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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of What's-His-Name, by George Barr McCutcheon
+
+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: What's-His-Name
+
+Author: George Barr McCutcheon
+
+Illustrator: Harrison Fisher
+
+Release Date: April 6, 2009 [EBook #28512]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT'S-HIS-NAME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Copyright, 1911, by Dodd, Mead & Company
+Nellie Duluth]
+
+
+
+
+What's-His-Name
+
+BY
+
+GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+
+HARRISON FISHER
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1910, 1911
+
+BY
+
+GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON
+
+Published March, 1911
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+ CHAPTER                                                          PAGE
+      I. Our Hero                                                    1
+     II. Miss Nellie Duluth                                         31
+    III. Mr. Fairfax                                                71
+     IV. Luncheon                                                   95
+      V. Christmas                                                 124
+     VI. The Revolver                                              150
+    VII. The Lawyer                                                176
+   VIII. Blakeville                                                201
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+ Nellie Duluth                                            Frontispiece
+
+ Fairfax was sitting on a trunk, a satisfied
+ smile on his lips                                                  67
+
+ Phoebe                                                            134
+
+ He stopped, aghast, petrified                                     238
+
+
+
+
+WHAT'S-HIS-NAME
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+OUR HERO
+
+
+Two men were standing in front of the Empire Theatre on Broadway, at
+the outer edge of the sidewalk, amiably discussing themselves in the
+first person singular. It was late in September and somewhat early in
+the day for actors to be abroad, a circumstance which invites
+speculation. Attention to their conversation, which was marked by the
+habitual humility, would have convinced the listener (who is always
+welcome) that both had enjoyed a successful season on the road,
+although closing somewhat prematurely on account of miserable booking,
+and that both had received splendid "notices" in every town visited.
+
+These two loiterers serve a single purpose in this tale--they draw
+your attention to the principal character, to the person who plays the
+title role, so to speak, and then, having done so, sink back into an
+oblivion from which it is quite unnecessary to retrieve them.
+
+The younger of the two players was in the act of lighting a
+cigarette, considerately tendered by the older, when his gaze fell
+upon the figure of the approaching hero. He hesitated for a moment,
+squinting his eyes reflectively as if to make sure of both vision and
+memory before committing himself to the declaration that was to
+follow.
+
+"See that fellow there? The little chap with his hands in his
+pockets?"
+
+The other permitted a vague, indifferent glance to enter the throng of
+pedestrians, plainly showing that he did not see the person indicated.
+(Please note this proof of the person's qualifications as a hero.)
+
+"The fellow in front of Browne's," added the first speaker, so eagerly
+that his friend tried once more and succeeded.
+
+"What of him?" he demanded, unimpressed.
+
+"That is What's-His-Name, Nellie Duluth's husband."
+
+The friend's stare was prolonged and incredulous.
+
+"That?"
+
+"Yes. That's the fair Nellie's anchor. Isn't he a wonder?"
+
+The object of these remarks passed slowly in front of them and soon
+was lost in the crowd. Now that we know who he is we will say thank
+you to the obliging Thespian and be off up Broadway in his wake, not
+precisely in the capacity of spies and eavesdroppers, but as
+acquaintances who would know him better.
+
+He was not an imposing figure. You would not have looked twice at him.
+You could not have remembered looking once at him, for that matter. He
+was the type of man who ambles through life without being noticed,
+even by those amiably inclined persons who make it their business to
+see everything that is going on, no matter how trivial it is.
+
+Somewhere in this wide and unfeeling world the husband of Nellie
+Duluth had an identity of his own, but New York was not the place.
+Back in the little Western town from which he came he had a name and a
+personality all his own, but it was a far cry from Broadway and its
+environments. For a matter of four or five years he had been known
+simply as "Er--What's-His-Name? Nellie Duluth's husband!" You have
+known men of his stripe, I am sure; men who never get anywhere for the
+good and sufficient reason that it isn't necessary. Men who stand
+still. Men who do not even shine by reflected glory. Men whose names
+you cannot remember. It might be Smith or Brown or Jones, or any of
+the names you can't forget if you try, and yet it always escapes you.
+You know the sort I mean.
+
+Nellie Duluth's husband was a smallish young man, nice-looking, even
+kind-looking, with an habitual expression of inquiry in his face, just
+as if he never quite got used to seeing or being seen. The most expert
+tailor haberdasher could not have provided him with apparel that
+really belonged to him. Not that he was awkward or ill-favoured in the
+matter of figure, but that he lacked individuality. He always seemed
+to be a long way from home.
+
+Sometimes you were sure that he affected a slight, straw-coloured
+moustache; then, a moment afterward, if you turned your back, you were
+not quite sure about it. As a matter of fact, he did possess such an
+adornment. The trouble came in remembering it. Then, again, his eyes
+were babyish blue and unseasoned; he was always looking into shop
+windows, getting accustomed to the sights. Trolley cars and
+automobiles were never-decreasing novelties to him, if you were to
+judge by the startled way in which he gazed at them. His respect for
+the crossing policeman, his courtesy to the street-car conductor, his
+timidity in the presence of the corner newsboy, were only surpassed by
+his deference to the waiter in the cheap restaurants he affected.
+
+But, ah! You should have seen him in that little Western town! He was
+a "devil of a fellow" out there! He knew the policemen by their first
+names and had no respect for them; street-car conductors were
+hail-fellows well met, and the newsboys wore spectacles and said "Yes,
+sir," to him. As for the waiters, he knew them all by their Christian
+name, which usually was Annie or Mamie or Katie.
+
+On Broadway he was quite another person. He knew his Broadway from one
+end to the other--that is to say, he knew that side of the "Great
+White Way" which stares you in the face and rebukes you for staring
+back--the outside of Broadway. He had been on and off Broadway for a
+matter of five years and yet he had never recovered from the habit of
+turning out for every pedestrian he met, giving the other man the
+right of way instead of holding to his own half of it, sometimes
+stepping in puddles of water to do so and not infrequently being edged
+off the curbstone by an accumulation of the unexpected.
+
+Once in a while during his peregrinations some one recognised him and
+bowed in a hesitating manner, as if trying to place him, and at such
+times he responded with a beaming smile and a half-carried-out impulse
+to stop for a bit of a chat, but always with a subsequent acceleration
+of speed on discovering that the other fellow seemed to be in a hurry.
+They doubtless knew him for Miss Duluth's husband, but for the life of
+them they couldn't call him by name. Every one understood that Nellie
+possessed a real name, but no one thought to ask what it was.
+
+Moreover, Nellie had a small daughter whose name was Phoebe. She
+unquestionably was a collaboration, but every one who knew the child
+spoke of her as that "darling little girl of Nellie's." The only man
+in New York who appeared to know Nellie's husband by name was the
+postman, and he got it second-hand.
+
+At the stage door of the theatre he was known as Miss Duluth's
+husband, to the stage hands and the members of the chorus he was
+What's-His-Name, to the principals he was "old chap," to Nellie
+herself he was Harvey, to Phoebe he was "daddy," to the press agent he
+was nameless--he didn't exist.
+
+You could see Nellie in big red letters on all the billboards. She was
+inevitable. Her face smiled at you from every nook and corner--and it
+was a pretty face, too--and you had to get your tickets of the
+scalpers if you wanted to see her in person any night in the week,
+Sundays excepted. Hats, parasols, perfumes, and face powders were
+named after her. It was Nellie here and Nellie there and Nellie
+everywhere. The town was mad about her. It goes without saying that
+her husband was not the only man in love with her.
+
+As Harvey--let me see--oh, never mind--What's-His-Name--ambled up
+Broadway on the morning of his introduction into this homely narrative
+he was smiled at most bewitchingly by his wife--from a hundred
+windows--for Nellie's smile was never left out of the lithographs (he
+never missed seeing one of them, you may be sure)--but it never
+occurred to him to resent the fact that she was smiling in the same
+inviting way to every other man who looked.
+
+He ambled on. At Forty-second Street he turned to the right, peering
+at the curtained windows of the Knickerbocker with a sort of fearful
+longing in his mild blue eyes, and kept on his way toward the Grand
+Central Station. Although he had been riding in and out of the city on
+a certain suburban train for nearly two years and a half, he always
+heaved a sigh of relief when the gate-tender told him he was taking
+the right train for Tarrytown. Once in a great while, on matinee days,
+he came to town to luncheon with Nellie before the performance. On
+Sundays she journeyed to Tarrytown to see him and Phoebe. In that way
+they saw quite a bit of each other. This day, however, he was taking
+an earlier train out, and he was secretly agitated over the
+possibility of getting the wrong one. Nellie had sent word to the
+theatre that she had a headache and could not have luncheon with him.
+
+He was not to come up to her apartment. If he had known a human being
+in all New York with whom he could have had luncheon, he would have
+stayed in town and perhaps gone to a theatre. But, alas, there was no
+one! Once he had asked a low comedian, a former member of Nellie's
+company, but at the time out of a job and correspondingly meek, to
+luncheon with him at Rector's. At parting he had the satisfaction of
+lending the player eleven dollars. He hoped it would mean a long and
+pleasant acquaintance and a chance to let the world see something of
+him. But the low comedian fell unexpectedly into a "part" and did not
+remember Nellie's husband the next time he met him. He forgot
+something else as well. Harvey's memory was not so short. He never
+forgot it. It rankled.
+
+He bought a noon extra and found a seat in the train. Then he sat up
+very straight to let people see that they were riding in the same car
+with the great Nellie Duluth's husband. Lucky dog! Every one was
+saying that about him, he was sure. But every one else had a noon
+extra, worse luck!
+
+After a while he sagged down into the seat and allowed his baby-blue
+eyes to fall into a brown study. In his mind's eye he was seeing a
+thousand miles beyond the western bank of the Hudson, far off into
+the quiet streets of a town that scarcely had heard the name of Nellie
+Duluth and yet knew him by name and fame, even to the remotest nook of
+it.
+
+They were good old days, sweet old days, those days when he was
+courting her--when she was one among many and he the only one. Days
+when he could serve customers in his shirt-sleeves and address each
+one familiarly. Every one was kind. If he had a toothache, they
+sympathised with him and advised him to have it pulled and all that
+sort of thing. In New York (he ground his teeth, proving that he
+retained them) no one cared whether he lived or died. He hated New
+York. He would have been friendly to New York--cheerfully, gladly--if
+New York had been willing to meet him halfway. It was friendly to
+Nellie; why couldn't it be friendly to him? He was her husband. Why,
+confound it all, out in Blakeville, where they came from, he was
+somebody while she was merely "that girl of Ted Barkley's." He had
+drawn soda water for her a hundred times and she had paid him in
+pennies! Only five years ago. Sometimes she had the soda water
+charged; that is to say, she had it put on her mother's bill. Ted
+couldn't get credit anywhere in town.
+
+And now look at her! She was getting six hundred dollars a week and
+spurned soda water as if it were poison.
+
+His chin dropped lower. The dreamy look deepened.
+
+"Doggone it," he mused for the hundredth time, "I could have been a
+partner in the store by this time if I'd stuck to Mr. Davis."
+
+He was thinking of Davis' drug store, in Main Street, and the striped
+blazer he wore while tending the soda fount in the summer time. A red
+and yellow affair, that blazer was. Before the "pharmacy law" went
+into effect he was permitted to put up prescriptions while Mr. Davis
+was at meals. Afterward he was restricted to patent medicines,
+perfumes, soaps, toilet articles, cigars, razor strops, and all such,
+besides soda water in season. Moreover, when circuses came to town the
+reserved-seat sale was conducted in Davis' drug store. He always had
+passes without asking for them.
+
+Yes, he might have been a partner by this time. He drew a lot of trade
+to the store. Mr. Davis could not have afforded to let him go
+elsewhere.
+
+Five years ago! It seemed ages. He was twenty-three when he left
+Blakeville. Wasted ages! Somehow he liked the ready-made garments he
+used to buy at the Emporium much better than those he wore
+nowadays--fashionable duds from Fifth Avenue at six times the price.
+He used to be busy from seven A.M. till ten P.M., and he was happy.
+Nowadays he had nothing to do but get up and shave and take Phoebe for
+walks, eat, read the papers, tell stories to Phoebe, and go to bed. To
+be sure, the food was good and plentiful, the bed was soft, and the
+cottage more attractive than anything Blakeville could boast of;
+Phoebe was a joy and Nellie a jewel, but--heigh-ho! he might have been
+a partner in Davis' drug store if he'd stayed in the old town.
+
+The man in the seat behind was speaking to him. He came out of his
+reverie with a glad rush. It was so unusual for any one to take the
+initiative that he was more than ready to respond.
+
+"I see the Giants lost again yesterday," said the volunteer
+conversationalist.
+
+"Yes. Six to four," said our hero, brightly, turning in his seat. He
+always read the baseball news. He could tell you the batting average
+of every player in the big leagues for ten years back.
+
+"Lot of bone-heads," said the other sourly. At first glance our friend
+thought he looked like an actor and his heart sank. But perhaps he
+might be a travelling salesman. He liked them. In either event, the
+stranger's estimate of the New York ball team pleased him. He rejoiced
+in every defeat it sustained, particularly at the hands of the
+Chicagos.
+
+"Not in it with the Cubs," he announced, blitheness in his manner.
+Here was a man after his own heart.
+
+But the stranger glared at him. "The Cubs?" he said, his voice
+hardening, his manner turning aggressive.
+
+"They make the Giants look like two-spots," went on our friend,
+recklessly.
+
+The stranger looked him over pityingly and then ended the conversation
+by deliberately hiding himself behind his newspaper. Our hero opened
+his lips to add further comment, but something in the way the paper
+crackled caused him to close them and turn back to his bitter survey
+of the Hudson. And the confounded fellow had invited his confidence,
+too!
+
+He got down at Tarrytown and started up the hill. The station-master
+pointed him out to a friend.
+
+"That's--er--What's-His-Name--Nellie Duluth's husband."
+
+"That guy?"
+
+"She keeps him up here in a cottage to take care of the baby. Away
+from the temptations of the city," said the agent, with a broad wink.
+
+"I didn't know she was married," said his friend, who lived in
+Yonkers.
+
+"Well, she is."
+
+Mr.--(I declare, his name escapes me, so I will call him by his
+Christian name, Harvey)--Harvey, utterly oblivious to the pitying
+scrutiny of the two men, moved slowly up the road, homeward bound. He
+stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to light a "Sweet Cap," threw
+back his unimposing shoulders, and accelerated his gait a trifle in
+deference to his position as the master of a celebrity.
+
+It was his habit to take a rather roundabout way up to the little
+cottage on the hill. The route led him past a certain drug store and
+a grocer's where he was on speaking terms with the clerks. They knew
+him. He did the marketing, but the account was in Miss Duluth's name.
+A livery stable, too, was on the line of progress. He occasionally
+stopped in to engage a pony phaeton for a drive in the afternoon with
+Phoebe.
+
+To-day he passed these places by. Every one seemed to be busy. He
+could see that at a glance. So there wasn't any use stopping. That was
+what he got for coming home from town in the middle of the day. He
+nodded to several acquaintances--passing acquaintances in both senses
+of the word. They turned to look after him, half-smiles on their
+lips.
+
+One woman said to another, "I wonder if he's really married to her?"
+
+"If he wasn't, he'd be living in the city with her," was the complete
+rejoinder.
+
+"He seems such a quiet little man, so utterly unlike what a husband of
+hers ought to be. He's from the far West--near Chicago, I believe. I
+never can remember his name. Can you?"
+
+"I've never heard it."
+
+"It's not an uncommon name."
+
+"Why doesn't he call himself Mr. Duluth?"
+
+"My husband says actresses are not supposed to have husbands. If they
+have them, they keep them in the background."
+
+"That's true. I know I am always surprised when I see that they're
+trying to get divorces."
+
+Harvey was never so far in the background as when he appeared in the
+foreground. One seldom took notice of him unless he was out of sight,
+or at least out of hearing.
+
+He was not effeminate; he was not the puerile, shiftless creature the
+foregoing sentences may have led you to suspect. He was simply a
+weakling in the strong grasp of circumstance. He could not help
+himself; to save his life, he could not be anything but Nellie
+Duluth's husband.
+
+Not a bad-looking chap, as men of his stamp go. Not much of a spine,
+perhaps, and a little saggy about the shoulders; all in all, rather a
+common type. He kept his thin moustache twisted, but inconsistently
+neglected to shave for several days--that kind of a man. His trousers,
+no matter how well made, were always in need of pressing and his coat
+was wrinkled from too much sitting on the small of his back. His
+shirts, collars, and neckties were clean and always "dressy." Nellie
+saw to that. Besides he always had gone in for gay colours when it
+came to ties and socks. His watch-fob was a thing of weight and
+pre-eminence. It was of the bell-clapper type. In the summer time he
+wore suspenders with his belt, and in the winter time he wore a belt
+with his suspenders. Of late he affected patent-leather shoes with red
+or green tops; he walked as if he despised the size of them.
+
+Arriving at the snug little cottage, he was brought face to face with
+one of the common tragedies of a housekeeper's life. The cook and the
+nursemaid, who also acted as waitress and chambermaid, had indulged in
+one of their controversies during his absence, and the former had
+departed, vowing she would never return. Here it was luncheon time and
+no one to get it! He knew that Bridget would be back before dinner
+time--she always did come back--but in the meantime what were they to
+do? There wasn't a thing in the house.
+
+He found himself wishing he had stayed in the city for luncheon.
+
+Annie's story was a long one, but he gathered from it that Bridget was
+wholly to blame for the row. Annie was very positive as to that.
+
+"Have we any eggs?" asked the dismayed master.
+
+"Eggs? How should I know, sir?" demanded Annie. "It's Bridget's place
+to know what's in the pantry, not mine. The Lord knows I have enough
+to do without looking after her work."
+
+"Excuse me," said he, apologetically. He hesitated for a moment and
+then came to a decision. "I guess I'd better go and see what we've
+got. If we've got eggs, I can fry 'em. Bridget will be back this
+evening."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that," said Annie, belligerently. "I told her this
+was the last time, the very last."
+
+"I'll bet you a quarter she comes back," said he, brightly.
+
+"Gee! What a sport you are!" scoffed Annie.
+
+He flushed. "Will you please set the table?"
+
+"It's set."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"I'll help you make the toast, if you'd like," said she, a sudden
+feeling of pity for him coming into her niggardly soul.
+
+"Thanks," he said, briskly. "And the tea, too?"
+
+"I think we'd better have coffee," said she, asserting a preference
+for the housemaid's joy.
+
+"Just as you say," he acquiesced, hastily. "Where is Phoebe?"
+
+"Next door with the Butler kids--children, I mean. Maybe they'll ask
+her to stay to lunch."
+
+He gave her a surprise. "Go over and tell her to come home. I don't
+want her staying to luncheon with those damned Butlers."
+
+She stared, open-mouthed. "I'm sure, sir, they're quite as good as--as
+we are. What have you got against 'em?"
+
+He could not tell her that Butler, who worked in a bank, never took
+the trouble to notice him except when Nellie was out to spend Sunday.
+
+"Never mind. Go and get Phoebe."
+
+He made a dash for the kitchen, and when the exasperated Annie
+returned a few minutes later with Phoebe--rebellious Phoebe, who at
+that particular moment hated her father--he was in his shirt-sleeves
+and aproned, breaking eggs over a skillet on the gas stove. His face
+was very red, as if considerable exertion had been required.
+
+Phoebe was pouting when she came in, but the sight of her father
+caused her to set up a shriek of glee.
+
+"What fun, daddy!" she cried. "Now we'll never need Bridget again. I
+don't like her. You will be our cook, won't you?"
+
+Annie's sarcastic laugh annoyed him.
+
+"I used to do all the cooking when the Owl Club went camping," he
+announced, entirely for Annie's benefit.
+
+"In Blakeville?" asked Annie, with a grin.
+
+"Yes, in Blakeville," he exploded, almost dropping the cigarette from
+his lips into the skillet. His blue eyes flashed ominously. Annie,
+unused to the turning of the worm, caught her breath.
+
+Suddenly obsessed by the idea that he was master in his own house, he
+began strutting about the kitchen, taking mental note of the things
+that needed attention, with a view to reproving Bridget when she came
+back to the fold. He burnt his fingers trying to straighten the
+stovepipe, smelt of the dish-cloths to see if they were greasy,
+rattled the pans and bethought himself of the eggs just in the nick of
+time. In some haste and embarrassment he removed the skillet from the
+fire just as Annie came out of the pantry with the bread and the
+coffee can.
+
+"Where's the platter?" he demanded, holding the skillet at arm's
+length. "They're fried."
+
+"They'll be stone cold," said she, "waiting for the coffee to boil.
+You ain't got any water boiling."
+
+"I thought, perhaps, we'd better have milk," he said, gathering his
+wits.
+
+To his surprise--and to her own, for that matter--she said, "Very
+good, sir," and repaired to the icebox for the dairy bottles. He was
+still holding the skillet when she returned. She was painfully red in
+the face.
+
+Phoebe eyed the subsequent preparations for the meal with an
+increasing look of sullenness in her quaint little face. She was
+rather a pretty child. You would say of her, if you saw her in the
+street, "What a sweet child!" just as you would say it about the next
+one you met.
+
+Her father, taking note of her manner, paused in the act of removing
+his apron.
+
+"What's the matter, darling?"
+
+"Can't I go over to Mrs. Butler's for luncheon?" she complained.
+"They're going to have chicken."
+
+"So are we," said he, pointing to the eggs.
+
+"I want to go," said Phoebe, stubbornly.
+
+He coloured. "Don't you want to stay home and eat what daddy has
+cooked?" he asked, rather plaintively.
+
+"I want to go."
+
+He could only resort to bribery. "And daddy'll take you down to see
+the nickel show as soon as we've finished," he offered. The child's
+face brightened.
+
+Here Annie interposed.
+
+"She can't go to see them nickel shows; Miss Duluth won't stand for
+it. She's give me strict orders."
+
+"I'll take good care of her----" began Phoebe's father.
+
+"Miss Duluth's afraid of diphtheria and scarlet fever," said Annie,
+resolutely, as she poured out a glass of milk for him.
+
+"Not likely to be any diphtheria this time of year," he began again,
+spurred by the kick Phoebe planted on his kneecap.
+
+"Well, orders is orders. What Miss Duluth says goes."
+
+"Ah, come now, Annie----"
+
+"Say, do you want her to ketch scarlet fever and die?" demanded the
+nurse, putting the bottle down and glaring at him with a look of mixed
+commiseration and scorn.
+
+"Good Heavens, no!" he ejaculated. The very thought of it brought a
+gush of cold water to his mouth.
+
+"Well, take her to see it if you must, but don't blame me. She's your
+kid," said Annie, meanly, with victory assured.
+
+"Make her say 'Yes,'" urged Phoebe, in a loud whisper.
+
+He hedged. "Do you want to have the scarlet fever?" he asked,
+dismally.
+
+"Yes," said Phoebe. "And measles, too."
+
+The sound of heavy footsteps on the back porch put an end to the
+matter for the time being. Even Phoebe was diverted.
+
+Bridget had come back. A little ahead of her usual schedule, too,
+which was food for apprehension. Usually she took the whole day off
+when she left "for good and all." Never before in the history of her
+connection with Miss Duluth's menage had she returned so promptly.
+Involuntarily the master of the house glanced out of the window to see
+if a rain had blown up. The sun was shining brightly. It wasn't the
+weather.
+
+The banging of the outer door to the kitchen caused him to jump ever
+so slightly and to cast a glance of inquiry at Annie, who altered her
+original course and moved toward the sitting-room door. In the kitchen
+a perfectly innocent skillet crashed into the sink with a vigour that
+was more than ominous.
+
+A moment later Bridget appeared in the door. She wore her best hat and
+gloves and the dress she always went to mass in. The light of battle
+was in her eye.
+
+"We--we thought we wouldn't wait, Bridget," said Mr.--er--What's-His-Name,
+quickly. "You never come back till six or seven, you know, so----"
+
+"Who's been monkeyin' wid my kitchen?" demanded Bridget. She started
+to unbutton one of her gloves and the movement was so abrupt and so
+suggestive that he got up from his chair in such a hurry that he
+overturned it.
+
+"Somebody had to get lunch," he began.
+
+"I wasn't sp'akin' to you," said Bridget, glaring past him at Annie.
+
+He gulped suddenly. For the second time that day his eyes blazed.
+Things seemed to be dancing before them.
+
+"Well, I'm speaking to you!" he shouted, banging the table with his
+clenched fist.
+
+"What!" squealed Bridget, staggering back in astonishment.
+
+He remembered Phoebe.
+
+"You'd better run over to the Butlers', Phoebe, and have lunch," he
+said, his voice trembling in spite of himself. "Run along lively
+now."
+
+Bridget was still staring at him like one bereft of her senses when
+Phoebe scrambled down from her chair and raced out of the room. He
+turned upon the cook.
+
+"What do you mean by coming in here and speaking to me in that
+manner?" he demanded, shrilly.
+
+"Great God above!" gasped Bridget weakly. She dropped her glove. Her
+eyes were blinking.
+
+"And why weren't you here to get lunch?" he continued, ruthlessly.
+"What do we pay you for?"
+
+Bridget forgot her animosity toward Annie. "What do yez think o'
+that?" she muttered, addressing the nursemaid.
+
+"Get back to the kitchen," ordered he.
+
+Cook had recovered herself by this time. Her broad face lost its stare
+and a deep scowl, with fiery red background, spread over her features.
+She imposed her huge figure a step or two farther into the room.
+
+"Phat's that?" she demanded.
+
+She weighed one hundred and ninety and was nearly six feet tall. He
+was barely five feet five and could not have tipped the beam at one
+hundred and twenty-five without his winter suit and overcoat. He moved
+back a corresponding step or two.
+
+"Don't argue," he said, hurriedly.
+
+"Argue?" she snorted. "Phy, ye little shrimp, who are you to be
+talkin' back to me? For two cents I'd----"
+
+"You are discharged!" he cried, hastily putting a chair in her
+path--but wisely retaining a grip on it.
+
+She threw back her head and laughed, loudly, insultingly. Her broad
+hands, now gloveless and as red as broiled lobsters, found
+resting-places on her hips. He allowed his gaze to take them in with
+one hurried, sweeping glance. They were as big and as menacing as a
+prizefighter's.
+
+"We'll discuss it when you're sober," he made haste to say, trying to
+wink amiably.
+
+"So help me Mike, I haven't touched a----" she began, but caught
+herself in time. "So yez discharge me, do yez?" she shouted.
+
+"I understood you had quit, anyway."
+
+"Well, me fine little man, I'll see yez further before I'll quit now.
+I came back this minute to give notice, but I wouldn't do it now for
+twenty-five dollars."
+
+"You don't have to give notice. You're discharged. Good-bye." He
+started for the sitting-room.
+
+She slapped the dining-table with one of her big hands. The dishes
+bounced into the air, and so did he.
+
+"I'll give this much notice to yez," she roared, "and ye'll bear it in
+mind as long as yez stay in the same house wid me. I don't take no
+orders from the likes of you. I was employed by Miss Duluth. I cook
+for her, I get me pay from her, and I'll not be fired by anybody but
+her. Do yez get that? I'd as soon take orders from the kid as from
+you, ye little pinhead. Who are yez anyhow? Ye're nobody. Begorry, I
+don't even know yer name. Discharge me! Phy, phy, ye couldn't
+discharge a firecracker. What's that?"
+
+"I--I didn't say anything," he gasped.
+
+"Ye'd better not."
+
+"I shall speak to--to Miss Duluth about this," he muttered, very red
+in the face.
+
+"Do!" she advised, sarcastically. "She'll tell yez to mind yer own
+business, the same as I do. The idee! Talkin' about firing me! Fer the
+love av Mike, Annie, what do yez think av the nerve? Phy Miss Duluth
+kapes him on the place I can't fer the life av me see. She's that
+tinder-hearted she----"
+
+But he had bolted through the door, slamming it after him. As he
+reached the bottom of the stairs leading to his bedroom the door
+opened again and Annie called out to him:--
+
+"Are you through lunch, sir?"
+
+He was halfway up the steps before he could frame an answer. Tears of
+rage and humiliation were in his baby-blue eyes.
+
+"Tell her to go to the devil," he sputtered.
+
+As he disappeared at the bend in the stairs he distinctly heard Annie
+say:--
+
+"I can see myself doing it--not."
+
+For an hour he paced the floor of his little bed-chamber, fuming and
+swearing to himself in a mild, impotent fashion--and in some dread of
+the door. Such words and sentences as these fell from his
+lips:--"Nobody!" "Keeps me on the place!" "Because she's
+tender-hearted!" "I will fire her!" "Can't talk back to me!" "Damned
+Irisher!" And so on and so forth until he quite wore himself out. Then
+he sat down at the window and let the far-away look slip back into his
+troubled blue eyes. They began to smart, but he did not blink them.
+
+Phoebe found him there at four when she came in for her nap. He
+promised to play croquet with her.
