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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Flirt, by Booth Tarkington
+
+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: The Flirt
+
+Author: Booth Tarkington
+
+Release Date: July 3, 2004 [EBook #297]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLIRT ***
+
+
+
+
+This etext was prepared with the use of Calera WordScan Plus 2.0
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FLIRT
+
+BY
+BOOTH TARKINGTON
+
+
+
+To
+SUSANAH
+
+
+THE FLIRT
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+Valentine Corliss walked up Corliss Street the hottest afternoon
+of that hot August, a year ago, wearing a suit of white serge
+which attracted a little attention from those observers who were
+able to observe anything except the heat. The coat was shaped
+delicately; it outlined the wearer, and, fitting him as women's
+clothes fit women, suggested an effeminacy not an attribute of the
+tall Corliss. The effeminacy belonged all to the tailor, an artist
+plying far from Corliss Street, for the coat would have
+encountered a hundred of its fellows at Trouville or Ostende this
+very day. Corliss Street is the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, the
+Park Lane, the Fifth Avenue, of Capitol City, that smoky
+illuminant of our great central levels, but although it esteems
+itself an established cosmopolitan thoroughfare, it is still
+provincial enough to be watchful; and even in its torrid languor
+took some note of the alien garment.
+
+Mr. Corliss, treading for the first time in seventeen years the
+pavements of this namesake of his grandfather, mildly repaid its
+interest in himself. The street, once the most peaceful in the
+world, he thought, had changed. It was still long and straight,
+still shaded by trees so noble that they were betrothed, here and
+there, high over the wide white roadway, the shimmering tunnels
+thus contrived shot with gold and blue; but its pristine complete
+restfulness was departed: gasoline had arrived, and a pedestrian,
+even this August day of heat, must glance two ways before
+crossing.
+
+Architectural transformations, as vital, staggered the returned
+native. In his boyhood that posthumously libelled sovereign lady,
+Anne, had terribly prevailed among the dwellings on this highway;
+now, however, there was little left of the jig-saw's hare-brained
+ministrations; but the growing pains of the adolescent city had
+wrought some madness here. There had been a revolution which was a
+riot; and, plainly incited by a new outbreak of the colonies, the
+Goth, the Tudor, and the Tuscan had harried the upper reaches to a
+turmoil attaining its climax in a howl or two from the Spanish
+Moor.
+
+Yet it was a pleasant street in spite of its improvements; in
+spite, too, of a long, gray smoke-plume crossing the summer sky
+and dropping an occasional atomy of coal upon Mr. Corliss's white
+coat. The green continuous masses of tree-foliage, lawn, and
+shrubbery were splendidly asserted; there was a faint wholesome
+odour from the fine block pavement of the roadway, white, save
+where the snailish water-wagon laid its long strips of steaming
+brown. Locusts, serenaders of the heat, invisible among the
+branches, rasped their interminable cadences, competing bitterly
+with the monotonous chattering of lawn-mowers propelled by
+glistening black men over the level swards beneath. And though
+porch and terrace were left to vacant wicker chairs and
+swinging-seats, and to flowers and plants in jars and green boxes,
+and the people sat unseen--and, it might be guessed, unclad for
+exhibition, in the dimmer recesses of their houses--nevertheless,
+a summery girl under an alluring parasol now and then prettily
+trod the sidewalks, and did not altogether suppress an ample
+consciousness of the white pedestrian's stalwart grace; nor was
+his quick glance too distressingly modest to be aware of these
+faint but attractive perturbations.
+
+A few of the oldest houses remained as he remembered them, and
+there were two or three relics of mansard and cupola days; but the
+herd of cast-iron deer that once guarded these lawns, standing
+sentinel to all true gentry: Whither were they fled? In his
+boyhood, one specimen betokened a family of position and
+affluence; two, one on each side of the front walk, spoke of a
+noble opulence; two and a fountain were overwhelming. He wondered
+in what obscure thickets that once proud herd now grazed; and then
+he smiled, as through a leafy opening of shrubbery he caught a
+glimpse of a last survivor, still loyally alert, the haughty head
+thrown back in everlasting challenge and one foreleg lifted,
+standing in a vast and shadowy backyard with a clothesline
+fastened to its antlers.
+
+Mr. Corliss remembered that backyard very well: it was an old
+battlefield whereon he had conquered; and he wondered if "the
+Lindley boys" still lived there, and if Richard Lindley would hate
+him now as implacably as then.
+
+A hundred yards farther on, he paused before a house more familiar
+to him than any other, and gave it a moment's whimsical attention,
+without emotion.
+
+It was a shabby old brick structure, and it stood among the
+gayest, the most flamboyant dwellings of all Corliss Street like a
+bewildered tramp surrounded by carnival maskers. It held place
+full in the course of the fury for demolition and rebuilding, but
+remained unaltered--even unrepaired, one might have thought--since
+the early seventies, when it was built. There was a sagging
+cornice, and the nauseous brown which the walls had years ago been
+painted was sooted to a repellent dinge, so cracked and peeled
+that the haggard red bricks were exposed, like a beggar through
+the holes in his coat. It was one of those houses which are large
+without being commodious; its very tall, very narrow windows, with
+their attenuated, rusty inside shutters, boasting to the passerby
+of high ceilings but betraying the miserly floor spaces. At each
+side of the front door was a high and cramped bay-window, one of
+them insanely culminating in a little six-sided tower of slate,
+and both of them girdled above the basement windows by a narrow
+porch, which ran across the front of the house and gave access to
+the shallow vestibule. However, a pleasant circumstance modified
+the gloom of this edifice and assured it a remnant of reserve and
+dignity in its ill-considered old age: it stood back a fine
+hundred feet from the highway, and was shielded in part by a
+friendly group of maple trees and one glorious elm, hoary, robust,
+and majestic, a veteran of the days when this was forest ground.
+
+Mr. Corliss concluded his momentary pause by walking up the broken
+cement path, which was hard beset by plantain-weed and the long
+grass of the ill-kept lawn. Ascending the steps, he was assailed
+by an odour as of vehement bananas, a diffusion from some painful
+little chairs standing in the long, high, dim, rather sorrowful
+hall disclosed beyond the open double doors. They were stiff
+little chairs of an inconsequent, mongrel pattern; armless, with
+perforated wooden seats; legs tortured by the lathe to a semblance
+of buttons strung on a rod; and they had that day received a
+streaky coat of a gilding preparation which exhaled the olfactory
+vehemence mentioned. Their present station was temporary, their
+purpose, as obviously, to dry; and they were doing some incidental
+gilding on their own account, leaving blots and splashes and
+sporadic little round footprints on the hardwood floor.
+
+The old-fashioned brass bell-handle upon the caller's right
+drooped from its socket in a dead fag, but after comprehensive
+manipulation on the part of the young man, and equal complaint
+on its own, it was constrained to permit a dim tinkle remotely.
+Somewhere in the interior a woman's voice, not young, sang a
+repeated fragment of "Lead, Kindly Light," to the accompaniment
+of a flapping dust-cloth, sounds which ceased upon a second
+successful encounter with the bell. Ensued a silence, probably to
+be interpreted as a period of whispered consultation out of range;
+a younger voice called softly and urgently, "Laura!" and a
+dark-eyed, dark-haired girl of something over twenty made her
+appearance to Mr. Corliss.
+
+At sight of her he instantly restored a thin gold card-case to the
+pocket whence he was in the act of removing it. She looked at him
+with only grave, impersonal inquiry; no appreciative invoice of
+him was to be detected in her quiet eyes, which may have surprised
+him, possibly the more because he was aware there was plenty of
+appreciation in his own kindling glance. She was very white and
+black, this lady. Tall, trim, clear, she looked cool in spite of
+the black winter skirt she wore, an effect helped somewhat,
+perhaps, by the crisp freshness of her white waist, with its
+masculine collar and slim black tie, and undoubtedly by the even
+and lustreless light ivory of her skin, against which the strong
+black eyebrows and undulated black hair were lined with attractive
+precision; but, most of all, that coolness was the emanation of
+her undisturbed and tranquil eyes. They were not phlegmatic: a
+continuing spark glowed far within them, not ardently, but
+steadily and inscrutably, like the fixed stars in winter.
+
+Mr. Valentine Corliss, of Paris and Naples, removed his
+white-ribboned straw hat and bowed as no one had ever bowed in
+that doorway. This most vivid salutation--accomplished by adding
+something to a rather quick inclination of the body from the hips,
+with the back and neck held straight expressed deference without
+affecting or inviting cordiality. It was an elaborate little
+formality of a kind fancifully called "foreign," and evidently
+habitual to the performer.
+
+It produced no outward effect upon the recipient. Such
+self-control is unusual.
+
+"Is Mr. Madison at home? My name is Valentine Corliss."
+
+"He is at home." She indicated an open doorway upon her right.
+"Will you wait in there?"
+
+"Thank you," said Mr. Corliss, passing within. "I shall be----"
+He left the sentence unfinished, for he was already alone, and at
+liberty to reflect upon the extraordinary coolness of this cool
+young woman.
+
+The room, with its closed blinds, was soothingly dark after the
+riotous sun without, a grateful obscurity which was one of two
+attractions discovered in it by Mr. Corliss while he waited. It
+was a depressing little chamber, disproportionately high,
+uncheered by seven chairs (each of a different family, but all
+belonging to the same knobby species, and all upholstered a
+repellent blue), a scratched "inlaid table," likewise knobby, and
+a dangerous looking small sofa--turbulent furniture, warmly
+harmonious, however, in a common challenge to the visitor to take
+comfort in any of it. A once-gilt gas chandelier hung from the
+distant ceiling, with three globes of frosted glass, but
+undeniable evidence that five were intended; and two of the three
+had been severely bitten. There was a hostile little coal-grate,
+making a mouth under a mantel of imitation black marble, behind an
+old blue-satin fire-screen upon which red cat-tails and an owl
+over a pond had been roughly embroidered in high relief, this owl
+motive being the inspiration of innumerable other owls reflected
+in innumerable other ponds in the formerly silver moonlight with
+which the walls were papered. Corliss thought he remembered that
+in his boyhood, when it was known as "the parlour" (though he
+guessed that the Madison family called it "the reception room,"
+now) this was the place where his aunt received callers who, she
+justifiably hoped, would not linger. Altogether, it struck him
+that it might be a good test-room for an alienist: no incipient
+lunacy would remain incipient here.
+
+There was one incongruity which surprised him--a wicker
+waste-paper basket, so nonsensically out of place in this arid
+cell, where not the wildest hare-brain could picture any one
+coming to read or write, that he bestowed upon it a particular,
+frowning attention, and so discovered the second attractive
+possession of the room. A fresh and lovely pink rose, just opening
+full from the bud, lay in the bottom of the basket.
+
+There was a rustling somewhere in the house and a murmur, above
+which a boy's voice became audible in emphatic but
+undistinguishable complaint. A whispering followed, and a woman
+exclaimed protestingly, "Cora!" And then a startlingly pretty girl
+came carelessly into the room through the open door.
+
+She was humming "Quand I' Amour Meurt" in a gay preoccupation, and
+evidently sought something upon the table in the centre of the
+room, for she continued her progress toward it several steps
+before realizing the presence of a visitor. She was a year or so
+younger than the girl who had admitted him, fairer and obviously
+more plastic, more expressive, more perishable, a great deal more
+insistently feminine; though it was to be seen that they were
+sisters. This one had eyes almost as dark as the other's, but
+these were not cool; they were sweet, unrestful, and seeking;
+brilliant with a vivacious hunger: and not Diana but huntresses
+more ardent have such eyes. Her hair was much lighter than her
+sister's; it was the colour of dry corn-silk in the sun; and she
+was the shorter by a head, rounder everywhere and not so slender;
+but no dumpling: she was exquisitely made. There was a softness
+about her: something of velvet, nothing of mush. She diffused with
+her entrance a radiance of gayety and of gentleness; sunlight ran
+with her. She seemed the incarnation of a caressing smile.
+
+She was point-device. Her close, white skirt hung from a plainly
+embroidered white waist to a silken instep; and from the crown of
+her charming head to the tall heels of her graceful white suede
+slippers, heels of a sweeter curve than the waist of a violin, she
+was as modern and lovely as this dingy old house was belated and
+hideous.
+
+Mr. Valentine Corliss spared the fraction of a second for another
+glance at the rose in the waste-basket.
+
+The girl saw him before she reached the table, gave a little gasp
+of surprise, and halted with one hand carried prettily to her
+breast.
+
+"Oh!" she said impulsively; "I _beg_ your pardon. I didn't know
+there was---- I was looking for a book I thought I----"
+
+She stopped, whelmed with a breath-taking shyness, her eyes, after
+one quick but condensed encounter with those of Mr. Corliss,
+falling beneath exquisite lashes. Her voice was one to stir all
+men: it needs not many words for a supremely beautiful
+"speaking-voice" to be recognized for what it is; and this girl's
+was like herself, hauntingly lovely. The intelligent young man
+immediately realized that no one who heard it could ever forget
+it.
+
+"I see," she faltered, turning to leave the room; "it isn't
+here--the book."
+
+"There's something else of yours here," said Corliss.
+
+"Is there?" She paused, hesitating at the door, looking at him
+over her shoulder uncertainly.
+
+"You dropped this rose." He lifted the rose from the waste-basket
+and repeated the bow he had made at the front door. This time it
+was not altogether wasted.
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes. You lost it. It belongs to you."
+
+"Yes--it does. How curious!" she said slowly. "How curious it
+happened to be _there_!" She stepped to take it from him, her eyes
+upon his in charming astonishment. "And how odd that----" She
+stopped; then said quickly:
+
+"How did you know it was _my_ rose?"
+
+"Any one would know!"
+
+Her expression of surprise was instantaneously merged in a flash
+of honest pleasure and admiration, such as only an artist may feel
+in the presence of a little masterpiece by a fellow-craftsman.
+
+Happily, anticlimax was spared them by the arrival of the person
+for whom the visitor had asked at the door, and the young man
+retained the rose in his hand.
+
+Mr. Madison, a shapeless hillock with a large, harassed, red face,
+evidently suffered from the heat: his gray hair was rumpled back
+from a damp forehead; the sleeves of his black alpaca coat were
+pulled up to the elbow above his uncuffed white shirtsleeves; and
+he carried in one mottled hand the ruins of a palm-leaf fan, in
+the other a balled wet handkerchief which released an aroma of
+camphor upon the banana-burdened air. He bore evidences of
+inadequate adjustment after a disturbed siesta, but, exercising a
+mechanical cordiality, preceded himself into the room by a genial
+half-cough and a hearty, "Well-well-well," as if wishing to
+indicate a spirit of polite, even excited, hospitality.
+
+"I expected you might be turning up, after your letter," he said,
+shaking hands. "Well, well, well! I remember you as a boy.
+Wouldn't have known you, of course; but I expect you'll find the
+town about as much changed as you are."
+
+With a father's blindness to all that is really vital, he
+concluded his greeting inconsequently: "Oh, this is my little girl
+Cora."
+
+"Run along, little girl," said the fat father.
+
+His little girl's radiant glance at the alert visitor imparted her
+thorough comprehension of all the old man's absurdities, which had
+reached their climax in her dismissal. Her parting look, falling
+from Corliss's face to the waste-basket at his feet, just touched
+the rose in his hand as she passed through the door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+Cora paused in the hall at a point about twenty feet from the
+door, a girlish stratagem frequently of surprising advantage to
+the practitioner; but the two men had begun to speak of the
+weather. Suffering a momentary disappointment, she went on,
+stepping silently, and passed through a door at the end of the
+hall into a large and barren looking dining-room, stiffly and
+skimpily furnished, but well-lighted, owing to the fact that one
+end of it had been transformed into a narrow "conservatory," a
+glass alcove now tenanted by two dried palms and a number of
+vacant jars and earthen crocks.
+
+Here her sister sat by an open window, repairing masculine
+underwear; and a handsome, shabby, dirty boy of about thirteen
+sprawled on the floor of the "conservatory" unloosing upon its
+innocent, cracked, old black and white tiles a ghastly family of
+snakes, owls, and visaged crescent moons, in orange, green, and
+other loathsome chalks. As Cora entered from the hall, a woman of
+fifty came in at a door opposite, and, a dust-cloth retained under
+her left arm, an unsheathed weapon ready for emergency, leaned
+sociably against the door-casing and continued to polish a
+tablespoon with a bit of powdered chamois-skin. She was tall and
+slightly bent; and, like the flat, old, silver spoon in her hand,
+seemed to have been worn thin by use; yet it was plain that the
+three young people in the room "got their looks" from her. Her
+eyes, if tired, were tolerant and fond; and her voice held its
+youth and something of the music of Cora's.
+
+"What is he like?" She addressed the daughter by the window.
+
+"Why don't you ask Coralie?" suggested the sprawling artist,
+relaxing his hideous labour. He pronounced his sister's name with
+intense bitterness. He called it "Cora-_lee_," with an implication
+far from subtle that his sister had at some time thus Gallicized
+herself, presumably for masculine favour; and he was pleased to
+receive tribute to his satire in a flash of dislike from her
+lovely eyes.
+
+"I ask Laura because it was Laura who went to the door," Mrs.
+Madison answered. "I do not ask Cora because Cora hasn't seen him.
+Do I satisfy you, Hedrick?"
+
+"`Cora hasn't seen him!'" the boy hooted mockingly. "She hasn't?
+She was peeking out of the library shutters when he came up the
+front walk, and she wouldn't let me go to the door; she told Laura
+to go, but first she took the library waste-basket and laid one o'
+them roses----"
+
+"_Those_ roses," said Cora sharply. "He _will_ hang around the
+neighbours' stables. I think you ought to do something about it,
+mother."
+
+"_Them_ roses!" repeated Hedrick fiercely. "One o' them roses Dick
+Lindley sent her this morning. Laid it in the waste-basket and
+sneaked it into the reception room for an excuse to go galloping
+in and----"
+
+"`Galloping'?" said Mrs. Madison gravely.
+
+"It was a pretty bum excuse," continued the unaffected youth, "but
+you bet your life you'll never beat our Cora-_lee_ when there's a
+person in pants on the premises! It's sickening." He rose, and
+performed something like a toe-dance, a supposed imitation of his
+sister's mincing approach to the visitor. "Oh, dear, I am such a
+little sweety! Here I am all alone just reeking with
+Browning-and-Tennyson and thinking to myself about such lovely
+things, and walking around looking for my nice, pretty rose. Where
+can it be? Oh heavens, Mister, are _you_ here? Oh my, I never,
+never thought that there was a _man_ here! How you frighten me!
+See what a shy little thing I am? You _do see, don't_ you, old
+sweeticums? Ta, ta, here's papa. Remember me by that rose, 'cause
+it's just like me. Me and it's twins, you see, cutie-sugar!" The
+diabolical boy then concluded with a reversion to the severity of
+his own manner: "If she was _my_ daughter I'd whip her!"
+
+His indignation was left in the air, for the three ladies had
+instinctively united against him, treacherously including his
+private feud in the sex-war of the ages: Cora jumped lightly upon
+the table and sat whistling and polishing the nails of one hand
+upon the palm of another; Laura continued to sew without looking
+up, and Mrs. Madison, conquering a tendency to laugh, preserved a
+serene countenance and said ruminatively:
+
+"They were all rather queer, the Corlisses."
+
+Hedrick stared incredulously, baffled; but men must expect these
+things, and this was no doubt a helpful item in his education.
+
+"I wonder if he wants to sell the house," said Mrs. Madison.
+
+"I wish he would. Anything that would make father get out of it!"
+Cora exclaimed. "I hope Mr. Corliss will burn it if he doesn't
+sell it."
+
+"He might want to live here himself."
+
+"He!" Cora emitted a derisive outcry.
+
+Her mother gave her a quick, odd look, in which there was a real
+alarm. "What is he like, Cora?"
+
+"Awfully foreign and distinguished!"
+
+This brought Hedrick to confront her with a leap as of some wild
+animal under a lash. He landed close to her; his face awful.
+
+"Princely, I should call him," said Cora, her enthusiasm
+undaunted. "Distinctly princely!"
+
+"Princely," moaned Hedrick. "Pe-rin-sley!"
+
+"Hedrick!" Mrs. Madison reproved him automatically. "In what way
+is he `foreign,' Cora?"
+
+"Oh, every way." Cora let her glance rest dreamily upon the goaded
+boy. "He has a splendid head set upon a magnificent torso----"
+
+"_Torso_!" Hedrick whispered hoarsely.
+
+"Tall, a glorious figure--like a young guardsman's." Madness was
+gathering in her brother's eyes; and observing it with quiet
+pleasure, she added: "One sees immediately he has the grand
+manner, the bel air."
+
+Hedrick exploded. "`_Bel air_'!" he screamed, and began to jump up
+and down, tossing his arms frantically, and gasping with emotion.
+"Oh, bel air! Oh, blah! `Henry Esmond!' Been readin' `Henry
+Esmond!' Oh, you be-yoo-tiful Cora-Beatrix-a-_lee_! Magganifisent
+torso! Gull_o_-rious figgi-your! Bel air! Oh, slush! Oh, luv-a-ly
+slush!" He cast himself convulsively upon the floor, full length.
+"Luv-a-ly, _luv_-a-ly slush!"
+
+"He is thirty, I should say," continued Cora, thoughtfully.
+"Yes--about thirty. A strong, keen face, rather tanned. He's
+between fair and dark----"
+
+Hedrick raised himself to the attitude of the "Dying Gaul." "And
+with `hair slightly silvered at the temples!' _Ain_'t his hair
+slightly silvered at the temples?" he cried imploringly. "Oh,
+sister, in pity's name let his hair be slightly silvered at the
+temples? Only three grains of corn, your Grace; my children are
+starving!"
+
+He collapsed again, laid his face upon his extended arms, and
+writhed.
+
+"He has rather wonderful eyes," said Cora. "They seem to look
+right through you."
+
+"Slush, slush, luv-a-ly slush," came in muffled tones from the
+floor.
+
+"And he wears his clothes so well--so differently! You feel at
+once that he's not a person, but a personage."
+
+Hedrick sat up, his eyes closed, his features contorted as with
+agony, and chanted, impromptu:
+
+    "Slush, slush, luv-a-ly, slush!
+    Le'ss all go a-swimmin' in a dollar's worth o' mush.
+    Slush in the morning, slush at night,
+    If I don't get my slush I'm bound to get tight!"
+
+"Hedrick!" said his mother.
+
+"Altogether I should say that Mr. Valentine Corliss looks as if he
+lived up to his name," Cora went on tranquilly. "Valentine Corliss
+of Corliss Street--I think I rather like the sound of that name."
+She let her beautiful voice linger upon it, caressingly.
+"Valentine Corliss."
+
+Hedrick opened his eyes, allowed his countenance to resume its
+ordinary proportions, and spoke another name slowly and with
+honeyed thoughtfulness:
+
+"Ray Vilas."
+
+This was the shot that told. Cora sprang down from the table with
+an exclamation.
+
+Hedrick, subduing elation, added gently, in a mournful whisper:
+
+"_Poor_ old Dick Lindley!"
+
+His efforts to sting his sister were completely successful at
+last: Cora was visibly agitated, and appealed hotly to her mother.
+"Am I to bear this kind of thing all my life? Aren't you _ever_
+going to punish his insolence?"
+
+"Hedrick, Hedrick!" said Mrs. Madison sadly.
+
+Cora turned to the girl by the window with a pathetic gesture.
+"Laura----" she said, and hesitated.
+
+Laura Madison looked up into her sister's troubled eyes.
+
+"I feel so morbid," said Cora, flushing a little and glancing
+away. "I wish----" She stopped.
+
+The silent Laura set aside her work, rose and went out of the
+room. Her cheeks, too, had reddened faintly, a circumstance
+sharply noted by the terrible boy. He sat where he was, asprawl,
+propped by his arms behind him, watching with acute concentration
+the injured departure of Cora, following her sister. At the door,
+Cora, without pausing, threw him a look over her shoulder: a
+full-eyed shot of frankest hatred.
+
+A few moments later, magnificent chords sounded through the house.
+The piano was old, but tuned to the middle of the note, and the
+keys were swept by a master hand. The wires were not hammered;
+they were touched knowingly as by the player's own fingers, and so
+they sang--and from out among the chords there stole an errant
+melody. This was not "piano-playing" and not a pianist's
+triumphant nimbleness--it was music. Art is the language of a
+heart that knows how to speak, and a heart that knew how was
+speaking here. What it told was something immeasurably wistful,
+something that might have welled up in the breast of a young girl
+standing at twilight in an April orchard. It was the inexpressible
+made into sound, an improvisation by a master player.
+
+"You hear what she's up to?" said Hedrick, turning his head at
+last. But his mother had departed.
+
+He again extended himself flat upon the floor, face downward, this
+time as a necessary preliminary to rising after a manner of his
+own invention. Mysteriously he became higher in the middle, his
+body slowly forming first a round and then a pointed arch, with
+forehead, knees, and elbows touching the floor. A brilliantly
+executed manoeuvre closed his Gothic period, set him upright and
+upon his feet; then, without ostentation, he proceeded to the
+kitchen, where he found his mother polishing a sugar-bowl.
+
+He challenged her with a damnatory gesture in the direction of the
+music. "You hear what Cora's up to?"
+
+Mrs. Madison's expression was disturbed; she gave her son a look
+almost of appeal, and said, gently:
+
+"I believe there's nothing precisely criminal in her getting Laura
+to play for her. Laura's playing always soothes her when she feels
+out of sorts--and--you weren't very considerate of her, Hedrick.
+You upset her."
+
+"Mentioning Ray Vilas, you mean?" he demanded.
+
+"You weren't kind."
+
+"She deserves it. Look at her! _You_ know why she's got Laura at
+the piano now."
+
+"It's--it's because you worried her," his mother faltered
+evasively. "Besides, it is very hot, and Cora isn't as strong as
+she looks. She said she felt morbid and----"
+
+"Morbid? Blah!" interrupted the direct boy. "She's started after
+this Corliss man just like she did for Vilas. If I was Dick
+Lindley I wouldn't stand for Cora's----"
+
+"Hedrick!" His mother checked his outburst pleadingly. "Cora has
+so much harder time than the other girls; they're all so much
+better off. They seem to get everything they want, just by asking:
+nice clothes and jewellery--and automobiles. That seems to make a
+great difference nowadays; they all seem to have automobiles.
+We're so dreadfully poor, and Cora has to struggle so for what
+good times she----"
+
+"Her?" the boy jibed bitterly. "I don't see her doing any
+particular struggling." He waved his hand in a wide gesture. "She
+takes it _all_!"
+
+"There, there!" the mother said, and, as if feeling the need of
+placating this harsh judge, continued gently: "Cora isn't strong,
+Hedrick, and she does have a hard time. Almost every one of the
+other girls in her set is at the seashore or somewhere having a
+gay summer. You don't realize, but it's mortifying to have to be
+the only one to stay at home, with everybody knowing it's because
+your father can't afford to send her. And this house is so
+hopeless," Mrs. Madison went on, extending her plea hopefully;
+"it's impossible to make it attractive, but Cora keeps trying and
+trying: she was all morning on her knees gilding those chairs for
+the music-room, poor child, and----"
+
+"`Music-room'!" sneered the boy. "Gilt chairs! All show-off!
+That's all she ever thinks about. It's all there is to Cora, just
+show-off, so she'll get a string o' fellows chasin' after her.
+She's started for this Corliss just exactly the way she did for
+Ray Vilas!"
+
+"Hedrick!"
+
+"Just look at her!" he cried vehemently. "Don't you know she's
+tryin' to make this Corliss think it's _her_ playin' the piano
+right now?"
+
+"Oh, no----"
+
+"Didn't she do that with Ray Vilas?" he demanded quickly. "Wasn't
+that exactly what she did the first time he ever came here--got
+Laura to play and made him think it was _her_? Didn't she?"
+
+"Oh--just in fun." Mrs. Madison's tone lacked conviction; she
+turned, a little confusedly, from the glaring boy and fumbled
+among the silver on the kitchen table. "Besides--she told him
+afterward that it was Laura."
+
+"He walked in on her one day when she was battin' away at the
+piano herself with her back to the door. Then she pretended it had
+been a joke, and he was so far gone by that time he didn't care.
+He's crazy, anyway," added the youth, casually. "Who is this
+Corliss?"
+
+"He owns this house. His family were early settlers and used to be
+very prominent, but they're all dead except this one. His mother
+was a widow; she went abroad to live and took him with her when he
+was about your age, and I don't think he's ever been back since."
+
+"Did he use to live in this house?"
+
+"No; an aunt of his did. She left it to him when she died, two
+years ago. Your father was agent for her."
+
+"You think this Corliss wants to sell it?"
+
+"It's been for sale all the time he's owned it. That's why we
+moved here; it made the rent low."
+
+"Is he rich?"
+
+"They used to have money, but maybe it's all spent. It seemed to
+me he might want to raise money on the house, because I don't see
+any other reason that could bring him back here. He's already
+mortgaged it pretty heavily, your father told me. I don't----"
+Mrs. Madison paused abruptly, her eyes widening at a dismaying
+thought. "Oh, I do hope your father will know better than to ask
+him to stay to dinner!"
+
+Hedrick's expression became cryptic. "Father won't ask him," he
+said. "But I'll bet you a thousand dollars he stays!"
+
+The mother followed her son's thought and did not seek to elicit
+verbal explanation of the certainty which justified so large a
+venture. "Oh, I hope not," she said. "Sarah's threatening to
+leave, anyway; and she gets so cross if there's extra cooking on
+wash-days."
+
+"Well, Sarah'll have to get cross," said the boy grimly; "and
+_I_'ll have to plug out and go for a quart of brick ice-cream and
+carry it home in all this heat; and Laura and you'll have to stand
+over the stove with Sarah; and father'll have to change his shirt;
+and we'll all have to toil and moil and sweat and suffer while
+Cora-lee sits out on the front porch and talks toodle-do-dums to
+her new duke. And then she'll have _you_ go out and kid him along
+while----"
+
+"_Hedrick_!"
+
+"Yes, you will!--while she gets herself all dressed and powdered
+up again. After that, she'll do her share of the work: she'll
+strain her poor back carryin' Dick Lindley's flowers down the back
+stairs and stickin' 'em in a vase over a hole in the tablecloth
+that Laura hasn't had time to sew up. You wait and see!"
+
+The gloomy realism of this prophecy was not without effect upon
+the seer's mother. "Oh, no!" she exclaimed, protestingly. "We
+really can't manage it. I'm sure Cora won't want to ask him----"
+
+"You'll see!"
+
+"No; I'm sure she wouldn't think of it, but if she does I'll tell
+her we can't. We really can't, to-day."
+
+Her son looked pityingly upon her. "She ought to be _my _
+daughter," he said, the sinister implication all too plain;--"just
+about five minutes!"
+
+With that, he effectively closed the interview and left her.
+
+He returned to his abandoned art labours in the "conservatory,"
+and meditatively perpetrated monstrosities upon the tiles for the
+next half-hour, at the end of which he concealed his box of
+chalks, with an anxiety possibly not unwarranted, beneath the
+sideboard; and made his way toward the front door, first glancing,
+unseen, into the kitchen where his mother still pursued the
+silver. He walked through the hall on tiptoe, taking care to step
+upon the much stained and worn strip of "Turkish" carpet, and not
+upon the more resonant wooden floor. The music had ceased long
+since.
+
+The open doorway was like a brilliantly painted picture hung upon
+the darkness of the hall, though its human centre of interest was
+no startling bit of work, consisting of Mr. Madison pottering
+aimlessly about the sun-flooded, unkempt lawn, fanning himself,
+and now and then stooping to pull up one of the thousands of
+plantain-weeds that beset the grass. With him the little spy had
+no concern; but from a part of the porch out of sight from the
+hall came Cora's exquisite voice and the light and pleasant
+baritone of the visitor. Hedrick flattened himself in a corner
+just inside the door.
+
+"I should break any engagement whatsoever if I had one," Mr.
+Corliss was saying with what the eavesdropper considered an
+offensively "foreign" accent and an equally unjustifiable
+gallantry; "but of course I haven't: I am so utterly a stranger
+here. Your mother is immensely hospitable to wish you to ask me,
+and I'll be only too glad to stay. Perhaps after dinner you'll be
+very, very kind and play again? Of course you know how remarkable
+such----"
+
+"Oh, just improvising," Cora tossed off, carelessly, with a
+deprecatory ripple of laughter. "It's purely with the mood, you
+see. I can't make myself do things. No; I fancy I shall not play
+again today."
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"Shan't I fasten that in your buttonhole for you," said Cora.
+
+"You see how patiently I've been awaiting the offer!"
+
+There was another little silence; and the listener was able to
+construct a picture (possibly in part from an active memory) of
+Cora's delicate hands uplifted to the gentleman's lapel and Cora's
+eyes for a moment likewise uplifted.
+
+"Yes, one has moods," she said, dreamily. "I am _all_ moods. I
+think you are too, Mr. Corliss. You _look_ moody. Aren't you?"
+
+A horrible grin might have been seen to disfigure the shadow in
+the corner just within the doorway.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+It was cooler outdoors, after dinner, in the dusk of that evening;
+nevertheless three members of the Madison family denied themselves
+the breeze, and, as by a tacitly recognized and habitual
+house-rule, so disposed themselves as to afford the most agreeable
+isolation for the younger daughter and the guest, who occupied
+wicker chairs upon the porch. The mother and father sat beneath a
+hot, gas droplight in the small "library"; Mrs. Madison with an
+evening newspaper, her husband with "King Solomon's Mines"; and
+Laura, after crisply declining an urgent request from Hedrick to
+play, had disappeared upstairs. The inimical lad alone was
+inspired for the ungrateful role of duenna.
+
+He sat upon the topmost of the porch steps with the air of being
+permanently implanted; leaning forward, elbows on knees, cheeks on
+palms, in a treacherous affectation of profound reverie; and his
+back (all of him that was plainly visible in the hall light)
+tauntingly close to a delicate foot which would, God wot!
+willingly have launched him into the darkness beyond. It was his
+dreadful pleasure to understand wholly the itching of that shapely
+silk and satin foot.
+
+The gas-light from the hall laid a broad orange path to the
+steps--Cora and her companion sat just beyond it, his whiteness
+gray, and she a pale ethereality in the shadow. She wore an
+evening gown that revealed a vague lilac through white, and
+shimmered upon her like a vapour. She was very quiet; and there
+was a wan sweetness about her, an exhalation of wistfulness. Cora,
+in the evening, was more like a rose than ever. She was fragrant
+in the dusk. The spell she cast was an Undine's: it was not to be
+thought so exquisite a thing as she could last. And who may know
+how she managed to say what she did in the silence and darkness?
+For it was said--without words, without touch, even without a
+look--as plainly as if she had spoken or written the message: "If
+I am a rose, I am one to be worn and borne away. Are you the man?"
+
+With the fall of night, the street they faced had become still,
+save for an infrequent squawk of irritation on the part of one of
+the passing automobiles, gadding for the most part silently, like
+fireflies. But after a time a strolling trio of negroes came
+singing along the sidewalk.
+
+    "In the evening, by the moonlight, you could hear
+      those banjos ringing;
+    In the evening, by the moonlight, you could hear
+      those darkies singing.
+    How the ole folks would injoy it; they would sit
+      all night an' lis-sun,
+    As we sang I-I-N the evening BY-Y-Y the moonlight.'
+
+"Ah, _that_ takes me back!" exclaimed Corliss. "That's as it used
+to be. I might be a boy again."
+
+"And I suppose this old house has many memories for you?" said
+Cora, softly.
+
+"Not very many. My, old-maid aunt didn't like me overmuch, I
+believe; and I wasn't here often. My mother and I lived far down
+the street. A big apartment-house stands there now, I noticed as I
+was walking out here this afternoon--the `Verema,' it is called,
+absurdly enough!"
+
+"Ray Vilas lives there," volunteered Hedrick, not altering his
+position.
+
+"Vilas?" said the visitor politely, with a casual recollection
+that the name had been once or twice emphasized by the youth at
+dinner. "I don't remember Vilas among the old names here."
+
+"It wasn't, I guess," said Hedrick. "Ray Vilas has only been here
+about two years. He came from Kentucky."
+
+"A great friend of yours, I suppose."
+
+"He ain't a boy," said Hedrick, and returned to silence without
+further explanation.
+
+"How cool and kind the stars are to-night," said Cora, very
+gently.
+
+She leaned forward from her chair, extending a white arm along the
+iron railing of the porch; bending toward Corliss, and speaking
+toward him and away from Hedrick in as low a voice as possible,
+probably entertaining a reasonable hope of not being overheard.
+
+"I love things that are cool and kind," she said. "I love things
+that are cool and strong. I love iron." She moved her arm
+caressingly upon the railing. "I love its cool, smooth touch. Any
+strong life must have iron in it. I like iron in men."
+
+She leaned a very little closer to him.
+
+"Have you iron in you, Mr. Corliss?" she asked.
+
+At these words the frayed edge of Hedrick's broad white collar was
+lifted perceptibly from his coat, as if by a shudder passing over
+the back and shoulders beneath.
+
+"If I have not," answered Corliss in a low voice, "I will
+have--now!"
+
+"Tell me about yourself," she said.
+
+"Dear lady," he began--and it was an effective beginning, for a
+sigh of pleasure parted her lips as he spoke--"there is nothing
+interesting to tell. I have spent a very commonplace life."
+
+"I think not. You shouldn't call any life commonplace that has
+escaped _this_!" The lovely voice was all the richer for the pain
+that shook it now. "This monotony, this unending desert of ashes,
+this death in life!"
+
+"This town, you mean?"
+
+"This prison, I mean! Everything. Tell me what lies outside of it.
+You can."
+
+"What makes you think I can?"
+
+"I don't need to answer that. You understand perfectly."
+
+Valentine Corliss drew in his breath with a sound murmurous of
+delight, and for a time they did not speak.
+
+"Yes," he said, finally, "I think I do."
+
+"There are meetings in the desert," he went on, slowly. "A lonely
+traveller finds another at a spring, sometimes."
+
+"And sometimes they find that they speak the same language?"
+
+His answer came, almost in a whisper:
+
+"`Even as you and I.'"
+
+"`Even as you and I,'" she echoed, even more faintly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Cora breathed rapidly in the silence that followed; she had every
+appearance of a woman deeply and mysteriously stirred. Her
+companion watched her keenly in the dusk, and whatever the
+reciprocal symptoms of emotion he may have exhibited, they were
+far from tumultuous, bearing more likeness to the quiet
+satisfaction of a good card-player taking what may prove to be a
+decisive trick.
+
+After a time she leaned back in her chair again, and began to fan
+herself slowly.
+
+"You have lived in the Orient, haven't you, Mr. Corliss?" she said
+in an ordinary tone.
+
+"Not lived. I've been East once or twice. I spend a greater part
+of the year at Posilipo."
+
+"Where is that?"
+
+"On the fringe of Naples."
+
+"Do you live in a hotel?"
+
+"No." A slight surprise sounded in his voice. "I have a villa
+there."
+
+"Do you know what that seems to me?" Cora asked gravely, after a
+pause; then answered herself, after another: "Like magic. Like a
+strange, beautiful dream."
+
+"Yes, it is beautiful," he said.
+
+"Then tell me: What do you do there?"
+
+"I spend a lot of time on the water in a boat."
+
+"Sailing?"
+
+"On sapphires and emeralds and turquoises and rubies, melted and
+blown into waves."
+
+"And you go yachting over that glory?"
+
+"Fishing with my crew--and loafing."
+
+"But your boat is really a yacht, isn't it?"
+
+"Oh, it might be called anything," he laughed.
+
+"And your sailors are Italian fishermen?"
+
+Hedrick slew a mosquito upon his temple, smiting himself hard.
+"No, they're Chinese!" he muttered hoarsely.
+
+"They're Neapolitans," said Corliss.
+
+"Do they wear red sashes and earrings?" asked Cora.
+
+"One of them wears earrings and a derby hat!"
+
+"Ah!" she protested, turning to him again. "You don't tell me. You
+let me cross-question you, but you don't tell me things! Don't you
+see? I want to know what _life_ is! I want to know of strange
+seas, of strange people, of pain and of danger, of great music, of
+curious thoughts! What are the Neapolitan women like?"
+
+"They fade early."
+
+She leaned closer to him. "Before the fading have you--have you
+loved--many?"
+
+"All the pretty ones I ever saw," he answered gayly, but with
+something in his tone (as there was in hers) which implied that
+all the time they were really talking of things other than those
+spoken. Yet here this secret subject seemed to come near the
+surface.
+
+She let him hear a genuine little snap of her teeth. "I _thought_
+you were like that!"
+
+He laughed. "Ah, but you were sure to see it!"
+
+"You could 'a' seen a Neapolitan woman yesterday, Cora," said
+Hedrick, obligingly, "if you'd looked out the front window. She
+was working a hurdy-gurdy up and down this neighbourhood all
+afternoon." He turned genially to face his sister, and added: "Ray
+Vilas used to say there were lots of pretty girls in Lexington."
+
+Cora sprang to her feet. "You're not smoking," she said to Corliss
+hurriedly, as upon a sudden discovery. "Let me get you some
+matches."
+
+She had entered the house before he could protest, and Hedrick,
+looking down the hall, was acutely aware that she dived
+desperately into the library. But, however tragic the cry for
+justice she uttered there, it certainly was not prolonged; and the
+almost instantaneous quickness of her reappearance upon the porch,
+with matches in her hand, made this one of the occasions when her
+brother had to admit that in her own line Cora was a miracle.
+
+"So thoughtless of me," she said cheerfully, resuming her seat.
+She dropped the matches into Mr. Corliss's hand with a fleeting
+touch of her finger-tips upon his palm. "Of course you wanted to
+smoke. I can't think why I didn't realize it before. I must
+have----"
+
+A voice called from within, commanding in no, uncertain tones.
+
+"Hedrick! I should like to see you!" Hedrick rose, and, looking
+neither to the right nor, to the left, went stonily into the
+house, and appeared before the powers.
+
+"Call me?" he inquired with the air of cheerful readiness to
+proceed upon any errand, no matter how difficult.
+
+Mr. Madison countered diplomacy with gloom.
+
+"I don't know what to do with you. Why can't you let your sister
+alone?"
+
+"Has Laura been complaining of me?"
+
+"Oh, Hedrick!" said Mrs. Madison.
+
+Hedrick himself felt the justice of her reproof: his reference to
+Laura was poor work, he knew. He hung his head and began to scrape
+the carpet with the side of his shoe.
+
+"Well, what'd Cora say I been doing to her?"
+
+"You know perfectly well what you've been doing," said Mr. Madison
+sharply.
+
+"Nothing at all; just sitting on the steps. What'd she _say_?"
+
+His father evidently considered it wiser not to repeat the text of
+accusation. "You know what you did," he said heavily.
+
+"Oho!" Hedrick's eyes became severe, and his sire's evasively
+shifted from them.
+
+"You keep away from the porch," said the father, uneasily.
+
+"You mean what I said about Ray Vilas?" asked the boy.
+
+Both parents looked uncomfortable, and Mr. Madison, turning a leaf
+in his book, gave a mediocre imitation of an austere person
+resuming his reading after an impertinent interruption.
+
+"That's what you mean," said the boy accusingly. "Ray Vilas!"
+
+"Just you keep away from that porch."
+
+"Because I happened to mention Ray Vilas?" demanded Hedrick.
+
+"You let your sister alone."
+
+"I got a right to know what she said, haven't I?"
+
+There was no response, which appeared to satisfy Hedrick
+perfectly. Neither parent met his glance; the mother troubled and
+the father dogged, while the boy rejoiced sternly in some occult
+triumph. He inflated his scant chest in pomp and hurled at the
+defeated pair the well-known words:
+
+"I wish she was _my_ daughter--about five minutes!"
+
+New sounds from without--men's voices in greeting, and a ripple of
+response from Cora somewhat lacking in enthusiasm--afforded Mr.
+Madison unmistakable relief, and an errand upon which to send his
+deadly offspring.
+
+Hedrick, after a reconnaissance in the hall, obeyed at leisure.
+Closing the library door nonchalantly behind him, he found himself
+at the foot of a flight of unillumined back stairs, where his
+manner underwent a swift alteration, for here was an adventure to
+be gone about with ceremony. "Ventre St. Gris!" he muttered
+hoarsely, and loosened the long rapier in the shabby sheath at his
+side. For, with the closing of the door, he had become a Huguenot
+gentleman, over forty and a little grizzled perhaps, but modest
+and unassuming; wiry, alert, lightning-quick, with a wrist of
+steel and a heart of gold; and he was about to ascend the stairs
+of an unknown house at Blois in total darkness. He went up,
+crouching, ready for anything, without a footfall, not even
+causing a hideous creak; and gained the top in safety. Here he
+turned into an obscure passage, and at the end of it beheld,
+through an open door, a little room in which a dark-eyed lady sat
+writing in a book by the light of an oil lamp.
+
+The wary Huguenot remained in the shadow and observed her.
+
+Laura was writing in an old ledger she had found in the attic,
+blank and unused. She had rebound it herself in heavy gray
+leather; and fitted it with a tiny padlock and key. She wore the
+key under her dress upon a very thin silver chain round her neck.
+Upon the first page of the book was written a date, now more than
+a year past, the month was June--and beneath it:
+
+    "Love came to me to-day."
+
+Nothing more was written upon that page.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+Laura, at this writing, looked piquantly unfamiliar to her
+brother: her eyes were moist and bright; her cheeks were flushed
+and as she bent low, intently close to the book, a loosened wavy
+strand of her dark hair almost touched the page. Hedrick had never
+before seen her wearing an expression so "becoming" as the eager
+and tremulous warmth of this; though sometimes, at the piano, she
+would play in a reverie which wrought such glamour about her that
+even a brother was obliged to consider her rather handsome. She
+looked more than handsome now, so strangely lovely, in fact, that
+his eyes watered painfully with the protracted struggle to read a
+little of the writing in her book before she discovered him.
+
+He gave it up at last, and lounged forward blinking, with the air
+of finding it sweet to do nothing.
+
+"Whatch' writin'?" he asked in simple carelessness.
+
+At the first sound of his movement she closed the book in a flash;
+then, with a startled, protective gesture, extended her arms over
+it, covering it.
+
+"What is it, Hedrick?" she asked, breathlessly.
+
+"What's the padlock for?"
+
+"Nothing," she panted. "What is it you want?"
+
+"You writin' poetry?"
+
+Laura's eyes dilated; she looked dangerous.
+
+"Oh, I don't care about your old book," said Hedrick, with an
+amused nonchalance Talleyrand might have admired. "There's
+callers, and you have to come down."
+
+"Who sent you?"
+
+"A man I've often noticed around the house," he replied
+blightingly. "You may have seen him--I think his name's Madison.
+His wife and he both sent for you."
+
+One of Laura's hands instinctively began to arrange her hair, but
+the other remained upon the book. "Who is it calling?"
+
+"Richard Lindley and that Wade Trumble."
+
+Laura rose, standing between her brother and the table. "Tell
+mother I will come down."
