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+*The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Flirt, By Booth Tarkington*
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+The Flirt
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+by Booth Tarkington
+
+July, 1995  [Etext #297]
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+
+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 be-
+trothed, 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 stal-
+wart 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!  GullO-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 pro-
+ceeded 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 dis-
+appeared; 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, house-
+keeping, 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 gen-
+tleman 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 cachinna-
+tions 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 en-
+joying 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 in-
+formed 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 scat-
+tering 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 COOULD 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, apolo-
+gized 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 occu-
+pancy.  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 neighbour-
+hood 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 prin-
+cipal.  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 some-
+thing 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 per-
+fectly.  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 cour-
+teously 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!  TOMORROW!"
+
+   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 capti-
+vation 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 opportuni-
+ties.  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 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 be-
+cause--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 Lohen-
+grin 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, " mean-
+ing 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 picturesque-
+ness.  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's The Flirt By Booth Tarkington*
+
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