+
+Dinner was served promptly that evening, and it was the best dinner
+Bridget had cooked in a month.
+
+"That little talk of mine did some good," said he to himself, as he
+selected a toothpick and went in to read "Nicholas Nickleby" till
+bedtime. "They can't fool with me."
+
+He was reading Dickens. His wife had given him a complete set for
+Christmas. To keep him occupied, she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+MISS NELLIE DULUTH
+
+
+Nellie Duluth had an apartment up near the Park, the upper end of the
+Park, in fact, and to the east of it. She went up there, she said, so
+that she could be as near as possible to her husband and daughter.
+Besides, she hated taking the train at the Grand Central on Sundays.
+She always went to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street in her electric
+brougham. It didn't seem so far to Tarrytown from One Hundred and
+Twenty-fifth. In making her calculations Nellie always went through
+the process of subtracting forty-two from one-twenty-five, seldom
+correctly. She had no difficulty in taking the two from the five, but
+it wasn't so simple when it came to taking four from two with one to
+carry over. It was the one that confused her. For the life of her she
+couldn't see what became of it. Figures of that sort were not in her
+line.
+
+Nellie's career had been meteoric. She literally had leaped from the
+chorus into the role of principal comedienne--one of those pranks of
+fortune that cannot be explained or denied. She was one of the
+"Jack-in-the-Box" girls in a big New York production. On the opening
+night, when the lid of her box flew open and she was projected into
+plain view, she lost her bearings and missed the tiny platform in
+coming down. To save herself from an ignominious tumble almost to the
+footlights she hopped off the edge of her box, where she had been
+"teetering" helplessly, and did a brief but exceedingly graceful
+little "toe spin," hopping back into the box an instant later with all
+the agility of a scared rabbit. She expected "notice" from the stage
+manager for her inexcusable slip.
+
+But the spectators liked it. They thought it was in the play. She was
+so pretty, so sprightly, so graceful, and so astoundingly modest that
+they wanted more of her. After the performance no fewer than a dozen
+men asked the producer why he didn't give that little girl with the
+black hair more of a chance.
+
+The next night she was commanded to repeat the trick. Then they
+permitted her to do it over in the "encore." Before the end of a
+fortnight she was doing a dance with the comedian, exchanging lines
+with him. Then a little individual song-and-dance specialty was
+introduced. At the close of the engagement on Broadway she announced
+that she would not sign for the next season unless given a "ripping"
+part and the promise to be featured.
+
+That was three years ago. Now she was the feature in the big, musical
+comedy success, "Up in the Air" and had New York at her feet. The
+critics admitted that she saved the "piece" in spite of composer and
+librettist. Some one is always doing that very thing for the poor
+wretches, Heaven pity them.
+
+Nellie was not only pretty and sprightly, but as clever as they make
+them. She never drew the short straw. She had a brain that was quite
+as active as her feet. It was not a very big brain; for that matter,
+her feet were tiny. She had the good sense to realise that her brain
+would last longer than her feet, so she got as much for them as she
+could while the applause lasted. She drove shrewd bargains with the
+managers and shrewder ones with Wall Street admirers, who experienced
+a slim sense of gratification in being able to give her tips on the
+market, with the assurance that they would see to it that she didn't
+lose.
+
+She put her money into diamonds as fast as she got it. Some one in the
+profession had told her that diamonds were safer than banks or
+railroad bonds. She could get her interest by looking at them and she
+could always sell them for what she paid for them.
+
+The card on the door of her cosey apartment bore the name, "Miss
+Nellie Duluth."
+
+There was absolutely nothing inside or outside the flat to lead one to
+suspect that there was a Mr. Duluth. A husband was the remotest figure
+in her household. When the management concluded to put her name in the
+play-bill, after the memorable Jack-in-the-Box leap, she was requested
+to drop her married name, because it would not look well in print.
+
+"Where were you born?" the manager had asked.
+
+"Duluth."
+
+"Take Duluth for luck," said he, and Duluth it was. She changed the
+baptismal name Ella to Nellie. At home in Blakeville she had been
+called Eller or Ell.
+
+Her apartment was an attractive one. Her housemaid was a treasure. She
+was English and her name was Rachel. Nellie's personal maid and
+dresser was French. Her name was Rebecca. When Miss Duluth and Rebecca
+left the apartment to go to the theatre in the former's electric
+brougham, Rachel put the place in order. So enormous was the task that
+she barely had it finished when her mistress returned, tired and
+sleepy, to litter it all up again with petticoats, stockings, roses,
+orchids, lobster shells, and cigarette stubs. More often than
+otherwise Nellie brought home girls from the theatre to spend the
+night with her. Poor things, they were chorus girls, just as she had
+been, and they had so far to go. Besides, they served as excuses for
+declining unwelcome invitations to supper. Be that as it may, Rachel
+had to clean up after them, finding their puffs, rats, and switches in
+the morning and the telephone number at their lodgings in the middle
+of the night. She had her instructions to say that such young ladies
+were spending the night with Miss Duluth.
+
+"If you don't believe it, call up Miss Duluth's number in the
+telephone book," she always concluded, as if the statement needed
+verification.
+
+Nellie had not been in Tarrytown for a matter of three weeks; what
+with rehearsals, revisions, consultations, and suppers, she just
+couldn't get around to it. The next day after Harvey's inglorious
+stand before Bridget she received a letter from him setting forth the
+whole affair in a peculiarly vivid light. He said that something would
+have to be done about Bridget and advised her to come out on the
+earliest day possible to talk it over with him. He confessed to a
+hesitancy about discharging the cook, recalling the trouble she had
+experienced in getting her away from a neighbour in the first place.
+But Bridget was drinking and quarrelling with Annie and using strong
+language in the presence of Phoebe. He would have discharged her long
+ago if it hadn't been for the fear of worrying her during rehearsals
+and all that. She wasn't to be bothered with trifling household
+squabbles at such an important time as this. No, sir! Not if he could
+help it. But, just the same, he thought she'd better come out and talk
+it over before Bridget took it into her head to poison some one.
+
+"I really, truly must go up to Tarrytown next Sunday," said Nellie to
+the select company supping in her apartment after the performance that
+night. "Harvey's going to discharge the cook."
+
+"Who is Harvey?" inquired the big blond man who sat beside her.
+
+"My teenty-weenty hubby," said she, airily.
+
+There were two other men besides the big blond in the party, and the
+wife of one of them--a balance wheel.
+
+The big blond man stared at his hostess. He expected her to laugh at
+her own joke, but she did not. The others were discussing the relative
+merits of the Packard and Peerless cars. He waited a moment and then
+leaned closer to Nellie's ear.
+
+"Are you in earnest?" he asked, in low tones.
+
+"About what, Mr. Fairfax?"
+
+"Hubby. Have you got one?"
+
+"Of course I have. Had him for six years. Why?"
+
+He swallowed hard. A wave of red crept up over his jowl and to the
+very roots of his hair.
+
+"I've known you for over a month, Nellie," he said, a hard light in
+his fishy grey eyes, "and you've never mentioned this husband of
+yours. What's the game?"
+
+"It's a guessing game," she said, coolly. "You might guess what I'm
+wearing this little plain gold ring on my left hand for. It's there
+where everybody can see it, isn't it? You just didn't take the trouble
+to look, Mr. Fairfax. Women don't wear wedding rings for a joke, let
+me tell you that."
+
+"I never noticed it," he said, huskily. "The truth is, it never
+entered my head to think you could be a married woman."
+
+"Thought I was divorced, eh?"
+
+"Well, divorces are not uncommon, you know. You girls seem to get rid
+of husbands quite as easily as you pick them up."
+
+"Lord bless you," said Nellie, in no way offended, "I have never done
+anything to give Harvey cause for divorce, and I'm sure he's never
+done the tiniest thing out of the way. He never treats me cruelly, he
+never beats me, he doesn't get tight and break things up, and he never
+looks at other women. He's the nicest little husband ever."
+
+She instructed Rachel to fill up Mr. Fairfax's glass and pass the ripe
+olives. He was watching her, an odd expression in his eyes. A big,
+smooth-faced man of fifty was he, fat from high living,
+self-indulgence, and indolence, immaculately dressed to the tips of
+his toes.
+
+"Speaking of divorce," she went on, without looking at him, "your wife
+didn't have much trouble getting hers, I've heard."
+
+It was a daring thing to say, but Nellie was from the West, where
+courage and freshness of vision are regarded as the antithesis of tact
+and diplomacy. Tact calls for tact. The diplomatist is powerless if
+you begin shooting at him. Nellie did not work this out for herself;
+she merely wanted to put him in a corner where he would have to stand
+and get it over with.
+
+Fairfax was disconcerted. He showed it. No one ever presumed to
+discuss the matter with him. It was a very tender subject. His eyes
+wavered.
+
+"I like your cheek," he growled.
+
+"Don't you like to talk about it?" she inquired, innocently.
+
+"No," he replied, curtly. "It's nobody's business, Miss Duluth."
+
+"My, how touchy!" She shivered prettily. "I feel as if some one had
+thrown a pail of ice water over me."
+
+"We were speaking of your--this husband of yours," he said, quietly.
+"Why have you never mentioned him to me? Is it quite fair?"
+
+"It just slipped my mind," she said, in the most casual way. "Besides,
+I thought you knew. My little girl is four--or is it five?"
+
+"Where do you keep them?"
+
+"I've got 'em in storage up at Tarrytown. That's the Sleepy Hollow
+neighbourhood, isn't it? I guess that's why Harvey likes it so well."
+
+"What is his business?"
+
+She looked up quickly. "What is that to you, Mr. Fairfax?"
+
+"Nothing. I am in no way interested in Mr. Duluth."
+
+"His name isn't Duluth," she flashed, hotly. "If you are not
+interested in him, let's drop the subject."
+
+"I retract what I said. I am always interested in curiosities. What's
+he like?"
+
+"Well, he's like a gentleman, if you are really interested in
+curiosities," she said.
+
+He laughed. "By Jove, you've got a ready wit, my dear." He looked at
+her reflectively, speculatively. "It's rather a facer to have you turn
+out to be a married woman."
+
+"Don't you like married women?"
+
+"Some of 'em," he answered, coolly. "But I don't like to think of you
+as married."
+
+"Pooh!" she said, and there was a world of meaning in the way she said
+it.
+
+"Don't you know that it means a great deal to me?" he demanded,
+leaning closer and speaking in a lowered voice, tense and eager.
+
+"Pooh!" she repeated.
+
+He flushed again. "I cannot bear the thought of you belonging----"
+
+She interrupted him quickly. "I wouldn't say it, if I were you."
+
+"But I must say it. I'm in love with you, Nellie, and you know it.
+Every drop of blood in my veins is crying out for you, and has
+been----"
+
+Her face had clouded. "I've asked you not to say such things to me."
+
+He stared in amazement. "You are dreaming! I've never uttered a word
+of this sort to you. What are you thinking of? This is the first time
+I've said----"
+
+Nellie was dismayed. It was the first time he had spoken to her in
+that way. She stammered something about "general principles," but he
+was regarding her so fixedly that her attempt at dissembling was most
+unconvincing.
+
+"Or perhaps," said he, almost savagely, but guardedly, "you are
+confusing me with some one else."
+
+This was broad enough to demand instant resentment. She took refuge in
+the opportunity.
+
+"Do you mean to insult me, Mr. Fairfax?" she demanded, coldly, drawing
+back in her chair.
+
+He laughed harshly.
+
+"Is there any one else?" he asked, gripping one of her small hands in
+his great fist.
+
+She jerked the hand away. "I don't like that, Mr. Fairfax. Please
+remember it. Don't ever do it again. You have no right to ask such
+questions of me, either."
+
+"I'm a fool to have asked," he said, gruffly. "You'd be a fool to
+answer. We'll let it go at that. So that's your wedding ring, eh? Odd
+that I shouldn't have noticed it before."
+
+She was angry with herself, so she vented the displeasure on him.
+
+"You never took much notice of your wife's wedding ring, if tales are
+true."
+
+"Please, Miss Duluth, I----"
+
+"Oh, I read all about the case," she ran on. "You must have hated the
+notoriety. I suppose most of the things she charged you with were
+lies."
+
+He pulled his collar away from his throat.
+
+"Is it too hot in the room?" she inquired, innocently.
+
+His grin was a sickly one. "Do you always make it so hot?" he asked.
+"This is my first visit to your little paradise, you must remember.
+Don't make it too hot for me."
+
+"It isn't paradise when it gets too hot," was her safe comment.
+
+Fairfax's wife had divorced him a year or two before. The referee was
+not long in deciding the case in her favour. As they were leaving
+Chambers, Fairfax's lawyer had said to his client:--"Well, we've saved
+everything but honour." And Fairfax had replied:--"You would have
+saved that, too, if I had given you a free rein." From which it may be
+inferred that Fairfax was something of a man despite his lawyer.
+
+He was one of those typical New Yorkers who were Pittsburgers or
+Kansas Citians in the last incarnation--which dated back eight or ten
+years, at the most, and which doesn't make any difference on
+Broadway--with more money than he was used to and a measureless
+capacity for spending. His wife had married him when money was an
+object to him. When he got all the money he wanted he went to New York
+and began a process of elevating the theatre by lending his presence
+to the stage door. The stage declined to be elevated without the aid
+of an automobile, so he also lent that, and went soaring. His wife
+further elevated the stage by getting a divorce from him.
+
+"This is my first time here," he went on, "but it isn't to be the
+last, I hope. What good taste you have, Nellie! It's a corking little
+nest."
+
+"I just can't go out to Tarrytown every night," she explained. "I must
+have a place in town."
+
+"By the way," he said, more at ease than he had been, "you spoke of
+going to Tarrytown on Sunday. Let me take you out in the motor. I'd
+like to see this husband chap of yours and the little girl, if----"
+
+"Nay, nay," she said, shaking her head. "I never mix my public affairs
+with my private ones. You are a public affair, if there ever was one.
+No, little Nellie will go out on the choo-choos." She laughed
+suddenly, as if struck by a funny thought. Then, very seriously, she
+said:--"I don't know what Harvey would do to you if he caught you with
+me."
+
+He stiffened. "Jealous, eh?"
+
+"Wildly!"
+
+"A fire-eater?"
+
+"He's a perfect devil," said Nellie, with the straightest face
+imaginable.
+
+Fairfax smiled in a superior sort of way, flecked the ashes from his
+cigarette, and leaned back in his chair the better to contemplate the
+charming creature at his side. He thoroughly approved of jealous
+husbands. The fellow who isn't jealous, he argued, is the hardest to
+trifle with.
+
+"I suppose you adore him," he said, with a thinly veiled sneer.
+
+"'He's the idol of me 'art,'" she sang, in gentle mimicry.
+
+"Lucky dog," he whispered, leering upon her. "And how trustful he is,
+leaving you here in town to face temptation alone while he hibernates
+in Tarrytown."
+
+"He trusts me," she flashed.
+
+"I am the original 'trust buster,'" he laughed.
+
+Nellie arose abruptly. She stretched her arms and yawned. The trio
+opposite gave over disputing about automobiles, and both men looked at
+their watches.
+
+"Go home," said Nellie. "I'm tired. We've got a rehearsal to-morrow."
+
+No one took offence. They understood her ways.
+
+Fairfax gave her his light topcoat to hold while he slipped into it.
+She was vaguely surprised that he did not seek to employ the old trick
+of slipping an arm about her during the act. Somehow she felt a little
+bit more of respect for him.
+
+"Don't forget to-morrow night," he said, softly, at the door. "Just
+the four of us, you know. I'll come back for you after the play."
+
+"Remember, it has to be in the main restaurant," she warned him. "I
+like to see the people."
+
+He smiled. "Just as you like."
+
+She laughed to herself while Rebecca was preparing her for bed,
+tickled by the thought of the "fire-eating" Harvey. In bed, however,
+with the lights out, she found that sleep would not come as readily as
+she had expected. Instead her mind was vividly awake and full of
+reflections. She was thinking of the two in Tarrytown asleep for hours
+and snugly complacent. Her thoughts suddenly leaped back to the old
+days in Blakeville when she was the Town Marshal's daughter and he the
+all-important dispenser of soft drinks at Davis'. How she had hung on
+his every word, quip, or jest! How she had looked forward to the
+nights when he was to call! How she hated the other girls who divided
+with her the attentions of this popular young beau! And how different
+everything was now in these days of affluence and adulation! She
+caught herself counting how many days it had been since she had seen
+her husband, the one-time hero of her dreams. What a home-body he was!
+What a change there was in him! In the old Blakeville days he was the
+liveliest chap in town. He was never passive for more than a minute at
+a stretch. Going, gadding, frivolling, flirting--that was the old
+Harvey. And now look at him!
+
+Those old days were far, far away, so far that she was amazed that she
+was able to recall them. She had sung in the church choir and at all
+of the local entertainments. The praise of the Blakeville _Patriot_
+was as sweet incense to her, the placid applause of the mothers'
+meetings more riotous than anything she could imagine in these days
+when audiences stamped and clapped and whistled till people in the
+streets outside the theatre stopped and envied those who were inside.
+
+And then the days of actual courtship; she tried to recall how and
+when they began. She married Harvey in the little church on the hill.
+Everybody in town was there. She could close her eyes now and see
+Harvey in the new checked suit he had ordered from Chicago especially
+for the occasion, a splendid innovation that caused more than one
+Lotharial eye to gleam with envy.
+
+Then came the awakening. The popular drug clerk, for all his show of
+prosperity and progress, had not saved a cent in all his years of
+labour, nor was there any likelihood of his salary ever being large
+enough to supply the wants of two persons. They went to live with his
+mother, and it was not long before he was wearing the checked suit for
+"everyday use" as well as for Sunday.
+
+She was stagestruck. For that matter, so was he. They were members of
+the town dramatic club and always had important parts in the plays. An
+instructor came from Chicago to drill the "members of the cast," as
+they were designated by the committee in charge. It was this
+instructor who advised Nellie to go to Chicago for a course in the
+school he represented. He assured her she would have no difficulty in
+getting on the stage.
+
+Harvey procured a position in a confectioner's establishment in State
+Street and she went to work for a photographer, taking her lessons in
+dancing, singing, and elocution at odd hours. She was pretty,
+graceful, possessed of a lovely figure not above the medium height;
+dark-haired and vivacious after a fashion of her own. As her pleased
+husband used to say, she "got a job on the stage before you could say
+Jack Robinson." He tried to get into the chorus with her, but the
+management said, "No husbands need apply."
+
+That was the beginning of her stage career, such a few years ago that
+she was amazed when she counted back. It seemed like ten years, not
+five.
+
+She soared; he dropped, and, as there was no occasion for rousing
+himself, according to the point of view established by both of them,
+he settled back into his natural groove and never got beyond his
+soda-fountain days in retrospect.
+
+The next night after the little supper at Nellie's a most astonishing
+thing happened. A smallish man with baby-blue eyes appeared at the
+box-office window, gave his name, and asked for a couple of good seats
+in Miss Duluth's name. The ticket-seller had him repeat the name and
+then gruffly told him to see the company manager.
+
+"I'm Miss Duluth's husband," said the smallish man, shrinking. The
+tall, flashily good-looking man at his elbow straightened up and
+looked at him with a doubtful expression in his eyes. He was Mr.
+Butler, Harvey's next-door neighbour in Tarrytown. "You must be new
+here."
+
+"Been here two years," said the ticket-seller, glaring at him. "See
+the manager."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"At his hotel, I suppose. Please move up. You're holding the line
+back."
+
+At that moment the company's press representative sauntered by.
+Nellie's husband, very red in the face and humiliated, hailed him, and
+in three minutes was being conducted to a seat in the nineteenth row,
+three removed from the aisle, followed by his Tarrytown neighbour, on
+whose face there was a frozen look of disgust.
+
+"We'll go back after the second act," said Harvey, struggling with his
+hat, which wouldn't go in the rack sideways. "I'll arrange everything
+then."
+
+"Rotten seats," said Mr. Butler, who had expected the front row or a
+box.
+
+"The scenery is always better from the back of the house," explained
+his host, uncomfortably.
+
+"Damn the scenery!" said Mr. Butler. "I never look at it."
+
+"Wait till you see the setting in the second----" began Harvey, with
+forced enthusiasm, when the lights went down and the curtain was
+whisked upward, revealing a score of pretty girls representing merry
+peasants, in costumes that cost a hundred dollars apiece, and
+glittering with diamond rings.
+
+Mr. Butler glowered through the act. He couldn't see a thing, he
+swore.
+
+"I should think the husband of the star could get the best seats in
+the house," he said when the act was half-over, showing where his
+thoughts were.
+
+"That press agent hates me," said Harvey, showing where his had been.
+
+"Hates you? In God's name, why?"
+
+"I've had to call him down a couple of times," said Harvey,
+confidentially. "Good and hard, too."
+
+"I suppose that's why he makes you take a back seat," said Butler,
+sarcastically.
+
+"Well, what can a fellow do?" complained the other. "If I could have
+seen Mr.--"
+
+A man sitting behind tapped him on the shoulder.
+
+"Will you be good enough to stop talking while the curtain's up?" he
+requested, in a state of subdued belligerency.
+
+Harvey subsided without even so much as a glance to see what the
+fellow was like.
+
+After the act Butler suggested a drink, which was declined.
+
+"I don't drink," explained Harvey.
+
+His companion snorted. "I'd like to know what kind of a supper we're
+going to have if you don't drink. Be a sport!"
+
+"Oh, don't you worry about that," said Harvey. "Ginger ale livens me
+up as much as anything. I used to simply pour the liquor down me. I
+had to give it up. It was getting the best of me. You should have seen
+the way I was carrying on out there in Blakeville before----"
+
+"Well, come out and watch me take a drink," interrupted Butler,
+wearily. "It may brace you up."
+
+Harvey looked helplessly at the three ladies over whom they would have
+to climb in order to reach the aisle and shook his head.
+
+"We're going out after the next act. Let's wait till then."
+
+"Give me my seat check," said Butler, shortly. "I'm going out."
+Receiving the check, he trampled his way out, leaving Harvey to
+ruminate alone.
+
+The joint presence of these two gentlemen of Tarrytown in the city
+requires an explanation. You may remember that Nellie's husband
+resented Butler's habit of ignoring him. Well, there had come a time
+when Butler had thought it advisable to get down from his high horse.
+His wife had gone to Cleveland to visit her mother for a week or two.
+It was a capital time for him to get better acquainted with Miss
+Duluth, to whom he had been in the habit of merely doffing his hat in
+passing.
+
+The morning of his wife's departure, which was no more than eight
+hours prior to their appearance at the box office, he made it a point
+to hail Harvey in a most jovial manner as he stood on his side porch,
+suggesting that he come over and see the playroom he had fixed up for
+his children and Phoebe.
+
+"We ought to be more neighbourly," he said, as he shook hands with
+Harvey at the steps. Later on, as they smoked in the library, he
+mentioned the fact that he had not had the pleasure of seeing Miss
+Duluth in the new piece.
+
+Harvey was exalted. When any one was so friendly as all this to him he
+quite lost his head in the clouds.
+
+"We'll go in and see it together," said he, "and have a bit of supper
+afterward."
+
+"That's very good of you," said Butler, who was gaining his point.
+
+"When does Mrs. Butler return?" asked Harvey.
+
+Butler was startled. "Week or ten days."
+
+"Well, just as soon as she's back we'll have a little family
+party----"
+
+His neighbour shook his head. "My wife's in mourning," he said,
+nervously.
+
+"In mourning?" said Harvey, who remembered her best in rainbow
+colours.
+
+"Yes. Her father."
+
+"Dead?"
+
+"Certainly," said Butler, a trifle bewildered. He coughed and changed
+the current of conversation. It was not at all necessary to say that
+his wife's father had been dead eleven years. "I thought something of
+going in to the theatre to-night," he went on. "Just to kill time. It
+will be very lonely for me, now that my dear wife's away."
+
+Harvey fell into the trap. "By jinks!" he exclaimed, "what's the
+matter with me going in, too? I haven't been in town at night for six
+weeks or more."
+
+Butler's black eyes gleamed.
+
+"Excellent! We'll see a good play, have a bite to eat, and no one will
+know what gay dogs we are." He laughed and slapped Harvey on the
+back.
+
+"I'll get seats for Nellie's show if you'd like to see it," said
+Harvey, just as enthusiastically, except that he slapped the arm of
+the chair and peeled his knuckle on a knob he hadn't seen.
+
+"Great!"
+
+"And say, I'd like you to know my wife better, Mr. Butler. If you
+don't object I'll ask her to go out with us after the show for
+something to eat."
+
+"Permit me to remind you, Mr.--Mr.--er----"
+
+"Call me Harvey," said the owner of the name.
+
+"----to remind you that this is my party. I will play host and be
+honoured if your wife will condescend to join me--and you--at any hour
+and place she chooses."
+
+"You are most kind," said Harvey, who had been mentally calculating
+the three one-dollar bills in his pocket.
+
+And that is how they came to be in the theatre that night.
+
+The curtain was up when Butler returned. He had had a drink.
+
+"Did you send a note back to your wife?" he asked as he sat down.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To tell her we are here," hissed the other.
+
+"No, I didn't," said Harvey, calmly. "I want to surprise her."
+
+Butler said something under his breath and was so mad during the
+remainder of the act that everybody on the stage seemed to be dressed
+in red.
+
+Miss Duluth did not have to make a change of costume between the
+second and third acts. It was then that she received visitors in her
+dressing-room. She had a sandwich and a glass of milk at that time,
+but was perfectly willing to send across the alley for bottled beer if
+her callers cared to take anything so commonplace as that.
+
+She was sitting in her room, quite alone, with her feet cocked upon a
+trunk, nibbling a sandwich and thinking of the supper Fairfax was to
+give later on in the evening, when the manager of the company came
+tapping at her door. People had got in the habit of walking in upon
+her so unexpectedly that she issued an order for every one to knock
+and then made the injunction secure by slipping the bolt. Rebecca went
+to the door.
+
+"Mr. Fairfax is here, mademoiselle," she announced a moment later.
+"Mr. Ripton has brought him back and he wants to come in." Except for
+the word "mademoiselle" Rebecca spoke perfect English.
+
+Nellie took one foot down and then, thinking quickly, put it up again.
+It wouldn't hurt Fairfax, she argued, to encounter a little
+opposition.
+
+"Tell Ripton I'm expecting some one else," she said, at random. "If
+Mr. Fairfax wants to wait in the wings, I'll see him there."
+
+But she had not the slightest inkling of what was in store for her in
+the shape of visitors.
+
+At that very moment Harvey and his friend were at the stage door, the
+former engaged in an attempt at familiarity with the smileless
+attendant.
+
+"Hello, Bob; how goes it?" said he, strutting up to the door.
+
+Bob's bulk blocked the passage.
+
+"Who d'you want to see?" he demanded, gruffly.
+
+"Who d'you suppose?" asked Harvey, gaily.
+
+"Don't get fresh," snapped the door man, making as if to slam the iron
+door in his face. Suddenly he recognised the applicant. "Oh, it's you,
+is it?"
+
+"You must be going blind, Bobby," said Harvey, in a fine effort at
+geniality. "I'm taking a friend in to show him how it's done. My
+friend, Mr. Butler, Bob."
+
+Mr. Butler stepped on Harvey's toes and said something under his
+breath.
+
+"Is Miss Duluth expecting you, Mr.--er--Mr.--Is she?" asked old Bob.
+
+"No. I'm going to surprise her."
+
+Bob looked over his shoulder hastily.
+
+"If I was you," he said, "I'd send my card in. She's--she's nervous
+and a shock might upset her."
+
+"She hasn't got a nerve in her body," said Harvey. "Come on, Butler.
+Mind you don't fall over the braces or get hit by the scenery."
+
+They climbed a couple of steps and were in the midst of a small,
+bustling army of scene shifters and property men. Old Bob scratched
+his head and muttered something about "surprises."
+
+Three times Harvey tried to lead the way across the stage. Each time
+they were turned back by perspiring, evil-minded stage hands who
+rushed at them with towering, toppling canvases. Once Harvey nearly
+sat down when an unobserving hand jerked a strip of carpet from under
+his feet. A grand staircase almost crushed Mr. Butler on its way into
+place, and some one who seemed to be in authority shouted to him as he
+dodged:--
+
+"Don't knock that pe-des-tal over, you pie face!"
+
+At last they got safely over, and Harvey boldly walked up to the
+star's dressing-room.
+
+"We're all right now," he said to Butler, with a perceptible quaver in
+his voice. "Just you wait while I go in and tell her I am here."
+
+Butler squeezed himself into a narrow place, where he seemed safe
+from death, mopped his brow, and looked like a lost soul.
+
+Two men, sitting off to the left, saw Harvey try the locked door and
+then pound rather imperatively.
+
+"Good Lord!" exclaimed one of them, staring.
+"It's--it's--er--What's-His-Name, Nellie's husband! Well, of all the
+infernal----"
+
+"That?" gasped Fairfax.
