> + +<p>"What else?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing—except something pink in a glass—before we sat down to +supper.... And something violet coloured, afterward."</p> + +<p>"Your breath is dreadful; do you realise it?"</p> + +<p>Catharine seemed surprised, then her eyes wandered vaguely, drowsily, +and she laid her gloved hand on Athalie's arm as though to steady +herself.</p> + +<p>"What sort of man is your new friend, Cecil Reeve?" inquired Athalie.</p> + +<p>"He's nice—a gentleman. And they were so amusing;—we laughed so +much.... I told him he might call.... He's really all right, +Athalie—"</p> + +<p>"And Mr. Ferris?"</p> + +<p>"Well—I don't know about him; he's Genevieve's friend;—I don't know +him so well.... But of course he's all right—a gentleman—"</p> + +<p>"That's the trouble," said Athalie in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"What is the trouble?"</p> + +<p>"These friends of yours—and of Doris, and of mine ... they're +gentlemen.... And that is why we find them agreeable, socially.... But +when they desire social amusement they know where to find it."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Where girls who work for a living are unknown. Where they never are +asked, never go, never are expected to go. But that is where such men +are asked, where such men are expected; and it is where they go for +social diversion—not to the Regina with two of Winton's models, nor +<!-- Page 92 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> +to the Café Arabesque with an Egyptian Garden chorus girl, nor—" she +hesitated, flushed, and was silent, staring mentally at the image of +C. Bailey, Jr., which her logic and philosophy had inevitably evoked.</p> + +<p>"Then, what is a business girl to do?" asked Catharine, vaguely.</p> + +<p>Athalie shook her golden head, slowly: "Don't ask me."</p> + +<p>Catharine said, still more vaguely: "She must do +something—pleasant—before she's too old and sick to—to care what +happens."</p> + +<p>"I know it.... Men, of that kind, <i>are</i> pleasant.... I don't see why +we shouldn't go out with them. It's all the chance we have. Or will +ever have.... I've thought it over. I don't see that it helps for us +to resent their sisters and mothers and friends. Such women would +never permit us to know them. The nearest we can get to them is to +know their sons."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to know them—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you do. Be honest, Catharine. Every girl does. And really I +believe if the choice were offered a business girl, she would rather +know the mothers and sisters than the sons."</p> + +<p>"There's no use thinking about it," said Catharine.</p> + +<p>"No, there is no use.... And so I don't see any harm in being friends +with their sons.... It will hurt at times—humiliate us—maybe +embitter us.... But it's that or nothing."</p> + +<p>"We needn't be silly about their sons." +<!-- Page 93 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<p>Athalie opened her dark blue eyes, then laughed confidently: "Oh, as +for anything like <i>that</i>! I should hope not. We three ought to know +<i>something</i> by this time."</p> + +<p>"I should think so," murmured Catharine; and her warm, wine-scented +breath fell on Athalie's cheek. +<!-- Page 94 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<p class="cap">BEFORE February had ended C. Bailey, Jr., and Athalie Greensleeve had +been to more than one play, had dined and supped together more than +once at the Regina.</p> + +<p>The magnificence of the most fashionable restaurant in town had +thrilled and enchanted Athalie. At close range for the first time she +had an opportunity to inspect the rich, the fashionable, and the +great. As for celebrities, they seemed to be merely a by-product of +the gay, animated, beautifully gowned throngs: people she had heard +of, people more important still of whom she had never heard, people +important only to themselves of whom nobody had ever heard thronged +the great rococo rooms. The best hotel orchestra in America played +there; the loveliest flowers, the most magnificent jewels, the most +celebrated cuisine in the entire Republic—all were there for Athalie +Greensleeve to wonder at and to enjoy. There were other things for her +to wonder at, too,—the seemingly exhaustless list of C. Bailey, +Jr.'s, acquaintances; for he was always nodding to somebody or +returning salutes wherever they were, in the theatre, or the street, +in his little limousine car, at restaurants. Men sometimes came up and +spoke and were presented to Athalie: women, never. +<!-- Page 95 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<p>But although she was very happy after her first evening out with C. +Bailey, Jr., she realised that a serious inroad upon her savings was +absolutely necessary if she were to continue her maiden's progress +with this enchanting young man. Clothing of a very different species +than any she had ever permitted herself was now becoming a necessity. +She made the inroad. It was worth while if only to see his surprise +and his naïve pride in her.</p> + +<p>And truly the girl was very lovely in the few luxuries she ventured to +acquire—so lovely, indeed, that many heads turned and many eyes +followed her calm and graceful progress in theatre aisle, amid +thronged tables, on the Avenue, anywhere and everywhere she moved +along the path of life now already in flowery bloom for her.</p> + +<p>And beside her, eager, happy, flattered, walked C. Bailey, Jr., very +conscious that he was being envied; very proud of the beautiful young +girl with whom he was so constantly identifying himself, and who, very +obviously, was doing him honour.</p> + +<p>Of his gratified and flattered self-esteem the girl was unconscious; +that he was really happy with her, proud of her appearance, kind to +her beyond reason and even beyond propriety perhaps,—invariably +courteous and considerate, she was vividly aware. And it made her +intensely happy to know that she gave him pleasure and to accept it +from him.</p> + +<p>It <i>was</i> pleasure to Clive; but not entirely unmitigated. His father +asked him once or twice who the girl was of whom "people" were +talking; and when his son +<!-- Page 96 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> + said: "She's absolutely all right, father," +Bailey, Sr., knew that she was—so far.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs05.jpg" width="500" height="335" +alt=""C. Bailey, Jr., and Athalie Greensleeve ... had supped +together more than once at the Regina."" +title=""C. Ba"C. Bailey, Jr. and Athalie Greensleeve ... had supped +together more than once at the Regina."" /> +<span class="caption">"C. Bailey, Jr. and Athalie Greensleeve ... had supped +together more than once at the Regina."</span> +</div> + +<p> +<!-- Page 97 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> +<!-- Page 98 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>"But what's the use, Clive?" he asked with a sort of sad humour. "Is +it necessary for you, too, to follow the path of the calf?"</p> + +<p>"I like her."</p> + +<p>"And other men are inclined to, and have no opportunity; is that it, +my son? The fascination of monopoly? The chicken with the worm?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>like</i> her," repeated Clive, Jr., a trifle annoyed.</p> + +<p>"So you have remarked before. Who is she?"</p> + +<p>"Do you remember that charming little child in the red hood and cloak +down at Greensleeve's tavern when we were duck-shooting?"</p> + +<p>"Is <i>that</i> the girl?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"What is she?"</p> + +<p>"Stenographer."</p> + +<p>Bailey, Sr., shrugged his shoulders, patiently.</p> + +<p>"What's the <i>use</i>, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"Use? Well there's no particular use. I'm not in love with her. Did +you think I was?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think any more. Your mother does that for me.... Don't make +anybody unhappy, my son."</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>His mother, also, had made very frank representations to him on +several occasions, the burden of them being that common people beget +common ideas, common associations corrupt good manners, and that +"nice" girls would continue to view with disdain and might ultimately +ostracise any misguided young man of their own caste who played about +<!-- Page 99 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> +with a woman for whose existence nobody who was anybody could account.</p> + +<p>"The daughter of a Long Island road-house keeper! Why, Clive! where is +your sense of fitness! Men don't do that sort of thing any more!"</p> + +<p>"What sort of thing, mother?"</p> + +<p>"What you are doing."</p> + +<p>"What am I doing?"</p> + +<p>"Parading a very conspicuous young woman about town."</p> + +<p>"If you saw her in somebody's drawing-room you'd merely think her +beautiful and well-bred."</p> + +<p>"Clive! Will you please awake from that silly dream?"</p> + +<p>"That's the truth, mother. And if she spoke it would merely confirm +the impression. You won't believe it but it's true."</p> + +<p>"That's absurd, Clive! She may not be uneducated but she certainly +cannot be either cultivated or well-bred."</p> + +<p>"She is cultivating herself."</p> + +<p>"Then for goodness' sake let her do it! It's praiseworthy and +commendable for a working girl to try to better herself. But it +doesn't concern you."</p> + +<p>"Why not? If a business girl does better herself and fit herself for a +better social environment, it seems to me her labour is in vain if +people within the desired environment snub her."</p> + +<p>"What kind of argument is that? Socialistic? I merely know it is +unbaked. What theory is it, dear?" +<!-- Page 100 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;"> +<img src="images/gs06.jpg" width="250" height="410" +alt=""Beside her, eager, happy, flattered, walked C. Bailey, +Jr., very conscious that he was being envied."" +title=""Beside her, eager, happy, flattered, walked C. Bailey, +Jr., very conscious that he was being envied."" /> +<span class="caption">"Beside her, eager, happy, flattered, walked C. Bailey, +Jr., very conscious that he was being envied."</span> +</div><p> + +<!-- Page 101 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +<!-- Page 102 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't know what it is. It seems reasonable to me, mother."</p> + +<p>"Clive, are you trying to make yourself sentimentalise over that +Greensleeve woman?"</p> + +<p>"I told you that I am not in love with her; nor is she with me. It's +an agreeable and happy comradeship; that's all."</p> + +<p>"People think it something more," retorted his mother, curtly.</p> + +<p>"That's their fault, not Athalie's and not mine."</p> + +<p>"Then, why do you go about with her? <i>Why?</i> You know girls enough, +don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Plenty. They resemble one another to the verge of monotony."</p> + +<p>"Is that the way you regard the charming, well-born, well-bred, +clever, cultivated girls of your own circle, whose parents were the +friends of your parents?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother, I like them of course.... But there's something about a +business girl—a girl in the making—that is more amusing, more +companionable, more interesting. A business girl seems to wear better. +She's better worth talking to, listening to,—it's better fun to go +about with her, see things with her, discuss things—"</p> + +<p>"What on earth are you talking about! It's perfect babble; it's +nonsense! If you really believe you have a penchant for sturdy and +rather grubby worthiness unadorned you are mistaken. The inclination +you have is merely for a pretty face and figure. I know you. If I +don't, who does! You're rather a fastidious young man, even finicky, +<!-- Page 103 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +and very, very much accustomed to the best and only the best. Don't +talk to me about your disinterested admiration for a working girl. You +haven't anything in common with her, and you never could have. And +you'd better be very careful not to make a fool of yourself."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"As all men are likely to do at your callow age."</p> + +<p>"Fall in love with her?"</p> + +<p>"You can call it that. The result is always deplorable. And if she's a +smart, selfish, and unscrupulous girl, the result may be more +deplorable still, as far as we all are concerned. What is the need of +my saying this? You are grown; you know it already. Up to the present +time you've kept fastidiously clear of such entanglements. You say you +have, and your father and I believe you. So what is the use of +beginning now,—creating an unfortunate impression in your own set, +spending your time with such a girl as this Greensleeve girl—"</p> + +<p>"Mother," he said, "you're going about this matter in the wrong way. I +am not in love with Athalie Greensleeve. But there is no girl I like +better, none perhaps I like quite as well. Let me alone. There's no +sentiment between her and me so far. There won't be any—unless you +and other people begin to drive us toward each other. I don't want you +to do that. Don't interfere. Let us alone. We're having a good +time,—a perfectly natural, wholesome, happy time together." +<!-- Page 104 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/gs07.jpg" width="300" height="515" +alt=""'I like her,' repeated Clive, Jr., a trifle +annoyed."" title=""'I like her,' repeated Clive, Jr., a trifle +annoyed."" /> +<span class="caption">"'I like her,' repeated Clive, Jr., a trifle +annoyed."</span> +</div><p> + +<!-- Page 105 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> +<!-- Page 106 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What is it leading to?" demanded his mother impatiently.</p> + +<p>"To nothing except more good times. That's absolutely all. That's all +that good times lead to where any of the girls you approve of are +concerned—not to sentiment, not to love, merely to more good times. +Why on earth can't people understand that even if the girl happens to +be earning her own living?"</p> + +<p>"People don't understand. That is the truth, and you can't alter it, +Clive. The girl's reputation will always suffer. And that's where you +ought to show yourself generous."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"If you really like and respect her."</p> + +<p>"How am I to show myself generous, as you put it?"</p> + +<p>"By keeping away from her."</p> + +<p>"Because people gossip?"</p> + +<p>"Because," said his mother sharply, "they'll think the girl is your +mistress if you continue to decorate public resorts with her."</p> + +<p>"Would—<i>you</i> think so, mother?"</p> + +<p>"No. You happen to be my son. And you're truthful. Otherwise I'd think +so."</p> + +<p>"You would?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"That's rotten," he said, slowly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive, don't be a fool. You can't do what you're doing without +arousing suspicion everywhere—from a village sewing-circle to the +smartest gathering on Manhattan Island! You know it." +<!-- Page 107 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I have never thought about it."</p> + +<p>"Then think of it now. Whether it's rotten, as you say, or not, it's +so. It's one of the folk-ways of the human species. And if it is, +merely saying it's rotten can't alter it."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bailey's car was at the door; Clive took the great sable coat +from the maid who brought it and slipped it over the handsome +afternoon gown that his handsome mother wore.</p> + +<p>For a moment he stood, looking at her almost curiously—at the +brilliant black eyes, the clear smooth olive skin still youthful +enough to be attractive, at the red lips, mostly nature's hue, at the +cheeks where the delicate carmine flush was still mostly nature's.</p> + +<p>He said: "You have so much, mother.... It seems strange you should not +be more generous to a girl you have never seen."</p> + +<p>His handsome, capable, and experienced mother gazed at him out of +friendly and amused eyes from which delusion had long since fled. And +that is where she fell short, for delusion is the offspring of +imagination; and without imagination no intelligence is complete. She +said: "I can be generous with any woman except where my son concerns +himself with her. Where anybody else's son is involved I could be +generous to any girl, even—" she smiled her brilliant smile—"even +perhaps not too maliciously generous. But the situation in your case +doesn't appeal to me as humorous. Keep away from her, Clive; it's +easier than ultimately to run away from her." +<!-- Page 108 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<p class="cap">THE course of irresponsible amusement which C. Bailey, Jr., continued +to pursue at intervals with the fair scion of the +house—road-house—of Greensleeve, did not run as smoothly as it might +have, and was not unmixed with carping reflections and sordid care on +his part, and with an increasing number of interruptions, admonitions, +and warnings on the part of his mother.</p> + +<p>That pretty lady, flint-hardened in the igneous social lava-pot, +continued to hear disquieting tales of her son's doings. They came to +her right and left, from dance and card-table, opera-box and supper +party, tea and bazaar and fashionable reception.</p> + +<p>One grim-visaged old harridan of whom Manhattan stood in fawning fear, +bluntly informed her that she'd better look out for her boy if she +didn't want to become a grandmother.</p> + +<p>Which infuriated and terrified Mrs. Bailey and set her thinking with +all the implacable concentration of which she was capable.</p> + +<p>So far in life she had accomplished whatever she set out to do.... And +of all things on earth she dreaded most to become a grandmother of any +description whatever. +<!-- Page 109 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>But between Athalie and Clive, if there had been any doubts concerning +the propriety or expediency of their companionship neither he nor she +had, so far, expressed them.</p> + +<p>Their comradeship, in fact, had now become an intimacy—the sort that +permits long silences without excuse or embarrassment on either side. +She continued to charm and surprise him; and to discover, daily, in +him new traits to admire in a character which perhaps he did not +really possess.</p> + +<p>In this girl he seemed to find an infinite variety. Moods, impulsive +or deliberate, and capricious or logical, continued to stimulate his +interest in her every time they met. On no two days was she exactly +the same—or so he seemed to think. And yet her basic qualities were, +it appeared to him, characteristic and unvarying,—directness, +loyalty, generosity, freedom from ulterior motive and a gay confidence +in a world which, for the first time in her life, she had begun to +find unexpectedly exciting.</p> + +<p>They had been one evening to a musical comedy which by some fortunate +chance was well written, well sung, and well done. And they were in +excellent spirits as they left the theatre and stood waiting for his +small limousine car, she in her pretty furs held close to her throat, +humming under her breath a refrain from the delightful finale, he +smoking a cigarette and watching the numbers being flashed for the +long line of carriages and motors which moved up continually through +the lamp-lit darkness.</p> + +<p>"Athalie," he said, "suppose we side-step the Regina and try +<!-- Page 110 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> +Broadway. Are you in the humour for it?"</p> + +<p>She laughed and her eyes sparkled in the electric glow: "Are you, +Clive?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am. I feel very devilish."</p> + +<p>"So do I,—devilishly hungry."</p> + +<p>"That's fine. Where shall we go?"</p> + +<p>"The Café Arabesque?... The name sounds exciting."</p> + +<p>"All right—" as his car drew up and the gold-capped porter opened the +door;—so he directed his chauffeur to drive them to the Café +Arabesque.</p> + +<p>"If you don't like it," he added to Athalie, drawing the fur robe over +her knees and his, "we can go somewhere else."</p> + +<p>"That's very nice of you. I don't have to suffer for my mistakes."</p> + +<p>"Nobody ever ought to suffer for mistakes because nobody would ever +make mistakes on purpose," he said, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Such a delightful philosophy! Please remind me of it when I'm in +agony over something I'm sorry I did."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you'll have to remind me too," he said, still laughing. +"Is it a bargain?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>The car stopped; he sprang out and aided her to the icy sidewalk.</p> + +<p>"I don't think I ever saw you as pretty as you are to-night," he +whispered, slipping his arm under hers. +<!-- Page 111 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p> + +<p>"<i>Are</i> you really growing more beautiful or do I merely think so?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," she said, happily; "I'll tell you a secret, shall I?"</p> + +<p>He inclined his ear toward her, and she said in a laughing whisper: +"Clive, I <i>feel</i> beautiful to-night. Do you know how it feels to feel +beautiful?"</p> + +<p>"Not personally," he admitted; and they separated still laughing like +two children, the focus of sympathetic, amused, or envious glances +from the brilliantly dressed throng clustering at the two cloak rooms.</p> + +<p>She came to him presently where he was waiting, and, instinctively the +groups around the doors made a lane for the fair young girl who came +forward with the ghost of a smile on her lips as though entirely +unconscious of herself and of everybody except the man who moved out +to meet her.</p> + +<p>"It's true," he murmured; "you <i>are</i> the most beautiful thing in this +beauty-ridden town."</p> + +<p>"You'll spoil me, Clive."</p> + +<p>"Is that possible?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Don't try. There is a great deal in me that has never +been disturbed, never been brought out. Maybe much of it is evil," she +added lightly.</p> + +<p>He turned; she met his eyes half seriously, half mockingly, and they +laughed. But what she had said so lightly in jest remained for a few +moments in his mind to occupy and slightly trouble it.</p> + +<p>From their table beside the bronze-railed gallery, they could overlook +the main floor where a wide lane for dancing had been cleared and +<!-- Page 112 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +marked out with crimson-tasselled ropes of silk.</p> + +<p>A noisy orchestra played imbecile dance music, and a number of male +and female imbeciles took advantage of it to exercise the only +portions of their anatomy in which any trace of intellect had ever +lodged.</p> + +<p>Athalie, resting one dimpled elbow on the velvet cushioned rail, +watched the dancers for a while, then her unamused and almost +expressionless gaze swept the tables below with a leisurely absence of +interest which might have been mistaken for insolence—and envied as +such by a servile world which secretly adores it.</p> + +<p>"Well, Lady Greensleeves?" he said, watching her.</p> + +<p>"Some remarkable Poiret and Lucille gowns, Clive.... And a great deal +of paint." She remained a moment in the same attitude—leisurely +inspecting the throng below, then turned to him, her calm +preoccupation changing to a shyly engaging smile.</p> + +<p>"Are you still of the same mind concerning my personal +attractiveness?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>have</i> spoiled you!" he concluded, pretending chagrin.</p> + +<p>"Is that spoiling me—to hear you say you approve of me?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not, you dear girl! Nothing could ever spoil you."</p> + +<p>She lifted her Clover Club, looking across the frosty glass at him; +and the usual rite was silently completed. They were hungry; her +appetite was always a natural and healthy one, and his sometimes +matched it, as happened that night. +<!-- Page 113 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Now, this is wonderful," he said, lighting a cigarette between +courses and leaning forward, elbows on the cloth, and his hands +clasped under his chin; "a good show, a good dinner, and good company. +What surfeited monarch could ask more?"</p> + +<p>"Why mention the company last, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"I've certainly spoiled you," he said with a groan; "you've tasted +adulation; you prefer it to your dinner."</p> + +<p>"The question is do <i>you</i> prefer my company to the dinner and the +show? <i>Do</i> you! If so why mention me last in the catalogue of your +blessings?"</p> + +<p>"I always mention you last in my prayers—so that whoever listens will +more easily remember," he said gaily.</p> + +<p>The laughter still made the dark blue eyes brilliant but they grew +more serious when she said: "You don't really ever <i>pray</i> for me, +Clive. Do you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Why not?"</p> + +<p>The smile faded in her eyes and in his.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you prayed at all," she remarked, looking down at her +wine glass.</p> + +<p>"It's one of those things I happen to do," he said with a slight +shrug.</p> + +<p>They mused for a while in silence, her mind pursuing its trend back to +childhood, his idly considering the subject of prayer and wondering +whether the habit had become too mechanical with him, or whether his +less selfish petitions might possibly carry to the Source of All +Things.</p> + +<p>Then having drifted clear of this nebulous zone of thought, and +<!-- Page 114 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +coffee having been served, they came back to earth and to each other +with slight smiles of recognition—delicate salutes acknowledging each +other's presence and paramount importance in a world which was going +very gaily.</p> + +<p>They discussed the play; she hummed snatches of its melodies below her +breath at intervals, her dark blue eyes always fixed on him and her +ears listening to him alone. Particularly now; for his mood had +changed and he was drifting back toward something she had said earlier +in the evening—something about her own possible capacity for good and +evil. It was a question, only partly serious; and she responded in the +same vein:</p> + +<p>"How should I know what capabilities I possess? Of course I have +capabilities. No doubt, dormant within me lies every besetting sin, +every human failing. Perhaps also the cardinal, corresponding, and +antidotic virtues to all of these."</p> + +<p>"I suppose," he said, "every sin has its antithesis. It's like a chess +board—the human mind—with the black men ranged on one side and the +white on the other, ready to move, to advance, skirmish, threaten, +manœuvre, attack, and check each other, and the intervening squares +represent the checkered battlefield of contending desires."</p> + +<p>The simile striking her as original and clever, she made him a pretty +compliment. She was very young in her affections.</p> + +<p>"If," she nodded, "a sin, represented by a black piece, dares to stir +or intrude or threaten, then there is always the better thought, +<!-- Page 115 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +represented by a white piece, ready to block and check the black one. +Is that it?"</p> + +<p>"Exactly," he said, secretly well pleased with himself. And as for +Athalie, she admired his elastic and eloquent imagination beyond +words.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," she said, "you have never yet told me anything about +your business. Is it all right for me to ask, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. It's real estate—Bailey, Reeve, and Willis. Willis is +dead, Reeve out of it, and my father and I are the whole show."</p> + +<p>"Reeve?" she repeated, interested.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he lives in Paris, permanently. He has a son here, in the +banking business."</p> + +<p>"Cecil Reeve?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Do you know him?"</p> + +<p>"No. My sister Catharine does."</p> + +<p>Clive seemed interested and curious: "Cecil Reeve and I were at +Harvard together. I haven't seen much of him since."</p> + +<p>"What sort is he, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"Nice—Oh, very nice. A good sport;—a good deal of a sport.... Which +sister did you say?"</p> + +<p>"Catharine."</p> + +<p>"That's the cunning little one with the baby stare and brown curls?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>There was a silence. Clive sat absently fidgeting with his glass, and +Athalie watched him. Presently without looking up he said: "Yes, Cecil +Reeve is a very decent sport.... Rather gay. Good-looking chap. Nice +<!-- Page 116 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +sort.... But rather a sport, you know."</p> + +<p>The girl nodded.</p> + +<p>"Catharine mustn't believe all he says," he added with a laugh. "Cecil +has a way—I'm not knocking him, you understand—but a +young—inexperienced girl—might take him a little bit too +seriously.... Of course your sister wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't think so.... Are <i>you</i> that way, too?"</p> + +<p>He raised his eyes: "Do you think I am, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"No.... But I can't help wondering—a little uneasily at times—how +you can find me as—as companionable as you say you do.... I can't +help wondering how long it will last."</p> + +<p>"It will last as long as you do."</p> + +<p>"But you are sure to find me out sooner or later, Clive."</p> + +<p>"Find you out?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—discover my limits, exhaust my capacity for entertaining you, +extract the last atom of amusement out of me. And—what <i>then</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Athalie! What nonsense!"</p> + +<p>"Is it?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly it's nonsense. How can I possibly tire of such a girl as +you? I scarcely even know you yet. I don't begin to know you. Why you +are a perfectly unexplored, undiscovered girl to me, yet!"</p> + +<p>"Am I?" she asked, laughing. "I supposed you had discovered about all +there is to me."</p> + +<p>He shook his head, looking at her curiously perplexed: "Every time we +meet you are different. You always have interesting views on any +subject. +<!-- Page 117 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> + You stimulate my imagination. How could I tire?</p> + +<p>"Besides, somehow I am always aware of reserved and hidden forces in +you—of a character which I only partly know and admire—capabilities, +capacities of which I am ignorant except that, intuitively, I seem to +know they are part of you."</p> + +<p>"Am I as complex as that to you?"</p> + +<p>"Sometimes," he admitted. "You are just now for example. But usually +you are only a wonderfully interesting and charming girl who brings +out the best side of me and keeps me amused and happy every moment +that I am with you."</p> + +<p>"There really is not much more to me than that," she said in a low +voice. "You sum me up—a gay source of amusement: nothing more."</p> + +<p>"Athalie, you know you are more vital than that to me."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't know it."</p> + +<p>"You do! You know it in your own heart. You know that it is a +straight, clean, ardent friendship that inspires me and—" she looked +up, serious, and very quiet.</p> + +<p>—"You know," he continued impulsively, "that it is not only your +beauty, your loveliness and grace and that inexplicable charm you seem +to radiate, that brings me to seek you every time that I have a moment +to do so.</p> + +<p>"Why, if it were that alone, it would all have been merely a matter of +sentiment. Have I ever been sentimental with you?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> +<p><!-- Page 118 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> +<p>"Have I ever made love to you?"</p> + +<p>She did not reply. Her eyes were fixed on her glass.</p> + +<p>"Have I, Athalie?" he repeated.</p> + +<p>"No, Clive," she said gently.</p> + +<p>"Well then; is there not on my part a very deep, solidly founded, and +vital friendship for you? Is there not a—"</p> + +<p>"Don't let's talk about it," she interrupted in a low voice. "You +always make me very happy; you say I please you—interest and amuse +you. That is enough—more than enough—more than I ever hoped or +asked—"</p> + +<p>"I said you make me happy;—happier than I have ever been," he +explained with emphasis. "Do you suppose for a moment that your regard +for me is warmer, deeper, more enduring, than is mine for you? Do you, +Athalie?"</p> + +<p>She lifted her eyes to his. But she had nothing more to say on the +subject.</p> + +<p>However, he began to insist,—a little impatiently,—on a direct +answer. And finally she said:</p> + +<p>"Clive, you came into a rather empty life when you came into mine. +Judge how completely you have filled it.... And what it would be if +you went out of it. Your own life has always been full. If I should +disappear from it—" she ceased.</p> + +<p>The quiet, accentless, almost listless dignity of the words surprised +and impressed him for a moment; then the reaction came in a faint glow +through every vein and a sudden impulse to respond to her with an +assurance of devotion a little out of key with the somewhat +<!-- Page 119 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> + stately +and reserved measure of their duet called friendship.</p> + +<p>"You also fill my life," he said. "You give me what I never had—an +intimacy and an understanding that satisfies. Had I my way I would be +with you all the time. No other woman interests me as you do. There +<i>is</i> no other woman."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive! And all the charming people you know—"</p> + +<p>"I know many. None like you, Athalie."</p> + +<p>"That is very sweet of you.... I'm trying to believe it.... I want +to.... There are many days to fill in when I am not with you. To fill +them with such a belief would be to shorten them.... I don't know. I +often wonder where you are; what you are doing; with what stately and +beautiful creature you are talking, laughing, walking, dancing."—She +shrugged her shoulders and gazed down at the dancers below. "The days +are very long, sometimes," she added, half to herself.</p> + +<p>When again, calmly, she turned to him there was an odd expression on +his face, and the next second he reddened and shifted his gaze. +Neither spoke for a few moments.</p> + +<p>Presently she began to draw on her gloves, but he continued staring +into space, not noticing her, and finally she bent forward and rested +her slim gloved fingers on his hand, lightly, interrogatively.</p> + +<p>"Yes; all right," he muttered.</p> + +<p>"I have to go to business in the morning," she pleaded. +<!-- Page 120 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> + He turned +almost impatiently:</p> + +<p>"If I had my way you wouldn't go to business at all."</p> + +<p>"If I had my way I wouldn't either," she rejoined, smilingly. But his +youthful visage remained sober and flushed. And when they were seated +in the limousine and the fur rug enveloped them both, he said +abruptly:</p> + +<p>"I'm getting tired of this business."</p> + +<p>"What business, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"Everything—the way you live—your inadequate +quarters—your having to work all day long in that stuffy office, +day after day, year after year!"</p> + +<p>She said, surprised and perplexed: "But it can't be helped, Clive! I +have to work."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I mean—what good am I to you—what's the use of me, if I can't make +things easier for you?"</p> + +<p>"The <i>use</i> of you? Did you think I ever had any idea of using you?"</p> + +<p>"But I want you to."</p> + +<p>"How?" she asked, still uneasily perplexed, her eyes fixed on him.</p> + +<p>But he had no definite idea, no plan fixed, nothing further to say on +a subject that had so suddenly taken shape within his mind.</p> + +<p>She asked him again for an explanation, but, receiving none, settled +back thoughtfully in her furs. Only once did he break the silence.</p> + +<p>"You know," he said indifferently, "that row of +<!-- Page 121 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> + houses, of which +yours is one, belongs to me. I mean to me, personally."</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't know it."</p> + +<p>"Well it does. It's my own investment.... I've reduced rents—pending +improvements."</p> + +<p>She looked up at him.</p> + +<p>"The rent of your apartment has been reduced fifty per cent.," he said +carelessly; "so your rent is now paid until the new term begins next +October."</p> + +<p>"Clive! That is perfectly ridiculous!" she began, hotly; but he swung +around, silencing her:</p> + +<p>"Are you criticising my business methods?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"But that is too silly—"</p> + +<p>"Will you mind your business!" he exclaimed, turning and taking her by +both shoulders. She looked into his eyes, searching them in silence. +Then:</p> + +<p>"You're such a dear," she sighed; "why do you want to do a thing like +that when my sisters and I can afford to pay the present rent. You are +always doing such things, Clive; you have simply covered my +dressing-table with silver; my bureau is full of pretty things, all +gifts from you; you've given me the loveliest furniture of my own, and +books and desk-set and—and everything. And now you are asking me to +live rent-free.... And what have I to offer you in return?"</p> + +<p>"The happiness of being with you now and then."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive! You know that isn't very much to offer you. You know that +our being together is far more to me than it is to you! I dare not +even consider what +<!-- Page 122 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> + I'd do without you, now. You mould me, alter my +thoughts, make me such a delightfully different girl, take entire +charge and possession of me.... I don't want you to give me anything +more—do anything more for me.... When you first began to give me +beautiful things I didn't want to take them. Do you remember how +awkward and shy I was—how I blushed. But I always end by doing +everything you wish.... And it seems to give us both so much +pleasure—all you do for me.... But please <i>don't</i> ask me to live +without paying rent—"</p> + +<p>The limousine drew up by the curb; Clive jumped out, aided Athalie to +descend; and started for the grilled door where a light glimmered.</p> + +<p>"This is not the house!" exclaimed Athalie, stopping short. "Where are +you taking me, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"Come on," he said, "I merely want to show you how I've had the new +apartment house built—"</p> + +<p>"But—it's too late! What an odd idea, taking me to inspect a new +apartment house at two in the morning! Are you really serious?"</p> + +<p>He nodded and rang. A sleepy night porter opened, recognised Clive, +and touched his hat.</p> + +<p>"Take us to the top, Mike," he said.</p> + +<p>"Have you the keys, sorr?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>They entered the cage and it shot up to the top floor.</p> + +<p>"Wait for us, Mike."... And to Athalie: "This is Michael Daly who will +do anything you ask of him—won't you, Mike?" +<!-- Page 123 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I will that, sorr," said the big Irishman, tipping his hat to +Athalie.</p> + +<p>"But, Clive," she persisted, bewildered, still clinging to his arm, "I +don't understand why—"</p> + +<p>"Little goose, hush!" he replied, subduing the excitement in his voice +and fitting the key into the door.</p> + +<p>"One moment, Athalie," he added, "until I light up. Now!"</p> + +<p>She entered the lighted hallway, walking on a soft green carpet, and +turned, obeying the guiding pressure of his arm, into a big square +room which sprang into brilliant illumination as he found the switch.</p> + +<p>Green and gold were the hangings and prevailing colours; there were +rugs, wide, comfortable chairs and lounges, bookcases, a picture or +two in deep glowing colours, a baby-grand piano, and an open fire +loaded for business.</p> + +<p>"Is it done in good taste, Athalie?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"It is charming. Is it yours, Clive?"</p> + +<p>He laughed, slipped his arm under hers and led her along the hallway, +opening door after door; and first she was invited to observe a very +modern and glistening bathroom, then a bedroom all done in grey and +rose with dainty white furniture and a white-bear rug beside the bed.</p> + +<p>"Why this is a woman's room!" she exclaimed, puzzled.</p> + +<p>He only laughed and drew her along the hall, showing her another +bedroom with twin beds, a maid's room, a big clothes press, and +finally, a completely furnished +<!-- Page 124 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> + kitchen, very modern with its +porcelain baseboard and tiled walls.</p> + +<p>"What do you think of all this, Athalie?" he insisted.</p> + +<p>"Why it's exquisite, Clive. Whose is it?"</p> + +<p>They walked back to the square living-room. He said, teasingly: "Do +you remember, the first time I saw you after those four years,—that +first evening when I came in to surprise you and found you sitting by +the radiator—in your nightie, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, laughing and blushing as she always did when he +tormented her with that souvenir.</p> + +<p>"And I said that you ought to have an open fire. And a cat. Didn't I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"There's your fire, Athalie;" he drew a match from his tiny flat gold +case, struck it, and lighted the nest of pine shavings under the +logs;—"and Michael has the cat when you want it."</p> + +<p>He drew a big soft arm-chair to the mounting blaze. Athalie stood +motionless, staring at the flames, then with a sudden, nervous gesture +she sank down on the arm-chair and covered her face with her gloved +hands.</p> + +<p>He stood waiting, happy and excited, and finally he went over and +touched her; and the girl caught his hand convulsively in both of hers +and looked up at him with wet eyes.</p> + +<p>"How can I do this, Clive? How <i>can</i> I?" she whispered.</p> + +<p>"Any brother would do as much for his sister—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive! You are different! You are <i>more</i> +<!-- Page 125 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> + than that. You know you +are. How can I take all this? Will you tell me? How can I live +here—this way—"</p> + +<p>"Your sisters will be here. You saw their room just now—"</p> + +<p>"But what can I <i>tell</i> them? How can I explain? They know we cannot +afford such luxury as this?"</p> + +<p>"Tell them the rent is the same."</p> + +<p>"They won't believe it. They couldn't. They don't understand even now how it is +with you and me—that you are so dear and generous and kind just because you +are my friend—and no more than my friend.... Not that they really +believe—anything—unpleasant—of +<i>me</i>—but—but—"</p> + +<p>"What do you care—as long as it isn't so?" he said, coolly.</p> + +<p>"I don't care. Except that it weakens my authority over them.... +Catharine is very impulsive, and she dearly loves a good time—and she +is becoming sullen with me when I try to advise her or curb her.... +And it's so with Doris, too.... I'd like to keep my influence.... But +if they ever really began to believe that between you and me there +was—more—than friendship, I—I don't know what they might feel free +to think—or do—"</p> + +<p>"They're older than you."</p> + +<p>"Yes. But I seem to have the authority,—or I did have."</p> + +<p>They looked into the leaping flames; he threw open his fur coat and +seated himself on the padded arm of her chair. +<!-- Page 126 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> + +<p>"All I know is," he said, "that it gives me the deepest and most +enduring happiness to do things for you. When the architect planned +this house I had him design a place for you. Ultimately all the row of +old houses are to be torn down and replaced by modern apartments with +moderate rentals. So you will have to move anyway sooner or later. Why +not come here <i>now</i>?"</p> + +<p>Half unconsciously she had rested her cheek against the fur lining of +his coat where it fell against his arm. He looked down at her, touched +her hair—a thing he had never thought of doing before.</p> + +<p>"Why not come here, Athalie?" he said caressingly.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. It would be heavenly. Do you want me to, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. And I want you to begin to put away part of your salary, too. +You might as well begin, now. You will be free from the burden of +rent, free from—various burdens—"</p> + +<p>"I—can't—let you—"</p> + +<p>"I want to!"</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because it gives me pleasure—"</p> + +<p>"No; because you desire to give <i>me</i> pleasure! <i>That</i> is the reason!" +she exclaimed with partly restrained passion—"because you are +<i>you</i>—and there is nobody like you in all the world—in all the +world, Clive!—"</p> + +<p>To her emotion his own flashed a quick, warm response. He looked down +at her, deeply touched, his pride gratified, his boyish vanity +<!-- Page 127 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +satisfied. Always had the simplicity and candour of her quick and +ardent gratitude corroborated and satisfied whatever was in him of +youthful self-esteem. Everything about her seemed to minister to +it—her attention in public places was undisguisedly for him alone; +her beauty, her superb youth and health, the admiring envy of other +people—all these flattered him.</p> + +<p>Why should he not find pleasure in giving to such a girl as +this?—giving without scruple—unscrupulous too, perhaps, concerning +the effect his generosity might have on a cynical world which looked +on out of wearied and incredulous eyes; unscrupulous, perhaps, +concerning the effect his too lavish kindness might have on a young +girl unaccustomed to men and the ways of men.</p> + +<p>But there was no harm in him; he was very much self-assured of that. +He had been too carefully brought up—far too carefully reared. And +had people ventured to question him, and had they escaped alive his +righteous violence, they would have learned that there really was not +the remotest chance that his mother was in danger of becoming what she +most dreaded in all the world.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>The fire burned lower; they sat watching it together, her flushed +cheek against the fur of his coat, his arm extended along the back of +the chair behind her.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "this has been another happy evening."</p> + +<p>She stirred in assent, and he felt the lightest possible pressure +against him. +<!-- Page 128 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Are you contented, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>After a moment he glanced at his watch. It was three o'clock. So he +rose, placed the screen over the fireplace, and then came back to +where she now stood, looking very intently at the opposite wall. And +he turned to see what interested her. But there seemed to be nothing +in particular just there.</p> + +<p>"What are you staring at, little ghost-seer?" he asked, passing his +hand under her arm; and stepped back, surprised, as she freed herself +with a quick, nervous movement, looked at him, then averted her head.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter, Athalie?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Nothing.... Don't touch me, Clive."</p> + +<p>"No, of course not.... But what in the world—"</p> + +<p>"Nothing.... Don't ask me." Presently he saw her very slowly move her +head and look back at the empty corner of the room; and remain so, +motionless for a moment. Then she turned with a sigh, came quietly to +him; and he drew her hand through his arm.</p> + +<p>"Of what were you thinking, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"Of nothing."</p> + +<p>"Did you think you saw something over there?"</p> + +<p>She was silent.</p> + +<p>"What were you looking at?" he insisted.</p> + +<p>"Nothing.... I don't care to talk just now—"</p> + +<p>"Tell me, Athalie!"</p> + +<p>"No.... No, I don't want to, Clive—"</p> + +<p>"I wish to know!"</p> + +<p>"I can't—there is nothing to tell you—" she laid one hand on his +coat, almost pleadingly, and looked up +<!-- Page 129 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> + at him out of eyes so dark +that only the starry light in them betrayed that they were blue and +not velvet black.</p> + +<p>"That same thing has happened before," he said, looking at her, deeply +perplexed. "Several times since I have known you the same expression +has come into your face—as though you were looking at something +which—"</p> + +<p>"Please don't, Clive!—"</p> + +<p>"—Which," he insisted, "I did not see.... <i>Could</i> not see!"</p> + +<p>"Clive!"</p> + +<p>He stared at her rather blankly: "Why don't you tell me?"</p> + +<p>"I—can't!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Is</i> there anything—"</p> + +<p>"Don't! Don't!" she begged; but he went on, still staring at her:</p> + +<p>"Is there any reason for you to—not to be frank with me? <i>Is</i> there, +Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"No; no reason.... I'll tell you ... if you will understand. <i>Must</i> I +tell you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Her head fell; she stood plucking nervously at his fur coat for a +while in silence. Then:</p> + +<p>"Clive, I—I <i>see clearly</i>."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"I mean that I see a—a little more clearly than—some do. Do you +understand?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>She sighed, stood twisting her white-gloved fingers, looking away from +him. +<!-- Page 130 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I am clairvoyant," she breathed.</p> + +<p>"Athalie! <i>You?</i>"</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>For a second or two he stood silent in his astonishment; then, taking +her hand, he drew her around facing the light, and she looked up at +him in her lovely abashed way, yet so honestly, that anybody who could +recognise truth and candour, could never have mistaken such eyes as +hers.</p> + +<p>"Who told you that you are clairvoyant?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"My mother."</p> + +<p>"Then—"</p> + +<p>"It was not necessary for anybody to tell me that I saw—more +clearly—than other people.... Mother knew it.... She merely explained +and gave a name to this—this—whatever it is—this quality—this +ability to see clearly.... That is all, Clive."</p> + +<p>He was evidently trying to comprehend and digest what she had said. +She watched him, saw surprise and incredulity in conflict with +uneasiness and with the belief he could not avoid from lips that were +not fashioned for lies, and from eyes never made to even look +untruths.</p> + +<p>"I had never supposed there was such a thing as real clairvoyance," he +said at last.</p> + +<p>She remained silent, her candid gaze on him.</p> + +<p>"I believe that <i>you</i> believe it, of course."</p> + +<p>She smiled, then sighed:</p> + +<p>"There is no pleasure in it to me. I wish it were not so." +<!-- Page 131 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But, if it is so, you ought to find it—interesting—"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Why not? I should think you would!—if you can see—things—that +other people cannot."</p> + +<p>"I don't care to see them."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"They—I see them so often—and I seldom know who they are—"</p> + +<p>"They?"</p> + +<p>"The—people—I see."</p> + +<p>"Don't they ever speak to you?"</p> + +<p>"Seldom."</p> + +<p>"Could you find out who they are?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know.... Yes, I think so;—if I made an effort."</p> + +<p>"Don't you ever use any effort to evoke—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive! <i>No!</i> When I tell you I had rather not see so—so +clearly—"</p> + +<p>"You dear girl!" he exclaimed, half smiling, half serious, "why should +it distress you?"</p> + +<p>"It doesn't—except to talk about it."</p> + +<p>"Let me ask one more question. May I?"</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>"Then—did you recognise whoever it was you saw a few moments ago?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Who was it, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"My mother." +<!-- Page 132 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<p class="cap">EARLY in April C. Bailey, Jr., overdrew his account, was politely +notified of that oversight by the bank. He hunted about, casually, for +stray funds, but to his intense surprise discovered nothing +immediately available.</p> + +<p>Which annoyed him, and he explained the situation to his father; who +demanded further and sordidly searching explanations concerning the +expenditure on his son's part of an income more than adequate for any +unmarried young man.</p> + +<p>They undertook this interesting line of research together, but there +came a time in the proceedings when C. Bailey, Jr., betrayed violent +inclinations toward reticence, non-communication, and finally secrecy; +in fact he declined to proceed any further or to throw any more light +upon his reasons for not proceeding, which symptoms were +characteristic and perfectly familiar to his father.</p> + +<p>"The trouble is," concluded Bailey, Sr., "you have been throwing away +your income on that Greensleeve girl! What is she—your private +property?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>The two men looked at each other, steadily enough. Bailey, Sr., said: +"If <i>that's</i> the case—why in the name of common sense do you spend so +much money on her?" Naïve logic on the part of Bailey, Sr., Clive replied: +<!-- Page 133 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>"I didn't suppose I was spending very much. I like her. I like her +better than any other girl. She is really wonderful, father. You won't +believe it if I say she is charming, well-bred, clever—"</p> + +<p>"I believe <i>that</i>!"</p> + +<p>—"And," continued Clive—"absolutely unselfish and non-mercenary."</p> + +<p>"If she's all that, too, it certainly seems to pay her—materially +speaking."</p> + +<p>"You don't understand," said his son patiently. "From the very +beginning of our friendship it has been very difficult for me to make +her accept anything—even when she was in actual need. Our friendship +is not on <i>that</i> basis. She doesn't care for me because of what I do +for her. It may surprise you to hear me—"</p> + +<p>"My son, nothing surprises me any more, not even virtue and honesty. +This girl may be all you think her. Personally I never met any like +her, but I've read about them in sentimental fiction. No doubt there's +a basis for such popular heroines. There may have been such paragons. +There may be yet. Perhaps you've collided with one of these feminine +curiosities."</p> + +<p>"I have."</p> + +<p>"All right, Clive. Only, why linger longer in the side-show than the +price of admission warrants? The main tent awaits you. In more modern +metaphor; it's the same film every hour, every day, the same +<!-- Page 134 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +orchestrion, the same environment. You've seen enough. There's nothing +more—if I clearly understand your immaculate intentions. Do I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Clive, reddening.</p> + +<p>"All right; there's nothing more, then. It's time to retire. You've +had your amusement, and you've paid for it like a gentleman—very much +like a gentleman—rather exorbitantly. That's the way a gentleman +always pays. So now suppose you return to your own sort and coyly +reappear amid certain circles recently neglected, and which, at one +period of your career, you permitted yourself to embellish and adorn +with your own surpassing personality."</p> + +<p>They both laughed; there had been, always, a very tolerant +understanding between them.</p> + +<p>Then Clive's face grew graver.</p> + +<p>"Father," he said, "I've tried remaining away. It doesn't do any good. +The longer I stay away from her, the more anxious I am to go back.... +It's really friendship I tell you."</p> + +<p>"You're not in love with her, are you, Clive?"</p> + +<p>The son hesitated: "No!... No, I can't be. I'm very certain that I am +not."</p> + +<p>"What would you do if you were?"</p> + +<p>"But—"</p> + +<p>"What would you <i>do</i> about it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Marry her?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't do that!" muttered Clive, startled. Then he remained +silent, his mind crowded with the component parts of that vague +sum-total which had so +<!-- Page 135 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +startled him at the idea of marrying Athalie Greensleeve.</p> + +<p>Partly his father's blunt question had jarred him, partly the idea of +marrying anybody at all. Also the mere idea of the storm such a +proceeding would raise in the world he inhabited, his mother being the +storm-centre, dispensing anathema, thunder, and lightning, appalled +him.</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't do <i>that</i>," he repeated, gazing rather blankly at his +father.</p> + +<p>"You could if you <i>had</i> to," said his father, curtly. "But I take your +word it couldn't come to that."</p> + +<p>The boy flushed hotly, but said nothing. He shrank from comprehending +such an impossible situation, ashamed for himself, ashamed for +Athalie, resenting even the exaggerated and grotesque possibility of +such a thing—such a monstrous and horrible thing playing any part in +her life or in his.</p> + +<p>The frankness and cynicism of Bailey, Sr., had possibly been pushed +too far. Clive became restless; and the calm entente cordiale ended +for a while.</p> + +<p>Ended also his visits to Athalie for a while, the paternal +conversation having, somehow, chilled his desire to see her and +spoiled, for the time anyway, any pleasure in being with her.</p> + +<p>Also his father offered to help him out financially; and, somehow, he +felt as though Bailey, Sr., was paying for his own gifts to Athalie. +Which idea mortified him, and he resolved to remain away from her +until he recovered his self-respect—which would be duly +<!-- Page 136 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> + recovered, he felt certain, when the next coupons fell due and he could detach +them and extinguish the parental loan.</p> + +<p>For a week or two he did not even wish to see her, so ashamed and +sullied did he feel after the way his father had handled and bruised +the delicate situation, and the name of the young girl who so +innocently adorned it.</p> + +<p>No, something had been spoiled for him, temporarily. He felt it. +Something of the sweetness, the innocence, the candour of this +blameless friendship had been marred. The bloom was rubbed off; the +piquant freshness and fragrance gone for the present.</p> + +<p>It is true that an unexpected boom in his business kept him and his +father almost feverishly active and left them both fatigued at night. +This lasted for a week or two—long enough to excite all real estate +men with a hope for future prosperity not yet entirely dead. But at +the end of two or three weeks that hope began to die its usual, +lingering death.</p> + +<p>Dulness set in; the talk was of Harlem, Westchester, and the Bronx: a +private bank failed, then three commercial houses went to the wall; +and a seat was sold for $25,000 on the Exchange. Business resumed its +normal and unexaggerated course. The days of boom were surely ended; +and vacant lots on Fifth Avenue threatened to remain vacant for a +while longer.</p> + +<p>Clive began to drop in at his clubs again. One was a Whipper-Snapper +Club to which young Manhattan aspired when freshly released from +college; the others were of the fashionable and semi-fashionable sort, +tedious, monotonous, full of the aimless, the idle, or +<!-- Page 137 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> + of that bustling and showy smartness which is perhaps even less admirable and +less easy to endure.</p> + +<p>Men destitute of mental resources and dependent upon others for their +amusement, disillusioned men, lazy men, socially ambitious men, men +gluttonously or alcoholically predisposed haunted these clubs. To one +of them repaired those who were inclined to racquettes, squash, +tennis, and the swimming tank. It was a sort of social clearing house +for other clubs.</p> + +<p>But The Geyser was the least harmless of the clubs affected by C. +Bailey, Jr.,—it being an all-night resort and the haunt of the +hopeless sport. Here dissipation, futile, aimless, meaningless, was on +its native heath. Here, on his own stamping ground, prowled the +youthful scion of many a dissipated race—nouveau riche and +Knickerbocker alike. All that was required of anybody was money and a +depthless capacity.</p> + +<p>It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil Reeve one stormy +midnight.</p> + +<p>"You don't come here often, do you?" said the latter.</p> + +<p>Clive said he didn't.</p> + +<p>"Neither do I. But when I do there's a few doing. Will you have a high +one, Clive? In deference to our late and revered university?"</p> + +<p>Clive would so far consent to degrade himself for the honour of Alma +Mater.</p> + +<p>There was much honour done her that evening.</p> + +<p>Toward the beginning of the end Clive said: "I can't sit up all night, +Cecil. What do you do for a living, anyway?"</p> + +<p>"Bank a bit." +<!-- Page 138 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;"> +<img src="images/gs08.jpg" width="250" height="406" +alt=""It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil +Reeve one stormy midnight."" +title=""It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil +Reeve one stormy midnight."" /> +<span class="caption">"It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil +Reeve one stormy midnight."</span> +</div><p> + +<!-- Page 139 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> +<!-- Page 140 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, that's just amusement. What do you work at?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean that kind of bank!" said Reeve, annoyed. All sense of +humour fled him when hammerlocked with Bacchus. At such psychological +moments, too, he became indiscreet. And now he proposed to Clive an +excursion amid what he termed the "high lights of Olympus," which the +latter discouraged.</p> + +<p>"All right then. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give a Byzantine +party! I know a little girl—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, shut up!"</p> + +<p>"She's a fine little girl, Clive—"</p> + +<p>"This is no hour to send out invitations."</p> + +<p>"Why not? Her name is Catharine—"</p> + +<p>"Dry up!"</p> + +<p>"Catharine Greensleeve—"</p> + +<p>"What!"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. She's a model at Winton's joint. She's a peach. +Appropriately crowned with roses she might have presided for +Lucullus."</p> + +<p>Clive said: "By that you mean she's all right, don't you? You'd better +mean it anyway!"</p> + +<p>"Is that so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's so. I know her sister. She's a charming girl. All of them +are all right. You understand, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"I understand numerous things. One of 'em's Catharine Greensleeve. And +she's some plum, believe <i>me</i>!"</p> + +<p>"That's all right, too, so stop talking about it!" retorted Clive +sharply. +<!-- Page 141 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sure it's all right. Don't worry, just because you know her sister, +will you?"</p> + +<p>Clive shrugged. Reeve was in a troublesome mood, and he left him and +went home feeling vaguely irritated and even less inclined than ever +to see Athalie; which state of mind perplexed and irritated him still +further.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>He went to one or two dances during the week—a thing he had not done +lately. Then he went to several more; also to a number of débutante +theatre parties and to several suppers. He rather liked being with his +own sort again; the comfortable sense of home-coming, of +conventionalism, of a pleasant social security, appealed to him after +several months' irresponsible straying from familiar paths. And he +began to go about the sheep-walks and enjoy it, slipping back rather +easily into accustomed places and relations with men and women who +belonged in a world never entered, never seen by Athalie Greensleeve, +and of the existence of which she was aware only through the daily +papers.</p> + +<p>He wrote to her now and then. Always she answered his letter the +following day.</p> + +<p>About the end of April he wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Athalie</span>,</p> + +<p>"About everything seems to conspire to keep me from seeing +you; business—in a measure,—social duties; and, to tell the +truth, a mistaken but strenuous opposition on my mother's +part.</p> + +<p>"She doesn't know you, and refuses to. But she knows me, and +ought to infer everything delightful in the girl who has +become my friend. Because she knows that I don't, and never +did affect the other sort.</p> +</div> + +<p><!-- Page 142 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/gs09.jpg" width="300" height="524" +alt=""He rather liked being with his own sort again."" +title=""He rather liked being with his own sort again."" /> +<span class="caption">"He rather liked being with his own sort again."</span> +</div> + +<p><!-- Page 143 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> +<!-- Page 144 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>"Every day, recently, she has asked me whether I have seen +you. To avoid unpleasant discussions I haven't gone to see +you. But I am going to as soon as this unreasonable alarm +concerning us blows over.</p> + +<p>"It seems very deplorable to me that two young people cannot +enjoy an absolutely honest friendship unsuspected and +undisturbed.</p> + +<p>"I miss you a lot. Is the apartment comfortable? Does Michael +do everything you wish? Did the cat prove a good one? I sent +for the best Angora to be had from the Silver Cloud Cattery.</p> + +<p>"Now tell me, Athalie, what can I do for you? <i>Please!</i> What +is it you need; what is it you would like to have? Are you +saving part of your salary?</p> + +<p>"Tell me also what you do with yourself after business hours. +Have you seen any shows? I suppose you go out with your +sisters now and then.</p> + +<p>"As for me I go about more or less. For a while I didn't: +business seemed to revive and everybody in real estate became +greatly excited. But it all simmered down again to the usual +routine. So I've been going about to various affairs, dances +and things. And, consequently, there's peace and quiet at home +for me.</p> + + + +</div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">"Always yours,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 10em;" class="smcap"> +"C Bailey, Jr."</span><br /> +</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"P.S. As I sit here writing you the desire seizes me to drop +my pen, put on my hat and coat and go to see you. But I can't. +There's a dinner on here, and I've got to stay for it. Good +night, dear Athalie!</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 6em;" class="smcap">"Clive." +</span></p> +</div> + +<p><!-- Page 145 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<p>His answer came by return mail as usual:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Clive</span>,</p> + +<p>"Your letter has troubled me so much. If your mother feels +that way about me, what are we to do? Is it right for us to +see each other?</p> + +<p>"It is true that I am not conscious of any wrong in seeing you +and in being your friend. I know that I never had an unworthy +thought concerning you. And I feel confident that your +thoughts regarding our friendship and me are blameless. Where +lies the wrong?</p> + +<p>"<i>Some</i> aspects of the affair <i>have</i> troubled me lately. +Please do not be sensitive and take offence, Clive, if I admit +to you that I never have quite reconciled myself to accepting +anything from you.</p> + +<p>"What I have accepted has been for your own sake—for the +pleasure you found in giving, not for my own sake.</p> + +<p>"I wanted only your friendship. That was enough—more than +enough to make me happy and contented.</p> + +<p>"I was not in want; I had sufficient; I lived better than I +had ever lived; I was self-reliant, self-supporting, +and—forgive and understand me, Clive—a little more +self-respecting than I now am.</p> + +<p>"It is true I had saved very little; but I am young and life +is before me.</p> + +<p>"This seems very ungrateful of me, very ungenerous after all +you have done for me—all I have taken from you.</p> + +<p>"But, Clive, it is the truth, and I think it ought to be told. +Because this is, and has always been, a source +<!-- Page 146 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> +of self-reproach to me, whether rightly or wrongly, I don't know. +I am a novice at confession, but I feel that, if I am to make +a clean breast to you, partial confession is not worth while, +not really honest, not worthy of the very sacred friendship +that inspires it.</p> + +<p>"So I shall shrive myself as well as I know how and continue +to admit to you my further doubts and misgivings. They are +these: my sisters do not understand your friendship for me +even if they understand mine for you—which they say they do.</p> + +<p>"I don't think they believe me dishonest; but they cannot see +any reason for your generosity to me unless you ultimately +expect me to be dishonest.</p> + +<p>"This has weakened my influence with them. I know I am the +youngest, yet until recently I had a certain authority in +matters regarding the common welfare and the common policy. +But this is nearly gone. They point out with perfect truth +that I myself do, with you, the very things for which I +criticise them and against which I warn them.</p> + +<p>"Of course the radical difference is that I do these things +with <i>you</i>; but they can't understand why you are any better, +any finer, any more admirable, any further to be trusted than +the men they go about with alone.</p> + +<p>"It is quite in vain that I explain to them what sort of man +you are. They retort that I merely <i>think</i> so.</p> + +<p>"There is a man who takes Catharine out more frequently, and +keeps her out much later than I like. I mean Cecil Reeve. But +what I say only makes my sister sullen. She knows he is a +friend of yours.... +<!-- Page 147 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> +And, Clive, I am rather afraid she is +beginning to care more for him than is quite safe for her to +ever care for any man of that class.</p> + +<p>"And Doris has met other men of the same kind—I don't know +who they are, for she won't tell me. But after the theatre she +goes out with them; and it is doing her no good.</p> + +<p>"There is only one more item in my confession, then I'm done.</p> + +<p>"It is this: I have heard recently from various sources that +my being seen with you so frequently is causing much gossip +concerning you among your friends.</p> + +<p>"Is this true? And if it is, will it damage you? I don't care +about myself. I know very few people and it doesn't matter. +Besides I care enough about our companionship to continue it, +whatever untruths are said or thought about me. But how about +<i>you</i>, Clive? Because I also care enough for you to give you +up if my being seen with you is going to disgrace you.</p> + +<p>"This is my confession. I have told you all. Now, could you +tell me what it is best for us to do?</p> + +<p>"Think clearly; act wisely; don't even dream of sacrificing +yourself with your usual generosity—if it is indeed to be a +case for self-sacrifice. Let me do that by giving you up. I +shall do it anyway if ever I am convinced that my +companionship is hurting your reputation.</p> + +<p>"Be just to us both by being frank with me. Your decision +shall be my law. +<!-- Page 148 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> + +<p>"This is a long, long letter. I can't seem to let it go to +you—as though when I mail it I am snapping one more bond that +still seems to hold us together.</p> + +<p>"My daily life is agreeable if a trifle monotonous. I have +been out two or three times, once to see the Morgan Collection +at the Metropolitan Museum—very dazzling and wonderful. What +strange thoughts it evoked in me—thrilling, delightful, +exhilarating—as though inspiring me to some blind effort or +other. Isn't it ridiculous?—as though <i>I</i> had it in me to do +anything or be anybody! I'm merely telling you how all that +exquisite art affected me—<i>me</i>—a working girl. And Oh, +Clive! I don't think anything ever gave me as much pleasure as +did the paintings by the French masters, Lancret, Drouais, and +Fragonard! (You see I had a catalogue!)</p> + +<p>"Another evening I went out with Catharine. Mr. Reeve asked +us, and another man. We went to see 'Once Upon a Time' at the +Half-Moon Theatre, and afterward we went to supper at the Café +Columbine.</p> + +<p>"Another evening the other man, Mr. Reeve's friend, a Mr. +Hargrave, asked me to see 'Under the Sun' at the Zig-Zag +Theatre. It was a tiresome show. We went to supper afterward +to meet Catharine and Mr. Reeve.</p> + +<p>"That is all except that I've dined out once or twice with Mr. +Hargrave. And, somehow or other I felt queer and even +conspicuous going to the Regina with him and to other places +where you and I have been so often together...Also I felt a +little depressed. Everything always reminded me of you and of +happy +<!-- Page 149 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> +evenings with you. I can't seem to get used to going +about with other men. But they seem to be very nice, very +kind, and very amusing.</p> + +<p>"And a girl ought to be thankful to almost anybody who will +take her out of her monotony.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you've given me a taste for luxury and amusement. +You <i>have</i> spoiled me I fear. I am certainly an ungrateful +little beast, am I not, to lay the blame on you! But it is +dull, Clive, after working all day to sit every evening +reading alone, or lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling, +waiting for the others to come home.</p> + +<p>"If it were not for that darling cat you gave me I'd perish of +sheer solitude. But he is such a comfort, Hafiz; and his eyes +are the bluest blue and his long, winter fur the snowiest +white, and his ruff is wonderful and his tail magnificent. +Also he is <i>very</i> affectionate to me. For which, with perfect +reverence, I venture to thank God.</p> + +<p>"Good night, Clive. If you've struggled through this letter so +far you won't mind reading that I am faithfully and always +your friend,</p> + + +</div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;" class="smcap">"Athalie Greensleeve."</span> +<br /> +</p> + + +<p>Her letter thoroughly aroused Clive and he was all for going straight +to her—only he couldn't go that evening because he dared not break a +dinner engagement or fail to appear with his mother at the opera. In +fact he was already involved in a mess of social obligations for two +weeks ahead,—not an evening free—and Athalie worked during the day. +<!-- Page 150 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p> + +<p>It gave him an odd, restless sensation to hear of her going about with +Francis Hargrave—dining alone with him. He felt almost hurt as though +she had done him a personal injustice, yet he knew that it was absurd +for him to resent anything of that sort. His monopoly of her happened +to be one merely because she, at that time, knew no other man of his +sort, and would not go out with any other kind of man.</p> + +<p>Why should he expect her to remain eternally isolated except when he +chose to take her out? No young girl could endure that sort of thing +too long. Certainly Athalie was inevitably destined to meet other men, +be admired, admire in her turn, accept invitations. She was unusually +beautiful,—a charming, intelligent, clean-cut, healthy young girl. +She required companionship and amusement; she would be unhuman if she +didn't.</p> + +<p>Only—men were men. And safe and sane friendships between men of his +own caste, and girls like Athalie Greensleeve, were rare.</p> + +<p>Clive chafed and became restive and morose. In vain he repeated to +himself that what Athalie was doing was perfectly natural. But it +didn't make the idea of her going out with other men any more +attractive to him.</p> + +<p>His clever mother, possibly aware of what ferment was working in her +son, watched him out of the tail of her ornamental eyes, but wisely +let him alone to fidget his own way out of it. She had heard that the +Greensleeve girl was raising hob with Cecil Reeve and Francis +Hargrave. They were other people's sons, however. +<!-- Page 151 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> +And it might have worked itself out of Clive—this +restless ferment which soured his mind and gave him an acid satisfaction +in being anything but cordial in his own family circle.</p> + +<p>But there was a girl—a débutante, very desirable for Clive his mother +thought—one Winifred Stuart—and very delightful to look upon.</p> + +<p>And Clive had seen just enough of her to like her exceedingly; and, at +dances, had even wandered about to look for her, and had evinced +boredom and dissatisfaction when she had not been present.</p> + +<p>Which inspired his mother to give a theatre party for little Miss +Stuart and two dozen other youngsters, and a supper at the Regina +afterward.</p> + +<p>It was an excellent idea; and it went as wrong as such excellent ideas +so often go. For as Clive in company with the others sauntered into +the splendid reception room of the Regina, he saw Athalie come in with +a man whom he had never before seen.</p> + +<p>The shock of recognition—for it was a shock—was mutual. Athalie's +dark eyes widened and a little colour left her cheeks: and Clive +reddened painfully.</p> + +<p>It was, perhaps, scarcely the thing to do, but as she advanced he +stepped forward, and their hands met.</p> + +<p>"I am so very glad to see you again," he said.</p> + +<p>"I too, Clive. Are you well?"</p> + +<p>"And you?"</p> + +<p>"Quite," she hesitated; there was a moment's pause while the two men +looked coolly at each other.</p> + +<p>"May I present Mr. Bailey, Captain Dane?" +<!-- Page 152 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> +Further she did not account for Captain Dane, +who presently took her off somewhere leaving Clive +to return to his smiling but enraged mother.</p> + +<p>Never had he found any supper party so noisy, so mirthless, and so +endless. Half the time he didn't know what he was saying to Winifred +Stuart or to anybody else. Nor could he seem to see anybody very +distinctly, for the mental phantoms of Athalie and Captain Dane +floated persistently before him, confusing everything at moments +except the smiling and deadly glance of his mother.</p> + +<p>Afterward they went to their various homes in various automobiles, and +Clive was finally left with his mother in his own drawing-room.</p> + +<p>"What you did this evening," she said to her son, "was not exactly the +thing to do under the circumstances, Clive."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he asked wearily as her maid relieved her of her sables and +lace hood.</p> + +<p>"Because it was not necessary.... That girl you spoke to was the +Greensleeve girl I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Athalie Greensleeve."</p> + +<p>"Who was the man?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know—a Captain Dane I believe."</p> + +<p>"Wasn't a civil bow enough?"</p> + +<p>"Enough? Perhaps; I don't know, mother. I don't seem to know how much +is due her from me. She's never had anything from me so far—anything +worth having—"</p> + +<p>"Don't be a fool, Clive."</p> + +<p>He said, absently: "It's too late for such advice! +<!-- Page 153 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> + I <i>am</i> a fool. And I don't quite understand how not to be one."</p> + +<p>His mother, rather fearful of arousing in him any genuine emotion, +discreetly kissed him good night.</p> + +<p>"You're a slightly romantic boy," she said. "There is nothing else the +matter with you."</p> + +<p>They mounted the velvet-covered stairway together, her arm around his +neck, his encircling a slender, pliant waist that a girl of sixteen +might have envied. Her maid followed with furs and hood.</p> + +<p>"Come into my bedroom and smoke, Clive," she smiled. "We can talk +through the dressing-room door."</p> + +<p>"No; I think I'll turn in."</p> + +<p>The maid continued on through the rose and ivory bedroom and into the +dressing-room. Mrs. Bailey lingered, intuition and experience +preparing her for what a boy of that age was very sure to say.</p> + +<p>And after some fidgeting about he said it:</p> + +<p>"Mother, honestly what did you think of her?"</p> + +<p>His mother's smile remained unaltered: "Do you mean the Greensleeve +girl?"</p> + +<p>"I mean Athalie Greensleeve."</p> + +<p>"She is pretty in a rather common way."</p> + +<p>"Common!"</p> + +<p>"Did you think she is not?"</p> + +<p>"Common," he repeated in boyish astonishment. "What is there common +about her?"</p> + +<p>"If <i>you</i> can't see it any woman of your own class can."</p> + +<p><!-- Page 154 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/gs10.jpg" width="600" height="387" +alt=""'Wasn't a civil bow enough?"" +title=""'Wasn't a civil bow enough?"" /> +<span class="caption">"'Wasn't a civil bow enough?"</span> +</div> + +<p><!-- Page 156 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> +<p>Which remark aroused all that was dramatic and poetic in the boy, and +he spoke with a slightly exaggerated phraseology:</p> + +<p>"What is there common about this very beautiful girl? Surely not her +features. Her head, her figure, her hands, her feet are delicate and +very exquisitely formed; in her bearing there is an unconscious and +sweet dignity; her voice is soft, charming, well-bred. What is there +about her that you find common?"</p> + +<p>His mother, irritated and secretly dismayed, maintained, however, her +placid mask and her attitude of toleration.</p> + +<p>She said: "I distinguish between a woman to the manner born, and a +woman who is not. The difference is as subtle as intuition and as wide +as the ocean. And, dear, no young man, however clever, is clever +enough to instruct his mother concerning such matters."</p> + +<p>"I was asking you to instruct me," he said.</p> + +<p>"Very well. If you wish to know the difference between the imitation +and the real, compare that young woman with Winifred Stuart."</p> + +<p>Clive's gaze shifted from his mother and became fixed on space.</p> + +<p>After a moment his pretty mother moved toward the dressing-room: "If +you will find a chair and light a cigarette, Clive, we can continue +talking."</p> + +<p>His absent eyes reverted to her: "I think I'll go, mother. Good +night."</p> + +<p>"Good night, dear."</p> + +<p>He went to his own room. From the room adjoining came his father's +heavy breathing where he lay asleep. +<!-- Page 157 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<p>The young fellow listened for a moment, then walked into the library +where only a dim night-light was burning. He still wore his overcoat +over his evening clothes, and carried his hat and stick.</p> + +<p>For a while he stood in the dim library, head bent, staring at the rug +under foot.</p> + +<p>Then he turned, went out and down the stairs, and opened the door of +the butler's pantry. The service telephone was there. He unhooked the +receiver and called. Almost immediately he got his "party."</p> + +<p>"Yes?" came the distant voice distinctly.</p> + +<p>"Is it you, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes.... Oh, <i>Clive!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Didn't you recognise my voice?"</p> + +<p>"Not immediately."</p> + +<p>"When did you come in?"</p> + +<p>"Just this moment. I still have on my evening wrap."</p> + +<p>"Did you have an agreeable evening?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Are you tired?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"May I come around and see you for a few minutes?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"All right," he said briefly. +<!-- Page 158 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<p class="cap">THE door of the apartment stood ajar and he walked in. Athalie, still +in her evening gown, rose from the sofa before the fire, dropping the +white Angora, Hafiz, from her lap.</p> + +<p>"It's so good of you, Clive," she said, offering her hand.</p> + +<p>"It's good of <i>you</i>, Athalie, to let me come."</p> + +<p>"<i>Let</i> you!" There was a smile on her sensitive lips, scarcely +perceptible.</p> + +<p>He dropped coat, hat, and walking stick across a chair; she seated +herself on the sofa, and he came over and found a place for himself +beside her.</p> + +<p>"It's been a long time, Athalie. Has it seemed so to you?"</p> + +<p>She nodded. Hafiz, marching to and fro, his plumy tail curling around +her knees, looked up at his mistress out of sapphire eyes.</p> + +<p>"Jump, darling," she said invitingly. Hafiz sprang onto her lap with a +quick contented little mew, stretched his superb neck and began to rub +against her shoulder, purring ecstatically.</p> + +<p>"He'll cover me with long white hairs," she remarked to Clive, "but I +don't care. Isn't he a beauty? Hasn't he seraphic eyes and angelic +manners?"</p> + +<p>Clive nodded, watching the cat with sombre and detached interest. +<!-- Page 159 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> + +<p>She said, stroking Hafiz and looking down at the magnificent animal: +"Did you have a pleasant evening, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"Not very."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry. Your party seemed to be such a very gay one."</p> + +<p>"They made a lot of noise."</p> + +<p>She laughed: "Is that a very gracious way to put it?"</p> + +<p>"Probably not.... Where had you been before you appeared at the +Regina?"</p> + +<p>"To see some moving pictures taken in the South American jungle. It +was really wonderful, Clive: there were parrots and monkeys and +crocodiles and wild pigs—peccaries I think they are called—and then +a big, spotted, chunky-headed jaguar stalked into view! I was so +excited, so interested—"</p> + +<p>"Where was it?"</p> + +<p>"On the middle fork of the upper Amazon—"</p> + +<p>"I mean where were the films exhibited?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! At the Berkeley. It was a private view."</p> + +<p>"Who invited you?"</p> + +<p>"Captain Dane."</p> + +<p>He looked up at her, soberly:</p> + +<p>"Who is Captain Dane?"</p> + +<p>"Why—I don't know exactly. He is a most interesting man. I think he +has been almost everything—a naturalist, an explorer, a scout in the +Boer War, a soldier of fortune, a newspaper man. He is fascinating to +talk to, Clive."</p> + +<p>"Where did you meet him?" +<!-- Page 160 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> + +<p>"In the office. Mr. Wahlbaum collects orchids, and Captain Dane looked +up some for him when he was on the Amazon a short time ago. He came +into the office about week before last and Mr. Wahlbaum introduced him +to me. They sat there talking for an hour. It was <i>so</i> interesting to +me; and I think Captain Dane noticed how attentively I listened, for +very often he addressed himself to me.... And he asked Mr. Wahlbaum, +very nicely, if he might show me the orchids which are in the +Botanical Gardens, and that is how our friendship began."</p> + +<p>"You go about with him?"</p> + +<p>"Whenever he asks me. I went with him last Sunday to the Museum of +Natural History. Just think, Clive, I had never been. And, do you +know, he could scarcely drag me away."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you dined with him afterward," he said coolly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, at a funny little place—I couldn't tell you where it is—but +everybody seemed to know everybody else and it was so jolly and +informal—and such good food! I met a number of people there some of +whom have called on me since—"</p> + +<p>"What sort of people?"</p> + +<p>"About every interesting sort—men like Captain Dane, writers, +travellers, men engaged in unusual professions. And there were a few +delightful women present, all in some business or profession. Mlle. +Delauny of the Opera was there—so pretty and so unaffected. And there +was also that handsome suffragette who looks like Jeanne d' Arc—" +<!-- Page 161 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Nina Grey."</p> + +<p>"Yes. And there was a rather strange and fascinating woman—a +physician I believe—but I am not sure. Anyway she is associated with +the psychical research people, and she asked if she might come to see +me—"</p> + +<p>He made an impatient movement—quite involuntary—and Hafiz who was +timid, sprang from Athalie's lap and retreated, tail waving, and ears +flattened for expected blandishments to recall him.</p> + +<p>Athalie glanced up at the man beside her with a laugh on her lips, +which died there instantly.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," he said.</p> + +<p>His sullen face remained in profile, and after a moment she laid her +hand lightly, questioningly on his sleeve.</p> + +<p>Without turning he said: "I don't know what is the matter with me, so +don't ask me. Something seems to be wrong. <i>I</i> am, probably.... And I +think I'll go home, now."</p> + +<p>But he did not stir.</p> + +<p>After a few moments she said very gently: "Are you displeased with me +for anything I have said or done? I can't imagine—"</p> + +<p>"You can't expect me to feel very much flattered by the knowledge that +you are constantly seen with other men where you and I were once so +well known."</p> + +<p>"Clive! Is there anything wrong in my going?"</p> + +<p>"Wrong? No:—if your own sense of—of—" +but the right word—if there were such—eluded him. +<!-- Page 162 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I know how you feel," she said in a low voice. "I wrote you that it +seemed strange, almost sad, to be with other men where you and I had +been together so often and so—so happily.</p> + +<p>"Somehow it seemed to be an invasion of our privacy, of our +intimacy—for me to dine with other men at the same tables, be served +by the same waiters, hear the same music. But I didn't know how to +avoid it when I was taken there by other men. Could you tell me what I +should have done?"</p> + +<p>He made no reply; his boyish face grew almost sulky, now.</p> + +<p>Presently he rose as though to get his coat: she rose also, unhappy, +confused.</p> + +<p>"Don't mind me. I'm a fool," he said shortly, looking away from +her—"and a very—unhappy one—"</p> + +<p>"Clive!"</p> + +<p>He said savagely: "I tell you I don't know what's the matter with +me—" He passed one hand brusquely across his eyes and stood so, +scowling at the hearth where Hafiz sat, staring gravely back at him.</p> + +<p>"Clive, are you ill?"</p> + +<p>He shrugged away the suggestion, and his arm brushed against hers. The +contact seemed to paralyse him; but when, slipping back unconsciously +into the old informalities, she laid her hands on his shoulders and +turned him toward the light, instantly and too late she was aware that +the old and innocent intimacy was ended, done for,—a thing of the +past.</p> + +<p>Incredulous still in the very menace of new and perilous relations—of +a new intimacy, imminent, threatening, she withdrew her hands from +<!-- Page 163 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> +the shoulders of this man who had been a boy but an instant ago. And +the next moment he caught her in his arms.</p> + +<p>"Clive! You <i>can't</i> do this!" she whispered, deathly white.</p> + +<p>"What am I to do?" he retorted fiercely.</p> + +<p>"Not this, Clive!—For my sake—please—<i>please</i>—"</p> + +<p>There was colour enough in her face, now. Breathless, still a little +frightened, she looked away from him, plucking nervously, +instinctively, at his hands clasping her waist.</p> + +<p>"Can't you c-care for me, Athalie?" he stammered.</p> + +<p>"Yes ... you know it. But don't touch me, Clive—"</p> + +<p>"When I'm—in love—with you—"</p> + +<p>She caught her breath sharply.</p> + +<p>"—What am I to do?" he repeated between his teeth.</p> + +<p>"Nothing! There is nothing to do about it! You know it!... What is +there to do?"</p> + +<p>He held her closer and she strained away from him, her head still +averted.</p> + +<p>"Let me go, Clive!" she pleaded.</p> + +<p>"Can't you care for me!"</p> + +<p>"Let me go!"</p> + +<p>He said under his breath: "All right." And released her. For a moment +she did not move but her hands covered her burning face and sealed her +lids. She stood there, breathing fast and irregularly until she heard +him move. Then, lowering her hands she +<!-- Page 164 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> + cast a heart-broken glance at +him. And his ashen, haggard visage terrified her.</p> + +<p>"Clive!" she faltered: he swung on his heel and caught her to him +again.</p> + +<p>She offered no resistance.</p> + +<p>She was crying, now,—weeping perhaps for all that had been said—or +remained unsaid—or maybe for all that could never be said between +herself and this man in whose arms she was trembling. No need now for +any further understanding, for excuses, for regrets, for any tardy +wish expressed that things might have been different.</p> + +<p>He offered no explanation; she expected none, would have suffered +none, crying there silently against his shoulder. But the reaction was +already invading him; the tide of self-contempt rose.</p> + +<p>He said bitterly: "Now that I've done all the damage I could, I shall +have to go—or offer—"</p> + +<p>"There is no damage done—yet—"</p> + +<p>"I have made you love me."</p> + +<p>"I—don't know. Wait."</p> + +<p>Wet cheek against his shoulder, lips a-quiver, her tragic eyes looked +out into space seeing nothing yet except the spectre of this man's +unhappiness.</p> + +<p>Not for herself had the tears come, the mouth quivered. The flash of +passionate emotion in him had kindled in her only a response as +blameless as it was deep.</p> + +<p>Sorrow for him, for his passion recognised but only vaguely +understood, grief for a comradeship forever ended now—regret for the +days that now could come +<!-- Page 165 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> + no more—but no thought of self as yet, +nothing of resentment, of the lesser pity, the baser pride.</p> + +<p>If she had trembled it was for their hopeless future; if she had wept +it was because she saw his boyhood passing out of her life like a +ghost, leaving her still at heart a girl, alone beside the ashes of +their friendship.</p> + +<p>As for marriage she knew it would never be—that neither he nor she +dared subscribe to it, dared face its penalties and its punishments; +that her fear of his unknown world was as spontaneous and abiding as +his was logical and instinctive.</p> + +<p>There was nothing to do about it. She knew that instantly; knew it +from the first;—no balm for him, no outlook, no hope. For her—had +she thought about herself,—she could have entertained none.</p> + +<p>She turned her head on his shoulder and looked up at him out of +pitiful, curious eyes.</p> + +<p>"Clive, must this be?"</p> + +<p>"I love you, Athalie."</p> + +<p>Her gaze remained fixed on him as though she were trying to comprehend +him,—sad, candid, searching in his eyes for an understanding denied +her.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said vaguely, "my thoughts are full of you, too. They have +always been since I first saw you. I suppose it has been love. I +didn't know it."</p> + +<p>"Is it love, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"I—think so, Clive. What else could it be—when a girl is always +thinking about a man, always happy with her memories of him.... It +<i>is</i> love, I suppose ... only I never thought of it that way."</p> + +<p>"Can you think of it that way now?" +<!-- Page 166 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I haven't changed, Clive. If it was love in the beginning, it is +now."</p> + +<p>"In the beginning it was only a boy and girl affair."</p> + +<p>"It was all my heart had room for."</p> + +<p>"And now?"</p> + +<p>"You fill my heart and mind as always. But you know that."</p> + +<p>"I thought—perhaps—not seeing you—"</p> + +<p>"Clive!"</p> + +<p>"—Other men—other interests—" he muttered obstinately, and so like +a stubborn boy that, for a moment, a pale flash from the past seemed +to light them both, and she found herself smiling:</p> + +<p>"A girl must go on living until she is dead, Clive. Even if you went +away I'd continue to exist until something ended me. Other men are +merely other men. You are you."</p> + +<p>"You darling!"</p> + +<p>But she turned shy instantly, conscious now of his embrace, confused +by it and the whispered endearment.</p> + +<p>"Please let me go, Clive."</p> + +<p>"But I love you, dear—"</p> + +<p>"Yes—but please—"</p> + +<p>Again he released her and she stepped back, retreating before him, +until the lounge offered itself as refuge. But it was no refuge; she +found herself, presently, drawn close to his shoulder; her flushed +cheek rested there once more, and her lowered eyes were fixed on his +strong, firm hand which had imprisoned both of hers.</p> + +<p>"If you can stand it I can," he said in a low voice. +<!-- Page 167 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Marrying me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive! They'd tear us to pieces! You couldn't stand it. Neither +could I."</p> + +<p>"But if we—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no, no!" she protested, "it would utterly ruin you! There was +one woman there to-night—very handsome—I knew she was your mother. +And I saw the way she looked at me.... It's no use, Clive. Those +people <i>are</i> different. They'd never forgive you, and it would ruin +you or you'd have to go back to them."</p> + +<p>"But if we were once married, there <i>are</i> friends of mine who—"</p> + +<p>"How many? One in a thousand! Oh, Clive, Clive, I know you so +well—your family and your pride in them, your position and your +security in it, your wide circle of friends, without which circle you +would wander like a lost soul—yes, Clive, lost, forlorn, unhappy, +even with me!"</p> + +<p>She lifted her head from his shoulder and sat up, gazing intently +straight ahead of her. In her eyes was a lovely azure light; her lips +were scarcely parted; and so intent and fixed was her gaze that for a +moment he thought she had caught sight of some concrete thing which +held her fascinated.</p> + +<p>But it was only that she "saw clearly" at that moment—something that +had come into her field of vision—a passing shape, perhaps, which +looked at her with curious, friendly, inquiring eyes,—and went its +way between the fire and the young girl who watched it pass with +fearless and clairvoyant gaze. +<!-- Page 168 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered as in a dream.</p> + +<p>"Athalie! What is the matter?"</p> + +<p>She turned, looked at him almost blindly as her remoter vision +cleared.</p> + +<p>"Clive," she said under her breath, "go home."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Go home. You are wanted."</p> + +<p>"<i>What!!!</i>"</p> + +<p>She rose and he stood up, his fascinated eyes never leaving hers.</p> + +<p>"What were you staring at a moment ago?" he demanded. "What did +you—think—you saw?"</p> + +<p>Her eyes looked straight into his. She went to him and put both arms +around his neck.</p> + +<p>"Dearest," she said "—dearest." And kissed him on the mouth. But he +dared not lay one finger on her.</p> + +<p>The next moment she had his coat, was holding it for him. He took his +hat and stick from her, turned and walked to the door, wheeled in his +tracks, shivering.</p> + +<p>And saw her crouched on the sofa, her head buried in her arms. And +dared not speak.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>There was an automobile standing in the street before his own house as +he turned out of Fifth Avenue; lighted windows everywhere in the +house, and the iron grille ajar.</p> + +<p>He could scarcely fit the latch-key his hands were so unsteady.</p> + +<p>There were people in the hall, partly clad. He heard his own name in +frightened exclamation. +<!-- Page 169 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What is it?" he managed to ask.</p> + +<p>A servant stammered: "Mr. Clive—it's all over, sir. Mrs. Bailey is +asking for you, sir."</p> + +<p>"Is my father—" but he could not go on.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. His man heard him call—once—like he was dreamin' bad. But +when he got to him Mr. Bailey was gone.... The doctor has just +arrived, sir."</p> + +<p>For one instant hope gleamed athwart the stunning crash of his senses: +he steadied himself on the newel post. Then, in his ear a faint voice +echoed: "Dearest—dearest!" And, knowing that hope also lay dead, he +lifted his young head, straightened up, and set his foot heavily on +the first step upward into a new and terrible world of grief. +<!-- Page 170 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<p class="cap">ATHALIE ventured to send some Madonna lilies with no card attached; +but even the thought of her white flowers crossing the threshold of +Clive's world—although it was because of her devotion to him alone +that she dared salute his dead—left her sensitively concerned, +wondering whether it had been a proper thing for her to do.</p> + +<p>However, the day following she wrote him.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"<span class="smcap">Clive Dear</span>,</p> + +<p>"I do not mean to intrude on your grief at such a time. This +is merely a line to say that you are never absent from my +mind.</p> + +<p>"And Clive, nothing really dies. This is quite true. I am not +speaking of what faith teaches us. Faith is faith. But those +who 'see clearly' <i>know</i>. Nothing dies, Clive. <i>Nothing.</i> That +is even more than faith teaches us. Yet it, also, is true.</p> + +<p>"Dear little boy of my childhood, dear lad of my girlhood, +and, of my womanhood, dearest of men, I pray that God will +comfort you and yours.</p> + +<p>"I was twelve years old the only time I ever saw your father. +He spoke so sweetly to me—put his arm around my +shoulders—asked me if I were Red Riding Hood or the Princess +Far Away. +<!-- Page 171 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And, to obey him, I went to find <i>my</i> father. And found him +dead. Or what the world calls dead.</p> + +<p>"Later, as I stood there outside the door, stunned by what had +happened, back through the doorway came running a boy. Clive, +if you have forgotten what you said to that child there by the +darkened doorway of life, the girl who writes this has never +forgotten.</p> + +<p>"And now, since sorrow has come to you, in my turn I seek you +where you stand by a darkened door alone, and I send to you my +very soul in this poor, inky letter,—all I can +offer—Clive—all that I believe—all that I am.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;" class="smcap;">"Athalie."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>So much for tribute and condolence as far as she could be concerned +where she remained among the other millions outside the sacred +threshold across which her letter and her flowers had gone, across +which the girl herself might never go.</p> + +<p>After a few days he wrote and thanked her for her letter, not of +course knowing about the lilies:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is the first time death has ever come very near +me. I had been told and had always thought that we were a long-lived race.</p> + +<p>"I am still dazed by it. I suppose the sharper grief will come +when this dull, unreal sense of stupefaction wears away.</p> + +<p>"We were very close together, my father and I. Oh, but we +might have been closer, Athalie!—I might have been with him +oftener, seen more of him, spent less time away from him. +<!-- Page 172 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I <i>did</i> try to be a good son. I could have been far better. +It's a bitter thing to realise at such a time.</p> + +<p>"And I had so much to say to him. I cannot understand that I +can never say it now.... Athalie dear, my mother wishes me to +take her abroad. I made arrangements yesterday at the Cunard +office. We sail Saturday. Could I see you for a moment before +I go?</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;" class="smcap">"Clive."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>To which she replied:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I shall be here every evening."</p></div> + +<p>He came Friday night looking very sallow and thin in his black +clothes. Catharine, who was sewing by the centre table, rose to shake +hands with him in sympathetic silence, then went away to her bedroom, +where, once or twice she caught herself whistling some gay refrain of +the moment, and was obliged to check herself.</p> + +<p>He had taken Athalie's slender hands and was standing by the sofa, +looking intently at her.</p> + +<p>"That night," he said with an effort, "you sent me home—saying that I +was needed."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Clive."</p> + +<p>"How did you know?"</p> + +<p>"I knew."</p> + +<p>"Did you see—anything?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear," she said under her breath.</p> + +<p>"Did you see <i>him</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." +<!-- Page 173 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Tell me," he said, but his lips scarcely moved to form the words he +uttered.</p> + +<p>"I recognised him at once. I had never forgotten him.... It is +difficult to explain how I knew that he was not—what we call living."</p> + +<p>"But you knew?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said gently.</p> + +<p>"He—did he speak?" The young fellow turned away with a brusque, +hopeless gesture.</p> + +<p>"God," he muttered—"and I couldn't either see or hear him!"</p> + +<p>"He did not speak, Clive." The boy looked up at her, his haggard +features working.</p> + +<p>She said: "When I first noticed him he was looking at you. Then he +caught my eye. Clive—it was this time as it had been before—when I +was twelve years old—his expression became so sweet and winning—like +yours when I amuse you—and you laugh at me but—like me—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Athalie—I can't seem to endure it! I—I can't be reconciled—" +His head fell forward; she put her arms around him and drew his face +against her breast.</p> + +<p>"I know," she whispered. "I also have passed that way."</p> + +<p>After a few moments he lifted his head, looked around, almost +fearfully.</p> + +<p>"Where was it that he stood, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>She hesitated, then took one of his hands in hers and he followed her +until she stopped between the sofa and the fireplace. +<!-- Page 174 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Clive."</p> + +<p>"So <i>near</i>!" he said aloud to himself. "Couldn't he have spoken to +me?—just one word—"</p> + +<p>"Dearest—dearest!"</p> + +<p>"God knows why you should see him and I shouldn't! I don't +understand—when I was his son—"</p> + +<p>"I do not understand either, Clive."</p> + +<p>He seemed not to hear her, standing there with blank gaze shifting +from object to object in the room. "I don't understand," he kept +repeating in a dull, almost querulous voice,—"I don't understand +why." And her heart responded in a passion of tenderness and grief. +But she found no further words to say to him, no explanation that +might comfort him.</p> + +<p>"Will he ever come here—anywhere—again?" he asked suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive, I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Don't you know? Couldn't you find out?"</p> + +<p>"How? I don't know how to find out. I never try to inquire."</p> + +<p>"Isn't there some way?"</p> + +<p>"I don't really know, Clive. How could I know?"</p> + +<p>"But when you see such people—shadows—shapes—"</p> + +<p>"Yes.... They are not shadows."</p> + +<p>"Do they seem real?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes; as real as you are."</p> + +<p>"Athalie, how <i>can</i> they be?"</p> + +<p>"They are to me. There is nothing ghostly about them." +<!-- Page 175 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p> + +<p>For a moment it almost seemed to her as though he resented her clear +seeing; then he said: "Have you always been able to see—this way?"</p> + +<p>"As long as I can remember."</p> + +<p>"And you have never tried to cultivate the power?"</p> + +<p>"I had rather you did not call it that."</p> + +<p>"But it is a power.... Well, call it faculty, then. Have you?"</p> + +<p>"No. I told you once that I did not wish to see more clearly than +others. It is all involuntary with me."</p> + +<p>"Would you try to cultivate it because I ask you to?"</p> + +<p>"Clive!"</p> + +<p>"Will you, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>The painful colour mantled her face and neck and she turned and looked +away from him as though he had said a shameful thing.</p> + +<p>He continued, impatiently: "Why do you feel that way about it? Why +should you not cultivate such a delicate and wonderful sense of +perception? Why are you reluctant? What reason is there for you to be +ashamed?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know why."</p> + +<p>"There is no reason! If in you there happen to be faculties sensitive +beyond ours, senses more complex, more exquisitely attuned to what +others are blind and deaf to, intuitions that to us seem miraculous, a +spirituality, perhaps, more highly developed, what is there in that to +cause you either embarrassment or concern? That in certain +individualities such is the case is now generally understood and +<!-- Page 176 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> +recognised. You happen to be one of them."</p> + +<p>She looked up at him very quietly, but still flushed.</p> + +<p>"Why do you wish me to try—make any effort to develop this—thing?"</p> + +<p>"So that—if you <i>could</i> see him again—and if, perhaps, he had +anything to say to me—"</p> + +<p>"I understand."</p> + +<p>"Will you try, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"I'll try—if you wish it. And if I can learn how to try."</p> + +<p>Had he asked her to strip her gown from her shoulders under his steady +gaze, it had been easier than the promise she gave him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>And now the hour had come for him to bid her good-bye. He said that he +and his mother would not remain abroad for more than the summer. He +said he would write often; spoke a little more vaguely of seeing her +as soon as he returned; drew her cool, white hands together and kissed +them, laid his cheek against them for a moment, eyes closed wearily.</p> + +<p>The door remained ajar behind him after he had gone. Lingering, her +hand heavy on the knob, she listened to the last echo of the elevator +as it dropped into lighted depths below.</p> + +<p>Then, very far away, an iron grille clanged. And that ended it.</p> + +<p>But she still lingered. There was one more shape to pass through the +door which she yet held open;—the phantom of her girlhood. And when +at last, it had +<!-- Page 177 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> + passed across the threshold, never to return, she +shut the door softly, sinking to her knees there, her pale cheek +resting against the closed panels, her eyes fixed on vacancy.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>So departed those twain out of the room and out of her life, +together—her lover by brevet, and her lingering girlhood,—leaving +behind them a woman in a world of men suddenly strange and menacing +and very still.</p> + +<p>But Clive went back into a familiar world—marred, obscured, distorted +for the moment by shock and sorrow—but still a familiar world. +Because neither his grief nor his love—as he had termed it—had made +of him more than he had been,—not yet a man, yet no longer a boy, but +something with all the infirmities of both and the saving graces of +neither.</p> + +<p>In that borderland where he still lingered, morally and spiritually, +the development of character ceases for a while until such time as the +occult frontier be crossed. What is born in the cradle is lowered into +the grave, but always either in nobler or less noble degrees. For none +may linger in that borderland too long because the unseen boundary +moves for him who will not stir when his time is up—moves slowly, +inexorably nearer, nearer, passing beneath his feet, until it is lost +far in the misty years behind him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>He wrote her from the steamer twice, the letters being mailed from +Plymouth; then he wrote once from London, once from Paris; later again +from Switzerland, +<!-- Page 178 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> + where he had found it cooler, he said, than +anywhere else during that torrid summer.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 240px;"> +<img src="images/gs11.jpg" width="240" height="400" +alt=""One lovely morning in May she arose early in order +to write to Clive."" +title=""One lovely morning in May she arose early in order +to write to Clive."" /> +<span class="caption">"One lovely morning in May she arose early in order +to write to Clive."</span> +</div> + +<p> +<!-- Page 179 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> +<!-- Page 180 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>Winifred Stuart and her mother had joined them for a motor trip +through Dalmatia. He mentioned it in a letter to Athalie, but after +that he did not refer to them again. In fact he did not write again +for a month or two.</p> + +<p>It proved to be a scorching summer in New York. May ended in a blast +of unseasonable weather, cooling off for a week or two in June, but +the furnace heat of July was terrible for the poor and for the +horses—both of which we have always with us.</p> + +<p>Also, for Athalie, it seemed to be turning into one of those curious, +threatening years which begin with every promise but which end without +fulfilment, and in perplexity and care. She had known such years; she +already recognised the symptoms of changing weather. She seemed to be +conscious of premonitions in everybody and everything. Little +vexations and slight disappointments increased; simple plans +miscarried for no reason at all apparently.</p> + +<p>Like one who still feels a fair wind blowing yet looking aloft, sees +the uneasy weather-cock veer and veer in varying flaws, so she, +sensitive and fine in mind and body, gradually became aware of the +trend of things; felt the premonition of the distant change in the +atmosphere—sensed it gathering vaguely, indefinitely disquieting.</p> + +<p>One lovely morning in May she arose early in order to write to Clive. +Then, her long letter accomplished and safely mailed, she went +downtown to business, still +<!-- Page 181 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> + delicately aglow, exhilarated as always +by her hour of communion with him.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wahlbaum, as usual, received her with the jolly and kindly humour +which always characterised him, and they had their usual friendly, +half bantering chat while she was arranging the papers which his +secretary had laid on her desk.</p> + +<p>All the morning she took dictation; the soft wind fluttered the +curtains; sparrows chirped noisily; the sky was very blue; Mr. +Wahlbaum smoked steadily.</p> + +<p>And when the lunch hour arrived he did a thing which he had never +before done; he asked Athalie to lunch with him.</p> + +<p>Which so completely astonished her that she found herself going down +in the private lift with him before she realised that she was going at +all.</p> + +<p>The luncheon proved to be very simple but very good. There were a +number of other women in the ladies' annex of the Department +Club,—nice looking people, quiet, and well dressed. Mr. Wahlbaum also +was very quiet, very considerate, very attentive, and almost gravely +courteous. Their conversation concerned business. He offered Athalie +no cocktail and no wine, but a jug of chilled cider was set at her +elbow and she found it delicious. Mr. Wahlbaum drank tea, very weak.</p> + +<p>When they returned to the office, Athalie began to transcribe her +stenographic notes. It occupied most of the afternoon although she was +wonderfully rapid and accurate and her slim white fingers hovered +mistily over the keys like the vibrating wings of a snowy moth. +<!-- Page 182 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 311px;"> +<img src="images/gs12.jpg" width="311" height="500" +alt=""Mr. Wahlbaum ... was very quiet, very considerate, +very attentive."" +title=""Mr. Wahlbaum ... was very quiet, very considerate, +very attentive."" /> +<span class="caption">"Mr. Wahlbaum ... was very quiet, +very considerate, very attentive."</span> +</div> +<p> +<!-- Page 183 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> +<!-- Page 184 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>Mr. Wahlbaum, always smoking, watched her toward the finish in placid +silence. And for a few moments, also, after she had finished and had +turned to him with a light smile and a lighter sigh of relief.</p> + +<p>"Miss Greensleeve," he said quietly, "I have now been here in the same +office with you, day after day—excepting our summer vacations—for +more than five years."</p> + +<p>A trifle surprised and sobered by his gravity and deliberation she +nodded silent acquiescence and waited, wondering a little what else +was to come.</p> + +<p>It came without preamble: "I have the honour," he said, "to ask you to +marry me."</p> + +<p>Still as a stone she sat, gazing at him. And for a long while his keen +eyes sustained her gaze. But presently a slow, deep colour began to +gather on his face. And after a moment he said: "I am sorry that the +verdict is against me."</p> + +<p>Tears filled her eyes; she tried to speak, could not, turned on her +pivot-chair, rested her arms on the back, and dropped her face in +them.</p> + +<p>It was a long while before she was able to efface the traces of +emotion. She did all she could before she forced herself to look at +him again and say what she must say.</p> + +<p>"If I could—I would, Mr. Wahlbaum," she faltered. "No man has ever +been kinder to me, none more courteous, none more gentle."</p> + +<p>He looked at her wistfully for a moment, and she thought he was going +to speak. But he was wise in the ways of the world. He had lost. He +understood +<!-- Page 185 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> + it. Speech was superfluous. He was a quaint combination of +good sportsman and philosophic economist.</p> + +<p>He held his peace.</p> + +<p>When she left that evening after saying good night to him she paused +at the door, irresolutely, and then came back to his desk where he was +still standing. For he had never failed to rise when she entered in +the morning or took her leave at night.</p> + +<p>In silence, now, she offered him her hand, the quick tears springing +to her eyes again; and he took it, bent, and touched the gloved +fingers with his lips, gravely, in silence.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>A few days later, for the first time in her experience there, Mr. +Wahlbaum was not at the office.</p> + +<p>Mr. Grossman came in, leered at her, said that Mr. Wahlbaum would be +down next day, lingered furtively as long as he quite dared, then took +himself off, still leering.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon Athalie was notified that her salary had been raised. +She went home, elated and deeply touched by the generosity of Mr. +Wahlbaum, scarcely able to wait for the morrow to express her +gratitude to this good, kind man.</p> + +<p>But on the morrow Mr. Wahlbaum was not there; nor did he come the day +after, nor the day after that.</p> + +<p>The following Tuesday she was seated in the office and generally +occupied with business provided for her by the thrifty Mr. Grossman, +when that same gentleman came into the office on tiptoe. +<!-- Page 186 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Mr. Wahlbaum has just died," he said.</p> + +<p>In the sudden shock and consternation she had risen from her chair, +and stood there, one hand resting on her desk top for support.</p> + +<p>"Pneumonia," nodded Mr. Grossman. "Sam he smoked too much all the +time. That is what done it, Miss Greensleeve."</p> + +<p>Her hands crept to her eyes, covered them convulsively. "Oh!" she +breathed—"Oh!"</p> + +<p>And, for a moment was not aware of the arm of Mr. Grossman around her +waist,—until it tightened unctuously.</p> + +<p>"Dearie," he murmured, "don't you take on so hard. You ain't goin' to +lose your job, because I'm a-goin' to be your best friend same like he +was—"</p> + +<p>With a shudder she stepped clear of him; he caught her by the waist +again and kissed her; and she wrenched herself free and turned +fiercely on him as he advanced again, smirking, watery of eye, arms +outstretched.</p> + +<p>Then in the overwhelming revulsion and horror of the act and of the +moment chosen for it when death's shadow already lay dark upon this +vast and busy monument to her dead friend, she turned on him her dark +blue eyes ablaze; and to her twisted, outraged lips flew, unbidden, +the furious anathema of her ragged childhood:</p> + +<p>"Damn you!" she stammered,—"damn you!" And struck him across the +face.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Which impulsive and unconsidered proceeding left two at home out of +work, herself and Doris. Also +<!-- Page 187 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> + there was very little more for +Catharine to do, the dull season at Winton's having arrived.</p> + +<p>"Any honest job," repeated Doris when she and Athalie and Catharine +met at evening after an all-day's profitless search for that sort of +work; but honest jobs did not seem to be very plentiful in June, +although any number of the other sort were to be had almost without +the asking.</p> + +<p>Doris continued to haunt agencies and theatrical offices, dawdling all +day from one to the next, sitting for hours in company with other +aspirants to histrionic honours and wages, gossiping, listening to +stage talk, professional patter, and theatrical scandal until her +pretty ears were buzzing with everything that ought not to concern her +and her moral fastidiousness gradually became less delicate. +Repetition is the great leveller, the great persuader. The greatest +power on earth, for good or evil, is incessant reiteration.</p> + +<p>Catharine lost her position, worked at a cheap milliner's for a week, +addressed envelopes for another week, and was again left unemployed.</p> + +<p>Athalie accepted several offers; at one place they didn't pay her for +two weeks and then suggested she take half the salary agreed upon; at +another her employer became offensively familiar; at another the +manager made her position unendurable.</p> + +<p>By July the financial outlook in the Greensleeve family was becoming +rather serious: Doris threatened gloomily to go into burlesque; +Catharine at first tearful and discouraged, finally grew careless and +made few real efforts to find employment. Also she began to go +<!-- Page 188 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> + out +almost every evening, admitting very frankly that the home larder had +become too lean and unattractive to suit her.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs13.jpg" width="500" height="331" +alt=""Doris continued to haunt agencies and theatrical offices."" +title=""Doris continued to haunt agencies and theatrical offices."" /> +<span class="caption">"Doris continued to haunt agencies +and theatrical offices."</span> +</div> + +<p> +<!-- Page 189 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> +<!-- Page 190 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>Doris always went out more or less; and what troubled Athalie was not +that the girl had opportunities for the decent nourishment she needed, +but that her reticence concerning the people she dined with was +steadily increasing.</p> + +<p>"Oh, shut up! I can look out for myself," she always repeated +sullenly. "Anyway, Athalie, <i>you</i> are not the one to bully me. Nobody +ever presented me with a cosy flat and—"</p> + +<p>"Doris!"</p> + +<p>"Didn't your young man give you this flat?"</p> + +<p>"Don't speak of him or of me in that manner," said Athalie, flushing +scarlet.</p> + +<p>"Why are you so particular? It's the truth. He's given you about +everything a man can offer a girl, hasn't he?—jewellery, furniture, +clothing—cats—"</p> + +<p>"Will you please not say anything more!"</p> + +<p>But Doris was still smarting under recent admonition, and she meant to +make an end of Athalie's daily interference: "I will say what I like +when it's the truth," she retorted. "You are very free with your +unsolicited advice. And I'll say this, and it's true, that not one +girl in a thousand who accepts what you have accepted from Clive +Bailey, is straight!"</p> + +<p>Athalie's tightening lips quivered: "Do you intimate that I am not +straight?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't say that."</p> + +<p>"You implied it." +<!-- Page 191 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was a silence; Catharine lounged on the sofa, watching and +listening with interest. After a moment Doris shrugged her young +shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Does it matter so much, anyway?" she said with a short, unpleasant +laugh.</p> + +<p>"Does <i>what</i> matter—you little ninny!"</p> + +<p>"Whether a girl <i>is</i> straight."</p> + +<p>"Is that the philosophy you learn in your theatrical agencies?" +demanded Athalie fiercely. "What nauseating rot you do talk, Doris!"</p> + +<p>"Very well. It may be nauseating. But what is a girl to do in a world +run entirely by men?"</p> + +<p>"You know well enough what a girl is <i>not</i> to do, don't you? All right +then,—leave that undone and do what's left."</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> left?" demanded Doris with a mirthless laugh. "There's +scarcely a job that a girl can hold unless she squares some man to +keep it—and keep—her!"</p> + +<p>"Shame on you! I held mine for over five years," said Athalie with hot +contempt.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and then along came the junior partner. You wouldn't square him: +you lost your job! There's always a junior partner in every +business—when there isn't a senior. There's nothing to it if you +stand in with the firm. If you don't—good night!"</p> + +<p>"You managed to remain at the Egyptian Garden during the entire +season."</p> + +<p>"But the fights I had, my dear, and the tricks I employed and the lies +I told and the promises I made! Oh, it's sickening—sickening! But—" +she +<!-- Page 192 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> + shrugged—"what are you to do? Thousands of girls go queer +because they're forced to by starvation—"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" cried Athalie hotly, "that is all stage twaddle and +exaggerated sentimentalism! I don't believe that one girl in a +thousand is forced into a dishonourable life!"</p> + +<p>"Then why do girls go queer?"</p> + +<p>"Because they want to; that's why! When they don't want to they +don't!"</p> + +<p>Catharine, very wide-eyed, said solemnly: "But think of all the white +slaves—"</p> + +<p>"They'd be that if they had been born to millions!" retorted Athalie. +"Ignorance and aptitude, that is white slavery. It's absolutely +nothing else. And in cases where the ignorance is absent, the aptitude +is there. If a girl has an aptitude for becoming some man's mistress +she'll probably do it whether she's ignorant or educated."</p> + +<p>Doris, who had taken to chewing-gum furtively and in private, +discreetly rolled a morsel under her tongue.</p> + +<p>"All I know is that your salary is advanced and you're given a part at +the Egyptian Garden if you stand in with Lewenbein or go to supper +with Shemsky. Of course," she added, "there <i>are</i> theatres where you +don't have to be horrid in order to succeed."</p> + +<p>"Then," said Athalie drily, "you'd better find work in those +theatres."</p> + +<p>Doris glanced sideways at Catharine, who silently returned her glance +as though an understanding and sympathy existed between them not +suspected or shared in by Athalie. +<!-- Page 193 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was not very much of a secret. Some prowling genius of the agencies +whom Doris had met had offered to write a vaudeville act for her and +himself if she could find two other girls. And she had persuaded +Catharine and Genevieve Hunting to try it; and Cecil Reeve and Francis +Hargrave had gaily offered to back it. They were rehearsing in Reeve's +apartments—between a continuous series of dinners and suppers.</p> + +<p>And it had been her sister's going to Reeve's apartments to which +Athalie had seriously objected,—not knowing why she went there.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>This was one of many scenes that torrid summer in New York, when +Athalie intuitively felt that the year which had begun so happily for +her with the entrance of Clive into her life, was growing duller and +greyer; and that each succeeding day seemed to be swinging her into a +tide of anxiety and mischance,—a current as yet merely perceptible, +but already increasing in speed toward something swifter and more +stormy.