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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31057-8.txt b/31057-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..13d62bb --- /dev/null +++ b/31057-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9060 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Wishing Moon, by Louise Elizabeth Dutton, +Illustrated by Everett Shinn + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Wishing Moon + + +Author: Louise Elizabeth Dutton + + + +Release Date: January 23, 2010 [eBook #31057] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WISHING MOON*** + + +E-text prepared by Peter Vickers, Juliet Sutherland, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 31057-h.htm or 31057-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31057/31057-h/31057-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31057/31057-h.zip) + + + + + +THE WISHING MOON + +by + +LOUISE DUTTON + +Author of "The Goddess Girl" + + +[Illustration: "'_Oh, Judith, won't you speak to me?_'"] + +[Illustration: Publisher's logo] + +Illustrated by Everett Shinn + + + + + + + +Garden City New York +Doubleday, Page & Company +1916 + +Copyright, 1916, by +Louise Dutton + +All rights reserved, including that of +translation into foreign languages, +including the Scandinavian + +Copyright, 1916, The Metropolitan Magazine Company + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + "'Oh, Judith, won't you speak to me?'" _Frontispiece_ + (See page 239) + + FACING PAGE + + "'I know what this means,' she asserted" 128 + + "'Shut your eyes'" 166 + + "'Judith, you don't hate me? Say it--say it'" 180 + + + + +THE WISHING MOON + + + + +The Wishing Moon + +CHAPTER ONE + + +A little girl sat on the worn front doorsteps of the Randall house. She +sat very still and straight, with her short, white skirts fluffed +daintily out on both sides, her hands tightly clasped over her thin +knees, and her long, silk-stockinged legs cuddled tight together. She +was bare-headed, and her short, soft hair showed silvery blonde in the +fading light. Her hair was bobbed. For one miserable month it had been +the only bobbed head in Green River. Her big, gray-green eyes had a +fugitive, dancing light in them. The little girl had beautiful eyes. + +The little girl was Miss Judith Devereux Randall. She was eleven years +old, and she felt happier to-night than she remembered feeling in all +the eleven years of her life. + +The Randalls' lawn was hedged with a fringe of lilac and syringa bushes, +with one great, spreading horse-chestnut tree at the corner. The house +did not stand far back from the street. The little girl could see a +generous section of Main Street sloping past, dark already under +shadowing trees. The street was empty. It was half-past six, and +supper-time in Green River, but the Randalls did not have supper, they +dined at night, like the Everards. To-night mother and father were +dining with the Everards, and the little girl had plans of her own. + +Father was dressed, and waiting, shut in the library. Mother was +dressing in her big corner room upstairs, with all the electric lights +lighted. The little girl could see them, if she turned her head, but +mother was very far away, in spite of that, for her door was locked, and +you could not go in. You could not watch her brush her long, wonderful +hair, or help her into her evening gown. Mother's evening gown was black +this summer, with shiny spangles--a fairy gown. Mother had to be alone +while she dressed, because she was going to the Everards'. + +There were two Everards, the Colonel, who was old because his hair was +white, and his wife, who wore even more beautiful clothes than mother. +She had heard her father say that the Colonel had made the town, and she +had heard Norah, the cook, say that he owned the town. She had an idea +that these two things were not quite the same, though they sounded +alike, for father was fond of the Colonel, and Norah was not. At any +rate, he was president of the bank--father and Norah agreed about +that--and he lived in a house at the edge of the town, in what used to +be a part of Larribees' woods. Father used to go Mayflowering there, but +now nobody could. + +The house was ugly, with things sticking out all over it, towers and +balconies and cupolas, and it was the little girl's twin. She was born +the year the Everards settled in Green River. + +"And you're marked with it," Norah said, in one of their serious talks, +when Mollie, the second girl, was out, and the two had the kitchen to +themselves. Norah was peeling apples for a pie, and allowing her +unlimited ginger-snaps, straight from the jar. "Marked with it, Miss +Judy." + +"What?" + +"That house, and what goes on in it." + +"What does go on?" + +"You'll know soon enough." + +"I'm not marked with it. I've got a birthmark, but it's a strawberry, on +my left side, like the princesses have in the fairy tales." + +"You are a kind of a princess, Miss Judy." + +"Is that a bad thing to be, Nana?" + +"It's a lonesome thing." + +"My strawberry's fading. Mother says it will go away." + +"It won't go away. What we're born to be, we will be, Miss Judy----. +Bless your heart, you're crying, with the big eyes of you. What for, +dear?" + +"I don't know. I don't want to be a princess. I don't want to be +lonesome. I hate the Everards." + +"Well, there's many to say that now, and there'll be more to say it +soon." Norah muttered this darkly, into her yellow bowl of apples, but +Judith heard: "Here, eat this apple, child. You musn't hate anybody." + +"I do. I hate the Everards." + +Queer things came into your head to say when you were talking with +Norah, who had an aunt with the second sight, and told beautiful fairy +tales herself, and even believed in fairies; Judith did not. The +Everards gave Judith and no other little girl in town presents at +Christmas, and invited Judith and no other little girl to lunch. They +had a great deal to do with her trouble, her serious trouble, which she +would not discuss even with Norah. But she did not really hate the +Everards--certainly not to-night. She was too happy. + +Judith was going out to hang May-baskets. + +So was every other little girl in town who wanted to, and it was a +wonderful thing to be doing to-night. It was really May night, by the +weather as well as the calendar--the kind of night that Norah's fairies +meant should come on the first of May: warm, with a tiny chill creeping +into the air as the dark came, a pleasant, shivery chill, as if there +might really be fairies or ghosts about. It was still and clear. One +star, that had just come up above the horse-chestnut tree, looked very +small and bright and close, as if it had climbed up into the sky out of +the dark, clustering leaves of the tree. + +This was the star that Judith usually wished on, but she could wish on +the moon to-night; Norah had told her so; wish once instead of three +nights running, and get her wish whether she thought of the red fox's +tail or not. The new moon of May was a wishing moon. + +A wishing moon! The small white figure on the steps cuddled itself into +a smaller heap. Judith sighed happily and closed her eyes. She was going +with the others. She had her wish already. + +It was Judith's great trouble that she was not like other little girls. +Until she was six Judith had a vague idea that she was the only child in +the world. Then she tried to make friends with two small, dirty girls +over the back fence, and found out that there were other children, but +she must not play with them. One day Norah found her crying in the +nursery because she could not think what to play, and soon after Willard +Nash, the fat little boy next door, came to dinner and into her life, +and after that, Eddie and Natalie Ward, from the white house up the +street, and Lorena Drew, from over the river. Still other children came +to her parties, so many that she could not remember their names. Then +Judith's trouble began. She was not like them. + +She did not look like them; her clothes were not made by a seamstress, +but came from city shops, and had shorter skirts, and stuck out in +different places. She could not do what they did; Mollie called for her +at nine at evening parties, and she usually had to go to bed half an +hour after dinner, before it was dark. She had to do things that they +did not do: make grown-up calls with her mother and wear gloves, and +take lessons in fancy dancing instead of going to dancing school. + +But she had gone to school now for almost a year, a private school in +the big billiard-room at the Larribees', but a real school, with other +children in it. They did not make fun of her clothes, or the way she +pronounced her words, very often now. She belonged to a secret society +with Rena and Natalie. She had spent one night with Natalie, though she +had to come home before breakfast. The other children did not know she +was different, but Judith knew. + +Unexpected things might be required of her at a moment's notice: to be +excused from school and pass cakes at a tea at the Everards'; to leave a +picnic before the potatoes were roasted, because Mollie had appeared, +inexorable; unaccountable things, but she was to be safe to-night. May +night was not such a wonderful night for any little girl as it was for +Judith. + +The lights were on in Nashs' parlour, and not turned off in the +dining-room, which meant that the rest of the family were not through +supper, but Willard was. Presently she heard three loud, unmelodious +whistles, his private signal, and a stocky figure pushed itself through +a gap in the hedge which looked, and was, too small for it, and Judith +rubbed her eyes and sat up--it crossed the lawn to her. + +"Good morning, Merry Sunshine," said Willard, ironically. + +"I wasn't asleep." + +"You were." + +"I heard you coming." + +"You did not." + +"I did so." + +These formalities over, she made room for him eagerly on the steps. +Willard looked fatter to Judith after a meal, probably because she knew +how much he ate. His clean collar looked much too clean and white in the +dark, and he was evidently in a teasing mood, but such as he was, he +was her best friend, and she needed him. + +"Willard, guess what I'm going to do?" + +"I don't know, kid." Willard's tone implied unmistakably that he did not +want to know. + +"To-night!" + +Judith's voice thrilled. Willard stared at her. Her eyes looked wider +than usual, and very bright. She was smiling a strange little smile, and +a rare dimple, which he really believed she had made with a slate +pencil, showed in her cheek. The light in her face was something new to +him, something he did not understand, and therefore being of masculine +mind, wished to remove. + +"You're going to miss it to-night for one thing, kid," he stated +deliberately. + +"Oh, am I?" Judith dimpled and glowed. + +"We're going to stay out until ten. Vivie's not going." Willard's big +sister had chaperoned the expedition the year before. Now it was to go +out unrestrained into the night. + +"That's lovely." + +Willard searched his brain for more overwhelming details. + +"We've got a dark lantern." + +"That's nice." + +"I got it. It's father's. He won't miss it. It's hidden in the Drews' +barn. We're going to meet at the Drews, to fool them. They'll be +watching the Wards'." + +"They will?" + +"Sure." + +"The--paddies?" + +"Sure." + +Judith drew an awed, ecstatic breath. He was touching now on the chief +peril and charm of the expedition. Hanging May-baskets, conferring an +elaborately-made gift upon a formal acquaintance, was not the object of +it--nothing so philanthropic; it was the escape after you had hung them. +You went out for adventure, to ring the bell and get away, to brave the +dangers of the night in small, intimate companies. And the chief danger, +which you fled from through the dark, was the paddies. + +She did not know much about them. She would not show her ignorance by +asking questions. But there were little boys with whom a state of war +existed. They chased you, even fought with you, made a systematic +attempt to steal your May-baskets. They were mixed up in her mind with +gnomes and pirates. She was deliciously afraid of them. She hardly +thought they had human faces. She understood that they were most of them +Irish, and that it was somehow a disgrace for them to be Irish, though +her own Norah was Irish and proud of it. + +"Sure!" said Willard. "Irish boys. Paddies from Paddy Lane. Ed got a +black eye last year. We'll get back at them. It will be some evening." +Judith did not look jealous or wistful yet. "The whole crowd's going." + +"Yes, I know," thrilled Judith. "Oh, Willard----" + +"Oh, Willard," he mimicked. Judith pronounced all the letters in his +name, which was not the popular method. "Oh, Willard, what do you think +I heard Viv say to the Gaynor girl about you?" + +"Don't know. Willard, won't the paddies see the dark lantern?" + +"Viv said you were as pretty as a doll, but just as stiff and stuck-up," +pronounced Willard sternly. "And your father's only the cashier of the +bank, and just because the Everards have taken your mother up is no +reason for her to put on airs and get a second girl and get into +debt----" + +He broke off, discouraged. Judith did not appear to hear him. After the +masculine habit, as he could not control the situation, he rose to +leave. + +"Well, so long, kid. I've got to go to the post-office." + +Even the mention of this desirable rendezvous, which was denied to her +because Mollie always brought home the evening mail in a black silk +bag, did not dim the dancing light in Judith's eyes. She put a hand on +his sleeve. + +"Willard----" + +"Well, kid?" + +"Willard, don't you wish I was going to-night?" + +"What for, to fight the paddies, or carry the dark lantern?" + +"I could fight," said Judith, with a little quiver in her voice, as if +she could. + +"Fight? You couldn't even run away. They'd"--Willard hissed it +mysteriously--"they'd get you." + +"No, they wouldn't, because"--something had happened to her eyes, so +that they did not look tantalizing--"you'd take care of me, Willard," +she announced surprisingly, "wouldn't you?" + +"Forget it," murmured Willard, flattered. + +"Wouldn't you?" + +"I----" + +"Willard!" + +"Yes." + +"Well--I am. Father made mother let me. I'm going with you." + +The words she had been trying to say were out at last in a hushed voice, +because her heart was beating hard, but they sounded beautiful to her, +like a kind of song. Perhaps Willard heard it, too. He really was her +best friend, and he did not look so fat, after all, in the twilight. She +waited breathlessly. + +"You are?" + +Judith nodded. She could not speak. + +"Well!" Willard's feelings were mixed, his face was not fashioned to +express a conflict of emotions, and words failed him, too. "You're a +queer kid. Why didn't you tell me before?" + +"Aren't you glad, Willard?" + +"You'll get sleepy." + +"Aren't you glad?" + +"Sure I'm glad. But you can't run, and you are a cry-baby." + +These were known facts, not insults, but now Judith's eyes had stopped +dancing. + +"Judy, are you mad with me?" + +"No." + +"You're the queerest kid." Up the street, he caught sight of a member of +a simpler sex than Judith's. "There's Ed coming out of the gate. I've +got to see him about something. See you later. Don't be mad. So long!" + +The house was astir behind Judith. Father was opening and shutting +doors, and hunting for things. Norah was helping mother into her wraps +and scolding. Somebody was telephoning. Mother's carriage was late. + +But it was turning into the yard now, a big, black hack from the Inn, +with a white horse. Judith liked white horses best. The front door +opened, and her father, very tall and blond, with his shirt-front +showing white, and her mother, with something shiny in her black hair, +swept out. + +"Look who's here," said her father, and picked her up with his hands +under her elbows. "Going to paint the town red to-night, son?" + +"Red?" breathed Judith. How strong father was, and how beautiful mother +was. She smelled of the perfume in the smallest bottle on the +toilet-table. How kind they both were. "Red?" + +"Harry, you see she doesn't care a thing about going. She'd be better +off in bed. Careful, baby! Your hair is catching on my sequins. Put her +down, Harry. You'll spoil the shape of her shoulders some day." + +"Don't you want to go, son?" + +"I--" Judith choked, "I----" + +"Well, she's not crazy about it, is she?" + +"Then do send her to bed." + +"No, you can't break your promise to a child, Minna." + +"Prig," said mother sweetly, as if a prig were a pleasant thing to be. +"All right, let her go, then. Oh, Harry, look at that horse. They've +sent us the knock-kneed old white corpse again." + +Mother hurried him into the carriage, and it clattered out of the yard. +They did not look back. They were always in a hurry, and rather cross +when they went to the Everards. For once she was glad to see them go, +such a dreadful crisis had come and passed. How could father think she +did not want to go, father who used to hang May-baskets himself? Norah +was calling her, but she did not answer. Norah was cross to-night. She +did not know how happy Judith was. + +Nobody knew, but now Judith did not want to tell. She did not want +sympathy. She was not lonely. This secret was too important to tell. +And, before her eyes, a lovely and comforting thing was happening, +silently and suddenly, as lovely things do happen. Quite still on the +steps, a white little figure, alone in a preoccupied world, but calm in +spite of it, Judith looked and looked. + +Above the horse-chestnut tree, so filmy and faint that the star looked +brighter than ever, so pale that it was not akin to the stars or the +flickering lights in the street, but to the dark beyond, where +adventures were, so friendly and sweet that it could make the wish in +your heart come true, whether you were clever enough to wish it out loud +or not, hung the wishing moon. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + + +A small, silent procession was edging its way along Church Street, +darkly silhouetted against a faintly starred sky. It was a long hour +later now, and looked later still on Church Street. There were few +lights left in the string of houses near the white church, at the lower +end of the street, and here, at the upper end, there were no lights but +the one street lamp near the railroad bridge that arched black overhead, +and there were few houses. The street did not look like a street at all, +but a country road, and a muddy one. + +The narrow board sidewalk creaked, so the procession avoided it, and +stuck to the muddy side of the road. + +The procession looked mysterious enough, even if you were walking at the +tail of it and carrying a heavy market basket; if you had to smell the +lantern, swung just in front of you, but did not have the fun of +carrying it; if a shaker cloak, hooded and picturesque, in the +procession, hampered your activities; if you had questions to ask, and +nobody answered you. + +"Willard." + +"Sh!" + +One by one, they came into sight, in the wavering light of the street +lamp, and melted into the dark under the bridge; Ed, in his white +sweater, captaining them, and keenly aware of it; Rena and Natalie, with +the larger market basket between them; Willard, bulky in two sweaters, +and tenderly shielding his lantern with a third, and Judith. Her face +showed pale with excitement against the scarlet of her hood. One hand +plucked vainly at Willard's sleeve; he stalked on, and would not turn. +Only these five, but they had consulted and organized and reorganized +for half an hour in the Drews' barn before they started, and had hung +only three May-baskets yet. However, the adventure was under way now. + +"Willard, now it's my turn to carry the lantern." + +"Judy, you can't." + +"Why?" + +"It might explode." The feeble flame gave one dispirited upward spurt at +this encouragement, causing excitement in front. + +"Oh, Ed!" + +"Ed, make him put it out." + +"Rena and Nat, you keep still. Judy's not scared, are you Judy?" + +"No! Oh, no!" + +"The lantern's a sick looking sight, and he can carry it +if he wants to, but we don't need it." + +"I like that. You tried to get me to let you carry it, Ed." + +"Don't talk so much." + +"Who started the talk?" + +"Well, who's running this, anyway--you, Willard Nash?" + +"There's a dog in that house." + +"Sh!" + +"But that dog's only a cocker spaniel. He can't hurt you." + +"Judy, sh!" + +Sh! Somebody was always saying that. It was part of the ceremony, which +had been the same all three times. The procession was halting opposite +the Nealy house. A whispered quarrel started every time they approached +a house, and was hushed halfway through and not taken up again. The +quarrel and the hush were part of the ceremony, too. + +The Nealy house was small and harmless looking, and entirely dark, but +they did not allow that to make them reckless. They stood looking warily +across the dark street. + +"But there's nobody there. Maggie Nealy's out, too, to-night, and her +mother----" + +"Sh!" Willard put a hand over Judith's mouth. It smelled of kerosene, +and she struggled, but did not make a noise. Just at this dramatic +moment the Nealy's dog barked. + +Judith could hear her heart beat and feel her damp feet getting really +wet and cold. + +"Now," Ed whispered, close to her ear and uncomfortably loud, and she +fumbled in her basket. Willard jiggled the lantern dizzily over her +shoulder, tissue paper tore under her fingers, and bonbons rattled. +Hanging May-baskets was certainly hard on the May-baskets, and they were +so pretty; pale coloured, like flowers. + +"I can't find the right one. The marks are all falling off. The candy's +falling out." + +"We can't stand here all night. Here----" + +"Willard, take your hands out. Not that one----" + +"Willard and Judy stop fighting. That one will do. I'm going." + +There was dead silence now, and Ed, clutching the wreck of a sizable +crêpe-paper creation to the bosom of his white sweater, doubled into a +crouching, boy scout attitude, crossed the road, and approached the +house. Nothing but his own commendable caution delayed his approach. The +small dog's dreams within were untroubled now. There were no signs of +life. + +He reached the front door, deposited the May-basket with a force that +further demolished it, and took to his heels. After another breathless +wait the procession formed behind him and trailed after him up the road, +hilly here, so that the market basket grew heavier. + +"Some evening," Willard murmured to himself, not the rest of the world, +but he sounded amiable. + +"Willard." + +"Well, kid." + +"There wasn't anybody in that house. Ed knew it." + +"There might have been. They might have come home." + +"But they didn't ... Willard, is this all there is to it?" + +"What?" + +"Hanging May-baskets. Throwing them down that way. I thought maybe they +really hung them, on the doorknob--I thought----" + +"Silly! Ed's going cross lots, and up the wood road to Larribees'. Good +work. That will throw them off the track." + +"Throw who off the track?" + +"You scared? Want to go home?" + +"Oh, no! But who? There's nobody chasing us. Nobody." + +"No. We've got them fooled. It's some evening." + +"Willard, where are the paddies?" + +That was the question Judith had been wanting to ask more and more, for +an hour, but it came in a choked voice, and nobody heard. They were +plunging into a rough and stubbly wood lot, and hushing each other +excitedly. Twigs caught at Judith's skirt, and it was hard to see your +way, with the moon, small and high above the trees in Larribee's woods, +only making the trees look darker. The wood road was little used and +overgrown. + +"If they get us in here!" + +"They won't, Willard." Judith's voice trembled. + +"Cry-baby!" + +"I am not." + +"Here, buck up. We're coming out right here, back of the carriage house. +If Ed catches you crying he'll send you home." + +But Ed had his mind upon higher things. "You girls stay here with the +baskets. Don't move. Willard, you go right and I'll go left, and we'll +meet at the carriage-house steps, if the coast is clear." + +"If they get us----" + +If! The boys crunched out of hearing on the gravel, awesome silence set +in, and Rena and Natalie whispered; Judith was not to be awed. Four +May-baskets hung, and nobody objecting; dark cross-streets chosen +instead of Main Street and no danger pursuing them there. If there was +no danger in the whole town, why should there be in one little strip of +woods, though it was dark and strange, and full of whispering noises? +Judith had clung to Willard's hand in terror, turning into the +cross-streets, and nothing came of it. She was not to be fooled any +longer. There was no danger. + +Not that she wanted to be chased. She did not know what she wanted. But +she had come out into the dark to find something that was not there. She +had been happier on the doorsteps thinking about it. This, then, was +hanging May-baskets--all there was to it. But it was pleasant here in +the dark, pleasanter than walking through mud, and quarrelling. Now Rena +and Nat were quarrelling again. + +"Get back there! Ed said not to move." + +"They've been gone too long. Something's the