+
+"What in thunder is he doing here this time o' night! Great Scott,
+he'll spoil everything," groaned Ripton, the manager.
+
+Harvey pounded again with no response. Nellie was sitting inside,
+mentally picturing the eagerness that caused Fairfax to come
+a-pounding like that. She had decided not to answer.
+
+Ripton called a stage hand.
+
+"Tell him that Nellie isn't seeing anybody to-night," he whispered.
+"Do it quick. Get him out of here."
+
+"Shall I throw him out, sir?" demanded the man, with a wry face. "Poor
+little chap!"
+
+"Just tell him that Nellie will see him for a few minutes after the
+play." Then, as the man moved away:--"They've got no business having
+husbands, Mr. Fairfax. Damned nuisances."
+
+Fairfax had his hand to his lips. He was thinking of Nellie's "perfect
+devil."
+
+"I fancy he doesn't cut much of a figure in her life," said he, in a
+tone of relief.
+
+In the meantime the stage hand had accosted Harvey, who had been
+joined by the anxious Mr. Butler.
+
+"Miss Duluth ain't seeing any one to-night, sir," he said. "She gave
+strict orders. No one, sir."
+
+Harvey's blue eyes were like delft saucers. "She'll see me," he said.
+"I'm her husband, you know."
+
+"I know that, sir. But the order goes, just the same."
+
+"Is she ill?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Very ill," said the man, quickly.
+
+Butler was gnawing his moustache.
+
+"Rubbish!" he said, sharply. "Come away, you. She's got a visitor in
+there. Can't you see the lay of the land?"
+
+The little husband turned cold, then hot.
+
+"A--a man visitor?"
+
+"Certainly," snapped the aggrieved Mr. Butler. "What else?"
+
+Without another word, Harvey brushed past the stage hand and began
+rattling the door violently.
+
+"Nellie!" he shouted, his lips close to the paint.
+
+In a second the door flew open and the astonished actress stood there
+staring at him as if he were a ghost. He pushed the door wide open and
+strode into the dressing-room, Nellie falling back before him. The
+room was empty save for the dismayed Rebecca.
+
+"There!" he exclaimed, turning to address Butler in the doorway, but
+Butler was not there. The stage hand had got in his way.
+
+"Wha--what, in the name of Heaven, are you doing here, Harvey?" gasped
+Nellie.
+
+"How are you, Nell? Nothing serious, I hope."
+
+"Serious?" she murmured, swallowing hard, her wits in the wind.
+
+"Ain't you ill?"
+
+"Never was better in my life," she cried, seeing what she thought was
+light. "Who brought you to town with such a tale as that? I'm fine.
+You've been fooled. If I were you, I'd take the first train out and
+try to find out who----"
+
+"It's all right, Butler," he called out. "Come right in. Hello! Where
+are you?" He stepped to the door and looked out. Mr. Butler was being
+conducted toward the stage door by the burly stage hand. He was trying
+to expostulate. "Hi! What you doing?" shouted Harvey, darting after
+them. "Let my friend alone!"
+
+Up came Ripton in haste.
+
+"O'Brien, what do you mean? Take your hand off that gentleman's
+shoulder at once. He is a friend of Mr.--Mr.--ahem! A terrible
+mistake, sir."
+
+Then followed a moment of explanation, apology, and introduction,
+after which Harvey fairly dragged his exasperated friend back to
+Nellie's room.
+
+She was still standing in the middle of the room trying to collect her
+wits.
+
+"You remember Mr. Butler, deary," panted Harvey, waving his hand.
+Nellie gasped in the affirmative.
+
+At that instant Fairfax's big frame appeared in the door. He was
+grinning amiably. She glared at him helplessly for a moment.
+
+"Won't you introduce me to your husband?" he said, suavely.
+
+Nellie found her tongue and the little man shook hands with the big
+one.
+
+"Glad to meet you," said Harvey.
+
+"I am glad to see you," said Fairfax, warmly.
+
+"My friend Butler," introduced Harvey.
+
+Mr. Butler was standing very stiff and pallid, with one knee propped
+against a chair. There was a glaze over his eyes. Fairfax grinned
+broadly.
+
+"Oh, Butler and I are old acquaintances," said he. "Wife out of town,
+Butler?"
+
+"Sure," said Harvey, before Butler could reply. "And we're in town to
+see the sights. Eh, Butler?"
+
+Butler muttered something that sounded uncommonly like "confounded
+ass," and began fanning himself with his derby hat and gloves and
+walking-stick, all of which happened to be in the same hand.
+
+"We're going to take Nellie--I mean Miss Duluth--out for supper after
+the play," went on Harvey, glibly. "We'll be waiting for you, dearie.
+Mr. Butler is doing the honours. By the way, Butler, I think it would
+be nicer if Nellie could suggest an odd lady for us. We ought to have
+four. Do you know of any one, Nell? By George, we've got to have a
+pretty one, though. We insist on that, eh, Butler?" He jabbed Butler
+in the ribs and winked.
+
+"Don't do that!" said the unhappy Mr. Butler, dropping his stick. It
+rolled under a table and he seized the opportunity thus providentially
+presented. He went down after it and was lost to view for a
+considerable length, of time, hiding himself as the ostrich does when
+it buries its head in the sand and imagines it is completely out of
+sight.
+
+Nellie's wits were returning. She was obliged to do some rapid and
+clever thinking. Fairfax was watching her with a sardonic smile on his
+lips. Ripton, the manager, peered over his shoulder and winked
+violently.
+
+"Oh, Harvey dear," she cried, plaintively, "how disappointed I am. I
+have had strict orders from the doctor to go straight home to bed
+after every performance. I really can't go with you and Mr. Butler
+to-night. I wish you had telephoned or something. I could have told
+you."
+
+Harvey looked distressed. "What does the doctor say it is?"
+
+[Illustration: Copyright, 1911, by Dodd, Mead & Company
+Fairfax was sitting on a trunk, a satisfied smile on his lips]
+
+"My heart," she said, solemnly.
+
+"Don't you think you could go out for a--just a sandwich and a bottle
+of beer?" he pleaded, feeling that he had wantonly betrayed his
+friendly neighbour.
+
+"Couldn't think of it," she said. "The nurse will be here at eleven.
+I'll just have to go home. He insists on absolute quiet for me and I'm
+on a dreadful diet." A bright thought struck her. "Do you know, I have
+to keep my door locked so as not to be startled by----"
+
+The sharp, insistent voice of the callboy broke in on her flow of
+excuses.
+
+"There! I'll have to go on in a second. The curtain's going up.
+Good-night, gentlemen. Good-night, Harvey dear. Give me a kiss."
+
+She pecked at his cheek with her carmine lips.
+
+"Just half an hour at some quiet little restaurant," he was saying
+when she fled past him toward the stage.
+
+"Sorry, dear," she called, then stopped to speak to Mr. Butler.
+"Thank you so much, Mr. Butler. Won't you repeat the invitation some
+time later on? So good of you to bring Harvey in. Bring Mrs. Butler in
+some night, and if I'm better we will have a jolly little spree, just
+the four of us. Will you do it?"
+
+She beamed on him. Butler bowed very low and said:--
+
+"It will give me great pleasure, Miss Duluth."
+
+"Good-night, then."
+
+"Good-night."
+
+When she returned to her dressing-room later on, she found Fairfax
+there, sitting on a trunk, a satisfied smile on his lips. She left the
+door open.
+
+Mr. Ripton conducted the two men across to the stage door, leading
+them through the narrow space back of the big drop. Chorus girls threw
+kisses at Harvey; they all knew him. He winked blandly at Butler, who
+was staring straight before him.
+
+"A great life, eh?" said Harvey, meaning that which surrounded them.
+They were in the alley outside the stage door.
+
+"I'm going to catch the ten-twenty," said Butler, jamming his hat down
+firmly.
+
+"Ain't you going to see the last act?" demanded the other, dismayed.
+
+Butler lifted his right hand to heaven, and, shaking it the better to
+express the intensity of his declaration, remarked:--
+
+"I hope somebody will kick me all over town if I'm ever caught being
+such a damned fool as this again. I honestly hope it! I've been made
+ridiculous--a blithering fool! Why, you--you----" He paused in his
+rage, a sudden wave of pity assailing him. "By George, I can't help
+feeling sorry for you! Good-night."
+
+Harvey hurried after him.
+
+"I guess I'll take it, too. That gets us out at eleven-thirty. We can
+get a bite to eat in the station, I guess."
+
+He had to almost trot to keep pace with Butler crossing to the Grand
+Central. Seated side by side in the train, and after he had recovered
+his breath a bit, he said:--
+
+"Confound it, I forgot to ask Nellie if it will be wise for her to
+come out on Sunday. The heart's a mighty bad thing, Butler."
+
+"It certainly is," said Butler, with unction.
+
+At the station in Tarrytown he said "Good-night" very gruffly and
+hurried off to jump into the only cab at the platform. He had heard
+all about Blakeville and the wild life Harvey had led there, and he
+was mad enough to fight.
+
+"Good-night, Mr. Butler," said Harvey, as the hack drove off.
+
+He walked up the hill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+MR. FAIRFAX
+
+
+He found the nursemaid up and waiting for him. Phoebe had a "dreadful
+throat" and a high temperature. It had come on very suddenly, it
+seems, and if Annie's memory served her right it was just the way
+diphtheria began. The little girl had been thrashing about in the bed
+and whimpering for "daddy" since eight o'clock. His heart sank like
+lead, to a far deeper level than it had dropped with the base
+desertion of Butler. Filled with remorse, he ran upstairs without
+taking off his hat or overcoat. The feeling of resentment toward
+Butler was lost in this new, overpowering sense of dread; the
+discovery of his own lamentable unfitness for "high life" expeditions
+faded into nothingness in the face of this possible catastrophe. What
+if Phoebe were to die? He would be to blame. He remembered feeling
+that he should not have left her that evening. It had been a
+premonition, and this was to be the price of his folly.
+
+At three in the morning he went over to rouse the doctor, all the time
+thinking that, even if he were capable of forgiving himself for
+Phoebe's death, Nellie would always hold him responsible. The doctor
+refused to come before eight o'clock, and slammed the door in the
+disturber's face.
+
+"If she dies," he said to himself over and over again as he trudged
+homeward, "I'll kill that beast of a doctor. I'll tear his heart
+out."
+
+The doctor did not come till nine-thirty. They never do. He at once
+said it was a bad attack of tonsilitis, and began treatment on the
+stomach. He took a culture and said he would let Mr.--Mr.
+What's-His-Name know whether there was anything diphtheritic. In the
+meantime, "Take good care of her."
+
+Saturday morning a loving note came from Nellie, deploring the fact
+that she couldn't come out on Sunday after all. The doctor said she
+must save her strength. She instructed Harvey to dismiss Bridget and
+get another cook at once. But Harvey's heart had melted toward
+Bridget. The big Irishwoman was the soul of kindness now that her
+employer was in distress.
+
+About nine o'clock that morning a man came up and tacked a placard on
+the door and informed the household that it was in quarantine. Harvey
+went out and looked at the card. Then he slunk back into Phoebe's room
+and sat down, very white and scared.
+
+"Do you think she'll die?" he asked of the doctor when that gentleman
+called soon afterward. He was shivering like a leaf.
+
+"Not necessarily," said the man of medicine, calmly. "Diphtheria isn't
+what it used to be."
+
+"If she dies I'll jump in the river," said the little father,
+bleakly.
+
+"Nonsense!" said the doctor. "Can you swim?" he added, whimsically.
+
+"No," said Harvey, his face lighting up.
+
+The doctor patted him on the back. "Brace up, sir. Has the child a
+mother?"
+
+Harvey stared at him. "Of course," he said. "Don't you know whose
+child you are 'tending?"
+
+"I confess I--er--I----"
+
+"She is the daughter of Nellie Duluth."
+
+"Oh!" fell from the doctor's lips. "And you--you are Miss Duluth's
+husband? I didn't quite connect the names."
+
+"Well, I'm her husband, name or no name," explained the other. "I
+suppose I ought to send for her. She ought to know."
+
+"Are you--er--separated?"
+
+"Not at all," said Harvey. "I maintain two establishments, that's all.
+One here, one in the city."
+
+"Oh, I see," said the doctor, who didn't in the least see. "Of course,
+she would be subject to quarantine rules if she came here,
+Mr.--Mr.--ahem!"
+
+"They couldn't get along without her at the theatre," groaned the
+husband.
+
+"I'd suggest waiting a day or two. Believe me, my dear sir, the child
+will pull through. I will do all that can be done, sir. Rest easy."
+His manner was quite different, now that he knew the importance of his
+patient. He readjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. "I hope to
+have the pleasure of seeing Mrs.--er--your wife, sir."
+
+"She has a regular physician in town," said Harvey, politely.
+
+For two weeks he nursed Phoebe, day and night, announcing to the
+doctor in the beginning that his early training made him quite
+capable. There were moments when he thought she was dying, but they
+passed so quickly that his faith in the physician's assurances rose
+above his fears. Acting on the purely unselfish motive that Nellie
+would be upset by the news, he kept the truth from her, and she went
+on singing and dancing without so much as a word to distress her. Two
+Sundays passed; her own lamentable illness kept her away from the
+little house in Tarrytown.
+
+"If we tell her about Phoebe," said Harvey to Bridget and Annie,
+"she'll go all to pieces. Her heart may stop, like as not. Besides,
+she'd insist on coming out and taking care of her, and that would be
+fatal to the show. She's never had diphtheria. She'd be sure to catch
+it. It goes very hard with grown people."
+
+"Have you ever had it, sir?" asked Annie, anxiously.
+
+"Three times," said Harvey, who hadn't thought of it up to that
+moment.
+
+When the child was able to sit up he put in his time reading "David
+Copperfield" to her.
+
+Later on he played "jacks" with her and cut pictures out of the comic
+supplements. By the end of the month he was thinner and more "peaked,"
+if anything, than she. Unshaven, unshorn, unpressed was he, but he was
+too full of joy to give heed to his own personal comforts or
+requirements.
+
+His mind was beginning to be sorely troubled over one thing. Now that
+Phoebe was well and getting strong he realised that Nellie would be
+furious when she found out how ill the child had been and how she had
+been deceived. He considered the advisability of keeping it from her
+altogether, swearing every one to secrecy, but there was the doctor's
+bill to be paid. When it came to paying that Nellie would demand an
+explanation. It was utterly impossible for him to pay it himself.
+Thinking over his unhappy position, he declared, with a great amount
+of zeal, but no vigour, that he was going to get a job and be
+independent once more. More than that, when he got fairly well
+established in his position (he rather leaned toward the drug or the
+restaurant business) he would insist on Nellie giving up her arduous
+stage work and settling down to enjoy a life of comfort and
+ease--even luxury, if things went as he meant them to go.
+
+One afternoon late in October, when the scarlet leaves were blowing
+across his little front yard and the screens had been taken from the
+windows, a big green automobile stopped at his gate and a tall man got
+out and came briskly up the walk. Harvey was sitting in the library
+helping Phoebe with her ABC's when he caught sight of the visitor
+crossing the porch.
+
+"Gentleman to see you," said Annie, a moment later.
+
+"Is it the butcher's man? I declare, I must get in and attend to that
+little account. Tell him I'll be in, Annie."
+
+"It ain't the butcher. It's a swell."
+
+Harvey got up, felt of the four days' growth of beard on his chin, and
+pondered.
+
+"Did he give his name?"
+
+"Mr. Fairfax, he said."
+
+He remembered Fairfax. His hand ran over his chin once more.
+
+"Tell him to come in. I'll be down in fifteen minutes."
+
+He went upstairs on the jump and got his razor out. He was nervous.
+Only that morning he had written to Nellie telling her of Phoebe's
+expensive illness and of her joyous recovery. The doctor's bill was
+ninety dollars. He cut himself in three places.
+
+Fairfax was sitting near the window talking with Phoebe when he
+clattered downstairs ten minutes later, deploring the cuts but pleased
+with himself for having broken all records at shaving. The big New
+Yorker had a way with him; he could interest children as well as their
+mothers and grown sisters. Phoebe was telling him about "Jack the
+Giant Killer" when her father popped into the room.
+
+"Phoebe!" he cried, stopping short in horror.
+
+Fairfax arose languidly.
+
+"How do you do, Mr.--ah--ahem! The little girl has been playing
+hostess. The fifteen minutes have flown."
+
+"Ten minutes by my watch," said Harvey, promptly. "Phoebe, dear, where
+did you get that awful dress--and, oh, my! those dirty hands? Where's
+Annie? Annie's the nurse, Mr. Fairfax. Run right away and tell her to
+change that dress and wash your hands. How do you do, Mr. Fairfax?
+Glad to see you. How are you?"
+
+He advanced to shake the big man's hand. Fairfax towered over him.
+
+"I was afraid you would not remember me," said Fairfax.
+
+"Run along, Phoebe. She's been very ill, you see. We don't make life
+any harder for her than we have to. Washing gets on a child's nerves,
+don't you think? It used to on mine, I know. Of course I remember you.
+Won't you sit down? Annie! Oh, Annie!"
+
+He called into the stair hallway and Annie appeared from the
+dining-room.
+
+"Ann--Oh, here you are! How many times must I tell you to put a clean
+dress on Phoebe every day? What are her dresses for, I'd like to
+know?" He winked violently at Annie from the security of the portiere,
+which he held at arm's length as a shield. Annie arose to the occasion
+and winked back.
+
+"May I put on my Sunday dress?" cried Phoebe, gleefully.
+
+"Only one of 'em," said he, in haste. "Annie will pick out one for
+you."
+
+Considerably bewildered, Phoebe was led away by the nurse.
+
+"She's a pretty child," said Fairfax. If his manner was a trifle
+strained Harvey failed to make note of it. "Looks like her mother."
+
+"I'm glad you think so," said the father, radiantly. "I'd hate to have
+her look like me."
+
+Fairfax looked him over and suppressed a smile.
+
+"She is quite happy here with you, I suppose," he said, taking a
+chair.
+
+"Yes, sir-ree."
+
+"Does she never long to be with her mother?"
+
+"Well, you see," said Harvey, apologising for Nellie, "she doesn't see
+much of Miss--of her mother these days. I guess she's got kind of used
+to being with me. Kids are funny things, you know."
+
+"She seems to have all the comforts and necessities of life," said the
+big man, looking about him with an affectation of approval.
+
+"Everything that I can afford, sir," said Harvey, blandly.
+
+"Have you ever thought of putting her in a nice school for----"
+
+"She enters kindergarten before the holidays," interrupted the
+father.
+
+"I mean a--er--sort of boarding school," put in the big man, uneasily.
+"Where she could be brought up under proper influences, polished up,
+so to speak. You know what I mean. Miss Duluth has often spoken of
+such an arrangement. In fact, her heart seems to be set on it."
+
+"You mean she--she wants to send her away to school?" asked Harvey,
+blankly.
+
+"It is a very common and excellent practice nowadays," said the other,
+lamely.
+
+The little man was staring at him, his blue eyes full of dismay.
+
+"Why--why, I don't believe I'd like that," he said, grasping the arms
+of his chair with tense fingers. "She's doing all right here. It's
+healthy here, and I am sure the schools are good enough. Nellie has
+never said anything to me about boarding school. Why--why, Mr.
+Fairfax, Phoebe's only five--not quite that, and I--I think it would
+be cruel to put her off among strangers. When she's fifteen or
+sixteen, maybe, but not now. Nellie don't mean that, I'm sure."
+
+"There is a splendid school for little girls up in Montreal--a sort of
+convent, you know. They get the best of training, moral, spiritual,
+and physical. It is an ideal life for a child. Nellie has been
+thinking a great deal of sending her there. In fact, she has
+practically decided to----"
+
+Harvey came to his feet slowly, dizzily.
+
+"I can't believe it. She wouldn't send the poor little thing up there
+all alone; no, sir! I--I wouldn't let her do it." He was pacing the
+floor. His forehead was moist.
+
+"Miss Duluth appreciates one condition that you don't seem able to
+grasp," said Fairfax, bluntly. "She wants to keep the child as far
+removed from stage life and its environments as possible. She wants
+her to have every advantage, every opportunity to grow up entirely out
+of reach of the--er--influences which now threaten to surround her."
+
+Harvey stopped in front of him. "Is this what you came out here for,
+Mr. Fairfax? Did Nellie tell you to do this?"
+
+"I will be perfectly frank with you. She asked me to come out and talk
+it over with you."
+
+"Why didn't she come herself?"
+
+"She evidently was afraid that you would overrule her in the matter."
+
+"I never overruled her in my life," cried Harvey. "She isn't afraid of
+me. There's something else."
+
+"I can only say, sir, that she intends to put the child in the convent
+before Christmas. She goes on the road after the holidays," said
+Fairfax, setting his huge jaw.
+
+Harvey sat down suddenly, limp as a rag. His mouth filled with
+water--a cold, sickening moisture that rendered him speechless for a
+moment. He swallowed painfully. His eyes swept the little room as if
+in search of something to prove that this was the place for
+Phoebe--this quiet, happy little cottage of theirs.
+
+"Before Christmas?" he murmured.
+
+"See here, Mr.--ah--Mr., here is the situation in a nutshell:--Nellie
+doesn't see why she should be keeping up two establishments. It's
+expensive. The child will be comfortable and happy in the convent and
+this house will be off her hands. She----"
+
+"Why don't she give up her flat in town?" demanded Harvey, miserably.
+"That's where the money goes."
+
+"She expects to give it up the first of the year," said Fairfax. "The
+road tour lasts till May. She is going to Europe for the summer."
+
+"To Europe?" gasped Harvey, feeling the floor sink under his feet.
+
+He did not think to inquire what was to become of him in the new
+arrangement.
+
+"She needs a sea voyage, travel--a long vacation, in fact. It is fully
+decided. So, you see, the convent is the place for Phoebe."
+
+"But where do I come in?" cried the unhappy father. "Does she think
+for a minute that I will put my child in a convent so that we may be
+free to go to Europe and do things like that? No, sir! Dammit, I won't
+go to Europe and leave Phoebe in a----"
+
+Fairfax was getting tired of the argument. Moreover, he was
+uncomfortable and decidedly impatient to have it over with. He cut in
+rather harshly on the other's lamentations.
+
+"If you think she's going to take you to Europe, you're very much
+mistaken. Why, man, have you no pride? Can't you understand what a
+damned useless bit of dead weight you are, hanging to her neck?"
+
+It was out at last. Harvey sat there staring at him, very still; such
+a pathetic figure that it seemed like rank cowardice to strike again.
+And yet Fairfax, now that he had begun, was eager to go on striking
+this helpless, inoffensive creature with all the frenzy of the brutal
+victor who stamps out the life of his vanquished foe.
+
+"She supports you. You haven't earned a dollar in four years. I have
+it from her, and from others. It is commonly understood that you won't
+work, you won't do a stroke toward supporting the child. You are a
+leech, a barnacle, a--a--well, a loafer. If you had a drop of real
+man's blood in you, you'd get out and earn enough to buy clothes for
+yourself, at least, and the money for a hair cut or a shoe shine. She
+has been too good to you, my little man. You can't blame her for
+getting tired of it. The great wonder is that she has stood for it so
+long."
+
+Words struggled from Harvey's pallid lips.
+
+"But she loves me," he said. "It's all understood between us. I gave
+her the start in life. She will tell you so. I----"
+
+"You never did a thing for her in your life," broke in the big man,
+harshly. He was consumed by an ungovernable hatred for this little man
+who was the husband of the woman he coveted.
+
+"I've always wanted to get a job. She wouldn't let me," protested
+Harvey, a red spot coming into each of his cheeks. "I don't want to
+take the money she earns. I never have wanted to. But she says my
+place is here at home, with Phoebe. Somebody's got to look after the
+child. We've talked it over a----"
+
+"I don't want to hear about it," snapped Fairfax, hitting the arm of
+his chair with his fist. "You're no good, that's all there is to it.
+You are a joke, a laughing stock. Do you suppose that she can possibly
+love a man like you? A woman wants a man about her, not the caricature
+of one."
+
+"I intend to get a job as soon as----" began Harvey, as if he had not
+heard a word his visitor was saying.
+
+"Now, see here," exclaimed Fairfax, coming to his feet. "I'm a man of
+few words. I came out here to make you a proposition. It is between
+you and me, and no one need be the wiser. I'm not such a fool as to
+intrust a thing of this kind to an outsider. Is there any likelihood
+of any one hearing us?"
+
+Nellie's husband shrank lower into his chair and shook his head. He
+seemed to have lost the power of speech. Fairfax drew a chair up
+closer, however, and lowered his voice.
+
+"You've got a price. Men of your type always have. I told Nellie I
+would see you to-day. I'll be plain with you. She's tired of you, of
+this miserable attachment. You are impossible. That's settled. We
+won't go into that. Now I'm here, man to man, to find out how much you
+will take and agree to a separation."
+
+Harvey stiffened. He thought for a moment that his heart had stopped
+beating.
+
+"I don't believe I understand," he muttered.
+
+"Don't you understand the word 'separation'?"
+
+"Agree to a separation from what? Great God, you don't mean a
+separation from Phoebe?"
+
+"Don't be a fool! Use your brain, if you've got one."
+
+"Do--you--mean--Nellie?" fell slowly, painfully from the dry lips of
+the little man in the Morris chair.
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Does she want to--to leave me?" The tears started in his big blue
+eyes. He blinked violently.
+
+"It has come to that. She can't go on as she has been going. It's
+ridiculous. You are anxious to go back to Blakeville, she says. Well,
+that's where you belong. Somebody's drug store out there you'd like to
+own, I believe. Now, I am prepared to see that you get that drug store
+and a matter of ten or twenty thousand dollars besides. Money means
+nothing to me. All you have to do is to make no answer to the charges
+she will bring----"
+
+Harvey leaped to his feet with a cry of abject pain.
+
+"Did she send you here to say this to me?" he cried, shrilly, his
+figure shaking with suppressed fury.
+
+"No," said Fairfax, involuntarily drawing back. "This is between you
+and me. She doesn't know----"
+
+"Then, damn you!" shrieked Harvey, shaking his fist in the big man's
+face, "what do you mean by coming here like this? What do you think I
+am? Get out of here! I'm a joke, am I? Well, I'll show you and her and
+everybody else that I'm a hell of a joke, let me tell you that! I was
+good enough for her once. I won her away from every fellow in
+Blakeville. I can do it again. I'll show you, you big bluffer! Now,
+get out! Don't you ever come here again, and--don't you ever go near
+my wife again!"
+
+Fairfax had arisen. He was smiling, despite his astonishment.
+
+"I fancy you will find you can't go so far as that," he sneered.
+
+"Get out, or I'll throw you out!"
+
+"Better think it over. Twenty-five thousand and no questions asked.
+Take a day or two to think----"
+
+With a shriek of rage Harvey threw himself at the big man, striking
+out with all his might. Taken by surprise, Fairfax fell away before
+the attack, which, though seemingly impotent, was as fierce as that of
+a wildcat.
+
+The New Yorker was in no danger. He warded off the blows with ease,
+all the time imploring the infuriated Harvey to be sensible, to be
+calm. But with a heroism born of shame and despair the little man
+swung his arms like windmills, clawing, scratching, until the air
+seemed full of them. Fairfax's huge head was out of reach. In his
+blind fury Harvey did not take that into account. He struck at it with
+all the power in his thin little arms, always falling so far short
+that the efforts were ludicrous.
+
+Fairfax began to look about in alarm. The noise of the conflict was
+sure to attract the attention of the servants. He began backing toward
+the doorway. Suddenly Harvey changed his fruitless tactics. He drove
+the toe of his shoe squarely against the shinbone of the big man. With
+a roar of rage Fairfax hurled himself upon the panting foe.
+
+"I'll smash your head, you little devil," he roared, and struck out
+viciously with one of his huge fists.
+
+The blow landed squarely on Harvey's eye. He fell in a heap several
+feet away. Half-dazed, he tried to get to his feet. The big man, all
+the brute in him aroused, sprang forward and drove another savage blow
+into the bleak, white face of the little one. Again he struck. Then he
+lifted Harvey bodily from the floor and held him up against the wall,
+his big hand on his throat.
+
+"How do you like it?" he snarled, slapping the helpless,
+half-conscious man in the face with his open hand--loud, stinging
+blows that almost knocked the head off the shoulders. "Will you agree
+to my proposition now?"
+
+From Harvey's broken lips oozed a strangled--
+
+"No!"
+
+Fairfax struck again and then let him slide to the floor.
+
+"You damned little coward!" he grated. "To kick a man like that!"
+
+He rushed from the room, grabbed his hat and coat in the hall, and was
+out of the house like a whirlwind.
+
+The whir of a motor came vaguely, indistinctly to Harvey's ears. He
+was lying close to the window. As if in a dream he lifted himself
+feebly to his knees and looked out of the window, not knowing exactly
+what he did nor why he did it.
+
+A big green car was leaving his front gate. He was a long time in
+recalling who came up in it.