</p> + +<p>Already, to her, the future had become overcast, obscure, disquieting.</p> + +<p>Steer as she might toward any promising harbour, always she seemed to +be aware of some subtle resistance impeding her.</p> + +<p>Every small economy attempted, every retrenchment planned, came to +nothing. Always she was met at some corner by an unlooked-for +necessity entailing further expense.</p> + +<p>No money was coming in; her own and her sister's savings were going +steadily, every day, every week. +<!-- Page 194 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p> + +<p>There seemed no further way to check expenditure. Athalie had +dismissed their servant as soon as she had lost her position at +Wahlbaum and Grossman's. Table expenses were reduced to Spartan +limits, much to the disgust of them all. No clothes were bought, no +luxuries, no trifles. They did their own marketing, their own cooking, +their own housework and laundry. And had it not been that the +apartment entailed no outlay for light, heat, and rent, they would +have been sorely perplexed that spring and summer in New York.</p> + +<p>Athalie permitted herself only one luxury, Hafiz. And one necessity; +stamps and letter paper for foreign correspondence.</p> + +<p>The latter was costing her less and less recently. Clive wrote seldom +now. And always very sensitive where he was concerned, she permitted +herself the happiness of writing only after he had taken the +initiative, and a reply from her was due him.</p> + +<p>No, matters were not going very well with Athalie. Also she was +frequently physically tired. Perhaps it was the lassitude consequent +on the heat. But at times she had an odd idea that she lacked courage; +and sometimes when lonely, she tried to reason with herself, tried to +teach her heart bravery—particularly during the long interims which +elapsed between Clive's letters.</p> + +<p>As for her attitude toward him—whether or not she was in love with +him—she was too busy thinking about him to bother her head about +attitudes or degrees of affection. All the girl knew—when she +permitted herself to think of herself—was that she missed him +dreadfully. Otherwise her concern was chiefly for him, +<!-- Page 195 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> + for his +happiness and well-being. Also she was concerned regarding the promise +she had made him—and to which he usually referred in his +letters,—the promise to try to learn more about this faculty of hers +for clear vision, and, if possible, to employ it for his sake and in +his unhappy service.</p> + +<p>This often preoccupied her, troubled her. She did not know how to go +about it; she hesitated to seek those who advertised their alleged +occult powers for sale,—trance-mediums, mind-readers, palmists—all +the heterogeneous riffraff lurking always in metropolitan purlieus, +and always with a sly weather-eye on the police.</p> + +<p>As usual in her career since the time she could first remember, she +continued to "see clearly" where others saw and heard nothing.</p> + +<p>Faint voices in the dusk, a whisper in darkness; perhaps in her +bedroom the subtle intuition of another presence. And sometimes a +touch on her arm, a breath on her cheek, delicate, +exquisite—sometimes the haunting sweetness of some distant harmony, +half heard, half divined. And now and then a form, usually unknown, +almost always smiling and friendly, visible for a few moments—the +space of a fire-fly's incandescence—then fading—entering her orbit +out of nothing and, going into nothing, out of it.</p> + +<p>Of these episodes she had never entertained any fear. Sometimes they +interested her, sometimes even slightly amused her. But they had never +saddened her, not even when they had been the flash-lit harbingers of +death. For only a sense of calmness and serenity +<!-- Page 196 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> + accompanied them: +and to her they had always been part of the world and of life, nothing +to wonder at, nothing to fear, and certainly nothing to intrude +on—merely incidents not concerning her, not remarkable, but natural +and requiring no explanation.</p> + +<p>But she herself did not know and could not explain why, even as a +child, she had been always reticent regarding these occurrences,—why +she had always been disinclined to discuss them. Unless it were a +natural embarrassment and a hesitation to discuss strangers, as though +comment were a species of indelicacy,—even of unwarranted intrusion.</p> + +<p>One night while reading—she had been scanning a newspaper column of +advertisements hoping to find a chance for herself or +Catharine—glancing up she again saw Clive's father seated near her. +At the same moment he lifted his head, which had been resting on one +hand, and looked across the hearthstone at her, smiling faintly.</p> + +<p>Entirely unembarrassed, conscious of that atmosphere of serenity which +always was present when such visitors arrived, the girl sat looking at +what her eyes told her she perceived, a slight and friendly smile +curving her lips in silent response.</p> + +<p>Presently she became aware that Hafiz, too, saw the visitor, and was +watching him. But this fact she had noticed before, and it did not +surprise her.</p> + +<p>And that was all there was to the incident. He rose, walked to the +window, stood there. And after a little while he was not there. That +ended it. And Hafiz went to sleep again. +<!-- Page 197 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<p class="cap">IN September Athalie Greensleeve wrote her last letter to Clive +Bailey. It began with a page or two of shyly solicitous inquiries +concerning his well-being, his happiness, his plans; did not refer to +his long silence; did refer to his anticipated return; did not mention +her own accumulating domestic and financial embarrassments and the +successive strokes of misfortune dealt her by those twin and +formidable bravos, Fate and Chance; but did mention and enumerate +everything that had occurred in her life which bore the slightest +resemblance to a blessing.</p> + +<p>Her letter continued:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"My sisters Doris and Catharine have gone into vaudeville with +a very pretty act called 'April Rain.'</p> + +<p>"That they had decided to do this and had been rehearsing it +came as a complete surprise to me. Genevieve Hunting is also +in it, and a man named Max Klepper who wrote the piece +including lyrics and music.</p> + +<p>"They opened at the Old Dominion Theatre, remained there a +week, and then started West. Which makes it a trifle lonely +for me; but I don't really mind if they only keep well and are +successful and happy in their venture. Their idea and their +desire, of course, is to return to New York at the earliest +opportunity. But nobody seems to have any idea how soon that +may +<!-- Page 198 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> + happen. Meanwhile the weather is cooler and Hafiz remains +well and adorable.</p> + +<p>"I have been out very little except to look for a position. +Mr. Wahlbaum is dead and I left the store. Sunday morning I +took a few flowers to Mr. Wahlbaum's grave. He was very kind +to me, Clive. In the afternoon I took a train to the Spring +Pond Cemetery. Father's and mother's graves had been well +cared for and were smoothly green. The four young oak trees I +planted are growing nicely. Mother was fond of trees. I am +sure she likes my little oaks.</p> + +<p>"It was a beautiful, cool, sunny day; and after I left the +Cemetery I walked along the well remembered road toward Spring +Pond. It is not very far, but I had never been any nearer to +it than the Cemetery since my sisters and I went away.</p> + +<p>"Such odd sensations came over me as I walked alone there amid +familiar scenes: and, curiously, everything seemed to have +shrunk to miniature size—houses, fields, distances all seemed +much less impressive. But the Bay was intensely blue; the +grasses and reeds in the salt meadows were already tipped with +a golden colour here and there; flocks of purple grackle and +red-winged blackbirds rose, drifted, and settled, chattering +and squealing among the cat-tails just as they used to do when +I was a child; and the big, slow-sailing mouse-hawks drifted +and glided over the pastures, and when they tipped sideways I +could see the white moon-spot on their backs, just as I +remembered to look for it when I was a little, little girl.</p> + +<p>"And the odours, Clive! How the scent of the August fields, +<!-- Page 199 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> +of the crisp salt hay, seemed to grip at my heart!—all the +subtle, evanescent odours characteristic of that part of Long +Island seemed to gather, blend, and exhale for my particular +benefit that afternoon.</p> + +<p>"The old tavern appeared to me so much smaller, so much more +weather-beaten and shabby than my recollection of it. The sign +still hung there—'Hotel Greensleeve'—and as I walked by it I +looked up at the window of my mother's room. The blinds were +closed; nobody appeared to be around. I don't know why, Clive, +but it seemed to me that I must go in for a moment and take +one more look at my mother's room.... I am glad I did. There +was nobody to stop me. I went up the stairs on tiptoe and +opened her door, and looked in. <i>She was there, sewing.</i></p> + +<p>"I went in very softly and sat down on the carpet by her +chair.... It was the happiest moment I have known since she +died.</p> + +<p>"And when she was no longer there I rose and crept down the +stairs and through the hallway to the bar; and peeped in. An +old man sat there asleep by the empty stove. And after a +moment I decided it was Mr. Ledlie. But he has grown +old—old!—and I let him sleep on in the sunshine without +disturbing him.</p> + +<p>"It was the same stove where you and I sat and nibbled peach +turnovers so many years ago. I wanted to see it again.</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"So I went back to New York in the late golden afternoon +feeling very peaceful and dreamy,—and a trifle tired. And +<!-- Page 200 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> +found Hafiz stretched on the lounge; and stretched myself out +beside him, taking the drowsy, purring, spoiled thing into my +arms. And went to sleep to dream of you who gave me Hafiz, my +dear and beloved friend.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>"Write me when you can; as often as you desire. Always your +letters are welcome messengers.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;" class="smcap">"Athalie."</span><br /> +<!-- Page 201 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<p class="cap">IN her letters Athalie never mentioned Captain Dane; not because she +had anything to conceal regarding him or herself; but she seemed to be +aware that any mention of that friendship might not evoke a +sympathetic response from Clive.</p> + +<p>So, in her last letter, as in the others, she had not spoken of +Captain Dane. Yet, now, he was the only man with whom she ever went +anywhere and whom she received at her own apartment.</p> + +<p>He had a habit of striding in two or three evenings in a week,—a big, +fair, broad-shouldered six-footer, with sun-narrowed eyes of arctic +blue, a short blond moustache, and skin permanently burned by the +unshadowed glare of many and tropic days.</p> + +<p>They went about together on Sundays, usually; sometimes in hot weather +to suburban restaurants for dinner and a breath of air, sometimes to +roof gardens.</p> + +<p>Why he lingered in town—for he seemed always to be at leisure—she +did not know. And she wondered a little that he should elect to remain +in the heat-cursed city whence everybody else she knew had fled.</p> + +<p>Dane was a godsend to her. With him she went to the Bronx Zoological +Park several times, intensely interested in what he had to say +concerning the +<!-- Page 202 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> + creatures housed there, and shyly proud and delighted +to meet the curators of the various departments who all seemed to know +Dane and to be on terms of excellent fellowship with him.</p> + +<p>With him she visited the various museums and art galleries; and went +with him to concerts, popular and otherwise; and took long trolley +rides with him on suffocating evenings when the poor slept on the +grass in the parks and the slums, east and west, presented endless +vistas of panting nakedness prostrate under a smouldering red moon.</p> + +<p>Every diversion he offered her helped to sustain her courage; every +time she lunched or dined with him meant more to her than he dreamed +it meant. Because her savings were ebbing fast, and she had not yet +been able to find employment.</p> + +<p>Some things she would not do—write to her sisters for any financial +aid; nor would she go to the office of her late employers and ask for +any recommendation from Mr. Grossman which might help her to secure a +position. Never could she bring herself to do either of these things, +although the ugly countenance of necessity now began to stare her +persistently in the face.</p> + +<p>Also she was sensitive lest Dane suspect her need and offer aid. But +how could he suspect?—with her pretty apartment filled with pretty +things, and the luxurious Hafiz pervading everything with his +incessant purring and his snowy plume of a tail waving fastidious +contentment. He fared better than did his mistress, who denied herself +that Hafiz might flourish that +<!-- Page 203 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> + same tail. And after a while the girl +actually began to grow thinner from sheer lack of nourishment.</p> + +<p>It never occurred to her to sell or pawn any of the furniture, silver, +furs, rugs,—anything at all that Clive had given her. And there was +one reason why she never would do it: she refused to consider anything +he had given her as her own property to dispose of if she chose. For +she had accepted these things from Clive only because it gave him +pleasure to give. And what she possessed she regarded as his property +held in trust. Nothing could have induced her to consider these things +in any other light.</p> + +<p>One souvenir, only, did she look upon as her own. It had no financial +value; and, if it had, she would have starved before disposing of it. +This was the first thing he ever gave her—his boy's offering—the +gun-metal wrist-watch.</p> + +<p>And her only recent extravagance had been a sentimental one; she had +the watch cleaned and regulated, and a new leather strap adjusted. The +evening it was returned to her she wore it; and that night she slept +with the watch strapped to her wrist.</p> + +<p>So much for a young girl's sentiment!—for no letter came from him on +the morrow although the European mail was in. None came the next day; +nor the next.</p> + +<p>Toward the end of the week, one sultry evening, when Athalie returned +from an unsuccessful tour of job-hunting, and nearer depression than +ever she had yet been, Captain Dane came stalking in, shook hands with +his usual decision, picked up Hafiz who adored him, and +<!-- Page 204 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> + took the +chair nearest to the lounge where Athalie lay.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/gs14.jpg" width="300" height="476" +alt=""With him she visited the various museums and art galleries."" +title=""With him she visited the various museums and art galleries."" /> +<span class="caption">"With him she visited the various museums +and art galleries."</span> +</div> + +<p> +<!-- Page 205 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> +<!-- Page 206 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>"Suppose we dine somewhere?" he suggested, fondling the purring Angora +and rubbing its ears.</p> + +<p>"Would you mind," she said, "if I didn't?"</p> + +<p>"You're very tired, aren't you, Miss Greensleeve?"</p> + +<p>"A little. I don't believe I have the energy to go out with you."</p> + +<p>Still fondling the willing cat he said: "What's wrong? Something's +wrong, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"No indeed."</p> + +<p>He turned and gave her a square look: "You're quite sure?"</p> + +<p>"Quite."</p> + +<p>"Oh; all right. Will you let me have dinner here with you?"</p> + +<p>She said without embarrassment: "I neglected my marketing: there's +very little in the pantry."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "I'm hungry and I'm going to call up the Hotel +Trebizond and have them send us some dinner."</p> + +<p>She seemed inclined to demur, but he had his way, went to the +telephone and gave his orders.</p> + +<p>The dinner arrived in due time and was excellent. And when the remains +of the dinner and the waiter who served it had been cleared out, +Athalie felt better.</p> + +<p>"You ought to go to the country for two or three weeks," he remarked.</p> + +<p>"Why don't <i>you</i> go?" she asked, smilingly.</p> + +<p>"Don't need it." +<!-- Page 207 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Neither do I, Captain Dane. Besides I have to continue my search for +a position."</p> + +<p>"No luck yet?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet."</p> + +<p>He mused over his cigar for a few moments, lifted his blond head as +though about to speak, but evidently decided not to.</p> + +<p>She had taken up her sewing and was now busy with it. From moment to +moment Hafiz took liberties with her spool of thread where he sprawled +beside her, patting it this way and that until it fell upon the floor +and Dane was obliged to rescue it.</p> + +<p>It had grown cooler. A breeze from the open windows occasionally +stirred her soft hair and the smoke of Dane's cigar. They had been +silent for a few moments. Threading her needle she happened to glance +up at him, and saw somebody else standing just behind him—a tall man, +olive-skinned and black-bearded—and knew instantly that he was not +alive.</p> + +<p>Serenely incurious, she looked at the visitor, aware that the clothes +he wore were foreign, and that his features, too, were not American.</p> + +<p>And the next moment she gazed at him more attentively, for he had laid +one hand on Dane's shoulder and was looking very earnestly across at +her.</p> + +<p>He said distinctly but with a foreign accent: "Would you please say to +him that the greatest of all the ancient cities is hidden by the +jungle near the source of the middle fork. It was called Yhdunez."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, unconscious that she had spoken aloud. +<!-- Page 208 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dane lifted his head, and remained motionless, gazing at her intently. +The visitor was already moving across the room. Halfway across he +looked back at Athalie in a pleasant, questioning manner; and she +nodded her reassurance with a smile. Then her visitor was there no +longer; and she found herself, a trifle confused, looking into the +keen eyes of Captain Dane.</p> + +<p>Neither spoke for a moment or two; then he said, quietly: "I did not +know you were clairvoyant."</p> + +<p>"I—see clearly—now and then."</p> + +<p>"I understand. It is nothing new to me."</p> + +<p>"You <i>do</i> understand then?"</p> + +<p>"I understand that some few people see more clearly than the great +majority."</p> + +<p>"Do you?"</p> + +<p>"No.... There was a comrade of mine—a Frenchman—Jacques Renouf. He +was like you; he saw."</p> + +<p>"Is he living?—I mean as we are?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Was he tall, olive-skinned, black-bearded—"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Dane coolly; "did you see him just now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I wondered.... There are moments when I seem to feel his presence. I +was thinking of him just now. We were on the upper Amazon together +last winter."</p> + +<p>"How did he die?"</p> + +<p>"He'd been off by himself all day. About five o'clock he came into +camp with a poisoned arrow +<!-- Page 209 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> + broken off behind his shoulder-blade. He +seemed dazed and stupefied; but at moments I had an idea that he was +trying to tell us something."</p> + +<p>Dane hesitated, shrugged: "It was no use. We left our fire as usual +and went into the forest about two miles to sleep. Jacques died that +night, still dazed by the poison, still making feeble signs at me as +though he were trying to tell me something.... I believe that he has +been near me very often since, trying to speak to me."</p> + +<p>"He laid his hand on your shoulder, Captain Dane."</p> + +<p>Dane's stern lips quivered for a second, then self-command resumed +control. He said: "He usually did that when he had something to tell +me.... Did he speak to me, Miss Greensleeve?"</p> + +<p>"He spoke to me."</p> + +<p>"Clearly?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He said: 'Would you please say to him that the greatest of all +the ancient cities is hidden by the jungle near the source of the +middle fork. It was called Yhdunez.'"</p> + +<p>For a long while Dane sat silent, his chin resting on his clenched +hand, looking down at the rug at his feet. After a while he said, +still looking down: "He must have found it all alone. And got an arrow +in him for his reward.... They're a dirty lot, those cannibals along +the middle fork of the Amazon. Nobody knows much about them yet except +that they <i>are</i> cannibals and their arrows are poisoned.... I brought +back the arrow that I pulled out of Jacques.... +<!-- Page 210 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> + There's no analysis +that can determine what the poison is—except that it's vegetable."</p> + +<p>He leaned forward, as though weary, resting his face between both +hands.</p> + +<p>"Yhdunez? Is that what it was called? Well, it and everything in it +was not worth the life of my friend Renouf.... Nor is anything I've +ever seen worth a single life sacrificed to the Red God of +Discovery.... Those accursed cities full of vile and monstrous +carvings—they belong to the jaguars now. Let them keep them. Let the +world's jungles keep their own—if only they'd give me back my +friend—"</p> + +<p>He rested a moment as he was, then straightened up impatiently as +though ashamed.</p> + +<p>"Death is death," he said in matter-of-fact tones.</p> + +<p>Athalie slowly shook her head: "There is no death."</p> + +<p>He nodded almost gratefully: "I know what you mean. I dare say you are +right.... Well—I think I'll go back to Yhdunez."</p> + +<p>"Not this evening?" she protested, smilingly.</p> + +<p>He smiled, too: "No, not this evening, Miss Greensleeve. I shall never +care to go anywhere again—"... His face altered.... "Unless you care +to go—with me."</p> + +<p>What he had said she would have taken gaily, lightly, had not the +gravity of his face forbidden it. She saw the lean muscles tighten +along his clean-cut cheek, saw the keen eyes grow wistful, then steady +themselves for her answer.</p> + +<p>She could not misunderstand him; she disdained to, +<!-- Page 211 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> + honouring the +simplicity and truth of this man to whom she was so truly devoted.</p> + +<p>Her abandoned sewing lay on her lap. Hafiz slept with one velvet paw +entangled in her thread. She looked down, absently freeing thread and +fabric, and remained so for a moment, thinking. After a while she +looked up, a trifle pale:</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Captain Dane," she said in a low voice.</p> + +<p>He waited.</p> + +<p>"I—am afraid that I am—in +love—already—with another man."</p> + +<p>He bent his head, quietly; there was no pleading, no asking for a +chance, no whining of any species to which the monarch man is so +constitutionally predisposed when soft, young lips pronounce the death +warrant of his sentimental hopes.</p> + +<p>All he said was: "It need not alter anything between us—what I have +asked of you."</p> + +<p>"It only makes me care the more for our friendship, Captain Dane."</p> + +<p>He nodded, studying the pattern in the Shirvan rug under his feet. A +procession of symbols representing scorpions and tarantulas +embellished one of the rug's many border stripes. His grave eyes +followed the procession entirely around the five-by-three bit of +weaving. Then he rose, bent over her, took her slim hand in silence, +saluted it, and asking if he might call again very soon, went out +about his business, whatever it was. Probably the most important +business he had on hand just then was to get over his love for Athalie +Greensleeve. +<!-- Page 212 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p> + +<p>For a long while Athalie sat there beside Hafiz considering the world +and what it was threatening to do to her; considering man and what he +had offered and what he had not offered to do to her.</p> + +<p>Distressed because of the pain she had inflicted on Captain Dane, yet +proud of the honour done her, she sat thinking, sometimes of Clive, +sometimes of Mr. Wahlbaum, sometimes of Doris and Catharine, and of +her brother who had gone out to the coast years ago, and from whom she +had never heard.</p> + +<p>But mostly she thought of Clive—and of his long silence.</p> + +<p>Presently Hafiz woke up, stretched his fluffy, snowy limbs, yawned, +pink-mouthed, then looked up out of gem-clear eyes, blinking +inquiringly at his young mistress.</p> + +<p>"Hafiz," she said, "if I don't find employment very soon, what is to +become of you?"</p> + +<p>The evening paper, as yet unread, lay on the sofa beside her. She +picked it up, listlessly, glancing at the headings of the front page +columns. There seemed to be trouble in Mexico; trouble in Japan; +trouble in Hayti. Another column recorded last night's heat and gave +the list of deaths and prostrations in the city. Another column—the +last on the front page—announced by cable the news of a fashionable +engagement—a Miss Winifred Stuart to a Mr. Clive Bailey; both at +present in Paris—</p> + +<p>She read it again, slowly; and even yet it meant nothing to her, +conveyed nothing she seemed able to comprehend. +<!-- Page 213 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> + +<p>But halfway down the column her eyes blurred, the paper slipped from +her hands to the floor, and she dropped back into the hollow of the +sofa, and lay there, unstirring. And Hafiz, momentarily disturbed, +curled up on her lap again and went peacefully to sleep. +<!-- Page 214 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<p class="cap">TO her sisters Athalie wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"For reasons of economy, +and other reasons, I have moved to +1006 West Fifty-fifth Street where I have the top floor. I +think that you both can find accommodations in this house when +you return to New York.</p> + +<p>"So far I have not secured a position. Please don't think I am +discouraged. I do hope that you are well and successful."</p></div> + +<p>Their address, at that time, was Vancouver, B. C.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>To Clive Bailey, Jr., his agent wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"Miss Athalie Greensleeve called at the office this morning +and returned the keys to the apartment which she has occupied.</p> + +<p>"Miss Greensleeve explained to me a fact of which I had not +been aware, viz.: that the furniture, books, hangings, +pictures, porcelains, rugs, clothing, furs, bed and table +linen, silver, etc., etc., belong to you and not to her as I +had supposed.</p> + +<p>"I have compared the contents of the apartment with the minute +inventory given me by Miss +<!-- Page 215 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> + Greensleeve. Everything is +accounted for; all is in excellent order.</p> + +<p>"I have, therefore, locked up the apartment, pending orders +from you regarding its disposition,"—etc., etc.</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>The tall shabby house in Fifty-fourth Street was one of a five-storied +row built by a speculator to attract fashion many years before. +Fashion ignored the bait.</p> + +<p>A small square of paper which had once been white was pasted on the +brick front just over the tarnished door-bell. On it was written in +ink: "Furnished Rooms."</p> + +<p>Answering in person the first advertisement she had turned to in the +morning paper Athalie had found this place. There was nothing +attractive about it except the price; but that was sufficient in this +emergency. For the girl would not permit herself to remain another +night in the pretty apartment furnished for her by the man whose +engagement had been announced to her through the daily papers.</p> + +<p>And nothing of his would she take with her except the old gun-metal +wrist-watch, and Hafiz, and the barred basket in which Hafiz had +arrived. Everything else she left, her toilet silver, desk-set, her +evening gowns and wraps, gloves, negligées, boudoir caps, slippers, +silk stockings, all her bath linen, everything that she herself had +not purchased out of her own salary—even the little silver cupid +holding aloft his torch, which had been her night-light. +<!-- Page 216 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/gs15.jpg" width="500" height="345" +alt=""With a basket containing Hafiz, her suit-case, and a furled umbrella +she started for her new lodgings."" +title=""With a basket containing Hafiz, her suit-case, and a furled umbrella +she started for her new lodgings."" /> +<span class="caption">"With a basket containing Hafiz, her suit-case, +and a furled umbrella she started for her new lodgings."</span> +</div> + +<p> +<!-- Page 217 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +<!-- Page 218 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>Never again could she illuminate that torch. The other woman must do +that.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>She went about quietly from room to room, lowering the shades and +drawing the curtains. There was brilliant colour in her cheeks, an +undimmed beauty in her eyes; pride crowned the golden head held steady +and high on its slender, snowy neck. Only the lips threatened +betrayal; and were bitten as punishment into immobility.</p> + +<p>Her small steamer trunk went by a rickety private express for fifty +cents: with the basket containing Hafiz, her suit-case, and a furled +umbrella she started for her new lodgings.</p> + +<p>Michael, opening the lower grille for her, stammered: "God knows why +ye do this, Miss! Th' young Masther'll be afther givin' me the sack av +ye lave the house unbeknowns't him!"</p> + +<p>"I can't stay, Michael. He knows I can't. Good-bye!"</p> + +<p>"Good-bye Miss! God be good to ye—an' th' pusheen—!" laying a huge +but gentle paw on Hafiz's basket whence a gentle plaint arose.</p> + +<p>And so Athalie and Hafiz departed into the world together; and +presently bivouacked; their first étape on life's long journey ending +on the top floor of 1006 West Fifty-fifth Street.</p> + +<p>The landlady was a thin, anxious, and very common woman with false +hair and teeth; and evidently determined to secure Athalie for a +lodger.</p> + +<p>But the terms she offered the girl for the entire top floor were so absurdly +<!-- Page 219 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> + small that Athalie hesitated, astonished and perplexed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, there's a jinx in the place," said the landlady; "I ain't aiming +to deceive nobody, and I'll tell you the God-awful truth. If I don't," +she added naïvely, "somebody else is sure to hand it to you and you'll +get sore on me and quit."</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> the matter with the apartment?" +inquired the girl uneasily.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you: the lady that had it went dead on me last August."</p> + +<p>"Is that all?"</p> + +<p>"No, dearie. It was chloral. And of course, the papers got hold of it +and nobody wants the apartment. That's why you get it cheap—if you'll +take it and chase out the jinx that's been wished on me. Will you, +dearie?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said the girl, looking around at the newly decorated +and cheerful rooms.</p> + +<p>The landlady sniffed: "It certainly was one on me when I let that jinx +into my house—to have her go dead on me and all like that."</p> + +<p>"Poor thing," murmured Athalie, partly to herself.</p> + +<p>"No, she wasn't poor. You ought to have seen her rings! Them's what +got her into trouble, dearie;—and the roll she flashed."</p> + +<p>"Wasn't it suicide?" asked Athalie.</p> + +<p> +<!-- Page 220 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> +<!-- Page 221 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> +</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/gs16.jpg" width="300" height="447" +alt=""'Wasn't it suicide?' asked Athalie."" +title=""'Wasn't it suicide?' asked Athalie."" /> +<span class="caption">"'Wasn't it suicide?' +asked Athalie."</span> +</div> + + + +<p>"I gotta tell you the truth. No, it wasn't. She was feeling fine and +dandy. Business had went good.... There was a young man to visit her +that evening. +<!-- Page 222 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> + I seen him go up the stairs.... But I was that sleepy +I went to bed. So I didn't see him come down. And next day at noon +when I went up to do the room she lay dead onto the floor, and her +rings gone, and the roll missing out of her stocking."</p> + +<p>"Did the man kill her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dearie. And the papers had it. That's what put me in Dutch. I +gotta be honest with <i>you</i>. You'd hear it, anyway."</p> + +<p>"But how could he give her chloral—"</p> + +<p>The anxious, excited little woman's volubility could suffer restraint +no longer:</p> + +<p>"Oh, he could dope her easy in the dark!" she burst out. "Not that the +house ain't thur'ly respectable as far as I can help it, and all my +lodgers is refined. No, Miss Greensleeve, I won't stand for nothing +that ain't refined and genteel. Only what can a honest woman do when +she's abed and asleep, what with all the latch keys and entertainin', +and things like that? No, Miss Greensleeve, I ain't got myself to +blame, being decent and law-abiding and all like that, what with the +police keeping tabs and the neighbourhood not being Fifth Avenoo +either!—and this jinx wished on me—"</p> + +<p>"Please—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I suppose you ain't a-goin' to stay here now that you've learned +all about these goin's on and all like that—"</p> + +<p>"<i>Please</i> wait!"—for the voluble landlady was already beginning to +sniffle;—"I am perfectly willing +<!-- Page 223 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> + to stay, Mrs. Meehan,—if you will +promise to be a little patient about my rent until I secure a +position—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I will, Miss Greensleeve! I ain't plannin' to press you none! I +know how it is with money and with young ladies. Easy come, easy go! +Just give me what you can. I ain't fixed any too good myself, what +with butchers and bakers and rent owed me and all like that. I guess I +can trust you to act fair and square—"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I am square—so far."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Meehan began to sob, partly with relief, partly with a general +tendency to sentimental hysteria: "I can see that, dearie. And say—if +you're quiet, I ain't peekin' around corners and through key-holes. +No, Miss Greensleeve; that ain't my style! Quiet behaved young ladies +can have their company without me saying nothing to nobody. All I ask +is that no lady will cut up flossy in any shape, form, or manner, but +behave genteel and refined to one and all. I don't want no policeman +in the area. That ain't much to ask, is it?" she gasped, fairly out of +breath between eloquence and tears.</p> + +<p>"No," said Athalie with a faint smile, "it isn't much to ask."</p> + +<p>And so the agreement was concluded; Mrs. Meehan brought in fresh linen +for bed and bathroom, pulled out the new bureau drawers and dusted +them, carried away a few anæmic geraniums in pots, and swept the new +hardwood floor with a dry mop, explaining that the entire apartment +had been renovated and +<!-- Page 224 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> + redecorated since the tragic episode of last +August, and that all the furniture was brand new.</p> + +<p>"Her trunks and clothes and all like that was took by the police," +explained Mrs. Meehan, "but she left some rubbish behind a sliding +panel which they didn't find. I found it and I put it on the top shelf +in the closet—"</p> + +<p>She dragged a chair thither, mounted it, and presently came trotting +back to the front room, carrying in both arms a bulky box of green +morocco and a large paper parcel bursting with odds and ends of tinsel +and silk. These she dumped on the centre table, saying: "She had a +cabinet-maker fix up a cupboard in the baseboard, and that's where she +kept gimcracks. The police done me damage enough without my showin' +them her hidin' place and the things she kept there. Here—I'll show +it to you! It's full of keys and electric wires and switches—"</p> + +<p>She took Athalie by the arm and drew her over to the west side of the +room.</p> + +<p>"You can't see nothing there, can you?" she demanded, pointing at the +high wainscoting of dull wood polished by age.</p> + +<p>Athalie confessed she could not.</p> + +<p>"Look!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Meehan passed her bony hand along the panels until her work-worn +forefinger rested on a polished knot in the richly grained wood. Then +she pushed; and the entire square of panels swung outward, lowering +like a drawbridge, and presently rested flat on the floor. +<!-- Page 225 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p> + +<p>"How odd!" exclaimed Athalie, kneeling to see better.</p> + +<p>What she saw was a cupboard lined with asbestos, and an elaborate +electric switchboard set with keys from which innumerable insulated +wires radiated, entering tubes that disappeared in every direction.</p> + +<p>"What are all these for?" she asked, rising to her feet.</p> + +<p>"Dearie, I've got to be honest with <i>you</i>. This here lady was a +meejum."</p> + +<p>"A—what?"</p> + +<p>"A meejum."</p> + +<p>"What is that?"</p> + +<p>"Why don't you know, dearie? She threw trances for twenty per. She +seen things. She done stunts with tables and tambourines and +accordions. Why this here place is all wired and fixed up between the +walls and the ceiling and roof and the flooring, too. There is chimes +and bells and harmonicas and mechanical banjos under the flooring and +in the walls and ceiling. There's a whispering phonograph, too, and +something that sighs and sobs. Also a machine that is full of singing +birds that pipe up just as sweet and soft and natural as can be.</p> + +<p>"On rainy days you can amuse yourself with them keys; I don't like to +fool with them myself, being nervous with a weak back and my vittles +not setting right and all like that—" Again she ran down from sheer +lack of breath.</p> + +<p>Athalie gazed curiously at the secret cupboard. After a few moments +she bent over, lifted and replaced +<!-- Page 226 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> + the panelling and passed her slim +hand over the wainscot, thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"So the woman was a trance-medium," she said, half to herself.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Miss Greensleeve. She read the stars, too, and she done cards on +the side; you know—all about a blond gentleman that wants to meet you +and a dark lady comin' over the water to do something mean to you. She +charged high, but she had customers enough—swell ladies, too, in +their automobiles, and old gentlemen and young and all like that.... +Here's part of her outfit"—leading Athalie to the centre table and +opening the green morocco box.</p> + +<p>In the box was a slim bronze tripod and a big sphere of crystal. Mrs. +Meehan placed the tripod on the table and set the crystal sphere upon +it, saying dubiously: "She claimed that she could see things in that. +I guess it was part of her game. I ain't never seen nothing into that +glass ball, and I've looked, too. You can have it if you want it. It's +kind of cute to set on the mantel."</p> + +<p>She began to paw and grub and rummage in the big paper parcel, +scratching about in the glittering mess of silk and embroidery with a +pertinacity entirely gallinaceous.</p> + +<p>"You can have these, too," she said to Athalie—"if you want 'em. +They're heathen I guess—" holding up some tawdry Japanese and +home-made Chinese finery.</p> + +<p>But Athalie declined the dead woman's robes of office and Mrs. Meehan +rolled them up in the wrapping +<!-- Page 227 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> + paper and took them and herself off, +very profuse in her gratitude to Athalie for consenting to occupy the +apartment and thereby remove the "jinx" that had inhabited it since +the tragedy of the month before.</p> + +<p>A very soft and melancholy mew from the basket informed the girl that +Hafiz desired his liberty. So she let him out and he trotted at her +heels as she walked about inspecting the apartment. Also he did +considerable inspecting on his own account, sniffing at every +door-sill and crack, jumping up on chairs to look out of windows, +prowling in and out of closets, his plumy tail jerking with +dubiousness and indecision.</p> + +<p>The apartment was certainly clean. Evidently the house had been a good +one in its day, for the trim was dark old mahogany, rich and beautiful +in colour; and the fireplace was rather pretty with its acanthus +leaves and roses deeply carved in marble which time had toned to an +ivory tint.</p> + +<p>The darkly stained floor of hardwood was, of course, modern. So were +the new and very hideous oriental rugs made in Hoboken, and the +aniline pink wall-paper, and the brand new furniture still smelling of +department store varnish. Hideous, too, were the electric fixtures, +the gas-log in the old-time fireplace, and the bargain counter +bric-a-brac geometrically spaced upon the handsome old mantel.</p> + +<p>But there were possibilities in the big, square room facing south and +in the two smaller bed chambers fronting the north. A modern bathroom +connected these.</p> + +<p>To find an entire top floor in New York at such a +<!-- Page 228 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> + price was as +amazing as it was comfortable to the girl who had not expected to be +able to afford more than a small bedroom.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>She had a little money left, enough to purchase food and a few pots +and pans to cook it over the gas range in one of the smaller rooms.</p> + +<p>And here she and Hafiz had their first meal on the long world-trail +stretching away before her. After which she sat for a while by the +window in a stiff arm-chair, thinking of Clive and of his silence, and +of the young girl he was one day to marry.</p> + +<p>Southward, the lights of the city began to break out and sparkle +through the autumn haze; tall towers, hitherto invisible, suddenly +glimmered against the sky-line. A double vista of lighted street lamps +stretched east and west below her.</p> + +<p>The dusty-violet light of evening softened the shabby street below, +veiling ugliness and squalor and subtly transmuting meanness and +poverty to picturesqueness—as artists, using only the flattering +simplicity of essentials, show us in etching and aquarelle the romance +of the commonplace. And so the rusty iron balconies of a chop suey +across the street became quaint and curious: dragon and swinging +gilded sign, banner and garish fretwork grew mellow and mysterious +under the ruddy Hunter's Moon sailing aloft out of the city's haze +like a great Chinese lantern.</p> + +<p>From an unseen steeple or two chimes sounded the hour. Farther away in +the city a bell answered. It is not a city of belfries and chimes; +only locally and +<!-- Page 229 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> + by hazard are bell notes distinguishable above the +interminable rolling monotone of the streets.</p> + +<p>And now, the haze thickening, distant reverberations, deep, mellow, +melancholy, grew in the night air: fog horns from the two rivers and +the bay.</p> + +<p>Leaning both elbows on the sill of the opened window Athalie gazed +wearily into the street where noisy children shrilled at one another +and dodged vehicles like those quick tiny creatures whirling on ponds.</p> + +<p>Here and there, the flare of petroleum torches lighted push-carts +piled with fruit or laden with bowls of lemonade and hokey-pokey. +Sidewalks were crowded with shabby people gossiping in groups or +passing east and west—about what squalid business only they could +know.</p> + +<p>On the stoops of all the dwellings, brick or brownstone, people sat; +the men in shirt-sleeves, the young girls bare-headed, and in light +summer gowns. Pianos sounded through open parlour windows; there was +dancing going on somewhere in the block.</p> + +<p>Eastward where the street intersected the glare of the dingy avenue, a +policeman stood on fixed post, the electric lights guttering on his +metal-work when he turned. Athalie had laid her cheek on her arms and +closed her eyes, from fatigue, perhaps; perhaps to force back the +tears which, nevertheless, glimmered on her lashes where they lay +close to the curved white cheeks.</p> + +<p>Little by little the girl was taking degree after degree in her +post-graduate course, the study of which was man. +<!-- Page 230 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p> + +<p>And for the first time in her life a new reaction in the laboratory of +experience had revealed to her a new element in her analysis; +bitterness.</p> + +<p>Which is akin to resentment. And to these it is easy to ally +recklessness.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>There came to her a moment, as she sat huddled there at the window, +when endurance suddenly flashed into a white anger; and she found +herself on her feet, pacing the room as caged things pace, with a sort +of blindly fixed purpose, seeing everything yet looking at nothing +that she passed.</p> + +<p>But after this had lasted long enough she halted, gazing about her as +though for something that might aid her. But there was only the room +and the furniture, and Hafiz asleep on a chair; only these and the +crystal sphere on its slim bronze tripod. And suddenly she found +herself on her knees beside it, staring into its dusky transparent +depths, fixing her mind, concentrating every thought, straining every +faculty, every nerve in the one desperate and imperative desire.</p> + +<p>But through the crystal's depths there is no aid for those who "see +clearly," no comfort, no answer. She could not find there the man she +searched for—the man for whom her soul cried out in fear, in anger, +in despair. As in a glass, darkly, only her own face she saw, +fire-edged with a light like that which burns deep in black opals.</p> + +<p>Prone on the floor at last, her white face framed by her hands, her +eyes wide open in the dark, she finally understood that her clear +vision was of no avail where +<!-- Page 231 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> + she herself was concerned; that they who +see clearly can never use that vision to help themselves.</p> + +<p>Fiercely she resented it,—the more bitterly because for the first +time in her life she had condescended to any voluntary effort toward +clairvoyance.</p> + +<p>Wearily she sat up on the floor and gathered her knees into her arms, +staring at nothing there in the darkness while the slow tears fell.</p> + +<p>Never before had she known loneliness. A man had made her understand +it. Never before had she known bitterness. A man had taught it to her. +Never again should any man do what this man had done to her! She was +learning resentment.</p> + +<p>All men should be the same to her hereafter. All men should stand +already condemned. Never again should one among them betray her mind +to reveal itself, persuade her heart to response, her lips to +sacrifice their sweetness and their pride, her soul to stir in its +sleep, awake, and answer. And for what the minds and hearts of men +might bring upon themselves, let men be responsible. Their +inclinations, offers, protests, promises as far as they regarded +herself could never again affect her. Let man look to himself; his +desires no longer concerned her. Let him keep his distance—or take +his chances. And there were no chances.</p> + +<p>Athalie was learning resentment.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Somebody was knocking. Athalie rose from the floor, turned on the +lights, dried her eyes, went slowly to the door, and opened it. +<!-- Page 232 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> + +<p>A large, fat, pallid woman stood in the hallway. Her eyes were as +washed out as her faded, yellowish hair; and her kimono needed +washing.</p> + +<p>"Good evening," she said cordially, coming in without any +encouragement from Athalie and settling her uncorseted bulk in the +arm-chair. "My name is Grace Bellmore,—Mrs. Grace Bellmore. I have +the rear rooms under yours. If you're ever lonely come down and talk +it over. Neighbours are not what they might be in this house. Look out +for the Meehan, too. I'd call her a cat only I like cats. Say, that's +a fine one on your bed there. Persian? Oh, Angora—" here she fished +out a cigarette from the pocket of her wrapper, found a match, +scratched it on the sole of her ample slipper, and lighted her +cigarette.</p> + +<p>"Have one?" she inquired. "No? Don't like them? Oh, well, you'll come +to 'em. Everything comes easy when you're lonely. <i>I</i> know. You don't +have to tell me. God! I get so sick of my own company sometimes—"</p> + +<p>She turned her head to gaze about her, twisting her heavy, creased +neck as far as the folds of fat permitted: "You had your nerve with +you when you took this place. I knew Mrs. Del Garmo. I warned her, +too. But she was a bone-head. A woman can't be careless in this town. +And when it comes to men—say, Miss Greensleeve, I want to know their +names before they ask me to dinner and start in calling me Grace. It's +Grace <i>after</i> meat with <i>me</i>!" And she laughed and laughed, slapping +her fat knee with a pudgy, ring-laden hand. +<!-- Page 233 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p> + +<p>Athalie, secretly dismayed, forced a polite smile. Mrs. Bellmore blew +a few smoke rings toward the ceiling.</p> + +<p>"Are you in business, Miss Greensleeve?"</p> + +<p>"Yes.... I am looking for a position."</p> + +<p>"What a pretty voice—and refined way of speaking!" exclaimed Mrs. +Bellmore frankly. "I guess you've seen better days. Most people have. +Tell you the truth, though, I haven't. I'm better off than I ever was +before. Of course this is the dull season, but things are picking up. +What is your line, Miss Greensleeve?"</p> + +<p>"Stenographer."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Well, I don't suppose I could do anything for you, could I?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what your business is," ventured Athalie, who, +heretofore had not dared even to surmise what might be the vocation of +this very large and faded woman who wore a pink kimono and a dozen +rings on her nicotine-stained fingers, and who smoked incessantly.</p> + +<p>The woman seemed to be a trifle surprised: "Haven't you ever heard of +Grace Bellmore?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so," said Athalie with increasing diffidence.</p> + +<p>"Well, maybe you wouldn't, not being in the profession. The managers +all know me. I run an Emergency Agency on Broadway."</p> + +<p>"I don't think I understand," said the girl.</p> + +<p>"No? Then it's like this: a show gets stuck and needs a quick study. +They call me up and I throw them +<!-- Page 234 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> + what they want at an hour's notice. +They can always count on me for anything from wardrobe mistress to +prima donna. That's how I get mine," she concluded with a jolly laugh.</p> + +<p>Athalie, feeling a little more confidence in her visitor, smiled at +her.</p> + +<p>"Say—you're a beauty!" exclaimed Mrs. Bellmore, gazing at her. +"You're all there, too. I could place you easy if you ever need it. +You don't sing, do you?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Ever had your voice tried?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Dance?"</p> + +<p>"I dance—whatever is being danced—rather easily."</p> + +<p>"No stage experience?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Well—what do you say, Miss Greensleeve?"</p> + +<p>Athalie coloured and laughed: "Thank you, but I had rather work at +stenography."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bellmore said: "I certainly hate to admit it, and knock my own +profession, but any good stenographer in a year makes more than many a +star you read about.... Unless there's men putting up for her."</p> + +<p>Athalie nodded gravely.</p> + +<p>"All the same you'd make a peach of a show-girl," added Mrs. Bellmore +regretfully. And, after a rather intent interval of silent scrutiny: +"You're a <i>good</i> girl, too.... Say, you <i>do</i> get pretty lonely +sometimes, don't you, dear?" +<!-- Page 235 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> + +<p>Athalie flushed and shook her head. Mrs. Bellmore lighted another +cigarette from the smouldering remnant of the previous one, and flung +the gilt-tipped remains through the window.</p> + +<p>"Ten to one it hits a crook if it hits anybody," she remarked. "This +is a fierce neighbourhood,—all sorts of joints, and then some. But I +like my rooms. I don't guess you'll be bothered. A girl is more likely +to get spoken to in the swell part of town. Well,—" she struggled to +her fat feet—"I'll be going. If you're lonely, drop in during the +evening. I'm at the office all day except Sundays and holidays."</p> + +<p>They stood, confronted, looking at each other for a moment. Then, +impulsively the fat woman offered her hand:</p> + +<p>"Don't be afraid of me," she said. "I may look crooked, but I'm not. +Your mother wouldn't mind my knowing you."</p> + +<p>She held Athalie's narrow hand for a moment, and the girl looked into +the faded eyes.</p> + +<p>"Thank you for coming," she said. "I <i>was</i> lonely."</p> + +<p>"Good girls usually are. It's a hell of an alternative, isn't it? I +don't mean to be profane; hell is the word. It's hell either way for a +girl alone."</p> + +<p>Athalie nodded silently. Mrs. Bellmore looked at her, then glanced +around the room, curiously.</p> + +<p>"Hello," she said abruptly, "what's that?"</p> + +<p>Athalie's eyes followed hers: "Do you mean the crystal?"</p> + +<p>"Yes.... Say—" she turned to Athalie, nodding profound emphasis on +every word she uttered:—"Say, +<!-- Page 236 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> + I <i>thought</i> there was something else +to you—something I couldn't quite get next to. Now I know what's been +bothering me about you. You're clairvoyant!"</p> + +<p>Athalie's cheeks grew warm: "I am not a medium," she said. "That +crystal is not my own."</p> + +<p>"That may be. Maybe you don't think you are a medium. But you are, +Miss Greensleeve. <i>I</i> know. I'm a little that way, too,—just a very +little. Oh, I could go into the business and fake it of course,—like +all the others—or most of them. But you are the real thing. Why," she +exclaimed in vexation, "didn't I know it as soon as I laid eyes on +you? I certainly was subconscious of something. Why you could do +anything you pleased with the power you have if you'd care to learn +the business. There's money in it—take it from me!"</p> + +<p>Athalie said, after a few moments of silence: "I don't think I +understand. Is there a way of—of developing clear vision?"</p> + +<p>"Haven't you ever tried?"</p> + +<p>"Never.... Except when a little while ago I went over to the crystal +and—and tried to find—somebody."</p> + +<p>"Did you find—that person?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bellmore shook her fat head: "You needn't tell me any more. You +can't ever do yourself any good by crystal gazing—you poor child."</p> + +<p>Athalie's head dropped.</p> + +<p>"No, it's no use," said the other. "If you go into the business and +play square you can sometimes help +<!-- Page 237 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> + others. But I guess the crystal is +mostly fake. Mrs. Del Garmo had one like yours. She admitted to me +that she never saw anything in it until she hypnotised herself. And +she could do that by looking steadily at a brass knob on a bed-post; +and see as much in it as in her crystal."</p> + +<p>The fat woman lighted another cigarette and blew a contemplative whiff +toward the crystal: "No: at best the game is a crooked one, even for +the few who have really any occult power."</p> + +<p>"Why?" asked the girl, surprised.</p> + +<p>"Because they are usually clever, nimble-witted, full of intuition. +Deduction is an instinct with them. And it is very easy to elaborate +from a basis of truth;—it's more than a temptation to intelligence to +complete a story desired and already paid for by a client. Because +almost invariably the client is as stupid as the medium is +intelligent. And, take it from me, it's impossible not to use your +intelligence when a partly finished business deal requires it."</p> + +<p>Athalie was silent.</p> + +<p>"<i>I'd</i> do it," laughed Mrs. Bellmore.</p> + +<p>Athalie said nothing.</p> + +<p>"Say, on the level," said the older woman, "do you see a lot that we +others can't see, Miss Greensleeve?"</p> + +<p>"I have seen—some things."</p> + +<p>"Plenty, too, I'll bet! Oh, it's in your pretty face, in your +eyes!—it's in you, all about you. I'm not much in that line but I can +feel it in the air. Why I felt it as soon as I came into your room, +but I was that stupid—thinking of Mrs. Del Garmo—and never +<!-- Page 238 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> +associating it with you!... Do you do any trance work?"</p> + +<p>"No.... I have never cultivated—anything of that sort."</p> + +<p>"I know. The really gifted don't cultivate the power as a rule. Only +one now and then, and here and there. The others are pure +frauds—almost every one of them. But—" she looked searchingly at the +girl,—"you're no fraud! Why you're full of +it!—full—saturated—alive with—with vitality—psychical and +physical!—You're a glorious thing—half spiritual, half human—a +superb combination of vitality, sacred and profane!"—She checked +herself and turned on the girl almost savagely: "Who was the fool of a +man you were looking for in the crystal?... Very well; don't tell +then. I didn't suppose you would. Only—God help him for the fool he +is—and forgive him for what he has done to you!... And may I never +enter this room again and find you with the tears freshly scrubbed out +of the most honest eyes God ever gave a woman!... Good night, Miss +Greensleeve!"</p> + +<p>"Good night," said Athalie.</p> + +<p>After she had closed the door and locked it she turned back into the +empty room, moving uncertainly as though scarcely knowing what she was +about. And then, suddenly, the terror of utter desolation seized her, +and for the first time she realised what Clive had been to her, <i>and +what he had not been</i>—understood for the first time in her life the +complex miracle called love, its synthesis, its every element, every +molecule, +<!-- Page 239 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> + every atom, and flung herself across the bed, half +strangled, sobbing out her passion and her grief.</p> + +<p>Dawn found her lying there; but the ravage of that night had stripped +her of much that she had been, and never again would be. And what had +been taken from her was slowly being replaced by what she had never +yet been. Night stripped her; the red dawn clothed her.</p> + +<p>She sat up, dry-eyed, unbound her hair, flung from her the crumpled +negligée. Presently the first golden-pink ray of the rising sun fell +across her snowy body, and she flung out her lovely arms to it as +though to draw it into her empty heart.</p> + +<p>Hafiz, blinking his jewelled eyes, watched her lazily from his +pillow.<!-- Page 240 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<p class="cap">AS she came, pensively, from her morning bath into the sunny front +room Athalie noticed the corner of an envelope projecting from beneath +her door.</p> + +<p>For one heavenly moment the old delight surprised her at sight of +Clive's handwriting,—for one moment only, before an overwhelming +reaction scoured her heart of tenderness and joy; and the terrible +resurgence of pain and grief wrung a low cry from her: "Why couldn't +he let me alone!" And she crumpled the letter fiercely in her clenched +hand.</p> + +<p>Minute after minute she stood there, her white hand tightening as +though to strangle the speech written there on those crushed +sheets—perhaps to throttle and silence the faint, persistent cry of +her own heart pleading a hearing for the man who had written to her at +last.</p> + +<p>And after a while her nerveless hand relaxed; she looked down at the +crushed thing in her palm for a long time before she smoothed it out +and finally opened it.</p> + +<p>He wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"It is too long a story to go into in detail. I couldn't, +anyway. My mother had desired it for a long time. I have +<!-- Page 241 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> +nothing to say about it except this: I would not for all the +world have had you receive the first information from the +columns of a newspaper. Of that part of it I have a right to +speak, because the announcement was made without my knowledge +or consent. And I'll say more: it was made even before I +myself was aware that an engagement existed.</p> + +<p>"Don't mistake what I write you, Athalie. I am not trying to +escape any responsibility excepting that of premature +publicity. Whatever else has happened I am fully responsible +for.</p> + +<p>"And so—what can I have to say to you, Athalie? Silence were +decenter perhaps—God knows!—and He knows, too, that in me he +fashioned but an irresolute character, void of the initial +courage of conviction, without deep and sturdy belief, +unsteady to a true course set, and lacking in rugged purpose.</p> + +<p>"It is not stupidity: in the bottom of my own heart I <i>know</i>! +Custom, habit, acquired and inculcated acquiescence in +unanalysed beliefs—these require more than irresolution and a +negative disposition to fight them and overcome them.</p> + +<p>"Athalie, the news you must have read in the newspapers should +first have come from me. Among many, many debts I must ever +owe you, that one at least was due you. And I defaulted; but +not through any fault of mine.</p> + +<p>"I could not rest until you knew this. Whatever you may think +about me now—however lightly you weigh me—remember this—if +you ever remember me at all in the years to come: I was aware +of my +<!-- Page 242 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +paramount debt: I should have paid it had the +opportunity not been taken out of my own hands. And that debt +paramount was to inform you first of anybody concerning what +you read in a public newspaper.</p> + +<p>"Now there remains nothing more for me to say that you would +care to hear. You would no longer care to know,—would +probably not believe me if I should tell you what you have +been to me—and still are—and +still are, Athalie! Athalie!—"</p></div> + +<p>The letter ended there with her name. She kept it all day; but that +night she destroyed it. And it was a week before she wrote him:</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"—Thank you for your letter, Clive. I hope +all is well with you and yours. I wish you happiness; I desire for you all +things good. And also—for <i>her</i>. Surely I may say this much +without offence—when I am saying good-bye forever.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;" class="smcap">"Athalie."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>In due time, to this came his answer, tragic in its brevity, terrible +in its attempt to say nothing—so that its stiff cerement of formality +seemed to crack with every written word and its platitudes split open +under the fierce straining of the living and unwritten words beneath +them.</p> + +<p>And to this she made no answer. And destroyed it after the sun had +set.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Her money was now about gone. Indian summer brought no prospect of +employment. Never had she believed that so many stenographers existed +in the +<!-- Page 243 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> + world; never had she supposed that vacant positions could be +so pitifully few.</p> + +<p>During October her means had not afforded her proper nourishment.</p> + +<p>The vigour of young womanhood demands more than milk and crackers and +a rare slab from some delicatessen shop.</p> + +<p>As for Hafiz, to his astonishment he had been introduced to +chuck-steak; and the pleasure was anything but unmitigated. But +chuck-steak was more than his mistress had.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bellmore was inclined to eat largely of late suppers prepared on +an oil stove by her own fair and very fat hands.</p> + +<p>Athalie accepted one or two invitations, and then accepted no more, +being unable to return anybody's hospitality.</p> + +<p>Captain Dane called persistently without being received, until she +wrote him not to come again until she sent for him.</p> + +<p>Nobody else knew where she was except her sisters. Doris wrote from +Los Angeles complaining of slack business. Later Catharine wrote +asking for money. And Athalie was obliged to answer that she had none.</p> + +<p>Now "none" means not any at all. And the time had now arrived when +that was the truth. The chuck-steak cut up on Hafiz's plate in the +bathroom had been purchased with postage stamps—the last of a sheet +bought by Athalie in days of affluence for foreign correspondence.</p> + +<p>There was no more foreign correspondence. Hence +<!-- Page 244 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> + the chuck-steak, and +a bottle of milk in the sink and a packet of biscuits on the shelf. +And a rather pale, young girl lying flat on the lounge in the front +room, her blue eyes wide, staring up at the fading sun-beams on the +ceiling.</p> + +<p>If she was desperate she was quiet about it—perhaps even at moments a +little incredulous that there actually could be nothing left for her +to live on. It was one of those grotesque episodes that did not seem +to belong in her life—something which ought not—that could not +happen to her. At moments, however, she realised that it had +happened—realised that part of the nightmare had been happening for +some time—that for a good while now, she had always been more or less +hungry, even after a rather reckless orgy on crackers and milk.</p> + +<p>Except that she felt a little fatigued there was in her no tendency to +accept the <i>chose arrivée</i>, no acquiescence in the <i>fait accompli</i>, +nothing resembling any bowing of the head, any meek desire to kiss the +rod; only a still resentment, a quiet but steady anger, the new and +cool opportunism that hatches recklessness.</p> + +<p>What channel should she choose? That was all that chance had left for +her to decide,—merely what form her recklessness should take.</p> + +<p>Whatever of morality had been instinct in the girl now seemed to be in +absolute abeyance. In the extremity of dire necessity, cornered at +last, face to face with a world that threatened her, and watching it +now out of cool, intelligent eyes, she had, without realising it, +slipped back into her ragged childhood. +<!-- Page 245 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was nothing else to slip back to, no training, no discipline, no +foundation other than her companionship with a mother whom she had +loved but who had scarcely done more for her than to respond vaguely +to the frankness of inquiring childhood.</p> + +<p>Her childhood had been always a battle—a happy series of conflicts as +she remembered—always a fight among strenuous children to maintain +her feet in her little tattered shoes against rough aggression and +ruthless competition.</p> + +<p>And now, under savage pressure, she slipped back again in spirit to +the school-yard, and became a watchful, agile, unmoral thing again—a +creature bent on its own salvation, dedicated to its own survival, +atrociously ready for any emergency, undismayed by anything that might +offer itself, and ready to consider, weigh, and determine any chance +for existence.</p> + +<p>Almost every classic alternative in turn presented itself to her as +she lay there considering. She could go out and sell herself. But, +oddly enough, the "easiest way" was not easy for her. And, as a child, +also, a fastidious purity had been instinctive in her, both in body +and mind.</p> + +<p>There were other and easier alternatives; she could go on the stage, +or into domestic service, or she could call up Captain Dane and tell +him she was hungry. Or she could let any one of several young men +understand that she was now permanently receptive to dinner +invitations. And she could, if she chose, live on her personal +popularity,—be to one man or to several +<!-- Page 246 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> +<i>une maitresse vierge</i>—manage, contrive, accept, +give nothing of consequence.</p> + +<p>For she was a girl to flatter the vanity of men; and she knew that if +ever she coolly addressed her mind to it she could rule them, entangle +them, hold them sufficiently long, and flourish without the ultimate +concession, because there were so many, many men in the world, and it +took each man a long, long time to relinquish hope; and always there +was another ready to try his fortune, happy in his vanity to attempt +where all so far had failed.</p> + +<p>Something she <i>had</i> to do; that was certain. And it happened, while +she was pondering the problem, that the only thing she had not +considered,—had not even thought of—was now abruptly presented to +her.</p> + +<p>For, as she lay there thinking, there came the sound of footsteps +outside her door, and presently somebody knocked. And Athalie rose in +the dusk of the room, switched on a single light, went to the door and +opened it. And opportunity walked in wearing the shape of an elderly +gentleman of substance, clothed as befitted a respectable dweller in +any American city except New York.</p> + +<p>"Good evening," he said, looking at her pleasantly but inquiringly. +"Is Mrs. Del Garmo in?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Del Garmo?" repeated Athalie, surprised. "Why, Mrs. Del Garmo is +dead!"</p> + +<p>"God bless us!" he exclaimed in a shocked voice. "Is that so? Well, +I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. Well—well—well! Mrs. Del Garmo! I +certainly am sorry." +<!-- Page 247 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p> + +<p>He looked curiously about him, shaking his head, and an absent +expression came into his white-bearded face—which changed to lively +interest when his eyes fell on the table where the crystal stood +mounted between the prongs of the bronze tripod.</p> + +<p>"No doubt," he said, looking at Athalie, "you are Mrs. Del Garmo's +successor in the occult profession. I notice a crystal on the table."</p> + +<p>And in that instant the inspiration came to the girl, and she took it +with the coolness and ruthlessness of last resort.</p> + +<p>"What is it you wish?" she asked calmly, "a reading?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated, looking at her out of aged but very honest eyes; and in +a moment she was at his mercy, and the game had gone against her. She +said, while the hot colour slowly stained her face: "I have never read +a crystal. I had not thought of succeeding Mrs. Del Garmo until +now—this moment."</p> + +<p>"What is your name, child?" he asked in a gently curious voice.</p> + +<p>"Athalie Greensleeve."</p> + +<p>"You are not a trance-medium?"</p> + +<p>"No. I am a stenographer."</p> + +<p>"Then you are not psychical?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"I am naturally clairvoyant."</p> + +<p>He seemed surprised at first; but after he had looked at her for a +moment or two he seemed less surprised.</p> + +<p>"I believe you are," he said half to himself. +<!-- Page 248 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I really am.... If you wish I could try. But—I don't know how to go +about it," she said with flushed embarrassment.</p> + +<p>He gazed at her it seemed rather solemnly and wistfully. "There is one +thing very certain," he said; "you are honest. And few mediums are. I +think Mrs. Del Garmo was. I believed in her. She was the means of +giving me very great consolation."</p> + +<p>Athalie's face flushed with the shame and pity of her knowledge of the +late Mrs. Del Garmo; and the thought of the secret cupboard with its +nest of wires made her blush again.</p> + +<p>The old gentleman looked all around the room and then asked if he +might seat himself.</p> + +<p>Athalie also sat down in the stiff arm-chair by the table where her +crystal stood on its tripod.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," he ventured, "whether you could help me. Do you think so?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," replied the girl. "All I know about it is that I +cannot help myself through crystal gazing. I never looked into a +crystal but once. And what I searched for was not there."</p> + +<p>The old gentleman considered her earnestly for a few moments. "Child," +he said, "you are very honest. Perhaps you could help me. It would be +a great consolation to me if you could. Would you try?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know how," murmured Athalie.</p> + +<p>"Maybe I can aid you to try by telling you a little about myself."</p> + +<p>The girl lifted her flushed face from the crystal: +<!-- Page 249 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Don't do that, please. If you wish me to try I will. But don't tell +me anything."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because—I am—intelligent and +quick—imaginative—discerning. I might unconsciously—or +otherwise—be unfair. So don't tell me +anything. Let me see if there really is in me any ability."</p> + +<p>He met her candid gaze mildly but unsmilingly; and she folded her slim +hands in her lap and sat looking at him very intently.</p> + +<p>"Is your name Symes?" she asked presently.</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>"Elisha Symes?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And—do you live in +Brook—Brookfield—no!—Brookhollow?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"That town is in Connecticut, is it not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>His trustful gaze had altered, subtly. She noticed it.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," she said, "you think I could have found out these things +through dishonest methods."</p> + +<p>"I was thinking so.... I am satisfied that you are honest, Miss +Greensleeve."</p> + +<p>"I really am—so far."</p> + +<p>"Could you tell me how you learned my name and place of residence."</p> + +<p>Her expression became even more serious: "I don't know, Mr. Symes.... +I don't know <i>how</i> I knew it.... I think you wish me to help you find +your little +<!-- Page 250 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> + grandchildren, too. But I don't know why I think so."</p> + +<p>When he spoke, controlled emotion made his voice sound almost feeble.</p> + +<p>He said: "Yes; find my little grandchildren and tell me what they are +doing." He passed a transparent hand unsteadily across his dim eyes: +"They are not living," he added. "They were lost at sea."</p> + +<p>She said: "Nothing dies. Nothing is really lost."</p> + +<p>"Why do you think so, child?"</p> + +<p>"Because the whole world is gay and animated and lovely with what we +call 'the dead.' And, by the dead I mean <i>all</i> things great and small +that have ever lived."</p> + +<p>He sat listening with all the concentration and rapt attention of a +child intent upon a fairy tale. She said, as though speaking to +herself: "You should see and hear the myriads of birds that have +'died'! The sky is full of their voices and their wings.... +Everywhere—everywhere the lesser children live,—those long dead of +inhumanity or of that crude and temporary code which we call the law +of nature. All has been made up to them—whatever of cruelty and pain +they suffered—whatever rigour of the 'natural' law in that chain of +destruction which we call the struggle for existence.... For there is +only one real law, and it rules all of space that we can see, and more +of it than we can even imagine.... It is the law of absolute justice."</p> + +<p>The old man nodded: "Do you believe that?"</p> + +<p>She looked up at him dreamily: "Yes; I believe it. Or I should not +have said it." +<!-- Page 251 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Has anybody ever told you this?"</p> + +<p>"No.... I never even thought about it until this moment while +listening to my own words."... She lifted one hand and rested it +against her forehead: "I cannot seem to think of your grandchildren's +names.... Don't tell me."</p> + +<p>She remained so for a few moments, motionless, then with a graceful +gesture and a shake of her pretty head: "No, I can't think of their +names. Do you suppose I could find them in the crystal?"</p> + +<p>"Try," he said tremulously. She bent forward, resting both elbows on +the table and framing her lovely face in her hands.</p> + +<p>Deep into the scintillating crystal her blue gaze plunged; and for a +few moments she saw nothing. Then, almost imperceptibly, faint hues +and rainbow tints grew in the brilliant and transparent +sphere—gathered, took shape as she watched, became coherent and +logical and clear and real.</p> + +<p>She said in a low voice, still watching intently: "Blue sky, green +trees, a snowy shore, and little azure wavelets.... Two children +bare-legged, playing in the sand.... A little girl—so pretty!—with +her brown eyes and brown curls.... And the boy is her brother I +think.... Oh, certainly.... And what a splendid time they are having +with their sand-fort!... There's a little dog, too. They are calling +him, 'Snippy! Snippy! Snippy!' How he barks at the waves! And now he +has seized the little girl's doll! They are running after him, chasing +him along the sands! Oh, how funny they are!—and what a + +<!-- Page 252 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> +<!-- Page 253 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> +<!-- Page 254 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> + glorious +time they are having.... The puppy has dropped the doll.... The doll's +name is Augusta.... Now the little girl has seated herself +cross-legged on the sand and she is cradling the doll and singing to +it—such a sweet, clear, happy little voice.... She is singing +something about cherry pie—Oh!—now I can hear every word:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 7em;">"Cherry pie,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">Cherry pie,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">You shall have some bye and bye.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">Bye and Bye</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">Bye and Bye</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">You and I shall have a pie,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">Cherry pie</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">Cherry pie—</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"The boy is saying: 'Grandpa will have plenty for us when we get home. +There's always cherry pie at Grandpa's house.'</p> + +<p>"And the little girl answers, 'I think Grandpa will come here pretty +soon and bring us all the cherry pie we want.'... Her name is +Jessie.... Her brother calls her 'Jessie.' She calls him 'Jim.'</p> + +<p>"Their other name is Colden, I think.... Yes, that is it—Colden.... +They seem to be expecting their father and mother; but I don't see +them—Oh, yes. I can see them now—in the distance, walking slowly +along the sands—"</p> + +<p>She hesitated, remained silent for a few moments; then: "The colours +are blurring to a golden haze. I can't see clearly now; it is like +looking into the +<!-- Page 255 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> + blinding disk of the rising sun.... All splendour +and dazzling glory—and a too fierce light—"</p> + +<p>For a moment more she remained bent over above the sphere, then +raising her head: "The crystal is transparent and empty," she said. +<!-- Page 256 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 425px;"> +<img src="images/gs17.jpg" width="425" height="300" +alt=""She said in a low voice, still watching intently: 'Blue +sky, green trees, a snowy shore, and little azure wavelets....'"" +title=""She said in a low voice, still watching intently: 'Blue sky, +green trees, a snowy shore, and little azure wavelets....'"" /> +<span class="caption">"She said in a low voice, still watching intently: +'Blue sky, green trees, a snowy shore, and little azure +wavelets....'"</span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<p class="cap">IT was about five months later that Cecil Reeve wrote his long reply +to a dozen letters from Clive Bailey which heretofore had remained +unanswered and neglected:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"—For Heaven's sake, +do you think I've nothing to do except +to write you letters? I <i>never</i> write letters; and here's the +exception to prove it. And if I were not at the Geyser Club, +and if I had not dined incautiously, I would not write this!</p> + +<p>"But first permit me the indiscretion of asking you why an +engaged man is so charitably interested in the welfare of a +young girl who is not engaged to him? And if he is interested, +why doesn't he write to her himself and find out how she is? +Or has she turned you down?</p> + +<p>"But you need not incriminate and degrade yourself by +answering this question.</p> + +<p>"Seriously, Clive, you'd better get all thoughts of Athalie +Greensleeve out of your head as long as you intend to get +married. I knew, of course, that you'd been hard hit. +Everybody was gossiping last winter. But this is rather raw, +isn't it?—asking me to find out how Athalie is and what she +is doing; and to write you in detail? Well anyway I'll tell +you once for all +<!-- Page 257 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> +what I hear and know about her and her +family—her family first, as I happen to have had dealings +with them. And hereafter you can do your own philanthropic +news gathering.</p> + +<p>"Doris and Catharine were in a rotten show I backed. And when +I couldn't afford to back it any longer Doris was ungrateful +enough to marry a man who cultivated dates, figs, and pecan +nuts out in lower California, and Catharine has just written +me a most impertinent letter saying that real men grew only +west of the Mississippi, and that she is about to marry one of +them who knows more in half a minute than anybody could ever +learn during a lifetime in New York, meaning me and Hargrave. +I guess she meant me; and I guess it's so—about Hargrave. +Except for myself, we certainly are a bunch of boobs in this +out-of-date old town.</p> + +<p>"Now about Athalie,—she dropped out of sight after you went +abroad. Nobody seemed to know where she was or what she was +doing. Nobody ever saw her at restaurants or theatres except +during the first few weeks after your departure. And then she +was usually with that Dane chap—you know—the explorer. I +wrote to her sisters making inquiries in behalf of myself and +Francis Hargrave; but they either didn't know or wouldn't tell +us where she was living. Neither would Dane. I didn't suppose +he knew at the time; but he did.</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you think has happened? Athalie Greensleeve is +the most talked about girl in town! She has become the +fashion, Clive. You hear her discussed at dinners, at dances, +everywhere. +<!-- Page 258 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Some bespectacled guy from Columbia University had an article +about her in one of the recent magazines. Every paper has had +something to say concerning her. They all disagree except on +one point,—that Athalie Greensleeve is the most beautiful +woman in New York. How does that hit you, Clive?</p> + +<p>"Well, here's the key to the box of tricks. I'll hand it to +you now. Athalie has turned into a regular, genuine, out and +out clairvoyant, trade-marked patented. And society with a big +<i>S</i> and science with a little <i>s</i> are fighting to take her up +and make a plaything of her. And the girl is making all kinds +of money.</p> + +<p>"Of course her beauty and pretty manners are doing most of it +for her, but here's another point: rumour has it that she's +perfectly sincere and honest in her business.</p> + +<p>"How can she be, Clive? I ask you. Also I hand it to her +press-agent. He's got every simp in town on the run. He knows +his public.</p> + +<p>"Well, the first time I met her she was dining with Dane again +at the Arabesque. She seemed really glad to see me. There's a +girl who remains unaffected and apparently unspoiled by her +success. And she certainly has delightful manners. Dane +glowered at me but Athalie made me sit down for a few minutes. +Gad! I was that flattered to be seen with such a looker!</p> + +<p>"She told me how it began—she couldn't secure a decent +position, and all her money was gone, when in came an old guy +who had patronised the medium whose rooms she was living in.</p> + +<p>"That started it. The doddering old rube insisted +<!-- Page 259 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> +that +Athalie take a crack at the crystal business; she took one, +and landed him. And when he went out he left a hundred bones +in his wake and a puddle of tears on the rug.</p> + +<p>"She didn't tell it to me like this: she really fell for the +old gentleman. But I could size him up for a come-on. The +rural districts crawl with that species. Now what gets me, +Clive, is this: Athalie seems to me to be one of the +straightest ever. Of course she has changed a lot. She's +cleverer, livelier, gayer, more engaging and bewitching than +ever—and believe me she's some flirt, in a sweet, bewildering +sort of way—so that you'd give your head to know how much is +innocence and how much is art of a most delicious—and, +sometimes, malicious kind.</p> + +<p>"That's the girl. And that's all she is, just a girl, with all +the softness and freshness and fragrance of youth still +clinging to her. She's some peach-blossom, take it from uncle! +And she is straight; or I'm a million miles away in the +lockup.</p> + +<p>"And now, granted she's morally straight, how <i>can</i> she be +square in business? Do you get me? It's past me. All I can +think of is that, being straight, the girl feels herself that +she's also square.</p> + +<p>"Yet, if that is so, how can she fool others so neatly?</p> + +<p>"Listen, Clive: I was at a dance at the Faithorn's; tremendous +excitement among pin-heads and débutantes! Athalie was +expected, professionally. And sure enough, just before supper, +in strolls a radiant, wonderful young thing making them all +look like badly faded guinea-hens—and somehow I get the +impression that +<!-- Page 260 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +she is receiving her hostess instead of the +contrary. Talk about self-possession and absolute simplicity! +She had 'em all on the bench. Happening to catch my eye she +held out her hand with one of those smiles she can be guilty +of—just plain assassination, Clive!—and I stuck to her until +the pin-heads crowded me out, and the rubbering women got my +shoulders all over paint. And now here's where she gets 'em. +There's no curtained corner, no pasteboard trophies, no gipsy +shawls and bangles, no lowering of lights, no closed doors, no +whispers.</p> + +<p>"Whoever asks her anything spooky she answers in a sweet and +natural voice, as though replying to an ordinary question. She +makes no mystery of it. Sometimes she can't answer, and she +says so without any excuse or embarrassment. Sometimes her +replies are vague or involved or even apparently meaningless. +She admits very frankly that she is not always able to +understand what her reply means.</p> + +<p>"However she says enough—tells, reveals, discovers, offers +sound enough advice—to make her <i>the</i> plaything of the +season.</p> + +<p>"And it's a cinch that she scores more bull's eyes than +blanks. I had a séance with her. Never mind what she told me. +Anyway it was devilish clever,—and true as far as I knew. And +I suppose the chances are good that the whole business will +happen to me. Watch me.</p> + +<p>"I think Athalie must have cleared a lot of money already. +Mrs. Faithorn told me she gave her a cheque for five hundred +that evening. And Athalie's private +<!-- Page 261 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> +business must be pretty +good because all the afternoon until five o'clock carriages +and motors are coming and going. And you ought to see who's in +'em. Your prospective father-in-law was in one! Perhaps he +wanted inside information about Dominion Fuel—that damn stock +which has done a few things to me since I monkeyed with it.</p> + +<p>"But you should see the old dragons and dowagers and +death-heads, and frumps who go to see Athalie! And the younger +married bunch, too. I understand one has to ask for an +appointment a week ahead.</p> + +<p>"So she must be making every sort of money. And yet she lives +simply enough—sky floor of a new office-apartment building on +Long Acre—hoisted way up in the air above everything. You +look out and see nothing but city and river and bay and haze +on every side as far as the horizon's circle. At night it's +just an endless waste of electric lights. There's very little +sound from the street roar below. It's still up there in the +sky, and sunny; silent and snowy; quiet and rainy; noiseless +and dark—according to the hours, seasons, and meteorological +conditions, my son. And it's some joint, believe me, with the +dark old mahogany trim and furniture and the dull rich effects +in azure and gold; and the Beluch carpets full of sombre +purple and dusky fire, and the white cat on the window-sill +watching you put of its sapphire blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"And Athalie! curled up on her deep, soft divan, nibbling +sweetmeats and listening to a dozen men—for there are usually +as many as that who drop in at one time or another after +business is over, and during +<!-- Page 262 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> +the evening, unless Athalie is +dining out, which she often does, damn it!</p> + +<p>"Business hours for her begin at two o'clock in the afternoon; +and last until five. She could make a lot more money than she +does if she opened earlier. I told her this, once, but she +said that she was determined to educate herself.</p> + +<p>"And it seems that she studies French, Italian, German, piano +and vocal music; and has some down-and-out old hen read with +her. I believe her ambition is to take the regular Harvard +course as nearly as possible. Some nerve! What?</p> + +<p>"Well, that's how her mornings go; and now I've given you, I +think, a fair schedule of the life she leads. That fellow Dane +hangs about a lot. So do Hargrave and Faithorn and young Allys +and Arthur Ensart. And so do I, Clive; and a lot of others. +Why, I don't know. I don't suppose we'd marry her; and yet it +would not surprise me if any one of us asked her. My +suspicions are that the majority of the men who go there +<i>have</i> asked her. We're a fine lot, we men. So damn +fastidious. And then we go to sentimental pieces when we at +last get it into our bone-heads that there is no other way +that leads to Athalie except by marrying her. And we ask her. +And <i>then</i> we get turned down!</p> + +<p>"Clive, <i>that</i> girl ought to be easy. To look at her you'd say +she was made of wax, easily moulded, and fashioned to be +loved, and to love. But, by God, I don't think it's in her to +love.... For, if it were—good night. She'd have raised the +devil in this world +<!-- Page 263 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> +long ago. And some of us would have done +murder before now.</p> + +<p>"If I had not dined so copiously and so rashly I wouldn't +write you all this. I'd write a page or two and lie to you, +politely. And so I'll say this: I really do believe that it is +in Athalie to love some man. And I believe, if she did love +him, she'd love him in any way he asked her. He hasn't come +along yet; that's all. But Oh! how he will be hated when he +does—unless he is the marrying kind. And anyway he'll be +hated. Because, however he does it, he'll get one of the +loveliest girls this town ever set eyes on. And the rest of us +will realise it then, and there will be some teeth-gnashing, +believe me!—and some squirming. Because the worm that never +dieth will continue to chew us one and all, and never, never +let us forget that the girl no man of our sort could really +condescend to marry, had been asked by every one of us in turn +to marry him; and had declined.</p> + +<p>"And I'll add this for my own satisfaction: the man who gets +her, and doesn't marry her, will ultimately experience a +biting from that same worm which will make our lacerations +resemble the agreeable tickling of a feather.</p> + +<p>"We're a rotten lot of cowards. And what hypocrites we are!</p> + +<p>"I saw Fontaine sending flowers to his wife. He'd been at +Athalie's all the evening. There are only two occasions on +which a man sends flowers to his wife; one of them is when +he's in love with her.</p> + +<p>"Aren't we the last word in scuts? Custom-ridden, +<!-- Page 264 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> +habit-cursed, afraid, eternally afraid of something—of our +own sort always, and of their opinions. And that offering of +flowers when the man who sends them hopes to do something of +which he is ashamed, or has already done it!</p> + +<p>"How I do run on! In <i>vino veritas</i>—there's some class to +pickled truth! Here are olives for thought, red peppers for +honesty, onions for logic—and cauliflower for constancy—and +fifty-seven other varieties, Clive—all absent in the canned +make-up of the modern man.</p> + +<p>"'When you and I behind the veil have passed'—but they don't +wear veils now; and now is our chance.</p> + +<p>"We'll never take it. Hall-marks are our only guide. When +absent we merely become vicious. We know what we want; we know +what we ought to have; but we're too cowardly to go after it. +And so are you. And so am I.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">"Yours—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;" class="smcap">"Reeve."</span><br /> +</p> +<p><!-- Page 265 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<p class="cap">DURING that first year Athalie Greensleeve saw a great deal of New +York society, professionally, and of many New York men, socially.</p> + +<p>But the plaything which society attempted to make of her she gently +but adroitly declined to become. She herself drew this line whenever +it was necessary to draw it, never permitting herself to mistake the +fundamental attitude of these agreeable and amicably demonstrative +people toward her, or toward any girl who lived alone in New York and +who practised such a profession.</p> + +<p>Not among the people who employed her and who paid her lavishly for an +evening's complacency; not among people who sought her at her own +place during business hours for professional advice or for lighter +amusement could she expect any other except professional recognition.</p> + +<p>And after a few months of wistful loneliness she came, gradually, to +desire from these people nothing except what they gave.</p> + +<p>But there were some people she met during that first year's practice +of her new profession who seemed to be unimpressed by the popular +belief in such an awesome actuality as New York "society." And some of +these, oddly enough, were the descendants of those who, perhaps, had +formed part of the only real society the +<!-- Page 266 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> + big, raw, sprawling city +ever had. But that was long, long ago, in the day of the first +President.</p> + +<p>New York will always be spotted with the symptoms but will never again +have it. Paris has gone the same way. London is still flushed with it, +Berlin hectic, Vienna fevered. But the days of a "society" as a +distinct <i>ensemble</i>, with a logical reason for being, with authority, +with functions, with offensive and defensive powers and fixed +boundaries, is over forever; possibly never existed, certainly never +will exist in the series of gregarious aggregations and segregations +known to a perplexed and slightly amused world as the city of New +York.</p> + +<p>For Athalie that first year of new interests and of unfamiliar +successes passed more rapidly than had any single month ever before +passed in her life since the strenuous and ragged days of childhood.</p> + +<p>It was a year of novelty, of excitement, of self-development, and the +development of interests as new as they had been unsuspected.</p> + +<p>Like a gaily illuminated pageant the processional passed before her +with its constantly changing surroundings, new faces, new voices, new +ideas, new motives.</p> + +<p>And the new faces were to be scanned and understood, the new voices +listened to intently, the new ideas analysed, the new motives detected +and dissected.</p> + +<p>In drawing-rooms, in ballrooms, in boudoirs, new scenes constantly +presented themselves; one house was never like the next, one hostess +never resembled another; wealth itself was presented to her under +<!-- Page 267 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> +innumerable aspects ranging all the way from that false modesty and +smugness known as meekness, to fevered pretence, arrogance, and noisy +aggressiveness.</p> + +<p>Wonderful school for a girl to learn in!—the gilded halls of which +were eternally vexed and swept by the winds and whirlwinds of every +human passion.</p> + +<p>For here, under her still, clear scrutiny, was huddled humanity +itself, unconsciously bent on self-revelation. And Athalie's very +presence amid assemblies ever shifting, ever renewed, was educating +her eyes and ears and intellect to an insight and a comprehension she +had never dreamed of.</p> + +<p>In some the supreme necessity for self-ventilation interested her; in +others, secretiveness hermetically sealed fascinated her. Motives +interested or disinterested, sordid or noble; desires, aspirations, +hopes, perplexities,—whatever a glance, a word, an attitude, a +silence, suggested to her, fixed her attention, excited her +intelligence to curiosity, and focussed her interest to a mental +concentration.</p> + +<p>Out of which emerged deductions—curious fruits of logic, experience, +instinct, intuitiveness, and of some extraneous perception, outside of +and independent of her own conscious and objective personality.</p> + +<p>But in one radical particular Athalie differed from any individual of +either sex ever recorded in the history of hypnotic therapeutics or of +psychic phenomena.</p> + +<p>For those two worlds in which we all dwell, the supraliminal or waking +world, the transliminal, or sleeping world, were merged in this young +girl. +<!-- Page 268 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> + +<p>The psychological fact that natural or induced sleep is necessary for +extraneous or for auto-suggestion, did not exist for her. Her psychic +qualities were natural and beautiful, as much a part of her objective +as of her subjective life. Neither the trance induced by mesmerism or +hypnotism, nor the less harmful slumber by induction, nor the sleep of +nature itself was necessary for the girl to find herself in rapport +with others or with her own higher personality—her superior spiritual +self. Nor did her clairvoyance require trances; nor was sleep in +others necessary before she ventured suggestion.</p> + +<p>A celebrated physician who had been eager to meet her found her +extremely interesting but rather beyond his ability to classify.</p> + +<p>How much of her he believed to be fraud might be suspected by what he +said to her that evening in a corner of a very grand house on Fifth +Avenue:</p> + +<p>"There is no such thing as a 'control'; there is no such thing as a +'medium.' No so-called medium has ever revealed anything that did not +exist either in her own consciousness or in the consciousness of some +other living human being.</p> + +<p>"Self-delusion induced by auto-suggestion accounts for the more +respectable victims of Spiritism. For Spiritism is a doctrine accepted +by many people of education, intelligence, refinement, and of +generally excellent judgment.</p> + +<p>"And it is a pity, because Spiritism is a bar to all real +intellectual, material, moral, and spiritual progress. It thrives only +because it pretends to satisfy +<!-- Page 269 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> + an intense human craving—the desire +to re-establish personal relations with the dead. It never has done +this; it never will, Miss Greensleeve. And if you really believe it +has done this you are sadly and hopelessly mistaken."</p> + +<p>"But," said Athalie, looking at him out of blue eyes the chiefest +beauty of which was their fearless candour, "I do not concern myself +with what is called Spiritism—with trances, table-tipping, +table-rapping, slate-writing, apparitions, reincarnations—with +cabinets, curtains, darkened rooms, psychic circles."</p> + +<p>"You employ a crystal in your profession."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I need not."</p> + +<p>"Why do you do it, then?"</p> + +<p>"Some clients ask for it."</p> + +<p>"And you see things in it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the girl simply.</p> + +<p>"And when your clients do not demand a crystal-reading?"</p> + +<p>"I can see perfectly well without it—when I can see clearly at all."</p> + +<p>"Into the future?"</p> + +<p>"Sometimes."</p> + +<p>"The past, too, of course."</p> + +<p>"Not always."</p> + +<p>She fascinated the non-scientific side of this famous physician; he +interested her intensely.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," she ventured with a faint smile, "that you are really +quite as psychically endowed as I am?" +<!-- Page 270 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p> + +<p>His handsome, sanguine features flushed deeply, but he smiled in +appreciation.</p> + +<p>"Not in the manner you so saucily imply, Miss Greensleeve," he said +gaily. "My work is sound, logical, reasonable, and based on +fundamental truths capable of being proven. I never saw an apparition +in my life—and believed that it was really there!"</p> + +<p>"Oh! So you <i>have</i> seen an apparition?"</p> + +<p>"None that could have really existed independently of my own vision. +In other words it wouldn't have been there at all if I hadn't supposed +I had seen it."</p> + +<p>"You <i>did</i> suppose so?"</p> + +<p>"I knew perfectly well that I didn't see it. I didn't even think I saw +it."</p> + +<p>"But you <i>saw</i> it?"</p> + +<p>"I imagined I did, and at the same time I knew I didn't."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said quietly, "you did see it, Dr. Westland. You have seen +it more than once. You will see it again."</p> + +<p>A heavier colour dyed his face; he started impatiently as though to +check her—as though to speak; and did not.</p> + +<p>She said: "If what I say is distasteful to you, please stop me." She +waited a moment; then, as he evinced no desire to check or interrupt +her: "I <i>am</i> very diffident about saying this to you—to a man so +justly celebrated—pre-eminent in the greatest of all professions. I +am so insignificant in comparison, so unimportant, so ignorant where +you are experienced and learned. +<!-- Page 271 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But may I say to you that nothing dies? I am not referring to a +possible spiritual world inhabited perhaps by souls. I mean that here, +on this earth, all around us, nothing that has ever lived really +dies.... Is what I say distasteful to you?"</p> + +<p>He offered no reply.</p> + +<p>"Because," she said in a low voice, "if I say anything more it would +concern you. And what you saw.... For what you saw was alive, and +real—as truly living as you and I are. It is nothing to wonder at, +nothing to trouble or perplex you, to see clearly—anybody—you have +ever—<i>loved</i>."</p> + +<p>He looked up at her in a silence so strained, so longing, so intense, +that she felt the terrific tension.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, "you saw clearly and truly when you saw—her."</p> + +<p>"Who? in God's name!"</p> + +<p>"Need I tell you, Dr. Westland?"</p> + +<p>No, she had no need to tell him. His wife was dead. But it was not his +wife he had seen so often in his latter years.</p> + +<p>No, she had no need to tell him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Athalie had never been inclined to care for companions of her own sex. +As a child she had played with boys, preferring them. Few women +appealed to her as qualified for her friendship—only one or two here +and there and at rare intervals seemed to her sufficiently interesting +to cultivate. And to the girl's sensitive and shy advances, here and +there, some woman responded. +<!-- Page 272 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus she came to know and to exchange occasional social amenities with +Adele Millis, a youthful actress, with Rosalie Faithorn, a handsome +girl born to a formal social environment, but sufficiently independent +to explore outside of it and snap her fingers at the opinions of those +peeping over the bulwarks to see what she was doing.</p> + +<p>Also there was Peggy Brooks, a fascinating, breezy, capable young +creature who was Dr. Brooks to many, and Peggy to very few. And there +were one or two others, like Nina Grey and Jeanne Delauny and Anne +Randolph.</p> + +<p>But of men there would have been no limit and no end had Athalie not +learned very early in the game how to check them gently but firmly; +how to test, pick, discriminate, sift, winnow, and choose those to be +admitted to her rooms after the hours of business had ended.</p> + +<p>Of these the standards differed, so that she herself scarcely knew why +such and such a one had been chosen—men, for instance, like Cecil +Reeve and Arthur Ensart—perhaps even such a man as James Allys, 3rd. +Captain Dane, of course, had been a foregone conclusion, and John +Lyndhurst was logical enough; also W. Grismer, and the jaunty, obese +Mr. Welter, known in sporting circles as Helter Skelter Welter, and +more briefly and profanely as Hel. His running mate, Harry Ferris had +been included. And there was a number of others privileged to drift +into the rooms of Athalie Greensleeve when she chose to be at home to +anybody. +<!-- Page 273 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p> + +<p>From Clive she heard nothing: and she wrote to him no more. Of him she +did hear from time to time—mere scraps of conversation caught, a word +or two volunteered, some careless reference, perhaps, perhaps some +scrap of intentional information or some comment deliberate if not a +trifle malicious.</p> + +<p>But to all who mentioned him in her presence she turned a serene face +and unclouded eyes. On the surface she was not to be read concerning +what she thought of Clive Bailey—if indeed she thought about him at +all.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile he had married Winifred Stuart in London, where, it +appeared, they had taken a house for the season. All sorts of +honourables and notables and nobles as well as the resident and +visiting specimens of a free and sovereign people had been bidden to +the wedding. And had joyously repaired thither—the bride being +fabulously wealthy and duly presented at Court.</p> + +<p>The American Ambassador was there with the entire staff of the +Embassy; also a king in exile, several famished but receptive dukes +and counts and various warriors out of jobs—all magnetised by the +subtle radiations from the world's most powerful loadstone, money.</p> + +<p>They said that Mrs. Bailey, Sr., was very beautiful and impressive in +a gown that hypnotised the peeresses—or infuriated them—nobody +seemed to know exactly which.</p> + +<p>Cecil Reeve, lounging on the balcony by the open window one May +evening, said to Hargrave—and probably really unconscious that +Athalie could hear +<!-- Page 274 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> + him if she cared to: "Well, he got her all +right—or rather his mother got her. When he wakes up he'll be sick +enough of her millions."</p> + +<p>Hargrave said: "She's a cold-blooded little proposition. I've known +Winifred Stuart all my life, and I never knew her to have any impulse +except a fishy one."</p> + +<p>"Cold as a cod," nodded Cecil. "Merry times ahead for Clive."</p> + +<p>And on another occasion, later in the summer, somebody said in the +cool dusk of the room:</p> + +<p>"It's true that the Bailey Juniors are living permanently in England. +I saw Clive in Scotland when I was fishing out Banff way. He says +they're remaining abroad indefinitely."</p> + +<p>Some man's voice asked how Clive was looking.</p> + +<p>"Not very fit; thin and old. I was with him several times that month +and I never saw him crack a smile. That's not like him, you know."</p> + +<p>"What is it? His wife?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I fancy it lies somewhere between his mother and his wife—this +pre-glacial freeze-up that's made a bally mummy of him."</p> + +<p>And still again, and in the tobacco-scented dusk of Athalie's room, +and once more from a man who had just returned from abroad:</p> + +<p>"I kept running into Clive everywhere. He seems to haunt the +continent, turning up like a ghost here and there; and believe me he +looks the part of the lonely spook."</p> + +<p>"Where's his Missis?" +<!-- Page 275 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They've chucked the domestic. Didn't you know?"</p> + +<p>"Divorced?"</p> + +<p>"No. But they don't get on. What man could with that girl? So poor old +Clive is dawdling around the world all alone, and his wife's +entertainments are the talk of London, and his mother has become pious +and is building a chapel for herself to repose in some day when the +cards go against her in the jolly game."</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>The cards went against her in the game that autumn.</p> + +<p>Athalie had been writing to her sister Catharine, and had risen from +her desk to find a stick of sealing-wax, when, as she turned to go +toward her bedroom, she saw Clive's mother coming toward her.</p> + +<p>Never but once before had she seen Mrs. Bailey—that night at the +Regina—and, for the first time in her life, she recoiled before such +a visitor. A hot, proud colour flared in her cheeks as she drew +quietly aside and stood with averted head to let her pass.</p> + +<p>But Clive's mother gazed at her gently, wistfully, lingering as she +passed the girl in the passage-way. And Athalie, turning her head +slowly to look after her, saw a quiet smile on her lips as she went +her silent way; and presently was no longer there. Then the girl +continued on her own way in search of the sealing-wax; but she was +moving uncertainly now, one arm outstretched, feeling along the +familiar walls and furniture, half-blinded with her tears.</p> + +<p> +<!-- Page 276 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> +<!-- Page 277 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/gs18.jpg" width="300" height="510" +alt=""Mrs. Bailey, Jr., looked pale and pretty sitting there."" +title=""Mrs. Bailey, Jr., looked pale and pretty sitting there."" /> +<span class="caption">"Mrs. Bailey, Jr., looked pale +and pretty sitting there."</span> +</div> + +<p>So the chapel fulfilled its functions.</p> + +<p>It was a very ornamental private chapel. Mrs. +<!-- Page 278 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> +Bailey, Sr., had had it pretty well peppered with family crests and +quarterings, authentic and imaginary.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Bailey, Jr., looked pale and pretty sitting there, the English +sunlight filtered through stained glass; the glass also was thoroughly +peppered with insignia of the House of Bailey. Rich carving, rich +colouring, rich people!—what more could sticklers demand for any +exclusive sanctuary where only the best people received the Body of +Christ, and where God would meet nobody socially unknown.</p> + +<p>Clive arrived from Italy after the funeral. The meeting between him +and his wife was faultless. He hung about the splendid country place +for a while, and spent much time inside the chapel, and also outside, +where he directed the planting of some American evergreens, hemlock, +spruce, and white pine.</p> + +<p>But the aromatic perfume of familiar trees was subtly tearing him to +tatters; and there came a day when he could no longer endure it.</p> + +<p>His young wife was playing billiards with Lord Innisbrae, known +intimately as Cinders, such a languid and burnt out young man was he, +with his hair already white, and every lineament seared with the fires +of revels long since sunken into ashes.</p> + +<p>He watched them for a while, his hands clenched where they rested in +his coat pockets, the lean muscles in his cheeks twitching at +intervals.</p> + +<p>When Innisbrae took himself off, Winifred still lounged gracefully +along the billiard table taking shots with any ball that lay for her. +And Clive looked on, +<!-- Page 279 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> + absent-eyed, the flat jaw muscles working at +intervals.</p> + +<p>"Well?" she asked carelessly, laying her cue across the table.</p> + +<p>"Nothing.... I think I'll clear out to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Oh."</p> + +<p>She did not even inquire where he was going. For that matter he did +not know, except that there was one place he could not go—home; the +only place he cared to go.</p> + +<p>He had already offered her divorce—thinking of Innisbrae, or of some +of the others. But she did not want it. It was, perhaps, not in her to +care enough for any man to go through that amount of trouble. Besides, +Their Majesties disapproved divorce. And for this reason alone nothing +would have induced her to figure in proceedings certain to exclude her +from one or two sets.</p> + +<p>"Anything I can do for you before I leave?" he asked, dully.</p> + +<p>It appeared that there was nothing he could do for his young wife +before he wandered on in the jolly autumn sunshine.</p> + +<p>So the next morning he cleared out. Which proceeding languidly +interested Innisbrae that evening in the billiard-room.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>That winter Clive got hurt while pig-sticking in Morocco, being but an +indifferent spear. During convalescence he read "Under Two Flags," and +approved the idea; but when he learned that the Spahi cavalry was not +recruiting Americans, and when, a +<!-- Page 280 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> +<!-- Page 281 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> +<!-- Page 282 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> + month later, he discovered how +much romance did not exist in either the First or Second Foreign +Legions, he no longer desired dangers incognito under the tri-colour +or under the standard bearing the open hand.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 328px;"> +<img src="images/gs19.jpg" width="328" height="479" +alt=""During convalescence he read 'Under Two Flags' +and approved the idea."" +title=""During convalescence he read 'Under Two Flags' +and approved the idea."" /> +<span class="caption">"During convalescence he read 'Under +Two Flags' and approved the idea."</span> +</div> + +<p>Some casual wanderer through the purlieus of science whom he met in +Brindisi, induced him to go to Sumatra where orchids and ornithoptera +are the game. But he acquired only a perfectly new species of fever, +which took six months to get over.</p> + +<p>He convalesced at leisure all the way from Australia to Cape Town; and +would have been all right; but somebody shot at somebody else one +evening, and got Clive. So it was several months more before he +arrived in India, and the next year before he had enough of China.</p> + +<p>But Clive had seen many things in those two years and had learned +fairly well the lesson of his own unimportance in a world which misses +no man, neither king nor clown, after the dark curtain falls and +satiated humanity shuffles home to bed.</p> + +<p>He saw a massacre—or the remains of it—where fifteen thousand yellow +men and one white priest lay dead. He saw Republican China, 40,000 +strong, move out after the banditti, shouldering its modern rifles, +while its regimental music played "Rosie O'Grady" in quick march time. +He saw the railway between Hankow and Pekin swarming with White Wolf's +bloody pack, limping westward from the Honan-Anhui border with +dripping fangs. He peered into the stinking wells of Honan where women +were cutting their own throats. He witnessed the levity of Lhasa +priests and saw their +<!-- Page 283 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> + grimy out-thrust hands clutching for tips +beside their prayer-wheels.</p> + +<p>In India he gazed upon the degradation of woman and the unspeakable +bestiality of man till that vile and dusty hell had sickened him to +the soul.</p> + +<p>Back into Europe he drifted; and instantly and everywhere appeared the +awful Yankee—shooting wells in Hungary, shooting craps in Monaco, +digging antiques in Greece, digging tunnels in Servia,—everywhere the +Yankee, drilling, bridging, constructing, exploring, pushing, arguing, +quarrelling, insisting, telegraphing, gambling, touring, over-running +older and better civilisations than his own crude Empire where he has +nothing to learn from anybody but the Almighty—and then only when he +condescends to ask for advice on Sunday.</p> + +<p>And Clive, nevertheless, longed with a longing that made him sick, for +"God's country" where all that is worst and best on earth still boils +in the vast and seething cauldron of a continent in the making. There +bubbles the elemental broth, dregs, scum, skimmings, residue, +by-products, tailings, smoking corruption above the slowly forming and +incorruptible matrix in its depths where lies imbedded, and ever +growing, the Immam, the Hope of the World—gem indestructible, pearl +beyond price. Difficilia quae pulchra.</p> + +<p>And once, Clive had almost set out for home; and then, grimly, turned +away toward the southern continent of the hemisphere.</p> + +<p>In Lima he heard of an expedition fitting out to search for the lost +Americans, Cromer and Page, and +<!-- Page 284 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> + for the Hungarian Seljan. And that +same evening he met Captain Dane.</p> + +<p>They looked at each other very carefully, and then shook hands. Clive +said: "If you want a handy man in camp, I'd like to go."</p> + +<p>"Come on," said Dane, briefly.</p> + +<p>Later, looking over together some maps in Dane's rooms, the big blond +soldier of fortune glanced up at the younger man, and saw a lean, +bronzed visage clamped mute by a lean bronzed jaw; but he also saw two +dark eyes fixed on him in the fierce silence of unuttered inquiry. +After a moment Dane said very quietly:</p> + +<p>"Yes, she was well, and I think happy, when I left New York.... How +long is it since you have heard from her?"</p> + +<p>"Three years."</p> + +<p>"Three years," mused Dane, gazing into space out of his slitted eyes +of arctic blue; "yes, that's some little time. Bailey.... She is +well—I think I said that.... And very prosperous, and greatly admired +... and happy—I believe."</p> + +<p>The other waited.</p> + +<p>Dane picked up a linen map, looked at it, fiddled with the corner. +Then, carelessly: "She is not married," he said.... "Here's the +Huallaga River as I located it four years ago. Seljan and O'Higgins +were making for it, I believe.... That red crayon circle over there +marks the habitat of the Uta fly. It's worse than the Tsetse. If +anybody is hunting death—<i>esta aquí</i>!... Here is the Putumayo +district. Hell lies +<!-- Page 285 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> + up here, just above it.... Here's Iquitos, and +here lies Para, three thousand miles away.... Were you going to say +something?"</p> + +<p>But if Clive had anything to say he seemed to find no words to say it. +And he only folded his arms on the table's edge and looked down at the +stained and crumpled map.</p> + +<p>"It will take us about a year," remarked Dane.</p> + +<p>Clive nodded, but his eye involuntarily sought the irregular red +circle where trouble of all sorts might be conveniently ended by a +perfectly respectable Act of God.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Actus Dei nemini facit injuriam.<br /></p> +<p><!-- Page 286 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<p class="cap">THERE was a slight fragrance of tobacco in the room mingling with the +fresh, spring-like scent of lilacs—great pale clusters of them +decorated mantel and table, and the desk where Athalie sat writing to +Captain Dane in the semi-dusk of a May evening.</p> + +<p>Here and there dim figures loomed in the big square room; the graceful +shape of a young girl at the piano detached itself from the gloom; a +man or two dawdled by the window, vaguely silhouetted against the +lilac-tinted sky.</p> + +<p>Athalie wrote on: "I had not supposed you had landed until Cecil Reeve +told me this evening. If you are not too tired to come, please do so. +Do you realise that you have been away over a year? Do you realise +that I am now twenty-four years old, and that I am growing older every +minute? You had better hasten, then, because very soon I shall be too +old to believe your magic fairy tales of field and flood and all your +wonder lore of travel in those distant golden lands I dream of.</p> + +<p>"Who was your white companion? Cecil tells me that you said you had +one. Bring him with you this evening; you'll need corroboration, I +fear. And mostly I desire to know if you are well, and next I wish to +<!-- Page 287 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +hear whether you did really find the lost city of Yhdunez."</p> + +<p>A maid came to take the note to Dane's hotel, the Great Eastern, and +Cecil Reeve looked up and laid aside his cigarette.</p> + +<p>"Come on, Athalie," he said, "tell Peg to turn on one of those +Peruvian dances."</p> + +<p>Peggy Brooks at the piano struck a soft sensuous chord or two, but +Francis Hargrave would not have it, and he pulled out the proper +phonographic record and cranked the machine while Cecil rolled up the +Beluch rugs.</p> + +<p>The somewhat muffled air that exuded from the machine was the lovely +Miraflores, gay, lively, languorous, sad by turns—and much danced at +the moment in New York.</p> + +<p>A new spring moon looked into the room from the west where like +elegant and graceful phantoms the dancers moved, swayed, glided, swung +back again with sinuous grace into the suavely delicate courtship of +the dance.</p> + +<p>The slender feet and swaying figure of Athalie seemed presently to +bewitch the other couple, for they drew aside and stood together +watching that exquisite incarnation of youth itself, gliding, bending, +floating in the lilac-scented, lilac-tinted dusk under the young moon.</p> + +<p>The machine ran down in the course of time, and Hargrave went over to +re-wind it, but Peggy Brooks waved him aside and seated herself at the +piano, saying she had enough of Hargrave. +<!-- Page 288 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p> +<p> She was still playing the quaint, sweet dance called "The Orchid," +and Hargrave was leaning on the piano beside her watching Cecil and +Athalie drifting through the dusk to the music's rhythm, when the door +opened and somebody came in.</p> + +<p>Athalie, in Cecil's arms, turned her head, looking back over her +shoulder. Dane loomed tall in the twilight.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she exclaimed; "I am so glad!"—slipping out of Cecil's arms and +wheeling on Dane, both hands outstretched.</p> + +<p>The others came up, also, with quick, gay greetings, and after a +moment or two of general and animated chatter Athalie drew Dane into a +corner and made room for him beside her on the sofa. Peggy had turned +on the music machine again and, snubbing Hargrave, was already +beginning the Miraflores with Cecil Reeve.</p> + +<p>Athalie said: "<i>Are</i> you well? That's the first question."</p> + +<p>He said he was well.</p> + +<p>"And did you find your lost city?"</p> + +<p>He said, quietly: "We found Yhdunez."</p> + +<p>"We?"</p> + +<p>"I and my white companion."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you bring him with you this evening?" she asked. "Did you +tell him I invited him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Oh.... Couldn't he come?"</p> + +<p>And, as he made no answer: "Couldn't he?" she repeated. "Who is he, +anyway—" +<!-- Page 289 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Clive Bailey."</p> + +<p>She sat motionless, looking at him, the question still parting her +lips. Dully in her ears the music sounded. The pallor which had +stricken her face faded, grew again, then waned in the faint return of +colour.</p> + +<p>Dane, who was looking away from her rather fixedly, spoke first, still +not looking at her: "Yes," he said in even, agreeable tones, "Clive +was my white companion.... I gave him your note to read.... He did not +seem to think that he ought to come."</p> + +<p>"Why?" Her lips scarcely formed the word.</p> + +<p>"—As long as you were not aware of whom you were inviting.... There +had been some misunderstanding between you and him—or so I +gathered—from his attitude."</p> + +<p>A few moments more of silence; then she was fairly prepared.</p> + +<p>"Is he well?" she asked coolly.</p> + +<p>"Yes. He had one of those nameless fevers, down there. He's coming out +of it all right."</p> + +<p>"Is he—his appearance—changed?"</p> + +<p>"He's changed a lot, judging from the photographs he showed me taken +three or four years ago. He's changed in other ways, too, I fancy."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I only surmise it. One hears about people—and their +characteristics.... Clive is a good deal of a man.... I never had a +better companion.... There were hardships—tight corners—we had a bad +time of it for a while, along the Andes.... And the +<!-- Page 290 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> + natives are +treacherous—every one of them.... He was a good comrade. No man can +say more than that, Miss Greensleeve. That includes about everything I +ever heard of—when a man proves to be a good comrade. And there is no +place on earth where a man can be so thoroughly tried out as in that +sunless wilderness."</p> + +<p>"Is he stopping at the Great Eastern?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I believe he's going back on Saturday."</p> + +<p>She looked up sharply: "Back? Where?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, not to Peru. Only to England," said Dane, forcing a laugh.</p> + +<p>After a moment she said: "And he wouldn't come.... It is only three +blocks, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"It wasn't the distance, of course—"</p> + +<p>"No; I remember. He thought I might not have cared to see him."</p> + +<p>"That was it."</p> + +<p>Another silence; then in a lower voice which sounded a little hard: +"His wife is living in England, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"She is living—I don't know where."</p> + +<p>"Have they—children?"</p> + +<p>"I believe not."</p> + +<p>She remained silent for a while, then, coolly enough:</p> + +<p>"I suppose he is sailing on Saturday to see his wife."</p> + +<p>"I think not," said Dane, gravely.</p> + +<p>"You say he is sailing for England."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I imagine it's because he has nowhere else to go." +<!-- Page 291 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Why doesn't he stay here?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"He is American. His friends live here. Why doesn't he remain here?"</p> + +<p>Dane shook his head: "He's a restless man, Miss Greensleeve. That kind +of man can't stay anywhere. He's got to go on—somewhere."</p> + +<p>"I see."</p> + +<p>There came a pause; then they talked of other things for a while until +other people began to drop in, Arthur Ensart, Anne Randolph, and young +Welter—Helter Skelter Welter, always, metaphorically speaking, +redolent of saddle leather and reeking of sport. His theme happened to +be his own wonderful trap record, that evening; and the fat, +good-humoured, ardent young man prattled on about "unknown angles," +and "incomers," until Dane, who had been hunting jaguars and cannibals +along the unknown Andes, concealed his yawns with difficulty.</p> + +<p>Ensart insisted on turning on the lights and starting the machine; and +presently Anne Randolph and Peggy were dancing the Miraflores with +Cecil and Ensart.</p> + +<p>Welter had cornered Hargrave and Dane and was telling them all about +it, and Athalie went slowly through the passage-way and into her own +bedroom, where she stood quite motionless for a while, looking at the +floor. Hafiz, dozing on the bed, awoke, gazed at his mistress gravely, +yawned, and went to sleep again. +<!