matter." + +"There they come. I hear them. Get back!" + +They were coming, but something else was happening. Willard's three +whistles sounded, then Ed's voice, and a noise of scuffling on the +gravel--and a new boy's voice. + +Rena and Natalie, upsetting their basket as they started, and not +noticing it, pushed through the trees and ran. Judith stood still and +listened. She did not know the voice. It was shrill and clear. She could +hear the words it said above the others' voices, all clamouring, now, at +once. She held her breath and listened. She could not move. + +"I don't want your damn May-baskets." + +"Liar! Get back of him, Rena. Come on, Nat." + +"You'll get hurt. Let me go." + +"Liar--Paddy!" + +The magic word fell unheeded. The boy was laughing, and the laugh filled +her ears, a splendid laugh, fearless and clear. + +"Paddy!" + +"I don't want your damn May-baskets." + +"Paddy--Paddy!" + +This time there was no answer. Judith, tearing at the hooks of her cape, +and throwing it off as she ran, broke through the circling trees. Then +she stopped and looked. + +Rena stood high on the carriage-house steps and held the lantern. It +wavered and swung in her hand, and threw a flickering circle of light +round the group by the steps. + +The sprawled shadows at their feet seemed to have an undue number of +arms and legs, and the children were a struggling, uncertain mass of +motion, hard to make out, like the shadows, but they were only four: +Willard, grunting and groaning; Natalie attacking spasmodically in the +rear, and the strange little boy, the enemy. He was the heart of the +struggling group, and Judith looked only at him. She could do nothing +but look, for Judith had never seen a little boy like this. + +They were three against one, and the one was a match for them. He was +slender and strong, holding his ground and making no noise. He was +coatless and ragged shirted, and one sleeve of his shirt was torn, so +that you could see how thin his shoulder was. He held his head high, and +smiled as he fought. A shock of blond hair was tossed high above his +forehead. He had a thin, white face, and dark jewels of flashing eyes. +As she stood and looked, they met Judith's eyes, and Judith knew that +she had never seen a boy like this, because there was no boy like +this--no little boy so wild and strange and free, so ragged and brave. +If he could come out of the dark, it was full of unguessable things, +splendid and strange and new. Judith's heart beat hard, a hot feeling +swept over her, and a queer mist came before her eyes. A wonderful boy; +a fairy boy! What would they do to him? What did they do to paddies? +There was no little boy like this in the world. + +"Judy!" The others had seen her and were calling her. "Come on. Help get +him down." + +"He chased Willard round here." + +"He led the gang last year." + +"It's Neil Donovan." + +"Get him down!" + +Judith did not answer then. Her cheeks flamed red, and her eyes looked +as big and dark as the stranger's, and her small hands clenched tight. +It was only a minute that she stood so. The three were close to him, +hiding him. She saw his face again, above Willard's pushing shoulder, +and then--she could not see it. + +"Judy, what's the matter? Come on!" + +And Judith came. She plunged straight into the struggling group, and +hammered at it indiscriminately with two small fists. She caught at a +waving coat sleeve, and pulled it--Willard's, and it tore in her hands. +She spotted Eds white sweater, and beat at it fiercely, with all her +strength. + +"That's me, Judy. Cut it out!" + +"Then let him go. Three to one is no fair. Let him go!" They did not +hear her, or care which side she was on, or take the trouble to drive +her away. Judith drew back and stood and looked at them, breathless and +glowing and undefeated, for one long minute. + +"Boy," she called then, softly, as if he could hear when the others +could not, "wait! It's all right, boy. It's all right." + +Then she charged up the steps at Rena. Judy, the most demure and +faithful of allies, confronted Rena, amazingly but unmistakably changed +to a foe; Judy, with her immaculate and enviable frock smirched and +torn, and her sleek hair wildly tossed, her cheeks darkly flushed, and +her eyes strange and shining; a Judy to be reckoned with and admired and +feared--a new Judy. + +"What's the matter? Are you crazy? What do you want?" + +"Make them let him go. They've got to let him go." + +"He's a paddy--Neil Donovan--a paddy." + +"They've got to let him go.... Give that to me." + +"What for? Judy, don't hurt me. Judy!" + +Judith wasted no more words. She caught Rena's wrist, twisted it, and +snatched the lantern out of her hand. She held it high above her head, +and shook it recklessly. + +"Don't, Judy! Don't!" The flame sputtered crazily. Judy still shook the +lantern, dancing out of reach, and laughing. "Nat--everybody--stop Judy. +She's making the lantern explode. Oh, Ed!" + +Natalie heard, and then the others. They looked up at her, all of them. +Rena and Natalie screamed. Willard started toward her. "Put it down, +kid," he was calling. + +"I'll put it down.... Now boy." + +There he was, with Ed's arm gripping his shoulders. He did not give any +sign that he knew she was trying to help him, or that he wanted help. He +was not afraid of the lantern, like the others. His black eyes were +laughing at all of them--laughing at Judith, too. He was looking +straight at Judith. + +"Now, boy," she called, "now run!" and she gripped the lantern tight, +swung it high, and dashed it to the ground. + +It fell at the foot of the steps with a crash of breaking glass. The +light sputtered out. The air was full of the smell of spilled kerosene. +In the faint radiance that was not moonlight, but a glimmering +reflection of it, more confusing than darkness, dim figures struggled +and shrill voices were lifted. + +"Get him. Hold him." + +"Get the lantern." + +"Get Judy." + +"Hold him, Ed." + +"That's me." + +"Get him, Rena." + +Judith laughed, and out of the dark he had come from, the dark of +May-night, lit by a wishing moon, that grants your secret wish for +better or for worse, irrevocably, a far-away laugh answered Judith's. +The boy was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + + +Miss Judith Devereux Randall was getting into her first evening gown. + +The Green River High School football team was giving its annual +September concert and ball in Odd Fellows' Hall to-night. The occasion +was as important to the school as a coming-out party. The new junior +class, just graduated from seclusion upstairs to the big assembly room +where the seniors were, made its first public appearance in society +there. Judith was a junior now. + +Her first dance, and her first evening gown; it was a memorable scene, +fit to immortalize with the first love-letter and the first proposal, in +a series of pictures of great moments in a girl's life--chosen by some +masculine illustrator, touchingly confident that he knows what the great +moments of a girl's life are. Judith seemed to be taking this moment too +calmly for one. + +The dress lay ready on the bed, fluffy and light and sheer, a white +dream of a dress, with two unopened florist's boxes beside it, but there +was no picturesque disarray of excited toilet-making in her big, +brightly lighted room, and no dream-promoting candlelight. And there +were no pennants or football trophies disfiguring the daintily flowered +wall paper, and no pictures or programs in the mirror of the dainty +dressing-table; there was no other young girl's room in town where they +were prohibited, but there was no other room so charming as Judith's, +all blue-flowered chintz and bird's-eye maple and white fur rugs, and +whiter covers and curtains. + +Judith was the most charming and immaculate thing in the room, as she +stood before the cheval-glass, bare armed and slim and straight in +beruffled, beribboned white, pinning the soft, pale braids tight around +her small, high-poised head. Quite the most charming thing, and Norah, +fingering the dress on the bed disapprovingly, and giving her keen, +sidelong glances, was aware of it, but did not believe in compliments, +even to the creature she loved best in the world. + +Her mouth was set and her brown eyes were bright with the effort of +repressing them. Judith, seeing her face in the glass, turned suddenly +and slipped her arms round the formidable old creature's neck, and +laughed at her. + +"Don't you think I'm perfectly beautiful?" she demanded. "If you really +love me, why not tell me so?" + +"Your colour's good." Judith pressed a delicately flushed cheek to +Norah's, and attempted a butterfly kiss, which she evaded grimly. "Good +enough--healthy and natural." + +"Oh, no. I made it. Oh, with hot water and then cold, I mean. Nana, +don't begin about rouge. Don't be silly. That red stuff in the box on +mother's dresser is only nail paste, truly." + +"Who sent the flowers?" + +"Look and see." + +"Much you care, if you'll let me look." + +"Do you want me to care?" + +"Much you care about the flowers or the party." + +Judith had caught up the alluring dress without a second glance, and +slipped it expertly over her head, and was jerking capably at the +fastenings. + +"With the spoiled airs of you, and Willard Nash sending to Wells for +flowers, when his father clerked in a drygoods store at his age----" + +"Oh, carnations are cheap--or he wouldn't get them." + +"These aren't cheap, then." + +The smaller box was full of white violets. + +"Give them to me. No, you can't see the card. You don't deserve to. +You're too cross, and besides you wouldn't like it. Do my two top hooks. +Now, am I perfectly beautiful?" + +Under her capable hands a pretty miracle had been going on, common +enough, but always new. Ruffle above ruffle, the soft, shapeless mass of +white had shaken itself into its proper lines and contours, lightly, +like a bird's plumage settling itself, and with it the change that comes +when a woman with the inborn, unteachable trick of wearing clothes puts +on a perfect gown, had come to her slight girl's figure. It looked +softer, rounder, and more lightly poised. Her throat looked whiter above +the encircling folds of white. Her shy half smile was sweeter. The white +violets, caught to her high girdle, were sweeter, too. + +Norah surrendered, her voice husky and reluctant. + +"You're too good for them." + +"For the G. H. S. dance? For Willard?" Judith pretended great humility: +"Nana!" + +"There's others you're more than too good for. Others----" + +"Nana, don't." + +"Come here." Norah put two heavy hands on her shoulders and regarded her +grimly. It was the kind of look that Judith used to associate with +second sight, and dread. It was quite formidable still. But Judith met +it steadily, with something mature and assured about her look that had +nothing to do with the softness and sweetness of her in her fluffy +draperies, something that had no place in the heart of a child; +something that Norah saw. + +"Too good for them, and you know it," pronounced Norah. "You know it too +well. You know too many things. A heart of gold you've got, but your +head will rule your heart." + +"Nonsense." Norah permitted herself to be kissed, still looking +forbidding, but holding Judith tight. + +"Little white lamb, may you find what's good enough for you," she +conceded, unexpectedly, "and may you know it when you find it." + +"You're an old dear, and you're good enough for me." + +Downstairs there was a more critical audience to face. Judith saw it in +the library door, and stood still on the stair landing, looking down. +She held her head high, and coloured faintly. She looked very slender +and white against the dark woodwork of the hall. The Randall house had +been renovated the year before--becoming ten years older in the process, +early Colonial instead of a comfortable mixture of late Colonial and +mid-Victorian. The hall was particularly Colonial, and a becoming +background for Judith, but the dark-haired lady in the door had no more +faith in compliments than Norah, and there was a worried wrinkle in her +low forehead to-night, as if her mind were on other things. + +"Will I do, mother?" + +"It's a good little gown, but there's something wrong with the neck +line. You're really going then?" + +"I thought I would." + +"Be back by half-past ten. We're going to have some cards here. The +Colonel likes you to pass things." + +"I thought father's head ached." + +"He's sleeping it off." + +"I--wanted him to see how I looked." + +"I can't see why you go." + +"I thought I would. I'll go outside now, and wait for Willard." + +Judith closed the early Colonial door softly behind her, and settled +down on the steps. She arranged her coat, not the one her mother lent +her for state occasions, but a white polo coat of her own, with due +regard for her ruffles and her violets. The violets were from Colonel +Everard. Norah, with her tiresome prejudice against the Everards, and +mother, who thought and talked so much about them that she was almost +tiresome, too, were both wrong about this party. She did want to go. + +The church clock was striking nine. There was nothing deep toned or +solemn about the chime; it was rather tinny, but she liked it. It +sounded wide awake, as if things were going to happen. Nine, and the +party was under way. The concert was almost over. The concert was only +for chaperones and girls who were afraid of not getting their dance +orders filled. The truly elect arrived just in time to dance. Some of +them were passing the house already. Judith saw girls with +light-coloured gowns showing under dark coats, and swathing veils that +preserved elaborate coiffures. Bits of conversation, monosyllabic and +formal, to fit the clothes, drifted across the lawn to her. + +She had not been allowed to help decorate the hall, but she had driven +with Willard to Nashes' Corners for goldenrod, and when they carried it +in, big, glowing bundles of it, she had seen fascinating things: +Japanese lanterns, cheesecloth in yellow and white, the school colours, +still in the piece, and full of unguessable possibilities, and a rough +board table, the foundation of the elaborately decorated counter where +Rena and other girls would serve the fruit punch. All the time she +dressed she had been listening for the music of Dugan's orchestra, and +caught only tantalizing strains of tunes that she could not identify. +There was a sameness about the repertoire. Most of the tunes sounded +unduly sentimental and resigned. But now they were playing their star +number, a dramatic piece of program music called "A Day on the +Battlefield." + +The day began with bird notes and bugle calls, but was soon enlivened by +cavalry charges and cannonades. The drum, and an occasional blank +cartridge, very telling in effect, were producing them now. Judith +listened eagerly. + +She needed friends of her own age for the next two years, but she must +not identify herself with them too closely, because she would have wider +social opportunities by and by; that was what her mother said, and she +did not contest it; by and by, but this party was to-night. + +Willard was coming for her now, half an hour ahead of time, as usual. He +crossed the lawn, and sat heavily down on the steps. + +"Hello. Don't talk," said Judith. + +Willard was silent only long enough to turn this remark over in his +mind, and decide that she could not mean it, but that was five minutes, +for all his mental processes were slow. Down in the hall the last of the +heroes was dying, and Dugan's orchestra rendered Taps sepulchrally. +Judith drew a long breath of shivering content. + +"Cold?" inquired Willard. + +"No." + +"You're looking great to-night." + +"In the dark? In an old polo coat?" + +"You always look great." + +Judith was aware of an ominous stir beside her, and changed her +position. + +"Oh, Judy." + +"When you know I won't let you hold my hand, what makes you try?" + +"If I didn't try, how would I know?" said Willard neatly. + +"Oh, if you don't know without trying," Judith sighed. The cannonade in +the hall was over, and the night was empty without it. + +"They took in thirteen dollars and fifty-two cents selling tickets for +to-night." Willard, checked upon sentimental subjects, proceeded to +facts. He had so many at command that he could not be checked. + +"Who did?" + +"The team. They divide it. Only this year they've got to let the +sub-team in on it, the faculty made them, and they're sore. And there's +a sub on the reception committee." + +"I don't care." + +"You ought to. A sub, and a roughneck. The sub-team is a bunch of +roughnecks, but he's the worst. On the reception committee! But they'll +take it out of him." + +"Who? The reception committee?" + +"No, the girls. They won't dance with him. He won't get a decent name on +his card. Roughneck, keeping Ed off the team. He's an Irish boy." + +"An Irish boy?" Something, vague as an unforgotten dream that comes back +at night, though you are too busy to recall it in waking hours, urged +Judith to protest. "So is the senior president Irish." + +"No, the vice-president." There was a wide distinction between the two +offices. "Besides"--this was a wider distinction--"Murph lives at the +Falls." + +Living at the Falls, the little settlement at the head of the river, and +lunching at noon, in the empty schoolhouse, out of tin boxes, with a +forlorn assembly of half a dozen or so, was a handicap that few could +live down. + +"Murph?" + +"The team calls him Murphy. I don't know why. They're crazy about him. +He lives a half mile north of the Falls. Walking five miles a day to +learn Latin! He's a fool and a roughneck, but he can play ball. +Yesterday on Brown's field----" + +Willard started happily upon technicalities of football formations. +Judith stopped listening. He could talk on unaided, pausing only for an +occasional yes or no. + +Brown's field! It was a tree-fringed stretch of level grass set high at +the edge of the woods, on the other side of the river, with glimpses of +the river showing through the trees far below. Here, on long autumn +afternoons, sparkling and cool, but golden at the heart, ending +gloriously in red, sudden sunsets, football practice went on every day; +shifting here and there, mysteriously, over the field, the arbitrary +evolutions that were football, the shuffling, and shouting, and panting +silence; on rugs and sweaters under the trees, an audience of girls, +shivering delightfully, or holding some hero's sweater, too proud to be +cold. + +Judith had seen all this through Willard's eyes, or from a passing +carriage, but now she would go herself, go perhaps every day. Her mother +would let her. She would not understand, but she would let her, just as +she had to-night. Judith could be part of the close-knit life of the +school in the last two years there--the years that counted. The party +was a test and her mother had met it favourably. That was why she was +glad to go, as nearly as she understood. She did not know quite what she +wanted of the party, only how very much she wanted to go. + +Willard was asking a question insistently: "Didn't he do pretty work?" + +"Who?" + +"Why, the fellow I'm telling you about--the roughneck." + +"Roughneck," said Judith dreamily. The word had a fine, strong sound. +Willard was holding her hand again, and she felt too comfortable and +content to stop him. + +The orchestra down the street was playing the number that usually ended +its programs, a medley of plantation melodies. They were never such a +strain on the resources of a hard-working but only five-piece orchestra +as the ambitious, martial selections, and here, heard across the dark, +they were beautiful: plaintive and thrillingly sweet. "Old Kentucky +Home," was the sweetest of all, lonely and sad as youth, and insistent +as youth, claiming its own against an alien world. + +"Oh, Willard!" breathed Judith. Then, in quite another tone, "Oh, +Willard!" + +Encouraged by her silence, he was reaching for her other hand, and +slipping an arm round her waist. + +"You feel so soft," objected Judith frankly, getting up. "I do hope I'll +never fall in love with a fat man. Come on, let's go!" + +She waited for him politely on the sidewalk, and permitted her arm to +be duly grasped. Willard, sulky and silent, but preserving appearances, +piloted her dutifully down the street. Willard's silences were rare, and +Judith usually made the most of them, but she did not permit this one to +last. She did not want any one, even Willard, to be unhappy to-night. + +"Willard." + +"What?" + +"Don't take such long steps, or I can't keep up with you. You're so +tall." + +"Do you want to be late?" + +"Oh, no! Are we?" + +"No." + +"But there's only one couple behind us, and the music's stopped." + +"It takes half an hour to get the chairs moved out." + +"Willard." + +"Well?" + +"Is the first dance a grand march and circle?" + +"No, that's gone out. They have contras instead, but the first is a +waltz." + +"Willard, mother said I mustn't dance contras, but I shall--with you." + +"Well!" + +"Don't you want me to?" + +"Yes." + +"Willard, are you cross with me?" + +"No." They were in front of the Odd Fellows' Building now. The door was +open. The pair behind them crowded past and clattered hurriedly up the +bare, polished stairs. The orchestra could be heard tuning industriously +above. They were almost late, but Willard drew her into a corner of the +entrance hall, and pressed her hand ardently. + +"Judy, I couldn't be cross with you." + +"Don't be too sure!" Judith laughed, and ran upstairs ahead of him. + +"There's the ladies' dressing-room. I'll get the dance orders and meet +you outside." + +There was a whispering, giggling crowd in the dressing-room, mostly +seniors, girls she did not know, but they seemed to know her, and she +was conscious of curious looks at her hair and dress. It was the +simplest dress in the room, and her mother would not have approved of +the other dresses, but Judith did. There was something festive about the +bright colours, too bright most of them: sharp pinks, and cold, hard +blues. There was a yellow dress on a brunette, who was cheapened by the +crude colour, and a scarlet dress too bright for any one to wear +successfully on a big, pretty blond girl, who almost could. Judith +smelled three distinct kinds of cheap talcum powder, and preferred them +all to her own unscented French variety. She had a moment of sudden +loneliness. Was she so glad to be here, after all? + +It was only a moment. The tuning of instruments outside broke off, and +the first bars of a waltz droned invitingly out: "If you really love +me," the song that had been in her ears all the evening, a flimsy ballad +of the year, hauntingly sweet, as only such short-lived songs can be. +Moving to the tune of it, Judith crowded with the other girls out of the +dressing-room. + +The hall was transformed. It was not the room she had dreamed of, a +great room, dimly lit, peopled with low-talking dancers, circling +through the dimness. The place looked smaller decorated, and the +decorations themselves seemed to have shrunk since she saw them. The +lanterns had been hung only where nails were already driven, and under +the supervision of the janitor, who would not permit them to be lighted. +The cheesecloth was conspicuous nowhere except around the little stage, +which it draped in tight, mathematically measured festoons. Beneath, +under the misleading legend, "G. H. S.," painted in yellow on a +suspended football, Dugan's orchestra performed its duties faithfully, +with handkerchiefs guarding wilted collars. + +The goldenrod, tortured and wired into a screen to hide the footlights, +was drooping away already and showing the supporting wires. The benches +were stacked against the wall, all but an ill-omened row designed for +wall-flowers, and the floor was cleared and waxed. But little patches of +wax that were not rubbed in lurked for unwary feet, and there were +clouds of dust in the air. In one corner of the hall most of the +prominent guests of the evening were attempting to obtain dance orders +at once, or to push their way back with them to the young ladies they +were escorting. + +These ladies, and other ladies without escorts, were crowding each other +against the stacked benches and maneuvering for positions where their +dance orders would fill promptly. The atmosphere was one of strife and +stress. But Judith found no fault with it. She was not aware of it. + +In a corner near the stage, by the closed door of the refreshment-room, +a boy was standing alone. He was tearing up his dance order. It was +empty, and he was making no further attempts to fill it. He tore it +quite unostentatiously so that no young lady disposed to be amused by +his defeat could see anything worth staring at in his performance, and +he was forgotten in his corner. But Judith stared. + +She had remembered him tall, but he was only a little taller than +herself. His black suit was shiny, and a size too small for him, but it +was carefully brushed, and he wore it with an air. His hair was darker +than she remembered, a pale, soft brown. It was too long, and it curled +at the temples. He stood squarely, facing the room, as if he did not +care what anybody did to him, but there was a look about his mouth as