+
+Hedrick moved a little nearer, whereupon, observing his eye, she
+put her right hand behind her upon the book. She was not deceived,
+and boys are not only superb strategic actors sometimes, but
+calamitously quick. Appearing to be unaware of her careful
+defence, he leaned against the wall and crossed his feet in an
+original and interesting manner.
+
+"Of course _you_ understand," he said cosily. "Cora wants to keep
+this Corliss in a corner of the porch where she can coo at him; so
+you and mother'll have to raise a ballyhoo for Dick Lindley and
+that Wade Trumble. It'd been funny if Dick hadn't noticed anybody
+was there and kissed her. What on earth does he want to stay
+engaged to her for, anyway?"
+
+"You don't know that she is engaged to Mr. Lindley, Hedrick."
+
+"Get out!" he hooted. "What's the use talking like that to me? A
+blind mackerel could see she's let poor old Lindley think he's
+High Man with her these last few months; but he'll have to hit the
+pike now, I reckon, 'cause this Corliss is altogether too
+pe-rin-sley for Dick's class. Lee roy est mort. Vive lee roy!"
+
+"Hedrick, won't you please run along? I want to change my dress."
+
+"What for? There was company for dinner and you didn't change
+then."
+
+Laura's flushed cheeks flushed deeper, and in her confusion she
+answered too quickly. "I only have one evening gown. I--of course
+I can't wear it every night."
+
+"Well, then," he returned triumphantly, "what do you want to put
+it on now for?"
+
+"_Please_ run along, Hedrick," she pleaded.
+
+"You didn't for this Corliss," he persisted sharply. "You know
+Dick Lindley couldn't see anybody but Cora to save his life, and I
+don't suppose there's a girl on earth fool enough to dress up for
+that Wade Trum----"
+
+"Hedrick!" Laura's voice rang with a warning which he remembered
+to have heard upon a few previous occasions when she had easily
+proved herself physically stronger than he. "Go and tell mother
+I'm coming," she said.
+
+He began to whistle "Beulah Land" as he went, but, with the swift
+closing of the door behind him, abandoned that pathetically
+optimistic hymn prematurely, after the third bar.
+
+Twenty minutes later, when Laura came out and went downstairs, a
+fine straight figure in her black evening gown, the Sieur de
+Marsac--that hard-bitten Huguenot, whose middle-aged shabbiness
+was but the outward and deceptive seeming of the longest head and
+the best sword in France--emerged cautiously from the passageway
+and stood listening until her footsteps were heard descending the
+front stairs. Nevertheless, the most painstaking search of her
+room, a search as systematic as it was feverish, failed to reveal
+where she had hidden the book.
+
+He returned wearily to the porch.
+
+A prophet has always been supposed to take some pleasure, perhaps
+morbid, in seeing his predictions fulfilled; and it may have been
+a consolation to the gloomy heart of Hedrick, sorely injured by
+Laura's offensive care of her treasure, to find the grouping upon
+the porch as he had foretold: Cora and Mr. Corliss sitting a
+little aloof from the others, far enough to permit their holding
+an indistinct and murmurous conversation of their own. Their
+sequestration, even by so short a distance, gave them an
+appearance of intimacy which probably accounted for the rather
+absent greeting bestowed by Mr. Lindley upon the son of the house,
+who met him with some favour.
+
+This Richard Lindley was a thin, friendly looking young man with a
+pleasing, old-fashioned face which suggested that if he were
+minded to be portrayed it should be by the daguerreotype, and that
+a high, black stock would have been more suitable to him than his
+businesslike, modern neck-gear. He had fine eyes, which seemed
+habitually concerned with faraway things, though when he looked at
+Cora they sparkled; however, it cannot be said that the sparkling
+continued at its brightest when his glance wandered (as it not
+infrequently did this evening) from her lovely head to the rose in
+Mr. Corliss's white coat.
+
+Hedrick, resuming a position upon the top step between the two
+groups, found the conversation of the larger annoying because it
+prevented him from hearing that of the smaller. It was carried on
+for the greater part by his mother and Mr. Trumble; Laura sat
+silent between these two; and Lindley's mood was obviously
+contemplative. Mr. Wade Trumble, twenty-six, small, earnest, and
+already beginning to lose his hair, was talkative enough.
+
+He was one of those people who are so continuously aggressive that
+they are negligible. "What's the matter here? Nobody pays any
+attention to me. I'M important!" He might have had that legend
+engraved on his card, it spoke from everything else that was his:
+face, voice, gesture--even from his clothes, for they also
+clamoured for attention without receiving it. Worn by another man,
+their extravagance of shape and shade might have advertised a
+self-sacrificing effort for the picturesque; but upon Mr. Trumble
+they paradoxically confirmed an impression that he was well off
+and close. Certainly this was the impression confirmed in the mind
+of the shrewdest and most experienced observer on that veranda.
+The accomplished Valentine Corliss was quite able to share Cora's
+detachment satisfactorily, and be very actively aware of other
+things at the same time. For instance: Richard Lindley's
+preoccupation had neither escaped him nor remained unconnected in
+his mind with that gentleman's somewhat attentive notice of the
+present position of a certain rose.
+
+Mr. Trumble took up Mrs. Madison's placid weather talk as if it
+had been a flaunting challenge; he made it a matter of conscience
+and for argument; for he was a doughty champion, it appeared, when
+nothings were in question, one of those stern men who will have
+accuracy in the banal, insisting upon portent in talk meant to be
+slid over as mere courteous sound.
+
+"I don't know about that, now," he said with severe emphasis. "I
+don't know about that at all. I can't say I agree with you. In
+fact, I do not agree with you: it was hotter in the early part of
+July, year before last, than it has been at any time this summer.
+Several degrees hotter--several degrees."
+
+"I fear I must beg to differ with you," he said, catching the poor
+lady again, a moment later. "I beg to differ decidedly. Other
+places get a great deal more heat. Look at Egypt."
+
+"Permit me to disagree," he interrupted her at once, when she
+pathetically squirmed to another subject. "There's more than one
+side to this matter. You are looking at this matter from a totally
+wrong angle. . . . Let me inform you that statistics. . . ." Mrs.
+Madison's gentle voice was no more than just audible in the short
+intervals he permitted; a blind listener would have thought Mr.
+Trumble at the telephone. Hedrick was thankful when his mother
+finally gave up altogether the display of her ignorance,
+inaccuracy, and general misinformation, and Trumble talked alone.
+That must have been the young man's object; certainly he had
+struggled for it; and so it must have pleased him. He talked on
+and on and on; he passed from one topic to another with no pause;
+swinging over the gaps with a "Now you take," or, "And that
+reminds me," filling many a vacancy with "So-and-so and
+so-and-so," and other stencils, while casting about for material
+to continue. Everything was italicized, the significant and the
+trivial, to the same monotone of emphasis. Death and shoe-laces
+were all the same to him.
+
+Anything was all the same to him so long as he talked.
+
+Hedrick's irritation was gradually dispelled; and, becoming used
+to the sound, he found it lulling; relaxed his attitude and
+drowsed; Mr. Lindley was obviously lost in a reverie; Mrs.
+Madison, her hand shading her eyes, went over her market-list for
+the morrow and otherwise set her house in order; Laura alone sat
+straight in her chair; and her face was toward the vocalist, but
+as she was in deep shadow her expression could not be guessed.
+However, one person in that group must have listened with genuine
+pleasure--else why did he talk?
+
+It was the returned native whose departure at last rang the
+curtain on the monologue. The end of the long sheltered seclusion
+of Cora and her companion was a whispered word. He spoke it first:
+
+"To-morrow?"
+
+"To-morrow."
+
+Cora gave a keen, quick, indrawn sigh--not of sorrow--and sank
+back in her chair, as he touched her hand in farewell and rose to
+go. She remained where she was, motionless and silent in the dark,
+while he crossed to Mrs. Madison, and prefaced a leave-taking
+unusually formal for these precincts with his mannered bow. He
+shook hands with Richard Lindley, asking genially:
+
+"Do you still live where you did--just below here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When I passed by there this afternoon," said Corliss, "it
+recalled a stupendous conflict we had, once upon a time; but I
+couldn't remember the cause."
+
+"I remember the cause," said Mr. Lindley, but, stopping rather
+short, omitted to state it. "At all events, it was settled."
+
+"Yes," said the other quietly. "You whipped me."
+
+"Did I so?" Corliss laughed gayly. "We mustn't let it happen
+again!"
+
+Mr. Trumble joined the parting guest, making simultaneous adieus
+with unmistakable elation. Mr. Trumble's dreadful entertainment
+had made it a happy evening for him.
+
+As they went down the steps together, the top of his head just
+above the level of his companion's shoulder, he lifted to Corliss
+a searching gaze like an actor's hopeful scrutiny of a new
+acquaintance; and before they reached the street his bark rang
+eagerly on the stilly night: "Now _there_ is a point on which I
+beg to differ with you. . . ."
+
+Mrs. Madison gave Lindley her hand. "I think I'll go in.
+Good-night, Richard. Come, Hedrick!"
+
+Hedrick rose, groaning, and batted his eyes painfully as he faced
+the hall light. "What'd you and this Corliss fight about?" he
+asked, sleepily.
+
+"Nothing," said Lindley.
+
+"You said you remembered."
+
+"Oh, I remember a lot of useless things."
+
+"Well, what was it? I want to know what you fought about."
+
+"Come, Hedrick," repeated his mother, setting a gently urgent hand
+on his shoulder.
+
+"I won't," said the boy impatiently, shaking her off and growing
+suddenly very wideawake and determined. "I won't move a step till
+he tells me what they fought about. Not a step!"
+
+"Well--it was about a `show.' We were only boys, you know--younger
+than you, perhaps."
+
+"A circus?"
+
+"A boy-circus he and my brother got up in our yard. I wasn't in
+it."
+
+"Well, what did you fight about?"
+
+"I thought Val Corliss wasn't quite fair to my brother. That's
+all."
+
+"No, it isn't! How wasn't he fair?"
+
+"They sold tickets to the other boys; and I thought my brother
+didn't get his share."
+
+"This Corliss kept it all?"
+
+"Oh, something like that," said Lindley, laughing.
+
+"Probably I was in the wrong."
+
+"And he licked you?"
+
+"All over the place!"
+
+"I wish I'd seen it," said Hedrick, not unsympathetically, but as
+a sportsman. And he consented to be led away.
+
+Laura had been standing at the top of the steps looking down the
+street, where Corliss and his brisk companion had emerged
+momentarily from deep shadows under the trees into the
+illumination of a swinging arc-lamp at the corner. They
+disappeared; and she turned, and, smiling, gave the delaying guest
+her hand in good-night.
+
+His expression, which was somewhat troubled, changed to one of
+surprise as her face came into the light, for it was transfigured.
+Deeply flushed, her eyes luminous, she wore that shining look
+Hedrick had seen as she wrote in her secret book.
+
+"Why, Laura!" said Lindley, wondering.
+
+She said good-night again, and went in slowly. As she reached the
+foot of the stairs, she heard him moving a chair upon the porch,
+and Cora speaking sharply:
+
+"Please don't sit close to me!" There was a sudden shrillness in
+the voice of honey, and the six words were run so rapidly together
+they seemed to form but one. After a moment Cora added, with a
+deprecatory ripple of laughter not quite free from the same
+shrillness:
+
+"You see, Richard, it's so--it's so hot, to-night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+Half an hour later, when Lindley had gone, Cora closed the front
+doors in a manner which drew an immediate cry of agony from the
+room where her father was trying to sleep. She stood on tiptoe to
+turn out the gas-light in the hall; but for a time the key
+resisted the insufficient pressure of her finger-tips: the little
+orange flame, with its black-green crescent over the armature, so
+maliciously like the "eye" of a peacock feather, limned the
+exquisite planes of the upturned face; modelled them with soft and
+regular shadows; painted a sullen loveliness. The key turned a
+little, but not enough; and she whispered to herself a
+monosyllable not usually attributed to the vocabulary of a damsel
+of rank. Next moment, her expression flashed in a brilliant
+change, like that of a pouting child suddenly remembering that
+tomorrow is Christmas. The key surrendered instantly, and she ran
+gayly up the familiar stairs in the darkness.
+
+The transom of Laura's door shone brightly; but the knob, turning
+uselessly in Cora's hand, proved the door itself not so
+hospitable. There was a brief rustling within the room; the bolt
+snapped, and Laura opened the door.
+
+"Why, Laura," said Cora, observing her sister with transient
+curiosity, "you haven't undressed. What have you been doing?
+Something's the matter with you. I know what it is," she added,
+laughing, as she seated herself on the edge of the old
+black-walnut bed. "You're in love with Wade Trumble!"
+
+"He's a strong man," observed Laura. "A remarkable throat."
+
+"Horrible little person!" said Cora, forgetting what she owed the
+unfortunate Mr. Trumble for the vocal wall which had so
+effectively sheltered her earlier in the evening. "He's like one
+of those booming June-bugs, batting against the walls, falling
+into lamp-chimneys-----"
+
+"He doesn't get very near the light he wants," said Laura.
+
+"Me? Yes, he would like to, the rat! But he's consoled when he can
+get any one to listen to his awful chatter. He makes up to himself
+among women for the way he gets sat on at the club. But he has his
+use: he shows off the other men so, by contrast. Oh, Laura!" She
+lifted both hands to her cheeks, which were beautiful with a quick
+suffusion of high colour. "Isn't he gorgeous!"
+
+"Yes," said Laura gently, "I've always thought so."
+
+"Now what's the use of that?" asked Cora peevishly, "with _me_? I
+didn't mean Richard Lindley. You _know_ what I mean."
+
+"Yes--of course--I do," Laura said.
+
+Cora gave her a long look in which a childlike pleading mingled
+with a faint, strange trouble; then this glance wandered moodily
+from the face of her sister to her own slippers, which she
+elevated to meet her descending line of vision.
+
+"And you know I can't help it," she said, shifting quickly to the
+role of accuser. "So what's the use of behaving like the Pest?"
+She let her feet drop to the floor again, and her voice trembled a
+little as she went on: "Laura, you don't know what I had to endure
+from him to-night. I really don't think I can stand it to live in
+the same house any longer with that frightful little devil. He's
+been throwing Ray Vilas's name at me until--oh, it was ghastly
+to-night! And then--then----" Her tremulousness increased. "I
+haven't said anything about it all day, but I _met_ him on the
+street downtown, this morning----"
+
+"You met Vilas?" Laura looked startled. "Did he speak to you?"
+
+"`Speak to me!'" Cora's exclamation shook with a half-laugh of
+hysteria. "He made an awful _scene_! He came out of the Richfield
+Hotel barroom on Main Street just as I was going into the
+jeweller's next door, and he stopped and bowed like a monkey,
+square in front of me, and--and he took off his hat and set it on
+the pavement at my feet and told me to kick it into the gutter!
+Everybody stopped and stared; and I couldn't get by him. And he
+said--he said I'd kicked his heart into the gutter and he didn't
+want it to catch cold without a hat! And wouldn't I please be so
+kind as to kick----" She choked with angry mortification. "It was
+horrible! People were stopping and laughing, and a rowdy began to
+make fun of Ray, and pushed him, and they got into a scuffle, and
+I ran into the jeweller's and almost fainted."
+
+"He is insane!" said Laura, aghast.
+
+"He's nothing of the kind; he's just a brute. He does it to make
+people say I'm the cause of his drinking; and everybody in this
+gossipy old town _does_ say it--just because I got bored to death
+with his everlasting do-you-love-me-to-day-as-well-as-yesterday
+style of torment, and couldn't help liking Richard better. Yes,
+every old cat in town says I ruined him, and that's what he wants
+them to say. It's so unmanly! I wish he'd die! Yes, I _do_ wish he
+would! Why doesn't he kill himself?"
+
+"Ah, don't say that," protested Laura.
+
+"Why not? He's threatened to enough. And I'm afraid to go out of
+the house because I can't tell when I'll meet him or what he'll
+do. I was almost sick in that jeweller's shop, this morning, and
+so upset I came away without getting my pendant. There's _another_
+thing I've got to go through, I suppose!" She pounded the yielding
+pillow desperately. "Oh, oh, oh! Life isn't worth living--it seems
+to me sometimes as if everybody in the world spent his time trying
+to think up ways to make it harder for me! I couldn't have worn
+the pendant, though, even if I'd got it," she went on, becoming
+thoughtful. "It's Richard's silly old engagement ring, you know,"
+she explained, lightly. "I had it made up into a pendant, and
+heaven knows how I'm going to get Richard to see it the right way.
+He was so unreasonable tonight."
+
+"Was he cross about Mr. Corliss monopolizing you?"
+
+"Oh, you know how he is," said Cora. "He didn't speak of it
+exactly. But after you'd gone, he asked me----" She stopped with a
+little gulp, an expression of keen distaste about her mouth.
+
+"Oh, he wants me to wear my ring," she continued, with sudden
+rapidity: "and how the dickens _can_ I when I can't even tell him
+it's been made into a pendant! He wants to speak to father; he
+wants to _announce_ it. He's sold out his business for what he
+thinks is a good deal of money, and he wants me to marry him next
+month and take some miserable little trip, I don't know where, for
+a few weeks, before he invests what he's made in another business.
+Oh!" she cried. "It's a _horrible_ thing to ask a girl to do: to
+settle down--just housekeeping, housekeeping, housekeeping
+forever in this stupid, stupid town! It's so unfair! Men are just
+possessive; they think it's loving you to want to possess you
+themselves. A beautiful `love'! It's so mean! Men!" She sprang up
+and threw out both arms in a vehement gesture of revolt. "Damn
+'em, I wish they'd let me _alone_!"
+
+Laura's eyes had lost their quiet; they showed a glint of tears,
+and she was breathing quickly. In this crisis of emotion the two
+girls went to each other silently; Cora turned, and Laura began to
+unfasten Cora's dress in the back.
+
+"Poor Richard!" said Laura presently, putting into her mouth a
+tiny pearl button which had detached itself at her touch. "This
+was his first evening in the overflow. No wonder he was troubled!"
+
+"Pooh!" said Cora. "As if you and mamma weren't good enough for
+him to talk to! He's spoiled. He's so used to being called `the
+most popular man in town' and knowing that every girl on Corliss
+Street wanted to marry him----" She broke off, and exclaimed
+sharply: "I wish they would!"
+
+"Cora!"
+
+"Oh, I suppose you mean that's the reason _I_ went in for him?"
+
+"No, no," explained Laura hurriedly. "I only meant, stand still."
+
+"Well, it was!" And Cora's abrupt laugh had the glad, free ring
+fancy attaches to the merry confidences of a buccaneer in trusted
+company.
+
+Laura knelt to continue unfastening the dress; and when it was
+finished she extended three of the tiny buttons in her hand.
+"They're always loose on a new dress," she said. "I'll sew them
+all on tight, to-morrow."
+
+Cora smiled lovingly. "You good old thing," she said. "You looked
+pretty to-night."
+
+"That's nice!" Laura laughed, as she dropped the buttons into a
+little drawer of her bureau. It was an ugly, cheap, old bureau,
+its veneer loosened and peeling, the mirror small and flawed--a
+piece of furniture in keeping with the room, which was small,
+plain and hot, its only ornamental adjunct being a silver-framed
+photograph of Mrs. Madison, with Cora, as a child of seven or
+eight, upon her lap.
+
+"You really do look ever so pretty," asserted Cora.
+
+"I wonder if I look as well as I did the last time I heard I was
+pretty," said the other. "That was at the Assembly in March.
+Coming down the stairs, I heard a man from out of town say, `That
+black-haired Miss Madison is a pretty girl.' And some one with him
+said, `Yes; you'll think so until you meet her sister!'"
+
+"You are an old dear!" Cora enfolded her delightedly; then,
+drawing back, exclaimed: "You _know_ he's gorgeous!" And with a
+feverish little ripple of laughter, caught her dress together in
+the back and sped through the hall to her own room.
+
+This was a very different affair from Laura's, much cooler and
+larger; occupying half the width of the house; and a rather
+expensive struggle had made it pretty and even luxurious. The
+window curtains and the wall-paper were fresh, and of a quiet
+blue; there was a large divan of the same colour; a light desk,
+prettily equipped, occupied a corner; and between two gilt
+gas-brackets, whose patent burners were shielded by fringed silk
+shades, stood a cheval-glass six feet high. The door of a very
+large clothes-pantry stood open, showing a fine company of
+dresses, suspended from forms in an orderly manner; near by, a
+rosewood cabinet exhibited a delicate collection of shoes and
+slippers upon its four shelves. A dressing-table, charmingly
+littered with everything, took the place of a bureau; and upon it,
+in a massive silver frame, was a large photograph of Mr. Richard
+Lindley. The frame was handsome, but somewhat battered: it had
+seen service. However, the photograph was quite new.
+
+There were photographs everywhere--photographs framed and
+unframed; photographs large and photographs small, the fresh and
+the faded; tintypes, kodaks, "full lengths," "cabinets,"
+groups--every kind of photograph; and among them were several of
+Cora herself, one of her mother, one of Laura, and two others of
+girls. All the rest were sterner. Two or three were seamed across
+with cracks, hastily recalled sentences to destruction; and here
+and there remained tokens of a draughtsman's over-generous
+struggle to confer upon some of the smooth-shaven faces additional
+manliness in the shape of sweeping moustaches, long beards,
+goatees, mutton-chops, and, in the case of one gentleman of a
+blond, delicate and tenor-like beauty, neck-whiskers;--decorations
+in many instances so deeply and damply pencilled that subsequent
+attempts at erasure had failed of great success. Certainly,
+Hedrick had his own way of relieving dull times.
+
+Cora turned up the lights at the sides of the cheval-glass, looked
+at herself earnestly, then absently, and began to loosen her hair.
+Her lifted hands hesitated; she re-arranged the slight
+displacement of her hair already effected; set two chairs before
+the mirror, seated herself in one; pulled up her dress, where it
+was slipping from her shoulder, rested an arm upon the back of the
+other chair as, earlier in the evening, she had rested it upon the
+iron railing of the porch, and, leaning forward, assumed as
+exactly as possible the attitude in which she had sat so long
+beside Valentine Corliss. She leaned very slowly closer and yet
+closer to the mirror; a rich colour spread over her; her eyes,
+gazing into themselves, became dreamy, inexpressibly wistful,
+cloudily sweet; her breath was tumultuous. "`Even as you and I'?"
+she whispered.
+
+Then, in the final moment of this after-the-fact rehearsal, as her
+face almost touched the glass, she forgot how and what she had
+looked to Corliss; she forgot him; she forgot him utterly: she
+leaped to her feet and kissed the mirrored lips with a sort of
+passion.
+
+"You _darling_!" she cried. Cora's christening had been
+unimaginative, for the name means only, "maiden." She should
+have been called Narcissa.
+
+The rhapsody was over instantly, leaving an emotional vacuum like
+a silence at the dentist's. Cora yawned, and resumed the loosening
+of her hair.
+
+When she had put on her nightgown, she went from one window to
+another, closing the shutters against the coming of the morning
+light to wake her. As she reached the last window, a sudden high
+wind rushed among the trees outside; a white flare leaped at her
+face, startling her; there was a boom and rattle as of the
+brasses, cymbals, and kettle-drums of some fatal orchestra; and
+almost at once it began to rain.
+
+And with that, from the distance came a voice, singing; and at the
+first sound of it, though it was far away and almost
+indistinguishable, Cora started more violently than at the
+lightning; she sprang to the mirror lights, put them out; threw
+herself upon the bed, and huddled there in the darkness.
+
+The wind passed; the heart of the storm was miles away; this was
+only its fringe; but the rain pattered sharply upon the thick
+foliage outside her windows; and the singing voice came slowly up
+the street.
+
+It was a strange voice: high-pitched and hoarse--and not quite
+human, so utter was the animal abandon of it.
+
+"I love a lassie, a bonnie, bonnie lassie," it wailed and piped,
+coming nearer; and the gay little air--wrought to a grotesque of
+itself by this wild, high voice in the rain--might have been a
+banshee's love-song.
+
+    "I love a lassie, a bonnie, bonnie lassie.
+    She's as pure as the lily in the dell----"
+
+The voice grew louder; came in front of the house; came into the
+yard; came and sang just under Cora's window. There it fell silent
+a moment; then was lifted in a long peal of imbecile laughter, and
+sang again:
+
+    "Then slowly, slowly rase she up
+    And slowly she came nigh him,
+    And when she drew the curtain by--
+    `Young man I think you're dyin'.'"
+
+Cora's door opened and closed softly, and Laura, barefooted, stole
+to the bed and put an arm about the shaking form of her sister.
+
+"The drunken beast!" sobbed Cora. "It's to disgrace me! That's
+what he wants. He'd like nothing better than headlines in the
+papers: `Ray Vilas arrested at the Madison residence'!" She choked
+with anger and mortification. "The neighbours----"
+
+"They're nearly all away," whispered Laura. "You needn't fear----"
+
+"Hark!"
+
+The voice stopped singing, and began to mumble incoherently; then
+it rose again in a lamentable outcry:
+
+"Oh, God of the fallen, be Thou merciful to me! Be Thou
+merciful--merciful--_merciful_" . . .
+
+"MERCIFUL, MERCIFUL, MERCIFUL!" it shrieked, over and over, with
+increasing loudness, and to such nerve-racking effect that Cora,
+gasping, beat the bedclothes frantically with her hands at each
+iteration.
+
+The transom over the door became luminous; some one had lighted
+the gas in the upper hall. Both girls jumped from the bed, ran to
+the door, and opened it. Their mother, wearing a red wrapper, was
+standing at the head of the stairs, which Mr. Madison, in his
+night-shirt and slippers, was slowly and heavily descending.
+
+Before he reached the front door, the voice outside ceased its
+dreadful plaint with the abrupt anti-climax of a phonograph
+stopped in the middle of a record. There was the sound of a
+struggle and wrestling, a turmoil in the wet shrubberies, branches
+cracking.
+
+"Let me go, da----" cried the voice, drowned again at half a word,
+as by a powerful hand upon a screaming mouth.
+
+The old man opened the front door, stepped out, closing it behind
+him; and the three women looked at each other wanly during a
+hushed interval like that in a sleeping-car at night when the
+train stops. Presently he came in again, and started up the
+stairs, heavily and slowly, as he had gone down.
+
+"Richard Lindley stopped him," he said, sighing with the ascent,
+and not looking up. "He heard him as he came along the street, and
+dressed as quick as he could, and ran up and got him. Richard's
+taken him away."
+
+He went to his own room, panting, mopping his damp gray hair with
+his fat wrist, and looking at no one.
+
+Cora began to cry again. It was an hour before any of this family
+had recovered sufficient poise to realize, with the shuddering
+gratitude of adventurers spared from the abyss, that, under
+Providence, Hedrick had not wakened!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+Much light shatters much loveliness; but a pretty girl who looks
+pretty outdoors on a dazzling hot summer morning is prettier then
+than ever. Cora knew it; of course she knew it; she knew exactly
+how she looked, as she left the concrete bridge behind her at the
+upper end of Corliss Street and turned into a shrub-bordered
+bypath of the river park. In imagination she stood at the turn of
+the path just ahead, watching her own approach: she saw herself as
+a picture--the white-domed parasol, with its cheerful pale-green
+lining, a background for her white hat, her corn-silk hair, and
+her delicately flushed face. She saw her pale, live arms through
+their thin sleeves, and the light grasp of her gloved fingers upon
+the glistening stick of the parasol; she saw the long, simple
+lines of her close white dress and their graceful interchanging
+movements with the alternate advance of her white shoes over the
+fine gravel path; she saw the dazzling splashes of sunshine
+playing upon her through the changeful branches overhead. Cora
+never lacked a gallery: she sat there herself.
+
+She refreshed the eyes of a respectable burgess of sixty, a person
+so colourless that no one, after passing him, could have
+remembered anything about him except that he wore glasses and some
+sort of moustache; and to Cora's vision he was as near transparent
+as any man could be, yet she did not miss the almost imperceptible
+signs of his approval, as they met and continued on their opposite
+ways. She did not glance round, nor did he pause in his slow walk;
+neither was she clairvoyant; none the less, she knew that he
+turned his head and looked back at her.
+
+The path led away from the drives and more public walks of the
+park, to a low hill, thoughtfully untouched by the gardener and
+left to the shadowy thickets and good-smelling underbrush of its
+rich native woodland. And here, by a brown bench, waited a tall
+gentleman in white.
+
+They touched hands and sat without speaking. For several moments
+they continued the silence, then turned slowly and looked at each
+other; then looked slowly and gravely away, as if to an audience
+in front of them. They knew how to do it; but probably a critic in
+the first row would have concluded that Cora felt it even more
+than Valentine Corliss enjoyed it.
+
+"I suppose this is very clandestine," she said, after a deep
+breath. "I don't think I care, though."
+
+"I hope you do," he smiled, "so that I could think your coming
+means more."
+
+"Then I'll care," she said, and looked at him again.
+
+"You dear!" he exclaimed deliberately.
+
+She bit her lip and looked down, but not before he had seen the
+quick dilation of her ardent eyes. "I wanted to be out of doors,"
+she said. "I'm afraid there's one thing of yours I don't like, Mr.
+Corliss."
+
+"I'll throw it away, then. Tell me."
+
+"Your house. I don't like living in it, very much. I'm sorry you
+_can't_ throw it away."
+
+"I'm thinking of doing that very thing," he laughed. "But I'm glad
+I found the rose in that queer old waste-basket first."
+
+"Not too much like a rose, sometimes," she said. "I think this
+morning I'm a little like some of the old doors up on the third
+floor: I feel rather unhinged, Mr. Corliss."
+
+"You don't look it, Miss Madison!"
+
+"I didn't sleep very well." She bestowed upon him a glance which
+transmuted her actual explanation into, "I couldn't sleep for
+thinking of you." It was perfectly definite; but the acute
+gentleman laughed genially.
+
+"Go on with you!" he said.
+
+Her eyes sparkled, and she joined laughter with him. "But it's
+true: you did keep me awake. Besides, I had a serenade."
+
+"Serenade? I had an idea they didn't do that any more over here. I
+remember the young men going about at night with an orchestra
+sometimes when I was a boy, but I supposed----"
+
+"Oh, it wasn't much like that," she interrupted, carelessly. "I
+don't think that sort of thing has been done for years and years.
+It wasn't an orchestra--just a man singing under my window."
+
+"With a guitar?"
+
+"No." She laughed a little. "Just singing."
+
+"But it rained last night," said Corliss, puzzled.
+
+"Oh, _he_ wouldn't mind that!"
+
+"How stupid of me! Of course, he wouldn't. Was it Richard
+Lindley?"
+
+"Never!"
+
+"I see. Yes, that was a bad guess: I'm sure Lindley's just the
+same steady-going, sober, plodding old horse he was as a boy. His
+picture doesn't fit a romantic frame--singing under a lady's
+window in a thunderstorm! Your serenader must have been very
+young."
+
+"He is," said Cora. "I suppose he's about twenty-three; just a
+boy--and a very annoying one, too!"
+
+Her companion looked at her narrowly. "By any chance, is he the
+person your little brother seemed so fond of mentioning--Mr.
+Vilas?"
+
+Cora gave a genuine start. "Good heavens! What makes you think
+that?" she cried, but she was sufficiently disconcerted to confirm
+his amused suspicion.
+
+"So it was Mr. Vilas," he said. "He's one of the jilted, of
+course."
+
+"Oh, `jilted'!" she exclaimed. "All the wild boys that a girl
+can't make herself like aren't `jilted,' are they?"
+
+"I believe I should say--yes," he returned. "Yes, in this
+instance, just about all of them."
+
+"Is every woman a target for you, Mr. Corliss? I suppose you know
+that you have a most uncomfortable way of shooting up the
+landscape." She stirred uneasily, and moved away from him to the
+other end of the bench.
+
+"I didn't miss that time," he laughed. "Don't you ever miss?"
+
+He leaned quickly toward her and answered in a low voice: "You can
+be sure I'm not going to miss anything about _you_."
+
+It was as if his bending near her had been to rouge her. But it
+cannot be said that she disliked his effect upon her; for the deep
+breath she drew in audibly, through her shut teeth, was a signal
+of delight; and then followed one of those fraught silences not
+uncharacteristic of dialogues with Cora.
+
+Presently, she gracefully and uselessly smoothed her hair from the
+left temple with the backs of her fingers, of course finishing the
+gesture prettily by tucking in a hairpin tighter above the nape of
+her neck. Then, with recovered coolness, she asked:
+
+"Did you come all the way from Italy just to sell our old house,
+Mr. Corliss?"
+
+"Perhaps that was part of why I came," he said, gayly. "I need a
+great deal of money, Miss Cora Madison."
+
+"For your villa and your yacht?"
+
+"No; I'm a magician, dear lady----"
+
+"Yes," she said, almost angrily. "Of course you know it!"
+
+"You mock me! No; I'm going to make everybody rich who will trust
+me. I have a secret, and it's worth a mountain of gold. I've put
+all I have into it, and will put in everything else I can get for
+myself, but it's going to take a great deal more than that. And
+everybody who goes into it will come out on Monte Cristo's
+island."
+
+"Then I'm sorry papa hasn't anything to put in," she said.
+
+"But he has: his experience in business and his integrity. I want
+him to be secretary of my company. Will you help me to get him?"
+he laughed.
+
+"Do you want me to?" she asked with a quick, serious glance
+straight in his eyes, one which he met admirably.
+
+"I have an extremely definite impression," he said lightly, "that
+you can make anybody you know do just what you want him to."
+
+"And I have another that you have still another `extremely
+definite impression' that takes rank over that," she said, but not
+with his lightness, for her tone was faintly rueful. "It is that
+you can make _me_ do just what you want me to."
+
+Mr. Valentine Corliss threw himself back on the bench and laughed
+aloud. "What a girl!" he cried. Then for a fraction of a second he
+set his hand over hers, an evanescent touch at which her whole
+body started and visibly thrilled.
+
+She lifted her gloved hand and looked at it with an odd wonder;
+her alert emotions, always too ready, flinging their banners to
+her cheeks again.
+
+"Oh, I don't think it's soiled," he said, a speech which she
+punished with a look of starry contempt. For an instant she made
+him afraid that something had gone wrong with his measuring tape;
+but with a slow movement she set her hand softly against her hot
+cheek; and he was reassured: it was not his touching her that had
+offended her, but the allusion to it.
+
+"Thanks," he said, very softly.
+
+She dropped her hand to her parasol, and began, musingly, to dig
+little holes in the gravel of the path. "Richard Lindley is
+looking for investments," she said.
+
+"I'm glad to hear he's been so successful," returned Corliss.
+
+"He might like a share in your gold-mine."
+
+"Thank heaven it isn't literally a gold-mine," he exclaimed.
+"There have been so many crooked ones exploited I don't believe
+you could get anybody nowadays to come in on a real one. But I
+think you'd make an excellent partner for an adventurer who had
+discovered hidden treasure; and I'm that particular kind of
+adventurer. I think I'll take you in."
+
+"Do you?"
+
+"How would you like to save a man from being ruined?"
+
+"Ruined? You don't mean it literally?"
+
+"Literally!" He laughed gayly. "If I don't `land' this I'm gone,
+smashed, finished--quite ended! Don't bother, I'm going to `land'
+it. And it's rather a serious compliment I'm paying you, thinking
+you can help me. I'd like to see a woman--just once in the
+world--who could manage a thing like this." He became suddenly
+very grave. "Good God! wouldn't I be at her feet!"
+
+Her eyes became even more eager. "You think I--I _might_ be a
+woman who could?"
+
+"Who knows, Miss Madison? I believe----" He stopped abruptly, then
+in a lowered, graver voice asked: "Doesn't it somehow seem a
+little queer to you when we call each other, `Miss Madison' and
+`Mr. Corliss'?"
+
+"Yes," she answered slowly; "it does."
+
+"Doesn't it seem to you," he went on, in the same tone, "that we
+only `Miss' and `Mister' each other in fun? That though you never
+saw me until yesterday, we've gone pretty far beyond mere
+surfaces? That we did in our talk, last night?"
+
+"Yes," she repeated; "it does."
+
+He let a pause follow, and then said huskily:
+
+"How far are we going?"
+
+"I don't know." She was barely audible; but she turned
+deliberately, and there took place an eager exchange of looks
+which continued a long while. At last, and without ending this
+serious encounter, she whispered:
+
+"How far do _you_ think?"
+
+Mr. Corliss did not answer, and a peculiar phenomenon became
+vaguely evident to the girl facing him: his eyes were still fixed
+full upon hers, but he was not actually looking at her;
+nevertheless, and with an extraordinarily acute attention, he was
+unquestionably looking at something. The direct front of pupil and
+iris did not waver from her; but for the time he was not aware of
+her; had not even heard her question. Something in the outer field
+of his vision had suddenly and completely engrossed him; something
+in that nebulous and hazy background which we see, as we say, with
+the white of the eye. Cora instinctively turned and looked behind
+her, down the path.
+
+There was no one in sight except a little girl and the elderly
+burgess who had glanced over his shoulder at Cora as she entered
+the park; and he was, in face, mien, and attire, so thoroughly the
+unnoticeable, average man-on-the-street that she did not even
+recall him as the looker-round of a little while ago. He was
+strolling benevolently, the little girl clinging to one of his
+hands, the other holding an apple; and a composite photograph of a
+thousand grandfathers might have resulted in this man's picture.
+
+As the man and little girl came slowly up the walk toward the
+couple on the bench there was a faint tinkle at Cora's feet: her
+companion's scarfpin, which had fallen from his tie. He was
+maladroit about picking it up, trying with thumb and forefinger to
+seize the pin itself, instead of the more readily grasped design
+of small pearls at the top, so that he pushed it a little deeper
+into the gravel; and then occurred a tiny coincidence: the elderly
+man, passing, let fall the apple from his hand, and it rolled
+toward the pin just as Corliss managed to secure the latter. For
+an instant, though the situation was so absolutely commonplace, so
+casual, Cora had a wandering consciousness of some mysterious
+tensity; a feeling like the premonition of a crisis very near at
+hand. This sensation was the more curious because nothing whatever
+happened. The man got his apple, joined in the child's laughter,
+and went on.
+
+"What was it you asked me?" said Corliss, lifting his head again
+and restoring the pin to his tie. He gazed carelessly at the back
+of the grandsire, disappearing beyond a bush at a bend in the
+path.
+
+"Who was that man?" said Cora with some curiosity.
+
+"That old fellow? I haven't an idea. You see I've been away from
+here so many years I remember almost no one. Why?"
+
+"I don't know, unless it was because I had an idea you were
+thinking of him instead of me. You didn't listen to what I said."
+
+"That was because I was thinking so intensely of you," he began
+instantly. "A startlingly vivid thought of you came to me just
+then. Didn't I look like a man in a trance?"
+
+"What was the thought?"
+
+"It was a picture: I saw you standing under a great bulging sail,
+and the water flying by in moonlight; oh, a moon and a night such
+as you have never seen! and a big blue headland looming up against
+the moon, and crowned with lemon groves and vineyards, all
+sparkling with fireflies--old watch-towers and the roofs of white
+villas gleaming among olive orchards on the slopes--the sound of
+mandolins----"
+
+"Ah!" she sighed, the elderly man, his grandchild, and his apple
+well-forgotten.
+
+"Do you think it was a prophecy?" he asked.
+
+"What do _you_ think?" she breathed. "That was really what I asked
+you before."
+
+"I think," he said slowly, "that I'm in danger of forgetting that
+my `hidden treasure' is the most important thing in the world."
+
+"In great danger?" The words were not vocal.
+
+He moved close to her; their eyes met again, with increased
+eagerness, and held fast; she was trembling, visibly; and her
+lips--parted with her tumultuous breathing--were not far from his.
+
+"Isn't any man in great danger," he said, "if he falls in love
+with you?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+Toward four o'clock that afternoon, a very thin, fair young man
+shakily heaved himself into a hammock under the trees in that
+broad backyard wherein, as Valentine Corliss had yesterday
+noticed, the last iron monarch of the herd, with unabated
+arrogance, had entered domestic service as a clothes-prop. The
+young man, who was of delicate appearance and unhumanly pale,
+stretched himself at full length on his back, closed his eyes,
+moaned feebly, cursed the heat in a stricken whisper. Then, as a
+locust directly overhead violently shattered the silence, and
+seemed like to continue the outrage forever, the shaken lounger
+stopped his ears with his fingers and addressed the insect in old
+Saxon.
+
+A white jacketed mulatto came from the house bearing something on
+a silver tray.
+
+"Julip, Mist' Vilas?" he said sympathetically.
+
+Ray Vilas rustily manoeuvred into a sitting position; and, with
+eyes still closed, made shift to accept the julep in both hands,
+drained half of it, opened his eyes, and thanked the cup-bearer
+feebly, in a voice and accent reminiscent of the melodious South.
+
+"And I wonder," he added, "if you can tell me----"
+
+"I'm Miz William Lindley's house-man, Joe Vaxdens," said the
+mulatto, in the tone of an indulgent nurse. "You in Miz Lindley's
+backyard right now, sittin' in a hammick."
+
+"I seem to gather almost that much for myself," returned the
+patient. "But I should like to know how I got here."
+
+"Jes' come out the front door an' walk' aroun' the house an' set
+down. Mist' Richard had to go downtown; tole me not to wake you;
+but I heerd you splashin' in the bath an' you tole me you din'
+want no breakfuss----"
+
+"Yes, Joe, I'm aware of what's occurred since I woke," said Vilas,
+and, throwing away the straws, finished the julep at one draught.
+"What I want to know is how I happened to be here at Mr.
+Lindley's."
+
+"Mist' Richard brought you las' night, suh. I don' know where he
+got you, but I heered a considerable thrashum aroun', up an' down
+the house, an' so I come help him git you to bed in one vem
+spare-rooms." Joe chuckled ingratiatingly. "Lord name! You
+cert'n'y wasn't askin' fer no _bed_!"
+
+He took the glass, and the young man reclined again in the
+hammock, a hot blush vanquishing his pallor. "Was I--was I very
+bad, Joe?"
+
+"Oh, you was all _right_," Joe hastened to reassure him. "You was
+jes' on'y a little bit tight."
+
+"Did it really seem only a little?" the other asked hopefully.
+
+"Yessuh," said Joe promptly. "Nothin' at all. You jes' wanted to
+rare roun' little bit. Mist' Richard took gun away from you----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Oh, I tole him you wasn' goin' use it!" Joe laughed. "But you so
+wile be din' know what you do. You cert'n'y was drunkes' man _I_
+see in _long_ while," he said admiringly. "You pert near had us
+bofe wore out 'fore you give up, an' Mist' Richard an' me, we
+_use'_ to han'lin' drunkum man, too--use' to have big times
+week-in, week-out 'ith Mist' Will--at's Mist' Richard's brother,
+you know, suh, what died o' whiskey." He laughed again in high
+good-humour. "You cert'n'y laid it all over any vem ole times we
+had 'ith Mist' Will!"
+
+Mr. Vilas shifted his position in the hammock uneasily; Joe's
+honest intentions to be of cheer to the sufferer were not wholly
+successful.
+
+"I tole Mist' Richard," the kindly servitor continued, "it was a
+mighty good thing his ma gone up Norf endurin' the hot spell.
+Sence Mist' Will die she can't hardly bear to see drunkum man
+aroun' the house. Mist' Richard hardly ever tech nothin' himself
+no more. You goin' feel better, suh, out in the f'esh air," he
+concluded, comfortingly as he moved away.
+
+"Joe!"
+
+"Yessuh."
+
+Mr. Vilas pulled himself upright for a moment. "What use in the
+world do you reckon one julep is to me?"
+
+"Mist' Richard say to give you one drink ef you ask' for it, suh,"
+answered Joe, looking troubled.
+
+"Well, you've told me enough now about last night to make any man
+hang himself, and I'm beginning to remember enough more----"
+
+"Pshaw, Mist' Vilas," the coloured man interrupted, deprecatingly,
+"you din' broke nothin'! You on'y had couple glass' wine too much.
+You din' make no trouble at all; jes' went right off to bed. You
+ought seen some vem ole times me an Mist' Richard use to have 'ith
+Mist' Will----"
+
+"Joe!"
+
+"Yessuh."
+
+"I want three more juleps and I want them right away."
+
+The troubled expression upon the coloured man's face deepened.
+"Mist' Richard say jes' one, suh," he said reluctantly. "I'm
+afraid----"
+
+"Joe."
+
+"Yessuh."
+
+"I don't know," said Ray Vilas slowly, "whether or not you ever
+heard that I was born and raised in Kentucky."
+
+"Yessuh," returned Joe humbly. "I heerd so."
+
+"Well, then," said the young man in a quiet voice, "you go and get
+me three juleps. I'll settle it with Mr. Richard."
+
+"Yessuh."
+
+But it was with a fifth of these renovators that Lindley found his
+guest occupied, an hour later, while upon a small table nearby a
+sixth, untouched, awaited disposal beside an emptied coffee-cup.
+Also, Mr. Vilas was smoking a cigarette with unshadowed pleasure;
+his eye was bright, his expression care-free; and he was sitting
+up in the hammock, swinging cheerfully, and singing the
+"Marseillaise." Richard approached through the yard, coming from
+the street without entering the house; and anxiety was manifest in
+the glance he threw at the green-topped glass upon the table, and
+in his greeting.
+
+"Hail, gloom!" returned Mr. Vilas, cordially, and, observing the
+anxious glance, he swiftly removed the untouched goblet from the
+table to his own immediate possession. "Two simultaneous juleps
+will enhance the higher welfare," he explained airily. "Sir, your
+Mr. Varden was induced to place a somewhat larger order with us
+than he protested to be your intention. Trusting you to exonerate
+him from all so-and-so and that these few words, etcetera!" He
+depleted the elder glass of its liquor, waved it in the air,
+cried, "Health, host!" and set it upon the table. "I believe I do
+not err in assuming my cup-bearer's name to be Varden, although he
+himself, in his simple Americo-Africanism, is pleased to pluralize
+it. Do I fret you, host?"
+
+"Not in the least," said Richard, dropping upon a rustic bench,
+and beginning to fan himself with his straw hat. "What's the use
+of fretting about a boy who hasn't sense enough to fret about
+himself?"
+
+"`Boy?'" Mr. Vilas affected puzzlement. "Do I hear aright? Sir, do
+you boy me? Bethink you, I am now the shell of five mint-juleps
+plus, and am pot-valiant. And is this mere capacity itself to be
+lightly _boyed_? Again, do I not wear a man's garment, a man's
+garnitures? Heed your answer; for this serge, these flannels, and
+these silks are yours, and though I may not fill them to the
+utmost, I do to the longmost, precisely. I am the stature of a
+man; had it not been for your razor I should wear the beard of a
+man; therefore I'll not be boyed. What have you to say in
+defence?"
+
+"Hadn't you better let me get Joe to bring you something to eat?"
+asked Richard.
+
+"Eat?" Mr. Vilas disposed of the suggestion with mournful hauteur.