-- Page 292 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 383px;"> +<img src="images/gs20.jpg" width="383" height="259" +alt=""His theme happened to be his own wonderful trap +record, that evening."" +title=""His theme happened to be his own wonderful trap +record, that evening."" /> +<span class="caption">"His theme happened to be his own +wonderful trap record, that evening."</span> +</div> + +<p> +<!-- Page 293 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> +<!-- Page 294 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>Presently she dropped onto a chair by her little ivory-tinted Louis +XVI desk. There was a telephone there and a directory.</p> + +<p>When she had decided to open the latter, and had found the number she +wanted, she unhooked the receiver and called for it.</p> + +<p>After a few minutes somebody said that he was not in his room, but +that he was being paged.</p> + +<p>She waited, dully attentive to the far noises which sounded over the +wire; then came a voice:</p> + +<p>"Yes; who is it?"</p> + +<p>She said: "I wished to speak to Mr. Bailey—Mr. Clive Bailey."</p> + +<p>"I am Mr. Bailey."</p> + +<p>For a moment the fact that she had not recognised his voice seemed to +strike her speechless. And it was only when he spoke again, +inquiringly, that she said in a low voice: "Clive!"</p> + +<p>"Yes.... Is—is it <i>you</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>And in the next heavily pulsating moment her breath came back with her +self-control:</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you come, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't imagine you wanted me."</p> + +<p>"I asked Captain Dane to invite you."</p> + +<p>"Did you know whom you were inviting?"</p> + +<p>"No.... But I do now. Will you come?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. When?"</p> + +<p>"When you like. Come now if you like—unless you were engaged—"</p> + +<p>"No—"</p> + +<p>"What were you doing when I called you?" +<!-- Page 295 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Nothing.... Walking about the lobby."</p> + +<p>"Did you find it interesting?"</p> + +<p>She heard him laugh—such a curious, strange, shaken laugh.</p> + +<p>She said: "I shall be very glad to see you, Clive. There are some of +your friends here, too, who will be glad to see you."</p> + +<p>"Then I'll wait until—"</p> + +<p>"No; I had rather meet you for the first time when others are here—if +you don't mind. Do you?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said, coolly; "I'll come."</p> + +<p>"Now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, immediately."</p> + +<p>Her heart was going at a terrific pace when she hung up the receiver. +She went to her mirror, turned on the side-lights, and looked at +herself. From the front room came the sound of the dance music, a +ripple or two of laughter. Welter's eager voice singing still of arms +and the man.</p> + +<p>Long she stood there, motionless, studying herself, so that, when the +moment came that was coming now so swiftly upon her, she might know +what she appeared like in his eyes.</p> + +<p>All, so far, was sheer, fresh youth with her; her eyes had not lost +their dewy beauty; the splendour of her hair remained unchanged. There +were no lines, nothing lost, nothing hardened in contour. Clear and +smooth her snowy chin; perfect, so far, the lovely throat: nothing of +blemish was visible, no souvenirs of grief, of pain.</p> + +<p>And, as she looked, and all the time she was looking, +<!-- Page 296 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> + she felt, +subtly, that the ordered routine of her thoughts was changing; that a +transformation was beginning somewhere deep within her—a new +character emerging—a personality unfamiliar, disturbing, as though +not entirely to be depended on.</p> + +<p>And in the mirror she saw her lips, scarcely parted, more vivid than +she had ever seen them, and her eyes two wells of azure splendour; saw +the smooth young bosom rise and fall; felt her heart, rapid, +imperious, beating the "colours" into her cheeks.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, as she stood there, she heard him come in;—heard the +astonished and joyous exclamations—Cecil's bantering, cynical voice, +Welter's loud welcome. She pressed both hands to her hot cheeks, +stared at herself a moment, then turned and walked leisurely toward +the living-room.</p> + +<p>In her heart a voice was crying, crying: "Let the world see so that +there may be no mistake! This man who was friendless is my friend. Let +there be no mistake that he is more or less than that." But she only +said with a quick smile, and offering her hand: "I am so glad to see +you, Clive. I am so glad you came." And stood, still smiling, looking +into the lean, sun-tanned face, under the concentrated eyes of her +friends around them both.</p> + +<p>For a second it was difficult for him to speak; but only she saw the +slight quiver of the mouth.</p> + +<p>"You are—quite the same," he said; "no more beautiful, no less. Time +is not the essence of your contract with Venus."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive! And I am twenty-four! +<!-- Page 297 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> + Tell me—<i>are</i> you a trifle +grey!—just above the temples?—or is it the light?"</p> + +<p>"He's grey," said Cecil; "don't flatter him, Athalie. And Oh, Lord, +what a thinness!"</p> + +<p>Peggy Brooks, professionally curious, said naïvely: "Are you still +rather full of bacilli, Mr. Bailey? And would you mind if I took a +drop of blood from you some day?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all," said Clive, laughing away the strain that still fettered +his speech a little. "You may have quarts if you like, Dr. Brooks."</p> + +<p>"How was the shooting?" inquired Welter, bustling up like a judge at a +bench-show when the awards are applauded.</p> + +<p>"Oh—there was shooting—of course," said Clive with an involuntary +and half-humorous glance at Captain Dane.</p> + +<p>"Good nigger hunting," nodded Dane. "Unknown angles, Welter. You ought +to run down there."</p> + +<p>"Any incomparable Indian maidens wearing nothing but ornaments of +gold?" inquired Cecil.</p> + +<p>"That is partly true," said Clive, laughing.</p> + +<p>"If you put a period after 'nothing,' I suppose," suggested Peggy.</p> + +<p>"About that."</p> + +<p>He turned to Athalie; but her silent, smiling gaze confused him so +that he forgot what he had meant to say, and stood without a word amid +the chatter that rose and ebbed about him.</p> + +<p>Anne Randolph and Arthur Ensart had joined hands, their restless feet +sketching the first steps of +<!-- Page 298 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> + the Miraflores; and presently somebody +cranked the machine.</p> + +<p>"Come on!" said Peggy imperiously to Dane; "you've been too long in +the jungle dancing with Indian maidens!"</p> + +<p>Other people dropped in—Adele Millis, young Grismer, John Lyndhurst, +Jeanne Delauny.</p> + +<p>When Clive saw Rosalie Faithorn saunter in with James Allys he stared, +but that young seceder from his own set greeted him without +embarrassment and lighted a cigarette.</p> + +<p>"Where's Winifred?" she asked nonchalantly. "Still on the outs? Yes? +Why not shuffle and draw again? Winifred was always a pig."</p> + +<p>Clive flushed at the girl's frankness although he could have expected +nothing less from her.</p> + +<p>Rosalie continued to smoke and to inspect him critically: "You're a +bit seedy and a bit weedy, Clive, but you'll come around with feeding. +You're really all right. I'd have you myself if I was marrying young +men these days."</p> + +<p>"That's nice of you, Rosalie.... But I'm full of rare bacilli."</p> + +<p>"The rarer the better—if you must have them. Give me the unusual, +whether it's a disease or a gown. I believe I will take you, Clive—if +you are not expected to live long."</p> + +<p>"That's the trouble. Nothing seems to be able to get me."</p> + +<p>Dane said as he passed with Peggy: "He's immune, Miss Faithorn. The +prettiest woman I ever +<!-- Page 299 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> + saw, he side-stepped in Lima. And even then +every man wanted to shoot him up because she made eyes at him."</p> + +<p>"I think I'll go there," said Cecil. "Her name and quality if you +please, Dane."</p> + +<p>"Ask Clive," he called back.</p> + +<p>Athalie, still smiling, said: "Shall I ask you, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"Don't ask that South American adventurer anything," interrupted +Cecil, "but come and dance this Miraflores with me, Athalie—"</p> + +<p>"No, I don't wish to—"</p> + +<p>"Come on! You must!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Cecil—please—"</p> + +<p>But he had his way; and, as usual, everybody watched her while the +charming music lasted,—Clive among the others, standing a little +apart, lean, erect, his dark gaze fixed.</p> + +<p>She came back to him after the dance, delicately flushed and a trifle +breathless.</p> + +<p>"Do you dance that in England?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"It's danced—not at Court functions, I believe."</p> + +<p>"You never did care to dance, did you?"</p> + +<p>"No—" he shrugged, "I used to mess about some."</p> + +<p>"And what do you do to amuse yourself in these days?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing—much."</p> + +<p>"You must do <i>something</i>, Clive!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes ... I travel,—go about."</p> + +<p>"Is that all?" +<!-- Page 300 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's about all."</p> + +<p>She had stepped aside to let the dancers pass; he moved with her.</p> + +<p>She said in a low, even voice: "Is it pleasant to be back, Clive?"</p> + +<p>He nodded in silence.</p> + +<p>"Nothing has changed very much since you went away. There's a new +administration at the City Hall, a number of new sky-scrapers in town; +people danced the Tango day before yesterday, the Maxixe yesterday, +the Miraflores to-day, the Orchid to-morrow. That's about all, Clive."</p> + +<p>And as he merely acquiesced in silence, she glanced up sideways at +him, and remained watching this new, sun-browned, lean-visaged version +of the boy she had first known and the boyish man who had gone out of +her life four years before.</p> + +<p>"Would you like to see Hafiz?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He turned quickly toward her: "Yes," he said, the ghost of a smile +lining the corners of his eyes.</p> + +<p>"He's on my bed, asleep. Will you come?"</p> + +<p>Slipping along the edges of the dancing floor and stepping daintily +over the rolled rugs, she led the way through the passage to her rose +and ivory bedroom, Clive following.</p> + +<p>Hafiz opened his eyes and looked across at them from the pillow, stood +up, his back rounding into a furry arch; yawned, stretched first one +hind leg and then the other, and finally stood, flexing his forepaws +and uttering soft little mews of recognition and greeting. +<!-- Page 301 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I wonder," she said, smilingly, "if you have any idea how much Hafiz +has meant to me?"</p> + +<p>He made no reply; but his face grew sombre and he laid a lean, +muscular hand on the cat's head.</p> + +<p>Neither spoke again for a little while. Finally his hand fell from the +appreciative head of Hafiz, dropping inert by his side, and he stood +looking at the floor. Then there was the slightest touch on his arm, +and he turned to go; but she did not move; and they confronted each +other, alone, and after many years.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she stretched out both hands, looking him full in the eyes, +her own brilliant with tears:</p> + +<p>"I've got you back—haven't I?" she said unsteadily. But he could not +speak, and stood savagely controlling his quivering lip with his +teeth.</p> + +<p>"I just want you as I had you, Clive—my first boy friend—who turned +aside from the bright highway of life to speak to a ragged child.... I +have had the boy; I have had the youth; I want the man, +Clive,—honestly, in perfect innocence.</p> + +<p>"Would you care what might be said of us—as long as we know our +friendship is blameless? I am not taking you from <i>her</i>, am I? I am +not taking anything away from her, am I?</p> + +<p>"I have not always played squarely with men. I don't think it is +possible. They have hoped for—various eventualities. I have not +encouraged them; I have merely let them hope. Which is not square.</p> + +<p>"But I wish always to play square with women. Unless a woman does, +nobody will.... And that is why I ask you, Clive—am I robbing her—if +you +<!-- Page 302 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> + come back to me—as you were?—nothing more—nothing less, Clive, +but just exactly as you were."</p> + +<p>It was impossible for him to control his voice or his words or even +his thoughts just yet; he stood with his lean head turned partly from +her, motionless as a rock, in the desperate grip of self-mastery, +crushing the slender hands that alternately yielded and clasped his +own.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive," she said, "Clive! You don't know—you never can know what +loneliness means to such a woman as I am.... I thought once—many +times—that I could never again speak to you—that I never again could +care to hear about you.... But I was wrong, pitifully wrong.</p> + +<p>"It was not jealousy of her, Clive; you know that, don't you? There +had never been any question of such sentiment between you and +me—excepting once—one night—that last night when you said +good-bye—and you were very much overwrought.</p> + +<p>"So it was not jealousy.... It was loneliness. I wanted you, even if +you had fallen in love. That sort of love had nothing to do with us!</p> + +<p>"There was nothing in it that ought to have come between you and +me?... Besides, if such an ephemeral thought ever drifted through my +idle mind, I knew on reflection that you and I could never be destined +to marry, even if such sentiment ever inclined us. I knew it and +accepted it without troubling to analyse the reasons. I had no desire +to invade your world—less desire now that I have penetrated it +professionally and know a little about it. +<!-- Page 303 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It was not jealousy, Clive."</p> + +<p>He swung around, bent swiftly and pressed his lips to her hands. And +she abandoned them to him with all her heart and soul in an +overwhelming passion of purest emotion.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't stand it, Clive," she said, "when I heard you were at your +hotel alone.... And all the unhappiness I had heard of—your married +life—I—I couldn't stand it; I couldn't let you remain there all +alone!</p> + +<p>"And when you came here to-night, and I saw in your face how these +four years had altered you—how it had been with you—I wanted you +back—to let you know I am sorry—to let you know I care for the man +who has known unhappiness, as I cared for the boy who had known only +happiness.</p> + +<p>"Do you understand, Clive? Do you, dear? Don't you see what I see?—a +man standing all alone by a closed door behind which his hopes lie +dead.</p> + +<p>"Clive, that is where you came to me, offering sympathy and +friendship. That is where I come to you in my turn, offering whatever +you care to take of me—if there is in me anything that may comfort +you."</p> + +<p>He bent and laid his lips to her hands again, remaining so, curbed +before her; and she looked down at his lean and powerful head and +shoulders, and saw the hint of grey edging the crisp, dark hair, and +the dark stain of tropic suns, that never could be effaced.</p> + +<p>So far no passion, other than innocent, had she ever known for any +man,—nothing of lesser emotion, nothing physical. And, had she +thought of it at all she +<!-- Page 304 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> + must have believed that it was that way with +her still. For no thought concerning it disturbed her tender, +tremulous happiness with this man beside her who still held her hands +imprisoned against his breast.</p> + +<p>And presently they were seated on the couch at the foot of her bed, +excited, garrulous, exchanging gossip, confidences, ideas long +unuttered, desires long unexpressed.</p> + +<p>Under the sweeping flashlight of her intelligence the four years of +his absence were illuminated, and passed swiftly in review for his +inspection. Of loneliness, perplexity, grief, deprivation, she made +light, laughingly, shrugging her smooth young shoulders.</p> + +<p>"All that was yesterday," she said. "There is only to-day, now—until +to-morrow becomes to-day. You won't go away, will you, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"There is no need of your going, is there?—no reason for you to +go—no duty—moral obligation—is there, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"None."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't say so just because I wish you to, would you?"</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't be here at all if there were any reason for me to +be—there."</p> + +<p>"Then I am not robbing her of you?—I am not depriving her of the +tiniest atom of anything that you owe to her? Am I, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"I can't see how. There is only one thing I can do for—my wife. And +that is to keep away from her." +<!-- Page 305 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive! How desperately sad! And, she is young and beautiful, +isn't she? Oh, I am so sorry for you—for you both. Don't you see, +dear, that I am not jealous? If you could be happy with her, and if +she could understand me and let me be your friend,—that would be +wonderful, Clive!"</p> + +<p>He remained silent, thinking of Winifred and of her quality of +"understanding"; and of the miserable matter of business which had +made her his wife—and of his own complacent and smug indifference, +and his contemptible weakness under pressure.</p> + +<p>Always in the still and secret depths of him he had remained conscious +that he had never cared for any woman except Athalie. All else had +been but a vague realisation of axioms and theorems,—of premises that +had rusted into his mind,—of facts which he accepted as +self-evident,—such as the immutable fact that he couldn't marry +Athalie, couldn't mortify his family, couldn't defy his friends, +couldn't affront his circle with impunity.</p> + +<p>To invite disaster would be to bring an avalanche upon himself which, +if it wounded, isolated, even marooned him, would certainly bury +Athalie out of sight forever.</p> + +<p>His parents had so reasoned with him; his mother continued the +inculcation after his father's death. And then Winifred and her mother +came floating into his cosmic ken like two familiar planets.</p> + +<p>For a while, far away in interstellar space, Athalie glimmered like a +fading comet. Then orbits narrowed; adhesion and cohesion followed +collision; the bi-maternal +<!-- Page 306 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> + pressure never lessened. And he gave up.</p> + +<p>Of this he was thinking now as he sat there in her rose and ivory +room, gazing at the grey silk carpet underfoot; and all the while +exquisitely, vitally conscious of Athalie—of her nearness to him—to +tears at moments—to that happiness akin to tears.</p> + +<p>"Clive, do you remember—" and she breathlessly recalled some gay and +long forgotten incident of that never to be forgotten winter together +when the theatres and restaurants knew them so well, and the day-world +and night-world both credited them with being to each other everything +that they had never been.</p> + +<p>"Where will you live?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He said: "You know I have sold our old house.... I don't know—" He +looked at her gravely and ashamed: "I think I will take your old +apartment."</p> + +<p>She blushed to her hair: "Were you annoyed with me because I left it?"</p> + +<p>"It hurt."</p> + +<p>"But Clive!—I <i>couldn't</i> remain,—after +you had become engaged to marry."</p> + +<p>"Did you need to leave everything you owned?"</p> + +<p>"They were not mine," she said in a low, embarrassed voice.</p> + +<p>"Whose then?"</p> + +<p>"Yours. I never considered them mine.... As though I were a girl of +little consideration ... who paid herself, philosophically, for what +she had lost.... Like a man's mistress after the inevitable break has +come—"</p> + +<p>"Don't say that!" +<!-- Page 307 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p> + +<p>She shrugged her pretty shoulders: "I am a woman old enough to know +what the world is, and what women do in it sometimes; and what men +do.... And I am this sort of woman, Clive: I can give, I can receive, +too, but only because of the happiness it bestows on the giver. And +when the sympathy which must exist between giver and receiver ends, +then also possession ends, for me.... Why do you look at me so +seriously?"</p> + +<p>But he dared not say. And presently she went on, happily, and at +random: "Of course I kept Hafiz and the first thing you ever gave +me—the gun-metal wrist-watch. Here it is—" leaning across him and +pulling out a drawer in her dresser. "I wear it every day when I am +out. It keeps excellent time. Isn't it a darling, Clive?"</p> + +<p>He examined it in silence, nodded, and returned it to her. And she +laid it away again, saying:</p> + +<p>"So you think of taking my old apartment? How odd! And how very +sentimental of you, Clive."</p> + +<p>He said, forcing a light tone: "Nothing has ever been disturbed there. +It's all as it was when you left. Even your gowns are hanging in the +closets—"</p> + +<p>"Clive!"</p> + +<p>"We'll go around if you like. Would you care to see it again?"</p> + +<p>"Y—yes."</p> + +<p>"Then we'll go together, and you can investigate closets and bureaus +and dressers—"</p> + +<p>"Clive! Why did you let those things remain?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't care to have anybody else take that place." +<!-- Page 308 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you know that what you have done is absurdly and frightfully +sentimental?"</p> + +<p>"Is it?" he said, trying to laugh. "Well that snivelling and false +sort of sentiment is about the best that such men as I know how to +comfort themselves with—when it's too late for the real thing."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Just what I am saying. Cheap minds are fed with false sentiment; and +are comforted.... I made out of that place a smug little monument to +you—while you were living alone and almost penniless in a shabby +rooming house on—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive! You didn't know that! And anyway it would not have altered +things for me."</p> + +<p>"I suppose not.... Well, Athalie; you are very wonderful to +me—merciful, forgiving, nobly blind—God!" he muttered under his +breath, "I don't understand how you can be so generous and gentle with +me,—I don't, indeed."</p> + +<p>"If you only knew how easy it is to care for you," she said with that +sweet fearlessness so characteristic of her.</p> + +<p>He bit his lips in silence.</p> + +<p>Presently she said: "I suppose there'll be gossip in the other room. +Rosalie and Cecil will be cynical and they also will try to be witty +at our expense. But I don't care. Do you?"</p> + +<p>"Shall we go in?"</p> + +<p>"No.... I haven't had you for four years. If you don't care what is +said about us, I don't." And she looked up at him with the most +engaging candour. +<!-- Page 309 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'm only thinking about you, Athalie—"</p> + +<p>"Don't bother to, Clive. Pretty nearly everything has been said about +me, I fancy. And, unless it might damage you I'll go anywhere with +you, do anything with you. <i>I</i> know that I'm all right; and I care no +longer what others say or think."</p> + +<p>"But you know," he said, "that is a theory which will not work—"</p> + +<p>"You are wrong, Clive. Nobody cares what sort of character a popular +actress may have. Her friends are not disturbed by her reputation; the +public crowds to see her. And it's about that way with me, I imagine. +Because I don't suppose many people believe me to be respectable. +Only—there is no man alive who can say of his own knowledge that I am +not,—whatever he and his brothers and sisters may imagine."</p> + +<p>"So why should I care?—as long as the public affords me an honest +living! <i>I</i> know what I am, and have been. And the knowledge, so far, +does not keep me awake at night."</p> + +<p>She laughed—the sweet, fresh, unembarrassed laugh of innocence,—not +that ignorance and stupidity which is called innocence, but innocence +based on a worldly wisdom which neither her intelligence nor her +experience permitted her to escape.</p> + +<p>After a short silence he bent forward and laid one hand on a crystal +which stood clasped by a tiny silver tripod on the table beside her +bed.</p> + +<p>"So you did develop your—qualities—after all, Athalie." +<!-- Page 310 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes.... It happened accidentally." And she told him about the old +gentleman who had come to her rooms when she stood absolutely +penniless and at bay before the world.</p> + +<p>After she had ended he asked her whether she had ever again seen his +father. She told him. She told him also about seeing his mother.</p> + +<p>"Have they anything to say to me, Athalie?" he asked wistfully.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Clive. Some day—when you feel like it—if you will +come to me—"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, dear ... you are wonderful—wonderfully good—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive, I'm not! I'm careless, pleasure-loving, inclined to +laziness—and even to dissipation—"</p> + +<p>"You!"</p> + +<p>"Within certain limits," she added demurely. "I dance a lot: I know I +smoke too much and drink too much champagne. I'm no angel, Clive. I +won altogether too much at auction last night; ask Jim Allys. And +really, if I didn't have a mind and feel a desire to cultivate it, I'd +be the limit I suppose." She laughed and tossed her chin; and the pure +loveliness of her child-like throat was suddenly and exquisitely +revealed.</p> + +<p>"I'm too intelligent to go wrong I suppose," she said. "I adore +cultivating my mental faculties even more than I like to misbehave." +She added a trifle shyly. "I speak French and Italian and German very +nicely. And I sing a little and play acceptably. Please compliment me, +Clive." +<!-- Page 311 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p> + +<p>But her quick smile died out as she looked into his eyes—eyes haunted +by the vision of all that he had denied his manhood and this girl's +young womanhood—all that he had lost, irretrievably and forever on +that day he married another woman.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter, Clive?" she asked with sweet concern.</p> + +<p>He answered: "Nothing, I guess ... except—you are very—wonderful—to +me." +<!-- Page 312 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<p class="cap">A MAY afternoon was drawing to a close; the last appointment had been +made for the morrow, and the last client for the day still lingered +with Athalie where she sat with her head propped thoughtfully on one +slim hand, her gaze concentrated on the depths of the crystal sphere.</p> + +<p>After a long silence she said: "You need not be anxious. Her wireless +apparatus is out of order. They are repairing it.... It was a bad +storm."</p> + +<p>"Is there any ice near her?"</p> + +<p>After a pause: "I can see none."</p> + +<p>"Any ships?"</p> + +<p>"One of her own line, hull down. They have been exchanging signals.... +There seems to be no necessity for her to stand by. The worst is +over.... Yes, the <i>Empress of Borneo</i> proceeds. The <i>Empress of +Formosa</i> will be reported this evening. You need not be anxious: +she'll dock on Monday."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure?" said the man as Athalie lifted her eyes from the +crystal and smiled reassuringly at him. He was a stocky, red-faced, +trim, middle-aged man; but his sanguine visage bore the haggard +imprint of sleepless nights, and the edges of his teeth had bitten his +under lip raw.</p> + +<p>Athalie glanced carelessly at the crystal, then nodded. +<!-- Page 313 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," she said patiently. "I am sure of it, Mr. Clements. The +<i>Empress of Formosa</i> will dock on Monday—about—nine in the morning. +She will be reported by wireless from the <i>Empress of Borneo</i> this +evening.... They have been relaying it from the Delaware Capes.... +There will be an extra edition of the evening papers. You may dismiss +all anxiety."</p> + +<p>The man rose, stood a moment, his features working with emotion.</p> + +<p>"I'm not a praying man," he said. "But if this is so—I'll pray for +you.... It can't hurt you anyway—" he checked himself, stammering, +and the deep colour stained him from his brow to his thick, powerful +neck as he stood fumbling with his portfolio.</p> + +<p>But Athalie smilingly put aside the recompense he offered: "It is too +much, Mr. Clements."</p> + +<p>"It is worth it to the Company—if the news is true—"</p> + +<p>"Then wait until your steamer docks."</p> + +<p>"But you say you are certain—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am: but <i>you</i> are not. My refusal of payment will encourage +you to confidence in me. You have been ill with anxiety, Mr. Clements. +I know what that means. And now your bruised mind cannot realise that +the trouble is ended—that there is no reason now for the deadly fear +that has racked you. But everything will help you now—what I have +told you—and my refusal of payment until your own eyes corroborate +everything I have said."</p> + +<p>"I believe you now," he said, staring at her. "I wish to offer you in +behalf of the Company—" +<!-- Page 314 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p> + +<p>A swift gesture conjured him to silence. She rose, listening intently. +Presently his ears too caught the faint sound, and he turned and +walked swiftly and silently to the open window.</p> + +<p>"There is your extra," she said pleasantly. "The <i>Empress of Borneo</i> +has been reported."</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>She was still lying on the couch beside the crystal, idly watching +what scenes were drifting, mist-like, through its depths—scenes +vague, and faded in colour, and of indefinite outline; for, like the +monotone of a half-heard conversation which does not concern a +listener these passing phantoms concerned not her.</p> + +<p>Under her indifferent eyes they moved; pale-tinted scenes grew, waxed, +and waned, and a ghostly processional flowed through them without end +under her dark blue dreaming eyes.</p> + +<p>She had turned and dropped her head back upon the silken pillows when +his signal sounded in telegraphic sequence on the tiny concealed bell.</p> + +<p>The still air of the room was yet tremulous with the silvery vibration +when he entered, looked around, caught sight of her, and came swiftly +toward her.</p> + +<p>She looked up at him in her sweet, idly humorous way, unstirring.</p> + +<p>"This is becoming a habit with you, Clive."</p> + +<p>"Didn't you care to see me this afternoon?" he asked so seriously that +the girl laughed outright and stretched out one hand to him.</p> + +<p>"Clive, you're becoming ponderous! Do you know +<!-- Page 315 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> + it? Suppose I didn't +care to see you this particular afternoon. Is there any reason why you +should take it so seriously?"</p> + +<p>"Plenty of reasons," he said, saluting her smooth, cool hand,—"with +all these people at your heels every minute—"</p> + +<p>"Please don't pretend—"</p> + +<p>"I'm <i>not</i> jealous. But all these men—Cecil +and Jimmy Allys—they're +beginning to be a trifle annoying to me."</p> + +<p>She laughed in unfeigned and malicious delight:</p> + +<p>"They don't annoy <i>me</i>! No girl ever was annoyed by overattention from +her suitors—except Penelope—and <i>I</i> don't believe she had such a +horrid time of it either, until her husband came home and shot up the +whole <i>thé dansant</i>."</p> + +<p>He was still standing beside her couch without offering to seat +himself; and she let him remain standing a few minutes longer before +she condescended to move aside on her pillows and nod a tardy +invitation.</p> + +<p>"Has it been an interesting day, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"Rather."</p> + +<p>"And you have really gone back into business again?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And will the real estate market rally at the news of your august +reappearance?" she inquired mischievously.</p> + +<p>"I haven't a doubt of it," he said with gravity.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 316 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/gs21.jpg" width="300" height="493" +alt=""'There is your extra,' she said pleasantly"" +title=""'There is your extra,' she said pleasantly"" /> +<span class="caption">"'There is your extra,' she said +pleasantly"</span> +</div> + +<p><!-- Page 318 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Wonderful, Clive! And I think I'd better get in on the ground floor +before values go sky-rocketing. Do you want a commission from me?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"Very well. Buy me the old Hotel Greensleeve."</p> + +<p>He smiled; but she said with pretty seriousness: "I really have been +thinking about it. Do you suppose it could be bought reasonably? It's +really a pretty place. And there's a hundred acres—or there was.... I +would like to have a modest house somewhere in the country."</p> + +<p>"Are you in earnest, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"Really I am.... Couldn't that old house be fixed over inexpensively? +You know it's nearly two hundred years old, and the lines are good if +the gingerbread verandas and modern bay windows are done away with."</p> + +<p>He nodded; and she went on with shy enthusiasm: "I don't really know +anything about gardens, except I know that I should adore them.... I +thought of a garden—just a simple one.... And some cows and chickens. +And one nice old horse.... It is really very pretty there in spring +and summer. And the bay is so blue, and the salt meadows are so +sweet.... And the cemetery is near.... I should not wish to alter +mother's room very much.... I'd turn the bar into a sun parlour.... +But I'd keep the stove ... where you and I sat that evening and ate +peach turnovers.... About how much do you suppose the place could be +bought for?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't the least idea, Athalie. But I'll see what can be done +to-morrow.... It ought to be a good +<!-- Page 319 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> + purchase. You can scarcely go +wrong on Long Island property if you buy it right."</p> + +<p>"Will you see about it, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I will, you dear girl!" he said, dropping his hand over +hers where it lay between them.</p> + +<p>She smiled up at him. Then, distrait, turned her blue eyes toward the +window, and remained gazing out at the late afternoon sky where a few +white clouds were sailing.</p> + +<p>"'Clouds and ships on sky, and sea,'" she murmured to herself.... +"'And God always at the helm.' Why do men worry? All sail into the +same port at last."</p> + +<p>He bent over her: "What are you murmuring all to yourself down there?" +he asked, smilingly.</p> + +<p>"Nothing much,—I'm just watching the driftsam and flotsam borne on +the currents flowing through my mind—flowing through it and out +again—away, somewhere—back to the source of thought, perhaps."</p> + +<p>He was still bending above her, and she looked up dreamily into his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Do you think I shall ever have my garden?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"All things good must come to you, Athalie."</p> + +<p>She laughed, looking up into his eyes: "You meant that, didn't you? +'All things good'—yes—and other things, too.... They come to all I +suppose.... Tell me, do you think my profession disreputable?"</p> + +<p>"You have made it otherwise, haven't you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I'm eternally tempted. My +<!-- Page 320 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> + intelligence bothers me. And +where to draw the line between what I really see and what I divine by +deduction—or by intuition—I scarcely know sometimes.... I try to be +honest.... When you came in just now, were they calling an extra?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Did you hear what they were calling?"</p> + +<p>"Something about the <i>Empress of Borneo</i> being reported safe."</p> + +<p>She nodded. Then: "That is the hopeless part of it. I can sometimes +help others; never myself.... I suppose you have no idea how many, +many hours I have spent looking for you.... I never could find you. I +have never found you in my crystal, or in my clearer vision, or in my +dreams; ... never heard your voice, never had news of you except by +common report in everyday life.... Why is it, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>His expression was inscrutable. She said, her eyes still lingering on +his: "You know it makes me indignant to see so much that neither +concerns nor interests me—so much that passes—in this!—" laying one +hand on the crystal beside the couch ... "and never, never in the dull +monotony of the drifting multitude to catch a glimpse of you.... I +wonder, were I lost somewhere in the world, if you could find me, +Clive?"</p> + +<p>"I'd die, trying," he said unsmilingly.</p> + +<p>"Oh! How romantic! I wasn't fishing for a pretty speech, dear. I +meant, could you find me in the crystal. Look into it, Clive." +<!-- Page 321 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p> + +<p>He turned and went over to the clear, transparent sphere, and she, +resting her chin on both arms, lay gazing into it, too.</p> + +<p>After a silence he shook his head: "I see nothing, Athalie."</p> + +<p>"Can you not see that great yellow river, Clive? And the snow peaks on +the horizon?... Palms, tall reeds, endless forests—everything so +still—except birds flying—and a broad river rolling between +forests.... And a mud-bar, swarming with crocodiles.... And a dead +tree stranded there, on which large birds are sitting.... There is a +big cat-shaped animal on the bank; but the forest is dark and +sunless,—too dusky to see into.... I think the animal is a jaguar.... +He's drinking now.... Yes, he's a jaguar—a heavy, squarely built, +spotted creature with a broad, blunt head.... He's been eating a +pheasant; there are feathers everywhere—bright feathers, brilliant as +jewels.... Hark! You didn't hear that, did you, Clive? Somebody has +shot the jaguar. They've shot him again. He's whirling 'round and +'round—and now he's down, biting at sticks and leaves.... There goes +another shot. The jaguar lies very still. His jaws are partly open. He +has big, yellow cat-teeth.... I can't seem to see who shot him.... +There are some black men coming. One has a small American flag furled +around the shaft of his spear. He's waving it over the dead jaguar. +They're all dancing now.... But I can't see the man who shot him."</p> + +<p>"I shot him," said Clive. +<!-- Page 322 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I thought so." She turned and dropped back among her pillows.</p> + +<p>"You see," she said, listlessly, "I can never seem to find you, Clive. +Sometimes I suspect your presence. But I am never certain.... Why is +it that a girl can't find the man she cares for most in the whole +world?"</p> + +<p>"Do you care for me as much as that?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes," she said, a trifle surprised.</p> + +<p>"And do you think I return your—regard—in measure?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him curiously, then, with her engaging and fearless +smile: "<i>Quantum suff</i>," she said. "You know you oughtn't to care +<i>too</i> much for me, Clive."</p> + +<p>"How much is too much?"</p> + +<p>"You know," she said, watching his face, the smile still lingering on +her lips.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't. Tell me."</p> + +<p>"I'll inform you when it's necessary."</p> + +<p>"It's necessary now."</p> + +<p>"No, it isn't."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid it is."</p> + +<p>There was a silence. She lay watching him for a moment longer while +the smile in her eyes slowly died out. Then, all in a moment, a swift +change altered her expression; and she sat up on the couch, supporting +herself on both hands.</p> + +<p>"What is happening to you, Clive!" she said almost breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"Nothing new." +<!-- Page 323 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Shall I tell you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"Then,"—but he could not say it. He had no business to, and he knew +it. It was the one thing he could refrain from saying, for her sake; +the one service he could now render her.</p> + +<p>He sat staring into space, the iron grimness of self-control locking +every fetter that he wore—must always wear now.</p> + +<p>She waited, her eyes intent on his face, her colour high, heart rapid.</p> + +<p>"What had you to say to me?" she asked, breaking the silence.</p> + +<p>He forced a laugh: "Nothing—except that sometimes being with you +again makes me—very contented—"</p> + +<p>"Is that what you had to say?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I told you it was nothing new."</p> + +<p>She lowered her gaze and remained silent for a moment, apparently +considering what he had said. Then the uplifted candour of her eyes +questioned him again:</p> + +<p>"You don't imagine yourself in love with me again, do you, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Nothing like that could happen to you again, could it?... Because it +has not yet happened to me. It couldn't.... And it would be too—too +ghastly if you—if anything—"</p> + +<p>"Don't talk about it that way!" he said sharply. "If it <i>did</i> +happen—what of it?"... He forced a +<!-- Page 324 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> + smile. "But it won't happen.... +Things like that don't happen to people like you and me. We care too +much for each other, don't we, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes.... It would be terrible.... I don't know why I put such ideas +into your head—or into my own. But you—there was something in your +expression.... Oh, Clive, dear, it <i>couldn't</i> happen to you, could +it?"</p> + +<p>She leaned forward impulsively and put both hands on his shoulders, +gazing into his eyes, searching them fearfully for any trace of what +she thought for a moment she had seen in them.</p> + +<p>He said gaily enough: "No fear, dear. I'm exactly what I always have +been. I'll always be what you want me to be, Athalie."</p> + +<p>"I know.... But if ever—"</p> + +<p>"No, no! Nothing can ever happen to worry you—"</p> + +<p>"But if—"</p> + +<p>"Nothing shall happen!"</p> + +<p>"I know. But if ever it does—"</p> + +<p>"It won't."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive, listen! If it <i>does</i> happen to you, what will you do?"</p> + +<p>"Do?"</p> + +<p>"Yes.... If it does happen, what will you do, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"But—"</p> + +<p>"Answer me!"</p> + +<p>"I—"</p> + +<p>"Please answer me. What will you do about it?" +<!-- Page 325 --><span class='pagenum' +><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Nothing," he said, flushing.</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Why not? What is there—what would there be to do? What could I have +to say to you if—"</p> + +<p>"You could say that you loved me—if you did."</p> + +<p>"To what purpose?" he demanded, red and astonished.</p> + +<p>"To whatever purpose you followed.... Why shouldn't you tell me? If it +ever happened that you fell in love with me again I had rather you +told me than that you kept silent. I had rather know it than have it +happen and never know it. Is there anything wrong in a man if he +happens to fall in love with a girl?"</p> + +<p>"He can remain silent, anyway."</p> + +<p>"Why? Because he cannot marry her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"If you ever fell in love with me—would you wish to marry me?"</p> + +<p>"If I ever did," he said, "I'd go through hell to marry you."</p> + +<p>She considered him, curiously, as though trying to realise something +inconceivable.</p> + +<p>"I do not think of you that way," she said. "I do not think of you +sentimentally at all.... Only that I care for you—deeply. I don't +believe it's in me to love. I mean—as the world defines love.... So +don't fall in love with me, Clive.... But, if you ever do, tell me."</p> + +<p>"Why?" he asked unsteadily.</p> + +<p>"Because you ought to tell me. I should not wish to die and never know +it." +<!-- Page 326 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Would you care?"</p> + +<p>"Care? Do you ask a girl whether she could remain unmoved, +uninterested, indifferent, if the man she cares for most falls in love +with her?"</p> + +<p>"Could you—respond?"</p> + +<p>"Respond? With love? I don't know. How can I tell? I believe that I +have never been in love in all my life. I don't know what it feels +like. You might as well ask somebody born blind to read an ordinary +book.... But one thing is certain: if that ever happens to you, you +ought to tell me. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"What good would it do?"</p> + +<p>"What harm would it do?" she asked frankly.</p> + +<p>"Suppose, knowing we could not marry, I made love to you, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>Suddenly the smile flashed in her eyes: "Do you think I'm a baby, +Clive? Suppose, knowing what we know, you did make love to me? Is that +very dreadful?"</p> + +<p>"My responsibility would be."</p> + +<p>"The responsibility is mine. I'm my own mistress. If I chose to be +yours the responsibility is mine—"</p> + +<p>"Don't say such things, Athalie!"</p> + +<p>"Why not? Such things happen—or they don't happen. I have no idea +they're likely to happen to us.... I'm not a bit alarmed, Clive.... +Perhaps it's the courage of ignorance—" She glanced at him again with +the same curious, questioning look in her eyes,—"Perhaps because I +cannot comprehend any such temptation.... And never could.... +Nevertheless if you fall in love with me, tell me. I would +<!-- Page 327 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> + not wish +you to remain dumb. You have a right to speak. Love isn't a question +of conditions or of convenience. You ought to have your chance."</p> + +<p>"Chance!"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"What chance?"</p> + +<p>"To win me."</p> + +<p>"Win you!—when I can't marry you—"</p> + +<p>"I didn't say marry; I said, win.... If you ever fell in love with me +you would wish to win my love, wouldn't you? And if you did, and I +gave it to you, you would have won me for yourself, wouldn't you? Then +why should you worry concerning <i>how</i> I might love you? That would be +my affair, my personal responsibility. And I admit to you that I know +no more than a kitten what I might do about it."</p> + +<p>She looked at him a moment, her hands still resting on his shoulders, +and suddenly threw back her head, laughing deliciously: "Did you ever +before take part in such a ridiculous conversation?" she demanded. +"Oh, but I have always adored theoretical conversations. Only give me +an interesting subject and take one end of it and I'll gratefully +grasp the other, Clive. What an odd man you are; and I suppose I'm +odd, too. And we may yet live to inhabit an odd little house +together.... Wouldn't the world tear me to tatters!... I wonder if I'd +dare—even knowing I was all right!"... The laughter died in her +eyes; a swift tenderness melted them: "I do care for you so truly, +Clive! I can't bear to think of ever again living without you.... You +know it isn't silliness or love or +<!-- Page 328 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> + anything except what I've always +felt for you—loyalty and devotion, endless, eternal. And that is all +there is or ever will be in my heart and mind."</p> + +<p>So clear and sweet and confident in his understanding were her eyes +that the quick emotion that leaped responsive left only a ruddy trace +on his face and a slight quiver on his lips.</p> + +<p>He said: "Nothing shall ever threaten your trust in me. No man can ask +for more than you give, Athalie."</p> + +<p>"I give you all I am. What more is there?"</p> + +<p>"I ask no more."</p> + +<p>"Is there more to wish for? Are you really satisfied, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly;"—but he looked away from her.</p> + +<p>"And you don't imagine that you love me, do you?"</p> + +<p>"No,"—still looking away from her.</p> + +<p>"Meet my eyes, and say it."</p> + +<p>"I—"</p> + +<p>"Clive!"</p> + +<p>"There is no—"</p> + +<p>"Clive, obey me!"</p> + +<p>So he turned and looked her in the eyes. And after a moment's silence +she laughed, uncertainly, almost nervously.</p> + +<p>"You—you <i>do</i> imagine it!" she said. "Don't you?"</p> + +<p>He made no reply.</p> + +<p>Presently she began to laugh again, a gay, tormenting, excited little +laugh. Something in his face seemed +<!-- Page 329 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> + to exhilarate her, sending the +blood like wine to her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"You <i>do</i> imagine it! Oh, Clive! <i>You!</i> You think yourself in love +with your old comrade!... I <i>knew</i> it! There was something about +you—I can't explain exactly what—but there was <i>something</i> that told +me."</p> + +<p>She was laughing, now, almost wickedly and with all the naïve and +innocently malicious delight of a child delighting in its fellow's +torment.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive!" she said, "what are you going to do about it? And why do +you gaze at me so oddly?—as though I were angry or disconcerted. I'm +not. I'm happy. I'm crazy about this new relation of ours. It makes +you more interesting than I ever dreamed even you could be—"</p> + +<p>"You know," he said almost grimly, "if you are going to take it like +this—"</p> + +<p>"Take what?"</p> + +<p>"The knowledge that—"</p> + +<p>"That you are in love with me? Then you <i>are</i>! Oh, Clive, Clive! You +dear, sweet, funny boy! And you've told me so, haven't you? Or it +amounts to that; doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I love you."</p> + +<p>She leaned swiftly toward him, sparkling, flushed, radiant, tender:</p> + +<p>"You dear boy! I'm not really laughing at you. I'm laughing—I don't +know why: happiness—excitement—pride—I don't know.... Do you +suppose it actually is love? It won't make you unhappy, will it? +Besides you can be very busy trying to win me. +<!-- Page 330 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> + That will be exciting +enough for both of us, won't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—if I try."</p> + +<p>"But you will try, won't you?" she demanded mockingly.</p> + +<p>He said, forcing a smile: "You seem to think it impossible that I +could win you."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said airily, "I don't say that. You see I don't know the +method of procedure. I don't know what you're going to do about your +falling in love with me."</p> + +<p>He leaned over and took her by the waist; and she drew back +instinctively, surprised and disconcerted.</p> + +<p>"That is silly," she said. "Are you going to be silly with me, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "I won't be that."</p> + +<p>He sat looking at her in silence for a few moments. And slowly the +belief entered his heart like a slim steel blade that she had never +loved, and that there was in her nothing except what she had said +there was, loyalty and devotion, unsullied and spiritual, clean of all +else lower and less noble, guiltless of passion, ignorant of desire.</p> + +<p>As he looked at her he remembered the past—remembered that once he +might have taught her love in all its attributes—that once he might +have married her. For in a school so gentle and secure as wedlock such +a girl might learn to love.</p> + +<p>He had had his chance. What did he want of her now, then?—more than +he had of her already. Love? Her devotion amounted to that—all of it +that could +<!-- Page 331 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> + concern a man already married—hopelessly married to a +woman who would never submit to divorce. What did he want of her then?</p> + +<p>He turned and walked to the open window and stood looking out over the +city. Sunset blazed crimson at the western end of every cross-street. +Far away on the Jersey shore electric lights began to sparkle.</p> + +<p>He did not know she was behind him until one arm fell lightly on his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>It remained there after her imprisoned waist yielded a little to his +arm.</p> + +<p>"You are not unhappy, are you, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean to take it lightly. I don't comprehend; that's all. It +seems to me that I can't care for you more than I do already. Do you +understand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear."</p> + +<p>She raised one cool hand and drew his cheek gently against her own, +and rested so a moment, looking out across the misty city.</p> + +<p>He remembered that night of his departure when she had put both arms +around his neck and kissed him. It had been like the serene touch of a +crucifix to his lips. It was like that now,—the smooth, passionless +touch of her cool, young face against his, and her slim hand framing +his cheek.</p> + +<p>"To think," she murmured to herself, "that you should ever care for me +in that way, too.... It is wonderful, wonderful—and very sweet—if it +does not make you unhappy. Does it?"</p> + +<p>"No." +<!-- Page 332 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's so dear of you to love me that way, Clive. Could—could <i>I</i> do +anything—about it?"</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"Would you care to kiss me?" she asked with a faint smile. And turned +her face.</p> + +<p>Chaste, cool and fresh as a flower her young mouth met his, lingered; +then, still smiling, and a trifle flushed and shy, she laid her cheek +against his shoulder, and her hands in his, calm in her security.</p> + +<p>"You see," she said, "you need not worry over me. I am glad you are in +love with me." +<!-- Page 333 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<p class="cap">IT was in the days when nothing physical tainted her passionate +attachment to Clive. When she was with him she enjoyed the moment with +all her heart and soul—gave to it and to him everything that was best +in her—all the richness of her mental and bodily vigour, all the +unspoiled enthusiasm of her years, all the sturdy freshness of youth, +eager, receptive, credulous, unsatiated.</p> + +<p>With them, once more, the old happy companionship began; the Café +Arabesque, the Regina, the theatres, the suburban restaurants knew +them again. Familiar faces among the waiters welcomed them to the same +tables; the same ushers guided them through familiar aisles; the same +taxi drivers touched their caps with the same alacrity; the same +porters bestirred themselves for tips.</p> + +<p>Sometimes when they were not alone, they and their friends danced late +at Castle House or the Sans-Souci, or the Humming-Bird, or some such +resort, at that time in vogue.</p> + +<p>Sometimes on Saturday afternoons or on Sundays and holidays they spent +hours in the museums and libraries—not that Clive had either +inherited or been educated to any truer appreciation of things worth +<!-- Page 334 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> +while than the average New York man—but like the majority he admitted +the solemnity and fearsomeness of art and letters, and his attitude +toward them was as carefully respectful as it was in church.</p> + +<p>Which first perplexed and then amused Athalie who, with no +opportunities, had been born with a wholesome passion for all things +beautiful of the mind.</p> + +<p>The little she knew she had learned from books or from her +companionship with Captain Dane that first summer after Clive had gone +abroad. And there was nothing orthodox, nothing pedantic, nothing +simulated or artificial in her likes or dislikes, her preferences or +her indifference.</p> + +<p>Yet, somehow, even without knowing, the girl instinctively gravitated +toward all things good.</p> + +<p>In modern art—with the exception of a few painters—she found little +to attract her; but the magnificence of the great Venetians, the +sombre splendour of the great Spaniards, the nobility of the great +English and Dutch masters held her with a spell forever new. And, as +for the exquisite, naïvely self-conscious works of Greuze, Lancret, +Fragonard, Boucher, Watteau, and Nattier, she adored them with all the +fresh and natural appetite of a capacity for visual pleasure unjaded.</p> + +<p>He recognised Raphael with respect and pleasure when authority +reassured him it <i>was</i> Raphael. Also he probably knew more about the +history of art than did she. Otherwise it was Athalie who led, +instinctively, toward what gallery and library held as their best. +<!-- Page 335 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span></p> + +<p>Her favourite lingering places were amid the immortal Chinese +porcelains and the masterpieces of the Renaissance. And thither she +frequently beguiled Clive,—not that he required any persuading to +follow this young and lovely creature who ranged the full boundaries +of her environment, living to the full life as it had been allotted +her.</p> + +<p>Wholesome with that charming and rounded slenderness of perfect health +there yet seemed no limit to her capacity for the enjoyment of all +things for which an appetite exists—pleasures, mental or physical—it +did not seem to matter.</p> + +<p>She adored walking; to exercise her body delighted her. Always she ate +and drank with a relish that fascinated; she was mad about the theatre +and about music:—and whatever she chanced to be doing she did with +all the vigour, intelligence, and pleasure of which she was capable, +throwing into it her entire heart and soul.</p> + +<p>It led to temporary misunderstandings—particularly with the men she +met—even in the small circle of friends whom she received and with +whom she went about. Arthur Ensart entirely mistook her until fiercely +set right one evening when alone with him; James Allys also listened +to a curt but righteously impassioned discourse which he never forgot. +Hargrave's gentlemanly and suavely villainous intentions, when finally +comprehended, became radically modified under her coolly scornful +rebuke. Welter, fat and sentimental, never was more than tiresomely +saccharine; Ferris and Lyndhurst betrayed symptoms of being +<!-- Page 336 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> +misunderstood, but it was a toss-up as to the degree of seriousness in +their intentions.</p> + +<p> +<!-- Page 337 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> +<!-- Page 338 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> +</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 404px;"> +<img src="images/gs22.jpg" width="404" height="260" +alt=""Once more, the old happy companionship began."" +title=""Once more, the old happy companionship began."" /> +<span class="caption">"Once more, the old happy companionship began."</span> +</div> + +<p>The intentions of men are seldom more serious than they have to be. +But they all were helplessly, hopelessly caught in the magic, gossamer +web of Athalie's beauty and personal charm; and some merely kicked and +buzzed and some tried to rend the frail rainbow fabric, and some +struggled silently against they knew not what—themselves probably. +And some, like Dane, hung motionless, enmeshed, knowing that to +struggle was futile. And some, like Clive, were still lying under her +jewelled feet in the very centre of the sorcery, so far silent and +unstirring, awaiting to see whether the grace of God would fall upon +them or the <i>coup-de-grâce</i> that ended all. Eventually, however, like +all other men, Clive gave signs of life and impatience.</p> + +<p>"<i>Can't</i> you love me, Athalie?" he said abruptly one night, when they +had returned from the theatre and he had already taken his leave—and +had come back from the door to take it again more tenderly. The girl +let him kiss her.</p> + +<p>She, in her clinging, sparkling evening gown was standing by her +crystal, the fingers of one hand lightly poised upon it, looking down +at it.</p> + +<p>"Love you, Clive," she repeated in smiling surprise. "Why, I do, you +dear, foolish boy. I've admitted it to you. Also haven't you just +kissed me?"</p> + +<p>"I know.... But I mean—couldn't you love me above all other +men—above everything in this world—" +<!-- Page 339 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But I <i>do</i>! Were you annoyed because I was silly with Cecil +to-night?"</p> + +<p>"No.... I understand. You simply can't help turning everybody's head. +It's in you,—it's part of you—"</p> + +<p>"I'm merely having a good time," she protested. "It means no more than +you see, when I flirt with other men.... It never goes any +farther—except—once or twice I have let men kiss me.... Only two or +three.... Before you came back, of course—"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know that," he said sullenly.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you? Then the men were more decent than I supposed.... Yes, I +let John Lyndhurst kiss me once. And Francis Hargrave did it.... And +Jim Allys tried to, against my wishes—but he never attempted it after +that."</p> + +<p>She had been looking down again at the crystal while speaking; her +attitude was penitential, but the faint smile on her lips adorably +mischievous. Presently she glanced up at him to see how he was taking +it. He must have been taking it very badly, for:</p> + +<p>"Clive!" she said, startled; "are you really annoyed with me?"</p> + +<p>The gathering scowl faded and he forced a smile. Then the frown +returned; he flung one arm around her supple waist and gathered both +her hands into his, holding them closely imprisoned.</p> + +<p>"You <i>must</i> love!" he said almost roughly.</p> + +<p>"My dear! I've told you that I do love you."</p> + +<p>"And I tell you you don't! Your calm and cheerful friendship for me +isn't love!" +<!-- Page 340 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh. What else is it, please?"</p> + +<p>He kissed her on the mouth. She suffered his lips again without +flinching, then drew back laughingly to avoid him.</p> + +<p>"Why are you becoming so very demonstrative?" she asked. "If you are +not careful it will become a horrid habit with you."</p> + +<p>"Does it mean nothing more than a habit to you?" he asked, +unsmilingly.</p> + +<p>"It means that I care enough for you to let you do it more than once, +doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>He shrugged and turned his face toward the window:</p> + +<p>"And you believe that you love me," he said, sullenly and partly to +himself.</p> + +<p>"You amazingly sulky man, <i>what</i> are you muttering to yourself?" she +demanded, bending forward and across his shoulder to see his face +which was still turned from her. He swung about and caught her +fiercely in his arms; and the embrace left her breathless and flushed.</p> + +<p>"Clive—please—"</p> + +<p>"<i>Can't</i> you care for me! For God's sake show it if you can!"</p> + +<p>"Please, dear—I—"</p> + +<p>"<i>Can't</i> you!" he repeated unsteadily, drawing her closer. "You know +what I am asking. Answer me!"</p> + +<p>She bent her head and rested it against his shoulder a moment, +considering; she then looked away from him, troubled:</p> + +<p>"I don't want to be your—mistress," she said. +<!-- Page 341 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> + Truth disconcerts the +vast majority. It disconcerted him—after a ringing silence through +which the beating of rain on the window came to him like the steady +tattoo of his own heart.</p> + +<p>"I did not ask that," he said, very red.</p> + +<p>"You meant that.... Because I've been everything to you except that."</p> + +<p>"I want you for my wife," he interrupted sharply.</p> + +<p>"But you are married, Clive. So what more can I be to you, unless I +become—what I don't want to become—"</p> + +<p>"I merely want you to love me—until I can find some way out of this +hell on earth I'm living in!"</p> + +<p>"Dear, I'm sorry! I'm sorry you are so unhappy. But you can't get +free,—can you? She won't let you, will she?"</p> + +<p>"I've got to have my freedom! I can't stand this. Good God! Must a man +do life for being a fool once? Isn't there any allowance to be made +for a first offence? I've always wanted to marry you. I was a +miserable, crazy coward to do what I did! Haven't I paid for it? Do +you know what I've been through?"</p> + +<p>She said very sweetly and pitifully: "Dear, I know what people +suffer—what lonely hearts endure. I think I understand what you have +been through."</p> + +<p>"I know you understand! Fool that I am who enlightened you. But yours +was the injury of bruised faith—the suffering caused by outrage. No +hell of self-contempt set <i>you</i> crawling about the world in agony; no +despicable self-knowledge drove <i>you</i> out into the waste places. Yours +was the sorrow of a +<!-- Page 342 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> + self-respecting victim; mine the grief of the +damned fool who has done to death all that he ever loved for the love +of expediency and of self!"</p> + +<p>"Clive!—"</p> + +<p>"That's what I am!" he interrupted fiercely, "a damned fool! I don't +know what else I am, but I can't live without you, and I won't!"</p> + +<p>She said: "You told me that being in love with me would not make you +unhappy. So I told you to love me. I was wrong to let you do it."</p> + +<p>"You darling! I am more than happy!"</p> + +<p>"It was a dreadful mistake, Clive! I shouldn't have let you."</p> + +<p>"Do you think you could have stopped me?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Couldn't I? I've stopped other men.... I shouldn't have +let you. But it was so delightful—to be really loved by <i>you</i>! All my +pride responded. It seemed to dignify everything; it seemed to make me +really a woman, with a place among other women—to be loved by such a +man as you ... and I was <i>not</i> selfish about it; I did ask you whether +it would make you unhappy to be in love with me. Oh, I see now that I +was very wrong, Clive—very foolish, very wrong! Because it <i>is</i> +making you restless and unhappy—"</p> + +<p>"If you could only love me a little in return!"</p> + +<p>"I don't know how to love you except the way I am doing—"</p> + +<p>"There is a more vital emotion—"</p> + +<p>"It seems impossible that I could care for you more deeply than I +do." +<!-- Page 343 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span></p> + +<p>"If you could only respond with a little tenderness—"</p> + +<p>"I <i>do</i> respond—as well as I know how," she said piteously.</p> + +<p>He drew her nearer and touched her cheek with his lips:</p> + +<p>"I know, dear. I don't mean to complain."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive! I have let you fall in love with me and it is making you +miserable! And now it's making me miserable, too, because you are +disappointed in me."</p> + +<p>"No—"</p> + +<p>"You are! I'm not what you expected—not what you wanted—"</p> + +<p>"You are everything I want!—if I could only wake your heart!" he said +in a low tense voice.</p> + +<p>"It isn't my heart that is asleep.... I know what you miss in me.... +And I can't help it. I—I don't wish to help it—or to be different."</p> + +<p>She dropped her head against his shoulder. After a few moments she +spoke from there in a muffled, childish voice:</p> + +<p>"What can I do about it? I don't want to be your mistress, Clive.... I +never wanted to do—anything—like that."</p> + +<p>A deeper colour burnt his face. He said: "Could you love me enough to +marry me if I managed to free myself?"</p> + +<p>"I have never thought of marrying you, Clive. It isn't that I couldn't +love you—that way. I suppose I could. Probably I could. Only—I don't +know anything about it—" +<!-- Page 344 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Let me try to free myself, anyway."</p> + +<p>"How is it possible?"</p> + +<p>He said, exasperated: "Do you suppose I can endure this sort of +existence forever?"</p> + +<p>The swift tears sprang to her eyes. "I don't know—I don't know," she +faltered. "I thought this existence of ours ideal. I thought you were +going to be happy; I supposed that our being together again would +bring happiness to us both. It doesn't! It is making us wretched. You +are not contented with our friendship!" She turned on him +passionately: "I don't wish to be your mistress. I don't want you to +make me wish to be. No girl naturally desires less than she is +entitled to, or more than the law permits—unless some man teaches her +to wish for it. Don't make such a girl of me, Clive! You—you are +beginning to do it. And I don't wish it! Truly I don't!"</p> + +<p>In that fierce flash of candour,—of guiltless passion, she had +revealed herself. Never, until that moment, had he supposed himself so +absolutely dominant, invested with such power for good or evil. That +he could sway her one way or the other through her pure loyalty, +devotion, and sympathy he had not understood.</p> + +<p>To do him justice he desired no such responsibility. He had meant to +be honest and generous and unselfish even when the outlook seemed most +hopeless,—when he was convinced that he had no chance of freedom.</p> + +<p>But a man with the girl he loves in his arms might as well set a net +to catch the wind as to set boundaries +<!-- Page 345 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> + to his desires. Perhaps he +could not so ardently have desired his freedom to marry her had he not +as ardently desired her love.</p> + +<p>Love he had of her, but it was an affection utterly innocent of +passion. He knew it; she realised it; realised too that the capacity +for passion was in her. And had asked him not awaken her to it, +instinctively recoiling from it. Generous, unsullied, proudly +ignorant, she desired to remain so. Yet knew her peril; and candidly +revealed it to him in the most honest appeal ever made to him.</p> + +<p>For if the girl herself suspected and dreaded whither her loyalty and +deep devotion to him might lead her, he had realised very suddenly +what his leadership meant in such a companionship.</p> + +<p>Now it sobered him, awed him,—and chilled him a trifle.</p> + +<p>Himself, his own love for her, his own passion he could control and in +a measure subdue. But, once awakened, could he control such an ally as +she might be to his own lesser, impatient and hot-headed self?</p> + +<p>Where her disposition was to deny, he could still fetter self and +acquiesce. But he began to understand that half his strength lay in +her unwillingness; half of their safety in her inexperience, her +undisturbed tranquillity, her aloofness from physical emotion and her +ignorance of the mastery of the lesser passions.</p> + +<p>The girl had builded wholesomely and wisely for herself. Instinct had +led her truly and well as far as that tangled moment in her life. +Instinct still would lead her safely if she were let alone,—instinct +and the +<!-- Page 346 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> + intelligence she herself had developed. For the ethical view +of the question remained only as a vague memory of precepts mechanical +and meaningless to a healthy child. She had lost her mother too early +to have understood the casual morals so gently inculcated. And nobody +else had told her anything.</p> + +<p>Also intelligence is often a foe to instinct. She might, with little +persuasion accept an unconventional view of life; with a little +emotional awakening she might more easily still be persuaded to a +logic builded on false foundations. Add to these her ardent devotion +to this man, and her deep and tender concern lest he be unhappy, and +Athalie's chances for remaining her own mistress were slim enough.</p> + +<p>Something of this Clive seemed to understand; and the understanding +left him very serious and silent where he stood in the soft glow of +the lamp with this young girl in his arms and her warm, sweet head on +his breast.</p> + +<p>He said after a long silence: "You are right, Athalie. It is better, +safer, not to respond to me. I'm just in love with you and I want to +marry you—that's all. I shall not be unhappy about it. I am not, now. +If I marry you, you'll fall in love, too, in your own way. That will +be as it should be. I could desire no more than that. I <i>do</i> desire +nothing more."</p> + +<p>He looked down at her, smiled, releasing her gently. But she clung to +him for a moment.</p> + +<p>"You are so wonderful, Clive—so dear! I <i>do</i> love you. I will marry +you if I can. I want to make up everything to you—the lonely years, +your deep +<!-- Page 347 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> + unhappiness—even," she added shyly, "your little +disappointment in me—"</p> + +<p>"You don't understand, Athalie. I am not disappointed—"</p> + +<p>"I <i>do</i> understand. And I am thinking of what will happen if you fail +to free yourself.... Because I realize now that I don't propose to +leave you to grow old all alone.... I shall live with you when you're +old whatever people may think. I tell you, Clive, I'm the same child, +the same girl that you once knew, only grown into a woman. I know +right from wrong. I had rather not do wrong. But if I've got to—I +won't whimper. And I'll do it thoroughly!"</p> + +<p>"You won't do it at all," he said, smiling at her threat to the little +tin gods.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. If they won't give you your freedom, and if—"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Athalie," he said, laughing, coolly master of himself once +more. "We mustn't be unwholesomely romantic, you and I. I'll marry you +if I can; if I can't, God help us, that's all."</p> + +<p>But she had become very grave: "God help us," she repeated slowly. +"Because I believe that, rightly or wrongly, I shall one day belong to +you."</p> + +<p>He said: "It can be only in one way. The right way." Perhaps he had +awakened too late to a realisation of his power over her, for the girl +made no response, no longer even looked at him.</p> + +<p>"Only one way," he repeated, uneasily;—"the right way, Athalie."</p> + +<p>But into her dark blue eyes had come a vague and +<!-- Page 348 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> + brooding beauty +which he had never before seen. In it was tenderness, and a new +wisdom, alas! and a faint and shadowy something, profound, starlike, +inscrutable.</p> + +<p>"As for love," he said, forcing a lighter tone, "there are fifty-seven +different varieties, Athalie; and only one is poisonous,—unless taken +with the other fifty-six, and in small doses."</p> + +<p>She smiled faintly and walked to the window. Rain beat there in the +darkness spattering the little iron balcony. Below, the bleared lights +of the city stretched away to the sky-line.</p> + +<p>He followed, and slipped his arm through hers; and she bent her wrist, +interlacing her slim fingers with his.</p> + +<p>"You know," he said, "that when I often speak with apparent authority +I am wrong. In the final analysis <i>you</i> are the real leader, Athalie. +Your instincts are the right ones; your convictions honest, your +conclusions just. Mine are too often confused with selfishness and +indecision. For mine is an irresolute character;—or it was. I'm +trying to make it firmer."</p> + +<p>She pressed his hand lightly, her eyes still fixed on the +light-smeared darkness.</p> + +<p><!-- Page 349 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p> + +<p>He went on more gravely: "Candour and the intuition born of common +sense,—that is where you are so admirable, dear. Add to that the +tenderest heart that ever beat, and a proud ignorance of the lesser, +baser emotions—and, who am I to interfere,—to come into the sweet +order of your life with demands that confuse you—with complaints +against the very destiny I brought upon us both—with the clamour of +a selfish and ignoble philosophy which your every instinct rejects, +and which your heart entertains only because it <i>is</i> your heart, and +its heavenly sympathy has never failed me yet.... Oh, Athalie, +Athalie, it would be a shameful day for me and a bitter day for you if +my selfishness and irresolution ever swerved you. What I have lost—if +I have indeed lost it—is lost irrevocably. And I've got to learn to +face it."</p> + +<p>She said, still gazing absently into the darkness: "Yes. But I am just +beginning to wonder what it is that <i>I</i> may have lost,—what it is +that I have never known."</p> + +<p>"Don't think of it! Don't permit anything I have said or done to +trouble you or stir you toward such an awakening.... I don't want to +stand charged with that. You are tranquil, now—"</p> + +<p>"I—<i>was</i>."</p> + +<p>"You are still!" he said in quick concern. "Listen, Athalie—the +majority of men lose their grip at moments; men as irresolute as I +lose it oftener. Don't waste sympathy on me; it was nothing but a +whine born of a lesser impulse—born of emotions less decent than you +could comprehend—"</p> + +<p>"Maybe I am beginning to comprehend."</p> + +<p>"You shall not! You shall remain as you are! Dear, don't you realise +that I can't steady myself unless I can look up to you? You've raised +yourself to where you stand; you've made your own pedestal. Look down +at me from it; don't ever <i>step</i> down; don't ever condescend; don't +ever let me think you mortal. You are not, now. Don't ever descend +entirely to my level—even if we marry."</p> + +<p><!-- Page 350 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p> + +<p>She turned, smiling too wisely, yet adorably: "What endless romance +there is in that boy's heart of yours! There always was,—when you +came running back to me where I stood alone by the closed door,—when +you found me living as all women who work live, and made a beautiful +home for me and gave me more than I wished to take, asking nothing of +me in return. Oh, Clive, you were chivalrous and romantic, too, when +you listened to your mother's wishes and gave me up. I understand it +so much better, now. I know how it was—with your father dead and your +beautiful mother, broken, desolate, confiding to your keeping all her +hope and pride and future happiness,—all the traditions of the +family, and its dignity and honour!</p> + +<p>"In the light of a clearer knowledge, do you suppose I blame you now? +Do you suppose I blame you for anything?—for your long and +broken-hearted and bitter silence?—for the quick resurgence of your +affection for me—for your love—Oh, Clive!—for your passion?</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose I think less of you because you love me—care for me +in the many and inexplicable ways that a man cares for a +woman?—because you want me as a man wants the woman he loves, as his +wife if it may be so, as his <i>own</i>, anyhow?"</p> + +<p>She let her eyes rest on him in a new and fearless comprehension, +tender, curious, sad by turns.</p> + +<p>"It is the romance of passion in you that has been fighting to awaken +the Sleeping Princess of a legend," +<!-- Page 351 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> + she said with a slight smile; "it +is the same illogical, impulsive romance that draws back just as her +closed lids tremble, fearing to awaken her to the sorrows and +temptations of a world which, after all, God made for us to wake in."</p> + +<p>"Athalie! I am a scoundrel if I have—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive!" she laughed, mocking the solemn measure of her own words; +"adorable boy of impulse and romance, never to outgrow its magic +armour, destined always to be ruled by dreams through the sweetest and +most generous of hearts, you need not fear for me. I am already +awake—at least I am sufficiently aroused to understand you—and +something, too, of my own self which I have never hitherto +understood."</p> + +<p>For a second, lightly, she rested her warm, fresh cheek against his. +When it was burning she disengaged her fingers from his and leaned +aside against the rain-swept window.</p> + +<p>"You see?" she said calmly but with heightened colour.... "I am very +human after all.... But it is still my mind that rules, not my +emotions."</p> + +<p>She turned to him in her old sweetly humorous and mocking manner:</p> + +<p>"That is all the romance of which I am capable, Clive—if there be any +real romance in a very clear mind. For it is my intellect that must +lead me to salvation or to destruction. If I am to come crashing down +at your feet, I shall have already planned the fall. If I am to be +destroyed, it will not be by any accident of romantic emotion, of +unconsidered impulse, or sudden blindness of passion; it will be +because +<!-- Page 352 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> + my intelligence coolly courted destruction, and accepted +every chance, every hazard."</p> + +<p>So spoke Athalie, smiling, in the full confidence and pride of her +superb youth, certain of the mind's autocracy over matter, lightly +defying within herself the latent tempest, of which she as yet divined +no more than the first exquisitely disturbing breeze;—deriding, too, +the as yet unloosened bolts of the old gods themselves,—the white +lightning of desire.</p> + +<p>"Come," she said, half mockingly, half seriously, passing her arm +through Clive's;—"we are quite safe together in this safe and sane +old world—unless <i>I</i> choose—otherwise."</p> + +<p>She turned and touched her lips lightly to his hair:</p> + +<p>"So you may safely behave as irrationally, irresponsibly, and +romantically as you choose.... As long as I now am wide awake."</p> + +<p>And then, for the first time, he realised his utter responsibility to +this girl who so gaily and audaciously relieved him of it. And he +understood how pitifully unarmed she really stood, and how imminent +the necessity for him to forge for himself the armour of character, +and to wear it eternally for his own safety as well as hers.</p> + +<p>"Good night, dear," he said.</p> + +<p>In her new and magnificent self-confidence she turned and put both +arms around his neck, drawing his lips against hers.</p> + +<p>But after he had gone she leaned against the closed door, less +confident, her heart beating too fast and hard to entirely justify +this new enfranchisement of the +<!-- Page 353 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> + body, or her overwhelming faith in +its wise and trusted guardian, the mind.</p> + +<p>And he went soberly on his way through the rain to his hotel, troubled +but determined upon his new rôle as his own soul's armourer. All that +was in him of romance and of chivalry was responding passionately to +the girl's unconscious revelation of her new need.</p> + +<p>For now he realised that her boasted armour was of gauze; he could see +her naked heart beating behind it; he beheld, through the shield she +lifted on high to protect them both, the moon shining with its false, +reflected light.</p> + +<p>Never did Athalie stand in such dire need of the armour she supposed +that she was wearing.</p> + +<p>And he must put on his own, rapidly, and rivet it fast—the inflexible +mail of character which alone can shield such souls as his—and hers.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>When he came into his own room, a thick letter from his wife lay on +the table. Before he broke the seal he laid aside his wet garments, +being in no haste to read any more of the now incessant reproaches and +complaints with which Winifred had recently deluged him.</p> + +<p> +<!-- Page 354 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> +<!-- Page 355 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> +</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/gs23.jpg" width="300" height="463" +alt=""Finally ... he cut the envelope and seated himself +beside the lamp."" +title=""Finally ... he cut the envelope and seated himself + beside the lamp."" /> +<span class="caption">"Finally ... he cut the envelope and +seated himself beside the lamp."</span> +</div> + +<p>Finally, when he was ready, he cut the envelope and seated himself +beside the lamp. She wrote from the house in Kent:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"It was a very different matter when you were travelling about +and I could say that you were off on another exploring +expedition. But your return from South America was mentioned +in the London papers; + +<!-- Page 356 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> +and the fact that you are now not +only in New York but that you have also gone into business +there is known and is the subject of comment.</p> + +<p>"I shall be, as usual, perfectly frank with you; I do not care +whether you are here or not; in fact I infinitely prefer your +absence to your presence. But your engaging in business in New +York is a very different matter, and creates a different +situation for me.</p> + +<p>"You like to travel. Why don't you do it? I don't care to be +the subject of gossip; and I shall be—am, no doubt, +already,—because you are making the situation too plain and +too public.</p> + +<p>"It's well enough for one's friends to surmise the condition +of affairs; no unpleasantness for me results. But let it once +become newspaper gossip and my situation among people I most +earnestly desire to cultivate would become instantly +precarious and perhaps impossible.</p> + +<p>"It is not necessary for me to inform you what is the very +insecure status of an American woman here, particularly in +view of the Court's well known state of mind concerning +marital irregularities.</p> + +<p>"The King's views coincide with the Queen's. And the Queen's +are perfectly well known.</p> + +<p>"If you continue your exploring expeditions, which you +evidently like to engage in, and if you report here at +intervals for the sake of appearances, I can get on very well +and very comfortably. But if you settle in New York and engage +in business there, and continue to remain away from this +country where you are popularly supposed to maintain +residences in town and +<!-- Page 357 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> +country, I shall certainly begin to +experience very disagreeably the consequences of your selfish +conduct.</p> + +<p>"Your reply to my last letter has thoroughly incensed me.</p> + +<p>"You always have been selfish. From the time I had the +misfortune to marry you I had to suffer from your selfish, +self-centred, demonstrative, and rather common +character—until you finally learned that demonstration is +offensive to decent breeding, and that, although I happened to +be married to you, I intended to keep to my own notions of +delicacy, reserve, privacy, and self-respect.</p> + +<p>"Of course you thought it a sufficient reason for us to have +children merely because <i>you</i> once thought you wanted them; +and I shall not forget what was your brutal attitude toward me +when I told you very plainly that I refused to be saddled with +the nasty, grubby little brats. Evidently you are incapable of +understanding any woman who is not half animal.</p> + +<p>"I did not desire children, and that ought to have been +sufficient for you. I am not demonstrative toward anybody; I +leave that custom to my servants. And is it any crime if the +things that interest and appeal to you do not happen to +attract me?</p> + +<p>"And I'll tell you now that your subjects of conversation +always bored me. I make no pretences; I frankly do not care +for what you so smugly designate as 'the things of the mind' +and 'things worth while.' I am no hypocrite: I like well bred, +well dressed people; I like what they do and say and think. +Their characters may be negative as you say, but their poise +<!-- Page 358 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> +and freedom from demonstration are most agreeable to me.</p> + +<p>"You politely designated them as fools, and what they said you +characterised as piffle. You had the exceedingly bad taste to +sneer at various members of an ancient and established +aristocracy—people who by inheritance from generations of +social authority, require no toleration from such a man as +you.</p> + +<p>"These are the people who are my friends; among whom I enjoy +an established position. This position you now threaten by +coolly going into business in New York. In other and uglier +words you advertise to the world that you have abandoned your +home and wife.</p> + +<p>"Of course I cannot help it if you insist on doing this common +and disgraceful thing.</p> + +<p>"And I suppose, considering the reigning family's attitude +toward divorce, that you believe me to be at your mercy.</p> + +<p>"Permit me to inform you that I am not. If, in a certain set, +wherein I now have the entrée, divorce is not tolerated,—at +any rate where the divorced wife of an American would not be +received,—nevertheless there are other sets as desirable, +perhaps even more desirable, and which enjoy a prestige as +weighty.</p> + +<p>"And I'll tell you now that in case you persist in affronting +me by remaining in business in New York, I shall be forced to +procure a separation—possibly a divorce. And I shall not +suffer for it socially as no doubt you think I will.</p> + +<p>"There is only one reason why I have not done so +already—disinclination to be disturbed in a social +<!-- Page 359 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> +milieu +which suits me. It's merely the inconvenience of a transfer to +another equally agreeable set.</p> + +<p>"But if your selfish conduct forces me to make the change, +don't doubt for one minute, my friend, that I'm entirely +capable and able to accomplish it without any detriment or +anything worse than some slight inconvenience to myself.</p> + +<p>"Whether it be a separation or a divorce I have not yet made +up my mind.</p> + +<p>"There is only one reason why I should hesitate and that is +the thought that possibly you might be glad of your freedom. +If I were sure of that I'd punish you by asking for a +separation. But I do not suppose it really matters to you. I +think I know you well enough to know that you have no desire +to marry again. And, as for the young woman in whose company +you made yourself notorious before we were engaged—well, I +think you would hesitate to offer her marriage, or even, +perhaps, the not unprecedented privilege of being your <i>chère +amie</i>. I do you the honour of believing you too fastidious to +select a public fortune teller for your mistress, or to parade +a cheap trance-medium as a specimen of your personal taste in +pulchritude.</p> + +<p>"Meanwhile your attitude in domestic matters continues to +annoy me. Be good enough to let me know, definitely, what you +propose to do, so that I may take proper measures to protect +myself—because I have always been obliged to protect myself +from you and your vulgar notions ever since my mother and +yours made a fool of me.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;" class="smcap">"Winifred Stuart Bailey." +</span><br /> +<!-- Page 360 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p> + +<p>With his care-worn eyes still fixed on the written pages he rested his +elbow on the table and dropped his head on his hand, heavily.</p> + +<p>Rain swept the windows; the wind also was rising; his room seemed to +be full of sounds; even the clock which had a subdued tick and a most +discreet manner of announcing the passing of time, seemed noisy to +him.</p> + +<p>"God! what a mess I've made of life," he said aloud. For a moment a +swift anger burned fiercely against the woman who had written him; +then the flame of it blew against himself, scorching him with the +wrath of self-contempt.</p> + +<p>"Hell!" he said between his teeth. "It isn't the fault of that little +girl across the ocean. It's my fault, mine, and the fault of nobody +else."</p> + +<p>Indecision, the weakness of a heart easily appealed to, the +irresolution of a man who was not man enough to guard and maintain his +own freedom of action and the right to live his own life—these had +encompassed the wrecking of him.</p> + +<p>It seemed that he was at least man enough to admit it, generous enough +to concede it, even if perhaps it was not altogether true.</p> + +<p>But never once had he permitted himself, even for a second, to censure +the part played by his mother in the catastrophe. That he had been +persuaded, swerved, over-ridden, dominated, was his own fault.</p> + +<p>The boy had been appealed to, subtly, cleverly, on his most vulnerable +side; he had been bothered and badgered and beset. Two women, clever +and hard as +<!-- Page 361 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> + nails, had made up their minds to the marriage; the third +remained passive, indifferent, but acquiescent. Wiser, firmer, and +more experienced men than Clive had surrendered earlier. Only the +memory of Athalie held him at all;—some vague, indefinite hope may +have remained that somehow, somewhere, sometime, either the world's +attitude might change or he might develop the courage to ignore it and +to seek his happiness where it lay and let the world howl.</p> + +<p>That is probably all that held him at all. And after a while the +constant pressure snapped that thread. This was the result.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>He lifted his head and stared, heavy-eyed, at his wife's letter. Then, +dropping the sheets to the floor he turned and laid both arms upon the +table and buried his face in them.</p> + +<p>Toward morning his servant discovered him there, asleep. +<!-- Page 362 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<p class="cap">THE following day Clive replied to his wife by cable: "As it seems to +make no unpleasant difference to you I have concluded to remain in New +York. Please take whatever steps you may find most convenient and +agreeable for yourself."</p> + +<p>And, following this he wrote her:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"I am inexpressibly sorry to cause you any new annoyance and +to arouse once more your just impatience and resentment. But I +see no use in a recapitulation of my shortcomings and of your +own many disappointments in the man you married.</p> + +<p>"Please remember that I have always assumed all blame for our +marriage; and that I shall always charge myself with it. I +have no reply to make to your reproaches,—no defence; I was +not in love with you when I married you—which is as serious +an offence as any man can perpetrate toward any woman. And I +do not now blame you for a very natural refusal to tolerate +anything approaching the sympathy and intimacy that ought to +exist between husband and wife.</p> + +<p>"I did entertain a hazy idea that affection and perhaps love +might be ultimately possible even under the circumstances of +such a marriage as ours; and in a youthful, ignorant, and +inexperienced way I +<!-- Page 363 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> +attempted to bring it about. My notions +of our mutual obligations were very vague and indefinite.</p> + +<p>"Please believe I did not realise how utterly distasteful any +such ideas were to you, and how deep was your personal +disinclination for the man you married.</p> + +<p>"I understand now how many mistakes I made before I finally +rid you of myself, and gave you a chance to live your life in +your own way unharassed by the interference of a young, +ignorant, and probably aggressive man.</p> + +<p>"Your aversion to motherhood was, after all, your own affair. +Man has no right to demand that of woman. I took a very +bullying and intolerant attitude toward you—not, as I now +realise, from any real conviction on the subject, but because +I liked and wanted children, and also because I was influenced +by the cant of the hour—the fashion being to demand of woman, +on ethical grounds, quantitative reproduction as a marriage +offering to the Almighty. As though indiscriminate and +wholesale addition to humanity were an admirable and religious +duty. Nothing, even in the Old Testament, is more stupid than +such a doctrine; no child should ever be born unwelcome to +both parents.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry I could not find your circle of friends +interesting. I sometimes think I might have, had you and I +been mutually sympathetic. But the situation was impossible; +our ideas, interests, convictions, tastes, were radically at +variance; we had absolutely nothing in common to build on. +What marriage ties could endure the strain of such conditions? +The fault was mine, Winifred; I am sorry for you. +<!-- Page 364 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't know much about anything, but, thinking as clearly +and as impersonally as it is in me to think, I begin to +believe that divorce, far from deserving the stigma attached +to it, is a step forward in civilisation.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it may be only a temporary substitute for something +better—say for more wholesome and more honest social +conditions where the proposition for mating and the selection +of a mate may lie as freely with your sex as with mine.</p> + +<p>"Until then I know of nothing more honest and more sensible +than to undo the wrong that ignorance and inexperience has +accomplished. No woman's moral or spiritual salvation is +dependent upon her wearing the fetters of a marriage abhorred. +Such a stupid sacrifice is unthinkable to modesty and decency, +and is repulsive to common sense. And any god who is supposed +to demand that of humanity is not the true God, but is as +grotesque and false as any African idol or any deity ever +worshipped by Puritan or Pagan or by any orthodox assassin of +free minds since the first murder was perpetrated on account +of creed.</p> + +<p>"You are entitled to divorce. I don't know whether I am or +not, having done this thing. Nobody likes to endure unhappy +consequences. I don't. But it was my own doing and I have no +ground for complaint.</p> + +<p>"You, however, have. You ought to be free of me. Of course, +I'd be very glad to have my freedom; I shall not lie about it; +but the difference is that you deserve yours and I don't. But +I'll be very grateful if you care to give it to me.</p> + +<p>"Don't write any more bitterly than you can help. I don't +<!-- Page 365 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> +believe it really affords you any satisfaction; and it +depresses me more than you could realise. I know only too well +what I have been and wherein I have failed so miserably. Let +me forget it whenever I can, Winifred. And if, for me, there +remains any chance, any outlook, be generous enough to let me +try to take it.</p></div> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">"Your husband,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;" class="smcap">"C. Bailey."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The consequences of this letter did not seem to be very fortunate. +There came a letter from her so bitter and menacing that a cleverer +man might have read in it enough of menace between the lines to +forearm him with caution at least.</p> + +<p>But Clive merely read it once and destroyed it and tried to forget it.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>It was not until some time afterward that, gradually, some instinct in +him awoke suspicion. But for a long while he was not perfectly sure +that he was being followed.</p> + +<p>However, when he could no longer doubt it, and when the lurking +figures and faces of at least two of the men who dogged him everywhere +had become sufficiently familiar to him, he wrote a short note to his +wife asking for an explanation.</p> + +<p>But he got none—principally because his wife had already sailed.</p> + +<p>The effect of Winifred's letters on an impressionable, sensitive, and +self-distrustful character, was never very quickly effaced. +<!-- Page 366 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span></p> + +<p>Whatever was morbid in the man became apparent after he had received +such letters, and took the form of a quiet withdrawal from the circles +which he affected, until such time as mortification and shame had +subsided.</p> + +<p>He had written briefly to Athalie saying that business would take him +out of town for a few weeks. Which it did as a matter of fact, landing +him at Spring Pond, Long Island, where he completed the purchase of +the Greensleeve tavern and took title in his own name.</p> + +<p>Old Ledlie had died; his only heir appeared to be glad enough to sell; +the title was free and clear; the possibilities of the place +fascinating.</p> + +<p>Clive prowled around the place in two minds whether he might venture +to call in a local builder and have him strip the protuberances from +the house, which was all that was necessary to restore it to its +original form; or whether he ought to leave that for Athalie to +manage.</p> + +<p>But there remained considerable to be done; May was in full bud and +blossom already; and if Athalie was to enjoy the place at all that +summer it ought to be made livable.</p> + +<p>So Clive summoned several people to his aid with the following quick +results: A New York general contractor took over the entire job +guaranteeing quick results or forfeiture. A local nurseryman and an +emergency gang started in. They hedged the entire front with privet +for immediate effect, cleared, relocated, and restored the ancient +flower garden on its quaint original lines; planted its borders +thickly with old time +<!-- Page 367 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> + perennials, peonies, larkspurs, hollyhocks, +clove pinks, irises, and lilies; replanted the rose beds with +old-fashioned roses, set the wall beds with fruit trees and gay +annuals, sodded, trimmed, raked, levelled, cleaned up, and pruned, +until the garden was a charming and logical thing.</p> + +<p>Fortunately the newness was not apparent because the old stucco walls +remained laden with wistaria and honeysuckle, and the alley of ancient +box trees required clipping only.</p> + +<p>In the centre of the lawn he built a circular pool and piped the water +from Spring Brook. It fell in a slender jet, icy cold, powdering pool, +basin and grass with spray.</p> + +<p>Where half-dead locust and cedar trees had to be felled Clive set tall +arbor vitæ and soft maples. He was an expensive young man where +Athalie's pleasure was concerned; and as he worked there in the lovely +May weather his interest and enthusiasm grew with every fresh fragrant +spadeful of brown earth turned.</p> + +<p>The local building genius repainted the aged house after bay window +and gingerbread had been stripped from its otherwise dignified facade; +replaced broken slates on the roof, mended the great fat chimneys, +matched the traces of pale bluish-green that remained on the window +shutters, filled in the sashes with small, square panes, instituted +modern plumbing, drainage, sewage, and electric lights—all of +which was emergency work and not too difficult as the city +improvements had now been extended as far as the village a mile to the +eastward. But it was expensive. + +<!-- Page 368 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p> + +<p>At first Clive had decided to leave the interior to Athalie, but he +finally made up his mind to restore the place on its original lines +with the exception of her mother's room. This room he recognised from +her frequent description of it; and he locked it, pocketed the key, +and turned loose his men.</p> + +<p>All that they did was to plaster where it was needed, re-kalsomine all +walls and ceilings, scrape, clean, mend, and re-enamel the ancient +woodwork. Trim, casings, wainscot, and stairs were restored to their +original design and finish; dark hardwood floors replaced the painted +boards which had rotted; wherever a scrap of early wall-paper remained +he matched it as closely as possible, having an expert from New York +to do the business; and the fixtures he chose were simple and graceful +and reflected the period as nearly as electric light fixtures can +simulate an era of candle-sticks and tallow dips.</p> + +<p>He was tremendously tempted to go ahead, so fascinating had the work +become to him, but he realised that it was not fair to Athalie. All +that he could reasonably do he had done; the place was clean and +fresh, and restored to its original condition outside and in, except +for the modern necessities of lighting, heating, plumbing, and running +water in pantry, laundry, kitchen, and bathrooms. Two of the latter +had replaced two clothes-presses; the ancient cellar had been cemented +and whitewashed, and heavily stocked with furnace and kitchen coal and +kindling.</p> + +<p>Also there were fire-dogs for the three fine old-fashioned fireplaces +in the house which had been +<!-- Page 369 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> + disinterred from under bricked-in and +plastered surfaces where only the aged mantel shelves and a hole for a +stove pipe revealed their probable presence.</p> + +<p>The carpets were too ragged and soiled to retain; the furniture too +awful. But he replaced the latter, leaving its disposition and the +pleasure of choosing new furniture and new floor coverings to Athalie.</p> + +<p>Hers also was to be the pleasure of re-stocking the house with linen; +of selecting upholstery and curtains and the requisites for pantry, +kitchen, and dining-room.</p> + +<p>Once she told him what she had meant to do with the bar. And he took +the liberty of doing it, turning the place into a charming +sun-parlour, where, in a stone basin, gold-fish swam and a forest of +feathery and flowering semi-tropical plants spread a fretwork of blue +shadows over the cool stone floor.</p> + +<p>But he left the big stove as it had been; and the rather quaint old +chairs with their rush-bottoms renovated and their lustrous wood +stained and polished by years of use.</p> + +<p>Every other day he went to Spring Pond from his office in New York to +watch the progress of the work. The contractor was under penalty; +Clive had not balked at the expense; and the work was put through with +a rush.</p> + +<p>In the meanwhile he called on Athalie occasionally, pretending always +whenever she spoke of it, that negotiations were still under way +concerning the property in question, and that such transactions +required patience and time. +<!-- Page 370 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p> + +<p>One matter, too, was gradually effaced from his mind. The tall man and +the short man who had been following him so persistently had utterly +disappeared. And nobody else seemed to have taken their places. +Eventually he forgot it altogether.</p> + +<p>Two months was the period agreed upon for the completion of Athalie's +house and garden, and the first week in July found the work done.</p> + +<p>It had promised to be a hot week in the city: Athalie, who had been +nowhere except for an evening at some suburban restaurant, had begun +to feel fagged and listless and in need of a vacation.</p> + +<p>And that morning she had decided to go away for a month to some quiet +place in the mountains, and she was already consulting various folders +and advertisements which she had accumulated since early spring, when +the telephone in her bedroom rang.</p> + +<p>She had never heard Clive's voice so gay over the wire. She told him +so; and she could hear his quick and rather excited laugh.</p> + +<p>"Are you very busy to-day?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No; I'm going to close up shop for a month, Clive. I'm hot and tired +and dying for a glimpse of something green. I was just looking over a +lot of advertisements—cottages and hotels. Come up and help me."</p> + +<p>"I want you to spend the day with me in the country. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"I'd love to. Where?"</p> + +<p>"At Spring Pond."</p> + +<p>"Clive! Do you really want to go there?" +<!-- Page 371 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes. As your guest."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"If you will invite me. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean? Have you bought the place for me?"</p> + +<p>"I have the deed in my pocket, all ready to be transferred to you."</p> + +<p>"You darling! Clive, I am so excited—"</p> + +<p>"So am I. Shall I come for you in my brand new car? I've invested in +an inexpensive Stinger runabout. May I drive you down? It won't take +much longer than by train. And it will cool us off."</p> + +<p>"Come as soon as you can get here!" she cried, delighted. "This is +going to be the happiest day of my entire life!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>And so it came about that Athalie in her pretty new gown and hat of +lilac lingerie, followed by a maid bearing three suit-cases, hat-box, +toilet satchel, and automobile coat, emerged from the main entrance of +the building where Clive sat waiting in a smart Stinger runabout. When +he saw her he sprang out and came forward, hat in hand.</p> + +<p>"You darling," she said in a low, happy voice. "You've made me happier +than I ever dreamed of being. I don't know what to say to you; I +simply don't know how to thank you for doing this wonderful thing for +me."</p> + +<p>He, too, was happier than he had ever been in all his life; and so +much in love that he found nothing to say for a moment save the few +trite phrases in which a man +<!-- Page 372 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> + in love says many commonplaces, all of +which only mean, "I love you."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/gs24.jpg" width="300" height="450" +alt=""When he saw her he sprang out and came forward."" +title=""When he saw her he sprang out and came forward."" /> +<span class="caption">"When he saw her he sprang +out and came forward."</span> +</div> + +<p> +<!-- Page 373 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> +<!-- Page 374 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>Doubtless she understood the complicated code, for she laughed and +blushed a trifle and looked around at her maid laden with luggage.</p> + +<p>"Where can we put these, Clive?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"What on earth is all that luggage?" he asked, surprised.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to remain a few days," she explained, "so I've brought a +few things."</p> + +<p>"But do you imagine there is anything to eat or anywhere to lay your +head in that tumble down old house?" he demanded, secretly enchanted +with her rash enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"I propose to camp. I can buy milk, crackers, and sardines at Spring +Pond village; also sufficient bathroom and bed linen. That is all I +require to be perfectly comfortable."</p> + +<p>There was no rumble on the Stinger, only a baggage rack and boot. Here +he secured, covered, and strapped Athalie's impedimenta; the maid +slipped on her travelling coat; she sprang lightly into the seat; and +Clive went around and climbed in beside her, taking the wheel.</p> + +<p>The journey downtown and across the Queensboro Bridge was the usual +uncomfortable and exasperating progress familiar to all who pilot cars +to Long Island. Brooklyn was negotiated prayerfully; they swung into +the great turnpike, through the ugliest suburbs this humiliated world +ever endured, on through the shabby, filthy, sordid environment of the +gigantic +<!-- Page 375 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> + Burrough, past ignoble villages, desolate wastes, networks +of railway tracks where grade crossings menaced them, and on along the +purlieus of suburban deserts until the flat green Long Island country +spread away on either side dotted with woods and greenhouses and +quaint farm-houses and old-time spires.</p> + +<p>"It is pretty when you get here," he said, "but it's like climbing +over a mile of garbage to get out of one's front door. No European +city would endure being isolated by such a desert of squalor and +abominable desolation."</p> + +<p>But Athalie merely smiled. She had been far too excited to notice the +familiar ugliness and filth of the dirty city's soiled and ragged +outskirts.</p> + +<p>And now the car sped on amid the flat, endless acres of cultivated +land, and already her dainty nose was sniffing familiar but +half-forgotten odours—the faintest hint of ocean, the sun-warmed +scent of freshly cut salt hay; perfumes from woodlands in heavy +foliage, and the more homely smell from barn-yard and compost-heap; +from the sunny, dusty village streets through which they rolled; from +village lanes heavy with honeysuckle.</p> + +<p>"I seem to be speeding back toward my childhood," she said. "Every +breath of this air, every breeze, every odour is making it more real +to me.... I wonder whatever became of my ragged red hood and cloak. I +can't remember."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to have them," he said. "I'd fold them and lay them away +for—"</p> + +<p>He checked himself, sobered, suddenly and painfully +<!-- Page 376 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> + aware that the +magic of the moment had opened for him an unreal vista where, in the +false dawn, the phantom of Hope stood smiling. Her happy smile had +altered, too; and her gloved hand stole out and rested on his own for +a moment in silence. Neither said anything for a while, and yet the +sky was so blue, the wind so soft and aromatic, and the sun's +splendour was turning the very earth to powdered gold. And maybe the +gods would yet be kind. Maybe, one day, others, with Athalie's hair +and eyes, might smooth the faded scarlet hood and cloak with softly +inquiring fingers.</p> + +<p>He spoke almost harshly from his brief dream: "There is the Bay!"</p> + +<p>But she had turned to look back at the quiet little cemetery already +behind them, and a moment or two passed before she lifted her eyes and +looked out across the familiar stretch of water. Azure and silver it +glimmered there in the sun. Red-shouldered blackbirds hovered, +fluttered, dropped back into the tall reeds; meadow larks whistled +sweetly, persistently; a slow mouse-hawk sailed low over the fields, +his broad wings tipped up like a Japanese kite, the silver full-moon +flashing on his back as he swerved. And then the old tavern came into +sight behind its new hedge of privet.</p> + +<p>Athalie caught sight of it,—of the tall hedge, the new posts of stone +through which a private road now curved into the grounds and around a +circle before the porch; saw the new stone wall inclosing it ablaze +with nasturtiums, the brilliant loveliness of the old and long +neglected garden beyond; saw the ancient +<!-- Page 377 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> + house in all its quaint and +charming simplicity bereft of bow-window, spindle, and gingerbread +fretwork,—saw the white front of it, the green shutters, the big, +thick chimneys, the sunlight sparkling on small square panes, and on +the glass of the sun parlour.</p> + +<p>The girl was trembling when he stopped the car at the front door, +sprang out, and aided her to descend.</p> + +<p>A man in overalls came up, diffidently, and touched his broad straw +hat. To him Clive gave a low-voiced order or two, then stepped forward +to where the girl was standing.</p> + +<p>"It is too beautiful—" she began, but her voice failed, and he saw +the sensitive lips tremulous in their silence and the eyes brilliant +with the menace of tears.</p> + +<p>He drew her arm through his and they went in, moving slowly and in +silence from room to room. Only the almost convulsive pressure of her +arm on his told him of a happiness too deep for expression.</p> + +<p>On the landing above he offered her the key to her mother's room.</p> + +<p>"Nothing is changed there," he said; and, fitting the key, unlocked +the door, and turned away.</p> + +<p>But the girl caught his hand in hers and drew him with her into the +faded, shabby room where her mother's chair stood in its accustomed +place, and the faded hassock lay beside it.</p> + +<p>"Sit here," she said. And when he was seated she dropped on the +hassock at his feet and laid her cheek on his knees.</p> + +<p>The room was very still and sunny; her lover remained silent and +unstirring; and the girl's eyes +<!-- Page 378 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> + wandered from carpet to ceiling and +from wall to wall, resting on familiar objects; then, passing +dreamily, remained fixed on space—sweet, brooding eyes, dim with the +deepest emotion she had ever known.</p> + +<p>A new, profound, and thrilling peace possessed her—a heavenly sense +of tranquillity and security, as though, somehow, all problems had +been solved for her and for him.</p> + +<p>Presently in a low, hushed, happy voice she began to speak about her +mother. Little unimportant, unconnected incidents came to her +mind—brief moments, episodes as ephemeral as they had been +insignificant.</p> + +<p>Sitting on the faded hassock at his feet she lifted her head and +rested both arms across his knees.</p> + +<p>"It is all so perfect now," she said,—"you here in mother's room, and +I at your feet: and the sunny world waiting for us outside. How mellow +is this light! Always in the demi-dusk of this house there seemed to +me to linger a golden tint—even on dark days—even at night—as +though somewhere a ray of sun had been lost and had not entirely faded +out."</p> + +<p>"It came from your own heart, Athalie—that wonderful and golden heart +of yours where light and warmth can never die.... Dear, are you +contented with what I have ventured to do?"</p> + +<p>She looked silently into his eyes, then with a little sigh dropped her +head on his knees again.</p> + +<p>Far away somewhere in the depths of the house somebody was moving. And +presently she asked him who it was.</p> + +<p>"Connor, the man of all work. I sent him to Spring +<!-- Page 379 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span> + Pond village to +buy bed linen and bath towels. I ventured to install a brass bed or +two in case you had thought of coming here with your maid. You see," +he added, smiling, "it was fortunate that I did."</p> + +<p>"You are the most wonderful man in the world, Clive," she murmured, +her eyes fixed dreamily on his face. "Always you have been making life +delightful for me; smoothing my path, helping me where the road is +rough."... She sighed: "Clive, you are very wonderful to me."</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Mrs. Jim Connor had come to help; and now, at high noon, she sought +them where they were standing in the garden,—Athalie in ecstasy +before the scented thickets of old-fashioned rockets massed in a long, +broad border against a background of trees.</p> + +<p>So they went in to luncheon, which was more of a dinner; and Mrs. +Connor served them with apology, bustle, and not too garrulously for +the humour they were in.</p> + +<p>High spirits had returned to them when they stepped out of doors; and +they came back to the house for luncheon in the gayest of humour, +Athalie chattering away blithe as a linnet in a thorn bush, and Clive +not a whit more reticent.</p> + +<p>"Hafiz is going to adore this!" exclaimed the girl. "My angel +pussy!—why was I mean enough to leave you in the city!... I'll have a +dog, too—a soft, roly-poly puppy, who shall grow up with a wholesome +respect for Hafiz. And, Clive! I shall have a nice fat +<!-- Page 380 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> + horse, a safe +and sane old Dobbin—so I can poke about the countryside at my +leisure, through byways and lanes and disused roads."</p> + +<p>"You need a car, too."</p> + +<p>"No, no, I really don't. Anyway," she said airily, "your car is +sufficient, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," he smiled.</p> + +<p>"I think so, too. I shall not require or desire a car unless you also +are to be in it. But I'd love to possess a Dobbin and a double +buckboard. Also I shall, in due time, purchase a sail-boat—" She +checked herself, laughed at the sudden memory, and said with +delightful malice: "I suppose you have not yet learned to sail a boat, +have you?"</p> + +<p>He laughed, too: "How you scorned me for my ignorance, didn't you? Oh, +but I've learned a great many things since those days, Athalie."</p> + +<p>"To sail a boat, too?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. I had to learn. There's a lot of water in the world; and +I've been very far afield."</p> + +<p>"I know," she said. There was a subtle sympathy in her voice,—an +exquisite recognition of the lonely years which now seemed to lie far, +far behind them both.</p> + +<p>She glanced down at her fresh plate which Mrs. Connor had just placed +before her.</p> + +<p>"Clive!" she exclaimed, enchanted, "do you see! Peach turnovers!"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. Do you suppose this housewarming could be a proper one +without peach turnovers?" And to Mrs. Connor he said: "That is all, +thank you. +<!-- Page 381 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> + Miss Greensleeve and I will eat our turnovers by the stove +in the sun-parlour."</p> + +<p>And there they ate their peach turnovers, seated on the old-time +rush-bottomed chairs beside the stove—just as they had sat so many +years ago when Athalie was a child of twelve and wore a ragged cloak +and hood of red.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, leisurely consuming her pastry, she glanced demurely at her +lover, sometimes her blue eyes wandered to the sunny picture outside +where roses grew and honeysuckle trailed and the blessed green grass +enchanted the tired eyes of those who dwelt in the monstrous and arid +city.</p> + +<p>Presently she went away to the room he had prepared for her; and he +lay back lazily in his chair and lighted a cigarette, and watched the +thin spirals of smoke mounting through the sunshine. When she returned +to him she was clad in white from crown to toe, and he told her she +was enchanting, which made her eyes sparkle and the dimples come.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Connor is going to remain and help me," she said. "All my things +are unpacked, and the bed is made very nicely, and it is all going to +be too heavenly for words. Oh, I <i>wish</i> you could stay!"</p> + +<p>"To-night?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. But I suppose it would ruin us if anybody knew."</p> + +<p>He said nothing as they walked back into the main hallway.</p> + +<p>"What a charming old building it is!" she exclaimed. "Isn't it odd +that I never before appreciated +<!-- Page 382 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> + the house from an esthetic angle? I +don't suppose you'd call this architecture, but whatever else it may +be it certainly is dignified. I adore the simplicity of the rooms; +don't you? I shall have some pretty silk curtains made; and, in the +bedrooms, chintz. And maybe you will help me hunt for furniture and +rugs. Will you, dear?"</p> + +<p>"We'll find some old mahogany for this floor and white enamel for the +bedrooms if you like. What do you say?"</p> + +<p>"Enchanting! I adore antique mahogany! You know how crazy I am about +the furniture of bygone days. I shall squander every penny on things +Chippendale and Sheraton and Hepplewhite. Oh, it is going to be a +darling house and I'm the happiest girl in the world. And you have +made me so!—dearest of men!"</p> + +<p>She caught his hand to her lips as he bent to kiss hers, and their +faces came together in a swift and clinging embrace. Which left her +flushed and wordless for the moment, and disposed to hang her head as +she walked slowly beside him to the front door.</p> + +<p>Out in the sunshine, however, her self-possession returned in a pretty +exclamation of delight; and she called his attention to a tiny rainbow +formed in the spray of the garden hose where Connor was watering the +grass.</p> + +<p>"Symbol of hope for us," he said under his breath.</p> + +<p>She nodded, and stood inhaling the fragrance of the garden.</p> + +<p>"I know a path—if it still exists—where I used +<!-- Page 383 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> + to go as a child. +Would you care to follow it with me?"</p> + +<p>So they walked down to the causeway bridge spanning the outlet to +Spring Pond, turned to the right amid a tangle of milk-weed in heavy +bloom, and grapevines hanging in festoons from rock and sapling.</p> + +<p>The path had not changed; it wound along the wooded shore of the pond, +then sloped upward and came out into a grassy upland, where it +followed the woods' edge under the cool shadow of the trees.</p> + +<p>And as they walked she told him of her childish journeys along this +path until it reached the wooded and pebbly height of land beyond, +which is one of the vertebræ in the backbone of Long Island.</p> + +<p>To reach that ridge was her ultimate ambition in those youthful days; +and when on one afternoon of reckless daring she had attained it, and +far to the northward she saw the waters of the great Sound sparkling +in the sun, she had felt like Balboa in sight of the Pacific, awed to +the point of prayer by her own miraculous achievement.</p> + +<p>Where the path re-entered the woods, far down the slope, they could +hear the waters of Spring Brook flowing; and presently they could see +the clear glint of the stream; and she told him tales of alder-poles +and home-made hooks, and of dusky troutlings that haunted the woodland +pools far in the dusk of leafy and mysterious depths.</p> + +<p>On the brink of the slope, but firmly imbedded, there had been a big +mossy log. She discovered it presently, and drew him down to a seat +beside her, taking +<!-- Page 384 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> + possession of one of his arms and drawing it +closely under her own. Then she crossed one knee over the other and +looked out into the magic half-light of a woodland which, to her +childish eyes, had once seemed a vast and depthless forest. A bar of +sunlight fell across her slim shoe and ankle clothed in white, and +across the log, making the moss greener than emeralds.</p> + +<p>From far below came pleasantly the noise of the brook; overhead leaves +stirred and whispered in the breezes; shadows moved; sun-spots waxed +and waned on tree-trunk and leaf and on the brown ground under foot. A +scarlet-banded butterfly—he they call the Red Admiral—flitted +persistently about an oak tree where the stain of sap darkened the +bark.</p> + +<p>From somewhere came the mellow tinkle of cow-bells, which moved +Athalie to speech; and she poured out her heart to Clive on the +subject of domestic kine and of chickens and ducks.</p> + +<p>"I'm a country girl; there can be no doubt about it," she admitted. "I +do not think a day passes in the city but I miss the cock-crow and the +plaint of barn-yard fowl, and the lowing of cattle and the whimper and +coo of pigeons. And my country eyes grow weary for a glimpse of green, +Clive,—and for wide horizons and the vast flotillas of white clouds +that sail over pastures and salt meadows and bays and oceans. Never +have I been as contented as I am at this moment—here—under the sky +alone with you."</p> + +<p>"That also is all I ask in life—the open world, and you."</p> + +<p>"Maybe it will happen." +<!-- Page 385 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Maybe."</p> + +<p>"With everything—desirable—"</p> + +<p>She dropped her eyes and remained very still. For the first time in +her life she had thought of children as her own—and his. And the +thought which had flashed unbidden through her mind left her silent, +and a little bewildered by its sweetness.</p> + +<p>He was saying: "You should, by this time, have the means which enable +you to live in the country."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Cecil Reeve had advised her in her investments. The girl's financial +circumstances were modest, but adequate and sound.</p> + +<p>"I never told you how much I have," she said. "May I?"</p> + +<p>"If you care to."</p> + +<p>She told him, explaining every detail very carefully; and he listened, +fascinated by this charming girl's account of how in four years, she +had won from the world the traditional living to which all are +supposed to be entitled.</p> + +<p>"You see," she said, "that gives me a modest income. I could live here +very nicely. It has always been my dream.... But of course everything +now depends on where you are."</p> + +<p>Surprised and touched he turned toward her: she flushed and smiled, +suddenly realising the naïveté of her avowal.</p> + +<p>"It's true," she said. "Every day I seem to become more and more +entangled with you. I'm wondering whether I've already crossed the +bounds of friendship, +<!-- Page 386 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> + and how far I am outside. I can't seem to +realise any longer that there is no bond between us stronger than +preference.... I was thinking—very unusual and very curious +thoughts—about us both." She drew a deep, unsteady, but smiling, +breath: "Clive, I wish you could marry me."</p> + +<p>"You <i>wish</i> it, Athalie?" he asked, profoundly moved.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>After a silence she leaned over and rested her cheek against his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes," she said under her breath,—"that is what I begin to wish +for. A home, and <i>you</i>.... And—children."</p> + +<p>He put his arm around her.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it strange, Clive, that I should think about children—at my +age—and with little chance of ever having any. I don't know what +possesses me to suddenly want them.... Wouldn't they be wonderful in +that house? And they'd have that darling garden to play in.... There +ought to be a boy—several in fact, and some girls.... <i>I'd</i> know what +to do for them. Isn't it odd that I should know exactly how to bring +them up. But I do. I know I do.... I can almost see them playing in +the garden—I can see their dear little faces—hear their voices—"</p> + +<p>His arm was clasping her slim body very tightly, but she suddenly sat +upright, resting one slender hand on his shoulder; and her gaze became +steady and fixed.