+
+His breath was coming slowly. He tried to speak, but a strange,
+unnatural wheeze came from his lips. A fit of coughing followed. At
+last he got upon his feet, steadying himself against the window
+casing. For a long time he stood there, working it all out in his
+dizzy, thumping brain.
+
+He put his hand to his lips and then stared dully at the stains that
+covered it when he took it away. Then it all came back to him with a
+rush. Like a guilty, hunted thing he slunk upstairs to his room,
+carefully avoiding the room in which Phoebe was being bedecked in her
+Sunday frock. Her high, shrill voice came to his ears. He was weeping
+bitterly, sobbing like a whipped child.
+
+He almost fainted when he first peered into the mirror on his bureau.
+His eyes were beginning to puff out like great knobs, his face and
+shirt front were saturated with his own plucky blood. Plucky! The word
+occurred to him as he looked. Yes, he had been plucky. He didn't know
+it was in him to be so plucky. A sort of pride in himself arose to
+offset the pain and mortification. Yes, he had defended his honour and
+Nellie's. She should hear of it! He would tell her what he had done
+and how Fairfax had struck him down with a chair. She would then deny
+to him that she had said those awful things about him. She would be
+proud of him!
+
+Carefully he washed his hands and face. With trembling fingers he
+applied court-plaster to his lips, acting with speed because his eyes
+were closing. Some one had told him that raw beefsteak was good for
+black eyes. He wondered if bacon would do as well. There was no
+beefsteak in the house.
+
+His legs faltered as he made his way to the back stairs. Bridget was
+coming up. She started back with a howl.
+
+"Come here, Bridget," he whispered. "Into my room. Be quick!" He
+retreated. He would employ her aid and swear her to secrecy. The Irish
+know a great deal about fighting, he reflected.
+
+"In the name av Hivvin, sor, what has happened to yez?" whispered
+Bridget, aghast in the doorway.
+
+"Come in and I'll tell you," said he, with a groan.
+
+Presently a childish voice came clamouring at the locked door. He
+heard it as from afar. Bridget paused in her ministrations. He had
+just said:--
+
+"I will take boxing lessons and physical culture of your brother,
+Bridget. You think he can build me up? I know I'm a bit run down. No
+exercise, you know. Still, I believe I would have thrashed him to a
+frazzle if I hadn't stumbled. That was when he kicked me here. I got
+this falling against the table."
+
+"Yis, sor," said Bridget, dutifully.
+
+In response to the pounding on the door, he called out, bravely:--
+
+"You can't come in now, Phoebe. Papa has hurt himself a little bit.
+I'll come out soon."
+
+"I got my Sunday dress on, daddy," cried the childish voice. "And I'm
+all spruced up. Has the nice gentleman gone away?"
+
+His head sank into his hands.
+
+"Yes, dearie, he's gone," he replied, in muffled tones.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+LUNCHEON
+
+
+For several days, he moped about the house, not even venturing upon
+the porch, his face a sight to behold. His spirits were lower than
+they had been in all his life. The unmerciful beating he had sustained
+at the hands of Fairfax was not the sole cause of his depression. As
+the consequences of that pummelling subsided, the conditions which led
+up to it forced themselves upon him with such horrifying immensity
+that he fairly staggered under them.
+
+It slowly dawned on him that there was something very sinister in
+Fairfax's visit, something terrible. Nellie's protracted stay in town,
+her strange neglect of Phoebe, to say nothing of himself, the presence
+of Fairfax in her dressing-room that night, and a great many
+circumstances which came plainly to mind, now that he considered them
+worth while noticing, all went a long way toward justifying Fairfax in
+coming to him with the base proposition that had resulted so seriously
+to his countenance.
+
+Nellie was tired of him! He did not belong to her world. That was the
+sum and substance of it. As he dropped out of her world, some one else
+quite naturally rose to fill the void. That person was Fairfax. The
+big man had said that she wanted a separation, she wanted to provide a
+safe haven for Phoebe. The inference was plain. She wanted to get rid
+of him in order to marry Fairfax. Fairfax had been honest enough to
+confess that he was acting on his own initiative in proposing the
+bribe, but there must have been something behind it all.
+
+He had spoken of "charges." What charge could Nellie bring against
+him? He was two days in arriving at the only one--failure to provide.
+Yes, that was it. "Failure to provide." How he hated the words. How he
+despised men who did not provide for their wives. He had never thought
+of himself in that light before. But it was true, all true. And Nellie
+was slipping away from him as the result. Not only Nellie but Phoebe.
+She would be taken from him.
+
+"I don't drink," he argued with himself, "and I've never treated her
+cruelly. Other women don't interest me. I never swear at her. I've
+never beaten her. I've always loved her. So it must be that I'm 'no
+good,' just as that scoundrel says. 'No good!' Why, she knows better
+than that. There never was a fellow who worked harder than I did for
+Mr. Davis. I drew trade to his store. Anybody in Blakeville will swear
+to that. Haven't I tried my best to get a job in the same shows with
+her? Wasn't I the best comedian they had in the dramatic club? I've
+never had the chance to show what I could do, and Nellie knows it. But
+I'll show them all! I'll make that big brute wish he'd never been
+born. I'll--I'll assert myself. He shan't take her away from me."
+
+His resolutions soared to great heights, only to succumb to chilly
+blasts that sent them shrivelled back to the lowest depths. What could
+he do against a man who had all the money that Fairfax possessed? What
+could he offer for Nellie, now that some one else had put a stupendous
+price on her? He remembered reading about an oil painting that
+originally sold for five hundred francs and afterward brought forty
+thousand dollars. Somehow he likened Nellie to a picture, with the
+reservation that he didn't believe any painting on earth was worth
+forty thousand dollars. If there was such a thing, he had never seen
+it.
+
+Then he began to think of poor Nellie cast helpless among the
+tempters. She was like a child among voracious beasts of prey. No
+wonder she felt hard toward him! He was to blame, terribly to blame.
+In the highest, most exalted state of remorse he wept, not once but
+often. His poor little Nellie!
+
+In one of these strange ever-growing flights of combined self-reproach
+and self-exaltation he so vividly imagined himself as a rescuer, as an
+able-bodied defender against all the ills and evils that beset her,
+that the fancy took the shape of positive determination. He made up
+his mind to take her off the stage, back to Blakeville, and to an
+environment so sweet and pure that her life would be one long season
+of joy and happiness.
+
+With the growth of this resolution he began to plan his own personal
+rehabilitation. First of all, he would let his face recover its
+natural shape; then he would cultivate muscle and brawn at the
+emporium of Professor Flaherty; moreover, he would devote considerable
+attention to his own personal appearance and to the habits of the
+"men about town." He would fight the tempters with their own
+weapons--the corkscrew, the lobster pick, the knife and fork, and the
+nut-splitter!
+
+He did not emerge from the house for five days. By that time he was
+fairly presentable.
+
+It was Annie's day out, so he took Phoebe for a little walk. As for
+Phoebe, she never passed a certain door upstairs without kicking at it
+with first one, then the other of her tiny feet, in revenge for the
+way it had hurt her father by remaining open so that he could bump
+into it on that bloody, terrifying day. She sent little darts of
+exquisite pain through him by constantly alluding to the real
+devastator as "that nice Mr. Fairy-fax." It was her pleasure to regard
+him as a great big fairy who had promised her in secret that she would
+some day be like Cinderella and have all the riches the slipper
+showered upon that poor little lady.
+
+As they were returning home after a stroll through a rather remote
+street, they came upon Mr. Butler, who was down on his knees fixing
+something or other about his automobile. Harvey thought it a good
+opportunity to start his crusade against New York City.
+
+"Hello," he said, halting. Butler looked up. He was mad as a wet hen
+to begin with.
+
+"Hello," he snarled, resuming his work.
+
+"I've been thinking about that little----"
+
+"Get out of the light, will you?"
+
+Harvey moved over, dragging Phoebe after him.
+
+"That little scheme of ours to dine together in town some night. You
+remember we talked about it----"
+
+"No, I don't," snapped Butler.
+
+"We might lunch together early next week. I know a nice little place
+on Seventh Avenue where you get fine spaghetti. We----"
+
+"I'm booked for a whole month of luncheons," said Butler, sitting back
+on his heels to stare at this impossible person. "Can't join you."
+
+"Some other time, then," said Harvey, waving his hand genially. "Your
+wife home yet?"
+
+Butler got upon his feet.
+
+"Say," said he, aggressively, "do you know she's heard about that
+idiotic trip of mine to town that night? Fairfax told everybody, and
+somebody's wife told Mrs. Butler. It got me in a devil of a mess."
+
+"You don't say so!"
+
+"Yes, I do say so. Next time you catch me--But, what's the use?" He
+turned to his work with an expressive shrug of his shoulders.
+
+"I'll have my wife explain everything to Mrs. Butler the first time
+she comes out," said Harvey, more bravely than he felt. He could not
+help wondering when Nellie would come out.
+
+"It isn't necessary," Butler made haste to assure him.
+
+Harvey was silent for a moment.
+
+"Fixing your automobile?" he asked, unwilling to give it up without
+another effort.
+
+"What do you suppose I'm doing?"
+
+"It's wonderful how fast one of these little one-seated cars can go,"
+mused Harvey. "Cheap, too; ain't they?"
+
+Butler faced him again, malice in his glance.
+
+"It's not in it with that big green car your wife uses," he said,
+distinctly.
+
+"Big green----" began Harvey, blankly. Then he understood. He
+swallowed hard, straightened Phoebe's hat with infinite care and
+gentleness, and looking over Butler's head, managed to say, quite
+calmly:--"It used to be blue. We've had it painted. Come along,
+Phoebe, Mr. Butler's busy. We mustn't bother him. So long, Butler."
+
+"So long," said Mr. Butler, suddenly intent upon finding something in
+the tool-box.
+
+The pair moved on. Out of the corner of his eye Butler watched them
+turn the corner below.
+
+"Poor little guy!" he said to the monkey wrench.
+
+The big green car! All the way home that juggernaut green car ran
+through, over, and around him. He could see nothing else, think of
+nothing else. A big green car!
+
+That evening he got from Bridget the address of her brother, Professor
+Flaherty, the physical trainer and body builder.
+
+In the morning he examined himself in the mirror, a fever of
+restlessness and impatience afflicting him with the desire to be once
+more presentable to the world. He had been encouraged by the fact that
+Butler had offered no comment on the black rims around his eyes. They
+must be disappearing.
+
+With his chin in his hands he sat across the room staring at his
+reflection in the glass, a gloomy, desolate figure.
+
+"It wouldn't be wise to apply for a job until these eyes are all right
+again," he was saying to himself, bitterly. "Nobody would hire a man
+with a pair of black eyes and a busted lip--especially a druggist.
+I'll simply have to wait a few days longer. Heigh-ho! To-morrow's
+Sunday again. I--I wonder if Nellie will be out to see us."
+
+But Nellie did not come out. She journeyed far and fast in a big green
+car, but it was in another direction.
+
+Thursday of the next week witnessed the sallying forth of Harvey
+What's-His-Name, moved to energy by a long dormant and mournfully
+acquired ambition. The delay had been irksome.
+
+Nellie's check for the month's expenses had arrived in the mail that
+morning. He folded it carefully and put it away in his pocketbook,
+firmly resolved not to present it at the bank. He intended to return
+it to her with the announcement that he had secured a position and
+hereafter would do the providing.
+
+Spick and span in his best checked suit, his hat tilted airily over
+one ear, he stepped briskly down the street. You wouldn't have known
+him, I am sure, with his walking-stick in one hand, his light spring
+overcoat over the other arm. A freshly cleaned pair of grey gloves,
+smelling of gasoline, covered his hands. On the lapel of his coat
+loomed a splendid yellow chrysanthemum. Regular football weather, he
+had said.
+
+The first drug store he came to he entered with an air of confidence.
+No, the proprietor said, he didn't need an assistant. He went on to
+the next. The same polite answer, with the additional information, in
+response to a suggestion by the applicant, that the soda-water season
+was over. Undaunted, he stopped in at the restaurant in the block
+below. The proprietor of the place looked so sullen and forbidding
+that Harvey lost his courage and instead of asking outright for a
+position as manager he asked for a cup of coffee and a couple of fried
+eggs. As the result of this extra and quite superfluous breakfast he
+applied for the job.
+
+The man looked him over scornfully.
+
+"I'm the manager and the whole works combined," he said. "I need a
+dish-washer, come to think of it. Four a week and board. You can go to
+work to-day if----"
+
+But Harvey stalked out, swinging his cane manfully.
+
+"Well, God knows I've tried hard enough," he said to himself,
+resignedly, as he headed for the railway station. It was still six
+minutes of train time. "I'll write to Mr. Davis out in Blakeville this
+evening. He told me that my place would always be open to me."
+
+It was nearly one o'clock when he appeared at Nellie's apartment.
+Rachel admitted him. He hung his hat and coat on the rack, deposited
+his cane in the corner, and sauntered coolly into the little
+sitting-room, the maid looking on in no little wonder and uneasiness.
+
+"Where's my wife?" he asked, taking up the morning paper from the
+centre table and preparing to make himself at home in the big
+armchair.
+
+"She's out to lunch, sir."
+
+He laid the paper down.
+
+"Where?"
+
+Rachel mentioned a prominent downtown cafe affected by the
+profession.
+
+"Will you have lunch here, sir?" she inquired.
+
+"No," said he, determinedly. "Thank you just the same. I'm lunching
+downtown. I--I thought perhaps she'd like to join me."
+
+Rachel rang for the elevator and he departed, amiably doffing his hat
+to her as he dropped to the floor below.
+
+At one of the popular corner tables in the big cafe a party of men and
+women were seated, seven or eight in all. Nellie Duluth had her back
+toward the other tables in the room. It was a bit of modesty that she
+always affected. She did not like being stared at. Besides, she could
+hold her audience to the very end, so to speak, for all in the place
+knew she was there and were willing to wait until she condescended to
+face them in the process of departure.
+
+It was a very gay party, comprising a grand-opera soprano and a tenor
+of world-wide reputation, as well as three or four very well-known New
+Yorkers. Manifestly, it was Fairfax's luncheon. The crowd at this
+table was observed by all the neck-craners in the place. Every one was
+telling every one else what every one knew:--"That's Nellie Duluth
+over there."
+
+As the place began to clear out and tables were being abandoned here
+and there, a small man in a checked suit appeared in the doorway. An
+attendant took his hat and coat away from him while he was gazing with
+kaleidoscopic instability of vision upon the gay scene before him. He
+had left his walking-stick in a street car, a circumstance which
+delayed him a long time, for, on missing it, he waited at a corner in
+the hope of recognising the motorman on his return trip up Madison
+Avenue.
+
+The head-waiter was bowing before him and murmuring, "How many, sir?"
+
+"How many what?" mumbled Harvey, with a start.
+
+"In your party?" asked the man, not half so politely and with a degree
+of distance in his attitude. It did not look profitable.
+
+"Oh! Only one, sir. Just a sandwich and a cup of coffee, I think."
+
+There was a little table away over in the corner sandwiched between
+the doors of entrance and egress for laden waiters and 'bus boys.
+Toward this a hastily summoned second or third assistant conducted
+the newcomer. Twice during the process of traversing this illimitable
+space Harvey bumped against chairs occupied by merry persons who
+suddenly became crabbed and asked him who the devil he was stumbling
+over.
+
+A blonde, flushed woman who sat opposite Nellie at the table in the
+corner caught sight of him as he passed. She stared hard for a moment
+and then allowed a queer expression to come into her eyes.
+
+"For Heaven's sake!" she exclaimed, with considerable force.
+
+"What's the matter? Your husband?" demanded Nellie Duluth, with a
+laugh.
+
+"No," she said, staring harder. "Why, I can't be mistaken. Yes, as I
+live, it's Mr.--Mr. What's-His-Name, your husband, Nellie."
+
+"Don't turn 'round, Nellie," whispered Fairfax, who sat beside her.
+
+"I don't believe it!" cried Nellie, readily. "It isn't possible for
+Harvey to be here. Where is he?" she demanded in the same breath,
+looking over her shoulder.
+
+Harvey was getting out of the way of a 'bus boy and a stack of
+chinaware and in the way of a waiter with a tray of peach Melbas when
+she espied him.
+
+"For the land's sake!" she gasped, going clear back to Blakeville for
+the expression. "I don't dare look, Carrie. Tell me, has he got a--a
+fairy with him? Break it gently."
+
+"Fairy?" sneered Fairfax, suddenly uncomfortable. "Why, he's lost in
+the wood. He's alone on a desert isle. What the deuce is he doing
+here?"
+
+Harvey gave his order to the disdainful waiter and then settled back
+in his chair for the first deliberate look around the room in quest of
+his wife.
+
+Their eyes met. She had turned halfway round in her chair and was
+looking at him with wide-open, unbelieving eyes. He felt himself
+suddenly tied hand and foot to the chair. Now that he had found her he
+could do no more than stare at her in utter bewilderment. He had come
+tilting at windmills.
+
+The flush deepened in her cheek as she turned her attention to the
+dessert that had just been set down before her. She was very quiet, in
+marked contrast to her mood of the moment before.
+
+Fairfax made a remark which set the others to laughing. She did not
+smile, but toyed nervously with the dessert fork. Under cover of the
+laughter he leaned over and whispered, an anxious, troubled note in
+his voice:--
+
+"I'll call the head waiter and have him put out before he does
+anything crazy."
+
+"Put out?" she repeated. "Why, what do you think he'd try to do?"
+
+"He's got an ugly look in his eye. I tell you, he'll create a scene.
+That's what he's here for. You remember what happened----"
+
+She laughed shrilly. "He won't shoot any one," she said in his ear.
+"Harvey create a scene! Oh, that's rich!"
+
+"He hasn't forgotten the thrashing I gave him. He has been brooding
+over it, Nellie." Fairfax was livid about the eyes.
+
+"Well, I respect him for trying to thrash you, even though he got the
+worst of it." She looked again in Harvey's direction. He was still
+staring steadily at her. "He's all alone over there and he's
+miserable. I can't stand it. I'm going over to sit with him."
+
+As she arose Fairfax reached out and grasped her arm.
+
+"Don't be a fool," he said, in dismay.
+
+"I won't," she replied, sweetly. "Trust me. So long, people. I'm going
+over to have coffee with my husband."
+
+If the occupants of the big cafe were surprised to see Nellie Duluth
+make her way over to the table and sit down with the queer little
+person in checks, not so Harvey. He arose to greet her and would have
+kissed her if she had not restrained him. He was gratified, overjoyed,
+but not surprised.
+
+"Hello!" she said, sharply, to cover the inward disquiet that
+possessed her. She was looking intently into his eyes as if searching
+for something she dreaded.
+
+"Hello!" was his response. He was still a trifle dazed.
+
+She sat down opposite him. Before she could think of anything further
+to say the head waiter rushed up to inquire if Miss Duluth and her
+friend wouldn't prefer a table at one of the windows.
+
+"No, this will do," she said, thankful for the interruption.
+
+"We are doing very nicely," said Harvey, rather pompously, adding in a
+loud voice of authority:--"Tell that fellow to hustle my luncheon
+along, will you?" Then, turning to Nellie, he said:--"You don't look
+as though you'd ever been sick a day in your life, Nellie."
+
+She laughed uncomfortably. "How are you, Harvey? And Phoebe?"
+
+"Fine. Never better. Why don't you come out and see us occasionally?"
+
+"May I order a cup of black coffee?" she asked, ignoring the question.
+She was sorely puzzled.
+
+"Have a big one," he urged, signalling a waiter.
+
+Her curiosity conquered. "What in Heaven's name brought you here,
+Harvey?"
+
+He told her of the word Rachel had given him. Nellie made a mental
+note of the intention to speak plainly to Rachel.
+
+"Who are your friends?" he asked. Just then he caught a glimpse of
+Fairfax's face. He turned very cold.
+
+"Mr. Fairfax is giving a luncheon for two of the grand-opera people,"
+she explained.
+
+He forced his courage. "I don't want you to have anything more to do
+with that man," he said. "He's a scoundrel."
+
+"Now, don't be silly," she cried. "What train are you going out on?"
+
+"I don't know. Maybe I'll stay in. I'll go up to your flat, I guess,
+for a couple of days. Phoebe's all right. She's over the diphtheria
+now----"
+
+"Diphtheria?" gasped Nellie, wide-eyed, overlooking his other
+declaration, which, by the way, was of small moment.
+
+"Almost died, poor kiddie."
+
+She flared up in an instant. "Why wasn't I told? What were you
+thinking of, you little fool?"
+
+"If you had taken the trouble to come out to Tarrytown, you could have
+found out for yourself," he retorted, coolly. "Now, see here, Nellie,
+I've come in to see you and to have a very plain talk with you. So
+just hold your horses. Don't fly off the handle. I am the head of this
+family and I'm going to boss it from this time on."
+
+"You----" she began, in a furious little shriek, her eyes blazing. She
+caught herself up in time. Two or three people nearby looked up at the
+sound of her raised voice. She lowered it to a shrill, intense
+half-whisper. "What do you mean by coming here in this way? Everybody
+is laughing at me. You make me ridiculous. I won't stand for it; do
+you hear?"
+
+He was colder if possible than before, but he was resolute.
+
+"We've got to have an understanding, the sooner the better," he said,
+quietly.
+
+"Yes, you're right," she repeated; "the sooner the better."
+
+"We can't talk here," he said, suddenly conscious that the eyes of
+many were upon them. "Go over and ask that infernal sneak to excuse
+you, and we'll go up to the flat."
+
+"I'm going motoring this aft----"
+
+"You do as I tell you!" said he, in a strange voice.
+
+"Why, Harvey----" she stammered, catching her breath.
+
+"When you've had your coffee," he added.
+
+She sipped her coffee in silence, in wonder, in bitter resentment. He
+munched the club sandwich and sucked the coffee through his thin
+moustache with a vehemence that grated on her nerves terribly.
+
+"I've had all I want," she said, suddenly putting the little cup down
+with a crash.
+
+"Then go over and tell 'em you've got to go home."
+
+She crossed the room, red-faced and angry. He watched her as she made
+an announcement to the party, saw them laugh uproariously, and smiled
+in triumph over the evidence of annoyance on the part of Fairfax.
+Nellie was whispering something close to the big man's ear, and he was
+shaking his head vigorously. Then she waved her hand to the party and
+started away. Fairfax arose to follow her. As he did so, Harvey came
+to his feet and advanced. The big man stopped short, with a look of
+actual alarm in his eyes, and went back to his seat, hastily motioning
+to the head waiter.
+
+Five minutes later Miss Duluth emerged from the cafe, followed by the
+little man in the checked suit.
+
+An attendant blew his whistle and called out down the line of waiting
+motors:--
+
+"Mr. Fairfax's car up!"
+
+"Get me a taxi," ordered Nellie, hastily.
+
+The man betrayed his surprise. She was obliged to repeat the order.
+
+"What does a taxi to--to our place cost?" demanded Harvey, feeling in
+his pocket.
+
+"Never mind," she snapped. "I'll pay for it."
+
+"No, you won't," he asserted. "I raised seventeen dollars yesterday on
+the watch mother gave me. It's my own money, Nellie, remember that."
+
+Rachel was plainly amazed when the couple walked into the apartment.
+The two at once resumed the conversation they had carried on so
+vigorously in the taxicab on the way up from downtown. Nellie did not
+remove her hat, sharply commanding Rachel to leave the room.
+
+"No," she said, "she simply has to go to the convent. She'll be safe
+there, no matter how things turn out for you and me, Harve, I insist
+on that."
+
+"Things are going to turn out all right for us, Nellie," he protested,
+a plaintive note in his voice. It was easily to be seen which had been
+the dominating force in the ride home.
+
+"Now, you've got to be reasonable, Harve," she said, firmly. "We can't
+go on as we have been going. Something's just got to happen."
+
+"Well, doggone it, haven't I said that I'll agree to your trip to
+Europe? I won't put a stop to that. I see your point clearly. The
+managers think it wise for you to do a bit of studying abroad. I can
+see that. I'm not going to be mean. Three months' hard work over there
+will get you into grand-opera sure. But that has nothing to do with
+Phoebe. She can go to Blakeville with me, and then when you come back
+next fall I'll have a job here in New York and we'll----"
+
+"Don't talk foolishness," she blurted out. "You've said that three or
+four times. First you wanted me to go back to Blakeville to live. You
+insisted on it. What do you think I am? Why, I wouldn't go back to
+Blakeville if Heaven was suddenly discovered to be located there
+instead of up in the sky. That's settled. No Blakeville for me. Or
+Phoebe either. Do you suppose I'm going to have that child grow up
+like--like"--she changed the word and continued--"like a yap?"
+
+"All I ask is that you will give me a chance to show what I can do,"
+he said, earnestly.
+
+"You can do that just as well with Phoebe in the convent, as I've said
+before."
+
+"She's as much my child as she is yours," he proclaimed, stoutly.
+
+"Then you ought to be willing to do the sensible thing by her."
+
+"Why, good Lord, Nell, she's only five," he groaned. "She'll die of
+homesickness."
+
+"Nonsense! She'll forget both of us in a month and be happy."
+
+"She won't forget me!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Well, I've said my say," she announced, pacing the floor. "Suppose we
+agree to disagree. Well, isn't it better to have her out of the
+mess?"
+
+"I won't give her up, derned if I do!"
+
+"Say, don't you know if it comes to a question of law, the Court will
+give her to me?"
+
+"I'm not trying to take her away from you."
+
+"You're trying to ruin my career."
+
+"Fairfax has put all this into your head, Nellie, dear. He's a
+low-down rascal."
+
+"He's my friend, and a good one, too. I don't believe he offered you
+that money to agree to a separation."
+
+"Darn it all, you can still see the scar on my lip. That ought to
+prove something. If I hadn't stumbled, I'd have knocked him silly. As
+it was, he kicked me in the face when I was down."
+
+"He told me you assaulted him without cause."
+
+"He lied."
+
+"Well, that's neither here nor there. I'm sorry you were beaten up so
+badly. It wasn't right, I'll admit. He said you were plucky, Harve. I
+couldn't believe him at first."
+
+His face brightened.
+
+"You give me a chance and I'll show you how plucky I am!" he cried.
+"Come on now, Nellie, let's make a fresh start."
+
+She was silent for a long time. At heart she was fair and honest. She
+had lost her love and respect for the little man, but, after all, was
+that altogether his fault? She was sorry for him.
+
+"Well, I'll think it over," she said, at last.
+
+"I'll write to Mr. Davis to-night!" he cried, encouraged.
+
+"All right. I hope he'll give you a job," said she, also brightening,
+but for an entirely different reason.
+
+"You'll give up this awful thing of--of separating; won't you?"
+
+"I'll promise one thing, Harvey," said she, suddenly sincere. "I won't
+do anything until I come back from the road. That's fair, isn't it?
+And I'll tell you what else I'll do. I will let Phoebe stay with you
+in Tarrytown until the end of the tour--in May."
+
+"But I'm going to Blakeville," he protested.
+
+"No," said she, firmly, "I won't agree to that. Either you stay in
+Tarrytown or she goes to the convent."
+
+"I can't get work in Tarrytown."
+
+"You can tell Mr. Davis you will come out to Blakeville in time for
+the opening of the soda-water season. I'll do the work for the family
+till then. That's all I'll consent to. I'll ask for a legal separation
+if you don't agree to that."
+
+"I--I'll think it over," he said, feebly; "I'll stay here with you for
+a couple of days, and----"
+
+"You will do nothing of the sort!" she cried. "Do you suppose I'm
+going to spoil my chances for a separation, if I want to apply, by
+letting you live in the same house with me? Why, that would be wasting
+the two months already gone."
+
+He did not comprehend, and he was afraid to ask for an explanation.
+The term "failure to provide" was the only one he could get through
+his head; "desertion" was out of the question. His brow was wet with
+the sweat of a losing conflict. He saw that he would have to accept
+her ultimatum and trust to luck to provide a way out of the
+difficulty. Time would justify him, he was confident. In the meantime,
+he would ease his conscience by returning the check, knowing full well
+that it would not be accepted. He would then take it, of course, with
+reservations. Every dollar was to be paid back when he obtained a
+satisfactory position.
+
+He determined, however, to extract a promise from her before giving
+in.
+
+"I will consent, Nellie, on the condition that you stop seeing this
+fellow Fairfax and riding around in his big green car. I won't stand
+for that."
+
+Nellie smiled, more to herself than to him. She had Fairfax in the
+meshes. He was safe. The man was madly in love with her. The instant
+she was freed from Harvey he stood ready to become her
+husband--Fairfax, with all his money and all his power.
+
+And that is precisely what she was aiming at. She could afford to
+smile, but somehow she was coming to feel that this little man who
+was now her husband had it in him, after all, to put up a fierce and
+desperate fight for his own. If he were pushed to the wall he would
+fight back like a wildcat, and well she knew that there would be
+disagreeable features in the fray.