+"There! For the once I forgive you. Let the subject never be
+mentioned between us again. We will tactfully turn to a topic of
+interest. My memories of last evening, at first hazy and somewhat
+disconcerting, now merely amuse me. Following the pleasant Spanish
+custom, I went a-serenading, but was kidnapped from beneath the
+precious casement by--by a zealous arrival. Host, `zealous
+arrival' is not the julep in action: it is a triumph of
+paraphrase."
+
+"I wish you'd let Joe take you back to bed," said Richard.
+
+"Always bent on thoughts of the flesh," observed the other sadly.
+"Beds are for bodies, and I am become a thing of spirit. My soul
+is grateful a little for your care of its casing. You behold, I am
+generous: I am able to thank my successor to Carmen!"
+
+Lindley's back stiffened. "Vilas!"
+
+"Spare me your protests." The younger man waved his hand
+languidly. "You wish not to confer upon this subject----"
+
+"It's a subject we'll omit," said Richard.
+
+His companion stopped swinging, allowed the hammock to come to
+rest; his air of badinage fell from him; for the moment he seemed
+entirely sober; and he spoke with gentleness. "Mr. Lindley, if you
+please, I am still a gentleman--at times."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Richard quickly.
+
+"No need of that!" The speaker's former careless and boisterous
+manner instantly resumed possession. "You must permit me to speak
+of a wholly fictitious lady, a creature of my wanton fancy, sir,
+whom I call Carmen. It will enable me to relieve my burdened soul
+of some remarks I have long wished to address to your excellent
+self."
+
+"Oh, all right," muttered Richard, much annoyed.
+
+"Let us imagine," continued Mr. Vilas, beginning to swing again,
+"that I thought I had won this Carmen----"
+
+Lindley uttered an exclamation, shifted his position in his chair,
+and fixed a bored attention upon the passing vehicles in the
+glimpse of the street afforded between the house and the
+shrubberies along the side fence. The other, without appearing to
+note his annoyance, went on, cheerfully:
+
+"She was a precocious huntress: early in youth she passed through
+the accumulator stage, leaving it to the crude or village belle to
+rejoice in numbers and the excitement of teasing cubs in the
+bear-pit. It is the nature of this imagined Carmen to play
+fiercely with one imitation of love after another: a man thinks he
+wins her, but it is merely that she has chosen him--for a while.
+And Carmen can have what she chooses; if the man exists who could
+show her that she cannot, she would follow him through the devil's
+dance; but neither you nor I would be that man, my dear sir. We
+assume that Carmen's eyes have been mine--her heart is another
+matter--and that she has grown weary of my somewhat Sicilian
+manner of looking into them, and, following her nature and the law
+of periodicity which Carmens must bow to, she seeks a cooler gaze
+and calls Mr. Richard Lindley to come and take a turn at looking.
+Now, Mr. Richard Lindley is straight as a die: he will not even
+show that he hears the call until he is sure that I have been
+dismissed: therefore, I have no quarrel with him. Also, I cannot
+even hate him, for in my clearer julep vision I see that he is but
+an interregnum. Let me not offend my friend: chagrin is to be his
+as it is mine. I was a strong draught, he but the quieting potion
+our Carmen took to settle it. We shall be brothers in woe some
+day. Nothing in the universe lasts except Hell: Life is running
+water; Love, a looking-glass; Death, an empty theatre! That
+reminds me: as you are not listening I will sing."
+
+He finished his drink and lifted his voice hilariously:
+
+    "The heavenly stars far above her,
+      The wind of the infinite sea,
+    Who know all her perfidy, love her,
+      So why call it madness in me?
+      Ah, why call it madness----"
+
+He set his glass with a crash upon the table, staring over his
+companion's shoulder.
+
+"_What_, if you please, is the royal exile who thus seeks refuge
+in our hermitage?"
+
+His host had already observed the approaching visitor with some
+surprise, and none too graciously. It was Valentine Corliss: he
+had turned in from the street and was crossing the lawn to join
+the two young men. Lindley rose, and, greeting him with sufficient
+cordiality, introduced Mr. Vilas, who bestowed upon the newcomer a
+very lively interest.
+
+"You are as welcome, Mr. Corliss," said this previous guest,
+earnestly, "as if these sylvan shades were mine. I hail you, not
+only for your own sake, but because your presence encourages a
+hope that our host may offer refreshment to the entire company."
+
+Corliss smilingly declined to be a party to this diplomacy, and
+seated himself beside Richard Lindley on the bench.
+
+"Then I relapse!" exclaimed Mr. Vilas, throwing himself back
+full-length in the hammock. "I am not replete, but content. I
+shall meditate. Gentlemen, speak on!"
+
+He waved his hand in a gracious gesture, indicating his intention
+to remain silent, and lay quiet, his eyes fixed steadfastly upon
+Corliss.
+
+"I was coming to call on you," said the latter to Lindley, "but I
+saw you from the street and thought you mightn't mind my being as
+informal as I used to be, so many years ago."
+
+"Of course," said Richard.
+
+"I have a sinister purpose in coming," Mr. Corliss laughingly went
+on. "I want to bore you a little first, and then make your
+fortune. No doubt that's an old story to you, but I happen to be
+one of the adventurers whose argosies are laden with real cargoes.
+Nobody knows who has or hasn't money to invest nowadays, and of
+course I've no means of knowing whether _you_ have or not--you see
+what a direct chap I am--but if you have, or can lay hold of some,
+I can show you how to make it bring you an immense deal more."
+
+"Naturally," said Richard pleasantly, "I shall be glad if you can
+do that."
+
+"Then I'll come to the point. It is exceedingly simple; that's
+certainly one attractive thing about it." Corliss took some papers
+and unmounted photographs from his pocket, and began to spread
+them open on the bench between himself and Richard. "No doubt you
+know Southern Italy as well as I do."
+
+"Oh, I don't `know' it. I've been to Naples; down to Paestum;
+drove from Salerno to Sorrentoby Amalfi; but that was years ago."
+
+"Here's a large scale map that will refresh your memory." He
+unfolded it and laid it across their knees; it was frayed with
+wear along the folds, and had been heavily marked and dotted with
+red and blue pencillings. "My millions are in this large irregular
+section," he continued. "It's the anklebone and instep of Italy's
+boot; this sizable province called Basilicata, east of Salerno,
+north of Calabria. And I'll not hang fire on the point, Lindley.
+What I've got there is oil."
+
+"Olives?" asked Richard, puzzled.
+
+"Hardly!" Corliss laughed. "Though of course one doesn't connect
+petroleum with the thought of Italy, and of all Italy, Southern
+Italy. But in spite of the years I've lived there, I've discovered
+myself to be so essentially American and commercial that I want to
+drench the surface of that antique soil with the brown,
+bad-smelling crude oil that lies so deep beneath it. Basilicata is
+the coming great oil-field of the world--and that's my secret. I
+dare to tell it here, as I shouldn't dare in Naples."
+
+"Shouldn't `dare'?" Richard repeated, with growing interest, and
+no doubt having some vague expectation of a tale of the Camorra.
+To him Naples had always seemed of all cities the most elusive and
+incomprehensible, a laughing, thieving, begging, mandolin-playing,
+music-and-murder haunted metropolis, about which anything was
+plausible; and this impression was not unique, as no
+inconsiderable proportion of Mr. Lindley's fellow-countrymen share
+it, a fact thoroughly comprehended by the returned native.
+
+"It isn't a case of not daring on account of any bodily danger,"
+explained Corliss.
+
+"No," Richard smiled reminiscently. "I don't believe that would
+have much weight with you if it were. You certainly showed no
+symptoms of that sort in your extreme youth. I remember you had
+the name of being about the most daring and foolhardy boy in
+town."
+
+"I grew up to be cautious enough in business, though," said the
+other, shaking his head gravely. "I haven't been able to afford
+not being careful." He adjusted the map--a prefatory gesture.
+"Now, I'll make this whole affair perfectly clear to you. It's a
+simple matter, as are most big things. I'll begin by telling you
+of Moliterno--he's been my most intimate friend in that part of
+the continent for a great many years; since I went there as a boy,
+in fact."
+
+He sketched a portrait of his friend, Prince Moliterno, bachelor
+chief of a historic house, the soul of honour, "land-poor"; owning
+leagues and leagues of land, hills and mountains, broken towers
+and ruins, in central Basilicata, a province described as wild
+country and rough, off the rails and not easy to reach. Moliterno
+and the narrator had gone there to shoot; Corliss had seen
+"surface oil" upon the streams and pools; he recalled the
+discovery of oil near his own boyhood home in America; had talked
+of it to Moliterno, and both men had become more and more
+interested, then excited. They decided to sink a well.
+
+Corliss described picturesquely the difficulties of this
+enterprise, the hardships and disappointments; how they dragged
+the big tools over the mountains by mule power; how they had kept
+it all secret; how he and Moliterno had done everything with the
+help of peasant labourers and one experienced man, who had "seen
+service in the Persian oil-fields."
+
+He gave the business reality, colouring it with details relevant
+and irrelevant, anecdotes and wayside incidents: he was fluent,
+elaborate, explicit throughout. They sank five wells, he said, "at
+the angles of this irregular pentagon you see here on the map,
+outlined in blue. These red circles are the wells." Four of the
+wells "came in tremendous," but they had managed to get them
+sealed after wasting--he was "sorry to think how many thousand
+barrels of oil." The fifth well was so enormous that they had not
+been able to seal it at the time of the speaker's departure for
+America.
+
+"But I had a cablegram this morning," he added, "letting me know
+they've managed to do it at last. Here is, the cablegram." He
+handed Richard a form signed "Antonio Moliterno."
+
+"Now, to go back to what I said about not `daring' to speak of
+this in Naples," he continued, smiling. "The fear is financial,
+not physical."
+
+The knowledge of the lucky strike, he explained, must be kept from
+the "Neapolitan money-sharks." A third of the land so rich in oil
+already belonged to the Moliterno estates, but it was necessary to
+obtain possession of the other two thirds "before the secret leaks
+into Naples." So far, it was safe, the peasants of Basilicata
+being "as medieval a lot as one could wish." He related that these
+peasants thought that the devils hiding inside the mountains had
+been stabbed by the drills, and that the oil was devils' blood.
+
+"You can see some of the country people hanging about, staring at
+a well, in this kodak, though it's not a very good one." He put
+into Richard's hand a small, blurred photograph showing a spouting
+well with an indistinct crowd standing in an irregular semicircle
+before it.
+
+"Is this the Basilicatan peasant costume?" asked Richard,
+indicating a figure in the foreground, the only one revealed at
+all definitely. "It looks more oriental. Isn't the man wearing a
+fez?"
+
+"Let me see," responded Mr. Corliss very quickly. "Perhaps I gave
+you the wrong picture. Oh, no," he laughed easily, holding the
+kodak closer to his eyes; "that's all right: it is a fez. That's
+old Salviati, our engineer, the man I spoke of who'd worked in
+Persia, you know; he's always worn a fez since then. Got in the
+habit of it out there and says he'll never give it up. Moliterno's
+always chaffing him about it. He's a faithful old chap, Salviati."
+
+"I see." Lindley looked thoughtfully at the picture, which the
+other carelessly returned to his hand. "There seems to be a lot of
+oil there."
+
+"It's one of the smaller wells at that. And you can see from the
+kodak that it's just `blowing'--not an eruption from being `shot,'
+or the people wouldn't stand so near. Yes; there's an ocean of oil
+under that whole province; but we want a lot of money to get at
+it. It's mountain country; our wells will all have to go over
+fifteen-hundred feet, and that's expensive. We want to pipe the
+oil to Salerno, where the Standard's ships will take it from us,
+and it will need a great deal for that. But most of all we want
+money to get hold of the land; we must control the whole field,
+and it's big!"
+
+"How did you happen to come here to finance it?"
+
+"I was getting to that. Moliterno himself is as honourable a man
+as breathes God's air. But my experience has been that Neapolitan
+capitalists are about the cleverest and slipperiest financiers in
+the world. We could have financed it twenty times over in Naples
+in a day, but neither Moliterno nor I was willing to trust them.
+The thing is enormous, you see--a really colossal fortune--and
+Italian law is full of ins and outs, and the first man we talked
+to confidentially would have given us his word to play straight,
+and, the instant we left him, would have flown post-haste for
+Basilicata and grabbed for himself the two thirds of the field not
+yet in our hands. Moliterno and I talked it over many, many times;
+we thought of going to Rome for the money, to Paris, to London, to
+New York; but I happened to remember the old house here that my
+aunt had left me--I wanted to sell it, to add whatever it brought
+to the money I've already put in--and then it struck me I might
+raise the rest here as well as anywhere else."
+
+The other nodded. "I understand."
+
+"I suppose you'll think me rather sentimental," Corliss went on,
+with a laugh which unexpectedly betrayed a little shyness. "I've
+never forgotten that I was born here--was a boy here. In all my
+wanderings I've always really thought of this as home."
+
+His voice trembled slightly and his face flushed; he smiled
+deprecatingly as though in apology for these symptoms of emotion;
+and at that both listeners felt (perhaps with surprise) the man's
+strong attraction. There was something very engaging about him: in
+the frankness of his look and in the slight tremor in his voice;
+there was something appealing and yet manly in the confession, by
+this thoroughgoing cosmopolite, of his real feeling for the
+home-town.
+
+"Of course I know how very few people, even among the `old
+citizens,' would have any recollection whatever of me," he went
+on; "but that doesn't make any difference in my sentiment for the
+place and its people. That street out yonder was named for my
+grandfather: there's a statue of my great uncle in the State House
+yard; all my own blood: belonged here, and though I have been a
+wanderer and may not be remembered--naturally am _not_
+remembered--yet the name is honoured here, and I--I----" He
+faltered again, then concluded with quiet earnestness: "I thought
+that if my good luck was destined to bring fortunes to others, it
+might as well be to my own kind--that at least I'd offer them the
+chance before I offered it to any one else." He turned and looked
+Richard in the face. "That's why I'm here, Mr. Lindley."
+
+The other impulsively put out his hand. "I understand," he said
+heartily.
+
+"Thank you." Corliss changed his tone for one less serious.
+"You've listened very patiently and I hope you'll be rewarded for
+it. Certainly you will if you decide to come in with us. May I
+leave the maps and descriptions with you?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. I'll look them over carefully and have another talk
+with you about it."
+
+"Thank heaven, _that's_ over!" exclaimed the lounger in the
+hammock, who had not once removed his fascinated stare from the
+expressive face of Valentine Corliss. "If you have now concluded
+with dull care, allow me to put a vital question: Mr. Corliss, do
+you sing?"
+
+The gentleman addressed favoured him with a quizzical glance from
+between half-closed lids, and probably checking an impulse to
+remark that he happened to know that his questioner sometimes
+sang, replied merely, "No."
+
+"It is a pity."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Nothing," returned the other, inconsequently. "It just struck me
+that you ought to sing the Toreador song."
+
+Richard Lindley, placing the notes and maps in his pocket, dropped
+them, and, stooping, began to gather the scattered papers with a
+very red face. Corliss, however, laughed good-naturedly.
+
+"That's most flattering," he said; "though there are other things
+in `Carmen' I prefer--probably because one doesn't hear them so
+eternally."
+
+Vilas pulled himself up to a sitting position and began to swing
+again. "Observe our host, Mr. Corliss," he commanded gayly. "He is
+a kind old Dobbin, much beloved, but cares damn little to hear you
+or me speak of music. He'd even rather discuss your oil business
+than listen to us talk of women, whereas nothing except women ever
+really interests _you_, my dear sir. He's not our kind of man," he
+concluded, mournfully; "not at all our kind of man!"
+
+"I hope," Corliss suggested, "he's going to be my kind of man in
+the development of these oil-fields."
+
+"How ridic"--Mr. Vilas triumphed over the word after a slight
+struggle--"ulous! I shall review that: ridiculous of you to
+pretend to be interested in oil-fields. You are not that sort of
+person whatever. Nothing could be clearer than that you would
+never waste the time demanded by fields of oil. Groundlings call
+this `the mechanical age'--a vulgar error. My dear sir, you and I
+know that it is the age of Woman! Even poets have begun to see
+that she is alive. Formerly we did not speak of her at all, but of
+late years she has become such a scandal that she is getting
+talked about. Even our dramas, which used to be all blood, have
+become all flesh. I wish I were dead--but will continue my
+harangue because the thought is pellucid. Women selecting men to
+mate with are of only two kinds, just as there are but two kinds
+of children in a toy-shop. One child sets its fancy on one
+partic"--the orator paused, then continued--"on one certain toy
+and will make a distressing scene if she doesn't get it: she will
+have that one; she will go straight to it, clasp it and keep it;
+she won't have any other. The other kind of woman is to be
+understood if you will make the experiment of taking the other
+kind of child to a toy-shop and telling her you will buy her any
+toy in the place, but that you will buy her only one. If you do
+this in the morning, she will still be in the shop when it is
+closing for the night, because, though she runs to each toy in
+turn with excitement and delight, she sees another over her
+shoulder, and the one she has not touched is always her
+choice--until she has touched it! Some get broken in the handling.
+For my part, my wires are working rather rustily, but I must obey
+the Stage-Manager. For my requiem I wish somebody would ask them
+to play Gounod's masterpiece."
+
+"What's that?" asked Corliss, amused.
+
+"`The Funeral March of a Marionette!'"
+
+"I suppose you mean that for a cheerful way of announcing that you
+are a fatalist."
+
+"Fatalism? That is only a word," declared Mr. Vilas gravely. "If I
+am not a puppet then I am a god. Somehow, I do not seem to be a
+god. If a god is a god, one thinks he would know it himself. I now
+yield the floor. Thanking you cordially, I believe there is a lady
+walking yonder who commands salutation."
+
+He rose to his feet, bowing profoundly. Cora Madison was passing,
+strolling rather briskly down the street, not in the direction of
+her home. She waved her parasol with careless gayety to the trio
+under the trees, and, going on, was lost to their sight.
+
+"Hello!" exclaimed Corliss, looking at his watch with a start of
+surprise. "I have two letters to write for the evening mail. I
+must be off."
+
+At this, Ray Vilas's eyes--still fixed upon him, as they had been
+throughout the visit--opened to their fullest capacity, in a gaze
+of only partially alcoholic wildness.
+
+Entirely aware of this singular glare, but not in the least
+disconcerted by it, the recipient proffered his easy farewells. "I
+had no idea it was so late. Good afternoon. Mr. Vilas, I have been
+delighted with your diagnosis. Lindley, I'm at your disposal when
+you've looked over my data. My very warm thanks for your patience,
+and--addio!"
+
+Lindley looked after him as he strode quickly away across the
+green lawn, turning, at the street, in the direction Cora had
+taken; and the troubled Richard felt his heart sink with vague but
+miserable apprehension. There was a gasp of desperation beside
+him, and the sound of Ray Vilas's lips parting and closing with
+little noises of pain.
+
+"So he knows her," said the boy, his thin body shaking. "Look at
+him, damn him! See his deep chest, that conqueror's walk, the
+easy, confident, male pride of him: a true-born, natural rake--the
+Toreador all over!"
+
+His agitation passed suddenly; he broke into a loud laugh, and
+flung a reckless hand to his companion's shoulder.
+
+"You good old fool," he cried. "_You'll_ never play Don Jose!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+Hedrick Madison, like too many other people, had never thought
+seriously about the moon; nor ever had he encouraged it to become
+his familiar; and he underwent his first experience of its
+incomparable betrayals one brilliant night during the last week of
+that hot month. The preface to this romantic evening was
+substantial and prosaic: four times during dinner was he copiously
+replenished with hash, which occasioned so rich a surfeit within
+him that, upon the conclusion of the meal, he found himself in no
+condition to retort appropriately to a solicitous warning from
+Cora to keep away from the cat. Indeed, it was half an hour later,
+and he was sitting--to his own consciousness too heavily--upon the
+back fence, when belated inspiration arrived. But there is no
+sound where there is no ear to hear, and no repartee, alas! when
+the wretch who said the first part has gone, so that Cora remained
+unscathed as from his alley solitude Hedrick hurled in the teeth
+of the rising moon these bitter words:
+
+"Oh, no; _our_ cat only eats _soft_ meat!"
+
+He renewed a morbid silence, and the moon, with its customary
+deliberation, swung clear of a sweeping branch of the big elm in
+the front yard and shone full upon him. Nothing warned the fated
+youth not to sit there; no shadow of imminent catastrophe tinted
+that brightness: no angel whisper came to him, bidding him
+begone--and to go in a hurry and as far as possible. No; he sat
+upon the fence an inoffensive lad, and--except for still feeling
+his hash somewhat, and a gradually dispersing rancour concerning
+the cat--at peace. It is for such lulled mortals that the
+ever-lurking Furies save their most hideous surprises.
+
+Chin on palms, he looked idly at the moon, and the moon
+inscrutably returned his stare. Plausible, bright, bland, it gave
+no sign that it was at its awful work. For the bride of night is
+like a card-dealer whose fingers move so swiftly through the pack
+the trickery goes unseen.
+
+This moon upon which he was placidly gazing, because he had
+nothing else to do, betokened nought to Hedrick: to him it was the
+moon of any other night, the old moon; certainly no moon of his
+delight. Withal, it may never be gazed upon so fixedly and so
+protractedly--no matter how languidly--with entire impunity. That
+light breeds a bug in the brain. Who can deny how the moon wrought
+this thing under the hair of unconscious Hedrick, or doubt its
+responsibility for the thing that happened?
+
+"_Little boy_!"
+
+It was a very soft, small voice, silky and queer; and at first
+Hedrick had little suspicion that it could be addressing him: the
+most rigid self-analysis could have revealed to him no possibility
+of his fitting so ignominious a description.
+
+"Oh, little boy!"
+
+He looked over his shoulder and saw, standing in the alley behind
+him, a girl of about his own age. She was daintily dressed and had
+beautiful hair which was all shining in pale gold.
+
+"Little boy!"
+
+She was smiling up at him, and once more she used that wantonly
+inaccurate vocative:
+
+"Little boy!"
+
+Hedrick grunted unencouragingly. "Who you callin' `little boy'?"
+
+For reply she began to climb the fence. It was high, but the young
+lady was astonishingly agile, and not even to be deterred by
+several faint wails from tearing and ripping fabrics--casualties
+which appeared to be entirely beneath her notice. Arriving at the
+top rather dishevelled, and with irregular pennons here and there
+flung to the breeze from her attire, she seated herself cosily
+beside the dumbfounded Hedrick.
+
+She turned her face to him and smiled--and there was something
+about her smile which Hedrick did not like. It discomforted him;
+nothing more. In sunlight he would have had the better chance to
+comprehend; but, unhappily, this was moonshine.
+
+"Kiss me, little boy!" she said.
+
+"I won't!" exclaimed the shocked and indignant Hedrick, edging
+uneasily away from her.
+
+"Let's play," she said cheerfully.
+
+"Play what?"
+
+"I like chickens. Did you know I like chickens?"
+
+The rather singular lack of connection in her remarks struck him
+as a misplaced effort at humour.
+
+"You're having lots of fun with me, aren't you?" he growled.
+
+She instantly moved close to him and lifted her face to his.
+
+"Kiss me, darling little boy!" she said.
+
+There was something more than uncommonly queer about this
+stranger, an unearthliness of which he was confusedly perceptive,
+but she was not without a curious kind of prettiness, and her pale
+gold hair was beautiful. The doomed lad saw the moon shining
+through it.
+
+"Kiss me, darling little boy!" she repeated.
+
+His head whirled; for the moment she seemed divine.
+
+George Washington used profanity at the Battle of Monmouth.
+Hedrick kissed her.
+
+He instantly pushed her away with strong distaste. "There!" he
+said angrily. "I hope that'll satisfy you!" He belonged to his
+sex.
+
+"Kiss me some more, darling little boy!" she cried, and flung her
+arms about him.
+
+With a smothered shout of dismay he tried to push her off, and
+they fell from the fence together, into the yard, at the cost of
+further and almost fatal injuries to the lady's apparel.
+
+Hedrick was first upon his feet. "Haven't you got _any_ sense?"
+he demanded.
+
+She smiled unwaveringly, rose (without assistance) and repeated:
+"Kiss me some more, darling little boy!"
+
+"No, I won't! I wouldn't for a thousand dollars!"
+
+Apparently, she did not consider this discouraging. She began to
+advance endearingly, while he retreated backward. "Kiss me
+some----"
+
+"I won't, I tell you!" Hedrick kept stepping away, moving in a
+desperate circle. He resorted to a brutal formula: "You make me
+sick!"
+
+"Kiss me some more, darling lit----"
+
+"I won't!" he bellowed. "And if you say that again I'll----"
+
+"Kiss me some more, darling little boy!" She flung herself at him,
+and with a yell of terror he turned and ran at top-speed.
+
+She pursued, laughing sweetly, and calling loudly as she ran,
+"Kiss me some more, darling little boy! Kiss me some more, darling
+little boy!"
+
+The stricken Hedrick knew not whither to direct his flight: he
+dared not dash for the street with this imminent tattered
+incubus--she was almost upon him--and he frantically made for the
+kitchen door, only to swerve with a gasp of despair as his foot
+touched the step, for she was at his heels, and he was sickeningly
+assured she would cheerfully follow him through the house,
+shouting that damning refrain for all ears. A strangling fear took
+him by the throat--if Cora should come to be a spectator of this
+unspeakable flight, if Cora should hear that horrid plea for love!
+Then farewell peace; indeed, farewell all joy in life forever!
+
+Panting sobbingly, he ducked under the amorous vampire's arm and
+fled on. He zigzagged desperately to and fro across the broad,
+empty backyard, a small hand ever and anon managing to clutch his
+shoulder, the awful petition in his ears:
+
+"Kiss me some more, darling little boy!"
+
+"_Hedrick_!"
+
+Emerging from the kitchen door, Laura stood and gazed in wonder as
+the two eerie figures sped by her, circled, ducked, dodged, flew
+madly on. This commonplace purlieu was become the scene of a
+witch-chase; the moonlight fell upon the ghastly flitting face of
+the pursued, uplifted in agony, white, wet, with fay eyes; also it
+illumined the unreal elf following close, a breeze-blown fantasy
+in rags.
+
+"Kiss me some more, darling little boy!"
+
+Laura uttered a sharp exclamation. "Stand still, Hedrick!" she
+called. "You must!"
+
+Hedrick made a piteous effort to increase his speed.
+
+"It's Lolita Martin," called Laura. "She must have her way or
+nothing can be done with her. Stand _still_!"
+
+Hedrick had never heard of Lolita Martin, but the added
+information concerning her was not ineffective: it operated as a
+spur; and Laura joined the hunt.
+
+"Stand still!" she cried to the wretched quarry. "She's run away.
+She must be taken home. Stop, Hedrick! You _must_ stop!"
+
+Hedrick had no intention of stopping, but Laura was a runner, and,
+as he dodged the other, caught and held him fast. The next
+instant, Lolita, laughing happily, flung her arms round his neck
+from behind.
+
+"Lemme go!" shuddered Hedrick. "Lemme go!"
+
+"Kiss me again, darl----"
+
+"I--woof!" He became inarticulate.
+
+"She isn't quite right," his sister whispered hurriedly in his
+ear. "She has spells when she's weak mentally. You must be kind to
+her. She only wants you to----"
+
+"`_Only_'!" he echoed hoarsely. "I won't ki----" He was unable to
+finish the word.
+
+"We must get her home," said Laura anxiously. "Will you come with
+me, Lolita, dear?"
+
+Apparently Lolita had no consciousness whatever of Laura's
+presence. Instead of replying, she tightened her grasp upon
+Hedrick and warmly reiterated her request.
+
+"Shut up, you parrot!" hissed the goaded boy.
+
+"Perhaps she'll go if you let her walk with her arms round your
+neck," suggested Laura.
+
+"If I _what_?"
+
+"Let's try it. We've got to get her home; her mother must be
+frantic about her. Come, let's see if she'll go with us that way."
+
+With convincing earnestness, Hedrick refused to make the
+experiment until Laura suggested that he remain with Lolita while
+she summoned assistance; then, as no alternative appeared, his
+spirit broke utterly, and he consented to the trial, stipulating
+with a last burst of vehemence that the progress of the
+unthinkable pageant should be through the alley.
+
+"Come, Lolita," said Laura coaxingly. "We're going for a nice
+walk." At the adjective, Hedrick's burdened shoulders were racked
+with a brief spasm, which recurred as his sister added: "Your
+darling little boy will let you keep hold of him."
+
+Lolita seemed content. Laughing gayly, she offered no opposition,
+but, maintaining her embrace with both arms and walking somewhat
+sidewise, went willingly enough; and the three slowly crossed the
+yard, passed through the empty stable and out into the alley. When
+they reached the cross-street at the alley's upper end, Hedrick
+balked flatly.
+
+Laura expostulated, then entreated. Hedrick refused with sincere
+loathing to be seen upon the street occupying his present position
+in the group. Laura assured him that there was no one to see; he
+replied that the moon was bright and the evening early; he would
+die, and readily, but he would not set foot in the street.
+Unfortunately, he had selected an unfavourable spot for argument:
+they were already within a yard or two of the street; and a
+strange boy, passing, stopped and observed, and whistled
+discourteously.
+
+"Ain't he the spooner!" remarked this unknown with hideous
+admiration.
+
+"I'll thank you," returned Hedrick haughtily, "to go on about your
+own business."
+
+"Kiss me some more, darling little boy!" said Lolita.
+
+The strange boy squawked, wailed, screamed with laughter, howled
+the loving petition in a dozen keys of mockery, while Hedrick
+writhed and Lolita clung. Enriched by a new and great experience,
+the torturer trotted on, leaving viperish cachinnations in his
+wake.
+
+But the martyrdom was at an end. A woman, hurrying past,
+bareheaded, was greeted by a cry of delight from Lolita, who
+released Hedrick and ran to her with outstretched arms.
+
+"We were bringing her home, Mrs. Martin," said Laura,
+reassuringly. "She's all right; nothing's the matter except that
+her dress got torn. We found her playing in our yard."
+
+"I thank you a thousand times, Miss Madison," cried Lolita's
+mother, and flutteringly plunged into a description of her
+anxiety, her search for Lolita, and concluded with renewed
+expressions of gratitude for the child's safe return, an
+outpouring of thankfulness and joy wholly incomprehensible to
+Hedrick.
+
+"Not at all," said Laura cheerfully. "Come, Hedrick. We'll go home
+by the street, I think." She touched his shoulder, and he went
+with her in stunned obedience. He was not able to face the
+incredible thing that had happened to him: he walked in a trance
+of horror.
+
+"Poor little girl!" said Laura gently, with what seemed to her
+brother an indefensibly misplaced compassion. "Usually they have
+her live in an institution for people afflicted as she is, but
+they brought her home for a visit last week, I believe. Of course
+you didn't understand, but I think you should have been more
+thoughtful. Really, you shouldn't have flirted with her."
+
+Hedrick stopped short.
+
+"`_Flirted_'!" His voice was beginning to show symptoms of
+changing, this year; it rose to a falsetto wail, flickered and
+went out.
+
+With the departure of Lolita in safety, what had seemed bizarre
+and piteous became obscured, and another aspect of the adventure
+was presented to Laura. The sufferings of the arrogant are not
+wholly depressing to the spectator; and of arrogance Hedrick had
+ever been a master. She began to shake; a convulsion took her, and
+suddenly she sat upon the curbstone without dignity, and laughed
+as he had never seen her.
+
+A horrid distrust of her rose within him: he began to realize in
+what plight he stood, what terrors o'erhung.
+
+"Look here," he said miserably, "are you--you aren't--you don't
+have to go and--and _talk_ about this, do you?"
+
+"No, Hedrick," she responded, rising and controlling herself
+somewhat. "Not so long as you're good."
+
+This was no reassuring answer.
+
+"And politer to Cora," she added.
+
+Seemingly he heard the lash of a slave-whip crack in the air. The
+future grew dark.
+
+"I know you'll try"--she said; and the unhappy lad felt that her
+assurance was justified; but she had not concluded the
+sentence--"darling little boy," she capped it, choking slightly.
+
+"No other little girl ever fell in love with you, did there,
+Hedrick?" she asked, and, receiving an incoherent but furious
+reply, she was again overcome, so that she must lean against the
+fence to recover. "It seems--so--so _curious_," she explained,
+gasping, "that the first one--the--the only one--should be
+an--a--an----" She was unable to continue.
+
+Hedrick's distrust became painfully increased: he began to feel
+that he disliked Laura.
+
+She was still wiping her eyes and subject to recurrent outbursts
+when they reached their own abode; and as he bitterly flung
+himself into a chair upon the vacant front porch, he heard her
+stifling an attack as she mounted the stairs to her own room. He
+swung the chair about, with its back to the street, and sat facing
+the wall. He saw nothing. There are profundities in the abyss
+which reveal no glimpse of the sky.
+
+Presently he heard his father coughing near by; and the sound was
+hateful, because it seemed secure and unshamed. It was a cough of
+moral superiority; and just then the son would have liked to
+believe that his parent's boyhood had been one of degradation as
+complete as his own; but no one with this comfortable cough could
+ever have plumbed such depths: his imagination refused the picture
+he was bitterly certain that Mr. Madison had never kissed an
+idiot.
+
+Hedrick had a dread that his father might speak to him; he was in
+no condition for light conversation. But Mr. Madison was unaware
+of his son's near presence, and continued upon his purposeless
+way. He was smoking his one nightly cigar and enjoying the
+moonlight. He drifted out toward the sidewalk and was accosted by
+a passing acquaintance, a comfortable burgess of sixty, leading a
+child of six or seven, by the hand.
+
+"Out taking the air, are you, Mr. Madison?" said the pedestrian,
+pausing.
+
+"Yes; just trying to cool off," returned the other. "How are you,
+Pryor, anyway? I haven't seen you for a long time."
+
+"Not since last summer," said Pryor. "I only get here once or
+twice a year, to see my married daughter. I always try to spend
+August with her if I can. She's still living in that little house,
+over on the next street, I bought for her through your real-estate
+company. I suppose you're still in the same business?"
+
+"Yes. Pretty slack, these days."
+
+"I suppose so, I suppose so," responded Mr. Pryor, nodding.
+"Summer, I suppose it usually is. Well, I don't know when I'll be
+going out on the road again myself. Business is pretty slack all
+over the country this year."
+
+"Let's see--I've forgotten," said Madison ruminatively. "You
+travel, don't you?"
+
+"For a New York house," affirmed Mr. Pryor. He did not, however,
+mention his "line." "Yes-sir," he added, merely as a decoration,
+and then said briskly: "I see you have a fine family, Mr. Madison;
+yes-sir, a fine family; I've passed here several times lately and
+I've noticed 'em: fine family. Let's see, you've got four, haven't
+you?"
+
+"Three," said Madison. "Two girls and a boy."
+
+"Well, sir, that's mighty nice," observed Mr. Pryor; "_mighty_
+nice! I only have my one daughter, and of course me living in New
+York when I'm at home, and her here, why, I don't get to see much
+of her. You got both your daughters living with you, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, right here at home."
+
+"Let's see: neither of 'em's married, I believe?"
+
+"No; not yet."
+
+"Seems to me now," said Pryor, taking off his glasses and wiping
+them, "seems to me I did hear somebody say one of 'em was going to
+be married engaged, maybe."
+
+"No," said Madison. "Not that I know of."
+
+"Well, I suppose you'd be the first to know! Yes-sir." And both
+men laughed their appreciation of this folly. "They're mighty
+good-looking girls, _that's_ certain," continued Mr. Pryor. "And
+one of 'em's as fine a dresser as you'll meet this side the Rue de
+la Paix."
+
+"You mean in Paris?" asked Madison, slightly surprised at this
+allusion. "You've been over there, Pryor?"
+
+"Oh, sometimes," was the response. "My business takes me over, now
+and then. I _think_ it's one of your daughters I've noticed
+dresses so well. Isn't one of 'em a mighty pretty girl about
+twenty-one or two, with a fine head of hair sort of lightish
+brown, beautiful figure, and carries a white parasol with a green
+lining sometimes?"
+
+"Yes, that's Cora, I guess."
+
+"Pretty name, too," said Pryor approvingly. "Yes-sir. I saw her
+going into a florist's, downtown, the other day, with a
+fine-looking young fellow--I can't think of his name. Let's see:
+my daughter was with me, and she'd heard his name--said his family
+used to be big people in this town and----"
+
+"Oh," said Madison, "young Corliss."
+
+"Corliss!" exclaimed Mr. Pryor, with satisfaction. "That's it,
+Corliss. Well, sir," he chuckled, "from the way he was looking at
+your Miss Cora it struck me he seemed kind of anxious for her name
+to be Corliss, too."
+
+"Well, hardly I expect," said the other. "They just barely know
+each other: he's only been here a few weeks; they haven't had time
+to get much acquainted, you see."
+
+"I suppose not," agreed Mr. Pryor, with perfect readiness. "I
+suppose not. I'll bet _he_ tries all he can to get acquainted
+though; he looked pretty smart to me. Doesn't he come about as
+often as the law allows?"
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised," said Madison indifferently. "He
+doesn't know many people about here any more, and it's lonesome
+for him at the hotel. But I guess he comes to see the whole
+family; I left him in the library a little while ago, talking to
+my wife."
+
+"That's the way! Get around the old folks first!" Mr. Pryor
+chuckled cordially; then in a mildly inquisitive tone he said:
+"Seems to be a fine, square young fellow, I expect?"
+
+"Yes, I think so."
+
+"Pretty name, `Cora'," said Pryor.
+
+"What's this little girl's name?" Mr. Madison indicated the child,
+who had stood with heroic patience throughout the incomprehensible
+dialogue.
+
+"Lottie, for her mother. She's a good little girl."
+
+"She is _so_! I've got a young son she ought to know," remarked
+Mr. Madison serenely, with an elderly father's total
+unconsciousness of the bridgeless gap between seven and thirteen.
+"He'd like to play with her. I'll call him."
+
+"I expect we better be getting on," said Pryor. "It's near
+Lottie's bedtime; we just came out for our evening walk."
+
+"Well, he can come and shake hands with her anyway," urged
+Hedrick's father. "Then they'll know each other, and they can play
+some other time." He turned toward the house and called loudly:
+
+"Hedrick!"
+
+There was no response. Behind the back of his chair Hedrick could
+not be seen. He was still sitting immovable, his eyes torpidly
+fixed upon the wall.
+
+"Hed-_rick_!"
+
+Silence.
+
+"Oh, _Hed_-rick!" shouted his father. "Come out here! I want you
+to meet a little girl! Come and see a nice little girl!"
+
+Mr. Pryor's grandchild was denied the pleasure. At the ghastly
+words "_little girl_," Hedrick dropped from his chair flat upon
+the floor, crawled to the end of the porch, wriggled through the
+railing, and immersed himself in deep shadow against the side of
+the house.
+
+Here he removed his shoes, noiselessly mounted to the sill of one
+of the library windows, then reconnoitred through a slit in the
+blinds before entering.
+
+The gas burned low in the "drop-light"--almost too dimly to reveal
+the two people upon a sofa across the room. It was a faint murmur
+from one of them that caused Hedrick to pause and peer more
+sharply. They were Cora and Corliss; he was bending close to her;
+her face was lifting to his.
+
+"Ah, kiss me! Kiss me!" she whispered.
+
+Hedrick dropped from the sill, climbed through a window of the
+kitchen, hurried up the back-stairs, and reached his own apartment
+in time to be violently ill in seclusion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+Villages are scattered plentifully over the unstable buttresses of
+Vesuvius, and the inhabitants sleep o' nights: Why not? Quite
+unaware that he was much of their condition, Mr. Madison bade his
+incidental gossip and the tiny Lottie good-night, and sought his
+early bed. He maintained in good faith that Saturday night was "a
+great night to sleep," because of the later hour for rising;
+probably having also some factitious conviction that there
+prevailed a hush preparative of the Sabbath. As a matter of fact,
+in summer, the other members of his family always looked
+uncommonly haggard at the Sunday breakfast-table. Accepting
+without question his preposterous legend of additional matutinal
+slumber, they postponed retiring to a late hour, and were
+awakened--simultaneously with thousands of fellow-sufferers--at
+about half-after five on Sunday morning, by a journalistic
+uprising. Over the town, in these early hours, rampaged the small
+vendors of the manifold sheets: local papers and papers from
+greater cities, hawker succeeding hawker with yell upon yell and
+brain-piercing shrillings in unbearable cadences. No good burgher
+ever complained: the people bore it, as in winter they bore the
+smoke that injured their health, ruined their linen, spoiled their
+complexions, forbade all hope of beauty and comfort in their city,
+and destroyed the sweetness of their homes and of their wives. It
+is an incredibly patient citizenry and exalts its persecutors.
+
+Of the Madison family, Cora probably suffered most; and this was
+the time when it was no advantage to have the front bedroom. She
+had not slept until close upon dawn, and the hawkers woke her
+irreparably; she could but rage upon her hot pillow. By and by,
+there came a token that another anguish kept company with hers.
+She had left her door open for a better circulation of the warm
+and languid air, and from Hedrick's room issued an "_oof_!" of
+agonized disgust. Cora little suspected that the youth reeked not
+of newsboys: Hedrick's miseries were introspective.
+
+The cries from the street were interminable; each howler in turn
+heard faintly in the distance, then in crescendo until he had
+passed and another succeeded him, and all the while Cora lay
+tossing and whispering between clenched teeth. Having ample
+reason, that morning, to prefer sleep to thinking, sleep was
+impossible. But she fought for it: she did not easily surrender
+what she wanted; and she struggled on, with closed eyes, long
+after she had heard the others go down to breakfast.
+
+About a hundred yards from her windows, to the rear, were the open
+windows of a church which fronted the next street, and stood
+dos-a-dos to the dwelling of the Madisons. The Sunday-school hour
+had been advanced for the hot weather, and, partly on this
+account, and partly because of the summer absence of many
+families, the attendants were few. But the young voices were
+conducted, rather than accompanied, in pious melody by a cornetist
+who worthily thought to amend, in his single person, what lack of
+volume this paucity occasioned. He was a slender young man in hot
+black clothes; he wore the unfacaded collar fatally and
+unanimously adopted by all adam's-apple men of morals; he was
+washed, fair, flat-skulled, clean-minded, and industrious; and the
+only noise of any kind he ever made in the world was on Sunday.
+
+"Prashus joowuls, sweet joowuls, _thee_ jams off iz crowowun,"
+sang the little voices feebly. They were almost unheard; but the
+young man helped them out: figuratively, he put them out. And the
+cornet was heard: it was heard for blocks and blocks; it was heard
+over all that part of the town--in the vicinity of the church it
+was the only thing that could be heard. In his daily walk this
+cornetist had no enemies: he was kind-hearted; he would not have
+shot a mad dog; he gladly nursed the sick. He sat upon the
+platform before the children; he swelled, perspired and blew, and
+felt that it was a good blowing. If other thoughts vapoured upon
+the borders of his mind, they were of the dinner he would eat,
+soon after noon, at the house of one of the frilled, white-muslin
+teachers. He was serene. His eyes were not blasted; his heart was
+not instantly withered; his thin, bluish hair did not fall from
+his head; his limbs were not detached from his torso--yet these
+misfortunes had been desired for him, with comprehension and
+sincerity, at the first flat blat of his brassy horn.
+
+It is impossible to imagine the state of mind of this young
+cornetist, could he have known that he had caused the prettiest
+girl in town to jump violently out of bed with what petitions upon
+her lips regarding his present whereabouts and future detention!
+It happened that during the course of his Sunday walk on Corliss
+Street, that very afternoon, he saw her--was hard-smitten by her
+beauty, and for weeks thereafter laid unsuccessful plans to "meet"
+her. Her image was imprinted: he talked about her to his
+boarding-house friends and office acquaintances, his favourite
+description being, "the sweetest-looking lady I ever laid eyes
+on."
+
+Cora, descending to the breakfast-table rather white herself, was
+not unpleasantly shocked by the haggard aspect of Hedrick, who,
+with Laura and Mrs. Madison, still lingered.
+
+"Good-morning, Cora," he said politely, and while she stared, in
+suspicious surprise, he passed her a plate of toast with
+ostentatious courtesy; but before she could take one of the
+slices, "Wait," he said; "it's very nice toast, but I'm afraid it
+isn't hot. I'll take it to the kitchen and have it warmed for
+you." And he took the plate and went out, walking softly.
+
+Cora turned to her mother, appalled. "He'll be sick!" she said.
+
+Mrs. Madison shook her head and smiled sadly.
+
+"He helped to wait on all of us: he must have been doing something
+awful."
+
+"More likely he wants permission to do something awful."
+
+Laura looked out of the window.
+
+"There, Cora," said Hedrick kindly, when he brought the toast;
+"you'll find that nice and hot."
+
+She regarded him steadfastly, but with modesty he avoided her eye.
+"You wouldn't make such a radical change in your nature, Hedrick,"
+she said, with a puzzled frown, "just to get out of going to
+church, would you?"
+
+"I don't want to get out of going to church," he said. He gulped
+slightly. "I like church."
+
+And church-time found him marching decorously beside his father,
+the three ladies forming a rear rank; a small company in the very
+thin procession of fanning women and mopping men whose destination
+was the gray stone church at the foot of Corliss Street. The
+locusts railed overhead: Hedrick looked neither to the right nor
+to the left.
+
+They passed a club, of which a lower window was vacated
+simultaneously with their coming into view; and a small but ornate
+figure in pale gray crash hurried down the steps and attached
+itself to the second row of Madisons. "Good-morning," said Mr.
+Wade Trumble. "Thought I'd take a look-in at church this morning
+myself."
+
+Care of this encumbrance was usually expected of Laura and Mrs.
+Madison, but to their surprise Cora offered a sprightly rejoinder
+and presently dropped behind them with Mr. Trumble. Mr. Trumble
+was also surprised and, as naively, pleased.
+
+"What's happened?" he asked with cheerful frankness. "You haven't
+given me a chance to talk to you for a long while."
+
+"Haven't I?" she smiled enigmatically. "I don't think you've tried
+very hard."
+
+This was too careless; it did not quite serve, even for Trumble.
+"What's up?" he asked, not without shrewdness. "Is Richard Lindley
+out of town?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"I see. Perhaps it's this new chap, Corliss? Has he left?"
+
+"What nonsense! What have they got to do with my being nice to
+you?" She gave him a dangerous smile, and it wrought upon him
+visibly.
+
+"Don't you ever be nice to me unless you mean it," he said feebly.
+
+Cora looked grave and sweet; she seemed mysteriously moved. "I
+never do anything I don't mean," she said in a low voice which
+thrilled the little man. This was machine-work, easy and accurate.
+
+"Cora----" he began, breathlessly.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed, shifting on the instant to a lively
+brusqueness. "That's enough for you just _now_. We're on our way
+to church!"
+
+Trumble felt almost that she had accepted him.
+
+"Have you got your penny for the contribution box?" she smiled. "I
+suppose you really give a great deal to the church. I hear you're
+richer and richer."
+
+"I do pretty well," he returned, coolly. "You can know just how
+well, if you like."