</p> + +<p>Presently he noticed it and turned his head in the same direction, but +saw nothing except the sunlight +<!-- Page 387 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> + sifting through the trees and the +golden half-light of the woods beyond.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Athalie?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She said in a curiously still voice: "Children."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Playing in the woods."</p> + +<p>"Where?" he repeated; "I do not see them."</p> + +<p>She did not answer. Presently she closed her eyes and rested her face +against his shoulder again, pressing close to him as though lonely.</p> + +<p>"They went away," she said in answer to his question.... "I feel a +little tired, Clive.... Do you care for me a great deal?"</p> + +<p>"Can you ask?"</p> + +<p>"Yes.... Because of the years ahead of us. I think there are to be +many—for us both. The future is so bewildering—like a tangled and +endless forest, and very dim to see in.... But sometimes there comes a +rift in the foliage—and there is a glimpse of far skies shining. And +for a moment one—'sees clearly'—into the depths—a little way.... +And surmises something of what remains unseen. And imagines more, +perhaps.... I wonder if you love me—enough."</p> + +<p>"Dearest—dearest—"</p> + +<p>"Let it remain unsaid, Clive. A girl must learn one day. But never +from the asking. And the same sun shall continue to rise and set, +whatever her answer is to be; and the moon, too; and the stars shall +remain unchanged—whatever changes us. How still the woods are—as +still as dreams." +<!-- Page 388 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 404px;"> +<img src="images/gs25.jpg" width="404" height="258" +alt=""She suddenly sat upright, resting one slender hand +on his shoulder."" +title=""She suddenly sat upright, resting one slender hand +on his shoulder."" /> +<span class="caption">"She suddenly sat upright, resting one +slender hand on his shoulder."</span> +</div> + +<p> +<!-- Page 389 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> +<!-- Page 390 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>She lifted her head, looked at him, smiled, then, freeing herself, +sprang to her feet and stood a moment drawing her slim hand across her +eyes.</p> + +<p>"I shall have a tennis court, Clive. And a canoe on Spring Pond.... +What kind of puppy was that I said I wanted?"</p> + +<p>"One which would grow up with proper fear and respect for Hafiz," he +said, smilingly, perplexed by the rapid sequence of her moods.</p> + +<p>"A collie?"</p> + +<p>"If you like."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," she murmured, "whether they are safe for children—" She +looked up laughing: "<i>Isn't</i> it odd! I simply cannot seem to free my +mind of children whenever I think about that house."</p> + +<p>As they moved along the path toward the new home he said: "What was it +you saw in the woods?"</p> + +<p>"Children."</p> + +<p>"Were they—real?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Had they died?"</p> + +<p>"They have not yet been born," she said in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"I did not know you could see such things."</p> + +<p>"I am not sure that I can. It is very difficult for me, sometimes, to +distinguish between vividly imaginative visualisation and—other +things."</p> + +<p>Walking back through the soft afternoon light the girl tried to tell +him all that she knew about herself and her clairvoyance—strove to +explain, to make him understand, and, perhaps, to understand herself. +<!-- Page 391 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span></p> + +<p>But after a while silence intervened between them; and when they spoke +again they spoke of other things. For the isolation of souls is a +solitude inviolable; there can be no intimacy there, only the longing +for it—the craving, endless, unsatisfied. +<!-- Page 392 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<p class="cap">OVER the garden a waning moon silvered the water in the pool and +picked out from banked masses of bloom a tall lily here and there.</p> + +<p>All the blossom-spangled vines were misty with the hovering wings of +night-moths. Through alternate bands of moonlight and dusk the jet +from the pool split into a thin shower of palely flashing jewels, +sometimes raining back on the water, sometimes drifting with the wind +across the grass. And through the dim enchantment moved Athalie, +leaning on Clive's arm, like some slim sorceress in a secret maze, +silent, absent-eyed, brooding magic.</p> + +<p>Already into her garden had come the little fantastic creatures of the +night as though drawn thither by a spell to do her bidding. Like a fat +sprite a speckled toad hopped and hobbled and scrambled from their +path; a tiny snake, green as the grass blades that it stirred, slipped +from a pool of moonlight into a lake of shadow. Somewhere a small owl, +tremulously melodious, called and called: and from the salt meadows, +distantly, the elfin whistle of plover answered.</p> + +<p>Like some lost wanderer from the moon itself a great moth with +nile-green wings fell flopping on the grass at the girl's feet. And +Clive, wondering, lifted it gingerly for her inspection.</p> + +<p>Together they examined the twin moons shining on its translucent +<!-- Page 393 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> +wings, the furry, snow-white body and the six downy feet of palest +rose. Then, at Athalie's request, Clive tossed the angelic creature +into the air; and there came a sudden blur of black wings in the +moonlight, and a bat took it.</p> + +<p>But neither he nor she had seen in allegory the darting thing with +devil's wings that dashed the little spirit of the moon into eternal +night. And out of the black void above, one by one, flakes from the +frail wings came floating.</p> + +<p>To and fro they moved. She with both hands clasped and resting on his +arm, peering through darkness down at the flowers, as one perfume, +mounting, overpowered another—clove-pink, rocket, lily, and petunia, +each in its turn dominant, triumphant.</p> + +<p>Puffs of fragrance from the distant sea stirred the garden's tranquil +air from time to time: somewhere honeyed bunches hung high from locust +trees; and the salt meadow's aromatic tang lent savour to the night.</p> + +<p>"I must go back to town," he said irresolutely.</p> + +<p>He heard her sigh, felt her soft clasp tighten slightly over his arm. +But she turned back in silence with him toward the house, passed in +the open door before him, her fair head lowered, and stood so, leaning +against the newel-post.</p> + +<p>"Good night," he said in a low voice, still irresolute.</p> + +<p>"Must you go?"</p> + +<p>"I ought to."</p> + +<p>"There is that other bedroom. And Mrs. Connor has gone home for the +night."</p> + +<p>"I told her to remain," he said sharply. +<!-- Page 394 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I told her to go."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because I wanted you to stay—this first night +here—with me—in the +home of my youth which you have given to me again."</p> + +<p>He came to her and looked into her eyes, framing her face between his +hands:</p> + +<p>"Dear, it would be unwise for me to remain."</p> + +<p>"Because you love me?"</p> + +<p>"No." He added with a forced smile: "I have put on armour in our +behalf. No, that is not the reason."</p> + +<p>"Then—may you not stay?"</p> + +<p>"Suppose it became known? What would you do, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"Hold my head high ... guilty or not."</p> + +<p>"You don't know what you are saying."</p> + +<p>"Not exactly, perhaps.... But I know that I have been changing. This +day alone with you is finishing the transformation. I'm not sure just +when it began. I realise, now, that it has been in process for a long, +long while." She drew away from him, leaned back on the banisters.</p> + +<p>"I may not have much time;—I want to be candid—I want to think +honestly. I don't desire to deny even to myself that I am now become +what I am—a stranger to myself."</p> + +<p>He said, still with his forced smile; "What pretty and unknown +stranger have you so suddenly discovered in yourself, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>She looked up at him, unsmiling: "A stranger to celibacy.... Why do +<!-- Page 395 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> +you not take me, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"Do you understand what you are saying!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. And now I can understand anything <i>you</i> may say or do ... I +couldn't, yesterday." She turned her face away from him and folded her +hands over the newel-post. And, not looking at him, she said: "Since +we have been here alone together I have known a confidence and +security I never dreamed of. Nothing now matters, nothing causes +apprehension, nothing of fear remains—not even that ignorance of fear +which the world calls innocence.</p> + +<p>"I am what I am; I am not afraid to be and live what I have become.... +I am capable of love. Yesterday I was not. I have been fashioned to +love, I think.... But there is only one man who can make me +certain.... My trust and confidence are wholly his—as fearlessly as +though he had become this day my husband....</p> + +<p>"And if he will stay, here under this roof which is not mine unless it +is his also—here in this house where, within the law or without it, +nevertheless everything is his—then he enters into possession of what +is his own. And I at last receive my birthright,—which is to serve +where I am served, love where love is mine—with gratitude, and +unafraid—"</p> + +<p>Her voice trembled, broke; she covered her face with her hands; and +when he took her in his arms she leaned her forehead against his +breast:</p> + +<p>—"Oh, Clive—I can't deny them!—How can I deny +them?—The little flower-like faces, pleading to me for +life!—And their tender arms—around my +<!-- Page 396 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span> + neck—there in the garden, Clive!—The winsome lips +on mine, warm and heavenly sweet; and the voices calling, calling from +the golden woodland, calling from meadow and upland, height and +hollow!—And sometimes like far echoes of wind-blown laughter they +call me—gay little voices, confident and sweet; and sometimes, +winning and shy, they whisper close to my +cheek—mother!—mother—"</p> + +<p>His arms fell from her and he stepped back, trembling.</p> + +<p>She lifted her pale tear-stained face. And, save for the painted +Virgins of an ancient day he never before had seen such spiritual +passion in any face—features where nothing sensuous had ever left an +imprint; where the sensitive, tremulous mouth curved with the +loveliness of a desire as innocent as a child's.</p> + +<p>And he read there no taint of lesser passion, nothing of less noble +emotion; only a fearless and overwhelming acknowledgment of her +craving to employ the gifts with which her womanhood endowed her—love +and life, and service never ending.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>In her mother's room they sat long talking, her hands resting on his, +her fresh and delicate face a pale white blur in the dusk.</p> + +<p>It was very late before he went to the room allotted him, knowing that +he could not hope for sleep. Seated there by his open window he heard +the owl's tremolo rise, quaver, and die away in the moonlight; he +heard the murmuring plaint of marsh-fowl, and the sea-breeze stirring +the reeds. +<!-- Page 397 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now, in this supreme crisis of his life, looking out into darkness he +saw a star fall, leaving an incandescent curve against the heavens +which faded slowly as he looked.</p> + +<p>Into an obscurity as depthless, his soul was peering, now, naked, +unarmoured, clasping hands with hers. And every imperious and furious +tide that sweeps the souls and bodies of men now mounted +overwhelmingly and set toward her. It seemed at moments as though +their dragging was actually moving his limbs from where he sat; and he +closed his eyes and his strong hand fell on the sill, grasping it as +though for anchorage.</p> + +<p>Now,—if there were in him anything higher than the mere clay that +clotted his bones—now was the moment to show it. And if there were a +diviner armour within reach of his unsteady hand, he must don it now +and rivet it fast in the name of God.</p> + +<p>Darkness is a treacherous councillor; he rose heavily, and turned the +switch, flooding the room with light, then flung himself across the +bed, his clenched fists over his face.</p> + +<p>In his ears he seemed to hear the dull roar of the current which, so +far through life, had borne him on its crest, tossing, hurling him +whither it had listed.</p> + +<p>It should never again have its will of him. This night he must set his +course forever.</p> + +<p>"Clive!"</p> + +<p>But the faint, clear call was no more real, and no less, than the +voice which was ringing always in his ears, now,—no softer, no less +winning. +<!-- Page 398 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Clive!"</p> + +<p>After a moment he raised himself to his elbows and gazed, +half-blinded, toward the door. Then he got clumsily to his feet, +stumbled across the floor, and opened it.</p> + +<p>She stood there in her frail chamber robe of silk and swansdown, +smiling, forlornly humorous, and displaying a book as symbol of her +own insomnia.</p> + +<p>"Can't you sleep?" she asked. "We'll both be dead in the morning. I +thought I'd better tell you to go to sleep when I saw your light break +out.... So I've come to tell you."</p> + +<p>"How could you see that my window was lighted?"</p> + +<p>"I was leaning out of my window listening to the little owl, and +suddenly I saw the light from yours fall criss-cross across the +grass.... Can't you sleep?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'll turn out the light. Will <i>you</i> promise to go to sleep?"</p> + +<p>"If I can. The night is so beautiful—"</p> + +<p>With a gay little smile and gesture she turned away; but halfway down +the corridor she hesitated and looked back at him.</p> + +<p>"If you are sleepless," she called softly, "you may wake me and I'll +talk to you."</p> + +<p>There was a window at the end of the corridor. He saw her continue on +past her door and stand there looking out into the garden. She was +still standing there when he closed his door and went back to his +chair.</p> + +<p>The night seemed interminable; its moonlit fragrance unendurable. With +sleepless eyes he gazed into the darkness, appalled at the +future—fearing such nights +<!-- Page 399 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> + to come—nights like this, alone with +her; and the grim battle to be renewed, inexorably renewed until that +day should come—if ever it was to come—when he dared take in the +name of God what Destiny had already made his own, and was now +clamouring for him to take.</p> + +<p>After a long while he rose from the window, went to his door again, +opened it and looked out. And saw her still leaning against the window +at the corridor's dim end.</p> + +<p>She looked around, laughing softly as he came up: "All this—the +night, the fragrance, and you, have hopelessly bewitched me. I can't +sleep; I don't wish to.... But you, poor boy—you haven't even +undressed. You look very tired and white, Clive. Why is it you can't +sleep?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer.</p> + +<p>"Shall I get my book and read aloud to you? It's silly stuff—love, +and such things. Shall I?"</p> + +<p>"No—I'm going back," he answered curtly.</p> + +<p>She glanced around at him curiously. For, that day, a new +comprehension of men and their various humours had come to enlighten +her; she had begun to understand even where she could not feel.</p> + +<p>And so, tenderly, gently, in shy sympathy with the powerful currents +that swept this man beside her,—but still herself ignorant of their +power, she laid her cool cheek against his, drawing his head closer.</p> + +<p>"Dearest—dearest—" she murmured vaguely.</p> + +<p>His head turned, and hers turned instinctively to meet it; and her +arms crept up around his neck.</p> + +<p>Then of a sudden she had freed herself, stepped back, one nervous arm +<!-- Page 400 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> +outflung as if in self-defence. But her hand fell, caught on the +window-sill and clung there for support; and she rested against it +breathing rapidly and unevenly.</p> + +<p>"Athalie—dear."</p> + +<p>"Let me go now—"</p> + +<p>Her lips burned for an instant under his; were wrenched away:</p> + +<p>"Let me go, Clive—"</p> + +<p>"You must not tremble so—"</p> + +<p>"I can't help it.... I am afraid. I want to go, now. I—I want to +go—"</p> + +<p>There was a chair by the window; she sank down on it and dropped her +head back against the wall behind.</p> + +<p>And, as he stood there beside her, over her shoulder through the open +window he saw two men in the garden below, watching them.</p> + +<p>Presently she lifted her head. His eyes remained fixed on the men +below who never moved.</p> + +<p>She said with an effort; "Are you displeased, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"No, my darling."</p> + +<p>"It was not because I do not love you. Only—I—"</p> + +<p>"I know," he whispered, his eyes fixed steadily on the men.</p> + +<p>After a silence she said under her breath: "I understand better now +why I ought to wait for you—if there is any hope for us,—as long as +there is any chance. And after that—if there is no chance for +us—then nothing can matter."</p> + +<p>"I know." +<!-- Page 401 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span></p> + +<p>"To-night, earlier, I did not understand why I should deny myself to +myself, to you, to <i>them</i>.... I did not understand that what I wished +for so treacherously masked a—a lesser impulse—"</p> + +<p>He said, quietly: "Nothing is surer than that you and I, one day, +shall face our destiny together. I really care nothing for custom, +law, or folk-way, or dogma, excepting only for your sake. Outside of +that, man's folk-ways, man's notions of God, mean nothing to me: only +my own intelligence and belief appeal to me. I must guide myself."</p> + +<p>"Guide me, too," she said. "For I have come into a wisdom which +dismays me."</p> + +<p>He nodded and looked down, calmly, at the two men who had not stirred +from the shadow of the foliage.</p> + +<p>She rose to her feet, hesitated, slowly stretched out her hand, then, +on impulse, pressed it lightly against his lips.</p> + +<p>"That demonstration," she said with a troubled laugh, "is to be our +limit. Good night. You will try to sleep, won't you?... And if I am +now suddenly learning to be a little shy with you—you will not +mistake me; will you?... Because it may seem silly at this late +date.... But, somehow, everything comes late to me—even love, and its +lesser lore and its wisdom and its cunning. So, if I ever seem +indifferent—don't doubt me, Clive.... Good night."</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>When she had entered her room and closed the door he went downstairs, +swiftly, let himself out of the house, and moved straight toward the +garden. +<!-- Page 402 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span></p> + +<p>Neither of the men seemed very greatly surprised; both retreated with +docile alacrity across the lawn to the driveway gate.</p> + +<p>"Anyway," said the taller man, good-humouredly, "you've got to hand it +to us, Mr. Bailey. I guess we pinch the goods on you all right this +time. What about it?"</p> + +<p>But Clive silently locked the outer gates, then turned and stared at +the shadowy house as though it had suddenly crumbled into ruins there +under the July moon. +<!-- Page 403 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<p class="cap">A FINE lace-work of mist lay over the salt meadows; the fairy trilling +of the little owl had ceased. Marsh-fowl were sleepily astir; the last +firefly floated low into the shrouded bushes and its lamp glimmered a +moment and went out.</p> + +<p>Where the east was growing grey long lines of wild-ducks went +stringing out to sea; a few birds sang loudly in meadows still +obscure; cattle in foggy upland pastures were awake.</p> + +<p>When the first cock-crow rang, cow-bells had been clanking for an hour +or more; the rising sun turned land and sea to palest gold; every +hedge and thicket became noisy with birds; bay-men stepped spars and +hoisted sail, and their long sweeps dripped liquid fire as they pulled +away into the blinding glory of the east.</p> + +<p>And Clive rose wearily from his window chair, care-worn and haggard, +with nothing determined, nothing solved of this new and imminent peril +which was already menacing Athalie with disgrace and threatening him +with that unwholesome notoriety which men usually survive but under +which a woman droops and perishes.</p> + +<p>He bathed, dressed again, dully uneasy in the garments of yesterday, +uncomfortable for lack of fresh linen and toilet requisites; little +things indeed to add +<!-- Page 404 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> + such undue weight to his depression. And only +yesterday he had laughed at inconvenience and had still found charm to +thrill him in the happy unconventionality of that day and night.</p> + +<p>Connor was already weeding in the garden when he went out; and the +dull surprise in the Irishman's sunburnt visage sent a swift and +painful colour into his own pallid face.</p> + +<p>"Miss Greensleeve was kind enough to put me up last night," he said +briefly.</p> + +<p>Connor stood silent, slowly combing the soil from the claw of his +weeder with work-worn fingers.</p> + +<p>Clive said: "Since I have been coming down here to watch the progress +on Miss Greensleeve's house have you happened to notice any strangers +hanging about the grounds?"</p> + +<p>Connor's grey eyes narrowed and became fixed on nothing.</p> + +<p>Presently he nodded to himself:</p> + +<p>"There was inquiries made, sorr, I'm minded now that ye mention it."</p> + +<p>"About me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sor. There was strangers askin' f'r to know was it you that owns +the house or what."</p> + +<p>"What was said?"</p> + +<p>"I axed them would they chase themselves,—it being none o' their +business. 'Twas no satisfaction they had of me, Misther Bailey, sorr."</p> + +<p>"Who were they, Connor?"</p> + +<p>"I just disremember now. Maybe there was a big wan and a little +wan.... Yes, sorr; there was two +<!-- Page 405 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> + of them hangin' about on and off +these six weeks past, like they was minded to take a job and then +again not minded. Sure there was the two o' thim, now I think of it. +Wan was big and thin and wan was a little scutt wid a big nose."</p> + +<p>Clive nodded: "Keep them off the place, Connor. Keep all strangers +outside. Miss Greensleeve will be here for several days alone and she +must not be annoyed."</p> + +<p>"Divil a bit, sorr."</p> + +<p>"I want you and Mrs. Connor to sleep in the house for the present. And +I do not wish you to answer any questions from anybody concerning +either Miss Greensleeve or myself. Can I depend on you?"</p> + +<p>"You can, sorr."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure of it. Now, I'd like to have you go to the village and buy +me something to shave with and to comb my hair with. I had not +intended to remain here over night, but I did not care to leave Miss +Greensleeve entirely alone in the house."</p> + +<p>"Sure, sorr, Jenny was fixed f'r to stay—"</p> + +<p>"I know. Miss Greensleeve told her she might go home. It was a +misunderstanding. But I want her to remain hereafter until Miss +Greensleeve's servants come from New York."</p> + +<p>So Connor went away to the village and Clive seated himself on a +garden bench to wait.</p> + +<p>Nothing stirred inside the house; the shades in Athalie's room +remained lowered.</p> + +<p>He watched the chimney swifts soaring and darting above the house. A +faint dun-coloured haze crowned +<!-- Page 406 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> + the kitchen chimney. Mrs. Connor was +already busy over their breakfast.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/gs26.jpg" width="300" height="443" +alt=""Clive nodded: 'Keep them off the place, Connor.'"" +title=""Clive nodded: 'Keep them off the place, Connor.'"" /> +<span class="caption">"Clive nodded: 'Keep them off +the place, Connor.'"</span> +</div> + +<p> +<!-- Page 407 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> +<!-- Page 408 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>When the gardener returned with the purchases Clive went to his room +again and remained there busy until a knock on the door and Mrs. +Connor's hearty voice announced breakfast.</p> + +<p>As he stepped out into the passage-way he met Athalie coming from her +room in a soft morning negligée, and still yawning.</p> + +<p>She bade him good morning in a sweet, sleepy voice, linked her white, +lace-clouded arm in his, glanced sideways at him, humorously ashamed:</p> + +<p>"I'm a disgrace," she said; "I could have slain Mrs. Connor when she +woke me. Oh, Clive, I <i>am</i> so sleepy!"</p> + +<p>"Why did you get up?"</p> + +<p>"My dear, I'm also hungry; that is why. I could scent the coffee from +afar. And you know, Clive, if you ever wish to hopelessly alienate my +affections, you have only to deprive me of my breakfast. Tell me, did +you get <i>any</i> sleep?"</p> + +<p>He forced a smile: "I had sufficient."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," she mused, looking at his somewhat haggard features.</p> + +<p>They found the table prepared for them in the sun-parlour; Athalie +presided at the coffee urn, but became a trifle flushed and shy when +Mrs. Connor came in bearing a smoking cereal.</p> + +<p>"I made a mistake in allowing you to go home," said the girl, "so I +thought it best for Mr. Bailey to remain." +<!-- Page 409 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sure I was that worritted," burst out Mrs. Connor, "I was minded to +come back—what with all the thramps and Dagoes hereabout, and no dog +on the place, and you alone; so I sez to my man Cornelius,—'Neil,' +sez I, 'it's not right,' sez I, 'f'r to be lavin' th' young lady—'"</p> + +<p>"Certainly," interrupted Clive quietly, "and you and Neil are to sleep +in the house hereafter until Miss Greensleeve's servants arrive."</p> + +<p>"I'm not afraid," murmured Athalie, looking at him with lazy amusement +over the big, juicy peach she was preparing. But when Mrs. Connor +retired her expression changed.</p> + +<p>"You dear fellow," she said, "You need not ever be worried about me."</p> + +<p>"I'm not, Athalie—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive! Aren't you always going to be honest with me?"</p> + +<p>"Why do you think I am anxious concerning you when Connor and his +wife—"</p> + +<p>"Dearest!"</p> + +<p>"What?" He looked across at her where she was serenely preparing his +coffee; and when she had handed the cup to him she shook her head, +gravely, as though in gentle disapproval of some inward thought of +his.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he asked uneasily.</p> + +<p>"You know already."</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> it?" he repeated, reddening.</p> + +<p>"Must <i>I</i> tell <i>you</i>, Clive?"</p> + +<p>"I think you had better."</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> should have told <i>me</i>, dear.... Don't ever +<!-- Page 410 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> +<!-- Page 411 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> +<!-- Page 412 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> + fear to tell me +what concerns us both. Don't think that leaving me in ignorance of +unpleasant facts is any kindness to me. If anything happens to cause +you anxiety, I should feel humiliated if you were left to endure it +all alone."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 346px;"> +<img src="images/gs27.jpg" width="346" height="510" +alt=""'Sure I was that worritted,' burst out Mrs. Connor."" +title=""'Sure I was that worritted,' burst out Mrs. Connor."" /> +<span class="caption">"'Sure I was that +worritted,' burst out Mrs. Connor."</span> +</div> + +<p>He remained silent, troubled, uncertain as yet, how much she knew of +what had happened in the garden the night before.</p> + +<p>"Clive, dear, don't let this thing spoil anything for us. I know about +it. Don't let any shadow fall upon this house of ours."</p> + +<p>"You saw me last night in the garden."</p> + +<p>Between diffidence and the candour that characterised her, she +hesitated; then:</p> + +<p>"Dear, a very strange thing has happened. Until last night never in +all my life, try as I might, could I ever 'see clearly' anything that +concerned you. Never have I been able to 'find' you anywhere—even +when my need was desperate—when my heart seemed breaking—"</p> + +<p>She checked herself, smiled at him; then her eyes grew dark and +thoughtful, and a deeper colour burned in her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"I'll try to tell you," she said. "Last night, after I left you, I lay +thinking about—love. And the—the new knowledge of myself +disconcerted me.... There remained a vague sense of dismay +and—humiliation—" She bent her head over her folded hands, silent +until the deepening colour subsided.</p> + +<p>Still with lowered eyes she went on, steadily enough: "My instinct was +to escape—I don't know exactly +<!-- Page 413 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> + how to tell this to you, dear,—but +the impulse to escape possessed me—and I felt that I must rise from +the lower planes and free myself from a—a lesser passion—slip from +the menace of its control—become clean again of everything that is +not of the spirit.... Do you understand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"So I rose and knelt down and said my prayers.... And asked to be +instructed because of my inexperience with—with these new and +deep—emotions. And then I lay down, very tranquil again, leaving the +burden with God.... All concern left me,—and the restless sense of +shame. I turned my head on the pillow and looked out into the +moonlight.... And, gently, naturally, without any sense of effort, I +left my body where it lay in the moonlight, and—and found myself in +the garden. Mother was there. You, also, were there; and two men with +you."</p> + +<p>His eyes never left her face; and now she looked up at him with a +ghost of a smile:</p> + +<p>"Mother spoke of the loveliness of the flowers. I heard her, but I was +listening to you. Then I followed you where you were driving the two +men from the grounds. I understood what had happened. After you went +into the house again my mother and I saw you watching by your window. +I was sorry that you were so deeply disturbed.</p> + +<p>"Because what had occurred did not cause me any anxiety whatever."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean," he said hoarsely, "that the probability of your name +being coupled with mine and +<!-- Page 414 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> + dragged through the public mire does not +disconcert you?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Why not? Is it because your clairvoyance reassures you as to the +outcome of all this?"</p> + +<p>"Dear," she said, gently, "I know no more of the outcome than you do. +I know nothing more concerning our future than do you—excepting, +only, that we shall journey toward it together, and through it to the +end, accomplishing the destiny which links us each to the other.... I +know no more than that."</p> + +<p>"Then why are you so serene under the menace of this miserable affair? +For myself I care nothing; I'd thank God for a divorce on any terms. +But you—dearest—dearest!—I cannot endure the thought of you +entangled in such a shameful—"</p> + +<p>"Where is the shame, Clive? The real shame, I mean. In me there are +two selves; neither have, as yet, been disgraced by any disobedience +of any law framed by men for women. Nor shall I break men's +laws—under which women are governed without their own consent—unless +no other road to our common destiny presents itself for me to follow." +... She smiled, watching his intent and sombre face:</p> + +<p>"Don't fear for me, dear. I have come to understand what life is, and +I mean to live it, wholesomely, gloriously, uncrippled in body and +mind, unmaimed by folk-ways and by laws as ephemeral—" she turned +toward the open windows—"as those frail-winged things that float in +the sunshine above Spring Pond, yonder, born at sunrise, and at +sundown dead." +<!-- Page 415 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span></p> + +<p>She laughed, leaning there on her dimpled elbows, stripping a peach of +its velvet skin:</p> + +<p>"The judges of the earth,—and the power of them!—What is it, dear, +compared to the authority of love! To-day men have their human will of +men, judging, condemning, imprisoning, slaying, as the moral fashion +of the hour dictates. To-morrow folk-ways change; judge and victim +vanish along with fashions obsolete—both alike, their brief reign +ended.</p> + +<p>"For judge and victim are awake at last; and in the twinkling of an +eye, the old world has become a memory or a shrine for those tranquil +pilgrims who return to worship for a while where love lies +sleeping.... And then return no more."</p> + +<p>She rose, signed him to remain seated, came around to where he sat, +and perched herself on the arm of his chair.</p> + +<p>"If you don't mind," she said, "I shall smooth out that troubled +crease between your eyebrows." And she encircled his head with both +arms, and laid her smooth hands across his forehead. Then she touched +his hair lightly, with her lips.</p> + +<p>"We are great sinners," she murmured, "are we not, my darling?"</p> + +<p>And drew his head against her breast.</p> + +<p>"Of what am I robbing <i>her</i>, Clive? Of the power to humiliate you, +make you unhappy. It is an honest theft.</p> + +<p>"What else am I stealing from her? Not love, not gratitude, not duty, +nothing of tenderness, nor of pride nor sympathy. I take nothing, +then, from her. She +<!-- Page 416 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> + has nothing for me to steal—unless it be the +plain gold ring she never wears.... And I prefer a new one—if, +indeed, I am to wear one."</p> + +<p>He said, deeply troubled, "How do you know she never wears a ring?" +And he turned and looked up at her over his shoulder. The clear azure +of her eyes was like a wintry sky.</p> + +<p>"Clive, I know more than that. I know that your wife is in New York."</p> + +<p>"What!" he exclaimed, astonished.</p> + +<p>"I have been aware of it for weeks," she said tranquilly.</p> + +<p>He remained silent; she continued to caress his hair:</p> + +<p>"Your wife," she went on thoughtfully, "will learn much when she dies. +There is a compulsory university course which awaits us all,—a school +with many forms and many grades and many, many pupils. But we must die +before we can be admitted.... I have never before spoken to you as I +have spoken to-day.... Perhaps I never shall again.... The world is a +blind place—lovely but blind.</p> + +<p>"As for the woman who wears your name but wears no ring of yours she +has been moving through my crystal for many days;—I would have made +no effort to intrude on her had she not persisted in the crystal, +haunted it,—I cannot tell you why—only that she is always there, +now.... And last night I knew that she was in New York, and why she +had come here.... Shall you see her to-day?"</p> + +<p>"Where is she?" +<!-- Page 417 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span></p> + +<p>"At the Regina."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure?"</p> + +<p>The girl calmly closed her eyes for a moment. After a brief silence +she opened them: "She is still there.... She will awake in a little +while and ring for her breakfast. The two men you drove out of the +garden last night are waiting to see her. There is another man there. +I think he is your wife's attorney.... Have you decided to see her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You won't let what she may say about me trouble you, will you?"</p> + +<p>"What will she say?" he asked with the naïve confidence of absolute +and childish faith.</p> + +<p>Athalie laughed: "Darling! I don't know. I'm not a witch or a +sorceress. Did you think I was?—just because I can see a little more +clearly than you?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't know what your limit might be," he answered, smiling +slightly, in spite of his deep anxiety.</p> + +<p>"Then let me inform you at once. My eyes are better than many +people's. Also my <i>other</i> self can see. And with so clear a vision, +and with intelligence—and with a very true love and reverence for +God—somehow I seem to visualise what clairvoyance, logic, and reason +combine to depict for me.</p> + +<p>"I used to be afraid that a picturesque and vivid imagination coupled +with a certain amount of clairvoyance might seduce me to trickery and +charlatanism.</p> + +<p>"But if it be charlatanism for a paleontologist to construct a fish +out of a single fossil scale, then there may be something of that +ability in me. For truly, Clive, +<!-- Page 418 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> + I am often at a loss where to draw +the line between what I see and what I reason out—between my +clairvoyance and my deductions. And if I made mistakes I certainly +should be deeply alarmed. But—I don't," she added, laughing. "And so, +in regard to those two men last night, and in regard to what <i>she</i> and +they may be about, I feel not the least concern. And you must not. +Promise me, dear."</p> + +<p>But he rose, anxious and depressed, and stood silent for a few +moments, her hands clasped tightly in his.</p> + +<p>For he could see no way out of it, now. His wife, once merely +indifferent, was beginning to evince malice. And what further form +that malice might take he could not imagine; for hitherto, she had not +desired divorce, and had not concerned herself with him or his +behaviour.</p> + +<p>As for Athalie, it was now too late for him to step out of her life. +He might have been capable of the sacrifice if the pain and +unhappiness were to be borne by him alone—or even if he could bring +himself to believe or even hope that it might be merely a temporary +sorrow to Athalie.</p> + +<p>But he could not mistake her, now; their cords of love and life were +irrevocably braided together; and to cut one was to sever both. There +could be no recovery from such a measure for either, now.</p> + +<p>What was he to do? The woman he had married had rejected his loyalty +from the very first, suffered none of his ideas of duty to move her +from her aloofness. She cared nothing for him, and she let him know +it; his notions of marriage, its duties and obligations merely aroused +in her contempt. And when he finally +<!-- Page 419 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> + understood that the only +kindness he could do her was to keep his distance, he had kept it. And +what was he to do now? Granted that he had brought it all upon +himself, how was he to combat what was threatening Athalie?</p> + +<p>His wife had so far desired nothing of him, not even divorce. He could +not leave Athalie and he could not marry her. And now, on her young +head he had, somehow, loosened this avalanche, whatever it was—a suit +for separation, probably—which, if granted, would leave him without +his liberty, and Athalie disgraced. And even suppose his wife desired +divorce for some new and unknown reason. The sinister advent of those +men meant that Athalie would be shamefully named in any such +proceedings.</p> + +<p>What was he to do? An ugly, hunted look came into his face and he +swung around and faced the girl beside him:</p> + +<p>"Athalie," he said, "will you go away with me and let them howl?"</p> + +<p>"Dearest, how silly. I'll stay <i>here</i> with you and let them howl."</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to face it—"</p> + +<p>"I shall not turn my back on it. Oh, Clive, there are so many more +important things than what people may say about us!"</p> + +<p>"You can't defy the world!"</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to, darling. But I may possibly shock a few of the more +orthodox parasites that infest it."</p> + +<p>"No girl can maintain that attitude."</p> + +<p>"A girl can try.... And, if law and malice force +<!-- Page 420 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> + me to become your +mistress, malice and law may answer for it; not I!"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> shall have to answer for it."</p> + +<p>"Dearest," she said with smiling tenderness, "you are still very, very +orthodox in your faith in folk-ways. That need not cause <i>me</i> any +concern, however. But, Clive, of the two pictures which seems +reasonable—your wife who is no wife; your mistress who is more and is +considered less?</p> + +<p>"Don't think that I am speaking lightly of wifehood.... I desire it as +I desire motherhood. I was made for both. If the world will let me I +shall be both wife and mother. But if the world interferes to stultify +me, then, nevertheless I shall still be both, and the law can keep the +title it refuses me. I deny the right of man to cripple, mar, render +sterile my youth and womanhood. I deny the right of the world to +forbid me love, and its expression, as long as I harm no one by +loving. Clive, it would take a diviner law than man's notions of +divinity, to kill in me the right to live and love and bring the +living into life. And if I am forbidden to do it in the name of the +law, then I dare do it in the name of One who never turned his back on +little children—"</p> + +<p>She ceased abruptly; and he saw her eyes suddenly blinded by tears:</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive—if you only could have seen them—the +little flower-like faces and pleading arms +around—my—neck—warm—Oh, sweet!—sweet +against my breast—" +<!-- Page 421 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<p class="cap">WINIFRED had grown stout, which, on a slim, small-boned woman is +quickly apparent; and, to Clive, her sleepy, uncertain grey eyes +seemed even nearer together than he remembered them.</p> + +<p>She was seated in the yellow and white living-room of her apartment at +the Regina, still holding the card he had sent up; and she made no +movement to rise when her maid announced him and ushered him in, or to +greet him at all except with a slight nod and a slighter gesture +indicating a chair across the room.</p> + +<p>He said: "I did not know until this morning that you were in this +country."</p> + +<p>"Was it necessary to inform you?"</p> + +<p>"No, not necessary," he said, "unless you have come to some definite +decision concerning our future relations."</p> + +<p>Her eyes seemed to grow sleepier and nearer together than ever.</p> + +<p>"Why," he asked, wearily, "have you employed an agency to have me +followed?"</p> + +<p>She lifted her drooping lids and finely pencilled brows. "Have you +been followed?"</p> + +<p>"At intervals, as you know. Would you mind saying why? Because you +have always been welcome to divorce." +<!-- Page 422 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span></p> + +<p>She sat silent, slowly tearing into tiny squares the card he had sent +up. Presently, as at an afterthought, she collected all the fragments +and placed them in a heap on the table beside her.</p> + +<p>"Well?" she inquired, glancing up at him. "Is that all you have to +say?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what to say until you tell me why you have had me +followed and why you yourself are here."</p> + +<p>Her gaze remained fixed on the heap of little pasteboard squares which +she shifted across the polished table-top from one position to +another. She said:</p> + +<p>"The case against you was complete enough before last night. I fancy +even you will admit that."</p> + +<p>"You are wrong," he replied wearily. "Somehow or other I believe you +know that you are wrong. But I suppose a jury might not think so."</p> + +<p>"Would you care to tell a jury that this trance-medium is not your +mistress?"</p> + +<p>"I should not care to defend her on such a charge before a jury or +before anybody. There are various ways of damning a woman; and to +defend her from that accusation is one of them."</p> + +<p>"And another way?"</p> + +<p>"To admit the charge. Either ruin her in the eyes of the truly +virtuous."</p> + +<p>"What do you expect to do about it then? Keep silent?"</p> + +<p>"That is still a third way of destroying a woman."</p> + +<p>"Really? Then what are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"Whatever you wish," he said in a low voice, "as +<!-- Page 423 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> + long as you do not +bring such a charge against Athalie Greensleeve."</p> + +<p>"Would you set your signature to a paper?"</p> + +<p>"I have given you my word. I have never lied to you."</p> + +<p>She looked up at him out of narrowing eyes:</p> + +<p>"You might this time. I prefer your signature."</p> + +<p>He reddened and sat twirling the silver crook of his walking-stick +between restless hands.</p> + +<p>"Very well," he said quietly; "I will sign what you wish, with the +understanding that Miss Greensleeve is to remain immune from any lying +accusation.... And I'll tell you now that any accusation questioning +her chastity is a falsehood."</p> + +<p>His wife smiled: "You see," she said, "your signature <i>will</i> be +necessary."</p> + +<p>"Do you think I am lying?"</p> + +<p>"What do I care whether you are or not? Do you suppose the alleged +chastity of a common fortune-teller interests me? All I know is that +you have found your level, and that I need protection. If you choose +to concede it to me without a public scandal, I shall permit you to do +so. If not, I shall begin an action against you and name the woman +with whom you spent last night!"</p> + +<p>There was, in the thin, flute-like, and mincingly fastidious voice +something so subtly vicious that her words left him silent.</p> + +<p>Still leisurely arranging and re-arranging her little heap of +pasteboard, her near-set eyes intent on its symmetry, she spoke +again: +<!-- Page 424 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I could marry Innisbrae or any one of several others! But I do not +care to; I am comfortable. And that is where you have made your +mistake. I do not desire a divorce! But,"—she lifted her narrow +eyes—"if you force me to a separation I shall not shrink from it. And +I shall name that woman."</p> + +<p>"Then—what is it you want?" he asked with a sinking heart.</p> + +<p>"Not a divorce; not even a separation; merely respectability. I wish +you to give up business in New York and present yourself in England at +decent intervals of—say once every year. What you do in the +interludes is of no interest to me. As long as you do not establish a +business and a residence anywhere I don't care what you do. You may +come back and live with this woman if you choose."</p> + +<p>After a silence he said: "Is that what you propose?"</p> + +<p>"It is."</p> + +<p>"And you came over here to collect sufficient evidence to force me?"</p> + +<p>"I had no other choice."</p> + +<p>He nodded: "By your own confession, then, you believe either in her +chastity and my sense of honour, or that, even guilty, I care so much +for her that any threat against her happiness can effectually coerce +me."</p> + +<p>"Your language is becoming a trifle involved."</p> + +<p>"No; <i>I</i> am involved. I realise it. And if I am not absolutely +honourable and unselfish in this matter I shall involve the woman I +had hoped to marry." +<!-- Page 425 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I thought so," she said, reverting to her heap of pasteboard.</p> + +<p>"If you think so," he continued, "could you not be a little generous?"</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"Divorce me—not by naming her—and give me a chance in life."</p> + +<p>"No," she said coolly, "I don't care for a divorce. I am comfortable +enough. Why should I inconvenience myself because you wish to marry +your mistress?"</p> + +<p>"In decency and in—charity—to me. It will cost you little. You +yourself admit that it is a matter of personal indifference to you +whether or not you are entirely and legally free of me."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever do anything to deserve my generosity?" she inquired +coldly.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I have tried."</p> + +<p>"I have never noticed it," she retorted with a slight sneer.</p> + +<p>He said: "Since my first offence against you—and against +myself—which was marrying you—I have attempted in every way I knew +to repair the offence, and to render the mistake endurable to you. And +when I finally learned that there was only one way acceptable to you, +I followed that way and kept myself out of your sight.</p> + +<p>"My behaviour, perhaps, entitles me to no claim upon your generosity, +yet I did my best, Winifred, as unselfishly as I knew how. Could you +not; in your turn, be a little unselfish now?... Because I have a +chance for happiness—if you would let me take it." +<!-- Page 426 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span></p> + +<p>She glanced at him out of her close-set, sleepy eyes:</p> + +<p>"I would not lift a finger to oblige you," she said. "You have +inconvenienced me, annoyed me, disarranged my tranquil, orderly, and +blameless mode of living, causing me social annoyance and personal +irritation by coming here and engaging in business, and living openly +with a common and notorious woman who practises a fraudulent and +vulgar business.</p> + +<p>"Why should I show you any consideration? And if you really have +fallen so low that you are ready to marry her, do you suppose it would +be very flattering for me to have it known that your second wife, my +successor, was such a woman?"</p> + +<p>He sat thinking for a while, his white, care-worn face framed between +his gloved hands.</p> + +<p>"Your friends," he said in a low voice, "know you as a devout woman. +You adhere very strictly to your creed. Is there nothing in it that +teaches forbearance?"</p> + +<p>"There is nothing in it that teaches me to compromise with evil," she +retorted; and her small cupid-bow mouth, grew pinched.</p> + +<p>"If you honestly believe that this young girl is really my mistress," +he said, "would it not be decent of you, if it lies within your power, +to permit me to regularise my position—and hers?"</p> + +<p>"Is it any longer my affair if you and she have publicly damned +yourselves?"</p> + +<p>"Yet if you do believe me guilty, you can scarcely deny me the chance +of atonement, if it is within your power." +<!-- Page 427 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span></p> + +<p>She lifted her eyes and coolly inspected him: "And suppose I do <i>not</i> +believe you guilty of breaking your marriage vows?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>He was silent.</p> + +<p>"Am I to understand," she continued, "that you consider it my duty to +suffer the inconvenience of divorcing you in order that you may +further advertise this woman by marrying her?"</p> + +<p>He looked into her close-set eyes; and hope died. She said: "If you +care to affix your signature to the agreement which my attorneys have +already drawn up, then matters may remain as they are, provided you +carry out your part of the contract. If you don't, I shall begin +action immediately and I shall name the woman on whose account you +seem to entertain such touching anxiety."</p> + +<p>"Is that your threat?"</p> + +<p>"It is my purpose, dictated by every precept of decency, morality, +religion, and the inviolable sanctity of marriage."</p> + +<p>He laughed and gathered up his hat and stick:</p> + +<p>"Your moral suasion, I am afraid, slightly resembles a sort of +sanctimonious blackmail, Winifred. The combination of morality, +religion, and yourself is too powerful for me to combat.... So if my +choice must be between permitting morality to publicly besmirch this +young girl's reputation, and affixing my signature to the agreement +you suggest, I have no choice but to sign my name."</p> + +<p>"Is that your decision?"</p> + +<p>He nodded. +<!-- Page 428 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Very well. My attorneys and a notary are in the next room with the +papers necessary. If you would be good enough to step in a moment—"</p> + +<p>He looked at her and laughed again: "Is there," he said, "anything +lower than a woman?—or anything higher?" +<!-- Page 429 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<p class="cap">ATHALIE was having a wonderful summer. House and garden continued to +enchant her. She brought down Hafiz, who, being a city cat, instantly +fled indoors with every symptom of astonishment and terror the first +time Athalie placed him on the lawn.</p> + +<p>But within a week the dainty Angora had undergone a change of heart. +Boldly, now he marched into the garden all by himself; fearlessly he +pounced upon such dangerous game as crickets and grasshoppers and the +little night moths which drifted among the flowers at twilight,—the +favourite prowling hour of Hafiz, the Beautiful.</p> + +<p>Also, early in July, Athalie had acquired a fat bay horse and a double +buckboard; and, in the seventh heaven now, she jogged about the +country through leafy lanes and thistle-bordered by-roads long +familiar to her childhood, sometimes with basket, trowel, and garden +gloves, intent on the digging and transplanting of ferns, sometimes +with field-glasses and books, on ornithological information bent. More +often she started out with only a bag of feed for Henry the horse and +some luncheon for herself, to picnic all alone in a familiar woodland, +haunted by childish memories, +<!-- Page 430 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> + and lie there listening to the bees and +to the midsummer wind in softly modulated conversation with the little +tree-top leaves.</p> + +<p>She had brought her maid from the city; Mrs. Connor continued to rule +laundry and kitchen. Connor himself decorated the landscape with his +straw hat and overalls, weeding, spraying, rolling, driving the +lawn-mower, raking bed and path, cutting and training vines, clipping +hedges,—a sober, bucolic, agreeable figure to the youthful chatelaine +of the house of Greensleeve.</p> + +<p>Clive had come once more from town to say that he was sailing for +England the following day; that he would be away a month all told, and +that he would return by the middle of August.</p> + +<p>They had spent the morning driving together in her buckboard—the +happiest morning perhaps in their lives.</p> + +<p>It promised to be a perfect day; and she was so carefree, so +contented, so certain of the world's kindness, so shyly tender with +him, so engagingly humorous at his expense, that the prospect of a +month's separation ceased for the time to appal him.</p> + +<p>Concerning his interview with his wife she had asked him nothing; nor +even why he was going abroad. Whether she guessed the truth; whether +she had come to understand the situation through other and occult +agencies, he could not surmise. But one thing was plain enough; +nothing that had happened or that threatened to happen was now +disturbing her. And her gaiety and high spirits were reassuring him +and +<!-- Page 431 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> + tranquillising his mind to a degree for which, on reflection, he +could scarcely account, knowing the ultimate hopelessness of their +situation.</p> + +<p>Yet her sheer good spirits carried him with her, heart and mind, that +morning. And when it was time for him to go she said good-bye to him +with a smile as tenderly gay and as happy and confident as though he +were to return on the morrow. And went back to her magic house of +dreams and her fairy garden, knowing that, except for him, their +rainbow magic must vanish and the tinted spell fade, and the soft +enchantment dissolve forever leaving at her feet only a sunlit ruin +amid the stillness of desolation.</p> + +<p>But the magic held. Every day she wrote him. Wireless messages came to +her from him for a while; ceased; then re-commenced, followed +presently by cablegrams and finally by letters.</p> + +<p>So the magic held through the long sunny summer days. And Athalie +worked in her garden and strayed far afield, both driving and afoot. +And she studied and practised piano, and made curtains, and purchased +furniture.</p> + +<p>Also she wrote letters to her sisters, long since wedded to husbands, +babies, and homes in the West. Her brother Jack, she learned, had +joined the Navy at Puget Sound, and had now become a petty officer +aboard the new battle-cruiser <i>Bon Homme Richard</i> in Asiatic waters. +She wrote to him, also, and sent him a money order, gaily suggesting +that he use it to educate himself as a good sailor should, and that he +save his pay for a future wife and baby—the latter, as she wrote, +<!-- Page 432 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> +"being doubtless the most desirable attainment this side of Heaven."</p> + +<p>In her bedroom were photographs of Catharine's children and of the +little boy which Doris had brought into the world; and sometimes, in +the hot midsummer afternoons, she would lie on her pillow and look at +these photographs until the little faces faded to a glimmer as slumber +dulled her eyes.</p> + +<p>Captain Dane came once or twice to spend the day with her; and it was +pleasant, afterward, for her to remember this big, blond, sunburnt man +as part of all that she most cared for. Together they drove and walked +and idled through house and garden: and when he went away, to sail the +following day for those eternal forests which conceal the hearthstone +of the Western World, he knew from her own lips about her love for +Clive. He was the only person she ever told.</p> + +<p>A few of her friends she asked to the house for quiet week-ends; the +impression their visits made upon her was pleasant but colourless.</p> + +<p>And it seemed singular, as she thought it over, how subordinate, how +unaccented had always been all these people who came into her life, +lingered, and faded out of it, leaving only the impressions of +backgrounds and accessories against which only one figure stood clear +and distinct—her lover's.</p> + +<p>Yes, of all men she had ever known, only Clive seemed real; and he +dominated every scene of her girlhood and her womanhood as her mother +had been the only really living centre of her childhood.</p> + +<p>All else seemed to her like a moving and subdued +<!-- Page 433 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> + background,—an +endless series of grey scenes vaguely painted through which figures +came and went, some shadowy and colourless as phantoms, some soberly +outlined, some delicately tinted—but all more or less subordinate, +more or less monochromatic, unimportant except for balance and +composition, as painters use indefinite shapes and shades so that the +eyes may more perfectly concentrate on the centre of their +inspiration.</p> + +<p>And the centre of all, for her, was Clive. Since her mother's death +there had been no other point of view for her, no other focus for the +forces of her mind, no other real desire, no other content. He had +entered her child's life and had become, instantly, all that the +child-world held for her. And it was so through the years of her +girlhood. Absent, or during his brief reappearances, the central focus +of her heart and mind was Clive. And, in womanhood, all forces in her +mind and spirit and, now, of body, centred in this man who stood out +against the faded tapestry of the world all alone for her, the only +living thing on earth with which her heart had mated as a child, and +in which now her mind and spirit had found Nirvana.</p> + +<p>All men, all women, seemed to have their shadowy being only to make +this man more real to her.</p> + +<p>Friends came, remained, and went,—Cecil Reeve, gay, charmed with +everything, and, as always, mischievously ready to pay court to her; +Francis Hargrave, politely surprised but full of courteous admiration +for her good taste; John Lyndhurst, Grismer, Harry Ferris, Young +Welter, Arthur Ensart, and James Allys,—all were bidden for the day; +all came, +<!-- Page 434 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span> + marvelled in the several manners characteristic of them, +and finally went their various ways, serving only, as always, to make +clearer to her the fadeless memory of an absent man. For, to her, the +merest thought of him was more real, more warm and vivid, than all of +these, even while their eager eyes sought hers and their voices were +sounding in her ears.</p> + +<p>Nina Grey came with Anne Randolph for a week-end; and then came Jeanne +Delauny, and Adele Millis. The memory of their visits lingered with +Athalie as long, perhaps, as the scent of roses hangs in a dim, still +room before the windows are open in the morning to the outer air.</p> + +<p>The first of August a cicada droned from the hill-top woods and all +her garden became saturated with the homely and bewitching odour of +old-fashioned rockets.</p> + +<p>On the grey wall nasturtiums blazed; long stretches of brilliant +portulaca edged the herbaceous borders; clusters of auratum lilies +hung in the transparent shadow of Cydonia and Spirea; and the first +great dahlias faced her in maroon splendour from the spiked thickets +along the wall.</p> + +<p>Once or twice she went to town on shopping bent, and on one of these +occasions impulse took her to the apartment furnished for her so long +ago by Clive.</p> + +<p>She had not meant to go in, merely intended to pass the house, speak +to Michael, perhaps, if indeed, he still presided over door and +elevator.</p> + +<p>And there he was, outside the door on a chair, smoking his clay pipe +and surveying the hot and silent street, where not even a sparrow +stirred. +<!-- Page 435 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Michael," she said, smiling.</p> + +<p>For a moment he did not know her, then: "God's glory!" he said +huskily, getting to his feet—"is it the sweet face o' Miss +Greensleeve or the angel in her come back f'r to bless us all?"</p> + +<p>She gave him her hand, and he held it and looked at her, earnestly, +wistfully; then, with the flashing change of his race, the grin broke +out:</p> + +<p>"I'm that proud to be remembered by the likes o' you, Miss Athalie! +Are ye well, now?—an' happy? I thank God for that! I am +substantial—with my respects, ma'am, f'r the kind inquiry. And Hafiz? +Glory be, was there ever such a cat now? D'ye mind the day we tuk him +in a bashket?—an' the sufferin' yowls of the poor, dear creature. +Sure I'm that glad to hear he's well;—and manny mice to him, Miss +Athalie!"</p> + +<p>Athalie laughed: "I suppose all your tenants are away in the country," +she ventured.</p> + +<p>"Barrin' wan or two, Miss. Ye know the young Master will suffer no one +in your own apartment."</p> + +<p>"Is it still unoccupied, Michael?"</p> + +<p>"Deed it is, Miss. Would ye care f'r to look around. There is nothing +changed there. I dust it meself."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the girl in a low voice, "I will look at it."</p> + +<p>So Michael took her up in the lift, unlocked the door for her, and +then with the fine instinct of his race, forbore to follow her.</p> + +<p>The shades in the square living-room were lowered; she raised one. And +the dim, golden past took shadowy shape again before her eyes. +<!-- Page 436 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 312px;"> +<img src="images/gs28.jpg" width="312" height="508" +alt=""'Michael,' she said, smiling."" +title=""'Michael,' she said, smiling."" /> +<span class="caption">"'Michael,' she said, smiling."</span> +</div> + +<p> +<!-- Page 437 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> +<!-- Page 438 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>She moved slowly from one object to another, touching caressingly +where memory was tenderest. She looked at the furniture, the +pictures,—at the fireplace where in her mind's eye she could see +<i>him</i> bending to light the first fire that had ever blazed there.</p> + +<p>For a little while she sat on the big lounge, her dreamy eyes fixed on +the spot where Clive's father had stood and she remembered Jacques +Renouf, too, and the lost city of Yhdunez.... And, somehow her +memories receded still further toward earlier years; and she thought +of the sunny office where Mr. Wahlbaum used to sit; and she seemed to +see the curtains stirring in the wind.</p> + +<p>After a while she rose and walked slowly along the hall to her own +room.</p> + +<p>Everything was there as she had left it; the toilet silver, evidently +kept clean and bright by Michael, the little Dresden cupids on the +mantel, the dainty clock, still running—further confirmation of +Michael's ministrations—the fresh linen on the bed. Nothing had been +changed through all these changing years. She softly opened the +clothes-press door; there hung her gowns—silent witnesses of her +youth, strangely and daintily grotesque in fashion. One by one she +examined them, a smile edging her lips, and, in her eyes, tears.</p> + +<p>All revery is tinged with melancholy; and it was so with her when she +stood among the forgotten gowns of years ago.</p> + +<p>It was so, too, when, one by one she unlocked and opened the drawers +of dresser and bureau. From soft, ordered heaps of silk and lace and +sheerest linen a faint +<!-- Page 439 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span> + perfume mounted; and it was as though she +subtly renewed an exquisite and secret intimacy with a youth and +innocence half-forgotten in the sadder wisdom of later days.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>From the still and scented twilight of a vanished year, to her own +apartment perched high above the sun-smitten city she went, merely to +find herself again, and look around upon what fortune had brought to +her through her own endeavour.</p> + +<p>But, somehow, the old prejudices had gone; the old instincts of pride +and independence had been obliterated, merged in a serene and tranquil +unity of mind and will and spirit with the man in whom every atom of +her belief and faith was now centred.</p> + +<p>It mattered no longer to her what material portion of her possessions +and environment was due to her own efforts, or to his. Nothing that +might be called hers could remain conceivable as hers unless he shared +it. Their rights in each other included everything temporal and +spiritual; everything of mind and matter alike. Of what consequence, +then, might be the origin of possessions that could not exist for her +unless possession were mutual?</p> + +<p>Nothing would be real to her, nothing of value, unless so marked by +his interest and his approval. And now she knew that even the world +itself must become but a shadow, were he not living to make it real.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>It was a fearfully hot day in town, and she waited until evening to go +back to Spring Pond. +<!-- Page 440 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span></p> + +<p>When she arrived, Mrs. Connor had a cablegram for her from Clive +saying that he was sailing and would see her before the month ended.</p> + +<p>Late into the night she looked for him in her crystal but could see +nothing save a blue and tranquil sea and gulls flying, and always on +the curved world's edge a far stain of smoke against the sky.</p> + +<p>Her mother was in her room that night, seated near the window as +though to keep the vigil that her daughter kept, brooding above the +crystal.</p> + +<p>It was Friday, the twenty-first, and a new moon. The starlight was +magnificent in the August skies: once or twice meteors fell. But in +the depths of her crystal she saw always a sunlit sea and a gull's +wings flashing.</p> + +<p>Toward morning when the world had grown its darkest and stillest, she +went over to where her mother was sitting beside the window, and knelt +down beside her chair.</p> + +<p>And so in voiceless and tender communion she nestled close, her golden +head resting against her mother's knees.</p> + +<p>Dawn found her there asleep beside an empty chair. +<!-- Page 441 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<p class="cap">ONE day toward the end of August, Athalie, standing at the pier's end, +saw the huge incoming liner slowly warping to her berth; waited amid +the throngs in the vast sheds by the gangway, caught a glimpse of +Clive, lost him to view, then saw him again, very near, making his way +toward her. And then her hands were in his and she was looking into +his beloved eyes once more.</p> + +<p>There were a few quick words of greeting spoken, tender, low-voiced; +the swift light of happiness made her blue eyes brilliant:</p> + +<p>"You tall, sun-bronzed, lazy thing," she said; "I never told you what +a distinguished looking man you are, did I? Well I'll spoil you by +telling you now. No wonder everything feminine glances at you," she +added as he lifted his hat to fellow passengers who were passing.</p> + +<p>And during the customs' examination she stood beside him, amused, +interested, gently bantering him when he declared everything; for even +in Athalie were apparently the ineradicable seeds of that original +sin—which is in all femininity—the paramount necessity for +smuggling.</p> + +<p>Once or twice he spoke aside to the customs' officer; and Athalie +<!-- Page 442 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span> +instantly and gaily accused him of attempted bribery.</p> + +<p>But when they were on their way to Spring Pond in a hired touring car +with his steamer trunk and suit-cases strapped behind, he drew from +his pockets the articles he had declared and paid for; and Athalie +grew silent in delight as she looked down at the single and lovely +strand of pearls.</p> + +<p>All the way to Spring Pond she held them so, and her enchanted eyes +reverted to them whenever she could bring herself to look anywhere +except at him.</p> + +<p>"I wondered," she said, "whether you would come to the country or +whether you might think it better to remain in town."</p> + +<p>"I shall go back to town only when you go."</p> + +<p>"Dear, does that mean that you will stay with me at our own house?"</p> + +<p>"If you want me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive! I was wondering—only it seemed too heavenly to hope for."</p> + +<p>His face grew sombre for a moment. He said: "There is no other future +for us. And even our comradeship will be misunderstood. But—if you +are willing—"</p> + +<p>"Is there any question in your mind as to the limit of my +willingness?"</p> + +<p>He said: "You know it will mark us for life. And if we remain +guiltless, and our lives blameless, nevertheless this comradeship of +ours will mark us for life."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean, brand us?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear." +<!-- Page 443 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Does that cause you any real apprehension?" she laughed.</p> + +<p>"I am thinking of you."</p> + +<p>"Think of me, then," she said gaily, "and know that I am happy and +content. The world is turning into such a wonderful friend to me; fate +is becoming so gentle and so kind. Happiness may brand me; nothing +else can leave a mark. So be at ease concerning me. All shall go well +with me, only when with you, my darling, all goes well."</p> + +<p>He smiled in sympathy with her gaiety of heart, but the slight shadow +returned to his face again. Watching it she said:</p> + +<p>"All things shall come to us, Clive."</p> + +<p>"All things," he said, gravely,—"except fulfilment."</p> + +<p>"That, too," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"No, Athalie."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said under her breath.</p> + +<p>He only lifted her ringless hand to his lips in hopeless silence; but +she looked up at the cloudless sky and out over sunlit harvest fields +and where grain and fruit were ripening, and she smiled, closing her +white hand and pressing it gently against his lips.</p> + +<p>Connor met them at the door and shouldered Clive's trunk and other +luggage; then Athalie slipped her arm through his and took him into +the autumn glow of her garden.</p> + +<p>"Miracle after miracle, Clive—from the enchantment of July roses to +the splendour of dahlia, calendula, and gladioluses. Such a +wonder-house no man ever before gave to any woman.... There is not one +stalk +<!-- Page 444 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span> + or leaf or blossom or blade of grass that is not my intimate +and tender friend, my confidant, my dear preceptor, my companion +beloved and adored.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 300px;"> +<img src="images/gs29.jpg" width="300" height="560" +alt=""And then her hands were in his and she was looking into his +beloved eyes once more."" +title=""And then her hands were in his and she was looking into +his beloved eyes once more."" /> +<span class="caption">"And then her hands were in +his and she was looking into his beloved eyes once more."</span> +</div> + +<p> +<!-- Page 445 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> +<!-- Page 446 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>"Do you notice that the grapes on the trellis are turning dark? And +the peaches are becoming so big and heavy and rosy. They will be ripe +before very long."</p> + +<p>"You must have a greenhouse," he said.</p> + +<p>"<i>We</i> must," she admitted demurely.</p> + +<p>He turned toward her with much of his old gaiety, laughing: "Do you +know," he said, "I believe you are pretending to be in love with me!"</p> + +<p>"That's all it is, Clive, just pretence, and the natural depravity of +a flirt. When I go back to town I'll forget you ever existed—unless +you go with me."</p> + +<p>"I'm wondering," he said, "what we had better do in town."</p> + +<p>"I'm not wondering; I know."</p> + +<p>He looked at her questioningly. Then she told him about her visit to +Michael and the apartment.</p> + +<p>"There is no other place in the world that I care to live +in—excepting this," she said. "Couldn't we live there, Clive, when we +go to town?"</p> + +<p>After a moment he said: "Yes."</p> + +<p>"Would you care to?" she asked wistfully. Then smiled as she met his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"So I shall give up business," she said, "and that tower apartment. +There's a letter here now asking if I desire to sublet it; and as I +had to renew my lease last June, that is what I shall do—if you'll +let me live in the place you made for me so long ago." +<!-- Page 447 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span></p> + +<p>He answered, smilingly, that he might be induced to permit it.</p> + +<p>Hafiz appeared, inquisitive, urbane, waving his snowy tail; but he was +shy of further demonstrations toward the man who was seated beside his +beloved mistress, and he pretended that he saw something in the +obscurity of the flowering thickets, and stalked it with every symptom +of sincerity.</p> + +<p>"That cat must be about six years old," said Clive, watching him.</p> + +<p>"He plays like a kitten, still."</p> + +<p>"Do you remember how he used to pat your thread with his paws when you +were sewing."</p> + +<p>"I remember," she said, smiling.</p> + +<p>A little later Hafiz regained confidence in Clive and came up to rub +against his legs and permit caresses.</p> + +<p>"Such a united family," remarked Athalie, amused by the mutual +demonstrations.</p> + +<p>"How is Henry?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Fatter and slower than ever, dear. He suits my unenterprising +disposition to perfection. Now and then he condescends to be harnessed +and to carry me about the landscape. But mostly he drags the cruel +burden of Connor's lawn-mower. Do you think the place looks well +kept?"</p> + +<p>"I knew you wanted to be flattered," he laughed.</p> + +<p>"I do. Flatter me please."</p> + +<p>"It's one of the best things I do, Athalie! For example—the lawn, the +cat, and the girl are all beautifully groomed; the credit is yours; +and you're a celestial dream too exquisite to be real." +<!-- Page 448 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I am becoming real—as real as you are," she said with a faint smile.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he admitted, "you and I are the only real things in the world +after all. The rest—woven scenes that come and go moving across a +loom."</p> + +<p>She quoted:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Sun and Moon illume the Room</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where the ceiling is the sky:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Night and day the Weavers ply</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Colour, shadow, hue, and dye,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where the rushing shuttles fly,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Weaving dreams across the Loom,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Picturing a common doom!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"How, Beloved, can <i>we</i> die—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">We Immortals, Thou and I?"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>He smiled: "Death seems very far away," he said.</p> + +<p>"Nothing dies.... If only this world could understand.... Did I tell +you that mother has been with me often while you were away?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"It was wonderfully sweet to see her in the room. One night I fell +asleep across her knees."</p> + +<p>"Does she ever speak to you, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sometimes we talk."</p> + +<p>"At night?"</p> + +<p>"By day, too.... I was sitting in the living-room the other morning, +and she came up behind me and took both my hands. We talked, I lying +back in the rocking chair and looking up at her.... Mrs. Connor came +<!-- Page 449 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span> +in. I am quite sure she was frightened when she heard my voice in +there conversing with nobody she could see."</p> + +<p>Athalie smiled to herself as at some amusing memory evoked.</p> + +<p>"If Mrs. Connor ever knew how she is followed about by so many purring +pussies and little wagging dogs—I mean dogs and pussies who are no +longer what we call 'alive,'—I don't know what she'd think. Sometimes +the place is full of them, Clive—such darling little creatures. Hafiz +sees them; and watches and watches, but never moves."</p> + +<p>Clive was staring a trifle hard; Athalie, lazily stretching her arms, +glanced at him with that humorous expression which hinted of gentlest +mockery.</p> + +<p>"Don't worry; nothing follows you, Clive, except an idle girl who +finds no time for anything else, so busy are her thoughts with you."</p> + +<p>He bent forward and kissed her; and she clasped both hands behind his +head, drawing it nearer.</p> + +<p>"Have you missed me, Athalie?"</p> + +<p>"You could never understand how much."</p> + +<p>"Did you find me in your crystal?"</p> + +<p>"No; I saw only the sea and on the horizon a stain of smoke, and a +gull flying."</p> + +<p>He drew her closely into his arms: "God," he breathed, "if anything +ever should happen to you!—and I—alone on earth—and blind—"</p> + +<p>"Yes. That is the only anxiety I ever knew ... because you are blind."</p> + +<p>"If you came to me I could not see you. If you spoke to me I could +<!-- Page 450 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> +not hear. Could anything more awful happen?"</p> + +<p>"Do you care for me so much?"</p> + +<p>In his eyes she read her answer, and thrilled to it, closer in his +arms; and rested so, her cheek against his, gazing at the sunset out +of dreamy eyes.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>They had been slowly pacing the garden paths, arm within arm, when +Mrs. Connor came to summon them to dinner. The small dining-room was +flooded with sunset light; rosy bars of it lay across cloth and fruit +and flowers, and striped the wall and ceiling.</p> + +<p>And when dinner was ended the pale fire still burned on the thin silk +curtains and struck across the garden, gilding the coping of the wall +where clustering peaches hung all turned to gold like fabled fruit +that ripens in Hesperides.</p> + +<p>Hafiz followed them out under the evening sky and seated himself upon +the grass. And he seemed mildly to enjoy the robins' evening +carolling, blinking benevolently up at the little vesper choristers, +high singing in the sunset's lingering glow.</p> + +<p>Whenever light puffs of wind set blossoms swaying, the jet from the +fountain basin swerved, and a mellow raining sound of drops swept the +still pool. The lilac twilight deepened to mauve; upon the surface of +the pool a primrose tint grew duller. Then the first bat zig-zagged +across the sky; and every clove-pink border became misty with the +wings of dusk-moths.</p> + +<p>On Athalie's frail white gown one alighted,—a little grey thing +wearing a pair of peacock-tinted diamonds +<!-- Page 451 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span> + on its forewings; and as it +sat there, quivering, the iridescent incrustations changed from +burnished gold to green.</p> + +<p>"Wonders, wonders, under the moon," murmured the girl—"thronging +miracles that fill the day and night, always, everywhere. And so few +to see them.... Sometimes, to me the blindness of the world to all the +loveliness that I 'see clearly' is like my own blindness to the hidden +wonders of the night—where uncounted myriads of little rainbow +spirits fly. And nobody sees and knows the living splendour of them +except when some grey-winged phantom strays indoors from the outer +shadows. And it astonishes us to see, under the drab forewings, a +blaze of scarlet, gold, or orange."</p> + +<p>"I suppose," he said, "that the unseen night world all around us is no +more wonderful than what, in the day-world, the vast majority of us +never see, never suspect."</p> + +<p>"I think it must be so, Clive. Being accustomed to a more densely +populated world than are many people, I believe that if I could see +only what they see,—merely that small portion of activity and life +which the world calls 'living things,' I should find the sunlit world +rather empty, and the night but a silent desolation under the stars."</p> + +<p>After a few minutes' thought he asked in a low voice whether at that +moment there was anybody in the garden except themselves.</p> + +<p>"Some people were here a little while ago, looking at the flowers. I +think they must have lived here many, many years ago; perhaps when +this old house was new." +<!-- Page 452 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span></p> +<p>"Could you not ask them who they were?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"If they were what you would call 'alive' I could not intrude upon +them, could I? The laws of reticence, the respect for privacy, remain +the same. I am conscious of no more impertinent curiosity concerning +them than I am concerning any passer in the city streets."</p> + +<p>"Have they gone?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. But all the evening I have been hearing children at play just +beyond the garden wall.... And, when I was a child, somebody killed a +little dog down by the causeway. He is here in the garden, now, +trotting gaily about the lawn—such a happy little dog!—and Hafiz has +folded his forepaws under his ruff and has settled down to watch him. +Don't you see how Hafiz watches, how his head turns following every +movement of the little visitor?"</p> + +<p>He nodded; then: "Do you still hear the children outside the wall?"</p> + +<p>She sat listening, the smile brooding in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Can you still hear them?" he repeated, wistfully.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear."</p> + +<p>"What are they saying?"</p> + +<p>"I can't make out. They are having a happy time somewhere on the outer +lawns."</p> + +<p>"How many are there?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know. Their voices make a sweet, confused sound like bird +music before dawn. I couldn't even guess how many children are playing +there." +<!-- Page 453 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Are any among them those children you once saw here?—the children +who pleaded with you—"</p> + +<p>She did not answer. He tightened his arm around her waist, drawing her +nearer; and she laid her cheek against his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, "they are there."</p> + +<p>"You know their voices?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dearest."</p> + +<p>"Will they come again into the garden?"</p> + +<p>Her face flushed deeply:</p> + +<p>"Not unless we call them."</p> + +<p>"Call them," he said. And, after a silence: "Dearest, will you not +call them to us?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive! I have been calling. Now it remains with you."</p> + +<p>"I did not hear you call them."</p> + +<p>"<i>They</i> heard."</p> + +<p>"Will they come?"</p> + +<p>"I—think so."</p> + +<p>"When?"</p> + +<p>"Very soon—if you truly desire them," she whispered against his +shoulder.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Somewhere within the house the hour struck. After a long while they +rose, moving slowly, her head still lying on his shoulder. Hafiz +watched them until the door closed, then settled down again to gaze on +things invisible to men.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Hours of the night in dim processional passed the old house unlighted +save by the stars. Toward dawn a sea-wind stirred the trees; the +fountain jet rained on +<!-- Page 454 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> + the surface of the pool or, caught by a sudden +breeze, drifted in whispering spray across the grass. Everywhere the +darkness grew murmurous with sounds, vague as wind-blown voices; sweet +as the call of children from some hill-top where the stars are very +near, and the new moon's sickle flashes through the grass.</p> + +<p>Athalie stirred where she lay, turned her head sideways with infinite +precaution, and lay listening.</p> + +<p>Through the open window beside her she saw a dark sky set with stars; +heard the sea-wind in the leaves and the falling water of the +fountain. And very far away a sweet confused murmuring grew upon her +ears.</p> + +<p>Silently her soul answered the far hail; her heart, responding, echoed +a voiceless welcome till she became fearful lest it beat too loudly.</p> + +<p>Then, with infinite precaution, noiselessly, and scarcely stirring, +she turned and laid her lips again where they had rested all night +long and, lying so, dreamed of miracles ineffable. +<!-- Page 455 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<p class="cap">CLIVE'S enforced idleness had secretly humiliated him and made him +restless. Athalie in her tender wisdom understood how it was with him +before he did himself, and she was already deftly guiding his balked +energy into a brand new channel, the same being a bucolic one.</p> + +<p>At first he had demurred, alleging total ignorance of husbandry; and, +seated on the sill of an open window and looking down at him in the +garden, she tormented him to her heart's content:</p> + +<p>"Ignorant of husbandry!" she mimicked,—"when any husband I ever heard +of could go to school to you and learn what a real husband ought to +be! Why <i>will</i> you pretend to be so painfully modest, Clive, when you +are really secretly pleased with yourself and entirely convinced that, +in you, the world might discover a living pattern of model +domesticity!"</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you think so—"</p> + +<p>"<i>Think!</i> If I were only as certain of anything else! Never had I +dreamed that any man could become so cowed, so spiritless, so +perfectly house and yard broken—"</p> + +<p>"If I come upstairs," he said, "I'll settle <i>you</i>!"</p> + +<p>Leaning from the window overlooking the garden she +<!-- Page 456 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span> + lazily defied him; +turned up her dainty nose at him; mocked at him until he flung aside +the morning paper and rose, bent on her punishment.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive, don't!" she pleaded, leaning low from the sill. "I won't +tease you any more,—and this gown is fresh—"</p> + +<p>"I'll come up and freshen it!" he threatened.</p> + +<p>"Please don't rumple me. I'll come down if you like. Shall I?"</p> + +<p>"All right, darling," he said, resuming his newspaper and cigarette.</p> + +<p>She came, seated herself demurely beside him, twitched his newspaper +until he cast an ominous glance at his tormentor.</p> + +<p>"Dear," she said, "I simply can't let you alone; you are so bland and +self-satisfied—"</p> + +<p>"Athalie—if you persist in tormenting me—"</p> + +<p>"I torment you? <i>I?</i> An humble accessory in the scenery set for you? +I?—a stage property fashioned merely for the hero of the drama to sit +upon—"</p> + +<p>"All right! I'll do that now!—"</p> + +<p>But she nestled close to him, warding off wrath with both arms +clasping his, and looking up at him out of winning eyes in which but a +tormenting glint remained.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't rumple this very beautiful and brand new gown, would +you, darling? It was so frightfully expensive—"</p> + +<p>"I don't care—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you must care. You must <i>become</i> thrifty and shrewd and +devious and close, or you'll never make a successful farmer—" +<!-- Page 457 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Dearest, that's nonsense. What do I know about farming?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing yet. But you know what a wonderful man you are. Never forget +that, Clive—"</p> + +<p>"If you don't stop laughing at me, you little wretch—"</p> + +<p>"Don't you want me to remain young?" she asked reproachfully, while +two tiny demons of gaiety danced in her eyes. "If I can't laugh I'll +grow old. And there's nothing very funny here except you and +Hafiz—Oh, Clive! You <i>have</i> rumpled me! Please don't do it again! +Yes—yes—<i>yes!</i> I do surrender! +I <i>am</i> sorry—that you are so funny—Clive! You'll +ruin this gown!... I promise not to say another disrespectful word.... I +don't know whether I'll kiss you or not—<i>Yes!</i> Yes I will, dear. +Yes, I'll do it tenderly—you heartless wretch!—I tell you I'll +do it tenderly.... Oh wait, Clive! Is Mrs. Connor looking out of any window? +Where's Connor? Are you sure he's not in sight?... And I shouldn't care to +have Hafiz see us. He's a moral kitty—"</p> + +<p>She pretended to look fearfully around, then, with adorable +tenderness, she paid her forfeit and sat silent for a while with her +slim white fingers linked in his, in that breathless little revery +which always stilled her under the magic of his embrace.</p> + +<p>He said at last: "Do you really suppose I could make this farm-land +pay?"</p> + +<p>And that was really the beginning of it all.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Once decided he seemed to go rather mad about it, buying agricultural +<!-- Page 458 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> +paraphernalia recklessly and indiscriminately for a meditated assault +upon fields long fallow.</p> + +<p>Connor already had as much as he could attend to in the garden; but, +like all Irishmen, he had a cousin, and the cousin possessed +agricultural lore and a pair of plough-horses.</p> + +<p>So early fall ploughing developed into a mania with Clive and Athalie; +and they formed a habit of sitting side by side like a pair of birds +on fences in the early October sunshine, their fascinated eyes +following the brown furrows turning where one T. Phelan was breaking +up pasture and meadow too long sod-bound.</p> + +<p>In intervals between tenderer and more intimate exchange of sentiments +they discussed such subjects as lime, nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and +the rotation of crops.</p> + +<p>Also Athalie had accumulated much literature concerning incubators, +brooders, and the several breeds of domestic fowl; and on paper they +had figured out overwhelming profits.</p> + +<p>The insidious land-hunger which attacks all who contemplate making two +dozen blades of grass grow where none grew before, now seized upon +Clive and gnawed him. And he extended the acreage, taking in woods and +uplands as far as the headwaters of Spring Pond Brook, vastly to +Athalie's delight.</p> + +<p>So the October days burned like a procession of golden flames passing +in magic sequence amid yellowing woods and over the brown and spongy +gold of salt meadows which had been sheared for stable bedding. And +<!-- Page 459 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span> +everywhere over their land lay the dun-coloured velvet squares of +freshly ploughed fields awaiting unfragrant fertilizer and the autumn +rains.</p> + +<p>The rains came heavily toward the end of October; and November was +grey and wet and rather warm. But open fires became necessary in the +house, and now they regularly reddened the twilight in library and +living-room when the early November dusk brought Athalie and Clive +indoors.</p> + +<p>Hither they came, the fire-lit hearth their trysting place after they +had exchanged their rain-drenched clothes for something dry; and there +they curled up on the wide sofas and watched the swift darkness fall, +and the walls and ceiling redden.</p> + +<p>It was an hour which Athalie had once read of as the "Children's Hour" +and now she understood better its charming significance. And she kept +it religiously, permitting herself to do nothing, and making Clive +defer anything he had to do, until after dinner. Then he might read +his paper or book, and she could take up her sewing if she chose, or +study, or play, or write the few letters that she cared to write.</p> + +<p>Clive wrote no more, now. In this first year together they desired +each other only, indifferent to all else outside.</p> + +<p>It was to her the magic year of fulfilment; to him an enchanted +interlude wherein only the girl beside him mattered.</p> + +<p>Athalie sewed a great deal on odd, delicate, sheer materials where +narrowness and length ruled proportions, and where there seemed to be +required much lace and +<!-- Page 460 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span> + many little ribbons. Also she hummed to +herself as she sewed, singing under her breath endless airs which had +slipped into her head she scarce knew when or how.</p> + +<p>An odd and fragrant freshness seemed to cling to her making her almost +absurdly youthful, as though she had suddenly dropped back to her +girlhood. Clive noticed it.</p> + +<p>"You look about sixteen," he said.</p> + +<p>"My heart is younger, dear."</p> + +<p>"How young?"</p> + +<p>"You know when it was born, don't you? Very well, it is as many days +old as I have been in love with you. Before that it was a muscle +capable merely of sturdy friendship."</p> + +<p>One day a packet came from New York for her. It contained two rings, +one magnificent, the other a plain circlet. She kissed him rather +shyly, wore both that evening, but not again.</p> + +<p>"I am not ashamed," she explained serenely. "Folkways are now a matter +of indifference to me. Civilisation must offer me a better argument +than it has offered hitherto before I resign to it my right in you, or +deny your right to me."</p> + +<p>He knew that civilisation would lock them out and remain unconcerned +as to what became of them. Doubtless she knew it too, as she sat there +sewing on the frail garment which lay across her knee and singing +blithely under her breath some air with cadence like a berceuse.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>During the "Children's Hour" she sat beside him, always quiet; or if +stirred from her revery to a brief +<!-- Page 461 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span> + exchange of low-voiced words, she +soon relapsed once more into that happy, brooding silence by the +firelight.</p> + +<p>Then came dinner, and the awakened gaiety of unquenched spirits; then +the blessed evening hours with him.</p> + +<p>But the last hour of these she called <i>her</i> hour; and always laid +aside her book or sewing, and slipped from the couch to the floor at +his feet, laying her head against his knees.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Snow came in December; and Christmas followed. They kept the mystic +festival alone together; and Athalie had a tiny tree lighted in the +room between hers and Clive's, and hung it with toys and picture +books.</p> + +<p>It was very pretty in its tinsel and tinted globes; and its faint +light glimmered on the walls and dainty furniture of the dim pink +room.</p> + +<p>Afterward Athalie laid away tinsel and toy, wrapping all safely in +tissue, as though to be kept secure and fresh for another +Christmas—the most wonderful that any girl could dream of. And +perhaps it was to be even more wonderful than Athalie had dreamed.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>December turned very cold. The ice thickened; and she skated with +Clive on Spring Pond. The ice also remained through January and +February that winter; but after December had ended Athalie skated no +more.</p> + +<p>Clive, unknown to her, had sent for a Shaker cloak and hood of +scarlet; and when it arrived Athalie threw back her lovely head and +laughed till the tears dimmed her eyes. +<!-- Page 462 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span></p> + +<p>"All the same," he said, "you don't look much older in it than you +looked in your red hood and cloak the first day I ever set eyes on +you."</p> + +<p>"You poor darling!—as though even you could push back the hands of +Time! It's the funniest and sweetest thing you ever did—to send for +this red, hooded cloak."</p> + +<p>However she wore it whenever she ventured out with him on foot or in +the sleigh which he had bought. Once, coming home, she was still +wearing it when Mrs. Connor brought to them two peach turnovers.</p> + +<p>A fire had been lighted in the ancient stove; and they went out to the +sun-parlour,—once the bar—and sat in the same old arm-chairs exactly +as they had been seated that night so long ago; and there they ate +their peach turnovers, their enchanted eyes meeting, striving to +realise it all, and the intricate ways of Destiny and Chance and Fate.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>February was a month of heavy snows that year; great drifts buried the +fences and remained until well into March. April was April,—and very +much so; but they saw the blue waters of the bay sometimes; and +dogwood and willow stems were already aglow with colour; and a +premature blue-bird sang near Athalie's garden. Crocuses appeared +everywhere with grape hyacinths and snow-drops. Then jonquil and +narcissus opened in all their loveliness, and soft winds stirred the +waters of the fountain.</p> + +<p>May found the garden uncovered, with tender amber-tinted shoots and +exquisite fronds of green wherever +<!-- Page 463 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span> + the lifted mulch disclosed the +earth. Also peonies were up and larkspur, and the ambitious promise of +the hollyhocks delighted Athalie.</p> + +<p>Pink peach buds bloomed; cherry, pear, and apple covered the trees +with rosy snow; birds sang everywhere; and the waters of the pool +mirrored a sky of purest blue. But Athalie now walked no further than +the garden seat,—and walked slowly, leaning always on Clive's arm.</p> + +<p>In those days throughout May her mother was with her in her room +almost every night. But Athalie did not speak of this to Clive. +<!-- Page 464 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<p class="cap">SPRING ploughing had been proceeding for some time now, but Athalie +did not feel equal to walking cross-lots over ploughed ground, so she +let Clive go alone on tours of inspection.</p> + +<p>But these absences were brief; he did not care to remain away from +Athalie for more than an hour at a time. So, T. Phelan ploughed on, +practically unmolested and untormented by questions, suggestions, and +advice. Which liberty was to his liking. And he loafed much.</p> + +<p>In these latter days of May Athalie spent a great deal of her time +among her cushions and wraps on the garden seat near the fountain. On +his return from prowling about the farm Clive was sure to find her +there, reading or sewing, or curled up among her cushions in the sun +with Hafiz purring on her lap.</p> + +<p>And she would look up at Clive out of sleepy, humorous eyes in which +glimmered a smile of greeting, or she would pretend surprise and +disapproval at his long absence of half an hour with: "Well, C. +Bailey, Junior! Where do <i>you</i> come from now?"</p> + +<p>The phases of awakening spring in the garden seemed to be an endless +source of pleasure to the girl; she would sit for hours looking at the +pale lilac-tinted wistaria clusters hanging over the naked wall and +<!-- Page 465 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span> +watching plundering bumble-bees scrambling from blossom to blossom.</p> + +<p>And when at the base of the wall, the spiked buds of silvery-grey iris +unfolded, and their delicate fragrance filled the air, the exquisite +mingling of the two odours and the two shades of mauve thrilled her as +no perfume, no colour had ever affected her.</p> + +<p>The little colonies of lily-of-the-valley came into delicate bloom +under the fringing shrubbery; golden bell flower, pink and vermilion +cydonia, roses, all bloomed and had their day; lilac bushes were +weighted with their heavy, dewy clusters; the sweet-brier's green +tracery grew into tender leaf and its matchless perfume became +apparent when the sun fell hot.</p> + +<p>In the warm air there seemed to brood the exquisite hesitation of +happy suspense,—a delicious and breathless sense of waiting for +something still more wonderful to come.</p> + +<p>And when Athalie felt it stealing over her she looked at Clive and +knew that he also felt it. Then her slim hand would steal into his and +nestle there, content, fearless, blissfully confident of what was to +be.</p> + +<p>But it was subtly otherwise with Clive. Once or twice she felt his +hand tremble slightly as though a slight shiver had passed over him; +and when again she noticed it she asked him why.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," he said in a strained voice; "I am very, very happy."</p> + +<p>"I know it.... There is no fear mingling with your happiness; is +there, Clive?"</p> + +<p>But before he replied she knew that it was so. +<!-- Page 466 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Dearest," she murmured, "dearest! You must not be afraid for me."</p> + +<p>And suddenly the long pent fears strangled him; he could not speak; +and she felt his lips, hot and tremulous against her hand.</p> + +<p>"My heart!" she whispered, "all will go well. There is absolutely no +reason for you to be afraid."</p> + +<p>"Do you <i>know</i> it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I <i>know</i> it. I am certain of it, darling. Everything will turn +out as it should.... I can't bear to have the most beautiful moments +of our lives made sad for you by apprehension. Won't you believe me +that all will go well?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Then smile at me, Clive."</p> + +<p>His under lip was still unsteady as he drew nearer and took her into +his arms.</p> + +<p>"God wouldn't do such harm," he said. "He <i>couldn't</i>! All must go +well."</p> + +<p>She smiled gaily and framed his head with her hands:</p> + +<p>"You're just a boy, aren't you, C. Bailey, Junior?—just a big boy, +yet. As though the God we understand—you and I—could deal otherwise +than tenderly with us. <i>He</i> knows how rare love really is. He will not +disturb it. The world needs it for seed."</p> + +<p>The smile gradually faded from Clive's face; he shook his head, +slightly:</p> + +<p>"If I had known—if I had understood—"</p> + +<p>"What, darling?"</p> + +<p>"The hazard—the chances you are to take—"</p> + +<p>But she laughed deliciously, and sealed his mouth +<!-- Page 467 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span> + with her fragrant +hand, bidding him hunt for other sources of worry if he really was +bent on scaring himself.</p> + +<p>Later she asked him for a calendar, and he brought it, and together +they looked over it where several of the last days of May had been +marked with a pencil.</p> + +<p>As she sat beside him, studying the printed sequence of the days, a +smile hovering on her lips, he thought he had never seen her so +beautiful.</p> + +<p>A soft wind blew the bright tendrils of her hair across her cheeks; +her skin was like a little girl's, rose and snow, smooth as a child's; +her eyes clearly, darkly blue—the hue and tint called azure—like the +colour of the zenith on some still June day.</p> + +<p>And through the glow of her superb and youthful symmetry, ever, it +seemed to him, some inward radiance pulsated, burning in her golden +burnished hair, in scarlet on her lips, making lovely the soft +splendour of her eyes. Hers was the fresh, sweet beauty of ardent +youth and spring incarnate,—neither frail and colourlessly spiritual, +nor tainted with the stain of clay.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Sometimes Athalie lunched there in the garden with him, Hafiz, seated +on the bench beside them, politely observant, condescending to receive +a morsel now and then.</p> + +<p>It was on such a day, at noon-tide, that Athalie bent over toward him, +touched his hair with her lips, then whispered something very low. +<!-- Page 468 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 383px;"> +<img src="images/gs30.jpg" width="383" height="248" +alt=""Sometimes Athalie lunched there in the garden with him."" +title=""Sometimes Athalie lunched there in the garden with him."" /> +<span class="caption">"Sometimes Athalie lunched there in the +garden with him."</span> +</div> + +<p> +<!-- Page 469 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span> +<!-- Page 470 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span> +</p> + +<p>His face went white, but he smiled and rose,—came back swiftly to +kiss her hands—then entered the house and telephoned to New York.</p> + +<p>When he came back to her she was ready to rise, lean on his arm, and +walk leisurely to the house.</p> + +<p>On the way she called his attention to a pale blue sheet of +forget-me-nots spreading under the shrubbery. She noticed other new +blossoms in the garden, lingered before the bed of white pansies. +"Like little faces," she said with a faint smile.</p> + +<p>One silvery-grey iris he broke from its sheathed stem and gave her; +she moved slowly on with the scented blossom lifted to her lips.</p> + +<p>In the hall a starched and immaculate nurse met her with a significant +nod of understanding. And so, between Clive and the trained nurse she +mounted the stairs to her room.</p> + +<p>Later Clive came in to sit beside her where she lay on her dainty bed. +She turned her flushed face on the pillow, smiled at him, and lifted +her neck a little; and he slipped one arm under it.</p> + +<p>"Such a wonderful pillow your shoulder makes," she murmured.... "I am +thinking of the first time I ever knew it.... So quiet I lay,—such +infinite caution I used whenever I moved.... That night the air was +musical with children's voices—everywhere under the stars—softly +garrulous, laughing, lisping, calling from the hills and meadows.... +That night of miracles and of stars—my dear—my dearest!—"</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Close to her cheek he breathed: "Are you in pain?" +<!-- Page 471 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, Clive! I am so happy. I love you so—I love you so."</p> + +<p>Then nurse and physician came in and the latter took him by the arm +and walked out of the room with him. For a long while they paced the +passage-way together in whispered conversation before the nurse came +to the door and nodded.</p> + +<p>Both went in: Athalie laughed and put up her arms as Clive bent over +her.</p> + +<p>"All will be well," she whispered, kissed him, then turned her head +sharply to the right.</p> + +<p>When he found himself in the garden, walking at random, the sun hung a +hand's breadth over the woods. Later it seemed to become entangled +amid new leaves and half-naked branches, hanging there motionless, +blinding, glittering through an eternity of time.</p> + +<p>And yet he did not notice when twilight came, nor when the dusk's +purple turned to night until he saw lights turned up on both floors.</p> + +<p>Nobody summoned him to dinner but he did not notice that. Connor came +to him there in the darkness and said that two other physicians had +arrived with another nurse. He went into the library where they were +just leaving to mount the stairs. They looked at him as they passed +but merely bowed and said nothing.</p> + +<p>A steady, persistent clangour vibrated in his brain, dulling it, so +that senses like sight and hearing seemed slow as though drugged.</p> + +<p>Suddenly like a sword the most terrible fear he ever knew passed +through him.... And after a while the dull, ringing clangour came +<!-- Page 472 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span> +back, dinning, stupefying, interminable. Yet he was conscious of every +sound, every movement on the floor above.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>One of the physicians came halfway down the stairs, looked at him; and +he rose mechanically and went up.</p> + +<p>He saw nothing clearly in the room until he bent over Athalie.</p> + +<p>Her eyes unclosed. She whispered: "It is all right, beloved."</p> + +<p>Somebody led him out. He kept on, conscious of the grasp on his arm, +but seeing nothing.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>He had been walking for a long while, somewhere between light and +darkness,—perhaps for hours, perhaps minutes. Then somebody came who +laid an arm about his shoulder and spoke of courage.</p> + +<p>Other people were in the room, now. One said:</p> + +<p>"Don't go up yet."... Once he noticed a woman, Mrs. Connor, crying. +Connor led her away.</p> + +<p>Others moved about or stood silent; and some one was always drawing +near him, speaking of courage. It was odd that so much darkness should +invade a lighted room.</p> + +<p>Then somebody came down the stairs, noiselessly. The house was very +still.</p> + +<p>And at last they let him go upstairs. +<!-- Page 473 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + +<p class="cap">LIGHTS yet burned on the lower floors and behind the drawn blinds of +Athalie's room. The night was quiet and soft and lovely; the moon +still young in its first quarter.</p> + +<p>There was no wind to blow the fountain jet, so that every drop fell +straight back where the slim column of water broke against a strip of +stars above the garden wall. Somewhere in distant darkness the little +owl trilled.</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>If he were walking or motionless he no longer knew it; nor did he seem +to be aware of anything around.</p> + +<p>Hafiz came up to him through the dusk with a little mew of recognition +or of loneliness. Afterward the cat followed him for a while and then +settled down upon the grass intent on the invisible stirring +stealthily in obscurity.</p> + +<p>The fragrance of the iris grew sweeter, fresher. Many new buds had +unfolded since high noon. One stalk had fallen across the path and +Clive's dragging feet passed over it where he moved blindly, at +hazard, with stumbling steps along the path—errant, senseless, and +always blind.</p> + +<p>For on the garden bench a young girl sat, slender, exquisite, smiling +as he approached. But he could not +<!-- Page 474 --><span class='pagenum'> +<a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span> + see her, nor could he see in her +arms the little flower-like face, and the tiny hands against her +breast.</p> + +<p>"Clive!" she said. But he could not hear her.</p> + +<p>"Clive," she whispered; "my beloved!"</p> + +<p>But he could neither see nor hear. His knees, too, were failing; he +put out one hand, blindly, and sank down upon the garden bench.</p> + +<p>All night long she sat beside him, her head against his shoulder, +sometimes touching his drawn face with warm, sweet lips, sometimes +looking down at the little face pressed to her quiet breast.</p> + +<p>And all night long the light burned behind the closed blinds of her +room; and the little silvery dusk-moths floated in and out of the +rays. And Hafiz, sitting on the grass, watched them sometimes; +sometimes he gazed at his young mistress out of wide, unblinking eyes.</p> + +<p>"Hafiz," she murmured lazily in her sweetly humorous way.</p> + +<p>The cat uttered a soft little mew but did not move. And when she laid +her cheek close to Clive's whispering,—"I love you—I love you +so!"—he never stirred.</p> + +<p>Her blue eyes, brooding, grew patient, calm, and tender; she looked +down silently into the little face close cradled in her arms.</p> + +<p>Then the child's eyes opened like two blue stars; and she bent over in +a swift ecstasy of bliss, covering the flower-like face with kisses.</p> + +<h3> +THE END<br /> +</h3> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;"> +<img src="images/cover01.jpg" width="250" height="368" +alt="Book Cover" title="" /> +<span class="caption">Book Cover</span> +</div> + + +<h4><i>Transcribers Note: Spelling variations and colloquial +spellings have been retained as they appear in the +original.</i></h4> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Athalie, by Robert W. 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Chambers + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Athalie + +Author: Robert W. Chambers + +Illustrator: Frank Craig + +Release Date: November 27, 2008 [EBook #27342] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATHALIE *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Jen Haines and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +Transcribers Note: Spelling variations and colloquial +spellings have been retained as they appear in the +original. + + + ATHALIE + + + [Illustration: "'Clive is a good deal of a man.... I never + had a better companion.'" [PAGE 242.]] + + + + + ATHALIE + + + BY + ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + + + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + FRANK CRAIG + + + NEW YORK AND LONDON + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + 1915 + + + COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY + ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + + + COPYRIGHT, 1914, 1915, BY THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY + + + Printed in the United States of America + + + TO + MY FRIEND + MESSMORE KENDALL + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + "'Clive is a good deal of a man.... I never had a + better companion.'" _Frontispiece_ + + FACING PAGE + + "'Boy?' inquired Ledlie, resting one soil-incrusted + boot on his spade." 2 + + "'I'd like to come down here for the summer vacation,' + said the boy, awkwardly." 34 + + "'I'm glad I saw you,' said the girl; 'I hope you + won't forget me.'" 40 + + "C. Bailey, Jr., and Athalie Greensleeve ... had + supped together more than once at the Regina." 78 + + "Beside her, eager, happy, flattered, walked C. + Bailey, Jr., very conscious that he was being + envied." 80 + + "'I like her,' repeated Clive, Jr., a trifle annoyed." 82 + + "It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil + Reeve one stormy midnight." 114 + + "He rather liked being with his own sort again." 116 + + "'Wasn't a civil bow enough?'" 126 + + "One lovely morning in May she arose early in order + to write to Clive." 148 + + "Mr. Wahlbaum ... was very quiet, very considerate, + very attentive." 150 + + "Doris continued to haunt agencies and theatrical offices." 154 + + "With him she visited the various museums and art + galleries." 168 + + "With a basket containing Hafiz, her suit-case, and a + furled umbrella she started for her new lodgings." 178 + + "'Wasn't it suicide?' asked Athalie." 180 + + "She said in a low voice, still watching intently: + 'Blue sky, green trees, a snowy shore, and little + azure wavelets....'" 210 + + "Mrs. Bailey, Jr., looked pale and pretty sitting + there." 232 + + "During convalescence he read 'Under Two Flags' + and approved the idea." 234 + + "His theme happened to be his own wonderful trap + record, that evening." 244 + + "'There is your extra,' she said pleasantly." 266 + + "Once more, the old happy companionship began." 284 + + "Finally ... he cut the envelope and seated himself + beside the lamp." 300 + + "When he saw her he sprang out and came forward." 316 + + "She suddenly sat upright, resting one slender hand on + his shoulder." 330 + + "Clive nodded: 'Keep them off the place, Connor.'" 346 + + "'Sure I was that worritted,' burst out Mrs. Connor." 348 + + "'Michael,' she said, smiling." 