if +he cared. He raised his eyes. They were darker than she remembered, +darker and stranger than any eyes in the world. They looked hurt, but +there was a laugh in them, too, and across the hall they were looking +straight at Judith. + +"Here you are. I've got myself down for all your contras. Just in time." + +Willard, mopping his brow, slipping on a patch of wax, and saving +himself with a skating motion, brought up triumphantly beside her, +waving two dance orders. Judith pushed them away, and said +something--she hardly knew what. + +"What, Judy? What's that? You're engaged for this? You can't dance it +with me?" + +"No. No, I can't." + +Judith slipped past him, and started across the floor. The music was +louder now, as if you were really meant to dance, and dance with the +person you wanted to most. The floor was filling now with dancers +stepping forward awkwardly, but turning into different creatures when +they danced, caught by the light, sure swing of the music, whirling and +gliding. The words sang themselves to Judith, the silly, beautiful +words: + + Please don't keep me waiting. + Won't you let me know + That you really love me? + Tell--me--so. + +A girl in red was dancing in a quick, darting sort of way, in and out, +among the others, and her dress was beautiful, too, like a flower. The +boy in the corner was watching it. He did not see Judith come. + +"I thought you couldn't be real. When I never saw you again I thought I +had dreamed you." + +Judith said it softly and breathlessly, and he did not hear. She put her +hand on his arm, and he turned and looked at her. + +"Don't you remember me?" Judith was too happy to be hurt even by this. +The light, sweet music called to her. "Don't you remember? Never mind! +Come and dance with me." + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + + +Willard stood still and stared after Judith for one bewildered minute; +that was as long as he could stand still. Odd Fellows' Hall had ceased +to afford standing-room. + +The floor was filling and more than filling with determined young +persons who were there to dance, and looked as if they had never had any +aim but to dance. The enthralled silence, which was more general than +conversation, advertised it. Even acknowledged belles, like the girl in +red, coquetted incidentally, with significant but brief confidences and +briefer upward glances. There was an alarming concentration, intent as +youth itself, to be read in their unsmiling faces and eager eyes. + +They danced quite wonderfully, most of them, as only country-bred young +people can, with free-limbed young bodies, more used to adventuring in +the open air than to dancing, but attuned to the rhythm of the dance by +right of their youth. The old-fashioned waltz, that our grandmothers +lost their hearts to the time of, still prevailed in Green River; not +the jerkier performance that was already opening the way for the +one-step and the dance craze in larger centres, but the old waltz, with +the first beat of each measure heavily emphasized--a slow swinging, +beautiful dance, and they danced it with all their hearts. + +In and out among them, two slender, quick-turning figures were making an +intricate way. The girl danced delicately and surely, a faint, half +smile parting her lips, her small, smooth head erect, the silvery gold +hair that crowned it shimmering and pale in the uncompromising light of +the newly installed electric chandeliers, her eyes intent on the boy. + +His performance was not expert, but it had a charm all its own. He put a +great deal of strength into it, and made it evident that he possessed +still more; strength enough to master the art of dancing once and for +all, by the sheer force of it, if he cared to exert it, and a laughing +light in his eyes, as if dancing was not important enough for that, and +nothing else was. + +An ambitious pair, experimenting with the dip waltz, just introduced +that year, and pausing on the most awkward spots in the crowded floor, +blocked his path, and he swung heavily out of their way just in time, +squaring his chin and holding his head a shade higher. The girl in red +was whirled toward him in double-quick time, and he dodged, +miscalculated his distance, but met the shock of her squarely, whisking +Judith out of her way. + +"Good try, Murph," her partner called. + +Willard regarded the encounter disapprovingly from the door of the +gentlemen's dressing-room, to which he had edged his way. His was not an +expressive countenance, and that was a protection to him just now. He +was bewildered and deeply hurt, but he merely looked fat and slightly +puzzled, as usual. + +"Judy turn you down?" inquired his friend Mr. Ward, also watching from +the dressing-room door, with the few other gentlemen who were without +partners for this dance. It was the most important dance of the evening, +for you danced it with the lady of your choice, or with nobody. It +cemented new intimacies or foreshadowed the breaking of old; settled +anew the continually agitated question of "who was going with who." + +"Judy turn you down?" said Mr. Ward, but he meant it as a pleasantry. +Mr. Willard Nash was not often turned down, even at this early age. He +was too eligible. + +"Rena turn you down, Ed?" + +"Yes." Mr. Ward became suddenly confidential, and lowered his voice. +"Mad. She wanted me to get her a shinguard to mount tintypes +on--tintypes of the team." + +"Buy it or steal it?" inquired Willard sarcastically. + +"I offered to buy it," his friend confessed, "buy her a new pair, but +she wants one that's been used." + +"You spoil Rena. You can't spoil a girl." They laughed wisely. "It don't +pay." + +"Mad with Judy?" + +"Well--no," said Willard magnanimously. He thought quite rapidly, as his +brain, not overworked at other times, could do in emergencies. "My feet +hurt. Pumps slip at the heel. I've been stuffing them out. Judy came +with me, but I had to be excused for this dance." + +"Good thing for him." + +"Who?" + +"For Murph--for Neil Donovan. They'll all dance with him if she does; +though Judy don't know that. She's not stuck on herself, and never will +be. I didn't know she knew Murph." + +"Well, you know it now," said Willard shortly, his man-of-the-world +composure failing him. Judith was circling nearer now, slender and +desirable. He hesitated between an angry glare and a forgiving smile, +but she did not look to see which he chose. She whirled quickly by. + +"Smooth little dancer, and she's no snob. Judy's all right," said Ed. +"Watch Murph! He's catching on--never danced till last night. Some of +the fellows taught him. He never danced with a girl before." + +"If my feet hurt," remarked Mr. Nash irrelevantly, and without the close +attention from his friend which this important announcement called for, +"I may not dance at all to-night." + +Willard stopped abruptly. "What do you know about that"; a voice was +saying, in the rear of the dressing-room; he stiffly refrained from +turning to see whose, "Judith is dancing the first dance with Neil +Donovan!" + +Judith was dancing the first dance with Neil Donovan. It was social +history already, accepted as such, and not further discussed, even by +Willard. But many epoch-making events are not even so much discussed, +they look so simple on the face of them. We cross a room, and change the +course of our lives by crossing it, and few people even observe that we +have crossed the room. + +If Judith had affected the course of her life materially by crossing the +room to the strange boy, she did not seem to be thinking of it just now. +She was not thinking at all. She was only dancing, following her +partner's erratic course quite faithfully, and quite intent on doing so; +feeling every beat of the music, and showing it, pink-cheeked and +sparkling eyed, and pleasantly excited, but nothing more. + +The wistful and dreamy look was gone from her eyes, and her half-formed +desire for something to happen this evening, something that had never +happened before, was gone from her, too. She felt content with whatever +was going to happen, and deeply interested in it, and particularly +interested in dancing. + +They had danced almost in silence, rather a grim silence at first, but +now that the boy could let the music carry him with it, and was +beginning to trust it, too, the silence was comfortable. But the few +words he managed to say were worth listening to and answering, not to be +dreamed through and ignored, like Willard's. His voice was not as she +remembered it, and that was interesting, too, deeply significant, though +she could not have said why. Everything seemed unaccountably interesting +to-night. + +"I thought it was louder," she said, "or higher--or something." + +"What?" + +"Your voice." + +It was quite husky and low, and he pronounced a word here and there with +a brogue like Norah's, only pleasanter, with a kind of singing sound. +It was never the word you expected. You had to watch for it. She could +hear it now. + +"Won't you please tell me who you are?" + +"I know who you are, and I know where you live." + +"Where do I?" + +"At the Falls, and I know when you moved there--five years ago, or six." + +"Six. How do you know?" + +"Oh, I know." + +As you grew older, and learned to call more boys and girls in the school +by name, and more of the clerks in the shops, you discovered new people +in the town where you thought you knew everybody, and it made the town +infinitely large. But this boy had not been so near her, or she would +have seen him. He could not have been in school with her. He must have +worked on a farm and studied by himself with the grammar-school teacher +at the Falls, and taken special examinations to enter the Junior class +this year, as Willard said that some boy at the Falls was doing. He must +be that boy or Judith would surely have seen him. + +She nodded her head wisely. "I know." + +"You know a lot." In his soft brogue this sounded like the most +complimentary thing that could be said. + +"But you don't remember me." This had troubled her at first. Now it +seemed like the most delicious of jokes, and they laughed at it +together. + +"That was the first thing you said to me." + +"Isn't it queer"--Judith's eyes widened and darkened as if it were +something more than queer, something far worse--"so queer! I can't think +what the first thing was that you said to me." + +They confronted this problem in silence, staring at each other with +wide-open eyes. Though they were circling smoothly at last, carried on +by the slow, sweet music, so that they hardly seemed to be moving at +all, and though he did not really move his head, the boy's eyes seemed +to Judith to be coming nearer to hers, nearer all the time. They were +beautiful eyes, deep brown, and very clear. His brown hair grew in a +squarish line across his forehead, and waved softly at the temples. It +looked as if he had brushed it hard there to brush the curl out, but it +was curliest there. + +"You've got the brownest eyes," said Judith. + +"You've got the biggest eyes. Won't you tell me your name?" + +Judith did not answer. She looked away from the disconcerting brown eyes +and down at her hand, against his shoulder, her own little hand, with +the careful manicure and the dull polish that was all her mother +permitted; bare of rings, though Norah had given her a beautiful garnet +ring for Christmas. How shiny his coat-sleeve was, and her hand looked +unfamiliar to her--not like her own at all. She pressed tighter against +his shoulder to steady herself. + +The music was growing quicker and louder, working up gradually but +surely into a breathless crescendo that meant the end of the dance. It +whirled them dizzily about. The sleepy spell of the dance broke in this +final crash of noise, and as it broke a sudden panic caught Judith. + +What had she been saying to this boy? She had never talked like this to +a boy before. And why was she dancing with him? She ought to be dancing +with Willard--Willard, waiting there in the dressing-room door with her +dance order in his hand, with the patient and puzzled look in his eyes, +with brick-red colour in his cheeks from the affront she had subjected +him to. What would Willard think of her? What would her mother think? +And who was this boy? Just what the children had called him in taunting +screams, on that long-ago May night, and she would have liked to scream +it now--a paddy. + +Instead, she lifted her head, no longer afraid of the boy's brown eyes, +and said it, as cruelly as she could, in her soft and clear little +voice: + +"Paddy," she said; "a paddy from Paddy Lane." + +She looked defiantly into his eyes, but they did not grow angry. They +only grew very soft and kind, and they laughed at her. She wanted to +look away from the laughter in them, but she could not look away from +the kindness. Now she was not angry with him any more, but glad she was +dancing with him. She knew she never wanted to stop dancing. + +"Paddy?" He thought she had said it to remind him of that May night; he +was remembering it now. "Are you that little girl?" + +"Yes." + +"The little girl who broke the lantern?" + +"Yes," said Judith proudly. + +"And had such long black legs, and went scuttling across the lawn, and +screaming out to me--that funny little girl?" + +"But I did break the lantern," said Judith. + +All the bravest stories that she had made up in the dark to put herself +to sleep with at night, all the perilous adventures of land and sea, +camp fire or pirate ship, began with the breaking of that lantern, and +the boy she rescued had been her companion upon them, her brushwood boy, +her own boy. She had found him at last, and he was laughing--laughing at +her. + +"Sure you did. As if I couldn't have broken away from a bunch of fool +kids, without being doped with the smell of kerosene, and yelled at by +another fool kid. Sure you broke the lantern. How mad I was." + +"You didn't remember." It was not a joke any longer now, but a tragedy, +and Judith felt overwhelmed by it, alone in the world. "You forgot, and +I--remembered." + +The brown eyes and the gray met in one last long look and when the brown +eyes saw the hurt in Judith's, the laughter died out of them. Again they +seemed to be growing nearer and nearer to hers, but this time Judith was +not afraid, she was glad. + +"If you didn't save my life then, you did to-night." It came in a husky +burst of confidence, straight from his shy boy's heart, very rare and +very precious. Judith caught her breath. + +"Oh, did I? Did I?" + +"Yes. This crowd here had me mad--crazy mad. I was going home. I was +going to get off the team. I wasn't going to school next week, and I've +worked my hands off to get there. Maybe you remembered and I forgot, +but--I won't forget again. You were that little girl." It was not a +slight to the little girl she used to be, but a tribute to the girl she +was; that was what looked out of his brown eyes at Judith, and sang +through the brogue in his voice. + +"You were that little girl--you!" + +"Yes," breathed Judith; "yes!" + +They whirled faster and faster. This was really the end of the dance, +and this dance could never come again. Judith held tight to his shiny +shoulder, breathless, hurrying to part with her secret and strip herself +bare of mystery generously in a breath. All sorts of barriers might come +between them, she might put them there herself, and she was quite aware +of it, but not yet, not until the music stopped. + +"My name's Judith--Judith Randall. Call me Judy." + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + + +Colonel Everard sat at the head of his dinner table. A little dinner for +twelve was well under way at the Birches. Mrs. Everard was confined to +her tower suite to-night with one of the sudden headaches which unkind +critics held were likely to come when the Colonel entertained. Randolph +Sebastian, his secretary, had superintended the arrangements for the +dinner. + +Pink roses, rather too many of them, were massed on the big, round +table. Rather too much polished silver was to be seen on it; the most +ornate candlesticks in the Everard collection, and a too complete array +of small, scattered objects, each with a possible but not an essential +function, littering a cloth already complicated by elaborate inserts of +lace. But the brilliantly lighted, over-decorated table was effective +enough in the big, darkly wainscoted room, a little island of light and +colour. + +The room was characterless, but finely and generously proportioned, and +not so blatantly new as the rest of the colonel's house still looked. +Against the dark walls the pale-coloured gowns around the table were +charming. Indeed, most of the gowns were designed for this setting. + +For there were no outsiders among the Colonel's guests to-night. +Sometimes there were distinguished outsiders, politicians and other big +men, diverted from triumphant tours through larger centres by the +Colonel's influence, and by his courtesy exhibited to Green River after +they had dined, or bigger men still, whose comings and goings the public +press was not permitted to chronicle. Sometimes, too, there were +outsiders on probation, the outer fringe of Green River society, +admitted to formal functions, and hoping in vain to penetrate to +intimate ones; ladies flustered and flattered, gentlemen sulky but +flattered, conscious that each appearance here might be their last, and +trying to seem indifferent to the fact. + +But this was the Colonel's inner circle, gathered by telephone at +twenty-four hours' notice, as they so often were. No course that the +chef had contributed to the rather too elaborate menu was new to them. +The Pol Roger which the big English butler was just starting on his +second round was of the vintage year usually to be found on the +Colonel's wine list, and on most intelligently supervised wine lists. A +dinner for twelve, like plenty of little dinners elsewhere, no more +correct and no less, but it had this to distinguish it; it was being +served in Green River. + +Served complete from hors-d'oeuvres to liqueurs, in a New England town +where high tea had been the fashion not ten years ago, and church +suppers were still important occasions--where you were rich on five +thousand a year, and there were not a dozen capitalists secure of so +much, where a second maid was an object of pride, and there was no +butler except the Colonel's. And he had imported this butler and his +chef and his wines, but not his guests; they were quite as impressive, +quite able to appreciate his hospitality, if not to return it in kind, +and they were all but one native products of Green River. + +The youngest guest was eating mushrooms _sous cloche_ in contented +silence at the Colonel's left. The scene was not new to her. She could +not remember her first party here; she was probably the only person in +Green River who could pass over that momentous occasion so lightly. She +had grown up as the only child in the inner circle. She had been +privileged to excuse herself, when the formal succession of courses at +some holiday function was too much for her, and read fairy tales on a +cushion by the library fire, out of the fat, purple edition de luxe of +the "Arabian Nights" that was always waiting for her there. Though her +white ruffled skirts had grown long now, and her silvery gold braids +were pinned up, and she was allowed to fill an empty place at the +Colonel's table whenever he asked her, if not quite on his regular +dinner list yet, Judith was not much changed from that wide-eyed child, +and to-night her eyes looked sleepy and soft, as if she had serious +thoughts of the cushion by the fire and the fairy book still. + +The scene was not new, but it kept a fascination for her, like a +transformation scene in a pantomime. Mr. J. Cleveland Kent, the manager +of the shoe factory, who had taken her in to dinner, had been leaning +out of a factory window in his shirt-sleeves, his black hair tumbled, +and badly in need of a shave, when she passed on her way home from +school. He looked mysterious and interesting in a dinner coat, like her +idea of an Italian nobleman. + +When Judith knocked at the kitchen door to deliver a note, Mrs. Theodore +Burr, in a pink cooking apron, corsetless, and with her beautiful yellow +hair in patent curlers, had been blackening the kitchen stove, and +quarrelling with the furnace man about an overcharge of fifty cents on +his monthly bill. The Burrs had no maid. Theodore Burr had been +assisting Judge Saxon ever since he passed his bar examinations, but he +was not admitted to partnership yet. This was beginning to make gossip, +for he worked hard. He had broken his dinner engagement to-night, as he +often did, to stay at home and work. Randolph Sebastian, the secretary, +with the queer, hybrid foreign name, and thin face and ingratiating +brown eyes, had his place at the table. + +Mrs. Burr, stately and slender now in jetted black, the lowest cut gown +in the room, her yellow hair fluffing and flaring into an unbelievable +number of well-filled-out puffs, was chattering to the Colonel in a low +voice, so that Judith could not understand, and breaking into French at +intervals--Green River High School French, but she spoke it with an air, +narrowing her blue-gray eyes after an alluring fashion she had and +laughing her full-toned laugh. She was a full-blown, emphatic creature, +though she had been married only three years, and was Lil Gaynor still +to half the town. + +Auburn-haired little Mrs. Kent had been lying down all the afternoon, as +her disapproving domestic had informed any one who inquired at the door +in a shrill voice that did not promote repose. She was very piquant and +enticing now, with her bright, slanting hazel eyes, and a contagious +laugh, but her dinner partner, Judith's father, was tired and hard to +amuse. He looked very boyish when he was tired; his blue eyes looked +large and pathetic. + +The other two young women and Judith's mother, whose dark, low-browed +Madonna beauty was gracious and fresh to-night, set off by her +clear-blue gown, with a gardenia caught in her sheer, white scarf, +deserved the Honourable Joseph Grant's flowery name for them, the Three +Graces. + +Before the Colonel's time and Judith's the Honourable Joe had been the +most important man in Green River, and in evening things, and after a +properly concocted cocktail he still looked it, florid and portly and +well set-up, with a big voice that could still sound hearty though it +rang rather empty and hollow sometimes. He looked ten years younger than +his old friend, Judge Saxon. The Judge's coat was getting shiny at the +seams, and--this appeared even more unfortunate to Judith--he was in the +habit of pointing out that it was shiny, and without embarrassment. Mrs. +Saxon's pearl-gray satin was of excellent quality, but of last year's +cut, and the modest neck was filled in with the net guimpe which she +affected at informal dinners. The Saxons were not quite in the picture, +but they were always very kind to Judith. + +And if they were not in the picture, Mrs. Joseph Grant, certainly not +the youngest woman in the room, though she was not the oldest, occupied +the centre of it. + +She was like the picture of the beautiful princess on the hill of glass, +in a book of Judith's, and besides, she had once been a real débutante, +of the kind that Judith liked to read about in novels, before the +Honourable Joe brought her from Boston to Green River. Judith liked to +look at her better than any one here except Colonel Everard. + +"Cosmopolitan--ten years ahead of Wells, or any town in your state; real +give and take in the table talk; really pretty women; the same little +group of people rubbing wits against each other day after day and +getting them sharpened instead of dulled by it; a concentrated, pocket +edition of a social life, but complete--nothing provincial about it," a +very distinguished outsider had said after his last week-end with the +Colonel. + +But he was fresh from a visit to the state capital, the most provincial +city in the state when the legislature was not in session; also he had a +known weakness for pretty women. Green River did not admire the +Colonel's circle so unreservedly, but Green River was jealous. Whatever +you thought of it, it was made of fixed and unpromising material, and +making it was no mean achievement, and the man at the head of the table +looked capable of it, and of bigger things. + +The Colonel was a big man and a public character, and as with many +bigger men, you could divide the facts of his life into two classes: +what everybody knew and what nobody knew. If the known facts were not +the most dramatic ones, they were dramatic enough. He was sixty now. At +fifteen he had been a student in a small theological seminary, working +for his board on his uncle's farm, and engaged to the teacher of the +district school, who helped him with his Greek at night. He gave up the +ministry for the law, used his law practice as a stepping-stone into +state politics, climbed gradually into national politics, built up a +fortune somehow--these were the days of big graft--married for money and +got an assured position in Washington society thrown in, and soon after +his marriage chose Green River as a basis of operations, spending a +winter