+
+"Not on Sunday," she laughed; then went on, admiringly, "I hear
+you're very dashing in your speculations."
+
+"Then you've heard wrong, because I don't speculate," he returned.
+"I'm not a gambler--except on certainties. I guess I disappointed
+a friend of yours the other day because I wouldn't back him on a
+thousand-to-one shot."
+
+"Who was that?" she asked, with an expression entirely veiled.
+
+"Corliss. He came to see me; wanted me to put real money into an
+oil scheme. Too thin!"
+
+"Why is it `too thin'?" she asked carelessly.
+
+"Too far away, for one thing--somewhere in Italy. Anybody who put
+up his cash would have to do it on Corliss's bare word that he's
+struck oil."
+
+"Well?" She turned her face to him, and a faint perturbation was
+manifest in her tone. "Isn't Mr. Corliss's `bare word' supposed to
+be perfectly good?"
+
+"Oh, I suppose so, but I don't know. He isn't known here: nobody
+really knows anything about him except that he was born here.
+Besides, I wouldn't make an investment on my own father's bare
+word, if he happened to be alive."
+
+"Perhaps not!" Cora spoke impulsively, a sudden anger getting the
+better of her, but she controlled it immediately. "Of course I
+don't mean that," she laughed, sweetly. "But _I_ happen to think
+Mr. Corliss's scheme a very handsome one, and I want my friends to
+make their fortunes, of course. Richard Lindley and papa are going
+into it."
+
+"I'll bet they don't," said Trumble promptly. "Lindley told me
+he'd looked it over and couldn't see his way to."
+
+"He did?" Cora stiffened perceptibly and bit her lip.
+
+Trumble began to laugh. "This is funny: you trying to talk
+business! So Corliss has been telling you about it?"
+
+"Yes, he has; and I understand it perfectly. I think there's an
+enormous fortune in it, and you'd better not laugh at me: a
+woman's instinct about such things is better than a man's
+experience sometimes."
+
+"You'll find neither Lindley nor your father are going to think
+so," he returned skeptically.
+
+She gave him a deep, sweet look. "But I mustn't be disappointed in
+you," she said, with the suggestion of a tremor in her voice,
+"whatever _they_ do! You'll take my advice, won't you--Wade?"
+
+"I'll take your advice in anything but business." He shook his
+head ominously.
+
+"And wouldn't you take my advice in business,"--she asked very
+slowly and significantly--"under _any_ circumstances?"
+
+"You mean," he said huskily, "if you were my wife?"
+
+She looked away, and slightly inclined her head. "No," he answered
+doggedly, "I wouldn't. You know mighty well that's what I want you
+to be, and I'd give my soul for the tip of your shoe, but business
+is an entirely different matter, and I----"
+
+"_Wade_!" she said, with wonderful and thrilling sweetness. They
+had reached the church; Hedrick and his father had entered; Mrs.
+Madison and Laura were waiting on the steps. Cora and Trumble came
+to a stop some yards away. "Wade, I--I _want_ you to go into
+this."
+
+"Can't do it," he said stubbornly. "If you ever make up your mind
+to marry me, I'll spend all the money you like on _you_, but
+you'll have to keep to the woman's side of the house."
+
+"You make it pretty hard for me to be nice to you," she returned,
+and the tremor now more evident in her voice was perfectly
+genuine. "You positively refuse to do this--for me?"
+
+"Yes I do. I wouldn't buy sight-unseen to please God 'lmighty,
+Cora Madison." He looked at her shrewdly, struck by a sudden
+thought. "Did Corliss ask you to try and get me in?"
+
+"He did not," she responded, icily. "Your refusal is final?"
+
+"Certainly!" He struck the pavement a smart rap with his
+walking-stick. "By George, I believe he _did_ ask you! That spoils
+church for me this morning; I'll not go in. When you quit playing
+games, let me know. You needn't try to work me any more, because I
+won't stand for it, but if you ever get tired of playing, come and
+tell me so." He uttered a bark of rueful laughter. "Ha! I must say
+that gentleman has an interesting way of combining business with
+pleasure!"
+
+Under favourable circumstances the blow Cora dealt him might have
+been physically more violent. "Good-morning," she laughed, gayly.
+"I'm not bothering much about Mr. Corliss's oil in Italy. I had a
+bet with Laura I could keep you from saying `I beg to differ,' or
+talking about the weather for five minutes. She'll have to pay
+me!"
+
+Then, still laughing, she lowered her parasol, and with superb
+impudence, brushed it smartly across his face; turned on her heel,
+and, red with fury, joined her mother and sister, and went into
+the church.
+
+The service failed to occupy her attention: she had much in her
+thoughts to distract her. Nevertheless, she bestowed some
+wonderment upon the devotion with which her brother observed each
+ceremonial rite. He joined in prayer with real fervour; he sang
+earnestly and loudly; a great appeal sounded in his changing
+voice; and during the sermon he sat with his eyes upon the
+minister in a stricken fixity. All this was so remarkable that
+Cora could not choose but ponder upon it, and, observing Hedrick
+furtively, she caught, if not a clue itself, at least a glimpse of
+one. She saw Laura's clear profile becoming subtly agitated; then
+noticed a shimmer of Laura's dark eye as it wandered to Hedrick
+and so swiftly away it seemed not to dare to remain. Cora was
+quick: she perceived that Laura was repressing a constant desire
+to laugh and that she feared to look at Hedrick lest it overwhelm
+her. So Laura knew what had wrought the miracle. Cora made up her
+mind to explore this secret passage.
+
+When the service was over and the people were placidly buzzing
+their way up the aisles, Cora felt herself drawn to look across
+the church, and following the telepathic impulse, turned her head
+to encounter the gaze of Ray Vilas. He was ascending the opposite
+aisle, walking beside Richard Lindley. He looked less pale than
+usual, though his thinness was so extreme it was like emaciation;
+but his eyes were clear and quiet, and the look he gave her was
+strangely gentle. Cora frowned and turned away her head with an
+air of annoyance. They came near each other in the convergence at
+the doors; but he made no effort to address her, and, moving away
+through the crowd as quickly as possible, disappeared.
+
+Valentine Corliss was disclosed in the vestibule. He reached her
+an instant in advance of Mr. Lindley, who had suffered himself to
+be impeded; and Cora quickly handed the former her parasol,
+lightly taking his arm. Thus the slow Richard found himself
+walking beside Laura in a scattered group, its detached portion
+consisting of his near-betrothed and Corliss; for although the
+dexterous pair were first to leave the church, they contrived to
+be passed almost at once, and, assuming the position of trailers,
+lagged far behind on the homeward way.
+
+Laura and Richard walked in the unmitigated glare of the sun; he
+had taken her black umbrella and conscientiously held it aloft,
+but over nobody. They walked in silence: they were quiet people,
+both of them; and Richard, not "talkative" under any
+circumstances, never had anything whatever to say to Laura
+Madison. He had known her for many years, ever since her
+childhood; seldom indeed formulating or expressing a definite
+thought about her, though sometimes it was vaguely of his
+consciousness that she played the piano nicely, and even then her
+music had taken its place as but a colour of Cora's background.
+For to him, as to every one else (including Laura), Laura was in
+nothing her sister's competitor. She was a neutral-tinted figure,
+taken-for-granted, obscured, and so near being nobody at all,
+that, as Richard Lindley walked beside her this morning, he
+glanced back at the lagging couple and uttered a long and almost
+sonorous sigh, which he would have been ashamed for anybody to
+hear; and then actually proceeded on his way without the slightest
+realization that anybody had heard it.
+
+She understood. And she did not disturb the trance; she did
+nothing to make him observe that she was there. She walked on with
+head, shoulders, and back scorching in the fierce sun, and allowed
+him to continue shading the pavement before them with her
+umbrella. When they reached the house she gently took the umbrella
+from him and thanked him; and he mechanically raised his hat.
+
+They had walked more than a mile together; he had not spoken a
+word, and he did not even know it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+Dinner on Sunday, the most elaborate feast of the week for the
+Madisons, was always set for one o'clock in the afternoon, and
+sometimes began before two, but not to-day: the escorts of both
+daughters remained, and a change of costume by Cora occasioned a
+long postponement. Justice demands the admission that her
+reappearance in a glamour of lilac was reward for the delay;
+nothing more ravishing was ever seen, she was warrantably informed
+by the quicker of the two guests, in a moment's whispered
+tete-a-tete across the banisters as she descended. Another wait
+followed while she prettily arranged upon the table some dozens of
+asters from a small garden-bed, tilled, planted, and tended by
+Laura. Meanwhile, Mrs. Madison constantly turned the other cheek
+to the cook. Laura assisted in the pacification; Hedrick froze the
+ice-cream to an impenetrable solidity; and the nominal head of the
+family sat upon the front porch with the two young men, and wiped
+his wrists and rambled politically till they were summoned to the
+dining-room.
+
+Cora did the talking for the table. She was in high spirits; no
+trace remained of a haggard night: there was a bloom upon her--she
+was radiant. Her gayety may have had some inspiration in her
+daring, for round her throat she wore a miraculously slender chain
+of gold and enamel, with a pendant of minute pale sapphires
+scrolled about a rather large and very white diamond. Laura
+started when she saw it, and involuntarily threw a glance almost
+of terror at Richard Lindley. But that melancholy and
+absent-minded gentleman observed neither the glance nor the jewel.
+He saw Cora's eyes, when they were vouchsafed to his vision, and
+when they were not he apparently saw nothing at all.
+
+With the general exodus from the table, Cora asked Laura to come
+to the piano and play, a request which brought a snort from
+Hedrick, who was taken off his guard. Catching Laura's eye, he
+applied a handkerchief with renewed presence of mind, affecting to
+have sneezed, and stared searchingly over it at Corliss. He
+perceived that the man remained unmoved, evidently already
+informed that it was Laura who was the musician. Cora must be
+going it pretty fast this time: such was the form of her brother's
+deduction.
+
+When Laura opened the piano, Richard had taken a seat beside Cora,
+and Corliss stood leaning in the doorway. The player lost herself
+in a wandering medley, echoes from "Boheme" and "Pagliacci"; then
+drifted into improvisation and played her heart into it
+magnificently--a heart released to happiness. The still air of the
+room filled with wonderful, golden sound: a song like the song of
+a mother flying from earth to a child in the stars, a torrential
+tenderness, unpent and glorying in freedom. The flooding,
+triumphant chords rose, crashed--stopped with a shattering
+abruptness. Laura's hands fell to her sides, then were raised to
+her glowing face and concealed it for a moment. She shivered; a
+quick, deep sigh heaved her breast; and she came back to herself
+like a prisoner leaving a window at the warden's voice.
+
+She turned. Cora and Corliss had left the room. Richard was
+sitting beside a vacant chair, staring helplessly at the open
+door.
+
+If he had been vaguely conscious of Laura's playing, which is
+possible, certainly he was unaware that it had ceased.
+
+"The others have gone out to the porch," she said composedly, and
+rose. "Shan't we join them?"
+
+"What?" he returned, blankly. "I beg your pardon----"
+
+"Let's go out on the porch with the others."
+
+"No, I----" He got to his feet confusedly. "I was thinking---- I
+believe I'd best be going home."
+
+"Not `best,' I think," she said. "Not even better!"
+
+"I don't see," he said, his perplexity only increased.
+
+"Mr. Corliss would," she retorted quickly. "Come on: we'll go and
+sit with them." And she compelled his obedience by preceding him
+with such a confident assumption that he would follow that he did.
+
+The fugitive pair were not upon the porch, however; they were
+discovered in the shade of a tree behind the house, seated upon a
+rug, and occupied in a conversation which would not have disturbed
+a sick-room. The pursuers came upon them, boldly sat beside them;
+and Laura began to talk with unwonted fluency to Corliss, but
+within five minutes found herself alone with Richard Lindley upon
+the rug. Cora had promised to show Mr. Corliss an "old print" in
+the library--so Cora said.
+
+Lindley gave the remaining lady a desolate and faintly reproachful
+look. He was kind, but he was a man; and Laura saw that this last
+abandonment was being attributed in part to her.
+
+She reddened, and, being not an angel, observed with crispness:
+"Certainly. You're quite right: it's my fault!"
+
+"What did you say?" he asked vacantly.
+
+She looked at him rather fixedly; his own gaze had returned to the
+angle of the house beyond which the other couple had just
+disappeared. "I said," she answered, slowly, "I thought it
+wouldn't rain this, afternoon."
+
+His wistful eyes absently swept the serene sky which had been
+cloudless for several days. "No, I suppose not," he murmured.
+
+"Richard," she said with a little sharpness, "will you please
+listen to me for a moment?"
+
+"Oh--what?" He was like a diver coming up out of deep water. "What
+did you say?" He laughed apologetically. "Wasn't I listening? I
+beg your pardon. What is it, Laura?"
+
+"Why do you let Mr. Corliss take Cora away from you like that?"
+she asked gravely.
+
+"He doesn't," the young man returned with a rueful shake of the
+head. "Don't you see? It's Cora that goes."
+
+"Why do you let her, then?"
+
+He sighed. "I don't seem to be able to keep up with Cora,
+especially when she's punishing me. I couldn't do something she
+asked me to, last night----"
+
+"Invest with Mr. Corliss?" asked Laura quickly.
+
+"Yes. It seemed to trouble her that I couldn't. She's convinced
+it's a good thing: she thinks it would make a great fortune for
+us----"
+
+"`Us'?" repeated Laura gently. "You mean for you and her? When
+you're----"
+
+"When we're married. Yes," he said thoughtfully, "that's the way
+she stated it. She wanted me to put in all I have----"
+
+"Don't do it!" said Laura decidedly.
+
+He glanced at her with sharp inquiry. "Do you mean you would
+distrust Mr. Corliss?"
+
+"I wasn't thinking of that: I don't know whether I'd trust him or
+not--I think I wouldn't; there's something veiled about him, and I
+don't believe he is an easy man to know. What I meant was that I
+don't believe it would really be a good thing for you with Cora."
+
+"It would please her, of course--thinking I deferred so much to
+her judgment."
+
+"Don't do it!" she said again, impulsively.
+
+"I don't see how I can," he returned sorrowfully.
+
+"It's my work for all the years since I got out of college, and if
+I lost it I'd have to begin all over again. It would mean
+postponing everything. Cora isn't a girl you can ask to share a
+little salary, and if it were a question of years, perhaps--
+perhaps Cora might not feel she could wait for me, you see."
+
+He made this explanation with plaintive and boyish sincerity,
+hesitatingly, and as if pleading a cause. And Laura, after a long
+look at him, turned away, and in her eyes were actual tears of
+compassion for the incredible simpleton.
+
+"I see," she said. "Perhaps she might not."
+
+"Of course," he went on, "she's fond of having nice things, and
+she thinks this is a great chance for us to be millionaires; and
+then, too, I think she may feel that it would please Mr. Corliss
+and help to save him from disappointment. She seems to have taken
+a great fancy to him."
+
+Laura glanced at him, but did not speak.
+
+"He _is_ attractive," continued Richard feebly. "I think he has a
+great deal of what people call `magnetism': he's the kind of man
+who somehow makes you want to do what he wants you to. He seems a
+manly, straightforward sort, too--so far as one can tell--and when
+he came to me with his scheme I was strongly inclined to go into
+it. But it is too big a gamble, and I can't, though I was sorry to
+disappoint him myself. He was perfectly cheerful about it and so
+pleasant it made me feel small. I don't wonder at all that Cora
+likes him so much. Besides, he seems to understand her."
+
+Laura looked very grave. "I think he does," she said slowly.
+
+"And then he's `different,'" said Richard. "He's more a `man of
+the world' than most of us here: she never saw anything just like
+him before, and she's seen _us_ all her life. She likes change, of
+course. That's natural," he said gently. "Poor Vilas says she
+wants a man to be different every day, and if he isn't, then she
+wants a different man every day."
+
+"You've rather taken Ray Vilas under your wing, haven't you?"
+asked Laura.
+
+"Oh, no," he answered deprecatingly. "I only try to keep him with
+me so he'll stay away from downtown as much as possible."
+
+"Does he talk much of Cora?"
+
+"All the time. There's no stopping him. I suppose he can't help
+it, because he thinks of nothing else."
+
+"Isn't that rather--rather queer for you?"
+
+"`Queer'?" he repeated.
+
+"No, I suppose not!" She laughed impatiently. "And probably you
+don't think it's `queer' of you to sit here helplessly, and let
+another man take your place----"
+
+"But I don't `let' him, Laura," he protested.
+
+"No, he just does it!"
+
+"Well," he smiled, "you must admit my efforts to supplant him
+haven't----"
+
+"It won't take any effort now," she said, rising quickly.
+Valentine Corliss came into their view upon the sidewalk in front,
+taking his departure. Seeing that they observed him, he lifted his
+hat to Laura and nodded a cordial good-day to Lindley. Then he
+went on.
+
+Just before he reached the corner of the lot, he encountered upon
+the pavement a citizen of elderly and plain appearance, strolling
+with a grandchild. The two men met and passed, each upon his
+opposite way, without pausing and without salutation, and neither
+Richard nor Laura, whose eyes were upon the meeting, perceived
+that they had taken cognizance of each other. But one had asked a
+question and the other had answered.
+
+Mr. Pryor spoke in a low monotone, with a rapidity as singular as
+the restrained but perceptible emphasis he put upon one word of
+his question.
+
+"I got you in the park," he said; and it is to be deduced that
+"got" was argot. "You're not _doing_ anything here, are you?"
+
+"No!" answered Corliss with condensed venom, his back already to
+the other. He fanned himself with his hat as he went on. Mr. Pryor
+strolled up the street with imperturbable benevolence.
+
+"Your coast is cleared," said Laura, "since you wouldn't clear it
+yourself."
+
+"Wish me luck," said Richard as he left her.
+
+She nodded brightly.
+
+Before he disappeared, he looked back to her again (which
+profoundly surprised her) and smiled rather disconsolately,
+shaking his head as in prophecy of no very encouraging reception
+indoors. The manner of this glance recalled to Laura what his
+mother had once said of him. "Richard is one of those sweet,
+helpless men that some women adore and others despise. They fall
+in love with the ones that despise them."
+
+An ostentatious cough made her face about, being obviously
+designed to that effect; and she beheld her brother in the act of
+walking slowly across the yard with his back to her. He halted
+upon the border of her small garden of asters, regarded it
+anxiously, then spread his handkerchief upon the ground, knelt
+upon it, and with thoughtful care uprooted a few weeds which were
+beginning to sprout, and also such vagrant blades of grass as
+encroached upon the floral territory. He had the air of a virtuous
+man performing a good action which would never become known.
+Plainly, he thought himself in solitude and all unobserved.
+
+It was a touching picture, pious and humble. Done into coloured
+glass, the kneeling boy and the asters--submerged in ardent
+sunshine--would have appropriately enriched a cathedral: Boyhood
+of Saint Florus the Gardener.
+
+Laura heartlessly turned her back, and, affecting an interest in
+her sleeve, very soon experienced the sensation of being stared at
+with some poignancy from behind. Unchanged in attitude, she
+unravelled an imaginary thread, whereupon the cough reached her
+again, shrill and loud, its insistence not lacking in pathos.
+
+She approached him, driftingly. No sign that he was aware came
+from the busied boy, though he coughed again, hollowly now--a
+proof that he was an artist. "All right, Hedrick," she said
+kindly. "I heard you the first time."
+
+He looked up with utter incomprehension. "I'm afraid I've caught
+cold," he said, simply. "I got a good many weeds out before
+breakfast, and the ground was damp."
+
+Hedrick was of the New School: everything direct, real, no
+striving for effect, no pressure on the stroke. He did his work:
+you could take it or leave it.
+
+"You mustn't strain so, dear," returned his sister, shaking her
+head. "It won't last if you do. You see this is only the first
+day."
+
+Struck to the heart by so brutal a misconception, he put all his
+wrongs into one look, rose in manly dignity, picked up his
+handkerchief, and left her.
+
+Her eyes followed him, not without remorse: it was an exit which
+would have moved the bass-violist of a theatre orchestra. Sighing,
+she went to her own room by way of the kitchen and the
+back-stairs, and, having locked her door, brought the padlocked
+book from its hiding-place.
+
+"I think I should not have played as I did, an hour ago," she
+wrote. "It stirs me too greatly and I am afraid it makes me
+inclined to self-pity afterward, and I must never let myself feel
+_that_! If I once begin to feel sorry for myself. . . . But I
+_will_ not! No. You are here in the world. You exist. You _are_!
+That is the great thing to know and it must be enough for me. It
+is. I played to You. I played _just love_ to you--all the yearning
+tenderness--all the supreme kindness I want to give you. Isn't
+love really just glorified kindness? No, there is something more.
+. . . I feel it, though I do not know how to say it. But it was in
+my playing--I played it and played it. Suddenly I felt that in my
+playing I had shouted it from the housetops, that I had told the
+secret to all the world and _everybody_ knew. I stopped, and for a
+moment it seemed to me that I was dying of shame. But no one
+understood. No one had even listened. . . . Sometimes it seems to
+me that I am like Cora, that I am very deeply her sister in some
+things. My heart goes all to You--my revelation of it, my release
+of it, my outlet of it is all here in these pages (except when I
+play as I did to-day and as I shall not play again) and perhaps
+the writing keeps me quiet. Cora scatters her own releasings: she
+is looking for the You she may never find; and perhaps the penalty
+for scattering is never finding. Sometimes I think the seeking has
+reacted and that now she seeks only what will make her feel. I
+hope she has not found it: I am afraid of this new man--not only
+for your sake, dear. I felt repelled by his glance at me the first
+time I saw him. I did not like it--I cannot say just why, unless
+that it seemed too intimate. I am afraid of him for her, which is
+a queer sort of feeling because she has alw----"
+
+Laura's writing stopped there, for that day, interrupted by a
+hurried rapping upon the door and her mother's voice calling her
+with stress and urgency.
+
+The opening of the door revealed Mrs. Madison in a state of
+anxious perturbation, and admitted the sound of loud weeping and
+agitated voices from below.
+
+"Please go down," implored the mother. "You can do more with her
+than I can. She and your father have been having a terrible scene
+since Richard went home."
+
+Laura hurried down to the library.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+"Oh, _come_ in, Laura!" cried her sister, as Laura appeared in the
+doorway. "Don't _stand_ there! Come in if you want to take part in
+a grand old family row!" With a furious and tear-stained face, she
+was confronting her father who stood before her in a resolute
+attitude and a profuse perspiration. "Shut the door!" shouted Cora
+violently, adding, as Laura obeyed, "Do you want that little Pest
+in here? Probably he's eavesdropping anyway. But what difference
+does it make? I don't care. Let him hear! Let anybody hear that
+wants to! They can hear how I'm tortured if they like. I didn't
+close my eyes last night, and now I'm being tortured. Papa!" She
+stamped her foot. "Are you going to take back that insult to me?"
+
+"`Insult'?" repeated her father, in angry astonishment.
+
+"Pshaw," said Laura, laughing soothingly and coming to her. "You
+know that's nonsense, Cora. Kind old papa couldn't do that if he
+tried. Dear, you know he never insulted anybody in his----"
+
+"Don't touch me!" screamed Cora, repulsing her. "Listen, if you've
+got to, but let me alone. He did too! He did! He _knows_ what he
+said!"
+
+"I do not!"
+
+"He does! He does!" cried Cora. "He said that I was--I was too
+much `interested' in Mr. Corliss."
+
+"Is that an `insult'?" the father demanded sharply.
+
+"It was the way he said it," Cora protested, sobbing. "He meant
+something he didn't _say_. He did! He did! He _meant_ to insult
+me!"
+
+"I did nothing of the kind," shouted the old man.
+
+"I don't know what you're talking about. I said I couldn't
+understand your getting so excited about the fellow's affairs and
+that you seemed to take a mighty sudden interest in him."
+
+"Well, what if I _do_?" she screamed. "Haven't I a right to be
+interested in what I choose? I've got to be interested in
+_something_, haven't I? _You_ don't make life very interesting, do
+you? Do you think it's interesting to spend the summer in this
+horrible old house with the paper falling off the walls and our
+rotten old furniture that I work my hands off trying to make look
+decent and can't, and every other girl I know at the seashore with
+motor-cars and motor-boats, or getting a trip abroad and buying
+her clothes in Paris? What do _you_ offer to interest me?"
+
+The unfortunate man hung his head. "I don't see what all that has
+to do with it----"
+
+She seemed to leap at him. "You _don't_? You _don't_?"
+
+"No, I don't. And I don't see why you're so crazy to please young
+Corliss about this business unless you're infatuated with him. I
+had an idea--and I was pleased with it, too, because Richard's a
+steady fellow--that you were just about engaged to Richard
+Lindley, and----"
+
+"Engaged!" she cried, repeating the word with bitter contempt.
+"Engaged! You don't suppose I'll marry him unless I want to, do
+you? I will if it suits me. I won't if it suits me not to;
+understand that! I don't consider myself engaged to anybody, and
+you needn't either. What on earth has that got to do with your
+keeping Richard Lindley from doing what Mr. Corliss wants him to?"
+
+"I'm not keeping him from anything. He didn't say----"
+
+"He did!" stormed Cora. "He said he would if you went into it. He
+told me this afternoon, an hour ago."
+
+"Now wait," said Madison. "I talked this over with Richard two
+days ago----"
+
+Cora stamped her foot again in frantic exasperation. "I'm talking
+about this afternoon!"
+
+"Two days ago," he repeated doggedly; "and we came to the same
+conclusion: it won't do. He said he couldn't go into it unless he
+went over there to Italy--and saw for himself just what he was
+putting his money into, and Corliss had told him that it couldn't
+be done; that there wasn't time, and showed him a cablegram from
+his Italian partner saying the secret had leaked out and that
+they'd have to form the company in Naples and sell the stock over
+there if it couldn't be done here within the next week. Corliss
+said he had to ask for an immediate answer, and so Richard told
+him no, yesterday."
+
+"Oh, my God!" groaned Cora. "What has that got to do with _your_
+going into it? You're not going to risk any money! I don't ask you
+to _spend_ anything, do I? You haven't got it if I did. All Mr.
+Corliss wants is your name. Can't you give even _that_? What
+importance is it?"
+
+"Well, if it isn't important, what difference does it make whether
+I give it or not?"
+
+She flung up her arms as in despairing appeal for patience. "It
+_is_ important to him! Richard will do it if you will be secretary
+of the company: he promised me. Mr. Corliss told me your name was
+worth everything here: that men said downtown you could have been
+rich long ago if you hadn't been so square. Richard trusts you; he
+says you're the most trusted man in town----"
+
+"That's why I can't do it," he interrupted.
+
+"No!" Her vehemence increased suddenly to its utmost. "No! Don't
+you say that, because it's a lie. That isn't the reason you won't
+do it. You won't do it because you think it would please _me_!
+You're afraid it might make me _happy_! Happy--happy--_happy_!"
+She beat her breast and cast herself headlong upon the sofa,
+sobbing wildly. "Don't come near me!" she screamed at Laura, and
+sprang to her feet again, dishevelled and frantic. "Oh, Christ in
+heaven! is there such a thing as happiness in this beast of a
+world? I want to leave it. I want to go away: I want _so_ to die:
+Why can't I? Why can't I! Why can't I! Oh, God, why _can't_ I die?
+Why can't----"
+
+Her passion culminated in a shriek: she gasped, was convulsed from
+head to foot for a dreadful moment, tore at the bosom of her dress
+with rigid bent fingers, swayed; then collapsed all at once. Laura
+caught her, and got her upon the sofa. In the hall, Mrs. Madison
+could be heard running and screaming to Hedrick to go for the
+doctor. Next instant, she burst into the room with brandy and
+camphor.
+
+"I could only find these; the ammonia bottle's empty," she panted;
+and the miserable father started hatless, for the drug-store, a
+faint, choked wail from the stricken girl sounding in his ears:
+"It's--it's my heart, mamma."
+
+It was four blocks to the nearest pharmacy; he made what haste he
+could in the great heat, but to himself he seemed double his usual
+weight; and the more he tried to hurry, the less speed appeared
+obtainable from his heavy legs. When he reached the place at last,
+he found it crowded with noisy customers about the "soda-fount";
+and the clerks were stonily slow: they seemed to know that they
+were "already in eternity." He got very short of breath on the way
+home; he ceased to perspire and became unnaturally dry; the air
+was aflame and the sun shot fire upon his bare head. His feet
+inclined to strange disobediences: he walked the last block
+waveringly. A solemn Hedrick met him at the door.
+
+"They've got her to bed," announced the boy. "The doctor's up
+there."
+
+"Take this ammonia up," said Madison huskily, and sat down upon a
+lower step of the stairway with a jolt, closing his eyes.
+
+"You sick, too?" asked Hedrick.
+
+"No. Run along with that ammonia."
+
+It seemed to Madison a long time that he sat there alone, and he
+felt very dizzy. Once he tried to rise, but had to give it up and
+remain sitting with his eyes shut. At last he heard Cora's door
+open and close; and his wife and the doctor came slowly down the
+stairs, Mrs. Madison talking in the anxious yet relieved voice of
+one who leaves a sick-room wherein the physician pronounces
+progress encouraging.
+
+"And you're _sure_ her heart trouble isn't organic?" she asked.
+
+"Her heart is all right," her companion assured her. "There's
+nothing serious; the trouble is nervous. I think you'll find
+she'll be better after a good sleep. Just keep her quiet. Hadn't
+she been in a state of considerable excitement?"
+
+"Ye-es--she----"
+
+"Ah! A little upset on account of opposition to a plan she'd
+formed, perhaps?"
+
+"Well--partly," assented the mother.
+
+"I see," he returned, adding with some dryness: "I thought it just
+possible."
+
+Madison got to his feet, and stepped down from the stairs for them
+to pass him. He leaned heavily against the wall.
+
+"You think she's going to be all right, Sloane?" he asked with an
+effort.
+
+"No cause to worry," returned the physician. "You can let her stay
+in bed to-day if she wants to but----" He broke off, looking
+keenly at Madison's face, which was the colour of poppies. "Hello!
+what's up with _you_?"
+
+"I'm all--right."
+
+"Oh, you are?" retorted Sloane with sarcasm. "Sit down," he
+commanded. "Sit right where you are--on the stairs, here," and,
+having enforced the order, took a stethoscope from his pocket.
+"Get him a glass of water," he said to Hedrick, who was at his
+elbow.
+
+"Doctor!" exclaimed Mrs. Madison. "_He_ isn't going to be sick, is
+he? You don't think he's sick _now_?"
+
+"I shouldn't call him very well," answered the physician rather
+grimly, placing his stethoscope upon Madison's breast. "Get his
+room ready for him." She gave him a piteous look, struck with
+fear; then obeyed a gesture and ran flutteringly up the stairs.
+
+"I'm all right now," panted Madison, drinking the water Hedrick
+brought him.
+
+"You're not so darned all right," said Sloane coolly, as he
+pocketed his stethoscope. "Come, let me help you up. We're going
+to get you to bed."
+
+There was an effort at protest, but the physician had his way, and
+the two ascended the stairs slowly, Sloane's arm round his new
+patient. At Cora's door, the latter paused.
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"I want," said Madison thickly--"I want--to speak to Cora."
+
+"We'll pass that up just now," returned the other brusquely, and
+led him on. Madison was almost helpless: he murmured in a husky,
+uncertain voice, and suffered himself to be put to bed. There, the
+doctor "worked" with him; cold "applications" were ordered; Laura
+was summoned from the other sick-bed; Hedrick sent flying with
+prescriptions, then to telephone for a nurse. The two women
+attempted questions at intervals, but Sloane replied with orders,
+and kept them busy.
+
+"Do you--think I'm a---a pretty sick man, Sloane?" asked Madison
+after a long silence, speaking with difficulty.
+
+"Oh, you're sick, all right," the doctor conceded.
+
+"I--I want to speak to Jennie."
+
+His wife rushed to the bed, and knelt beside it.
+
+"Don't you go to confessing your sins," said Doctor Sloane
+crossly. "You're coming out of the woods all right, and you'll be
+sorry if you tell her too, much. I'll begin a little flirtation
+with you, Miss Laura, if you please." And he motioned to her to
+follow him into the hall.
+
+"Your father _is_ pretty sick," he told her, "and he may be sicker
+before we get him into shape again. But you needn't be worried
+right now; I think he's not in immediate danger." He turned at the
+sound of Mrs. Madison's step, behind him, and repeated to her what
+he had just said to Laura. "I hope your husband didn't give
+himself away enough to be punished when we get him on his feet
+again," he concluded cheerfully.
+
+She shook her head, tried to smile through tears, and, crossing
+the hall, entered Cora's room. She came back after a moment, and,
+rejoining the other two at her husband's bedside, found the sick
+man in a stertorous sleep. Presently the nurse arrived, and upon
+the physician's pointed intimation that there were "too many
+people around," Laura went to Cora's room. She halted on the
+threshold in surprise. Cora was dressing.
+
+"Mamma says the doctor says he's all right," said Cora lightly,
+"and I'm feeling so much better myself I thought I'd put on
+something loose and go downstairs. I think there's more air down
+there."
+
+"Papa isn't all right, dear," said Laura, staring perplexedly at
+Cora's idea of "something loose," an equipment inclusive of
+something particularly close. "The doctor says he is very sick."
+
+"I don't believe it," returned Cora promptly. "Old Sloane never
+did know anything. Besides, mamma told me he said papa isn't in
+any danger."
+
+"No `immediate' danger," corrected Laura. "And besides, Doctor
+Sloane said you were to stay in bed until to-morrow."
+
+"I can't help that." Cora went on with her lacing impatiently.
+"I'm not going to lie and stifle in this heat when I feel
+perfectly well again--not for an old idiot like Sloane! He didn't
+even have sense enough to give me any medicine." She laughed.
+"Lucky thing he didn't: I'd have thrown it out of the window. Kick
+that slipper to me, will you, dear?"
+
+Laura knelt and put the slipper on her sister's foot. "Cora,
+dear," she said, "you're just going to put on a negligee and go
+down and sit in the library, aren't you?"
+
+"Laura!" The tone was more than impatient. "I wish I could be let
+alone for five whole minutes some time in my life! Don't you think
+I've stood enough for one day? I can't bear to be questioned,
+questioned, questioned! What do you do it for? Don't you see I
+can't stand anything more? If you can't let me alone I do wish
+you'd keep out of my room."
+
+Laura rose and went out; but as she left the door, Cora called
+after her with a rueful laugh: "Laura, I know I'm a little devil!"
+
+Half an hour later, Laura, suffering because she had made no reply
+to this peace-offering, and wishing to atone, sought Cora
+downstairs and found no one. She decided that Cora must still be
+in her own room; she would go to her there. But as she passed the
+open front door, she saw Cora upon the sidewalk in front of the
+house. She wore a new and elaborate motoring costume, charmingly
+becoming, and was in the act of mounting to a seat beside
+Valentine Corliss in a long, powerful-looking, white "roadster"
+automobile. The engine burst into staccato thunder, sobered down;
+the wheels began to move both Cora and Corliss were laughing and
+there was an air of triumph about them--Cora's veil streamed and
+fluttered: and in a flash they were gone.
+
+Laura stared at the suddenly vacated space where they had been. At
+a thought she started. Then she rushed upstairs to her mother, who
+was sitting in the hall near her husband's door.
+
+"Mamma," whispered Laura, flinging herself upon her knees beside
+her, "when papa wanted to speak to you, was it a message to Cora?"
+
+"Yes, dear. He told me to tell her he was sorry he'd made her
+sick, and that if he got well he'd try to do what she asked him
+to."
+
+Laura nodded cheerfully. "And he _will_ get well, darling mother,"
+she said, as she rose. "I'll come back in a minute and sit with
+you."
+
+Her return was not so quick as she promised, for she lay a long
+time weeping upon her pillow, whispering over and over:
+
+"Oh, poor, poor papa! Oh, poor, poor Richard!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+Within a week Mr. Madison's illness was a settled institution in
+the household; the presence of the nurse lost novelty, even to
+Hedrick, and became a part of life; the day was measured by the
+three regular visits of the doctor. To the younger members of the
+family it seemed already that their father had always been sick,
+and that he always would be; indeed, to Cora and Hedrick he had
+become only a weak and querulous voice beyond a closed door.
+Doctor Sloane was serious but reassuring, his daily announcement
+being that his patient was in "no immediate danger."
+
+Mrs. Madison did not share her children's sanguine adaptability;
+and, of the three, Cora was the greatest solace to the mother's
+troubled heart, though Mrs. Madison never recognized this without
+a sense of injustice to Laura, for Laura now was housewife and
+housekeeper--that is, she did all the work except the cooking, and
+on "wash-day" she did that. But Cora's help was to the very spirit
+itself, for she was sprightly in these hours of trial: with
+indomitable gayety she cheered her mother, inspiring in her a
+firmer confidence, and, most stimulating of all, Cora steadfastly
+refused to consider her father's condition as serious, or its
+outcome as doubtful.
+
+Old Sloane exaggerated, she said; and she made fun of his gravity,
+his clothes and his walk, which she mimicked till she drew a
+reluctant and protesting laugh from even her mother. Mrs. Madison
+was sure she "couldn't get through" this experience save for Cora,
+who was indeed the light of the threatened house.
+
+Strange perversities of this world: Cora's gayety was almost
+unbearable to her brother. Not because he thought it either
+unfeeling or out of place under the circumstances (an aspect he
+failed to consider), but because years of warfare had so
+frequently made him connect cheerfulness on her part with some
+unworthily won triumph over himself that habit prevailed, and he
+could not be a witness of her high spirits without a strong sense
+of injury. Additionally, he was subject to a deeply implanted
+suspicion of any appearance of unusual happiness in her as having
+source, if not in his own defeat, then in something vaguely "soft"
+and wholly distasteful. She grated upon him; he chafed, and his
+sufferings reached the surface. Finally, in a reckless moment, one
+evening at dinner, he broke out with a shout and hurled a newly
+devised couplet concerning luv-a-ly slush at his, sister's head.
+The nurse was present: Cora left the table; and Hedrick later
+received a serious warning from Laura. She suggested that it might
+become expedient to place him in Cora's power.
+
+"Cora knows perfectly well that something peculiar happened to
+you," she advised him. "And she knows that I know what it was; and
+she says it isn't very sisterly of me not to tell her. Now,
+Hedrick, there was no secret about it; you didn't _confide_
+your--your trouble to me, and it would be perfectly honourable of
+me to tell it. I wont{sic} unless you make me, but if you can't be
+polite and keep peace with Cora--at least while papa is sick I
+think it may be necessary. I believe," she finished with imperfect
+gravity, "that it--it would keep things quieter."
+
+The thoughts of a boy may be long, long thoughts, but he cannot
+persistently remember to fear a threatened catastrophe. Youth is
+too quickly intimate with peril. Hedrick had become familiar with
+his own, had grown so accustomed to it he was in danger of
+forgetting it altogether; therefore it was out of perspective. The
+episode of Lolita had begun to appear as a thing of the distant
+and clouded past: time is so long at thirteen. Added to this, his
+late immaculate deportment had been, as Laura suggested, a severe
+strain; the machinery of his nature was out of adjustment and
+demanded a violent reaction before it could get to running again
+at average speed. Also, it is evident that his destruction had
+been planned on high, for he was mad enough to answer flippantly:
+
+"Tell her! Go on and tell her--_I_ give you leaf! _that_ wasn't
+anything anyway--just helped you get a little idiot girl home.
+What is there to that? I never saw her before; never saw her
+again; didn't have half as much to do with her as you did
+yourself. She was a lot more _your_ friend than mine; I didn't
+even know her. I guess you'll have to get something better on me
+than that, before you try to boss _this_ ranch, Laura Madison!"
+
+That night, in bed, he wondered if he had not been perhaps a
+trifle rash; but the day was bright when he awoke, and no
+apprehension shadowed his morning face as he appeared at the
+breakfast table. On the contrary, a great weight had lifted from
+him; clearly his defiance had been the proper thing; he had shown
+Laura that her power over him was but imaginary. Hypnotized by his
+own words to her, he believed them; and his previous terrors
+became gossamer; nay, they were now merely laughable. His own
+remorse and shame were wholly blotted from memory, and he could
+not understand why in the world he had been so afraid, nor why he
+had felt it so necessary to placate Laura. She looked very meek
+this morning. _That_ showed! The strong hand was the right policy
+in dealing with women. He was tempted to insane daring: the rash,
+unfortunate child waltzed on the lip of the crater.
+
+"Told Cora yet?" he asked, with scornful laughter.
+
+"Told me what?" Cora looked quickly up from her plate.
+
+"Oh, nothing about this Corliss," he returned scathingly. "Don't
+get excited."
+
+"Hedrick!" remonstrated his mother, out of habit.
+
+"She never thinks of anything else these days," he retorted.
+"Rides with him every evening in his pe-rin-sley hired machine,
+doesn't she?"
+
+"Really, you should be more careful about the way you handle a
+spoon, Hedrick," said Cora languidly, and with at least a
+foundation of fact. "It is not the proper implement for decorating
+the cheeks. We all need nourishment, but it is _so_ difficult
+when one sees a deposit of breakfast-food in the ear of one's
+vis-a-vis."
+
+Hedrick too impulsively felt of his ears and was but the worse
+stung to find them immaculate and the latter half of the
+indictment unjustified.
+
+"Spoon!" he cried. "I wouldn't talk about spoons if I were you,
+Cora-lee! After what I saw in the library the other night, believe
+_me_, you're the one of this family that better be careful how you
+`handle a spoon'!"
+
+Cora had a moment of panic. She let the cup she was lifting drop
+noisily upon its saucer, and gazed whitely at the boy, her mouth
+opening wide.
+
+"Oh, no!" he went on, with a dreadful laugh. "I didn't hear you
+asking this Corliss to kiss you! Oh, no!"
+
+At this, though her mother and Laura both started, a faint, odd
+relief showed itself in Cora's expression. She recovered herself.
+
+"You little liar!" she flashed, and, with a single quick look at
+her mother, as of one too proud to appeal, left the room.
+
+"Hedrick, Hedrick, Hedrick!" wailed Mrs. Madison. "And she told me
+you drove her from the table last night too, right before Miss
+Peirce!" Miss Peirce was the nurse, fortunately at this moment in
+the sick-room.
+
+"I _did_ hear her ask him that," he insisted, sullenly. "Don't you
+believe it?"
+
+"Certainly not!"
+
+Burning with outrage, he also left his meal unfinished and
+departed in high dignity. He passed through the kitchen, however,
+on his way out of the house; but, finding an unusual politeness to
+the cook nothing except its own reward, went on his way with a
+bitter perception of the emptiness of the world and other places.
+
+"Your father managed to talk more last night," said Mrs. Madison
+pathetically to Laura. "He made me understand that he was fretting
+about how little we'd been able to give our children; so few
+advantages; it's always troubled him terribly. But sometimes I
+wonder if we've done right: we've neither of us ever exercised any
+discipline. We just couldn't bear to. You see, not having any
+money, or the things money could buy, to give, I think we've
+instinctively tried to make up for it by indulgence in other ways,
+and perhaps it's been a bad thing. Not," she added hastily, "not
+that you aren't all three the best children any mother and father
+ever had! _He_ said so. He said the only trouble was that our
+children were too good for us." She shook her head remorsefully
+throughout Laura's natural reply to this; was silent a while;
+then, as she rose, she said timidly, not looking at her daughter:
+"Of course Hedrick didn't mean to tell an outright lie. They were
+just talking, and perhaps he--perhaps he heard something that made
+him think what he _did_. People are so often mistaken in what they
+hear, even when they're talking right to each other, and----"
+
+"Isn't it more likely," said Laura, gravely, "that Cora was
+telling some story or incident, and that Hedrick overheard that
+part of it, and thought she was speaking directly to Mr. Corliss?"
+
+"Of course!" cried the mother with instant and buoyant relief; and
+when the three ladies convened, a little later, Cora
+(unquestioned) not only confirmed this explanation, but repeated
+in detail the story she had related to Mr. Corliss. Laura had been
+quick.
+
+Hedrick passed a variegated morning among comrades. He obtained
+prestige as having a father like-to-die, but another boy turned up
+who had learned to chew tobacco. Then Hedrick was pronounced
+inferior to others in turning "cartwheels," but succeeded in a
+wrestling match for an apple, which he needed. Later, he was
+chased empty-handed from the rear of an ice-wagon, but greatly
+admired for his retorts to the vociferous chaser: the other boys
+rightly considered that what he said to the ice-man was much more
+horrible than what the ice-man said to him. The ice-man had a fair
+vocabulary, but it lacked pliancy; seemed stiff and fastidious
+compared with the flexible Saxon in which Hedrick sketched a
+family tree lacking, perhaps, some plausibility as having produced
+even an ice-man, but curiously interesting zoologically.
+
+He came home at noon with the flush of this victory new upon his
+brow. He felt equal to anything, and upon Cora's appearing at
+lunch with a blithe, bright air and a new arrangement of her hair,
+he opened a fresh campaign with ill-omened bravado.
+
+"Ear-muffs in style for September, are they?" he inquired in
+allusion to a symmetrical and becoming undulation upon each side
+of her head. "Too bad Ray Vilas can't come any more; he'd like
+those, I know he would."
+
+Cora, who was talking jauntily to her mother, went on without
+heeding. She affected her enunciation at times with a slight lisp;
+spoke preciously and over-exquisitely, purposely mincing the
+letter R, at the same time assuming a manner of artificial
+distinction and conscious elegance which never failed to produce
+in her brother the last stage of exasperation. She did this now.
+Charming woman, that dear Mrs. Villard, she prattled. "I met her
+downtown this morning. Dear mamma, you should but have seen her
+delight when she saw _me_. She was but just returned from Bar
+Harbor----"
+
+"`Baw-hawbaw'!" Poor Hedrick was successfully infuriated
+immediately. "What in thunder is `Baw-hawbaw'? Mrs. Villawd!
+Baw-hawbaw! Oh, maw!"
+
+"She had no idea she should find _me_ in town, she said," Cora ran
+on, happily. "She came back early on account of the children
+having to be sent to school. She has such adorable
+children--beautiful, dimpled babes----"
+
+"SLUSH! SLUSH! LUV-A-LY SLUSH!"
+
+"--And her dear son, Egerton Villard, he's grown to be such a
+comely lad, and he has the most charming courtly manners: he
+helped his mother out of her carriage with all the air of a man of
+the world, and bowed to me as to a duchess. I think he might be a
+great influence for good if the dear Villards would but sometimes
+let him associate a little with our unfortunate Hedrick. Egerton
+Villard is really _distingue_; he has a beautiful head; and if he
+could be induced but to let Hedrick follow him about but a
+little----"
+
+"I'll beat his beautiful head off for him if he but butts in on me
+but a little!" Hedrick promised earnestly. "Idiot!"
+
+Cora turned toward him innocently. "What did you say, Hedrick?"
+
+"I said `Idiot'!"
+
+"You mean Egerton Villard?"
+
+"Both of you!"
+
+"You think I'm an idiot, Hedrick?" Her tone was calm, merely
+inquisitive.
+
+"Yes, I do!"