372 + + "And then her hands were in his and she was looking + into his beloved eyes once more." 378 + + "Sometimes Athalie lunched there in the garden with + him." 400 + + + + + +ATHALIE + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +When Mrs. Greensleeve first laid eyes on her baby she knew it was +different from the other children. + +"What is the matter with it?" she asked. + +The preoccupied physician replied that there was nothing the matter. +In point of fact he had been admiring the newly born little girl when +her mother asked the question. + +"She's about as perfect as they make 'em," he concluded, placing the +baby beside her mother. + +The mother said nothing. From moment to moment she turned her head on +the pillow and gazed down at her new daughter with a curious, +questioning expression. She had never gazed at any of her other +children so uneasily. Even after she fell asleep the slightly puzzled +expression remained as a faint crease between her brows. + +Her husband, who had been wandering about from the bar to the office, +from the office to the veranda, and occasionally entirely around the +exterior of the road-house, came in on tiptoe and looked rather +vacantly at them both. + +Then he went out again as though he was not sure where he might be +going. He was a little man and mild, and he did not look as though he +had been created for anything in particular, not even for the purpose +of procreation. + +It was one of those early April days when birds make a great fuss over +their vocal accomplishments, and the brown earth grows green over +night--when the hot spring sun draws vapours from the soil, and the +characteristic Long Island odour of manure is far too prevalent to +please anybody but a native. + +Peter Greensleeve, wandering at hazard around the corner of the +tavern, came upon his business partner, Archer B. Ledlie leisurely +digging for bait in the barn-yard. The latter was in his +shirt-sleeves--always a good sign for continued fair weather. + +"Boy?" inquired Ledlie, resting one soil-incrusted boot on his spade. + +"Another girl," admitted Greensleeve. + +"Gawsh!" After a moment's rumination he picked up a squirming +angle-worm from the edge of the shallow excavation and dropped it into +the empty tomato can. + +"Going fishing?" inquired Greensleeve without interest. + +"I dunno. Mebbe. Your boy Jack seen a trout into Spring Pond." + +Ledlie, who was a large, heavy, red-faced man with a noticeably small +mouth, faded blue eyes, and grey chin whiskers, picked a budding sprig +from a bush, nibbled it, and gravely seated himself on the edge of the +horse-trough. He was wearing a cigar behind his ear which he +presently extracted, gazed at, then reconsidering the extravagance, +replaced. + +[Illustration: "'Boy?' inquired Ledlie, resting one soil-incrusted +boot on his spade."] + +"Three gals, Pete--that's your record," he remarked, gazing +reproachfully out across the salt meadows beyond the causeway. "They +won't bring you in nothin'," he added, shutting his thin lips. + +"I kind of like them," said Greensleeve with a sigh. + +"They'll eat their heads off," retorted Ledlie; "then they'll git +married an' go off some'rs. There ain't nothin' to gals nohow. You +oughtn't to have went an' done it." + +There seemed to be no further defence for Greensleeve. Ledlie +continued to chew a sprig of something green and tender, revolving it +and rolling it from one side of his small, thin-lipped mouth to the +other. His thin little partner brooded in the sunshine. Once he +glanced up at the sign which swung in front of the road-house: "Hotel +Greensleeve: Greensleeve and Ledlie, proprietors." + +"Needs painting, Archie," he volunteered mildly. + +"I dunno," said the other. "Since the gunnin' season closed there +ain't been no business except them sports from New York. The bar done +good; that's all." + +"There were two commercial men Wednesday week." + +"Yes, an' they found fault with their vittles. They can go to the +other place next time," which was as near as Ledlie ever came to +profanity. + +After a silence Ledlie said: "Here come your kids, Pete. I guess I'll +let 'em dig a little bait for me." + +Down the road they came dancing, and across the causeway over Spring +Pond--Jack, aged four, Doris, three, and Catharine, two; and they +broke into a run when they caught sight of their father, travelling as +fast as their fat little legs could carry them. + +"Is there a new baby? Is there a new baby?" shouted Jack, while still +at a distance. + +"Is it a boy? I want another brother! Is it a boy?" shrilled Doris as +she and baby Catharine came panting up with flushed and excited faces. + +"It's a girl," said Greensleeve mildly. "You'd better go into the +kitchen and wash your faces." + +"A girl!" cried Jack contemptuously. "What did mamma do that for?" + +"Oh, goodness!" pouted Doris, "I didn't want any more girls around. +What are you going to name her, papa?" + +"Athalie, I believe," he said absently. + +"Athalie! What kind of name is that?" demanded Jack. + +"I dunno. Your mamma wanted it in case the baby was a girl." + +The children, breathing hard and rapidly, stood in a silent cluster +looking up at their father. Ledlie yawned frightfully, and they all +instantly turned their eyes on him to discover if possible the +solitary tooth with which rumour credited him. They always gazed +intently into his mouth when he yawned, which irritated him. + +"Go on in and wash yourselves!" he said as soon as speech became +possible. "Ain't you heard what your papa told you!" + +They were not afraid of Mr. Ledlie; they merely found him +unsympathetic, and therefore concerned themselves with him not at all. + +Ignoring him, Jack said, addressing his father: "I nearly caught a +snake up the road. Gee! But he was a dandy." + +"He had stripes," said Doris solemnly. + +"He wiggled," asserted little Catharine, and her eyes became very +round. + +"What kind was he, papa?" inquired Jack. + +"Oh, just a snake," replied Greensleeve vaguely. + +The eager faces of the children clouded with disappointment; dawning +expectancy faded; it was the old, old tragedy of bread desired, of the +stone offered. + +"I liked that snake," muttered Jack. "I wanted to keep him for a pet. +I wanted to know what kind he was. He seemed very friendly." + +"Next time," suggested Ledlie, "you pet him on the head with a rock." + +"What?" + +"Snakes is no good. There's pizen into 'em. You kill every one you see +an' don't ask questions." + +In the boy's face intelligence faded. Impulse lay stunned after its +headlong collision with apathy, and died out in the clutch of +ignorance. + +"Is that so, papa?" he asked, dully. + +"Yes, I guess so," nodded Greensleeve. "Mr. Ledlie knows all about +snakes and things." + +"Go on in an' wash!" repeated Ledlie. "You don't git no supper if you +ain't cleaned up for table. Your papa says so, don't you, Pete?" + +Greensleeve usually said what anybody told him to say. + +"Walk quietly," he added; "your poor mamma's asleep." + +Reluctantly the children turned toward the house, gazing inquiringly +up at the curtained window of their mother's room as they trooped +toward the veranda. + +Jack swung around on the lower step: + +"Papa!" he shouted. + +"Well?" + +"I forget what her name is!" + +"Athalie." + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Her first memories were of blue skies, green trees, sunshine, and the +odour of warm moist earth. + +Always through life she retained this memory of her early +consciousness--a tree in pink bloom; morning-glories covering a +rotting board fence; deep, rich, sun-warmed soil into which her baby +fingers burrowed. + +A little later commenced her memory of her mother--a still, +white-shawled figure sewing under a peach tree in pink bloom. + +Vast were her mother's skirts, as Athalie remembered them--a wide +white tent under which she could creep out of the sunlight and hide. + +Always, too, her earliest memories were crowded with children, hosts +of them in a kaleidoscopic whirl around her, and their voices seemed +ever in her ears. + +By the age of four she had gradually understood that this vaguely +pictured host of children numbered only three, and that they were her +brother and two sisters--very much grown up and desirable to play +with. But at seven she began to be surprised that Doris and Catharine +were no older and no bigger than they were, although Jack's twelve +years still awed her. + +It was about this time that the child began to be aware of a +difference between herself and the other children. For a year or two +it did not trouble her, nor even confuse her. She seemed to be aware +of it, that was all. + +When it first dawned on her that her mother was aware of it too, she +could never quite remember. Once, very early in her career, her mother +who had been sewing under the peach tree, dropped her work and looked +down at her very steadily where she sat digging holes in the dirt. + +And Athalie had a vague idea in after life that this was the +beginning; because there had been a little boy sitting beside her all +the while she was digging; and, somehow, she was aware that her mother +could not see him. + +She was not able to recollect whether her mother had spoken to her, or +even whether she herself had conversed with the little boy. He never +came again; of that she was positive. + +When it was that her brother and sisters began to suspect her of being +different she could not remember. + +In the beginning she had not understood their half-incredulous +curiosity concerning her; and, ardently communicative by nature, she +was frank with them, confident and undisturbed, until their child-like +and importunate aggressiveness, and the brutal multiplicity of their +questions drove her to reticence and shyness. + +For what seemed to amaze them or excite them to unbelief or to jeers +seemed to her ordinary, unremarkable, and not worthy of any particular +notice--not even of her own. + +That she sometimes saw things "around corners," as Jack put it, had +seemed natural enough to her. That, now and then, she seemed to +perceive things which nobody else noticed never disturbed her even +when she became aware that other people were unable to see them. To +her it was as though her own eyesight were normal, and astigmatism the +rule among other people. + +But the blunt, merciless curiosity of other children soon taught +Athalie to be on her guard. She learned that embarrassed reserve which +tended toward secretiveness and untruth before she was eleven. + +And in school she learned to lie, learned to deny accusations of being +different, pretended that what her sisters accused her of had been +merely "stories" made up to amuse them. + +So, in school, she made school-life endurable for herself. Yet, +always, there seemed to be _something_ between her and other children +that made intimacies impossible. + +At the same time she was conscious of the admiration of the boys, of +something about herself that they liked outside of her athletic +abilities. + +She had a great many friends among the boys; she could out-run, +out-jump, out-swim any of them in the big country school. She was +supple and trim, golden-haired and dark-eyed, and ready for anything +that required enterprise and activity of mind or body. Her ragged +skirts were still short at eleven--short enough not to impede her. And +she led the chase for pleasure all over that part of Long Island, +running wild with the pack from hill to tide-water until every farmer +in the district knew "the Greensleeve girl." + +There was, of course, some deviltry among cherry trees and apple +orchards--some lawlessness born of sheer exuberance and superb +health--some malicious trespassing, some harrying of unpopular +neighbours. But not very much, considering. + +Her home life was colourless, calm, comfortable, and uneventful as she +regarded it. Business at the Hotel Greensleeve had fallen off and in +reality the children had very little. But children at that age who +live all day in the open, require little except sympathetic +intelligence for their million daily questions. + +This the Greensleeve children found wanting except when their mother +did her best to stimulate her own latent intelligence for their sakes. + +But it rested on the foundation of an old-fashioned and limited +education. Only the polite, simpler, and more maidenly arts had been +taught her in the little New Jersey school her father had kept. And +her education ceased when she married Greensleeve, the ex-"professor" +of penmanship, a kind, gentle, unimaginative man, unusually dull even +for a teacher. And he was a failure even at that. + +They began married life by buying the house they were now living in; +and when Greensleeve also failed as a farmer, they opened the place as +a public tavern, and took in Ledlie to finance it. + +So it was to her mother that Athalie went for any information that her +ardent and growing intellect required. And her mother, intuitively +surmising the mind-hunger of youth, and its vigorous needs, did her +limited best to satisfy it in her children. And that is really all the +education they had; for what they got in the country school amounted +to--well it amounted to what anybody ever gets in school. + + * * * * * + +Her most enduring, most vivid memories of her mother clustered around +those summer days of her twelfth year, brief lamp-lit scenes between +long, sunlit hours of healthy, youthful madness--quiet moments when +she came in flushed and panting from the headlong chase after +pleasure, tired, physically satisfied, to sit on the faded carpet at +her mother's feet and clasp her hands over her mother's knees. + +Then "what?" and "why?" and "when?" and "how?" were the burden of the +child's eager speech. Nothing seemed to have escaped her quick ears or +eyes, no natural phenomena of the open; life, birth, movement, growth, +the flow, and ebb of tides, thunder pealing from high-piled clouds, +the sun shining through fragrant falling rain, mists that grew over +swamp and meadow. + +And, "Why?" she always asked. + +Nothing escaped her;--swallows skimming and sheering Spring Pond, +trout that jumped at sunset, the quick furry shapes of mink and +muskrat, the rattling flash of a blue-winged kingfisher, a tall heron +wading, a gull mewing. + +Nothing escaped her; the casual caress of mating birds, procreation in +farm-yard and barn-yard, fledgelings crying from a robin's nest of mud +and messy refuse, blind kittens tugging at their blinking mother. + +Death, too, she saw,--a dusty heap of feathers here, a little mound of +fur, there, which the idle breezes stirred under the high sky,--and +once a dead dog, battered, filthy and bloody, shot by the roadside; +and once some pigs being killed on a farm, all screaming. + +Then, in that school as in every school, there was the sinister +minority, always huddling in corners, full of mean silences and +furtive leering. And their half-heard words, half-understood +phrases,--a gesture, a look that silenced and perplexed her--these the +child brought also to her mother, sitting at her feet, face against +her knees. + + * * * * * + +For a month or two her mother had not been very well, and the doctor +who had brought Athalie into the world stopped in once or twice a +week. When he was with her mother the children were forbidden the +room. + +One evening in particular Athalie remembered. She had been running her +legs off playing hounds-and-hares across country from the salt-hay +stacks to the chestnut ridge, and she had come in after sunset to find +her mother sewing in her own bedroom, her brother and sisters studying +their lessons in the sitting-room where her father also sat reading +the local evening paper. + +Supper was over, but Athalie went to the kitchen and presently +returned to her mother's room carrying a bowl of bread and milk and +half a pie. + +Here on the faded carpet at her mother's feet, full in the lamplight +she sat her down and ate in hungry silence while her mother sewed. + +Athalie seldom studied. A glance at her books seemed to be enough for +her. And she passed examinations without effort under circumstances +where plodders would have courted disaster. + +Rare questions from her mother, brief replies marked the meal. When +she had satisfied her hunger she jumped up, ran downstairs with the +empty dishes, and came slowly back again,--a slender, supple figure +with tangled hair curling below her shoulders, dirty shirt-waist, +soiled features and hands, and the ragged blue skirt of a sailor suit +hanging to her knees. + +"Your other sailor suit is washed and mended," said her mother, +smiling at her child in tatters. + +Athalie, her gaze remote, nodded absently. After a moment she lifted +her steady dark blue eyes: + +"A boy kissed me, mamma," she remarked, dropping cross-legged at her +mother's feet. + +"Don't kiss strange boys," said her mother quietly. + +"I didn't. But why not?" + +"It is not considered proper." + +"Why?" + +Her mother said: "Kissing is a common and vulgar practice except in +the intimacy of one's own family." + +"I thought so," nodded Athalie; "I soaked him for doing it." + +"Who was he?" + +"Oh, it was that fresh Harry Eldon. I told him if he ever tried to get +fresh with me again I'd kill him.... Mamma?" + +"Yes?" + +"All that about poor old Mr. Manners isn't true, is it?" + +Her mother smiled. The children had been taught to leave a morsel on +their plates "for manners"; and to impress it upon them their mother +had invented a story about a poor old man named Manners who depended +upon what they left, and who crept in to eat it after they had retired +from table. + +So leaving something "for Manners" had been thoroughly and +successfully inculcated, until the habit was formed. And now Athalie +was the last of the children to discover the gentle fraud practised +upon her. + +"I'm glad, anyway," concluded the child. "I never thought we left him +enough to eat." + +Her mother said: "I shall tell you only truths after this. You are old +enough to understand reason, now, and to reason a little yourself." + +"I do.... But I am not yet perfectly sure where babies come from. You +said you would tell me _that_ some day. I'd really like to know, +mamma." + +Her mother continued to sew for a while, then, passing the needle +through the hem she looked down at her daughter. + +"Have you formed any opinion of your own?" + +"Yes," said the child honestly. + +"Then I'd better tell you the truth," said her mother tranquilly, +"because the truth is very wonderful and beautiful--and interesting." + +So she related to the child, very simply and clearly all that need be +told concerning the mystery of life in its beginnings; and Athalie +listened, enchanted. + +And mostly it thrilled the child to realise that in her, too, lay +latent a capability for the creation of life. + + * * * * * + +Another hour with her mother she remembered in after years. + +Mrs. Greensleeve had not been as well: the doctor came oftener. +Frequently Athalie returning from school discovered her mother lying +on the bed. That evening the child was sitting on the floor at her +mother's feet as usual, just inside the circle of lamplight, playing +solitaire with an ancient pack of cards. + +Presently something near the door attracted her attention and she +lifted her head and sat looking at it, mildly interested, until, +suddenly, she felt her mother's eyes on her, flushed hotly, and turned +her head away. + +"_What_ were you looking at?" asked her mother in a low voice. + +"Nothing, mamma." + +"Athalie!" + +"What, mamma?" + +"_What_ were you looking at?" + +The child hung her head: "Nothing--" she began; but her mother checked +her: "Don't lie, Athalie. I'll try to understand you. Now tell me what +you were--what you thought you were looking at over there near the +door." + +The child turned and glanced back at the door over her shoulder. + +"There is nothing there--now," she muttered. + +"Was there anything?" + +Athalie sat silent for a while, then she laid her clasped hands across +her mother's knees and rested her cheek on them. + +"There was a woman there," she said. + +"Where?" + +"Over by the door." + +"You saw her, Athalie?" + +"Yes, mamma." + +"Did she open the door and come in and then close it behind her?" + +"No." + +"How did she come in?" + +"I don't know. She--just came in." + +"Was she a young woman?" + +"No, old." + +"Very old?" + +"Not very. There was grey in her hair--a little." + +"How was she dressed?" + +"She wore a night-gown, mamma. There were spots on it--like medicine." + +"Had you ever seen her before?" + +"I think so." + +"Who was she?" + +"Mrs. Allen." + +Her mother sat very still but her clasped hands tightened and a little +of the colour faded from her cheeks. There was a Mrs. Allen who had +been suffering from an illness which she herself was afraid she had. + +"Do you mean Mrs. James Allen who lives on the old Allen farm?" she +asked quietly. + +"Yes, mamma." + + * * * * * + +In the morning they heard of Mrs. Allen's death. And it was several +months before Mrs. Greensleeve again spoke to her daughter on the one +subject about which Athalie was inclined to be most reticent. But that +subject now held a deadly fascination for her mother. + +They had been sitting together in Mrs. Greensleeve's bedroom; the +mother knitting, in bed propped up upon the pillows. Athalie, +cross-legged on a hassock beside her, was doing a little mending on +her own account, when her mother said abruptly but very quietly: + +"I have always known that you possess a power--which others cannot +understand." + +The child's face flushed deeply and she bent closer over her mending. + +"I knew it when they first brought you to me, a baby just born.... I +don't know how I knew it, but I did." + +Athalie, sewing steadily, said nothing. + +"I think," said her mother, "you are, in some degree, what is called +clairvoyant." + +"What?" + +"Clairvoyant," repeated her mother quietly. "It comes from the French, +_clair_, clear; the verb _voir_, to see; _clair-voyant_, seeing +clearly. That is all, Athalie.... Nothing to be ashamed of--if it is +true,--" for the child had dropped her work and had hidden her face in +her hands. + +"Dear, are you afraid to talk about it to your mother?" + +"N-no. What is there to say about it?" + +"Nothing very much. Perhaps the less said the better.... I don't know, +little daughter. I don't understand it--comprehend it. If it's so, +it's so.... I see you sometimes looking at things I cannot see; I know +sometimes you hear sounds which I cannot hear.... Things happen which +perplex the rest of us; and, somehow I seem to know that they do not +perplex you. What to us seems unnatural to you is natural, even a +commonplace matter of course." + +"That's it, mamma. I have never seen anything that did not seem quite +natural to me." + +"Did you know that Mrs. Allen had died when you--thought you saw her?" + +"I did see her." + +"Yes.... Did you know she had died?" + +"Not until I saw her." + +"Did you know it then?" + +"Yes." + +"How?" + +"I don't know how I knew it. I seemed to know it." + +"Did you know she had been ill?" + +"No, mamma." + +"Did it in any way frighten you--make you uneasy when you saw her +standing there?" + +"Why, no," said Athalie, surprised. + +"Not even when you knew she was dead?" + +"No. Why should it? Why should I be afraid?" + +Her mother was silent. + +"Why?" asked Athalie, curiously. "Is there anything to be afraid of +with God and all his angels watching us? Is there?" + +"No." + +"Then," said the child with some slight impatience, "why is it that +other people seem to be a little afraid of me and of what they say I +can hear and see? I have good eyesight; I see clearly; that is all, +isn't it? And there is nothing to frighten anybody in seeing clearly, +is there?" + +"No, dear." + +"People make me so cross," continued Athalie,--"and so ashamed when +they ask so many questions. What is there to be surprised at if +sometimes I see things _inside_ my mind. They are just as real as when +I see them _outside_. They are no different." + +Her mother nodded, encouragingly. + +"When papa was in New York," went on Athalie, "and I saw him talking +to some men in a hotel there, why should it be surprising just because +papa was in New York and I was here when I saw him?" + +"It surprises others, dear, because they cannot see what is beyond the +vision of their physical senses." + +Athalie said: "They tease me in school because they say I can see +around corners. It makes me very cross and unhappy, and I don't want +anybody to know that I see what they can't see. I'm ashamed to have +them know it." + +"Perhaps it is just as well you feel that way. People are odd. What +they do not understand they ridicule. A dog that would not notice a +horse-drawn vehicle will bark at an automobile." + +"Mamma?" + +"Yes, dear." + +"Do you know that dogs, and I think cats, too, see many things that I +do; and that other people do not see." + +"Why do you think so?" + +"I have noticed it.... The other evening when the white cat was dozing +on your bed, and I was down here on the floor, sewing, I +saw--something. And the cat looked up suddenly and saw it, too." + +"Athalie!" + +"She did, mamma. I knew perfectly well that she saw what I saw." + +"What was it you saw?" + +"Only a young man. He walked over to the window--" + +"And then?" + +"I don't know, mamma. I don't know where they go. They go, that's all +I know." + +"Who was he?" + +"I don't know." + +"Did he look at us?" + +"Yes.... He seemed to be thinking of something pleasant." + +"Did he smile?" + +"He--had a pleasant look.... And once,--it was last Sunday--over by +the bed I saw a little boy. He was kneeling down beside the bed. And +Mr. Ledlie's dog was lying here beside me.... Don't you remember how +he suddenly lifted his head and barked?" + +"Yes, I remember. But you didn't tell me why at the time." + +"I didn't like to.... I never like to speak about these--people--I +see." + +"Had you ever before seen the little boy?" + +"No, mamma." + +"Was he--alive--do you think?" + +"Why, yes. They all are alive." + +"Mrs. Allen was not alive when you saw her over by the door." + +The child looked puzzled. "Yes," she said, "but that was a little +different. Not _very_ different. They are all perfectly alive, mamma." + +"Even the ones we call dead? Are you sure of it?" + +"Yes.... Yes, I'm sure of it. They are not dead.... Nothing seems to +die. Nothing stays dead." + +"What! Why do you believe that?" + +Athalie said slowly: "Somebody shot and killed a poor little dog, +once,--just across the causeway bridge.... And the dog came into the +garden afterward and ran all around, smelling, and wagging his tail." + +"Athalie! Athalie! Be careful to control your imagination." + +"Yes," said the child, thoughtfully, "I must be careful to control it. +I can imagine almost anything if I try." + +"How hard have you ever tried to imagine some of the things you +see--or think you see?" + +"Mamma, I never try. I--I don't care to see them. I'd rather not. +Those things come. _I_ haven't anything to do with it. I don't know +these people, and I am not interested. I _did_ try to see papa in New +York--if you call that imagination." + +But her mother did not know what to call it because at the hour when +Athalie had seen him, that mild and utterly unimaginative man was +actually saying and doing what his daughter had seen and heard. + +"Also," said Athalie, "I _was_ thinking about that poor little yellow +dog and wondering whether he was past all suffering, when he came +gaily trotting into the garden, waving his tail quite happily. There +was no dust or blood on him. He rolled on the grass, too, and barked +and barked. But nobody seemed to hear him or notice him excepting I." + +For a long while silence reigned in the lamp-lit room. When the other +children came in to say good night to their mother she received them +with an unusual tenderness. They went away; Athalie rose, yawning the +yawn of healthy fatigue: + +"Good night, mamma." + +"Good night, little daughter." + +They kissed: the mother drew her into a sudden and almost convulsive +embrace. + +"Darling, are you sure that nothing really dies?" + +"_I_ have never seen anything really dead, mamma. Even the 'dead' +birds,--why, the evening sky is full of them--the little 'dead' ones +I mean--flock after flock, twittering and singing--" + +"Dear!" + +"Yes, mamma." + +"When you see me--_that_ way--will you--speak?" + +"Yes." + +"Promise, darling." + +"Yes.... I'll kiss you, too--if it is possible...." + +"Would it be possible?" + +The child gazed at her, perplexed and troubled: "I--don't--know," she +said slowly. Then, all in a moment her childish face paled and she +clung to her mother and began to cry. + +And her mother soothed her, tenderly, smilingly, kissing the tears +from the child's eyes. + +The next morning after the children had gone to school Mrs. +Greensleeve was operated on--without success. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The black dresses of the children had become very rusty by spring, but +business had been bad at the Hotel Greensleeve, and Athalie, Doris, +and Catharine continued to wear their shabby mourning. + +Greensleeve haunted the house all day long, roaming from bar to +office, from one room to another, silently opening doors of unoccupied +chambers to peer about in the dusty obscurity, then noiselessly +closing them, he would slink away down the dim corridor to his late +wife's room and sit there through the long sunny afternoon, his weak +face buried in his hands. + +Ledlie had grown fatter, redder of visage, whiter of hair and beard. +When a rare guest arrived, or when local loafers wandered into the bar +with the faint stench of fertilizer clinging to their boots, he +shuffled ponderously from office to bar, serving as economically as he +dared whoever desired to be served. + +Always a sprig of something green protruded from his small tight +mouth. His pale eyes, now faded almost colourless, had become weak and +red-rimmed, and he blinked continually except in the stale +semi-darkness of the house. + +Always, now, he was muttering and grumbling his disapproval of the +children--"Eatin' their heads off I tell you, Pete! What good is all +this here schoolin' doin' 'em when they ought to git out some'rs an' +earn their vittles?" + +But if Greensleeve's attitude was one of passive acquiescence, he made +no effort to withdraw the children from school. Once, when life was +younger, and Jack, his first baby, came, he had dreamed of college for +him, and of a career--in letters perhaps--something dignified, +leisurely, profound beyond his own limits. And of a modest corner +somewhere within the lustre of his son's environment where he and his +wife, grey-haired, might dream and admire, finding there surcease from +care and perhaps the peace which passes all understanding. + +The ex-"professor" of penmanship had been always prone to dream. No +dull and sordid reality, no hopeless sorrow had yet awakened him. Nor +had his wife's death been more real than the half-strangled anguish of +a dreamer, tossing in darkness. As for the children, they paid no more +attention to Ledlie than they might have to a querulous but +superannuated dog. + +Jack, now fifteen, still dawdled at school, where his record was not +good. Perhaps it was partly because he had no spending money, no +clothing to maintain his boyish self-respect, no prospects of any +sort, that he had become sullen, uncommunicative, and almost loutish. + +Nobody governed him; his father was unqualified to control anybody or +anything; his mother was dead. + +With her death went the last vestige of any tie that had held the boy +to the home anchorage--of any feeling of responsibility concerning +the conduct expected and required of him. + +He shirked his studies, came home only to eat and sleep, remained out +late without explanation or any home interference, except for the +constant disputes and quarrels with Doris and Catharine, now aged +respectively fourteen and thirteen. + +To Athalie he had little to say. Perhaps he did not realise it but he +was slightly afraid of her. And it was from her that he took any pains +at all to conceal his irregularities. + +Once, coming in from school, she had found the house deserted, and +Jack smelling of alcohol just slouching out of the bar. + +"If you do that again I shall tell father," she said, horrified. + +"What do I care!" he had retorted sullenly. And it was true; the boy +no longer cared what anybody might think as long as Athalie already +knew and detested what he had done. + +There was a garage in the neighbouring village. He spent most of his +time hanging around it. Sometimes he came home reeking of oil and +gasoline, sometimes his breath was tainted with tobacco and alcohol. + +He was so much bigger and older than Athalie that the child had never +entirely lost her awe of him. His weakness of character, his failings, +and the fact that he was a trifle afraid of her opinion, combined to +astonish and bewilder her. + +For a long while she tried to understand the gradual but certain +reversal of their relations. And one night, still more or less in awe +of him, she got out of bed and went softly into his room. + +He was not asleep. The sudden apparition of his youngest sister +considerably startled him, and he sat up in his ragged night-shirt and +stared at her where she stood in the moonlight. + +"You look like one of your own spooks!" he said. "What's the matter +with you?" + +"I wanted to talk with you, Jack." + +"What about?" + +"You." + +For a moment he sat there eyeing her uneasily; then: + +"Well, go ahead!" he said ungraciously; and stretched himself back on +the pillows. + +She came and seated herself on the bed's edge: + +"Jack, please don't drink beer." + +"Why not? Aw, what do you know about men, anyway? Don't they all smoke +and drink?" + +"Mamma asked you not to." + +"Gee-whiz! I was a kid then. But a man isn't a baby." + +Athalie sighed. Her brother eyed her restlessly, aware of that slight +feeling of shame which always invaded his sullen, defiant discontent +when he knew that he had lowered himself in her estimation. + +For, if the boy was a little afraid of her, he also cared more for her +than he ever had for any of the family except his mother. + +He was only the average boy, stumbling blindly, almost savagely +through the maze of adolescence, with no guide, nobody to warn or +counsel him, nothing to stimulate his pride, no anchorage, no +experience. + +Whatever character he had he had been born with: it was environment +and circumstance that were crippling it. + +"See here, Athalie," he said, "you're a little girl and you don't +understand. There isn't any harm in my smoking a cigarette or two or +in drinking a glass of beer now and then." + +"Isn't there, Jack?" + +"No. So don't you worry, Sis.... And, say! I'm not going back to +school." + +"What?" + +"What's the use? I can't go to college. Anyway what's the good of +algebra and physics and chemistry and history and all that junk? I +guess I'll go into business." + +"What business?" + +"I don't know. I've been working around the garage. I can get a job +there if I want it." + +"Did you ask papa?" + +"What's the use? He'll let me do what I please. I guess I'll start in +to-morrow." + + * * * * * + +His father did not interfere when his only son came slouching up to +inform him of his decision. + +After Jack had gone away toward the village and his new business, his +father remained seated on the shabby veranda, his head sunken on his +soiled shirtfront, his wasted hands clasped over his stomach. + +For a little while, perhaps, he remembered his earlier ambitions for +the boy's career. Maybe they caused him pain. But if there was pain it +faded gradually into the lethargy which had settled over him since his +wife's death. + +A grey veil seemed to have descended between him and the sun,--there +was greyness everywhere, and dimness, and uncertainty--in his mind, in +his eyesight--and sometimes the vagueness was in his speech. He had +noticed that--for, sometimes the word he meant to use was not the word +he uttered. It had occurred a number of times, making foolish what he +had said. + +And Ledlie had glanced at him sharply once or twice out of his sore +and faded eyes when Greensleeve had used some word while thinking of +another. + +When he was not wandering around the house he sat on the veranda in a +great splint-bottomed arm-chair--a little untidy figure, more or less +caved in from chest to abdomen, which made his short thin legs hanging +just above the floor seem stunted and withered. + +To him, here, came his daughters in their soiled and rusty black +dresses, just out of school, and always stopping on impulse of +sympathy to salute him with, "Hello, papa!" and with the touch of +fresh, warm lips on his colourless cheek. + +Sometimes they lingered to chatter around him, or bring out pie and +cake to eat in his company. But very soon his gaze became remote, and +the children understood that they were at liberty to go, which they +did, dancing happily away into the outer sunshine, on pleasure +bent--the matchless pleasures of the very young whose poverty has not +as yet disturbed them. + +As the summer passed the sunlight grew greyer to Peter Greensleeve. +Also, more often, he mixed his words and made nonsense of what he +said. + +The pain in his chest and arms which for a year had caused him +discomfort, bothered him at night, now. He said nothing about it. + +That summer Doris had taken a course in stenography and typewriting, +going every day to Brooklyn by train and returning before sunset. + +When school began she asked to be allowed to continue. Catharine, too, +desired to learn. And if their father understood very clearly what +they wanted, it is uncertain. Anyway he offered no objections. + +That winter he saw his son very seldom. Perhaps the boy was busy. Once +or twice he came to ask his father for money, but there was none to +give him,--very little for anybody--and Doris and Catharine required +that. + +Some little money was taken in at the Hotel Greensleeve; commercial +men were rather numerous that winter: so were duck-hunters. Athalie +often saw them stamping around in the bar, the lamplight glistening on +their oil-skins and gun-barrels, and touching the silken plumage of +dead ducks--great strings of them lying on the bar or on the floor. + +Once when she came home from school earlier than usual, she went into +the kitchen and found a hot peach turnover awaiting her, constructed +for her by the slovenly cook, and kept hot by the still more slovenly +maid-of-all-work--the only servants at the Hotel Greensleeve. + +Sauntering back through the house, eating her turnover, she noticed +Mr. Ledlie reading his newspaper in the office and her father +apparently asleep on a chair before the stove. + +There were half a dozen guests at the inn, duck-hunters from New York, +but they were evidently still out with their bay-men. + +Nibbling her pastry Athalie loitered along the hall and deposited her +strapped books on a chair under the noisy wall-clock. Then, at hazard, +she wandered into the bar. It was growing dusky; nobody had lighted +the ceiling lamp. + +At first she thought the room was empty, and had strolled over toward +the stove to warm her snow-wet shoes, when all at once she became +aware of a boy. + +The boy was lying back on a leather chair, stockinged feet crossed, +hands in his pocket, looking at her. He wore the leather shooting +clothes of a duck-hunter; on the floor beside him lay his cap, +oil-skins, hip-boots, and his gun. A red light from the stove fell +across his dark, curly hair and painted one side of his face crimson. + +Athalie, surprised, was not, however, in the least disturbed or +embarrassed. She looked calmly at the boy, at the woollen stockings on +his feet. + +"Did you manage to get dry?" she asked in a friendly voice. + +Then he seemed to come to himself. He took his hands from his pockets +and got up on his stockinged feet. + +"Yes, I'm dry now." + +"Did you have any luck?" + +"I got fifteen--counting shell-drake, two redheads, a black duck, and +some buffle-heads." + +"Where were you shooting?" + +"Off Silver Shoal." + +"Who was your bay-man?" + +"Bill Nostrand." + +"Why did you stop shooting so early?" + +"Fifteen is the local limit this year." + +Athalie nodded and bit into her turnover, reflectively. When she +looked up, something in the boy's eye interested her. + +"Are you hungry?" she asked. + +He looked embarrassed, then laughed: "Yes, I am." + +"Wait; I'll get you a turnover," she said. + +When she returned from the kitchen with his turnover he was standing. +Rather vaguely she comprehended this civility toward herself although +nobody had ever before remained standing for her. + +Not knowing exactly what to do or say she silently presented the +pastry, then drew a chair up into the red firelight. And the boy +seated himself. + +"I suppose you came with those hunters from New York," she said. + +"Yes. I came with my father and three of his friends." + +"They are out still I suppose." + +"Yes. They went over to Brant Point." + +"I've often sailed there," remarked Athalie. "Can you sail a boat?" + +"No." + +"It is easy.... I could teach you if you are going to stay a while." + +"We are going back to New York to-morrow morning.... How did you learn +to sail a boat?" + +"Why, I don't know. I've always lived here. Mr. Ledlie has a boat. +Everybody here knows how to manage a cat-boat.... If you'll come down +this summer I'll teach you. Will you?" + +"I will if I can." + +They were silent for a few minutes. It grew very dark in the bar-room, +and the light from the stove glimmered redder and redder. + +The boy and girl lay back in their chairs, lingering over their peach +pastry, and inspecting each other with all the frank insouciance of +childhood. + +Athalie still wore the red hood and cloak which had represented her +outer winter wardrobe for years. Her dull, thick gold hair curled +crisply over the edges of the hood which framed in its oval the lovely +features of a child in perfect health. + +The boy, dark-haired and dark-eyed, gazed fascinated and unembarrassed +at this golden blond visitor hooded and cloaked in scarlet. + +"Does your father keep this hotel?" he asked after a pause. + +"Yes. I am Athalie Greensleeve. What is your name?" + +"C. Bailey, Junior." + +"What is the _C_ for?" + +"Clive." + +"Do you go to school?" + +"Yes, but I'm back for the holidays." + +"Holidays," she repeated vaguely. "Oh, that's so. Christmas will come +day after to-morrow." + +He nodded. "I think I'm going to have a new pair of guns, some books, +and a horse. What do you expect?" + +"Nothing," said Athalie. + +"What? Isn't there anything you want?" And then, too late, some +glimmer of the real state of affairs illuminated his boyish brain. And +he grew red with embarrassment. + +They had finished their pastry; Athalie wiped her hands on a soiled +and ragged and crumpled handkerchief, then scrubbed her scarlet mouth. + +"I'd like to come down here for the summer vacation," said the boy, +awkwardly. "I don't know whether my mother would like it." + +"Why? It is pleasant." + +[Illustration: "'I'd like to come down here for the summer vacation,' +said the boy, awkwardly."] + +He glanced instinctively around him at the dark and shabby bar-room, +but offered no reason why his mother might not care for the Hotel +Greensleeve. One thing he knew; he meant to urge his mother to come, +or to let him come. + +A few minutes later the outer door banged open and into the bar came +stamping four men and two bay-men, their oil-skins shining with +salt-spray, guns glistening. Thud! went the strings of dead ducks on +the floor; somebody scratched a match and lighted the ceiling lamp. + +"Hello, Junior!" cried one of the men in oil-skins,--"how did you +make out on Silver Shoals?" + +"All right, father," he began; but his father had caught sight of +Athalie who had risen to retreat. + +"Who are you, young lady?" he inquired with a jolly smile,--"are you +little Red-Riding Hood or the Princess Far Away, or perhaps the +Sleeping Beauty recently awakened?" + +"I'm Athalie Greensleeve." + +"Lady Greensleeves! I _knew_ you were somebody quite as distinguished +as you are beautiful. Would you mind saying to Mr. Greensleeve that +there is much moaning on the bar, and that it will still continue +until he arrives to instil the stillness of the still--" + +"What?" + +"We merely want a drink, my child. Don't look so seriously and +distractingly pretty. I was joking, that's all. Please tell your +father how very thirsty we are." + +As the child turned to obey, C. Bailey, Sr., put one big arm around her +shoulders: "I didn't mean to tease you on such short acquaintance," he +whispered. "Are you offended, little Lady Greensleeves?" + +Athalie looked up at him in puzzled silence. + +"Smile, just once, so I shall know I am forgiven," he said. "Will +you?" + +The child smiled confusedly, caught the boy's eye, and smiled again, +most engagingly, at C. Bailey, Sr.'s, son. + +"Oho!" exclaimed the senior Bailey laughingly and looking at his son, +"I'm forgiven for your sake, am I?" + +"For heaven's sake, Clive," protested one of the gunners, "let the +little girl go and find her father. If I ever needed a drink it's +now!" + +So Athalie went away to summon her father. She found him as she had +last noticed him, sitting asleep on the big leather office chair. +Ledlie, behind the desk, was still reading his soiled newspaper, which +he continued to do until Athalie cried out something in a frightened +voice. Then he laid aside his paper, blinked at her, got up leisurely +and shuffled over to where his partner was sitting dead on his leather +chair. + + * * * * * + +The duck-hunters left that night. One after another the four gentlemen +came over to speak to Athalie and to her sisters. There was some +confusion and crowding in the hallway, what with the doctor, the +undertaker's assistants, neighbours, and the New York duck-hunters. + +Ledlie ventured to overcharge them on the bill. As nobody objected he +regretted his moderation. However, the taking off of Greensleeve +helped business in the bar where sooner or later everybody drifted. + +When the four-seated livery wagon drove up to take the gunning party +to the train, the boy lingered behind the others and then hurried back +to where Athalie was standing, white-faced, tearless, staring at the +closed door of the room where they had taken her father. + +Bailey Junior's touch on her arm made her turn: "I am sorry," he said. +"I hope you will not be very unhappy.... And--here is a Christmas +present--" + +He took the dazed child's icy little hand in his, and, fumbling the +business rather awkwardly, he finally contrived to snap a strap-watch +over the delicate wrist. It was the one he had been wearing. + +"Good-bye, Athalie," he murmured, very red. + +The girl gazed at him out of her lovely confused eyes for a moment. +But when she tried to speak no sound came. + +"Good-bye," he said again, choking slightly. "I'll surely, surely come +back to see you. Don't be unhappy. I'll come." + +But it was many years before he returned to the Hotel Greensleeve. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +She was fifteen years old before she saw him again. His strap-watch +was still on her wrist; his memory, unfaded, still enshrined in her +heart of a child, for she was as yet no more than that at fifteen. And +the moment she saw him she recognised him. + +It was on the Sixth Avenue Elevated Station at Twenty-third Street one +sunny day in April; he stood waiting for the downtown train which she +stepped out of when it stopped. + +He did not notice her, so she went over to him and called him by name; +and the tall, good-looking, fashionably dressed young fellow turned to +her without recognition. + +But the next instant his smooth, youthful face lighted up, and off +came his hat with the gay college band adorning it: + +"Athalie Greensleeve!" he exclaimed, showing his pleasure +unmistakably. + +"C. Bailey, Junior," she rejoined as steadily as she could, for her +heart was beating wildly with the excitement of meeting him and her +emotions were not under full control. + +"You have grown so," he said with the easy, boyish cordiality of his +caste, "I didn't recognise you for a moment. Tell me, do you still +live down--er--down there?" + +She said: + +"I knew you as soon as I set eyes on you. You are very much taller, +too.... No, we went away from Spring Pond the year after my father +died." + +"I see," he said sympathetically. And back into his memory flashed +that scene with her by the stove in the dusky bar. And then he +remembered her as she stood in her red hood and cloak staring at the +closed door of the room where her dead father lay. And he remembered +touching her frosty little hand, and the incident of the watch. + +"I never went back there," he mused, half to himself, looking +curiously at the girl before him. "I wanted to go--but I never did." + +"No, you never came back," she said slowly. + +"I couldn't. I was only a kid, you see. My mother wouldn't let me go +there that summer. And father and I joined a club down South so we did +not go back for the duck-shooting. That is how it happened." + +She nodded, gravely, but said nothing to him about her faith in his +return, how confidently, how patiently she had waited through that +long, long summer for the boy who never returned. + +"I did think of you often," he volunteered, smiling at her. + +"I thought of you, too. I hoped you would come and let me teach you to +sail a boat." + +"That's so! I remember now. You were going to show me how." + +"Have you learned to sail a boat?" + +"No. I'll tell you what I'll do, Athalie, I'll come down this +summer--" + +"But I don't live there any more." + +"That's so. Where do you live?" + +She hesitated, and his eyes fell for the first time from her youthful +and engaging face to the clothes she wore--black clothes that seemed +cheap even to a boy who had no knowledge of feminine clothing. She was +all in rusty black, hat, gloves, jacket and skirt; and the austere and +slightly mean setting made the contrast of her hair and skin the more +fresh and vivid. + +"I live," she replied diffidently, "with my two sisters in West +Fifty-fourth Street. I am stenographer and typewriter in the offices +of a department store." + +"I'd like to come to see you," he said impulsively. "Shall I--when +vacation begins?" + +"Are you still at school?" + +He laughed: "I'm at Harvard. I'm down for Easter just now. Tell me, +Athalie, would you care to have me come to see you when I return?" + +"If you would care to come." + +"I surely would!" he said cordially, offering his hand in adieu--"I +want to ask you a lot of questions and we can talk over all those +jolly old times,"--as though years of comradeship lay behind them +instead of an hour or two. Then his glance fell on the slim hand he +was shaking, and he saw the strap-watch which he had given her still +clasped around her wrist. + +"You wear that yet?--that old shooting-watch of mine!" he laughed. + +She smiled. + +"I'll give you a better one than that next Christmas," he said, taking +out a little notebook and pencil. "I'll write it down--'strap-watch +for Athalie Greensleeve next Christmas'--there it is! And--will you +give me your address?" + +She gave it; he noted it, closed his little Russia-leather book with a +snap, and pocketed it. + +"I'm glad I saw you," said the girl; "I hope you won't forget me. I am +late; I must go--I suppose--" + +[Illustration: "'I'm glad I saw you,' said the girl; 'I hope you won't +forget me.'"] + +"Indeed I won't forget you," he assured her warmly, shaking the +slender black-gloved hand again. + +He meant it when he said it. Besides she was so pretty and frank and +honest with him. Few girls he knew in his own caste were as +attractive; none as simple, as direct. + +He really meant to call on her some day and talk things over. But +days, and weeks, and finally months slipped away. And somehow, in +thinking of her and of his promise, there now seemed very little left +for them to talk about. After all they had said to each other nearly +all there was to be said, there on the Elevated platform that April +morning. Besides he had so many, many things to do; so many pleasures +promised and accepted, visits to college friends, a fishing trip with +his father,--really there seemed to be no hour in the long vacation +unengaged. + +He always wanted to see her when he thought of her; he really meant to +find a moment to do it, too. But there seemed to be no moment +suitable. + +Even when he was back in Cambridge he thought about her occasionally, +and planned, vaguely, a trip to New York so that he might redeem his +promise to her. + +He took it out in thinking. + +At Christmas, however, he sent her a wrist-watch, a dainty French +affair of gold and enamel; and a contrite note excusing himself for +the summer delinquencies and renewing his promise to call on her. + +The Dead Letter Office returned watch and letter. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +There was a suffocating stench of cabbage in hallway and corridor as +usual when Athalie came in that evening. She paused to rest a tired +foot on the first step of the stairway, for a moment or two, quietly +breathing her fatigue, then addressed herself to the monotonous labour +before her, which was to climb five flights of unventilated stairs, +let herself into the tiny apartment with her latch-key, and +immediately begin her part in preparing the evening meal for three. + +Doris, now twenty-one, sprawled on a lounge in her faded wrapper +reading an evening paper. Catharine, a year younger, stood by a +bureau, some drawers of which had been pulled out, sorting over odds +and ends of crumpled finery. + +"Well," remarked Doris to Athalie, as she came in, "what do _you_ +know?" + +"Nothing," said Athalie listlessly. + +Doris rattled the evening paper: "Gee!" she commented, "it's getting +to be something fierce--all these young girls disappearing! Here's +another--they can't account for it; her parents say she had no love +affair--" And she began to read the account aloud while Catharine +continued to sort ribbons and Athalie dropped into a big, shabby +chair, legs extended, arms pendant. + +When Doris finished reading she tossed the paper over to Athalie who +let it slide from her knees to the floor. + +"Her picture is there," said Doris. "She isn't pretty." + +"Isn't she?" yawned Athalie. + +Catharine jerked open another drawer: "It's always a man's doing. You +bet they'll find that some fellow had her on a string. What idiots +girls are!" + +"_I_ should worry," remarked Doris. "Any fresh young man who tries to +get me jingled will wish he hadn't." + +"Don't talk that way," remonstrated Athalie. + +"What way?" + +"That slangy way you think is smart. What's the use of letting down +when you know better." + +"What's the use of keeping up on fifteen per? I could do the Gladys to +any Percy on fifty. My talk suits my wages--and it suits me, too.... +God!--I suppose it's fried ham again to-night," she added, jumping up +and walking into the kitchenette. And, pausing to look back at her +sisters: "If any Johnny asks me to-night I'll go!--I'm that hungry for +real food." + +"Don't be a fool," snapped Catharine. + +Athalie glanced at the alarm clock, passed her hands wearily across +her eyes, and rose: "It's after six, Doris. You haven't time for +anything very much." And she went into the kitchenette. + +Once or twice during the preparation of the meal Doris swore in her +soft girlish voice, which made the contrast peculiarly shocking; and +finally Athalie said bluntly: "If I didn't know you were straight I +wouldn't think so from the way you behave." + +Doris turned on her a flushed and angry face: "Will you kindly stop +knocking me?" + +"I'm not. I'm only saying that your talk is loose. And so it is." + +"What's the difference as long as I'm not on the loose myself?" + +"The difference is that men will think you are; that's all." + +"Men mistake any girl who works for a living." + +"Then see that the mistake is their fault not yours. I don't +understand why a girl can't keep her self-respect even if she's a +stenographer, as I am, or works in a shop as Catharine does, or in the +theatre as you do. And if a girl talks loosely, she'll think loosely, +sooner or later." + +"Hurry up that supper!" called Catharine. "I'm going to a show with +Genevieve, and I want time to dress." + +Athalie, scrambling the eggs, which same eggs would endure no other +mode of preparation, leaned over sideways and kissed Doris on her +lovely neck. + +"Darling," she said, "I'm not trying to be disagreeable; I only want +us all to keep up." + +"I know it, ducky. I guess you're right. I'll cut out that rough stuff +if you like." + +Athalie said: "It's only too easy to let down when you're thrown with +careless and uneducated people as we are. I have to struggle against +it all the while. For, somehow I seem to know that a girl who keeps +up her grammar keeps up her self-respect, too. If you slouch mentally +you slouch physically. And then it's not so difficult to slouch +morally." + +Doris laughed: "You funny thing! You certainly have educated yourself +a lot since school,--you use such dandy English." + +"I _read_ good English." + +"I know you do. I can't. If somebody would only write a rattling story +in good English!--but I've got to have the story first of all or I +can't read it. All those branch-library books you lug in are too slow +for me. If it wasn't for hearing you talk every day I'd be talking +like the rest of the chorus at the Egyptian Garden;--'Sa-ay, ain't you +done with my make-up box? Yaas, you _did_ swipe it! I seen you. Who's +a liar? All right, if you want to mix it--'" + +"Don't!" pleaded Athalie. "Oh, Doris, I don't see why you can't find +some other business--" + +Doris began to strut about the kitchenette. + +"Please don't! It makes me actually ill!" + +"When I learn how to use my voice and my legs you'll see me playing +leads. Here, ducky, I'll take the eggs--" + +Athalie, her arms also full, followed her out to the table which +Catharine had set very carelessly. + +They drank Croton water and strong tea, and gravely discussed how, +from their several limited wardrobes sufficient finery might be +extracted to clothe Catharine suitably for her evening's +entertainment. + +"It's rotten to be poor," remarked the latter. "You're only young +once, and this gosh-dinged poverty spoils everything for me." + +"Quit kicking," said Doris. "I don't like these eggs but I'm eating +them. If I were wealthy I'd be eating terrapin, wouldn't I?" + +"Genevieve has a new gown for to-night," pouted Catharine. "How can I +help feeling shabby and unhappy?" + +"Genevieve seems to have a number of unaccountable things," remarked +Doris, partly closing her velvet eyes. "She has a fur coat, too." + +"Doris! That isn't square of you!" + +"That isn't the question. Is Genevieve on the square? That's what +worries me, Kit!" + +"What a perfectly rotten thing to say!" insisted Catharine +resentfully. "You know she's on the level!" + +"Well then, _where_ does she get it? You know what her salary is?" + +Athalie said, coolly: "Every girl ought to believe every other girl on +the square until the contrary is proven. It's shameful not to." + +"Come over to the Egyptian Garden and try it!" laughed Doris. "If you +can believe that bunch of pet cats is on the square you can believe +anything, Athalie." + +Catharine, still very deeply offended, rose and went into the bedroom +which she shared with Doris. Presently she called for somebody to +assist her in dressing. + +Doris, being due at the theatre by seven o'clock, put on her rusty +coat and hat, and, nodding to Athalie, walked out; and the latter +went away to aid Catharine. + +"You _do_ look pretty," she insisted after Catharine had powdered her +face and neck and had wiped off her silky skin with the chamois rag. + +The girl gazed at her comely, regular features in the mirror, patted +her hair, moistened her red lips, then turned her profile and gazed at +it with the aid of a hand-glass. + +"Who else is going?" inquired Athalie. + +"Some friends of Genevieve's." + +"Men?" + +"I believe so." + +"Two, I suppose." + +Catharine nodded. + +"Don't you know their names?" + +"No. Genevieve says that one of them is crazy to meet me." + +"Where did he see you?" + +"At Winton's. I put on some evening gowns for his sister." + +Athalie watched her pin on her hat, then held her coat for her. +"They'll all bear watching," she remarked quietly. "If it's merely +society they want you know as well as I that they seek it in their own +circles, not in ours." + +Catharine made no audible response. She began to re-pin her hat, then, +pettishly: "I wish I had a taxi to call for me so I needn't wear a +hat!" + +"Why not wish for an automobile?" suggested Athalie, laughing. "Women +who have them don't wear hats to the theatre." + +"It _is_ tough to be poor!" insisted Catharine fiercely. "It drives me +almost frantic to see what I see in all those limousines,--and then +walk home, or take a car if I'm flush." + +"How are you going to help it, dear?" inquired Athalie in that gently +humorous voice which usually subdued and shamed her sisters. + +But Catharine only mumbled something rebellious, turned, stared at +herself in the glass, and walked quickly toward the door. + +"As for me," she muttered. "I don't blame any girl--" + +"What?" + +But Catharine marched out with a twitch of her narrow skirts, still +muttering incoherencies. + +Athalie, thoughtful, but not really disturbed, went into the empty +sitting-room, picked up the evening paper, glanced absently at the +head-lines, dropped it, and stood motionless in the centre of the +room, one narrow hand bracketed on her hip, the other pinching her +under lip. + +For a few minutes she mused, then sighing, she walked into the +kitchenette, unhooked a blue-checked apron, rolled up her sleeves as +far as her white, rounded arms permitted, and started in on the +dishes. + +Occasionally she whistled at her task--the clear, soft, melodious +whistle of a bullfinch--carolling some light, ephemeral air from the +"Review" at the Egyptian Garden. + +When the crockery was done, dried and replaced, she retired to her +bedroom and turned her attention to her hands and nails, minutely +solicitous, always in dread of the effects of housework. + +There was an array of bottles, vials, jars, lotions, creams, scents on +her bureau. She seated herself there and started her nightly grooming, +interrupting it only to exchange her street gown and shoes for a +dainty negligee and slippers. + +Her face, now, as she bent over her slender, white fingers, took on a +seriousness and gravity more mature; and there was in its pure, fresh +beauty something almost austere. + +The care of her hands took her a long time; and they were not finished +then, for she had yet her bath to take and her hair to do before the +cream-of-something-or-other was applied to hands and feet so that they +should remain snowy and satin smooth. + +Bathed, and once more in negligee, she let down the dull gold mass of +hair which fell heavily curling to her shoulders. Then she started to +comb it out as earnestly, seriously, and thoroughly as a beautiful, +silky Persian cat applies itself to its toilet. + +But there was now an absent expression in her dark blue eyes as she +sat plaiting the shining gold into two thick and lustrous braids. + +Perhaps she wondered, vaguely, why the spring-tide and freshness of a +girl's youth should exhale amid the sere and sordid circumstances +which made up, for her, the sum-total of existence; why it happened +that whatever was bright and gay and attractive in the world should be +so utterly outside the circle in which her life was passing. + +Yet in her sober young face there was no hint of discontent, nothing +of meanness or envy to narrow the blue eyes, nothing of bitterness to +touch the sensitive lips, nothing, even, of sadness; only a +gravity--like the seriousness of a youthful goddess musing alone on +mysteries unexplained even on Olympus. + +Seven years' experience in earning her own living had made her wiser +but had not really disenchanted her. And for seven years now, she had +held the first position she secured in New York--stenographer and +typist for Wahlbaum, Grossman & Co. + +It had been perplexing and difficult at first; so many men connected +with the great department store had evinced a desire to take her to +luncheon and elsewhere. But when at length by chance she took personal +dictation from Wahlbaum himself in his private office--his own +stenographer having triumphantly secured a supporting husband, and a +general alarm having been sent out for another to replace her--Athalie +suddenly found herself in a permanent position. And, automatically, +all annoyances ceased. + +Wahlbaum was a Jew, big, hearty, honest, and keen as a razor. Never +was he in a hurry, never flustered or impatient, never irritable. And +she had never seen him angry, or rude to anybody. He laughed a great +deal in a tremendously resonant voice, smoked innumerable big, fat, +light-coloured cigars, never neglected to joke with Athalie when she +came in the morning and when she left at night, and never as much as +by the flutter of an eyelid conveyed to her anything that any girl +might not hear without offence. + +Grossman's reputation was different, but except for a smirk or two he +had never bothered her. Nor did anybody else connected with the firm. +They all were too much afraid of Wahlbaum. + +So, except for the petty, contemptible annoyances to which all young +girls are more or less subjected in any cosmopolitan metropolis, +Athalie had found business agreeable enough except for the +confinement. + +That was hard on a country-bred girl; and she could scarcely endure +the imprisonment when the warm sun of April looked in through the +windows of Mr. Wahlbaum's private office, and when soft breezes +stirred the curtains and fluttered the papers on her desk. + +Always in the spring the voice of brook and surf, of woodland and +meadow called to her. In her ears was ever the happy tumult of the +barn-yard, the lowing of cattle at the bars, the bleat of sheep. And +her heart beat passionate response. + +Athalie was never ill. The nearest she came to it was a dull feeling +of languor in early spring. But it did not even verge on either +resentment or despondency. + +In winter it was better. She had learned to accept with philosophy the +noises of the noisiest of cities. Even, perhaps, she rather liked +them, or at least, on her two weeks' vacation in the country, she +found, to her surprise, that she missed the accustomed and incessant +noises of New York. + +Her real hardships were two; poverty and loneliness. + +The combined earnings of herself and her sisters did not allow them a +better ventilated, or more comfortable apartment than the grimy one +they lived in. Nor did their earnings permit them more or better +clothing and food. + +As for loneliness, she had, of course, her sisters. But healthy, +imaginative, ardent youth requires more than sisters,--more even than +feminine friends, of which Athalie had a few. What she needed, as all +girls need, were acquaintances and friends among men of her own age. + +And she had none--that is, no friends. Which is the usual fate of any +business girl who keeps up such education and cultivation as she +possesses, and attempts to add to it and to improve her quality. + +Because the men of her social and business level are vastly inferior +to the women,--inferior in manners, cultivation, intelligence, +quality--which seems almost to make their usually excellent morals +peculiarly offensive. + +That was why Athalie knew loneliness. Doris, recently, had met a few +idle men of cultivated and fashionable antecedents. Catharine, that +very evening, was evidently going to meet a man of that sort for the +first time in her career. + +As for Athalie, she had had no opportunity to meet any man she cared +to cultivate since she had last talked with C. Bailey, Jr., on the +platform of the Sixth Avenue Elevated;--and that was now nearly four +years ago. + + * * * * * + +Braiding up her hair she sat gazing at herself in the mirror while her +detached thoughts drifted almost anywhere--back to Spring Pond and +the Hotel Greensleeve, back to her mother, to the child cross-legged +on the floor,--back to her father, and how he sat there dead in his +leather chair;--back to the bar, and the red gleam of the stove, and a +boy and girl in earnest conversation there in the semi-darkness, +eating peach turnovers-- + +She turned her head, leisurely: the electric bell had sounded twice +before she realised that she ought to pull the wire which opened the +street door below. + +So she got up, pulled the wire, and then sauntered out into the +sitting-room and set the door ajar, not worrying about her somewhat +intimate costume because it was too late for tradesmen, and there was +nobody else to call on her or on her sisters excepting other girls +known to them all. + +The sitting-room seemed chilly. Half listening for the ascending +footsteps and the knocking, partly absorbed in other thoughts, she +seated herself and lay back in the dingy arm-chair, before the +radiator, elevating her dainty feet to the top of it and crossing +them. + +A gale was now blowing outside; invisible rain, or more probably +sleet, pelted and swished across the curtained panes. Far away in the +city, somewhere, a fire-engine rushed clanging through canyons, +storm-swept, luminously obscure. Her nickel alarm clock ticked loudly +in the room; the radiator clicked and fizzed and snapped. + +Presently she heard a step on the stair, then in the corridor outside +her door. Then came the knocking on the door but unexpectedly loud, +vigorous and impatient. + +And Athalie, surprised, twisted around in her chair, looking over her +shoulder at the door. + +"Please come in," she said in her calm young voice. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +A rather tall man stepped in. He wore a snow-dusted, fur-lined +overcoat and carried in his white-gloved hands a top hat and a +silver-hooked walking stick. + +He had made a mistake, of course; and Athalie hastily lowered her feet +and turned half around in her chair again to meet his expected +apologies; and then continued in that attitude, rigid and silent. + +"Miss Greensleeve?" he asked. + +She rose, mechanically, the heavy lustrous braids framing a face as +white as a flower. + +"Is that _you_, Athalie!" he asked, hesitating. + +"C. Bailey, Junior," she said under her breath. + +There was a moment's pause, then he stepped toward her and, very +slowly, she offered a hand still faintly fragrant with "cream of +lilacs." + +A damp, chilly wind came from the corridor; she went over and closed +the door, stood for a few seconds with her back against it looking at +him. + +Now under the mask of manhood she could see the boy she had once +known,--under the short dark moustache the clean-cut mouth unchanged. +Only his cheeks seemed firmer and leaner, and the eyes were now the +baffling eyes of a man. + +"How did you know I was here?" she asked, quite unconscious of her +own somewhat intimate attire, so entirely had the shock of surprise +possessed her. + +"Athalie, you have not changed a bit--only you are so much prettier +than I realised," he said illogically.... "How did I know you lived +here? I didn't until we bought this row of flats last week--my +father's company--I'm in it now.... And glancing over the list of +tenants I saw your name." + +She said nothing. + +"Do you mind my coming? I was going to write and ask you. But walking +in this way rather appealed to me. Do you mind?" + +"No." + +"May I stay and chat for a moment? I'm on my way to the opera. May I +stay a few minutes?" + +She nodded, not yet sufficiently composed to talk very much. + +He glanced about him for a place to lay coat and hat; then slipping +out of the soft fur, disclosed himself in evening dress. + +She had dropped into the arm-chair by the radiator; and, as he came +forward, stripping off his white gloves, suddenly she became conscious +of her bare, slippered feet and drew them under the edges of her +negligee. + +"I was not expecting anybody,--" she began, and checked herself. +Certainly she did not care to rise, now, and pass before him in search +of more suitable clothing. Therefore the less said the better. + +He had found a rather shaky chair, and had drawn it up in front of the +radiator. + +"This is very jolly," he said. "Do you realise that this is our third +encounter?" + +"Yes." + +"It really begins to look inevitable, doesn't it?" + +She smiled. + +"Three times, you know, is usually considered significant," he added +laughingly. "It doesn't dismay you, does it?" + +She laughed, resting her cheek against the upholstered wing of her +chair and looked at him with shy but undisguised pleasure. + +"You haven't changed a single bit, Athalie," he declared. + +"No, I haven't changed." + +"Do you remember our last meeting--on the Elevated?" + +"Yes." + +"Lord!" he said; "that was four years ago. Do you realise it?" + +"Yes." + +A slight colour grew on his cheeks. + +"I _was_ a piker, wasn't I?" + +After a moment, looking down at her idly clasped hands lying on her +knees: "I hoped you would come," she said gravely. + +"I wanted to. I don't suppose you'll believe that; but I did.... I +don't know how it happened that I didn't make good. There were so many +things to do, all sorts of engagements,--and the summer vacation +seemed ended before I could understand that it had begun."--He scowled +in retrospection, and she watched his expression out of her dark blue +eyes--clear, engaging eyes, sweet as a child's. + +"That's no excuse," he concluded. "I should have kept my word to +you--and I really wanted to.... And I was not quite such a piker as +you thought me." + +"I didn't think that of you, C. Bailey, Junior." + +"You must have!" + +"I didn't." + +"That's because you're so decent, but it makes my infamy the +blacker.... Anyway I _did_ write you and _did_ send you the +strap-watch. I sent both to Fifty-fourth Street. The Dead Letter +Office returned them to me."... He drew from his inner pocket a +letter and a packet. "Here they are." + +She sat up slowly and very slowly took the letter from his hand. + +"Four years old," he commented. "Isn't that the limit?" And he began +to tear the sealed paper from the packet. + +"What a shame," he went on contritely, "that you wore that old +gun-metal watch of mine so long. I was mortified when I saw it on your +wrist that day--" + +"I wear it still," she said with a smile. + +"Nonsense!" he glanced at her bare wrist and laughed. + +"I _do_," she insisted. "It is only because I have just bathed and am +prepared for the night that I am not wearing it now." + +He looked up, incredulous, then his expression changed subtly. + +"Is that so?" he asked. + +But the hint of seriousness confused her and she merely nodded. + +He had freed the case from the sealed paper and now he laid it on her +knees, saying: "Thank the Lord I'm not such a piker now as I was, +anyway. I hope you'll wear it, Athalie, and fire that other affair out +of your back window." + +"There is no back window," she said, raising her charming eyes to +his,--"there's only an air-shaft.... Am I to open it?--I mean this +case?" + +"It is yours." + +She opened it daintily. + +"Oh, C. Bailey, Junior!" she said very gently. "You mustn't do this!" + +"Why?" + +"It's _too_ beautiful. Isn't it?" + +"Nonsense, Athalie. Here, I'll wind it and set it for you. This is how +it works--" pulling out the jewelled lever and setting it by the tin +alarm-clock on the mantel. Then he wound it, unclasped the woven gold +wrist-band, took her reluctant hand, and, clasping the jewel over her +wrist, snapped the catch. + +For a few moments her fair head remained bent as she gazed in silence +at the tiny moving hands. Then, looking up: + +"Thank you, C. Bailey, Junior," she said, a little solemnly perhaps. + +He laughed, somewhat conscious of the slight constraint: "You're +welcome, Athalie. Do you really like it?" + +"It is wonderfully beautiful." + +"Then I'm perfectly happy and contented--or I will be when you read +that letter and admit I'm not as much of a piker as I seemed." + +She laughed and coloured: "I never thought that of you. I only--missed +you." + +"Really?" + +"Yes," she said innocently. + +For a second he looked rather grave, then again, conscious of his own +constraint, spoke gaily, lightly: + +"You certainly are the real thing in friendship. You are far too +generous to me." + +She said: "Incidents are not frequent enough in my life to leave me +unimpressed. I never knew any other boy of your sort. I suppose that +is why I never forgot you." + +Her simplicity pricked the iridescent and growing bubble of his +vanity, and he laughed, discountenanced by her direct explanation of +how memory chanced to retain him. But it did not occur to him to ask +himself how it happened that, in all these years, and in a life so +happily varied, so delightfully crowded as his own had always been, he +had never entirely forgotten her. + +"I wish you'd open that letter and read it," he said. "It's my +credential. Date and postmark plead for me." + +But she had other plans for its unsealing and its perusal, and said +so. + +"Aren't you going to read it, Athalie?" + +"Yes--when you go." + +"Why?" + +"Because--it will make your visit seem a little longer," she said +frankly. + +"Athalie, are you really glad to see me?" + +She looked up as though he were jesting, and caught in his eye another +gleam of that sudden seriousness which had already slightly confused +her. For a moment only, both felt the least sense of constraint, then +the instinct that had forbidden her to admit any significance in his +seriousness, parted her lips with that engaging smile which he had +begun to know so well, and to await with an expectancy that approached +fascination. + +"Peach turnovers," she said. "Do you remember? If I had not been glad +to see you in those days I would not have gone into the kitchen to +bring you one.... And I have already told you that I am unchanged.... +Wait! I am changed.... I am very much wealthier." And she laughed her +delicious, unembarrassed laugh of a child. + +He laughed, too, then shot a glance around the shabby room. + +"What are you doing, Athalie?" he asked lightly. + +"The same." + +"I remember you told me. You are stenographer and typist." + +"Yes." + +"Where?" + +"I am with Wahlbaum, Grossman & Co." + +"Are they decent to you?" + +"Very." + +He thought a moment, hesitated, appeared as though about to speak, +then seemed to reject the idea whatever it might have been. + +"You live with your sisters, don't you?" he asked. + +"Yes." + +He planted his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, his head on his +hands, apparently buried in thought. + +After a little while: "C. Bailey, Junior," she ventured, "you must not +let me keep you too long." + +"What?" He lifted his head. + +"You are on your way to the opera, aren't you?" + +"Am I? That's so.... I'd rather stay here if you'll let me." + +"But the _opera_!" she protested with emphasis. + +"What do I care for the opera?" + +"Don't you?" + +He laughed: "No; do you?" + +"I'm mad about it." + +Still laughing he said: "Then, in my place, _you_ wouldn't give up the +opera for _me_, would you, Athalie?" + +She started to say "No!" very decidedly; but checked herself. Then, +deliberately honest: + +"If," she began, "I were going to the opera, and you came in +here--after four years of not seeing you--and if I had to choose--I +don't believe I'd go to the opera. But it would be a dreadful wrench, +C. Bailey, Junior!" + +"It's no wrench to me." + +"Because you often go." + +"Because, even if I seldom went there could be no question of choice +between the opera and Athalie Greensleeve." + +"C. Bailey, Junior, you are not honest." + +"Yes, I am. Why do you say so?" + +"I judge by past performances," she said, her humorous eyes on him. + +"Are you going to throw past performances in my face every time I come +to see you?" + +"Are you coming again?" + +"That isn't generous of you, Athalie--" + +"I really mean it," said the girl. "Are you?" + +"Coming here? Of course I am if you'll let me!" + +The last time he had said, "If you _want_ me." Now it was modified to +"If you'll _let_ me,"--a development and a new footing to which +neither were yet accustomed, perhaps not even conscious of. + +"C. Bailey, Junior, do you want to come?" + +"I do indeed. It is so bully of you to be nice to me +after--everything. And it's so jolly to talk over--things--with you." + +She leaned forward in her chair, her pretty hands joined between her +knees. + +"Please," she said, "don't say you'll come if you are not coming." + +"But I am--" + +"I know you said so twice before.... I don't mean to be horrid or to +reproach you, but--I am going to tell you--I was disappointed--even +a--a little--unhappy. And it--lasted--some time.... So, if you are not +coming, tell me so now.... It is hard to wait--too long." + +"Athalie," he said, completely surprised by the girl's frank avowal +and by the unsuspected emotion in himself which was responding, "I +am--I had no idea--I don't deserve your kindness to me--your +loyalty--I'm a--I'm a--a pup! That's what I am--an undeserving, +ungrateful, irresponsible, and asinine pup! That's what all boys in +college are--but it's no excuse for not keeping my word--for making +you unhappy--" + +"C. Bailey, Junior, you were just a boy. And I was a child.... I am +still, in spite of my nineteen years--nearly twenty at that--not much +different, not enough changed to know that I'm a woman. I feel exactly +as I did toward you--not grown up,--or that you have grown up.... Only +I know, somehow, I'd have a harder time of it now, if you tell me +you'll come, and then--" + +"I _will_ come, Athalie! I _want_ to," he said impetuously. "You're +more interesting,--a lot jollier,--than any girl I know. I always +suspected it, too--the bigger fool I to lose all that time we might +have had together--" + +She, surprised for a moment, lifted her pretty head and laughed +outright, checking his somewhat impulsive monologue. And he looked at +her, disturbed. + +"I'm only laughing because you speak of all those years we might have +had together, as though--" And suddenly she checked herself in her +turn, on the brink of saying something that was not so funny after +all. + +Probably he understood what impulse had prompted her to terminate +abruptly both laughter and discourse, for he reddened and gazed rather +fixedly at the radiator which was now clanking and clinking in a very +noisy manner. + +"You ought to have a fireplace and an open fire," he said. "It's the +cosiest thing on earth--with a cat on the hearth and a big chair and a +good book.... Athalie, do you remember that stove? And how I sat there +in wet shooting clothes and stockinged feet?" + +"Yes," she said, drawing her own bare ones further under her chair. + +"Do you know what you looked like to me when you came in so silently, +dressed in your red hood and cloak?" + +"What did I look like?" + +"A little fairy princess." + +"_I?_ In that ragged cloak?" + +"_I_ didn't see the rags. All I saw was your lithe little fairy figure +and your yellow hair and your wonderful dark eyes in the ruddy light +from the stove. I tell you, Athalie, I was enchanted." + +"How odd! I never dreamed you thought that of me when I stood there +looking at you, utterly lost in admiration--" + +"Oh, come, Athalie!" he laughed; "you are getting back at me!" + +"It's true. I thought you the most wonderful boy I had ever seen." + +"Until I disillusioned you," he said. + +"You never did, C. Bailey, Junior." + +"What! Not when I proved a piker?" + +But she only smiled into his amused and challenging eyes and slowly +shook her head. + +Once or twice, mechanically, he had slipped a flat gold cigarette case +from his pocket, and then, mechanically still, had put it back. Not +accustomed to modern men of his caste she had not paid much attention +to the unconscious hint of habit. Now as he did it again it occurred +to her to ask him why he did not smoke. + +"May I?" + +"Yes. I like it." + +"Do you smoke?" + +"No--now and then when I'm troubled." + +"Is that often?" he asked lightly. + +"Very seldom," she replied, amused; "and the proof is that I never +smoked more than half a dozen cigarettes in all my life." + +"Will you try one now?" he asked mischievously. + +"I'm not in trouble, am I?" + +"I don't know. _I_ am." + +"What troubles you, C. Bailey, Junior?" she asked, humorously. + +"My disinclination to leave. And it's after eleven." + +"If you never get into any more serious trouble than that," she said, +"I shall not worry about you." + +"Would you worry if I were in trouble?" + +"Naturally." + +"Why?" + +"Why? Because you are my friend. Why shouldn't I worry?" + +"Do you really take our friendship as seriously as that?" + +"Don't _you_?" + +He changed countenance, hesitated, flicked the ashes from his +cigarette. Suddenly he looked her straight in the face: + +"Yes. I _do_ take it seriously," he said in a voice so quietly and +perhaps unnecessarily emphatic that, for a few moments, she found +nothing to say in response. + +Then, smilingly: "I am glad you look at it that way. It means that you +will come back some day." + +"I will come to-morrow if you'll let me." + +Which left her surprised and silent but not at all disquieted. + +"Shall I, Athalie?" + +"Yes--if you wish." + +"Why not?" he said with more unnecessary emphasis and as though +addressing himself, and perhaps others not present. "I see no reason +why I shouldn't if you'll let me. Do you?" + +"No." + +"May I take you to dinner and to the theatre?" + +A quick glow shot through her, leaving a sort of whispering confusion +in her brain which seemed full of distant voices. + +"Yes, I'd like to go with you." + +"That's fine! And we'll have supper afterward." + +She smiled at him through the ringing confusion in her brain. + +"Do you mind taking supper with me after the play?" + +"No." + +"Where then?" + +"Anywhere--with you, C. Bailey, Junior." + +Things began to seem to her a trifle unreal; she saw him a little +vaguely: vaguely, too, she was conscious that to whatever she said he +was responding with something more subtly vital than mere words. +Faintly within her the instinct stirred to ignore, to repress +something in him--in herself--she was not clear about just what she +ought to repress, or which of them harboured it. + +One thing confused and disturbed her; his tongue was running loose, +planning all sorts of future pleasures for them both together, +confidently, with an enthusiasm which, somehow, seemed to leave her +unresponsive. + +"Please don't," she said. + +"What, Athalie?" + +"Make so many promises--plans. I--am afraid of promises." + +He turned very red: "What on earth have I done to you!" + +"Nothing--yet." + +"Yes I have! I once made you unhappy; I made you distrust me--" + +"No:--that is all over now. Only--if it happened again--I should +really--miss you--very much--C. Bailey, Junior.... So don't promise me +too much--now.... Promise a little--each time you come--if you care +to." + +In the silence that grew between them the alarm went off with a +startling clangour that brought them both to their feet. + +It was midnight. + +"I set it to wake myself before my sisters came in," she explained +with a smile. "I usually have something prepared for them to eat when +they've been out." + +"I suppose they do the same for you," he said, looking at her rather +steadily. + +"I don't go out in the evening." + +"You do sometimes." + +"Very seldom.... Do you know, C. Bailey, Junior, I have never been out +in the evening with a man?" + +"What?" + +"Never." + +"Why?" + +"I suppose," she admitted with habitual honesty, "it's because I don't +know any men with whom I'd care to be seen in the evening. I don't +like ordinary people." + +"How about me?" he asked, laughing. + +She merely smiled. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Doris came in about midnight, her coat and hat plastered with sleet, +her shoes soaking. She looked rather forlornly at the bowl of hot milk +and crackers which Athalie brought from the kitchenette. + +"I'd give next week's salary for a steak," she said, taking the bowl +and warming her chilled hands on it. + +"You know what meat costs," said Athalie. "I'd give it to you for +supper if I could." + +Doris seated herself by the radiator; Athalie knelt and drew off the +wet shoes, unbuttoned the garters and rolled the stockings from the +icy feet. + +"I had another chance to-night: they were college boys: some of the +girls went--" remarked Doris disjointedly, forcing herself to eat the +crackers and milk because it was hot, and snuggling into the knitted +slippers which Athalie brought. After a moment or two she lifted her +pretty, impudent face and sniffed inquiringly. + +"_Who's_ been smoking? You?" + +"No." + +"Who? Genevieve?" + +"No. Who do you suppose called?" + +"Search _me_." + +"C. Bailey, Junior!" + +Doris looked blank, then: "Oh, that boy you had an affair with about a +hundred years ago?" + +"That same boy," said Athalie, smiling. + +"He'll come again next century I suppose--like a comet," shrugged +Doris, nestling closer to the radiator. + +Athalie said nothing; her sister slowly stirred the crackers in the +milk and from time to time took a spoonful. + +"Next time," she said presently, "I shall go out to supper when an +attractive man asks me. I know how to take care of myself--and the +supper, too." + +Athalie started to say something, and stopped. Perhaps she remembered +C. Bailey, Jr., and that she had promised to dine and sup with him, +"anywhere." + +She said in a low voice: "It's all right, I suppose, if you know the +man." + +"I don't care whether I know him or not as long as it's a good +restaurant." + +"Don't talk that way, Doris!" + +"Why not? It's true." + +There was a silence. Doris set aside the empty bowl, yawned, looked at +the clock, yawned again. + +"This is too late for Catharine," she said, drowsily. + +"I know it is. Who are the people she's with?" + +"Genevieve Hunting--I don't know the men:--some of Genevieve's +friends." + +"I hope it's nobody from Winton's." + +There had been in the Greensleeve family, a tacit understanding that +it was not the thing to accept social attentions from anybody +connected with the firm which employed them. Winton, the male milliner +and gown designer, usually let his models alone, being in perpetual +dread of his wife; but one of the unhealthy looking sons had become a +nuisance to the girls employed there. Recently he had annoyed +Catharine, and the girl was afraid she might have to lunch with him or +lose her position. + +Doris yawned again, then shivered. + +"Go to bed, ducky," said Athalie. "I'll wait up for Catharine." + +So Doris took herself off to bed and Athalie sank into the shabby +arm-chair by the radiator to wait for her other sister. + +It was two o'clock when she came in, flushed, vague-eyed, a rather +silly and fixed smile on her doll-like face. Athalie, on the verge of +sleep, rose from her chair, rubbing her eyes: + +"What on earth, Catharine--" + +"We had supper,--that's why I'm late.... I've got to have a dinner +gown I tell you. Genevieve's is the smartest thing--" + +"Where did you go?" + +"To the Regina. I didn't want to--dressed this way but Cecil Reeve +said--" + +"Who?" + +"Cecil--Mr. Reeve--one of Genevieve's friends--the man who was so +crazy to meet me--" + +"Oh! Who else was there?" asked Athalie drily. + +"A Mr. Ferris--Harry Ferris they call him. He's quite mad about +Genevieve--" + +"Why did you drink anything?" + +"I?" + +"You did, didn't you?" + +"I had a glass of champagne." + +"What else?" + +"Nothing--except something pink in a glass--before we sat down to +supper.... And something violet coloured, afterward." + +"Your breath is dreadful; do you realise it?" + +Catharine seemed surprised, then her eyes wandered vaguely, drowsily, +and she laid her gloved hand on Athalie's arm as though to steady +herself. + +"What sort of man is your new friend, Cecil Reeve?" inquired Athalie. + +"He's nice--a gentleman. And they were so amusing;--we laughed so +much.... I told him he might call.... He's really all right, +Athalie--" + +"And Mr. Ferris?" + +"Well--I don't know about him; he's Genevieve's friend;--I don't know +him so well.... But of course he's all right--a gentleman--" + +"That's the trouble," said Athalie in a low voice. + +"What is the trouble?" + +"These friends of yours--and of Doris, and of mine ... they're +gentlemen.... And that is why we find them agreeable, socially.... But +when they desire social amusement they know where to find it." + +"Where?" + +"Where girls who work for a living are unknown. Where they never are +asked, never go, never are expected to go. But that is where such men +are asked, where such men are expected; and it is where they go for +social diversion--not to the Regina with two of Winton's models, nor +to the Cafe Arabesque with an Egyptian Garden chorus girl, nor--" she +hesitated, flushed, and was silent, staring mentally at the image of +C. Bailey, Jr., which her logic and philosophy had inevitably evoked. + +"Then, what is a business girl to do?" asked Catharine, vaguely. + +Athalie shook her golden head, slowly: "Don't ask me." + +Catharine said, still more vaguely: "She must do +something--pleasant--before she's too old and sick to--to care what +happens." + +"I know it.... Men, of that kind, _are_ pleasant.... I don't see why +we shouldn't go out with them. It's all the chance we have. Or will +ever have.... I've thought it over. I don't see that it helps for us +to resent their sisters and mothers and friends. Such women would +never permit us to know them. The nearest we can get to them is to +know their sons." + +"I don't want to know them--" + +"Yes, you do. Be honest, Catharine. Every girl does. And really I +believe if the choice were offered a business girl, she would rather +know the mothers and sisters than the sons." + +"There's no use thinking about it," said Catharine. + +"No, there is no use.... And so I don't see any harm in being friends +with their sons.... It will hurt at times--humiliate us--maybe +embitter us.... But it's that or nothing." + +"We needn't be silly about their sons." + +Athalie opened her dark blue eyes, then laughed confidently: "Oh, as +for anything like _that_! I should hope not. We three ought to know +_something_ by this time." + +"I should think so," murmured Catharine; and her warm, wine-scented +breath fell on Athalie's cheek. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Before February had ended C. Bailey, Jr., and Athalie Greensleeve had +been to more than one play, had dined and supped together more than +once at the Regina. + +The magnificence of the most fashionable restaurant in town had +thrilled and enchanted Athalie. At close range for the first time she +had an opportunity to inspect the rich, the fashionable, and the +great. As for celebrities, they seemed to be merely a by-product of +the gay, animated, beautifully gowned throngs: people she had heard +of, people more important still of whom she had never heard, people +important only to themselves of whom nobody had ever heard thronged +the great rococo rooms. The best hotel orchestra in America played +there; the loveliest flowers, the most magnificent jewels, the most +celebrated cuisine in the entire Republic--all were there for Athalie +Greensleeve to wonder at and to enjoy. There were other things for her +to wonder at, too,--the seemingly exhaustless list of C. Bailey, +Jr.'s, acquaintances; for he was always nodding to somebody or +returning salutes wherever they were, in the theatre, or the street, +in his little limousine car, at restaurants. Men sometimes came up and +spoke and were presented to Athalie: women, never. + +But although she was very happy after her first evening out with C. +Bailey, Jr., she realised that a serious inroad upon her savings was +absolutely necessary if she were to continue her maiden's progress +with this enchanting young man. Clothing of a very different species +than any she had ever permitted herself was now becoming a necessity. +She made the inroad. It was worth while if only to see his surprise +and his naive pride in her. + +And truly the girl was very lovely in the few luxuries she ventured to +acquire--so lovely, indeed, that many heads turned and many eyes +followed her calm and graceful progress in theatre aisle, amid +thronged tables, on the Avenue, anywhere and everywhere she moved +along the path of life now already in flowery bloom for her. + +And beside her, eager, happy, flattered, walked C. Bailey, Jr., very +conscious that he was being envied; very proud of the beautiful young +girl with whom he was so constantly identifying himself, and who, very +obviously, was doing him honour. + +Of his gratified and flattered self-esteem the girl was unconscious; +that he was really happy with her, proud of her appearance, kind to +her beyond reason and even beyond propriety perhaps,--invariably +courteous and considerate, she was vividly aware. And it made her +intensely happy to know that she gave him pleasure and to accept it +from him. + +It _was_ pleasure to Clive; but not entirely unmitigated. His father +asked him once or twice who the girl was of whom "people" were +talking; and when his son said: "She's absolutely all right, father," +Bailey, Sr., knew that she was--so far. + +[Illustration: "C. Bailey, Jr., and Athalie Greensleeve ... had supped +together more than once at the Regina."] + +"But what's the use, Clive?" he asked with a sort of sad humour. "Is +it necessary for you, too, to follow the path of the calf?" + +"I like her." + +"And other men are inclined to, and have no opportunity; is that it, +my son? The fascination of monopoly? The chicken with the worm?" + +"I _like_ her," repeated Clive, Jr., a trifle annoyed. + +"So you have remarked before. Who is she?" + +"Do you remember that charming little child in the red hood and cloak +down at Greensleeve's tavern when we were duck-shooting?" + +"Is _that_ the girl?" + +"Yes." + +"What is she?" + +"Stenographer." + +Bailey, Sr., shrugged his shoulders, patiently. + +"What's the _use_, Clive?" + +"Use? Well there's no particular use. I'm not in love with her. Did +you think I was?" + +"I don't think any more. Your mother does that for me.... Don't make +anybody unhappy, my son." + + * * * * * + +His mother, also, had made very frank representations to him on +several occasions, the burden of them being that common people beget +common ideas, common associations corrupt good manners, and that +"nice" girls would continue to view with disdain and might ultimately +ostracise any misguided young man of their own caste who played about +with a woman for whose existence nobody who was anybody could account. + +"The daughter of a Long Island road-house keeper! Why, Clive! where is +your sense of fitness! Men don't do that sort of thing any more!" + +"What sort of thing, mother?" + +"What you are doing." + +"What am I doing?" + +"Parading a very conspicuous young woman about town." + +"If you saw her in somebody's drawing-room you'd merely think her +beautiful and well-bred." + +"Clive! Will you please awake from that silly dream?" + +"That's the truth, mother. And if she spoke it would merely confirm +the impression. You won't believe it but it's true." + +"That's absurd, Clive! She may not be uneducated but she certainly +cannot be either cultivated or well-bred." + +"She is cultivating herself." + +"Then for goodness' sake let her do it! It's praiseworthy and +commendable for a working girl to try to better herself. But it +doesn't concern you." + +"Why not? If a business girl does better herself and fit herself for a +better social environment, it seems to me her labour is in vain if +people within the desired environment snub her." + +"What kind of argument is that? Socialistic? I merely know it is +unbaked. What theory is it, dear?" + +[Illustration: "Beside her, eager, happy, flattered, walked C. Bailey, +Jr., very conscious that he was being envied."] + +"I don't know what it is. It seems reasonable to me, mother." + +"Clive, are you trying to make yourself sentimentalise over that +Greensleeve woman?" + +"I told you that I am not in love with her; nor is she with me. It's +an agreeable and happy comradeship; that's all." + +"People think it something more," retorted his mother, curtly. + +"That's their fault, not Athalie's and not mine." + +"Then, why do you go about with her? _Why?_ You know girls enough, +don't you?" + +"Plenty. They resemble one another to the verge of monotony." + +"Is that the way you regard the charming, well-born, well-bred, +clever, cultivated girls of your own circle, whose parents were the +friends of your parents?" + +"Oh, mother, I like them of course.... But there's something about a +business girl--a girl in the making--that is more amusing, more +companionable, more interesting. A business girl seems to wear better. +She's better worth talking to, listening to,--it's better fun to go +about with her, see things with her, discuss things--" + +"What on earth are you talking about! It's perfect babble; it's +nonsense! If you really believe you have a penchant for sturdy and +rather grubby worthiness unadorned you are mistaken. The inclination +you have is merely for a pretty face and figure. I know you. If I +don't, who does! You're rather a fastidious young man, even finicky, +and very, very much accustomed to the best and only the best. Don't +talk to me about your disinterested admiration for a working girl. You +haven't anything in common with her, and you never could have. And +you'd better be very careful not to make a fool of yourself." + +"How?" + +"As all men are likely to do at your callow age." + +"Fall in love with her?" + +"You can call it that. The result is always deplorable. And if she's a +smart, selfish, and unscrupulous girl, the result may be more +deplorable still, as far as we all are concerned. What is the need of +my saying this? You are grown; you know it already. Up to the present +time you've kept fastidiously clear of such entanglements. You say you +have, and your father and I believe you. So what is the use of +beginning now,--creating an unfortunate impression in your own set, +spending your time with such a girl as this Greensleeve girl--" + +"Mother," he said, "you're going about this matter in the wrong way. I +am not in love with Athalie Greensleeve. But there is no girl I like +better, none perhaps I like quite as well. Let me alone. There's no +sentiment between her and me so far. There won't be any--unless you +and other people begin to drive us toward each other. I don't want you +to do that. Don't interfere. Let us alone. We're having a good +time,--a perfectly natural, wholesome, happy time together." + +[Illustration: "'I _like_ her,' repeated Clive, Jr., a trifle +annoyed."] + +"What is it leading to?" demanded his mother impatiently. + +"To nothing except more good times. That's absolutely all. That's all +that good times lead to where any of the girls you approve of are +concerned--not to sentiment, not to love, merely to more good times. +Why on earth can't people understand that even if the girl happens to +be earning her own living?" + +"People don't understand. That is the truth, and you can't alter it, +Clive. The girl's reputation will always suffer. And that's where you +ought to show yourself generous." + +"What?" + +"If you really like and respect her." + +"How am I to show myself generous, as you put it?" + +"By keeping away from her." + +"Because people gossip?" + +"Because," said his mother sharply, "they'll think the girl is your +mistress if you continue to decorate public resorts with her." + +"Would--_you_ think so, mother?" + +"No. You happen to be my son. And you're truthful. Otherwise I'd think +so." + +"You would?" + +"Certainly." + +"That's rotten," he said, slowly. + +"Oh, Clive, don't be a fool. You can't do what you're doing without +arousing suspicion everywhere--from a village sewing-circle to the +smartest gathering on Manhattan Island! You know it." + +"I have never thought about it." + +"Then think of it now. Whether it's rotten, as you say, or not, it's +so. It's one of the folk-ways of the human species. And if it is, +merely saying it's rotten can't alter it." + +Mrs. Bailey's car was at the door; Clive took the great sable coat +from the maid who brought it and slipped it over the handsome +afternoon gown that his handsome mother wore. + +For a moment he stood, looking at her almost curiously--at the +brilliant black eyes, the clear smooth olive skin still youthful +enough to be attractive, at the red lips, mostly nature's hue, at the +cheeks where the delicate carmine flush was still mostly nature's. + +He said: "You have so much, mother.... It seems strange you should not +be more generous to a girl you have never seen." + +His handsome, capable, and experienced mother gazed at him out of +friendly and amused eyes from which delusion had long since fled. And +that is where she fell short, for delusion is the offspring of +imagination; and without imagination no intelligence is complete. She +said: "I can be generous with any woman except where my son concerns +himself with her. Where anybody else's son is involved I could be +generous to any girl, even--" she smiled her brilliant smile--"even +perhaps not too maliciously generous. But the situation in your case +doesn't appeal to me as humorous. Keep away from her, Clive; it's +easier than ultimately to run away from her." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +The course of irresponsible amusement which C. Bailey, Jr., continued +to pursue at intervals with the fair scion of the house--road-house--of +Greensleeve, did not run as smoothly as it might have, and was not +unmixed with carping reflections and sordid care on his part, and with +an increasing number of interruptions, admonitions, and warnings on +the part of his mother. + +That pretty lady, flint-hardened in the igneous social lava-pot, +continued to hear disquieting tales of her son's doings. They came to +her right and left, from dance and card-table, opera-box and supper +party, tea and bazaar and fashionable reception. + +One grim-visaged old harridan of whom Manhattan stood in fawning fear, +bluntly informed her that she'd better look out for her boy if she +didn't want to become a grandmother. + +Which infuriated and terrified Mrs. Bailey and set her thinking with +all the implacable concentration of which she was capable. + +So far in life she had accomplished whatever she set out to do.... And +of all things on earth she dreaded most to become a grandmother of any +description whatever. + +But between Athalie and Clive, if there had been any doubts concerning +the propriety or expediency of their companionship neither he nor she +had, so far, expressed them. + +Their comradeship, in fact, had now become an intimacy--the sort that +permits long silences without excuse or embarrassment on either side. +She continued to charm and surprise him; and to discover, daily, in +him new traits to admire in a character which perhaps he did not +really possess. + +In this girl he seemed to find an infinite variety. Moods, impulsive +or deliberate, and capricious or logical, continued to stimulate his +interest in her every time they met. On no two days was she exactly +the same--or so he seemed to think. And yet her basic qualities were, +it appeared to him, characteristic and unvarying,--directness, +loyalty, generosity, freedom from ulterior motive and a gay confidence +in a world which, for the first time in her life, she had begun to +find unexpectedly exciting. + +They had been one evening to a musical comedy which by some fortunate +chance was well written, well sung, and well done. And they were in +excellent spirits as they left the theatre and stood waiting for his +small limousine car, she in her pretty furs held close to her throat, +humming under her breath a refrain from the delightful finale, he +smoking a cigarette and watching the numbers being flashed for the +long line of carriages and motors which moved up continually through +the lamp-lit darkness. + +"Athalie," he said, "suppose we side-step the Regina and try +Broadway. Are you in the humour for it?" + +She laughed and her eyes sparkled in the electric glow: "Are you, +Clive?" + +"Yes, I am. I feel very devilish." + +"So do I,--devilishly hungry." + +"That's fine. Where shall we go?" + +"The Cafe Arabesque?... The name sounds exciting." + +"All right--" as his car drew up and the gold-capped porter opened the +door;--so he directed his chauffeur to drive them to the Cafe +Arabesque. + +"If you don't like it," he added to Athalie, drawing the fur robe over +her knees and his, "we can go somewhere else." + +"That's very nice of you. I don't have to suffer for my mistakes." + +"Nobody ever ought to suffer for mistakes because nobody would ever +make mistakes on purpose," he said, laughing. + +"Such a delightful philosophy! Please remind me of it when I'm in +agony over something I'm sorry I did." + +"I'm afraid you'll have to remind me too," he said, still laughing. +"Is it a bargain?" + +"Certainly." + +The car stopped; he sprang out and aided her to the icy sidewalk. + +"I don't think I ever saw you as pretty as you are to-night," he +whispered, slipping his arm under hers. + +"_Are_ you really growing more beautiful or do I merely think so?" + +"I don't know," she said, happily; "I'll tell you a secret, shall I?" + +He inclined his ear toward her, and she said in a laughing whisper: +"Clive, I _feel_ beautiful to-night. Do you know how it feels to feel +beautiful?" + +"Not personally," he admitted; and they separated still laughing like +two children, the focus of sympathetic, amused, or envious glances +from the brilliantly dressed throng clustering at the two cloak rooms. + +She came to him presently where he was waiting, and, instinctively the +groups around the doors made a lane for the fair young girl who came +forward with the ghost of a smile on her lips as though entirely +unconscious of herself and of everybody except the man who moved out +to meet her. + +"It's true," he murmured; "you _are_ the most beautiful thing in this +beauty-ridden town." + +"You'll spoil me, Clive." + +"Is that possible?" + +"I don't know. Don't try. There is a great deal in me that has never +been disturbed, never been brought out. Maybe much of it is evil," she +added lightly. + +He turned; she met his eyes half seriously, half mockingly, and they +laughed. But what she had said so lightly in jest remained for a few +moments in his mind to occupy and slightly trouble it. + +From their table beside the bronze-railed gallery, they could overlook +the main floor where a wide lane for dancing had been cleared and +marked out with crimson-tasselled ropes of silk. + +A noisy orchestra played imbecile dance music, and a number of male +and female imbeciles took advantage of it to exercise the only +portions of their anatomy in which any trace of intellect had ever +lodged. + +Athalie, resting one dimpled elbow on the velvet cushioned rail, +watched the dancers for a while, then her unamused and almost +expressionless gaze swept the tables below with a leisurely absence of +interest which might have been mistaken for insolence--and envied as +such by a servile world which secretly adores it. + +"Well, Lady Greensleeves?" he said, watching her. + +"Some remarkable Poiret and Lucille gowns, Clive.... And a great deal +of paint." She remained a moment in the same attitude--leisurely +inspecting the throng below, then turned to him, her calm +preoccupation changing to a shyly engaging smile. + +"Are you still of the same mind concerning my personal +attractiveness?" + +"I _have_ spoiled you!" he concluded, pretending chagrin. + +"Is that spoiling me--to hear you say you approve of me?" + +"Of course not, you dear girl! Nothing could ever spoil you." + +She lifted her Clover Club, looking across the frosty glass at him; +and the usual rite was silently completed. They were hungry; her +appetite was always a natural and healthy one, and his sometimes +matched it, as happened that night. + +"Now, this is wonderful," he said, lighting a cigarette between +courses and leaning forward, elbows on the cloth, and his hands +clasped under his chin; "a good show, a good dinner, and good company. +What surfeited monarch could ask more?" + +"Why mention the company last, Clive?" + +"I've certainly spoiled you," he said with a groan; "you've tasted +adulation; you prefer it to your dinner." + +"The question is do _you_ prefer my company to the dinner and the +show? _Do_ you! If so why mention me last in the catalogue of your +blessings?" + +"I always mention you last in my prayers--so that whoever listens will +more easily remember," he said gaily. + +The laughter still made the dark blue eyes brilliant but they grew +more serious when she said: "You don't really ever _pray_ for me, +Clive. Do you?" + +"Yes. Why not?" + +The smile faded in her eyes and in his. + +"I didn't know you prayed at all," she remarked, looking down at her +wine glass. + +"It's one of those things I happen to do," he said with a slight +shrug. + +They mused for a while in silence, her mind pursuing its trend back to +childhood, his idly considering the subject of prayer and wondering +whether the habit had become too mechanical with him, or whether his +less selfish petitions might possibly carry to the Source of All +Things. + +Then having drifted clear of this nebulous zone of thought, and +coffee having been served, they came back to earth and to each other +with slight smiles of recognition--delicate salutes acknowledging each +other's presence and paramount importance in a world which was going +very gaily. + +They discussed the play; she hummed snatches of its melodies below her +breath at intervals, her dark blue eyes always fixed on him and her +ears listening to him alone. Particularly now; for his mood had +changed and he was drifting back toward something she had said earlier +in the evening--something about her own possible capacity for good and +evil. It was a question, only partly serious; and she responded in the +same vein: + +"How should I know what capabilities I possess? Of course I have +capabilities. No doubt, dormant within me lies every besetting sin, +every human failing. Perhaps also the cardinal, corresponding, and +antidotic virtues to all of these." + +"I suppose," he said, "every sin has its antithesis. It's like a chess +board--the human mind--with the black men ranged on one side and the +white on the other, ready to move, to advance, skirmish, threaten, +manoeuvre, attack, and check each other, and the intervening squares +represent the checkered battlefield of contending desires." + +The simile striking her as original and clever, she made him a pretty +compliment. She was very young in her affections. + +"If," she nodded, "a sin, represented by a black piece, dares to stir +or intrude or threaten, then there is always the better thought, +represented by a white piece, ready to block and check the black one. +Is that it?" + +"Exactly," he said, secretly well pleased with himself. And as for +Athalie, she admired his elastic and eloquent imagination beyond +words. + +"Do you know," she said, "you have never yet told me anything about +your business. Is it all right for me to ask, Clive?" + +"Certainly. It's real estate--Bailey, Reeve, and Willis. Willis is +dead, Reeve out of it, and my father and I are the whole show." + +"Reeve?" she repeated, interested. + +"Yes, he lives in Paris, permanently. He has a son here, in the +banking business." + +"Cecil Reeve?" + +"Yes. Do you know him?" + +"No. My sister Catharine does." + +Clive seemed interested and curious: "Cecil Reeve and I were at +Harvard together. I haven't seen much of him since." + +"What sort is he, Clive?" + +"Nice--Oh, very nice. A good sport;--a good deal of a sport.... Which +sister did you say?" + +"Catharine." + +"That's the cunning little one with the baby stare and brown curls?" + +"Yes." + +There was a silence. Clive sat absently fidgeting with his glass, and +Athalie watched him. Presently without looking up he said: "Yes, Cecil +Reeve is a very decent sport.... Rather gay. Good-looking chap. Nice +sort.... But rather a sport, you know." + +The girl nodded. + +"Catharine mustn't believe all he says," he added with a laugh. "Cecil has +a way--I'm not knocking him, you understand--but a young--inexperienced +girl--might take him a little bit too seriously.... Of course your sister +wouldn't." + +"No, I don't think so.... Are _you_ that way, too?" + +He raised his eyes: "Do you think I am, Athalie?" + +"No.... But I can't help wondering--a little uneasily at times--how +you can find me as--as companionable as you say you do.... I can't +help wondering how long it will last." + +"It will last as long as you do." + +"But you are sure to find me out sooner or later, Clive." + +"Find you out?" + +"Yes--discover my limits, exhaust my capacity for entertaining you, +extract the last atom of amusement out of me. And--what _then_?" + +"Athalie! What nonsense!" + +"Is it?" + +"Certainly it's nonsense. How can I possibly tire of such a girl as +you? I scarcely even know you yet. I don't begin to know you. Why you +are a perfectly unexplored, undiscovered girl to me, yet!" + +"Am I?" she asked, laughing. "I supposed you had discovered about all +there is to me." + +He shook his head, looking at her curiously perplexed: "Every time we +meet you are different. You always have interesting views on any +subject. You stimulate my imagination. How could I tire? + +"Besides, somehow I am always aware of reserved and hidden forces in +you--of a character which I only partly know and admire--capabilities, +capacities of which I am ignorant except that, intuitively, I seem to +know they are part of you." + +"Am I as complex as that to you?" + +"Sometimes," he admitted. "You are just now for example. But usually +you are only a wonderfully interesting and charming girl who brings +out the best side of me and keeps me amused and happy every moment +that I am with you." + +"There really is not much more to me than that," she said in a low +voice. "You sum me up--a gay source of amusement: nothing more." + +"Athalie, you know you are more vital than that to me." + +"No, I don't know it." + +"You do! You know it in your own heart. You know that it is a +straight, clean, ardent friendship that inspires me and--" she looked +up, serious, and very quiet. + +--"You know," he continued impulsively, "that it is not only your +beauty, your loveliness and grace and that inexplicable charm you seem +to radiate, that brings me to seek you every time that I have a moment +to do so. + +"Why, if it were that alone, it would all have been merely a matter of +sentiment. Have I ever been sentimental with you?" + +"No." + +"Have I ever made love to you?" + +She did not reply. Her eyes were fixed on her glass. + +"Have I, Athalie?" he repeated. + +"No, Clive," she said gently. + +"Well then; is there not on my part a very deep, solidly founded, and +vital friendship for you? Is there not a--" + +"Don't let's talk about it," she interrupted in a low voice. "You +always make me very happy; you say I please you--interest and amuse +you. That is enough--more than enough--more than I ever hoped or +asked--" + +"I said you make me happy;--happier than I have ever been," he +explained with emphasis. "Do you suppose for a moment that your regard +for me is warmer, deeper, more enduring, than is mine for you? Do you, +Athalie?" + +She lifted her eyes to his. But she had nothing more to say on the +subject. + +However, he began to insist,--a little impatiently,--on a direct +answer. And finally she said: + +"Clive, you came into a rather empty life when you came into mine. +Judge how completely you have filled it.... And what it would be if +you went out of it. Your own life has always been full. If I should +disappear from it--" she ceased. + +The quiet, accentless, almost listless dignity of the words surprised +and impressed him for a moment; then the reaction came in a faint glow +through every vein and a sudden impulse to respond to her with an +assurance of devotion a little out of key with the somewhat stately +and reserved measure of their duet called friendship. + +"You also fill my life," he said. "You give me what I never had--an +intimacy and an understanding that satisfies. Had I my way I would be +with you all the time. No other woman interests me as you do. There +_is_ no other woman." + +"Oh, Clive! And all the charming people you know--" + +"I know many. None like you, Athalie." + +"That is very sweet of you.... I'm trying to believe it.... I want +to.... There are many days to fill in when I am not with you. To fill +them with such a belief would be to shorten them.... I don't know. I +often wonder where you are; what you are doing; with what stately and +beautiful creature you are talking, laughing, walking, dancing."--She +shrugged her shoulders and gazed down at the dancers below. "The days +are very long, sometimes," she added, half to herself. + +When again, calmly, she turned to him there was an odd expression on +his face, and the next second he reddened and shifted his gaze. +Neither spoke for a few moments. + +Presently she began to draw on her gloves, but he continued staring +into space, not noticing her, and finally she bent forward and rested +her slim gloved fingers on his hand, lightly, interrogatively. + +"Yes; all right," he muttered. + +"I have to go to business in the morning," she pleaded. He turned +almost impatiently: + +"If I had my way you wouldn't go to business at all." + +"If I had my way I wouldn't either," she rejoined, smilingly. But his +youthful visage remained sober and flushed. And when they were seated +in the limousine and the fur rug enveloped them both, he said +abruptly: + +"I'm getting tired of this business." + +"What business, Clive?" + +"Everything--the way you live--your inadequate quarters--your having +to work all day long in that stuffy office, day after day, year after +year!" + +She said, surprised and perplexed: "But it can't be helped, Clive! I +have to work." + +"Why?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"I mean--what good am I to you--what's the use of me, if I can't make +things easier for you?" + +"The _use_ of you? Did you think I ever had any idea of using you?" + +"But I want you to." + +"How?" she asked, still uneasily perplexed, her eyes fixed on him. + +But he had no definite idea, no plan fixed, nothing further to say on +a subject that had so suddenly taken shape within his mind. + +She asked him again for an explanation, but, receiving none, settled +back thoughtfully in her furs. Only once did he break the silence. + +"You know," he said indifferently, "that row of houses, of which +yours is one, belongs to me. I mean to me, personally." + +"No, I didn't know it." + +"Well it does. It's my own investment.... I've reduced rents--pending +improvements." + +She looked up at him. + +"The rent of your apartment has been reduced fifty per cent.," he said +carelessly; "so your rent is now paid until the new term begins next +October." + +"Clive! That is perfectly ridiculous!" she began, hotly; but he swung +around, silencing her: + +"Are you criticising my business methods?" he demanded. + +"But that is too silly--" + +"Will you mind your business!" he exclaimed, turning and taking her by +both shoulders. She looked into his eyes, searching them in silence. +Then: + +"You're such a dear," she sighed; "why do you want to do a thing like +that when my sisters and I can afford to pay the present rent. You are +always doing such things, Clive; you have simply covered my +dressing-table with silver; my bureau is full of pretty things, all +gifts from you; you've given me the loveliest furniture of my own, and +books and desk-set and--and everything. And now you are asking me to +live rent-free.... And what have I to offer you in return?" + +"The happiness of being with you now and then." + +"Oh, Clive! You know that isn't very much to offer you. You know that +our being together is far more to me than it is to you! I dare not +even consider what I'd do without you, now. You mould me, alter my +thoughts, make me such a delightfully different girl, take entire +charge and possession of me.... I don't want you to give me anything +more--do anything more for me.... When you first began to give me +beautiful things I didn't want to take them. Do you remember how +awkward and shy I was--how I blushed. But I always end by doing +everything you wish.... And it seems to give us both so much +pleasure--all you do for me.... But please _don't_ ask me to live +without paying rent--" + +The limousine drew up by the curb; Clive jumped out, aided Athalie to +descend; and started for the grilled door where a light glimmered. + +"This is not the house!" exclaimed Athalie, stopping short. "Where are +you taking me, Clive?" + +"Come on," he said, "I merely want to show you how I've had the new +apartment house built--" + +"But--it's too late! What an odd idea, taking me to inspect a new +apartment house at two in the morning! Are you really serious?" + +He nodded and rang. A sleepy night porter opened, recognised Clive, +and touched his hat. + +"Take us to the top, Mike," he said. + +"Have you the keys, sorr?" + +"Yes." + +They entered the cage and it shot up to the top floor. + +"Wait for us, Mike."... And to Athalie: "This is Michael Daly who will +do anything you ask of him--won't you, Mike?" + +"I will that, sorr," said the big Irishman, tipping his hat to +Athalie. + +"But, Clive," she persisted, bewildered, still clinging to his arm, "I +don't understand why--" + +"Little goose, hush!" he replied, subduing the excitement in his voice +and fitting the key into the door. + +"One moment, Athalie," he added, "until I light up. Now!" + +She entered the lighted hallway, walking on a soft green carpet, and +turned, obeying the guiding pressure of his arm, into a big square +room which sprang into brilliant illumination as he found the switch. + +Green and gold were the hangings and prevailing colours; there were +rugs, wide, comfortable chairs and lounges, bookcases, a picture or +two in deep glowing colours, a baby-grand piano, and an open fire +loaded for business. + +"Is it done in good taste, Athalie?" he asked. + +"It is charming. Is it yours, Clive?" + +He laughed, slipped his arm under hers and led her along the hallway, +opening door after door; and first she was invited to observe a very +modern and glistening bathroom, then a bedroom all done in grey and +rose with dainty white furniture and a white-bear rug beside the bed. + +"Why this is a woman's room!" she exclaimed, puzzled. + +He only laughed and drew her along the hall, showing her another +bedroom with twin beds, a maid's room, a big clothes press, and +finally, a completely furnished kitchen, very modern with its +porcelain baseboard and tiled walls. + +"What do you think of all this, Athalie?" he insisted. + +"Why it's exquisite, Clive. Whose is it?" + +They walked back to the square living-room. He said, teasingly: "Do +you remember, the first time I saw you after those four years,--that +first evening when I came in to surprise you and found you sitting by +the radiator--in your nightie, Athalie?" + +"Yes," she said, laughing and blushing as she always did when he +tormented her with that souvenir. + +"And I said that you ought to have an open fire. And a cat. Didn't I?" + +"Yes." + +"There's your fire, Athalie;" he drew a match from his tiny flat gold +case, struck it, and lighted the nest of pine shavings under the +logs;--"and Michael has the cat when you want it." + +He drew a big soft arm-chair to the mounting blaze. Athalie stood +motionless, staring at the flames, then with a sudden, nervous gesture +she sank down on the arm-chair and covered her face with her gloved +hands. + +He stood waiting, happy and excited, and finally he went over and +touched her; and the girl caught his hand convulsively in both of hers +and looked up at him with wet eyes. + +"How can I do this, Clive? How _can_ I?" she whispered. + +"Any brother would do as much for his sister--" + +"Oh, Clive! You are different! You are _more_ than that. You know you +are. How can I take all this? Will you tell me? How can I live +here--this way--" + +"Your sisters will be here. You saw their room just now--" + +"But what can I _tell_ them? How can I explain? They know we cannot +afford such luxury as this?" + +"Tell them the rent is the same." + +"They won't believe it. They couldn't. They don't understand even now +how it is with you and me--that you are so dear and generous and kind +just because you are my friend--and no more than my friend.... Not +that they really believe--anything--unpleasant--of _me_--but--but--" + +"What do you care--as long as it isn't so?" he said, coolly. + +"I don't care. Except that it weakens my authority over them.... +Catharine is very impulsive, and she dearly loves a good time--and she +is becoming sullen with me when I try to advise her or curb her.... +And it's so with Doris, too.... I'd like to keep my influence.... But +if they ever really began to believe that between you and me there +was--more--than friendship, I--I don't know what they might feel free +to think--or do--" + +"They're older than you." + +"Yes. But I seem to have the authority,--or I did have." + +They looked into the leaping flames; he threw open his fur coat and +seated himself on the padded arm of her chair. + +"All I know is," he said, "that it gives me the deepest and most +enduring happiness to do things for you. When the architect planned +this house I had him design a place for you. Ultimately all the row of +old houses are to be torn down and replaced by modern apartments with +moderate rentals. So you will have to move anyway sooner or later. Why +not come here _now_?" + +Half unconsciously she had rested her cheek against the fur lining of +his coat where it fell against his arm. He looked down at her, touched +her hair--a thing he had never thought of doing before. + +"Why not come here, Athalie?" he said caressingly. + +"I don't know. It would be heavenly. Do you want me to, Clive?" + +"Yes. And I want you to begin to put away part of your salary, too. +You might as well begin, now. You will be free from the burden of +rent, free from--various burdens--" + +"I--can't--let you--" + +"I want to!" + +"Why?" + +"Because it gives me pleasure--" + +"No; because you desire to give _me_ pleasure! _That_ is the reason!" +she exclaimed with partly restrained passion--"because you are +_you_--and there is nobody like you in all the world--in all the +world, Clive!--" + +To her emotion his own flashed a quick, warm response. He looked down +at her, deeply touched, his pride gratified, his boyish vanity +satisfied. Always had the simplicity and candour of her quick and +ardent gratitude corroborated and satisfied whatever was in him of +youthful self-esteem. Everything about her seemed to minister to +it--her attention in public places was undisguisedly for him alone; +her beauty, her superb youth and health, the admiring envy of other +people--all these flattered him. + +Why should he not find pleasure in giving to such a girl as +this?--giving without scruple--unscrupulous too, perhaps, concerning +the effect his generosity might have on a cynical world which looked +on out of wearied and incredulous eyes; unscrupulous, perhaps, +concerning the effect his too lavish kindness might have on a young +girl unaccustomed to men and the ways of men. + +But there was no harm in him; he was very much self-assured of that. +He had been too carefully brought up--far too carefully reared. And +had people ventured to question him, and had they escaped alive his +righteous violence, they would have learned that there really was not +the remotest chance that his mother was in danger of becoming what she +most dreaded in all the world. + + * * * * * + +The fire burned lower; they sat watching it together, her flushed +cheek against the fur of his coat, his arm extended along the back of +the chair behind her. + +"Well," he said, "this has been another happy evening." + +She stirred in assent, and he felt the lightest possible pressure +against him. + +"Are you contented, Athalie?" + +"Yes." + +After a moment he glanced at his watch. It was three o'clock. So he +rose, placed the screen over the fireplace, and then came back to +where she now stood, looking very intently at the opposite wall. And +he turned to see what interested her. But there seemed to be nothing +in particular just there. + +"What are you staring at, little ghost-seer?" he asked, passing his +hand under her arm; and stepped back, surprised, as she freed herself +with a quick, nervous movement, looked at him, then averted her head. + +"What is the matter, Athalie?" he inquired. + +"Nothing.... Don't touch me, Clive." + +"No, of course not.... But what in the world--" + +"Nothing.... Don't ask me." Presently he saw her very slowly move her +head and look back at the empty corner of the room; and remain so, +motionless for a moment. Then she turned with a sigh, came quietly to +him; and he drew her hand through his arm. + +"Of what were you thinking, Athalie?" + +"Of nothing." + +"Did you think you saw something over there?" + +She was silent. + +"What were you looking at?" he insisted. + +"Nothing.... I don't care to talk just now--" + +"Tell me, Athalie!" + +"No.... No, I don't want to, Clive--" + +"I wish to know!" + +"I can't--there is nothing to tell you--" she laid one hand on his +coat, almost pleadingly, and looked up at him out of eyes so dark +that only the starry light in them betrayed that they were blue and +not velvet black. + +"That same thing has happened before," he said, looking at her, deeply +perplexed. "Several times since I have known you the same expression +has come into your face--as though you were looking at something +which--" + +"Please don't, Clive!--" + +"--Which," he insisted, "I did not see.... _Could_ not see!" + +"Clive!" + +He stared at her rather blankly: "Why don't you tell me?" + +"I--can't!" + +"_Is_ there anything--" + +"Don't! Don't!" she begged; but he went on, still staring at her: + +"Is there any reason for you to--not to be frank with me? _Is_ there, +Athalie?" + +"No; no reason.... I'll tell you ... if you will understand. _Must_ I +tell you?" + +"Yes." + +Her head fell; she stood plucking nervously at his fur coat for a +while in silence. Then: + +"Clive, I--I _see clearly_." + +"What?" + +"I mean that I see a--a little more clearly than--some do. Do you +understand?" + +"No." + +She sighed, stood twisting her white-gloved fingers, looking away from +him. + +"I am clairvoyant," she breathed. + +"Athalie! _You?_" + +She nodded. + +For a second or two he stood silent in his astonishment; then, taking +her hand, he drew her around facing the light, and she looked up at +him in her lovely abashed way, yet so honestly, that anybody who could +recognise truth and candour, could never have mistaken such eyes as +hers. + +"Who told you that you are clairvoyant?" he asked. + +"My mother." + +"Then--" + +"It was not necessary for anybody to tell me that I saw--more +clearly--than other people.... Mother knew it.... She merely explained +and gave a name to this--this--whatever it is--this quality--this +ability to see clearly.... That is all, Clive." + +He was evidently trying to comprehend and digest what she had said. +She watched him, saw surprise and incredulity in conflict with +uneasiness and with the belief he could not avoid from lips that were +not fashioned for lies, and from eyes never made to even look +untruths. + +"I had never supposed there was such a thing as real clairvoyance," he +said at last. + +She remained silent, her candid gaze on him. + +"I believe that _you_ believe it, of course." + +She smiled, then sighed: + +"There is no pleasure in it to me. I wish it were not so." + +"But, if it is so, you ought to find it--interesting--" + +"No." + +"Why not? I should think you would!--if you can see--things--that +other people cannot." + +"I don't care to see them." + +"Why?" + +"They--I see them so often--and I seldom know who they are--" + +"They?" + +"The--people--I see." + +"Don't they ever speak to you?" + +"Seldom." + +"Could you find out who they are?" + +"I don't know.... Yes, I think so;--if I made an effort." + +"Don't you ever use any effort to evoke--" + +"Oh, Clive! _No!_ When I tell you I had rather not see so--so +clearly--" + +"You dear girl!" he exclaimed, half smiling, half serious, "why should +it distress you?" + +"It doesn't--except to talk about it." + +"Let me ask one more question. May I?" + +She nodded. + +"Then--did you recognise whoever it was you saw a few moments ago?" + +"Yes." + +"Who was it, Athalie?" + +"My mother." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Early in April C. Bailey, Jr., overdrew his account, was politely +notified of that oversight by the bank. He hunted about, casually, for +stray funds, but to his intense surprise discovered nothing +immediately available. + +Which annoyed him, and he explained the situation to his father; who +demanded further and sordidly searching explanations concerning the +expenditure on his son's part of an income more than adequate for any +unmarried young man. + +They undertook this interesting line of research together, but there +came a time in the proceedings when C. Bailey, Jr., betrayed violent +inclinations toward reticence, non-communication, and finally secrecy; +in fact he declined to proceed any further or to throw any more light +upon his reasons for not proceeding, which symptoms were +characteristic and perfectly familiar to his father. + +"The trouble is," concluded Bailey, Sr., "you have been throwing away +your income on that Greensleeve girl! What is she--your private +property?" + +"No." + +The two men looked at each other, steadily enough. Bailey, Sr., said: +"If _that's_ the case--why in the name of common sense do you spend so +much money on her?" Naive logic on the part of Bailey, Sr., Clive +replied: + +"I didn't suppose I was spending very much. I like her. I like her +better than any other girl. She is really wonderful, father. You won't +believe it if I say she is charming, well-bred, clever--" + +"I believe _that_!" + +--"And," continued Clive--"absolutely unselfish and non-mercenary." + +"If she's all that, too, it certainly seems to pay her--materially +speaking." + +"You don't understand," said his son patiently. "From the very +beginning of our friendship it has been very difficult for me to make +her accept anything--even when she was in actual need. Our friendship +is not on _that_ basis. She doesn't care for me because of what I do +for her. It may surprise you to hear me--" + +"My son, nothing surprises me any more, not even virtue and honesty. +This girl may be all you think her. Personally I never met any like +her, but I've read about them in sentimental fiction. No doubt there's +a basis for such popular heroines. There may have been such paragons. +There may be yet. Perhaps you've collided with one of these feminine +curiosities." + +"I have." + +"All right, Clive. Only, why linger longer in the side-show than the +price of admission warrants? The main tent awaits you. In more modern +metaphor; it's the same film every hour, every day, the same +orchestrion, the same environment. You've seen enough. There's nothing +more--if I clearly understand your immaculate intentions. Do I?" + +"Yes," said Clive, reddening. + +"All right; there's nothing more, then. It's time to retire. You've +had your amusement, and you've paid for it like a gentleman--very much +like a gentleman--rather exorbitantly. That's the way a gentleman +always pays. So now suppose you return to your own sort and coyly +reappear amid certain circles recently neglected, and which, at one +period of your career, you permitted yourself to embellish and adorn +with your own surpassing personality." + +They both laughed; there had been, always, a very tolerant +understanding between them. + +Then Clive's face grew graver. + +"Father," he said, "I've tried remaining away. It doesn't do any good. +The longer I stay away from her, the more anxious I am to go back.... +It's really friendship I tell you." + +"You're not in love with her, are you, Clive?" + +The son hesitated: "No!... No, I can't be. I'm very certain that I am +not." + +"What would you do if you were?" + +"But--" + +"What would you _do_ about it?" + +"I don't know." + +"Marry her?" + +"I couldn't do that!" muttered Clive, startled. Then he remained +silent, his mind crowded with the component parts of that vague +sum-total which had so startled him at the idea of marrying Athalie +Greensleeve. + +Partly his father's blunt question had jarred him, partly the idea of +marrying anybody at all. Also the mere idea of the storm such a +proceeding would raise in the world he inhabited, his mother being the +storm-centre, dispensing anathema, thunder, and lightning, appalled +him. + +"What!" + +"I couldn't do _that_," he repeated, gazing rather blankly at his +father. + +"You could if you _had_ to," said his father, curtly. "But I take your +word it couldn't come to that." + +The boy flushed hotly, but said nothing. He shrank from comprehending +such an impossible situation, ashamed for himself, ashamed for +Athalie, resenting even the exaggerated and grotesque possibility of +such a thing--such a monstrous and horrible thing playing any part in +her life or in his. + +The frankness and cynicism of Bailey, Sr., had possibly been pushed +too far. Clive became restless; and the calm entente cordiale ended +for a while. + +Ended also his visits to Athalie for a while, the paternal +conversation having, somehow, chilled his desire to see her and +spoiled, for the time anyway, any pleasure in being with her. + +Also his father offered to help him out financially; and, somehow, he +felt as though Bailey, Sr., was paying for his own gifts to Athalie. +Which idea mortified him, and he resolved to remain away from her +until he recovered his self-respect--which would be duly recovered, +he felt certain, when the next coupons fell due and he could detach +them and extinguish the parental loan. + +For a week or two he did not even wish to see her, so ashamed and +sullied did he feel after the way his father had handled and bruised +the delicate situation, and the name of the young girl who so +innocently adorned it. + +No, something had been spoiled for him, temporarily. He felt it. +Something of the sweetness, the innocence, the candour of this +blameless friendship had been marred. The bloom was rubbed off; the +piquant freshness and fragrance gone for the present. + +It is true that an unexpected boom in his business kept him and his +father almost feverishly active and left them both fatigued at night. +This lasted for a week or two--long enough to excite all real estate +men with a hope for future prosperity not yet entirely dead. But at +the end of two or three weeks that hope began to die its usual, +lingering death. + +Dulness set in; the talk was of Harlem, Westchester, and the Bronx: a +private bank failed, then three commercial houses went to the wall; +and a seat was sold for $25,000 on the Exchange. Business resumed its +normal and unexaggerated course. The days of boom were surely ended; +and vacant lots on Fifth Avenue threatened to remain vacant for a +while longer. + +Clive began to drop in at his clubs again. One was a Whipper-Snapper +Club to which young Manhattan aspired when freshly released from +college; the others were of the fashionable and semi-fashionable sort, +tedious, monotonous, full of the aimless, the idle, or of that +bustling and showy smartness which is perhaps even less admirable and +less easy to endure. + +Men destitute of mental resources and dependent upon others for their +amusement, disillusioned men, lazy men, socially ambitious men, men +gluttonously or alcoholically predisposed haunted these clubs. To one +of them repaired those who were inclined to racquettes, squash, +tennis, and the swimming tank. It was a sort of social clearing house +for other clubs. + +But The Geyser was the least harmless of the clubs affected by C. +Bailey, Jr.,--it being an all-night resort and the haunt of the +hopeless sport. Here dissipation, futile, aimless, meaningless, was on +its native heath. Here, on his own stamping ground, prowled the +youthful scion of many a dissipated race--nouveau riche and +Knickerbocker alike. All that was required of anybody was money and a +depthless capacity. + +It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil Reeve one stormy +midnight. + +"You don't come here often, do you?" said the latter. + +Clive said he didn't. + +"Neither do I. But when I do there's a few doing. Will you have a high +one, Clive? In deference to our late and revered university?" + +Clive would so far consent to degrade himself for the honour of Alma +Mater. + +There was much honour done her that evening. + +Toward the beginning of the end Clive said: "I can't sit up all night, +Cecil. What do you do for a living, anyway?" + +"Bank a bit." + +[Illustration: "It was in this place that Clive encountered Cecil +Reeve one stormy midnight."] + +"Oh, that's just amusement. What do you work at?" + +"I didn't mean that kind of bank!" said Reeve, annoyed. All sense of +humour fled him when hammerlocked with Bacchus. At such psychological +moments, too, he became indiscreet. And now he proposed to Clive an +excursion amid what he termed the "high lights of Olympus," which the +latter discouraged. + +"All right then. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give a Byzantine +party! I know a little girl--" + +"Oh, shut up!" + +"She's a fine little girl, Clive--" + +"This is no hour to send out invitations." + +"Why not? Her name is Catharine--" + +"Dry up!" + +"Catharine Greensleeve--" + +"What!" + +"Certainly. She's a model at Winton's joint. She's a peach. +Appropriately crowned with roses she might have presided for +Lucullus." + +Clive said: "By that you mean she's all right, don't you? You'd better +mean it anyway!" + +"Is that so?" + +"Yes, that's so. I know her sister. She's a charming girl. All of them +are all right. You understand, don't you?" + +"I understand numerous things. One of 'em's Catharine Greensleeve. And +she's some plum, believe _me_!" + +"That's all right, too, so stop talking about it!" retorted Clive +sharply. + +"Sure it's all right. Don't worry, just because you know her sister, +will you?" + +Clive shrugged. Reeve was in a troublesome mood, and he left him and +went home feeling vaguely irritated and even less inclined than ever +to see Athalie; which state of mind perplexed and irritated him still +further. + + * * * * * + +He went to one or two dances during the week--a thing he had not done +lately. Then he went to several more; also to a number of debutante +theatre parties and to several suppers. He rather liked being with his +own sort again; the comfortable sense of home-coming, of +conventionalism, of a pleasant social security, appealed to him after +several months' irresponsible straying from familiar paths. And he +began to go about the sheep-walks and enjoy it, slipping back rather +easily into accustomed places and relations with men and women who +belonged in a world never entered, never seen by Athalie Greensleeve, +and of the existence of which she was aware only through the daily +papers. + +He wrote to her now and then. Always she answered his letter the +following day. + +About the end of April he wrote: + + "DEAR ATHALIE, + + "About everything seems to conspire to keep me from seeing + you; business--in a measure,--social duties; and, to tell the + truth, a mistaken but strenuous opposition on my mother's + part. + + "She doesn't know you, and refuses to. But she knows me, + and ought to infer everything delightful in the girl who has + become my friend. Because she knows that I don't, and never + did affect the other sort. + +[Illustration: "He rather liked being with his own sort again."] + + "Every day, recently, she has asked me whether I have seen + you. To avoid unpleasant discussions I haven't gone to see + you. But I am going to as soon as this unreasonable alarm + concerning us blows over. + + "It seems very deplorable to me that two young people cannot + enjoy an absolutely honest friendship unsuspected and + undisturbed. + + "I miss you a lot. Is the apartment comfortable? Does Michael + do everything you wish? Did the cat prove a good one? I sent + for the best Angora to be had from the Silver Cloud Cattery. + + "Now tell me, Athalie, what can I do for you? _Please!_ What + is it you need; what is it you would like to have? Are you + saving part of your salary? + + "Tell me also what you do with yourself after business hours. + Have you seen any shows? I suppose you go out with your + sisters now and then. + + "As for me I go about more or less. For a while I didn't: + business seemed to revive and everybody in real estate became + greatly excited. But it all simmered down again to the usual + routine. So I've been going about to various affairs, dances + and things. And, consequently, there's peace and quiet at + home for me. + "Always yours, + "C BAILEY, JR." + + "P.S. As I sit here writing you the desire seizes me to drop + my pen, put on my hat and coat and go to see you. But I + can't. There's a dinner on here, and I've got to stay for it. + Good night, dear Athalie! + "CLIVE." + +His answer came by return mail as usual: + + "DEAR CLIVE, + + "Your letter has troubled me so much. If your mother feels + that way about me, what are we to do? Is it right for us to + see each other? + + "It is true that I am not conscious of any wrong in seeing + you and in being your friend. I know that I never had an + unworthy thought concerning you. And I feel confident that + your thoughts regarding our friendship and me are blameless. + Where lies the wrong? + + "_Some_ aspects of the affair _have_ troubled me lately. + Please do not be sensitive and take offence, Clive, if I + admit to you that I never have quite reconciled myself to + accepting anything from you. + + "What I have accepted has been for your own sake--for the + pleasure you found in giving, not for my own sake. + + "I wanted only your friendship. That was enough--more than + enough to make me happy and contented. + + "I was not in want; I had sufficient; I lived better than I + had ever lived; I was self-reliant, self-supporting, + and--forgive and understand me, Clive--a little more + self-respecting than I now am. + + "It is true I had saved very little; but I am young and life + is before me. + + "This seems very ungrateful of me, very ungenerous after all + you have done for me--all I have taken from you. + + "But, Clive, it is the truth, and I think it ought to be + told. Because this is, and has always been, a source of + self-reproach to me, whether rightly or wrongly, I don't + know. I am a novice at confession, but I feel that, if I am + to make a clean breast to you, partial confession is not + worth while, not really honest, not worthy of the very sacred + friendship that inspires it. + + "So I shall shrive myself as well as I know how and continue + to admit to you my further doubts and misgivings. They are + these: my sisters do not understand your friendship for me + even if they understand mine for you--which they say they do. + + "I don't think they believe me dishonest; but they cannot see + any reason for your generosity to me unless you ultimately + expect me to be dishonest. + + "This has weakened my influence with them. I know I am the + youngest, yet until recently I had a certain authority in + matters regarding the common welfare and the common policy. + But this is nearly gone. They point out with perfect truth + that I myself do, with you, the very things for which I + criticise them and against which I warn them. + + "Of course the radical difference is that I do these things + with _you_; but they can't understand why you are any better, + any finer, any more admirable, any further to be trusted than + the men they go about with alone. + + "It is quite in vain that I explain to them what sort of man + you are. They retort that I merely _think_ so. + + "There is a man who takes Catharine out more frequently, and + keeps her out much later than I like. I mean Cecil Reeve. But + what I say only makes my sister sullen. She knows he is a + friend of yours.... And, Clive, I am rather afraid she is + beginning to care more for him than is quite safe for her to + ever care for any man of that class. + + "And Doris has met other men of the same kind--I don't know + who they are, for she won't tell me. But after the theatre + she goes out with them; and it is doing her no good. + + "There is only one more item in my confession, then I'm done. + + "It is this: I have heard recently from various sources that + my being seen with you so frequently is causing much gossip + concerning you among your friends. + + "Is this true? And if it is, will it damage you? I don't care + about myself. I know very few people and it doesn't matter. + Besides I care enough about our companionship to continue it, + whatever untruths are said or thought about me. But how about + _you_, Clive? Because I also care enough for you to give you + up if my being seen with you is going to disgrace you. + + "This is my confession. I have told you all. Now, could you + tell me what it is best for us to do? + + "Think clearly; act wisely; don't even dream of sacrificing + yourself with your usual generosity--if it is indeed to be a + case for self-sacrifice. Let me do that by giving you up. I + shall do it anyway if ever I am convinced that my + companionship is hurting your reputation. + + "Be just to us both by being frank with me. Your decision + shall be my law. + + "This is a long, long letter. I can't seem to let it go to + you--as though when I mail it I am snapping one more bond + that still seems to hold us together. + + "My daily life is agreeable if a trifle monotonous. I have + been out two or three times, once to see the Morgan + Collection at the Metropolitan Museum--very dazzling and + wonderful. What strange thoughts it evoked in me--thrilling, + delightful, exhilarating--as though inspiring me to some + blind effort or other. Isn't it ridiculous?--as though _I_ + had it in me to do anything or be anybody! I'm merely telling + you how all that exquisite art affected me--_me_--a working + girl. And Oh, Clive! I don't think anything ever gave me as + much pleasure as did the paintings by the French masters, + Lancret, Drouais, and Fragonard! (You see I had a catalogue!) + + "Another evening I went out with Catharine. Mr. Reeve asked + us, and another man. We went to see 'Once Upon a Time' at the + Half-Moon Theatre, and afterward we went to supper at the + Cafe Columbine. + + "Another evening the other man, Mr. Reeve's friend, a Mr. + Hargrave, asked me to see 'Under the Sun' at the Zig-Zag + Theatre. It was a tiresome show. We went to supper afterward + to meet Catharine and Mr. Reeve. + + "That is all except that I've dined out once or twice with + Mr. Hargrave. And, somehow or other I felt queer and even + conspicuous going to the Regina with him and to other places + where you and I have been so often together...Also I felt a + little depressed. Everything always reminded me of you and of + happy evenings with you. I can't seem to get used to going + about with other men. But they seem to be very nice, very + kind, and very amusing. + + "And a girl ought to be thankful to almost anybody who will + take her out of her monotony. + + "I'm afraid you've given me a taste for luxury and amusement. + You _have_ spoiled me I fear. I am certainly an ungrateful + little beast, am I not, to lay the blame on you! But it is + dull, Clive, after working all day to sit every evening + reading alone, or lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling, + waiting for the others to come home. + + "If it were not for that darling cat you gave me I'd perish + of sheer solitude. But he is such a comfort, Hafiz; and his + eyes are the bluest blue and his long, winter fur the + snowiest white, and his ruff is wonderful and his tail + magnificent. Also he is _very_ affectionate to me. For which, + with perfect reverence, I venture to thank God. + + "Good night, Clive. If you've struggled through this letter + so far you won't mind reading that I am faithfully and always + your friend, + "ATHALIE GREENSLEEVE." + +Her letter thoroughly aroused Clive and he was all for going straight +to her--only he couldn't go that evening because he dared not break a +dinner engagement or fail to appear with his mother at the opera. In +fact he was already involved in a mess of social obligations for two +weeks ahead,--not an evening free--and Athalie worked during the day. + +It gave him an odd, restless sensation to hear of her going about with +Francis Hargrave--dining alone with him. He felt almost hurt as though +she had done him a personal injustice, yet he knew that it was absurd +for him to resent anything of that sort. His monopoly of her happened +to be one merely because she, at that time, knew no other man of his +sort, and would not go out with any other kind of man. + +Why should he expect her to remain eternally isolated except when he +chose to take her out? No young girl could endure that sort of thing +too long. Certainly Athalie was inevitably destined to meet other men, +be admired, admire in her turn, accept invitations. She was unusually +beautiful,--a charming, intelligent, clean-cut, healthy young girl. +She required companionship and amusement; she would be unhuman if she +didn't. + +Only--men were men. And safe and sane friendships between men of his +own caste, and girls like Athalie Greensleeve, were rare. + +Clive chafed and became restive and morose. In vain he repeated to +himself that what Athalie was doing was perfectly natural. But it +didn't make the idea of her going out with other men any more +attractive to him. + +His clever mother, possibly aware of what ferment was working in her +son, watched him out of the tail of her ornamental eyes, but wisely +let him alone to fidget his own way out of it. She had heard that the +Greensleeve girl was raising hob with Cecil Reeve and Francis +Hargrave. They were other people's sons, however. And it might have +worked itself out of Clive--this restless ferment which soured his +mind and gave him an acid satisfaction in being anything but cordial +in his own family circle. + +But there was a girl--a debutante, very desirable for Clive his mother +thought--one Winifred Stuart--and very delightful to look upon. + +And Clive had seen just enough of her to like her exceedingly; and, at +dances, had even wandered about to look for her, and had evinced +boredom and dissatisfaction when she had not been present. + +Which inspired his mother to give a theatre party for little Miss +Stuart and two dozen other youngsters, and a supper at the Regina +afterward. + +It was an excellent idea; and it went as wrong as such excellent ideas +so often go. For as Clive in company with the others sauntered into +the splendid reception room of the Regina, he saw Athalie come in with +a man whom he had never before seen. + +The shock of recognition--for it was a shock--was mutual. Athalie's +dark eyes widened and a little colour left her cheeks: and Clive +reddened painfully. + +It was, perhaps, scarcely the thing to do, but as she advanced he +stepped forward, and their hands met. + +"I am so very glad to see you again," he said. + +"I too, Clive. Are you well?" + +"And you?" + +"Quite," she hesitated; there was a moment's pause while the two men +looked coolly at each other. + +"May I present Mr. Bailey, Captain Dane?" Further she did not account +for Captain Dane, who presently took her off somewhere leaving Clive +to return to his smiling but enraged mother. + +Never had he found any supper party so noisy, so mirthless, and so +endless. Half the time he didn't know what he was saying to Winifred +Stuart or to anybody else. Nor could he seem to see anybody very +distinctly, for the mental phantoms of Athalie and Captain Dane +floated persistently before him, confusing everything at moments +except the smiling and deadly glance of his mother. + +Afterward they went to their various homes in various automobiles, and +Clive was finally left with his mother in his own drawing-room. + +"What you did this evening," she said to her son, "was not exactly the +thing to do under the circumstances, Clive." + +"Why not?" he asked wearily as her maid relieved her of her sables and +lace hood. + +"Because it was not necessary.... That girl you spoke to was the +Greensleeve girl I suppose?" + +"Yes, Athalie Greensleeve." + +"Who was the man?" + +"I don't know--a Captain Dane I believe." + +"Wasn't a civil bow enough?" + +"Enough? Perhaps; I don't know, mother. I don't seem to know how much +is due her from me. She's never had anything from me so far--anything +worth having--" + +"Don't be a fool, Clive." + +He said, absently: "It's too late for such advice! I _am_ a fool. And +I don't quite understand how not to be one." + +His mother, rather fearful of arousing in him any genuine emotion, +discreetly kissed him good night. + +"You're a slightly romantic boy," she said. "There is nothing else the +matter with you." + +They mounted the velvet-covered stairway together, her arm around his +neck, his encircling a slender, pliant waist that a girl of sixteen +might have envied. Her maid followed with furs and hood. + +"Come into my bedroom and smoke, Clive," she smiled. "We can talk +through the dressing-room door." + +"No; I think I'll turn in." + +The maid continued on through the rose and ivory bedroom and into the +dressing-room. Mrs. Bailey lingered, intuition and experience +preparing her for what a boy of that age was very sure to say. + +And after some fidgeting about he said it: + +"Mother, honestly what did you think of her?" + +His mother's smile remained unaltered: "Do you mean the Greensleeve +girl?" + +"I mean Athalie Greensleeve." + +"She is pretty in a rather common way." + +"Common!" + +"Did you think she is not?" + +"Common," he repeated in boyish astonishment. "What is there common +about her?" + +"If _you_ can't see it any woman of your own class can." + +[Illustration: "'Wasn't a civil bow enough?'"] + +Which remark aroused all that was dramatic and poetic in the boy, and +he spoke with a slightly exaggerated phraseology: + +"What is there common about this very beautiful girl? Surely not her +features. Her head, her figure, her hands, her feet are delicate and +very exquisitely formed; in her bearing there is an unconscious and +sweet dignity; her voice is soft, charming, well-bred. What is there +about her that you find common?" + +His mother, irritated and secretly dismayed, maintained, however, her +placid mask and her attitude of toleration. + +She said: "I distinguish between a woman to the manner born, and a +woman who is not. The difference is as subtle as intuition and as wide +as the ocean. And, dear, no young man, however clever, is clever +enough to instruct his mother concerning such matters." + +"I was asking you to instruct me," he said. + +"Very well. If you wish to know the difference between the imitation +and the real, compare that young woman with Winifred Stuart." + +Clive's gaze shifted from his mother and became fixed on space. + +After a moment his pretty mother moved toward the dressing-room: "If +you will find a chair and light a cigarette, Clive, we can continue +talking." + +His absent eyes reverted to her: "I think I'll go, mother. Good +night." + +"Good night, dear." + +He went to his own room. From the room adjoining came his father's +heavy breathing where he lay asleep. + +The young fellow listened for a moment, then walked into the library +where only a dim night-light was burning. He still wore his overcoat +over his evening clothes, and carried his hat and stick. + +For a while he stood in the dim library, head bent, staring at the rug +under foot. + +Then he turned, went out and down the stairs, and opened the door of +the butler's pantry. The service telephone was there. He unhooked the +receiver and called. Almost immediately he got his "party." + +"Yes?" came the distant voice distinctly. + +"Is it you, Athalie?" + +"Yes.... Oh, _Clive!_" + +"Didn't you recognise my voice?" + +"Not immediately." + +"When did you come in?" + +"Just this moment. I still have on my evening wrap." + +"Did you have an agreeable evening?" + +"Yes." + +"Are you tired?" + +"No." + +"May I come around and see you for a few minutes?" + +"Yes." + +"All right," he said briefly. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +The door of the apartment stood ajar and he walked in. Athalie, still +in her evening gown, rose from the sofa before the fire, dropping the +white Angora, Hafiz, from her lap. + +"It's so good of you, Clive," she said, offering her hand. + +"It's good of _you_, Athalie, to let me come." + +"_Let_ you!" There was a smile on her sensitive lips, scarcely +perceptible. + +He dropped coat, hat, and walking stick across a chair; she seated +herself on the sofa, and he came over and found a place for himself +beside her. + +"It's been a long time, Athalie. Has it seemed so to you?" + +She nodded. Hafiz, marching to and fro, his plumy tail curling around +her knees, looked up at his mistress out of sapphire eyes. + +"Jump, darling," she said invitingly. Hafiz sprang onto her lap with a +quick contented little mew, stretched his superb neck and began to rub +against her shoulder, purring ecstatically. + +"He'll cover me with long white hairs," she remarked to Clive, "but I +don't care. Isn't he a beauty? Hasn't he seraphic eyes and angelic +manners?" + +Clive nodded, watching the cat with sombre and detached interest. + +She said, stroking Hafiz and looking down at the magnificent animal: +"Did you have a pleasant evening, Clive?" + +"Not very." + +"I'm sorry. Your party seemed to be such a very gay one." + +"They made a lot of noise." + +She laughed: "Is that a very gracious way to put it?" + +"Probably not.... Where had you been before you appeared at the +Regina?" + +"To see some moving pictures taken in the South American jungle. It +was really wonderful, Clive: there were parrots and monkeys and +crocodiles and wild pigs--peccaries I think they are called--and then +a big, spotted, chunky-headed jaguar stalked into view! I was so +excited, so interested--" + +"Where was it?" + +"On the middle fork of the upper Amazon--" + +"I mean where were the films exhibited?" + +"Oh! At the Berkeley. It was a private view." + +"Who invited you?" + +"Captain Dane." + +He looked up at her, soberly: + +"Who is Captain Dane?" + +"Why--I don't know exactly. He is a most interesting man. I think he +has been almost everything--a naturalist, an explorer, a scout in the +Boer War, a soldier of fortune, a newspaper man. He is fascinating to +talk to, Clive." + +"Where did you meet him?" + +"In the office. Mr. Wahlbaum collects orchids, and Captain Dane looked +up some for him when he was on the Amazon a short time ago. He came +into the office about week before last and Mr. Wahlbaum introduced him +to me. They sat there talking for an hour. It was _so_ interesting to +me; and I think Captain Dane noticed how attentively I listened, for +very often he addressed himself to me.... And he asked Mr. Wahlbaum, +very nicely, if he might show me the orchids which are in the +Botanical Gardens, and that is how our friendship began." + +"You go about with him?" + +"Whenever he asks me. I went with him last Sunday to the Museum of +Natural History. Just think, Clive, I had never been. And, do you +know, he could scarcely drag me away." + +"I suppose you dined with him afterward," he said coolly. + +"Yes, at a funny little place--I couldn't tell you where it is--but +everybody seemed to know everybody else and it was so jolly and +informal--and such good food! I met a number of people there some of +whom have called on me since--" + +"What sort of people?" + +"About every interesting sort--men like Captain Dane, writers, +travellers, men engaged in unusual professions. And there were a few +delightful women present, all in some business or profession. Mlle. +Delauny of the Opera was there--so pretty and so unaffected. And there +was also that handsome suffragette who looks like Jeanne d' Arc--" + +"Nina Grey." + +"Yes. And there was a rather strange and fascinating woman--a +physician I believe--but I am not sure. Anyway she is associated with +the psychical research people, and she asked if she might come to see +me--" + +He made an impatient movement--quite involuntary--and Hafiz who was +timid, sprang from Athalie's lap and retreated, tail waving, and ears +flattened for expected blandishments to recall him. + +Athalie glanced up at the man beside her with a laugh on her lips, +which died there instantly. + +"What is the matter, Clive?" + +"Nothing," he said. + +His sullen face remained in profile, and after a moment she laid her +hand lightly, questioningly on his sleeve. + +Without turning he said: "I don't know what is the matter with me, so +don't ask me. Something seems to be wrong. _I_ am, probably.... And I +think I'll go home, now." + +But he did not stir. + +After a few moments she said very gently: "Are you displeased with me +for anything I have said or done? I can't imagine--" + +"You can't expect me to feel very much flattered by the knowledge that +you are constantly seen with other men where you and I were once so +well known." + +"Clive! Is there anything wrong in my going?" + +"Wrong? No:--if your own sense of--of--" but the right word--if there +were such--eluded him. + +"I know how you feel," she said in a low voice. "I wrote you that it +seemed strange, almost sad, to be with other men where you and I had +been together so often and so--so happily. + +"Somehow it seemed to be an invasion of our privacy, of our +intimacy--for me to dine with other men at the same tables, be served +by the same waiters, hear the same music. But I didn't know how to +avoid it when I was taken there by other men. Could you tell me what I +should have done?" + +He made no reply; his boyish face grew almost sulky, now. + +Presently he rose as though to get his coat: she rose also, unhappy, +confused. + +"Don't mind me. I'm a fool," he said shortly, looking away from +her--"and a very--unhappy one--" + +"Clive!" + +He said savagely: "I tell you I don't know what's the matter with +me--" He passed one hand brusquely across his eyes and stood so, +scowling at the hearth where Hafiz sat, staring gravely back at him. + +"Clive, are you ill?" + +He shrugged away the suggestion, and his arm brushed against hers. The +contact seemed to paralyse him; but when, slipping back unconsciously +into the old informalities, she laid her hands on his shoulders and +turned him toward the light, instantly and too late she was aware that +the old and innocent intimacy was ended, done for,--a thing of the +past. + +Incredulous still in the very menace of new and perilous relations--of +a new intimacy, imminent, threatening, she withdrew her hands from +the shoulders of this man who had been a boy but an instant ago. And +the next moment he caught her in his arms. + +"Clive! You _can't_ do this!" she whispered, deathly white. + +"What am I to do?" he retorted fiercely. + +"Not this, Clive!--For my sake--please--_please_--" + +There was colour enough in her face, now. Breathless, still a little +frightened, she looked away from him, plucking nervously, +instinctively, at his hands clasping her waist. + +"Can't you c-care for me, Athalie?" he stammered. + +"Yes ... you know it. But don't touch me, Clive--" + +"When I'm--in love--with you--" + +She caught her breath sharply. + +"--What am I to do?" he repeated between his teeth. + +"Nothing! There is nothing to do about it! You know it!... What is +there to do?" + +He held her closer and she strained away from him, her head still +averted. + +"Let me go, Clive!" she pleaded. + +"Can't you care for me!" + +"Let me go!" + +He said under his breath: "All right." And released her. For a moment +she did not move but her hands covered her burning face and sealed her +lids. She stood there, breathing fast and irregularly until she heard +him move. Then, lowering her hands she cast a heart-broken glance at +him. And his ashen, haggard visage terrified her. + +"Clive!" she faltered: he swung on his heel and caught her to him +again. + +She offered no resistance. + +She was crying, now,--weeping perhaps for all that had been said--or +remained unsaid--or maybe for all that could never be said between +herself and this man in whose arms she was trembling. No need now for +any further understanding, for excuses, for regrets, for any tardy +wish expressed that things might have been different. + +He offered no explanation; she expected none, would have suffered +none, crying there silently against his shoulder. But the reaction was +already invading him; the tide of self-contempt rose. + +He said bitterly: "Now that I've done all the damage I could, I shall +have to go--or offer--" + +"There is no damage done--yet--" + +"I have made you love me." + +"I--don't know. Wait." + +Wet cheek against his shoulder, lips a-quiver, her tragic eyes looked +out into space seeing nothing yet except the spectre of this man's +unhappiness. + +Not for herself had the tears come, the mouth quivered. The flash of +passionate emotion in him had kindled in her only a response as +blameless as it was deep. + +Sorrow for him, for his passion recognised but only vaguely +understood, grief for a comradeship forever ended now--regret for the +days that now could come no more--but no thought of self as yet, +nothing of resentment, of the lesser pity, the baser pride. + +If she had trembled it was for their hopeless future; if she had wept +it was because she saw his boyhood passing out of her life like a +ghost, leaving her still at heart a girl, alone beside the ashes of +their friendship. + +As for marriage she knew it would never be--that neither he nor she +dared subscribe to it, dared face its penalties and its punishments; +that her fear of his unknown world was as spontaneous and abiding as +his was logical and instinctive. + +There was nothing to do about it. She knew that instantly; knew it +from the first;--no balm for him, no outlook, no hope. For her--had +she thought about herself,--she could have entertained none. + +She turned her head on his shoulder and looked up at him out of +pitiful, curious eyes. + +"Clive, must this be?" + +"I love you, Athalie." + +Her gaze remained fixed on him as though she were trying to comprehend +him,--sad, candid, searching in his eyes for an understanding denied +her. + +"Yes," she said vaguely, "my thoughts are full of you, too. They have +always been since I first saw you. I suppose it has been love. I +didn't know it." + +"Is it love, Athalie?" + +"I--think so, Clive. What else could it be--when a girl is always +thinking about a man, always happy with her memories of him.... It +_is_ love, I suppose ... only I never thought of it that way." + +"Can you think of it that way now?" + +"I haven't changed, Clive. If it was love in the beginning, it is +now." + +"In the beginning it was only a boy and girl affair." + +"It was all my heart had room for." + +"And now?" + +"You fill my heart and mind as always. But you know that." + +"I thought--perhaps--not seeing you--" + +"Clive!" + +"--Other men--other interests--" he muttered obstinately, and so like +a stubborn boy that, for a moment, a pale flash from the past seemed +to light them both, and she found herself smiling: + +"A girl must go on living until she is dead, Clive. Even if you went +away I'd continue to exist until something ended me. Other men are +merely other men. You are you." + +"You darling!" + +But she turned shy instantly, conscious now of his embrace, confused +by it and the whispered endearment. + +"Please let me go, Clive." + +"But I love you, dear--" + +"Yes--but please--" + +Again he released her and she stepped back, retreating before him, +until the lounge offered itself as refuge. But it was no refuge; she +found herself, presently, drawn close to his shoulder; her flushed +cheek rested there once more, and her lowered eyes were fixed on his +strong, firm hand which had imprisoned both of hers. + +"If you can stand it I can," he said in a low voice. + +"What?" + +"Marrying me." + +"Oh, Clive! They'd tear us to pieces! You couldn't stand it. Neither +could I." + +"But if we--" + +"Oh, no, no, no!" she protested, "it would utterly ruin you! There was +one woman there to-night--very handsome--I knew she was your mother. +And I saw the way she looked at me.... It's no use, Clive. Those +people _are_ different. They'd never forgive you, and it would ruin +you or you'd have to go back to them." + +"But if we were once married, there _are_ friends of mine who--" + +"How many? One in a thousand! Oh, Clive, Clive, I know you so +well--your family and your pride in them, your position and your +security in it, your wide circle of friends, without which circle you +would wander like a lost soul--yes, Clive, lost, forlorn, unhappy, +even with me!" + +She lifted her head from his shoulder and sat up, gazing intently +straight ahead of her. In her eyes was a lovely azure light; her lips +were scarcely parted; and so intent and fixed was her gaze that for a +moment he thought she had caught sight of some concrete thing which +held her fascinated. + +But it was only that she "saw clearly" at that moment--something that +had come into her field of vision--a passing shape, perhaps, which +looked at her with curious, friendly, inquiring eyes,--and went its +way between the fire and the young girl who watched it pass with +fearless and clairvoyant gaze. + +"Athalie?" + +"Yes," she answered as in a dream. + +"Athalie! What is the matter?" + +She turned, looked at him almost blindly as her remoter vision +cleared. + +"Clive," she said under her breath, "go home." + +"What?" + +"Go home. You are wanted." + +"_What!!!_" + +She rose and he stood up, his fascinated eyes never leaving hers. + +"What were you staring at a moment ago?" he demanded. "What did +you--think--you saw?" + +Her eyes looked straight into his. She went to him and put both arms +around his neck. + +"Dearest," she said "--dearest." And kissed him on the mouth. But he +dared not lay one finger on her. + +The next moment she had his coat, was holding it for him. He took his +hat and stick from her, turned and walked to the door, wheeled in his +tracks, shivering. + +And saw her crouched on the sofa, her head buried in her arms. And +dared not speak. + + * * * * * + +There was an automobile standing in the street before his own house as +he turned out of Fifth Avenue; lighted windows everywhere in the +house, and the iron grille ajar. + +He could scarcely fit the latch-key his hands were so unsteady. + +There were people in the hall, partly clad. He heard his own name in +frightened exclamation. + +"What is it?" he managed to ask. + +A servant stammered: "Mr. Clive--it's all over, sir. Mrs. Bailey is +asking for you, sir." + +"Is my father--" but he could not go on. + +"Yes, sir. His man heard him call--once--like he was dreamin' bad. But +when he got to him Mr. Bailey was gone.... The doctor has just +arrived, sir." + +For one instant hope gleamed athwart the stunning crash of his senses: +he steadied himself on the newel post. Then, in his ear a faint voice +echoed: "Dearest--dearest!" And, knowing that hope also lay dead, he +lifted his young head, straightened up, and set his foot heavily on +the first step upward into a new and terrible world of grief. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Athalie ventured to send some Madonna lilies with no card attached; +but even the thought of her white flowers crossing the threshold of +Clive's world--although it was because of her devotion to him alone +that she dared salute his dead--left her sensitively concerned, +wondering whether it had been a proper thing for her to do. + +However, the day following she wrote him. + + + "CLIVE DEAR, + + "I do not mean to intrude on your grief at such a time. This + is merely a line to say that you are never absent from my + mind. + + "And Clive, nothing really dies. This is quite true. I am not + speaking of what faith teaches us. Faith is faith. But those + who 'see clearly' _know_. Nothing dies, Clive. _Nothing._ + That is even more than faith teaches us. Yet it, also, is + true. + + "Dear little boy of my childhood, dear lad of my girlhood, + and, of my womanhood, dearest of men, I pray that God will + comfort you and yours. + + "I was twelve years old the only time I ever saw your father. + He spoke so sweetly to me--put his arm around my + shoulders--asked me if I were Red Riding Hood or the Princess + Far Away. + + "And, to obey him, I went to find _my_ father. And found him + dead. Or what the world calls dead. + + "Later, as I stood there outside the door, stunned by what + had happened, back through the doorway came running a boy. + Clive, if you have forgotten what you said to that child + there by the darkened doorway of life, the girl who writes + this has never forgotten. + + "And now, since sorrow has come to you, in my turn I seek you + where you stand by a darkened door alone, and I send to you + my very soul in this poor, inky letter,--all I can + offer--Clive--all that I believe--all that I am. + "ATHALIE." + +So much for tribute and condolence as far as she could be concerned +where she remained among the other millions outside the sacred +threshold across which her letter and her flowers had gone, across +which the girl herself might never go. + +After a few days he wrote and thanked her for her letter, not of +course knowing about the lilies: + + "It is the first time death has ever come very near me. I had + been told and had always thought that we were a long-lived + race. + + "I am still dazed by it. I suppose the sharper grief will + come when this dull, unreal sense of stupefaction wears away. + + "We were very close together, my father and I. Oh, but we + might have been closer, Athalie!--I might have been with him + oftener, seen more of him, spent less time away from him. + + "I _did_ try to be a good son. I could have been far better. + It's a bitter thing to realise at such a time. + + "And I had so much to say to him. I cannot understand that I + can never say it now.... Athalie dear, my mother wishes me to + take her abroad. I made arrangements yesterday at the Cunard + office. We sail Saturday. Could I see you for a moment before + I go? + "CLIVE." + +To which she replied: + + "I shall be here every evening." + +He came Friday night looking very sallow and thin in his black +clothes. Catharine, who was sewing by the centre table, rose to shake +hands with him in sympathetic silence, then went away to her bedroom, +where, once or twice she caught herself whistling some gay refrain of +the moment, and was obliged to check herself. + +He had taken Athalie's slender hands and was standing by the sofa, +looking intently at her. + +"That night," he said with an effort, "you sent me home--saying that I +was needed." + +"Yes, Clive." + +"How did you know?" + +"I knew." + +"Did you see--anything?" + +"Yes, dear," she said under her breath. + +"Did you see _him_?" + +"Yes." + +"Tell me," he said, but his lips scarcely moved to form the words he +uttered. + +"I recognised him at once. I had never forgotten him.... It is +difficult to explain how I knew that he was not--what we call living." + +"But you knew?" + +"Yes," she said gently. + +"He--did he speak?" The young fellow turned away with a brusque, +hopeless gesture. + +"God," he muttered--"and I couldn't either see or hear him!" + +"He did not speak, Clive." The boy looked up at her, his haggard +features working. + +She said: "When I first noticed him he was looking at you. Then he +caught my eye. Clive--it was this time as it had been before--when I +was twelve years old--his expression became so sweet and winning--like +yours when I amuse you--and you laugh at me but--like me--" + +"Oh, Athalie--I can't seem to endure it! I--I can't be reconciled--" +His head fell forward; she put her arms around him and drew his face +against her breast. + +"I know," she whispered. "I also have passed that way." + +After a few moments he lifted his head, looked around, almost +fearfully. + +"Where was it that he stood, Athalie?" + +She hesitated, then took one of his hands in hers and he followed her +until she stopped between the sofa and the fireplace. + +"Here?" + +"Yes, Clive." + +"So _near_!" he said aloud to himself. "Couldn't he have spoken to +me?--just one word--" + +"Dearest--dearest!" + +"God knows why you should see him and I shouldn't! I don't +understand--when I was his son--" + +"I do not understand either, Clive." + +He seemed not to hear her, standing there with blank gaze shifting +from object to object in the room. "I don't understand," he kept +repeating in a dull, almost querulous voice,--"I don't understand +why." And her heart responded in a passion of tenderness and grief. +But she found no further words to say to him, no explanation that +might comfort him. + +"Will he ever come here--anywhere--again?" he asked suddenly. + +"Oh, Clive, I don't know." + +"Don't you know? Couldn't you find out?" + +"How? I don't know how to find out. I never try to inquire." + +"Isn't there some way?" + +"I don't really know, Clive. How could I know?" + +"But when you see such people--shadows--shapes--" + +"Yes.... They are not shadows." + +"Do they seem real?" + +"Why, yes; as real as you are." + +"Athalie, how _can_ they be?" + +"They are to me. There is nothing ghostly about them." + +For a moment it almost seemed to her as though he resented her clear +seeing; then he said: "Have you always been able to see--this way?" + +"As long as I can remember." + +"And you have never tried to cultivate the power?" + +"I had rather you did not call it that." + +"But it is a power.... Well, call it faculty, then. Have you?" + +"No. I told you once that I did not wish to see more clearly than +others. It is all involuntary with me." + +"Would you try to cultivate it because I ask you to?" + +"Clive!" + +"Will you, Athalie?" + +The painful colour mantled her face and neck and she turned and looked +away from him as though he had said a shameful thing. + +He continued, impatiently: "Why do you feel that way about it? Why +should you not cultivate such a delicate and wonderful sense of +perception? Why are you reluctant? What reason is there for you to be +ashamed?" + +"I don't know why." + +"There is no reason! If in you there happen to be faculties sensitive +beyond ours, senses more complex, more exquisitely attuned to what +others are blind and deaf to, intuitions that to us seem miraculous, a +spirituality, perhaps, more highly developed, what is there in that to +cause you either embarrassment or concern? That in certain +individualities such is the case is now generally understood and +recognised. You happen to be one of them." + +She looked up at him very quietly, but still flushed. + +"Why do you wish me to try--make any effort to develop this--thing?" + +"So that--if you _could_ see him again--and if, perhaps, he had +anything to say to me--" + +"I understand." + +"Will you try, Athalie?" + +"I'll try--if you wish it. And if I can learn how to try." + +Had he asked her to strip her gown from her shoulders under his steady +gaze, it had been easier than the promise she gave him. + + * * * * * + +And now the hour had come for him to bid her good-bye. He said that he +and his mother would not remain abroad for more than the summer. He +said he would write often; spoke a little more vaguely of seeing her +as soon as he returned; drew her cool, white hands together and kissed +them, laid his cheek against them for a moment, eyes closed wearily. + +The door remained ajar behind him after he had gone. Lingering, her +hand heavy on the knob, she listened to the last echo of the elevator +as it dropped into lighted depths below. + +Then, very far away, an iron grille clanged. And that ended it. + +But she still lingered. There was one more shape to pass through the +door which she yet held open;--the phantom of her girlhood. And when +at last, it had passed across the threshold, never to return, she +shut the door softly, sinking to her knees there, her pale cheek +resting against the closed panels, her eyes fixed on vacancy. + + * * * * * + +So departed those twain out of the room and out of her life, +together--her lover by brevet, and her lingering girlhood,--leaving +behind them a woman in a world of men suddenly strange and menacing +and very still. + +But Clive went back into a familiar world--marred, obscured, distorted +for the moment by shock and sorrow--but still a familiar world. +Because neither his grief nor his love--as he had termed it--had made +of him more than he had been,--not yet a man, yet no longer a boy, but +something with all the infirmities of both and the saving graces of +neither. + +In that borderland where he still lingered, morally and spiritually, +the development of character ceases for a while until such time as the +occult frontier be crossed. What is born in the cradle is lowered into +the grave, but always either in nobler or less noble degrees. For none +may linger in that borderland too long because the unseen boundary +moves for him who will not stir when his time is up--moves slowly, +inexorably nearer, nearer, passing beneath his feet, until it is lost +far in the misty years behind him. + + * * * * * + +He wrote her from the steamer twice, the letters being mailed from +Plymouth; then he wrote once from London, once from Paris; later again +from Switzerland, where he had found it cooler, he said, than +anywhere else during that torrid summer. + +[Illustration: "One lovely morning in May she arose early in order to +write to Clive."] + +Winifred Stuart and her mother had joined them for a motor trip +through Dalmatia. He mentioned it in a letter to Athalie, but after +that he did not refer to them again. In fact he did not write again +for a month or two. + +It proved to be a scorching summer in New York. May ended in a blast +of unseasonable weather, cooling off for a week or two in June, but +the furnace heat of July was terrible for the poor and for the +horses--both of which we have always with us. + +Also, for Athalie, it seemed to be turning into one of those curious, +threatening years which begin with every promise but which end without +fulfilment, and in perplexity and care. She had known such years; she +already recognised the symptoms of changing weather. She seemed to be +conscious of premonitions in everybody and everything. Little +vexations and slight disappointments increased; simple plans +miscarried for no reason at all apparently. + +Like one who still feels a fair wind blowing yet looking aloft, sees +the uneasy weather-cock veer and veer in varying flaws, so she, +sensitive and fine in mind and body, gradually became aware of the +trend of things; felt the premonition of the distant change in the +atmosphere--sensed it gathering vaguely, indefinitely disquieting. + +One lovely morning in May she arose early in order to write to Clive. +Then, her long letter accomplished and safely mailed, she went +downtown to business, still delicately aglow, exhilarated as always +by her hour of communion with him. + +Mr. Wahlbaum, as usual, received her with the jolly and kindly humour +which always characterised him, and they had their usual friendly, +half bantering chat while she was arranging the papers which his +secretary had laid on her desk. + +All the morning she took dictation; the soft wind fluttered the +curtains; sparrows chirped noisily; the sky was very blue; Mr. +Wahlbaum smoked steadily. + +And when the lunch hour arrived he did a thing which he had never +before done; he asked Athalie to lunch with him. + +Which so completely astonished her that she found herself going down +in the private lift with him before she realised that she was going at +all. + +The luncheon proved to be very simple but very good. There were a +number of other women in the ladies' annex of the Department +Club,--nice looking people, quiet, and well dressed. Mr. Wahlbaum also +was very quiet, very considerate, very attentive, and almost gravely +courteous. Their conversation concerned business. He offered Athalie +no cocktail and no wine, but a jug of chilled cider was set at her +elbow and she found it delicious. Mr. Wahlbaum drank tea, very weak. + +When they returned to the office, Athalie began to transcribe her +stenographic notes. It occupied most of the afternoon although she was +wonderfully rapid and accurate and her slim white fingers hovered +mistily over the keys like the vibrating wings of a snowy moth. + +[Illustration: "Mr. Wahlbaum ... was very quiet, very considerate, +very attentive."] + +Mr. Wahlbaum, always smoking, watched her toward the finish in placid +silence. And for a few moments, also, after she had finished and had +turned to him with a light smile and a lighter sigh of relief. + +"Miss Greensleeve," he said quietly, "I have now been here in the same +office with you, day after day--excepting our summer vacations--for +more than five years." + +A trifle surprised and sobered by his gravity and deliberation she +nodded silent acquiescence and waited, wondering a little what else +was to come. + +It came without preamble: "I have the honour," he said, "to ask you to +marry me." + +Still as a stone she sat, gazing at him. And for a long while his keen +eyes sustained her gaze. But presently a slow, deep colour began to +gather on his face. And after a moment he said: "I am sorry that the +verdict is against me." + +Tears filled her eyes; she tried to speak, could not, turned on her +pivot-chair, rested her arms on the back, and dropped her face in +them. + +It was a long while before she was able to efface the traces of +emotion. She did all she could before she forced herself to look at +him again and say what she must say. + +"If I could--I would, Mr. Wahlbaum," she faltered. "No man has ever +been kinder to me, none more courteous, none more gentle." + +He looked at her wistfully for a moment, and she thought he was going +to speak. But he was wise in the ways of the world. He had lost. He +understood it. Speech was superfluous. He was a quaint combination of +good sportsman and philosophic economist. + +He held his peace. + +When she left that evening after saying good night to him she paused +at the door, irresolutely, and then came back to his desk where he was +still standing. For he had never failed to rise when she entered in +the morning or took her leave at night. + +In silence, now, she offered him her hand, the quick tears springing +to her eyes again; and he took it, bent, and touched the gloved +fingers with his lips, gravely, in silence. + + * * * * * + +A few days later, for the first time in her experience there, Mr. +Wahlbaum was not at the office. + +Mr. Grossman came in, leered at her, said that Mr. Wahlbaum would be +down next day, lingered furtively as long as he quite dared, then took +himself off, still leering. + +In the afternoon Athalie was notified that her salary had been raised. +She went home, elated and deeply touched by the generosity of Mr. +Wahlbaum, scarcely able to wait for the morrow to express her +gratitude to this good, kind man. + +But on the morrow Mr. Wahlbaum was not there; nor did he come the day +after, nor the day after that. + +The following Tuesday she was seated in the office and generally +occupied with business provided for her by the thrifty Mr. Grossman, +when that same gentleman came into the office on tiptoe. + +"Mr. Wahlbaum has just died," he said. + +In the sudden shock and consternation she had risen from her chair, +and stood there, one hand resting on her desk top for support. + +"Pneumonia," nodded Mr. Grossman. "Sam he smoked too much all the +time. That is what done it, Miss Greensleeve." + +Her hands crept to her eyes, covered them convulsively. "Oh!" she +breathed--"Oh!" + +And, for a moment was not aware of the arm of Mr. Grossman around her +waist,--until it tightened unctuously. + +"Dearie," he murmured, "don't you take on so hard. You ain't goin' to +lose your job, because I'm a-goin' to be your best friend same like he +was--" + +With a shudder she stepped clear of him; he caught her by the waist +again and kissed her; and she wrenched herself free and turned +fiercely on him as he advanced again, smirking, watery of eye, arms +outstretched. + +Then in the overwhelming revulsion and horror of the act and of the +moment chosen for it when death's shadow already lay dark upon this +vast and busy monument to her dead friend, she turned on him her dark +blue eyes ablaze; and to her twisted, outraged lips flew, unbidden, +the furious anathema of her ragged childhood: + +"Damn you!" she stammered,--"damn you!" And struck him across the +face. + + * * * * * + +Which impulsive and unconsidered proceeding left two at home out of +work, herself and Doris. Also there was very little more for +Catharine to do, the dull season at Winton's having arrived. + +"Any honest job," repeated Doris when she and Athalie and Catharine +met at evening after an all-day's profitless search for that sort of +work; but honest jobs did not seem to be very plentiful in June, +although any number of the other sort were to be had almost without +the asking. + +Doris continued to haunt agencies and theatrical offices, dawdling all +day from one to the next, sitting for hours in company with other +aspirants to histrionic honours and wages, gossiping, listening to +stage talk, professional patter, and theatrical scandal until her +pretty ears were buzzing with everything that ought not to concern her +and her moral fastidiousness gradually became less delicate. +Repetition is the great leveller, the great persuader. The greatest +power on earth, for good or evil, is incessant reiteration. + +Catharine lost her position, worked at a cheap milliner's for a week, +addressed envelopes for another week, and was again left unemployed. + +Athalie accepted several offers; at one place they didn't pay her for +two weeks and then suggested she take half the salary agreed upon; at +another her employer became offensively familiar; at another the +manager made her position unendurable. + +By July the financial outlook in the Greensleeve family was becoming +rather serious: Doris threatened gloomily to go into burlesque; +Catharine at first tearful and discouraged, finally grew careless and +made few real efforts to find employment. Also she began to go out +almost every evening, admitting very frankly that the home larder had +become too lean and unattractive to suit her. + +[Illustration: "Doris continued to haunt agencies and theatrical +offices."] + +Doris always went out more or less; and what troubled Athalie was not +that the girl had opportunities for the decent nourishment she needed, +but that her reticence concerning the people she dined with was +steadily increasing. + +"Oh, shut up! I can look out for myself," she always repeated +sullenly. "Anyway, Athalie, _you_ are not the one to bully me. Nobody +ever presented me with a cosy flat and--" + +"Doris!" + +"Didn't your young man give you this flat?" + +"Don't speak of him or of me in that manner," said Athalie, flushing +scarlet. + +"Why are you so particular? It's the truth. He's given you about +everything a man can offer a girl, hasn't he?--jewellery, furniture, +clothing--cats--" + +"Will you please not say anything more!" + +But Doris was still smarting under recent admonition, and she meant to +make an end of Athalie's daily interference: "I will say what I like +when it's the truth," she retorted. "You are very free with your +unsolicited advice. And I'll say this, and it's true, that not one +girl in a thousand who accepts what you have accepted from Clive +Bailey, is straight!" + +Athalie's tightening lips quivered: "Do you intimate that I am not +straight?" + +"I didn't say that." + +"You implied it." + +There was a silence; Catharine lounged on the sofa, watching and +listening with interest. After a moment Doris shrugged her young +shoulders. + +"Does it matter so much, anyway?" she said with a short, unpleasant +laugh. + +"Does _what_ matter--you little ninny!" + +"Whether a girl _is_ straight." + +"Is that the philosophy you learn in your theatrical agencies?" +demanded Athalie fiercely. "What nauseating rot you do talk, Doris!" + +"Very well. It may be nauseating. But what is a girl to do in a world +run entirely by men?" + +"You know well enough what a girl is _not_ to do, don't you? All right +then,--leave that undone and do what's left." + +"What _is_ left?" demanded Doris with a mirthless laugh. "There's +scarcely a job that a girl can hold unless she squares some man to +keep it--and keep--her!" + +"Shame on you! I held mine for over five years," said Athalie with hot +contempt. + +"Yes, and then along came the junior partner. You wouldn't square him: +you lost your job! There's always a junior partner in every +business--when there isn't a senior. There's nothing to it if you +stand in with the firm. If you don't--good night!" + +"You managed to remain at the Egyptian Garden during the entire +season." + +"But the fights I had, my dear, and the tricks I employed and the lies +I told and the promises I made! Oh, it's sickening--sickening! But--" +she shrugged--"what are you to do? Thousands of girls go queer +because they're forced to by starvation--" + +"Nonsense!" cried Athalie hotly, "that is all stage twaddle and +exaggerated sentimentalism! I don't believe that one girl in a +thousand is forced into a dishonourable life!" + +"Then why do girls go queer?" + +"Because they want to; that's why! When they don't want to they +don't!" + +Catharine, very wide-eyed, said solemnly: "But think of all the white +slaves--" + +"They'd be that if they had been born to millions!" retorted Athalie. +"Ignorance and aptitude, that is white slavery. It's absolutely +nothing else. And in cases where the ignorance is absent, the aptitude +is there. If a girl has an aptitude for becoming some man's mistress +she'll probably do it whether she's ignorant or educated." + +Doris, who had taken to chewing-gum furtively and in private, +discreetly rolled a morsel under her tongue. + +"All I know is that your salary is advanced and you're given a part at +the Egyptian Garden if you stand in with Lewenbein or go to supper +with Shemsky. Of course," she added, "there _are_ theatres where you +don't have to be horrid in order to succeed." + +"Then," said Athalie drily, "you'd better find work in those +theatres." + +Doris glanced sideways at Catharine, who silently returned her glance +as though an understanding and sympathy existed between them not +suspected or shared in by Athalie. + +It was not very much of a secret. Some prowling genius of the agencies +whom Doris had met had offered to write a vaudeville act for her and +himself if she could find two other girls. And she had persuaded +Catharine and Genevieve Hunting to try it; and Cecil Reeve and Francis +Hargrave had gaily offered to back it. They were rehearsing in Reeve's +apartments--between a continuous series of dinners and suppers. + +And it had been her sister's going to Reeve's apartments to which +Athalie had seriously objected,--not knowing why she went there. + + * * * * * + +This was one of many scenes that torrid summer in New York, when +Athalie intuitively felt that the year which had begun so happily for +her with the entrance of Clive into her life, was growing duller and +greyer; and that each succeeding day seemed to be swinging her into a +tide of anxiety and mischance,--a current as yet merely perceptible, +but already increasing in speed toward something swifter and more +stormy. + +Already, to her, the future had become overcast, obscure, disquieting. + +Steer as she might toward any promising harbour, always she seemed to +be aware of some subtle resistance impeding her. + +Every small economy attempted, every retrenchment planned, came to +nothing. Always she was met at some corner by an unlooked-for +necessity entailing further expense. + +No money was coming in; her own and her sister's savings were going +steadily, every day, every week. + +There seemed no further way to check expenditure. Athalie had +dismissed their servant as soon as she had lost her position at +Wahlbaum and Grossman's. Table expenses were reduced to Spartan +limits, much to the disgust of them all. No clothes were bought, no +luxuries, no trifles. They did their own marketing, their own cooking, +their own housework and laundry. And had it not been that the +apartment entailed no outlay for light, heat, and rent, they would +have been sorely perplexed that spring and summer in New York. + +Athalie permitted herself only one luxury, Hafiz. And one necessity; +stamps and letter paper for foreign correspondence. + +The latter was costing her less and less recently. Clive wrote seldom +now. And always very sensitive where he was concerned, she permitted +herself the happiness of writing only after he had taken the +initiative, and a reply from her was due him. + +No, matters were not going very well with Athalie. Also she was +frequently physically tired. Perhaps it was the lassitude consequent +on the heat. But at times she had an odd idea that she lacked courage; +and sometimes when lonely, she tried to reason with herself, tried to +teach her heart bravery--particularly during the long interims which +elapsed between Clive's letters. + +As for her attitude toward him--whether or not she was in love with +him--she was too busy thinking about him to bother her head about +attitudes or degrees of affection. All the girl knew--when she +permitted herself to think of herself--was that she missed him +dreadfully. Otherwise her concern was chiefly for him, for his +happiness and well-being. Also she was concerned regarding the promise +she had made him--and to which he usually referred in his +letters,--the promise to try to learn more about this faculty of hers +for clear vision, and, if possible, to employ it for his sake and in +his unhappy service. + +This often preoccupied her, troubled her. She did not know how to go +about it; she hesitated to seek those who advertised their alleged +occult powers for sale,--trance-mediums, mind-readers, palmists--all +the heterogeneous riffraff lurking always in metropolitan purlieus, +and always with a sly weather-eye on the police. + +As usual in her career since the time she could first remember, she +continued to "see clearly" where others saw and heard nothing. + +Faint voices in the dusk, a whisper in darkness; perhaps in her bedroom +the subtle intuition of another presence. And sometimes a touch on her +arm, a breath on her cheek, delicate, exquisite--sometimes the haunting +sweetness of some distant harmony, half heard, half divined. And now and +then a form, usually unknown, almost always smiling and friendly, visible +for a few moments--the space of a fire-fly's incandescence--then +fading--entering her orbit out of nothing and, going into nothing, +out of it. + +Of these episodes she had never entertained any fear. Sometimes they +interested her, sometimes even slightly amused her. But they had never +saddened her, not even when they had been the flash-lit harbingers of +death. For only a sense of calmness and serenity accompanied them: +and to her they had always been part of the world and of life, nothing +to wonder at, nothing to fear, and certainly nothing to intrude +on--merely incidents not concerning her, not remarkable, but natural +and requiring no explanation. + +But she herself did not know and could not explain why, even as a +child, she had been always reticent regarding these occurrences,--why +she had always been disinclined to discuss them. Unless it were a +natural embarrassment and a hesitation to discuss strangers, as though +comment were a species of indelicacy,--even of unwarranted intrusion. + +One night while reading--she had been scanning a newspaper column of +advertisements hoping to find a chance for herself or Catharine--glancing +up she again saw Clive's father seated near her. At the same moment he +lifted his head, which had been resting on one hand, and looked across +the hearthstone at her, smiling faintly. + +Entirely unembarrassed, conscious of that atmosphere of serenity which +always was present when such visitors arrived, the girl sat looking at +what her eyes told her she perceived, a slight and friendly smile +curving her lips in silent response. + +Presently she became aware that Hafiz, too, saw the visitor, and was +watching him. But this fact she had noticed before, and it did not +surprise her. + +And that was all there was to the incident. He rose, walked to the +window, stood there. And after a little while he was not there. That +ended it. And Hafiz went to sleep again. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +In September Athalie Greensleeve wrote her last letter to Clive +Bailey. It began with a page or two of shyly solicitous inquiries +concerning his well-being, his happiness, his plans; did not refer to +his long silence; did refer to his anticipated return; did not mention +her own accumulating domestic and financial embarrassments and the +successive strokes of misfortune dealt her by those twin and +formidable bravos, Fate and Chance; but did mention and enumerate +everything that had occurred in her life which bore the slightest +resemblance to a blessing. + +Her letter continued: + + "My sisters Doris and Catharine have gone into vaudeville + with a very pretty act called 'April Rain.' + + "That they had decided to do this and had been rehearsing it + came as a complete surprise to me. Genevieve Hunting is also + in it, and a man named Max Klepper who wrote the piece + including lyrics and music. + + "They opened at the Old Dominion Theatre, remained there a + week, and then started West. Which makes it a trifle lonely + for me; but I don't really mind if they only keep well and + are successful and happy in their venture. Their idea and + their desire, of course, is to return to New York at the + earliest opportunity. But nobody seems to have any idea how + soon that may happen. Meanwhile the weather is cooler and + Hafiz remains well and adorable. + + "I have been out very little except to look for a position. + Mr. Wahlbaum is dead and I left the store. Sunday morning I + took a few flowers to Mr. Wahlbaum's grave. He was very kind + to me, Clive. In the afternoon I took a train to the Spring + Pond Cemetery. Father's and mother's graves had been well + cared for and were smoothly green. The four young oak trees I + planted are growing nicely. Mother was fond of trees. I am + sure she likes my little oaks. + + "It was a beautiful, cool, sunny day; and after I left the + Cemetery I walked along the well remembered road toward + Spring Pond. It is not very far, but I had never been any + nearer to it than the Cemetery since my sisters and I went + away. + + "Such odd sensations came over me as I walked alone there + amid familiar scenes: and, curiously, everything seemed to + have shrunk to miniature size--houses, fields, distances all + seemed much less impressive. But the Bay was intensely blue; + the grasses and reeds in the salt meadows were already tipped + with a golden colour here and there; flocks of purple grackle + and red-winged blackbirds rose, drifted, and settled, + chattering and squealing among the cat-tails just as they + used to do when I was a child; and the big, slow-sailing + mouse-hawks drifted and glided over the pastures, and when + they tipped sideways I could see the white moon-spot on their + backs, just as I remembered to look for it when I was a + little, little girl. + + "And the odours, Clive! How the scent of the August fields, + of the crisp salt hay, seemed to grip at my heart!--all the + subtle, evanescent odours characteristic of that part of Long + Island seemed to gather, blend, and exhale for my particular + benefit that afternoon. + + "The old tavern appeared to me so much smaller, so much more + weather-beaten and shabby than my recollection of it. The + sign still hung there--'Hotel Greensleeve'--and as I walked + by it I looked up at the window of my mother's room. The + blinds were closed; nobody appeared to be around. I don't + know why, Clive, but it seemed to me that I must go in for a + moment and take one more look at my mother's room.... I am + glad I did. There was nobody to stop me. I went up the stairs + on tiptoe and opened her door, and looked in. _She was there, + sewing._ + + "I went in very softly and sat down on the carpet by her + chair.... It was the happiest moment I have known since she + died. + + "And when she was no longer there I rose and crept down the + stairs and through the hallway to the bar; and peeped in. An + old man sat there asleep by the empty stove. And after a + moment I decided it was Mr. Ledlie. But he has grown + old--old!--and I let him sleep on in the sunshine without + disturbing him. + + "It was the same stove where you and I sat and nibbled peach + turnovers so many years ago. I wanted to see it again. + + * * * * * + + "So I went back to New York in the late golden afternoon + feeling very peaceful and dreamy,--and a trifle tired. And + found Hafiz stretched on the lounge; and stretched myself out + beside him, taking the drowsy, purring, spoiled thing into my + arms. And went to sleep to dream of you who gave me Hafiz, my + dear and beloved friend. + + * * * * * + + "Write me when you can; as often as you desire. Always your + letters are welcome messengers. + "ATHALIE." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +In her letters Athalie never mentioned Captain Dane; not because she +had anything to conceal regarding him or herself; but she seemed to be +aware that any mention of that friendship might not evoke a +sympathetic response from Clive. + +So, in her last letter, as in the others, she had not spoken of +Captain Dane. Yet, now, he was the only man with whom she ever went +anywhere and whom she received at her own apartment. + +He had a habit of striding in two or three evenings in a week,--a big, +fair, broad-shouldered six-footer, with sun-narrowed eyes of arctic +blue, a short blond moustache, and skin permanently burned by the +unshadowed glare of many and tropic days. + +They went about together on Sundays, usually; sometimes in hot weather +to suburban restaurants for dinner and a breath of air, sometimes to +roof gardens. + +Why he lingered in town--for he seemed always to be at leisure--she +did not know. And she wondered a little that he should elect to remain +in the heat-cursed city whence everybody else she knew had fled. + +Dane was a godsend to her. With him she went to the Bronx Zoological +Park several times, intensely interested in what he had to say +concerning the creatures housed there, and shyly proud and delighted +to meet the curators of the various departments who all seemed to know +Dane and to be on terms of excellent fellowship with him. + +With him she visited the various museums and art galleries; and went +with him to concerts, popular and otherwise; and took long trolley +rides with him on suffocating evenings when the poor slept on the +grass in the parks and the slums, east and west, presented endless +vistas of panting nakedness prostrate under a smouldering red moon. + +Every diversion he offered her helped to sustain her courage; every +time she lunched or dined with him meant more to her than he dreamed +it meant. Because her savings were ebbing fast, and she had not yet +been able to find employment. + +Some things she would not do--write to her sisters for any financial +aid; nor would she go to the office of her late employers and ask for +any recommendation from Mr. Grossman which might help her to secure a +position. Never could she bring herself to do either of these things, +although the ugly countenance of necessity now began to stare her +persistently in the face. + +Also she was sensitive lest Dane suspect her need and offer aid. But +how could he suspect?--with her pretty apartment filled with pretty +things, and the luxurious Hafiz pervading everything with his +incessant purring and his snowy plume of a tail waving fastidious +contentment. He fared better than did his mistress, who denied herself +that Hafiz might flourish that same tail. And after a while the girl +actually began to grow thinner from sheer lack of nourishment. + +It never occurred to her to sell or pawn any of the furniture, silver, +furs, rugs,--anything at all that Clive had given her. And there was +one reason why she never would do it: she refused to consider anything +he had given her as her own property to dispose of if she chose. For +she had accepted these things from Clive only because it gave him +pleasure to give. And what she possessed she regarded as his property +held in trust. Nothing could have induced her to consider these things +in any other light. + +One souvenir, only, did she look upon as her own. It had no financial +value; and, if it had, she would have starved before disposing of it. +This was the first thing he ever gave her--his boy's offering--the +gun-metal wrist-watch. + +And her only recent extravagance had been a sentimental one; she had +the watch cleaned and regulated, and a new leather strap adjusted. The +evening it was returned to her she wore it; and that night she slept +with the watch strapped to her wrist. + +So much for a young girl's sentiment!--for no letter came from him on +the morrow although the European mail was in. None came the next day; +nor the next. + +Toward the end of the week, one sultry evening, when Athalie returned +from an unsuccessful tour of job-hunting, and nearer depression than +ever she had yet been, Captain Dane came stalking in, shook hands with +his usual decision, picked up Hafiz who adored him, and took the +chair nearest to the lounge where Athalie lay. + +[Illustration: "With him she visited the various museums and art +galleries."] + +"Suppose we dine somewhere?" he suggested, fondling the purring Angora +and rubbing its ears. + +"Would you mind," she said, "if I didn't?" + +"You're very tired, aren't you, Miss Greensleeve?" + +"A little. I don't believe I have the energy to go out with you." + +Still fondling the willing cat he said: "What's wrong? Something's +wrong, isn't it?" + +"No indeed." + +He turned and gave her a square look: "You're quite sure?" + +"Quite." + +"Oh; all right. Will you let me have dinner here with you?" + +She said without embarrassment: "I neglected my marketing: there's +very little in the pantry." + +"Well," he said, "I'm hungry and I'm going to call up the Hotel +Trebizond and have them send us some dinner." + +She seemed inclined to demur, but he had his way, went to the +telephone and gave his orders. + +The dinner arrived in due time and was excellent. And when the remains +of the dinner and the waiter who served it had been cleared out, +Athalie felt better. + +"You ought to go to the country for two or three weeks," he remarked. + +"Why don't _you_ go?" she asked, smilingly. + +"Don't need it." + +"Neither do I, Captain Dane. Besides I have to continue my search for +a position." + +"No luck yet?" + +"Not yet." + +He mused over his cigar for a few moments, lifted his blond head as +though about to speak, but evidently decided not to. + +She had taken up her sewing and was now busy with it. From moment to +moment Hafiz took liberties with her spool of thread where he sprawled +beside her, patting it this way and that until it fell upon the floor +and Dane was obliged to rescue it. + +It had grown cooler. A breeze from the open windows occasionally +stirred her soft hair and the smoke of Dane's cigar. They had been +silent for a few moments. Threading her needle she happened to glance +up at him, and saw somebody else standing just behind him--a tall man, +olive-skinned and black-bearded--and knew instantly that he was not +alive. + +Serenely incurious, she looked at the visitor, aware that the clothes +he wore were foreign, and that his features, too, were not American. + +And the next moment she gazed at him more attentively, for he had laid +one hand on Dane's shoulder and was looking very earnestly across at +her. + +He said distinctly but with a foreign accent: "Would you please say to +him that the greatest of all the ancient cities is hidden by the +jungle near the source of the middle fork. It was called Yhdunez." + +"Yes," she said, unconscious that she had spoken aloud. + +Dane lifted his head, and remained motionless, gazing at her intently. +The visitor was already moving across the room. Halfway across he +looked back at Athalie in a pleasant, questioning manner; and she +nodded her reassurance with a smile. Then her visitor was there no +longer; and she found herself, a trifle confused, looking into the +keen eyes of Captain Dane. + +Neither spoke for a moment or two; then he said, quietly: "I did not +know you were clairvoyant." + +"I--see clearly--now and then." + +"I understand. It is nothing new to me." + +"You _do_ understand then?" + +"I understand that some few people see more clearly than the great +majority." + +"Do you?" + +"No.... There was a comrade of mine--a Frenchman--Jacques Renouf. He +was like you; he saw." + +"Is he living?--I mean as we are?" + +"No." + +"Was he tall, olive-skinned, black-bearded--" + +"Yes," said Dane coolly; "did you see him just now?" + +"Yes." + +"I wondered.... There are moments when I seem to feel his presence. I +was thinking of him just now. We were on the upper Amazon together +last winter." + +"How did he die?" + +"He'd been off by himself all day. About five o'clock he came into +camp with a poisoned arrow broken off behind his shoulder-blade. He +seemed dazed and stupefied; but at moments I had an idea that he was +trying to tell us something." + +Dane hesitated, shrugged: "It was no use. We left our fire as usual +and went into the forest about two miles to sleep. Jacques died that +night, still dazed by the poison, still making feeble signs at me as +though he were trying to tell me something.... I believe that he has +been near me very often since, trying to speak to me." + +"He laid his hand on your shoulder, Captain Dane." + +Dane's stern lips quivered for a second, then self-command resumed +control. He said: "He usually did that when he had something to tell +me.... Did he speak to me, Miss Greensleeve?" + +"He spoke to me." + +"Clearly?" + +"Yes. He said: 'Would you please say to him that the greatest of all +the ancient cities is hidden by the jungle near the source of the +middle fork. It was called Yhdunez.'" + +For a long while Dane sat silent, his chin resting on his clenched +hand, looking down at the rug at his feet. After a while he said, +still looking down: "He must have found it all alone. And got an arrow +in him for his reward.... They're a dirty lot, those cannibals along +the middle fork of the Amazon. Nobody knows much about them yet except +that they _are_ cannibals and their arrows are poisoned.... I brought +back the arrow that I pulled out of Jacques.... There's no analysis +that can determine what the poison is--except that it's vegetable." + +He leaned forward, as though weary, resting his face between both +hands. + +"Yhdunez? Is that what it was called? Well, it and everything in it +was not worth the life of my friend Renouf.... Nor is anything I've +ever seen worth a single life sacrificed to the Red God of +Discovery.... Those accursed cities full of vile and monstrous +carvings--they belong to the jaguars now. Let them keep them. Let the +world's jungles keep their own--if only they'd give me back my +friend--" + +He rested a moment as he was, then straightened up impatiently as +though ashamed. + +"Death is death," he said in matter-of-fact tones. + +Athalie slowly shook her head: "There is no death." + +He nodded almost gratefully: "I know what you mean. I dare say you are +right.... Well--I think I'll go back to Yhdunez." + +"Not this evening?" she protested, smilingly. + +He smiled, too: "No, not this evening, Miss Greensleeve. I shall never +care to go anywhere again--"... His face altered.... "Unless you care +to go--with me." + +What he had said she would have taken gaily, lightly, had not the +gravity of his face forbidden it. She saw the lean muscles tighten +along his clean-cut cheek, saw the keen eyes grow wistful, then steady +themselves for her answer. + +She could not misunderstand him; she disdained to, honouring the +simplicity and truth of this man to whom she was so truly devoted. + +Her abandoned sewing lay on her lap. Hafiz slept with one velvet paw +entangled in her thread. She looked down, absently freeing thread and +fabric, and remained so for a moment, thinking. After a while she +looked up, a trifle pale: + +"Thank you, Captain Dane," she said in a low voice. + +He waited. + +"I--am afraid that I am--in love--already--with another man." + +He bent his head, quietly; there was no pleading, no asking for a +chance, no whining of any species to which the monarch man is so +constitutionally predisposed when soft, young lips pronounce the death +warrant of his sentimental hopes. + +All he said was: "It need not alter anything between us--what I have +asked of you." + +"It only makes me care the more for our friendship, Captain Dane." + +He nodded, studying the pattern in the Shirvan rug under his feet. A +procession of symbols representing scorpions and tarantulas +embellished one of the rug's many border stripes. His grave eyes +followed the procession entirely around the five-by-three bit of +weaving. Then he rose, bent over her, took her slim hand in silence, +saluted it, and asking if he might call again very soon, went out +about his business, whatever it was. Probably the most important +business he had on hand just then was to get over his love for Athalie +Greensleeve. + +For a long while Athalie sat there beside Hafiz considering the world +and what it was threatening to do to her; considering man and what he +had offered and what he had not offered to do to her. + +Distressed because of the pain she had inflicted on Captain Dane, yet +proud of the honour done her, she sat thinking, sometimes of Clive, +sometimes of Mr. Wahlbaum, sometimes of Doris and Catharine, and of +her brother who had gone out to the coast years ago, and from whom she +had never heard. + +But mostly she thought of Clive--and of his long silence. + +Presently Hafiz woke up, stretched his fluffy, snowy limbs, yawned, +pink-mouthed, then looked up out of gem-clear eyes, blinking +inquiringly at his young mistress. + +"Hafiz," she said, "if I don't find employment very soon, what is to +become of you?" + +The evening paper, as yet unread, lay on the sofa beside her. She +picked it up, listlessly, glancing at the headings of the front page +columns. There seemed to be trouble in Mexico; trouble in Japan; +trouble in Hayti. Another column recorded last night's heat and gave +the list of deaths and prostrations in the city. Another column--the +last on the front page--announced by cable the news of a fashionable +engagement--a Miss Winifred Stuart to a Mr. Clive Bailey; both at +present in Paris-- + +She read it again, slowly; and even yet it meant nothing to her, +conveyed nothing she seemed able to comprehend. + +But halfway down the column her eyes blurred, the paper slipped from +her hands to the floor, and she dropped back into the hollow of the +sofa, and lay there, unstirring. And Hafiz, momentarily disturbed, +curled up on her lap again and went peacefully to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +To her sisters Athalie wrote: + + "For reasons of economy, and other reasons, I have moved to + 1006 West Fifty-fifth Street where I have the top floor. I + think that you both can find accommodations in this house + when you return to New York. + + "So far I have not secured a position. Please don't think I + am discouraged. I do hope that you are well and successful." + +Their address, at that time, was Vancouver, B. C. + + * * * * * + +To Clive Bailey, Jr., his agent wrote: + + "Miss Athalie Greensleeve called at the office this morning + and returned the keys to the apartment which she has + occupied. + + "Miss Greensleeve explained to me a fact of which I had not + been aware, viz.: that the furniture, books, hangings, + pictures, porcelains, rugs, clothing, furs, bed and table + linen, silver, etc., etc., belong to you and not to her as I + had supposed. + + "I have compared the contents of the apartment with the + minute inventory given me by Miss Greensleeve. Everything is + accounted for; all is in excellent order. + + "I have, therefore, locked up the apartment, pending orders + from you regarding its disposition,"--etc., etc. + + * * * * * + +The tall shabby house in Fifty-fourth Street was one of a five-storied +row built by a speculator to attract fashion many years before. +Fashion ignored the bait. + +A small square of paper which had once been white was pasted on the +brick front just over the tarnished door-bell. On it was written in +ink: "Furnished Rooms." + +Answering in person the first advertisement she had turned to in the +morning paper Athalie had found this place. There was nothing +attractive about it except the price; but that was sufficient in this +emergency. For the girl would not permit herself to remain another +night in the pretty apartment furnished for her by the man whose +engagement had been announced to her through the daily papers. + +And nothing of his would she take with her except the old gun-metal +wrist-watch, and Hafiz, and the barred basket in which Hafiz had +arrived. Everything else she left, her toilet silver, desk-set, her +evening gowns and wraps, gloves, negligees, boudoir caps, slippers, +silk stockings, all her bath linen, everything that she herself had +not purchased out of her own salary--even the little silver cupid +holding aloft his torch, which had been her night-light. + +[Illustration: "With a basket containing Hafiz, her suit-case, and a +furled umbrella she started for her new lodgings."] + +Never again could she illuminate that torch. The other woman must do +that. + + * * * * * + +She went about quietly from room to room, lowering the shades and +drawing the curtains. There was brilliant colour in her cheeks, an +undimmed beauty in her eyes; pride crowned the golden head held steady +and high on its slender, snowy neck. Only the lips threatened +betrayal; and were bitten as punishment into immobility. + +Her small steamer trunk went by a rickety private express for fifty +cents: with the basket containing Hafiz, her suit-case, and a furled +umbrella she started for her new lodgings. + +Michael, opening the lower grille for her, stammered: "God knows why +ye do this, Miss! Th' young Masther'll be afther givin' me the sack av +ye lave the house unbeknowns't him!" + +"I can't stay, Michael. He knows I can't. Good-bye!" + +"Good-bye Miss! God be good to ye--an' th' pusheen--!" laying a huge +but gentle paw on Hafiz's basket whence a gentle plaint arose. + +And so Athalie and Hafiz departed into the world together; and +presently bivouacked; their first etape on life's long journey ending +on the top floor of 1006 West Fifty-fifth Street. + +The landlady was a thin, anxious, and very common woman with false +hair and teeth; and evidently determined to secure Athalie for a +lodger. + +But the terms she offered the girl for the entire top floor were so +absurdly small that Athalie hesitated, astonished and perplexed. + +"Oh, there's a jinx in the place," said the landlady; "I ain't aiming +to deceive nobody, and I'll tell you the God-awful truth. If I don't," +she added naively, "somebody else is sure to hand it to you and you'll +get sore on me and quit." + +"What _is_ the matter with the apartment?" inquired the girl uneasily. + +"I'll tell you: the lady that had it went dead on me last August." + +"Is that all?" + +"No, dearie. It was chloral. And of course, the papers got hold of it +and nobody wants the apartment. That's why you get it cheap--if you'll +take it and chase out the jinx that's been wished on me. Will you, +dearie?" + +"I don't know," said the girl, looking around at the newly decorated +and cheerful rooms. + +The landlady sniffed: "It certainly was one on me when I let that jinx +into my house--to have her go dead on me and all like that." + +"Poor thing," murmured Athalie, partly to herself. + +"No, she wasn't poor. You ought to have seen her rings! Them's what +got her into trouble, dearie;--and the roll she flashed." + +"Wasn't it suicide?" asked Athalie. + +[Illustration: "'Wasn't it suicide?' asked Athalie."] + +"I gotta tell you the truth. No, it wasn't. She was feeling fine and +dandy. Business had went good.... There was a young man to visit her +that evening. I seen him go up the stairs.... But I was that sleepy +I went to bed. So I didn't see him come down. And next day at noon +when I went up to do the room she lay dead onto the floor, and her +rings gone, and the roll missing out of her stocking." + +"Did the man kill her?" + +"Yes, dearie. And the papers had it. That's what put me in Dutch. I +gotta be honest with _you_. You'd hear it, anyway." + +"But how could he give her chloral--" + +The anxious, excited little woman's volubility could suffer restraint +no longer: + +"Oh, he could dope her easy in the dark!" she burst out. "Not that the +house ain't thur'ly respectable as far as I can help it, and all my +lodgers is refined. No, Miss Greensleeve, I won't stand for nothing +that ain't refined and genteel. Only what can a honest woman do when +she's abed and asleep, what with all the latch keys and entertainin', +and things like that? No, Miss Greensleeve, I ain't got myself to +blame, being decent and law-abiding and all like that, what with the +police keeping tabs and the neighbourhood not being Fifth Avenoo +either!--and this jinx wished on me--" + +"Please--" + +"Oh, I suppose you ain't a-goin' to stay here now that you've learned +all about these goin's on and all like that--" + +"_Please_ wait!"--for the voluble landlady was already beginning to +sniffle;--"I am perfectly willing to stay, Mrs. Meehan,--if you will +promise to be a little patient about my rent until I secure a +position--" + +"Oh, I will, Miss Greensleeve! I ain't plannin' to press you none! I +know how it is with money and with young ladies. Easy come, easy go! +Just give me what you can. I ain't fixed any too good myself, what +with butchers and bakers and rent owed me and all like that. I guess I +can trust you to act fair and square--" + +"Yes; I am square--so far." + +Mrs. Meehan began to sob, partly with relief, partly with a general +tendency to sentimental hysteria: "I can see that, dearie. And say--if +you're quiet, I ain't peekin' around corners and through key-holes. +No, Miss Greensleeve; that ain't my style! Quiet behaved young ladies +can have their company without me saying nothing to nobody. All I ask +is that no lady will cut up flossy in any shape, form, or manner, but +behave genteel and refined to one and all. I don't want no policeman +in the area. That ain't much to ask, is it?" she gasped, fairly out of +breath between eloquence and tears. + +"No," said Athalie with a faint smile, "it isn't much to ask." + +And so the agreement was concluded; Mrs. Meehan brought in fresh linen +for bed and bathroom, pulled out the new bureau drawers and dusted +them, carried away a few anaemic geraniums in pots, and swept the new +hardwood floor with a dry mop, explaining that the entire apartment +had been renovated and redecorated since the tragic episode of last +August, and that all the furniture was brand new. + +"Her trunks and clothes and all like that was took by the police," +explained Mrs. Meehan, "but she left some rubbish behind a sliding +panel which they didn't find. I found it and I put it on the top shelf +in the closet--" + +She dragged a chair thither, mounted it, and presently came trotting +back to the front room, carrying in both arms a bulky box of green +morocco and a large paper parcel bursting with odds and ends of tinsel +and silk. These she dumped on the centre table, saying: "She had a +cabinet-maker fix up a cupboard in the baseboard, and that's where she +kept gimcracks. The police done me damage enough without my showin' +them her hidin' place and the things she kept there. Here--I'll show +it to you! It's full of keys and electric wires and switches--" + +She took Athalie by the arm and drew her over to the west side of the +room. + +"You can't see nothing there, can you?" she demanded, pointing at the +high wainscoting of dull wood polished by age. + +Athalie confessed she could not. + +"Look!" + +Mrs. Meehan passed her bony hand along the panels until her work-worn +forefinger rested on a polished knot in the richly grained wood. Then +she pushed; and the entire square of panels swung outward, lowering +like a drawbridge, and presently rested flat on the floor. + +"How odd!" exclaimed Athalie, kneeling to see better. + +What she saw was a cupboard lined with asbestos, and an elaborate +electric switchboard set with keys from which innumerable insulated +wires radiated, entering tubes that disappeared in every direction. + +"What are all these for?" she asked, rising to her feet. + +"Dearie, I've got to be honest with _you_. This here lady was a +meejum." + +"A--what?" + +"A meejum." + +"What is that?" + +"Why don't you know, dearie? She threw trances for twenty per. She +seen things. She done stunts with tables and tambourines and +accordions. Why this here place is all wired and fixed up between the +walls and the ceiling and roof and the flooring, too. There is chimes +and bells and harmonicas and mechanical banjos under the flooring and +in the walls and ceiling. There's a whispering phonograph, too, and +something that sighs and sobs. Also a machine that is full of singing +birds that pipe up just as sweet and soft and natural as can be. + +"On rainy days you can amuse yourself with them keys; I don't like to +fool with them myself, being nervous with a weak back and my vittles +not setting right and all like that--" Again she ran down from sheer +lack of breath. + +Athalie gazed curiously at the secret cupboard. After a few moments +she bent over, lifted and replaced the panelling and passed her slim +hand over the wainscot, thoughtfully. + +"So the woman was a trance-medium," she said, half to herself. + +"Yes, Miss Greensleeve. She read the stars, too, and she done cards on +the side; you know--all about a blond gentleman that wants to meet you +and a dark lady comin' over the water to do something mean to you. She +charged high, but she had customers enough--swell ladies, too, in +their automobiles, and old gentlemen and young and all like that.... +Here's part of her outfit"--leading Athalie to the centre table and +opening the green morocco box. + +In the box was a slim bronze tripod and a big sphere of crystal. Mrs. +Meehan placed the tripod on the table and set the crystal sphere upon +it, saying dubiously: "She claimed that she could see things in that. +I guess it was part of her game. I ain't never seen nothing into that +glass ball, and I've looked, too. You can have it if you want it. It's +kind of cute to set on the mantel." + +She began to paw and grub and rummage in the big paper parcel, +scratching about in the glittering mess of silk and embroidery with a +pertinacity entirely gallinaceous. + +"You can have these, too," she said to Athalie--"if you want 'em. +They're heathen I guess--" holding up some tawdry Japanese and +home-made Chinese finery. + +But Athalie declined the dead woman's robes of office and Mrs. Meehan +rolled them up in the wrapping paper and took them and herself off, +very profuse in her gratitude to Athalie for consenting to occupy the +apartment and thereby remove the "jinx" that had inhabited it since +the tragedy of the month before. + +A very soft and melancholy mew from the basket informed the girl that +Hafiz desired his liberty. So she let him out and he trotted at her +heels as she walked about inspecting the apartment. Also he did +considerable inspecting on his own account, sniffing at every +door-sill and crack, jumping up on chairs to look out of windows, +prowling in and out of closets, his plumy tail jerking with +dubiousness and indecision. + +The apartment was certainly clean. Evidently the house had been a good +one in its day, for the trim was dark old mahogany, rich and beautiful +in colour; and the fireplace was rather pretty with its acanthus +leaves and roses deeply carved in marble which time had toned to an +ivory tint. + +The darkly stained floor of hardwood was, of course, modern. So were +the new and very hideous oriental rugs made in Hoboken, and the +aniline pink wall-paper, and the brand new furniture still smelling of +department store varnish. Hideous, too, were the electric fixtures, +the gas-log in the old-time fireplace, and the bargain counter +bric-a-brac geometrically spaced upon the handsome old mantel. + +But there were possibilities in the big, square room facing south and +in the two smaller bed chambers fronting the north. A modern bathroom +connected these. + +To find an entire top floor in New York at such a price was as +amazing as it was comfortable to the girl who had not expected to be +able to afford more than a small bedroom. + + * * * * * + +She had a little money left, enough to purchase food and a few pots +and pans to cook it over the gas range in one of the smaller rooms. + +And here she and Hafiz had their first meal on the long world-trail +stretching away before her. After which she sat for a while by the +window in a stiff arm-chair, thinking of Clive and of his silence, and +of the young girl he was one day to marry. + +Southward, the lights of the city began to break out and sparkle +through the autumn haze; tall towers, hitherto invisible, suddenly +glimmered against the sky-line. A double vista of lighted street lamps +stretched east and west below her. + +The dusty-violet light of evening softened the shabby street below, +veiling ugliness and squalor and subtly transmuting meanness and +poverty to picturesqueness--as artists, using only the flattering +simplicity of essentials, show us in etching and aquarelle the romance +of the commonplace. And so the rusty iron balconies of a chop suey +across the street became quaint and curious: dragon and swinging +gilded sign, banner and garish fretwork grew mellow and mysterious +under the ruddy Hunter's Moon sailing aloft out of the city's haze +like a great Chinese lantern. + +From an unseen steeple or two chimes sounded the hour. Farther away in +the city a bell answered. It is not a city of belfries and chimes; +only locally and by hazard are bell notes distinguishable above the +interminable rolling monotone of the streets. + +And now, the haze thickening, distant reverberations, deep, mellow, +melancholy, grew in the night air: fog horns from the two rivers and +the bay. + +Leaning both elbows on the sill of the opened window Athalie gazed +wearily into the street where noisy children shrilled at one another +and dodged vehicles like those quick tiny creatures whirling on ponds. + +Here and there, the flare of petroleum torches lighted push-carts +piled with fruit or laden with bowls of lemonade and hokey-pokey. +Sidewalks were crowded with shabby people gossiping in groups or +passing east and west--about what squalid business only they could +know. + +On the stoops of all the dwellings, brick or brownstone, people sat; +the men in shirt-sleeves, the young girls bare-headed, and in light +summer gowns. Pianos sounded through open parlour windows; there was +dancing going on somewhere in the block. + +Eastward where the street intersected the glare of the dingy avenue, a +policeman stood on fixed post, the electric lights guttering on his +metal-work when he turned. Athalie had laid her cheek on her arms and +closed her eyes, from fatigue, perhaps; perhaps to force back the +tears which, nevertheless, glimmered on her lashes where they lay +close to the curved white cheeks. + +Little by little the girl was taking degree after degree in her +post-graduate course, the study of which was man. + +And for the first time in her life a new reaction in the laboratory of +experience had revealed to her a new element in her analysis; +bitterness. + +Which is akin to resentment. And to these it is easy to ally +recklessness. + + * * * * * + +There came to her a moment, as she sat huddled there at the window, +when endurance suddenly flashed into a white anger; and she found +herself on her feet, pacing the room as caged things pace, with a sort +of blindly fixed purpose, seeing everything yet looking at nothing +that she passed. + +But after this had lasted long enough she halted, gazing about her as +though for something that might aid her. But there was only the room +and the furniture, and Hafiz asleep on a chair; only these and the +crystal sphere on its slim bronze tripod. And suddenly she found +herself on her knees beside it, staring into its dusky transparent +depths, fixing her mind, concentrating every thought, straining every +faculty, every nerve in the one desperate and imperative desire. + +But through the crystal's depths there is no aid for those who "see +clearly," no comfort, no answer. She could not find there the man she +searched for--the man for whom her soul cried out in fear, in anger, +in despair. As in a glass, darkly, only her own face she saw, +fire-edged with a light like that which burns deep in black opals. + +Prone on the floor at last, her white face framed by her hands, her +eyes wide open in the dark, she finally understood that her clear +vision was of no avail where she herself was concerned; that they who +see clearly can never use that vision to help themselves. + +Fiercely she resented it,--the more bitterly because for the first +time in her life she had condescended to any voluntary effort toward +clairvoyance. + +Wearily she sat up on the floor and gathered her knees into her arms, +staring at nothing there in the darkness while the slow tears fell. + +Never before had she known loneliness. A man had made her understand +it. Never before had she known bitterness. A man had taught it to her. +Never again should any man do what this man had done to her! She was +learning resentment. + +All men should be the same to her hereafter. All men should stand +already condemned. Never again should one among them betray her mind +to reveal itself, persuade her heart to response, her lips to +sacrifice their sweetness and their pride, her soul to stir in its +sleep, awake, and answer. And for what the minds and hearts of men +might bring upon themselves, let men be responsible. Their +inclinations, offers, protests, promises as far as they regarded +herself could never again affect her. Let man look to himself; his +desires no longer concerned her. Let him keep his distance--or take +his chances. And there were no chances. + +Athalie was learning resentment. + + * * * * * + +Somebody was knocking. Athalie rose from the floor, turned on the +lights, dried her eyes, went slowly to the door, and opened it. + +A large, fat, pallid woman stood in the hallway. Her eyes were as +washed out as her faded, yellowish hair; and her kimono needed +washing. + +"Good evening," she said cordially, coming in without any +encouragement from Athalie and settling her uncorseted bulk in the +arm-chair. "My name is Grace Bellmore,--Mrs. Grace Bellmore. I have +the rear rooms under yours. If you're ever lonely come down and talk +it over. Neighbours are not what they might be in this house. Look out +for the Meehan, too. I'd call her a cat only I like cats. Say, that's +a fine one on your bed there. Persian? Oh, Angora--" here she fished +out a cigarette from the pocket of her wrapper, found a match, +scratched it on the sole of her ample slipper, and lighted her +cigarette. + +"Have one?" she inquired. "No? Don't like them? Oh, well, you'll come +to 'em. Everything comes easy when you're lonely. _I_ know. You don't +have to tell me. God! I get so sick of my own company sometimes--" + +She turned her head to gaze about her, twisting her heavy, creased +neck as far as the folds of fat permitted: "You had your nerve with +you when you took this place. I knew Mrs. Del Garmo. I warned her, +too. But she was a bone-head. A woman can't be careless in this town. +And when it comes to men--say, Miss Greensleeve, I want to know their +names before they ask me to dinner and start in calling me Grace. It's +Grace _after_ meat with _me_!" And she laughed and laughed, slapping +her fat knee with a pudgy, ring-laden hand. + +Athalie, secretly dismayed, forced a polite smile. Mrs. Bellmore blew +a few smoke rings toward the ceiling. + +"Are you in business, Miss Greensleeve?" + +"Yes.... I am looking for a position." + +"What a pretty voice--and refined way of speaking!" exclaimed Mrs. +Bellmore frankly. "I guess you've seen better days. Most people have. +Tell you the truth, though, I haven't. I'm better off than I ever was +before. Of course this is the dull season, but things are picking up. +What is your line, Miss Greensleeve?" + +"Stenographer." + +"Oh! Well, I don't suppose I could do anything for you, could I?" + +"I don't know what your business is," ventured Athalie, who, +heretofore had not dared even to surmise what might be the vocation of +this very large and faded woman who wore a pink kimono and a dozen +rings on her nicotine-stained fingers, and who smoked incessantly. + +The woman seemed to be a trifle surprised: "Haven't you ever heard of +Grace Bellmore?" she asked. + +"I don't think so," said Athalie with increasing diffidence. + +"Well, maybe you wouldn't, not being in the profession. The managers +all know me. I run an Emergency Agency on Broadway." + +"I don't think I understand," said the girl. + +"No? Then it's like this: a show gets stuck and needs a quick study. +They call me up and I throw them what they want at an hour's notice. +They can always count on me for anything from wardrobe mistress to +prima donna. That's how I get mine," she concluded with a jolly laugh. + +Athalie, feeling a little more confidence in her visitor, smiled at +her. + +"Say--you're a beauty!" exclaimed Mrs. Bellmore, gazing at her. +"You're all there, too. I could place you easy if you ever need it. +You don't sing, do you?" + +"No." + +"Ever had your voice tried?" + +"No." + +"Dance?" + +"I dance--whatever is being danced--rather easily." + +"No stage experience?" + +"No." + +"Well--what do you say, Miss Greensleeve?" + +Athalie coloured and laughed: "Thank you, but I had rather work at +stenography." + +Mrs. Bellmore said: "I certainly hate to admit it, and knock my own +profession, but any good stenographer in a year makes more than many a +star you read about.... Unless there's men putting up for her." + +Athalie nodded gravely. + +"All the same you'd make a peach of a show-girl," added Mrs. Bellmore +regretfully. And, after a rather intent interval of silent scrutiny: +"You're a _good_ girl, too.... Say, you _do_ get pretty lonely +sometimes, don't you, dear?" + +Athalie flushed and shook her head. Mrs. Bellmore lighted another +cigarette from the smouldering remnant of the previous one, and flung +the gilt-tipped remains through the window. + +"Ten to one it hits a crook if it hits anybody," she remarked. "This +is a fierce neighbourhood,--all sorts of joints, and then some. But I +like my rooms. I don't guess you'll be bothered. A girl is more likely +to get spoken to in the swell part of town. Well,--" she struggled to +her fat feet--"I'll be going. If you're lonely, drop in during the +evening. I'm at the office all day except Sundays and holidays." + +They stood, confronted, looking at each other for a moment. Then, +impulsively the fat woman offered her hand: + +"Don't be afraid of me," she said. "I may look crooked, but I'm not. +Your mother wouldn't mind my knowing you." + +She held Athalie's narrow hand for a moment, and the girl looked into +the faded eyes. + +"Thank you for coming," she said. "I _was_ lonely." + +"Good girls usually are. It's a hell of an alternative, isn't it? I +don't mean to be profane; hell is the word. It's hell either way for a +girl alone." + +Athalie nodded silently. Mrs. Bellmore looked at her, then glanced +around the room, curiously. + +"Hello," she said abruptly, "what's that?" + +Athalie's eyes followed hers: "Do you mean the crystal?" + +"Yes.... Say--" she turned to Athalie, nodding profound emphasis on +every word she uttered:--"Say, I _thought_ there was something else +to you--something I couldn't quite get next to. Now I know what's been +bothering me about you. You're clairvoyant!" + +Athalie's cheeks grew warm: "I am not a medium," she said. "That +crystal is not my own." + +"That may be. Maybe you don't think you are a medium. But you are, +Miss Greensleeve. _I_ know. I'm a little that way, too,--just a very +little. Oh, I could go into the business and fake it of course,--like +all the others--or most of them. But you are the real thing. Why," she +exclaimed in vexation, "didn't I know it as soon as I laid eyes on +you? I certainly was subconscious of something. Why you could do +anything you pleased with the power you have if you'd care to learn +the business. There's money in it--take it from me!" + +Athalie said, after a few moments of silence: "I don't think I +understand. Is there a way of--of developing clear vision?" + +"Haven't you ever tried?" + +"Never.... Except when a little while ago I went over to the crystal +and--and tried to find--somebody." + +"Did you find--that person?" + +"No." + +Mrs. Bellmore shook her fat head: "You needn't tell me any more. You +can't ever do yourself any good by crystal gazing--you poor child." + +Athalie's head dropped. + +"No, it's no use," said the other. "If you go into the business and +play square you can sometimes help others. But I guess the crystal is +mostly fake. Mrs. Del Garmo had one like yours. She admitted to me +that she never saw anything in it until she hypnotised herself. And +she could do that by looking steadily at a brass knob on a bed-post; +and see as much in it as in her crystal." + +The fat woman lighted another cigarette and blew a contemplative whiff +toward the crystal: "No: at best the game is a crooked one, even for +the few who have really any occult power." + +"Why?" asked the girl, surprised. + +"Because they are usually clever, nimble-witted, full of intuition. +Deduction is an instinct with them. And it is very easy to elaborate +from a basis of truth;--it's more than a temptation to intelligence to +complete a story desired and already paid for by a client. Because +almost invariably the client is as stupid as the medium is +intelligent. And, take it from me, it's impossible not to use your +intelligence when a partly finished business deal requires it." + +Athalie was silent. + +"_I'd_ do it," laughed Mrs. Bellmore. + +Athalie said nothing. + +"Say, on the level," said the older woman, "do you see a lot that we +others can't see, Miss Greensleeve?" + +"I have seen--some things." + +"Plenty, too, I'll bet! Oh, it's in your pretty face, in your +eyes!--it's in you, all about you. I'm not much in that line but I can +feel it in the air. Why I felt it as soon as I came into your room, but +I was that stupid--thinking of Mrs. Del Garmo--and never associating it +with you!... Do you do any trance work?" + +"No.... I have never cultivated--anything of that sort." + +"I know. The really gifted don't cultivate the power as a rule. Only one +now and then, and here and there. The others are pure frauds--almost +every one of them. But--" she looked searchingly at the girl,--"you're +no fraud! Why you're full of it!--full--saturated--alive with--with +vitality--psychical and physical!--You're a glorious thing--half +spiritual, half human--a superb combination of vitality, sacred and +profane!"--She checked herself and turned on the girl almost savagely: +"Who was the fool of a man you were looking for in the crystal?... Very +well; don't tell then. I didn't suppose you would. Only--God help him +for the fool he is--and forgive him for what he has done to you!... And +may I never enter this room again and find you with the tears freshly +scrubbed out of the most honest eyes God ever gave a woman!... Good +night, Miss Greensleeve!" + +"Good night," said Athalie. + +After she had closed the door and locked it she turned back into the +empty room, moving uncertainly as though scarcely knowing what she was +about. And then, suddenly, the terror of utter desolation seized her, +and for the first time she realised what Clive had been to her, _and +what he had not been_--understood for the first time in her life the +complex miracle called love, its synthesis, its every element, every +molecule, every atom, and flung herself across the bed, half +strangled, sobbing out her passion and her grief. + +Dawn found her lying there; but the ravage of that night had stripped +her of much that she had been, and never again would be. And what had +been taken from her was slowly being replaced by what she had never +yet been. Night stripped her; the red dawn clothed her. + +She sat up, dry-eyed, unbound her hair, flung from her the crumpled +negligee. Presently the first golden-pink ray of the rising sun fell +across her snowy body, and she flung out her lovely arms to it as +though to draw it into her empty heart. + +Hafiz, blinking his jewelled eyes, watched her lazily from his +pillow. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +As she came, pensively, from her morning bath into the sunny front +room Athalie noticed the corner of an envelope projecting from beneath +her door. + +For one heavenly moment the old delight surprised her at sight of +Clive's handwriting,--for one moment only, before an overwhelming +reaction scoured her heart of tenderness and joy; and the terrible +resurgence of pain and grief wrung a low cry from her: "Why couldn't +he let me alone!" And she crumpled the letter fiercely in her clenched +hand. + +Minute after minute she stood there, her white hand tightening as +though to strangle the speech written there on those crushed +sheets--perhaps to throttle and silence the faint, persistent cry of +her own heart pleading a hearing for the man who had written to her at +last. + +And after a while her nerveless hand relaxed; she looked down at the +crushed thing in her palm for a long time before she smoothed it out +and finally opened it. + +He wrote: + + "It is too long a story to go into in detail. I couldn't, + anyway. My mother had desired it for a long time. I have + nothing to say about it except this: I would not for all the + world have had you receive the first information from the + columns of a newspaper. Of that part of it I have a right to + speak, because the announcement was made without my knowledge + or consent. And I'll say more: it was made even before I + myself was aware that an engagement existed. + + "Don't mistake what I write you, Athalie. I am not trying to + escape any responsibility excepting that of premature + publicity. Whatever else has happened I am fully responsible + for. + + "And so--what can I have to say to you, Athalie? Silence were + decenter perhaps--God knows!--and He knows, too, that in me + he fashioned but an irresolute character, void of the initial + courage of conviction, without deep and sturdy belief, + unsteady to a true course set, and lacking in rugged purpose. + + "It is not stupidity: in the bottom of my own heart I _know_! + Custom, habit, acquired and inculcated acquiescence in + unanalysed beliefs--these require more than irresolution and + a negative disposition to fight them and overcome them. + + "Athalie, the news you must have read in the newspapers + should first have come from me. Among many, many debts I must + ever owe you, that one at least was due you. And I defaulted; + but not through any fault of mine. + + "I could not rest until you knew this. Whatever you may think + about me now--however lightly you weigh me--remember this--if + you ever remember me at all in the years to come: I was aware + of my paramount debt: I should have paid it had the + opportunity not been taken out of my own hands. And that debt + paramount was to inform you first of anybody concerning what + you read in a public newspaper. + + "Now there remains nothing more for me to say that you would + care to hear. You would no longer care to know,--would + probably not believe me if I should tell you what you have + been to me--and still are--and still are, Athalie! + Athalie!--" + +The letter ended there with her name. She kept it all day; but that +night she destroyed it. And it was a week before she wrote him: + + "--Thank you for your letter, Clive. I hope all is well with + you and yours. I wish you happiness; I desire for you all + things good. And also--for _her_. Surely I may say this much + without offence--when I am saying good-bye forever. + "ATHALIE." + +In due time, to this came his answer, tragic in its brevity, terrible +in its attempt to say nothing--so that its stiff cerement of formality +seemed to crack with every written word and its platitudes split open +under the fierce straining of the living and unwritten words beneath +them. + +And to this she made no answer. And destroyed it after the sun had +set. + + * * * * * + +Her money was now about gone. Indian summer brought no prospect of +employment. Never had she believed that so many stenographers existed +in the world; never had she supposed that vacant positions could be +so pitifully few. + +During October her means had not afforded her proper nourishment. + +The vigour of young womanhood demands more than milk and crackers and +a rare slab from some delicatessen shop. + +As for Hafiz, to his astonishment he had been introduced to +chuck-steak; and the pleasure was anything but unmitigated. But +chuck-steak was more than his mistress had. + +Mrs. Bellmore was inclined to eat largely of late suppers prepared on +an oil stove by her own fair and very fat hands. + +Athalie accepted one or two invitations, and then accepted no more, +being unable to return anybody's hospitality. + +Captain Dane called persistently without being received, until she +wrote him not to come again until she sent for him. + +Nobody else knew where she was except her sisters. Doris wrote from +Los Angeles complaining of slack business. Later Catharine wrote +asking for money. And Athalie was obliged to answer that she had none. + +Now "none" means not any at all. And the time had now arrived when +that was the truth. The chuck-steak cut up on Hafiz's plate in the +bathroom had been purchased with postage stamps--the last of a sheet +bought by Athalie in days of affluence for foreign correspondence. + +There was no more foreign correspondence. Hence the chuck-steak, and +a bottle of milk in the sink and a packet of biscuits on the shelf. +And a rather pale, young girl lying flat on the lounge in the front +room, her blue eyes wide, staring up at the fading sun-beams on the +ceiling. + +If she was desperate she was quiet about it--perhaps even at moments a +little incredulous that there actually could be nothing left for her +to live on. It was one of those grotesque episodes that did not seem +to belong in her life--something which ought not--that could not +happen to her. At moments, however, she realised that it had +happened--realised that part of the nightmare had been happening for +some time--that for a good while now, she had always been more or less +hungry, even after a rather reckless orgy on crackers and milk. + +Except that she felt a little fatigued there was in her no tendency to +accept the _chose arrivee_, no acquiescence in the _fait accompli_, +nothing resembling any bowing of the head, any meek desire to kiss the +rod; only a still resentment, a quiet but steady anger, the new and +cool opportunism that hatches recklessness. + +What channel should she choose? That was all that chance had left for +her to decide,--merely what form her recklessness should take. + +Whatever of morality had been instinct in the girl now seemed to be in +absolute abeyance. In the extremity of dire necessity, cornered at +last, face to face with a world that threatened her, and watching it +now out of cool, intelligent eyes, she had, without realising it, +slipped back into her ragged childhood. + +There was nothing else to slip back to, no training, no discipline, no +foundation other than her companionship with a mother whom she had +loved but who had scarcely done more for her than to respond vaguely +to the frankness of inquiring childhood. + +Her childhood had been always a battle--a happy series of conflicts as +she remembered--always a fight among strenuous children to maintain +her feet in her little tattered shoes against rough aggression and +ruthless competition. + +And now, under savage pressure, she slipped back again in spirit to +the school-yard, and became a watchful, agile, unmoral thing again--a +creature bent on its own salvation, dedicated to its own survival, +atrociously ready for any emergency, undismayed by anything that might +offer itself, and ready to consider, weigh, and determine any chance +for existence. + +Almost every classic alternative in turn presented itself to her as +she lay there considering. She could go out and sell herself. But, +oddly enough, the "easiest way" was not easy for her. And, as a child, +also, a fastidious purity had been instinctive in her, both in body +and mind. + +There were other and easier alternatives; she could go on the stage, +or into domestic service, or she could call up Captain Dane and tell +him she was hungry. Or she could let any one of several young men +understand that she was now permanently receptive to dinner +invitations. And she could, if she chose, live on her personal +popularity,--be to one man or to several _une maitresse +vierge_--manage, contrive, accept, give nothing of consequence. + +For she was a girl to flatter the vanity of men; and she knew that if +ever she coolly addressed her mind to it she could rule them, entangle +them, hold them sufficiently long, and flourish without the ultimate +concession, because there were so many, many men in the world, and it +took each man a long, long time to relinquish hope; and always there +was another ready to try his fortune, happy in his vanity to attempt +where all so far had failed. + +Something she _had_ to do; that was certain. And it happened, while +she was pondering the problem, that the only thing she had not +considered,--had not even thought of--was now abruptly presented to +her. + +For, as she lay there thinking, there came the sound of footsteps +outside her door, and presently somebody knocked. And Athalie rose in +the dusk of the room, switched on a single light, went to the door and +opened it. And opportunity walked in wearing the shape of an elderly +gentleman of substance, clothed as befitted a respectable dweller in +any American city except New York. + +"Good evening," he said, looking at her pleasantly but inquiringly. +"Is Mrs. Del Garmo in?" + +"Mrs. Del Garmo?" repeated Athalie, surprised. "Why, Mrs. Del Garmo is +dead!" + +"God bless us!" he exclaimed in a shocked voice. "Is that so? Well, +I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. Well--well--well! Mrs. Del Garmo! I +certainly am sorry." + +He looked curiously about him, shaking his head, and an absent +expression came into his white-bearded face--which changed to lively +interest when his eyes fell on the table where the crystal stood +mounted between the prongs of the bronze tripod. + +"No doubt," he said, looking at Athalie, "you are Mrs. Del Garmo's +successor in the occult profession. I notice a crystal on the table." + +And in that instant the inspiration came to the girl, and she took it +with the coolness and ruthlessness of last resort. + +"What is it you wish?" she asked calmly, "a reading?" + +He hesitated, looking at her out of aged but very honest eyes; and in +a moment she was at his mercy, and the game had gone against her. She +said, while the hot colour slowly stained her face: "I have never read +a crystal. I had not thought of succeeding Mrs. Del Garmo until +now--this moment." + +"What is your name, child?" he asked in a gently curious voice. + +"Athalie Greensleeve." + +"You are not a trance-medium?" + +"No. I am a stenographer." + +"Then you are not psychical?" + +"Yes, I am." + +"What?" + +"I am naturally clairvoyant." + +He seemed surprised at first; but after he had looked at her for a +moment or two he seemed less surprised. + +"I believe you are," he said half to himself. + +"I really am.... If you wish I could try. But--I don't know how to go +about it," she said with flushed embarrassment. + +He gazed at her it seemed rather solemnly and wistfully. "There is one +thing very certain," he said; "you are honest. And few mediums are. I +think Mrs. Del Garmo was. I believed in her. She was the means of +giving me very great consolation." + +Athalie's face flushed with the shame and pity of her knowledge of the +late Mrs. Del Garmo; and the thought of the secret cupboard with its +nest of wires made her blush again. + +The old gentleman looked all around the room and then asked if he +might seat himself. + +Athalie also sat down in the stiff arm-chair by the table where her +crystal stood on its tripod. + +"I wonder," he ventured, "whether you could help me. Do you think so?" + +"I don't know," replied the girl. "All I know about it is that I +cannot help myself through crystal gazing. I never looked into a +crystal but once. And what I searched for was not there." + +The old gentleman considered her earnestly for a few moments. "Child," +he said, "you are very honest. Perhaps you could help me. It would be +a great consolation to me if you could. Would you try?" + +"I don't know how," murmured Athalie. + +"Maybe I can aid you to try by telling you a little about myself." + +The girl lifted her flushed face from the crystal: + +"Don't do that, please. If you wish me to try I will. But don't tell +me anything." + +"Why not?" + +"Because--I am--intelligent and quick--imaginative--discerning. I +might unconsciously--or otherwise--be unfair. So don't tell me +anything. Let me see if there really is in me any ability." + +He met her candid gaze mildly but unsmilingly; and she folded her slim +hands in her lap and sat looking at him very intently. + +"Is your name Symes?" she asked presently. + +He nodded. + +"Elisha Symes?" + +"Yes." + +"And--do you live in Brook--Brookfield--no!--Brookhollow?" + +"Yes." + +"That town is in Connecticut, is it not?" + +"Yes." + +His trustful gaze had altered, subtly. She noticed it. + +"I suppose," she said, "you think I could have found out these things +through dishonest methods." + +"I was thinking so.... I am satisfied that you are honest, Miss +Greensleeve." + +"I really am--so far." + +"Could you tell me how you learned my name and place of residence." + +Her expression became even more serious: "I don't know, Mr. Symes.... +I don't know _how_ I knew it.... I think you wish me to help you find +your little grandchildren, too. But I don't know why I think so." + +When he spoke, controlled emotion made his voice sound almost feeble. + +He said: "Yes; find my little grandchildren and tell me what they are +doing." He passed a transparent hand unsteadily across his dim eyes: +"They are not living," he added. "They were lost at sea." + +She said: "Nothing dies. Nothing is really lost." + +"Why do you think so, child?" + +"Because the whole world is gay and animated and lovely with what we +call 'the dead.' And, by the dead I mean _all_ things great and small +that have ever lived." + +He sat listening with all the concentration and rapt attention of a +child intent upon a fairy tale. She said, as though speaking to +herself: "You should see and hear the myriads of birds that have +'died'! The sky is full of their voices and their wings.... +Everywhere--everywhere the lesser children live,--those long dead of +inhumanity or of that crude and temporary code which we call the law +of nature. All has been made up to them--whatever of cruelty and pain +they suffered--whatever rigour of the 'natural' law in that chain of +destruction which we call the struggle for existence.... For there is +only one real law, and it rules all of space that we can see, and more +of it than we can even imagine.... It is the law of absolute justice." + +The old man nodded: "Do you believe that?" + +She looked up at him dreamily: "Yes; I believe it. Or I should not +have said it." + +"Has anybody ever told you this?" + +"No.... I never even thought about it until this moment while +listening to my own words."... She lifted one hand and rested it +against her forehead: "I cannot seem to think of your grandchildren's +names.... Don't tell me." + +She remained so for a few moments, motionless, then with a graceful +gesture and a shake of her pretty head: "No, I can't think of their +names. Do you suppose I could find them in the crystal?" + +"Try," he said tremulously. She bent forward, resting both elbows on +the table and framing her lovely face in her hands. + +Deep into the scintillating crystal her blue gaze plunged; and for a +few moments she saw nothing. Then, almost imperceptibly, faint hues +and rainbow tints grew in the brilliant and transparent +sphere--gathered, took shape as she watched, became coherent and +logical and clear and real. + +She said in a low voice, still watching intently: "Blue sky, green +trees, a snowy shore, and little azure wavelets.... Two children +bare-legged, playing in the sand.... A little girl--so pretty!--with +her brown eyes and brown curls.... And the boy is her brother I +think.... Oh, certainly.... And what a splendid time they are having +with their sand-fort!... There's a little dog, too. They are calling +him, 'Snippy! Snippy! Snippy!' How he barks at the waves! And now he +has seized the little girl's doll! They are running after him, chasing +him along the sands! Oh, how funny they are!--and what a glorious +time they are having.... The puppy has dropped the doll.... The doll's +name is Augusta.... Now the little girl has seated herself +cross-legged on the sand and she is cradling the doll and singing to +it--such a sweet, clear, happy little voice.... She is singing +something about cherry pie--Oh!