+
+"If you are going to talk like that I'll never speak to you again,"
+she said, banishing the smile. "Don't you trust me?"
+
+"Sure," he said, and he meant it. "That's not the point."
+
+"See here, Harve," she said, abruptly putting her hands on his
+shoulders and looking squarely into his eyes, "I want you to believe
+me when I say that I am a--a--well, a good woman."
+
+"I believe it," he said, solemnly. Then, as an after-thought, "and I
+want to say the same thing for myself."
+
+"I've never doubted you," said she, fervently. "Now, go home and let
+things stand as they are. Write to Mr. Davis to-night."
+
+"I will. I say, won't you give me a kiss?"
+
+She hesitated, still calculating.
+
+"Yes, if you promise not to tell anybody," she said, with mock
+solemnity. As she expected, he took it seriously.
+
+"Do you suppose I go 'round telling people I've kissed my wife?"
+
+Then she gave him a peck on the cheek and let it go as a kiss.
+
+"When will you be out to see us?"
+
+"Soon, I hope," she said, quickly. "Now go, Harve, I'm going to lie
+down and rest. Kiss Phoebe for me."
+
+He got to the door. She was fairly pushing him.
+
+"I feel better," he said, taking a long breath.
+
+"So do I," said she.
+
+He paused for a moment to frown in some perplexity.
+
+"Say, Nell, I left my cane in a street car coming down. Do you think
+it would be worth while to advertise for it?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+CHRISTMAS
+
+
+The weeks went slowly by and Christmas came to the little house in
+Tarrytown. He had become resigned but not reconciled to Nellie's
+continued and rather persistent absence, regarding it as the sinister
+proclamation of her intention to carry out the plan for separation in
+spite of all that he could do to avert the catastrophe. His devotion
+to Phoebe was more intense than ever; it had reached the stage of
+being pathetic.
+
+True to his word, he wrote to Mr. Davis, who in time responded, saying
+that he could give him a place at the soda fountain in May, but that
+the wages would of necessity be quite small, owing to the fact that
+the Greeks had invaded Blakeville with the corner fruit stands and
+soft-drink fountains. He could promise him eight dollars a week, or
+ten dollars if he would undertake to come to the store at six A.M. and
+sweep up, a task now performed by the proprietor himself, who found
+himself approaching an age and a state of health that craved a feast
+of luxury and ease hitherto untasted.
+
+Harvey was in considerable doubt as to his ability to live on ten
+dollars a week and support Phoebe, as well as to begin the task of
+reimbursing Nellie for her years of sacrifice. Still, it was better
+than nothing at all, so he accepted Mr. Davis' ten-dollar-a-week offer
+and sat back to wait for the coming of the first of May.
+
+In the meantime he would give Nellie some return for her money by
+doing the work now performed by Annie--or, more advisedly speaking, a
+portion of it. He would conduct Phoebe to the kindergarten and call
+for her at the close of sessions, besides dressing her in the morning,
+sewing on buttons for her, undressing her at night, and all such jobs
+as that, with the result that Annie came down a dollar a week in her
+wages and took an extra afternoon out. In this way he figured he could
+save Nellie at least thirty dollars. He also did the janitor's work
+about the place and looked after the furnace, creating a salvage of
+three dollars and a half a month. Moreover, instead of buying a new
+winter suit and replacing his shabby ulster with one more comely and
+presentable, he decided to wear his fall suit until January and then
+change off to his old blue serge spring suit, which still seemed far
+from shiny, so far as he could see.
+
+And so it was that Nellie's monthly check for $150 did very nicely.
+
+Any morning at half-past eight, except Sunday, you could have seen him
+going down the street with Phoebe at his side, her hand in his, bound
+for the kindergarten. He carried her little lunch basket and whistled
+merrily when not engaged in telling her about Santa Claus. She
+startled him one day by asking:--
+
+"Are you going to be Santy this year, daddy, or is mamma?"
+
+He looked down at the rich little fur coat and muff Nellie had
+outfitted her with, at the expensive hat and the silk muffler, and
+sighed.
+
+"If you ask questions, Santy won't come at all," he said, darkly.
+"He's a mighty cranky old chap, Santy is."
+
+He did not take up physical culture with Professor Flaherty, partly on
+account of the expense, partly because he found that belabouring
+cannel coal and shaking down the furnace was more developing than he
+had expected. Raking the autumn leaves out of the front yard also was
+harder than he had any idea it would be. He was rather glad it was not
+the season for the lawn mower.
+
+Down in his heart he hoped that Nellie would come out for Christmas,
+but he knew there was no chance of it. She would have two performances
+on that day. He refrained from telling Phoebe until the very last
+minute that her mother would not be out for the holiday. He hadn't the
+heart to do it.
+
+He broke the news then by telling the child that her mother was
+snowbound and couldn't get there. An opportune fall of snow the day
+before Christmas gave him the inspiration.
+
+He set up the little Christmas tree in the back parlour, assisted by
+Bridget and Annie, after Phoebe had gone to bed on Christmas Eve. She
+had urged him to read to her about Tiny Tim, but he put her off with
+the announcement that Santa was likely to be around early on account
+of the fine sleighing, and if he saw that she wasn't asleep in bed he
+might skip the house entirely.
+
+The expressman, in delivering several boxes from town that afternoon,
+had said to his helper:--
+
+"That little fellow that came to the door was Nellie Duluth's husband,
+Mr.--Mr.----Say, look on the last page there and see what his name is.
+He's a cheap skate. A dime! Wot do you think of that?" He held up the
+dime Harvey had given him and squinted at it as if it were almost too
+small to be seen with the naked eye.
+
+Nellie sent "loads" of presents to Phoebe--toys, books, candies,
+fruits, pretty dresses, a velvet coat, a tiny pair of opera glasses,
+strings of beads, bracelets, rings--dozens of things calculated to set
+a child mad with delight. There were pocketbooks, handkerchiefs,
+squirrel stoles and muffs for each of the servants, a box of cigars
+for the postman, another for the milkman, and a five-dollar bill for
+the janitor.
+
+There was nothing for Harvey.
+
+He looked for a long time at the envelope containing the five-dollar
+bill, an odd little smile creeping into his eyes. He was the janitor,
+he remembered. After a moment of indecision he slipped the bill into
+another envelope, which he marked "Charity" and laid aside until
+morning brought the mendicant who, with bare fingers and frosted lips,
+always came to play his mournful clarionet in front of the house.
+
+Surreptitiously he searched the two big boxes carefully, inwardly
+hoping that she had not forgotten--nay, ignored--him. But there was
+nothing there, not even a Christmas card! It was the first Christmas
+she had....
+
+The postman brought a small box addressed to Phoebe. The handwriting
+was strange, but he thought nothing of it. He thought it was nice of
+Butler to remember his little one and lamented the fact that he had
+not bought something for the little Butlers, of whom there were seven.
+He tied a red ribbon around the sealed package and hung it on the
+tree.
+
+After it was all over he went upstairs and tried to read "Dombey &
+Son." But a mist came over his blue eyes and his vision carried him
+far beyond the printed page. He was not thinking of Nellie, but of his
+old mother, who had never forgotten to send him a Christmas present.
+Ah, if she were alive he would not be wondering to-night why Santa
+Claus had passed him by.
+
+He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, closed "Dombey & Son" for the
+night, and went to bed, turning his thoughts to the row of tiny
+stockings that hung from the mantelpiece downstairs--for Phoebe had
+put to use all that she could find--and then let them drift on through
+space to an apartment near Central Park, where Kris Kringle had
+delivered during the day a little packet containing the brooch he had
+purchased for his wife out of the money he had preserved from the sale
+of his watch some weeks before.
+
+He was glad he had sent Nellie a present.
+
+Bright and early the next morning he was up to have a final look at
+the tree before Phoebe came down. A blizzard was blowing furiously;
+the windows were frosted; the house was cheerless. He built the fires
+in the grates and sat about with his shoulders hunched up till the
+merry crackle of the coals put warmth into his veins. The furnace! He
+thought of it in time, and hurried to the basement to replenish the
+fires. They were out. He had forgotten them the night before. Bridget
+found him there later on, trying to start the kindling in the two
+furnaces.
+
+"I clean forgot 'em last night," he said, sheepishly.
+
+"I don't wonder, sor," said Bridget, quite genially for a cold
+morning. "Do you be after going upstairs this minute, sor. I'll have
+them roaring in two shakes av a lamb's tail. Mebby there's good news
+for yez up there. Annie's at the front door this minute, taking a
+telegram from the messenger bye, sor. Merry Christmas to ye, sor."
+
+"Merry Christmas, Bridget!" cried he, gaily. His heart had leaped at
+the news she brought. A telegram from Nellie! Hurrah! He rushed
+upstairs without brushing the coal dust from his hands.
+
+The boy was waiting for his tip. Harvey gave him a quarter and wished
+him a merry Christmas.
+
+"A miserable day to be out," said he, undecided whether to ask the
+half-frozen lad to stay and have a bite of breakfast or to let him go
+out into the weather.
+
+"It's nothin' when you gets used to it," said the blue-capped
+philosopher, and took his departure.
+
+"But it's the getting used to it," said Harvey to Annie as she handed
+him the message. He tore open the envelope. She saw the light die out
+of his eyes.
+
+The message was from Ripton, the manager, and read:--
+
+  "Please send Phoebe in with the nurse to see the matinee to-day."
+The invitation was explicit enough. He was not wanted.
+
+If he had a secret inclination to ignore the command altogether, it
+was frustrated by his own short-sightedness. He gulped, and then read
+the despatch aloud for the benefit of the maid. When it was too late
+he wished he had not done so.
+
+Annie beamed. "Oh, sir, I've always wanted to see Miss Duluth act. I
+will take good care of Phoebe."
+
+He considered it beneath his dignity to invite her into a conspiracy
+against the child, so he gloomily announced that he would go in with
+them on the one-o'clock train and stay to bring them out.
+
+The Christmas tree was a great success. Phoebe was in raptures. He
+quite forgot his own disappointment in watching her joyous antics. As
+the distributor of the presents that hung on the gaily trimmed and
+dazzling cedar, he came at last to the little package from Butler. It
+contained a beautiful gold chain, at the end of which hung suspended a
+small diamond-studded slipper--blue enamel, fairly covered with rose
+diamonds.
+
+Phoebe screamed with delight. Her father's face was a study.
+
+"Why, they are diamonds!" he murmured. "Surely Butler wouldn't be
+giving presents like this." A card fluttered to the floor. He picked
+it up and read:--"A slipper for my little Cinderella. Keep it and it
+will bring good luck."
+
+There was no name, but he knew who had sent it. With a cry of rage he
+snatched the dainty trinket from her hand and threw it on the floor,
+raising his foot to stamp it out of shape with his heel. His first
+vicious attempt missed the slipper altogether, and before he could
+repeat it the child was on the floor clutching it in her fingers,
+whimpering strangely. The servants looked on in astonishment.
+
+He drew back, mumbling something under his breath. In a moment he
+regained control of himself.
+
+"It--it isn't meant for you, darling," he said, hoarsely. "Santy left
+it here by mistake. We will send it back to him. It belongs to some
+other poor little girl."
+
+"But I am Cinderella!" she cried. "Mr. Fairy-fax said so. He told
+Santy to bring it to me. Please, daddy--please!"
+
+He removed it gently from her fingers and dropped it into his pocket.
+His face was very white.
+
+"Santy isn't that kind of a man," he said, without rhyme or reason.
+"Now, don't cry, dearie. Here's another present from mamma. See!"
+
+Later in the morning, after she had quite forgotten the slipper, he
+put it back in the box, wrapped it carefully, and addressed the
+package to L. Z. Fairfax, in New York City, without explanation or
+comment.
+
+[Illustration: Copyright, 1911, by Dodd, Mead & Company
+Phoebe]
+
+Before the morning was half over he was playing with Phoebe and her
+toys quite as childishly and gleefully as she, his heart in the fun
+she was having, his mind almost wholly cleared of the bitterness and
+rancour that so recently had filled it to overflowing.
+
+The three of them floundered through the snowdrifts to the station,
+laughing and shouting with a merriment that proved infectious. The
+long-obscured sun came out and caught the disease, for he smiled
+broadly, and the wind gave over snarling and smirked with an
+amiability that must have surprised the shivering horses standing
+desolate in front of certain places wherein their owners partook of
+Christmas cheer that was warm.
+
+Harvey took Phoebe and the nurse to the theatre in a cab. He went up
+to the box-office window and asked for the two tickets. The seller was
+most agreeable. He handed out the little envelope with the words:--
+
+"A packed house to-day, Mr.--Mr.--er--ah, and--sold out for to-night.
+Here you are, with Miss Duluth's compliments--the best seats in the
+house. And here is a note for--er--yes, for the nurse."
+
+Annie read the note. It was from Nellie, instructing her to bring
+Phoebe to her dressing-room after the performance, where they would
+have supper later on.
+
+Harvey saw them pass in to the warm theatre and then slowly wandered
+out to the bleak, wind-swept street. There was nothing for him to do;
+nowhere that he could go to seek cheerful companions. For an hour or
+more he wandered up and down Broadway, his shoulders hunched up, his
+mittened hands to his ears, water running from his nose and eyes, his
+face the colour of the setting sun. Half-frozen, he at last ventured
+into a certain cafe, a place where he had lunched no fewer than
+half-a-dozen times, and where he thought his identity might have
+remained with the clerk at the cigar stand.
+
+There were men at the tables, smoking and chatting hilariously. At one
+of them sat three men, two of whom were actors he had met. Summoning
+his courage, he approached them with a well-assumed air of
+nonchalance.
+
+"Merry Christmas," was his greeting. The trio looked at him with no
+sign of recognition. "How are you. Mr. Brackley? How are you, Joe?"
+
+The two actors shook hands with him without much enthusiasm, certainly
+without interest.
+
+Light dawned on one of them. "Oh," said he, cheerlessly, "how are you?
+I couldn't place you at first." He did not offer to introduce him to
+the stranger, but proceeded to enlighten the other players. "It's--oh,
+you know--Nellie Duluth's husband."
+
+The other fellow nodded and resumed his conversation with the third
+man. At the same time the speaker leaned forward to devote his
+attention to the tale in hand, utterly ignoring the little man, who
+stood with his hand on the back of the vacant chair.
+
+Harvey waited for a few moments. "What will you have to drink?" he
+asked, shyly dropping into the chair. They stared at him and shook
+their heads.
+
+"That seat's engaged," said the one called "Joe," gruffly.
+
+Harvey got up instantly. "Oh," he said, in a hesitating manner. They
+went on with their conversation as if he were not there. After a
+moment he moved away, his ears burning, his soul filled with
+mortification and shame. In a sort of daze he approached the cigar
+stand and asked for a box of cigarettes.
+
+"What kind?" demanded the clerk, laying down his newspaper.
+
+Harvey smiled engagingly. "Oh, the kind I usually get!" he said,
+feeling sure that the fellow remembered him and the quality he
+smoked.
+
+"What's that?" snapped the clerk, scowling.
+
+The purchaser hastily mentioned a certain kind of cigarette, paid for
+it after the box had been tossed at him, and walked away. Fixed in his
+determination to stay in the place until he was well thawed out, he
+took a seat at a little table near the stairway and ordered a hot
+lemonade.
+
+He was conscious of a certain amount of attention from the tables
+adjacent to the trio he had accosted. Several loud guffaws came to his
+ears as he sipped the boiling drink. Taking an unusually copious
+swallow, he coughed and spluttered as the liquid scalded his tongue
+and palate. The tears rushed to his eyes. From past experience he knew
+that his tongue would be sore for at least a week. He had such a
+tender tongue, Nellie said.
+
+For half an hour he sat there dreaming and brooding. It was much
+better than tramping the streets. A clock on the opposite wall pointed
+to four o'clock. The matinee would be over at a quarter to five.
+Presently he looked again. It was five minutes past four. Really it
+wasn't so bad waiting after all; not half so bad as he had thought it
+would be.
+
+Some one tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up with a start. The
+manager of the place stood at his elbow.
+
+"This isn't a railway station, young feller," he said, harshly.
+"You'll have to move on. These tables are for customers."
+
+"But I've bought----"
+
+"Now, don't argue about it. You heard what I said. Move along."
+
+The man's tone was peremptory. Poor Harvey looked around as if in
+search of a single benevolent face, and then, without a word of
+protest, arose and moved quickly toward the door. His eyes were fixed
+in a glassy stare on the dancing, elusive doorway. He wondered if he
+could reach it before he sank through the floor. Somehow he had the
+horrible feeling that just as he opened it to go out some one would
+kick him from behind. He could almost feel the impact of the boot and
+involuntarily accelerated his speed as he opened the door to pass into
+the biting air of the now darkening street.
+
+"I hate this damned town," said he to himself over and over again as
+he flung himself against the gale that almost blew him off his feet.
+When he stopped to take his bearings, he was far above Longacre Square
+and still going in the wrong direction. He was befuddled. A policeman
+told him in hoarse, muffled tones to go back ten blocks or so if he
+wanted to find the theatre where Nellie Duluth was playing.
+
+A clock in an apothecary's shop urged him to hurry. When he came to
+the theatre, the newsboys were waiting for the audience to appear. He
+was surrounded by a mob of boys and men shouting the extras.
+
+"Is the show out?" he asked one of them.
+
+"No, sir!" shouted the boy, eagerly. "Shall I call up your automobile,
+mister!"
+
+"No, thank you," said Harvey through his chattering teeth. For a
+moment he felt distinctly proud and important. So shrewd a judge of
+humanity as a New York "newsy" had taken him to be a man of parts. For
+awhile he had been distressed by the fear, almost the conviction, that
+he was regarded by all New York as a "jay."
+
+Belying his suddenly acquired air of importance, he hunched himself up
+against the side of the building, partly sheltered from the wind, and
+waited for the crowd to pour forth. With the appearance of the first
+of those home-goers he would repair to the stage door, and, once
+behind the scenes, was quite certain that he would receive an
+invitation from Nellie to join the gay little family supper party in
+her dressing-room.
+
+When the time came, however, he approached the doorman with
+considerable trepidation. He had a presentiment that there would be
+"no admittance." Sure enough, the grizzled doorman, poking his head
+out, gruffly informed him that no one was allowed "back" without an
+order from the manager. Harvey explained who he was, taking it for
+granted that the man did not know him with his coat-collar turned
+up.
+
+"I know you, all right," said the man, not unkindly. "I'd like to let
+you in, but--you see----" He coughed and looked about rather
+helplessly, avoiding the pleading look in the visitor's eyes.
+
+"It's all right," Nellie's husband assured him, but an arm barred the
+way.
+
+"I've got strict orders not to admit you," blurted out the doorman,
+hating himself.
+
+"Not to admit me!" said Harvey, slowly.
+
+"I'm sorry, sir. Orders is orders."
+
+"But my little girl is there."
+
+"Yes, sir, I understand. The orders are for you, sir, not for the
+kid." Struck by the look in the little man's eyes he hastened to say,
+"Maybe if you saw Mr. Ripton out front and sent a note in to Miss
+Duluth, she'd change her mind and----"
+
+"Good Lord!" fell from Harvey's lips as he abruptly turned away to
+look for a spot where he could hide himself from every one.
+
+Two hours later, from his position at the mouth of the alley, he saw a
+man come out of the stage door and blow a whistle thrice. He was
+almost perishing with cold; he was sure that his ears were frozen. A
+sharp snap at the top of each of them and a subsequent warmth urged
+him to press quantities of snow against them, obeying the old rule
+that like cures like. From the kitchens of a big restaurant came the
+odours of cooking foodstuffs. He was hungry on this Merry Christmas
+night, but he would not leave his post. He had promised to wait for
+Phoebe and take her out home with him in the train.
+
+With the three blasts of the whistle he stirred his numb feet and
+edged nearer to the stage door. A big limousine came rumbling up the
+alley from behind, almost running him down. The fur-coated chauffeur
+called him unspeakable names as he passed him with the emergency
+brakes released.
+
+Before he could reach the entrance, the door flew open and a small
+figure in fur coat and a well known white hat was bundled into the
+machine by a burly stage hand. A moment later Annie clambered in, the
+door was slammed and the machine started ahead.
+
+He shouted as he ran, but his cry was not heard. As the car careened
+down the narrow lane, throwing snow in all directions, he dropped into
+a dejected, beaten walk. Slowly he made his way in the trail of the
+big car--it was too dark for him to detect the colour, but he felt it
+was green--and came at last to the mouth of the alley, desolate,
+bewildered, hurt beyond all understanding.
+
+For an instant he steadied himself against the icy wall of a building,
+trying to make up his mind what to do next. Suddenly it occurred to
+him that if he ran hard and fast he could catch the train--the
+seven-thirty--and secure a bit of triumph in spite of circumstances.
+
+He went racing up the street toward Sixth Avenue, dodging head-lowered
+pedestrians with the skill of an Indian, and managed to reach
+Forty-second Street without mishap or delay. Above the library he was
+stopped by a policeman, into whose arms he went full tilt, almost
+bowling him over. The impact dazed him. He saw many stars on the
+officer's breast. As he looked they dwindled into one bright and
+shining planet and a savage voice was bellowing:--
+
+"Hold still or I'll bat you over the head!"
+
+"I'm--I'm trying to make the seven-thirty," he panted, wincing under
+the grip on his arm.
+
+"We'll see about that," growled the policeman.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Mr. Policeman, I haven't done anything. Honest,
+I'm in a hurry. My little girl's on that train. We live in Tarrytown.
+She'll cry her eyes out if I----"
+
+"What was you running for?"
+
+"For it," said Harvey, at the end of a deep breath.
+
+"It's only seven-five now," said the officer, suspiciously.
+
+"Well, it's the seven-ten I want, then," said Harvey, hastily.
+
+"I guess I'll hold you here and see if anybody comes chasin' up after
+you. Not a word, now. Close your trap."
+
+As no one came up to accuse the prisoner of murder, theft, or
+intoxication, the intelligent policeman released him at the expiration
+of fifteen minutes. A crowd had collected despite the cold. Harvey was
+always to remember that crowd of curious people; he never ceased
+wondering where they came from and why they were content to stand
+there shivering in the zero weather when there were stoves and steam
+radiators everywhere to be found. To add to his humiliation at least a
+dozen men and boys, not satisfied with the free show as far as it had
+gone, pursued him to the very gates in the concourse.
+
+"Darned loafers!" said Harvey, hotly, but under his breath, as he
+showed his ticket and his teeth at the same time. Then he rushed for
+the last coach and swung on as it moved out.
+
+Now, if I were inclined to be facetious or untruthful I might easily
+add to his troubles by saying that he got the wrong train, or
+something of the sort, but it is not my purpose to be harder on him
+than I have to be.
+
+It was the right train, and, better still, Annie and Phoebe were in
+the very last seat of the very last coach. With a vast sigh he dropped
+into a vacant seat ahead of them and began fanning himself with his
+hat, to the utter amazement of onlookers, who had been disturbed by
+his turbulent entrance.
+
+The newspaper Annie was reading fell from her hands.
+
+"My goodness, sir! Where did you come from?" she managed to inquire.
+
+"I've been--dining--at--Sherry's," he wheezed. "Annie, will you look
+and see if my ears are frozen?"
+
+"They are, sir. Good gracious!"
+
+He realised that he had been indiscreet.
+
+"I--I sat in a draught," he hastened to explain. "Did you have a nice
+time, Phoebe?"
+
+The child was sleepy. "No," she said, almost sullenly. His heart gave
+a bound. "Mamma wouldn't let me eat anything. She said I'd get fat."
+
+"You had quite enough to eat, Phoebe," said Annie.
+
+"I didn't," said Phoebe.
+
+"Never mind," said her father, "I'll take you to Sherry's some day."
+
+"When, daddy?" she cried, wide awake at once. "I like to go to places
+with you."
+
+He faltered. "Some day after mamma has gone off on the road. We'll be
+terribly gay, while she's away, see if we ain't."
+
+Annie picked up the paper and handed it to him.
+
+"Miss Duluth ain't going on the road, sir," she said. "It's in the
+paper."
+
+He read the amazing news. Annie, suddenly voluble, gave it to him by
+word of mouth while he read. It was all there, she said, to prove
+what she was telling him. "Just as if I couldn't read!" said Harvey,
+as he began the article all over again after perusing the first few
+lines in a perfectly blank state of mind.
+
+"Yes, sir, the doctor says she can't stand it on the road. She's got
+nervous prosperity and she's got to have a long rest. That Miss Brown
+is going to take her place in the play after this week and Miss Duluth
+is going away out West to live for awhile to get strong again.
+She----What is the name of the town, Phoebe?"
+
+"Reno," said Phoebe, promptly.
+
+"But the name of the town isn't in the paper, sir," Annie informed
+him. "It's a place where people with complications go to get rid of
+them, Miss Nellie says. The show won't be any good without her, sir. I
+wouldn't give two cents to see it."
+
+He sagged down in the seat, a cold perspiration starting out all over
+his body.
+
+"When does she go--out there!" he asked, as in a dream.
+
+"First of next week. She goes to Chicago with the company and then
+right on out to--to--er--to----"
+
+"Reno," said he, lifelessly.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+He did not know how long afterward it was that he heard Phoebe saying
+to him, her tired voice barely audible above the clacking of the
+wheels:--
+
+"I want a drink of water, daddy."
+
+His voice seemed to come back to him from some far-away place. He
+blinked his eyes several times and said, very wanly:--
+
+"You mustn't drink water, dearie. It will make you fat."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE REVOLVER
+
+
+He waited until the middle of the week for some sign from her; none
+coming, he decided to go once more to her apartment before it was too
+late. The many letters he wrote to her during the first days after
+learning of her change of plans were never sent. He destroyed them. A
+sense of shame, a certain element of pride, held them back. Still, he
+argued with no little degree of justice, there were many things to be
+decided before she took the long journey--and the short step she was
+so plainly contemplating.
+
+It was no more than right that he should make one last and determined
+effort to save her from the fate she was so blindly courting. It was
+due her. She was his wife. He had promised to cherish and protect her.
+If she would not listen to the appeal, at least he would have done his
+bounden duty.
+
+There was an ever present, ugly fear, too, that she meant, by some
+hook or crook, to rob him of Phoebe.
+
+"And she's as much mine as hers," he declared to himself a thousand
+times or more.
+
+Behind everything, yet in plain view, lay his own estimate of
+himself--the naked truth--he was "no good!" He had come to the point
+of believing it of himself. He was not a success; he was quite the
+other thing. But, granting that, he was young and entitled to another
+chance. He could work into a partnership with Mr. Davis if given the
+time.
+
+Letting the midweek matinee slip by, he made the plunge on a Thursday.
+She was to leave New York on Sunday morning; that much he knew from
+the daily newspapers, which teemed with Nellie's breakdown and its
+lamentable consequences. It would be at least a year, the papers said,
+before she could resume her career on the stage. He searched the
+columns daily for his own name, always expecting to see himself in
+type little less conspicuous than that accorded to her, and
+stigmatised as a brute, an inebriate, a loafer. It was all the same to
+him--brute, soak, or loafer. But even under these extraordinary
+conditions he was as completely blanketed by obscurity as if he never
+had been in existence.
+
+Sometimes he wondered whether she could get a divorce without
+according him a name. He had read of fellow creatures meeting death
+"at the hand of a person (or of persons) unknown." Could a divorce
+complaint be worded in such non-committal terms? Then there was that
+time-honoured shroud of private identity, the multitudinous John Doe.
+Could she have the heart to bring proceedings against him as John Doe?
+He wondered.
+
+If he were to shoot himself, so that she might have her freedom
+without going to all the trouble of a divorce or the annoyance of a
+term of residence in Reno, would she put his name on a tombstone? He
+wondered.
+
+A strange, a most unusual thing happened to him just before he left
+the house to go to the depot. He was never quite able to account for
+the impulse which sent him upstairs rather obliquely to search through
+a trunk for a revolver, purchased a couple of years before, following
+the report that housebreakers were abroad in Tarrytown, and which he
+had promptly locked away in his trunk for fear that Phoebe might get
+hold of it.
+
+He rummaged about in the trunk, finally unearthing the weapon. He
+slipped it into his overcoat pocket with a furtive glance over his
+shoulder. He chuckled as he went down the stairs. It was a funny thing
+for him to do, locking the revolver in the trunk that way. What
+burglar so obliging as to tarry while he went through all the
+preliminaries incident to destruction under the circumstances? Yes, it
+was stupid of him.
+
+He did not consider the prospect of being arrested for carrying
+concealed weapons until he was halfway to the city, and then he broke
+into a mild perspiration. From that moment he eyed every man with
+suspicion. He had heard of "plain clothes men." They were the very
+worst kind. "They take you unawares so," said he to himself, with
+which he moved closer to the wall of the car, the more effectually to
+conceal the weapon. It wouldn't do to be caught going about with a
+revolver in one's pocket. That would be the very worst thing that
+could happen. It would mean "the Island" or some other such place, for
+he could not have paid a fine.