+
+"Oh, no," she said pleasantly. "Don't you think if I were _really_
+an idiot I'd be even fonder of you than I am?"
+
+It took his breath. In a panic he sat waiting he knew not what;
+but Cora blandly resumed her interrupted remarks to her mother,
+beginning a description of Mrs. Villard's dress; Laura was talking
+unconcernedly to Miss Peirce; no one appeared to be aware that
+anything unusual had been said. His breath came back, and,
+summoning his presence of mind, he found himself able to consider
+his position with some degree of assurance. Perhaps, after all,
+Cora's retort had been merely a coincidence. He went over and over
+it in his mind, making a pretence, meanwhile, to be busy with his
+plate. "If I were _really_ an idiot." . . . It was the "_really_"
+that troubled him. But for that one word, he could have decided
+that her remark was a coincidence; but "_really_" was ominous; had
+a sinister ring. "If I were _really_ an idiot!" Suddenly the
+pleasant clouds that had obscured his memory of the fatal evening
+were swept away as by a monstrous Hand: it all came back to him
+with sickening clearness. So is it always with the sinner with his
+sin and its threatened discovery. Again, in his miserable mind, he
+sat beside Lolita on the fence, with the moon shining through her
+hair; and he knew--for he had often read it--that a man could be
+punished his whole life through for a single moment's weakness. A
+man might become rich, great, honoured, and have a large family,
+but his one soft sin would follow him, hunt him out and pull him
+down at last. "_Really_ an idiot!" Did that relentless Comanche,
+Cora, know this Thing? He shuddered. Then he fell back upon his
+faith in Providence. It _could_ not be that she knew! Ah, no!
+Heaven would not let the world be so bad as that! And yet it did
+sometimes become negligent--he remembered the case of a baby-girl
+cousin who fell into the bath-tub and was drowned. Providence had
+allowed that: What assurance had he that it would not go a step
+farther?
+
+"Why, Hedrick," said Cora, turning toward him cheerfully, "you're
+not really eating anything; you're only pretending to." His heart
+sank with apprehension. Was it coming? "You really must eat," she
+went on. "School begins so soon, you must be strong, you know. How
+we shall miss you here at home during your hours of work!"
+
+With that, the burden fell from his shoulders, his increasing
+terrors took wing. If Laura had told his ghastly secret to Cora,
+the latter would not have had recourse to such weak satire as
+this. Cora was not the kind of person to try a popgun on an enemy
+when she had a thirteen-inch gun at her disposal; so he reasoned;
+and in the gush of his relief and happiness, responded:
+
+"You're a little too cocky lately, Cora-lee: I wish you were _my_
+daughter--just about five minutes!"
+
+Cora looked upon him fondly. "What would you do to me," she
+inquired with a terrible sweetness--"darling little boy?"
+
+Hedrick's head swam. The blow was square in the face; it jarred
+every bone; the world seemed to topple. His mother, rising from
+her chair, choked slightly, and hurried to join the nurse, who was
+already on her way upstairs. Cora sent an affectionate laugh
+across the table to her stunned antagonist.
+
+"You wouldn't beat me, would you, dear?" she murmured. "I'm almost
+sure you wouldn't; not if I asked you to kiss me some _more_."
+
+All doubt was gone, the last hope fled! The worst had arrived. A
+vision of the awful future flamed across his staggered mind. The
+doors to the arena were flung open: the wild beasts howled for
+hunger of him; the spectators waited.
+
+Cora began lightly to sing:
+
+      . . . "Dear,
+    Would thou wert near
+    To hear me tell how fair thou art!
+    Since thou art gone I mourn all alone,
+    Oh, my Lolita----"
+
+She broke off to explain: "It's one of those passionate little
+Spanish serenades, Hedrick. I'll sing it for your boy-friends next
+time they come to play in the yard. I think they'd like it. When
+they know why you like it so much, I'm sure they will. Of course
+you _do_ like it--you roguish little lover!" A spasm rewarded this
+demoniacal phrase. "Darling little boy, the serenade goes on like
+this:
+
+    Oh, my Lolita, come to my heart:
+    Oh, come beloved, love let me press thee,
+    While I caress thee
+    In one long kiss, Lolita!
+    Lolita come! Let me----"
+
+Hedrick sprang to his feet with a yell of agony. "Laura Madison,
+you tattle-tale," he bellowed, "I'll never forgive you as long as
+I live! I'll get even with you if it takes a thousand years!"
+
+With that, and pausing merely to kick a rung out of a chair which
+happened to be in his way, he rushed from the room.
+
+His sisters had risen to go, and Cora flung her arms round Laura
+in ecstacy. "You mean old viper!" she cried. "You could have told
+me days ago! It's almost too good to be true: it's the first time
+in my whole life I've felt safe from the Pest for a moment!"
+
+Laura shook her head. "My conscience troubles me; it did seem as
+if I ought to tell you--and mamma thought so, too; and I gave him
+warning, but now that I have done it, it seems rather mean
+and----"
+
+"No!" exclaimed Cora. "You just gave me a chance to protect myself
+for once, thank heaven!" And she picked up her skirts and danced
+her way into the front hall.
+
+"I'm afraid," said Laura, following, "I shouldn't have done it."
+
+"Oh, Laura," cried the younger girl, "I am having the best time,
+these days! This just caps it." She lowered her voice, but her
+eyes grew even brighter. "I think I've shown a certain gentleman a
+few things he didn't understand!"
+
+"Who, dear?"
+
+"Val," returned Cora lightly; "Valentine Corliss. I think he knows
+a little more about women than he did when he first came here."
+
+"You've had a difference with him?" asked Laura with eager
+hopefulness. "You've broken with him?"
+
+"Oh, Lord, no! Nothing like that." Cora leaned to her
+confidentially. "He told me, once, he'd be at the feet of any
+woman that could help put through an affair like his oil scheme,
+and I decided I'd just show him what I could do. He'd talk about
+it to me; then he'd laugh at me. That very Sunday when I got papa
+to go in----"
+
+"But he didn't," said Laura helplessly. "He only said he'd try
+to----when he gets well."
+
+"It's all the same--and it'll be a great thing for him, too," said
+Cora, gayly. "Well, that very afternoon before Val left, he
+practically told me I was no good. Of course he didn't use just
+those words--that isn't his way--but he laughed at me. And haven't
+I shown him! I sent Richard a note that very night saying papa had
+consented to be secretary of the company, and Richard had said
+he'd go in if papa did that, and he couldn't break his word----"
+
+"I know," said Laura, sighing. "I know."
+
+"Laura"--Cora spoke with sudden gravity--"did you ever know
+anybody like me? I'm almost getting superstitious about it,
+because it seems to me I _always_ get just what I set out to get.
+I believe I could have anything in the world if I tried for it."
+
+"I hope so, if you tried for something good for you," said Laura
+sadly. "Cora, dear, you will--you will be a little easy on
+Hedrick, won't you?"
+
+Cora leaned against the newel and laughed till she was exhausted.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+Mr. Trumble's offices were heralded by a neat blazon upon the
+principal door, "Wade J. Trumble, Mortgages and Loans"; and the
+gentleman thus comfortably, proclaimed, emerging from that door
+upon a September noontide, burlesqued a start of surprise at sight
+of a figure unlocking an opposite door which exhibited the name,
+"Ray Vilas," and below it, the cryptic phrase, "Probate Law."
+
+"Water!" murmured Mr. Trumble, affecting to faint. "You ain't
+going in _there_, are you, Ray?" He followed the other into the
+office, and stood leaning against a bookcase, with his hands in
+his pockets, while Vilas raised the two windows, which were
+obscured by a film of smoke-deposit: there was a thin coat of fine
+sifted dust over everything. "Better not sit down, Ray," continued
+Trumble, warningly. "You'll spoil your clothes and you might get a
+client. That word `Probate' on the door ain't going to keep 'em
+out forever. You recognize the old place, I s'pose? You must have
+been here at least twice since you moved in. What's the matter?
+Dick Lindley hasn't missionaried you into any idea of _working_,
+has he? Oh, no, _I_ see: the Richfield Hotel bar has
+closed--you've managed to drink it all at last!"
+
+"Have you heard how old man Madison is to-day?" asked Ray, dusting
+his fingers with a handkerchief.
+
+"Somebody told me yesterday he was about the same. He's not going
+to get well."
+
+"How do you know?" Ray spoke quickly.
+
+"Stroke too severe. People never recover----"
+
+"Oh, yes, they do, too."
+
+Trumble began hotly: "I beg to dif----" but checked himself,
+manifesting a slight confusion. "That is, I know they don't. Old
+Madison may live a while, if you call that getting well; but he'll
+never be the same man he was. Doctor Sloane says it was a bad
+stroke. Says it was `induced by heat prostration and excitement.'
+`Excitement!'" he repeated with a sour laugh. "Yep, I expect a man
+could get all the excitement he wanted in _that_ house, especially
+if he was her daddy. Poor old man, I don't believe he's got five
+thousand dollars in the world, and look how she dresses!"
+
+Ray opened a compartment beneath one of the bookcases, and found a
+bottle and some glasses. "Aha," he muttered, "our janitor doesn't
+drink, I perceive. Join me?" Mr. Trumble accepted, and Ray
+explained, cheerfully: "Richard Lindley's got me so cowed I'm
+afraid to go near any of my old joints. You see, he trails me; the
+scoundrel has kept me sober for whole days at a time, and I've
+been mortified, having old friends see me in that condition; so I
+have to sneak up here to my own office to drink to Cora, now and
+then. You mustn't tell him. What's she been doing to _you_,
+lately?"
+
+The little man addressed grew red with the sharp, resentful
+memory. "Oh, nothing! Just struck me in the face with her parasol
+on the public street, that's all!" He gave an account of his walk
+to church with Cora. "I'm through with that girl!" he exclaimed
+vindictively, in conclusion. "It was the damnedest thing you ever
+saw in your life: right in broad daylight, in front of the church.
+And she laughed when she did it; you'd have thought she was
+knocking a puppy out of her way. She can't do that to me twice, I
+tell you. What the devil do you see to laugh at?"
+
+"You'll be around," returned his companion, refilling the glasses,
+"asking for more, the first chance she gives you. Here's her
+health!"
+
+"I don't drink it!" cried Mr. Trumble angrily.
+
+"And I'm through with her for good, I tell you! I'm not your kind:
+I don't let a girl like that upset me till I can't think of
+anything else, and go making such an ass of myself that the whole
+town gabbles about it. Cora Madison's seen the last of me, I'll
+thank you to notice. She's never been half-decent to me; cut
+dances with me all last winter; kept me hanging round the
+outskirts of every crowd she was in; stuck me with Laura and her
+mother every time she had a chance; then has the nerve to try to
+use me, so's she can make a bigger hit with a new man! You can bet
+your head I'm through! She'll get paid though! Oh, she'll get paid
+for it!"
+
+"How?" laughed Ray.
+
+It was a difficult question. "You wait and see," responded the
+threatener, feebly. "Just wait and see. She's wild about this
+Corliss, I tell you," he continued, with renewed vehemence. "She's
+crazy about him; she's lost her head at last----"
+
+"You mean he's going to avenge you?"
+
+"No, I don't, though he might, if she decided to marry him."
+
+"Do you know," said Ray slowly, glancing over his glass at his
+nervous companion, "it doesn't strike me that Mr. Valentine
+Corliss has much the air of a marrying man."
+
+"He has the air to _me_," observed Mr. Trumble, "of a darned bad
+lot! But I have to hand it to him: he's a wizard. He's got
+something besides his good looks--a man that could get Cora
+Madison interested in `business'! In _oil_! Cora Madison! How do
+you suppose----"
+
+His companion began to laugh again. "You don't really suppose he
+talked his oil business to her, do you, Trumble?"
+
+"He must have. Else how could she----"
+
+"Oh, no, Cora herself never talks upon any subject but one; she
+never listens to any other either."
+
+"Then how in thunder did he----"
+
+"If Cora asks you if you think it will rain," interrupted Vilas,
+"doesn't she really seem to be asking: `Do you love me? How much?'
+Suppose Mr. Corliss is an expert in the same line. Of course he
+can talk about oil!"
+
+"He strikes me," said Trumble, "as just about the slickest
+customer that ever hit this town. I like Richard Lindley, and I
+hope he'll see his fifty thousand dollars again. _I_ wouldn't have
+given Corliss thirty cents."
+
+"Why do you think he's a crook?"
+
+"I don't say that," returned Trumble. "All _I_ know about him is
+that he's done some of the finest work to get fifty thousand
+dollars put in his hands that I ever heard of. And all anybody
+knows about him is that he lived here seventeen years ago, and
+comes back claiming to know where there's oil in Italy. He shows
+some maps and papers and gets cablegrams signed `Moliterno.' Then
+he talks about selling the old Corliss house here, where the
+Madisons live, and putting the money into his oil company: he does
+that to sound plausible, but I have good reason to know that house
+was mortgaged to its full value within a month after his aunt left
+it to him. He'll not get a cent if it's sold. That's all. And he's
+got Cora Madison so crazy over him that she makes life a hell for
+poor old Lindley until he puts all he's saved into the bubble. The
+scheme may be all right. How do _I_ know? There's no way to tell,
+without going over there, and Corliss won't let anybody do
+that--oh, he's got a plausible excuse for it! But I'm sorry for
+Lindley: he's so crazy about Cora, he's soft. And she's so crazy
+about Corliss _she's_ soft! Well, I used to be crazy about her
+myself, but I'm not soft--I'm not the Lindley kind of loon, thank
+heaven!"
+
+"What kind are you, Trumble?" asked Ray, mildly.
+
+"Not your kind either," retorted the other going to the door. "She
+cut me on the street the other day; she's quit speaking to me. If
+you've got any money, why don't you take it over to the hotel and
+give it to Corliss? She might start speaking to _you_ again. I'm
+going to lunch!" He slammed the door behind him.
+
+Ray Vilas, left alone, elevated his heels to the sill, and stared
+out of the window a long time at a gravelled roof which presented
+little of interest. He replenished his glass and his imagination
+frequently, the latter being so stirred that when, about three
+o'clock, he noticed the inroads he had made upon the bottle, tears
+of self-pity came to his eyes. "Poor little drunkard!" he said
+aloud. "Go ahead and do it. Isn't anything _you_ won't do!" And,
+having washed his face at a basin in a corner, he set his hat
+slightly upon one side, picked up a walking stick and departed
+jauntily, and, to the outward eye, presentably sober.
+
+Mr. Valentine Corliss would be glad to see him, the clerk at the
+Richfield Hotel reported, after sending up a card, and upon Ray's
+following the card, Mr. Valentine Corliss in person confirmed the
+message with considerable amusement and a cordiality in which
+there was some mixture of the quizzical. He was the taller; and
+the robust manliness of his appearance, his splendid health and
+boxer's figure offered a sharp contrast to the superlatively lean
+tippler. Corliss was humorously aware of his advantage: his
+greeting seemed really to say, "Hello, my funny bug, here you are
+again!" though the words of his salutation were entirely
+courteous; and he followed it with a hospitable offer.
+
+"No," said Vilas; "I won't drink with you." He spoke so gently
+that the form of his refusal, usually interpreted as truculent,
+escaped the other's notice. He also declined a cigar,
+apologetically asking permission to light one of his own
+cigarettes; then, as he sank into a velour-covered chair,
+apologized again for the particular attention he was bestowing
+upon the apartment, which he recognized as one of the suites de
+luxe of the hotel.
+
+"`Parlour, bedroom, and bath,'" he continued, with a melancholy
+smile; "and `Lachrymae,' and `A Reading from Homer.' Sometimes
+they have `The Music Lesson,' or `Winter Scene' or `A Neapolitan
+Fisher Lad' instead of `Lachrymae,' but they always have `A
+Reading from Homer.' When you opened the door, a moment ago, I had
+a very strong impression that something extraordinary would some
+time happen to me in this room."
+
+"Well," suggested Corliss, "you refused a drink in it."
+
+"Even more wonderful than that," said Ray, glancing about the
+place curiously. "It may be a sense of something painful that
+already has happened here--perhaps long ago, before your
+occupancy. It has a pathos."
+
+"Most hotel rooms have had something happen in them," said Corliss
+lightly. "I believe the managers usually change the door numbers
+if what happens is especially unpleasant. Probably they change
+some of the rugs, also."
+
+"I feel----" Ray paused, frowning. "I feel as if some one had
+killed himself here."
+
+"Then no doubt some of the rugs _have_ been changed."
+
+"No doubt." The caller laughed and waved his hand in dismissal of
+the topic. "Well, Mr. Corliss," he went on, shifting to a brisker
+tone, "I have come to make my fortune, too. You are Midas. Am I of
+sufficient importance to be touched?"
+
+Valentine Corliss gave him sidelong an almost imperceptibly brief
+glance of sharpest scrutiny--it was like the wink of a camera
+shutter--but laughed in the same instant. "Which way do you mean
+that?"
+
+"You have been quick," returned the visitor, repaying that glance
+with equal swiftness, "to seize upon the American idiom. I mean:
+How small a contribution would you be willing to receive toward
+your support!"
+
+Corliss did not glance again at Ray; instead, he looked interested
+in the smoke of his cigar. "`Contribution,'" he repeated, with no
+inflection whatever. "`Toward my support.'"
+
+"I mean, of course, how small an investment in your oil company."
+
+"Oh, anything, anything," returned the promoter, with quick
+amiability. "We need to sell all the stock we can."
+
+"All the money you can get?"
+
+"Precisely. It's really a colossal proposition, Mr. Vilas."
+Corliss spoke with brisk enthusiasm. "It's a perfectly certain
+enormous profit upon everything that goes in. Prince Moliterno
+cables me later investigations show that the oil-field is more
+than twice as large as we thought when I left Naples. He's on the
+ground now, buying up what he can, secretly."
+
+"I had an impression from Richard Lindley that the secret had been
+discovered."
+
+"Oh, yes; but only by a few, and those are trying to keep it quiet
+from the others, of course."
+
+"I see. Does your partner know of your success in raising a large
+investment?"
+
+"You mean Lindley's? Certainly." Corliss waved his hand in light
+deprecation. "Of course that's something, but Moliterno would
+hardly be apt to think of it as very large! You see he's putting
+in about five times that much, himself, and I've already turned
+over to him double it for myself. Still, it counts--certainly; and
+of course it will be a great thing for Lindley."
+
+"I fear," Ray said hesitatingly, "you won't be much interested in
+my drop for your bucket. I have twelve hundred dollars in the
+world; and it is in the bank--I stopped there on my way here. To
+be exact, I have twelve hundred and forty-seven dollars and
+fifty-one cents. My dear sir, will you allow me to purchase one
+thousand dollars' worth of stock? I will keep the two hundred and
+forty-seven dollars and fifty-one cents to live on--I may need an
+egg while waiting for you to make me rich. Will you accept so
+small an investment?"
+
+"Certainly," said Corliss, laughing. "Why not? You may as well
+profit by the chance as any one. I'll send you the stock
+certificates--we put them at par. I'm attending to that myself, as
+our secretary, Mr. Madison, is unable to take up his duties."
+
+Vilas took a cheque-book and a fountain-pen from his pocket.
+
+"Oh, any time, any time," said Corliss cheerfully, observing the
+new investor's movement.
+
+"Now, I think," returned Vilas quietly. "How shall I make it out?"
+
+"Oh, to me, I suppose," answered Corliss indifferently. "That will
+save a little trouble, and I can turn it over to Moliterno, by
+cable, as I did Lindley's. I'll give you a receipt----"
+
+"You need not mind that," said Ray. "Really it is of no
+importance."
+
+"Of course the cheque itself is a receipt," remarked Corliss,
+tossing it carelessly upon a desk. "You'll have some handsome
+returns for that slip of paper, Mr. Vilas."
+
+"In that blithe hope I came," said Ray airily.
+
+"I am confident of it. I have my own ways of divination, Mr.
+Corliss. I have gleams." He rose as if to go, but stood looking
+thoughtfully about the apartment again. "Singular impression," he
+murmured. "Not exactly as if I'd seen it in a dream; and yet--and
+yet----"
+
+"You have symptoms of clairvoyance at times, I take it." The
+conscious, smooth superiority of the dexterous man playing with an
+inconsequent opponent resounded in this speech, clear as the
+humming of a struck bell; and Vilas shot him a single open glance
+of fire from hectic eyes. For that instant, the frailer buck
+trumpeted challenge. Corliss--broad-shouldered, supple of waist,
+graceful and strong--smiled down negligently; yet the very air
+between the two men seemed charged with an invisible explosive.
+Ray laughed quickly, as in undisturbed good nature; then,
+flourishing his stick, turned toward the door.
+
+"Oh, no, it isn't clairvoyance--no more than when I told you that
+your only real interest is women." He paused, his hand upon the
+door-knob. "I'm a quaint mixture, however: perhaps I should be
+handled with care."
+
+"Very good of you," laughed Corliss--"this warning. The afternoon
+I had the pleasure of meeting you I think I remember your implying
+that you were a mere marionette."
+
+"A haggard harlequin!" snapped Vilas, waving his hand to a mirror
+across the room. "Don't I look it?" And the phrase fitted him with
+tragic accuracy. "You see? What a merry wedding-guest I'll be! I
+invite you to join me on the nuptial eve."
+
+"Thanks. Who's getting married: when the nuptial eve?"
+
+Ray opened the door, and, turning, rolled his eyes fantastically.
+"Haven't you heard?" he cried. "When Hecate marries John
+Barleycorn!" He bowed low. "Mr. Midas, adieu."
+
+Corliss stood in the doorway and watched him walk down the long
+hall to the elevator. There, Ray turned and waved his hand, the
+other responding with gayety which was not assumed: Vilas might be
+insane, or drunk, or both, but the signature upon his cheque was
+unassailable.
+
+Corliss closed the door and began to pace his apartment
+thoughtfully. His expression manifested a peculiar phenomenon. In
+company, or upon the street, or when he talked with men, the open
+look and frank eyes of this stalwart young man were disarming and
+his most winning assets. But now, as he paced alone in his
+apartment, now that he was not upon exhibition, now when there was
+no eye to behold him, and there was no reason to dissimulate or
+veil a single thought or feeling, his look was anything but open;
+the last trace of frankness disappeared; the muscles at mouth and
+eyes shifted; lines and planes intermingled and altered subtly;
+there was a moment of misty transformation--and the face of
+another man emerged. It was the face of a man uninstructed in
+mercy; it was a shrewd and planning face: alert, resourceful,
+elaborately perceptive, and flawlessly hard. But, beyond all, it
+was the face of a man perpetually on guard.
+
+He had the air of debating a question, his hands in his pockets,
+his handsome forehead lined with a temporary indecision. His
+sentry-go extended the length of his two rooms, and each time he
+came back into his bedroom his glance fell consideringly upon a
+steamer-trunk of the largest size, at the foot of his bed. The
+trunk was partially packed as if for departure. And, indeed, it
+was the question of departure which he was debating.
+
+He was a man of varied dexterities, and he had one faculty of high
+value, which had often saved him, had never betrayed him; it was
+intuitive and equal to a sixth sense: he always knew when it was
+time to go. An inner voice warned him; he trusted to it and obeyed
+it. And it had spoken now, and there was his trunk half-packed in
+answer. But he had stopped midway in his packing, because he had
+never yet failed to make a clean sweep where there was the
+slightest chance for one; he hated to leave a big job before it
+was completely finished--and Mr. Wade Trumble had refused to
+invest in the oil-fields of Basilicata.
+
+Corliss paused beside the trunk, stood a moment immersed in
+thought; then nodded once, decisively, and, turning to a
+dressing-table, began to place some silver-mounted brushes and
+bottles in a leather travelling-case.
+
+There was a knock at the outer door. He frowned, set down what he
+had in his hands, went to the door and opened it to find Mr.
+Pryor, that plain citizen, awaiting entrance.
+
+Corliss remained motionless in an arrested attitude, his hand upon
+the knob of the opened door. His position did not alter; he became
+almost unnaturally still, a rigidity which seemed to increase.
+Then he looked quickly behind him, over his shoulder, and back
+again, with a swift movement of the head.
+
+"No," said Pryor, at that. "I don't want you. I just thought I'd
+have two minutes' talk with you. All right?"
+
+"All right," said Corliss quietly. "Come in." He turned
+carelessly, and walked away from the door keeping between his
+guest and the desk. When he reached the desk, he turned again and
+leaned against it, his back to it, but in the action of turning
+his hand had swept a sheet of note-paper over Ray Vilas's
+cheque--a too conspicuous oblong of pale blue. Pryor had come in
+and closed the door.
+
+"I don't know," he began, regarding the other through his glasses,
+with steady eyes, "that I'm going to interfere with you at all,
+Corliss. I just happened to strike you--I wasn't looking for you.
+I'm on vacation, visiting my married daughter that lives here, and
+I don't want to mix in if I can help it."
+
+Corliss laughed, easily. "There's nothing for you to mix in. You
+couldn't if you wanted to."
+
+"Well, I hope that's true," said Pryor, with an air of indulgence,
+curiously like that of a teacher for a pupil who promises
+improvement. "I do indeed. There isn't anybody I'd like to see
+turn straight more than you. You're educated and cultured, and
+refined, and smarter than all hell. It would be a big thing.
+That's one reason I'm taking the trouble to talk to you."
+
+"I told you I wasn't doing anything," said Corliss with a
+petulance as oddly like that of a pupil as the other's indulgence
+was like that of a tutor. "This is my own town; I own property
+here, and I came here to sell it. I can prove it in
+half-a-minute's telephoning. Where do you come in?"
+
+"Easy, easy," said Pryor, soothingly. "I've just told you I don't
+want to come in at all."
+
+"Then what do you want?"
+
+"I came to tell you just one thing: to go easy up there at Mr.
+Madison's house."
+
+Corliss laughed contemptuously. "It's _my_ house. I own it. That's
+the property I came here to sell."
+
+"Oh, I know," responded Pryor. "That part of it's all right. But
+I've seen you several times with that young lady, and you looked
+pretty thick, to me. You know you haven't got any business doing
+such things, Corliss. I know your record from Buda Pesth to
+Copenhagen and----"
+
+"See here, my friend," said the younger man, angrily, "you may be
+a tiptop spotter for the government when it comes to running down
+some poor old lady that's bought a string of pearls in the Rue de
+la Paix----"
+
+"I've been in the service twenty-eight years," remarked Pryor,
+mildly.
+
+"All right," said the other with a gesture of impatience; "and you
+got me once, all right. Well, that's over, isn't it? Have I tried
+anything since?"
+
+"Not in that line," said Pryor.
+
+"Well, what business have you with any other line?" demanded
+Corliss angrily. "Who made you general supervisor of public
+morals? I want to know----"
+
+"Now, what's the use your getting excited? I'm just here to tell
+you that I'm going to keep an eye on you. I don't know many people
+here, and I haven't taken any particular pains to look you up. For
+all I know, you're only here to sell your house, as you say. But I
+know old man Madison a little, and I kind of took a fancy to him;
+he's a mighty nice old man, and he's got a nice family. He's sick
+and it won't do to trouble him; but--honest, Corliss--if you don't
+slack off in that neighbourhood a little, I'll have to have a talk
+with the young lady herself."
+
+A derisory light showed faintly in the younger man's eyes as he
+inquired, softly: "That all, Mr. Pryor?"
+
+"No. Don't try anything on out here. Not in _any_ of your lines."
+
+"I don't mean to."
+
+"That's right. Sell your house and clear out. You'll find it
+healthy." He went to the door. "So far as I can see," he observed,
+ruminatively, "you haven't brought any of that Moliterno crowd you
+used to work with over to this side with you."
+
+"I haven't seen Moliterno for two years," said Corliss, sharply.
+
+"Well, I've said my say." Pryor gave him a last word as he went
+out. "You keep away from that little girl."
+
+"Ass!" exclaimed Corliss, as the door closed. He exhaled a deep
+breath sharply, and broke into a laugh. Then he went quickly into
+his bedroom and began to throw the things out of his trunk.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+Hedrick Madison's eyes were not of marble; his heart was not flint
+nor his skin steel plate: he was flesh and tender; he was a
+vulnerable, breathing boy, with highly developed capacities for
+pain which were now being taxed to their utmost. Once he had loved
+to run, to leap, to disport himself in the sun, to drink deep of
+the free air; he had loved life and one or two of his fellowmen.
+He had borne himself buoyantly, with jaunty self-confidence, even
+with some intolerance toward the weaknesses of others, not
+infrequently displaying merriment over their mischances; but his
+time had found him at last; the evil day had come. Indian Summer
+was Indian for him, indeed: sweet death were welcome; no charity
+was left in him. He leaped no more, but walked broodingly and
+sought the dark places. And yet it could not be said that times
+were dull for him: the luckless picket who finds himself in an
+open eighty-acre field, under the eye of a sharpshooter up a tree,
+would not be apt to describe the experience as dull. And Cora
+never missed a shot; she loved the work; her pleasure in it was
+almost as agonizing for the target as was the accuracy of her
+fire.
+
+She was ingenious: the horrible facts at her disposal were
+damaging enough in all conscience: but they did not content her.
+She invented a love-story, assuming that Hedrick was living it: he
+was supposed to be pining for Lolita, to be fading, day-by-day,
+because of enforced separation; and she contrived this to such an
+effect of reality, and with such a diabolical affectation of
+delicacy in referring to it, that the mere remark, with gentle
+sympathy, "I think poor Hedrick is looking a little better
+to-day," infallibly produced something closely resembling a spasm.
+She formed the habit of never mentioning her brother in his
+presence except as "poor Hedrick," a too obvious commiseration of
+his pretended attachment--which met with like success. Most
+dreadful of all, she invented romantic phrases and expressions
+assumed to have been spoken or written by Hedrick in reference to
+his unhappiness; and she repeated them so persistently, yet always
+with such apparent sincerity of belief that they were quotations
+from him, and not her inventions, that the driven youth knew a
+fear, sometimes, that the horrid things were actually of his own
+perpetration.
+
+The most withering of these was, "Torn from her I love by the
+ruthless hand of a parent. . . ." It was not completed; Cora never
+got any further with it, nor was there need: a howl of fury
+invariably assured her of an effect as satisfactory as could
+possibly have been obtained by an effort less impressionistic.
+Life became a series of easy victories for Cora, and she made them
+somehow the more deadly for Hedrick by not seeming to look at him
+in his affliction, nor even to be aiming his way: he never could
+tell when the next shot was coming. At the table, the ladies of
+his family might be deep in dress, or discussing Mr. Madison's
+slowly improving condition, when Cora, with utter irrelevance,
+would sigh, and, looking sadly into her coffee, murmur, "Ah,
+_fond_ mem'ries!" or, "_Why_ am I haunted by the dead past?" or,
+the dreadful, "Torn from her I love by the ruthless hand of a
+parent. . . ."
+
+There was compassion in Laura's eyes and in his mother's, but Cora
+was irresistible, and they always ended by laughing in spite of
+themselves; and though they pleaded for Hedrick in private, their
+remonstrances proved strikingly ineffective. Hedrick was the only
+person who had ever used the high hand with Cora: she found
+repayment too congenial. In the daytime he could not go in the
+front yard, but Cora's window would open and a tenderly smiling
+Cora lean out to call affectionately, "Don't walk on the
+grass--darling little boy!" Or, she would nod happily to him and
+begin to sing:
+
+    "Oh come beloved, love let me press thee,
+    While I caress thee
+    In one long kiss, Lolita. . . . "
+
+One terror still hung over him. If it fell--as it might at any
+fatal moment--then the utmost were indeed done upon him; and this
+apprehension bathed his soul in night. In his own circle of
+congenial age and sex he was, by virtue of superior bitterness and
+precocity of speech, a chief--a moral castigator, a satirist of
+manners, a creator of stinging nicknames; and many nourished
+unhealed grievances which they had little hope of satisfying
+against him; those who attempted it invariably departing with more
+to avenge than they had brought with them. Let these once know
+what Cora knew. . . . The vision was unthinkable!
+
+It was Cora's patent desire to release the hideous item, to spread
+the scandal broadcast among his fellows--to ring it from the
+school-bells, to send it winging on the hot winds of Hades! The
+boys had always liked his yard and the empty stable to play in,
+and the devices he now employed to divert their activities
+elsewhere were worthy of a great strategist. His energy and an
+abnormal ingenuity accomplished incredible things: school had been
+in session several weeks and only one boy had come within
+conversational distance of Cora;--him Hedrick bore away bodily, in
+simulation of resistless high spirits, a brilliant exhibition of
+stagecraft.
+
+And then Cora's friend, Mrs. Villard, removed her son Egerton from
+the private school he had hitherto attended, and he made his
+appearance in Hedrick's class, one morning at the public school.
+Hedrick's eye lighted with a savage gleam; timidly the first joy
+he had known for a thousand years crept into his grim heart. After
+school, Egerton expiated a part of Cora's cruelty. It was a very
+small part, and the exploit no more than infinitesimally soothing
+to the conqueror, but when Egerton finally got home he was no
+sight for a mother.
+
+Thus Hedrick wrought his own doom: Mrs. Villard telephoned to
+Cora, and Cora went immediately to see her.
+
+It happened to Hedrick that he was late leaving home the next
+morning. His entrance into his classroom was an undeniable
+sensation, and within ten minutes the teacher had lost all control
+of the school. It became necessary to send for the principal.
+Recess was a frantic nightmare for Hedrick, and his homeward
+progress at noon a procession of such uproarious screamers as were
+his equals in speed. The nethermost depths were reached when an
+ignoble pigtailed person he had always trodden upon flat-footed
+screamed across the fence from next door, as he reached fancied
+sanctuary in his own backyard:
+
+"Kiss me some _more_, darling little boy!"
+
+This worm, established upon the fence opposite the conservatory
+windows, and in direct view from the table in the dining-room,
+shrieked the accursed request at short intervals throughout the
+luncheon hour. The humour of childhood is sometimes almost
+intrusive.
+
+And now began a life for Hedrick which may be rather painfully but
+truthfully likened to a prolongation of the experiences of a rat
+that finds itself in the middle of a crowded street in daylight:
+there is plenty of excitement but no pleasure. He was pursued,
+harried, hounded from early morning till nightfall, and even in
+his bed would hear shrill shouts go down the sidewalk from the
+throats of juvenile fly-by-nights: "Oh dar-ling lit-oh darling
+lit-oh _lit_-le boy, _lit_-le boy, kiss me some _more_!" And one
+day he overheard a remark which strengthened his growing
+conviction that the cataclysm had affected the whole United
+States: it was a teacher who spoke, explaining to another a
+disturbance in the hall of the school. She said, behind her hand:
+
+"_He kissed an idiot_."
+
+Laura had not even remotely foreseen the consequences of her
+revelation, nor, indeed, did she now properly estimate their
+effect upon Hedrick. She and her mother were both sorry for him,
+and did what they could to alleviate his misfortunes, but there
+was an inevitable remnant of amusement in their sympathy. Youth,
+at war, affects stoicism but not resignation: in truth,
+resignation was not much in Hedrick's line, and it would be far
+from the fact to say that he was softened by his sufferings. He
+brooded profoundly and his brightest thought was revenge. It was
+not upon Cora that his chief bitterness turned. Cora had always
+been the constant, open enemy: warfare between them was a regular
+condition of life; and unconsciously, and without "thinking it
+out," he recognized the naturalness of her seizing upon the
+deadliest weapon against him that came to her hand. There was
+nothing unexpected in that: no, the treachery, to his mind, lay in
+the act of Laura, that non-combatant, who had furnished the
+natural and habitual enemy with this scourge. At all times, and
+with or without cause, he ever stood ready to do anything possible
+for the reduction of Cora's cockiness, but now it was for the
+taking-down of Laura and the repayment of her uncalled-for and
+overwhelming assistance to the opposite camp that he lay awake
+nights and kept his imagination hot. Laura was a serene person, so
+neutral--outwardly, at least--and so little concerned for herself
+in any matter he could bring to mind, that for purposes of revenge
+she was a difficult proposition. And then, in a desperate hour, he
+remembered her book.
+
+Only once had he glimpsed it, but she had shown unmistakable
+agitation of a mysterious sort as she wrote in it, and, upon
+observing his presence, a prompt determination to prevent his
+reading a word of what she had written. Therefore, it was
+something peculiarly sacred and intimate. This deduction was
+proved by the care she exercised in keeping the book concealed
+from all eyes. A slow satisfaction began to permeate him: he made
+up his mind to find that padlocked ledger.
+
+He determined with devoted ardour that when he found it he would
+make the worst possible use of it: the worst, that is, for Laura.
+As for consequences to himself, he was beyond them. There is an
+Irish play in which an old woman finds that she no longer fears
+the sea when it has drowned the last of her sons; it can do
+nothing more to her. Hedrick no longer feared anything.
+
+The book was somewhere in Laura's room, he knew that; and there
+were enough opportunities to search, though Laura had a way of
+coming in unexpectedly which was embarrassing; and he suffered
+from a sense of inadequacy when--on the occasion of his first new
+attempt--he answered the casual inquiry as to his presence by
+saying that he "had a headache." He felt there was something
+indirect in the reply; but Laura was unsuspicious and showed no
+disposition to be analytical. After this, he took the precaution
+to bring a school-book with him and she often found the boy seated
+quietly by her west window immersed in study: he said he thought
+his headaches came from his eyes and that the west light "sort of
+eased them a little."
+
+The ledger remained undiscovered, although probably there has
+never been a room more thoroughly and painstakingly searched,
+without its floor being taken up and its walls torn down. The most
+mysterious, and, at the same time, the most maddening thing about
+it was the apparent simplicity of the task. He was certain that
+the room contained the book: listening, barefooted, outside the
+door at night, he had heard the pen scratching. The room was as
+plain as a room can be, and small. There was a scantily filled
+clothes-press; he had explored every cubic inch of it. There was
+the small writing table with one drawer; it held only some
+note-paper and a box of pen-points. There was a bureau; to his
+certain knowledge it contained no secret whatever. There were a
+few giltless chairs, and a white "wash-stand," a mere basin and
+slab with exposed plumbing. Lastly, there was the bed, a very
+large and ugly "Eastlake" contrivance; he had acquired a close
+acquaintance with all of it except the interior of the huge
+mattress itself, and here, he finally concluded, must of necessity
+be the solution. The surface of the mattress he knew to be
+unbroken; nevertheless the book was there. He had recently
+stimulated his deductive powers with a narrative of French
+journalistic sagacity in a similar case; and he applied French
+reasoning. The ledger existed. It was somewhere in the room. He
+had searched everything except the interior of the mattress. The
+ledger was in that interior.
+
+The exploration thus become necessary presented some difficulties.
+Detection in the act would involve explanations hard to invent; it
+would not do to say he was looking for his knife; and he could not
+think of any excuse altogether free from a flavour of insincerity.
+A lameness beset them all and made them liable to suspicion; and
+Laura, once suspicious, might be petty enough to destroy the book,
+and so put it out of his power forever. He must await the right
+opportunity, and, after a racking exercise of patience, at last he
+saw it coming.
+
+Doctor Sloane had permitted his patient to come down stairs for an
+increasing interval each day. Mr. Madison crept, rather than
+walked, leaning upon his wife and closely attended by Miss Peirce.
+He spoke with difficulty and not clearly; still, there was a
+perceptible improvement, and his family were falling into the
+habit of speaking of him as almost well. On that account, Mrs.
+Madison urged her daughters to accept an invitation from the
+mother of the once courtly Egerton Villard. It was at breakfast
+that the matter was discussed.
+
+"Of course Cora must go," Laura began, "but----"
+
+"But nothing!" interrupted Cora. "How would it look if I went and
+you didn't? Everybody knows papa's almost well, and they'd think
+it silly for us to give up the first real dance since last spring
+on that account; yet they're just spiteful enough, if I went and
+you stayed home, to call me a `girl of no heart.' Besides," she
+added sweetly, "we ought to go to show Mrs. Villard we aren't hurt
+because Egerton takes so little notice of poor Hedrick."
+
+Hedrick's lips moved silently, as in prayer.
+
+"I'd rather not," said Laura. "I doubt if I'd have a very good
+time."
+
+"You would, too," returned her sister, decidedly. "The men like to
+dance with you; you dance every bit as well as I do, and that
+black lace is the most becoming dress you ever had. Nobody ever
+remembers a black dress, anyway, unless it's cut very
+conspicuously, and yours isn't. I can't go without you; they love
+to say nasty things about me, and you're too good a sister to give
+'em this chance, you old dear." She laughed and nodded
+affectionately across the table at Laura. "You've got to go!"
+
+"Yes, it would be nicer," said the mother. And so it was settled.
+It was simultaneously settled in Hedrick's mind that the night of
+the dance should mark his discovery of the ledger. He would have
+some industrious hours alone with the mysterious mattress, safe
+from intrusion.
+
+Meekly he lifted his eyes from his plate. "I'm glad you're going,
+sister Laura," he said in a gentle voice. "I think a change will
+do you good."
+
+"Isn't it wonderful," exclaimed Cora, appealing to the others to
+observe him, "what an improvement a disappointment in love can
+make in deportment?"
+
+For once, Hedrick only smiled.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+Laura had spent some thoughtful hours upon her black lace dress
+with results that astonished her family: it became a
+ball-gown--and a splendidly effective one. She arranged her dark
+hair in a more elaborate fashion than ever before, in a close
+coronal of faintly lustrous braids; she had no jewellery and
+obviously needed none. Her last action but one before she left her
+room was to dispose of the slender chain and key she always wore
+round her neck; then her final glance at the mirror--which fairly
+revealed a lovely woman--ended in a deprecatory little "face" she
+made at herself. It meant: "Yes, old lady, you fancy yourself very
+passable in here all by yourself, don't you? Just wait: you'll be
+standing beside Cora in a moment!"
+
+And when she did stand beside Cora, in the latter's room, a moment
+later, her thought seemed warranted. Cora, radiant-eyed, in high
+bloom, and exquisite from head to foot in a shimmering white
+dancing-dress, a glittering crescent fastening the silver fillet
+that bound her vivid hair, was a flame of enchantment. Mrs.
+Madison, almost weeping with delight, led her daughters proudly,
+an arm round the waist of each, into her husband's room. Propped
+with pillows, he reclined in an armchair while Miss Peirce
+prepared his bed, an occupation she gave over upon this dazzling
+entrance, departing tactfully.
+
+"Look at these," cried the mother; "--from our garden, Jim, dear!
+Don't we feel rich, you and I?"
+
+"And--and--Laura," said the sick man, with the slow and imperfect
+enunication caused by his disease; "Laura looks pretty--too."
+
+"Isn't she adorable!" Cora exclaimed warmly. "She decided to be
+the portrait of a young duchess, you see, all stately
+splendour--made of snow and midnight!"
+
+"Hear! hear!" laughed Laura; but she blushed with pleasure, and
+taking Cora's hand in hers lifted it to her lips.
+
+"And do you see Cora's crescent?" demanded Mrs. Madison. "What do
+you think of _that_ for magnificence? She went down town this
+morning with seven dollars, and came back with that and her party
+gloves and a dollar in change! Isn't she a bargainer? Even for
+rhinestones they are the cheapest things you ever heard of. They
+look precisely like stones of the very finest water." They did--so
+precisely, indeed, that if the resemblance did not amount to
+actual identity, then had a jeweller of the town been able to
+deceive the eye of Valentine Corliss, which was an eye singularly
+learned in such matters.
+
+"They're--both smart girls," said Madison, "both of them. And they
+look--beautiful, to-night--both. Laura is--amazing!"
+
+When they had gone, Mrs. Madison returned from the stairway, and,
+kneeling beside her husband, put her arms round him gently: she
+had seen the tear that was marking its irregular pathway down his
+flaccid, gray cheek, and she understood.
+
+"Don't. Don't worry, Jim," she whispered. "Those bright, beautiful
+things!--aren't they treasures?"
+
+"It's--it's Laura," he said. "Cora will be all right. She looks
+out for--herself. I'm--I'm afraid for--Laura. Aren't you?"
+
+"No, no," she protested. "I'm not afraid for either of them." But
+she was: the mother had always been afraid for Cora.
+
+. . . . At the dance, the two girls, attended up the stairway to
+the ballroom by a chattering covey of black-coats, made a
+sensational entrance to a gallant fanfare of music, an effect
+which may have been timed to the premonitory tuning of instruments
+heard during the ascent; at all events, it was a great success;
+and Cora, standing revealed under the wide gilt archway, might
+have been a lithe and shining figure from the year
+eighteen-hundred-and-one, about to dance at the Luxembourg. She
+placed her hand upon the sleeve of Richard Lindley, and, glancing
+intelligently over his shoulder into the eyes of Valentine
+Corliss, glided rhythmically away.
+
+People looked at her; they always did. Not only the non-dancers
+watched her; eyes everywhere were upon her, even though the owners
+gyrated, glided and dipped on distant orbits. The other girls
+watched her, as a rule, with a profound, an almost passionate
+curiosity; and they were prompt to speak well of her to men,
+except in trustworthy intimacy, because they did not enjoy being
+wrongfully thought jealous. Many of them kept somewhat aloof from
+her; but none of them ever nowadays showed "superiority" in her
+presence, or snubbed her: that had been tried and proved
+disastrous in rebound. Cora never failed to pay her score--and
+with a terrifying interest added, her native tendency being to
+take two eyes for an eye and the whole jaw for a tooth. They let
+her alone, though they asked and asked among themselves the
+never-monotonous question: "Why do men fall in love with girls
+like that?" a riddle which, solved, makes wives condescending to
+their husbands.
+
+Most of the people at this dance had known one another as friends,
+or antagonists, or indifferent acquaintances, for years, and in
+such an assembly there are always two worlds, that of the women
+and that of the men. Each has its own vision, radically different
+from that of the other; but the greatest difference is that the
+men are unaware of the other world, only a few of them--usually
+queer ones like Ray Vilas--vaguely perceiving that there are two
+visions, while all the women understand both perfectly. The men
+splash about on the surface; the women keep their eyes open under
+water. Or, the life of the assembly is like a bright tapestry: the
+men take it as a picture and are not troubled to know how it is
+produced; but women are weavers. There was a Beauty of far-flung
+renown at Mrs. Villard's to-night: Mary Kane, a creature so made
+and coloured that young men at sight of her became as water and
+older men were apt to wonder regretfully why all women could not
+have been made like Mary. She was a kindly soul, and never
+intentionally outshone her sisters; but the perfect sumptuousness
+of her had sometimes tried the amiability of Cora Madison, to whom
+such success without effort and without spark seemed unfair, as
+well as bovine. Miss Kane was a central figure at the dance,
+shining tranquilly in a new triumph: that day her engagement had
+been announced to Mr. George Wattling, a young man of no special
+attainments, but desirable in his possessions and suitable to his
+happiness. The pair radiated the pardonable, gay importance of
+newly engaged people, and Cora, who had never before bestowed any
+notice upon Mr. Wattling, now examined him with thoughtful
+attention.
+
+Finding him at her elbow in a group about a punch bowl, between
+dances, she offered warm felicitations. "But I don't suppose you
+care whether _I_ care for you to be happy or not," she added, with
+a little plaintive laugh;--"you've always hated me so!"