--now I can hear every word: + + "Cherry pie, + Cherry pie, + You shall have some bye and bye. + Bye and Bye + Bye and Bye + You and I shall have a pie, + Cherry pie + Cherry pie-- + +"The boy is saying: 'Grandpa will have plenty for us when we get home. +There's always cherry pie at Grandpa's house.' + +"And the little girl answers, 'I think Grandpa will come here pretty +soon and bring us all the cherry pie we want.'... Her name is +Jessie.... Her brother calls her 'Jessie.' She calls him 'Jim.' + +"Their other name is Colden, I think.... Yes, that is it--Colden.... +They seem to be expecting their father and mother; but I don't see +them--Oh, yes. I can see them now--in the distance, walking slowly +along the sands--" + +She hesitated, remained silent for a few moments; then: "The colours +are blurring to a golden haze. I can't see clearly now; it is like +looking into the blinding disk of the rising sun.... All splendour +and dazzling glory--and a too fierce light--" + +For a moment more she remained bent over above the sphere, then +raising her head: "The crystal is transparent and empty," she said. + +[Illustration: "She said in a low voice, still watching intently: +'Blue sky, green trees, a snowy shore, and little azure +wavelets....'"] + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +It was about five months later that Cecil Reeve wrote his long reply +to a dozen letters from Clive Bailey which heretofore had remained +unanswered and neglected: + + "--For Heaven's sake, do you think I've nothing to do except + to write you letters? I _never_ write letters; and here's the + exception to prove it. And if I were not at the Geyser Club, + and if I had not dined incautiously, I would not write this! + + "But first permit me the indiscretion of asking you why an + engaged man is so charitably interested in the welfare of a + young girl who is not engaged to him? And if he is + interested, why doesn't he write to her himself and find out + how she is? Or has she turned you down? + + "But you need not incriminate and degrade yourself by + answering this question. + + "Seriously, Clive, you'd better get all thoughts of Athalie + Greensleeve out of your head as long as you intend to get + married. I knew, of course, that you'd been hard hit. + Everybody was gossiping last winter. But this is rather raw, + isn't it?--asking me to find out how Athalie is and what she + is doing; and to write you in detail? Well anyway I'll tell + you once for all what I hear and know about her and her + family--her family first, as I happen to have had dealings + with them. And hereafter you can do your own philanthropic + news gathering. + + "Doris and Catharine were in a rotten show I backed. And when + I couldn't afford to back it any longer Doris was ungrateful + enough to marry a man who cultivated dates, figs, and pecan + nuts out in lower California, and Catharine has just written + me a most impertinent letter saying that real men grew only + west of the Mississippi, and that she is about to marry one + of them who knows more in half a minute than anybody could + ever learn during a lifetime in New York, meaning me and + Hargrave. I guess she meant me; and I guess it's so--about + Hargrave. Except for myself, we certainly are a bunch of + boobs in this out-of-date old town. + + "Now about Athalie,--she dropped out of sight after you went + abroad. Nobody seemed to know where she was or what she was + doing. Nobody ever saw her at restaurants or theatres except + during the first few weeks after your departure. And then she + was usually with that Dane chap--you know--the explorer. I + wrote to her sisters making inquiries in behalf of myself and + Francis Hargrave; but they either didn't know or wouldn't + tell us where she was living. Neither would Dane. I didn't + suppose he knew at the time; but he did. + + "Well, what do you think has happened? Athalie Greensleeve is + the most talked about girl in town! She has become the + fashion, Clive. You hear her discussed at dinners, at dances, + everywhere. + + "Some bespectacled guy from Columbia University had an + article about her in one of the recent magazines. Every paper + has had something to say concerning her. They all disagree + except on one point,--that Athalie Greensleeve is the most + beautiful woman in New York. How does that hit you, Clive? + + "Well, here's the key to the box of tricks. I'll hand it to + you now. Athalie has turned into a regular, genuine, out and + out clairvoyant, trade-marked patented. And society with a + big _S_ and science with a little _s_ are fighting to take + her up and make a plaything of her. And the girl is making + all kinds of money. + + "Of course her beauty and pretty manners are doing most of it + for her, but here's another point: rumour has it that she's + perfectly sincere and honest in her business. + + "How can she be, Clive? I ask you. Also I hand it to her + press-agent. He's got every simp in town on the run. He knows + his public. + + "Well, the first time I met her she was dining with Dane + again at the Arabesque. She seemed really glad to see me. + There's a girl who remains unaffected and apparently + unspoiled by her success. And she certainly has delightful + manners. Dane glowered at me but Athalie made me sit down for + a few minutes. Gad! I was that flattered to be seen with such + a looker! + + "She told me how it began--she couldn't secure a decent + position, and all her money was gone, when in came an old guy + who had patronised the medium whose rooms she was living in. + + "That started it. The doddering old rube insisted that + Athalie take a crack at the crystal business; she took one, + and landed him. And when he went out he left a hundred bones + in his wake and a puddle of tears on the rug. + + "She didn't tell it to me like this: she really fell for the + old gentleman. But I could size him up for a come-on. The + rural districts crawl with that species. Now what gets me, + Clive, is this: Athalie seems to me to be one of the + straightest ever. Of course she has changed a lot. She's + cleverer, livelier, gayer, more engaging and bewitching than + ever--and believe me she's some flirt, in a sweet, + bewildering sort of way--so that you'd give your head to know + how much is innocence and how much is art of a most + delicious--and, sometimes, malicious kind. + + "That's the girl. And that's all she is, just a girl, with + all the softness and freshness and fragrance of youth still + clinging to her. She's some peach-blossom, take it from + uncle! And she is straight; or I'm a million miles away in + the lockup. + + "And now, granted she's morally straight, how _can_ she be + square in business? Do you get me? It's past me. All I can + think of is that, being straight, the girl feels herself that + she's also square. + + "Yet, if that is so, how can she fool others so neatly? + + "Listen, Clive: I was at a dance at the Faithorn's; + tremendous excitement among pin-heads and debutantes! Athalie + was expected, professionally. And sure enough, just before + supper, in strolls a radiant, wonderful young thing making + them all look like badly faded guinea-hens--and somehow I get + the impression that she is receiving her hostess instead of + the contrary. Talk about self-possession and absolute + simplicity! She had 'em all on the bench. Happening to catch + my eye she held out her hand with one of those smiles she can + be guilty of--just plain assassination, Clive!--and I stuck + to her until the pin-heads crowded me out, and the rubbering + women got my shoulders all over paint. And now here's where + she gets 'em. There's no curtained corner, no pasteboard + trophies, no gipsy shawls and bangles, no lowering of lights, + no closed doors, no whispers. + + "Whoever asks her anything spooky she answers in a sweet and + natural voice, as though replying to an ordinary question. + She makes no mystery of it. Sometimes she can't answer, and + she says so without any excuse or embarrassment. Sometimes + her replies are vague or involved or even apparently + meaningless. She admits very frankly that she is not always + able to understand what her reply means. + + "However she says enough--tells, reveals, discovers, offers + sound enough advice--to make her _the_ plaything of the + season. + + "And it's a cinch that she scores more bull's eyes than + blanks. I had a seance with her. Never mind what she told me. + Anyway it was devilish clever,--and true as far as I knew. + And I suppose the chances are good that the whole business + will happen to me. Watch me. + + "I think Athalie must have cleared a lot of money already. + Mrs. Faithorn told me she gave her a cheque for five hundred + that evening. And Athalie's private business must be pretty + good because all the afternoon until five o'clock carriages + and motors are coming and going. And you ought to see who's + in 'em. Your prospective father-in-law was in one! Perhaps he + wanted inside information about Dominion Fuel--that damn + stock which has done a few things to me since I monkeyed with + it. + + "But you should see the old dragons and dowagers and + death-heads, and frumps who go to see Athalie! And the + younger married bunch, too. I understand one has to ask for + an appointment a week ahead. + + "So she must be making every sort of money. And yet she lives + simply enough--sky floor of a new office-apartment building + on Long Acre--hoisted way up in the air above everything. You + look out and see nothing but city and river and bay and haze + on every side as far as the horizon's circle. At night it's + just an endless waste of electric lights. There's very little + sound from the street roar below. It's still up there in the + sky, and sunny; silent and snowy; quiet and rainy; noiseless + and dark--according to the hours, seasons, and meteorological + conditions, my son. And it's some joint, believe me, with the + dark old mahogany trim and furniture and the dull rich + effects in azure and gold; and the Beluch carpets full of + sombre purple and dusky fire, and the white cat on the + window-sill watching you put of its sapphire blue eyes. + + "And Athalie! curled up on her deep, soft divan, nibbling + sweetmeats and listening to a dozen men--for there are + usually as many as that who drop in at one time or another + after business is over, and during the evening, unless + Athalie is dining out, which she often does, damn it! + + "Business hours for her begin at two o'clock in the + afternoon; and last until five. She could make a lot more + money than she does if she opened earlier. I told her this, + once, but she said that she was determined to educate + herself. + + "And it seems that she studies French, Italian, German, piano + and vocal music; and has some down-and-out old hen read with + her. I believe her ambition is to take the regular Harvard + course as nearly as possible. Some nerve! What? + + "Well, that's how her mornings go; and now I've given you, I + think, a fair schedule of the life she leads. That fellow + Dane hangs about a lot. So do Hargrave and Faithorn and young + Allys and Arthur Ensart. And so do I, Clive; and a lot of + others. Why, I don't know. I don't suppose we'd marry her; + and yet it would not surprise me if any one of us asked her. + My suspicions are that the majority of the men who go there + _have_ asked her. We're a fine lot, we men. So damn + fastidious. And then we go to sentimental pieces when we at + last get it into our bone-heads that there is no other way + that leads to Athalie except by marrying her. And we ask her. + And _then_ we get turned down! + + "Clive, _that_ girl ought to be easy. To look at her you'd + say she was made of wax, easily moulded, and fashioned to be + loved, and to love. But, by God, I don't think it's in her to + love.... For, if it were--good night. She'd have raised the + devil in this world long ago. And some of us would have done + murder before now. + + "If I had not dined so copiously and so rashly I wouldn't + write you all this. I'd write a page or two and lie to you, + politely. And so I'll say this: I really do believe that it + is in Athalie to love some man. And I believe, if she did + love him, she'd love him in any way he asked her. He hasn't + come along yet; that's all. But Oh! how he will be hated when + he does--unless he is the marrying kind. And anyway he'll be + hated. Because, however he does it, he'll get one of the + loveliest girls this town ever set eyes on. And the rest of + us will realise it then, and there will be some + teeth-gnashing, believe me!--and some squirming. Because the + worm that never dieth will continue to chew us one and all, + and never, never let us forget that the girl no man of our + sort could really condescend to marry, had been asked by + every one of us in turn to marry him; and had declined. + + "And I'll add this for my own satisfaction: the man who gets + her, and doesn't marry her, will ultimately experience a + biting from that same worm which will make our lacerations + resemble the agreeable tickling of a feather. + + "We're a rotten lot of cowards. And what hypocrites we are! + + "I saw Fontaine sending flowers to his wife. He'd been at + Athalie's all the evening. There are only two occasions on + which a man sends flowers to his wife; one of them is when + he's in love with her. + + "Aren't we the last word in scuts? Custom-ridden, + habit-cursed, afraid, eternally afraid of something--of our + own sort always, and of their opinions. And that offering of + flowers when the man who sends them hopes to do something of + which he is ashamed, or has already done it! + + "How I do run on! In _vino veritas_--there's some class to + pickled truth! Here are olives for thought, red peppers for + honesty, onions for logic--and cauliflower for constancy--and + fifty-seven other varieties, Clive--all absent in the canned + make-up of the modern man. + + "'When you and I behind the veil have passed'--but they don't + wear veils now; and now is our chance. + + "We'll never take it. Hall-marks are our only guide. When + absent we merely become vicious. We know what we want; we + know what we ought to have; but we're too cowardly to go + after it. And so are you. And so am I. + "Yours-- + "REEVE." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +During that first year Athalie Greensleeve saw a great deal of New +York society, professionally, and of many New York men, socially. + +But the plaything which society attempted to make of her she gently +but adroitly declined to become. She herself drew this line whenever +it was necessary to draw it, never permitting herself to mistake the +fundamental attitude of these agreeable and amicably demonstrative +people toward her, or toward any girl who lived alone in New York and +who practised such a profession. + +Not among the people who employed her and who paid her lavishly for an +evening's complacency; not among people who sought her at her own +place during business hours for professional advice or for lighter +amusement could she expect any other except professional recognition. + +And after a few months of wistful loneliness she came, gradually, to +desire from these people nothing except what they gave. + +But there were some people she met during that first year's practice +of her new profession who seemed to be unimpressed by the popular +belief in such an awesome actuality as New York "society." And some of +these, oddly enough, were the descendants of those who, perhaps, had +formed part of the only real society the big, raw, sprawling city +ever had. But that was long, long ago, in the day of the first +President. + +New York will always be spotted with the symptoms but will never again +have it. Paris has gone the same way. London is still flushed with it, +Berlin hectic, Vienna fevered. But the days of a "society" as a +distinct _ensemble_, with a logical reason for being, with authority, +with functions, with offensive and defensive powers and fixed +boundaries, is over forever; possibly never existed, certainly never +will exist in the series of gregarious aggregations and segregations +known to a perplexed and slightly amused world as the city of New +York. + +For Athalie that first year of new interests and of unfamiliar +successes passed more rapidly than had any single month ever before +passed in her life since the strenuous and ragged days of childhood. + +It was a year of novelty, of excitement, of self-development, and the +development of interests as new as they had been unsuspected. + +Like a gaily illuminated pageant the processional passed before her +with its constantly changing surroundings, new faces, new voices, new +ideas, new motives. + +And the new faces were to be scanned and understood, the new voices +listened to intently, the new ideas analysed, the new motives detected +and dissected. + +In drawing-rooms, in ballrooms, in boudoirs, new scenes constantly +presented themselves; one house was never like the next, one hostess +never resembled another; wealth itself was presented to her under +innumerable aspects ranging all the way from that false modesty and +smugness known as meekness, to fevered pretence, arrogance, and noisy +aggressiveness. + +Wonderful school for a girl to learn in!--the gilded halls of which +were eternally vexed and swept by the winds and whirlwinds of every +human passion. + +For here, under her still, clear scrutiny, was huddled humanity +itself, unconsciously bent on self-revelation. And Athalie's very +presence amid assemblies ever shifting, ever renewed, was educating +her eyes and ears and intellect to an insight and a comprehension she +had never dreamed of. + +In some the supreme necessity for self-ventilation interested her; in +others, secretiveness hermetically sealed fascinated her. Motives +interested or disinterested, sordid or noble; desires, aspirations, +hopes, perplexities,--whatever a glance, a word, an attitude, a +silence, suggested to her, fixed her attention, excited her +intelligence to curiosity, and focussed her interest to a mental +concentration. + +Out of which emerged deductions--curious fruits of logic, experience, +instinct, intuitiveness, and of some extraneous perception, outside of +and independent of her own conscious and objective personality. + +But in one radical particular Athalie differed from any individual of +either sex ever recorded in the history of hypnotic therapeutics or of +psychic phenomena. + +For those two worlds in which we all dwell, the supraliminal or waking +world, the transliminal, or sleeping world, were merged in this young +girl. + +The psychological fact that natural or induced sleep is necessary for +extraneous or for auto-suggestion, did not exist for her. Her psychic +qualities were natural and beautiful, as much a part of her objective +as of her subjective life. Neither the trance induced by mesmerism or +hypnotism, nor the less harmful slumber by induction, nor the sleep of +nature itself was necessary for the girl to find herself in rapport +with others or with her own higher personality--her superior spiritual +self. Nor did her clairvoyance require trances; nor was sleep in +others necessary before she ventured suggestion. + +A celebrated physician who had been eager to meet her found her +extremely interesting but rather beyond his ability to classify. + +How much of her he believed to be fraud might be suspected by what he +said to her that evening in a corner of a very grand house on Fifth +Avenue: + +"There is no such thing as a 'control'; there is no such thing as a +'medium.' No so-called medium has ever revealed anything that did not +exist either in her own consciousness or in the consciousness of some +other living human being. + +"Self-delusion induced by auto-suggestion accounts for the more +respectable victims of Spiritism. For Spiritism is a doctrine accepted +by many people of education, intelligence, refinement, and of +generally excellent judgment. + +"And it is a pity, because Spiritism is a bar to all real +intellectual, material, moral, and spiritual progress. It thrives only +because it pretends to satisfy an intense human craving--the desire +to re-establish personal relations with the dead. It never has done +this; it never will, Miss Greensleeve. And if you really believe it +has done this you are sadly and hopelessly mistaken." + +"But," said Athalie, looking at him out of blue eyes the chiefest +beauty of which was their fearless candour, "I do not concern myself +with what is called Spiritism--with trances, table-tipping, +table-rapping, slate-writing, apparitions, reincarnations--with +cabinets, curtains, darkened rooms, psychic circles." + +"You employ a crystal in your profession." + +"Yes. I need not." + +"Why do you do it, then?" + +"Some clients ask for it." + +"And you see things in it?" + +"Yes," said the girl simply. + +"And when your clients do not demand a crystal-reading?" + +"I can see perfectly well without it--when I can see clearly at all." + +"Into the future?" + +"Sometimes." + +"The past, too, of course." + +"Not always." + +She fascinated the non-scientific side of this famous physician; he +interested her intensely. + +"Do you know," she ventured with a faint smile, "that you are really +quite as psychically endowed as I am?" + +His handsome, sanguine features flushed deeply, but he smiled in +appreciation. + +"Not in the manner you so saucily imply, Miss Greensleeve," he said +gaily. "My work is sound, logical, reasonable, and based on +fundamental truths capable of being proven. I never saw an apparition +in my life--and believed that it was really there!" + +"Oh! So you _have_ seen an apparition?" + +"None that could have really existed independently of my own vision. +In other words it wouldn't have been there at all if I hadn't supposed +I had seen it." + +"You _did_ suppose so?" + +"I knew perfectly well that I didn't see it. I didn't even think I saw +it." + +"But you _saw_ it?" + +"I imagined I did, and at the same time I knew I didn't." + +"Yes," she said quietly, "you did see it, Dr. Westland. You have seen +it more than once. You will see it again." + +A heavier colour dyed his face; he started impatiently as though to +check her--as though to speak; and did not. + +She said: "If what I say is distasteful to you, please stop me." She +waited a moment; then, as he evinced no desire to check or interrupt +her: "I _am_ very diffident about saying this to you--to a man so +justly celebrated--pre-eminent in the greatest of all professions. I +am so insignificant in comparison, so unimportant, so ignorant where +you are experienced and learned. + +"But may I say to you that nothing dies? I am not referring to a +possible spiritual world inhabited perhaps by souls. I mean that here, +on this earth, all around us, nothing that has ever lived really +dies.... Is what I say distasteful to you?" + +He offered no reply. + +"Because," she said in a low voice, "if I say anything more it would +concern you. And what you saw.... For what you saw was alive, and +real--as truly living as you and I are. It is nothing to wonder at, +nothing to trouble or perplex you, to see clearly--anybody--you have +ever--_loved_." + +He looked up at her in a silence so strained, so longing, so intense, +that she felt the terrific tension. + +"Yes," she said, "you saw clearly and truly when you saw--her." + +"Who? in God's name!" + +"Need I tell you, Dr. Westland?" + +No, she had no need to tell him. His wife was dead. But it was not his +wife he had seen so often in his latter years. + +No, she had no need to tell him. + + * * * * * + +Athalie had never been inclined to care for companions of her own sex. +As a child she had played with boys, preferring them. Few women +appealed to her as qualified for her friendship--only one or two here +and there and at rare intervals seemed to her sufficiently interesting +to cultivate. And to the girl's sensitive and shy advances, here and +there, some woman responded. + +Thus she came to know and to exchange occasional social amenities with +Adele Millis, a youthful actress, with Rosalie Faithorn, a handsome +girl born to a formal social environment, but sufficiently independent +to explore outside of it and snap her fingers at the opinions of those +peeping over the bulwarks to see what she was doing. + +Also there was Peggy Brooks, a fascinating, breezy, capable young +creature who was Dr. Brooks to many, and Peggy to very few. And there +were one or two others, like Nina Grey and Jeanne Delauny and Anne +Randolph. + +But of men there would have been no limit and no end had Athalie not +learned very early in the game how to check them gently but firmly; +how to test, pick, discriminate, sift, winnow, and choose those to be +admitted to her rooms after the hours of business had ended. + +Of these the standards differed, so that she herself scarcely knew why +such and such a one had been chosen--men, for instance, like Cecil +Reeve and Arthur Ensart--perhaps even such a man as James Allys, 3rd. +Captain Dane, of course, had been a foregone conclusion, and John +Lyndhurst was logical enough; also W. Grismer, and the jaunty, obese +Mr. Welter, known in sporting circles as Helter Skelter Welter, and +more briefly and profanely as Hel. His running mate, Harry Ferris had +been included. And there was a number of others privileged to drift +into the rooms of Athalie Greensleeve when she chose to be at home to +anybody. + +From Clive she heard nothing: and she wrote to him no more. Of him she +did hear from time to time--mere scraps of conversation caught, a word +or two volunteered, some careless reference, perhaps, perhaps some +scrap of intentional information or some comment deliberate if not a +trifle malicious. + +But to all who mentioned him in her presence she turned a serene face +and unclouded eyes. On the surface she was not to be read concerning +what she thought of Clive Bailey--if indeed she thought about him at +all. + +Meanwhile he had married Winifred Stuart in London, where, it +appeared, they had taken a house for the season. All sorts of +honourables and notables and nobles as well as the resident and +visiting specimens of a free and sovereign people had been bidden to +the wedding. And had joyously repaired thither--the bride being +fabulously wealthy and duly presented at Court. + +The American Ambassador was there with the entire staff of the +Embassy; also a king in exile, several famished but receptive dukes +and counts and various warriors out of jobs--all magnetised by the +subtle radiations from the world's most powerful loadstone, money. + +They said that Mrs. Bailey, Sr., was very beautiful and impressive in +a gown that hypnotised the peeresses--or infuriated them--nobody +seemed to know exactly which. + +Cecil Reeve, lounging on the balcony by the open window one May +evening, said to Hargrave--and probably really unconscious that +Athalie could hear him if she cared to: "Well, he got her all +right--or rather his mother got her. When he wakes up he'll be sick +enough of her millions." + +Hargrave said: "She's a cold-blooded little proposition. I've known +Winifred Stuart all my life, and I never knew her to have any impulse +except a fishy one." + +"Cold as a cod," nodded Cecil. "Merry times ahead for Clive." + +And on another occasion, later in the summer, somebody said in the +cool dusk of the room: + +"It's true that the Bailey Juniors are living permanently in England. +I saw Clive in Scotland when I was fishing out Banff way. He says +they're remaining abroad indefinitely." + +Some man's voice asked how Clive was looking. + +"Not very fit; thin and old. I was with him several times that month +and I never saw him crack a smile. That's not like him, you know." + +"What is it? His wife?" + +"Well, I fancy it lies somewhere between his mother and his wife--this +pre-glacial freeze-up that's made a bally mummy of him." + +And still again, and in the tobacco-scented dusk of Athalie's room, +and once more from a man who had just returned from abroad: + +"I kept running into Clive everywhere. He seems to haunt the +continent, turning up like a ghost here and there; and believe me he +looks the part of the lonely spook." + +"Where's his Missis?" + +"They've chucked the domestic. Didn't you know?" + +"Divorced?" + +"No. But they don't get on. What man could with that girl? So poor old +Clive is dawdling around the world all alone, and his wife's +entertainments are the talk of London, and his mother has become pious +and is building a chapel for herself to repose in some day when the +cards go against her in the jolly game." + + * * * * * + +The cards went against her in the game that autumn. + +Athalie had been writing to her sister Catharine, and had risen from +her desk to find a stick of sealing-wax, when, as she turned to go +toward her bedroom, she saw Clive's mother coming toward her. + +Never but once before had she seen Mrs. Bailey--that night at the +Regina--and, for the first time in her life, she recoiled before such +a visitor. A hot, proud colour flared in her cheeks as she drew +quietly aside and stood with averted head to let her pass. + +But Clive's mother gazed at her gently, wistfully, lingering as she +passed the girl in the passage-way. And Athalie, turning her head +slowly to look after her, saw a quiet smile on her lips as she went +her silent way; and presently was no longer there. Then the girl +continued on her own way in search of the sealing-wax; but she was +moving uncertainly now, one arm outstretched, feeling along the +familiar walls and furniture, half-blinded with her tears. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: "Mrs. Bailey, Jr., looked pale and pretty sitting +there."] + +So the chapel fulfilled its functions. + +It was a very ornamental private chapel. Mrs. Bailey, Sr., had had it +pretty well peppered with family crests and quarterings, authentic and +imaginary. + +Mrs. Bailey, Jr., looked pale and pretty sitting there, the English +sunlight filtered through stained glass; the glass also was thoroughly +peppered with insignia of the House of Bailey. Rich carving, rich +colouring, rich people!--what more could sticklers demand for any +exclusive sanctuary where only the best people received the Body of +Christ, and where God would meet nobody socially unknown. + +Clive arrived from Italy after the funeral. The meeting between him +and his wife was faultless. He hung about the splendid country place +for a while, and spent much time inside the chapel, and also outside, +where he directed the planting of some American evergreens, hemlock, +spruce, and white pine. + +But the aromatic perfume of familiar trees was subtly tearing him to +tatters; and there came a day when he could no longer endure it. + +His young wife was playing billiards with Lord Innisbrae, known +intimately as Cinders, such a languid and burnt out young man was he, +with his hair already white, and every lineament seared with the fires +of revels long since sunken into ashes. + +He watched them for a while, his hands clenched where they rested in +his coat pockets, the lean muscles in his cheeks twitching at +intervals. + +When Innisbrae took himself off, Winifred still lounged gracefully +along the billiard table taking shots with any ball that lay for her. +And Clive looked on, absent-eyed, the flat jaw muscles working at +intervals. + +"Well?" she asked carelessly, laying her cue across the table. + +"Nothing.... I think I'll clear out to-morrow." + +"Oh." + +She did not even inquire where he was going. For that matter he did +not know, except that there was one place he could not go--home; the +only place he cared to go. + +He had already offered her divorce--thinking of Innisbrae, or of some +of the others. But she did not want it. It was, perhaps, not in her to +care enough for any man to go through that amount of trouble. Besides, +Their Majesties disapproved divorce. And for this reason alone nothing +would have induced her to figure in proceedings certain to exclude her +from one or two sets. + +"Anything I can do for you before I leave?" he asked, dully. + +It appeared that there was nothing he could do for his young wife +before he wandered on in the jolly autumn sunshine. + +So the next morning he cleared out. Which proceeding languidly +interested Innisbrae that evening in the billiard-room. + + * * * * * + +That winter Clive got hurt while pig-sticking in Morocco, being but an +indifferent spear. During convalescence he read "Under Two Flags," and +approved the idea; but when he learned that the Spahi cavalry was not +recruiting Americans, and when, a month later, he discovered how +much romance did not exist in either the First or Second Foreign +Legions, he no longer desired dangers incognito under the tri-colour +or under the standard bearing the open hand. + +[Illustration: "During convalescence he read 'Under Two Flags' and +approved the idea."] + +Some casual wanderer through the purlieus of science whom he met in +Brindisi, induced him to go to Sumatra where orchids and ornithoptera +are the game. But he acquired only a perfectly new species of fever, +which took six months to get over. + +He convalesced at leisure all the way from Australia to Cape Town; and +would have been all right; but somebody shot at somebody else one +evening, and got Clive. So it was several months more before he +arrived in India, and the next year before he had enough of China. + +But Clive had seen many things in those two years and had learned +fairly well the lesson of his own unimportance in a world which misses +no man, neither king nor clown, after the dark curtain falls and +satiated humanity shuffles home to bed. + +He saw a massacre--or the remains of it--where fifteen thousand yellow +men and one white priest lay dead. He saw Republican China, 40,000 +strong, move out after the banditti, shouldering its modern rifles, +while its regimental music played "Rosie O'Grady" in quick march time. +He saw the railway between Hankow and Pekin swarming with White Wolf's +bloody pack, limping westward from the Honan-Anhui border with +dripping fangs. He peered into the stinking wells of Honan where women +were cutting their own throats. He witnessed the levity of Lhasa +priests and saw their grimy out-thrust hands clutching for tips +beside their prayer-wheels. + +In India he gazed upon the degradation of woman and the unspeakable +bestiality of man till that vile and dusty hell had sickened him to +the soul. + +Back into Europe he drifted; and instantly and everywhere appeared the +awful Yankee--shooting wells in Hungary, shooting craps in Monaco, +digging antiques in Greece, digging tunnels in Servia,--everywhere the +Yankee, drilling, bridging, constructing, exploring, pushing, arguing, +quarrelling, insisting, telegraphing, gambling, touring, over-running +older and better civilisations than his own crude Empire where he has +nothing to learn from anybody but the Almighty--and then only when he +condescends to ask for advice on Sunday. + +And Clive, nevertheless, longed with a longing that made him sick, for +"God's country" where all that is worst and best on earth still boils +in the vast and seething cauldron of a continent in the making. There +bubbles the elemental broth, dregs, scum, skimmings, residue, +by-products, tailings, smoking corruption above the slowly forming and +incorruptible matrix in its depths where lies imbedded, and ever +growing, the Immam, the Hope of the World--gem indestructible, pearl +beyond price. Difficilia quae pulchra. + +And once, Clive had almost set out for home; and then, grimly, turned +away toward the southern continent of the hemisphere. + +In Lima he heard of an expedition fitting out to search for the lost +Americans, Cromer and Page, and for the Hungarian Seljan. And that +same evening he met Captain Dane. + +They looked at each other very carefully, and then shook hands. Clive +said: "If you want a handy man in camp, I'd like to go." + +"Come on," said Dane, briefly. + +Later, looking over together some maps in Dane's rooms, the big blond +soldier of fortune glanced up at the younger man, and saw a lean, +bronzed visage clamped mute by a lean bronzed jaw; but he also saw two +dark eyes fixed on him in the fierce silence of unuttered inquiry. +After a moment Dane said very quietly: + +"Yes, she was well, and I think happy, when I left New York.... How +long is it since you have heard from her?" + +"Three years." + +"Three years," mused Dane, gazing into space out of his slitted eyes +of arctic blue; "yes, that's some little time. Bailey.... She is +well--I think I said that.... And very prosperous, and greatly admired +... and happy--I believe." + +The other waited. + +Dane picked up a linen map, looked at it, fiddled with the corner. +Then, carelessly: "She is not married," he said.... "Here's the +Huallaga River as I located it four years ago. Seljan and O'Higgins +were making for it, I believe.... That red crayon circle over there +marks the habitat of the Uta fly. It's worse than the Tsetse. If +anybody is hunting death--_esta aqui_!... Here is the Putumayo +district. Hell lies up here, just above it.... Here's Iquitos, and +here lies Para, three thousand miles away.... Were you going to say +something?" + +But if Clive had anything to say he seemed to find no words to say it. +And he only folded his arms on the table's edge and looked down at the +stained and crumpled map. + +"It will take us about a year," remarked Dane. + +Clive nodded, but his eye involuntarily sought the irregular red +circle where trouble of all sorts might be conveniently ended by a +perfectly respectable Act of God. + + * * * * * + +Actus Dei nemini facit injuriam. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +There was a slight fragrance of tobacco in the room mingling with the +fresh, spring-like scent of lilacs--great pale clusters of them +decorated mantel and table, and the desk where Athalie sat writing to +Captain Dane in the semi-dusk of a May evening. + +Here and there dim figures loomed in the big square room; the graceful +shape of a young girl at the piano detached itself from the gloom; a +man or two dawdled by the window, vaguely silhouetted against the +lilac-tinted sky. + +Athalie wrote on: "I had not supposed you had landed until Cecil Reeve +told me this evening. If you are not too tired to come, please do so. +Do you realise that you have been away over a year? Do you realise +that I am now twenty-four years old, and that I am growing older every +minute? You had better hasten, then, because very soon I shall be too +old to believe your magic fairy tales of field and flood and all your +wonder lore of travel in those distant golden lands I dream of. + +"Who was your white companion? Cecil tells me that you said you had +one. Bring him with you this evening; you'll need corroboration, I +fear. And mostly I desire to know if you are well, and next I wish to +hear whether you did really find the lost city of Yhdunez." + +A maid came to take the note to Dane's hotel, the Great Eastern, and +Cecil Reeve looked up and laid aside his cigarette. + +"Come on, Athalie," he said, "tell Peg to turn on one of those +Peruvian dances." + +Peggy Brooks at the piano struck a soft sensuous chord or two, but +Francis Hargrave would not have it, and he pulled out the proper +phonographic record and cranked the machine while Cecil rolled up the +Beluch rugs. + +The somewhat muffled air that exuded from the machine was the lovely +Miraflores, gay, lively, languorous, sad by turns--and much danced at +the moment in New York. + +A new spring moon looked into the room from the west where like +elegant and graceful phantoms the dancers moved, swayed, glided, swung +back again with sinuous grace into the suavely delicate courtship of +the dance. + +The slender feet and swaying figure of Athalie seemed presently to +bewitch the other couple, for they drew aside and stood together +watching that exquisite incarnation of youth itself, gliding, bending, +floating in the lilac-scented, lilac-tinted dusk under the young moon. + +The machine ran down in the course of time, and Hargrave went over to +re-wind it, but Peggy Brooks waved him aside and seated herself at the +piano, saying she had enough of Hargrave. + +She was still playing the quaint, sweet dance called "The Orchid," and +Hargrave was leaning on the piano beside her watching Cecil and Athalie +drifting through the dusk to the music's rhythm, when the door opened +and somebody came in. + +Athalie, in Cecil's arms, turned her head, looking back over her +shoulder. Dane loomed tall in the twilight. + +"Oh!" she exclaimed; "I am so glad!"--slipping out of Cecil's arms and +wheeling on Dane, both hands outstretched. + +The others came up, also, with quick, gay greetings, and after a +moment or two of general and animated chatter Athalie drew Dane into a +corner and made room for him beside her on the sofa. Peggy had turned +on the music machine again and, snubbing Hargrave, was already +beginning the Miraflores with Cecil Reeve. + +Athalie said: "_Are_ you well? That's the first question." + +He said he was well. + +"And did you find your lost city?" + +He said, quietly: "We found Yhdunez." + +"We?" + +"I and my white companion." + +"Why didn't you bring him with you this evening?" she asked. "Did you +tell him I invited him?" + +"Yes." + +"Oh.... Couldn't he come?" + +And, as he made no answer: "Couldn't he?" she repeated. "Who is he, +anyway--" + +"Clive Bailey." + +She sat motionless, looking at him, the question still parting her +lips. Dully in her ears the music sounded. The pallor which had +stricken her face faded, grew again, then waned in the faint return of +colour. + +Dane, who was looking away from her rather fixedly, spoke first, still +not looking at her: "Yes," he said in even, agreeable tones, "Clive +was my white companion.... I gave him your note to read.... He did not +seem to think that he ought to come." + +"Why?" Her lips scarcely formed the word. + +"--As long as you were not aware of whom you were inviting.... There +had been some misunderstanding between you and him--or so I +gathered--from his attitude." + +A few moments more of silence; then she was fairly prepared. + +"Is he well?" she asked coolly. + +"Yes. He had one of those nameless fevers, down there. He's coming out +of it all right." + +"Is he--his appearance--changed?" + +"He's changed a lot, judging from the photographs he showed me taken +three or four years ago. He's changed in other ways, too, I fancy." + +"How?" + +"Oh, I only surmise it. One hears about people--and their +characteristics.... Clive is a good deal of a man.... I never had a +better companion.... There were hardships--tight corners--we had a bad +time of it for a while, along the Andes.... And the natives are +treacherous--every one of them.... He was a good comrade. No man can +say more than that, Miss Greensleeve. That includes about everything I +ever heard of--when a man proves to be a good comrade. And there is no +place on earth where a man can be so thoroughly tried out as in that +sunless wilderness." + +"Is he stopping at the Great Eastern?" + +"Yes. I believe he's going back on Saturday." + +She looked up sharply: "Back? Where?" + +"Oh, not to Peru. Only to England," said Dane, forcing a laugh. + +After a moment she said: "And he wouldn't come.... It is only three +blocks, isn't it?" + +"It wasn't the distance, of course--" + +"No; I remember. He thought I might not have cared to see him." + +"That was it." + +Another silence; then in a lower voice which sounded a little hard: +"His wife is living in England, I suppose." + +"She is living--I don't know where." + +"Have they--children?" + +"I believe not." + +She remained silent for a while, then, coolly enough: + +"I suppose he is sailing on Saturday to see his wife." + +"I think not," said Dane, gravely. + +"You say he is sailing for England." + +"Yes, but I imagine it's because he has nowhere else to go." + +"Why doesn't he stay here?" + +"I don't know." + +"He is American. His friends live here. Why doesn't he remain here?" + +Dane shook his head: "He's a restless man, Miss Greensleeve. That kind +of man can't stay anywhere. He's got to go on--somewhere." + +"I see." + +There came a pause; then they talked of other things for a while until +other people began to drop in, Arthur Ensart, Anne Randolph, and young +Welter--Helter Skelter Welter, always, metaphorically speaking, +redolent of saddle leather and reeking of sport. His theme happened to +be his own wonderful trap record, that evening; and the fat, +good-humoured, ardent young man prattled on about "unknown angles," +and "incomers," until Dane, who had been hunting jaguars and cannibals +along the unknown Andes, concealed his yawns with difficulty. + +Ensart insisted on turning on the lights and starting the machine; and +presently Anne Randolph and Peggy were dancing the Miraflores with +Cecil and Ensart. + +Welter had cornered Hargrave and Dane and was telling them all about +it, and Athalie went slowly through the passage-way and into her own +bedroom, where she stood quite motionless for a while, looking at the +floor. Hafiz, dozing on the bed, awoke, gazed at his mistress gravely, +yawned, and went to sleep again. + +[Illustration: "His theme happened to be his own wonderful trap +record, that evening."] + +Presently she dropped onto a chair by her little ivory-tinted Louis +XVI desk. There was a telephone there and a directory. + +When she had decided to open the latter, and had found the number she +wanted, she unhooked the receiver and called for it. + +After a few minutes somebody said that he was not in his room, but +that he was being paged. + +She waited, dully attentive to the far noises which sounded over the +wire; then came a voice: + +"Yes; who is it?" + +She said: "I wished to speak to Mr. Bailey--Mr. Clive Bailey." + +"I am Mr. Bailey." + +For a moment the fact that she had not recognised his voice seemed to +strike her speechless. And it was only when he spoke again, +inquiringly, that she said in a low voice: "Clive!" + +"Yes.... Is--is it _you_!" + +"Yes." + +And in the next heavily pulsating moment her breath came back with her +self-control: + +"Why didn't you come, Clive?" + +"I didn't imagine you wanted me." + +"I asked Captain Dane to invite you." + +"Did you know whom you were inviting?" + +"No.... But I do now. Will you come?" + +"Yes. When?" + +"When you like. Come now if you like--unless you were engaged--" + +"No--" + +"What were you doing when I called you?" + +"Nothing.... Walking about the lobby." + +"Did you find it interesting?" + +She heard him laugh--such a curious, strange, shaken laugh. + +She said: "I shall be very glad to see you, Clive. There are some of +your friends here, too, who will be glad to see you." + +"Then I'll wait until--" + +"No; I had rather meet you for the first time when others are here--if +you don't mind. Do you?" + +"No," he said, coolly; "I'll come." + +"Now?" + +"Yes, immediately." + +Her heart was going at a terrific pace when she hung up the receiver. +She went to her mirror, turned on the side-lights, and looked at +herself. From the front room came the sound of the dance music, a +ripple or two of laughter. Welter's eager voice singing still of arms +and the man. + +Long she stood there, motionless, studying herself, so that, when the +moment came that was coming now so swiftly upon her, she might know +what she appeared like in his eyes. + +All, so far, was sheer, fresh youth with her; her eyes had not lost +their dewy beauty; the splendour of her hair remained unchanged. There +were no lines, nothing lost, nothing hardened in contour. Clear and +smooth her snowy chin; perfect, so far, the lovely throat: nothing of +blemish was visible, no souvenirs of grief, of pain. + +And, as she looked, and all the time she was looking, she felt, +subtly, that the ordered routine of her thoughts was changing; that a +transformation was beginning somewhere deep within her--a new +character emerging--a personality unfamiliar, disturbing, as though +not entirely to be depended on. + +And in the mirror she saw her lips, scarcely parted, more vivid than +she had ever seen them, and her eyes two wells of azure splendour; saw +the smooth young bosom rise and fall; felt her heart, rapid, +imperious, beating the "colours" into her cheeks. + +Suddenly, as she stood there, she heard him come in;--heard the +astonished and joyous exclamations--Cecil's bantering, cynical voice, +Welter's loud welcome. She pressed both hands to her hot cheeks, +stared at herself a moment, then turned and walked leisurely toward +the living-room. + +In her heart a voice was crying, crying: "Let the world see so that +there may be no mistake! This man who was friendless is my friend. Let +there be no mistake that he is more or less than that." But she only +said with a quick smile, and offering her hand: "I am so glad to see +you, Clive. I am so glad you came." And stood, still smiling, looking +into the lean, sun-tanned face, under the concentrated eyes of her +friends around them both. + +For a second it was difficult for him to speak; but only she saw the +slight quiver of the mouth. + +"You are--quite the same," he said; "no more beautiful, no less. Time +is not the essence of your contract with Venus." + +"Oh, Clive! And I am twenty-four! Tell me--_are_ you a trifle +grey!--just above the temples?--or is it the light?" + +"He's grey," said Cecil; "don't flatter him, Athalie. And Oh, Lord, +what a thinness!" + +Peggy Brooks, professionally curious, said naively: "Are you still +rather full of bacilli, Mr. Bailey? And would you mind if I took a +drop of blood from you some day?" + +"Not at all," said Clive, laughing away the strain that still fettered +his speech a little. "You may have quarts if you like, Dr. Brooks." + +"How was the shooting?" inquired Welter, bustling up like a judge at a +bench-show when the awards are applauded. + +"Oh--there was shooting--of course," said Clive with an involuntary +and half-humorous glance at Captain Dane. + +"Good nigger hunting," nodded Dane. "Unknown angles, Welter. You ought +to run down there." + +"Any incomparable Indian maidens wearing nothing but ornaments of +gold?" inquired Cecil. + +"That is partly true," said Clive, laughing. + +"If you put a period after 'nothing,' I suppose," suggested Peggy. + +"About that." + +He turned to Athalie; but her silent, smiling gaze confused him so +that he forgot what he had meant to say, and stood without a word amid +the chatter that rose and ebbed about him. + +Anne Randolph and Arthur Ensart had joined hands, their restless feet +sketching the first steps of the Miraflores; and presently somebody +cranked the machine. + +"Come on!" said Peggy imperiously to Dane; "you've been too long in +the jungle dancing with Indian maidens!" + +Other people dropped in--Adele Millis, young Grismer, John Lyndhurst, +Jeanne Delauny. + +When Clive saw Rosalie Faithorn saunter in with James Allys he stared, +but that young seceder from his own set greeted him without +embarrassment and lighted a cigarette. + +"Where's Winifred?" she asked nonchalantly. "Still on the outs? Yes? +Why not shuffle and draw again? Winifred was always a pig." + +Clive flushed at the girl's frankness although he could have expected +nothing less from her. + +Rosalie continued to smoke and to inspect him critically: "You're a +bit seedy and a bit weedy, Clive, but you'll come around with feeding. +You're really all right. I'd have you myself if I was marrying young +men these days." + +"That's nice of you, Rosalie.... But I'm full of rare bacilli." + +"The rarer the better--if you must have them. Give me the unusual, +whether it's a disease or a gown. I believe I will take you, Clive--if +you are not expected to live long." + +"That's the trouble. Nothing seems to be able to get me." + +Dane said as he passed with Peggy: "He's immune, Miss Faithorn. The +prettiest woman I ever saw, he side-stepped in Lima. And even then +every man wanted to shoot him up because she made eyes at him." + +"I think I'll go there," said Cecil. "Her name and quality if you +please, Dane." + +"Ask Clive," he called back. + +Athalie, still smiling, said: "Shall I ask you, Clive?" + +"Don't ask that South American adventurer anything," interrupted +Cecil, "but come and dance this Miraflores with me, Athalie--" + +"No, I don't wish to--" + +"Come on! You must!" + +"Oh, Cecil--please--" + +But he had his way; and, as usual, everybody watched her while the +charming music lasted,--Clive among the others, standing a little +apart, lean, erect, his dark gaze fixed. + +She came back to him after the dance, delicately flushed and a trifle +breathless. + +"Do you dance that in England?" she asked. + +"It's danced--not at Court functions, I believe." + +"You never did care to dance, did you?" + +"No--" he shrugged, "I used to mess about some." + +"And what do you do to amuse yourself in these days?" + +"Nothing--much." + +"You must do _something_, Clive!" + +"Oh, yes ... I travel,--go about." + +"Is that all?" + +"That's about all." + +She had stepped aside to let the dancers pass; he moved with her. + +She said in a low, even voice: "Is it pleasant to be back, Clive?" + +He nodded in silence. + +"Nothing has changed very much since you went away. There's a new +administration at the City Hall, a number of new sky-scrapers in town; +people danced the Tango day before yesterday, the Maxixe yesterday, +the Miraflores to-day, the Orchid to-morrow. That's about all, Clive." + +And as he merely acquiesced in silence, she glanced up sideways at +him, and remained watching this new, sun-browned, lean-visaged version +of the boy she had first known and the boyish man who had gone out of +her life four years before. + +"Would you like to see Hafiz?" she asked. + +He turned quickly toward her: "Yes," he said, the ghost of a smile +lining the corners of his eyes. + +"He's on my bed, asleep. Will you come?" + +Slipping along the edges of the dancing floor and stepping daintily +over the rolled rugs, she led the way through the passage to her rose +and ivory bedroom, Clive following. + +Hafiz opened his eyes and looked across at them from the pillow, stood +up, his back rounding into a furry arch; yawned, stretched first one +hind leg and then the other, and finally stood, flexing his forepaws +and uttering soft little mews of recognition and greeting. + +"I wonder," she said, smilingly, "if you have any idea how much Hafiz +has meant to me?" + +He made no reply; but his face grew sombre and he laid a lean, +muscular hand on the cat's head. + +Neither spoke again for a little while. Finally his hand fell from the +appreciative head of Hafiz, dropping inert by his side, and he stood +looking at the floor. Then there was the slightest touch on his arm, +and he turned to go; but she did not move; and they confronted each +other, alone, and after many years. + +Suddenly she stretched out both hands, looking him full in the eyes, +her own brilliant with tears: + +"I've got you back--haven't I?" she said unsteadily. But he could not +speak, and stood savagely controlling his quivering lip with his +teeth. + +"I just want you as I had you, Clive--my first boy friend--who turned +aside from the bright highway of life to speak to a ragged child.... I +have had the boy; I have had the youth; I want the man, Clive,--honestly, +in perfect innocence. + +"Would you care what might be said of us--as long as we know our +friendship is blameless? I am not taking you from _her_, am I? I am +not taking anything away from her, am I? + +"I have not always played squarely with men. I don't think it is +possible. They have hoped for--various eventualities. I have not +encouraged them; I have merely let them hope. Which is not square. + +"But I wish always to play square with women. Unless a woman does, +nobody will.... And that is why I ask you, Clive--am I robbing her--if +you come back to me--as you were?--nothing more--nothing less, Clive, +but just exactly as you were." + +It was impossible for him to control his voice or his words or even +his thoughts just yet; he stood with his lean head turned partly from +her, motionless as a rock, in the desperate grip of self-mastery, +crushing the slender hands that alternately yielded and clasped his +own. + +"Oh, Clive," she said, "Clive! You don't know--you never can know what +loneliness means to such a woman as I am.... I thought once--many +times--that I could never again speak to you--that I never again could +care to hear about you.... But I was wrong, pitifully wrong. + +"It was not jealousy of her, Clive; you know that, don't you? There +had never been any question of such sentiment between you and +me--excepting once--one night--that last night when you said +good-bye--and you were very much overwrought. + +"So it was not jealousy.... It was loneliness. I wanted you, even if +you had fallen in love. That sort of love had nothing to do with us! + +"There was nothing in it that ought to have come between you and +me?... Besides, if such an ephemeral thought ever drifted through my +idle mind, I knew on reflection that you and I could never be destined +to marry, even if such sentiment ever inclined us. I knew it and +accepted it without troubling to analyse the reasons. I had no desire +to invade your world--less desire now that I have penetrated it +professionally and know a little about it. + +"It was not jealousy, Clive." + +He swung around, bent swiftly and pressed his lips to her hands. And +she abandoned them to him with all her heart and soul in an +overwhelming passion of purest emotion. + +"I couldn't stand it, Clive," she said, "when I heard you were at your +hotel alone.... And all the unhappiness I had heard of--your married +life--I--I couldn't stand it; I couldn't let you remain there all +alone! + +"And when you came here to-night, and I saw in your face how these +four years had altered you--how it had been with you--I wanted you +back--to let you know I am sorry--to let you know I care for the man +who has known unhappiness, as I cared for the boy who had known only +happiness. + +"Do you understand, Clive? Do you, dear? Don't you see what I see?--a +man standing all alone by a closed door behind which his hopes lie +dead. + +"Clive, that is where you came to me, offering sympathy and +friendship. That is where I come to you in my turn, offering whatever +you care to take of me--if there is in me anything that may comfort +you." + +He bent and laid his lips to her hands again, remaining so, curbed +before her; and she looked down at his lean and powerful head and +shoulders, and saw the hint of grey edging the crisp, dark hair, and +the dark stain of tropic suns, that never could be effaced. + +So far no passion, other than innocent, had she ever known for any +man,--nothing of lesser emotion, nothing physical. And, had she +thought of it at all she must have believed that it was that way with +her still. For no thought concerning it disturbed her tender, +tremulous happiness with this man beside her who still held her hands +imprisoned against his breast. + +And presently they were seated on the couch at the foot of her bed, +excited, garrulous, exchanging gossip, confidences, ideas long +unuttered, desires long unexpressed. + +Under the sweeping flashlight of her intelligence the four years of +his absence were illuminated, and passed swiftly in review for his +inspection. Of loneliness, perplexity, grief, deprivation, she made +light, laughingly, shrugging her smooth young shoulders. + +"All that was yesterday," she said. "There is only to-day, now--until +to-morrow becomes to-day. You won't go away, will you, Clive?" + +"No." + +"There is no need of your going, is there?--no reason for you to +go--no duty--moral obligation--is there, Clive?" + +"None." + +"You wouldn't say so just because I wish you to, would you?" + +"I wouldn't be here at all if there were any reason for me to +be--there." + +"Then I am not robbing her of you?--I am not depriving her of the +tiniest atom of anything that you owe to her? Am I, Clive?" + +"I can't see how. There is only one thing I can do for--my wife. And +that is to keep away from her." + +"Oh, Clive! How desperately sad! And, she is young and beautiful, +isn't she? Oh, I am so sorry for you--for you both. Don't you see, +dear, that I am not jealous? If you could be happy with her, and if +she could understand me and let me be your friend,--that would be +wonderful, Clive!" + +He remained silent, thinking of Winifred and of her quality of +"understanding"; and of the miserable matter of business which had +made her his wife--and of his own complacent and smug indifference, +and his contemptible weakness under pressure. + +Always in the still and secret depths of him he had remained conscious +that he had never cared for any woman except Athalie. All else had +been but a vague realisation of axioms and theorems,--of premises that +had rusted into his mind,--of facts which he accepted as +self-evident,--such as the immutable fact that he couldn't marry +Athalie, couldn't mortify his family, couldn't defy his friends, +couldn't affront his circle with impunity. + +To invite disaster would be to bring an avalanche upon himself which, +if it wounded, isolated, even marooned him, would certainly bury +Athalie out of sight forever. + +His parents had so reasoned with him; his mother continued the +inculcation after his father's death. And then Winifred and her mother +came floating into his cosmic ken like two familiar planets. + +For a while, far away in interstellar space, Athalie glimmered like a +fading comet. Then orbits narrowed; adhesion and cohesion followed +collision; the bi-maternal pressure never lessened. And he gave up. + +Of this he was thinking now as he sat there in her rose and ivory +room, gazing at the grey silk carpet underfoot; and all the while +exquisitely, vitally conscious of Athalie--of her nearness to him--to +tears at moments--to that happiness akin to tears. + +"Clive, do you remember--" and she breathlessly recalled some gay and +long forgotten incident of that never to be forgotten winter together +when the theatres and restaurants knew them so well, and the day-world +and night-world both credited them with being to each other everything +that they had never been. + +"Where will you live?" she asked. + +He said: "You know I have sold our old house.... I don't know--" He +looked at her gravely and ashamed: "I think I will take your old +apartment." + +She blushed to her hair: "Were you annoyed with me because I left it?" + +"It hurt." + +"But Clive!--I _couldn't_ remain,--after you had become engaged to +marry." + +"Did you need to leave everything you owned?" + +"They were not mine," she said in a low, embarrassed voice. + +"Whose then?" + +"Yours. I never considered them mine.... As though I were a girl of +little consideration ... who paid herself, philosophically, for what +she had lost.... Like a man's mistress after the inevitable break has +come--" + +"Don't say that!" + +She shrugged her pretty shoulders: "I am a woman old enough to know +what the world is, and what women do in it sometimes; and what men +do.... And I am this sort of woman, Clive: I can give, I can receive, +too, but only because of the happiness it bestows on the giver. And +when the sympathy which must exist between giver and receiver ends, +then also possession ends, for me.... Why do you look at me so +seriously?" + +But he dared not say. And presently she went on, happily, and at +random: "Of course I kept Hafiz and the first thing you ever gave +me--the gun-metal wrist-watch. Here it is--" leaning across him and +pulling out a drawer in her dresser. "I wear it every day when I am +out. It keeps excellent time. Isn't it a darling, Clive?" + +He examined it in silence, nodded, and returned it to her. And she +laid it away again, saying: + +"So you think of taking my old apartment? How odd! And how very +sentimental of you, Clive." + +He said, forcing a light tone: "Nothing has ever been disturbed there. +It's all as it was when you left. Even your gowns are hanging in the +closets--" + +"Clive!" + +"We'll go around if you like. Would you care to see it again?" + +"Y--yes." + +"Then we'll go together, and you can investigate closets and bureaus +and dressers--" + +"Clive! Why did you let those things remain?" + +"I didn't care to have anybody else take that place." + +"Do you know that what you have done is absurdly and frightfully +sentimental?" + +"Is it?" he said, trying to laugh. "Well that snivelling and false +sort of sentiment is about the best that such men as I know how to +comfort themselves with--when it's too late for the real thing." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Just what I am saying. Cheap minds are fed with false sentiment; and +are comforted.... I made out of that place a smug little monument to +you--while you were living alone and almost penniless in a shabby +rooming house on--" + +"Oh, Clive! You didn't know that! And anyway it would not have altered +things for me." + +"I suppose not.... Well, Athalie; you are very wonderful to +me--merciful, forgiving, nobly blind--God!" he muttered under his +breath, "I don't understand how you can be so generous and gentle with +me,--I don't, indeed." + +"If you only knew how easy it is to care for you," she said with that +sweet fearlessness so characteristic of her. + +He bit his lips in silence. + +Presently she said: "I suppose there'll be gossip in the other room. +Rosalie and Cecil will be cynical and they also will try to be witty +at our expense. But I don't care. Do you?" + +"Shall we go in?" + +"No.... I haven't had you for four years. If you don't care what is +said about us, I don't." And she looked up at him with the most +engaging candour. + +"I'm only thinking about you, Athalie--" + +"Don't bother to, Clive. Pretty nearly everything has been said about +me, I fancy. And, unless it might damage you I'll go anywhere with +you, do anything with you. _I_ know that I'm all right; and I care no +longer what others say or think." + +"But you know," he said, "that is a theory which will not work--" + +"You are wrong, Clive. Nobody cares what sort of character a popular +actress may have. Her friends are not disturbed by her reputation; the +public crowds to see her. And it's about that way with me, I imagine. +Because I don't suppose many people believe me to be respectable. +Only--there is no man alive who can say of his own knowledge that I am +not,--whatever he and his brothers and sisters may imagine." + +"So why should I care?--as long as the public affords me an honest +living! _I_ know what I am, and have been. And the knowledge, so far, +does not keep me awake at night." + +She laughed--the sweet, fresh, unembarrassed laugh of innocence,--not +that ignorance and stupidity which is called innocence, but innocence +based on a worldly wisdom which neither her intelligence nor her +experience permitted her to escape. + +After a short silence he bent forward and laid one hand on a crystal +which stood clasped by a tiny silver tripod on the table beside her +bed. + +"So you did develop your--qualities--after all, Athalie." + +"Yes.... It happened accidentally." And she told him about the old +gentleman who had come to her rooms when she stood absolutely +penniless and at bay before the world. + +After she had ended he asked her whether she had ever again seen his +father. She told him. She told him also about seeing his mother. + +"Have they anything to say to me, Athalie?" he asked wistfully. + +"I don't know, Clive. Some day--when you feel like it--if you will +come to me--" + +"Thank you, dear ... you are wonderful--wonderfully good--" + +"Oh, Clive, I'm not! I'm careless, pleasure-loving, inclined to +laziness--and even to dissipation--" + +"You!" + +"Within certain limits," she added demurely. "I dance a lot: I know I +smoke too much and drink too much champagne. I'm no angel, Clive. I +won altogether too much at auction last night; ask Jim Allys. And +really, if I didn't have a mind and feel a desire to cultivate it, I'd +be the limit I suppose." She laughed and tossed her chin; and the pure +loveliness of her child-like throat was suddenly and exquisitely +revealed. + +"I'm too intelligent to go wrong I suppose," she said. "I adore +cultivating my mental faculties even more than I like to misbehave." +She added a trifle shyly. "I speak French and Italian and German very +nicely. And I sing a little and play acceptably. Please compliment me, +Clive." + +But her quick smile died out as she looked into his eyes--eyes haunted +by the vision of all that he had denied his manhood and this girl's +young womanhood--all that he had lost, irretrievably and forever on +that day he married another woman. + +"What is the matter, Clive?" she asked with sweet concern. + +He answered: "Nothing, I guess ... except--you are very--wonderful--to +me." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +A May afternoon was drawing to a close; the last appointment had been +made for the morrow, and the last client for the day still lingered +with Athalie where she sat with her head propped thoughtfully on one +slim hand, her gaze concentrated on the depths of the crystal sphere. + +After a long silence she said: "You need not be anxious. Her wireless +apparatus is out of order. They are repairing it.... It was a bad +storm." + +"Is there any ice near her?" + +After a pause: "I can see none." + +"Any ships?" + +"One of her own line, hull down. They have been exchanging signals.... +There seems to be no necessity for her to stand by. The worst is +over.... Yes, the _Empress of Borneo_ proceeds. The _Empress of +Formosa_ will be reported this evening. You need not be anxious: +she'll dock on Monday." + +"Are you sure?" said the man as Athalie lifted her eyes from the +crystal and smiled reassuringly at him. He was a stocky, red-faced, +trim, middle-aged man; but his sanguine visage bore the haggard +imprint of sleepless nights, and the edges of his teeth had bitten his +under lip raw. + +Athalie glanced carelessly at the crystal, then nodded. + +"Yes," she said patiently. "I am sure of it, Mr. Clements. The +_Empress of Formosa_ will dock on Monday--about--nine in the morning. +She will be reported by wireless from the _Empress of Borneo_ this +evening.... They have been relaying it from the Delaware Capes.... +There will be an extra edition of the evening papers. You may dismiss +all anxiety." + +The man rose, stood a moment, his features working with emotion. + +"I'm not a praying man," he said. "But if this is so--I'll pray for +you.... It can't hurt you anyway--" he checked himself, stammering, +and the deep colour stained him from his brow to his thick, powerful +neck as he stood fumbling with his portfolio. + +But Athalie smilingly put aside the recompense he offered: "It is too +much, Mr. Clements." + +"It is worth it to the Company--if the news is true--" + +"Then wait until your steamer docks." + +"But you say you are certain--" + +"Yes, I am: but _you_ are not. My refusal of payment will encourage +you to confidence in me. You have been ill with anxiety, Mr. Clements. +I know what that means. And now your bruised mind cannot realise that +the trouble is ended--that there is no reason now for the deadly fear +that has racked you. But everything will help you now--what I have +told you--and my refusal of payment until your own eyes corroborate +everything I have said." + +"I believe you now," he said, staring at her. "I wish to offer you in +behalf of the Company--" + +A swift gesture conjured him to silence. She rose, listening intently. +Presently his ears too caught the faint sound, and he turned and +walked swiftly and silently to the open window. + +"There is your extra," she said pleasantly. "The _Empress of Borneo_ +has been reported." + + * * * * * + +She was still lying on the couch beside the crystal, idly watching +what scenes were drifting, mist-like, through its depths--scenes +vague, and faded in colour, and of indefinite outline; for, like the +monotone of a half-heard conversation which does not concern a +listener these passing phantoms concerned not her. + +Under her indifferent eyes they moved; pale-tinted scenes grew, waxed, +and waned, and a ghostly processional flowed through them without end +under her dark blue dreaming eyes. + +She had turned and dropped her head back upon the silken pillows when +his signal sounded in telegraphic sequence on the tiny concealed bell. + +The still air of the room was yet tremulous with the silvery vibration +when he entered, looked around, caught sight of her, and came swiftly +toward her. + +She looked up at him in her sweet, idly humorous way, unstirring. + +"This is becoming a habit with you, Clive." + +"Didn't you care to see me this afternoon?" he asked so seriously that +the girl laughed outright and stretched out one hand to him. + +"Clive, you're becoming ponderous! Do you know it? Suppose I didn't +care to see you this particular afternoon. Is there any reason why you +should take it so seriously?" + +"Plenty of reasons," he said, saluting her smooth, cool hand,--"with +all these people at your heels every minute--" + +"Please don't pretend--" + +"I'm _not_ jealous. But all these men--Cecil and Jimmy Allys--they're +beginning to be a trifle annoying to me." + +She laughed in unfeigned and malicious delight: + +"They don't annoy _me_! No girl ever was annoyed by overattention from +her suitors--except Penelope--and _I_ don't believe she had such a +horrid time of it either, until her husband came home and shot up the +whole _the dansant_." + +He was still standing beside her couch without offering to seat +himself; and she let him remain standing a few minutes longer before +she condescended to move aside on her pillows and nod a tardy +invitation. + +"Has it been an interesting day, Clive?" + +"Rather." + +"And you have really gone back into business again?" + +"Yes." + +"And will the real estate market rally at the news of your august +reappearance?" she inquired mischievously. + +"I haven't a doubt of it," he said with gravity. + +[Illustration: "'There is your extra,' she said pleasantly."] + +"Wonderful, Clive! And I think I'd better get in on the ground floor +before values go sky-rocketing. Do you want a commission from me?" + +"Of course." + +"Very well. Buy me the old Hotel Greensleeve." + +He smiled; but she said with pretty seriousness: "I really have been +thinking about it. Do you suppose it could be bought reasonably? It's +really a pretty place. And there's a hundred acres--or there was.... I +would like to have a modest house somewhere in the country." + +"Are you in earnest, Athalie?" + +"Really I am.... Couldn't that old house be fixed over inexpensively? +You know it's nearly two hundred years old, and the lines are good if +the gingerbread verandas and modern bay windows are done away with." + +He nodded; and she went on with shy enthusiasm: "I don't really know +anything about gardens, except I know that I should adore them.... I +thought of a garden--just a simple one.... And some cows and chickens. +And one nice old horse.... It is really very pretty there in spring +and summer. And the bay is so blue, and the salt meadows are so +sweet.... And the cemetery is near.... I should not wish to alter +mother's room very much.... I'd turn the bar into a sun parlour.... +But I'd keep the stove ... where you and I sat that evening and ate +peach turnovers.... About how much do you suppose the place could be +bought for?" + +"I haven't the least idea, Athalie. But I'll see what can be done +to-morrow.... It ought to be a good purchase. You can scarcely go +wrong on Long Island property if you buy it right." + +"Will you see about it, Clive?" + +"Of course I will, you dear girl!" he said, dropping his hand over +hers where it lay between them. + +She smiled up at him. Then, distrait, turned her blue eyes toward the +window, and remained gazing out at the late afternoon sky where a few +white clouds were sailing. + +"'Clouds and ships on sky, and sea,'" she murmured to herself.... +"'And God always at the helm.' Why do men worry? All sail into the +same port at last." + +He bent over her: "What are you murmuring all to yourself down there?" +he asked, smilingly. + +"Nothing much,--I'm just watching the driftsam and flotsam borne on +the currents flowing through my mind--flowing through it and out +again--away, somewhere--back to the source of thought, perhaps." + +He was still bending above her, and she looked up dreamily into his +eyes. + +"Do you think I shall ever have my garden?" she asked. + +"All things good must come to you, Athalie." + +She laughed, looking up into his eyes: "You meant that, didn't you? +'All things good'--yes--and other things, too.... They come to all I +suppose.... Tell me, do you think my profession disreputable?" + +"You have made it otherwise, haven't you?" + +"I don't know. I'm eternally tempted. My intelligence bothers me. And +where to draw the line between what I really see and what I divine by +deduction--or by intuition--I scarcely know sometimes.... I try to be +honest.... When you came in just now, were they calling an extra?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you hear what they were calling?" + +"Something about the _Empress of Borneo_ being reported safe." + +She nodded. Then: "That is the hopeless part of it. I can sometimes +help others; never myself.... I suppose you have no idea how many, +many hours I have spent looking for you.... I never could find you. I +have never found you in my crystal, or in my clearer vision, or in my +dreams; ... never heard your voice, never had news of you except by +common report in everyday life.... Why is it, I wonder?" + +His expression was inscrutable. She said, her eyes still lingering on +his: "You know it makes me indignant to see so much that neither +concerns nor interests me--so much that passes--in this!--" laying one +hand on the crystal beside the couch ... "and never, never in the dull +monotony of the drifting multitude to catch a glimpse of you.... I +wonder, were I lost somewhere in the world, if you could find me, +Clive?" + +"I'd die, trying," he said unsmilingly. + +"Oh! How romantic! I wasn't fishing for a pretty speech, dear. I +meant, could you find me in the crystal. Look into it, Clive." + +He turned and went over to the clear, transparent sphere, and she, +resting her chin on both arms, lay gazing into it, too. + +After a silence he shook his head: "I see nothing, Athalie." + +"Can you not see that great yellow river, Clive? And the snow peaks on +the horizon?... Palms, tall reeds, endless forests--everything so +still--except birds flying--and a broad river rolling between +forests.... And a mud-bar, swarming with crocodiles.... And a dead +tree stranded there, on which large birds are sitting.... There is a +big cat-shaped animal on the bank; but the forest is dark and +sunless,--too dusky to see into.... I think the animal is a jaguar.... +He's drinking now.... Yes, he's a jaguar--a heavy, squarely built, +spotted creature with a broad, blunt head.... He's been eating a +pheasant; there are feathers everywhere--bright feathers, brilliant as +jewels.... Hark! You didn't hear that, did you, Clive? Somebody has +shot the jaguar. They've shot him again. He's whirling 'round and +'round--and now he's down, biting at sticks and leaves.... There goes +another shot. The jaguar lies very still. His jaws are partly open. He +has big, yellow cat-teeth.... I can't seem to see who shot him.... +There are some black men coming. One has a small American flag furled +around the shaft of his spear. He's waving it over the dead jaguar. +They're all dancing now.... But I can't see the man who shot him." + +"I shot him," said Clive. + +"I thought so." She turned and dropped back among her pillows. + +"You see," she said, listlessly, "I can never seem to find you, Clive. +Sometimes I suspect your presence. But I am never certain.... Why is +it that a girl can't find the man she cares for most in the whole +world?" + +"Do you care for me as much as that?" + +"Why, yes," she said, a trifle surprised. + +"And do you think I return your--regard--in measure?" + +She looked at him curiously, then, with her engaging and fearless +smile: "_Quantum suff_," she said. "You know you oughtn't to care +_too_ much for me, Clive." + +"How much is too much?" + +"You know," she said, watching his face, the smile still lingering on +her lips. + +"No, I don't. Tell me." + +"I'll inform you when it's necessary." + +"It's necessary now." + +"No, it isn't." + +"I'm afraid it is." + +There was a silence. She lay watching him for a moment longer while +the smile in her eyes slowly died out. Then, all in a moment, a swift +change altered her expression; and she sat up on the couch, supporting +herself on both hands. + +"What is happening to you, Clive!" she said almost breathlessly. + +"Nothing new." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Shall I tell you?" + +"Of course." + +"Then,"--but he could not say it. He had no business to, and he knew +it. It was the one thing he could refrain from saying, for her sake; +the one service he could now render her. + +He sat staring into space, the iron grimness of self-control locking +every fetter that he wore--must always wear now. + +She waited, her eyes intent on his face, her colour high, heart rapid. + +"What had you to say to me?" she asked, breaking the silence. + +He forced a laugh: "Nothing--except that sometimes being with you +again makes me--very contented--" + +"Is that what you had to say?" + +"Yes. I told you it was nothing new." + +She lowered her gaze and remained silent for a moment, apparently +considering what he had said. Then the uplifted candour of her eyes +questioned him again: + +"You don't imagine yourself in love with me again, do you, Clive?" + +"No." + +"Nothing like that could happen to you again, could it?... Because it +has not yet happened to me. It couldn't.... And it would be too--too +ghastly if you--if anything--" + +"Don't talk about it that way!" he said sharply. "If it _did_ +happen--what of it?"... He forced a smile. "But it won't happen.... +Things like that don't happen to people like you and me. We care too +much for each other, don't we, Athalie?" + +"Yes.... It would be terrible.... I don't know why I put such ideas +into your head--or into my own. But you--there was something in your +expression.... Oh, Clive, dear, it _couldn't_ happen to you, could +it?" + +She leaned forward impulsively and put both hands on his shoulders, +gazing into his eyes, searching them fearfully for any trace of what +she thought for a moment she had seen in them. + +He said gaily enough: "No fear, dear. I'm exactly what I always have +been. I'll always be what you want me to be, Athalie." + +"I know.... But if ever--" + +"No, no! Nothing can ever happen to worry you--" + +"But if--" + +"Nothing shall happen!" + +"I know. But if ever it does--" + +"It won't." + +"Oh, Clive, listen! If it _does_ happen to you, what will you do?" + +"Do?" + +"Yes.... If it does happen, what will you do, Clive?" + +"But--" + +"Answer me!" + +"I--" + +"Please answer me. What will you do about it?" + +"Nothing," he said, flushing. + +"Why not?" + +"Why not? What is there--what would there be to do? What could I have +to say to you if--" + +"You could say that you loved me--if you did." + +"To what purpose?" he demanded, red and astonished. + +"To whatever purpose you followed.... Why shouldn't you tell me? If it +ever happened that you fell in love with me again I had rather you +told me than that you kept silent. I had rather know it than have it +happen and never know it. Is there anything wrong in a man if he +happens to fall in love with a girl?" + +"He can remain silent, anyway." + +"Why? Because he cannot marry her?" + +"Yes." + +"If you ever fell in love with me--would you wish to marry me?" + +"If I ever did," he said, "I'd go through hell to marry you." + +She considered him, curiously, as though trying to realise something +inconceivable. + +"I do not think of you that way," she said. "I do not think of you +sentimentally at all.... Only that I care for you--deeply. I don't +believe it's in me to love. I mean--as the world defines love.... So +don't fall in love with me, Clive.... But, if you ever do, tell me." + +"Why?" he asked unsteadily. + +"Because you ought to tell me. I should not wish to die and never know +it." + +"Would you care?" + +"Care? Do you ask a girl whether she could remain unmoved, +uninterested, indifferent, if the man she cares for most falls in love +with her?" + +"Could you--respond?" + +"Respond? With love? I don't know. How can I tell? I believe that I +have never been in love in all my life. I don't know what it feels +like. You might as well ask somebody born blind to read an ordinary +book.... But one thing is certain: if that ever happens to you, you +ought to tell me. Will you?" + +"What good would it do?" + +"What harm would it do?" she asked frankly. + +"Suppose, knowing we could not marry, I made love to you, Athalie?" + +Suddenly the smile flashed in her eyes: "Do you think I'm a baby, +Clive? Suppose, knowing what we know, you did make love to me? Is that +very dreadful?" + +"My responsibility would be." + +"The responsibility is mine. I'm my own mistress. If I chose to be +yours the responsibility is mine--" + +"Don't say such things, Athalie!" + +"Why not? Such things happen--or they don't happen. I have no idea +they're likely to happen to us.... I'm not a bit alarmed, Clive.... +Perhaps it's the courage of ignorance--" She glanced at him again with +the same curious, questioning look in her eyes,--"Perhaps because I +cannot comprehend any such temptation.... And never could.... +Nevertheless if you fall in love with me, tell me. I would not wish +you to remain dumb. You have a right to speak. Love isn't a question +of conditions or of convenience. You ought to have your chance." + +"Chance!" + +"Certainly." + +"What chance?" + +"To win me." + +"Win you!--when I can't marry you--" + +"I didn't say marry; I said, win.... If you ever fell in love with me +you would wish to win my love, wouldn't you? And if you did, and I +gave it to you, you would have won me for yourself, wouldn't you? Then +why should you worry concerning _how_ I might love you? That would be +my affair, my personal responsibility. And I admit to you that I know +no more than a kitten what I might do about it." + +She looked at him a moment, her hands still resting on his shoulders, +and suddenly threw back her head, laughing deliciously: "Did you ever +before take part in such a ridiculous conversation?" she demanded. +"Oh, but I have always adored theoretical conversations. Only give me +an interesting subject and take one end of it and I'll gratefully +grasp the other, Clive. What an odd man you are; and I suppose I'm +odd, too. And we may yet live to inhabit an odd little house +together.... Wouldn't the world tear me to tatters!... I wonder if I'd +dare--even knowing I was all right!"... The laughter died in her +eyes; a swift tenderness melted them: "I do care for you so truly, +Clive! I can't bear to think of ever again living without you.... You +know it isn't silliness or love or anything except what I've always +felt for you--loyalty and devotion, endless, eternal. And that is all +there is or ever will be in my heart and mind." + +So clear and sweet and confident in his understanding were her eyes +that the quick emotion that leaped responsive left only a ruddy trace +on his face and a slight quiver on his lips. + +He said: "Nothing shall ever threaten your trust in me. No man can ask +for more than you give, Athalie." + +"I give you all I am. What more is there?" + +"I ask no more." + +"Is there more to wish for? Are you really satisfied, Clive?" + +"Perfectly;"--but he looked away from her. + +"And you don't imagine that you love me, do you?" + +"No,"--still looking away from her. + +"Meet my eyes, and say it." + +"I--" + +"Clive!" + +"There is no--" + +"Clive, obey me!" + +So he turned and looked her in the eyes. And after a moment's silence +she laughed, uncertainly, almost nervously. + +"You--you _do_ imagine it!" she said. "Don't you?" + +He made no reply. + +Presently she began to laugh again, a gay, tormenting, excited little +laugh. Something in his face seemed to exhilarate her, sending the +blood like wine to her cheeks. + +"You _do_ imagine it! Oh, Clive! _You!_ You think yourself in love +with your old comrade!... I _knew_ it! There was something about +you--I can't explain exactly what--but there was _something_ that told +me." + +She was laughing, now, almost wickedly and with all the naive and +innocently malicious delight of a child delighting in its fellow's +torment. + +"Oh, Clive!" she said, "what are you going to do about it? And why do +you gaze at me so oddly?--as though I were angry or disconcerted. I'm +not. I'm happy. I'm crazy about this new relation of ours. It makes +you more interesting than I ever dreamed even you could be--" + +"You know," he said almost grimly, "if you are going to take it like +this--" + +"Take what?" + +"The knowledge that--" + +"That you are in love with me? Then you _are_! Oh, Clive, Clive! You +dear, sweet, funny boy! And you've told me so, haven't you? Or it +amounts to that; doesn't it?" + +"Yes; I love you." + +She leaned swiftly toward him, sparkling, flushed, radiant, tender: + +"You dear boy! I'm not really laughing at you. I'm laughing--I don't +know why: happiness--excitement--pride--I don't know.... Do you +suppose it actually is love? It won't make you unhappy, will it? +Besides you can be very busy trying to win me. That will be exciting +enough for both of us, won't it?" + +"Yes--if I try." + +"But you will try, won't you?" she demanded mockingly. + +He said, forcing a smile: "You seem to think it impossible that I +could win you." + +"Oh," she said airily, "I don't say that. You see I don't know the +method of procedure. I don't know what you're going to do about your +falling in love with me." + +He leaned over and took her by the waist; and she drew back +instinctively, surprised and disconcerted. + +"That is silly," she said. "Are you going to be silly with me, Clive?" + +"No," he said, "I won't be that." + +He sat looking at her in silence for a few moments. And slowly the +belief entered his heart like a slim steel blade that she had never +loved, and that there was in her nothing except what she had said +there was, loyalty and devotion, unsullied and spiritual, clean of all +else lower and less noble, guiltless of passion, ignorant of desire. + +As he looked at her he remembered the past--remembered that once he +might have taught her love in all its attributes--that once he might +have married her. For in a school so gentle and secure as wedlock such +a girl might learn to love. + +He had had his chance. What did he want of her now, then?--more than +he had of her already. Love? Her devotion amounted to that--all of it +that could concern a man already married--hopelessly married to a +woman who would never submit to divorce. What did he want of her then? + +He turned and walked to the open window and stood looking out over the +city. Sunset blazed crimson at the western end of every cross-street. +Far away on the Jersey shore electric lights began to sparkle. + +He did not know she was behind him until one arm fell lightly on his +shoulder. + +It remained there after her imprisoned waist yielded a little to his +arm. + +"You are not unhappy, are you, Clive?" + +"No." + +"I didn't mean to take it lightly. I don't comprehend; that's all. It +seems to me that I can't care for you more than I do already. Do you +understand?" + +"Yes, dear." + +She raised one cool hand and drew his cheek gently against her own, +and rested so a moment, looking out across the misty city. + +He remembered that night of his departure when she had put both arms +around his neck and kissed him. It had been like the serene touch of a +crucifix to his lips. It was like that now,--the smooth, passionless +touch of her cool, young face against his, and her slim hand framing +his cheek. + +"To think," she murmured to herself, "that you should ever care for me +in that way, too.... It is wonderful, wonderful--and very sweet--if it +does not make you unhappy. Does it?" + +"No." + +"It's so dear of you to love me that way, Clive. Could--could _I_ do +anything--about it?" + +"How?" + +"Would you care to kiss me?" she asked with a faint smile. And turned +her face. + +Chaste, cool and fresh as a flower her young mouth met his, lingered; +then, still smiling, and a trifle flushed and shy, she laid her cheek +against his shoulder, and her hands in his, calm in her security. + +"You see," she said, "you need not worry over me. I am glad you are in +love with me." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +It was in the days when nothing physical tainted her passionate +attachment to Clive. When she was with him she enjoyed the moment with +all her heart and soul--gave to it and to him everything that was best +in her--all the richness of her mental and bodily vigour, all the +unspoiled enthusiasm of her years, all the sturdy freshness of youth, +eager, receptive, credulous, unsatiated. + +With them, once more, the old happy companionship began; the Cafe +Arabesque, the Regina, the theatres, the suburban restaurants knew +them again. Familiar faces among the waiters welcomed them to the same +tables; the same ushers guided them through familiar aisles; the same +taxi drivers touched their caps with the same alacrity; the same +porters bestirred themselves for tips. + +Sometimes when they were not alone, they and their friends danced late +at Castle House or the Sans-Souci, or the Humming-Bird, or some such +resort, at that time in vogue. + +Sometimes on Saturday afternoons or on Sundays and holidays they spent +hours in the museums and libraries--not that Clive had either +inherited or been educated to any truer appreciation of things worth +while than the average New York man--but like the majority he admitted +the solemnity and fearsomeness of art and letters, and his attitude +toward them was as carefully respectful as it was in church. + +Which first perplexed and then amused Athalie who, with no +opportunities, had been born with a wholesome passion for all things +beautiful of the mind. + +The little she knew she had learned from books or from her +companionship with Captain Dane that first summer after Clive had gone +abroad. And there was nothing orthodox, nothing pedantic, nothing +simulated or artificial in her likes or dislikes, her preferences or +her indifference. + +Yet, somehow, even without knowing, the girl instinctively gravitated +toward all things good. + +In modern art--with the exception of a few painters--she found little +to attract her; but the magnificence of the great Venetians, the +sombre splendour of the great Spaniards, the nobility of the great +English and Dutch masters held her with a spell forever new. And, as +for the exquisite, naively self-conscious works of Greuze, Lancret, +Fragonard, Boucher, Watteau, and Nattier, she adored them with all the +fresh and natural appetite of a capacity for visual pleasure unjaded. + +He recognised Raphael with respect and pleasure when authority +reassured him it _was_ Raphael. Also he probably knew more about the +history of art than did she. Otherwise it was Athalie who led, +instinctively, toward what gallery and library held as their best. + +Her favourite lingering places were amid the immortal Chinese +porcelains and the masterpieces of the Renaissance. And thither she +frequently beguiled Clive,--not that he required any persuading to +follow this young and lovely creature who ranged the full boundaries +of her environment, living to the full life as it had been allotted +her. + +Wholesome with that charming and rounded slenderness of perfect health +there yet seemed no limit to her capacity for the enjoyment of all +things for which an appetite exists--pleasures, mental or physical--it +did not seem to matter. + +She adored walking; to exercise her body delighted her. Always she ate +and drank with a relish that fascinated; she was mad about the theatre +and about music:--and whatever she chanced to be doing she did with +all the vigour, intelligence, and pleasure of which she was capable, +throwing into it her entire heart and soul. + +It led to temporary misunderstandings--particularly with the men she +met--even in the small circle of friends whom she received and with +whom she went about. Arthur Ensart entirely mistook her until fiercely +set right one evening when alone with him; James Allys also listened +to a curt but righteously impassioned discourse which he never forgot. +Hargrave's gentlemanly and suavely villainous intentions, when finally +comprehended, became radically modified under her coolly scornful +rebuke. Welter, fat and sentimental, never was more than tiresomely +saccharine; Ferris and Lyndhurst betrayed symptoms of being +misunderstood, but it was a toss-up as to the degree of seriousness in +their intentions. + +[Illustration: "Once more, the old happy companionship began."] + +The intentions of men are seldom more serious than they have to be. +But they all were helplessly, hopelessly caught in the magic, gossamer +web of Athalie's beauty and personal charm; and some merely kicked and +buzzed and some tried to rend the frail rainbow fabric, and some +struggled silently against they knew not what--themselves probably. +And some, like Dane, hung motionless, enmeshed, knowing that to +struggle was futile. And some, like Clive, were still lying under her +jewelled feet in the very centre of the sorcery, so far silent and +unstirring, awaiting to see whether the grace of God would fall upon +them or the _coup-de-grace_ that ended all. Eventually, however, like +all other men, Clive gave signs of life and impatience. + +"_Can't_ you love me, Athalie?" he said abruptly one night, when they +had returned from the theatre and he had already taken his leave--and +had come back from the door to take it again more tenderly. The girl +let him kiss her. + +She, in her clinging, sparkling evening gown was standing by her +crystal, the fingers of one hand lightly poised upon it, looking down +at it. + +"Love you, Clive," she repeated in smiling surprise. "Why, I do, you +dear, foolish boy. I've admitted it to you. Also haven't you just +kissed me?" + +"I know.... But I mean--couldn't you love me above all other +men--above everything in this world--" + +"But I _do_! Were you annoyed because I was silly with Cecil +to-night?" + +"No.... I understand. You simply can't help turning everybody's head. +It's in you,--it's part of you--" + +"I'm merely having a good time," she protested. "It means no more than +you see, when I flirt with other men.... It never goes any +farther--except--once or twice I have let men kiss me.... Only two or +three.... Before you came back, of course--" + +"I didn't know that," he said sullenly. + +"Didn't you? Then the men were more decent than I supposed.... Yes, I +let John Lyndhurst kiss me once. And Francis Hargrave did it.... And +Jim Allys tried to, against my wishes--but he never attempted it after +that." + +She had been looking down again at the crystal while speaking; her +attitude was penitential, but the faint smile on her lips adorably +mischievous. Presently she glanced up at him to see how he was taking +it. He must have been taking it very badly, for: + +"Clive!" she said, startled; "are you really annoyed with me?" + +The gathering scowl faded and he forced a smile. Then the frown +returned; he flung one arm around her supple waist and gathered both +her hands into his, holding them closely imprisoned. + +"You _must_ love!" he said almost roughly. + +"My dear! I've told you that I do love you." + +"And I tell you you don't! Your calm and cheerful friendship for me +isn't love!" + +"Oh. What else is it, please?" + +He kissed her on the mouth. She suffered his lips again without +flinching, then drew back laughingly to avoid him. + +"Why are you becoming so very demonstrative?" she asked. "If you are +not careful it will become a horrid habit with you." + +"Does it mean nothing more than a habit to you?" he asked, +unsmilingly. + +"It means that I care enough for you to let you do it more than once, +doesn't it?" + +He shrugged and turned his face toward the window: + +"And you believe that you love me," he said, sullenly and partly to +himself. + +"You amazingly sulky man, _what_ are you muttering to yourself?" she +demanded, bending forward and across his shoulder to see his face +which was still turned from her. He swung about and caught her +fiercely in his arms; and the embrace left her breathless and flushed. + +"Clive--please--" + +"_Can't_ you care for me! For God's sake show it if you can!" + +"Please, dear--I--" + +"_Can't_ you!" he repeated unsteadily, drawing her closer. "You know +what I am asking. Answer me!" + +She bent her head and rested it against his shoulder a moment, +considering; she then looked away from him, troubled: + +"I don't want to be your--mistress," she said. Truth disconcerts the +vast majority. It disconcerted him--after a ringing silence through +which the beating of rain on the window came to him like the steady +tattoo of his own heart. + +"I did not ask that," he said, very red. + +"You meant that.... Because I've been everything to you except that." + +"I want you for my wife," he interrupted sharply. + +"But you are married, Clive. So what more can I be to you, unless I +become--what I don't want to become--" + +"I merely want you to love me--until I can find some way out of this +hell on earth I'm living in!" + +"Dear, I'm sorry! I'm sorry you are so unhappy. But you can't get +free,--can you? She won't let you, will she?" + +"I've got to have my freedom! I can't stand this. Good God! Must a man +do life for being a fool once? Isn't there any allowance to be made +for a first offence? I've always wanted to marry you. I was a +miserable, crazy coward to do what I did! Haven't I paid for it? Do +you know what I've been through?" + +She said very sweetly and pitifully: "Dear, I know what people +suffer--what lonely hearts endure. I think I understand what you have +been through." + +"I know you understand! Fool that I am who enlightened you. But yours +was the injury of bruised faith--the suffering caused by outrage. No +hell of self-contempt set _you_ crawling about the world in agony; no +despicable self-knowledge drove _you_ out into the waste places. Yours +was the sorrow of a self-respecting victim; mine the grief of the +damned fool who has done to death all that he ever loved for the love +of expediency and of self!" + +"Clive!--" + +"That's what I am!" he interrupted fiercely, "a damned fool! I don't +know what else I am, but I can't live without you, and I won't!" + +She said: "You told me that being in love with me would not make you +unhappy. So I told you to love me. I was wrong to let you do it." + +"You darling! I am more than happy!" + +"It was a dreadful mistake, Clive! I shouldn't have let you." + +"Do you think you could have stopped me?" + +"I don't know. Couldn't I? I've stopped other men.... I shouldn't have +let you. But it was so delightful--to be really loved by _you_! All my +pride responded. It seemed to dignify everything; it seemed to make me +really a woman, with a place among other women--to be loved by such a +man as you ... and I was _not_ selfish about it; I did ask you whether +it would make you unhappy to be in love with me. Oh, I see now that I +was very wrong, Clive--very foolish, very wrong! Because it _is_ +making you restless and unhappy--" + +"If you could only love me a little in return!" + +"I don't know how to love you except the way I am doing--" + +"There is a more vital emotion--" + +"It seems impossible that I could care for you more deeply than I +do." + +"If you could only respond with a little tenderness--" + +"I _do_ respond--as well as I know how," she said piteously. + +He drew her nearer and touched her cheek with his lips: + +"I know, dear. I don't mean to complain." + +"Oh, Clive! I have let you fall in love with me and it is making you +miserable! And now it's making me miserable, too, because you are +disappointed in me." + +"No--" + +"You are! I'm not what you expected--not what you wanted--" + +"You are everything I want!--if I could only wake your heart!" he said +in a low tense voice. + +"It isn't my heart that is asleep.... I know what you miss in me.... +And I can't help it. I--I don't wish to help it--or to be different." + +She dropped her head against his shoulder. After a few moments she +spoke from there in a muffled, childish voice: + +"What can I do about it? I don't want to be your mistress, Clive.... I +never wanted to do--anything--like that." + +A deeper colour burnt his face. He said: "Could you love me enough to +marry me if I managed to free myself?" + +"I have never thought of marrying you, Clive. It isn't that I couldn't +love you--that way. I suppose I could. Probably I could. Only--I don't +know anything about it--" + +"Let me try to free myself, anyway." + +"How is it possible?" + +He said, exasperated: "Do you suppose I can endure this sort of +existence forever?" + +The swift tears sprang to her eyes. "I don't know--I don't know," she +faltered. "I thought this existence of ours ideal. I thought you were +going to be happy; I supposed that our being together again would +bring happiness to us both. It doesn't! It is making us wretched. You +are not contented with our friendship!" She turned on him +passionately: "I don't wish to be your mistress. I don't want you to +make me wish to be. No girl naturally desires less than she is +entitled to, or more than the law permits--unless some man teaches her +to wish for it. Don't make such a girl of me, Clive! You--you are +beginning to do it. And I don't wish it! Truly I don't!" + +In that fierce flash of candour,--of guiltless passion, she had +revealed herself. Never, until that moment, had he supposed himself so +absolutely dominant, invested with such power for good or evil. That +he could sway her one way or the other through her pure loyalty, +devotion, and sympathy he had not understood. + +To do him justice he desired no such responsibility. He had meant to +be honest and generous and unselfish even when the outlook seemed most +hopeless,--when he was convinced that he had no chance of freedom. + +But a man with the girl he loves in his arms might as well set a net +to catch the wind as to set boundaries to his desires. Perhaps he +could not so ardently have desired his freedom to marry her had he not +as ardently desired her love. + +Love he had of her, but it was an affection utterly innocent of +passion. He knew it; she realised it; realised too that the capacity +for passion was in her. And had asked him not awaken her to it, +instinctively recoiling from it. Generous, unsullied, proudly +ignorant, she desired to remain so. Yet knew her peril; and candidly +revealed it to him in the most honest appeal ever made to him. + +For if the girl herself suspected and dreaded whither her loyalty and +deep devotion to him might lead her, he had realised very suddenly +what his leadership meant in such a companionship. + +Now it sobered him, awed him,--and chilled him a trifle. + +Himself, his own love for her, his own passion he could control and in +a measure subdue. But, once awakened, could he control such an ally as +she might be to his own lesser, impatient and hot-headed self? + +Where her disposition was to deny, he could still fetter self and +acquiesce. But he began to understand that half his strength lay in +her unwillingness; half of their safety in her inexperience, her +undisturbed tranquillity, her aloofness from physical emotion and her +ignorance of the mastery of the lesser passions. + +The girl had builded wholesomely and wisely for herself. Instinct had +led her truly and well as far as that tangled moment in her life. +Instinct still would lead her safely if she were let alone,--instinct +and the intelligence she herself had developed. For the ethical view +of the question remained only as a vague memory of precepts mechanical +and meaningless to a healthy child. She had lost her mother too early +to have understood the casual morals so gently inculcated. And nobody +else had told her anything. + +Also intelligence is often a foe to instinct. She might, with little +persuasion accept an unconventional view of life; with a little +emotional awakening she might more easily still be persuaded to a +logic builded on false foundations. Add to these her ardent devotion +to this man, and her deep and tender concern lest he be unhappy, and +Athalie's chances for remaining her own mistress were slim enough. + +Something of this Clive seemed to understand; and the understanding +left him very serious and silent where he stood in the soft glow of +the lamp with this young girl in his arms and her warm, sweet head on +his breast. + +He said after a long silence: "You are right, Athalie. It is better, +safer, not to respond to me. I'm just in love with you and I want to +marry you--that's all. I shall not be unhappy about it. I am not, now. +If I marry you, you'll fall in love, too, in your own way. That will +be as it should be. I could desire no more than that. I _do_ desire +nothing more." + +He looked down at her, smiled, releasing her gently. But she clung to +him for a moment. + +"You are so wonderful, Clive--so dear! I _do_ love you. I will marry +you if I can. I want to make up everything to you--the lonely years, +your deep unhappiness--even," she added shyly, "your little +disappointment in me--" + +"You don't understand, Athalie. I am not disappointed--" + +"I _do_ understand. And I am thinking of what will happen if you fail +to free yourself.... Because I realize now that I don't propose to +leave you to grow old all alone.... I shall live with you when you're +old whatever people may think. I tell you, Clive, I'm the same child, +the same girl that you once knew, only grown into a woman. I know +right from wrong. I had rather not do wrong. But if I've got to--I +won't whimper. And I'll do it thoroughly!" + +"You won't do it at all," he said, smiling at her threat to the little +tin gods. + +"I don't know. If they won't give you your freedom, and if--" + +"Nonsense, Athalie," he said, laughing, coolly master of himself once +more. "We mustn't be unwholesomely romantic, you and I. I'll marry you +if I can; if I can't, God help us, that's all." + +But she had become very grave: "God help us," she repeated slowly. +"Because I believe that, rightly or wrongly, I shall one day belong to +you." + +He said: "It can be only in one way. The right way." Perhaps he had +awakened too late to a realisation of his power over her, for the girl +made no response, no longer even looked at him. + +"Only one way," he repeated, uneasily;--"the right way, Athalie." + +But into her dark blue eyes had come a vague and brooding beauty +which he had never before seen. In it was tenderness, and a new +wisdom, alas! and a faint and shadowy something, profound, starlike, +inscrutable. + +"As for love," he said, forcing a lighter tone, "there are fifty-seven +different varieties, Athalie; and only one is poisonous,--unless taken +with the other fifty-six, and in small doses." + +She smiled faintly and walked to the window. Rain beat there in the +darkness spattering the little iron balcony. Below, the bleared lights +of the city stretched away to the sky-line. + +He followed, and slipped his arm through hers; and she bent her wrist, +interlacing her slim fingers with his. + +"You know," he said, "that when I often speak with apparent authority +I am wrong. In the final analysis _you_ are the real leader, Athalie. +Your instincts are the right ones; your convictions honest, your +conclusions just. Mine are too often confused with selfishness and +indecision. For mine is an irresolute character;--or it was. I'm +trying to make it firmer." + +She pressed his hand lightly, her eyes still fixed on the +light-smeared darkness. + +He went on more gravely: "Candour and the intuition born of common +sense,--that is where you are so admirable, dear. Add to that the +tenderest heart that ever beat, and a proud ignorance of the lesser, +baser emotions--and, who am I to interfere,--to come into the sweet +order of your life with demands that confuse you--with complaints +against the very destiny I brought upon us both--with the clamour of +a selfish and ignoble philosophy which your every instinct rejects, +and which your heart entertains only because it _is_ your heart, and +its heavenly sympathy has never failed me yet.... Oh, Athalie, +Athalie, it would be a shameful day for me and a bitter day for you if +my selfishness and irresolution ever swerved you. What I have lost--if +I have indeed lost it--is lost irrevocably. And I've got to learn to +face it." + +She said, still gazing absently into the darkness: "Yes. But I am just +beginning to wonder what it is that _I_ may have lost,--what it is +that I have never known." + +"Don't think of it! Don't permit anything I have said or done to +trouble you or stir you toward such an awakening.... I don't want to +stand charged with that. You are tranquil, now--" + +"I--_was_." + +"You are still!" he said in quick concern. "Listen, Athalie--the +majority of men lose their grip at moments; men as irresolute as I +lose it oftener. Don't waste sympathy on me; it was nothing but a +whine born of a lesser impulse--born of emotions less decent than you +could comprehend--" + +"Maybe I am beginning to comprehend." + +"You shall not! You shall remain as you are! Dear, don't you realise +that I can't steady myself unless I can look up to you? You've raised +yourself to where you stand; you've made your own pedestal. Look down +at me from it; don't ever _step_ down; don't ever condescend; don't +ever let me think you mortal. You are not, now. Don't ever descend +entirely to my level--even if we marry." + +She turned, smiling too wisely, yet adorably: "What endless romance +there is in that boy's heart of yours! There always was,--when you +came running back to me where I stood alone by the closed door,--when +you found me living as all women who work live, and made a beautiful +home for me and gave me more than I wished to take, asking nothing of +me in return. Oh, Clive, you were chivalrous and romantic, too, when +you listened to your mother's wishes and gave me up. I understand it +so much better, now. I know how it was--with your father dead and your +beautiful mother, broken, desolate, confiding to your keeping all her +hope and pride and future happiness,--all the traditions of the +family, and its dignity and honour! + +"In the light of a clearer knowledge, do you suppose I blame you now? +Do you suppose I blame you for anything?--for your long and +broken-hearted and bitter silence?--for the quick resurgence of your +affection for me--for your love--Oh, Clive!--for your passion? + +"Do you suppose I think less of you because you love me--care for me +in the many and inexplicable ways that a man cares for a +woman?