month in Washington which later lengthened to three, ostensibly +for the sake of his wife's health. The title of Colonel came from +serving on the Governor's staff in an uneventful year. He had held no +very important office, but his importance to his party in state and +national politics was not to be measured by that. + +White haired, slightly built, managing with perfectly apparent tricks +of carriage and dress to look taller than he was, he was the effective +figure in this rather unusually good-looking group of people. Just now +he was lighting a fresh cigarette for Mrs. Burr so gracefully that even +Judge Saxon must enjoy watching, so Judith thought, though there was a +tradition that he did not like women to smoke. Shocking the Judge was +one of their favourite games here. It was only a game. Of course they +could never shock anybody. They were quite harmless people, too grown up +to be very interesting, but almost always kind, and always gay. + +The Colonel's profile was really beautiful through the curling, bluish +smoke, and Judith liked his quick, flashing smile. He turned now and +smiled at Judith. Her own smile was charming, a faint, half smile, that +never knew whether to turn into a real smile or to go away and not come +again, but was always just on the point of deciding. + +"Is our débutante bored?" + +"Oh, no; I was just thinking. No." + +"She's blushing. Look at her." + +"Yes, look at a real one. Do you good, Lil," agreed the Judge, and Mrs. +Burr rubbed a pink cheek with her table napkin, exhibited it daintily, +and laughed. + +"Rose-white youth! But she doth protest too much." The Honourable Joe +was fond of quotations, and often tried to make his remarks sound like +them, when he could not recall appropriate ones, raising a solemn fat +finger to emphasize them: "The thoughts of youth are long, long +thoughts." + +"Wrong, wrong thoughts," supplied Randolph Sebastian, so gravely that +the Honourable Joe accepted the amendment, and looked worried, as only +the thought of losing his grip on Bartlett's "Familiar Quotations" could +worry him at the end of a perfect meal. + +"Wrong thought?" he repeated, in a puzzled voice. + +"Thinking's barred here. What's the penalty, Judge?" + +"You aren't likely to get it inflicted on you, so I won't tell you, +Lil." + +"No, I don't think; I act," Mrs. Burr admitted cheerfully. She always +became a shade more cheerful just when you expected her to lose her +temper. + +"How true that is," observed Mr. Sebastian gently. + +"Ranny!" + +"Didn't you play auction with me last night? We're out just----" + +"Don't tell me. I can't think in anything beyond three figures. Ted's +doing higher mathematics over it. That's why he's home, really. I'll +play with you again to-night, for your sins." + +"For my sins!" He made melancholy eyes, as if he were really confessing +them. Mr. Sebastian always pretended a deep devotion to Mrs. Burr. +Judith thought it was one of the silliest of their games. + +"But what was Judy thinking about?" demanded Mrs. Grant, in the sweet, +indifferent voice that always made itself heard. + +"She met a fairy prince at the ball last night. They are still to be +met--at balls." + +"You'd meet one anywhere he made a date, wouldn't you, Edith Kent?" said +the Judge rudely. "Give Miss Judy a penny for her thoughts, if you want +them, Everard. You've got to pay sometimes, you know--even you." + +"Don't commercialize her too young," said Mr. Sebastian smoothly. +"Though, on the whole--can you commercialize them too young?" + +"Judith, what were you thinking about?" the Colonel interrupted, rather +quickly, turning every one's eyes upon her at once, as he could with a +word. + +Judith met them confidently--amused, curious eyes, but all friendly and +gay. They talked a great deal of nonsense here, but it did not irritate +her, as it did her friend Judge Saxon, though she was not always amused, +and could not always understand. They never tried to shock her. She was +sorry for the Judge. He was not at home with these gay and good-natured +people, and it was so easy to be. + +She tipped her head backward in deliberate imitation of Edith Kent, whom +she admired, half closed her eyes, like Lillian Burr, whom she admired +still more, gazed up at the Colonel, and said, in her clear little +voice: + +"I was thinking about you." + +"That's the answer," said Mr. Kent, and rewarded it with a lump of sugar +dipped in his apricot brandy. + +"For an ingénue?" said Mrs. Burr, very sweetly indeed. + +"'She's getting older every day,'" hummed Mrs. Kent, in her charming, +throaty contralto. + +But Judge Saxon pushed back his chair and rose abruptly. + +"I've had dinner enough," he said, "and so have you, Miss Judy." + +"We all have, Hugh," said the Colonel quickly, and rose, too, and +slipped an intimate hand through his arm. "Run along, children! Hugh, +about that Brady matter----" + +Judge Saxon submitted sulkily, but was laughing companionably with the +Colonel by the time they all reached the library. + +Judith never admired the Colonel more than when he was managing Judge +Saxon in a sulky mood. And she never admired the Colonel and his friends +more than she did in the lazy intimate hour here before the cards began. + +The room was long and high, and too narrow; unfriendly, as only a room +that is both badly proportioned and unusually large can be, but you +forgot this in the softening glow of candles and rose-shaded lights. You +forgot, too, that you were an exile from your own generation, among +elders who bored you, though you were subtly flattered to be among them. +Safe on a high window-bench in the most remote window, entirely your +own, since the architect had not designed it to be sat on, and nobody +else took the trouble to climb up, it was so much pleasanter to watch +these people than to talk to them; they had such pretty clothes, and +wore them so well, and made such effective, changing pictures of +themselves in the big room. + +Sometimes they amused themselves with the parlour tricks that they had +so many of, and sometimes they drifted in and out in groups of two and +three, to more intimate parts of the house: the smoking-room, or Mrs. +Everard's suite, if she was well, or out through the French windows, +across the broad, glassed-in veranda that ran the length of the room and +darkened it unpleasantly by day, into the Colonel's rose garden. It was +warm enough for that to-night, and a yellow, September moon showed +invitingly through the windows. Mrs. Grant, who liked to be alone, as +Judith could quite understand, since she had to listen to the Honourable +Joe's big voice so much of the time, was slipping out through a window +now, taking the coat that Mr. Sebastian brought her, but refusing to let +him go with her. + +He went to the piano, ran his thin, flexible brown fingers over the +keys, struck into a Spanish serenade, and sang a verse of it in his +brilliant but tricky tenor, with his languishing eyes upon Mrs. Burr. + +"Ranny, do you want to tell the whole world of our love? You terrify +me," she said, and took refuge on one arm of the Colonel's chair. +Judith's mother, protesting that she needed a chaperon, promptly took +possession of the other arm, disposing her blue, trailing skirts +demurely, and looking more Madonna-like than ever through the cloudy +smoke of a belated cigarette. The others made themselves equally +comfortable, all but Judge Saxon, who had ceased to advertise the fact +that he was not. + +"Smile at me," Mrs. Kent begged, hovering over his chair; "I'm going to +sing by and by, and I need it. Do smile! If you don't, I'm going to kiss +you, Judge." + +"Go as far as you like, but be sure how far you like to go, Edith," said +the Judge quietly. She flushed, and turned away abruptly, playing with a +pile of songs. + +"I'm looking for a lullaby. Our youngest seems to need it." + +"Not in your line, are they?" said Sebastian, and began to improvise +one, while Judith, in her corner, closed her eyes contentedly. Whether +there was any truth or not in the report that he had been playing a +ramshackle piano in an East Side restaurant in New York when the Colonel +picked him up, Sebastian could do charming things with quite simple +little tunes, if you did not inquire into problems of harmony and +counterpoint too closely. He was doing them now, weaving odds and ends +of familiar tunes, rather scapegrace and thin, into a lovely, reassuring +whole, that made you feel rested and safe. Judith, making herself +comfortable against a stiff and unwieldy Arts and Crafts sort of +cushion, as long experience had taught her to, listened, smiling. + +She had no idea what a unique position she was occupying there. Judge +Saxon grumbled and scolded, but he was part of the group in the room. +He had grown into it, and belonged to them, as he might have belonged to +an uncongenial family. The Colonel's distinguished guests saw them only +on their best behaviour. Their local critics never penetrated here at +all. Judith was the only outsider who did, and she had besides the +irrevocable right of youth to pronounce judgment upon those who have +prepared the world for it to occupy. She was their only licensed critic. +What did she think of them? Her blond head drooped sleepily. She did not +look disposed to say. + +Sebastian played on, drifting into something sophisticated, with a +suggestion of waltz rhythms running through it. There was a stir of +movement in the room, and the sound of windows opening and shutting, +once, and then again. Judith did not turn her head to see who had gone +out. She was too comfortable. It was strange that he could make you so +comfortable with his music, when he made you so uncomfortable if you +talked to him, watching you so closely with his queer, bright eyes. + +He stopped abruptly, with a big, crashing discord, and Judith rubbed her +eyes and sat up. Mrs. Kent was going to sing now. She tossed some music +to him. + +"That's over your head," she said; "over all your heads; better put me +up there, too, Cleve. Besides, I want to dance. That table will do." +She cleared it unceremoniously, with her husband's help, and established +herself there, poised motionless, through the introductory bars of the +song, her sleepy eyes wide awake now, and a red rose from a bowl on the +table caught between her teeth. + +Quietly, always careful to avoid the reputation of being shocked, like +the Judge, Judith slipped down from her perch, and across the room, and +out through the window. + + "Please keep my folks from kickin'; + Grab me while I'm a chicken, + I'm getting older every day." + +Mrs. Kent's fresh voice was urging, as Judith tiptoed across the +veranda. + +The rowdy words of her little songs and the demure plaintiveness of Mrs. +Kent's voice made an effective contrast. It amused Judith as much as any +one, and she liked to laugh, but she liked better to cry, and if you +could not hear the words, Mrs. Kent's voice made you cry; big, luxurious +tears, that stood in your eyes and did not fall. As she found her way +across the lawn, among the elaborate flower-beds, the voice followed +her, mellow and sweet. It had never sounded so sweet before. Everything +sweet in the world was sweeter to-night. + +At the edge of the lawn Judith paused. Ahead of her three marble steps, +flanked by urns filled with ivy, glaring things in the daytime but +glimmering shadowy white and alluring now, led up the terrace to the +rose garden; a fairy place, far from the world, so hedged in and +shadowed by trees that it was dark even by moonlight, entered through an +old-fashioned trellised arbour, that was so mysterious and dark, she +liked it almost as well now when the rambler roses were not in flower. + +When she left the room her mother had been sitting in Colonel Everard's +chair, she seemed to remember, and the Colonel and Mrs. Burr were +nowhere to be seen. The whole room looked emptier, though she did not +know who else was missing. But there were two people now in the rose +arbour. She could just hear their voices, low, with long silences +between. + +She wanted the place to herself. She stood still, hoping that they would +go. There was a path into the woods on the other side of the little +garden: the Colonel's bare, semicultivated woods, combed clean of +underbrush, but you did not miss it at night. The woods were full of +adventure, but the garden was better to dream in, and Judith had a great +deal to dream about. + +The lighted house looked quite small and far away across the wide, +moonlit lawn. They had stopped singing, and the laughter that followed +the song did not sound so clear as the music; you could just hear it. +Presently you could hear nothing, and it was quiet in the rose arbour, +too. She waited until she was sure, standing quite still at the edge of +the dark enclosure, not a ruffle of her white dress fluttering, very +slender and small against the dark of the leaves. Then she slipped into +the arbour. + +Through a fringe of drooping vine that half hid the picture, she could +see the garden, empty and dimly moonlit, with the marble benches faintly +white. She hurried through, pushed a trailing vine aside, then dropped +it and shrank back under the trellis. + +The garden was empty. But across it, just at the entrance of the wood +path, she saw a man and a woman. At first she took the two figures for +one, they were standing so closely embraced. She could not see their +faces, only the two dark figures standing there like one. They stood +still a long time. They might have been lovers in a picture, only you +could not paint pictures of darkly clothed, ungraceful, shapeless +people. Finally they moved, the man turning suddenly, slipping an arm +higher around the woman's shoulders, and putting his face down to hers. + +Then he drew her into the wood path, and they passed down it out of +sight. Judith did not know who the woman was, but the man was Colonel +Everard. And they had kissed each other. + +Now they were gone. Judith drew a deep breath of relief and stepped out +into the enclosure, pacing across it with slow steps, possessing it for +her own and dismissing alien presences. There was a high-backed marble +erection between the benches, which looked like a memorial to the dear +departed, but was designed for a chair. She seated herself there +deliberately, leaning back, at ease somehow in the unfriendly depths of +it, a slender, uncompromising creature, like a young princess sitting in +judgment on her throne. + +They had kissed each other. She knew they did things like this, but now +she had seen it, which was different, and not very pleasant. But they +were all so old. Did it really matter whether they kissed each other or +not? + +"Stupid old things," said Colonel Everard's only authorized critic, "I +don't care what they do." + +Here in the quiet of the garden you were free to think about more +interesting things than the Everards or even fairy princes. + +"Stupid," repeated Judith absently, and forgot the Everards. The moon, +far away but very clear, shone down at her in an unwinking, +concentrated way, as if it were shining into the Colonel's garden and +nowhere else, and at nobody but Judith. She did not look disconcerted by +the attention, but stared back at it with eyes that were not sleepy now, +but very big and bright--wondering, but not afraid. + +On still nights like this you could just hear the church clock strike +from the garden, but you could not count all the strokes. Judith +listened for the sound. It was early, and out here, in the cool, still +air, it felt early, though the time had passed so slowly in the +Colonel's sleepy rooms. She could hear no music from the house. They +would soon begin to put out the bridge tables. There was always a chance +that they would need her to complete a table, but if they did not, the +Colonel's car was to take her home at nine. + +And the Colonel's youngest guest had further plans for the evening. + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + + +"That will be all, Miss?" + +"Yes," said Judith, with unnecessary emphasis. "Oh, yes, indeed!" + +The Everards' car turned and flashed out of the drive and up the street. +Judith stood still on the steps and watched it, if a young lady with her +breath coming fast and her eyes shining bright in the dark, and her +heart beating unaccountably hard can be said to be standing still. One +light burned forlornly over the entrance of the inn. Light was Judge +Saxon's one extravagance, and plenty of it was waiting for him in the +house next door, though it would be two before any one left the +Everards' but Judith. + +The house before her was dark, and the dimly lighted street was +profoundly still, with the heavy and brooding stillness that comes upon +village streets after nine and is to be found nowhere else in the world. +Judith did not seem depressed by it. Somewhere on a side street solitary +footsteps echoed hollow through the silence, and she listened intently, +but they came no nearer, and presently died away. She fumbled excitedly +with her key, threw open the door, and groped her way across the +unlighted hall. She encountered the telephone table prematurely, +clutched it, and laughed a high-keyed, strange little laugh. + +"Who's there?" demanded a voice from the stairs, disconcertingly close. +The lights, switched suddenly on, flashed into Judith's eyes, and Norah +confronted her, peculiarly forbidding in a discarded cape of Judith's +and her own beflowered best hat. + +"Oh, it's you," she said. + +"Who did you expect? Anybody else? Did--anybody come?" + +"I expected you a half hour ago." + +"What made you wait for me?" + +"Didn't you want me to?" + +"Nana, of course, but if your sister is sick and needs you----" + +Norah listened to this irreproachable sentiment suspiciously. "It's late +to go," she said. + +"I'll walk up with you if you're frightened." + +"You! Can you unhook that dress?" + +"Yes. I'm going to bed pretty soon. I'm awfully sleepy." + +"There's some ginger ale on the ice." + +"I can get it open myself. Did anybody come?" + +"A boy you know." + +"Who?" + +"You're too anxious to know, and too anxious to get rid of me. +And you're acting nervous." + +"I'm not. I'm just sleepy." + +Norah, her grimmest self, as she always was just before relenting, began +to fumble with her hat-pins. + +"Let me help, if you really want to take off your hat. You'll spoil your +beautiful roses. Darling, you look like your niece, the lovely Miss +Maggie Brady, in that hat. Don't take it off. You're cross because you +know where I've been. Well, they didn't eat me. I'm all here. It was +Willard who came, and I don't care whether you tell me or not. And I +don't want to get rid of you. And I love you and you love me, and you're +not cross now." + +"If I love you, you've got need of it, then." Norah struggled +perfunctorily, and permitted herself to be kissed. "Alone here till all +hours of the night, and Mollie at the dance at the Falls, and your own +mother----" + +"But you won't worry about me? And you'll go? And you'll go now, before +it gets later, so you won't be frightened. You'll go this minute? +And--oh, Nana----" + +Norah, departing by the front door because the back one was secured by +an elaborate system of locks of her own invention, and operated only by +herself, turned to give Judith a farewell glance of grim adoration. + +"Nana, was it Willard that came?" + +"Yes." + +"And not--anybody else?" + +"No." + +Norah, winding herself tightly into the cape in a way that converted +that traditionally graceful garment into a kind of armour, disappeared +up the street. When she was out of sight, and not until then, Judith +slammed the door shut, laughing her tense, excited laugh again. + +Then, for a sleepy young woman, she began to display surprising +activity. First she turned off all the lights in the hall but one, in an +opalescent globe, over the front door, looked at the faintly lighted +vestibule with a calculating eye, and turned that out also. She looked +critically in at the library, close curtained for the night, and dimly +lit by the embers of the wood fire, raked apart, but not dead. She +pushed them together expertly, and added a stick, a little one, which +would soon burn down to picturesque embers, like the rest. She pulled an +armchair closer to the fire, pushed it away again, and dropped two +cushions on the hearth with a discreet space between. + +The remains of Willard's last half-dozen carnations and a box of the +eighty-cent-a-pound candy which only Mr. Edward Ward was extravagant +enough to prefer to the generally popular fifty-cent Belle Isle, were +conspicuous on the table, and Judith carried them into the next room, +out of sight. Just then the telephone rang. + +Judith started, dropped the candy, ran into the hall, and stood looking +down at the small instrument resentfully, as if it were personally to +blame because she could not see who was calling her without answering +and committing herself. Once she picked it up doubtfully, but finally +put it down, still ringing intermittently, and hurried into the kitchen. +She put a second bottle of ginger ale on the ice, brought a hammered +brass tray and two glasses from the butler's pantry, then substituted a +less ostentatious bamboo tray, hesitated, and then put them all away +again. + +Now she went to her own room, turned on an unbecoming but searchingly +clear toplight, and frowned at herself in the mirror, jerked out her +hairpins, shook out her soft hair, and brushed and pulled at it with +unsteady hands. In spite of them, the pale gold braids, rearranged, +looked almost as well as before, if no better, and the heightened colour +in her cheeks was charming. From a corner of her glove-case she produced +the two cosmetics then in favour with the younger set in Green River, +burnt matches, and a bit of scarlet ribbon, which made an excellent +substitute for rouge if you moistened it. The ribbon was an unhealthy +red, and looked peculiarly so to-night. Judith dropped it impulsively +into her wastebasket, but experimented with the matches. + +She made both her delicately shaded eyebrows an even splotchy black, +admired the result, then suddenly rubbed it off, turned away from the +mirror without a backward glance, and ran down into the hall. The clock +was just striking ten. + +Judith paused for one breathless minute at the library door, pressing +both hands against her heart, then she went into the firelit room and +made the last and most important of her preparations. She switched on +the lights, toplights and sidelights and reading-lamp, all of them, went +to the middle one of the three front windows, crushed the curtains back, +and raised both shades high to the top, so that the light in the room +looked out at the street from this window from sill to ceiling. Judith +slipped quickly out of range of the window, dropped down on one of the +cushions by the fire, and waited. + +She had fluttered through her little hurry of preparation excitedly, but +now there was evidence of deeper excitement about the tense quiet of +her, huddled on her cushion, small hands clasping silken knees, and +brooding eyes on the fire. There was a dignity about her, too, in spite +of her childish pose and a drooping grace that was almost a woman's. + +What she was waiting for was slow to come, but she did not seem +disturbed by that. The hands of the clock above her seemed to move with +the unbelievable quickness characteristic of clock hands when there is +no other activity in the room, and she observed them calmly. Soon they +pointed to the quarter hour, they passed it. She looked faintly worried +then. The telephone rang again; she pressed her hands over her ears and +shut her eyes tight, and did not answer. The stick on the fire burned +low and she did not replace it. It parted and fell from the andirons +with a dull noise that echoed loudly through the empty room. Judith +started and jumped up, her eyes hard and bright, her hands tightly +clenched. + +She eyed the clock threateningly, as if it were personally responsible +for whatever disappointment she might be feeling, and she were daring it +not to strike. It struck half-past ten in spite of her. Judith's mouth +trembled childishly, and tears started to her eyes. They did not fall. +Footsteps sounded outside. They turned into the drive. Judith stood on +tiptoe and peeped at herself in the mantel mirror--her flushed cheeks, +tumbled hair, and sparkling eyes. The steps crossed the porch, and she +ran to the door and threw it open--the length of the chain, and no +wider. She did not unbar the chain. On the threshold, with a substantial +box of Belle Isle under his arm, stood Mr. Willard Nash. + +Judith regarded Mr. Nash and his Belle Isle with disfavour. + +"You can't come in," she said. + +Mr. Nash, who had been stooping to flick some dust from his boots, +straightened guiltily. "Why?" + +"It's too late." + +"I've got to see you." + +"You do see me." A white dress, a face almost as white, and big, dark +eyes were all he could see, but it seemed to be enough. He inserted a +square-toed boot cautiously in the opening of the door. + +"I want to see you _about_ something." + +"What?" + +"A new comic song for the quartette. They won't let us do 'Amos Moss' at +the Lyceum concert. That part about the red shirt is vulgar. The new +one's