+
+Mr. Wattling was startled: never before had he imagined that Cora
+Madison had given him a thought; but there was not only thought,
+there was feeling, in this speech. She seemed to be concealing
+with bravery an even deeper feeling than the one inadvertently
+expressed. "Why, what on earth makes you think that?" he
+exclaimed.
+
+"Think it? I _know_ it!" She gave him a strange look, luminous yet
+mysterious, a curtain withdrawn only to show a shining mist with
+something undefined but dazzling beyond. "I've always known it!"
+And she turned away from him abruptly.
+
+He sprang after her. "But you're wrong. I've never----"
+
+"Oh, yes, you have." They began to discuss it, and for better
+consideration of the theme it became necessary for Cora to "cut"
+the next dance, promised to another, and to give it to Mr.
+Wattling. They danced several times together, and Mr. Wattling's
+expression was serious. The weavers of the tapestry smiled and
+whispered things the men would not have understood--nor believed.
+
+Ray Vilas, seated alone in a recessed and softly lighted gallery,
+did not once lose sight of the flitting sorceress. With his elbows
+on the railing, he leaned out, his head swaying slowly and
+mechanically as she swept up and down the tumultuously moving
+room, his passionate eyes gaunt and brilliant with his hunger. And
+something very like a general thrill passed over the assembly
+when, a little later, it was seen that he was dancing with her.
+Laura, catching a glimpse of this couple, started and looked
+profoundly disturbed.
+
+The extravagance of Vilas's passion and the depths he sounded, in
+his absurd despair when discarded, had been matters of almost
+public gossip; he was accounted a somewhat scandalous and
+unbalanced but picturesque figure; and for the lady whose light
+hand had wrought such havoc upon him to be seen dancing with him
+was sufficiently startling to elicit the universal
+remark--evidently considered superlative--that it was "just like
+Cora Madison!" Cora usually perceived, with an admirably clear
+head, all that went on about her; and she was conscious of
+increasing the sensation, when after a few turns round the room,
+she allowed her partner to conduct her to a secluding grove of
+palms in the gallery. She sank into the chair he offered, and,
+fixing her eyes upon a small lamp of coloured glass which hung
+overhead, ostentatiously looked bored.
+
+"At your feet, Cora," he said, seating himself upon a stool, and
+leaning toward her. "Isn't it appropriate that we should talk to
+music--we two? It shouldn't be that quick step though--not
+dance-music--should it?"
+
+"Don't know 'm sure," murmured Cora.
+
+"You were kind to dance with me," he said huskily. "I dared to
+speak to you----"
+
+She did not change her attitude nor the direction of her glance.
+"I couldn't cut you very well with the whole town looking on. I'm
+tired of being talked about. Besides, I don't care much who I
+dance with--so he doesn't step on me."
+
+"Cora," he said, "it is the prelude to `L'Arlesienne' that they
+should play for you and me. Yes, I think it should be that."
+
+"Never heard of it."
+
+"It's just a rustic tragedy, the story of a boy in the south of
+France who lets love become his whole life, and then--it kills
+him."
+
+"Sounds very stupid," she commented languidly.
+
+"People do sometimes die of love, even nowadays," he said,
+tremulously--"in the South."
+
+She let her eyes drift indifferently to him and perceived that he
+was trembling from head to foot; that his hands and knees shook
+piteously; that his lips quivered and twitched; and, at sight of
+this agitation, an expression of strong distaste came to her face.
+
+"I see." Her eyes returned to the lamp. "You're from the South,
+and of course it's going to kill you."
+
+"You didn't speak the exact words you had in your mind.'"
+
+"Oh, what words did I have `in my mind'?" she asked impatiently.
+
+"What you really meant was: `If it does kill you, what of it?'"
+
+She laughed, and sighed as for release.
+
+"Cora," he said huskily, "I understand you a little because you
+possess me. I've never--literally never--had another thought since
+the first time I saw you: nothing but you. I think of
+you--actually every moment. Drunk or sober, asleep or--awake, it's
+nothing but you, you, _you_! It will never be different: I don't
+know why I can't get over it--I only know I can't. You own me; you
+burn like a hot coal in my heart. You're through with me, I know.
+You drained me dry. You're like a child who eats so heartily of
+what he likes that he never touches it again. And I'm a dish
+you're sick of. Oh, it's all plain enough, I can tell you. I'm not
+exciting any more--no, just a nauseous slave!"
+
+"Do you want people to hear you?" she inquired angrily, for his
+voice had risen.
+
+He tempered his tone. "Cora, when you liked me you went a pretty
+clipping gait with me," he said, trembling even more than before.
+"But you're infinitely more infatuated with this Toreador of a
+Corliss than you were with me; you're lost in him; you're slaving
+for him as I would for you. How far are you going with----"
+
+"Do you want me to walk away and leave you?" she asked, suddenly
+sitting up straight and looking at him with dilating eyes. "If you
+want a `scene'----"
+
+"It's over," he said, more calmly. "I know now how dangerous the
+man is. Of course you will tell him I said that." He laughed
+quietly. "Well--between a dangerous chap and a desperate one, we
+may look for some lively times! Do you know, I believe I think
+about as continuously of him, lately, as I do of you. That's why I
+put almost my last cent into his oil company, and got what may be
+almost my last dance with you!"
+
+"I wouldn't call it `almost' your last dance with me!" she
+returned icily. "Not after what you've said. I had a foolish idea
+you could behave--well, at least decently."
+
+"Did Corliss tell you that I insulted him in his rooms at the
+hotel?"
+
+"You!" She laughed, genuinely. "I see him letting you!"
+
+"He did, however. By manner and in speech I purposely and
+deliberately insulted him. You'll tell him every word of this, of
+course, and he'll laugh at it, but I give myself the pleasure of
+telling you. I put the proposition of an `investment' to him in a
+way nobody not a crook would have allowed to be smoothed over--and
+he allowed it to be smoothed over. He ate it! I felt he was a
+swindler when he was showing Richard Lindley his maps and papers,
+and now I've proved it to myself, and it's worth the price."
+Often, when they had danced, and often during this interview, his
+eyes lifted curiously to the white flaming crescent in her hair;
+now they fixed themselves upon it, and in a flash of divination he
+cried: "You wear it for me!"
+
+She did not understand. "Finished raving?" she inquired.
+
+"I gave Corliss a thousand dollars," he said, slowly. "Considering
+the fact that it was my last, I flatter myself it was not
+unhandsomely done--though I may never need it. It has struck me
+that the sum was about what a man who had just cleaned up fifty
+thousand might regard as a sort of `extra'--`for lagniappe'--and
+that he might have thought it an appropriate amount to invest in a
+present some jewels perhaps--to place in the hair of a pretty
+friend!"
+
+She sprang to her feet, furious, but he stood in front of her and
+was able to bar the way for a moment.
+
+"Cora, I'll have a last word with you if I have to hold you," he
+said with great rapidity and in a voice which shook with the
+intense repression he was putting upon himself. "We do one thing
+in the South, where I came from. We protect our women----"
+
+"This looks like it! Keeping me when----"
+
+"I love you," he said, his face whiter than she had ever seen it.
+"I love you! I'm your dog! You take care of yourself if you want
+to take care of anybody else! As sure as----"
+
+"My dance, Miss Madison." A young gentleman on vacation from the
+navy had approached, and, with perfect unconsciousness of what he
+was interrupting, but with well-founded certainty that he was
+welcome to the lady, urged his claim in a confident voice. "I
+thought it would never come, you know; but it's here at last and
+so am I." He laughed propitiatingly.
+
+Ray yielded now at once. She moved him aside with her gloved
+forearm as if he were merely an awkward stranger who unwittingly
+stood between her and the claiming partner. Carrying the gesture
+farther, she took the latter's arm, and smilingly, and without a
+backward glance, passed onward and left the gallery. The
+lieutenant, who had met her once or twice before, was her partner
+for the succeeding dance as well, and, having noted the advantages
+of the place where he had discovered her, persuaded her to return
+there to sit through the second. Then without any fatiguing
+preamble, he proposed marriage. Cora did not accept, but effected
+a compromise, which, for the present, was to consist of an
+exchange of photographs (his to be in uniform) and letters.
+
+She was having an evening to her heart. Ray's attack on Corliss
+had no dimming effect; her thought of it being that she was "used
+to his raving"; it meant nothing; and since Ray had prophesied she
+would tell Corliss about it, she decided not to do so.
+
+The naval young gentleman and Valentine Corliss were the greatest
+of all the lions among ladies that night; she had easily annexed
+the lieutenant, and Corliss was hers already; though, for a
+purpose, she had not yet been seen in company with him. He was
+visibly "making an impression." His name, as he had said to
+Richard Lindley, was held in honour in the town; and there was a
+flavour of fancied romance in his absence since boyhood in unknown
+parts, and his return now with a `foreign air' and a bow that
+almost took the breath of some of the younger recipients. He was,
+too, in his way, the handsomest man in the room; and the smiling,
+open frankness of his look, the ready cordiality of his manner,
+were found very winning. He caused plenty of flutter.
+
+Cora waited till the evening was half over before she gave him any
+visible attention. Then, during a silence of the music, between
+two dances, she made him a negligent sign with her hand, the
+gesture of one indifferently beckoning a creature who is certain
+to come, and went on talking casually to the man who was with her.
+Corliss was the length of the room from her, chatting gayly with a
+large group of girls and women; but he immediately nodded to her,
+made his bow to individuals of the group, and crossed the vacant,
+glistening floor to her. Cora gave him no greeting whatever; she
+dismissed her former partner and carelessly turned away with
+Corliss to some chairs in a corner.
+
+"Do you see that?" asked Vilas, leaning over the balcony railing
+with Richard Lindley. "Look! She's showing the other girls--don't
+you see? He's the New Man; she let 'em hope she wasn't going in
+for him; a lot of them probably didn't even know that she knew
+him. She sent him out on parade till they're all excited about
+him; now she shows 'em he's entirely her property--and does it so
+matter-of-factly that it's rubbed in twice as hard as if she
+seemed to take some pains about it. He doesn't dance: she'll sit
+out with him now, till they all read the tag she's put on him. She
+says she hates being talked about. She lives on it!--so long as
+it's envious. And did you see her with that chap from the navy?
+Neptune thinks he's dallying with Venus perhaps, but he'll
+get----"
+
+Lindley looked at him commiseratingly. "I think I never saw
+prettier decorations. Have you noticed, Ray? Must have used a
+thousand chrysanthemums."
+
+"Toreador!" whispered the other between his teeth, looking at
+Corliss; then, turning to his companion, he asked: "Has it
+occurred to you to get any information about Basilicata, or about
+the ancestral domain of the Moliterni, from our consul-general at
+Naples?"
+
+Richard hesitated. "Well--yes. Yes, I did think of that. Yes, I
+thought of it."
+
+"But you didn't do it."
+
+"No. That is, I haven't yet. You see, Corliss explained to me
+that----"
+
+His friend interrupted him with a sour laugh. "Oh, certainly! He's
+one of the greatest explainers ever welcomed to our city!"
+
+Richard said mildly: "And then, Ray, once I've gone into a thing
+I--I don't like to seem suspicious."
+
+"Poor old Dick!" returned Vilas compassionately. "You kind, easy,
+sincere men are so conscientiously untruthful with yourselves. You
+know in your heart that Cora would be furious with you if you
+seemed suspicious, and she's been so nice to you since you put in
+your savings to please her, that you can't bear to risk offending
+her. She's twisted you around her little finger, and the unnamed
+fear that haunts you is that you won't be allowed to stay
+there--even twisted!"
+
+"Pretty decorations, Ray," said Richard; but he grew very red.
+
+"Do you know what you'll do," asked Ray, regarding him keenly, "if
+this Don Giovanni from Sunny It' is shown up as a plain
+get-rich-quick swindler?"
+
+"I haven't considered----"
+
+"You would do precisely," said Ray, "nothing! Cora'd see to that.
+You'd sigh and go to work again, beginning at the beginning where
+you were years ago, and doing it all over. Admirable resignation,
+but not for me! I'm a stockholder in his company and in shape to
+`take steps'! I don't know if I'd be patient enough to make them
+legal--perhaps I should. He may be safe on the legal side. I'll
+know more about that when I find out if there is a Prince
+Moliterno in Naples who owns land in Basilicata."
+
+"You don't doubt it?"
+
+"I doubt everything! In this particular matter I'll have less to
+doubt when I get an answer from the consul-general. _I_'ve
+written, you see."
+
+Lindley looked disturbed. "You have?"
+
+Vilas read him at a glance. "You're afraid to find out!" he cried.
+Then he set his hand on the other's shoulder. "If there ever was a
+God's fool, it's you, Dick Lindley. Really, I wonder the world
+hasn't kicked you around more than it has; you'd never kick back!
+You're as easy as an old shoe. Cora makes you unhappy," he went
+on, and with the very mention of her name, his voice shook with
+passion,--"but on my soul I don't believe you know what jealousy
+means: you don't even understand hate; you don't eat your
+heart----"
+
+"Let's go and eat something better," suggested Richard, laughing.
+"There's a continuous supper downstairs and I hear it's very
+good."
+
+Ray smiled, rescued for a second from himself. "There isn't
+anything better than your heart, you old window-pane, and I'm glad
+you don't eat it. And if I ever mix it up with Don Giovanni T.
+Corliss--`T' stands for Toreador--I do believe it'll be partly on
+your----" He paused, leaving the sentence unfinished, as his
+attention was caught by the abysmal attitude of a figure in
+another part of the gallery: Mr. Wade Trumble, alone in a corner,
+sitting upon the small of his small back, munching at an unlighted
+cigar and otherwise manifesting a biting gloom. Ray drew Lindley's
+attention to this tableau of pain. "Here's a three of us!" he
+said. He turned to look down into the rhythmic kaleidoscope of
+dancers. "And there goes the girl we all _ought_ to be morbid
+about."
+
+"Who is that?"
+
+"Laura Madison. Why aren't we? What a self-respecting creature she
+is, with that cool, sweet steadiness of hers--she's like a
+mountain lake. She's lovely and she plays like an angel, but so
+far as anybody's ever thinking about her is concerned she might
+almost as well not exist. Yet she's really beautiful to-night, if
+you can manage to think of her except as a sort of retinue for
+Cora."
+
+"She _is_ rather beautiful to-night. Laura's always a very
+nice-looking girl," said Richard, and with the advent of an idea,
+he added: "I think one reason she isn't more conspicuous and
+thought about is that she is so quiet," and, upon his companion's
+greeting this inspiration with a burst of laughter, "Yes, that was
+a brilliant deduction," he said; "but I do think she's about the
+quietest person I ever knew. I've noticed there are times when
+she'll scarcely speak at all for half an hour, or even more."
+
+"You're not precisely noisy yourself," said Ray. "Have you danced
+with her this evening?"
+
+"Why, no," returned the other, in a tone which showed this
+omission to be a discovery; "not yet. I must, of course."
+
+"Yes, she's really `rather' beautiful. Also, she dances `rather'
+better than any other girl in town. Go and perform your painful
+duty."
+
+"Perhaps I'd better," said Richard thoughtfully, not perceiving
+the satire. "At any rate, I'll ask her for the next."
+
+He found it unengaged. There came to Laura's face an April change
+as he approached, and she saw he meant to ask her to dance. And,
+as they swam out into the maelstrom, he noticed it, and remarked
+that it _was_ rather warm, to which she replied by a cheerful nod.
+Presently there came into Richard's mind the thought that he was
+really an excellent dancer; but he did not recall that he had
+always formed the same pleasing estimate of himself when he danced
+with Laura, nor realize that other young men enjoyed similar
+self-help when dancing with her. And yet he repeated to her what
+Ray had said of her dancing, and when she laughed as in
+appreciation of a thing intended humorously, he laughed, too, but
+insisted that she did dance "very well indeed." She laughed again
+at that, and they danced on, not talking. He had no sense of
+"guiding" her; there was no feeling of effort whatever; she seemed
+to move spontaneously with his wish, not to his touch; indeed, he
+was not sensible of touching her at all.
+
+"Why, Laura," he exclaimed suddenly, "you dance _beautifully_!"
+
+She stumbled and almost fell; saved herself by clutching at his
+arm; he caught her; and the pair stopped where they were, in the
+middle of the floor. A flash of dazed incredulity from her dark
+eyes swept him; there was something in it of the child dodging an
+unexpected blow.
+
+"Did I trip you?" he asked anxiously.
+
+"No," she laughed, quickly, and her cheeks grew even redder. "I
+tripped myself. Wasn't that too bad--just when you were thinking
+that I danced well! Let's sit down. May we?"
+
+They went to some chairs against a wall. There, as they sat, Cora
+swung by them, dancing again with her lieutenant, and looking up
+trancedly into the gallant eyes of the triumphant and intoxicated
+young man. Visibly, she was a woman with a suitor's embracing arm
+about her. Richard's eyes followed them.
+
+"Ah, don't!" said Laura in a low voice.
+
+He turned to her. "Don't what?"
+
+"I didn't mean to speak out loud," she said tremulously. "But I
+meant: don't look so troubled. It doesn't mean anything at
+all--her coquetting with that bird of passage. He's going away in
+the morning."
+
+"I don't think I was troubling about that."
+
+"Well, whatever it was"--she paused, and laughed with a plaintive
+timidity--"why, just don't trouble about it!"
+
+"Do I look very much troubled?" he asked seriously.
+
+"Yes. And you don't look very gay when you're not!" She laughed
+with more assurance now. "I think you're always the wistfulest
+looking man I ever saw."
+
+"Everybody laughs at me, I believe," he said, with continued
+seriousness. "Even Ray Vilas thinks I'm an utter fool. Am I, do
+_you_ think?"
+
+He turned as he spoke and glanced inquiringly into her eyes. What
+he saw surprised and dismayed him.
+
+"For heaven's sake, don't cry!" he whispered hurriedly.
+
+She bent her head, turning her face from him.
+
+"I've been very hopeful lately," he said. "Cora has been so kind
+to me since I did what she wanted me to, that I----" He gave a
+deep sigh. "But if you're _that_ sorry for me, my chances with her
+must be pretty desperate."
+
+She did not alter her attitude, but with her down-bent face still
+away from him, said huskily: "It isn't you I'm sorry for. You
+mustn't ever give up; you must keep on trying and trying. If you
+give up, I don't know what will become of her!"
+
+A moment later she rose suddenly to her feet. "Let's finish our
+dance," she said, giving him her hand. "I'm sure I won't stumble
+again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+The two girls let themselves into the house noiselessly, and,
+turning out the hall-light, left for them by their mother, crept
+upstairs on tiptoe; and went through the upper hall directly to
+Laura's room--Cora's being nearer the sick-room. At their age it
+is proper that a gayety be used three times: in anticipation, and
+actually, and in after-rehearsal. The last was of course now in
+order: they went to Laura's room to "talk it over." There was no
+gas-fixture in this small chamber; but they found Laura's oil-lamp
+burning brightly upon her writing-table.
+
+"How queer!" said Laura with some surprise, as she closed the
+door. "Mother never leaves the lamp lit for me; she's always so
+afraid of lamps exploding."
+
+"Perhaps Miss Peirce came in here to read, and forgot to turn it
+out," suggested Cora, seating herself on the edge of the bed and
+letting her silk wrap fall from her shoulders. "Oh, Laura, wasn't
+he gorgeous. . . ."
+
+She referred to the gallant defender of our seas, it appeared, and
+while Laura undressed and got into a wrapper, Cora recounted in
+detail the history of the impetuous sailor's enthrallment;--a
+resume predicted three hours earlier by a gleeful whisper hissed
+across the maritime shoulder as the sisters swung near each other
+during a waltz: "_proposed_!"
+
+"I've always heard they're horribly inconstant," she said,
+regretfully. "But, oh, Laura, wasn't he beautiful to look at! Do
+you think he's more beautiful than Val? No--don't tell me if you
+do. I don't want to hear it! Val was so provoking: he didn't seem
+to mind it at all. He's nothing but a big brute sometimes: he
+wouldn't even admit that he minded, when I asked him. I was idiot
+enough to ask; I couldn't help it; he was so tantalizing and
+exasperating--laughing at me. I never knew anybody like him; he's
+so sure of himself and he can be so cold. Sometimes I wonder if he
+really cares about anything, deep down in his heart--anything
+except himself. He seems so selfish: there are times when he
+almost makes me hate him; but just when I get to thinking I do, I
+find I don't--he's so deliciously strong, and there's such a _big_
+luxury in being understood: I always feel he _knows_ me clear to
+the bone, somehow! But, oh," she sighed regretfully, "doesn't a
+uniform become a man? They ought to all wear 'em. It would look
+silly on such a little goat as that Wade Trumble, though: nothing
+could make him look like a whole man. Did you see him glaring at
+me? Beast! I was going to be so nice and kittenish and do all my
+prettiest tricks for him, to help Val with his oil company. Val
+thinks Wade would come in yet, if I'D only get him in the mood to
+have another talk with Val about it; but the spiteful little rat
+wouldn't come near me. I believe that was one of the reasons Val
+laughed at me and pretended not to mind my getting proposed to. He
+_must_ have minded; he couldn't have helped minding it, really.
+That's his way; he's so _mean_--he won't show things. He knows
+_me_. I can't keep anything from him; he reads _me_ like a
+signboard; and then about himself he keeps me guessing, and I
+can't tell when I've guessed right. Ray Vilas behaved
+disgustingly, of course; he was horrid and awful. I might have
+expected it. I suppose Richard was wailing _his_ tiresome sorrows
+on your poor shoulder----"
+
+"No," said Laura. "He was very cheerful. He seemed glad you were
+having a good time."
+
+"He didn't look particularly cheerful at me. I never saw so slow a
+man: I wonder when he's going to find out about that pendant. Val
+would have seen it the instant I put it on. And, oh, Laura! isn't
+George Wattling funny? He's just _soft_! He's good-looking
+though," she continued pensively, adding, "I promised to motor out
+to the Country Club with him to-morrow for tea."
+
+"Oh, Cora," protested Laura, "no! Please don't!"
+
+"I've promised; so I'll have to, now." Cora laughed. "It'll do
+Mary Kane good. Oh, I'm not going to bother much with _him_--he
+makes me tired. I never saw anything so complacent as that girl
+when she came in to-night, as if her little Georgie was the
+greatest capture the world had ever seen. . . ."
+
+She chattered on. Laura, passive, listened with a thoughtful
+expression, somewhat preoccupied. The talker yawned at last.
+
+"It must be after three," she said, listlessly, having gone over
+her evening so often that the colours were beginning to fade. She
+yawned again. "Laura," she remarked absently, "I don't see how you
+can sleep in this bed; it sags so."
+
+"I've never noticed it," said her sister. "It's a very comfortable
+old bed."
+
+Cora went to her to be unfastened, reverting to the lieutenant
+during the operation, and kissing the tire-woman warmly at its
+conclusion. "You're always so sweet to me, Laura," she said
+affectionately. "I don't know how you manage it. You're so
+good"--she laughed--"sometimes I wonder how you stand me. If I
+were you, I'm positive I couldn't stand me at all!" Another kiss
+and a hearty embrace, and she picked up her wrap and skurried
+silently through the hall to her own room.
+
+It was very late, but Laura wrote for almost an hour in her book
+(which was undisturbed) before she felt drowsy. Then she
+extinguished the lamp, put the book away and got into bed.
+
+It was almost as if she had attempted to lie upon the empty air:
+the mattress sagged under her weight as if it had been a hammock;
+and something tore with a ripping sound. There was a crash, and a
+choked yell from a muffled voice somewhere, as the bed gave way.
+For an instant, Laura fought wildly in an entanglement of what she
+insufficiently perceived to be springs, slats and bedclothes with
+something alive squirming underneath. She cleared herself and
+sprang free, screaming, but even in her fright she remembered her
+father and clapped her hand over her mouth that she might keep
+from screaming again. She dove at the door, opened it, and fled
+through the hall to Cora's room, still holding her hand over her
+mouth.
+
+"Cora! Oh, Cora!" she panted, and flung herself upon her sister's
+bed.
+
+Cora was up instantly; and had lit the gas in a trice. "There's a
+burglar!" Laura contrived to gasp. "In my room! Under the bed!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"I fell on him! Something's the matter with the bed. It broke. I
+fell on him!"
+
+Cora stared at her wide-eyed. "Why, it can't be. Think how long I
+was in there. Your bed broke, and you just thought there was some
+one there. You imagined it."
+
+"No, no, no!" wailed Laura. "I _heard_ him: he gave a kind of
+dreadful grunt."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"_Sure_? He wriggled--oh! I could _feel_ him!"
+
+Cora seized a box of matches again. "I'm going to find out." "Oh,
+no, no!" protested Laura, cowering.
+
+"Yes, I am. If there's a burglar in the house I'm going to find
+him!"
+
+"We mustn't wake papa."
+
+"No, nor mamma either. You stay here if you want to----"
+
+"Let's call Hedrick," suggested the pallid Laura; "or put our
+heads out of the window and scream for----"
+
+Cora laughed; she was not in the least frightened. "That wouldn't
+wake papa, of course! If we had a telephone I'd send for the
+police; but we haven't. I'm going to see if there's any one there.
+A burglar's a man, I guess, and I can't imagine myself being
+afraid of any _man_!"
+
+Laura clung to her, but Cora shook her off and went through the
+hall undaunted, Laura faltering behind her. Cora lighted matches
+with a perfectly steady hand; she hesitated on the threshold of
+Laura's room no more than a moment, then lit the lamp.
+
+Laura stifled a shriek at sight of the bed. "Look, look!" she
+gasped.
+
+"There's no one under it now, that's certain," said Cora, and
+boldly lifted a corner of it. "Why, it's been cut all to pieces
+from underneath! You're right; there was some one here. It's
+practically dismembered. Don't you remember my telling you how it
+sagged? And I was only sitting on the edge of it! The slats have
+all been moved out of place, and as for the mattress, it's just a
+mess of springs and that stuffing stuff. He must have thought the
+silver was hidden there."
+
+"Oh, oh, oh!" moaned Laura. "He _wriggled_----ugh!"
+
+Cora picked up the lamp. "Well, we've got to go over the
+house----"
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"Hush! I'll go alone then."
+
+"You _can't_."
+
+"I will, though!"
+
+The two girls had changed places in this emergency. In her fright
+Laura was dependent, clinging: actual contact with the intruder
+had unnerved her. It took all her will to accompany her sister
+upon the tour of inspection, and throughout she cowered behind the
+dauntless Cora. It was the first time in their lives that their
+positions had been reversed. From the days of Cora's babyhood,
+Laura had formed the habit of petting and shielding the little
+sister, but now that the possibility became imminent of
+confronting an unknown and dangerous man, Laura was so shaken
+that, overcome by fear, she let Cora go first. Cora had not
+boasted in vain of her bravery; in truth, she was not afraid of
+any man.
+
+They found the fastenings of the doors secure and likewise those
+of all the windows, until they came to the kitchen. There, the
+cook had left a window up, which plausibly explained the
+marauder's mode of ingress. Then, at Cora's insistence, and to
+Laura's shivering horror, they searched both cellar and garret,
+and concluded that he had escaped by the same means. Except
+Laura's bed, nothing in the house had been disturbed; but this
+eccentricity on the part of a burglar, though it indeed struck the
+two girls as peculiar, was not so pointedly mysterious to them as
+it might have been had they possessed a somewhat greater
+familiarity with the habits of criminals whose crimes are
+professional.
+
+They finally retired, Laura sleeping with her sister, and Cora had
+begun to talk of the lieutenant again, instead of the burglar,
+before Laura fell asleep.
+
+In spite of the short hours for sleep, both girls appeared at the
+breakfast-table before the meal was over, and were naturally
+pleased with the staccato of excitement evoked by their news. Mrs.
+Madison and Miss Peirce were warm in admiration of their bravery,
+but in the same breath condemned it as foolhardy.
+
+"I never knew such wonderful girls!" exclaimed the mother, almost
+tearfully. "You crazy little lions! To think of your not even
+waking Hedrick! And you didn't have even a poker and were in your
+bare feet--and went down in the _cellar_----"
+
+"It was all Cora," protested Laura. "I'm a hopeless, disgusting
+coward. I never knew what a coward I was before. Cora carried the
+lamp and went ahead like a drum-major. I just trailed along behind
+her, ready to shriek and run--or faint!"
+
+"Could you tell anything about him when you fell on him?" inquired
+Miss Peirce. "What was his voice like when he shouted?"
+
+"Choked. It was a horrible, jolted kind of cry. It hardly sounded
+human."
+
+"Could you tell anything about whether he was a large man, or
+small, or----"
+
+"Only that he seemed very active. He seemed to be kicking. He
+_wriggled_----ugh!"
+
+They evolved a plausible theory of the burglar's motives and line
+of reasoning. "You see," said Miss Peirce, much stirred, in
+summing up the adventure, "he either jimmies the window, or finds
+it open already, and Sarah's mistaken and she _did_ leave it open!
+Then he searched the downstairs first, and didn't find anything.
+Then he came upstairs, and was afraid to come into any of the
+rooms where we were. He could tell which rooms had people in them
+by hearing us breathing through the keyholes. He finds two rooms
+empty, and probably he made a thorough search of Miss Cora's
+first. But he isn't after silver toilet articles and pretty little
+things like that. He wants really big booty or none, so he decides
+that an out-of-the-way, unimportant room like Miss Laura's is
+where the family would be most apt to hide valuables, jewellery
+and silver, and he knows that mattresses have often been selected
+as hiding-places; so he gets under the bed and goes to work. Then
+Miss Cora and Miss Laura come in so quietly--not wanting to wake
+anybody--that he doesn't hear them, and he gets caught there.
+That's the way it must have been."
+
+"But why," Mrs. Madison inquired of this authority, "why do you
+suppose he lit the lamp?"
+
+"To see by," answered the ready Miss Peirce. It was accepted as
+final.
+
+Further discussion was temporarily interrupted by the discovery
+that Hedrick had fallen asleep in his chair.
+
+"Don't bother him, Cora," said his mother. "He's finished
+eating--let him sleep a few minutes, if he wants to, before he
+goes to school. He's not at all well. He played too hard,
+yesterday afternoon, and hurt his knee, he said. He came down
+limping this morning and looking very badly. He oughtn't to run
+and climb about the stable so much after school. See how utterly
+exhausted he looks!--Not even this excitement can keep him awake."
+
+"I think we must be careful not to let Mr. Madison suspect
+anything about the burglar," said Miss Peirce. "It would be bad
+for him."
+
+Laura began: "But we ought to notify the police----"
+
+"Police!" Hedrick woke so abruptly, and uttered the word with such
+passionate and vehement protest, that everybody started. "I
+suppose you want to _kill_ your father, Laura Madison!"
+
+"How?"
+
+"Do you suppose he wouldn't know something had happened with a
+squad of big, heavy policemen tromping all over the house? The
+first thing they'd do would be to search the whole place----"
+
+"Oh, no," said Mrs. Madison quickly. "It wouldn't do at all."
+
+"I should think not! I'm glad," continued Hedrick, truthfully,
+"_that_ idea's out of your head! I believe Laura imagined the
+whole thing anyway."
+
+"Have you looked at her mattress," inquired Cora, "darling little
+boy?"
+
+He gave her a concentrated look, and rose to leave. "Nothin' on
+earth but imagina----" He stopped with a grunt as he forgetfully
+put his weight on his left leg. He rubbed his knee, swallowed
+painfully, and, leaving the word unfinished, limped haughtily from
+the room.
+
+He left the house, gloomily swinging his books from a spare length
+of strap, and walking with care to ease his strains and bruises as
+much as possible. He was very low in his mind, that boy. His
+fortunes had reached the ebb-tide, but he had no hope of a rise.
+He had no hope of anything. It was not even a consolation that,
+through his talent for surprise in waylayings, it had lately been
+thought necessary, by the Villard family, to have Egerton
+accompanied to and from school by a man-servant. Nor was Hedrick
+more deeply depressed by the certainty that both public and
+domestic scandal must soon arise from the inevitable revelation of
+his discontinuing his attendance at school without mentioning this
+important change of career at home. He had been truant a full
+fortnight, under brighter circumstances a matter for a lawless
+pride--now he had neither fear nor vainglory. There was no room in
+him for anything but dejection.
+
+He walked two blocks in the direction of his school; turned a
+corner; walked half a block; turned north in the alley which ran
+parallel to Corliss Street, and a few moments later had cautiously
+climbed into an old, disused refuse box which stood against the
+rear wall of the empty stable at his own home. He pried up some
+loose boards at the bottom of the box, and entered a tunnel which
+had often and often served in happier days--when he had
+friends--for the escape of Union officers from Libby Prison and
+Andersonville. Emerging, wholly soiled, into a box-stall, he
+crossed the musty carriage house and ascended some rickety steps
+to a long vacant coachman's-room, next to the hayloft. He closed
+the door, bolted it, and sank moodily upon a broken, old horsehair
+sofa.
+
+This apartment was his studio. In addition to the sofa, it
+contained an ex-bureau, three chair-like shapes, a once
+marble-topped table, now covered with a sheet of zinc, two empty
+bird cages, and a condemned whatnot. The walls were rather
+over-decorated in coloured chalks, the man-headed-snake motive
+predominating; they were also loopholed for firing into the
+hayloft. Upon the table lay a battered spy-glass, minus lenses,
+and, nearby, two boxes, one containing dried corn-silk, the other
+hayseed, convenient for the making of amateur cigarettes; the
+smoker's outfit being completed by a neat pile of rectangular
+clippings from newspapers. On the shelves of the whatnot were some
+fragments of a dead pie, the relics of a "Fifteen-Puzzle," a pink
+Easter-egg, four seashells, a tambourine with part of a girl's
+face still visible in aged colours, about two thirds of a
+hot-water bag, a tintype of Hedrick, and a number of books:
+several by Henty, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," "100
+Practical Jokes, Easy to Perform," "The Jungle Book," "My Lady
+Rotha," a "Family Atlas," "Three Weeks," "Pilgrim's Progress," "A
+Boy's Life in Camp," and "The Mystery of the Count's Bedroom."
+
+The gloomy eye of Hedrick wandered to "The Mystery of the Count's
+Bedroom," and remained fixed upon it moodily and contemptuously.
+His own mystery made that one seem tame and easy: Laura's bedroom
+laid it all over the Count's, in his conviction; and with a soul
+too weary of pain to shudder, he reviewed the bafflements and
+final catastrophe of the preceding night.
+
+He had not essayed the attempt upon the mattress until assured
+that the house was wrapped in slumber. Then, with hope in his
+heart, he had stolen to Laura's room, lit the lamp, feeling safe
+from intrusion, and set to work. His implement at first was a long
+hatpin of Cora's. Lying on his back beneath the bed, and, moving
+the slats as it became necessary, he sounded every cubic inch of
+the mysterious mattress without encountering any obstruction which
+could reasonably be supposed to be the ledger. This was not more
+puzzling than it was infuriating, since by all processes of
+induction, deduction, and pure logic, the thing was necessarily
+there. It was nowhere else. Therefore it was there. It _had_ to be
+there! With the great blade of his Boy Scout's knife he began to
+disembowel the mattress.
+
+For a time he had worked furiously and effectively, but the
+position was awkward, the search laborious, and he was obliged to
+rest frequently. Besides, he had waited to a later hour than he
+knew, for his mother to go to bed, and during one of his rests he
+incautiously permitted his eyes to close. When he woke, his
+sisters were in the room, and he thought it advisable to remain
+where he was, though he little realized how he had weakened his
+shelter. When Cora left the room, he heard Laura open the window,
+sigh, and presently a tiny clinking and a click set him a-tingle
+from head to foot: she was opening the padlocked book. The
+scratching sound of a pen followed. And yet she had not come near
+the bed. The mattress, then, was a living lie.
+
+With infinite caution he had moved so that he could see her,
+arriving at a coign of vantage just as she closed the book. She
+locked it, wrapped it in an oilskin cover which lay beside it on
+the table, hung the key-chain round her neck, rose, yawned, and,
+to his violent chagrin, put out the light. He heard her moving but
+could not tell where, except that it was not in his part of the
+room. Then a faint shuffling warned him that she was approaching
+the bed, and he withdrew his head to avoid being stepped upon. The
+next moment the world seemed to cave in upon him.
+
+Laura's flight had given him opportunity to escape to his own room
+unobserved; there to examine, bathe and bind his wounds, and to
+rectify his first hasty impression that he had been fatally
+mangled.
+
+Hedrick glared at "The Mystery of the Count's Bedroom."
+
+By and by he got up, brought the book to the sofa and began to
+read it over.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+The influence of a familiar and sequestered place is not only
+soothing; the bruised mind may often find it restorative. Thus
+Hedrick, in his studio, surrounded by his own loved bric-a-brac,
+began to feel once more the stir of impulse. Two hours' reading
+inspired him. What a French reporter (in the Count's bedroom)
+could do, an American youth in full possession of his
+powers--except for a strained knee and other injuries--could do.
+Yes, and would!
+
+He evolved a new chain of reasoning. The ledger had been seen in
+Laura's room; it had been heard in her room; it appeared to be
+kept in her room. But it was in no single part of the room. All
+the parts make a whole. Therefore, the book was not in the room.
+
+On the other hand, Laura had not left the room when she took the
+book from its hiding-place. This was confusing; therefore he
+determined to concentrate logic solely upon what she had done with
+the ledger when she finished writing in it. It was dangerous to
+assume that she had restored it to the place whence she obtained
+it, because he had already proved that place to be both in the
+room and out of the room. No; the question he must keep in was:
+What did she do with it?
+
+Laura had not left the room. But the book had left the room.
+
+Arrived at this inevitable deduction, he sprang to his feet in a
+state of repressed excitement and began to pace the floor--like a
+hound on the trail. Laura had not left the room, but the book had
+left the room: he must keep his mind upon this point. He uttered a
+loud exclamation and struck the zinc table-top a smart blow with
+his clenched fist.
+
+Laura had thrown the book out of the window!
+
+In the exaltation of this triumph, he forgot that it was not yet
+the hour for a scholar's reappearance, and went forth in haste to
+search the ground beneath the window--a disappointing quest, for
+nowhere in the yard was there anything but withered grass, and the
+rubbish of other frost-bitten vegetation. His mother, however,
+discovered something else, and, opening the kitchen window, she
+asked, with surprise:
+
+"Why, Hedrick, what on earth are you doing here?"
+
+"Me?" inquired Hedrick.
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"Here?" Evidently she puzzled him.
+
+She became emphatic. "I want to know what you are doing."
+
+"Just standing here," he explained in a meek, grieved way.
+
+"But why aren't you at school?"
+
+This recalled what he had forgotten, and he realized the
+insecurity of his position. "Oh, yes," he said--"school. Did you
+ask me----"
+
+"Didn't you go to school?"
+
+He began to speak rapidly. "Didn't I go to _school_? Well, where
+else could I go? Just because I'm here now doesn't mean I didn't
+_go_, does it? Because a person is in China right now wouldn't
+have to mean he'd never been in South America, would it?"
+
+"Then what's the matter?"
+
+"Well, I was going along, and you know I didn't feel very well
+and----" He paused, with the advent of a happier idea, then
+continued briskly: "But that didn't stop me, because I thought I
+ought to go if I dropped, so I went ahead, but the teacher was
+sick and they couldn't get a substitute. She must have been pretty
+sick, she looked so pale----"
+
+"They dismissed the class?"
+
+"And I don't have to go to-morrow either."
+
+"I see," said his mother. "But if you feel ill, Hedrick, hadn't
+you better come in and lie down?"
+
+"I think it's kind of passing off. The fresh air seems to be doing
+me good."
+
+"Be careful of your sore knee, dear." She closed the window, and
+he was left to continue his operations in safety.
+
+Laura had thrown the ledger out of the window; that was proved
+absolutely. Obviously, she had come down before daylight and
+retrieved it. Or, she had not. Proceeding on the assumption that
+she had not, he lifted his eyes and searched the air. Was it
+possible that the book, though thrown from the window, had never
+reached the ground? The branches of an old and stalwart maple, now
+almost divested of leaves, extended in rough symmetry above him,
+and one big limb, reaching out toward the house, came close to
+Laura's windows. Triumph shown again from the shrewd countenance
+of the sleuth: Laura must have slid the ledger along a wire into a
+hollow branch. However, no wire was to be seen--and the shrewd
+countenance of the sleuth fell. But perhaps she had constructed a
+device of silk threads, invisible from below, which carried the
+book into the tree. Action!
+
+He climbed carefully but with many twinges, finally pausing in a
+parlous situation not far from the mysterious window which Laura
+had opened the night before. A comprehensive survey of the tree
+revealed only the very patent fact that none of the branches was
+of sufficient diameter to conceal the ledger. No silk threads came
+from the window. He looked and looked and looked at that window;
+then his eye fell a little, halted less than three feet below the
+window-ledge, and the search was ended.
+
+The kitchen window which his mother had opened was directly
+beneath Laura's, and was a very long, narrow window, in the style
+of the house, and there was a protecting stone ledge above it.
+Upon this ledge lay the book, wrapped in its oil-skin covering and
+secured from falling by a piece of broken iron hooping, stuck in
+the mortar of the bricks. It could be seen from nowhere save an
+upper window of the house next door, or from the tree itself, and
+in either case only when the leaves had fallen.
+
+Laura had felt very safe. No one had ever seen the book except
+that night, early in August, when, for a better circulation of
+air, she had left her door open as she wrote, and Hedrick had come
+upon her. He had not spoken of it again; she perceived that he had
+forgotten it; and she herself forgot that the memory of a boy is
+never to be depended on; its forgettings are too seldom permanent
+in the case of things that ought to stay forgotten.
+
+To get the book one had only to lean from the window.
+
+    *       *       *
+
+Hedrick seemed so ill during lunch that his mother spoke of asking
+Doctor Sloane to look at him, if he did not improve before
+evening. Hedrick said meekly that perhaps that would be best--if
+he did not improve. After a futile attempt to eat, he courteously
+excused himself from the table--a ceremony which made even Cora
+fear that his case might be serious--and, going feebly to the
+library, stretched himself upon the sofa. His mother put a rug
+over him; Hedrick, thanking her touchingly, closed his eyes; and
+she went away, leaving him to slumber.
+
+After a time, Laura came into the room on an errand, walking
+noiselessly, and, noticing that his eyes were open, apologized for
+waking him.
+
+"Never mind," he returned, in the tone of an invalid. "I didn't
+sleep sound. I think there's something the matter inside my head:
+I have such terrible dreams. I guess maybe it's better for me to
+keep awake. I'm kind of afraid to go to sleep. Would you mind
+staying here with me a little while?"
+
+"Certainly I'll stay," she said, and, observing that his cheeks
+were flushed, and his eyes unusually bright, she laid a cool hand
+on his forehead. "You haven't any fever, dear; that's good. You'll
+be all right to-morrow. Would you like me to read to you?"
+
+"I believe," he answered, plaintively, "reading might kind of
+disturb my mind: my brain feels so sort of restless and queer. I'd
+rather play some kind of game."
+
+"Cards?"
+
+"No, not cards exactly. Something' I can do lying down. Oh, I
+know! You remember the one where we drew pictures and the others
+had to guess what they were? Well, I've invented a game like that.
+You sit down at the desk over there and take some sheets of paper.
+I'll tell you the rest."
+
+She obeyed. "What next?"
+
+"Now, I'll describe some people and where they live and not tell
+who they are, and you see if you can guess their names and
+addresses."
+
+"Addresses, too?"
+
+"Yes, because I'm going to describe the way their houses look.
+Write each name on a separate sheet of paper, and the number of
+their house below it if you know it, and if you don't know it,
+just the street. If it's a woman: put `Miss' or `Mrs.' before
+their name and if it's a man write `Esquire' after it."
+
+"Is all that necessary for the game?"
+
+"It's the way I invented it and I think you might----"
+
+"Oh, all right," she acquiesced, good-naturedly. "It shall be
+according to your rules."
+
+"Then afterward, you give me the sheets of paper with the names
+and addresses written on 'em, and we--we----" He hesitated.
+
+"Yes. What do we do then?"
+
+"I'll tell you when we come to it." But when that stage of his
+invention was reached, and Laura had placed the inscribed sheets
+in his hand, his interest had waned, it appeared. Also, his
+condition had improved.
+
+"Let's quit. I thought this game would be more exciting," he said,
+sitting up. "I guess," he added with too much modesty, "I'm not
+very good at inventing games. I b'lieve I'll go out to the barn; I
+think the fresh air----"
+
+"Do you feel well enough to go out?" she asked. "You do seem to be
+all right, though."
+
+"Yes, I'm a lot better, I think." He limped to the door. "The
+fresh air will be the best thing for me."
+
+She did not notice that he carelessly retained her contributions
+to the game, and he reached his studio with them in his hand.
+Hedrick had entered the 'teens and he was a reader: things in his
+head might have dismayed a Borgia.
+
+No remotest glimpse entered that head of the enormity of what he
+did. To put an end to his punishing of Cora, and, to render him
+powerless against that habitual and natural enemy, Laura had
+revealed a horrible incident in his career--it had become a public
+scandal; he was the sport of fools; and it might be months before
+the thing was lived down. Now he had the means, as he believed, to
+even the score with both sisters at a stroke. To him it was
+turning a tremendous and properly scathing joke upon them. He did
+not hesitate.
+
+    *       *       *
+
+That evening, as Richard Lindley sat at dinner with his mother,
+Joe Varden temporarily abandoned his attendance at the table to
+answer the front doorbell. Upon his return, he remarked:
+
+"Messenger-boy mus' been in big hurry. Wouldn' wait till I git to
+door."
+
+"What was it?" asked Richard.
+
+"Boy with package. Least, I reckon it were a boy. Call' back from
+the front walk, say he couldn' wait. Say he lef' package in
+vestibule."
+
+"What sort of a package?"
+
+"Middle-size kind o' big package."
+
+"Why don't you see what it is, Richard?" Mrs. Lindley asked of her
+son. "Bring it to the table, Joe."
+
+When it was brought, Richard looked at the superscription with
+surprise. The wrapper was of heavy brown paper, and upon it a
+sheet of white notepaper had been pasted, with the address:
+
+      "Richard Lindley, Esq.,
+      1218 Corliss Street."
+
+"It's from Laura Madison," he said, staring at this writing.
+"What in the world would Laura be sending me?"
+
+"You might possibly learn by opening it," suggested his mother.
+"I've seen men puzzle over the outside of things quite as often as
+women. Laura Madison is a nice girl." She never volunteered
+similar praise of Laura Madison's sister. Mrs. Lindley had
+submitted to her son's plans concerning Cora, lately confided; but
+her submission lacked resignation.
+
+"It's a book," said Richard, even more puzzled, as he took the
+ledger from its wrappings. "Two little torn places at the edge of
+the covers. Looks as if it had once had clasps----"
+
+"Perhaps it's the Madison family album," Mrs. Lindley suggested.
+"Pictures of Cora since infancy. I imagine she's had plenty
+taken."