+
+It occurred to him, therefore, that it would be wiser to get down at
+One Hundred and Tenth street and walk over to Nellie's. The policemen
+were not so thick nor so bothersome up there, he figured, and it was a
+rather expensive article he was carrying; one never got them back from
+the police, even if the fine were paid.
+
+Footsore, weary, and chilled to the bone, he at length came to the
+apartment building wherein dwelt Nellie Duluth. In these last few
+weeks he had developed a habit of thinking of her as Nellie Duluth, a
+person quite separate and detached from himself. He had come to regard
+himself as so far removed from Nellie Duluth that it was quite
+impossible for him to think of her as Mrs.--Mrs.--he had to rack his
+brain for the name, the connection was so remote.
+
+He had walked miles--many devious and lengthening miles--before
+finally coming to the end of his journey. Once he came near asking a
+policeman to direct him to Eighty-ninth Street, but the sudden
+recollection of the thing he carried stopped him in time. That and the
+discovery of a sign on a post which frostily informed him that he was
+then in the very street he sought.
+
+It should go without the saying that he hesitated a long time before
+entering the building. Perhaps it would be better after all to write
+to her. Somewhat sensibly he argued that a letter would reach her,
+while it was more than likely he would fall short of a similar
+achievement. She couldn't deny Uncle Sam, but she could slam the door
+in her husband's face. Yes, he concluded, a letter was the thing.
+Having come to this half-hearted decision, he proceeded to argue
+himself out of it. Suppose that she received the letter, did it follow
+that she would reply to it? He might enclose a stamp and all that sort
+of thing, but he knew Nellie; she wouldn't answer a letter--at least,
+not that kind of letter. She would laugh at it, and perhaps show it to
+her friends, who also would be vastly amused. He remembered some of
+them as he saw them in the cafe that day; they were given to
+uproarious laughter. No, he concluded, a letter was not the thing. He
+must see her. He must have it out with her, face to face.
+
+So he went up in the elevator to the eleventh floor, which was the top
+one, got out and walked down to the sixth, where she lived. Her name
+was on the door plate. He read it three or four times before
+resolutely pressing the electric button. Then he looked over his
+shoulder quickly, impelled by the queer feeling that some one was
+behind him, towering like a dark, threatening shadow. A rough hand
+seemed ready to close upon his shoulder to drag him back and down. But
+no one was there. He was alone in the little hall. And yet something
+was there. He could feel it, though he could not see it; something
+sinister that caused him to shiver. His tense fingers relaxed their
+grip on the revolver. Strangely the vague thing that disturbed him
+departed in a flash and he felt himself alone once more. It was very
+odd, thought he.
+
+Rachel came to the door. She started back in surprise, aye, alarm,
+when she saw the little man in the big ulster. A look of consternation
+sprang into her black eyes.
+
+He opened his lips to put the natural question, but paused with the
+words unuttered. The sound of voices in revelry came to his ears from
+the interior of the apartment, remote but very insistent. Men's voices
+and women's voices raised in merriment. His gaze swept the exposed
+portion of the hall. Packing boxes stood against the wall, piled high.
+The odour of camphor came out and smote his sense of smell.
+
+Rachel was speaking. Her voice was peculiarly hushed and the words
+came quickly, jerkily from her lips.
+
+"Miss Duluth is engaged, sir. I'm sorry she will not be able to see
+you."
+
+He stared uncertainly at her and beyond her.
+
+"So she's packing her things," he murmured, more to himself than to
+the servant. Rachel was silent. He saw the door closing in his face. A
+curious sense of power, of authority, came over him. "Hold on," he
+said sharply, putting his foot against the door. "You go and tell her
+I want to see her. It's important--very important!"
+
+"She has given orders, sir, not to let you----"
+
+"Well, I'm giving a few orders myself, and I won't stand for any back
+talk, do you hear? Who is the master of this place, tell me that?" He
+thumped his breast with his knuckles. "Step lively, now. Tell her I'm
+here."
+
+He pushed his way past her and walked into what he called the
+"parlour," but what was to Nellie the "living-room." Here he found
+numerous boxes, crates, and parcels, all prepared for shipment or
+storage. Quite coolly he examined the tag on a large crate. The word
+"Reno" smote him. As he cringed he smiled a sickly smile without being
+conscious of the act. "Wait a minute," he called to Rachel, who was
+edging in an affrighted manner toward the lower end of the hall and
+the dining-room. "What is she doing?"
+
+Rachel's face brightened. He was going to be amenable to reason.
+
+"It's a farewell luncheon, sir. She simply can't be disturbed. I'll
+tell her you were here."
+
+"You don't need to tell her anything," said he, briskly. The sight of
+those crates and boxes had made another man of him. "I'll announce
+myself. She won't----"
+
+"You'd better not!" cried Rachel, distractedly. "There are some men
+here. They will throw you out of the apartment. They're big enough,
+Mr.--Mr.----"
+
+He grinned. His fingers took a new grip on the revolver.
+
+"Napoleon wasn't as big as I am," he said, much to Rachel's distress.
+It sounded very mad to her. "Size isn't everything."
+
+"For Heaven's sake, sir, please don't----"
+
+"They seem to be having a gay old time," said he, as a particularly
+wild burst of laughter came from the dining-room. He hesitated. "Who
+is out there?"
+
+Rachel was cunning. "I don't know the names, sir. They're--they're
+strangers to me."
+
+At that instant the voice of Fairfax came to his ears, loudly
+proclaiming a health to the invalid who was going to Reno. Harvey
+stood there in the hall, listening to the toast. He heard it to the
+end, and the applause that followed. If he were to accept the
+diagnosis of the speaker, Nellie was repairing to Reno to be cured of
+an affliction that had its inception seven years before, a common
+malady, but not fatal if taken in time. The germ, or, more properly
+speaking, the parasite, unlike most bacteria, possessed but two legs,
+and so on and so forth.
+
+The laughter was just dying away when Harvey--who recognised himself
+as the pestiferous germ alluded to--strode into the room, followed by
+the white-faced Rachel.
+
+"Who was it, Rachel?" called out Nellie, from behind the enormous
+centrepiece of roses which obstructed her view of the unwelcome
+visitor.
+
+The little man in the ulster piped up, shrilly:--
+
+"She don't know my name, but I guess you do, if you'll think real
+hard."
+
+There were ten at the table, flushed with wine and the exertion of
+hilarity. Twenty eyes were focussed on the queer, insignificant little
+man in the doorway. If they had not been capable of focussing them on
+anything a moment before, they acquired the power to do so now.
+
+Nellie, staring blankly, arose. She wet her lips twice before
+speaking.
+
+"Who let you in here?" she cried, shrilly.
+
+One of the men pushed back his chair and came to his feet a bit
+unsteadily.
+
+"What the deuce is it, Nellie?" he hiccoughed.
+
+Nellie had her wits about her. She was very pale, but she was calm.
+Instinctively she felt that trouble--even tragedy--was confronting
+her; the thing she had feared all along without admitting it even to
+herself.
+
+"Sit down, Dick," she commanded. "Don't get excited, any of you. It's
+all right. My husband, that's all."
+
+The man at her right was Fairfax. He was gaping at Harvey with horror
+in his face. He, too, had been expecting something like this.
+Involuntarily he shifted his body so that the woman on the other side,
+a huge creature, was partially between him and the little man in the
+door.
+
+"Get him out of here!" he exclaimed. "He's just damned fool enough to
+do something desperate if we----"
+
+"You shut up!" barked Harvey, in a sudden access of fury. "Not a word
+out of you, you big bully."
+
+"Get him out!" gasped Fairfax, holding his arm over his face. "What
+did I tell you? He's crazy! Grab him, Smith! Hurry up!"
+
+"Grab him yourself!" retorted Smith, in some haste. "He's not gunning
+for me."
+
+What there was to be afraid of in the appearance of the little
+ulstered man who stood there with his hands in his pockets I cannot
+for the life of me tell, but there was no doubt as to the
+consternation he produced in the midst of this erstwhile jovial crowd.
+An abrupt demand of courtesy urged him to raise his hand to doff his
+hat in the presence of ladies. Twenty terrified eyes watched the
+movement as if ten lives hung on the result thereof. Half of the
+guests were standing, the other half too petrified to move. A husband
+is a thing to strike terror to the heart, believe me, no matter how
+trivial he may be, especially an unexpected husband.
+
+"Go away, Harvey!" cried Nellie, placing Fairfax between herself and
+the intruder.
+
+"Don't do that!" growled the big man, sharply. "Do you suppose I want
+him shooting holes through me in order to get at you?"
+
+"Is he going to shoot?" wailed one of the women, dropping the
+wineglass she had been holding poised near her lips all this time. The
+tinkle of broken glass and the douche of champagne passed unnoticed.
+"For God's sake, let me get out of here!"
+
+"Keep your seats, ladies and gents," said Harvey, hastily, beginning
+to show signs of confusion. "I just dropped in to see Nellie for a few
+minutes. Don't let me disturb you. She can step into the parlour, I
+guess. They'll excuse you, Nellie."
+
+"I'll do nothing of the sort," snapped Nellie, noting the change in
+him. "Go away or I'll have a policeman called."
+
+He grinned. "Well, if you do, he'll catch me with the goods," he said,
+mysteriously.
+
+"The goods?" repeated Nellie.
+
+"Do you want to see it?" he asked, fixing her with his eyes. As he
+started to withdraw his hand from his overcoat pocket, a general cry
+of alarm went up and there was a sudden shifting of positions.
+
+"Don't do that!" roared two or three of the men in a breath.
+
+"Keep that thing in your pocket!" commanded Fairfax, huskily, without
+removing his gaze from the arm that controlled the hidden hand.
+
+Harvey gloated. He waved the hand that held his hat. "Don't be
+alarmed, ladies," he said. "You are quite safe. I can hit a silver
+dollar at twenty paces, so there's no chance of anything going wild."
+
+"For God's sake!" gasped Fairfax. Suddenly he disappeared beneath the
+edge of the table. His knees struck the floor with a resounding
+thump.
+
+"Get away from me!" shrieked the corpulent lady, kicking at him as
+she fled the danger spot.
+
+Harvey stooped and peered under the table at his enemy, a broad grin
+on his face. Fairfax took it for a grin of malevolence.
+
+"Peek-a-boo!" called Harvey.
+
+"Don't shoot! For the love of Heaven, don't shoot!" yelled Fairfax.
+Then to the men who were edging away in quest of safety behind the
+sideboard, china closet, and serving table:--"Why don't you grab him,
+you idiots?"
+
+Harvey suddenly realised the danger of his position. He straightened
+up and jerked the revolver from his pocket, brandishing it in full
+view of them all.
+
+"Keep back!" he shouted--a most unnecessary command.
+
+Those who could not crowd behind the sideboard made a rush for the
+butler's pantry. Feminine shrieks and masculine howls filled the air.
+Chairs were overturned in the wild rush for safety. No less than three
+well-dressed women were crawling on their hands and knees toward the
+only means of exit from the room.
+
+"Telephone for the police!" yelled Fairfax, backing away on
+all-fours, suggesting a crawfish.
+
+"Stay where you are!" cried Harvey, now thoroughly alarmed by the turn
+of affairs.
+
+They stopped as if petrified. The three men who were wedged in the
+pantry door gave over struggling for the right of precedence and
+turned to face the peril.
+
+Once more he brandished the weapon, and once more there were shrieks
+and groans, this time in a higher key.
+
+Nellie alone stood her ground. She was desperate. Death was staring
+her in the face, and she was staring back as if fascinated.
+
+"Harvey! Harvey!" she cried, through bloodless lips. "Don't do it!
+Think of Phoebe! Think of your child!"
+
+Rachel was stealing down the hall. The little Napoleon suddenly
+realised her purpose and thwarted it.
+
+"Come back here!" he shouted. The trembling maid could not obey for a
+very excellent reason. She dropped to the floor as if shot, and,
+failing in the effort to crawl under a low hall-seat, remained there,
+prostrate and motionless.
+
+He then addressed himself to Nellie, first cocking the pistol in a
+most cold-blooded manner. Paying no heed to the commands and
+exhortations of the men, or the whines of the women, he announced:--
+
+"That's just what I've come here to ask you to do, Nellie; think of
+Phoebe. Will you promise me to----"
+
+"I'll promise nothing!" cried Nellie, exasperated. She was beginning
+to feel ridiculous, which was much worse than feeling terrified. "You
+can't bluff me, Harvey, not for a minute."
+
+"I'm not trying to bluff you," he protested. "I'm simply asking you to
+think. You can think, can't you? If you can't think here with all this
+noise going on, come into the parlour. We can talk it all over quietly
+and--why, great Scott, I don't want to kill anybody!" Noting an abrupt
+change in the attitude of the men, who found some encouragement in his
+manner, he added hastily, "Unless I have to, of course. Here, you!
+Don't get up!" The command was addressed to Fairfax. "I'd kind of like
+to take a shot at you, just for fun."
+
+"Harvey," said his wife, quite calmly, "if you don't put that thing
+in your pocket and go away I will have you locked up as sure as I'm
+standing here."
+
+"I ask you once more to come into the parlour and talk it over with
+me," said he, wavering.
+
+"And I refuse," she cried, furiously.
+
+"Go and have it out with him, Nellie," groaned Fairfax, lifting his
+head above the edge of the table, only to lower it instantly as
+Harvey's hand wabbled unsteadily in a sort of attempt to draw a bead
+on him.
+
+"Well, why don't you shoot?" demanded Nellie, curtly.
+
+"No! No!" roared Fairfax.
+
+"No! No!" shrieked the women.
+
+"For two cents I would," stammered Harvey, quite carried away by the
+renewed turmoil.
+
+"You would do anything for two cents," said Nellie, sarcastically.
+
+"I'd shoot myself for two cents," he wailed, dismally. "I'm no use,
+anyway. I'd be better off dead."
+
+"For God's sake let him do it, Nellie," hissed Fairfax. "That's the
+thing; the very thing."
+
+Poor Harvey suddenly came to a full realisation of the position he was
+in. He had not counted on all this. Now he was in for it, and there
+was no way out of it. A vast sense of shame and humiliation mastered
+him. Everything before him turned gray and bleak, and then a hideous
+red.
+
+He had not meant to do a single thing he had already done. Events had
+shaped themselves for him. He was surprised, dumfounded, overwhelmed.
+The only thought that now ran through his addled brain was that he
+simply had to do something. He couldn't stand there forever, like a
+fool, waving a pistol. In a minute or two they would all be laughing
+at him. It was ghastly. The wave of self-pity, of self-commiseration
+submerged him completely. Why, oh why, had he got himself into this
+dreadful pickle? He had merely come to talk it over with Nellie, that
+and nothing more. And now, see what he was in for!
+
+"By jingo," he gasped, in the depth of despair, "I'll do it! I'll make
+you sorry, Nellie; you'll be sorry when you see me lying here all shot
+to pieces. I've been a good husband to you. I don't deserve to die
+like this, but----" His watery blue eyes took in the horrified
+expressions on the faces of his hearers. An innate sense of delicacy
+arose within him. "I'll do it in the hall."
+
+"Be careful of the rug," cried Nellie, gayly, not for an instant
+believing that he would carry out the threat.
+
+"Shall I do it here?" he asked, feebly.
+
+"No!" shrieked the women, putting their fingers in their ears.
+
+"By all means!" cried Fairfax, with a loud laugh of positive relief.
+
+To his own as well as to their amazement, Harvey turned the muzzle of
+the pistol toward his face. It wabbled aimlessly. Even at such short
+range he had the feeling that he would miss altogether and looked over
+his shoulder to see if there was a picture or anything else on the
+wall that might be damaged by the stray bullet. Then he inserted the
+muzzle in his mouth.
+
+Stupefaction held his audience. Not a hand was lifted, not a breath
+was drawn. For half a second his finger clung to the trigger without
+pressing it. Then he lowered the weapon.
+
+"I guess I better go out in the hall, where the elevator is," he
+said. "Don't follow me. Stay where you are. You needn't worry."
+
+"I'll bet you ten dollars you don't do it," said Fairfax, loudly, as
+he came to his feet.
+
+"I don't want your dirty money, blast you," exclaimed Harvey, without
+thinking. "Good-by, Nellie. Be good to Phoebe. Tell 'em out in
+Blakeville that I--oh, tell 'em anything you like. I don't give a
+rap!"
+
+He turned and went shambling down the hall, his back very stiff, his
+ears very red.
+
+It was necessary to step over Rachel's prostrate form. He got one foot
+across, when she, crazed with fear, emitted a piercing shriek and
+arose so abruptly that he was caught unawares. What with the start the
+shriek gave him and the uprising of a supposedly inanimate mass, his
+personal equilibrium was put to the severest test. Indeed, he quite
+lost it, going first into the air with all the sprawl of a bronco
+buster, and then landing solidly on his left ear where there wasn't a
+shred of rug to ease the impact. In a twinkling, however, he was on
+his feet, apologising to Rachel. But she was crawling away as fast as
+her hands and knees would carry her. From the dining-room came
+violent shouts, the hated word "police" dominating the clamour.
+
+He slid through the door and closed it after him. A moment later he
+was plunging down the steps, disdaining the elevator, which, however
+fast it may have been, could not have been swift enough for him in his
+present mood. The police! They would be clanging up to the building in
+a jiffy, and then what? To the station house!
+
+Half-way down he paused to reflect. Voices above came howling down the
+shaft, urging the elevator man to stop him, to hold him, to do all
+manner of things to him. He felt himself trapped.
+
+So he sat down on an upper step, leaned back against the marble wall,
+closed his eyes tightly, and jammed the muzzle of the revolver against
+the pit of his stomach.
+
+"I hate to do it," he groaned, and then pulled the trigger.
+
+The hammer fell with a sharp click. He opened his eyes. If it didn't
+hurt any more than that he could do it with them open. Why not? In a
+frenzy to have it over with he pulled again and was gratified to find
+that the second bullet was not a whit more painful than the first.
+Then he thought of the ugly spectacle he would present if he confined
+the mutilation to the abdominal region. People would shudder and say,
+"how horrible he looks!" So he considerately aimed the third one at
+his right eye.
+
+Even as he pulled the trigger, and the hammer fell with the usual
+click, his vision centred on the black little hole in the end of the
+barrel. Breathlessly he waited for the bullet to emerge. Then, all of
+a sudden, he recalled that there had been no explosion. The fact had
+escaped him during the throes of a far from disagreeable death. He put
+his hand to his stomach. In a dumb sort of wonder he first examined
+his fingers, and, finding no gore, proceeded to a rather careful
+inspection of the weapon.
+
+Then he leaned back and dizzily tried to remember when he had taken
+the cartridges out of the thing.
+
+"Thank the Lord," he said, quite devoutly. "I thought I was a goner,
+sure. Now, when did I take 'em out?"
+
+The elevator shot past him, going upward. He paid no attention to it.
+
+It all came back to him in a flash. He remembered that he had never
+loaded it at all. A loaded pistol is a very dangerous thing to have
+about the house. The little box of cartridges that came with the
+weapon was safely locked away at the bottom of the trunk, wrapped in a
+thick suit of underwear for protection against concussion.
+
+Even as he congratulated himself on his remarkable foresight the
+elevator, filled with excited men, rushed past him on the way down. He
+heard them saying that a dangerous lunatic was at large and that he
+ought to be----But he couldn't hear the rest of it, the car being so
+far below him.
+
+"By jingo!" he exclaimed, leaping to his feet in consternation.
+"They'll get me now. What a blamed fool I was!"
+
+Scared out of his wits, he dashed up the steps, three at a jump, and,
+before he knew it, ran plump into the midst of the women who were
+huddled at Nellie's landing, waiting for the shots and the death yells
+from below. They scattered like sheep, too frightened to scream, and
+he plunged through the open door into the apartment.
+
+"Where are you, Nellie?" he bawled. "Hide me! Don't let 'em get me.
+Nellie! Oh, Nellie!"
+
+The shout would have raised the dead. Nellie was at the telephone. She
+dropped the receiver and came toward him.
+
+"Aren't you ashamed of yourself!" she squealed, clutching his arm.
+"What an awful spectacle you've made of yourself--and me! You
+blithering little idiot. I----"
+
+"Where can I hide?" he whispered, hopping up and down in his
+eagerness. "Hurry up! Under a bed or--anywhere. Good gracious, Nellie,
+they'll get me sure!"
+
+She slammed the door.
+
+"I ought to let them take you and lock you up," she said, facing him.
+The abject terror in his eyes went straight to her heart. "Oh, you
+poor thing!" she cried, in swift compassion. "You--you wouldn't hurt a
+fly. You couldn't. Come along! Quick! I'll do this much for you, just
+this once. Never again! You can get down the back steps into the alley
+if you hurry. Then beat it for home. And never let me see your face
+again."
+
+Three minutes later he was scuttling down the alley as fast as his
+eager legs could carry him.
+
+Nellie was holding the front door against the thunderous assault of a
+half dozen men, giving him time to escape. All the while she was
+thinking of the depositions she could take from the witnesses to his
+deliberate attempt to kill her. He had made it very easy for her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE LAWYER
+
+
+He was dismally confident that he would be arrested and thrown into
+jail on Friday. It was always an unlucky day for him. The fact that
+Nellie had aided and abetted in his undignified flight down the
+slippery back steps did not in the least minimise the peril that still
+hung like a cloud over his wretched head. Of course, he understood:
+she was sorry for him. It was the impulse of the moment. When she had
+had time to think it all over and to listen to the advice of Fairfax
+and the others, she would certainly swear out a warrant.
+
+As a measure of precaution he had slyly tossed the revolver from a car
+window somewhere north of Spuyten Duyvil, and, later on at home,
+stealthily disposed of the box of cartridges.
+
+All evening long he sat huddled up by the fireplace, listening with
+all ears for the ominous sound of constabulary thumpings at the front
+door. The fierce wind shrieked around the corners of the house,
+rattling the shutters and banging the kitchen gate, but he heard
+nothing, for his own heart made such a din in response to the
+successive bursts of noise that all else seemed still by comparison.
+
+His efforts to amuse the perplexed Phoebe were pitiful. The child took
+him to task for countless lapses of memory in his recital of oft-told
+and familiar fairy tales.
+
+But no one came that night. And Friday, too, dragged itself out of
+existence without a sign from Nellie or the dreaded officers of the
+law. You may be sure he did not poke his nose outside the door all
+that day. Somehow he was beginning to relish the thought that she
+would be gone on Sunday, gone forever, perhaps. He loved her, of
+course, but distance at this particular time was not likely to affect
+the enchantment. In fact, he was quite sure he would worship her a
+great deal more comfortably if she were beyond the border of the
+State.
+
+The thought of punishment quite overshadowed a previous dread as to
+how he was going to provide for Phoebe and himself up to the time of
+assuming the job in Davis' drug store. He had long since come to the
+conclusion that if Nellie persisted in carrying out her plan to
+divorce him he could not conscientiously accept help from her, nor
+could he expect to retain custody of the child unless by his own
+efforts he made suitable provision for her. His one great hope in the
+face of this particular difficulty had rested on the outcome of the
+visit to her apartment, the miserable result of which we know. Not
+only had he upset all of his fondest calculations, but he had heaped
+unthinkable ruin in the place he had set aside for them.
+
+There was nothing consoling in the situation, no matter how he looked
+at it. More than once he regretted the emptiness of that confounded
+cylinder. If there had been a single bullet in the thing his troubles
+would now be over. Pleasing retrospect! But not for all the money in
+the world would he again subject himself to a similar risk.
+
+It made him shudder to even think of it. It was hard enough for him to
+realise that he had had the monumental courage to try it on that never
+to be forgotten occasion. As a matter of fact, he was rather proud of
+it, which wouldn't have been at all possible if he had succeeded in
+the cowardly attempt.
+
+Suppose, thought he with a qualm--suppose there had been a bullet! It
+was now Saturday. His funeral would be held on Saturday. By Saturday
+night he would be in a grave--a lonesome, desolate grave. Nellie would
+have seen to that, so that she could get away on Sunday. Ugh! It was
+most unpleasant!
+
+The day advanced. His spirits were rising. If nothing happened between
+then and midnight he was reasonably secure from arrest.
+
+But in the middle of the day the blow fell. Not the expected blow, but
+one that stunned him and left him more miserable than anything else in
+the world could have done.
+
+There came a polite knock at the door. Annie admitted a
+pleasant-faced, rather ceremonious young man, who said he had business
+of the utmost importance to transact with Mr.--Mr.--He glanced at a
+paper which he drew from his pocket, and supplying the name asked if
+the gentleman was in.
+
+Harvey was tiptoeing toward the dining-room, with Phoebe at his heels,
+when the stranger entered the library.
+
+"Pardon me," called the young man, with what seemed to Harvey
+unnecessary haste and emphasis. "Just a moment, please!"
+
+Harvey stopped, chilled to the marrow.
+
+"It was all a joke," he said, quickly. "Just a little joke of mine.
+Ha! Ha!" It was a sepulchral laugh.
+
+"I am John Buckley, from the offices of Barnes & Canby, representing
+Miss Duluth, your wife, I believe? It isn't a pleasant duty I have to
+perform Mr.--Mr--er--but, of course, you understand we are acting in
+the interests of our client and if we can get together on this----"
+
+"Can't you come some other day?" stammered Harvey, holding Phoebe's
+hand very tightly in his. "I'm--I'm not well to-day. We--we are
+waiting now for the health officer to--to see whether it's smallpox or
+just a rash of----"
+
+The pleasant young gentleman laughed.
+
+"All the more necessary why we should settle the question at once. If
+it is smallpox the child would be quarantined with you--that would be
+unfortunate. You don't appear to have a rash, however."
+
+"It hasn't got up to my face yet," explained Harvey, feebly. "You
+ought to see my body. It's----"
+
+"I've had it," announced the young man, glibly; "so I'm immune." He
+winked.
+
+"What do you want?" demanded Harvey, bracing himself for the worst.
+"Out with it. Let's see your star."
+
+"Oh, I'm not a cop. I'm a lawyer."
+
+The other swallowed noisily.
+
+"A lawyer?"
+
+"We represent Miss Duluth. I'll get down to tacks right away, if
+you'll permit me to sit down." He took a chair.
+
+"Tacks?" queried Harvey, a retrospective grin appearing on his lips.
+"Gee! I wish I'd thought to put a couple----But, excuse me, I can't
+talk without my lawyer being present."
+
+The visitor stared. "You--do you mean to say you have retained
+counsel?"
+
+"The best in New York," lied Harvey.
+
+Buckley gave a sigh of relief. He knew a lie when he heard one.
+
+"I'd suggest that you send the little girl out of the room. We can
+talk better if we are alone."
+
+After Phoebe's reluctant departure, the visitor bluntly asked Harvey
+which he preferred, State's prison or an amicable adjustment without
+dishonour.
+
+"Neither," said Harvey, moistening his lips.
+
+Thereupon Mr. Buckley calmly announced that his client, Miss Duluth,
+was willing to forego the pleasure of putting him behind the bars on
+condition that he surrendered at once the person of their child--their
+joint child, he put it, so that Harvey might not be unnecessarily
+confused--to be reared, educated, and sustained by her, without let or
+hindrance, from that time forward, so on and so forth; a bewildering
+rigmarole that meant nothing to the stupefied father, who only knew
+that they wanted to take his child away from him.
+
+"Moreover," said Mr. Buckley, "our client has succeeded in cancelling
+the lease on this cottage and has authorised the owner to take
+possession on the first of the month--next Wednesday, that is. Monday
+morning, bright and early, the packers and movers will be here to take
+all of her effects away. Tuesday night, we hope, the house will be
+quite empty and ready to be boarded up. Of course, Mr.--Mr.--er--, you
+will see to it that whatever trifling effects you may have about the
+place are removed by that time. After that, naturally, little Miss
+Phoebe will be homeless unless provision is made for her by--er--by
+the court. We hope to convince you that it will be better for her if
+the question is not referred to a court of justice. Your own good
+sense will point the alternative. Do I make myself quite clear to
+you?"
+
+"No," said Harvey, helplessly.
+
+"Well, I'll be a little more explicit," said the lawyer, grimly. "A
+warrant will be issued for your arrest before two o'clock to-day if
+you do not grasp my meaning before that hour. It is twelve-ten now. Do
+you think you can catch the idea in an hour and fifty minutes?"
+
+Harvey was thoughtful. "What is the smallest sentence they can give me
+if I--if I stand trial?"
+
+"That depends," said Mr. Buckley, slightly taken aback, but without
+submitting an explanation. "You don't want to bring disgrace on the
+child by being branded as a jailbird, do you?"
+
+"Nellie won't have the heart to put me in jail," groaned the unhappy
+little man. "She--she just can't do it. She knows I'd die for her.
+She----"
+
+"But she isn't the State of New York," explained her counsel, briskly.