close harmony. It will show off Murph's voice." + +"It's too late now. Go home, Willard." + +"But I brought you this." + +"Go home and eat it," suggested Judith. + +Willard turned scarlet, swung round, then changed his mind and inserted +his foot in the crack of the door again, this time with a purposeful +air. He was to develop into the type of man to whom an unpropitious time +and place are an irresistible temptation to demand a show-down. It is a +type that goes far, though it is not essentially popular. Judith sighed, +then resigned herself. + +"Judy, I don't make you out." + +"You don't have to." + +"I do." Willard's voice was impressive, as even a fat boy's can be when +he is in the grip of fate and conscious of it. "I do." + +"I'm sorry, Willard, dear," murmured Judith, with disarming sweetness, +but he was not to be turned from his purpose. + +"Judy, are you going with me or not?" + +"Going with you?" + +"Don't be a snob. What else can I call it but going with me? I don't +know any other way to say it." + +"Then don't say it." + +"You've got my class pin and I've got yours. I know there isn't anybody +else. You let me call and take you places, but you won't let me----" + +"What?" + +Willard looked sheepishly down at his boots, then bravely up at Judith. +"Put my arm round you at picnics. Kiss you good-night." + +Judith cut short this catalogue crisply. + +"Spoon?" + +This word was forbidden in the upper circles of the Green River younger +set, and Willard looked pained, but collected himself. + +"We are the same as engaged," he insisted sturdily. + +He had forced an issue at last, but Judith evaded it, laughing softly in +the dark. + +"Oh, are we?" + +"Aren't we?" + +"How do you know there isn't anybody else?" + +"Well, you won't look at Ed, and Murph don't count." Willard made this +pronouncement lightly, though the adamantine rules and impassable +barriers of a whole social order were embodied in it. "Murph that you're +so thick with, all of a sudden. He's a bully fellow, all right, next +captain of the team, probably. Good thing he's broken into the crowd a +little way. Too bad he's Irish. Murph don't count." + +"No--no!" A sudden and poignant sweetness thrilled in Judith's voice. +The tenor of the Green River High School quartette, not ordinarily +sensitive to variations of tone in the voices of others, could not +ignore it. The change had disturbed him vaguely. It seemed to call for +some comment. + +"Judy, you look great to-night.... I'd do anything for you." + +"Then go home, Willard." + +"You haven't answered my question." + +"What question?" + +"Don't tease." + +"I honestly don't know." + +"You don't hear one word I'm saying to you." + +Judith laughed guiltily. "Then what makes you talk to me?" + +"Judith--are we the same as engaged?" + +Judith hesitated. "Kissing each other good-night--and all that--is +silly. I don't want to. Only sometimes I want to, and then afterward I'm +ashamed, and can't understand why. Willard, I don't want to grow up. I +don't ever want to. I want things to stay just the way they are. They +are--lovely. Oh, Willard----" + +She stopped, with tears in her eyes. There had been a real appeal in his +earnest young voice, and she had done her best to answer it, painfully +thinking out loud, with her heart in her words, making him an authentic +confidence. But the confidence was off the point, and he ignored it, +pursuing his subject with the concentration which will keep his sex the +stronger one, votes for women or no votes for women. + +"Are you the same as engaged to me?" + +"Will you go home if I say I am?" + +"Are you?" + +"There isn't any such thing as being the same as engaged." + +"Are you?" + +"Yes." + +Willard, forgetting himself in the heat of debate, had withdrawn his +foot from the door. Judith, narrowly on the watch for this moment, now +seized it, shutting him and his Belle Isle outside, and slamming the +door in his face. He had gained his point, and would not linger. She +heard him ring the bell once or twice in perfunctory protest, then put +down his candy on the steps. + +"Good-night," he called cheerfully, through the flimsy barrier of the +pseudo-Colonial door. + +"Good-night, Willard--dear!" + +Judith's voice was sweet, but indifferent, and her manner was +indifferent, for a young lady who would have seemed, to a literal-minded +person, to have materially affected her whole future life by this +conversation. She did not watch Willard go. She turned and stood in the +library door, smiling absently and humming a little snatch of a waltz +tune. It was eleven now, but the hour had ceased to concern her, as if +she had been watching the clock for Willard. Presently, as if she +really had, she tossed the cushions back on the couch, drew the shades +over the window, turned off the lights, and disappeared upstairs. +Muffled sounds of a methodical but unhurried preparation for bed drifted +faintly down, one last ripple of song, and then it was silent there. + +It was very still in the library. The stillness of the whole empty house +and the moonless night outside seemed to centre there. The dying fire +threw out little spurts of flame and made wavering shadows on the hearth +as if Judith were still crouching there. The embers glowed as red as +when she had been fire-gazing, but they did not show what it was she had +seen in the fire. They kept her secrets as safely as she kept them +herself; as youth must keep its secrets, inarticulate, dumb, because it +sees into the heart of the world so deeply that if it were granted +speech it would make the world too wise. What Judith had seen in the +fire, what had really been in her heart when she talked to Willard in +the groping and pitiful language of youth, the only language she had, +the fire could not tell, and perhaps Judith did not know. + +It was still, and the tiniest sounds were exaggerated: a board creaking +at the head of the stairs, and creaking again, the stair-rail creaking, +the ghost of a faint little sigh; tiny and intermittent sounds, but the +silence became a listening hush because of them: listening harder and +harder. At last a sound broke it: the doorbell, rung three times, one +long peal and two short. + +It was rung faintly, but loud enough. There was a soft hurry of +slippered feet down the stairs, and a slender figure, tall in +straight-falling draperies, slipped cautiously down and across the hall +to the door, stopped and stood leaning with one ear pressed against it, +silent and motionless, hardly breathing. The faint signal was repeated. +Judith did not move. + +There was one more ring, a soft tapping, and then silence. Judith +listened for a minute, then whistled softly, a clear little signal, one +long and two short, like the signal ring. There was no answer. She +pulled frantically at the chain, got it loose, and threw open the door. + +A boy was standing on the steps, a stolid, unmoving figure, looming +deceptively tall in the dark. He did not step forward or greet her. +Judith put out a groping hand and caught at his shoulder. + +"Is it you? Oh, I thought you had gone," she said. "I was watching for +you upstairs." + +"I am going. I can't come in so late." + +"No, of course not." + +"Then what made you watch for me?" + +"I wanted to see if you came." + +"Well, I did come, and now I'm going." + +"You walked past the house five times." + +"Eight." The boy laughed shortly, and Judith's soft laugh echoed his. +"Oh, what's the use? I'm going." + +"Don't you want to come in?" + +"No." + +"Then what made you walk past the house?" + +"You know well enough." + +"I want you to tell me.... You can come in just five minutes if you want +to." + +"I--you----" + +Judith caught her trailing draperies tighter round her, conscious that +they were under observation. "It's not a kimono, it's a negligee. And +you've seen my hair in braids before, when I played basket-ball. But you +needn't come in unless you want to." + +"I don't." + +"You're not very nice to me. Willard tried to break in. Rena's been +trying to get me by 'phone, to stay all night with me. You're not nice +to me at all." + +His only reply was a kind of tortured groan, but she seemed content with +it. Her voice grew compellingly sweet. + +"I want to talk to you." + +"Go on and talk." + +She huddled her draperies closer. "I'm too cold." + +"Go to bed then." + +"I won't. If you don't come in I shall stand here till mother comes. +I'll probably get pneumonia." + +This threat evoked no reply. + +"Neil," the name was said as only names are said that are new and +dear--not often used yet, but often dreamed over, but there was still no +answer. + +"Neil, I'm awfully cold." + +"I don't care." + +"Oh, don't you?" + +"You know I do. You know---- Oh, Judith, won't you please let me go? I +don't want to come in, I tell you." + +"But you're coming?" + +"Yes." + +Yielding abruptly, he stepped into the hall beside her. Judith, suddenly +silent, concerned herself conscientiously with the chain. + +"Don't stand there like that. I can't fasten this if you do," she said +breathlessly. + +"Why?" + +"Go into the library, and don't light the lights, if you're afraid of +pigtails." + +"I'm not afraid of--anything." + +"Well--I'm not." With a reckless laugh, which made this comprehensive +challenge to the world still more comprehensive, she followed him into +the firelit room. Slender and straight in soft-falling white, her face +flushed and sweet, framed between silvery gold braids, her eyes wide and +challenging, she stood looking at him across the hearth. + +He faced her awkwardly but bravely, tall in the shadowy room, his face +very white, his dark eyes catching the last rays of light from the dying +fire. The two did not move or speak till he gave a sudden, shaken laugh. + +"You wanted to talk to me--talk." He smiled a quick flashing smile. +Judith drew away from him and he followed. "Now you've got me here, +can't you shake hands with me?" + +"Neil, be careful." + +"I'm doing the best I can," he said in a choked voice. "You shouldn't +get me here. You shouldn't get me to a house by night that's not open to +me by day." + +"But it is. Only they'll never let me see you alone, and I like to. I +like to talk to you. It makes me feel--comfortable. Isn't it comfortable +here?" Judith paused, overcome by an unaccountable difficulty with her +breathing, but mastered it. "Comfortable and cozy? Aren't you glad you +came in?" + +"Comfortable!" He laughed, came two steps nearer to her, and +stopped stiffly. Judith, disposing her soft, silky draperies daintily, +observed him in silence from a big chair which she had taken possession +of rather abruptly, faintly smiling. + +"Don't look at me like that," he commanded. + +"Like what? Sit down--over there, Neil. Isn't it cozy? Willard's got a +new song that----" + +"Willard!" + +"Don't be cross. We--haven't very much time." + +"Judith, where is this getting us? We're not children. Won't you talk +straight to me? You ought to leave me alone, or talk straight." + +"Please don't be cross." + +"Cross!" He came across the hearth and stood close before her, awkward +no longer, but splendid with youth in the firelight, his dark eyes +shining. + +"You knew I'd come, no matter how hard I tried not to?" + +"Yes," Judith breathed. + +"And you meant to let me in?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"And you know, if I come, if you let me, I can't help--can't help----" + +"What?" + +"Oh, Judith!" He dropped on his knees beside her and hid his face. +Judith did not touch the dark head that she could see dimly in the +shadowy room, outlined against her cloudy white, but she leaned closer +to it, her lips parting softly, her eyes wide and strange. + +"I don't want you to help it," she breathed. + +"But where will it get us?" pleaded a muffled voice. + +"I don't care." Her hand hovered over the dark hair, touching it with +the wonderful, blended awkwardness and adroitness of first caresses. + +He brushed the butterfly touch away and raised his head and looked long +at her, slipping both arms round her waist and holding her tight. + +"Will you always say that?" + +"I don't know." + +"Oh, Judith!" Her sweet, flushed face was close above him now, eyes +drooping, lips faintly apart, drawn down to his as gently and inevitably +as tired eyes close into sleep. "Judith, some day you'll have to care." + +"Not yet. Neil, don't talk any more." + +"I--can't." + +"Then kiss me." + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + + +It was winter in Green River. + +The town, attracting Colonel Everard to it sixteen years before, newly +prosperous, outgrowing its old lumbering days, with the ship-building +industry already a thing of the past, with the power in the little river +awaiting development, money in the small but thriving bank, and a new +spirit everywhere, beyond the control of old leaders, too progressive +for a provincial magnate's direction, had been in the interesting and +dangerous condition of a woman ready for her next love affair; if the +right man comes, she may live happy ever after, but even if the wrong +man comes, a flirtation is due. Like a woman again, the town showed the +strength of his hold on her in his absence; in winter, when the big, +unfriendly house was shuttered and closed, the ladies of the inner +circle wore out their summer evening gowns at mild winter gayeties, +church socials, Village Improvement Society bridge parties, and the +old-fashioned supper parties which the Nashes and Larribees and Saxons +still ventured to give. + +Humble festivities which he would not have honoured with his presence +lacked allurement because he was not in town and staying away from them. +Great matters and small hung fire to await his deciding vote, from the +list of books to be bought for the library to the chairmanship of the +school board. Marking time and waiting for the Colonel to come home; +that was what winter meant to most of Green River, but not to Judith +Randall. Winter was a charmed time to her; the time when her mother did +not care what she did. Freedom was always sweet, but this winter it was +sweeter than ever before to Judith. + +She was never lonely now. Whispering groups in the dingy corridor of the +old schoolhouse, or in that sacred spot, the senior's corner, a cluster +of seats in the northwest corner of the assembly-room devoted by +tradition to secret conclaves, though not distinguishable from the rest +of the seats in the room to uninitiated eyes, drew her in without +question, slipping intimate arms round her waist. + +Attempts at informal gatherings in the Randall drawing-room were +failures, chilled by brief but devastating invasions of Mrs. Randall +with a too polite manner and disapproving eyes. But wherever the crowd +drifted after school hours, Judith drifted, too, or was summoned by +telephone, by imperative messages, vague, and of infinite +possibilities: + +"Judy, this is Ed. There'll be something doing to-night at our house. +Bring your new dance records." Or, as the outer fringe of the younger +set, jealously on the watch for snobbishness, but disarmed at last, +claimed her diffidently but eagerly, new names at which her mother +raised her eyebrows appeared on her dance orders: Joe Garland, whose +father kept the fish market, and Abie Stern, Junior, the tailor's son. +"Is this Judith Randall? Well, Judith, this is Joe; Joe Garland. I'm +getting up a crowd to go skating to-night, and have a rarebit afterward. +Would you care to come?" + +She was one of the crowd. Natalie, little, sparkling-eyed, and +black-haired, with the freshest and readiest of laughs, was more +popular, filling her dance orders first and playing the lead in +theatricals, and Rena Drew was more prominent, president of the class +and the debating society, and the proud owner of the strongest voice in +the school quartette, a fine big contralto which wrapped itself round +Judith's small, clear soprano at public appearances and nearly +extinguished it. Willard, the most eligible of the boys, was Judith's +unquestioned property, otherwise nothing distinguished her. She was one +of the crowd, and accepted the fact demurely, as if it were a matter of +course, not a dream come true. Just as discreetly she conducted her +affair with Neil Donovan, captain-elect of the team, literary editor of +the school paper, star debater, and in his way a creditable conquest, if +she had cared to claim him openly. + +"Neil danced three dances with me," confided Natalie, in the hushed +whisper appropriate to the confidences that were part of the ceremony of +spending the night together after a party, though Natalie's room, with +the old-fashioned feather bed, where the two were cuddling together, was +on the third story of the rambling white house, and safe out of hearing. + +"Neil?" + +"Judy, it's too bad to call him Murph and make fun of him. The day he +came into the store to solicit ads for the _Record_ father said that boy +would go far, if he had half a chance, but no boy had a chance in this +town, the way it is run, and no Irish boy ever did have a chance. Well, +an Irish boy is just as good as anybody, if they only thought so." + +"But they don't." + +"Judy, you are horrid about Neil. You always are about any boy I get +crushed on. Neil has perfectly beautiful eyes, and he is so sensitive. +He kept looking at you all through that last schottische as if you had +hurt his feelings. He must have gone home soon after that. I didn't see +him again. You didn't dance with him once." + +"No." + +"Poor boy. And he's up there in the schoolhouse with you, hour after +hour, practising quartette stuff, and Willard so crazy about you he +can't see, and Rena crazy about Willard----" + +"Rena can have Willard." + +Miss Ward was not to be diverted. "Neil's father did keep a saloon, but +he died when Neil was a baby. His uncle that he lives with keeps a store +at the Falls, and that's all right. His aunt took in washing, but his +mother never did. Charles Brady does get drunk, but Maggie drives him to +it. She's getting awfully wild. She's a perfect beauty, though, and I +wish I had her hair. But Charlie's only Neil's second cousin. And Neil +is so quiet and pleasant, not like that Brady boy that was in my sister +Lutie's crowd; just as fascinating, but Neil doesn't take liberties." + +"I'm getting sleepy, Nat." + +"Judy, the way I feel about Neil, about Irish boys, is this: we can't go +with them afterward, but while they're in school with us, they are just +as good as we are, and we ought to give them just as good a time as we +can. If you know what I mean." + +"I don't. I'm sleepy." + +"I'm not. I shan't shut my eyes." But Miss Ward did shut them. "Judy." + +"Well?" + +"Judy, Abraham Lincoln split rails." + +"Cheer up. The Warren Worth Comedy Company is going to play at the Hall +next week, and Warren Worth has perfectly beautiful eyes, too." + +"Not like Neil's." + +"Go to sleep, Nat." + +But Judith did not go to sleep until after an hour of staring wide-eyed +into the dark, and she did not confide to Natalie or any one what had +happened in the intermission after the schottische. + +"You act restless," Willard complained to her then. "You hardly looked +at me all through the encore." + +"I'll look at you now, but get me some water first," she directed, and +having disposed of him, slipped out alone into the dim and draughty +corridor. Odd Fellows' Building, the centre of various business +activities by day, looked deserted and forlorn at night, when the suites +of offices were dark and closed, and the hall where they danced, gayly +lighted and tenanted, was a little island of brightness in the +surrounding dark. + +"Neil," Judith called softly, "Neil, where are you? I saw you come out +here. I know you're here." The corridor was empty, but several office +doors opened on it, and on one of them she saw Charlie Brady's name. She +knocked at it. "You're in there. I know you are. Let me in." She tried +the door, found it unlocked, and opened it. The room was dark, faintly +lighted by the street lamps outside the one uncurtained window, where he +sat with his head in his hands, huddled in a discouraged heap over +Charlie Brady's desk. Judith came and perched on it triumphantly. + +"Running away?" she said. + +"It's all I'm good for." + +"Look at me." + +"I thought you hadn't any dances free." + +"I haven't. This is Willard's." + +"Go back to Willard.... What did you come here for?" + +"I don't know." + +"Don't you?" He looked up now, with magic in his eyes and voice, the +strange magic that came and went, and when it left him Judith could +never believe it would come again. But it was here. With a little sigh +she slipped off the desk and into the arms he held out for her, closing +her eyes. + +"I didn't want to dance with you," she whispered; "not with all those +lights, and before those people." + +"No, dear." + +"I can't stay very long. They'd miss me." + +"I'll let you go when you want to." + +"I don't want to. I feel so comfortable--all sleepy, but so wide-awake. +I never want to go." + +Judith, remembering this moment until she carried it into her dreams +with her, could not have shared it with Natalie. It was a dream already, +to be wondered at and forgotten by daylight, as she stared across the +schoolroom at Neil, not a romantic figure at all with his ill-fitting +suit and his tumbled hair; forgotten until the next moment like it +came--next in a lengthening series of dream pictures, of moonlight and +candlelight and faintly heard music, a secret too sweet to share, a +hidden treasure of dreams. + +Certain pictures stood out clearest. In one, she was skating with Neil. +Willard was giving a chowder party at the Hiawatha Club. This imposing +name belonged to a rough one-room camp with a kitchen in a lean-to and a +row of bunks in the loft above, and a giant chimney, with a crackling +blaze of fire to combat the bleakness of the view through the +uncurtained windows--Mirror Lake. It was a failure as a mirror that +day, veiled with snow, and the white birches fringing it showed bare and +cold among the warm green of spruce and pine. + +The camp was built and owned and the canoes and iceboats kept in repair +in the boathouse, and the cook maintained and replaced when he left from +loneliness, all by a syndicate with Judge Saxon as president. Forming it +was one of the last independent social activities of the town before the +Colonel took charge. + +It was bad ice-boating to-day. The wind was fitful, and the boat, a +graceful and winged thing in full flight, dragged heavily along, looking +the clumsy makeshift box of unpainted boards that it was. It was a day +to be towed along on your skates with one hand on the boat. Judith and +Neil had tired of this and fallen behind. + +Close together, but not taking hands, they swung slowly through the +unpeopled emptiness, leaving a tiny scattering of tracks behind, the +blue-white ice firm under their feet through a light film of snow. The +ice-boat was out of sight, the sprightly and unexpurgated ballad of +"Amos Moss," rendered in the closest of close harmony, could be heard no +longer, and a heavy silence hung over the lake. The camp lay far behind +them, a vanishing speck. + +"Neil, take me back," Judith directed suddenly. + +"Not yet." + +"Please. I want some pop-corn.... Neil, I don't like you. You won't +talk. You're queer to-day." + +He did not answer. They cut through the ice in silence. It was rougher +here. They were near the north end of the lake. There was open water +there to-day, black water into which a boat might crash and go down; it +made the water under them seem nearer to Judith, black water with only +the floor of ice between. She shivered, and Neil broke the silence +abruptly, his eyes still straight ahead. + +"Judith." + +"Oh, you can talk then?" + +"Judith--do you love me?" + +"Don't be silly." Judith spoke sharply. Days at the camp were always a +trial to her. The crowd, bunched together in a big hay-rack mounted on +runners, started out noisy and gay, like a party of children, singing, +groping for apples in the straw, and playing children's games. But at +night, slipping home under the moon to a tinkle of sleigh-bells, covered +with rugs two by two, a change would take place: arms would slip around +waists that yielded after perfunctory protest; in the dark of the woods +there would be significant whispering and more significant silences; +Willard would be unmanageable. Judith saw this with alien eyes because +of Neil, and dreaded it. This that was between them was so much more +beautiful, not love-making, not real love, only a strange, white dream. + +"You don't, then? You don't love me?" + +"We're too young." + +He did not argue the point. His silence had made her lonely before, now +it frightened her. She slipped a hand into his, warm through its clumsy +glove. + +"Cross hands. Don't you want to?" + +"No." + +"But I want to. I'm tired. How limp your hand feels. Hold my hands +tighter. Neil----" + +"What?" + +"You don't mind--what I said just now?" + +"What did you say?" + +"That about not loving you." + +"That?" He laughed a bitter, lonely sort of laugh, as if she were +talking about something that happened a long time ago. "You had to say +it. It's true. I knew it well enough. I just thought I'd ask you." + +"Do you want me to very much--want me to love you?" + +"Don't talk any more about it." + +"Neil, suppose I should marry Willard?" + +"I suppose you will." + +"You won't mind too much?" + +"What call would I have to mind? Who am I? What am I?" + +He laughed again, the same hard and bitter laugh, and struck out faster, +gripping her hands hard, so that it hurt, but looking away from her +across the dead, even white of the trackless snow. There was a pain not +to be comforted or reached in his beautiful eyes. It had nothing to do +with her. + +"Neil, wouldn't you care at all?" she said jealously. + +"Care?" + +"If I married Willard?