+
+"No." He opened the book and glanced at the pages covered in
+Laura's clear, readable hand. "No, it's about half full of
+writing. Laura must have turned literary." He read a line or two,
+frowning mildly. "My soul! I believe it's a novel! She must think
+I'm a critic--to want me to read it." Smiling at the idea, he
+closed the ledger. "I'll take it upstairs to my hang-out after
+dinner, and see if Laura's literary manner has my august approval.
+Who in the world would ever have thought she'd decide to set up
+for a writer?"
+
+"I imagine she might have something to write worth reading," said
+his mother. "I've always thought she was an interesting-looking
+girl."
+
+"Yes, she is. She dances well, too."
+
+"Of course," continued Mrs. Lindley, thoughtfully, "she seldom
+_says_ anything interesting, but that may be because she so seldom
+has a chance to say anything at all."
+
+Richard refused to perceive this allusion. "Curious that Laura
+should have sent it to me," he said. "She's never seemed
+interested in my opinion about anything. I don't recall her ever
+speaking to me on any subject whatever--except one."
+
+He returned his attention to his plate, but his mother did not
+appear to agree with him that the topic was exhausted.
+
+"`Except one'?" she repeated, after waiting for some time.
+
+"Yes," he replied, in his habitual preoccupied and casual tone.
+"Or perhaps two. Not more than two, I should say--and in a way
+you'd call that only one, of course. Bread, Joe."
+
+"What two, Richard?"
+
+"Cora," he said, with gentle simplicity, "and me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+
+Mrs. Lindley had arranged for her son a small apartment on the
+second floor, and it was in his own library and smoking-room that
+Richard, comfortable in a leather-chair by a reading-lamp, after
+dinner, opened Laura's ledger.
+
+The first page displayed no more than a date now eighteen months
+past, and the line:
+
+      "Love came to me to-day."
+
+The next page was dated the next day, and, beneath, he read:
+
+
+"That was all I _could_ write, yesterday. I think I was too
+excited to write. Something seemed to be singing in my breast. I
+couldn't think in sentences--not even in words. How queer it is
+that I had decided to keep a diary, and bound this book for it,
+and now the first thing I have written in it was _that_! It will
+not be a diary. It shall be _your_ book. I shall keep it sacred to
+You and write to You in it. How strange it will be if the day ever
+comes when I shall show it to You! If it should, you would not
+laugh at it, for of course the day couldn't come unless you
+understood. I cannot think it will ever come--that day! But
+maybe---- No, I mustn't let myself hope too much that it will,
+because if I got to hoping too much, and you didn't like me, it
+would hurt too much. People who expect nothing are never
+disappointed--I must keep that in mind. Yet _every_ girl has a
+_right_ to hope for her own man to come for her some time, hasn't
+she? It's not easy to discipline the wanting to hope--since
+_yesterday_!
+
+"I think I must always have thought a great deal about you without
+knowing it. We really know so little what we think: our minds are
+going on all the time and we hardly notice them. It is like a
+queer sort of factory--the owner only looks in once in a while and
+most of the time hasn't any idea what sort of goods his spindles
+are turning out.
+
+"I saw You yesterday! It seems to me the strangest thing in the
+world. I've seen you by chance, probably two or three times a
+month nearly all my life, though you so seldom come here to call.
+And this time wasn't different from dozens of other times--you
+were just standing on the corner by the Richfield, waiting for a
+car. The only possible difference is that you had been out of town
+for several months--Cora said so this morning--and how ridiculous
+it seems now, didn't even know it! I hadn't noticed it--not with
+the top part of my mind, but perhaps the deep part that does the
+real thinking had noticed it and had mourned your absence and was
+so glad to see you again that it made the top part suddenly see
+the wonderful truth!"
+
+
+Lindley set down the ledger to relight his cigar. It struck him
+that Laura had been writing "very odd Stuff," but interesting; and
+certainly it was not a story. Vaguely he recalled Marie
+Bashkirtseff: hadn't she done something like this? He resumed the
+reading:
+
+
+"You turned and spoke to me in that lovely, cordial, absent-minded
+way of yours--though I'd never thought (with the top part) what a
+lovely way it was; and for a moment I only noticed how nice you
+looked in a light gray suit, because I'd only seen you in black
+for so long, while you'd been in mourning for your brother."
+
+
+Richard, disturbed by an incredible idea, read these last
+words over and then dismissed the notion as nonsense.
+
+
+". . . While you'd been in mourning for your brother--and it
+struck me that light gray was becoming to you. Then such a queer
+thing happened: I felt the great kindness of your eyes. I thought
+they were full of--the only word that seems to express it at all
+is _charity_--and they had a sweet, faraway look, too, and I've
+_always_ thought that a look of wistful kindness was the loveliest
+look in the world--and you had it, and I saw it and then suddenly,
+as you held your hat in your hand, the sunshine on your hair
+seemed brighter than any sunshine I had ever seen--and I began to
+tremble all over. I didn't understand what was the matter with me
+or what had made me afraid with you not of you--all at once, but I
+was so hopelessly rattled that instead of waiting for the car, as
+I'd just told you I meant to, I said I'd decided to walk, and got
+away--without any breath left to breathe with! I _couldn't_ have
+gotten on the car with you--- and I couldn't have spoken another
+word.
+
+"And as I walked home, trembling all the way, I saw that strange,
+dazzling sunshine on your hair, and the wistful, kind look in your
+eyes--you seemed not to have taken the car but to have come with
+me--and I was uplifted and exalted oh, so strangely--oh, how the
+world was changing for me! And when I got near home, I began to
+walk faster, and on the front path I broke into a run and rushed
+in the house to the piano--and it was as if my fingers were
+thirsty for the keys! Then I saw that I was playing to you and
+knew that I loved you.
+
+"I love you!
+
+"How different everything is now from everything before. Music
+means what it never did: Life has leaped into blossom for me.
+Everywhere there is colour and radiance that I had never seen--the
+air is full of perfume. Dear, the sunshine that fell upon your
+head has spread over the world!
+
+"I understand, as I never understood, that the world--so dazzling
+to me now--was made for love and is meaningless without it. The
+years until yesterday are gray--no, not gray, because that was the
+colour You were wearing--not gray, because that is a beautiful
+colour. The empty years until yesterday had no colour at all. Yes,
+the world has meaning only through loving, and without meaning
+there is no real life. We live only by loving, and now that this
+gift of life has come to me I love _all_ the world. I feel that I
+must be so kind, kind, _kind_ to _everybody_! Such an odd thing
+struck me as my greatest wish. When I was little, I remember
+grandmother telling me how, when she was a child in pioneer days,
+the women made the men's clothes--homespun--and how a handsome
+young Circuit Rider, who was a bachelor, seemed to her the most
+beautifully dressed man she had ever seen. The women of the
+different churches made his clothes, as they did their husbands'
+and brothers.' you see--only better! It came into my head that
+that would be the divinest happiness that I could know--to sew for
+you! If you and I lived in those old, old times--you _look_ as if
+you belonged to them, you know, dear--and You were the young
+minister riding into the settlement on a big bay horse--and all
+the girls at the window, of course!--and I sewing away at the
+homespun for you!--I think all the angels of heaven would be
+choiring in my heart--and what thick, warm clothes I'd make you
+for winter! Perhaps in heaven they'll let some of the women sew
+for the men they love--I wonder!
+
+"I hear Cora's voice from downstairs as I write. She's often so
+angry with Ray, poor girl. It does not seem to me that she and Ray
+really belong to each other, though they _say_ so often that they
+do."
+
+
+Richard having read thus far with a growing, vague uneasiness,
+looked up, frowning. He hoped Laura had no Marie Bashkirtseff idea
+of publishing this manuscript. It was too intimate, he thought,
+even if the names in it were to be disguised.
+
+. . . "Though they _say_ so often that they do. I think Ray is in
+love with _her_, but it can't be like _this_. What he feels must
+be something wholly different--there is violence and wildness in
+it. And they are bitter with each other so often-- always `getting
+even' for something. He does care--he is frantically `_in_ love'
+with her, undoubtedly, but so insanely jealous. I suppose all
+jealousy is insane. But love is the only sanity. How can what is
+insane be part of it? I could not be jealous of You. I owe life to
+you--I have never lived till now."
+
+
+The next writing was two days later:
+
+
+. . . . "To-day as I passed your house with Cora, I kept looking
+at the big front door at which you go in and out so often--_your_
+door! I never knew that just a door could look so beautiful! And
+unconsciously I kept my eyes on it, as we walked on, turning my
+head and looking and looking back at it, till Cora suddenly burst
+out laughing, and said: `Well, _Laura_!' And I came to myself--and
+found her looking at me. It was like getting back after a journey,
+and for a second I was a little dazed, and Cora kept on laughing
+at me, and I felt myself getting red. I made some silly excuse
+about thinking your house had been repainted--and she laughed
+louder than ever. I was afraid then that she understood--I wonder
+if she could have? I hope not, though I love her so much I don't
+know why I would rather she didn't know, unless it is just my
+_feeling_ about it. It is a _guardian_ feeling--that I must keep
+for myself, the music of these angels singing in my heart--singing
+of You. I hope she did not understand--and I so fear she did. Why
+should I be so _afraid_?" . . .
+
+. . . . "Two days since I have talked to You in your book after
+Cora caught me staring at your door and laughed at me--and ten
+minutes ago I was sitting beside the _actual_ You on the porch! I
+am trembling yet. It was the first time you'd come for months and
+months; and yet you had the air of thinking it rather a pleasant
+thing to do as you came up the steps! And a dizzy feeling came
+over me, because I wondered if it was seeing me on the street
+_that_ day that put it into your head to come. It seemed too much
+happiness--and risking too much--to let myself _believe_ it, but I
+couldn't help just wondering. I began to tremble as I saw you
+coming up our side of the street in the moonlight--and when you
+turned in here I was all panic--I nearly ran into the house. I
+don't know how I found voice to greet you. I didn't seem to have
+any breath left at all. I was so relieved when Cora took a chair
+between us and began to talk to you, because I'm sure I couldn't
+have. She and poor Ray had been having one of their quarrels and
+she was punishing him. Poor boy, he seemed so miserable--though he
+tried to talk to me--about politics, I think, though I'm not sure,
+because I couldn't listen much better than either of us could
+talk. I could only hear Your voice--such a rich, quiet voice, and
+it has a sound like the look you have--friendly and faraway and
+wistful. I have thought and thought about what it is that makes
+you look wistful. You have less to wish for than anybody else in
+the world because you have Yourself. So why are you wistful? I
+think it's just because you _are_!
+
+"I heard Cora asking you why you hadn't come to see us for so
+long, and then she said: `Is it because you dislike me? You look
+at me, sometimes, as if you dislike me!' And I wished she hadn't
+said it. I had a feeling you wouldn't like that `personal' way of
+talking that she enjoys--and that--oh, it didn't seem to be in
+keeping with the dignity of You! And I love Cora so much I wanted
+her to be finer--with You. I wanted her to understand you better
+than to play those little charming tricks at you. You are so good,
+so _high_, that if she could make a real friend of you I think it
+would be the best thing for her that could happen. She's never had
+a man-_friend_. Perhaps she _was_ trying to make one of you and
+hasn't any other way to go about it. She can be so _really_ sweet,
+I wanted you to see that side of her.
+
+"Afterwhile, when Ray couldn't bear it any longer to talk to me,
+and in his desperation brazenly took Cora to the other end of the
+porch almost by force, and I was left, in a way, alone with you
+what did you think of me? I was tongue-tied! Oh, oh, oh! You were
+quiet--but _I_ was _dumb_! My heart wasn't dumb--it hammered! All
+the time I kept saying to myself such a jumble of things. And into
+the jumble would come such a rapture that You were there--it was
+like a paean of happiness--a chanting of the glory of having You
+near me--I _was_ mixed up! I could _play_ all those confused
+things, but writing them doesn't tell it. Writing them would only
+be like this: `He's here, he's _here_! Speak, you little fool!
+He's here, he's here! He's sitting beside you! _speak_, idiot, or
+he'll never come back! He's here, he's beside you you could put
+out your hand and touch him! Are you dead, that you can't speak?
+He's here, he's here, he's _here_!'
+
+"Ah, some day I shall be able to talk to you--but not till I get
+more used to this inner song. It seems to _will_ that nothing else
+shall come from my lips till _it_ does!
+
+"In spite of my silence--my outward woodenness--you said, as you
+went away, that you would come again! You said `soon'! I could
+only nod but Cora called from the other end of the porch and
+asked: `_How_ soon?' Oh, I bless her for it, because you said,
+`Day after to-morrow.' Day after tomorrow! Day after to-morrow!
+_Day after tomorrow_!
+
+. . . . "Twenty-one hours since I wrote--no, _sang_--`Day after
+to-morrow!' And now it is `To-morrow!' Oh, the slow, golden day
+that this has been! I could not stay in the house--I walked--no, I
+_winged_! I was in the open country before I knew it--with You!
+For You are in everything. I never knew the sky was blue, before.
+Until now I just thought it was the sky. The whitest clouds I ever
+saw sailed over that blue, and I stood upon the prow of each in
+turn, then leaped in and swam to the next and sailed with _it_!
+Oh, the beautiful sky, and kind, green woods and blessed, long,
+white, dusty country road! Never in my life shall I forget that
+walk--this day in the open with my love--You! To-morrow!
+To-morrow! To-morrow! _To-morrow_!"
+
+
+The next writing in Laura's book was dated more than two months
+later:
+
+
+. . . . "I have decided to write again in this book. I have
+thought it all out carefully, and I have come to the conclusion
+that it can do no harm and may help me to be steady and sensible.
+It is the thought, not its expression, that is guilty, but I do
+not believe that my thoughts are guilty: I believe that they are
+good. I know that I wish only good. I have read that when people
+suffer very much the best thing is for them to cry. And so I'll
+let myself _write_ out my feelings--and perhaps get rid of some of
+the silly self-pity I'm foolish enough to feel, instead of going
+about choked up with it. How queer it is that even when we keep
+our thoughts respectable we can't help having absurd _feelings_
+like self-pity, even though we know how rotten stupid they are!
+Yes, I'll let it all out here, and then, some day, when I've cured
+myself all whole again, I'll burn this poor, silly old book. And
+if I'm not cured before the wedding, I'll burn it then, anyhow.
+
+"How funny little girls are! From the time they're little bits of
+things they talk about marriage--whom they are going to marry,
+what sort of person it will be. I think Cora and I began when she
+was about five and I not seven. And as girls grow up, I don't
+believe there was ever one who genuinely expected to be an old
+maid. The most unattractive young girls discuss and plan and
+expect marriage just as much as the prettier and gayer ones. The
+only way we can find out that men don't want to marry us is by
+their not asking us. We don't see ourselves very well, and I
+honestly believe we all think--way deep down--that we're pretty
+attractive. At least, every girl has the idea, sometimes, that if
+men only saw the whole truth they'd think her as nice as any other
+girl, and really nicer than most others. But I don't believe I
+have any hallucinations of that sort about myself left. I can't
+imagine--now--_any_ man seeing anything in me that would make him
+care for me. I can't see anything about me to care for, myself.
+Sometimes I think maybe I could make a man get excited about me if
+I could take a startlingly personal tone with him from the
+beginning, making him wonder all sorts of you-and-I perhapses--but
+I couldn't do it very well probably--oh, I couldn't make myself do
+it if I could do it well! And I shouldn't think it would have much
+effect except upon very inexperienced men--yet it does! Now, I
+wonder if this is a streak of sourness coming out; I don't feel
+bitter--I'm just thinking honestly, I'm sure.
+
+"Well, here I am facing it: all through my later childhood, and
+all through my girlhood, I believe what really occupied me
+most--with the thought of it underlying all things else, though
+often buried very deep--was the prospect of my marriage. I
+regarded it as a certainty: I would grow up, fall in love, get
+engaged, and be married--of course! So I grew up and fell in love
+with You--but it stops there, and I must learn how to be an Old
+Maid and not let anybody see that I mind it. I know this is the
+hardest part of it, the beginning: it will get easier by-and-by,
+of course. If I can just manage this part of it, it's bound not to
+hurt so much later on.
+
+"Yes, I grew up and fell in love with You--for you will always be
+You. I'll never, never get over _that_, my dear! You'll never,
+never know it; but I shall love You always till I die, and if I'm
+still Me after that, I shall keep right on loving you then, of
+course. You see, I didn't fall in love with you just to have you
+for myself. I fell in love with You! And that can never bother you
+at all nor ever be a shame to me that I love unsought, because you
+won't know, and because it's just an ocean of good-will, and every
+beat of my heart sends a new great wave of it toward you and Cora.
+I shall find happiness, I believe, in service--I am sure there
+will be times when I can serve you both. I love you both and I can
+serve her for You and you for her. This isn't a hysterical mood,
+or a fit of `exaltation': I have thought it all out and I know
+that I can live up to it. You are the best thing that can ever
+come into her life, and everything I can do shall be to keep you
+there. I must be very, very careful with her, for talk and advice
+do not influence her much. You love her--she has accepted you, and
+it is beautiful for you both. It must be kept beautiful. It has
+all become so clear to me: You are just what she has always
+needed, and if by any mischance she lost you I do not know what
+would become----"
+
+
+"Good God!" cried Richard. He sprang to his feet, and the heavy
+book fell with a muffled crash upon the floor, sprawling open upon
+its face, its leaves in disorder. He moved away from it, staring
+at it in incredulous dismay. But he knew.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN
+
+Memory, that drowsy custodian, had wakened slowly, during this
+hour, beginning the process with fitful gleams of
+semi-consciousness, then, irritated, searching its pockets for the
+keys and dazedly exploring blind passages; but now it flung wide
+open the gallery doors, and there, in clear light, were the rows
+of painted canvasses.
+
+He remembered "that day" when he was waiting for a car, and Laura
+Madison had stopped for a moment, and then had gone on, saying she
+preferred to walk. He remembered that after he got into the car he
+wondered why he had not walked home with her; had thought himself
+"slow" for not thinking of it in time to do it. There had seemed
+something very "taking" about her, as she stopped and spoke to
+him, something enlivening and wholesome and sweet--it had struck
+him that Laura was a "very nice girl." He had never before noticed
+how really charming she could look; in fact he had never thought
+much about either of the Madison sisters, who had become "young
+ladies" during his mourning for his brother. And this pleasant
+image of Laura remained with him for several days, until he
+decided that it might be a delightful thing to spend an evening
+with her. He had called, and he remembered, now, Cora's saying to
+him that he looked at her sometimes as if he did not like her; he
+had been surprised and astonishingly pleased to detect a
+mysterious feeling in her about it.
+
+He remembered that almost at once he had fallen in love with Cora:
+she captivated him, enraptured him, as she still did--as she
+always would, he felt, no matter how she treated him or what she
+did to him. He did not analyze the process of the captivation and
+enrapturement--for love is a mystery and cannot be analyzed. This
+is so well known that even Richard Lindley knew it, and did not
+try!
+
+. . . Heartsick, he stared at the fallen book. He was a man, and
+here was the proffered love of a woman he did not want. There was
+a pathos in the ledger; it seemed to grovel, sprawling and
+dishevelled in the circle of lamp-light on the floor: it was as if
+Laura herself lay pleading at his feet, and he looked down upon
+her, compassionate but revolted. He realized with astonishment
+from what a height she had fallen, how greatly he had respected
+her, how warmly liked her. What she now destroyed had been more
+important than he had guessed.
+
+Simple masculine indignation rose within him: she was to have been
+his sister. If she had been unable to stifle this misplaced love
+of hers, could she not at least have kept it to herself? Laura,
+the self-respecting! No; she offered it--offered it to her
+sister's betrothed. She had written that he should "never, never
+know it"; that when she was "cured" she would burn the ledger. She
+had not burned it! There were inconsistencies in plenty in the
+pitiful screed, but these were the wildest--and the cheapest. In
+talk, she had urged him to "keep trying," for Cora, and now the
+sick-minded creature sent him this record. She wanted him to know.
+Then what else was it but a plea? "I love you. Let Cora go. Take
+me."
+
+He began to walk up and down, wondering what was to be done. After
+a time, he picked up the book gingerly, set it upon a shelf in a
+dark corner, and went for a walk outdoors. The night air seemed
+better than that of the room that held the ledger.
+
+At the corner a boy, running, passed him. It was Hedrick Madison,
+but Hedrick did not recognize Richard, nor was his mind at that
+moment concerned with Richard's affairs; he was on an errand of
+haste to Doctor Sloane. Mr. Madison had wakened from a heavy
+slumber unable to speak, his condition obviously much worse.
+
+Hedrick returned in the doctor's car, and then hung uneasily about
+the door of the sick-room until Laura came out and told him to go
+to bed. In the morning, his mother did not appear at the breakfast
+table, Cora was serious and quiet, and Laura said that he need not
+go to school that day, though she added that the doctor thought
+their father would get "better." She looked wan and hollow-eyed:
+she had not been to bed, but declared that she would rest after
+breakfast. Evidently she had not missed her ledger; and Hedrick
+watched her closely, a pleasurable excitement stirring in his
+breast.
+
+She did not go to her room after the meal; the house was cold,
+possessing no furnace, and, with Hedrick's assistance, she carried
+out the ashes from the library grate, and built a fire there. She
+had just lighted it, and the kindling was beginning to crackle,
+glowing rosily over her tired face, when the bell rang.
+
+"Will you see who it is, please, Hedrick?"
+
+He went with alacrity, and, returning, announced in an odd voice.
+"It's Dick Lindley. He wants to see you."
+
+"Me?" she murmured, wanly surprised. She was kneeling before the
+fireplace, wearing an old dress which was dusted with ashes, and
+upon her hands a pair of worn-out gloves of her father's. Lindley
+appeared in the hall behind Hedrick, carrying under his arm
+something wrapped in brown paper. His expression led her to think
+that he had heard of her father's relapse, and came on that
+account.
+
+"Don't look at me, Richard," she said, smiling faintly as she
+rose, and stripping her hands of the clumsy gloves. "It's good of
+you to come, though. Doctor Sloane thinks he is going to be better
+again."
+
+Richard inclined his head gravely, but did not speak.
+
+"Well," said Hedrick with a slight emphasis, "I guess I'll go out
+in the yard a while." And with shining eyes he left the room.
+
+In the hall, out of range from the library door, he executed a
+triumphant but noiseless caper, and doubled with mirth, clapping
+his hand over his mouth to stifle the effervescings of his joy. He
+had recognized the ledger in the same wrapping in which he had
+left it in Mrs. Lindley's vestibule. His moment had come: the
+climax of his enormous joke, the repayment in some small measure
+for the anguish he had so long endured. He crept silently back
+toward the door, flattened his back against the wall, and
+listened.
+
+"Richard," he heard Laura say, a vague alarm in her voice, "what
+is it? What is the matter?"
+
+Then Lindley: "I did not know what to do about it. I couldn't
+think of any sensible thing. I suppose what I am doing is the
+stupidest of all the things I thought of, but at least it's
+honest--so I've brought it back to you myself. Take it, please."
+
+There was a crackling of the stiff wrapping paper, a little pause,
+then a strange sound from Laura. It was not vocal and no more than
+just audible: it was a prolonged scream in a whisper.
+
+Hedrick ventured an eye at the crack, between the partly open door
+and its casing. Lindley stood with his back to him, but the boy
+had a clear view of Laura. She was leaning against the wall,
+facing Richard, the book clutched in both arms against her bosom,
+the wrapping paper on the floor at her feet.
+
+"I thought of sending it back and pretending to think it had been
+left at my mother's house by mistake," said Richard sadly, "and of
+trying to make it seem that I hadn't read any of it. I thought of
+a dozen ways to pretend I believed you hadn't really meant me to
+read it----"
+
+Making a crucial effort, she managed to speak.
+
+"You--think I--did mean----"
+
+"Well," he answered, with a helpless shrug, "you sent it! But it's
+what's in it that really matters, isn't it? I could have pretended
+anything in a note, I suppose, if I had written instead of coming.
+But I found that what I most dreaded was meeting you again, and as
+we've got to meet, of course, it seemed to me the only thing to do
+was to blunder through a talk with you, somehow or another, and
+get that part of it over. I thought the longer I put off facing
+you, the worse it would be for both of us--and--and the more
+embarrassing. I'm no good at pretending, anyhow; and the thing has
+happened. What use is there in not being honest? Well?"
+
+She did not try again to speak. Her state was lamentable: it was
+all in her eyes.
+
+Richard hung his head wretchedly, turning partly away from her.
+"There's only one way--to look at it," he said hesitatingly, and
+stammering. "That is--there's only one thing to do: to forget that
+it's happened. I'm--I--oh, well, I care for Cora altogether. She's
+got never to know about this. She hasn't any idea or--suspicion of
+it, has she?"
+
+Laura managed to shake her head.
+
+"She never must have," he said. "Will you promise me to burn that
+book now?"
+
+She nodded slowly.
+
+"I--I'm awfully sorry, Laura," he said brokenly. "I'm not idiot
+enough not to see that you're suffering horribly. I suppose I have
+done the most blundering thing possible." He stood a moment,
+irresolute, then turned to the door. "Good-bye."
+
+Hedrick had just time to dive into the hideous little room of the
+multitudinous owls as Richard strode into the hall. Then, with the
+closing of the front door, the boy was back at his post.
+
+Laura stood leaning against the wall, the book clutched in her
+arms, as Richard had left her. Slowly she began to sink, her eyes
+wide open, and, with her back against the wall, she slid down
+until she was sitting upon the floor. Her arms relaxed and hung
+limp at her sides, letting the book topple over in her lap, and
+she sat motionless.
+
+One of her feet protruded from her skirt, and the leaping
+firelight illumined it ruddily. It was a graceful foot in an old
+shoe which had been re-soled and patched. It seemed very still,
+that patched shoe, as if it might stay still forever. Hedrick knew
+that Laura had not fainted, but he wished she would move her foot.
+
+He went away. He went into the owl-room again, and stood there
+silently a long, long time. Then he stole back again toward the
+library door, but caught a glimpse of that old, motionless shoe
+through the doorway as he came near. Then he spied no more. He
+went out to the stable, and, secluding himself in his studio, sat
+moodily to meditate.
+
+Something was the matter. Something had gone wrong. He had thrown
+a bomb which he had expected to go off with a stupendous bang,
+leaving him, as the smoke cleared, looking down in merry triumph,
+stinging his fallen enemies with his humour, withering them with
+satire, and inquiring of them how it felt, now _they_ were getting
+it. But he was decidedly untriumphant: he wished Laura had moved
+her foot and that she hadn't that patch upon her shoe. He could
+not get his mind off that patch. He began to feel very queer: it
+seemed to be somehow because of the patch. If she had worn a pair
+of new shoes that morning. . . . Yes, it was that patch.
+
+Thirteen is a dangerous age: nothing is more subtle. The boy,
+inspired to play the man, is beset by his own relapses into
+childhood, and Hedrick was near a relapse.
+
+By and by, he went into the house again, to the library. Laura was
+not there, but he found the fire almost smothered under heaping
+ashes. She had burned her book.
+
+He went into the room where the piano was, and played "The Girl on
+the Saskatchewan" with one finger; then went out to the porch and
+walked up and down, whistling cheerily.
+
+After that, he went upstairs and asked Miss Peirce how his father
+was "feeling," receiving a noncommital reply; looked in at Cora's
+room; saw that his mother was lying asleep on Cora's bed and Cora
+herself examining the contents of a dressing-table drawer; and
+withdrew. A moment later, he stood in the passage outside Laura's
+closed door listening. There was no sound.
+
+He retired to his own chamber, found it unbearable, and,
+fascinated by Laura's, returned thither; and, after standing a
+long time in the passage, knocked softly on the door.
+
+"Laura," he called, in a rough and careless voice, "it's kind of a
+pretty day outdoors. If you've had your nap, if I was you I'd go
+out for a walk." There was no response. "I'll go with you," he
+added, "if you want me to."
+
+He listened again and heard nothing. Then he turned the knob
+softly. The door was unlocked; he opened it and went in.
+
+Laura was sitting in a chair, with her back to a window, her hands
+in her lap. She was staring straight in front of her.
+
+He came near her hesitatingly, and at first she did not seem to
+see him or even to know that she was not alone in the room. Then
+she looked at him wonderingly, and, as he stood beside her, lifted
+her right hand and set it gently upon his head.
+
+"Hedrick," she said, "was it you that took my book to----"
+
+All at once he fell upon his knees, hid his face in her lap, and
+burst into loud and passionate sobbing.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+
+Valentine Corliss, having breakfasted in bed at a late hour that
+morning, dozed again, roused himself, and, making a toilet,
+addressed to the image in his shaving-mirror a disgusted
+monosyllable.
+
+"Ass!"
+
+However, he had not the look of a man who had played cards all
+night to a disastrous tune with an accompaniment in Scotch. His
+was a surface not easily indented: he was hard and healthy,
+clear-skinned and clear-eyed. When he had made himself
+point-device, he went into the "parlour" of his apartment,
+frowning at the litter of malodorous, relics, stumps and stubs and
+bottles and half-drained glasses, scattered chips and cards, dregs
+of a night session. He had been making acquaintances.
+
+He sat at the desk and wrote with a steady hand in Italian:
+
+
+MOST ILLUSTRIOUS MOLITERNO:
+
+We live but learn little. As to myself it appears that I learn
+nothing--nothing! You will at once convey to me by _cable_ five
+thousand lire. No; add the difference in exchange so as to make it
+one thousand dollars which I shall receive, taking that sum from
+the two-hundred and thirty thousand lire which I entrusted to your
+safekeeping by cable as the result of my enterprise in this place.
+I should have returned at once, content with that success, but as
+you know I am a very stupid fellow, never pleased with a moderate
+triumph, nor with a large one, when there is a possible prospect
+of greater. I am compelled to believe that the greater I had in
+mind in this case was an illusion: my gentle diplomacy avails
+nothing against a small miser--for we have misers even in these
+States, though you will not believe it. I abandon him to his
+riches! From the success of my venture I reserved four thousand
+dollars to keep by me and for my expenses, and it is humiliating
+to relate that all of this, except a small banknote or two, was
+taken from me last night by amateurs. I should keep away from
+cards--they hate me, and alone I can do nothing with them. Some
+young gentlemen of the place, whose acquaintance I had made at a
+ball, did me the honour of this lesson at the native game of
+poker, at which I--though also native--am not even so expert as
+yourself, and, as you will admit, Antonio, my friend, you are not
+a good player--when observed. Unaided, I was a child in their
+hands. It was also a painful rule that one paid for the counters
+upon delivery. This made me ill, but I carried it off with an air
+of carelessness creditable to an adopted Neapolitan. Upon receipt
+of the money you are to cable me, I shall leave this town and sail
+immediately. Come to Paris, and meet me there at the place on the
+Rue Auber within ten days from your reading this letter. You will
+have, remaining, two hundred and twenty-five thousand francs,
+which it will be safer to bring in cash, and I will deal well with
+you, as is our custom with each other. You have done excellently
+throughout; your cables and letters for exhibition concerning
+those famous oil wells have been perfection; and I shall of course
+not deduct what was taken by these thieves of poker players from
+the sum of profits upon which we shall estimate your commission. I
+have several times had the feeling that the hour for departure had
+arrived; now I shall delay not a moment after receiving your
+cable, though I may occupy the interim with a last attempt to
+interest my small miser. Various circumstances cause me some
+uneasiness, though I do not believe I could be successfully
+assailed by the law in the matter of oil. You do own an estate in
+Basilicata, at least your brother does--these good people here
+would not be apt to discover the difference--and the rest is a
+matter of plausibility. The odious coincidence of encountering the
+old cow, Pryor, fretted me somewhat (though he has not repeated
+his annoying call), and I have other small apprehensions--for
+example, that it may not improve my credit if my loss of last
+night becomes gossip, though the thieves professed strong habits
+of discretion. My little affair of gallantry grows embarrassing.
+Such affairs are so easy to inaugurate; extrication is more
+difficult. However, without it I should have failed to interest my
+investor and there is always the charm. Your last letter is too
+curious in that matter. Licentious man, one does not write of
+these things while under the banner of the illustrious Uncle
+Sam--I am assuming the American attitude while here, or perhaps my
+early youth returns to me--a thing very different from your own
+boyhood, Don Antonio. Nevertheless, I promise you some laughter in
+the Rue Auber. Though you will not be able to understand the half
+of what I shall tell you--particularly the portraits I shall
+sketch of my defeated rivals--your spirit shall roll with
+laughter.
+
+To the bank, then, the instant you read. Cable me one thousand
+dollars, and be at the Rue Auber not more than ten days later. To
+the bank! Thence to the telegraph office. Speed! V. C.
+
+
+He was in better spirits as he read over this letter, and he
+chuckled as he addressed it. He pictured himself in the rear room
+of the bar in the Rue Auber, relating, across the little
+marble-topped table, this American adventure, to the delight of
+that blithe, ne'er-do-well outcast of an exalted poor family, that
+gambler, blackmailer and merry rogue, Don Antonio Moliterno,
+comrade and teacher of this ductile Valentine since the later days
+of adolescence. They had been school-fellows in Rome, and later
+roamed Europe together unleashed, discovering worlds of many
+kinds. Valentine's careless mother let her boy go as he liked, and
+was often negligent in the matter of remittances: he and his
+friend learned ways to raise the wind, becoming expert and making
+curious affiliations. At her death there was a small inheritance;
+she had not been provident. The little she left went rocketing,
+and there was the wind to be raised again: young Corliss had wits
+and had found that they could supply him--most of the time--with
+much more than the necessities of life. He had also found that he
+possessed a strong attraction for various women; already--at
+twenty-two--his experience was considerable, and, in his way, he
+became a specialist. He had a talent; he improved it and his
+opportunities. Altogether, he took to the work without malice and
+with a light heart. . . .
+
+He sealed the envelope, rang for a boy, gave him the letter to
+post, and directed that the apartment should be set to rights. It
+was not that in which he had received Ray Vilas. Corliss had moved
+to rooms on another floor of the hotel, the day after that
+eccentric and somewhat ominous person had called to make an
+"investment." Ray's shadowy forebodings concerning that former
+apartment had encountered satire: Corliss was a "materialist" and,
+at the mildest estimate, an unusually practical man, but he would
+never sleep in a bed with its foot toward the door; southern Italy
+had seeped into him. He changed his rooms, a measure of which Don
+Antonio Moliterno would have wholly approved. Besides, these were
+as comfortable as the others, and so like them as even to confirm
+Ray's statement concerning "A Reading from Homer": evidently this
+work had been purchased by the edition.
+
+A boy came to announce that his "roadster" waited for him at the
+hotel entrance, and Corliss put on a fur motoring coat and cap,
+and went downstairs. A door leading from the hotel bar into the
+lobby was open, and, as Corliss passed it, there issued a mocking
+shout:
+
+"Tor'dor! Oh, look at the Tor'dor! Ain't he the handsome
+Spaniard!"
+
+Ray Vilas stumbled out, tousled, haggard, waving his arms in
+absurd and meaningless gestures; an amused gallery of tipplers
+filling the doorway behind him.
+
+"Goin' take Carmen buggy ride in the country, ain't he? Good ole
+Tor'dor!" he quavered loudly, clutching Corliss's shoulder. "How
+much you s'pose he pays f' that buzz-buggy by the day, jeli'm'n?
+Naughty Tor'dor, stole thousand dollars from me--makin'
+presents--diamond cresses. Tor'dor, I hear you been playing cards.
+Tha's sn't nice. Tor'dor, you're not a goo' boy at all--_you_ know
+you oughtn't waste Dick Lindley's money like that!"
+
+Corliss set his open hand upon the drunkard's breast and sent him
+gyrating and plunging backward. Some one caught the grotesque
+figure as it fell.
+
+"Oh, my God," screamed Ray, "I haven't got a gun on me! He _knows_
+I haven't got my gun with me! _Why_ haven't I got my gun with me?"
+
+They hustled him away, and Corliss, enraged and startled, passed
+on. As he sped the car up Corliss Street, he decided to anticipate
+his letter to Moliterno by a cable. He had stayed too long.
+
+Cora looked charming in a new equipment for November motoring; yet
+it cannot be said that either of them enjoyed the drive. They
+lunched a dozen miles out from the city at an establishment
+somewhat in the nature of a roadside inn; and, although its
+cuisine was quite unknown to Cora's friend, Mrs. Villard (an eager
+amateur of the table), they were served with a meal of such
+unusual excellence that the waiter thought it a thousand pities
+patrons so distinguished should possess such poor appetites.
+
+They returned at about three in the afternoon, and Cora descended
+from the car wearing no very amiable expression.
+
+"Why won't you come in now?" she asked, looking at him angrily.
+"We've got to talk things out. We've settled nothing whatever. I
+want to know why you can't stop."
+
+"I've got some matters to attend to, and----"
+
+"What matters?" She shot him a glance of fierce skepticism.
+
+"Are you packing to get out?"
+
+"Cora!" he cried reproachfully, "how can you say things like that
+to _me_!"
+
+She shook her head. "Oh, it wouldn't surprise me in the least! How
+do _I_ know what you'll do? For all I know, you may be just that
+kind of a man. You _said_ you ought to be going----"
+
+"Cora," he explained, gently, "I didn't say I meant to go. I said
+only that I thought I ought to, because Moliterno will be needing
+me in Basilicata. I ought to be there, since it appears that no
+more money is to be raised here. I ought to be superintending
+operations in the oil-field, so as to make the best use of the
+little I have raised."
+
+"You?" she laughed. "Of course _I_ didn't have anything to do with
+it!"
+
+He sighed deeply. "You know perfectly well that I appreciate all
+you did. We don't seem to get on very well to-day----"
+
+"No!" She laughed again, bitterly. "So you think you'll be going,
+don't you?"
+
+"To my rooms to write some necessary letters."
+
+"Of course not to pack your trunk?"
+
+"Cora," he returned, goaded; "sometimes you're just impossible.
+I'll come to-morrow forenoon."
+
+"Then don't bring the car. I'm tired of motoring and tired of
+lunching in that rotten hole. We can talk just as well in the
+library. Papa's better, and that little fiend will be in school
+to-morrow. Come out about ten."
+
+He started the machine. "Don't forget I love you," he called in a
+low voice.
+
+She stood looking after him as the car dwindled down the street.
+
+"Yes, you do!" she murmured.
+
+She walked up the path to the house, her face thoughtful, as with
+a tiresome perplexity. In her own room, divesting herself of her
+wraps, she gave the mirror a long scrutiny. It offered the picture
+of a girl with a hard and dreary air; but Cora saw something else,
+and presently, though the dreariness remained, the hardness
+softened to a great compassion. She suffered: a warm wave of
+sorrow submerged her, and she threw herself upon the bed and wept
+long and silently for herself.
+
+At last her eyes dried, and she lay staring at the ceiling. The
+doorbell rang, and Sarah, the cook, came to inform her that Mr.
+Richard Lindley was below.
+
+"Tell him I'm out."
+
+"Can't," returned Sarah. "Done told him you was home." And she
+departed firmly.
+
+Thus abandoned, the prostrate lady put into a few words what she
+felt about Sarah, and, going to the door, whisperingly summoned in
+Laura, who was leaving the sick-room, across the hall.
+
+"Richard is downstairs. Will you go and tell him I'm sick in
+bed--or dead? Anything to make him go." And, assuming Laura's
+acquiescence, Cora went on, without pause: "Is father worse?
+What's the matter with you, Laura?"
+
+"Nothing. He's a little better, Miss Peirce thinks."
+
+"You look ill."
+
+"I'm all right."
+
+"Then run along like a duck and get rid of that old bore for me."
+
+"Cora--please see him?"
+
+"Not me! I've got too much to think about to bother with him."
+
+Laura walked to the window and stood with her back to her sister,
+apparently interested in the view of Corliss Street there
+presented. "Cora," she said, "why don't you marry him and have
+done with all this?"
+
+Cora hooted.
+
+"Why not? Why not marry him as soon as you can get ready? Why
+don't you go down now and tell him you will? Why not, Cora?"
+
+"I'd as soon marry a pail of milk--yes, tepid milk, skimmed!
+I----"
+
+"Don't you realize how kind he'd be to you?"
+
+"I don't know about that," said Cora moodily. "He might object to
+some things--but it doesn't matter, because I'm not going to try
+him. I don't mind a man's being a fool, but I can't stand the
+absent-minded breed of idiot. I've worn his diamond in the pendant
+right in his eyes for weeks; he's never once noticed it enough
+even to ask me about the pendant, but bores me to death wanting to
+know why I won't wear the ring! Anyhow, what's the use talking
+about him? He couldn't marry me right now, even if I wanted him
+to--not till he begins to get something on the investment he made
+with Val. Outside of that, he's got nothing except his rooms at
+his mother's; she hasn't much either; and if Richard should lose
+what he put in with Val, he couldn't marry for years, probably.
+That's what made him so obstinate about it. No; if I ever marry
+right off the reel it's got to be somebody with----"
+
+"Cora"--Laura still spoke from the window, not turning--"aren't
+you tired of it all, of this getting so upset about one man and
+then another and----"
+
+"_Tired_!" Cora uttered the word in a repressed fury of emphasis.
+"I'm sick of _everything_! I don't care for anything or anybody on
+this earth--except--except you and mamma. I thought I was going to
+love Val. I thought I _did_--but oh, my Lord, I don't! I don't
+think I _can_ care any more. Or else there isn't any such thing as
+love. How can anybody tell whether there is or not? You get kind
+of crazy over a man and want to go the limit--or marry him
+perhaps--or sometimes you just want to make him crazy about
+you--and then you get over it--and what is there left but hell!"
+She choked with a sour laugh. "Ugh! For heaven's sake, Laura,
+don't make me talk. Everything's gone to the devil and I've got to
+think. The best thing you can do is to go down and get rid of
+Richard for me. I _can't_ see him!"
+
+"Very well," said Laura, and went to the door.
+
+"You're a darling," whispered Cora, kissing her quickly. "Tell him
+I'm in a raging headache--make him think I wanted to see him, but
+you wouldn't let me, because I'm too ill." She laughed. "Give me a
+little time, old dear: I may decide to take him yet!"
+
+It was Mrs. Madison who informed the waiting Richard that Cora was
+unable to see him, because she was "lying down"; and the young
+man, after properly inquiring about Mr. Madison, went blankly
+forth.
+
+Hedrick was stalking the front yard, mounted at a great height
+upon a pair of stilts. He joined the departing visitor upon the
+sidewalk and honoured him with his company, proceeding storkishly
+beside him.
+
+"Been to see Cora?"
+
+"Yes, Hedrick."
+
+"What'd you want to see her about?" asked the frank youth
+seriously.
+
+Richard was able to smile. "Nothing in particular, Hedrick."
+
+"You didn't come to tell her about something?"
+
+"Nothing whatever, my dear sir. I wished merely the honour of
+seeing her and chatting with her upon indifferent subjects."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Did you see her?"
+
+"No, I'm sorry to----"
+
+"She's home, all right," Hedrick took pleasure in informing him.
+
+"Yes. She was lying down and I told your mother not to disturb
+her."
+
+"Worn out with too much automobile riding, I expect," Hedrick
+sniffed. "She goes out about every day with this Corliss in his
+hired roadster."
+
+They walked on in silence. Not far from Mrs. Lindley's, Hedrick
+abruptly became vocal in an artificial laugh. Richard was
+obviously intended to inquire into its cause, but, as he did not,
+Hedrick, after laughing hollowly for some time, volunteered the
+explanation:
+
+"I played a pretty good trick on you last night."
+
+"Odd I didn't know it."
+
+"That's why it was good. You'd never guess it in the world."
+
+"No, I believe I shouldn't. You see what makes it so hard,
+Hedrick, is that I can't even remember seeing you, last night."
+
+"Nobody saw me. Somebody heard me though, all right."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The nigger that works at your mother's--Joe."
+
+"What about it? Were you teasing Joe?"
+
+"No, it was you I was after."
+
+"Well? Did you get me?"
+
+Hedrick made another somewhat ghastly pretence of mirth. "Well, I
+guess I've had about all the fun out of it I'm going to. Might as
+well tell you. It was that book of Laura's you thought she sent
+you."
+
+Richard stopped short; whereupon Hedrick turned clumsily, and
+began to stalk back in the direction from which they had come.
+
+"That book--I thought she--sent me?" Lindley repeated, stammering.
+
+"She never sent it," called the boy, continuing to walk away. "She
+kept it hid, and I found it. I faked her into writing your name on
+a sheet of paper, and made you think she'd sent the old thing to
+you. I just did it for a joke on you."
+
+With too retching an effort to simulate another burst of
+merriment, he caught the stump of his right stilt in a pavement
+crack, wavered, cut in the air a figure like a geometrical
+proposition gone mad, and came whacking to earth in magnificent
+disaster.
+
+Richard took him to Mrs. Lindley for repairs. She kept him until
+dark: Hedrick was bandaged, led, lemonaded and blandished.
+
+Never in his life had he known such a listener.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
+
+That was a long night for Cora Madison, and the morning found her
+yellow. She made a poor breakfast, and returned from the table to
+her own room, but after a time descended restlessly and wandered
+from one room to another, staring out of the windows. Laura had
+gone out; Mrs. Madison was with her husband, whom she seldom left;
+Hedrick had departed ostensibly for school; and the house was as
+still as a farm in winter--an intolerable condition of things for
+an effervescent young woman whose diet was excitement. Cora,
+drumming with her fingers upon a window in the owl-haunted cell,
+made noises with her throat, her breath and her lips not
+unsuggestive of a sputtering fuse. She was heavily charged.
+
+"Now what in thunder do _you_ want?" she inquired of an elderly
+man who turned in from the sidewalk and with serious steps
+approached the house.
+
+Pryor, having rung, found himself confronted with the lady he had
+come to seek. Ensued the moment of strangers meeting: invisible
+antennae extended and touched;--at the contact, Cora's drew in,
+and she looked upon him without graciousness.
+
+"I just called," he said placatively, smiling as if some humour
+lurked in his intention, "to ask how your father is. I heard
+downtown he wasn't getting along quite so well."
+
+"He's better this morning, thanks," said Cora, preparing to close
+the door.
+
+"I thought I'd just stop and ask about him. I heard he'd had
+another bad spell--kind of a second stroke."
+
+"That was night before last. The doctor thinks he's improved very
+much since then."
+
+The door was closing; he coughed hastily, and detained it by
+speaking again. "I've called several times to inquire about him,
+but I believe it's the first time I've had the pleasure of
+speaking to you, Miss Madison. I'm Mr. Pryor." She appeared to
+find no comment necessary, and he continued: "Your father did a
+little business for me, several years ago, and when I was here on
+my vacation, this summer, I was mighty sorry to hear of his
+sickness. I've had a nice bit of luck lately and got a second
+furlough, so I came out to spend a couple of weeks and
+Thanksgiving with my married daughter."
+
+Cora supposed that it must be very pleasant.