+"The State hasn't anything in the shape of a heart. Now, I'm here to
+settle the matter without a contest, if that's possible. If you want
+to fight, all right. You know just what you'll get. Besides, isn't it
+perfectly clear to you that Miss Duluth doesn't want to put you in
+jail? That's her idea, pure and simple. I don't mind confessing that
+our firm insisted for a long time on giving you up to the authorities,
+but she wouldn't have it that way. She wants her little girl, that's
+all. Isn't that perfectly fair?"
+
+"She's--she's going to give up the house?" murmured Harvey, passing
+his hand over his eyes.
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"It's a mighty inconvenient time for us to--to look for another
+place----"
+
+"That's just what I've been saying to you," urged Buckley. "The
+Weather Bureau says we'll have zero weather for a month or two. I
+shudder to think of that poor child out in----"
+
+"Oh, Lord!" came almost in a wail from the lips of Phoebe's father. He
+covered his face with his hands. Mr. Buckley, unseen, smiled
+triumphantly.
+
+At four o'clock Phoebe, with all her childish penates, was driven to
+the station by Mr. Buckley, who, it would appear, had come prepared
+for the emergency. Before leaving he gave the two servants a month's
+wages and a two weeks' notice dating from the 18th of December and
+left with Harvey sufficient money to pay up all the outstanding bills
+of the last month--with a little left over.
+
+We draw a curtain on the parting that took place in the little library
+just before the cab drove away.
+
+Phoebe was going to Reno.
+
+Long, long after the departure her father lifted his half-closed blue
+eyes from the coals in the grate and discovered that the room was
+ice-cold.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+He understood the habits of astute theatrical managers so well by this
+time that he did not have to be told that the company would journey to
+Chicago by one of the slow trains. The comfort and convenience of the
+player is seldom considered by the manager, who, as a rule, when there
+is time to spare, transports his production by the least expensive
+way. Harvey knew that Nellie and the "Up in the Air" company would
+pass through Tarrytown on the pokiest day train leaving New York over
+the Central. There was, of course, the possibility that the affluent
+Nellie might take the eighteen-hour train, but it was somewhat
+remote.
+
+Sunday morning found him at the Tarrytown station, awaiting the
+arrival or the passing of the train bearing the loved ones who were
+casting him off. He was there early, bundled in his ulster, an old
+Blakeville cap pulled down over his ears, a limp cigarette between his
+lips. A few of the station employes knew him and passed the time of
+day.
+
+"Going in rather early, ain't you, Mr.--Mr.--" remarked the station
+master, clapping his hands to generate warmth.
+
+"No," said Harvey, leaving the inquirer in the dark as to whether he
+referred to a condition or a purpose.
+
+A couple of hours and a dozen trains went by. Harvey, having exhausted
+his supply of cigarettes, effected the loan of one from the ticket
+agent.
+
+"Waiting for some one, sir?" asked that worthy. "Or are you just down
+to see the cars go by?"
+
+"What time does the Chicago train go through?" asked Harvey.
+
+"Any particular one?"
+
+"No; I'm not particular."
+
+"There's one at eleven-forty."
+
+"I'm much obliged."
+
+He was panic-stricken when the train at last appeared and gave
+unmistakable signs of stopping at Tarrytown. Moved by an inexplicable
+impulse, he darted behind a pile of trunks. His dearest hope had been
+that Phoebe might be on the lookout for him as the cars whizzed
+through, and that she would waft a final kiss to him. But it was going
+to stop! He hadn't counted on that. It was most embarrassing.
+
+From his hiding place he watched the long line of sleepers roll by,
+slower and slower, until with a wheeze they came to a full stop. His
+eager eyes took in every window that passed. There was no sign of
+Phoebe. Somewhat emboldened, he ventured forth from shelter and
+strolled along the platform for a more deliberate scrutiny of the
+windows.
+
+The feeling of disappointment was intense. He had never known
+loneliness so great as this which came to him now. The droop to his
+shoulders became a little more pronounced as he turned dejectedly to
+re-enter the waiting-room. The train began to move out as he neared
+the corner of the building. The last coach crept by. He watched it
+dully.
+
+A shrill cry caught his ear. His eyes, suddenly alert, focussed
+themselves on the observation platform of the private car as it picked
+up speed and began the diminishing process. Braced against the garish
+brass bars that enclosed the little platform was Phoebe, in her white
+fur coat and hood, her mittened fingers clutching the rail, above
+which her rosy face appeared as the result of eager tiptoeing. The
+excellent Rachel stood behind the child, cold and unsmiling.
+
+"Hello, daddy!" screamed Phoebe, managing to toss him a kiss, just as
+he had hoped and expected.
+
+The response cracked in his throat. It was a miserable croak that he
+sent back, but he blew her a dozen kisses.
+
+"Good-bye, daddy!" came the shrill adieu, barely audible above the
+clatter of the receding train.
+
+He stood quite still until the last coach vanished up the track. The
+tears on his cheeks were frozen.
+
+Some one was speaking to him.
+
+"Ain't you going West with 'em, Mr.--, Mr.--?" queried the baggage
+master.
+
+Harvey gazed at him dumbly for a moment or two. Then he lifted his
+chin.
+
+"I--I've got to wait over a few days to see to the packing and storing
+of my household effects," he said, briskly. Then he trudged up the
+hill.
+
+Sure enough, the packers appeared "bright and early" Monday morning,
+just as Buckley had said they would. By nine o'clock the house was
+upside down and by noon it was full of excelsior, tar paper, and
+crating materials. The rasp of the saw and the bang of the hammer
+resounded throughout the little cottage. Burly men dragged helpless
+and unresisting articles of furniture about as if they had a personal
+grudge against each separate piece, and pounded them, and drove nails
+into them, and mutilated them, and scratched them, and splintered
+them, and after they were completely conquered marked their pine board
+coffins with the name "Nellie Duluth," after which they were ready for
+the fireproof graveyard in Harlem.
+
+Dazed and unsteady, Harvey watched the proceedings with the air of one
+who superintends. He gave a few instructions, offered one or two
+suggestions--principally as to the state of the weather--and was on
+the jump all day long to keep out of the way of the energetic workmen.
+He had seen Marceline at the Hippodrome on one memorable occasion.
+Somehow he reminded himself of the futile but nimble clown, who was
+always in the way and whose good intentions invariably were attended
+by disaster.
+
+The foreman of the gang, doubtless with a shrewd purpose in mind,
+opened half the windows in the house, thus forcing his men to work
+fast and furiously or freeze. Harvey almost perished in the icy
+draughts. He shut the front door fifty times or more, and was
+beginning to sniffle and sneeze when Bridget took pity on him and
+invited him into the kitchen. He hugged the cook stove for several
+hours, mutely watching the two servants through the open door of their
+joint bedroom off the kitchen while they stuffed their meagre
+belongings into a couple of trunks.
+
+At last it occurred to him that it would be well to go upstairs and
+pack his own trunk before the workmen got to asking questions. He
+carried his set of Dickens upstairs, not without interrogation, and
+stored the volumes away at the bottom of his trunk. So few were his
+individual belongings that he was hard put to fill the trays compactly
+enough to prevent the shifting of the contents. When the job was done
+he locked the trunk, tied a rope around it and then sat down upon it
+to think. Had he left anything out? He remembered something. He untied
+the knots, unlocked the trunk, shifted half of the contents and put in
+his fishing tackle and an onyx clock Nellie had given him for
+Christmas two years before.
+
+Later on he repeated the operation and made room for a hand saw, an
+auger, a plane, and a hatchet; also a smoking-jacket she had given
+him, and a lot of paper dolls Phoebe had left behind. (Late that
+night, after the lights were out, he remembered the framed motto, "God
+Bless Our Home," which his dear old mother had worked for him in yarns
+of variegated hues while they were honeymooning in Blakeville. The
+home was very cold and still, and the floor was strewn with nails, but
+he got out of bed and put the treasure in the top tray of the trunk.)
+
+Along about four in the afternoon he experienced a sensation of
+uneasiness--even alarm. It began to look as if the workmen would have
+the entire job completed by nightfall. In considerable trepidation he
+accosted the foreman.
+
+"If it's just the same to you I'd rather you wouldn't pack the beds
+until to-morrow--that is, of course, if you are coming back
+to-morrow."
+
+"Maybe we'll get around to 'em and maybe we won't," said the foreman,
+carelessly. "We've got to pack the kitchen things to-morrow and the
+china."
+
+"You see, it's this way," said Harvey. "I've got to sleep somewhere!"
+
+"I see," said the foreman, and went on with his work, leaving Harvey
+in doubt.
+
+"Have a cigar?" he asked, after a doleful pause. The man took it and
+looked at it keenly.
+
+"I'll smoke it after a while," he said.
+
+"Do the best you can about the bed in the back room upstairs," said
+Harvey, engagingly.
+
+An express wagon came at five o'clock and removed the servants'
+trunks. A few minutes later the two domestics, be-hatted and cloaked,
+came up to say good-bye to him.
+
+"You're not leaving to-day?" he cried, aghast.
+
+"If it's just the same to you, sor," said Bridget. "We've both got
+places beginnin' to-morry."
+
+"But who'll cook my----"
+
+"Niver you worry about that, sor; I've left a dozen av eggs, some
+bacon, rolls, and----"
+
+"All right. Good-bye," broke in the master, turning away.
+
+"Good luck, sor," said Bridget, amiably. Then they went away.
+
+His dismal reflections were broken by the foreman, who found him in
+the kitchen.
+
+"We'll be back early in the morning and clean up everything. The van
+will be here at ten. Is everything here to go to the warehouse? I
+notice some things that look as though they might belong to you
+personally."
+
+There were a few pieces of furniture and bric-a-brac that Harvey could
+claim as his own. He stared gloomily at the floor for a long time,
+thinking. Of what use were they to him now? And where was he to put
+them in case he claimed them?
+
+"I guess you'd better store everything," he said, dejectedly.
+"They--they all go together."
+
+"The--your trunk, sir; how about that?"
+
+"If you think you've got room for it, I----"
+
+"Sure we have."
+
+"Take it, too. I'm going to pack what clothes I need in a suitcase. So
+much easier to carry than a trunk." He was unconsciously funny, and
+did not understand the well-meant guffaw of the foreman.
+
+It was a dreary, desolate night that he spent in the topsy-turvy
+cottage. He was quite alone except for the queer shapes and shadows
+that haunted him. When he was downstairs he could hear strange
+whisperings above; when he was upstairs the mutterings were below.
+Things stirred and creaked that had never shown signs of animation
+before. The coals in the fireplace spat with a malignant fury, as if
+blown upon by evil spirits lurking in the chimney until he went to bed
+so that they might come forth to revel in the gloom. The howl of the
+wind had a different note, a wail that seemed to come from a child in
+pain; forbidding sounds came up from the empty cellar; always there
+was something that stood directly behind him, ready to lay on a
+ghostly hand. He crouched in the chair, feeling never so small, never
+so impotent as now. The chair was partially wrapped for crating. Every
+time he moved there was a crackle of paper that sounded like the
+rattle of thunder before the final ear-splitting crash. As still as a
+mouse he sat and listened for new sounds, more sinister than those
+that had gone before; and, like the mouse, he jumped with each
+recurring sound.
+
+Towering crates seemed on the verge of toppling over upon him, boxes
+and barrels appeared to draw closer together to present a barrier
+against any means of escape; cords and ropes wriggled with life as he
+stared at them, serpentine things that kept on creeping toward him,
+never away.
+
+Oh, for the sound of Phoebe's voice!
+
+"Quoth the raven, nevermore!" That sombre sentence haunted him. He
+tried to close his ears against it, but to no purpose. It crept up
+from some inward lurking place in his being, crooning a hundred
+cadences in spite of all that he could do to change the order of his
+thoughts.
+
+Far in the night he dashed fearfully up to his dismantled bedroom, a
+flickering candle in his hand. He had gone about the place to see that
+all of the doors and windows were fastened. Removing his shoes and his
+coat, he hurriedly crawled in between the blankets and blew out the
+light. Sleep would not come. He was sobbing. He got up twice and
+lighted the candle, once to put away the motto, again to take out of
+the trunk the cabinet size photograph of himself and Nellie and the
+baby, taken when the latter was three years old. Hugging this to his
+breast, he started back to bed.
+
+A sudden thought staggered him. For a long time he stood in the middle
+of the room, shivering as he debated the great question this thought
+presented. At last, with a shudder, he urged his reluctant feet to
+carry him across the room to the single gas jet. Closing his eyes he
+turned on the gas full force and then leaped into the bed, holding the
+portrait to his heart. Then he waited for the end of everything.
+
+When he opened his eyes broad daylight was streaming in upon him. Some
+one was pounding on the door downstairs. He leaped out of bed and
+began to pull on his shoes.
+
+Suddenly it occurred to him that by all rights he should be lying
+there stiff and cold, suffocated by the escaping gas. He sniffed the
+air. There was no odour of gas. With a gasp of alarm he rushed over
+and turned off the stopcock, a cold perspiration coming out all over
+him.
+
+"Gee, I hope I'm in time!" he groaned aloud. "I don't want to die.
+I--I--it's different in the daytime. The darkness did it. I hope
+I'm----" Then, considerably puzzled, he interrupted himself to turn
+the thing on again. He stood on his toes to smell the tip. "By jingo,
+I remember now, that fellow turned it off in the meter yesterday. Oh,
+Lord; what a close call I've had!"
+
+He was so full of glee when he opened the door to admit the packers
+that they neglected, in their astonishment, to growl at him for
+keeping them standing in the cold for fifteen or twenty minutes.
+
+"Thought maybe you'd gone and done it," said the foreman. "Took poison
+or turned on the gas, or something. You was mighty blue yesterday,
+Mr.--Mr. Duluth."
+
+With the arrival of the van he set off to pay the bills due the
+tradespeople in town, returning before noon with all the receipts, and
+something like $20 left over. The world did not look so dark and
+dreary to him now. In his mind's eye he saw himself rehabilitated in
+the sight of the scoffers, prospering ere long to such an extent that
+not only would he be able to reclaim Phoebe, but even Nellie might be
+persuaded to throw herself on his neck and beg for reinstatement in
+his good graces. With men like Harvey the ill wind never blows long or
+steadily; it blows the hardest under cover of night. The sunshine
+takes the keen, bitter edge off it, and it becomes a balmy zephyr.
+
+Already he was planning the readjustment of his fortunes.
+
+At length the van was loaded. His suitcase sat on the front porch,
+puny and pathetic. The owner of the house was there, superintending
+the boarding up of the windows and doors. Harvey stood in the middle
+of the walk, looking on with a strange yearning in his heart. All of
+his worldly possessions reposed in that humble bag, save the cotton
+umbrella that he carried in his hand. A cotton umbrella, with the
+mercury down to zero!
+
+"Well, I'm sorry you're leaving," said the owner, pocketing the keys
+as he came up to the little man. "Can I give you a lift in my cutter
+down to the station?"
+
+"If it isn't too much bother," said Harvey, blinking his eyes very
+rapidly.
+
+"You're going to the city, I suppose."
+
+"The city?"
+
+"New York."
+
+"Oh," said Harvey, wide-eyed and thoughtful, "I--I thought you meant
+Blakeville. I'm going out there for a visit with my Uncle Peter. He's
+the leading photographer in Blakeville. My mother's brother. No, I'm
+not going to New York. Not on your life!"
+
+All the way to the station he was figuring on how far the twenty
+dollars would go toward paying his fare to Blakeville. How far could
+he ride on the cars, and how far would he have to walk? And what would
+his crabbed old uncle say to an extended visit in case he got to
+Blakeville without accident?
+
+He bought some cigarettes at the newsstand and sat down to wait for
+the first train to turn up, westward bound.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+BLAKEVILLE
+
+
+If by any chance you should happen to stop off in the sleepy town of
+Blakeville, somewhere west of Chicago, you would be directed at once
+to the St. Nicholas Hotel, not only the leading hostelry of the city,
+but--to quote the advertisement in the local newspaper--the principal
+hotel in that Congressional district. After you had been conducted to
+the room with a bath--for I am sure you would insist on having it if
+it were not already occupied, which wouldn't be likely--you would
+cross over to the window and look out upon Main Street. Directly
+across the way you would observe a show window in which huge bottles
+filled with red, yellow, and blue fluids predominated. The sign above
+the door would tell you that it was a drug store, if you needed
+anything more illuminating than the three big bottles.
+
+"Davis' drug store," you would say to your wife, if she happened to be
+with you, and if you have been at all interested in the history of
+Mr.--Mr.--Now, what is his name?--you would doubtless add, "It seems
+to me I have heard of the place before." And then you would stare hard
+to see if you could catch a glimpse of the soda-water dispenser, whose
+base of operations was just inside the door to the left, a marble
+structure that glistened with white and silver, and created within you
+at once a longing for sarsaparilla or vanilla and the delicious after
+effect of stinging gases coming up through the nostrils, not
+infrequently accompanied by tears of exquisite pain--a pungent pain,
+if you please.
+
+At the rush periods of the day you could not possibly have seen him
+for the crowd of thirsty people who obstructed the view. Everybody in
+town flocked to Davis' for their chocolate sundaes and cherry
+phosphates. Was not Harvey behind the counter once more? With all the
+new-fangled concoctions from gay New York, besides a few novelties
+from Paris, and a wonderful assortment of what might well have been
+called prestidigitatorial achievements!
+
+He had a new way of juggling an egg phosphate that was worth going
+miles to see, and as for the manner in which he sprinkled nutmeg over
+the surface--well! no Delsartian movement ever was so full of grace.
+
+Yes, he was back at the old place in Davis'. For a year and a half he
+had been there. So prosperous was his first summer behind the "soda
+counter" that the owner of the place agreed with him that the fountain
+could be kept running all winter, producing hot chocolate, beef tea,
+and all that sort of thing. Just to keep the customers from getting
+out of the habit, argued Harvey in support of his plan--and his job.
+
+You may be interested to learn how he came back to Blakeville. He was
+a fortnight getting there from Tarrytown. His railroad ticket carried
+him to Cleveland. From that city he walked to Chicago, his purpose
+being to save a few dollars so that he might ride into Blakeville. His
+feet were so sore and swollen when he finally hobbled into his Uncle
+Peter's art studio, on Main Street, that he couldn't get his shoes on
+for forty-eight hours after once taking them off. He confessed to a
+bit of high living in his time, lugubriously admitting to his uncle
+that he feared he had a touch of the gout. He was subject to it,
+confound it. Beastly thing, gout. But you can't live on lobster and
+terrapin and champagne without paying the price.
+
+His uncle, a crusty and unimpressionable bachelor, was not long in
+getting the truth out of him. To Harvey's unbounded surprise the old
+photographer sympathised with him. Instead of kicking him out he took
+him to his bosom, so to speak, and commiserated with him.
+
+"I feel just as sorry for a married man, Harvey," said he, "as I do
+for a half-starved dog. I'm always going out of my way to feed some of
+these cast-off dogs around town, so why shouldn't I do the same for a
+poor devil of a husband? I'll make you comfortable until you get into
+Davis', but don't you ever let on to these damned women that you're a
+failure, or that you're strapped, or that that measly little wife of
+yours gave you the sack. No, sir! Remember who you are. You are my
+nephew. I won't say as I'm proud of you, but, by thunder! I don't want
+anybody in Blakeville to know that I'm ashamed of you. If I feel that
+way about you, it's my own secret and it's nobody's business. So you
+just put on a bold front and nobody need know. You can be quite sure
+I won't tell on you, to have people saying that my poor dead sister's
+boy wasn't good enough for Ell Barkley or any other woman that ever
+lived.
+
+"But it's a lesson to you. Don't--for God's sake, don't--ever let
+another one of 'em get her claws on you! Here's ten dollars. Go out
+and buy some ten-cent cigars at Rumley's, and smoke 'em where
+everybody can see you. Ten-centers, mind you; not two-fers, the kind I
+smoke. And get a new pair of shoes at Higgs'. And invite me to eat
+a--an expensive meal at the St. Nicholas. It can't cost more'n a
+dollar, no matter how much we order, but you can ask for lobster and
+terrapin, and raise thunder because they haven't got 'em, whatever
+they are. Then in a couple of days you can say you're going to help me
+out during the busy season, soliciting orders for crayon portraits.
+I'll board and lodge you here and give you four dollars a week to
+splurge on. The only thing I ask in return is that you'll tell people
+I'm a smart man for never having married. That's all!"
+
+You may be quite sure that Harvey took to the place as a duck takes
+to water. Inside of a week after his arrival--or, properly speaking,
+his appearance in Blakeville, for you couldn't connect the two on
+account of the gout--he was the most talked-of, most envied man in the
+place. In the cigar stores, poolrooms, and at the St. Nicholas he was
+wont to regale masculine Blakeville with tales of high life in the
+Tenderloin that caused them to fairly shiver from attacks of the
+imagination, and subsequently to go home and tell their women folk
+what a gay Lothario he was, with the result that the interest in the
+erstwhile drug clerk spread to the other sex with such remarkable
+unanimity that no bit of gossip was complete without him. Every one
+affected his society, because every one wanted to hear what he had to
+say of the gay world on Manhattan Island; the life behind the scenes
+of the great theatres, the life in the million dollar cafes and
+hotels, the life in the homes of fashionable New Yorkers,--with whom
+he was on perfectly amiable terms,--the life in Wall Street. Some of
+them wanted to know all about Old Trinity, others were interested in
+the literary atmosphere of Gotham, while others preferred to hear
+about the fashions. But the great majority hungered for the details of
+convivial escapades--and he saw to it that they were amply satisfied.
+Especially were they interested in stories concerning the genus
+"broiler." Oh, he was really a devil of a fellow.
+
+When the time came for him to begin his work as a solicitor for crayon
+portraits his reputation was such that not only was he able to gain
+admittance to every home visited, but he was allowed to remain and
+chat as long as he pleased, sometimes obtaining an order, but always
+being invited to call again after the lady of the house had had time
+to talk it over with her husband.
+
+Sometimes he would lie awake in his bed trying in vain to remember the
+tales he had told and wondering if the people really believed him.
+Then he was prone to contrast his fiction with the truth as he knew
+it, and to blame himself for not having lived the brightly painted
+life when he had the opportunity. He almost wept when he thought of
+what he had missed. His imagination carried him so far that he cursed
+his mistaken rectitude and longed for one lone and indelible
+reminiscence which he could cherish as a real tribute to that
+beautiful thing called vice!
+
+In answer to all questions he announced that poor Nellie had been
+advised to go West for her health. Of the real situation he said
+nothing.
+
+No day passed that did not bring with it the longing for a letter from
+Nellie or a word from Phoebe. Down in his heart he was grieving. He
+wanted them, both of them. The hope that Nellie would appeal to him
+for forgiveness grew smaller as the days went by, and yet he did not
+let it die. His loyal imagination kept it alive, fed it with daily
+prayers and endless vistas of a reconstructed happiness for all of
+them.
+
+Toward the end of his first summer at Davis' he was served with the
+notice that Nellie had instituted proceedings against him in Reno. It
+was in the days of Reno's early popularity as a rest cure for those
+suffering from marital maladies; impediments and complications were
+not so annoying as they appear to be in these latter times of ours.
+There was also a legal notice printed in the Blakeville _Patriot_.
+
+The shock laid him up for a couple of days. If his uncle meant to
+encourage him by maintaining an almost incessant flow of invectives,
+he made a dismal failure of it. He couldn't convince the heartsick
+Harvey that Nellie was "bad rubbish" and that he was lucky to be rid
+of her. No amount of cajolery could make him believe that he was a
+good deal happier than he had ever been before in all his life; he
+wasn't happy and he couldn't be fooled into believing he was. He was
+miserable--desperately miserable. Looking back on his futile attempts
+to take his own life, he realised now that he had missed two golden
+chances to be supremely happy. How happy he could be if he were only
+dead! He was rather glad, of course, that he failed with the pistol,
+because it would have been such a gory way out of it, but it was very
+stupid of him not to have gone out pleasantly--even immaculately--by
+the other route.
+
+But it was too late to think of doing it now. He was under contract
+with Mrs. Davis, Mr. Davis having passed on late in the spring, and he
+could not desert the widow in the midst of the busy season. His last
+commission as a crayon solicitor had come through Mrs. Davis, two
+months after the demise of Blakeville's leading apothecary. She
+ordered a life-size portrait of her husband, to be hung in the store,
+and they wept together over the prescription--that is to say, over the
+colour of the cravat and the shade of the sparse thatch that covered
+the head of the departed. Mrs. Davis never was to forget his
+sympathetic attitude. She never quite got over explaining the
+oversight that had deprived him of the distinction of being one of the
+pall-bearers, but she made up for it in a measure by insisting on
+opening the soda fountain at least a month earlier than was customary
+the next spring, and in other ways, as you will see later on.
+
+Just as he was beginning to rise, phoenixlike, from the ashes of his
+despond, the _Patriot_ reprinted the full details of Nellie's
+complaint as they appeared in a New York daily. For a brief spell he
+shrivelled up with shame and horror; he could not look any one in the
+face. Nellie's lawyers had made the astounding, outrageous charge of
+infidelity against him!
+
+Infidelity!
+
+He was stunned.
+
+But just as he was on the point of resigning his position in the
+store, after six months of glorious triumph, the business began to
+pick up so tremendously that he wondered what had got into people.
+
+His uncle chucked him in the ribs and called him a gay dog! Men came
+in and ordered sundaes who had never tasted one before, and they all
+looked at him in a strangely respectful way. Women smirked and giggled
+and called him a naughty fellow, and said they really ought not to let
+him wait on them.
+
+All of a sudden it dawned on him that he was "somebody." He was a
+rake!
+
+The New York paper devoted two full columns to his perfidious
+behaviour in the Tenderloin. For the first time in his life he stood
+in the limelight. Nellie charged him with other trifling things, such
+as failure to provide, desertion, cruelty; but none of these was
+sufficiently blighting to take the edge off the delicious clause which
+lifted him into the seventh heaven of a new found self-esteem! His
+first impulse had been to cry out against the diabolical falsehood, to
+deny the allegation, to fight the case to the bitter end. But on
+second thought he concluded to maintain a dignified silence,
+especially as he came to realise that he now possessed a definite
+entity not only in Blakeville, but in the world at large. He was a
+recognised human being! People who had never heard of him before were
+now saying, "What a jolly scamp he is! What a scalawag!" Oh, it was
+good to come into his own, even though he reached it by a crooked and
+heretofore undesirable thoroughfare. Path was not the word--it was a
+thoroughfare, lined by countless staring, admiring fellow creatures,
+all of whom pointed him out and called him by his own name.
+
+Mothers cautioned their daughters, commanding them to have nothing to
+do with him, and then went with them to Davis' to see that the
+commands were obeyed. Fathers held him up to their sons as a dreadful
+warning, and then made it a point to drop in and tell him what they
+thought of him with a sly wink that pleased and never offended him.
+
+He mildly protested against the sensational charge when questioned
+about it, saying that Nellie was mistaken, that her jealousy led her
+to believe a lot of things that were not true, and that he felt
+dreadfully cut up about the whole business, as it was likely to create
+a wrong impression in New York. Of course, he went on, no one in
+Blakeville believed the foolish thing! But in New York--well, they
+were likely to believe anything of a fellow there!
+
+He moved in the very centre of a great white light. Reporters came in
+every day and asked him if there was anything new, hoping, of course,
+for fresh developments in the great divorce case. Lawyers dropped in
+to hint that they would like to take care of his interests. But there
+never was anything new, and his New York lawyers were perfectly
+capable of handling his affairs, particularly as he had decided to
+enter no general denial to the charges. He would let her get her
+divorce if she wanted it so badly as all that!
+
+"I'd fight it," said the editor of the _Patriot_, counselling him one
+afternoon.
+
+"You wouldn't if you had a child to consider," said Harvey,
+resignedly, quite overlooking the fact that there were nine growing
+children in the editor's household.
+
+"She's too young to know anything about it," argued the other,
+earnestly.
+
+Harvey shook his head. "You don't know what it is to be a father, Mr.
+Brinkley. It's a terrible responsibility."
+
+Mr. Brinkley snorted. "I should say it is!"
+
+"You'd think of your children if your wife sued you for divorce and
+charged you with----"
+
+"I'd want my children to know I was innocent," broke in the editor,
+warmly.
+
+"They wouldn't believe it if the lawyers got to cross-examining you,"
+said Harvey, meaning well, but making a secret enemy of Mr. Brinkley,
+who thought he knew more of a regrettable visit to Chicago than he
+pretended.
+
+Late in the fall several important epoch-making things happened to
+Harvey. Nellie was granted a divorce and the custody of the child. His
+uncle fell ill and died of pneumonia, and he found himself the sole
+heir to a thriving business and nearly three thousand dollars in bank.
+Mrs. Davis blandly proposed matrimony to him, now that he was free and
+she nearing the halfway stage of mourning.
+
+He was somewhat dazed by these swift turns of the wheel of fate.
+
+His first thought on coming into the fortune was of Phoebe, and the
+opportunities it laid open to him where she was concerned. His uncle
+had been dilatory in the matter of dying, but his nephew did not have
+it in his kindly heart to hold it up against the old gentleman.