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"Neil, do you love me?" + +He did not answer or seem to hear, and now Judith gave up asking +questions. Carried along at his side in silence, she listened to the +muffled creak of the skates on the snow-covered ice, hushed by the +steady and sleepy sound of it, half closing her eyes. His left arm was +behind her shoulders now, to support her, and she could feel it there, +warm and strong. Breathing when he breathed, her heart beating in time +with his, swinging far to right and left, tense with the stroke or +yielding deliciously in the recovery, caught in the rhythm of it as if +some force outside them both were carrying them on like one, and not +two, and would never let them go, Judith yet felt far away from him. + +She was alone in the heart of a snow-covered world, but she was growing +content to be alone. She looked up at his white, set face with wide and +fearless eyes, while the lure of unexplored and unseen ice invited them +all around, and the gray and brooding sky shut them in closer and +closer. + +"Neil," she said softly, not caring now whether he answered or heard, "I +wish we needn't ever go back. I love to-day." + +Not long after this Judith and Neil went snow-shoeing one Saturday +afternoon by special appointment, an epoch-making event for them. Judith +did not often walk with him or take him driving when the sleigh was +entrusted to her. She was not often seen with him. With quartette +practice and committee work for the dramatic club and other official +pretexts for the time they spent together, Willard was not jealous yet, +though the winter was almost over, and the treasury of dreams was +filling fast. + +But this time she made an engagement with Neil as openly as if he were +Willard, while Natalie listened jealously. She started with him openly +from the front door, with her mother's disapproving eyes upon them from +the library window, and Neil proudly carrying her snowshoes, all +unconscious of the critical eyes. The afternoon began well, but no +afternoon with Neil could be counted upon to go as it began. Two hours +later, when they emerged from the Everard woods into the Colonel's +snow-covered rose garden, they had quarrelled about half a dozen +unrelated subjects, all equally unimportant in themselves, but suddenly +important to Neil, who now found further matter for debate. + +"What did you bring me in here for?" + +"Didn't you know I was?" + +"How should I know? I'm no friend of Everard's. I don't know my way +through his grounds." + +"What makes you call him Everard, without any Colonel or Mr.? It sounds +so--common." + +"It's good enough for me. Here, I don't want to go near his house. I +hate the sight of it." + +"But you can't go back by the path. It's too broken up." Judith plunged +into the dismantled rose arbour. "Come on, if you don't want to see the +house, take my hand and shut your eyes." + +"That's what Green River does," Neil muttered darkly, "shuts its eyes." +But he followed her. + +"The Red Etin's castle," Judith announced; "you know, in the fairy tale: + + "The Red Etin of Ireland, + He lived in Ballygan. + He stole King Malcolm's daughter, + The pride of fair Scotlan'. + 'Tis said there's one predestinate + To be his mortal foe---- + +Well, you talk as if the Colonel were the Red Etin, poor dear. Oh, Neil, +look!" + +Sinister enough, looming turreted and tall against a background of +winter woods, its windows, unshuttered still, since the last of the +Colonel's week-end parties, and curtainless, catching the slanting rays +of the afternoon sun and glaring malignantly, the house confronted them +across the drifted lawn. + +In the woods that circled the house, denuded of undergrowth, seeming +always to be edging forlornly closer to the upstanding edifice for +comfort because it was barren and unfriendly, too, the new-fallen snow +lay shadowy and soft, clothing the barrenness with grace. Giant pine and +spruce that had survived his invasion stood up proud and green under the +crown of snow that lay lightly upon them, as it had lain long ago, +before the Colonel came. And between woods and house, erasing all trace +of tortuous landscape gardening, flower-bed and border and path, as if +it had never been, lay a splendid, softly shining sweep of blue-white +snow. The Colonel's unbidden guests forgot their quarrel and plunged +eagerly across the white expanse. + +"Catch me," Judith called, but it was Neil, snatching off her toboggan +cap by its impudent tassel, who had to be caught. It was heavy and +breath-taking work on the broad, old-fashioned snowshoes which she +managed with clumsy grace. Judith, short-skirted and trim in fleecy +white sweater, collar rolled high to the tips of small, pink ears, blond +curls blowing in the wind, pursued ardently. Neil evaded her like a lean +and darting shadow, hands deep in the pockets of his old gray sweater, +cap low over his brooding eyes. + +Under the unrelenting glare of the Colonel's windows, and across the +deserted grandeur of his lawn, the two small and dishevelled figures +dodged and doubled and retreated, only to grapple and trip each other up +at last at the foot of the veranda steps, and collapse there, breathless +and laughing. But their laughter died quickly, and Judith, pulling the +recovered cap over her wind-tossed curls, watched the brooding gloom +come back into Neil's eyes as he settled into a sulky heap on the step +below her. + +Her quarrels with Neil were as strange as her beautiful hours with him, +fed by black undercurrents of feeling that swept and surprised her, +flaming up suddenly like banked fires. She was hotly angry with him now. + +"Neil, I heard what you said about Green River shutting its eyes. It was +foolish." + +"I'd say it to his face." Neil flashed a black look at the bland and +elegant drawing-room windows, as if he could talk to the Colonel through +them. "I've got worse than that to say to Everard." + +"Then say it to me. Don't hint. I'm tired of hearing you. You're as bad +as Norah." + +"You wouldn't understand." + +That is the irresistible challenge to any woman. Judith's eyes kindled. +Neil slouched lower on the steps, dropping his head in his hands. +"Everard," he threw out presently, "has bought the Hiawatha Club Camp." + +"I don't believe it." + +"The club was in debt. That's a bad thing for a club or a man to be, if +the Colonel knows it. And it's a worse thing for a woman." + +"What do you mean?" + +He did not explain or raise his head. "I've got a job for the summer +vacation," he said presently. + +"Already? Fine." + +"Oh, fine. In the fish market--tend store, drive the cart. And I'm fired +from the _Record_, Judith." + +"Fired?" + +"They're going to take on one more man, and pay him real money." + +"But you've got the Green River Jottings to do for the Wells _Clarion_." + +"And I may get two dollars a month out of it." + +"Did you see Judge Saxon again?" + +"Last week." + +"Why didn't you tell me what he said?" + +"I told you what he would say." + +"Oh, Neil!" + +"The Judge hates to say no, that's why he took time to think it over. +He'd be a bigger man if he didn't hate to say no. He was right to say no +to me." + +"Then I wouldn't admit it." + +"What's it worth to read law in a country law office? The time for +that's past. He's right. And suppose he took me on, what would it do for +me? Look at Charlie. Doing hack work and dirty work to pay the rent of a +place to drink himself to death in. He's got brains enough. He knows law +enough. He's slaved and starved and got ready for his chance, and his +chance don't come. Why? Because he's Charlie Brady. Well I'm Neil +Donovan. I'm Irish, too, what they called me the first time I saw you--a +paddy." + +"That's not the Colonel's fault." + +"Who do you think gets the _Record_ job?" + +Judith shook her blond head, disdaining to answer, a gathering storm in +her eyes. + +"Chet Gaynor--Mr. J. Chester Gaynor. Lil Burr's brother. Her prize +brother, the one that's been fired from three prep schools. Everard got +him a scholarship at the last one." + +"Why not? He ought to help his friends. He's a kind man and lots of fun. +It's not his fault if you don't get on. It's your own fault. You don't +have to work in a fish market if you don't want to, or sit there and +sneer at a man who doesn't care what you think of him. Abraham Lincoln +split rails----" + +Judith stopped, amazed. Quite abruptly Neil had ceased to sit on the +steps and sneer. He was on his feet, hands clenched, thin body tense and +dangerous, face dead white and eyes blazing, as Judith had never seen +him before, or only once before, too angry for words, but not needing +them. + +"Neil, do you really hate him? Hate him like that? I never thought you +meant it. But why--what has he done?" + +"Care what I think? If I was any one else--your fool of a Willard--any +one in this town but me, I'd make him care." + +"He's done nothing wrong. Neil, don't. Your eyes look all queer. You're +frightening me." + +"No, he's done nothing wrong, nothing you could get him for. He's too +careful. He plays favourites. He fools women. He locks the door to every +chance to get on in this town and he sells the keys. He's got his hand +on the neck of the town, and he's shutting it tighter and tighter. +That's all he does. That's all Everard does." + +"You can't prove it." + +"He takes good care I can't." + +"You can't prove a word of it." + +"Your father could." + +"He's kind to father. He's kind to me." + +"You talk like a child." + +"Well, you talk like my mother's cook.... Oh, Neil, I didn't mean to say +that. Forgive me. Where are you going? I didn't mean to say it." + +"Let me go." + +"You're hurting me." + +"I hate you! You're one of them--one of the Everard crowd. I hate you, +too!" + +"What are you going to do?" Her short, panting struggle with him over, +her wrists smarting from the backward twist that had broken her hold on +him, she leaned against the veranda rail breathless and stared with +fascinated eyes. When this quarrel had gone the way of their other +quarrels, atoned for by inarticulate words of infinite meaning, +justified by the keen delight of reconciling kisses, Judith was to keep +one picture from it: Neil as she saw him then, standing over her +white-faced and angry, ragged and splendid, Neil as she had seen him +once before. + +"May-night!" she cried. "You look the way you did that May-night. I'm +afraid of you." + +"Everard!" He turned from her, and looking at the windows again as if +the Colonel were behind him, swung back his arm, and sent it crashing +through the glass of the nearest one--once and a second time. "Oh, you +don't want me to call him Everard. Colonel Everard!" + +"Neil, I'm afraid." + +He looked at the fragments of broken glass and at Judith scornfully, but +the angry light was fading out of his eyes already, the magic light; +against her will she was sorry to see it go. + +"Are you hurt? Did you hurt your hand?" + +"What do you care if I did? Don't be afraid, Judy. He can pay for a pane +of glass or two. He wouldn't care if I burned his house down. Nobody +cares what I do. I'm a paddy." + +Awkward, suddenly conscious of his snowshoes, he shuffled across the +matched boards of the Colonel's veranda and down the steps, turning +there for a farewell word: + +"I'm going. Don't cry. I'm not worth it. I'm a paddy, from Paddy Lane." + +Dream pictures, pleasant or sad, making her cheeks burn in the dark, or +little secret smiles come when Judith recalled them. Some lived in her +heart and some faded. Judith did not choose or reject them deliberately. +They chose or rejected themselves, arranging themselves into an +intricate pattern of growing clearness. She did not watch it grow. It +was only when it was quite complete that she would see it, but it was +growing fast. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + + +"You'll find the coffee pot on the back of the stove. I'm washing out a +few things," said Mrs. Donovan. + +Though she kept her five little nephews and nieces in dark-patterned +dresses or shirts, as the case might be, and encouraged her brother +Michael to wear flannel shirts, and even limited her eldest niece, +Maggie Brady, clerking in the Green River Dry Goods Emporium now, +instead of helping her father in his little store at the Falls, to three +white waists a week, she was usually washing out a few things. + +The contending odours of damp clothes and rank coffee were as much a +part of the Brady kitchen as the dishes stacked in the sink for Neil to +wash, or the broken-legged, beautifully grained mahogany card table in +the warm corner near the stove, where his school books were piled, a +relic of his dead father's prosperous saloon-keeping days, or the view +of Larribee's Marsh through the curtainless windows with their torn +green shades. + +The swampy field was the most improvident part of an improvident +purchase--a brown, tumbledown house, wind swept and cold, +inconveniently far from the settlement at the Falls and the larger town, +heavily mortgaged, and not paid for yet, but early on sunny spring +mornings like this the field was beautiful; level and empty and green, +the only monotonous thing in that restless stretch of New England +country, billowy with little hills, and rugged with clumps of trees. A +boy could people the sunlit emptiness of the field with airy creatures +of folk-lore, eagerly gleaned in a busy mother's rare story-telling +moments, or with Cæsar's cohorts marching across it, splendid in the +sun, if he had eyes for them. The only boy who ever had regarded the +familiar, glinting green of the field with unkindled eyes to-day as he +sat finishing his lukewarm breakfast. Yet it was Saturday morning, that +magic time, the last Saturday of his last spring vacation, and he had +only one more term of school before him. + +On this Saturday morning he had an unpleasant errand to do, and he was +carefully dressed for it, just as he had been dressed for the Lyceum +declamation contest and ball the night before, but not so effectively, +for his best black suit showed threadbare in the morning sun, and the +shine on his shoes was painstakingly applied, and a heavy, even, blue +black, but they needed tapping. His brown eyes had a big, rather hungry +look that was unquestionably picturesque, and Miss Natalie Ward would +have approved of it, if his mother did not, watching him as she trailed +in and out of the room. + +"Making out all right? Don't hurry," she said. + +"I'm in no hurry to get there," agreed her son. + +"He won't say no to you. He never has yet, and he likes you." + +"Oh, he won't say no. Nothing new will happen to me in this town; not +even that." + +Neil's mother paused, balancing her clothes basket against one hip, and +deftly favouring the string-mended handle, then put it heavily down, and +leaned on the table and looked at him--a small, tired, pretty woman, +with gray, far-away eyes that were like no other eyes in Green River, +and a smile like Neil's. + +"Tired?" she said. + +"Dog tired." + +"Well, you were out till three." + +"One. That was Maggie you heard at three. Where was she?" + +"That's her business." + +"It's Charlie's, if he's going to marry her." + +"It's not yours, then. Never mind Maggie. Your uncle and I had a talk +about you last night." + +"Why don't you ask to see my dance order?" He made a defensive clutch +at his pocket as if she had, and quick colour swept into his cheeks. She +watched it, and watched it fade, leaving his face tired and sullen, and +too old for its years. "Uncle!" + +"He's been like a father to you." + +"I've been two sons to him, then. He's worked me like two. If he grudges +the time I take off, I can make it up to him. There's been little enough +of it, and there'll be little more, and there's been little enough +enjoyment in it, and I'm not ashamed of it. Why don't he spy on his own +daughter, if he's curious? Why----" This outburst ended as suddenly as +it began, in a short, sullen laugh as he pushed his empty cup away. "Dan +thinks he can land something for me with the telephone company. I +couldn't send money home at first, but I'd be off your hands. Tell that +to Uncle." + +"Would you be with Dan, in Wells?" + +"Somewhere outside Wells. It won't be too gay. You needn't be afraid +I'll go to too many dances." + +"Don't glare at me. I'm not your uncle." + +"Sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me." + +"Don't you?" + +He flushed, laughed, and ignored the question, producing a small box and +offering it. "I got that last night. Don't wipe your hands. They're good +enough to handle it wet." A gold medal glittered in her hand. He +observed it without enthusiasm, and noticing that, his mother shut the +box abruptly. + +"Neil, that's the first prize." + +"Looks like it. I spoke the Gettysburg address, and they always fall for +that. Good-bye, I'm off." + +"Neil, come back here." + +He swung round with his cap doubled under his arm, and stood before her, +helpless and sullen, hedged about with that sudden dignity which no +woman creature can break through, but seeming to derive no comfort from +it. Painful colour mounted to her cheeks, as if the effort of keeping +him there was all she could manage without the effort of opening +delicate subjects. + +"Neil, I'm worried about you." + +"Why? Are you afraid I'll marry beneath me? I won't marry without your +consent. It's not being done." + +"You got three dollars from the _Clarion_ last week." + +"Are you afraid I'll try to support a wife on it?" + +"It's the most you've made from them. Why weren't you proud of it? Why +aren't you proud of this prize? A year ago you'd have had me up at one +to speak your piece to me. There's no life in you, and no pride, and I +know why." + +"Me with so much to be proud of." + +"You're good enough for any girl, but----" + +"Do you think I don't know my place, with the whole town teaching it to +me going on eighteen years? I've got no false hopes, and I shan't lose +my head over any girl. Let me be." + +"It's not the town that's taught you your place, it's----" + +"Don't you say her name." + +"--empty headed and overdressed." + +"Go on. Judith Randall don't care what you think of her." + +"Can't you even get up enough spirit to stand up for her? You that +thought you had your fortune all but made when you got the chickens paid +for, and followed me round the house, telling me how you'd run the town? +You that could tell what was wrong with the _Record_ editorials, if you +couldn't pay for a year's subscription to the paper? You----" + +"Yes, I come from one of the five lines in Ireland what have a right to +the O', but you never tell me that unless you've got something else to +tell me that you're afraid to tell. What is it this time?" + +"You come of Irish kings." + +"What did Uncle say last night?" + +"Well, he's getting to be an old man." + +"What did he say?" + +His mother did not reply. She avoided his eyes, and made no further +criticism of him, or of a young lady who was no doubt as indifferent to +her criticisms as Neil said, since she did not recognize Mrs. Donovan on +the street. + +"Uncle," Neil decided deliberately, "wants me to help in the store. I +can't go to Wells." + +"He can't get on alone now Maggie's gone. We need your board money to +run the house at all. Dan was wild to get away from Green River, but in +two years he's got no farther than Wells, and ten dollars a week. I know +we ought to leave you free to start yourself, if we can't give you a +start, but----" + +"Is that all you want to tell me?" + +She put out an unaccustomed arm and pulled him awkwardly close. He came +obediently, and patted her shoulder stiffly but did not kiss her. "I +know what this means," she asserted, and showed a rapidly forming +intention of crying on his shoulder. "It hurts me like it does you." + +[Illustration: "'_I know what this means,' she asserted_'"] + +"It don't hurt me. I ought to have seen it myself. I ought not to have +planned to go. It's all right, mother. Is that all?" + +"All? It's enough. I was awake half the night planning to break it to +you." + +"You broke it all right. I'll be going." He shook out his crushed +cap, and adjusted it with dignity, looking at her calmly out of +impenetrable eyes, like a young prince ending an audience, with more +power behind him than he knew, kissed her gravely on the cheek with cool +young lips, and opened the door, and walked off into the sunshine. + +"It's the girl," said his mother, but not until the door had closed +behind him. "No girl is good enough to do what she's done to you." Then +she selected the frilliest of Maggie's blouses, which had dried while +she talked, and spread it on the ironing table to sprinkle again. + +Neil did not look like a young man crossed in love, or a young man with +his future wrecked by a word. He did not give a backward glance to the +little brown house with the sun on its many-paned windows, or seem to +hear the children's voices from the old barn behind the house--the +favourite refuge of the little Bradys when they were banished from the +kitchen--that echoed after him in the clear morning air, shrill and then +fainter as he left the place behind. + +He had settled into his usual pace for this familiar walk--a steady +stride that you could fit the unmanageable parts of a Latin verb to the +rhythm of, or the refractory words of a song; but it was not a usual +day. It was the first warm day of that April, warmer already, with the +goading urge of spring in the softening air that frets and troubles with +new desires and a sense of unfitness for them at once, and will not let +you be. The road, fringed with scattering trees, and wind-swept and +bleak on winter days, was golden with new sunlight, spongy underfoot, +but drying under your eyes in the morning sun. The boy's brooding face +did not change as he walked, but his shoulders straightened themselves, +and lost their patient look, and his lean young body gave itself more +gayly to the swing of his pace and looked strong and free, alive with +the unconscious strength of youth that must be caught and harnessed to +make the wheels of the world go round before it can be taught what its +purpose is. + +Whether it troubled him or not--his face did not tell--all that his +mother had hinted was wrong with his world, and more. No outsider had +ever won a place like Neil's in Green River High School society so far +as the unwritten history of it recorded. Charlie Brady in his time, and +Dan after him, had been extra men at big dances, hard worked and +patronized in school entertainments, more intimate with the boys than +the girls. Charlie, deep in a secret love affair with Lil Gaynor, had +still called her Miss in public, and treated her as respectfully as he +did now that the affair was forgotten and she was Mrs. Burr and one of +the Everard circle. Charlie and Dan had only looked over impassable +barriers. Neil had been really inside--included in small, intimate +parties, like week-ends at Camp Hiawatha, openly favoured by Natalie, if +not Judith--inside and he would soon be shut out. + +There were new signs of it every day. The long, friendly winter, when he +had been safe in that intimate fellowship, was over. The girls were +planning their gowns for college commencement dances. Willard came back +from a week-end at the state university pledged to a fraternity there +and refusing to discuss minor subjects. God-like creatures in amazing +neckties condescended to visit him, and Natalie was beginning to collect +fraternity pins. Rena and Ed were engaged, and under the impression that +it was a secret, and a place was being made for Ed in the bank. In one +way or another, the world was opening to all of them, and closing to +Neil. + +And with the spring, the Everards had come back to Green River. The big, +over-decorated house had not been open a week, but already they pervaded +the town. Their cars whirled through the splashing spring streets, and +ladies not upon Mrs. Everard's calling list peered at the passengers to +see who was in her favour. The Colonel was turning the Hiawatha Club +into a private camp, and closing it to the town, but nobody protested +much. He was ordering a complete set of slip covers from the furniture +department of Ward's Emporium, and the daring group of prominent +business men who ventured to assail the Colonel's political views and +private morals sometimes in the little room at the rear of the store +lacked support from Ward. Neil had the run of the store and hung about +and listened, but never contributed. Whether these criticisms were +justified or not, the Everards were back again. + +Judith had given up the Lyceum dance for the first of the Everard +dinners the night before. It was three days since Neil had seen her, and +he was