+
+"Yes," he returned. "But I was mighty sorry to hear your father
+wasn't much better than when I left. The truth is, I wanted to
+have a talk with him, and I've been reproaching myself a good deal
+that I didn't go ahead with it last summer, when he was well, only
+I thought then it mightn't be necessary--might be disturbing
+things without much reason."
+
+"I'm afraid you can't have a talk with him now," she said. "The
+doctor says----"
+
+"I know, I know," said Pryor, "of course. I wonder"--he hesitated,
+smiling faintly--"I wonder if I could have it with you instead."
+
+"Me?"
+
+"Oh, it isn't business," he laughed, observing her expression.
+"That is, not exactly." His manner became very serious. "It's
+about a friend of mine--at least, a man I know pretty well. Miss
+Madison, I saw you driving out through the park with him,
+yesterday noon, in an automobile. Valentine Corliss."
+
+Cora stared at him. Honesty, friendliness, and grave concern were
+disclosed to her scrutiny. There was no mistaking him: he was a
+good man. Her mouth opened, and her eyelids flickered as from a
+too sudden invasion of light--the look of one perceiving the close
+approach of a vital crisis. But there was no surprise in her face.
+
+"Come in," she said.
+
+    *       *       *
+
+. . . . When Corliss arrived, at about eleven o'clock that
+morning, Sarah brought him to the library, where he found Cora
+waiting for him. He had the air of a man determined to be cheerful
+under adverse conditions: he came in briskly, and Cora closed the
+door behind him.
+
+"Keep away from me," she said, pushing him back sharply, the next
+instant. "I've had enough of that for a while I believe."
+
+He sank into a chair, affecting desolation. "Caresses blighted in
+the bud! Cora, one would think us really married."
+
+She walked across the floor to a window, turned there, with her
+back to the light, and stood facing him, her arms folded.
+
+"Good heavens!" he exclaimed, noting this attitude. "Is it the
+trial scene from a faded melodrama?" She looked steadily at him
+without replying. "What's it all about to-day?" he asked lightly.
+"I'll try to give you the proper cues if you'll indicate the
+general nature of the scene, Cora mine."
+
+She continued to look at him in silence.
+
+"It's very effective," he observed. "Brings out the figure, too.
+Do forgive me if you're serious, dear lady, but never in my life
+was I able to take the folded-arms business seriously. It was used
+on the stage of all countries so much that I believe most
+new-school actors have dropped it. They think it lacks
+genuineness."
+
+Cora waited a moment longer, then spoke. "How much chance have I
+to get Richard Lindley's money back from you?"
+
+He was astounded. "Oh, I say!"
+
+"I had a caller, this morning," she said, slowly. "He talked about
+you--quite a lot! He's told me several things about you."
+
+"Mr. Vilas?" he asked, with a sting in his quick smile.
+
+"No," she answered coolly. "Much older."
+
+At that he jumped up, stepped quickly close to her, and swept her
+with an intense and brilliant scrutiny.
+
+"Pryor, by God!" he cried.
+
+"He knows you pretty well," she said. "So do I now!"
+
+He swung away from her, back to his chair, dropped into it and
+began to laugh. "Old Pryor! Doddering old Pryor! Doddering old ass
+of a Pryor! So he did! Blood of an angel! what a stew, what a
+stew!" He rose again, mirthless. "Well, what did he say?"
+
+She had begun to tremble, not with fear. "He said a good deal."
+
+"Well, what was it? What did he tell you?"
+
+"I think you'll find it plenty!"
+
+"Come on!"
+
+"_You_!" She pointed at him.
+
+"Let's have it."
+
+"He told me"--she burst out furiously--"he said you were a
+professional sharper!"
+
+"Oh, no. Old Pryor doesn't talk like that."
+
+She came toward him. "He told me you were notorious over half of
+Europe," she cried vehemently. "He said he'd arrested you himself,
+once, in Rotterdam, for smuggling jewels, and that you were
+guilty, but managed to squirm out of it. He said the police had
+put you out of Germany and you'd be arrested if you ever tried to
+go back. He said there were other places you didn't dare set foot
+in, and he said he could have you arrested in this country any
+time he wanted to, and that he was going to do it if he found
+you'd been doing anything wrong. Oh, yes, he told me a few
+things!"
+
+He caught her by the shoulder. "See here, Cora, do you believe all
+this tommy-rot?"
+
+She shook his hand off instantly. "Believe it? I know it! There
+isn't a straight line in your whole soul and mind: you're crooked
+all over. You've been crooked with _me_ from the start. The moment
+that man began to speak, I knew every word of it was true. He came
+to me because he thought it was right: he hasn't anything against
+you on his own account; he said he _liked_ you! I _knew_ it was
+true, I tell you."
+
+He tried to put his hand on her shoulder again, beginning to speak
+remonstratingly, but she cried out in a rage, broke away from him,
+and ran to the other end of the room.
+
+"Keep away! Do you suppose I like you to touch me? He told me you
+always had been a wonder with women! Said you were famous for
+`handling them the right way'--using them! Ah, that was pleasant
+information for _me_, wasn't it! Yes, I could have confirmed him
+on that point. He wanted to know if I thought you'd been doing
+anything of that sort here. What he meant was: Had you been using
+me?"
+
+"What did you tell him?" The question rang sharply on the instant.
+
+"Ha! That gets into you, does it?" she returned bitterly. "You
+can't overdo your fear of that man, I think, but _I_ didn't tell
+him anything. I just listened and thanked him for the warning, and
+said I'd have nothing more to do with you. How _could_ I tell him?
+Wasn't it I that made papa lend you his name, and got Richard to
+hand over his money? Where does that put _me_?" She choked; sobs
+broke her voice. "Every--every soul in town would point me out as
+a laughing-stock--the easiest fool out of the asylum! Do you
+suppose _I_ want you arrested and the whole thing in the papers?
+What I want is Richard's money back, and I'm going to have it!"
+
+"Can you be quiet for a moment and listen?" he asked gravely.
+
+"If you'll tell me what chance I have to get it back."
+
+"Cora," he said, "you don't want it back."
+
+"Oh? Don't I?"
+
+"No." He smiled faintly, and went on. "Now, all this nonsense of
+old Pryor's isn't worth denying. I have met him abroad; that much
+is true--and I suppose I have rather a gay reputation----"
+
+She uttered a jeering shout.
+
+"Wait!" he said. "I told you I'd cut quite a swathe, when I first
+talked to you about myself. Let it go for the present and come
+down to this question of Lindley's investment----"
+
+"Yes. That's what I want you to come down to."
+
+"As soon as Lindley paid in his check I gave him his stock
+certificates, and cabled the money to be used at once in the
+development of the oil-fields----"
+
+"What! That man told me you'd `promoted' a South American rubber
+company once, among people of the American colony in Paris. The
+details he gave me sounded strangely familiar!"
+
+"You'd as well be patient, Cora. Now, that money has probably been
+partially spent, by this time, on tools and labour and----"
+
+"What are you trying to----"
+
+"I'll show you. But first I'd like you to understand that nothing
+can be done to me. There's nothing `on' me! I've acted in good
+faith, and if the venture in oil is unsuccessful, and the money
+lost, I can't be held legally responsible, nor can any one prove
+that I am. I could bring forty witnesses from Naples to swear they
+have helped to bore the wells. I'm safe as your stubborn friend,
+Mr. Trumble, himself. But now then, suppose that old Pryor is
+right--as of course he isn't--suppose it, merely for a moment,
+because it will aid me to convey something to your mind. If I were
+the kind of man he says I am, and, being such a man, had planted
+the money out of reach, for my own use, what on earth would induce
+me to give it back?"
+
+"I knew it!" she groaned. "I knew you wouldn't!"
+
+"You see," he said quietly, "it would be impossible. We must go on
+supposing for a moment: if I had put that money away, I might be
+contemplating a departure----"
+
+"You'd better!" she cried fiercely. "He's going to find out
+everything you've been doing. He said so. He's heard a rumour that
+you were trying to raise money here; he told me so, and said he'd
+soon----"
+
+"The better reason for not delaying, perhaps. Cora, see here!" He
+moved nearer her. "Wouldn't I need a lot of money if I expected to
+have a beautiful lady to care for, and----"
+
+"You idiot!" she screamed. "Do you think I'm going with you?"
+
+He flushed heavily. "Well, aren't you?" He paused, to stare at
+her, as she wrung her hands and sobbed with hysterical laughter.
+"I thought," he went on, slowly, "that you would possibly even
+insist on that."
+
+"Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord!" She stamped her foot, and with both hands
+threw the tears from her eyes in wide and furious gestures. "He
+told me you were married----"
+
+"Did you let him think you hadn't known that?" demanded Corliss.
+
+"I tell you I didn't let him think _anything_! He said you would
+never be able to get a divorce: that your wife hates you too much
+to get one from you, and that she'll never----"
+
+"See here, Cora," he said harshly, "I told you I'd been married; I
+told you before I ever kissed you. You understood perfectly----"
+
+"I did not! You said you _had_ been. You laughed about it. You
+made me think it was something that had happened a long time ago.
+I thought of course you'd been divorced----"
+
+"But I told you----"
+
+"You told me after! And then you made me think you could easily
+get one--that it was only a matter of form and----"
+
+"Cora," he interrupted, "you're the most elaborate little
+self-deceiver I ever knew. I don't believe you've ever faced
+yourself for an honest moment in----"
+
+"Honest! _you_ talk about `honest'! You use that word and face
+_me_?"
+
+He came closer, meeting her distraught eyes squarely. "You love to
+fool yourself, Cora, but the role of betrayed virtue doesn't suit
+you very well. You're young, but you're a pretty experienced woman
+for all that, and you haven't done anything you didn't want to.
+You've had both eyes open every minute, and we both know it. You
+are just as wise as----"
+
+"You're lying and _you_ know it! What did _I_ want to make Richard
+go into your scheme for? You made a fool of me."
+
+"I'm not speaking of the money now," he returned quickly. "You'd
+better keep your mind on the subject. Are you coming away with
+me?"
+
+"What for?" she asked.
+
+"What _for_?" he echoed incredulously. "I want to know if you're
+coming. I promise you I'll get a divorce as soon as it's
+possible----"
+
+"Val," she said, in a tone lower than she had used since he
+entered the room; "Val, do you want me to come?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Much?" She looked at him eagerly.
+
+"Yes, I do." His answer sounded quite genuine.
+
+"Will it hurt you if I don't?"
+
+"Of course it will."
+
+"Thank heaven for that," she said quietly.
+
+"You honestly mean you won't?"
+
+"It makes me sick with laughing just to imagine it! I've done some
+hard little thinking, lately, my friend--particularly last night,
+and still more particularly this morning since that man was here.
+I'd cut my throat before I'd go with you. If you had your divorce
+I wouldn't marry you--not if you were the last man on earth!"
+
+"Cora," he cried, aghast, "what's the matter with you? You're too
+many for me sometimes. I thought I understood a few kinds of
+women! Now listen: I've offered to take you, and you can't
+say----"
+
+"Offered!" It was she who came toward him now. She came swiftly,
+shaking with rage, and struck him upon the breast. "`Offered'! Do
+you think I want to go trailing around Europe with you while Dick
+Lindley's money lasts? What kind of a life are you `offering' me?
+Do you suppose I'm going to have everybody saying Cora Madison ran
+away with a jail-bird? Do you think I'm going to dodge decent
+people in hotels and steamers, and leave a name in this town
+that--Oh, get out! I don't want any help from you! I can take care
+of myself, I tell you; and I don't have to marry _you_! I'd kill
+you if I could--you made a fool of me!" Her voice rose shrilly.
+"You made a fool of me!"
+
+"Cora----" he began, imploringly.
+
+"You made a fool of me!" She struck him again.
+
+"Strike me," he said. "I love you!"
+
+"Actor!"
+
+"Cora, I want you. I want you more than I ever----"
+
+She screamed with hysterical laughter. "Liar, liar, liar! The same
+old guff. Don't you even see it's too late for the old rotten
+tricks?"
+
+"Cora, I want you to come."
+
+"You poor, conceited fool," she cried, "do you think you're the
+only man I can marry?"
+
+"Cora," he gasped, "you wouldn't do that!"
+
+"Oh, get out! Get out _now_! I'm tired of you. I never want to
+hear you speak again."
+
+"Cora," he begged. "For the last time----"
+
+"_No_! You made a fool of me!" She beat him upon the breast,
+striking again and again, with all her strength. "Get out, I
+tell you! I'm through with you!"
+
+He tried to make her listen, to hold her wrists: he could do
+neither.
+
+"Get out--get out!" she screamed. She pushed and dragged him
+toward the door, and threw it open. Her voice thickened; she
+choked and coughed, but kept on screaming: "Get out, I tell you!
+Get out, get out, damn you! Damn you, _damn_ you! get out!"
+
+Still continuing to strike him with all her strength, she forced
+him out of the door.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
+
+Cora lost no time. Corliss had not closed the front door behind
+him before she was running up the stairs. Mrs. Madison, emerging
+from her husband's room, did not see her daughter's face; for Cora
+passed her quickly, looking the other way.
+
+"Was anything the matter?" asked the mother anxiously. "I thought
+I heard----"
+
+"Nothing in the world," Cora flung back over her shoulder. "Mr.
+Corliss said I couldn't imitate Sara Bernhardt, and I showed him I
+could." She began to hum; left a fragment of "rag-time" floating
+behind her as she entered her own room; and Mrs. Madison,
+relieved, returned to the invalid.
+
+Cora changed her clothes quickly. She put on a pale gray skirt and
+coat for the street, high shoes and a black velvet hat, very
+simple. The costume was almost startlingly becoming to her: never
+in her life had she looked prettier. She opened her small
+jewel-case, slipped all her rings upon her fingers; then put the
+diamond crescent, the pendant, her watch, and three or four other
+things into the flat, envelope-shaped bag of soft leather she
+carried when shopping. After that she brought from her
+clothes-pantry a small travelling-bag and packed it hurriedly.
+
+Laura, returning from errands downtown and glancing up at Cora's
+window, perceived an urgently beckoning, gray-gloved hand, and
+came at once to her sister's room.
+
+The packed bag upon the bed first caught her eye; then Cora's
+attire, and the excited expression of Cora's face, which was
+high-flushed and moist, glowing with a great resolve.
+
+"What's happened?" asked Laura quickly. "You look exactly like a
+going-away bride. What----"
+
+Cora spoke rapidly: "Laura, I want you to take this bag and keep
+it in your room till a messenger-boy comes for it. When the bell
+rings, go to the door yourself, and hand it to him. Don't give
+Hedrick a chance to go to the door. Just give it to the boy;--and
+don't say anything to mamma about it. I'm going downtown and I may
+not be back."
+
+Laura began to be frightened.
+
+"What is it you want to do, Cora?" she asked, trembling.
+
+Cora was swift and business-like. "See here, Laura, I've got to
+keep my head about me. You can do a great deal for me, if you
+won't be emotional just now, and help me not to be. I can't afford
+it, because I've got to do things, and I'm going to do them just
+as quickly as I can, and get it over. If I wait any longer I'll go
+insane. I _can_'T wait! You've been a wonderful sister to me; I've
+always counted on you, and you've never once gone back on me.
+Right now, I need you to help me more than I ever have in my life.
+Will you----"
+
+"But I must know----"
+
+"No, you needn't! I'll tell you just this much: I've got myself in
+a devil of a mess----"
+
+Laura threw her arms round her: "Oh, my dear, dear little sister!"
+she cried.
+
+But Cora drew away. "Now that's just what you mustn't do. I can't
+stand it! You've got to be _quiet_. I can't----"
+
+"Yes, yes," Laura said hurriedly. "I will. I'll do whatever you
+say."
+
+"It's perfectly simple: all I want you to do is to take charge of
+my travelling-bag, and, when a messenger-boy comes, give it to him
+without letting anybody know anything about it."
+
+"But I've got to know where you're going--I can't let you go and
+not----"
+
+"Yes, you can! Besides, you've promised to. I'm not going to do
+anything foolish ----"
+
+"Then why not tell me?" Laura began. She went on, imploring Cora
+to confide in her, entreating her to see their mother--to do a
+dozen things altogether outside of Cora's plans.
+
+"You're wasting your breath, Laura," said the younger sister,
+interrupting, "and wasting my time. You're in the dark: you think
+I'm going to run away with Val Corliss and you're wrong. I sent
+him out of the house for good, a while ago----"
+
+"Thank heaven for that!" cried Laura.
+
+"I'm going to take care of myself," Cora went on rapidly. "I'm
+going to get out of the mess I'm in, and you've got to let me do
+it my own way. I'll send you a note from downtown. You see that
+the messenger----"
+
+She was at the door, but Laura caught her by the sleeve,
+protesting and beseeching.
+
+Cora turned desperately. "See here. I'll come back in two hours
+and tell you all about it. If I promise that, will you promise to
+send me the bag by the----"
+
+"But if you're coming back you won't need----"
+
+Cora spoke very quietly. "I'll go to pieces in a moment. Really, I
+do think I'd better jump out of the window and have it over."
+
+"I'll send the bag," Laura quavered, "if you'll promise to come
+back in two hours."
+
+"I promise!"
+
+Cora gave her a quick embrace, a quick kiss, and, dry-eyed, ran
+out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the house.
+
+She walked briskly down Corliss Street. It was a clear day, bright
+noon, with an exhilarating tang in the air, and a sky so glorious
+that people outdoors were continually conscious of the blue
+overhead, and looked up at it often. An autumnal cheerfulness was
+abroad, and pedestrians showed it in their quickened steps, in
+their enlivened eyes, and frequent smiles, and in the colour of
+their faces. But none showed more colour or a gayer look than
+Cora. She encountered many whom she knew, for it was indeed a day
+to be stirring, and she nodded and smiled her way all down the
+long street, thinking of what these greeted people would say
+to-morrow. "_I_ saw her yesterday, walking down Corliss Street,
+about noon, in a gray suit and looking fairly radiant!" Some of
+those she met were enemies she had chastened; she prophesied their
+remarks with accuracy. Some were old suitors, men who had desired
+her; one or two had place upon her long list of boy-sweethearts:
+she gave the same gay, friendly nod to each of them, and foretold
+his morrow's thoughts of her, in turn. Her greeting of Mary Kane
+was graver, as was aesthetically appropriate, Mr. Wattling's
+engagement having been broken by that lady, immediately after his
+drive to the Country Club for tea. Cora received from the
+beautiful jilt a salutation even graver than her own, which did
+not confound her.
+
+Halfway down the street was a drug-store. She went in, and
+obtained appreciative permission to use the telephone. She came
+out well satisfied, and went swiftly on her way. Ten minutes
+later, she opened the door of Wade Trumble's office.
+
+He was alone; her telephone had caught him in the act of departing
+for lunch. But he had been glad to wait--glad to the verge of
+agitation.
+
+"By George, Cora!" he exclaimed, as she came quickly in and closed
+the door, "but you _can_ look stunning! Believe me, that's some
+get-up. But let me tell you right here and now, before you begin,
+it's no use your tackling me again on the oil proposition. If
+there was any chance of my going into it which there wasn't, not
+one on earth--why, the very fact of your asking me would have
+stopped me. I'm no Dick Lindley, I beg to inform you: I don't
+spend my money helping a girl that I want, myself, to make a hit
+with another man. You treated me like a dog about that, right in
+the street, and you needn't try it again, because I won't stand
+for it. You can't play _me_, Cora!"
+
+"Wade," she said, coming closer, and looking at him mysteriously,
+"didn't you tell me to come to you when I got through playing?"
+
+"What?" He grew very red, took a step back from her, staring at
+her distrustfully, incredulously.
+
+"I've got through playing", she said in a low voice. "And I've
+come to you."
+
+He was staggered. "You've come----" he said, huskily.
+
+"Here I am, Wade."
+
+He had flushed, but now the colour left his small face, and he
+grew very white. "I don't believe you mean it."
+
+"Listen," she said. "I was rotten to you about that oil nonsense.
+It _was_ nonsense, nothing on earth but nonsense. I tell you
+frankly I was a fool. I didn't care the snap of my finger for
+Corliss, but--oh, what's the use of pretending? You were always
+such a great `business man,' always so absorbed in business, and
+put it before everything else in the world. You cared for me, but
+you cared for business more than for me. Well, no woman likes
+_that_, Wade. I've come to tell you the whole thing: I can't stand
+it any longer. I suffered horribly because--because----" She
+faltered. "Wade, that was no way to _win_ a girl."
+
+"Cora!" His incredulity was strong.
+
+"I thought I hated you for it, Wade. Yes, I did think that; I'm
+telling you everything, you see just blurting it out as it comes,
+Wade. Well, Corliss asked me to help him, and it struck me I'd
+show that I could understand a business deal, myself. Wade, this
+is pretty hard to say, I was such a little fool, but you ought to
+know it. You've got a right to know it, Wade: I thought if I put
+through a thing like that, it would make a tremendous hit with
+you, and that then I could say: `So this is the kind of thing you
+put ahead of _me_, is it? Simple little things like this, that _I_
+can do, myself, by turning over my little finger!' So I got
+Richard to go in--that was easy; and then it struck me that the
+crowning triumph of the whole thing would be to get you to come in
+yourself. That _would_ be showing you, I thought! But you
+wouldn't: you put me in my place--and I was angry--I never was so
+angry in my life, and I showed it." Tears came into her voice.
+"Oh, Wade," she said, softly, "it was the very wildness of my
+anger that showed what I really felt."
+
+"About--about _me_?" His incredulity struggled with his hope. He
+stepped close to her.
+
+"What an awful fool I've been," she sighed.
+
+"Why, I thought I could show you I was your _equal_! And look what
+it's got me into, Wade!"
+
+"What has it got you into, Cora?"
+
+"One thing worth while: I can see what I really am when I try to
+meet you on your own ground." She bent her head, humbly, then
+lifted it, and spoke rapidly. "All the rest is dreadful, Wade. I
+had a distrust of Corliss from the first; I didn't like him, but I
+took him up because I thought he offered the chance to show _you_
+what I could do. Well, it's got me into a most horrible mess. He's
+a swindler, a rank----"
+
+"By George!" Wade shouted. "Cora, you're talking out now like a
+real woman."
+
+"Listen. I got horribly tired of him after a week or so, but I'd
+promised to help him and I didn't break with him; but yesterday I
+just couldn't stand him any longer and I told him so, and sent him
+away. Then, this morning, an old man came to the house, a man
+named Pryor, who knew him and knew his record, and he told me all
+about him." She narrated the interview.
+
+"But you had sent Corliss away first?" Wade asked, sharply.
+
+"Yesterday, I tell you." She set her hand on the little man's
+shoulder. "Wade, there's bound to be a scandal over all this. Even
+if Corliss gets away without being arrested and tried, the whole
+thing's bound to come _out_. I'll be the laughing-stock of the
+town--and I deserve to be: it's all through having been ridiculous
+idiot enough to try and impress you with my business brilliancy.
+Well, I can't stand it!"
+
+"Cora, do you----" He faltered.
+
+She leaned toward him, her hand still on his shoulder, her
+exquisite voice lowered, and thrilling in its sweetness. "Wade,
+I'm through playing. I've come to you at last because you've
+utterly conquered me. If you'll take me away to-day, I'll _marry_
+you to-day!"
+
+He gave a shout that rang again from the walls.
+
+"Do you want me?" she whispered; then smiled upon his rapture
+indulgently.
+
+Rapture it was. With the word "marry," his incredulity sped
+forever. But for a time he was incoherent: he leaped and hopped,
+spoke broken bits of words, danced fragmentarily, ate her with his
+eyes, partially embraced her, and finally kissed her timidly.
+
+"Such a wedding we'll have!" he shouted, after that.
+
+"No!" she said sharply. "We'll be married by a Justice of the
+Peace and not a soul there but us, and it will be now, or it never
+will be! If you don't----"
+
+He swore she should have her way.
+
+"Then we'll be out of this town on the three o'clock train this
+afternoon," she said. She went on with her plans, while he,
+growing more accustomed to his privilege, caressed her as he
+would. "You shall have your way," she said, "in everything except
+the wedding-journey. That's got to be a long one--I won't come
+back here till people have forgotten all about this Corliss
+mix-up. I've never been abroad, and I want you to take me. We can
+stay a long, long time. I've brought nothing--we'll get whatever
+we want in New York before we sail."
+
+He agreed to everything. He had never really hoped to win her;
+paradise had opened, dazing him with glory: he was astounded, mad
+with joy, and abjectly his lady's servant.
+
+"Hadn't you better run along and get the license?" she laughed.
+"We'll have to be married on the way to the train." "Cora!" he
+gasped. "You angel!"
+
+"I'll wait here for you," she smiled. "There won't be too much
+time."
+
+He obtained a moderate control of his voice and feet.
+"Enfield--that's my cashier--he'll be back from his lunch at
+one-thirty. Tell him about us, if I'm not here by then. Tell him
+he's got to manage somehow. Good-bye till I come back Mrs.
+Trumble!"
+
+At the door he turned. "Oh, have you--you----" He paused
+uncertainly. "Have you sent Richard Lindley any word about----"
+
+"Wade!" She gave his inquiry an indulgent amusement. "If I'm not
+worrying about him, do you think you need to?"
+
+"I meant about----"
+
+"You funny thing," she said. "I never had any idea of really
+marrying him; it wasn't anything but one of those silly
+half-engagements, and----"
+
+"I didn't mean that," he said, apologetically. "I meant about
+letting him know what this Pryor told you about Corliss, so that
+Richard might do something toward getting his money back. We ought
+to--"
+
+"Oh, yes," she said quickly. "Yes, that's all right."
+
+"You saw Richard?"
+
+"No. I sent him a note. He knows all about it by this time, if he
+has been home this morning. You'd better start, Wade. Send a
+messenger to our house for my bag. Tell him to bring it here and
+then take a note for me. You'd really better start--dear!"
+
+"_Cora_!" he shouted, took her in his arms, and was gone. His
+departing gait down the corridor to the elevator seemed, from the
+sounds, to be a gallop.
+
+Left alone, Cora wrote, sealed, and directed a note to Laura. In
+it she recounted what Pryor had told her of Corliss; begged Laura
+and her parents not to think her heartless in not preparing them
+for this abrupt marriage. She was in such a state of nervousness,
+she wrote, that explanations would have caused a breakdown. The
+marriage was a sensible one; she had long contemplated it as a
+possibility; and, after thinking it over thoroughly, she had
+decided it was the only thing to do. She sent her undying love.
+
+She was sitting with this note in her hand when shuffling
+footsteps sounded in the corridor; either Wade's cashier or the
+messenger, she supposed. The door-knob turned, a husky voice
+asking, "Want a drink?" as the door opened.
+
+Cora was not surprised--she knew Vilas's office was across the
+hall from that in which she waited--but she was frightened.
+
+Ray stood blinking at her.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he asked, at last.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
+
+It is probable that he got the truth out of her, perhaps all of
+it. That will remain a matter of doubt; Cora's evidence, if she
+gave it, not being wholly trustworthy in cases touching herself.
+But she felt no need of mentioning to any one that she had seen
+her former lover that day. He had gone before the return of
+Enfield, Mr. Trumble's assistant, who was a little later than
+usual, it happened; and the extreme nervousness and preoccupation
+exhibited by Cora in telling Enfield of his employer's new plans
+were attributed by the cashier to the natural agitation of a lady
+about to wed in a somewhat unusual (though sensible) manner.
+
+It is the more probable that she told Ray the whole truth, because
+he already knew something of Corliss's record abroad. On the dusty
+desk in Ray's own office lay a letter, received that morning from
+the American Consul at Naples, which was luminous upon that
+subject, and upon the probabilities of financial returns for the
+investment of a thousand dollars in the alleged oil-fields of
+Basilicata.
+
+In addition, Cora had always found it very difficult to deceive
+Vilas: he had an almost perfect understanding of a part of her
+nature; she could never far mislead him about herself. With her,
+he was intuitive and jumped to strange, inconsistent, true
+conclusions, as women do. He had the art of reading her face, her
+gestures; he had learned to listen to the tone of her voice more
+than to what she said. In his cups, too, he had fitful but almost
+demoniac inspirations for hidden truth.
+
+And, remembering that Cora always "got even," it remains finally
+to wonder if she might not have told him everything at the
+instance of some shadowy impulse in that direction. There may have
+been a luxury in whatever confession she made; perhaps it was not
+entirely forced from her, and heaven knows how she may have
+coloured it. There was an elusive, quiet satisfaction somewhere in
+her subsequent expression; it lurked deep under the surface of the
+excitement with which she talked to Enfield of her imminent
+marital abduction of his small boss.
+
+Her agitation, a relic of the unknown interview just past,
+simmered down soon, leaving her in a becoming glow of colour, with
+slender threads of moisture brilliantly outlining her eyelids. Mr.
+Enfield, a young, well-favoured and recent importation from
+another town, was deliciously impressed by the charm of the
+waiting lady. They had not met; and Enfield wondered how Trumble
+had compassed such an enormous success as this; and he wished that
+he had seen her before matters had gone so far. He thought he
+might have had a chance. She seemed pleasantly interested in him,
+even as it was--and her eyes were wonderful, with their swift,
+warm, direct little plunges into those of a chance comrade of the
+moment. She went to the window, in her restlessness, looking down
+upon the swarming street below, and the young man, standing beside
+her, felt her shoulder most pleasantly though very lightly--in
+contact with his own, as they leaned forward, the better to see
+some curiosity of advertising that passed. She turned her face to
+his just then, and told him that he must come to see her: the
+wedding journey would be long, she said, but it would not be
+forever.
+
+Trumble bounded in, shouting that everything was attended to,
+except instructions to Enfield, whom he pounded wildly upon the
+back. He began signing papers; a stenographer was called from
+another room of his offices; and there was half an hour of
+rapid-fire. Cora's bag came, and she gave the bearer the note for
+Laura; another bag was brought for Wade; and both bags were
+carried down to the automobile the bridegroom had left waiting in
+the street. Last, came a splendid cluster of orchids for the bride
+to wear, and then Wade, with his arm about her, swept her into the
+corridor, and the stirred Enfield was left to his own beating
+heart, and the fresh, radiant vision of this startling new
+acquaintance: the sweet mystery of the look she had thrown back at
+him over his employer's shoulder at the very last. "Do not forget
+_me_!" it had seemed to say. "We shall come back--some day."
+
+The closed car bore the pair to the little grim marriage-shop
+quickly enough, though they were nearly run down by a furious
+police patrol automobile, at a corner near the Richfield Hotel.
+Their escape was by a very narrow margin of safety, and Cora
+closed her eyes. Then she was cross, because she had been
+frightened, and commanded Wade cavalierly to bid the driver be
+more careful.
+
+Wade obeyed sympathetically. "Of course, though, it wasn't
+altogether his fault," he said, settling back, his arm round his
+lady's waist. "It's an outrage for the police to break their own
+rules that way. I guess they don't need to be in a hurry any more
+than _we_ do!"
+
+The Justice made short work of it.
+
+As they stood so briefly before him, there swept across her vision
+the memory of what she had always prophesied as her wedding:--a
+crowded church, "The Light That Breathed O'er Eden" from an unseen
+singer; then the warm air trembling to the Lohengrin march; all
+heads turning; the procession down the aisle; herself
+appearing--climax of everything--a delicious and brilliant figure:
+graceful, rosy, shy, an imperial prize for the groom, who in these
+foreshadowings had always been very indistinct. The picture had
+always failed in outline there: the bridegroom's nearest approach
+to definition had never been clearer than a composite photograph.
+The truth is, Cora never in her life wished to be married.
+
+But she was.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
+
+Valentine Corliss had nothing to do but to wait for the money
+his friend Antonio would send him by cable. His own cable,
+anticipating his letter, had been sent yesterday, when he came
+back to the hotel, after lunching in the country with Cora.
+
+As he walked down Corliss Street, after his tumultuous interview
+with her, he was surprised to find himself physically tremulous:
+he had not supposed that an encounter, however violent, with an
+angry woman could so upset his nerves. It was no fear of Pryor
+which shook him. He knew that Pryor did not mean to cause his
+arrest--certainly not immediately. Of course, Pryor knew that Cora
+would tell him. The old fellow's move was a final notification. It
+meant: "Get out of town within twenty-four hours." And Corliss
+intended to obey. He would have left that evening, indeed, without
+the warning; his trunk was packed.
+
+He would miss Cora. He had kept a cool head throughout their
+affair until the last; but this morning she had fascinated him:
+and he found himself passionately admiring the fury of her. She
+had confused him as he had never been confused. He thought he had
+tamed her; thought he owned her; and the discovery of this mistake
+was what made him regret that she would not come away with him.
+Such a flight, until to-day, had been one of his apprehensions:
+but now the thought that it was not to be, brought something like
+pain. At least, he felt a vacancy; had a sense of something
+lacking. She would have been a bright comrade for the voyage; and
+he thought of gestures of hers, turns of the head, tricks of the
+lovely voice; and sighed.
+
+Of course it was best for him that he could return to his old
+trails alone and free; he saw that. Cora would have been a
+complication and an embarrassment without predictable end, but she
+would have been a rare flame for a while. He wondered what she
+meant to do; of course she had a plan. Should he try again, give
+her another chance? No; there was one point upon which she had not
+mystified him: he knew she really hated him.
+
+. . . The wind was against the smoke that day; and his spirits
+rose, as he walked in the brisk air with the rich sky above him.
+After all, this venture upon his native purlieus had been fax from
+fruitless: he could not have expected to do much better. He had
+made his coup; he knew no other who could have done it. It was a
+handsome bit of work, in fact, and possible only to a talented
+native thoroughly sophisticated in certain foreign subtleties. He
+knew himself for a rare combination.
+
+He had a glimmer of Richard Lindley beginning at the beginning
+again to build a modest fortune: it was the sort of thing the
+Richard Lindleys were made for. Corliss was not troubled. Richard
+had disliked him as a boy; did not like him now; but Corliss had
+not taken his money out of malice for that. The adventurer was not
+revengeful; he was merely impervious.
+
+At the hotel, he learned that Moliterno's cable had not yet
+arrived; but he went to an agency of one of the steamship lines
+and reserved his passage, and to a railway ticket office and
+secured a compartment for himself on an evening train. Then he
+returned to his room in the hotel.
+
+The mirror over the mantelpiece, in the front room of his suite,
+showed him a fine figure of a man: hale, deep-chested, handsome,
+straight and cheerful.
+
+He nodded to it.
+
+"Well, old top," he said, reviewing and summing up his whole
+campaign, "not so bad. Not so bad, all in all; not so bad, old
+top. Well played indeed!"
+
+At a sound of footsteps approaching his door, he turned in casual
+expectancy, thinking it might be a boy to notify him that
+Moliterno's cable had arrived. But there was no knock, and the
+door was flung wide open.
+
+It was Vilas, and he had his gun with him this time. He had two.
+
+There was a shallow clothes-closet in the wall near the fireplace,
+and Corliss ran in there; but Vilas began to shoot through the
+door.
+
+Mutilated, already a dead man, and knowing it, Corliss came out,
+and tried to run into the bedroom. It was no use.
+
+Ray saved his last shot for himself. It did the work.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
+
+There is a song of parting, an intentionally pathetic song, which
+contains the line, "All the tomorrows shall be as to-day," meaning
+equally gloomy. Young singers, loving this line, take care to
+pronounce the words with unusual distinctness: the listener may
+feel that the performer has the capacity for great and consistent
+suffering. It is not, of course, that youth loves unhappiness, but
+the appearance of it, its supposed picturesqueness. Youth runs
+from what is pathetic, but hangs fondly upon pathos. It is the
+idea of sorrow, not sorrow, which charms: and so the young singer
+dwells upon those lingering tomorrows, happy in the conception of
+a permanent wretchedness incurred in the interest of sentiment.
+For youth believes in permanence.
+
+It is when we are young that we say, "I shall never," and "I shall
+always," not knowing that we are only time's atoms in a crucible
+of incredible change. An old man scarce dares say, "I have never,"
+for he knows that if he searches he will find, probably, that he
+has. "All, all is change."
+
+It was an evening during the winter holidays when Mrs. Lindley,
+coming to sit by the fire in her son's smoking-room, where Richard
+sat glooming, narrated her legend of the Devil of Lisieux. It must
+have been her legend: the people of Lisieux know nothing of it;
+but this Richard the Guileless took it for tradition, as she
+alleged it, and had no suspicion that she had spent the afternoon
+inventing it.
+
+She did not begin the recital immediately upon taking her chair,
+across the hearth from her son; she led up to it. She was an
+ample, fresh-coloured, lively woman; and like her son only in
+being a kind soul: he got neither his mortal seriousness nor his
+dreaminess from her. She was more than content with Cora's
+abandonment of him, though, as chivalrousness was not demanded of
+her, she would have preferred that he should have been the jilt.
+She thought Richard well off in his release, even at the price of
+all his savings. But there was something to hope, even in that
+matter, Pryor wrote from Paris encouragingly: he believed that
+Moliterno might be frightened or forced into at least a partial
+restitution; though Richard would not count upon it, and had
+"begun at the beginning" again, as a small-salaried clerk in a
+bank, trudging patiently to work in the morning and home in the
+evening, a long-faced, tired young man, more absent than ever,
+lifeless, and with no interest in anything outside his own
+broodings. His mother, pleased with his misfortune in love, was of
+course troubled that it should cause him to suffer. She knew she
+could not heal him; but she also knew that everything is healed in
+time, and that sometimes it is possible for people to help time a
+little.
+
+Her first remark to her son, this evening, was that to the best of
+her memory she had never used the word "hellion." And, upon his
+saying gently, no, he thought it probable that she never had, but
+seeking no farther and dropping his eyes to the burning wood,
+apparently under the impression that the subject was closed, she
+informed him brusquely that it was her intention to say it now.
+
+"What is it you want to say, mother?"
+
+"If I can bring myself to use the word `hellion'," she returned,
+"I'm going to say that of all the heaven-born, whole-souled and
+consistent ones I ever knew Hedrick Madison is the King."
+
+"In what new way?" he inquired.
+
+"Egerton Villard. Egerton used to be the neatest, best-mannered,
+best-dressed boy in town; but he looks and behaves like a Digger
+Indian since he's taken to following Hedrick around. Mrs. Villard
+says it's the greatest sorrow of her life, but she's quite
+powerless: the boy is Hedrick's slave. The other day she sent a
+servant after him, and just bringing him home nearly ruined her
+limousine. He was solidly covered with molasses, over his clothes
+and all, from head to foot, and then he'd rolled in hay and
+chicken feathers to be a _gnu_ for Hedrick to kodak in the African
+Wilds of the Madisons' stable. Egerton didn't know what a gnu was,
+but Hedrick told him that was the way to be one, he said. Then,
+when they'd got him scraped and boiled, and most of his hair
+pulled out, a policemen came to arrest him for stealing the jug of
+molasses at a corner grocery."
+
+Richard nodded, and smiled faintly for comment. They sat in
+silence for a while.
+
+"I saw Mrs. Madison yesterday," said his mother. "She seemed very
+cheerful; her husband is able to talk almost perfectly again,
+though he doesn't get downstairs. Laura reads to him a great
+deal."
+
+He nodded again, his gaze not moving from the fire.
+
+"Laura was with her mother," said Mrs. Lindley. "She looked very
+fetching in a black cloth suit and a fur hat--old ones her sister
+left, I suspect, but very becoming, for all that. Laura's `going
+out' more than usual this winter. She's really the belle of the
+holiday dances, I hear. Of course she would be", she added,
+thoughtfully--"now."
+
+"Why should she be `now' more than before?"
+
+"Oh, Laura's quite blossomed," Mrs. Lindley answered. "I think
+she's had some great anxieties relieved. Of course both she and
+her mother must have worried about Cora as much as they waited on
+her. It must be a great burden lifted to have her comfortably
+settled, or, at least, disposed of. I thought they both looked
+better. But I have a special theory about Laura: I suppose you'll
+laugh at me----"
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"I wish you would sometimes," she said wistfully, "so only you
+laughed. My idea is that Laura was in love with that poor little
+Trumble, too."
+
+"What?" He looked up at that.
+
+"Yes; girls fall in love with anybody. I fancy she cared very
+deeply for him; but I think she's a strong, sane woman, now. She's
+about the steadiest, coolest person I know--and I know her better,
+lately, than I used to. I think she made up her mind that she'd
+not sit down and mope over her unhappiness, and that she'd get
+over what caused it; and she took the very best remedy: she began
+going about, going everywhere, and she went gayly, too! And I'm
+sure she's cured; I'm sure she doesn't care the snap of her
+fingers for Wade Trumble or any man alive. She's having a pretty
+good time, I imagine: she has everything in the world except
+money, and she's never cared at all about _that_. She's young, and
+she dresses well--these days--and she's one of the handsomest
+girls in town; she plays like a poet, and she dances well----"
+
+"Yes," said Richard;--reflectively, "she does dance well."
+
+"And from what I hear from Mrs. Villard," continued his mother, "I
+guess she has enough young men in love with her to keep any girl
+busy."
+
+He was interested enough to show some surprise. "In love with
+Laura?"
+
+"Four, I hear." The best of women are sometimes the readiest with
+impromptu statistics.
+
+"Well, well!" he said, mildly.
+
+"You see, Laura has taken to smiling on the world, and the world
+smiles back at her. It's not a bad world about that, Richard."
+
+"No," he sighed. "I suppose not."
+
+"But there's more than that in this case, my dear son."
+
+"Is there?"
+
+The intelligent and gentle matron laughed as though at some
+unexpected turn of memory and said:
+
+"Speaking of Hedrick, did you ever hear the story of the Devil of
+Lisieux, Richard?"
+
+"I think not; at least, I don't remember it."
+
+"Lisieux is a little town in Normandy," she said. "I was there a
+few days with your father, one summer, long ago. It's a country
+full of old stories, folklore, and traditions; and the people
+still believe in the Old Scratch pretty literally. This legend was
+of the time when he came to Lisieux. The people knew he was coming
+because a wise woman had said that he was on the way, and
+predicted that he would arrive at the time of the great fair.
+Everybody was in great distress, because they knew that whoever
+looked at him would become bewitched, but, of course, they had to
+go to the fair. The wise woman was able to give them a little
+comfort; she said some one was coming with the devil, and that the
+people must not notice the devil, but keep their eyes fastened on
+this other--then they would be free of the fiend's influence. But,
+when the devil arrived at the fair, nobody even looked to see who
+his companion was, for the devil was so picturesque, so vivid, all
+in flaming scarlet and orange, and he capered and danced and sang
+so that nobody could help looking at him--and, after looking once,
+they couldn't look away until they were thoroughly under his
+spell. So they were all bewitched, and began to scream and howl
+and roll on the ground, and turn on each other and brawl, and
+`commit all manner of excesses.' Then the wise woman was able to
+exorcise the devil, and he sank into the ground; but his companion
+stayed, and the people came to their senses, and looked, and they
+saw that it was an angel. The angel had been there all the time
+that the fiend was, of course. So they have a saying now, that
+there may be angels with us, but we don't notice them when the
+devil's about."
+
+She did not look at her son as she finished, and she had hurried
+through the latter part of her "legend" with increasing timidity.
+The parallel was more severe, now that she put it to him, than she
+intended; it sounded savage; and she feared she had overshot her
+mark. Laura, of course, was the other, the companion; she had been
+actually a companion for the vivid sister, everywhere with her at
+the fair, and never considered: now she emerged from her
+overshadowed obscurity, and people were able to see her as an
+individual--heretofore she had been merely the retinue of a
+flaming Cora. But the "legend" was not very gallant to Cora!
+
+Mrs. Lindley knew that it hurt her son; she felt it without
+looking at him, and before he gave a sign. As it was, he did not
+speak, but, after a few moments, rose and went quietly out of the
+room: then she heard the front door open and close. She sat by his
+fire a long, long time and was sorry--and wondered.
+
+When Richard came home from his cold night-prowl in the snowy
+streets, he found a sheet of note paper upon his pillow:
+
+
+"Dearest Richard, I didn't mean that anybody you ever cared for
+was a d---l. I only meant that often the world finds out that
+there are lovely people it hasn't noticed."
+
+
+. . . He reproached himself, then, for the reproach his leaving
+her had been; he had a susceptible and annoying conscience, this
+unfortunate Richard. He found it hard to get to sleep, that night;
+and was kept awake long after he had planned how he would make up
+to his mother for having received her "legend" so freezingly. What
+kept him awake, after that, was a dim, rhythmic sound coming from
+the house next door, where a holiday dance was in progress--music
+far away and slender: fiddle, 'cello, horn, bassoon, drums, all
+rollicking away almost the night-long, seeping through the walls
+to his restless pillow. Finally, when belated drowsiness came, the
+throbbing tunes mingled with his half-dreams, and he heard the
+light shuffling of multitudinous feet over the dancing-floor, and
+became certain that Laura's were among them. He saw her, gliding,
+swinging, laughing, and happy and the picture did not please him:
+it seemed to him that she would have been much better employed
+sitting in black to write of a hopeless love. Coquetting with four
+suitors was not only inconsistent; it was unbecoming. It "suited
+Cora's style," but in Laura it was outrageous. When he woke, in
+the morning, he was dreaming of her: dressed as Parthenia,
+beautiful, and throwing roses to an acclaiming crowd through which
+she was borne on a shield upon the shoulders of four Antinouses.
+Richard thought it scandalous.
+
+His indignation with her had not worn off when he descended to
+breakfast, but he made up to his mother for having troubled her.
+Then, to cap his gallantry, he observed that several inches of
+snow must have fallen during the night; it would be well packed
+upon the streets by noon; he would get a sleigh, after lunch, and
+take her driving. It was a holiday.
+
+She thanked him, but half-declined. "I'm afraid it's too cold for
+me, but there are lots of nice girls in town, Richard, who won't
+mind weather."
+
+"But I asked _you_!" It was finally left an open question for the
+afternoon to settle; and, upon her urging, he went out for a walk.
+She stood at the window to watch him, and, when she saw that he
+turned northward, she sank into a chair, instead of going to give
+Joe Varden his after-breakfast instructions, and fell into a deep
+reverie.
+
+Outdoors, it was a biting cold morning, wind-swept and gray; and
+with air so frosty-pure no one might breathe it and stay bilious:
+neither in body nor bilious in spirit. It was a wind to sweep the
+yellow from jaundiced cheeks and make them rosy; a wind to clear
+dulled eyes; it was a wind to lift foolish hearts, to lift them so
+high they might touch heaven and go winging down the sky, the
+wildest of wild-geese.
+
+. . . When the bell rang, Laura was kneeling before the library
+fire, which she had just kindled, and she had not risen when Sarah
+brought Richard to the doorway. She was shabby enough, poor
+Cinderella! looking up, so frightened, when her prince appeared.
+
+She had not been to the dance.
+
+She had not four suitors. She had none.
+
+He came toward her. She rose and stepped back a little. Ashes had
+blown upon her, and, oh, the old, old thought of the woman born to
+be a mother! she was afraid his clothes might get dusty if he came
+too close.
+
+But to Richard she looked very beautiful; and a strange thing
+happened: trembling, he saw that the firelight upon her face was
+brighter than any firelight he had ever seen.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Flirt, by Booth Tarkington
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