+Still, if he had passed on a fortnight earlier, the decree might have
+been anticipated by a few days and Phoebe at least saved for him.
+Seeing that the poor old gentleman had to die anyway, it seemed rather
+inconsiderate of fate to put it off so long as it did. As it was, he
+would have to make the best of it and institute some sort of
+proceedings to get possession of the child for half of the year at the
+shortest.
+
+He went so far as to slyly consult an impecunious lawyer about the
+matter, with the result that a long letter was sent to Nellie setting
+out the facts and proposing an amicable arrangement in lieu of more
+sinister proceedings. Harvey added a postscript to the lawyer's
+diplomatic rigmarole, conveying a plain hint to Nellie that, inasmuch
+as he was now quite well-to-do, she might fare worse than to come back
+to him and begin all over again.
+
+The letter was hardly on its way to Reno, with instructions to
+forward, when he began to experience a deep and growing sense of
+shame; it was a pusillanimous trick he was playing on his poor old
+woman-hating uncle. Contemplating a resumption of the conjugal state
+almost before the old gentleman was cold in his grave! It was
+contemptible. In no little dread he wondered if his uncle would come
+back to haunt him. There was, at any rate, no getting away from the
+gruesome conviction, ludicrous as it may seem, that he would be
+responsible for the brisk turning over of Uncle Peter, if nothing
+more.
+
+On top of this spell of uneasiness came the surprising proposition of
+Mrs. Davis. Between the suspense of not hearing from Nellie and the
+dread of offending the dead he was already in a sharp state of nerves.
+But when Mrs. Davis gently confided to him that she needed a live man
+to conduct her affairs without being actuated by a desire to earn a
+weekly salary he was completely stupefied.
+
+"I'm afraid I don't understand, Mrs. Davis," he said, beginning to
+perspire very freely.
+
+They were seated in the parlour of her house in Brown Street. She had
+sent for him.
+
+"Of course, Harvey, it is most unseemly of me to suggest it at the
+present time, seeing as I have only been in mourning for three months,
+but I thought perhaps you'd feel more settled like if you knew just
+what to expect of me."
+
+"Just what to expect?"
+
+"Yes; so's you could rest easy in your mind. It would have to be quite
+a ways off yet, naturally, so's people wouldn't say mean things about
+us. They might, you know, considering the way you carried on with
+women in New York. Not for the world would I have 'em say or even
+think that anything had been going on between you and me prior to the
+time of Mr. Davis' death, but--but you know how people will talk if
+they get a chance. For that reason I think we'd better wait until the
+full period of mourning is over. That's only about a year longer, and
+it would stop----"
+
+"Are--are you asking me to--to marry you, Mrs. Davis?" gasped Harvey,
+clutching the arms of the chair.
+
+"Well, Harvey," said she, kindly, "I am making it easy for you to do
+it yourself."
+
+"Holy----" began he, but strangled back the word "Mike," remembering
+that Mrs. Davis, a devout church member, abhorred anything that
+bordered on the profane.
+
+"Holy what?" asked she, rather coyly for a lady who was not likely to
+see sixty again unless reincarnated.
+
+"Matrimony," he completed, as if inspired.
+
+"I know I am a few years older than you, Harvey, but you are so very
+much older than I in point of experience that I must seem a mere girl
+to you. We could----"
+
+"Mrs. Davis, I--I can't do it," he blurted out, mopping his brow. "I
+suppose it means I'll lose my job in the store, but, honestly, I can't
+do it. I'm much obliged. It's awfully nice of you to----"
+
+"Don't be too hasty," said she, composedly. "As I said in the
+beginning, I want some one to conduct the store in Mr. Davis' place.
+But I want that person to be part owner of it. No hired man, you
+understand? Now, how would a new sign over the door look, with your
+name right after Davis? Davis &--er--er----Oh, dear me!"
+
+"I'll--I'll buy half of the store," floundered he. "I want to buy a
+half interest."
+
+"I won't sell," said she, flatly. "I'm determined that the store shall
+never go out of the family while I am alive. There's only one way for
+you to get around that, and that's by becoming a part of the family."
+
+"Why--why, Mrs. Davis, I'm only thirty years old. You surely don't
+mean to say you'd--you'd marry a kid like me? Let's see. My mother,
+if she was alive, wouldn't be as old as----"
+
+"Never mind!" interrupted she, with considerable asperity. "We won't
+discuss your mother, if you please. Now, Harvey, don't be cruel. I am
+very fond of you. I will overlook all those scandalous things you did
+in New York. I can and will close my eyes to the wicked life you led
+there. I won't even ask their names--and that's more than most women
+would promise! I won't----"
+
+"I can't do it," he repeated two or three times in rapid succession.
+
+"Think it over, Harvey dear," said she, impressively.
+
+"I'll buy a half interest if you'll let me, but I'll be doggoned if
+I'll marry a stepmother for Phoebe, not for the whole shebang!"
+
+"Stepmother!" she repeated, shrilly. "I don't intend to be a
+stepmother!"
+
+"Maybe I meant grandmother," he stammered in confusion. "I'm so
+rattled."
+
+"Nellie has got Phoebe. She's not yours any longer. How can I be her
+stepmother? Answer that."
+
+"You can't," said he, much too promptly.
+
+"Well, promise me one thing, Harvey dear," she pleaded; "promise me
+you'll take a month or two to think it over. We couldn't be married
+for a year, in any event, so what's the sense of being in such a hurry
+to settle the matter definitely?"
+
+Harvey reflected. He found himself in a very peculiar predicament. He
+had gone to her house with the avowed intention of offering her three
+thousand dollars and the studio in exchange for a half interest in the
+drug store. Now his long cherished dream seemed to be turning into a
+nightmare.
+
+"I will think it over," he said, at last, in secret desperation. "But
+can't you give me a year's option?"
+
+"On me?"
+
+"On the store."
+
+"Well, am I not the store?"
+
+"No ma'am," said he, hastily. "I can't look at you in that light. I
+can't think of you as a drug store."
+
+"I am sure I would make you a good and loving wife, Harvey. If Davis
+were alive he could tell you how devoted I was to him in all
+the----"
+
+"But that's just the trouble, he isn't alive!" cried poor Harvey, at
+his wits' end. "Give me eight months."
+
+"In the meantime you will up and marry some one else. Half the girls
+in town are crazy--no, I won't say that," she made haste to interrupt
+herself, suddenly realising the tactlessness of the remark. "Come up
+to dinner next Sunday and we will talk it over again. It is the best
+drug store in Blakeville, Harvey; remember that."
+
+"I will remember it," he said, blankly, and took his departure.
+
+As he passed Simpson's book store he dashed in and bought a New York
+dramatic paper. Hurriedly looking through the route list of companies,
+he found that the "Up in the Air" company was playing that week in
+Philadelphia. Without consulting his attorney he telegraphed to
+Nellie:--"Am in trouble. Uncle Peter is dead. Left me everything. Will
+you come back? Harvey."
+
+The next day he had a wire from Nellie, charges collect:--"If he left
+you everything, why don't you pay for telegrams when you send them?
+Nellie."
+
+He replied:--"I was not sure you were with the company, that's why.
+Shall I come to Philadelphia? Harvey."
+
+Her answer:--"Not unless you are looking for more trouble. Nellie."
+
+His next:--"There's a woman here who wants me to marry her. Won't you
+help me? Harvey."
+
+Her last:--"There's a man here who is going to marry me. Why don't you
+marry her? Naughty! Naughty! Nellie."
+
+He gave up in despair at this. On Sunday he allowed Mrs. Davis to
+bullyrag him into a tentative engagement. Then he began to droop. He
+had done a bit of investigating on his own account before going up to
+dine with her. She had been married to Davis forty-two years and then
+he died. If their only daughter had lived she would be forty-one years
+of age, and, if married, would doubtless be the mother of a daughter
+who might also in turn be the mother of a child. Figuring back, he
+made out that under these circumstances Mrs. Davis might very easily
+have been a great-grandmother. With this appalling thought in mind,
+he was quite firm in his determination to reject the old lady's
+proposal. Mrs. Davis taking Nellie's place! Pretty, gay, vivacious
+Nellie! It was too absurd for words.
+
+But he went home an engaged man, just the same.
+
+They were to be married in September of the following year, many
+months off.
+
+That afternoon he saw a few gray hairs just above his ears and pulled
+them out. After that he looked for them every day. It was amazing how
+rapidly they increased despite his efforts to exterminate them. He
+began to grow careless in the matter of dress. His much talked of
+checked suits and lavender waistcoats took on spots and creases; his
+gaudy neckties became soiled and frayed; his fancy Newmarket overcoat,
+the like of which was only to be seen in Blakeville when some
+travelling theatrical troupe came to town, looked seedy, unbrushed,
+and sadly wrinkled. He forgot to shave for days at a time.
+
+His only excuse to himself was, What's the use?
+
+During the holidays, in the midst of a cheerful season of buying
+presents for Phoebe--and a bracelet for Nellie--he saw in the
+_Patriot_, under big headlines, the thing that served as the last
+straw for his already sagging back. The announcement was being made in
+all the metropolitan newspapers that "Nellie Duluth, the most popular
+and the most beautiful of all the comic opera stars," was to quit the
+stage forever on the first of the year to become the wife of "the
+great financier, L. Z. Fairfax, long a devoted admirer."
+
+The happy couple were to spend the honeymoon on the groom's yacht,
+sailing in February for an extended cruise of the Mediterranean and
+other "sunny waters of the globe," primarily for pleasure but actually
+in the hope of restoring Miss Duluth to her normal state of health. A
+breakdown, brought on no doubt by the publicity attending her divorce
+a few months earlier, made it absolutely imperative, said the
+newspapers, for her to give up the arduous work of her chosen
+profession.
+
+Harvey did not send the bracelet to her.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The long winter passed. Spring came and in its turn gave way to
+summer. September drew on apace. He went about with an ever
+increasing tendency to look at the wall calendar with a fixed stare
+when he should have been paying attention to the congratulations that
+came to him from the opposite side of the counter or showcase. His
+baby-blue eyes wore the mournful, distressed look of an offending dog;
+his once trim little moustache drooped over the corners of his mouth;
+his shoulders sagged and his feet shuffled as he walked.
+
+"Harvey," said Mrs. Davis, not more than a fortnight before the
+wedding day, "You look terribly peaked. You must perk up for the
+wedding."
+
+"I'm going into a decline," he said, affecting a slight cough.
+
+"You are going to decline!" she shrilled, in her high, querulous
+voice.
+
+"I said 'into,' Minerva," he explained, dully.
+
+"I do believe I'm getting a bit deaf," she said, pronouncing it
+"deef."
+
+"It will be mighty tough on you if I should suddenly go into quick
+consumption," said he, somewhat hopefully.
+
+"You mustn't think of such a thing, dearie," she protested.
+
+"No," said he, letting his shoulders sag again. "I suppose it's no
+use."
+
+Just a week to the day before the 6th of September--the one numeral on
+the calendar he could see with his eyes closed--he shuffled over to
+the tailor's to try on the new Prince Albert coat and striped trousers
+that Mrs. Davis was giving him for a wedding present. He puffed weakly
+at the cigarette that hung from his lips and stared at the window
+without the slightest interest in what was going on outside.
+
+A new train of thought was taking shape in his brain, as yet rather
+indefinite and undeveloped, but quite engaging as a matter for
+contemplation.
+
+"Do you know how far it is to Reno?" he asked of the tailor, who
+paused in the process of ripping off the collar of the new coat.
+
+"Couple of thousand miles, I guess. Why?"
+
+"Oh, nothing," said Harvey, blinking his eyes curiously. "I just
+asked."
+
+"You're not thinking of going out there, are you?"
+
+"My health isn't what it ought to be," said Harvey, staring westward
+over the roof of the church down the street. "If I don't get better I
+may have to go West."
+
+"Gee, is it as bad as all that?"
+
+Harvey's lips parted to give utterance to a vigorous response, but he
+caught himself up in time.
+
+"Maybe it won't amount to anything," he said, noncommittally. "I've
+got a little cough, that's all." He coughed obligingly, in the way of
+illustration.
+
+"Don't wait too long," advised the kindly tailor. "If you get after it
+in time it can be checked, they say, although I don't believe it. In
+the family?"
+
+"Not yet," said his customer, absently. "A week from to-day." A
+reflection which puzzled the tailor vastly.
+
+Whatever may have been in Harvey's mind at the moment was swept away
+forever by the sudden appearance in the shop door of Bobby Nixon, the
+"boy" at Davis'.
+
+"Say, Harvey," bawled the lad, "come on, quick! Mrs. Davis is over at
+the store and she's red-headed because you've been away for more'n an
+hour. She's got a telegram from some'eres and----"
+
+"A telegram!" gasped Harvey, turning pale. "Who from?"
+
+"How should I know?" shouted Bobby. "But she's got blood in her eye,
+you can bet on that."
+
+Harvey did not wait for the tailor to strip the skeleton of the Prince
+Albert from his back, but dashed out of the shop in wild haste.
+
+Mrs. Davis was behind the prescription counter. She had been weeping.
+At the sight of him she burst into fresh lamentations.
+
+"Oh, Harvey, I've got terrible news for you--just terrible! But I
+won't put up with it! I won't have it! It's abominable! She ought to
+be tarred and feathered and----"
+
+Harvey began to tremble.
+
+"Somebody's doing it for a joke, Mrs. Davis," he gulped. "I swear to
+goodness I never had a thing to do with a woman in all my life.
+Nobody's got a claim on me, honest to----"
+
+"What are you talking about, Harvey?" demanded Mrs. Davis, wide-eyed.
+
+"What does it say?" cried he, pulling himself up with a jerk. "I'm
+innocent, whatever it is."
+
+"It's from your wife," said Mrs. Davis, shaking the envelope in his
+face. "Read it! Read the awful thing!"
+
+"From--from Nellie?" he gasped.
+
+"Yes, Eller! Read it!"
+
+"Hold it still! I can't read it if you jiggle it around----"
+
+She held the envelope under his nose.
+
+"Do you see who it's addressed to?" she grated out. "To me, as your
+wife. She thinks I'm already married to you. Read that name there,
+Harvey."
+
+He read the name on the envelope in a sort of stupefaction. Then she
+whisked the message out and handed it to him, plumping herself down in
+a chair to fan herself vigorously while the prescription clerk
+hastened to renew his ministrations with the ammonia bottle, a task
+that had been set to him some time prior to the advent of Harvey.
+
+Suddenly Harvey gave a squeal of joy and instituted a series of hops
+and bounds that threatened to create havoc in the narrow,
+bottle-encircled space behind the prescription wall. He danced up and
+down, waving the telegram on high, the tails of his half-finished
+wedding garment doing a mad obbligato to the tune of his nimble legs.
+
+"Harvey!" shrieked Mrs. Davis, aghast.
+
+"Yi-i-i!" rang out his ear-splitting yell. Pedestrians half a block
+away heard it and felt sorry for Mrs. Wiggs, the unhappy wife of the
+town sot, who, it went without saying, must be on another "toot."
+
+"Harvey!" cried the poor lady once more.
+
+"She's going to faint!" shouted the prescription clerk in
+consternation.
+
+"Let her! Let her!" whooped Harvey. "It's all right, Joe! Let her
+faint if she wants to."
+
+"I'm not going to faint!" exclaimed Mrs. Davis, struggling to her feet
+and pushing Joe away. "Keep quiet, Harvey! Do you want customers to
+think you're crazy? Give me that telegram. I'll attend to that. I'll
+answer it mighty quick, let me tell you. Give it to me."
+
+Harvey sobered almost instantly. His jaw fell. The look in her face
+took all the joy out of his.
+
+"Isn't--isn't it great, Minerva?" he murmured, as he allowed her to
+snatch the message from his unresisting fingers.
+
+She glared at him. "Great? Why, you don't think for a moment that I'll
+have the brat in my house, do you? Great? I don't see what you can be
+thinking of, Harvey. You must be clean out of your head. I should say
+it ain't great. It's perfectly outrageous. Where's the telegraph
+office, Joe? I'll show the dreadful little wretch that she can't shunt
+her child off on me for support. Not much. Where is it, Joe? Didn't
+you hear what I asked?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," acknowledged Joe, blankly.
+
+"You can't be mean enough--I should say you don't mean to tell her we
+won't take Phoebe?" gasped Harvey, blinking rapidly. "Surely you can't
+be so hard-hearted as all----"
+
+"That will do, Harvey," said she, sternly. "Don't let me hear another
+word out of you. The idea! Just as soon as she thinks you're safely
+married to some one who can give that child a home she up and tries to
+get rid of her. The shameless thing! No, sir-ree! She can't shuffle
+her brat off on me. Not if I know what I'm----"
+
+She fell back in alarm. The telegram fluttered to the floor. Harvey
+was standing in front of her, shaking his fist under her nose, his
+face contorted by a spasm of fury.
+
+"Don't you call my little girl a brat," he sputtered. "And don't you
+dare to call my wife a shameless thing!"
+
+"Your wife!" she gasped.
+
+He waved his arms like a windmill.
+
+"My widow, if you are going to be so darned particular about it," he
+shouted, inanely. "Don't you dare send a telegram saying Phoebe can't
+come and live with her father. I won't have it. She's coming just as
+fast as I can get her here. Hurray!"
+
+Mrs. Davis lost all of her sternness. She dissolved into tears.
+
+"Oh, Harvey dear, do you really and truly want that child back again?"
+she sniffled.
+
+"Do I?" he barked. "My God, I should say I do! And say, I'd give my
+soul if I could get Nellie back, too. How do you like that?"
+
+The poor woman was ready to fall on her knees to him.
+
+"For Heaven's sake--for my sake--don't speak of such a thing. Don't
+try to get her back. Promise me! I'll let the child come, but--oh!
+don't take Nellie back. It would break my heart. I just couldn't have
+her around, not if I tried my----"
+
+Harvey stared, open-mouthed. "I didn't mean that I'd like to have you
+take her back, Minerva. You haven't anything to do with it."
+
+She stiffened. "Well, if I haven't, I'd like to know who has. It's my
+house, isn't it?"
+
+"Don't make a scene, Minerva," he begged, suddenly aware of the
+presence of a curious crowd in the front part of the store. "Go home
+and I'll send the telegram. And say, if I were you, I'd go out the
+back way."
+
+"And just to think, it's only a week till the wedding day," she choked
+out.
+
+"We can put it off," he made haste to say.
+
+"I know I shall positively hate that child," said she, overlooking his
+generous offer. "I will be a real stepmother to her, you mark my
+words. You can let her come if you want to, Harvey, but you mustn't
+expect me to treat her as anything but a--a--an orphan." She was a bit
+mixed in her nouns.
+
+A brilliant idea struck him.
+
+"You'd better be nice to her, Mrs. Davis, if you know what's good for
+you. Now, don't flare up! You mustn't forget you've broken the law by
+opening a telegram not intended for you."
+
+"What?"
+
+"It isn't addressed to you," he said, examining the envelope. "Your
+name is still Mrs. Davis, isn't it?"
+
+"Of course it is."
+
+"Well, then, what in thunder did you open a telegram addressed to my
+wife for? That's my wife's name, not yours."
+
+"But," she began, vastly perplexed, "but it was meant for me."
+
+"How do you know?" he demanded.
+
+Her eyes bulged. "You--you don't mean that there is another one,
+Harvey?"
+
+He winked with grave deliberateness. "That's for you to find out."
+
+He darted through the back door into the alley, just as she collapsed
+in the prescriptionist's arms. In the telegraph office he read and
+re-read the message, his eyes aglow. It was from Nellie and came from
+New York, dated Friday, the first.
+
+  "Am sending Phoebe to Blakeville next Monday to make her home with
+  you and Harvey. Letter to-day explains all. Have Harvey meet her
+  in Chicago Tuesday, four P.M., Lake Shore."
+
+He scratched his chin reflectively.
+
+"I guess it don't call for an answer, after all," he said as much to
+himself as to the operator.
+
+Nellie's letter came the next afternoon, addressed to Harvey. In a
+state of great excitement he broke the seal and read the poignant
+missive with eyes that were glazed with wonder and--something even
+more potent.
+
+She began by saying that she supposed he was happily married, and
+wished him all the luck in the world. Then she came abruptly to the
+point, as she always did:--"I am in such poor health that the doctors
+say I shall have to go to Arizona at once. I am good for about six
+months longer at the outside, they say. Not half that long if I stay
+in this climate. Maybe I'll get well if I go out there. I'm not very
+keen about dying. I hate dead things; don't you? Now about Phoebe.
+She's been pining for you all these months. She doesn't like Mr.
+Fairfax, and he's not very strong for her. To be perfectly honest, he
+doesn't want her about. She's not his, and he hasn't much use for
+anything or anybody that doesn't belong to him. I've got so that I
+can't stand it, Harvey. The poor little kiddie is so miserably
+unhappy, and I'm not strong enough to get out and work for her as I
+used to. I would if I could. I think Fairfax is sick of the whole
+thing. He didn't count on me going under as I have. He hasn't been
+near me for a month, but he says it's because he hates the sight of
+Phoebe. I wonder. It wasn't that way a couple of years ago. But I'm
+different now. You wouldn't know me, I'm that thin and skinny. I hate
+the word, but that's what I am. The doctors have ordered me to a
+little place out in Arizona. I've got to do what they say, and what
+Fairfax says. It's the jumping-off place. So I'm leaving in a day or
+two with Rachel. My husband says he can't leave his business, but I'm
+not such a fool as he thinks. I won't say anything more about him,
+except that he hasn't the courage to watch me go down by inches.
+
+"I can't leave Phoebe with him and I don't think it best to have her
+with me. She ought to be spared all that. She's so young, Harvey.
+She'd never forget. You love her, and she adores you. I'm giving her
+back to you. Don't--oh, please don't, ever let her leave Blakeville!
+I wish I had never left it, much as I hate it. I remember your new
+wife as being a kind, simple-hearted woman. She will be good to my
+little girl, I know, because she is yours as well. If I could get my
+health back, I'd work my heart out trying to support her, but it's out
+of the question. I have nothing to give her, Harvey, and I simply will
+not let Fairfax provide for her. Do you understand? Or are you as
+stupid and simple as you always were? And as tender-hearted?"
+
+There was more, but Harvey's eyes were so full of tears he could not
+read.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was waiting in the Lake Shore station when the train pulled in on
+Tuesday. His legs were trembling like two reeds in the wind and his
+teeth chattered with the chill of a great excitement. Out of the blur
+that obscured his vision bounded a small figure, almost toppling him
+over as it clutched his not too stable legs and shrieked something
+that must have pleased him vastly, for he giggled and chortled like
+one gone daft with joy.
+
+A soulless guard tapped him on the shoulder and gruffly ordered him
+to "get off to one side with the kid," he was blocking the exit--and
+flooding it, he added after a peep at Harvey's streaming eyes.
+
+Rachel, tall and sardonic, stood patiently by until the little man
+recovered from his ecstasies.
+
+"I thought you were staying with my--with Mrs. Fairfax," he said,
+gazing at her in amazement. He was holding Phoebe in his arms, and she
+was so heavy that his face was purple from the exertion.
+
+"You'd better put her down," said Rachel, mildly. "She's not a baby
+any longer." With that she proceeded to pull the child's skirts down
+over the unnecessarily exposed pink legs. Harvey was not loath to set
+her down, a bit abruptly if the truth must be told. "Mrs. Fairfax is
+still in the drawing-room, sir. She doesn't want to get off until the
+crowd has moved out."
+
+Harvey stared. "She's--on--the--train?"
+
+"We change for the Santa Fe, which leaves this evening for the West.
+I'll go back to her now. The way is quite clear, I think. Good-bye,
+Phoebe. Be a good----"
+
+[Illustration: Copyright, 1911, by Dodd, Mead & Company
+He stopped, aghast, petrified]
+
+"I'm going with you!" cried Harvey, breathlessly. "Take me to the
+car."
+
+Rachel hesitated. "You will be surprised, sir, when you see her. She's
+very frail, and----"
+
+"Come on! Take me to my wife at once!"
+
+"You forget, sir. She is not your wife any----"
+
+"Oh, Lordy, Lordy!" fell dismally from his lips.
+
+"And you have a new wife, I hear. So, if I were you, I'd avoid a scene
+if----"
+
+But he was through the gate, dragging Phoebe after him. Rachel could
+not keep up with them. The eager little girl led him to the right car
+and he scurried up the steps, bursting into drawing-room B an instant
+later.
+
+Nellie, wrapped in a thick garment, was lying back in the corner of
+the seat, her small, white face with its great dark eyes standing out
+with ghastly clearness against the collar of the ulster that almost
+enveloped her head.
+
+He stopped, aghast, petrified.
+
+"Oh, Nellie!" he wailed.
+
+She betrayed no surprise. A wan smile transfigured her thin face.
+With an effort she extended a small gloved hand. He grasped it and
+found there was so little of it that it seemed lost in his palm. The
+sweat broke out on his forehead. He could not speak. This was Nellie!
+
+Her voice was low and husky.
+
+"Good-bye, Harvey. Be good to Phoebe, old fellow."
+
+He choked up and could only nod his head.
+
+"We can get out now, Mrs. Fairfax," said Rachel, appearing at the
+door. "Do you think you can walk, or shall I call for a----"
+
+"Oh, I can walk," said Nellie, with a touch of her old raillery. "I'm
+not that far gone. Good-bye, Harvey. Didn't you hear me? Don't stand
+there watching me like that. It's bad enough without----"
+
+He turned on Rachel furiously.
+
+"Where is that damned Fairfax? Why isn't he here with her? The dog!"
+
+"Hush, Harvey!"
+
+"He's mean to mamma," broke in Phoebe, in her high treble. "I hate
+him. And so does mamma. Don't you, mamma?"
+
+"Phoebe! Be quiet!"
+
+"Where is he?" repeated Harvey, shaking his finger in Rachel's face.
+
+"What are you blaming me for?" demanded the maid, indignantly.
+"Everybody blames me for everything. He's in New York, that's where he
+is. Now, you get out of here!"
+
+She actually shoved him out into the aisle, where he stood trembling
+and uncertain, while she assisted her mistress to her feet and led her
+haltingly toward the exit.
+
+Nellie looked back over her shoulder at him, quite coquettishly. She
+shook her head at him in mild derision.
+
+"My, what a fire-eater my little Harvey has become," she said. He
+barely heard the words. "Your new wife must be scared half out of her
+wits all the time."
+
+He sprang to her side, gently taking her arm in his hand. She lurched
+toward him ever so slightly. He felt the weight of her on his arm and
+marvelled that she was so much lighter than Phoebe.
+
+"I'm not married, Nellie dear!" he cried. "It's not to be till Friday.
+You got the date wrong. And it won't be Friday, either. No, sir! I'm
+not going to let you go all the way out there alone. I said I'd look
+out for you when we were married, and I'm going to. You've got a
+husband, but what good is he to you? He's a brute. Yes, sir; I'm going
+with you and I don't give a cuss who knows it. See here! See this wad
+of bills? Well, by jingo, there's more than three thousand dollars
+there. I drew it out this morning to give to you if you were hard up.
+I----"
+
+"Oh, Harvey, what a perfect fool you are!" she cried, tears in her
+eyes. "You always were a fool. Now you are a bigger one than ever. Go
+away, please! I can get along all right. Fairfax is paying for
+everything. Put that roll away! Do you want to be held up right here
+in the station?"
+
+"And I've still got the photograph gallery," he went on. "It's rented
+and I get $40 a month out of it. I'll take care of you, Nellie. I'll
+see you safely out there. Then maybe I'll have to come back and marry
+old Mrs. Davis, God help me! I hate to think of it, but she's got her
+mind set on it. I don't believe I can get out of it. But she'll have
+to postpone it, I can tell you that, whether she likes it or not.
+Maybe she'll call it off when she hears I've eloped with another
+man's wife. She thinks I'm a perfect scamp with women, anyway, and
+this may turn her dead against me. Gee, I hope it does! Say, let me go
+along with you, Nellie; please do. You and I won't call it an
+elopement, but maybe she will and that would save me. And that beast
+of a Fairfax won't care, so what's the harm?"
+
+"No," said Nellie, looking at him queerly. "Fairfax won't care. You
+can be sure of that."
+
+"Then I'm with you, Nellie!" he shouted.
+
+"You are a perfectly dreadful fool, Harvey," she said, huskily.
+
+"I know it!" he exclaimed.
+
+
+
+
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+
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+which is just on the safe side of a State's prison offence. As
+"Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford," it is probably the most amusing expose of
+money manipulation ever seen on the stage.
+
+THE INTRUSION OF JIMMY. By P. G. Wodehouse. Illustrations by Will Grefe.
+
+Social and club life in London and New York, an amateur burglary
+adventure and a love story. Dramatized under the title of "A Gentleman
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+
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+
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+End of Project Gutenberg's What's-His-Name, by George Barr McCutcheon
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