--because you want me as a man wants the woman he loves, as his +wife if it may be so, as his _own_, anyhow?" + +She let her eyes rest on him in a new and fearless comprehension, +tender, curious, sad by turns. + +"It is the romance of passion in you that has been fighting to awaken +the Sleeping Princess of a legend," she said with a slight smile; "it +is the same illogical, impulsive romance that draws back just as her +closed lids tremble, fearing to awaken her to the sorrows and +temptations of a world which, after all, God made for us to wake in." + +"Athalie! I am a scoundrel if I have--" + +"Oh, Clive!" she laughed, mocking the solemn measure of her own words; +"adorable boy of impulse and romance, never to outgrow its magic +armour, destined always to be ruled by dreams through the sweetest and +most generous of hearts, you need not fear for me. I am already +awake--at least I am sufficiently aroused to understand you--and +something, too, of my own self which I have never hitherto +understood." + +For a second, lightly, she rested her warm, fresh cheek against his. +When it was burning she disengaged her fingers from his and leaned +aside against the rain-swept window. + +"You see?" she said calmly but with heightened colour.... "I am very +human after all.... But it is still my mind that rules, not my +emotions." + +She turned to him in her old sweetly humorous and mocking manner: + +"That is all the romance of which I am capable, Clive--if there be any +real romance in a very clear mind. For it is my intellect that must +lead me to salvation or to destruction. If I am to come crashing down +at your feet, I shall have already planned the fall. If I am to be +destroyed, it will not be by any accident of romantic emotion, of +unconsidered impulse, or sudden blindness of passion; it will be +because my intelligence coolly courted destruction, and accepted +every chance, every hazard." + +So spoke Athalie, smiling, in the full confidence and pride of her +superb youth, certain of the mind's autocracy over matter, lightly +defying within herself the latent tempest, of which she as yet divined +no more than the first exquisitely disturbing breeze;--deriding, too, +the as yet unloosened bolts of the old gods themselves,--the white +lightning of desire. + +"Come," she said, half mockingly, half seriously, passing her arm +through Clive's;--"we are quite safe together in this safe and sane +old world--unless _I_ choose--otherwise." + +She turned and touched her lips lightly to his hair: + +"So you may safely behave as irrationally, irresponsibly, and +romantically as you choose.... As long as I now am wide awake." + +And then, for the first time, he realised his utter responsibility to +this girl who so gaily and audaciously relieved him of it. And he +understood how pitifully unarmed she really stood, and how imminent +the necessity for him to forge for himself the armour of character, +and to wear it eternally for his own safety as well as hers. + +"Good night, dear," he said. + +In her new and magnificent self-confidence she turned and put both +arms around his neck, drawing his lips against hers. + +But after he had gone she leaned against the closed door, less +confident, her heart beating too fast and hard to entirely justify +this new enfranchisement of the body, or her overwhelming faith in +its wise and trusted guardian, the mind. + +And he went soberly on his way through the rain to his hotel, troubled +but determined upon his new role as his own soul's armourer. All that +was in him of romance and of chivalry was responding passionately to +the girl's unconscious revelation of her new need. + +For now he realised that her boasted armour was of gauze; he could see +her naked heart beating behind it; he beheld, through the shield she +lifted on high to protect them both, the moon shining with its false, +reflected light. + +Never did Athalie stand in such dire need of the armour she supposed +that she was wearing. + +And he must put on his own, rapidly, and rivet it fast--the inflexible +mail of character which alone can shield such souls as his--and hers. + + * * * * * + +When he came into his own room, a thick letter from his wife lay on +the table. Before he broke the seal he laid aside his wet garments, +being in no haste to read any more of the now incessant reproaches and +complaints with which Winifred had recently deluged him. + +[Illustration: "Finally ... he cut the envelope and seated himself +beside the lamp."] + +Finally, when he was ready, he cut the envelope and seated himself +beside the lamp. She wrote from the house in Kent: + + "It was a very different matter when you were travelling + about and I could say that you were off on another exploring + expedition. But your return from South America was mentioned + in the London papers; and the fact that you are now not + only in New York but that you have also gone into business + there is known and is the subject of comment. + + "I shall be, as usual, perfectly frank with you; I do not + care whether you are here or not; in fact I infinitely + prefer your absence to your presence. But your engaging in + business in New York is a very different matter, and creates + a different situation for me. + + "You like to travel. Why don't you do it? I don't care to be + the subject of gossip; and I shall be--am, no doubt, + already,--because you are making the situation too plain and + too public. + + "It's well enough for one's friends to surmise the condition + of affairs; no unpleasantness for me results. But let it + once become newspaper gossip and my situation among people I + most earnestly desire to cultivate would become instantly + precarious and perhaps impossible. + + "It is not necessary for me to inform you what is the very + insecure status of an American woman here, particularly in + view of the Court's well known state of mind concerning + marital irregularities. + + "The King's views coincide with the Queen's. And the Queen's + are perfectly well known. + + "If you continue your exploring expeditions, which you + evidently like to engage in, and if you report here at + intervals for the sake of appearances, I can get on very + well and very comfortably. But if you settle in New York and + engage in business there, and continue to remain away from + this country where you are popularly supposed to maintain + residences in town and country, I shall certainly begin to + experience very disagreeably the consequences of your + selfish conduct. + + "Your reply to my last letter has thoroughly incensed me. + + "You always have been selfish. From the time I had the + misfortune to marry you I had to suffer from your selfish, + self-centred, demonstrative, and rather common + character--until you finally learned that demonstration is + offensive to decent breeding, and that, although I happened + to be married to you, I intended to keep to my own notions + of delicacy, reserve, privacy, and self-respect. + + "Of course you thought it a sufficient reason for us to have + children merely because _you_ once thought you wanted them; + and I shall not forget what was your brutal attitude toward + me when I told you very plainly that I refused to be saddled + with the nasty, grubby little brats. Evidently you are + incapable of understanding any woman who is not half animal. + + "I did not desire children, and that ought to have been + sufficient for you. I am not demonstrative toward anybody; I + leave that custom to my servants. And is it any crime if the + things that interest and appeal to you do not happen to + attract me? + + "And I'll tell you now that your subjects of conversation + always bored me. I make no pretences; I frankly do not care + for what you so smugly designate as 'the things of the mind' + and 'things worth while.' I am no hypocrite: I like well + bred, well dressed people; I like what they do and say and + think. Their characters may be negative as you say, but + their poise and freedom from demonstration are most + agreeable to me. + + "You politely designated them as fools, and what they said + you characterised as piffle. You had the exceedingly bad + taste to sneer at various members of an ancient and + established aristocracy--people who by inheritance from + generations of social authority, require no toleration from + such a man as you. + + "These are the people who are my friends; among whom I enjoy + an established position. This position you now threaten by + coolly going into business in New York. In other and uglier + words you advertise to the world that you have abandoned + your home and wife. + + "Of course I cannot help it if you insist on doing this + common and disgraceful thing. + + "And I suppose, considering the reigning family's attitude + toward divorce, that you believe me to be at your mercy. + + "Permit me to inform you that I am not. If, in a certain + set, wherein I now have the entree, divorce is not + tolerated,--at any rate where the divorced wife of an + American would not be received,--nevertheless there are + other sets as desirable, perhaps even more desirable, and + which enjoy a prestige as weighty. + + "And I'll tell you now that in case you persist in + affronting me by remaining in business in New York, I shall + be forced to procure a separation--possibly a divorce. And I + shall not suffer for it socially as no doubt you think I + will. + + "There is only one reason why I have not done so + already--disinclination to be disturbed in a social milieu + which suits me. It's merely the inconvenience of a transfer + to another equally agreeable set. + + "But if your selfish conduct forces me to make the change, + don't doubt for one minute, my friend, that I'm entirely + capable and able to accomplish it without any detriment or + anything worse than some slight inconvenience to myself. + + "Whether it be a separation or a divorce I have not yet made + up my mind. + + "There is only one reason why I should hesitate and that is + the thought that possibly you might be glad of your freedom. + If I were sure of that I'd punish you by asking for a + separation. But I do not suppose it really matters to you. I + think I know you well enough to know that you have no desire + to marry again. And, as for the young woman in whose company + you made yourself notorious before we were engaged--well, I + think you would hesitate to offer her marriage, or even, + perhaps, the not unprecedented privilege of being your + _chere amie_. I do you the honour of believing you too + fastidious to select a public fortune teller for your + mistress, or to parade a cheap trance-medium as a specimen + of your personal taste in pulchritude. + + "Meanwhile your attitude in domestic matters continues to + annoy me. Be good enough to let me know, definitely, what + you propose to do, so that I may take proper measures to + protect myself--because I have always been obliged to + protect myself from you and your vulgar notions ever since + my mother and yours made a fool of me. + "WINIFRED STUART BAILEY." + +With his care-worn eyes still fixed on the written pages he rested his +elbow on the table and dropped his head on his hand, heavily. + +Rain swept the windows; the wind also was rising; his room seemed to +be full of sounds; even the clock which had a subdued tick and a most +discreet manner of announcing the passing of time, seemed noisy to +him. + +"God! what a mess I've made of life," he said aloud. For a moment a +swift anger burned fiercely against the woman who had written him; +then the flame of it blew against himself, scorching him with the +wrath of self-contempt. + +"Hell!" he said between his teeth. "It isn't the fault of that little +girl across the ocean. It's my fault, mine, and the fault of nobody +else." + +Indecision, the weakness of a heart easily appealed to, the +irresolution of a man who was not man enough to guard and maintain his +own freedom of action and the right to live his own life--these had +encompassed the wrecking of him. + +It seemed that he was at least man enough to admit it, generous enough +to concede it, even if perhaps it was not altogether true. + +But never once had he permitted himself, even for a second, to censure +the part played by his mother in the catastrophe. That he had been +persuaded, swerved, over-ridden, dominated, was his own fault. + +The boy had been appealed to, subtly, cleverly, on his most vulnerable +side; he had been bothered and badgered and beset. Two women, clever +and hard as nails, had made up their minds to the marriage; the third +remained passive, indifferent, but acquiescent. Wiser, firmer, and +more experienced men than Clive had surrendered earlier. Only the +memory of Athalie held him at all;--some vague, indefinite hope may +have remained that somehow, somewhere, sometime, either the world's +attitude might change or he might develop the courage to ignore it and +to seek his happiness where it lay and let the world howl. + +That is probably all that held him at all. And after a while the +constant pressure snapped that thread. This was the result. + + * * * * * + +He lifted his head and stared, heavy-eyed, at his wife's letter. Then, +dropping the sheets to the floor he turned and laid both arms upon the +table and buried his face in them. + +Toward morning his servant discovered him there, asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +The following day Clive replied to his wife by cable: "As it seems to +make no unpleasant difference to you I have concluded to remain in New +York. Please take whatever steps you may find most convenient and +agreeable for yourself." + +And, following this he wrote her: + + "I am inexpressibly sorry to cause you any new annoyance and + to arouse once more your just impatience and resentment. But + I see no use in a recapitulation of my shortcomings and of + your own many disappointments in the man you married. + + "Please remember that I have always assumed all blame for our + marriage; and that I shall always charge myself with it. I + have no reply to make to your reproaches,--no defence; I was + not in love with you when I married you--which is as serious + an offence as any man can perpetrate toward any woman. And I + do not now blame you for a very natural refusal to tolerate + anything approaching the sympathy and intimacy that ought to + exist between husband and wife. + + "I did entertain a hazy idea that affection and perhaps love + might be ultimately possible even under the circumstances of + such a marriage as ours; and in a youthful, ignorant, and + inexperienced way I attempted to bring it about. My notions + of our mutual obligations were very vague and indefinite. + + "Please believe I did not realise how utterly distasteful any + such ideas were to you, and how deep was your personal + disinclination for the man you married. + + "I understand now how many mistakes I made before I finally + rid you of myself, and gave you a chance to live your life in + your own way unharassed by the interference of a young, + ignorant, and probably aggressive man. + + "Your aversion to motherhood was, after all, your own affair. + Man has no right to demand that of woman. I took a very + bullying and intolerant attitude toward you--not, as I now + realise, from any real conviction on the subject, but because + I liked and wanted children, and also because I was + influenced by the cant of the hour--the fashion being to + demand of woman, on ethical grounds, quantitative + reproduction as a marriage offering to the Almighty. As + though indiscriminate and wholesale addition to humanity were + an admirable and religious duty. Nothing, even in the Old + Testament, is more stupid than such a doctrine; no child + should ever be born unwelcome to both parents. + + "I am sorry I could not find your circle of friends + interesting. I sometimes think I might have, had you and I + been mutually sympathetic. But the situation was impossible; + our ideas, interests, convictions, tastes, were radically at + variance; we had absolutely nothing in common to build on. + What marriage ties could endure the strain of such + conditions? The fault was mine, Winifred; I am sorry for + you. + + "I don't know much about anything, but, thinking as clearly + and as impersonally as it is in me to think, I begin to + believe that divorce, far from deserving the stigma attached + to it, is a step forward in civilisation. + + "Perhaps it may be only a temporary substitute for something + better--say for more wholesome and more honest social + conditions where the proposition for mating and the selection + of a mate may lie as freely with your sex as with mine. + + "Until then I know of nothing more honest and more sensible + than to undo the wrong that ignorance and inexperience has + accomplished. No woman's moral or spiritual salvation is + dependent upon her wearing the fetters of a marriage + abhorred. Such a stupid sacrifice is unthinkable to modesty + and decency, and is repulsive to common sense. And any god + who is supposed to demand that of humanity is not the true + God, but is as grotesque and false as any African idol or any + deity ever worshipped by Puritan or Pagan or by any orthodox + assassin of free minds since the first murder was perpetrated + on account of creed. + + "You are entitled to divorce. I don't know whether I am or + not, having done this thing. Nobody likes to endure unhappy + consequences. I don't. But it was my own doing and I have no + ground for complaint. + + "You, however, have. You ought to be free of me. Of course, + I'd be very glad to have my freedom; I shall not lie about + it; but the difference is that you deserve yours and I don't. + But I'll be very grateful if you care to give it to me. + + "Don't write any more bitterly than you can help. I don't + believe it really affords you any satisfaction; and it + depresses me more than you could realise. I know only too + well what I have been and wherein I have failed so miserably. + Let me forget it whenever I can, Winifred. And if, for me, + there remains any chance, any outlook, be generous enough to + let me try to take it. + "Your husband, + "C. BAILEY." + +The consequences of this letter did not seem to be very fortunate. +There came a letter from her so bitter and menacing that a cleverer +man might have read in it enough of menace between the lines to +forearm him with caution at least. + +But Clive merely read it once and destroyed it and tried to forget it. + + * * * * * + +It was not until some time afterward that, gradually, some instinct in +him awoke suspicion. But for a long while he was not perfectly sure +that he was being followed. + +However, when he could no longer doubt it, and when the lurking +figures and faces of at least two of the men who dogged him everywhere +had become sufficiently familiar to him, he wrote a short note to his +wife asking for an explanation. + +But he got none--principally because his wife had already sailed. + +The effect of Winifred's letters on an impressionable, sensitive, and +self-distrustful character, was never very quickly effaced. + +Whatever was morbid in the man became apparent after he had received +such letters, and took the form of a quiet withdrawal from the circles +which he affected, until such time as mortification and shame had +subsided. + +He had written briefly to Athalie saying that business would take him +out of town for a few weeks. Which it did as a matter of fact, landing +him at Spring Pond, Long Island, where he completed the purchase of +the Greensleeve tavern and took title in his own name. + +Old Ledlie had died; his only heir appeared to be glad enough to sell; +the title was free and clear; the possibilities of the place +fascinating. + +Clive prowled around the place in two minds whether he might venture +to call in a local builder and have him strip the protuberances from +the house, which was all that was necessary to restore it to its +original form; or whether he ought to leave that for Athalie to +manage. + +But there remained considerable to be done; May was in full bud and +blossom already; and if Athalie was to enjoy the place at all that +summer it ought to be made livable. + +So Clive summoned several people to his aid with the following quick +results: A New York general contractor took over the entire job +guaranteeing quick results or forfeiture. A local nurseryman and an +emergency gang started in. They hedged the entire front with privet +for immediate effect, cleared, relocated, and restored the ancient +flower garden on its quaint original lines; planted its borders +thickly with old time perennials, peonies, larkspurs, hollyhocks, +clove pinks, irises, and lilies; replanted the rose beds with +old-fashioned roses, set the wall beds with fruit trees and gay +annuals, sodded, trimmed, raked, levelled, cleaned up, and pruned, +until the garden was a charming and logical thing. + +Fortunately the newness was not apparent because the old stucco walls +remained laden with wistaria and honeysuckle, and the alley of ancient +box trees required clipping only. + +In the centre of the lawn he built a circular pool and piped the water +from Spring Brook. It fell in a slender jet, icy cold, powdering pool, +basin and grass with spray. + +Where half-dead locust and cedar trees had to be felled Clive set tall +arbor vitae and soft maples. He was an expensive young man where +Athalie's pleasure was concerned; and as he worked there in the lovely +May weather his interest and enthusiasm grew with every fresh fragrant +spadeful of brown earth turned. + +The local building genius repainted the aged house after bay window and +gingerbread had been stripped from its otherwise dignified facade; +replaced broken slates on the roof, mended the great fat chimneys, +matched the traces of pale bluish-green that remained on the window +shutters, filled in the sashes with small, square panes, instituted +modern plumbing, drainage, sewage, and electric lights--all of which was +emergency work and not too difficult as the city improvements had now +been extended as far as the village a mile to the eastward. But it was +expensive. + +At first Clive had decided to leave the interior to Athalie, but he +finally made up his mind to restore the place on its original lines +with the exception of her mother's room. This room he recognised from +her frequent description of it; and he locked it, pocketed the key, +and turned loose his men. + +All that they did was to plaster where it was needed, re-kalsomine all +walls and ceilings, scrape, clean, mend, and re-enamel the ancient +woodwork. Trim, casings, wainscot, and stairs were restored to their +original design and finish; dark hardwood floors replaced the painted +boards which had rotted; wherever a scrap of early wall-paper remained +he matched it as closely as possible, having an expert from New York +to do the business; and the fixtures he chose were simple and graceful +and reflected the period as nearly as electric light fixtures can +simulate an era of candle-sticks and tallow dips. + +He was tremendously tempted to go ahead, so fascinating had the work +become to him, but he realised that it was not fair to Athalie. All +that he could reasonably do he had done; the place was clean and +fresh, and restored to its original condition outside and in, except +for the modern necessities of lighting, heating, plumbing, and running +water in pantry, laundry, kitchen, and bathrooms. Two of the latter +had replaced two clothes-presses; the ancient cellar had been cemented +and whitewashed, and heavily stocked with furnace and kitchen coal and +kindling. + +Also there were fire-dogs for the three fine old-fashioned fireplaces +in the house which had been disinterred from under bricked-in and +plastered surfaces where only the aged mantel shelves and a hole for a +stove pipe revealed their probable presence. + +The carpets were too ragged and soiled to retain; the furniture too +awful. But he replaced the latter, leaving its disposition and the +pleasure of choosing new furniture and new floor coverings to Athalie. + +Hers also was to be the pleasure of re-stocking the house with linen; +of selecting upholstery and curtains and the requisites for pantry, +kitchen, and dining-room. + +Once she told him what she had meant to do with the bar. And he took +the liberty of doing it, turning the place into a charming +sun-parlour, where, in a stone basin, gold-fish swam and a forest of +feathery and flowering semi-tropical plants spread a fretwork of blue +shadows over the cool stone floor. + +But he left the big stove as it had been; and the rather quaint old +chairs with their rush-bottoms renovated and their lustrous wood +stained and polished by years of use. + +Every other day he went to Spring Pond from his office in New York to +watch the progress of the work. The contractor was under penalty; +Clive had not balked at the expense; and the work was put through with +a rush. + +In the meanwhile he called on Athalie occasionally, pretending always +whenever she spoke of it, that negotiations were still under way +concerning the property in question, and that such transactions +required patience and time. + +One matter, too, was gradually effaced from his mind. The tall man and +the short man who had been following him so persistently had utterly +disappeared. And nobody else seemed to have taken their places. +Eventually he forgot it altogether. + +Two months was the period agreed upon for the completion of Athalie's +house and garden, and the first week in July found the work done. + +It had promised to be a hot week in the city: Athalie, who had been +nowhere except for an evening at some suburban restaurant, had begun +to feel fagged and listless and in need of a vacation. + +And that morning she had decided to go away for a month to some quiet +place in the mountains, and she was already consulting various folders +and advertisements which she had accumulated since early spring, when +the telephone in her bedroom rang. + +She had never heard Clive's voice so gay over the wire. She told him +so; and she could hear his quick and rather excited laugh. + +"Are you very busy to-day?" he asked. + +"No; I'm going to close up shop for a month, Clive. I'm hot and tired +and dying for a glimpse of something green. I was just looking over a +lot of advertisements--cottages and hotels. Come up and help me." + +"I want you to spend the day with me in the country. Will you?" + +"I'd love to. Where?" + +"At Spring Pond." + +"Clive! Do you really want to go there?" + +"Yes. As your guest." + +"What?" + +"If you will invite me. Will you?" + +"What do you mean? Have you bought the place for me?" + +"I have the deed in my pocket, all ready to be transferred to you." + +"You darling! Clive, I am so excited--" + +"So am I. Shall I come for you in my brand new car? I've invested in +an inexpensive Stinger runabout. May I drive you down? It won't take +much longer than by train. And it will cool us off." + +"Come as soon as you can get here!" she cried, delighted. "This is +going to be the happiest day of my entire life!" + + * * * * * + +And so it came about that Athalie in her pretty new gown and hat of +lilac lingerie, followed by a maid bearing three suit-cases, hat-box, +toilet satchel, and automobile coat, emerged from the main entrance of +the building where Clive sat waiting in a smart Stinger runabout. When +he saw her he sprang out and came forward, hat in hand. + +"You darling," she said in a low, happy voice. "You've made me happier +than I ever dreamed of being. I don't know what to say to you; I +simply don't know how to thank you for doing this wonderful thing for +me." + +He, too, was happier than he had ever been in all his life; and so +much in love that he found nothing to say for a moment save the few +trite phrases in which a man in love says many commonplaces, all of +which only mean, "I love you." + +[Illustration: "When he saw her he sprang out and came forward."] + +Doubtless she understood the complicated code, for she laughed and +blushed a trifle and looked around at her maid laden with luggage. + +"Where can we put these, Clive?" she asked. + +"What on earth is all that luggage?" he asked, surprised. + +"I'm going to remain a few days," she explained, "so I've brought a +few things." + +"But do you imagine there is anything to eat or anywhere to lay your +head in that tumble down old house?" he demanded, secretly enchanted +with her rash enthusiasm. + +"I propose to camp. I can buy milk, crackers, and sardines at Spring +Pond village; also sufficient bathroom and bed linen. That is all I +require to be perfectly comfortable." + +There was no rumble on the Stinger, only a baggage rack and boot. Here +he secured, covered, and strapped Athalie's impedimenta; the maid +slipped on her travelling coat; she sprang lightly into the seat; and +Clive went around and climbed in beside her, taking the wheel. + +The journey downtown and across the Queensboro Bridge was the usual +uncomfortable and exasperating progress familiar to all who pilot cars +to Long Island. Brooklyn was negotiated prayerfully; they swung into +the great turnpike, through the ugliest suburbs this humiliated world +ever endured, on through the shabby, filthy, sordid environment of the +gigantic Burrough, past ignoble villages, desolate wastes, networks +of railway tracks where grade crossings menaced them, and on along the +purlieus of suburban deserts until the flat green Long Island country +spread away on either side dotted with woods and greenhouses and +quaint farm-houses and old-time spires. + +"It is pretty when you get here," he said, "but it's like climbing +over a mile of garbage to get out of one's front door. No European +city would endure being isolated by such a desert of squalor and +abominable desolation." + +But Athalie merely smiled. She had been far too excited to notice the +familiar ugliness and filth of the dirty city's soiled and ragged +outskirts. + +And now the car sped on amid the flat, endless acres of cultivated +land, and already her dainty nose was sniffing familiar but +half-forgotten odours--the faintest hint of ocean, the sun-warmed +scent of freshly cut salt hay; perfumes from woodlands in heavy +foliage, and the more homely smell from barn-yard and compost-heap; +from the sunny, dusty village streets through which they rolled; from +village lanes heavy with honeysuckle. + +"I seem to be speeding back toward my childhood," she said. "Every +breath of this air, every breeze, every odour is making it more real +to me.... I wonder whatever became of my ragged red hood and cloak. I +can't remember." + +"I'd like to have them," he said. "I'd fold them and lay them away +for--" + +He checked himself, sobered, suddenly and painfully aware that the +magic of the moment had opened for him an unreal vista where, in the +false dawn, the phantom of Hope stood smiling. Her happy smile had +altered, too; and her gloved hand stole out and rested on his own for +a moment in silence. Neither said anything for a while, and yet the +sky was so blue, the wind so soft and aromatic, and the sun's +splendour was turning the very earth to powdered gold. And maybe the +gods would yet be kind. Maybe, one day, others, with Athalie's hair +and eyes, might smooth the faded scarlet hood and cloak with softly +inquiring fingers. + +He spoke almost harshly from his brief dream: "There is the Bay!" + +But she had turned to look back at the quiet little cemetery already +behind them, and a moment or two passed before she lifted her eyes and +looked out across the familiar stretch of water. Azure and silver it +glimmered there in the sun. Red-shouldered blackbirds hovered, +fluttered, dropped back into the tall reeds; meadow larks whistled +sweetly, persistently; a slow mouse-hawk sailed low over the fields, +his broad wings tipped up like a Japanese kite, the silver full-moon +flashing on his back as he swerved. And then the old tavern came into +sight behind its new hedge of privet. + +Athalie caught sight of it,--of the tall hedge, the new posts of stone +through which a private road now curved into the grounds and around a +circle before the porch; saw the new stone wall inclosing it ablaze +with nasturtiums, the brilliant loveliness of the old and long +neglected garden beyond; saw the ancient house in all its quaint and +charming simplicity bereft of bow-window, spindle, and gingerbread +fretwork,--saw the white front of it, the green shutters, the big, +thick chimneys, the sunlight sparkling on small square panes, and on +the glass of the sun parlour. + +The girl was trembling when he stopped the car at the front door, +sprang out, and aided her to descend. + +A man in overalls came up, diffidently, and touched his broad straw +hat. To him Clive gave a low-voiced order or two, then stepped forward +to where the girl was standing. + +"It is too beautiful--" she began, but her voice failed, and he saw +the sensitive lips tremulous in their silence and the eyes brilliant +with the menace of tears. + +He drew her arm through his and they went in, moving slowly and in +silence from room to room. Only the almost convulsive pressure of her +arm on his told him of a happiness too deep for expression. + +On the landing above he offered her the key to her mother's room. + +"Nothing is changed there," he said; and, fitting the key, unlocked +the door, and turned away. + +But the girl caught his hand in hers and drew him with her into the +faded, shabby room where her mother's chair stood in its accustomed +place, and the faded hassock lay beside it. + +"Sit here," she said. And when he was seated she dropped on the +hassock at his feet and laid her cheek on his knees. + +The room was very still and sunny; her lover remained silent and +unstirring; and the girl's eyes wandered from carpet to ceiling and +from wall to wall, resting on familiar objects; then, passing +dreamily, remained fixed on space--sweet, brooding eyes, dim with the +deepest emotion she had ever known. + +A new, profound, and thrilling peace possessed her--a heavenly sense +of tranquillity and security, as though, somehow, all problems had +been solved for her and for him. + +Presently in a low, hushed, happy voice she began to speak about her +mother. Little unimportant, unconnected incidents came to her +mind--brief moments, episodes as ephemeral as they had been +insignificant. + +Sitting on the faded hassock at his feet she lifted her head and +rested both arms across his knees. + +"It is all so perfect now," she said,--"you here in mother's room, and +I at your feet: and the sunny world waiting for us outside. How mellow +is this light! Always in the demi-dusk of this house there seemed to +me to linger a golden tint--even on dark days--even at night--as +though somewhere a ray of sun had been lost and had not entirely faded +out." + +"It came from your own heart, Athalie--that wonderful and golden heart +of yours where light and warmth can never die.... Dear, are you +contented with what I have ventured to do?" + +She looked silently into his eyes, then with a little sigh dropped her +head on his knees again. + +Far away somewhere in the depths of the house somebody was moving. And +presently she asked him who it was. + +"Connor, the man of all work. I sent him to Spring Pond village to +buy bed linen and bath towels. I ventured to install a brass bed or +two in case you had thought of coming here with your maid. You see," +he added, smiling, "it was fortunate that I did." + +"You are the most wonderful man in the world, Clive," she murmured, +her eyes fixed dreamily on his face. "Always you have been making life +delightful for me; smoothing my path, helping me where the road is +rough."... She sighed: "Clive, you are very wonderful to me." + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Jim Connor had come to help; and now, at high noon, she sought +them where they were standing in the garden,--Athalie in ecstasy +before the scented thickets of old-fashioned rockets massed in a long, +broad border against a background of trees. + +So they went in to luncheon, which was more of a dinner; and Mrs. +Connor served them with apology, bustle, and not too garrulously for +the humour they were in. + +High spirits had returned to them when they stepped out of doors; and +they came back to the house for luncheon in the gayest of humour, +Athalie chattering away blithe as a linnet in a thorn bush, and Clive +not a whit more reticent. + +"Hafiz is going to adore this!" exclaimed the girl. "My angel +pussy!--why was I mean enough to leave you in the city!... I'll have a +dog, too--a soft, roly-poly puppy, who shall grow up with a wholesome +respect for Hafiz. And, Clive! I shall have a nice fat horse, a safe +and sane old Dobbin--so I can poke about the countryside at my +leisure, through byways and lanes and disused roads." + +"You need a car, too." + +"No, no, I really don't. Anyway," she said airily, "your car is +sufficient, isn't it?" + +"Of course," he smiled. + +"I think so, too. I shall not require or desire a car unless you also +are to be in it. But I'd love to possess a Dobbin and a double +buckboard. Also I shall, in due time, purchase a sail-boat--" She +checked herself, laughed at the sudden memory, and said with +delightful malice: "I suppose you have not yet learned to sail a boat, +have you?" + +He laughed, too: "How you scorned me for my ignorance, didn't you? Oh, +but I've learned a great many things since those days, Athalie." + +"To sail a boat, too?" + +"Oh, yes. I had to learn. There's a lot of water in the world; and +I've been very far afield." + +"I know," she said. There was a subtle sympathy in her voice,--an +exquisite recognition of the lonely years which now seemed to lie far, +far behind them both. + +She glanced down at her fresh plate which Mrs. Connor had just placed +before her. + +"Clive!" she exclaimed, enchanted, "do you see! Peach turnovers!" + +"Certainly. Do you suppose this housewarming could be a proper one +without peach turnovers?" And to Mrs. Connor he said: "That is all, +thank you. Miss Greensleeve and I will eat our turnovers by the stove +in the sun-parlour." + +And there they ate their peach turnovers, seated on the old-time +rush-bottomed chairs beside the stove--just as they had sat so many +years ago when Athalie was a child of twelve and wore a ragged cloak +and hood of red. + +Sometimes, leisurely consuming her pastry, she glanced demurely at her +lover, sometimes her blue eyes wandered to the sunny picture outside +where roses grew and honeysuckle trailed and the blessed green grass +enchanted the tired eyes of those who dwelt in the monstrous and arid +city. + +Presently she went away to the room he had prepared for her; and he +lay back lazily in his chair and lighted a cigarette, and watched the +thin spirals of smoke mounting through the sunshine. When she returned +to him she was clad in white from crown to toe, and he told her she +was enchanting, which made her eyes sparkle and the dimples come. + +"Mrs. Connor is going to remain and help me," she said. "All my things +are unpacked, and the bed is made very nicely, and it is all going to +be too heavenly for words. Oh, I _wish_ you could stay!" + +"To-night?" + +"Yes. But I suppose it would ruin us if anybody knew." + +He said nothing as they walked back into the main hallway. + +"What a charming old building it is!" she exclaimed. "Isn't it odd +that I never before appreciated the house from an esthetic angle? I +don't suppose you'd call this architecture, but whatever else it may +be it certainly is dignified. I adore the simplicity of the rooms; +don't you? I shall have some pretty silk curtains made; and, in the +bedrooms, chintz. And maybe you will help me hunt for furniture and +rugs. Will you, dear?" + +"We'll find some old mahogany for this floor and white enamel for the +bedrooms if you like. What do you say?" + +"Enchanting! I adore antique mahogany! You know how crazy I am about +the furniture of bygone days. I shall squander every penny on things +Chippendale and Sheraton and Hepplewhite. Oh, it is going to be a +darling house and I'm the happiest girl in the world. And you have +made me so!--dearest of men!" + +She caught his hand to her lips as he bent to kiss hers, and their +faces came together in a swift and clinging embrace. Which left her +flushed and wordless for the moment, and disposed to hang her head as +she walked slowly beside him to the front door. + +Out in the sunshine, however, her self-possession returned in a pretty +exclamation of delight; and she called his attention to a tiny rainbow +formed in the spray of the garden hose where Connor was watering the +grass. + +"Symbol of hope for us," he said under his breath. + +She nodded, and stood inhaling the fragrance of the garden. + +"I know a path--if it still exists--where I used to go as a child. +Would you care to follow it with me?" + +So they walked down to the causeway bridge spanning the outlet to +Spring Pond, turned to the right amid a tangle of milk-weed in heavy +bloom, and grapevines hanging in festoons from rock and sapling. + +The path had not changed; it wound along the wooded shore of the pond, +then sloped upward and came out into a grassy upland, where it +followed the woods' edge under the cool shadow of the trees. + +And as they walked she told him of her childish journeys along this +path until it reached the wooded and pebbly height of land beyond, +which is one of the vertebrae in the backbone of Long Island. + +To reach that ridge was her ultimate ambition in those youthful days; +and when on one afternoon of reckless daring she had attained it, and +far to the northward she saw the waters of the great Sound sparkling +in the sun, she had felt like Balboa in sight of the Pacific, awed to +the point of prayer by her own miraculous achievement. + +Where the path re-entered the woods, far down the slope, they could +hear the waters of Spring Brook flowing; and presently they could see +the clear glint of the stream; and she told him tales of alder-poles +and home-made hooks, and of dusky troutlings that haunted the woodland +pools far in the dusk of leafy and mysterious depths. + +On the brink of the slope, but firmly imbedded, there had been a big +mossy log. She discovered it presently, and drew him down to a seat +beside her, taking possession of one of his arms and drawing it +closely under her own. Then she crossed one knee over the other and +looked out into the magic half-light of a woodland which, to her +childish eyes, had once seemed a vast and depthless forest. A bar of +sunlight fell across her slim shoe and ankle clothed in white, and +across the log, making the moss greener than emeralds. + +From far below came pleasantly the noise of the brook; overhead leaves +stirred and whispered in the breezes; shadows moved; sun-spots waxed +and waned on tree-trunk and leaf and on the brown ground under foot. A +scarlet-banded butterfly--he they call the Red Admiral--flitted +persistently about an oak tree where the stain of sap darkened the +bark. + +From somewhere came the mellow tinkle of cow-bells, which moved +Athalie to speech; and she poured out her heart to Clive on the +subject of domestic kine and of chickens and ducks. + +"I'm a country girl; there can be no doubt about it," she admitted. "I +do not think a day passes in the city but I miss the cock-crow and the +plaint of barn-yard fowl, and the lowing of cattle and the whimper and +coo of pigeons. And my country eyes grow weary for a glimpse of green, +Clive,--and for wide horizons and the vast flotillas of white clouds +that sail over pastures and salt meadows and bays and oceans. Never +have I been as contented as I am at this moment--here--under the sky +alone with you." + +"That also is all I ask in life--the open world, and you." + +"Maybe it will happen." + +"Maybe." + +"With everything--desirable--" + +She dropped her eyes and remained very still. For the first time in +her life she had thought of children as her own--and his. And the +thought which had flashed unbidden through her mind left her silent, +and a little bewildered by its sweetness. + +He was saying: "You should, by this time, have the means which enable +you to live in the country." + +"Yes." + +Cecil Reeve had advised her in her investments. The girl's financial +circumstances were modest, but adequate and sound. + +"I never told you how much I have," she said. "May I?" + +"If you care to." + +She told him, explaining every detail very carefully; and he listened, +fascinated by this charming girl's account of how in four years, she +had won from the world the traditional living to which all are +supposed to be entitled. + +"You see," she said, "that gives me a modest income. I could live here +very nicely. It has always been my dream.... But of course everything +now depends on where you are." + +Surprised and touched he turned toward her: she flushed and smiled, +suddenly realising the naivete of her avowal. + +"It's true," she said. "Every day I seem to become more and more +entangled with you. I'm wondering whether I've already crossed the +bounds of friendship, and how far I am outside. I can't seem to +realise any longer that there is no bond between us stronger than +preference.... I was thinking--very unusual and very curious +thoughts--about us both." She drew a deep, unsteady, but smiling, +breath: "Clive, I wish you could marry me." + +"You _wish_ it, Athalie?" he asked, profoundly moved. + +"Yes." + +After a silence she leaned over and rested her cheek against his +shoulder. + +"Ah, yes," she said under her breath,--"that is what I begin to wish +for. A home, and _you_.... And--children." + +He put his arm around her. + +"Isn't it strange, Clive, that I should think about children--at my +age--and with little chance of ever having any. I don't know what +possesses me to suddenly want them.... Wouldn't they be wonderful in +that house? And they'd have that darling garden to play in.... There +ought to be a boy--several in fact, and some girls.... _I'd_ know what +to do for them. Isn't it odd that I should know exactly how to bring +them up. But I do. I know I do.... I can almost see them playing in +the garden--I can see their dear little faces--hear their voices--" + +His arm was clasping her slim body very tightly, but she suddenly sat +upright, resting one slender hand on his shoulder; and her gaze became +steady and fixed. + +Presently he noticed it and turned his head in the same direction, but +saw nothing except the sunlight sifting through the trees and the +golden half-light of the woods beyond. + +"What is it, Athalie?" he asked. + +She said in a curiously still voice: "Children." + +"Where?" + +"Playing in the woods." + +"Where?" he repeated; "I do not see them." + +She did not answer. Presently she closed her eyes and rested her face +against his shoulder again, pressing close to him as though lonely. + +"They went away," she said in answer to his question.... "I feel a +little tired, Clive.... Do you care for me a great deal?" + +"Can you ask?" + +"Yes.... Because of the years ahead of us. I think there are to be +many--for us both. The future is so bewildering--like a tangled and +endless forest, and very dim to see in.... But sometimes there comes a +rift in the foliage--and there is a glimpse of far skies shining. And +for a moment one--'sees clearly'--into the depths--a little way.... +And surmises something of what remains unseen. And imagines more, +perhaps.... I wonder if you love me--enough." + +"Dearest--dearest--" + +"Let it remain unsaid, Clive. A girl must learn one day. But never +from the asking. And the same sun shall continue to rise and set, +whatever her answer is to be; and the moon, too; and the stars shall +remain unchanged--whatever changes us. How still the woods are--as +still as dreams." + +[Illustration: "She suddenly sat upright, resting one slender hand on +his shoulder."] + +She lifted her head, looked at him, smiled, then, freeing herself, +sprang to her feet and stood a moment drawing her slim hand across her +eyes. + +"I shall have a tennis court, Clive. And a canoe on Spring Pond.... +What kind of puppy was that I said I wanted?" + +"One which would grow up with proper fear and respect for Hafiz," he +said, smilingly, perplexed by the rapid sequence of her moods. + +"A collie?" + +"If you like." + +"I wonder," she murmured, "whether they are safe for children--" She +looked up laughing: "_Isn't_ it odd! I simply cannot seem to free my +mind of children whenever I think about that house." + +As they moved along the path toward the new home he said: "What was it +you saw in the woods?" + +"Children." + +"Were they--real?" + +"No." + +"Had they died?" + +"They have not yet been born," she said in a low voice. + +"I did not know you could see such things." + +"I am not sure that I can. It is very difficult for me, sometimes, to +distinguish between vividly imaginative visualisation and--other +things." + +Walking back through the soft afternoon light the girl tried to tell +him all that she knew about herself and her clairvoyance--strove to +explain, to make him understand, and, perhaps, to understand herself. + +But after a while silence intervened between them; and when they spoke +again they spoke of other things. For the isolation of souls is a +solitude inviolable; there can be no intimacy there, only the longing +for it--the craving, endless, unsatisfied. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Over the garden a waning moon silvered the water in the pool and +picked out from banked masses of bloom a tall lily here and there. + +All the blossom-spangled vines were misty with the hovering wings of +night-moths. Through alternate bands of moonlight and dusk the jet +from the pool split into a thin shower of palely flashing jewels, +sometimes raining back on the water, sometimes drifting with the wind +across the grass. And through the dim enchantment moved Athalie, +leaning on Clive's arm, like some slim sorceress in a secret maze, +silent, absent-eyed, brooding magic. + +Already into her garden had come the little fantastic creatures of the +night as though drawn thither by a spell to do her bidding. Like a fat +sprite a speckled toad hopped and hobbled and scrambled from their +path; a tiny snake, green as the grass blades that it stirred, slipped +from a pool of moonlight into a lake of shadow. Somewhere a small owl, +tremulously melodious, called and called: and from the salt meadows, +distantly, the elfin whistle of plover answered. + +Like some lost wanderer from the moon itself a great moth with +nile-green wings fell flopping on the grass at the girl's feet. And +Clive, wondering, lifted it gingerly for her inspection. + +Together they examined the twin moons shining on its translucent +wings, the furry, snow-white body and the six downy feet of palest +rose. Then, at Athalie's request, Clive tossed the angelic creature +into the air; and there came a sudden blur of black wings in the +moonlight, and a bat took it. + +But neither he nor she had seen in allegory the darting thing with +devil's wings that dashed the little spirit of the moon into eternal +night. And out of the black void above, one by one, flakes from the +frail wings came floating. + +To and fro they moved. She with both hands clasped and resting on his +arm, peering through darkness down at the flowers, as one perfume, +mounting, overpowered another--clove-pink, rocket, lily, and petunia, +each in its turn dominant, triumphant. + +Puffs of fragrance from the distant sea stirred the garden's tranquil +air from time to time: somewhere honeyed bunches hung high from locust +trees; and the salt meadow's aromatic tang lent savour to the night. + +"I must go back to town," he said irresolutely. + +He heard her sigh, felt her soft clasp tighten slightly over his arm. +But she turned back in silence with him toward the house, passed in +the open door before him, her fair head lowered, and stood so, leaning +against the newel-post. + +"Good night," he said in a low voice, still irresolute. + +"Must you go?" + +"I ought to." + +"There is that other bedroom. And Mrs. Connor has gone home for the +night." + +"I told her to remain," he said sharply. + +"I told her to go." + +"Why?" + +"Because I wanted you to stay--this first night here--with me--in the +home of my youth which you have given to me again." + +He came to her and looked into her eyes, framing her face between his +hands: + +"Dear, it would be unwise for me to remain." + +"Because you love me?" + +"No." He added with a forced smile: "I have put on armour in our +behalf. No, that is not the reason." + +"Then--may you not stay?" + +"Suppose it became known? What would you do, Athalie?" + +"Hold my head high ... guilty or not." + +"You don't know what you are saying." + +"Not exactly, perhaps.... But I know that I have been changing. This +day alone with you is finishing the transformation. I'm not sure just +when it began. I realise, now, that it has been in process for a long, +long while." She drew away from him, leaned back on the banisters. + +"I may not have much time;--I want to be candid--I want to think +honestly. I don't desire to deny even to myself that I am now become +what I am--a stranger to myself." + +He said, still with his forced smile; "What pretty and unknown +stranger have you so suddenly discovered in yourself, Athalie?" + +She looked up at him, unsmiling: "A stranger to celibacy.... Why do +you not take me, Clive?" + +"Do you understand what you are saying!" + +"Yes. And now I can understand anything _you_ may say or do ... I +couldn't, yesterday." She turned her face away from him and folded her +hands over the newel-post. And, not looking at him, she said: "Since +we have been here alone together I have known a confidence and +security I never dreamed of. Nothing now matters, nothing causes +apprehension, nothing of fear remains--not even that ignorance of fear +which the world calls innocence. + +"I am what I am; I am not afraid to be and live what I have become.... +I am capable of love. Yesterday I was not. I have been fashioned to +love, I think.... But there is only one man who can make me +certain.... My trust and confidence are wholly his--as fearlessly as +though he had become this day my husband.... + +"And if he will stay, here under this roof which is not mine unless it +is his also--here in this house where, within the law or without it, +nevertheless everything is his--then he enters into possession of what +is his own. And I at last receive my birthright,--which is to serve +where I am served, love where love is mine--with gratitude, and +unafraid--" + +Her voice trembled, broke; she covered her face with her hands; and +when he took her in his arms she leaned her forehead against his +breast: + +--"Oh, Clive--I can't deny them!--How can I deny them?--The little +flower-like faces, pleading to me for life!--And their tender +arms--around my neck--there in the garden, Clive!--The winsome lips +on mine, warm and heavenly sweet; and the voices calling, calling from +the golden woodland, calling from meadow and upland, height and +hollow!--And sometimes like far echoes of wind-blown laughter they +call me--gay little voices, confident and sweet; and sometimes, +winning and shy, they whisper close to my cheek--mother!--mother--" + +His arms fell from her and he stepped back, trembling. + +She lifted her pale tear-stained face. And, save for the painted +Virgins of an ancient day he never before had seen such spiritual +passion in any face--features where nothing sensuous had ever left an +imprint; where the sensitive, tremulous mouth curved with the +loveliness of a desire as innocent as a child's. + +And he read there no taint of lesser passion, nothing of less noble +emotion; only a fearless and overwhelming acknowledgment of her +craving to employ the gifts with which her womanhood endowed her--love +and life, and service never ending. + + * * * * * + +In her mother's room they sat long talking, her hands resting on his, +her fresh and delicate face a pale white blur in the dusk. + +It was very late before he went to the room allotted him, knowing that +he could not hope for sleep. Seated there by his open window he heard +the owl's tremolo rise, quaver, and die away in the moonlight; he +heard the murmuring plaint of marsh-fowl, and the sea-breeze stirring +the reeds. + +Now, in this supreme crisis of his life, looking out into darkness he +saw a star fall, leaving an incandescent curve against the heavens +which faded slowly as he looked. + +Into an obscurity as depthless, his soul was peering, now, naked, +unarmoured, clasping hands with hers. And every imperious and furious +tide that sweeps the souls and bodies of men now mounted +overwhelmingly and set toward her. It seemed at moments as though +their dragging was actually moving his limbs from where he sat; and he +closed his eyes and his strong hand fell on the sill, grasping it as +though for anchorage. + +Now,--if there were in him anything higher than the mere clay that +clotted his bones--now was the moment to show it. And if there were a +diviner armour within reach of his unsteady hand, he must don it now +and rivet it fast in the name of God. + +Darkness is a treacherous councillor; he rose heavily, and turned the +switch, flooding the room with light, then flung himself across the +bed, his clenched fists over his face. + +In his ears he seemed to hear the dull roar of the current which, so +far through life, had borne him on its crest, tossing, hurling him +whither it had listed. + +It should never again have its will of him. This night he must set his +course forever. + +"Clive!" + +But the faint, clear call was no more real, and no less, than the +voice which was ringing always in his ears, now,--no softer, no less +winning. + +"Clive!" + +After a moment he raised himself to his elbows and gazed, +half-blinded, toward the door. Then he got clumsily to his feet, +stumbled across the floor, and opened it. + +She stood there in her frail chamber robe of silk and swansdown, +smiling, forlornly humorous, and displaying a book as symbol of her +own insomnia. + +"Can't you sleep?" she asked. "We'll both be dead in the morning. I +thought I'd better tell you to go to sleep when I saw your light break +out.... So I've come to tell you." + +"How could you see that my window was lighted?" + +"I was leaning out of my window listening to the little owl, and +suddenly I saw the light from yours fall criss-cross across the +grass.... Can't you sleep?" + +"Yes. I'll turn out the light. Will _you_ promise to go to sleep?" + +"If I can. The night is so beautiful--" + +With a gay little smile and gesture she turned away; but halfway down +the corridor she hesitated and looked back at him. + +"If you are sleepless," she called softly, "you may wake me and I'll +talk to you." + +There was a window at the end of the corridor. He saw her continue on +past her door and stand there looking out into the garden. She was +still standing there when he closed his door and went back to his +chair. + +The night seemed interminable; its moonlit fragrance unendurable. With +sleepless eyes he gazed into the darkness, appalled at the +future--fearing such nights to come--nights like this, alone with +her; and the grim battle to be renewed, inexorably renewed until that +day should come--if ever it was to come--when he dared take in the +name of God what Destiny had already made his own, and was now +clamouring for him to take. + +After a long while he rose from the window, went to his door again, +opened it and looked out. And saw her still leaning against the window +at the corridor's dim end. + +She looked around, laughing softly as he came up: "All this--the +night, the fragrance, and you, have hopelessly bewitched me. I can't +sleep; I don't wish to.... But you, poor boy--you haven't even +undressed. You look very tired and white, Clive. Why is it you can't +sleep?" + +He did not answer. + +"Shall I get my book and read aloud to you? It's silly stuff--love, +and such things. Shall I?" + +"No--I'm going back," he answered curtly. + +She glanced around at him curiously. For, that day, a new +comprehension of men and their various humours had come to enlighten +her; she had begun to understand even where she could not feel. + +And so, tenderly, gently, in shy sympathy with the powerful currents +that swept this man beside her,--but still herself ignorant of their +power, she laid her cool cheek against his, drawing his head closer. + +"Dearest--dearest--" she murmured vaguely. + +His head turned, and hers turned instinctively to meet it; and her +arms crept up around his neck. + +Then of a sudden she had freed herself, stepped back, one nervous arm +outflung as if in self-defence. But her hand fell, caught on the +window-sill and clung there for support; and she rested against it +breathing rapidly and unevenly. + +"Athalie--dear." + +"Let me go now--" + +Her lips burned for an instant under his; were wrenched away: + +"Let me go, Clive--" + +"You must not tremble so--" + +"I can't help it.... I am afraid. I want to go, now. I--I want to +go--" + +There was a chair by the window; she sank down on it and dropped her +head back against the wall behind. + +And, as he stood there beside her, over her shoulder through the open +window he saw two men in the garden below, watching them. + +Presently she lifted her head. His eyes remained fixed on the men +below who never moved. + +She said with an effort; "Are you displeased, Clive?" + +"No, my darling." + +"It was not because I do not love you. Only--I--" + +"I know," he whispered, his eyes fixed steadily on the men. + +After a silence she said under her breath: "I understand better now +why I ought to wait for you--if there is any hope for us,--as long as +there is any chance. And after that--if there is no chance for +us--then nothing can matter." + +"I know." + +"To-night, earlier, I did not understand why I should deny myself to +myself, to you, to _them_.... I did not understand that what I wished +for so treacherously masked a--a lesser impulse--" + +He said, quietly: "Nothing is surer than that you and I, one day, +shall face our destiny together. I really care nothing for custom, +law, or folk-way, or dogma, excepting only for your sake. Outside of +that, man's folk-ways, man's notions of God, mean nothing to me: only +my own intelligence and belief appeal to me. I must guide myself." + +"Guide me, too," she said. "For I have come into a wisdom which +dismays me." + +He nodded and looked down, calmly, at the two men who had not stirred +from the shadow of the foliage. + +She rose to her feet, hesitated, slowly stretched out her hand, then, +on impulse, pressed it lightly against his lips. + +"That demonstration," she said with a troubled laugh, "is to be our +limit. Good night. You will try to sleep, won't you?... And if I am +now suddenly learning to be a little shy with you--you will not +mistake me; will you?... Because it may seem silly at this late +date.... But, somehow, everything comes late to me--even love, and its +lesser lore and its wisdom and its cunning. So, if I ever seem +indifferent--don't doubt me, Clive.... Good night." + + * * * * * + +When she had entered her room and closed the door he went downstairs, +swiftly, let himself out of the house, and moved straight toward the +garden. + +Neither of the men seemed very greatly surprised; both retreated with +docile alacrity across the lawn to the driveway gate. + +"Anyway," said the taller man, good-humouredly, "you've got to hand it +to us, Mr. Bailey. I guess we pinch the goods on you all right this +time. What about it?" + +But Clive silently locked the outer gates, then turned and stared at +the shadowy house as though it had suddenly crumbled into ruins there +under the July moon. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +A fine lace-work of mist lay over the salt meadows; the fairy trilling +of the little owl had ceased. Marsh-fowl were sleepily astir; the last +firefly floated low into the shrouded bushes and its lamp glimmered a +moment and went out. + +Where the east was growing grey long lines of wild-ducks went +stringing out to sea; a few birds sang loudly in meadows still +obscure; cattle in foggy upland pastures were awake. + +When the first cock-crow rang, cow-bells had been clanking for an hour +or more; the rising sun turned land and sea to palest gold; every +hedge and thicket became noisy with birds; bay-men stepped spars and +hoisted sail, and their long sweeps dripped liquid fire as they pulled +away into the blinding glory of the east. + +And Clive rose wearily from his window chair, care-worn and haggard, +with nothing determined, nothing solved of this new and imminent peril +which was already menacing Athalie with disgrace and threatening him +with that unwholesome notoriety which men usually survive but under +which a woman droops and perishes. + +He bathed, dressed again, dully uneasy in the garments of yesterday, +uncomfortable for lack of fresh linen and toilet requisites; little +things indeed to add such undue weight to his depression. And only +yesterday he had laughed at inconvenience and had still found charm to +thrill him in the happy unconventionality of that day and night. + +Connor was already weeding in the garden when he went out; and the +dull surprise in the Irishman's sunburnt visage sent a swift and +painful colour into his own pallid face. + +"Miss Greensleeve was kind enough to put me up last night," he said +briefly. + +Connor stood silent, slowly combing the soil from the claw of his +weeder with work-worn fingers. + +Clive said: "Since I have been coming down here to watch the progress +on Miss Greensleeve's house have you happened to notice any strangers +hanging about the grounds?" + +Connor's grey eyes narrowed and became fixed on nothing. + +Presently he nodded to himself: + +"There was inquiries made, sorr, I'm minded now that ye mention it." + +"About me?" + +"Yes, sorr. There was strangers askin' f'r to know was it you that owns +the house or what." + +"What was said?" + +"I axed them would they chase themselves,--it being none o' their +business. 'Twas no satisfaction they had of me, Misther Bailey, sorr." + +"Who were they, Connor?" + +"I just disremember now. Maybe there was a big wan and a little +wan.... Yes, sorr; there was two of them hangin' about on and off +these six weeks past, like they was minded to take a job and then +again not minded. Sure there was the two o' thim, now I think of it. +Wan was big and thin and wan was a little scutt wid a big nose." + +Clive nodded: "Keep them off the place, Connor. Keep all strangers +outside. Miss Greensleeve will be here for several days alone and she +must not be annoyed." + +"Divil a bit, sorr." + +"I want you and Mrs. Connor to sleep in the house for the present. And +I do not wish you to answer any questions from anybody concerning +either Miss Greensleeve or myself. Can I depend on you?" + +"You can, sorr." + +"I'm sure of it. Now, I'd like to have you go to the village and buy +me something to shave with and to comb my hair with. I had not +intended to remain here over night, but I did not care to leave Miss +Greensleeve entirely alone in the house." + +"Sure, sorr, Jenny was fixed f'r to stay--" + +"I know. Miss Greensleeve told her she might go home. It was a +misunderstanding. But I want her to remain hereafter until Miss +Greensleeve's servants come from New York." + +So Connor went away to the village and Clive seated himself on a +garden bench to wait. + +Nothing stirred inside the house; the shades in Athalie's room +remained lowered. + +He watched the chimney swifts soaring and darting above the house. A +faint dun-coloured haze crowned the kitchen chimney. Mrs. Connor was +already busy over their breakfast. + +[Illustration: "Clive nodded: 'Keep them off the place, Connor.'"] + +When the gardener returned with the purchases Clive went to his room +again and remained there busy until a knock on the door and Mrs. +Connor's hearty voice announced breakfast. + +As he stepped out into the passage-way he met Athalie coming from her +room in a soft morning negligee, and still yawning. + +She bade him good morning in a sweet, sleepy voice, linked her white, +lace-clouded arm in his, glanced sideways at him, humorously ashamed: + +"I'm a disgrace," she said; "I could have slain Mrs. Connor when she +woke me. Oh, Clive, I _am_ so sleepy!" + +"Why did you get up?" + +"My dear, I'm also hungry; that is why. I could scent the coffee from +afar. And you know, Clive, if you ever wish to hopelessly alienate my +affections, you have only to deprive me of my breakfast. Tell me, did +you get _any_ sleep?" + +He forced a smile: "I had sufficient." + +"I wonder," she mused, looking at his somewhat haggard features. + +They found the table prepared for them in the sun-parlour; Athalie +presided at the coffee urn, but became a trifle flushed and shy when +Mrs. Connor came in bearing a smoking cereal. + +"I made a mistake in allowing you to go home," said the girl, "so I +thought it best for Mr. Bailey to remain." + +"Sure I was that worritted," burst out Mrs. Connor, "I was minded to +come back--what with all the thramps and Dagoes hereabout, and no dog +on the place, and you alone; so I sez to my man Cornelius,--'Neil,' +sez I, 'it's not right,' sez I, 'f'r to be lavin' th' young lady--'" + +"Certainly," interrupted Clive quietly, "and you and Neil are to sleep +in the house hereafter until Miss Greensleeve's servants arrive." + +"I'm not afraid," murmured Athalie, looking at him with lazy amusement +over the big, juicy peach she was preparing. But when Mrs. Connor +retired her expression changed. + +"You dear fellow," she said, "You need not ever be worried about me." + +"I'm not, Athalie--" + +"Oh, Clive! Aren't you always going to be honest with me?" + +"Why do you think I am anxious concerning you when Connor and his +wife--" + +"Dearest!" + +"What?" He looked across at her where she was serenely preparing his +coffee; and when she had handed the cup to him she shook her head, +gravely, as though in gentle disapproval of some inward thought of +his. + +"What is it?" he asked uneasily. + +"You know already." + +"What _is_ it?" he repeated, reddening. + +"Must _I_ tell _you_, Clive?" + +"I think you had better." + +"_You_ should have told _me_, dear.... Don't ever fear to tell me +what concerns us both. Don't think that leaving me in ignorance of +unpleasant facts is any kindness to me. If anything happens to cause +you anxiety, I should feel humiliated if you were left to endure it +all alone." + +[Illustration: "'Sure I was that worritted,' burst out Mrs. Connor."] + +He remained silent, troubled, uncertain as yet, how much she knew of +what had happened in the garden the night before. + +"Clive, dear, don't let this thing spoil anything for us. I know about +it. Don't let any shadow fall upon this house of ours." + +"You saw me last night in the garden." + +Between diffidence and the candour that characterised her, she +hesitated; then: + +"Dear, a very strange thing has happened. Until last night never in +all my life, try as I might, could I ever 'see clearly' anything that +concerned you. Never have I been able to 'find' you anywhere--even +when my need was desperate--when my heart seemed breaking--" + +She checked herself, smiled at him; then her eyes grew dark and +thoughtful, and a deeper colour burned in her cheeks. + +"I'll try to tell you," she said. "Last night, after I left you, I lay +thinking about--love. And the--the new knowledge of myself +disconcerted me.... There remained a vague sense of dismay +and--humiliation--" She bent her head over her folded hands, silent +until the deepening colour subsided. + +Still with lowered eyes she went on, steadily enough: "My instinct was +to escape--I don't know exactly how to tell this to you, dear,--but +the impulse to escape possessed me--and I felt that I must rise from +the lower planes and free myself from a--a lesser passion--slip from +the menace of its control--become clean again of everything that is +not of the spirit.... Do you understand?" + +"Yes." + +"So I rose and knelt down and said my prayers.... And asked to be +instructed because of my inexperience with--with these new and +deep--emotions. And then I lay down, very tranquil again, leaving the +burden with God.... All concern left me,--and the restless sense of +shame. I turned my head on the pillow and looked out into the +moonlight.... And, gently, naturally, without any sense of effort, I +left my body where it lay in the moonlight, and--and found myself in +the garden. Mother was there. You, also, were there; and two men with +you." + +His eyes never left her face; and now she looked up at him with a +ghost of a smile: + +"Mother spoke of the loveliness of the flowers. I heard her, but I was +listening to you. Then I followed you where you were driving the two +men from the grounds. I understood what had happened. After you went +into the house again my mother and I saw you watching by your window. +I was sorry that you were so deeply disturbed. + +"Because what had occurred did not cause me any anxiety whatever." + +"Do you mean," he said hoarsely, "that the probability of your name +being coupled with mine and dragged through the public mire does not +disconcert you?" + +"No." + +"Why not? Is it because your clairvoyance reassures you as to the +outcome of all this?" + +"Dear," she said, gently, "I know no more of the outcome than you do. +I know nothing more concerning our future than do you--excepting, +only, that we shall journey toward it together, and through it to the +end, accomplishing the destiny which links us each to the other.... I +know no more than that." + +"Then why are you so serene under the menace of this miserable affair? +For myself I care nothing; I'd thank God for a divorce on any terms. +But you--dearest--dearest!--I cannot endure the thought of you +entangled in such a shameful--" + +"Where is the shame, Clive? The real shame, I mean. In me there are +two selves; neither have, as yet, been disgraced by any disobedience +of any law framed by men for women. Nor shall I break men's +laws--under which women are governed without their own consent--unless +no other road to our common destiny presents itself for me to +follow."... She smiled, watching his intent and sombre face: + +"Don't fear for me, dear. I have come to understand what life is, and +I mean to live it, wholesomely, gloriously, uncrippled in body and +mind, unmaimed by folk-ways and by laws as ephemeral--" she turned +toward the open windows--"as those frail-winged things that float in +the sunshine above Spring Pond, yonder, born at sunrise, and at +sundown dead." + +She laughed, leaning there on her dimpled elbows, stripping a peach of +its velvet skin: + +"The judges of the earth,--and the power of them!--What is it, dear, +compared to the authority of love! To-day men have their human will of +men, judging, condemning, imprisoning, slaying, as the moral fashion +of the hour dictates. To-morrow folk-ways change; judge and victim +vanish along with fashions obsolete--both alike, their brief reign +ended. + +"For judge and victim are awake at last; and in the twinkling of an +eye, the old world has become a memory or a shrine for those tranquil +pilgrims who return to worship for a while where love lies +sleeping.... And then return no more." + +She rose, signed him to remain seated, came around to where he sat, +and perched herself on the arm of his chair. + +"If you don't mind," she said, "I shall smooth out that troubled +crease between your eyebrows." And she encircled his head with both +arms, and laid her smooth hands across his forehead. Then she touched +his hair lightly, with her lips. + +"We are great sinners," she murmured, "are we not, my darling?" + +And drew his head against her breast. + +"Of what am I robbing _her_, Clive? Of the power to humiliate you, +make you unhappy. It is an honest theft. + +"What else am I stealing from her? Not love, not gratitude, not duty, +nothing of tenderness, nor of pride nor sympathy. I take nothing, +then, from her. She has nothing for me to steal--unless it be the +plain gold ring she never wears.... And I prefer a new one--if, +indeed, I am to wear one." + +He said, deeply troubled, "How do you know she never wears a ring?" +And he turned and looked up at her over his shoulder. The clear azure +of her eyes was like a wintry sky. + +"Clive, I know more than that. I know that your wife is in New York." + +"What!" he exclaimed, astonished. + +"I have been aware of it for weeks," she said tranquilly. + +He remained silent; she continued to caress his hair: + +"Your wife," she went on thoughtfully, "will learn much when she dies. +There is a compulsory university course which awaits us all,--a school +with many forms and many grades and many, many pupils. But we must die +before we can be admitted.... I have never before spoken to you as I +have spoken to-day.... Perhaps I never shall again.... The world is a +blind place--lovely but blind. + +"As for the woman who wears your name but wears no ring of yours she +has been moving through my crystal for many days;--I would have made +no effort to intrude on her had she not persisted in the crystal, +haunted it,--I cannot tell you why--only that she is always there, +now.... And last night I knew that she was in New York, and why she +had come here.... Shall you see her to-day?" + +"Where is she?" + +"At the Regina." + +"Are you sure?" + +The girl calmly closed her eyes for a moment. After a brief silence +she opened them: "She is still there.... She will awake in a little +while and ring for her breakfast. The two men you drove out of the +garden last night are waiting to see her. There is another man there. +I think he is your wife's attorney.... Have you decided to see her?" + +"Yes." + +"You won't let what she may say about me trouble you, will you?" + +"What will she say?" he asked with the naive confidence of absolute +and childish faith. + +Athalie laughed: "Darling! I don't know. I'm not a witch or a +sorceress. Did you think I was?--just because I can see a little more +clearly than you?" + +"I didn't know what your limit might be," he answered, smiling +slightly, in spite of his deep anxiety. + +"Then let me inform you at once. My eyes are better than many +people's. Also my _other_ self can see. And with so clear a vision, +and with intelligence--and with a very true love and reverence for +God--somehow I seem to visualise what clairvoyance, logic, and reason +combine to depict for me. + +"I used to be afraid that a picturesque and vivid imagination coupled +with a certain amount of clairvoyance might seduce me to trickery and +charlatanism. + +"But if it be charlatanism for a paleontologist to construct a fish +out of a single fossil scale, then there may be something of that +ability in me. For truly, Clive, I am often at a loss where to draw +the line between what I see and what I reason out--between my +clairvoyance and my deductions. And if I made mistakes I certainly +should be deeply alarmed. But--I don't," she added, laughing. "And so, +in regard to those two men last night, and in regard to what _she_ and +they may be about, I feel not the least concern. And you must not. +Promise me, dear." + +But he rose, anxious and depressed, and stood silent for a few +moments, her hands clasped tightly in his. + +For he could see no way out of it, now. His wife, once merely +indifferent, was beginning to evince malice. And what further form +that malice might take he could not imagine; for hitherto, she had not +desired divorce, and had not concerned herself with him or his +behaviour. + +As for Athalie, it was now too late for him to step out of her life. +He might have been capable of the sacrifice if the pain and +unhappiness were to be borne by him alone--or even if he could bring +himself to believe or even hope that it might be merely a temporary +sorrow to Athalie. + +But he could not mistake her, now; their cords of love and life were +irrevocably braided together; and to cut one was to sever both. There +could be no recovery from such a measure for either, now. + +What was he to do? The woman he had married had rejected his loyalty +from the very first, suffered none of his ideas of duty to move her +from her aloofness. She cared nothing for him, and she let him know +it; his notions of marriage, its duties and obligations merely aroused +in her contempt. And when he finally understood that the only +kindness he could do her was to keep his distance, he had kept it. And +what was he to do now? Granted that he had brought it all upon +himself, how was he to combat what was threatening Athalie? + +His wife had so far desired nothing of him, not even divorce. He could +not leave Athalie and he could not marry her. And now, on her young +head he had, somehow, loosened this avalanche, whatever it was--a suit +for separation, probably--which, if granted, would leave him without +his liberty, and Athalie disgraced. And even suppose his wife desired +divorce for some new and unknown reason. The sinister advent of those +men meant that Athalie would be shamefully named in any such +proceedings. + +What was he to do? An ugly, hunted look came into his face and he +swung around and faced the girl beside him: + +"Athalie," he said, "will you go away with me and let them howl?" + +"Dearest, how silly. I'll stay _here_ with you and let them howl." + +"I don't want you to face it--" + +"I shall not turn my back on it. Oh, Clive, there are so many more +important things than what people may say about us!" + +"You can't defy the world!" + +"I'm not going to, darling. But I may possibly shock a few of the more +orthodox parasites that infest it." + +"No girl can maintain that attitude." + +"A girl can try.... And, if law and malice force me to become your +mistress, malice and law may answer for it; not I!" + +"_I_ shall have to answer for it." + +"Dearest," she said with smiling tenderness, "you are still very, very +orthodox in your faith in folk-ways. That need not cause _me_ any +concern, however. But, Clive, of the two pictures which seems +reasonable--your wife who is no wife; your mistress who is more and is +considered less? + +"Don't think that I am speaking lightly of wifehood.... I desire it as +I desire motherhood. I was made for both. If the world will let me I +shall be both wife and mother. But if the world interferes to stultify +me, then, nevertheless I shall still be both, and the law can keep the +title it refuses me. I deny the right of man to cripple, mar, render +sterile my youth and womanhood. I deny the right of the world to +forbid me love, and its expression, as long as I harm no one by +loving. Clive, it would take a diviner law than man's notions of +divinity, to kill in me the right to live and love and bring the +living into life. And if I am forbidden to do it in the name of the +law, then I dare do it in the name of One who never turned his back on +little children--" + +She ceased abruptly; and he saw her eyes suddenly blinded by tears: + +"Oh, Clive--if you only could have seen them--the little flower-like +faces and pleading arms around--my--neck--warm--Oh, sweet!--sweet +against my breast--" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Winifred had grown stout, which, on a slim, small-boned woman is +quickly apparent; and, to Clive, her sleepy, uncertain grey eyes +seemed even nearer together than he remembered them. + +She was seated in the yellow and white living-room of her apartment at +the Regina, still holding the card he had sent up; and she made no +movement to rise when her maid announced him and ushered him in, or to +greet him at all except with a slight nod and a slighter gesture +indicating a chair across the room. + +He said: "I did not know until this morning that you were in this +country." + +"Was it necessary to inform you?" + +"No, not necessary," he said, "unless you have come to some definite +decision concerning our future relations." + +Her eyes seemed to grow sleepier and nearer together than ever. + +"Why," he asked, wearily, "have you employed an agency to have me +followed?" + +She lifted her drooping lids and finely pencilled brows. "Have you +been followed?" + +"At intervals, as you know. Would you mind saying why? Because you +have always been welcome to divorce." + +She sat silent, slowly tearing into tiny squares the card he had sent +up. Presently, as at an afterthought, she collected all the fragments +and placed them in a heap on the table beside her. + +"Well?" she inquired, glancing up at him. "Is that all you have to +say?" + +"I don't know what to say until you tell me why you have had me +followed and why you yourself are here." + +Her gaze remained fixed on the heap of little pasteboard squares which +she shifted across the polished table-top from one position to +another. She said: + +"The case against you was complete enough before last night. I fancy +even you will admit that." + +"You are wrong," he replied wearily. "Somehow or other I believe you +know that you are wrong. But I suppose a jury might not think so." + +"Would you care to tell a jury that this trance-medium is not your +mistress?" + +"I should not care to defend her on such a charge before a jury or +before anybody. There are various ways of damning a woman; and to +defend her from that accusation is one of them." + +"And another way?" + +"To admit the charge. Either ruin her in the eyes of the truly +virtuous." + +"What do you expect to do about it then? Keep silent?" + +"That is still a third way of destroying a woman." + +"Really? Then what are you going to do?" + +"Whatever you wish," he said in a low voice, "as long as you do not +bring such a charge against Athalie Greensleeve." + +"Would you set your signature to a paper?" + +"I have given you my word. I have never lied to you." + +She looked up at him out of narrowing eyes: + +"You might this time. I prefer your signature." + +He reddened and sat twirling the silver crook of his walking-stick +between restless hands. + +"Very well," he said quietly; "I will sign what you wish, with the +understanding that Miss Greensleeve is to remain immune from any lying +accusation.... And I'll tell you now that any accusation questioning +her chastity is a falsehood." + +His wife smiled: "You see," she said, "your signature _will_ be +necessary." + +"Do you think I am lying?" + +"What do I care whether you are or not? Do you suppose the alleged +chastity of a common fortune-teller interests me? All I know is that +you have found your level, and that I need protection. If you choose +to concede it to me without a public scandal, I shall permit you to do +so. If not, I shall begin an action against you and name the woman +with whom you spent last night!" + +There was, in the thin, flute-like, and mincingly fastidious voice +something so subtly vicious that her words left him silent. + +Still leisurely arranging and re-arranging her little heap of +pasteboard, her near-set eyes intent on its symmetry, she spoke +again: + +"I could marry Innisbrae or any one of several others! But I do not +care to; I am comfortable. And that is where you have made your +mistake. I do not desire a divorce! But,"--she lifted her narrow +eyes--"if you force me to a separation I shall not shrink from it. And +I shall name that woman." + +"Then--what is it you want?" he asked with a sinking heart. + +"Not a divorce; not even a separation; merely respectability. I wish +you to give up business in New York and present yourself in England at +decent intervals of--say once every year. What you do in the +interludes is of no interest to me. As long as you do not establish a +business and a residence anywhere I don't care what you do. You may +come back and live with this woman if you choose." + +After a silence he said: "Is that what you propose?" + +"It is." + +"And you came over here to collect sufficient evidence to force me?" + +"I had no other choice." + +He nodded: "By your own confession, then, you believe either in her +chastity and my sense of honour, or that, even guilty, I care so much +for her that any threat against her happiness can effectually coerce +me." + +"Your language is becoming a trifle involved." + +"No; _I_ am involved. I realise it. And if I am not absolutely +honourable and unselfish in this matter I shall involve the woman I +had hoped to marry." + +"I thought so," she said, reverting to her heap of pasteboard. + +"If you think so," he continued, "could you not be a little generous?" + +"How?" + +"Divorce me--not by naming her--and give me a chance in life." + +"No," she said coolly, "I don't care for a divorce. I am comfortable +enough. Why should I inconvenience myself because you wish to marry +your mistress?" + +"In decency and in--charity--to me. It will cost you little. You +yourself admit that it is a matter of personal indifference to you +whether or not you are entirely and legally free of me." + +"Did you ever do anything to deserve my generosity?" she inquired +coldly. + +"I don't know. I have tried." + +"I have never noticed it," she retorted with a slight sneer. + +He said: "Since my first offence against you--and against +myself--which was marrying you--I have attempted in every way I knew +to repair the offence, and to render the mistake endurable to you. And +when I finally learned that there was only one way acceptable to you, +I followed that way and kept myself out of your sight. + +"My behaviour, perhaps, entitles me to no claim upon your generosity, +yet I did my best, Winifred, as unselfishly as I knew how. Could you +not; in your turn, be a little unselfish now?... Because I have a +chance for happiness--if you would let me take it." + +She glanced at him out of her close-set, sleepy eyes: + +"I would not lift a finger to oblige you," she said. "You have +inconvenienced me, annoyed me, disarranged my tranquil, orderly, and +blameless mode of living, causing me social annoyance and personal +irritation by coming here and engaging in business, and living openly +with a common and notorious woman who practises a fraudulent and +vulgar business. + +"Why should I show you any consideration? And if you really have +fallen so low that you are ready to marry her, do you suppose it would +be very flattering for me to have it known that your second wife, my +successor, was such a woman?" + +He sat thinking for a while, his white, care-worn face framed between +his gloved hands. + +"Your friends," he said in a low voice, "know you as a devout woman. +You adhere very strictly to your creed. Is there nothing in it that +teaches forbearance?" + +"There is nothing in it that teaches me to compromise with evil," she +retorted; and her small cupid-bow mouth, grew pinched. + +"If you honestly believe that this young girl is really my mistress," +he said, "would it not be decent of you, if it lies within your power, +to permit me to regularise my position--and hers?" + +"Is it any longer my affair if you and she have publicly damned +yourselves?" + +"Yet if you do believe me guilty, you can scarcely deny me the chance +of atonement, if it is within your power." + +She lifted her eyes and coolly inspected him: "And suppose I do _not_ +believe you guilty of breaking your marriage vows?" she inquired. + +He was silent. + +"Am I to understand," she continued, "that you consider it my duty to +suffer the inconvenience of divorcing you in order that you may +further advertise this woman by marrying her?" + +He looked into her close-set eyes; and hope died. She said: "If you +care to affix your signature to the agreement which my attorneys have +already drawn up, then matters may remain as they are, provided you +carry out your part of the contract. If you don't, I shall begin +action immediately and I shall name the woman on whose account you +seem to entertain such touching anxiety." + +"Is that your threat?" + +"It is my purpose, dictated by every precept of decency, morality, +religion, and the inviolable sanctity of marriage." + +He laughed and gathered up his hat and stick: + +"Your moral suasion, I am afraid, slightly resembles a sort of +sanctimonious blackmail, Winifred. The combination of morality, +religion, and yourself is too powerful for me to combat.... So if my +choice must be between permitting morality to publicly besmirch this +young girl's reputation, and affixing my signature to the agreement +you suggest, I have no choice but to sign my name." + +"Is that your decision?" + +He nodded. + +"Very well. My attorneys and a notary are in the next room with the +papers necessary. If you would be good enough to step in a moment--" + +He looked at her and laughed again: "Is there," he said, "anything +lower than a woman?--or anything higher?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Athalie was having a wonderful summer. House and garden continued to +enchant her. She brought down Hafiz, who, being a city cat, instantly +fled indoors with every symptom of astonishment and terror the first +time Athalie placed him on the lawn. + +But within a week the dainty Angora had undergone a change of heart. +Boldly, now he marched into the garden all by himself; fearlessly he +pounced upon such dangerous game as crickets and grasshoppers and the +little night moths which drifted among the flowers at twilight,--the +favourite prowling hour of Hafiz, the Beautiful. + +Also, early in July, Athalie had acquired a fat bay horse and a double +buckboard; and, in the seventh heaven now, she jogged about the +country through leafy lanes and thistle-bordered by-roads long +familiar to her childhood, sometimes with basket, trowel, and garden +gloves, intent on the digging and transplanting of ferns, sometimes +with field-glasses and books, on ornithological information bent. More +often she started out with only a bag of feed for Henry the horse and +some luncheon for herself, to picnic all alone in a familiar woodland, +haunted by childish memories, and lie there listening to the bees and +to the midsummer wind in softly modulated conversation with the little +tree-top leaves. + +She had brought her maid from the city; Mrs. Connor continued to rule +laundry and kitchen. Connor himself decorated the landscape with his +straw hat and overalls, weeding, spraying, rolling, driving the +lawn-mower, raking bed and path, cutting and training vines, clipping +hedges,--a sober, bucolic, agreeable figure to the youthful chatelaine +of the house of Greensleeve. + +Clive had come once more from town to say that he was sailing for +England the following day; that he would be away a month all told, and +that he would return by the middle of August. + +They had spent the morning driving together in her buckboard--the +happiest morning perhaps in their lives. + +It promised to be a perfect day; and she was so carefree, so +contented, so certain of the world's kindness, so shyly tender with +him, so engagingly humorous at his expense, that the prospect of a +month's separation ceased for the time to appal him. + +Concerning his interview with his wife she had asked him nothing; nor +even why he was going abroad. Whether she guessed the truth; whether +she had come to understand the situation through other and occult +agencies, he could not surmise. But one thing was plain enough; +nothing that had happened or that threatened to happen was now +disturbing her. And her gaiety and high spirits were reassuring him +and tranquillising his mind to a degree for which, on reflection, he +could scarcely account, knowing the ultimate hopelessness of their +situation. + +Yet her sheer good spirits carried him with her, heart and mind, that +morning. And when it was time for him to go she said good-bye to him +with a smile as tenderly gay and as happy and confident as though he +were to return on the morrow. And went back to her magic house of +dreams and her fairy garden, knowing that, except for him, their +rainbow magic must vanish and the tinted spell fade, and the soft +enchantment dissolve forever leaving at her feet only a sunlit ruin +amid the stillness of desolation. + +But the magic held. Every day she wrote him. Wireless messages came to +her from him for a while; ceased; then re-commenced, followed +presently by cablegrams and finally by letters. + +So the magic held through the long sunny summer days. And Athalie +worked in her garden and strayed far afield, both driving and afoot. +And she studied and practised piano, and made curtains, and purchased +furniture. + +Also she wrote letters to her sisters, long since wedded to husbands, +babies, and homes in the West. Her brother Jack, she learned, had +joined the Navy at Puget Sound, and had now become a petty officer +aboard the new battle-cruiser _Bon Homme Richard_ in Asiatic waters. +She wrote to him, also, and sent him a money order, gaily suggesting +that he use it to educate himself as a good sailor should, and that he +save his pay for a future wife and baby--the latter, as she wrote, +"being doubtless the most desirable attainment this side of Heaven." + +In her bedroom were photographs of Catharine's children and of the +little boy which Doris had brought into the world; and sometimes, in +the hot midsummer afternoons, she would lie on her pillow and look at +these photographs until the little faces faded to a glimmer as slumber +dulled her eyes. + +Captain Dane came once or twice to spend the day with her; and it was +pleasant, afterward, for her to remember this big, blond, sunburnt man +as part of all that she most cared for. Together they drove and walked +and idled through house and garden: and when he went away, to sail the +following day for those eternal forests which conceal the hearthstone +of the Western World, he knew from her own lips about her love for +Clive. He was the only person she ever told. + +A few of her friends she asked to the house for quiet week-ends; the +impression their visits made upon her was pleasant but colourless. + +And it seemed singular, as she thought it over, how subordinate, how +unaccented had always been all these people who came into her life, +lingered, and faded out of it, leaving only the impressions of +backgrounds and accessories against which only one figure stood clear +and distinct--her lover's. + +Yes, of all men she had ever known, only Clive seemed real; and he +dominated every scene of her girlhood and her womanhood as her mother +had been the only really living centre of her childhood. + +All else seemed to her like a moving and subdued background,--an +endless series of grey scenes vaguely painted through which figures +came and went, some shadowy and colourless as phantoms, some soberly +outlined, some delicately tinted--but all more or less subordinate, +more or less monochromatic, unimportant except for balance and +composition, as painters use indefinite shapes and shades so that the +eyes may more perfectly concentrate on the centre of their +inspiration. + +And the centre of all, for her, was Clive. Since her mother's death +there had been no other point of view for her, no other focus for the +forces of her mind, no other real desire, no other content. He had +entered her child's life and had become, instantly, all that the +child-world held for her. And it was so through the years of her +girlhood. Absent, or during his brief reappearances, the central focus +of her heart and mind was Clive. And, in womanhood, all forces in her +mind and spirit and, now, of body, centred in this man who stood out +against the faded tapestry of the world all alone for her, the only +living thing on earth with which her heart had mated as a child, and +in which now her mind and spirit had found Nirvana. + +All men, all women, seemed to have their shadowy being only to make +this man more real to her. + +Friends came, remained, and went,--Cecil Reeve, gay, charmed with +everything, and, as always, mischievously ready to pay court to her; +Francis Hargrave, politely surprised but full of courteous admiration +for her good taste; John Lyndhurst, Grismer, Harry Ferris, Young +Welter, Arthur Ensart, and James Allys,--all were bidden for the day; +all came, marvelled in the several manners characteristic of them, +and finally went their various ways, serving only, as always, to make +clearer to her the fadeless memory of an absent man. For, to her, the +merest thought of him was more real, more warm and vivid, than all of +these, even while their eager eyes sought hers and their voices were +sounding in her ears. + +Nina Grey came with Anne Randolph for a week-end; and then came Jeanne +Delauny, and Adele Millis. The memory of their visits lingered with +Athalie as long, perhaps, as the scent of roses hangs in a dim, still +room before the windows are open in the morning to the outer air. + +The first of August a cicada droned from the hill-top woods and all +her garden became saturated with the homely and bewitching odour of +old-fashioned rockets. + +On the grey wall nasturtiums blazed; long stretches of brilliant +portulaca edged the herbaceous borders; clusters of auratum lilies +hung in the transparent shadow of Cydonia and Spirea; and the first +great dahlias faced her in maroon splendour from the spiked thickets +along the wall. + +Once or twice she went to town on shopping bent, and on one of these +occasions impulse took her to the apartment furnished for her so long +ago by Clive. + +She had not meant to go in, merely intended to pass the house, speak +to Michael, perhaps, if indeed, he still presided over door and +elevator. + +And there he was, outside the door on a chair, smoking his clay pipe +and surveying the hot and silent street, where not even a sparrow +stirred. + +"Michael," she said, smiling. + +For a moment he did not know her, then: "God's glory!" he said +huskily, getting to his feet--"is it the sweet face o' Miss +Greensleeve or the angel in her come back f'r to bless us all?" + +She gave him her hand, and he held it and looked at her, earnestly, +wistfully; then, with the flashing change of his race, the grin broke +out: + +"I'm that proud to be remembered by the likes o' you, Miss Athalie! +Are ye well, now?--an' happy? I thank God for that! I am +substantial--with my respects, ma'am, f'r the kind inquiry. And Hafiz? +Glory be, was there ever such a cat now? D'ye mind the day we tuk him +in a bashket?--an' the sufferin' yowls of the poor, dear creature. +Sure I'm that glad to hear he's well;--and manny mice to him, Miss +Athalie!" + +Athalie laughed: "I suppose all your tenants are away in the country," +she ventured. + +"Barrin' wan or two, Miss. Ye know the young Master will suffer no one +in your own apartment." + +"Is it still unoccupied, Michael?" + +"Deed it is, Miss. Would ye care f'r to look around. There is nothing +changed there. I dust it meself." + +"Yes," said the girl in a low voice, "I will look at it." + +So Michael took her up in the lift, unlocked the door for her, and +then with the fine instinct of his race, forbore to follow her. + +The shades in the square living-room were lowered; she raised one. And +the dim, golden past took shadowy shape again before her eyes. + +[Illustration: "'Michael,' she said, smiling."] + +She moved slowly from one object to another, touching caressingly +where memory was tenderest. She looked at the furniture, the +pictures,--at the fireplace where in her mind's eye she could see +_him_ bending to light the first fire that had ever blazed there. + +For a little while she sat on the big lounge, her dreamy eyes fixed on +the spot where Clive's father had stood and she remembered Jacques +Renouf, too, and the lost city of Yhdunez.... And, somehow her +memories receded still further toward earlier years; and she thought +of the sunny office where Mr. Wahlbaum used to sit; and she seemed to +see the curtains stirring in the wind. + +After a while she rose and walked slowly along the hall to her own +room. + +Everything was there as she had left it; the toilet silver, evidently +kept clean and bright by Michael, the little Dresden cupids on the +mantel, the dainty clock, still running--further confirmation of +Michael's ministrations--the fresh linen on the bed. Nothing had been +changed through all these changing years. She softly opened the +clothes-press door; there hung her gowns--silent witnesses of her +youth, strangely and daintily grotesque in fashion. One by one she +examined them, a smile edging her lips, and, in her eyes, tears. + +All revery is tinged with melancholy; and it was so with her when she +stood among the forgotten gowns of years ago. + +It was so, too, when, one by one she unlocked and opened the drawers +of dresser and bureau. From soft, ordered heaps of silk and lace and +sheerest linen a faint perfume mounted; and it was as though she +subtly renewed an exquisite and secret intimacy with a youth and +innocence half-forgotten in the sadder wisdom of later days. + + * * * * * + +From the still and scented twilight of a vanished year, to her own +apartment perched high above the sun-smitten city she went, merely to +find herself again, and look around upon what fortune had brought to +her through her own endeavour. + +But, somehow, the old prejudices had gone; the old instincts of pride +and independence had been obliterated, merged in a serene and tranquil +unity of mind and will and spirit with the man in whom every atom of +her belief and faith was now centred. + +It mattered no longer to her what material portion of her possessions +and environment was due to her own efforts, or to his. Nothing that +might be called hers could remain conceivable as hers unless he shared +it. Their rights in each other included everything temporal and +spiritual; everything of mind and matter alike. Of what consequence, +then, might be the origin of possessions that could not exist for her +unless possession were mutual? + +Nothing would be real to her, nothing of value, unless so marked by +his interest and his approval. And now she knew that even the world +itself must become but a shadow, were he not living to make it real. + + * * * * * + +It was a fearfully hot day in town, and she waited until evening to go +back to Spring Pond. + +When she arrived, Mrs. Connor had a cablegram for her from Clive +saying that he was sailing and would see her before the month ended. + +Late into the night she looked for him in her crystal but could see +nothing save a blue and tranquil sea and gulls flying, and always on +the curved world's edge a far stain of smoke against the sky. + +Her mother was in her room that night, seated near the window as +though to keep the vigil that her daughter kept, brooding above the +crystal. + +It was Friday, the twenty-first, and a new moon. The starlight was +magnificent in the August skies: once or twice meteors fell. But in +the depths of her crystal she saw always a sunlit sea and a gull's +wings flashing. + +Toward morning when the world had grown its darkest and stillest, she +went over to where her mother was sitting beside the window, and knelt +down beside her chair. + +And so in voiceless and tender communion she nestled close, her golden +head resting against her mother's knees. + +Dawn found her there asleep beside an empty chair. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +One day toward the end of August, Athalie, standing at the pier's end, +saw the huge incoming liner slowly warping to her berth; waited amid +the throngs in the vast sheds by the gangway, caught a glimpse of +Clive, lost him to view, then saw him again, very near, making his way +toward her. And then her hands were in his and she was looking into +his beloved eyes once more. + +There were a few quick words of greeting spoken, tender, low-voiced; +the swift light of happiness made her blue eyes brilliant: + +"You tall, sun-bronzed, lazy thing," she said; "I never told you what +a distinguished looking man you are, did I? Well I'll spoil you by +telling you now. No wonder everything feminine glances at you," she +added as he lifted his hat to fellow passengers who were passing. + +And during the customs' examination she stood beside him, amused, +interested, gently bantering him when he declared everything; for even +in Athalie were apparently the ineradicable seeds of that original +sin--which is in all femininity--the paramount necessity for +smuggling. + +Once or twice he spoke aside to the customs' officer; and Athalie +instantly and gaily accused him of attempted bribery. + +But when they were on their way to Spring Pond in a hired touring car +with his steamer trunk and suit-cases strapped behind, he drew from +his pockets the articles he had declared and paid for; and Athalie +grew silent in delight as she looked down at the single and lovely +strand of pearls. + +All the way to Spring Pond she held them so, and her enchanted eyes +reverted to them whenever she could bring herself to look anywhere +except at him. + +"I wondered," she said, "whether you would come to the country or +whether you might think it better to remain in town." + +"I shall go back to town only when you go." + +"Dear, does that mean that you will stay with me at our own house?" + +"If you want me." + +"Oh, Clive! I was wondering--only it seemed too heavenly to hope for." + +His face grew sombre for a moment. He said: "There is no other future +for us. And even our comradeship will be misunderstood. But--if you +are willing--" + +"Is there any question in your mind as to the limit of my +willingness?" + +He said: "You know it will mark us for life. And if we remain +guiltless, and our lives blameless, nevertheless this comradeship of +ours will mark us for life." + +"Do you mean, brand us?" + +"Yes, dear." + +"Does that cause you any real apprehension?" she laughed. + +"I am thinking of you." + +"Think of me, then," she said gaily, "and know that I am happy and +content. The world is turning into such a wonderful friend to me; fate +is becoming so gentle and so kind. Happiness may brand me; nothing +else can leave a mark. So be at ease concerning me. All shall go well +with me, only when with you, my darling, all goes well." + +He smiled in sympathy with her gaiety of heart, but the slight shadow +returned to his face again. Watching it she said: + +"All things shall come to us, Clive." + +"All things," he said, gravely,--"except fulfilment." + +"That, too," she murmured. + +"No, Athalie." + +"Yes," she said under her breath. + +He only lifted her ringless hand to his lips in hopeless silence; but +she looked up at the cloudless sky and out over sunlit harvest fields +and where grain and fruit were ripening, and she smiled, closing her +white hand and pressing it gently against his lips. + +Connor met them at the door and shouldered Clive's trunk and other +luggage; then Athalie slipped her arm through his and took him into +the autumn glow of her garden. + +"Miracle after miracle, Clive--from the enchantment of July roses to +the splendour of dahlia, calendula, and gladioluses. Such a +wonder-house no man ever before gave to any woman.... There is not one +stalk or leaf or blossom or blade of grass that is not my intimate +and tender friend, my confidant, my dear preceptor, my companion +beloved and adored. + +[Illustration: "And then her hands were in his and she was looking +into his beloved eyes once more."] + +"Do you notice that the grapes on the trellis are turning dark? And +the peaches are becoming so big and heavy and rosy. They will be ripe +before very long." + +"You must have a greenhouse," he said. + +"_We_ must," she admitted demurely. + +He turned toward her with much of his old gaiety, laughing: "Do you +know," he said, "I believe you are pretending to be in love with me!" + +"That's all it is, Clive, just pretence, and the natural depravity of +a flirt. When I go back to town I'll forget you ever existed--unless +you go with me." + +"I'm wondering," he said, "what we had better do in town." + +"I'm not wondering; I know." + +He looked at her questioningly. Then she told him about her visit to +Michael and the apartment. + +"There is no other place in the world that I care to live +in--excepting this," she said. "Couldn't we live there, Clive, when we +go to town?" + +After a moment he said: "Yes." + +"Would you care to?" she asked wistfully. Then smiled as she met his +eyes. + +"So I shall give up business," she said, "and that tower apartment. +There's a letter here now asking if I desire to sublet it; and as I +had to renew my lease last June, that is what I shall do--if you'll +let me live in the place you made for me so long ago." + +He answered, smilingly, that he might be induced to permit it. + +Hafiz appeared, inquisitive, urbane, waving his snowy tail; but he was +shy of further demonstrations toward the man who was seated beside his +beloved mistress, and he pretended that he saw something in the +obscurity of the flowering thickets, and stalked it with every symptom +of sincerity. + +"That cat must be about six years old," said Clive, watching him. + +"He plays like a kitten, still." + +"Do you remember how he used to pat your thread with his paws when you +were sewing." + +"I remember," she said, smiling. + +A little later Hafiz regained confidence in Clive and came up to rub +against his legs and permit caresses. + +"Such a united family," remarked Athalie, amused by the mutual +demonstrations. + +"How is Henry?" he asked. + +"Fatter and slower than ever, dear. He suits my unenterprising +disposition to perfection. Now and then he condescends to be harnessed +and to carry me about the landscape. But mostly he drags the cruel +burden of Connor's lawn-mower. Do you think the place looks well +kept?" + +"I knew you wanted to be flattered," he laughed. + +"I do. Flatter me please." + +"It's one of the best things I do, Athalie! For example--the lawn, the +cat, and the girl are all beautifully groomed; the credit is yours; +and you're a celestial dream too exquisite to be real." + +"I am becoming real--as real as you are," she said with a faint smile. + +"Yes," he admitted, "you and I are the only real things in the world +after all. The rest--woven scenes that come and go moving across a +loom." + +She quoted: + + "Sun and Moon illume the Room + Where the ceiling is the sky: + Night and day the Weavers ply + Colour, shadow, hue, and dye, + Where the rushing shuttles fly, + Weaving dreams across the Loom, + Picturing a common doom! + + "How, Beloved, can _we_ die-- + We Immortals, Thou and I?" + +He smiled: "Death seems very far away," he said. + +"Nothing dies.... If only this world could understand.... Did I tell +you that mother has been with me often while you were away?" + +"No." + +"It was wonderfully sweet to see her in the room. One night I fell +asleep across her knees." + +"Does she ever speak to you, Athalie?" + +"Yes, sometimes we talk." + +"At night?" + +"By day, too.... I was sitting in the living-room the other morning, +and she came up behind me and took both my hands. We talked, I lying +back in the rocking chair and looking up at her.... Mrs. Connor came +in. I am quite sure she was frightened when she heard my voice in +there conversing with nobody she could see." + +Athalie smiled to herself as at some amusing memory evoked. + +"If Mrs. Connor ever knew how she is followed about by so many purring +pussies and little wagging dogs--I mean dogs and pussies who are no +longer what we call 'alive,'--I don't know what she'd think. Sometimes +the place is full of them, Clive--such darling little creatures. Hafiz +sees them; and watches and watches, but never moves." + +Clive was staring a trifle hard; Athalie, lazily stretching her arms, +glanced at him with that humorous expression which hinted of gentlest +mockery. + +"Don't worry; nothing follows you, Clive, except an idle girl who +finds no time for anything else, so busy are her thoughts with you." + +He bent forward and kissed her; and she clasped both hands behind his +head, drawing it nearer. + +"Have you missed me, Athalie?" + +"You could never understand how much." + +"Did you find me in your crystal?" + +"No; I saw only the sea and on the horizon a stain of smoke, and a +gull flying." + +He drew her closely into his arms: "God," he breathed, "if anything +ever should happen to you!--and I--alone on earth--and blind--" + +"Yes. That is the only anxiety I ever knew ... because you are blind." + +"If you came to me I could not see you. If you spoke to me I could +not hear. Could anything more awful happen?" + +"Do you care for me so much?" + +In his eyes she read her answer, and thrilled to it, closer in his +arms; and rested so, her cheek against his, gazing at the sunset out +of dreamy eyes. + + * * * * * + +They had been slowly pacing the garden paths, arm within arm, when +Mrs. Connor came to summon them to dinner. The small dining-room was +flooded with sunset light; rosy bars of it lay across cloth and fruit +and flowers, and striped the wall and ceiling. + +And when dinner was ended the pale fire still burned on the thin silk +curtains and struck across the garden, gilding the coping of the wall +where clustering peaches hung all turned to gold like fabled fruit +that ripens in Hesperides. + +Hafiz followed them out under the evening sky and seated himself upon +the grass. And he seemed mildly to enjoy the robins' evening +carolling, blinking benevolently up at the little vesper choristers, +high singing in the sunset's lingering glow. + +Whenever light puffs of wind set blossoms swaying, the jet from the +fountain basin swerved, and a mellow raining sound of drops swept the +still pool. The lilac twilight deepened to mauve; upon the surface of +the pool a primrose tint grew duller. Then the first bat zig-zagged +across the sky; and every clove-pink border became misty with the +wings of dusk-moths. + +On Athalie's frail white gown one alighted,--a little grey thing +wearing a pair of peacock-tinted diamonds on its forewings; and as it +sat there, quivering, the iridescent incrustations changed from +burnished gold to green. + +"Wonders, wonders, under the moon," murmured the girl--"thronging +miracles that fill the day and night, always, everywhere. And so few +to see them.... Sometimes, to me the blindness of the world to all the +loveliness that I 'see clearly' is like my own blindness to the hidden +wonders of the night--where uncounted myriads of little rainbow +spirits fly. And nobody sees and knows the living splendour of them +except when some grey-winged phantom strays indoors from the outer +shadows. And it astonishes us to see, under the drab forewings, a +blaze of scarlet, gold, or orange." + +"I suppose," he said, "that the unseen night world all around us is no +more wonderful than what, in the day-world, the vast majority of us +never see, never suspect." + +"I think it must be so, Clive. Being accustomed to a more densely +populated world than are many people, I believe that if I could see +only what they see,--merely that small portion of activity and life +which the world calls 'living things,' I should find the sunlit world +rather empty, and the night but a silent desolation under the stars." + +After a few minutes' thought he asked in a low voice whether at that +moment there was anybody in the garden except themselves. + +"Some people were here a little while ago, looking at the flowers. I +think they must have lived here many, many years ago; perhaps when +this old house was new." + +"Could you not ask them who they were?" + +"No, dear." + +"Why?" + +"If they were what you would call 'alive' I could not intrude upon +them, could I? The laws of reticence, the respect for privacy, remain +the same. I am conscious of no more impertinent curiosity concerning +them than I am concerning any passer in the city streets." + +"Have they gone?" + +"Yes. But all the evening I have been hearing children at play just +beyond the garden wall.... And, when I was a child, somebody killed a +little dog down by the causeway. He is here in the garden, now, +trotting gaily about the lawn--such a happy little dog!--and Hafiz has +folded his forepaws under his ruff and has settled down to watch him. +Don't you see how Hafiz watches, how his head turns following every +movement of the little visitor?" + +He nodded; then: "Do you still hear the children outside the wall?" + +She sat listening, the smile brooding in her eyes. + +"Can you still hear them?" he repeated, wistfully. + +"Yes, dear." + +"What are they saying?" + +"I can't make out. They are having a happy time somewhere on the outer +lawns." + +"How many are there?" + +"Oh, I don't know. Their voices make a sweet, confused sound like bird +music before dawn. I couldn't even guess how many children are playing +there." + +"Are any among them those children you once saw here?--the children +who pleaded with you--" + +She did not answer. He tightened his arm around her waist, drawing her +nearer; and she laid her cheek against his shoulder. + +"Yes," she said, "they are there." + +"You know their voices?" + +"Yes, dearest." + +"Will they come again into the garden?" + +Her face flushed deeply: + +"Not unless we call them." + +"Call them," he said. And, after a silence: "Dearest, will you not +call them to us?" + +"Oh, Clive! I have been calling. Now it remains with you." + +"I did not hear you call them." + +"_They_ heard." + +"Will they come?" + +"I--think so." + +"When?" + +"Very soon--if you truly desire them," she whispered against his +shoulder. + + * * * * * + +Somewhere within the house the hour struck. After a long while they +rose, moving slowly, her head still lying on his shoulder. Hafiz +watched them until the door closed, then settled down again to gaze on +things invisible to men. + + * * * * * + +Hours of the night in dim processional passed the old house unlighted +save by the stars. Toward dawn a sea-wind stirred the trees; the +fountain jet rained on the surface of the pool or, caught by a sudden +breeze, drifted in whispering spray across the grass. Everywhere the +darkness grew murmurous with sounds, vague as wind-blown voices; sweet +as the call of children from some hill-top where the stars are very +near, and the new moon's sickle flashes through the grass. + +Athalie stirred where she lay, turned her head sideways with infinite +precaution, and lay listening. + +Through the open window beside her she saw a dark sky set with stars; +heard the sea-wind in the leaves and the falling water of the +fountain. And very far away a sweet confused murmuring grew upon her +ears. + +Silently her soul answered the far hail; her heart, responding, echoed +a voiceless welcome till she became fearful lest it beat too loudly. + +Then, with infinite precaution, noiselessly, and scarcely stirring, +she turned and laid her lips again where they had rested all night +long and, lying so, dreamed of miracles ineffable. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Clive's enforced idleness had secretly humiliated him and made him +restless. Athalie in her tender wisdom understood how it was with him +before he did himself, and she was already deftly guiding his balked +energy into a brand new channel, the same being a bucolic one. + +At first he had demurred, alleging total ignorance of husbandry; and, +seated on the sill of an open window and looking down at him in the +garden, she tormented him to her heart's content: + +"Ignorant of husbandry!" she mimicked,--"when any husband I ever heard +of could go to school to you and learn what a real husband ought to +be! Why _will_ you pretend to be so painfully modest, Clive, when you +are really secretly pleased with yourself and entirely convinced that, +in you, the world might discover a living pattern of model +domesticity!" + +"I'm glad you think so--" + +"_Think!_ If I were only as certain of anything else! Never had I +dreamed that any man could become so cowed, so spiritless, so +perfectly house and yard broken--" + +"If I come upstairs," he said, "I'll settle _you_!" + +Leaning from the window overlooking the garden she lazily defied him; +turned up her dainty nose at him; mocked at him until he flung aside +the morning paper and rose, bent on her punishment. + +"Oh, Clive, don't!" she pleaded, leaning low from the sill. "I won't +tease you any more,--and this gown is fresh--" + +"I'll come up and freshen it!" he threatened. + +"Please don't rumple me. I'll come down if you like. Shall I?" + +"All right, darling," he said, resuming his newspaper and cigarette. + +She came, seated herself demurely beside him, twitched his newspaper +until he cast an ominous glance at his tormentor. + +"Dear," she said, "I simply can't let you alone; you are so bland and +self-satisfied--" + +"Athalie--if you persist in tormenting me--" + +"I torment you? _I?_ An humble accessory in the scenery set for you? +I?--a stage property fashioned merely for the hero of the drama to sit +upon--" + +"All right! I'll do that now!--" + +But she nestled close to him, warding off wrath with both arms +clasping his, and looking up at him out of winning eyes in which but a +tormenting glint remained. + +"You wouldn't rumple this very beautiful and brand new gown, would +you, darling? It was so frightfully expensive--" + +"I don't care--" + +"Oh, but you must care. You must _become_ thrifty and shrewd and +devious and close, or you'll never make a successful farmer--" + +"Dearest, that's nonsense. What do I know about farming?" + +"Nothing yet. But you know what a wonderful man you are. Never forget +that, Clive--" + +"If you don't stop laughing at me, you little wretch--" + +"Don't you want me to remain young?" she asked reproachfully, while +two tiny demons of gaiety danced in her eyes. "If I can't laugh I'll +grow old. And there's nothing very funny here except you and +Hafiz--Oh, Clive! You _have_ rumpled me! Please don't do it again! +Yes--yes--_yes!_ I do surrender! I _am_ sorry--that you are so +funny--Clive! You'll ruin this gown!... I promise not to say another +disrespectful word.... I don't know whether I'll kiss you or +not--_Yes!_ Yes I will, dear. Yes, I'll do it tenderly--you heartless +wretch!--I tell you I'll do it tenderly.... Oh wait, Clive! Is Mrs. +Connor looking out of any window? Where's Connor? Are you sure he's +not in sight?... And I shouldn't care to have Hafiz see us. He's a +moral kitty--" + +She pretended to look fearfully around, then, with adorable +tenderness, she paid her forfeit and sat silent for a while with her +slim white fingers linked in his, in that breathless little revery +which always stilled her under the magic of his embrace. + +He said at last: "Do you really suppose I could make this farm-land +pay?" + +And that was really the beginning of it all. + + * * * * * + +Once decided he seemed to go rather mad about it, buying agricultural +paraphernalia recklessly and indiscriminately for a meditated assault +upon fields long fallow. + +Connor already had as much as he could attend to in the garden; but, +like all Irishmen, he had a cousin, and the cousin possessed +agricultural lore and a pair of plough-horses. + +So early fall ploughing developed into a mania with Clive and Athalie; +and they formed a habit of sitting side by side like a pair of birds +on fences in the early October sunshine, their fascinated eyes +following the brown furrows turning where one T. Phelan was breaking +up pasture and meadow too long sod-bound. + +In intervals between tenderer and more intimate exchange of sentiments +they discussed such subjects as lime, nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and +the rotation of crops. + +Also Athalie had accumulated much literature concerning incubators, +brooders, and the several breeds of domestic fowl; and on paper they +had figured out overwhelming profits. + +The insidious land-hunger which attacks all who contemplate making two +dozen blades of grass grow where none grew before, now seized upon +Clive and gnawed him. And he extended the acreage, taking in woods and +uplands as far as the headwaters of Spring Pond Brook, vastly to +Athalie's delight. + +So the October days burned like a procession of golden flames passing +in magic sequence amid yellowing woods and over the brown and spongy +gold of salt meadows which had been sheared for stable bedding. And +everywhere over their land lay the dun-coloured velvet squares of +freshly ploughed fields awaiting unfragrant fertilizer and the autumn +rains. + +The rains came heavily toward the end of October; and November was +grey and wet and rather warm. But open fires became necessary in the +house, and now they regularly reddened the twilight in library and +living-room when the early November dusk brought Athalie and Clive +indoors. + +Hither they came, the fire-lit hearth their trysting place after they +had exchanged their rain-drenched clothes for something dry; and there +they curled up on the wide sofas and watched the swift darkness fall, +and the walls and ceiling redden. + +It was an hour which Athalie had once read of as the "Children's Hour" +and now she understood better its charming significance. And she kept +it religiously, permitting herself to do nothing, and making Clive +defer anything he had to do, until after dinner. Then he might read +his paper or book, and she could take up her sewing if she chose, or +study, or play, or write the few letters that she cared to write. + +Clive wrote no more, now. In this first year together they desired +each other only, indifferent to all else outside. + +It was to her the magic year of fulfilment; to him an enchanted +interlude wherein only the girl beside him mattered. + +Athalie sewed a great deal on odd, delicate, sheer materials where +narrowness and length ruled proportions, and where there seemed to be +required much lace and many little ribbons. Also she hummed to +herself as she sewed, singing under her breath endless airs which had +slipped into her head she scarce knew when or how. + +An odd and fragrant freshness seemed to cling to her making her almost +absurdly youthful, as though she had suddenly dropped back to her +girlhood. Clive noticed it. + +"You look about sixteen," he said. + +"My heart is younger, dear." + +"How young?" + +"You know when it was born, don't you? Very well, it is as many days +old as I have been in love with you. Before that it was a muscle +capable merely of sturdy friendship." + +One day a packet came from New York for her. It contained two rings, +one magnificent, the other a plain circlet. She kissed him rather +shyly, wore both that evening, but not again. + +"I am not ashamed," she explained serenely. "Folkways are now a matter +of indifference to me. Civilisation must offer me a better argument +than it has offered hitherto before I resign to it my right in you, or +deny your right to me." + +He knew that civilisation would lock them out and remain unconcerned +as to what became of them. Doubtless she knew it too, as she sat there +sewing on the frail garment which lay across her knee and singing +blithely under her breath some air with cadence like a berceuse. + + * * * * * + +During the "Children's Hour" she sat beside him, always quiet; or if +stirred from her revery to a brief exchange of low-voiced words, she +soon relapsed once more into that happy, brooding silence by the +firelight. + +Then came dinner, and the awakened gaiety of unquenched spirits; then +the blessed evening hours with him. + +But the last hour of these she called _her_ hour; and always laid +aside her book or sewing, and slipped from the couch to the floor at +his feet, laying her head against his knees. + + * * * * * + +Snow came in December; and Christmas followed. They kept the mystic +festival alone together; and Athalie had a tiny tree lighted in the +room between hers and Clive's, and hung it with toys and picture +books. + +It was very pretty in its tinsel and tinted globes; and its faint +light glimmered on the walls and dainty furniture of the dim pink +room. + +Afterward Athalie laid away tinsel and toy, wrapping all safely in +tissue, as though to be kept secure and fresh for another +Christmas--the most wonderful that any girl could dream of. And +perhaps it was to be even more wonderful than Athalie had dreamed. + + * * * * * + +December turned very cold. The ice thickened; and she skated with +Clive on Spring Pond. The ice also remained through January and +February that winter; but after December had ended Athalie skated no +more. + +Clive, unknown to her, had sent for a Shaker cloak and hood of +scarlet; and when it arrived Athalie threw back her lovely head and +laughed till the tears dimmed her eyes. + +"All the same," he said, "you don't look much older in it than you +looked in your red hood and cloak the first day I ever set eyes on +you." + +"You poor darling!--as though even you could push back the hands of +Time! It's the funniest and sweetest thing you ever did--to send for +this red, hooded cloak." + +However she wore it whenever she ventured out with him on foot or in +the sleigh which he had bought. Once, coming home, she was still +wearing it when Mrs. Connor brought to them two peach turnovers. + +A fire had been lighted in the ancient stove; and they went out to the +sun-parlour,--once the bar--and sat in the same old arm-chairs exactly +as they had been seated that night so long ago; and there they ate +their peach turnovers, their enchanted eyes meeting, striving to +realise it all, and the intricate ways of Destiny and Chance and Fate. + + * * * * * + +February was a month of heavy snows that year; great drifts buried the +fences and remained until well into March. April was April,--and very +much so; but they saw the blue waters of the bay sometimes; and +dogwood and willow stems were already aglow with colour; and a +premature blue-bird sang near Athalie's garden. Crocuses appeared +everywhere with grape hyacinths and snow-drops. Then jonquil and +narcissus opened in all their loveliness, and soft winds stirred the +waters of the fountain. + +May found the garden uncovered, with tender amber-tinted shoots and +exquisite fronds of green wherever the lifted mulch disclosed the +earth. Also peonies were up and larkspur, and the ambitious promise of +the hollyhocks delighted Athalie. + +Pink peach buds bloomed; cherry, pear, and apple covered the trees +with rosy snow; birds sang everywhere; and the waters of the pool +mirrored a sky of purest blue. But Athalie now walked no further than +the garden seat,--and walked slowly, leaning always on Clive's arm. + +In those days throughout May her mother was with her in her room +almost every night. But Athalie did not speak of this to Clive. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +Spring ploughing had been proceeding for some time now, but Athalie +did not feel equal to walking cross-lots over ploughed ground, so she +let Clive go alone on tours of inspection. + +But these absences were brief; he did not care to remain away from +Athalie for more than an hour at a time. So, T. Phelan ploughed on, +practically unmolested and untormented by questions, suggestions, and +advice. Which liberty was to his liking. And he loafed much. + +In these latter days of May Athalie spent a great deal of her time +among her cushions and wraps on the garden seat near the fountain. On +his return from prowling about the farm Clive was sure to find her +there, reading or sewing, or curled up among her cushions in the sun +with Hafiz purring on her lap. + +And she would look up at Clive out of sleepy, humorous eyes in which +glimmered a smile of greeting, or she would pretend surprise and +disapproval at his long absence of half an hour with: "Well, C. +Bailey, Junior! Where do _you_ come from now?" + +The phases of awakening spring in the garden seemed to be an endless +source of pleasure to the girl; she would sit for hours looking at the +pale lilac-tinted wistaria clusters hanging over the naked wall and +watching plundering bumble-bees scrambling from blossom to blossom. + +And when at the base of the wall, the spiked buds of silvery-grey iris +unfolded, and their delicate fragrance filled the air, the exquisite +mingling of the two odours and the two shades of mauve thrilled her as +no perfume, no colour had ever affected her. + +The little colonies of lily-of-the-valley came into delicate bloom +under the fringing shrubbery; golden bell flower, pink and vermilion +cydonia, roses, all bloomed and had their day; lilac bushes were +weighted with their heavy, dewy clusters; the sweet-brier's green +tracery grew into tender leaf and its matchless perfume became +apparent when the sun fell hot. + +In the warm air there seemed to brood the exquisite hesitation of +happy suspense,--a delicious and breathless sense of waiting for +something still more wonderful to come. + +And when Athalie felt it stealing over her she looked at Clive and +knew that he also felt it. Then her slim hand would steal into his and +nestle there, content, fearless, blissfully confident of what was to +be. + +But it was subtly otherwise with Clive. Once or twice she felt his +hand tremble slightly as though a slight shiver had passed over him; +and when again she noticed it she asked him why. + +"Nothing," he said in a strained voice; "I am very, very happy." + +"I know it.... There is no fear mingling with your happiness; is +there, Clive?" + +But before he replied she knew that it was so. + +"Dearest," she murmured, "dearest! You must not be afraid for me." + +And suddenly the long pent fears strangled him; he could not speak; +and she felt his lips, hot and tremulous against her hand. + +"My heart!" she whispered, "all will go well. There is absolutely no +reason for you to be afraid." + +"Do you _know_ it?" + +"Yes, I _know_ it. I am certain of it, darling. Everything will turn +out as it should.... I can't bear to have the most beautiful moments +of our lives made sad for you by apprehension. Won't you believe me +that all will go well?" + +"Yes." + +"Then smile at me, Clive." + +His under lip was still unsteady as he drew nearer and took her into +his arms. + +"God wouldn't do such harm," he said. "He _couldn't_! All must go +well." + +She smiled gaily and framed his head with her hands: + +"You're just a boy, aren't you, C. Bailey, Junior?--just a big boy, +yet. As though the God we understand--you and I--could deal otherwise +than tenderly with us. _He_ knows how rare love really is. He will not +disturb it. The world needs it for seed." + +The smile gradually faded from Clive's face; he shook his head, +slightly: + +"If I had known--if I had understood--" + +"What, darling?" + +"The hazard--the chances you are to take--" + +But she laughed deliciously, and sealed his mouth with her fragrant +hand, bidding him hunt for other sources of worry if he really was +bent on scaring himself. + +Later she asked him for a calendar, and he brought it, and together +they looked over it where several of the last days of May had been +marked with a pencil. + +As she sat beside him, studying the printed sequence of the days, a +smile hovering on her lips, he thought he had never seen her so +beautiful. + +A soft wind blew the bright tendrils of her hair across her cheeks; +her skin was like a little girl's, rose and snow, smooth as a child's; +her eyes clearly, darkly blue--the hue and tint called azure--like the +colour of the zenith on some still June day. + +And through the glow of her superb and youthful symmetry, ever, it +seemed to him, some inward radiance pulsated, burning in her golden +burnished hair, in scarlet on her lips, making lovely the soft +splendour of her eyes. Hers was the fresh, sweet beauty of ardent +youth and spring incarnate,--neither frail and colourlessly spiritual, +nor tainted with the stain of clay. + + * * * * * + +Sometimes Athalie lunched there in the garden with him, Hafiz, seated +on the bench beside them, politely observant, condescending to receive +a morsel now and then. + +It was on such a day, at noon-tide, that Athalie bent over toward him, +touched his hair with her lips, then whispered something very low. + +[Illustration: "Sometimes Athalie lunched there in the garden with +him."] + +His face went white, but he smiled and rose,--came back swiftly to +kiss her hands--then entered the house and telephoned to New York. + +When he came back to her she was ready to rise, lean on his arm, and +walk leisurely to the house. + +On the way she called his attention to a pale blue sheet of +forget-me-nots spreading under the shrubbery. She noticed other new +blossoms in the garden, lingered before the bed of white pansies. +"Like little faces," she said with a faint smile. + +One silvery-grey iris he broke from its sheathed stem and gave her; +she moved slowly on with the scented blossom lifted to her lips. + +In the hall a starched and immaculate nurse met her with a significant +nod of understanding. And so, between Clive and the trained nurse she +mounted the stairs to her room. + +Later Clive came in to sit beside her where she lay on her dainty bed. +She turned her flushed face on the pillow, smiled at him, and lifted +her neck a little; and he slipped one arm under it. + +"Such a wonderful pillow your shoulder makes," she murmured.... "I am +thinking of the first time I ever knew it.... So quiet I lay,--such +infinite caution I used whenever I moved.... That night the air was +musical with children's voices--everywhere under the stars--softly +garrulous, laughing, lisping, calling from the hills and meadows.... +That night of miracles and of stars--my dear--my dearest!--" + + * * * * * + +Close to her cheek he breathed: "Are you in pain?" + +"Oh, Clive! I am so happy. I love you so--I love you so." + +Then nurse and physician came in and the latter took him by the arm +and walked out of the room with him. For a long while they paced the +passage-way together in whispered conversation before the nurse came +to the door and nodded. + +Both went in: Athalie laughed and put up her arms as Clive bent over +her. + +"All will be well," she whispered, kissed him, then turned her head +sharply to the right. + +When he found himself in the garden, walking at random, the sun hung a +hand's breadth over the woods. Later it seemed to become entangled +amid new leaves and half-naked branches, hanging there motionless, +blinding, glittering through an eternity of time. + +And yet he did not notice when twilight came, nor when the dusk's +purple turned to night until he saw lights turned up on both floors. + +Nobody summoned him to dinner but he did not notice that. Connor came +to him there in the darkness and said that two other physicians had +arrived with another nurse. He went into the library where they were +just leaving to mount the stairs. They looked at him as they passed +but merely bowed and said nothing. + +A steady, persistent clangour vibrated in his brain, dulling it, so +that senses like sight and hearing seemed slow as though drugged. + +Suddenly like a sword the most terrible fear he ever knew passed +through him.... And after a while the dull, ringing clangour came +back, dinning, stupefying, interminable. Yet he was conscious of every +sound, every movement on the floor above. + + * * * * * + +One of the physicians came halfway down the stairs, looked at him; and +he rose mechanically and went up. + +He saw nothing clearly in the room until he bent over Athalie. + +Her eyes unclosed. She whispered: "It is all right, beloved." + +Somebody led him out. He kept on, conscious of the grasp on his arm, +but seeing nothing. + + * * * * * + +He had been walking for a long while, somewhere between light and +darkness,--perhaps for hours, perhaps minutes. Then somebody came who +laid an arm about his shoulder and spoke of courage. + +Other people were in the room, now. One said: + +"Don't go up yet."... Once he noticed a woman, Mrs. Connor, crying. +Connor led her away. + +Others moved about or stood silent; and some one was always drawing +near him, speaking of courage. It was odd that so much darkness should +invade a lighted room. + +Then somebody came down the stairs, noiselessly. The house was very +still. + +And at last they let him go upstairs. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Lights yet burned on the lower floors and behind the drawn blinds of +Athalie's room. The night was quiet and soft and lovely; the moon +still young in its first quarter. + +There was no wind to blow the fountain jet, so that every drop fell +straight back where the slim column of water broke against a strip of +stars above the garden wall. Somewhere in distant darkness the little +owl trilled. + + * * * * * + +If he were walking or motionless he no longer knew it; nor did he seem +to be aware of anything around. + +Hafiz came up to him through the dusk with a little mew of recognition +or of loneliness. Afterward the cat followed him for a while and then +settled down upon the grass intent on the invisible stirring +stealthily in obscurity. + +The fragrance of the iris grew sweeter, fresher. Many new buds had +unfolded since high noon. One stalk had fallen across the path and +Clive's dragging feet passed over it where he moved blindly, at +hazard, with stumbling steps along the path--errant, senseless, and +always blind. + +For on the garden bench a young girl sat, slender, exquisite, smiling +as he approached. But he could not see her, nor could he see in her +arms the little flower-like face, and the tiny hands against her +breast. + +"Clive!" she said. But he could not hear her. + +"Clive," she whispered; "my beloved!" + +But he could neither see nor hear. His knees, too, were failing; he +put out one hand, blindly, and sank down upon the garden bench. + +All night long she sat beside him, her head against his shoulder, +sometimes touching his drawn face with warm, sweet lips, sometimes +looking down at the little face pressed to her quiet breast. + +And all night long the light burned behind the closed blinds of her +room; and the little silvery dusk-moths floated in and out of the +rays. And Hafiz, sitting on the grass, watched them sometimes; +sometimes he gazed at his young mistress out of wide, unblinking eyes. + +"Hafiz," she murmured lazily in her sweetly humorous way. + +The cat uttered a soft little mew but did not move. And when she laid +her cheek close to Clive's whispering,--"I love you--I love you +so!"--he never stirred. + +Her blue eyes, brooding, grew patient, calm, and tender; she looked +down silently into the little face close cradled in her arms. + +Then the child's eyes opened like two blue stars; and she bent over in +a swift ecstasy of bliss, covering the flower-like face with kisses. + + + THE END + + + + + Novels by Robert W. Chambers + + Athalie + Who Goes There! + Anne's Bridge + Between Friends + The Hidden Children + Quick Action + Blue-Bird Weather + Japonette + The Adventures of a Modest Man + The Danger Mark + Special Messenger + The Firing Line + The Younger Set + The Fighting Chance + Some Ladies in Haste + The Tree of Heaven + The Tracer of Lost Persons + A Young Man in a Hurry + Lorraine + Maids of Paradise + The Business of Life + The Gay Rebellion + The Streets of Ascalon + The Common Law + Ailsa Paige + The Green Mouse + Iole + The Reckoning + The Maid-at-Arms + Cardigan + The Haunts of Men + The Mystery of Choice + The Cambric Mask + The Maker of Moons + The King in Yellow + In Search of the Unknown + The Conspirators + A King and a Few Dukes + In the Quarter + Ashes of Empire + The Red Republic + Outsiders + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Athalie, by Robert W. 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