to see her to-day, but he was showing no impatience for the +meeting. The end of the world, not the beginning of it, that was what +spring would mean to him, and that is a graver catastrophe at eighteen +than at eighty. The boy who was facing it had passed the outlying +straggle of houses, and had come to the edge of the town, and to the end +of the long, hilly street that led down past the court-house, straight +into Post Office Square, the heart of the town. It was still empty of +traffic at ten, and looked sunny and empty and clean, wide-awake for the +day. He took his hands out of his pockets, stopped whistling "Amos +Moss," and hurried down Court-house Hill, stepping in time to the tune +of it. + +A mud-splashed Ford clattered down Main Street, and drew up in front of +the post-office as Neil reached it with a flourish that would have done +credit to a more elegant equipage than this second-hand one of the +Nashes. Two elegant young gentlemen, week-end guests of Willard's and +duly presented to Neil the night before, ignored his existence, perusing +a gaudily covered series of topical songs with exaggerated attention on +the rear seat of the car, but Willard greeted him exuberantly: + +"Ah, there, Murph. You don't look like the morning after. Sorry I +haven't got room for you. We've got other plans. We love the ladies." + +"I'm tied up, anyway. So long." + +Willard's tone was too patronizing, but he was not to blame, for the +days when they would exchange intimate greetings at all were numbered. +As Neil left them one of the elegant guests demanded audibly: + +"Who's your friend?" + +Neil flushed but did not look back. He had an errand to do in the few +minutes before his appointment with Judge Saxon. He crossed the street +to Ward's store. + +Ward's Dry Goods Emporium, three stores in one, and literally three +stores bought out one by one, and joined by connecting doors, though +they could never be united in their style of architecture, was rather +dark and chaotic inside, though a brave showing of plate glass across +the front advertised its prosperity. Luther Ward himself, in his shirt +sleeves, was looking over a tray of soiled, pale-coloured spats, +assisted by a tall, full-bodied girl with a sweet, sulky mouth, and a +towering mass of blue-black hair. + +"Hello, Donovan, what's new?" he said, with only a shade more +condescension than Willard, and distinctly more friendliness. + +"Nothing, sir," said Neil with conviction. + +"You want to talk to Maggie, here. I won't intrude on a family quarrel," +said Mr. Ward, and chuckling heartily at his own mild joke, as he +generally did, and few others did, disappeared into the furniture +department, the central one of the three stores, and his favourite. The +two cousins regarded each other across the tray of spats as if the +family quarrel were not a joke, but an unpleasant reality. + +"You can't come here and take up my time," stated Miss Brady. + +"Your time is pretty full--evenings, too. Do you know where Charlie was +last night?" + +"I don't care." + +"You ought. He's your second cousin, and goes by the same name as you, +if you're not in love with him. He was in Halloran's billiard hall." + +"If he can't keep himself out of the gutter, I can't keep him out," +stated Miss Brady logically. + +"Well, don't push him in," her cousin advised, but the light of battle +had died out of his eyes, leaving them listless. "It's nothing to me. I +only came to bring you this." + +He produced something from an inner pocket and tossed it on the counter, +something wrapped in a twist of newspaper, which parted as the girl bent +eagerly over it, something which shone and twinkled alluringly, as she +straightened it out with caressing fingers and held it up to the +light--a little necklace of rather ornate design and startling colours, +crimson stones and green and blue, the gayest of toys. + +"Seems to be yours all right." + +His cousin, who seemed to have forgotten his existence for one rapt +moment, remembered it with a start. "Did you show this to your mother?" +she asked sharply. + +"Why?" + +"Well, she don't like to have me spend my money on imitation jewellery." +Miss Brady delivered this very natural explanation haltingly. + +"Do you?" + +One of the sudden, vivid blushes which had helped to establish her +reputation as a beauty overspread Miss Brady's cheek. "I missed it this +morning and didn't have time to hunt for it, and I was worried. I don't +want to show it to her. It cost a good deal." + +"It must have. They say a ruby's the only stone you can't imitate." + +"What do you mean?" Miss Brady's cheeks grew still redder. "Why don't +you save your big talk for Saxon? You may need it. Why don't you mind +your own affairs, and leave mine alone?" + +"Leave that on the kitchen floor for mother to find and sweep up in a +broken dust-pan, or one of the kids to show to your father?" + +"Why not? Haven't I got a right to do what I want with my own money? +Haven't I got a right to do what I want with myself? Who are you to +dictate to me, with the Randall girl making a fool of you? Why----" + +"That will be all." Though Miss Brady's voice had been threatening to +make itself heard throughout all the three stores in one, she stopped +obediently, looking defiant but frightened, but when her cousin spoke +again the ring of authority which had shocked her was gone from his +voice. + +"Don't be scared. It's nothing to me what you do, and I shan't talk too +much. You know me, Mag." + +"No, I don't, not lately. You act doped, not half there. I can't make +you out. If you think--if you suspect----" + +"I don't. It's nothing to me. I'm due at Saxon's. Put your glass beads +away before Ward sees them. Good luck to you." + +Miss Brady, standing quite still in one of her carefully cultivated, +statuesque poses, watched her cousin cross the street and disappear into +a narrow and shabbily painted doorway there. Then she took his advice, +and producing a red morocco wrist bag from under the counter, shut the +necklace into it with a vicious snap, as if she did not derive so much +pleasure as before from handling it now. + +Her cousin climbed the three flights of stairs to Judge Saxon's office. +The stairs were dingy and looked unswept, and a pane of glass in the +door of the untenanted suite across the landing from the Judge's was +broken. Nothing about the Judge's quarters indicated that he was Colonel +Everard's attorney, a big man in the town before the Everard régime, and +under it--an unusual combination. His office was shabby outside and in. +The lettering on the door, Saxon and Burr, Attorneys-at-Law, looked +newer than it was by contrast, and it was still only six months old. +Theodore Burr had his delayed junior partnership at last. + +The Judge's young client did not pause to collect himself on the worn +door-mat, as he had done when he first came here on errands like this. +They were an old story to him now, and so were scenes like the one with +Maggie, which he had just come through so creditably. He looked quite +unruffled by it, calm as people are when they have no troubles to +bear--or when they have borne all they can, and are about to find relief +in establishing the fact. He knocked and stepped inside. + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + + +A fire in the air-tight stove in the corner had taken the early morning +chill from the room and been permitted to burn out, now that the morning +sun came in warm through the dusty windows, but the room was still close +and cloudy with wood smoke. At a battered, roll-topped desk in the +sunniest window Mr. Theodore Burr was struggling with the eccentricities +of an ancient Remington, and looking superior to it and to all his +surroundings, but the Judge was nowhere to be seen. + +Mr. Burr was a very large, very pink young man, with blond hair which +would have looked too good to be true on a woman, and near-set, +green-blue eyes which managed to look vacant and aggressive at the same +time. He was wearing a turquoise-blue tie which accentuated their +effectiveness, and he occupied himself ostentatiously with the Remington +for quite three minutes before he turned his most vacant and aggressive +look upon his client. + +"Well, Donovan?" he said. + +Mr. Burr's manner was as patronizing as Mr. Ward's with the +friendliness left out, but his client was not chilled by it. + +"Theodore, where's the Judge?" he asked. + +"Mr. Burr." The pink young man turned two shades pinker as he made the +correction. "The Judge is engaged." + +"I don't believe it." + +Mr. Burr laughed unpleasantly and held up his hand. From the other side +of a door labelled private--misleadingly, for the Judge's little +sanctum, where half the town had the privilege of crowding in and +tipping back chairs and smoking, was the nearest approach to a clubroom +that the town afforded, now that the Hiawatha Club was no more--muffled +voices were faintly audible. + +"You can talk to me," said Mr. Burr. + +"I can, and I can go away and come back when he's not engaged. He said +he'd see me." + +"He's changed his mind. He don't want to see you. I know all about your +case." + +"You've learned a lot in six months." + +"Talk like that won't get you anything, Donovan, here or anywhere else," +remarked Mr. Burr, reasonably, if somewhat offensively. Admitting it, +his client dropped into one of the Judge's big office chairs, and sat +there, fingering his cap as he talked, and looking suddenly beaten and +tired. + +"You're right, Theodore. Well, what's all this you know about my case?" + +"Mike Brady sends you here begging when he's ashamed to come himself. +It's hard on you, Neil." + +"My uncle's too busy to come. Is that all you know?" + +"I know what you want to-day, and you can't have it." + +"What do I want?" + +Mr. Burr's manner had become alarmingly official, but his client +continued to smile at him, and to fold and unfold his cap methodically. + +"An extension of time on your uncle's mortgage. The principal is due the +first of next month. You've kept the Judge waiting twice for the +interest, the security is insufficient, the bank holds a first mortgage +on the house, and for fourteen months your uncle has made no payment to +the Judge whatever." + +"Don't rub it in, Theodore." + +"This is no laughing matter. Business is business," stated the junior +partner importantly. + +"More like charity, with the Judge, but Uncle isn't holding him up for +much this time. Uncle's getting on his feet. The Judge never expected +him to, and I didn't, but the automobiles help. Maggie served tea before +she went to Ward's, and he's going on with it. His luck has turned. +He's got the money to pay this year's interest and half the back +interest that's due, but he wants to keep it and put it into +repairs--the roof wants shingling, and if we could fix up the storeroom +for a place to serve tea and ice-cream we could double trade. Then, next +year----" + +"We've heard too much about next year, Donovan." + +"Don't get tragic, Theodore. This is a new proposition. I'll go into +figures with the Judge and prove it to him--don't want to waste them on +you. But he won't be sending good money after bad this time, like he's +done too many times. I'm as glad for him as I am for Uncle." + +"It can't be done." + +"Nonsense, Theodore. I won't wait to see the Judge now, but you tell +him----" + +"It don't make any difference what I tell him. The Judge has made up his +mind, and he won't change it. You can take it from me as well as him. +You won't get another dollar of his money, and you won't get another +month's extension of time. We're done with you." + +"I almost believe you mean that, Theodore." + +"As I said, the house is insufficient security, but for the sake of the +dignity of the firm we must protect ourselves----" + +"I believe you mean it, and the Judge gave you authority to say it." + +"We must go through the form of protecting ourselves and----" + +His client laughed. "You don't mean the Judge wants to take over the +house. That's 'Way Down East stuff. If money's tight with him, we'll pay +the interest and manage some way, though I don't see how. But the house +would be no good to him if he took it, and he wouldn't take it if it +was. I know the Judge. Don't let your imagination get away with you, +Theodore." + +"I'm sorry for you, Donovan." + +"You think he's going to take it?" + +"I know he is." + +"You mean that," his client decided slowly, "and you've got the Judge's +authority for it, too." + +"Take it quietly. It's the best way," urged the junior partner +helpfully. + +"I understand that's your motto, Theodore," said his client, and +proceeded to take his advice, sitting quite still in the Judge's big +chair, and fixing a clear-seeing but unappreciative gaze upon the +immaculate folds of Mr. Burr's turquoise-blue tie. He took the advice +too literally. The silence grew oppressive and sinister, and as if he +found it so, Mr. Burr broke into a monologue, disjointed, but made up +of irreproachable sentiments. + +"This is hard on your uncle, Neil, and it's hard on you, but it may be +the best thing in the end. He's been hiding behind you too long. A +business that can't stand on its own feet deserves to fail. He can start +new and start clean. The Judge has been a good friend to you----" + +"Don't explain him to me. You don't own him, whoever else does," +interrupted the Judge's protégé softly. + +"What do you mean? If you don't think you're getting a square deal, say +so." + +"Do you want me to weep on your shoulder, Theodore?" + +"The Judge is your friend, and," Mr. Burr added handsomely, "I'm your +friend, too." + +His client arose briskly, as if encouraged by this. "Theodore, you don't +want to tell me what's back of your turning me down?" he asked. "No, I +thought not. Well----" + +"I'm your friend," repeated Mr. Burr, generously if irrelevantly, and +this time without effect. His client had crossed the room without +another glance at him, and had his hand on the knob of the Judge's +office door. His manner still had the composure which Mr. Burr had +advocated, but his face was very pale, ominously pale, and his brown +eyes were changed and bright, dangerously bright. To imaginative eyes +like Mr. Burr's he must have looked suddenly taller. + +Mr. Burr was facing an unmistakable crisis, with no time to wonder how +long it had been forming, or why. He hurried after the boy and caught +him fiercely if ineffectively by the arm. + +"You can't go in there," stated Mr. Burr arbitrarily, all logic +deserting him. "You can't. You don't know----" + +"Oh, I'm not going to knife the Judge," his client explained kindly. +"I'm only going to find out what's back of this." + +"Take it quietly," was the ill-chosen sentiment which suggested itself +to Mr. Burr. Neil Donovan swung round angrily, and paused to reply to +it, with fires which the somewhat negative though offensive personality +of the pink young man could never have kindled alight in his brown eyes. + +"Quietly? There's been too much of that in this town. I'm sick of it. +The only friend I've got who hasn't got one foot in the gutter goes back +on me for no reason at all, the first time I ask a favour of him that +don't amount to picking his pockets. The only big man in this rotten +town who's halfway straight since Everard turned the town rotten begins +to act like he wasn't straight. What's back of it? I'm going to know. +Get out of my way, Theodore." + +"You don't know who's in there." + +"I don't care. I'm going to know." Disposing of the hovering and anxious +intervention of Mr. Burr, and throwing the door open, he slammed it in +the pink young man's perturbed face, and stepped alone out of the +sunshine into the Judge's dim little inner office. + +The Judge's friendly littered little room was not so inviting in working +hours as it was in the hospitable hours of late afternoon. It was like a +woman seen in evening dress by daylight. But the boy who had invaded it +so hotly unmasked no conspiracy here. The men at the table near the one +window, with a pile of official but entirely innocent looking papers +between them, had every right to be there. They were the Judge and +Colonel Everard. + +The great man looked quite undisturbed by the boy's invasion, glancing +up at him indifferently from the papers that he was turning over with +his finely moulded, delicately used hands; he even looked mildly amused, +but the boy turned to him first instinctively, and not to the Judge, who +was peering at him with troubled and kindly eyes over the top of his +glasses. + +"I've got to speak to the Judge. I'm sorry." + +He stammered out his half-apology awkwardly enough, but the smouldering +fires were still alight in his brown eyes, tragic fires of cowed and +rebellious youth. The great man regarded him indifferently for a minute +and then turned rather ostentatiously to his papers again. + +"Judge, I've got to speak to you alone." + +"You can't just now, son." + +"I've got to." + +"Why?" + +The Judge's kind, drawling voice was not quite as usual, and his blue, +near-sighted eyes were not; they were wistful and deprecating, and +rather tired, a beaten man's eyes, eyes with an irresistible appeal to +the race that is vowed to lost causes, this boy's race. The boy stepped +instinctively closer. + +"I don't blame you, sir, but I've got to understand this and know what's +behind it." + +"Better go home before you say anything you'll be sorry for, Neil." + +"Why did you go back on me?" + +"You're taking a sentimental attitude about a business matter. It's +natural enough that you should. I'm sorry for you, son." + +"Why----" + +The Judge drew himself up a shade straighter in his chair, and met the +boy's insistent challenge with sudden dignity, kindly but judicial, +peculiarly his own, but his flashes of it were not very frequent now. + +"Neil," he said deliberately, "I've got nothing to say to you alone. +I've got nothing to say to you at all that Mr. Burr hasn't said. Is that +quite clear to you?" + +It was entirely clear. The Judge had left no room for uncertainty or +argument, and the boy did not attempt to argue or even to answer. He +stood looking uncertainly down at the Judge, as if for the moment he +could not see anything in the room quite distinctly, the Judge's face, +with its near-sighted blue eyes and red-gold beard and thinning hair, or +Colonel Everard's clear-cut profile. + +"Better go," said the Judge gently. + +"I'd better go," the boy repeated mechanically, but he did not move. + +Colonel Everard put down his papers deliberately, and favoured him with +a glance, amused and surprised, as if he had not expected to find him +still in the room, and was prepared to forget at once that he was there; +a disconcerting sort of glance, but the boy's brown eyes met it +gallantly, and cleared as they looked. They grew bright and defiant +again, with a little laugh in the depths of them. The ghost of a laugh, +too, lurked in the boy's low voice somewhere. + +"You're right, Judge. I'll go. I'm wasting my time here," he said, +"asking you who's back of what you've done to me--when I know. I won't +ask you again, but I'll ask you, I'll ask you both, who's back of +everything that's crooked or wrong in this town? Little or big, he's +back of it all; straight back of it, or well back of it, hiding his face +and pulling the wires. He's to blame for it all, for he's made the town +what it is. + +"He's got his hand on the neck of the town, and got hold of it tighter, +gradual, so nobody saw it and knocked it off; tighter and tighter, +squeezing the life out. He never made a gift to the town with one hand +that he didn't take it back with the other. What the town gets without +him giving it, he won't let it keep. The whole town's got his stamp on +it, grafting and lying and putting up a front. The whole town's afraid +of him. The Judge here, that's the best man in town, don't dare call his +soul his own. Me, I'm afraid of him, too, and the only reason I dare +stand up and say to his face what's said behind his back is because I've +got nothing to lose. It's him, there----" + +"Don't, son," muttered the Judge tardily, unregarded, but Colonel +Everard listened courteously, with a faint, amused smile growing rather +stiff on his thin lips. + +"Him, that's too good to speak to me or look at me, sitting there +grinning, and reading fine print, making out not to care, he's back of +it all--him, Everard." + +The two men, who had heard him out, did not interrupt him now. It was +only a passionate jumble of boyish words they had listened to, but +behind it, vibrating in his tense voice, was something bigger than he +could frame words to express, something that commanded silence; pain +forcing its way into speech, long repression broken at last. The dignity +of it was about him still, though his brown eyes flashed no more +defiance, and he was only a shabby and hopeless boy walking uncertainly +to the office door, and fumbling with the handle. + +"I'll go out this way," he said. "I've had enough of Theodore. And I've +had enough of this place. I'll say good morning, gentlemen." + +In a prosaic and too often unsatisfactory world, which is not the stage, +no curtain drops to relieve you of the embarrassment of thinking what to +say next after a record speech; you have to step out of the limelight, +and walk somewhere else. Neil Donovan, emerging from the ancient +building which contained Judge Saxon's office into Post-office Square +after a brief interval of struggling successfully for self-control in a +dusty corridor little suited to such struggles, and not even ensuring +the privacy which is wrongly believed to be necessary for them, had one +more appointment to keep. He was late for it already. He glanced at the +town clock and started off hurriedly to keep it. + +Back of Court-house Hill another street, starting parallel to Court +Street, rapidly loses its sense of direction and its original character +of a business street, wavers to right and left, past a scatter of +discouraged looking houses, and finally slants off in the general +direction of the woods at the edge of the town, and the abortive, +sparsely wooded hill known to generations of picnickers--not the élite +of the town, but humbler, more rowdy picnickers--as Mountain Rock. + +The street never reaches it, but loses itself in a grubby tangle of +smaller streets, thickly set with small houses, densely and untidily +populated, the section known at first derisively and later in good faith +as Paddy Lane. Through the intricate geography of this quarter Colonel +Everard's only openly declared enemy might have been seen making a hasty +and expert way ten minutes later; quickly and directly as it permitted +him to, he approached the base of the hill. + +Disregarding more public and usual ways of ascent, he struck straight +across a stubbly field that lay behind a row of peculiarly forlorn and +tumbledown houses into a path so narrow that it was hard to see until +you were actually looking down it, between the twin birches that marked +the entrance. He followed it to the base of the cliff itself. The belt +of stunted birches and dusty-looking alders that skirted the cliff was +broken by an occasional scraggly pine. The boy stopped under one of +them, leaned against the decaying trunk, produced a letter, and read it. + +It was only a pencilled scrawl of a letter, on the roughest of copy +paper, and so crumpled that he must have been quite familiar with it, +but he read it intently. + + "Neil," it ran, "I'll meet you Saturday, on top of Mountain Rock, + same time and place. I shan't see you till then. I don't want to. + You frightened me last night. I don't like you lately. Be nice to + me Saturday. JUDITH." + +Only a pencilled scrawl, but he knew every word of it by heart, and of +the burst of excited speech in the Judge's office nothing remained in +his mind but the general impression that he had made a fool of himself +there. Perhaps he was too familiar with Judith's letter, for the sting +he had found there at first was gone from the words. He looked at them +dully. + +"I can't stand much more," he said aloud. + +He said it lifelessly, and with no defiance in his eyes, stating only a +wearisome fact. He had seen the Colonel's face through a kind of red +mist in the Judge's office, and felt reckless and strong. He did not +feel like a hero now. He was tired. + +He would hardly have cared just now if you had told him that back in +Judge Saxon's office two men who had not moved from their chairs since +he left them, and who would not move until several vital points were +settled, were discussing something he would not have believed them +capable of discussing at such length and with so much feeling--the +fortunes of the Donovan family. + +He did not care just now for the little sights and sounds of spring that +were all around him, the cluster of arbutus leaves at his feet, the +faint, nestling bird noises, sweeter than song, and the stir and rustle +of tiny, unclassified sounds that were signs of the pulse of spring +beating everywhere, of change and growth going on whether human beings +perceived or denied it. + +"I can't stand any more," said the boy. + +Up the cliff to his right, strewn with pine needles that were brown-gold +in the sun, a steep and tiny trail led the way to the top of the hill +and his rendezvous. Now the boy crushed Judith's letter into his pocket, +turned to the trail with a sigh, and began to climb. + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + + +"They won't like it, Judith," said Mrs. Randall for the last time, as +she slipped into her evening coat. + +"They? If you mean the Colonel----" + +"I do." + +Judith, looking up at her mother from the chaise-longue, could not have +seen the radiant vision that she had adored as a child, when the spring +and the Everards and the habit of evening dress all returned at once to +Green River. Mrs. Randall's blue gown was the creation of a Wells +dressmaker, but lacked the charm of earlier evening frocks, anxiously +contrived with the help of a local seamstress, when the clear blue that +was still her favourite colour had been her best colour, when there was +a touch more pink in the warm white of her complexion, and before the +tiny, worried line in her broad, low forehead was there to stay. But +there was no reflection of these changes in her daughter's big, watching +eyes. + +"It will do him good not to like it," said Judith sweetly. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Oh, nothing, Mamma. Is that the carriage? Don't be +late." + +Minna Randall looked down at her daughter in puzzled silence a moment, +with the little line in her forehead deepening, then slipped to her +knees beside her with a disregard for her new gown which was unusual, +and put a caressing hand on her forehead, a demonstration which was more +unusual still. + +"Your head does feel hot," she said, "but to stay away from a dance at +your age, just for a headache----" + +"I went to one last night." + +"A high school dance!" + +"There won't be any more of them. You needn't grudge it to me." Judith +buried her face in the cushions, and lay very still. + +"But the Colonel really arranged this for you. Dancing bores him. He +said you ought to be amused." + +"He didn't say so to me." + +"Are you laughing? I thought you were crying a minute ago." Judith gave +no further signs of either laughing or crying. "Judith, what does he say +to you? When you went with him to look at that night-blooming flower +with the queer name, last week, and were gone so long, what did he talk +to you about? You heard me. Please answer." + +"He's a stupid old thing." + +"What did he talk about?" + +"I don't remember." + +"Judith," Judith's mother stood plucking ineffectively at her long +gloves, and looking at the motionless white figure, very slender and +childish against the chintz of the cushions, soft, tumbled hair, and +hidden face, with a growing trouble in her eyes, "I ought to talk to +you--I ought to tell you--you're old enough now--old enough----" + +Judith turned with a soft, nestling movement, and opened her eyes again, +deep, watchful eyes that asked endless questions, and made it impossible +to answer them, eyes that knew no language but their own, the secret and +alien language of youth. Her mother sighed. + +"You're the strangest child. Sometimes you seem a hundred years old, and +sometimes--you don't feel too badly to stay alone? Mollie would have +stayed in with you, or Norah." + +"No. I would have gone, if I'd known you cared so much, but it won't do +any good to make yourself late, Mamma. Father's calling," said Judith +gravely. Still grave and unrelaxed, she returned her mother's rare +good-night kiss, and watched her sweep out of the room, turning the +rose-shaded night lamp low as she passed. + +There was a hurry of preparation downstairs, her mother's low, fretful +voice and her father's high and strained one joined in a heated +argument, and they started still deep in it, for her father did not call +a good-night to Judith. The street door shut, and she was alone in the +house. Carriage wheels creaked out of the yard and there was no +returning sound of them in search of some forgotten thing; a long enough +interval passed so that it was safe to infer that there would not be, +but Judith lay as her mother had left her, as still as if her headache +were really authentic, her questioning eyes on the rose-shaded light. + +There was much that might have increased her mother's concern for her in +her face, if you could interpret it fully; sometimes the eyes suggested +a fair proportion of the hundred years her mother had credited her with, +sometimes there was dawning fear in them, and sometimes an inconsequent, +gipsy light; sometimes her soft lips trembled pitifully, and sometimes +they smiled. Always it was a lovely face, rose flushed and eager in the +rosy light, and always something was evident which was enough to account +for her mother's concern and for more concern than her mother was +capable of feeling; Miss Judith Devereux Randall was growing up. + +Whatever questions occupied her answered themselves in a satisfactory +way at last, even an amusing way, for her smile had come to stay and +her eyes were dancing, when she jumped up from the chaise-longue at +last, turned on more lights, opened closets and bureau drawers all at +once, dropped various hastily chosen and ill-assorted articles on the +immaculate counterpane of her bed, and began to dress. + +She dressed without a glance into the mirror, and without need of it, it +appeared, when she stood before it at last, pulling a left-over winter +tam over rebellious curls which she had made no attempt to subdue. She +had buttoned herself hastily into the dress she had taken off last, a +tumbled organdy, and thrown a disreputable polo coat over it, white like +the cap, but of more prehistoric date, but on her slender person these +incongruous garments had acquired a harmony of their own, and become a +costume somehow. It might not have withstood a long or critical +inspection, but it was not subjected to one. Youth, in its divinely +suited garb of white, regarded itself with grave eyes for one breathless +minute, flushed and coquetted with itself for another, and then was gone +from the mirror. Judith turned off the lights and stole out of the room, +and downstairs. + +There was nothing in the dark and empty house to frighten her. It must +have been fear of whatever was before her that made her slip so softly +across the hall, and tremble and stand still when the door chain +rattled. The door was open at last. With a soft, inarticulate gasp of +excitement, she stepped out into the May night. + +Colonel Everard had an ideal night for the little dance in his garden, +warm, but with a quiver of new life in the air. The May moon was in its +last quarter, but lanterns were to supplement it. But the Colonel's +guest of honour, pausing at the corner of Main Street and looking +sharply to left and right, and then turning quickly off it, found very +little light on the narrow and tree-fringed cross-street through which +she was hurrying now but the moon. + +It hung slender and pale and low above the ragged row of little houses, +and seemed to go with her through the dark, but she took no notice of +its companionship. The street was deserted, and the tap of her little +heels sounded disconcertingly loud in the emptiness of it as she hurried +on, turning from the narrow street into a narrower one. + +This street had only one real end; pending the appropriation needed to +carry it straight through, witheld by agencies which could only be +connected by guess with Colonel Everard, it led feebly past a few houses +which were nearly all untenanted and looked peculiarly so to-night, to a +clump of alders at the edge of an unpenetrated wood lot, where it had +paused. Just in front of it the girl paused, too. + +Her small, white-coated figure was only dimly to be seen in the dark of +the street; the group in the shadow of the trees was harder to see, but +it moved; a horse pawed the ground impatiently, the boy in the buggy +leaned forward and spoke to him. Then Judith started uncertainly toward +him, and spoke softly, in the arrogant phrasing of lovers, to whom there +is only one "you" in the world: + +"Is that you?" + +"Is it you?" the boy's voice came hoarse through the dark. "I thought +you weren't coming. I waited an hour for you yesterday on the Rock." + +"I couldn't help it. I oughn't to be here now, and I almost didn't come, +but I thought we'd have to-night. Neil, you hurt my hand. Be nice to +me." + +She was standing close beside him now, and they could see each other's +faces, white and strange in the dark, but the boy's looked whiter, and +his breath came oddly, in irregular gasps. He held both her hands in +his, but he did not bend down to her, nor kiss her. + +"What makes you look so queer? I don't like you. Be nice to me." There +was something terribly wrong with the smug little phrases, or with any +words at all just then, there in the heart of the silent dark, and +facing the strangeness of the boy's eyes; words failed her suddenly, and +she pulled her hands away, and hid her face in them. "I won't go with +you--I'll go home, if you aren't nice to me--if----" + +"You can't go home now." There was something in the boy's voice that was +like the fierce clasp of his hands, something from which it was not so +easy to escape. "It might be better if you hadn't come, better for both +of us, but you can't go back now. It's too late. Yes, we'll have +to-night. Get in, Judith." + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + + +"Get in, Judith." + +"I won't go. You can't make me." + +The boy did not answer or move. Boy and buggy and horse--Charlie Brady's +ancient chestnut mare, not such a dignified creature by daylight, but +high shouldered and mysterious now against the dark of the grove--might +all have been part of the surrounding dark, they were so still, and +Judith's little white figure was motionless, too. + +Judith stood looking up at the boy for one long, silent minute. Such +minutes are really longer than other minutes, if you measure them by +heartbeats, and how else are you to measure them? Strange, breathless +minutes, that settle grave questions irrevocably by the mere fact of +their passing, whether you watch them pass with open eyes or are +helpless and young and vaguely afraid before them; helpless, but full of +the untaught strength of youth, which works miracles without knowing how +or why. + +"Get in," said the boy, very softly this time, so that his voice just +made itself heard through the dark; it was like part of the dark, +caressing and hushed and secret, and not to be denied. With a soft +little laugh that was attuned to it, Judith yielded suddenly, and +slipped into the carriage beside him, drawing the robe tight round her, +and settling into her corner, all with one quick, nestling motion, like +a bird perching. + +"Where are we going?" she said rather breathlessly, "Hurry. Let's go a +long, long way." + +"All right. Don't be frightened, Judith." + +"Frightened?" + +He did not answer. Charlie's horse, debarred from its destined career by +bad driving, that broke its wind in its first race, but of sporting +ancestry and unable to forget it, especially when Charlie's adventures +in the Green River under-world cheated it of exercise too long, was +remembering it now, and bolting down the hilly little street, settled at +last into a jerky and tentative gait with the air of accepting their +guidance until it could arrange further plans, but remembering its +ancestry still. + +"Splendid," Judith breathed. "Keep off Main Street." + +"Yes." + +The ancient vehicle, well oiled, but rattling faintly still, swung +alarmingly close to one street corner lamp-post and then another. Judith +nestled almost out of sight in her corner. Neil leaned forward, +gripping the reins with an ungloved hand that whitened at the knuckles, +his dark eyes looking straight ahead. His brooding eyes and quiet mouth, +and even the whiteness of his face had something unfamiliar about them, +something that did not all come from the unhealthy light of the street +lamps, something strange but unaccountably charming, too. Judith had no +eyes for it just then. + +"This is silly. I ought not to have come. Who's that?" + +"Nobody. Just a tree. Sit still. We'll go under the railroad bridge and +out over Grant's Hill. There won't be any more lights." + +"It looked like some one." + +"What do you care?" + +"It looked like your cousin Maggie." + +"She's at home in bed. She was tired to-night." + +"Oh. Well, it looked like her. It was silly to come. I never shall come +again." + +As if this were not a new threat, or had for some reason lost it terrors +to-night, the boy did not contradict her. They had left track and +railroad bridge behind now, darker blots against the surrounding dark, +with the lights of the station showing faintly far down the track. They +were passing the last of the houses that straggled along the +unfashionable quarter above the railroad track. Most of the houses here +were dark now. In the Nashs' windows the last light puffed suddenly out +as they went by. + +Down in the town behind them other sleepy little lights were burning +faintly, or going out, but ahead of them the faintly moonlit road looked +wide-awake. It was an alluring road. It dipped into wooded hollows, it +broke suddenly into arbitrary curves and windings but found its way out +again, and kept on somehow, and gradually lifted itself higher and +higher toward the crest of the hill five miles away that you reached +without ever seeming to climb it, to be confronted all at once with the +only real view between Wells and Green River. + +"I used to think Grant's Hill was the end of the world," said Judith +softly. "Maybe it is. It's funny I can say things like that to you, when +you only laugh and won't answer. Listen. Isn't it still, so still it +almost makes a noise." + +It was very still. You could feel the pulse of the night here. There was +a whisper and stir of life in the rustling trees when the road crossed +some belt of woods; there was a look of blind, creeping life about the +clustering shadows in stretches of moonlight, and the low-hanging moon +above the dark fields they passed was a living thing, too, the most +alive of all. Judith stirred in her corner, and turned and looked at +it. + +"It's sweet," she said. "And it's ours. It's still May. But we can't +wish on the moon now; it's too late. And I don't want to wish, I'm so +comfortable. Aren't you? Well, you needn't answer, then, and you needn't +hold my hand." She had felt for a hand that avoided hers. With a sleepy, +satisfied laugh, like a petted kitten purring, she settled herself +again, with her head against an unresponsive shoulder, and pulled an +unresponsive arm round her waist. + +"You aren't as soft as the cushions--not nearly. You're pretty hard, but +I like you. I was afraid to come, but now----" + +"Now what?" + +"There's nothing to be afraid of. I'm so happy. There's nobody in the +world but you and me. Neil, I'm going to sleep." + +"All right. Shut your eyes, then, and don't keep staring at me. What +makes your eyes so bright?" + +[Illustration: "'_Shut your eyes_'"] + +"You." + +"Shut your eyes." + +"All right. Nobody but you and me." + +They were really alone in the world now, alone in the heart of the +night. Their little murmur of talk, so low that they could just hear it +themselves, had been such a tiny trickle of sound that it did not quite +break the silence, and now it had died away. Asleep or awake, the +girl was quite still, with her cheek pressed against the boy's shoulder, +and her long-lashed eyes tight shut. The horse carried them over the +moonlit road at a rate of speed that did not seem possible from its +strange, loping gait. The effect of it was uncanny. + +Boy and girl and queer, high-shouldered horse, darkly silhouetted in the +moonlight, lost to sight in the shadows of tall trees that looked taller +in the dark, and then coming silently into view again, were like dim, +flitting shadows in the night; like peculiarly helpless and +insignificant shadows, restless and purposeless. The moon, soft and far +away and still, seemed more alive than they did, and more competent to +adjust their affairs. + +They required adjusting. That was in the watching brightness of the +girl's eyes, fluttering open once or twice, only to close quickly again, +in the tenseness of the boy's arm around her, in the set of his +shoulders and lift of his stubborn young chin, in the very air that he +breathed uneasily, the soft, disturbing air of the May night. It was not +a boy and girl quarrel that was before them: it was something more. It +was the strangest hour that had come to them in their secret treasury of +strange hours that were touched with the glamour of black magic and +swayed by laws they did not know. It might be the darkest hour. It was +the test hour. + +There is no sure and easy way through such hours. If they faced theirs +unprepared and afraid, so must the rest of the world, the part that is +older and counted wiser. But this could have been no comfort just then +to the boy and girl in the antiquated buggy, under the untroubled gaze +of the wishing moon. + +They were almost on the crest of the hill now. One long, upward slant of +road led straight to it, bare of trees, and silvery in the moonlight. At +the foot, and just at the edge of a thick belt of woods, the boy pulled +up as if to rest his horse for the gradual ascent. At his left, hardly +visible at all to-night unless you stopped your horse to look for it, a +narrow and overgrown road led off through the trees. Tightening the arm +that held her cautiously, the boy looked down at the face against his +shoulder, the faint, half-smile on the lips, and the lightly closed +eyes. + +The girl did not move. Her cap had slipped off, and one small, bare hand +clutched the fuzzy white thing tight, as a sleeping child's hand might +have closed on some favourite toy. Her hair showed silvery blond and +soft against his dark coat. With a quick, hungry motion, the boy dropped +his head and kissed it lightly. Then, gripping the reins with a +firmness that no present activity of the animal called for, he left +Green River's only noteworthy view without a backward glance, and turned +his horse into the road through the woods. + +For the next few minutes he had no attention to spare for Judith, +suspiciously quiet in his arms. He could not see her face. It was black +dark under the trees, dark as if it had never been light. The track was +wider than it looked, but also rougher. The trees grew close. Branches +that he brushed aside sprinkled dew into his face. The buggy creaked out +vain protests and useless warnings. Finally moonlight showed at the end +of the black tunnel, and the horse, which had been encountering its +difficulties in resourceful silence, made a faint, snorting comment +which sounded relieved, and presently, with unexpected jauntiness, swung +into the road again. + +It was technically a road, and it was the wreck of a very good road, but +it was not in much better shape than the track they had reached it by. +Aspiring amateurs had sketched it and camera fiends haunted it in their +day. It was Colonel Everard's favourite bridle path, which naturally +prevented repairs upon it. But before the railroad went through it had +been Green River's only link with a wider world. Now a better built but +more circuitous road had replaced it, designed for motoring. No motors +ever penetrated here, and few carriages. It was left to the ghosts of +ancient traffic, if they ventured here. The glancing moonlight under the +close-growing trees might have been full of them to-night. + +But the boy was not looking for ghosts or interested in the history of +the road or its charm, as he hurried his high-shouldered horse along it, +still responding jauntily. He squared his chin more stubbornly than +ever, and muttered encouragingly to the horse, and reached for his +battered whip. Round this corner, beyond this milestone, the stage +drivers used to make up time when the mail was late. A generous mile of +almost level road curved ahead of Neil into the moonlight, a fairly +clean bit of going even now. Judith and Neil were on the old coaching +road to Wells. + +Neil reached for his whip, but did not take it out of the socket. A +small hand closed over his. The head on his shoulder did not move, but +dark eyes, watchful and deliberate, opened and looked up at him quietly. + +"Now," said a cool little voice, "you can take me home." + +"You're awake?" + +"Of course." + +"Then why----" + +"I waited to see where you were going, and what you were going to do," +explained Judith simply. They were covering the banner stretch of road +at a rate the old stage drivers had never emulated. Judith pushed Neil's +arm away, and sat straight and looked at him. Her cheeks were gloriously +flushed with the quick motion, and her soft, tumbled hair had broken +into baby curls round her forehead, but her eyes were a woman's dark, +unforgiving eyes. Neil gave her one furtive glance, and looked away. + +"I told you to take me home," she said. + +He made a muttered reply, inarticulate, so that it would have been hard +to tell whether it was really addressed to Judith or the horse, and bent +forward over the reins. + +The colour deepened in Judith's cheeks, her soft lips tightened into a +straight line that was like her mother's mouth. Her cool, unhurried +voice was like her mother's, too: "I knew when we started out I'd have +trouble with you. Now I don't intend to have any more. I don't want to +have to tell you again. Take me home." + +She had adopted the tone which Green River's self-made gentlewomen like +Mrs. Theodore Burr mistakenly believed to be effective with servants. +The boy beside her gave no sign that it was effective with him. He spoke +softly to the horse again, and flicked at it coaxingly with the whip. + +"Neil, I am sorry for you," Judith stated presently, with no sympathy +whatever in her judicial young voice. "I have been awfully good to you." + +"Good!" + +"Yes, good. I--had to be. Because I knew we didn't have much time. I +knew--this--would have to stop some day. I knew it and you knew it, too. +You always knew it. Well, I've been trying to tell you for a long time +that it had got to stop. I tried, but you wouldn't let me. We're both +getting older, too old for this, and I'm going away next year. And some +things have happened to me, just lately--last week--that made me think. +I've got to be careful. I've got to take care of myself. This has got to +stop now--to-night. I wanted to tell you so. That's why I came; +because----" + +"I know why you came." + +"Don't be cross. Be good, and turn round now, and take me home. Neil, +I'm not sorry, you know, for--anything. Ever since that first night at +the dance you've been so sweet to me. I'm not sorry. Are you?" + +"No." + +"How funny your voice sounds. Why don't you turn round?" + +He had no explanation to offer. The buggy plunged faster through the +dark, and Judith braced herself in her corner. + +"Neil, turn round. Don't you hear me?" + +He gave no sign of hearing. The horse swung gallantly into a bit of road +where the stage drivers had never been in the habit of hurrying, a +tricky bit of road, with overhanging rocks jutting out just where you +might graze them at sudden turns, and with abrupt dips into precipitous +hollows. One stretched dark ahead of them now. Judith caught her breath +as they plunged into it, and clutched Neil's arm. He laughed shortly, +and did not shake off her hand. She pulled at his wrist and shook it. + +"Upset us if you want to. We'd go together," he urged, with a logic not +to be questioned. "Together, and that suits me, Judy." + +"Neil, turn round. Neil!" Judith's voice was shrill with sudden terror +repressed too long, but she struggled to make it steady and cold again, +in one last effort at control. + +"Who do you think you are, Neil Donovan? I tell you to take me home." + +He did not even turn to look at her. He was getting the horse down the +rocky slant of dimly lit road with a patience and concentration which +there was nobody to appreciate just then. Judith collapsed into her +corner. There was a faint sound of helpless crying from her, then +silence as she choked back the tears; silence, and an erect, stubborn +figure showing oppressively big and dark between Judith and the moon. + +"Neil, I'm sorry.... Neil, I can't stand this," came a muffled voice. +"Please speak to me." + +They were on level ground again, and the horse was disposed to make the +most of it. The boy pulled her into a jolting walk which was not the +most successful of her gaits, but represented a triumph for him just +now, and then he turned abruptly to Judith, gathering both her hands +into his free hand and gripping them tight. + +"I'll talk to you now," he said. "It's time I told you. Judith, you and +I are not going back." + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + + +"What do you mean?" + +"We're not going back," he repeated deliberately. + +"We are!" flashed Judith. + +"We're not going back. We're never going back." + +Judith drew back and stared at him, her hands still in his, and the boy +stared back with a look that matched her own in his big, deeply lit, +dark eyes. White faces, with angry, dark eyes, were all that they could +see clearly, though they were crossing a patch of road where a ragged +gap in the trees let some of the moonlight through; white faces like +strangers' faces. + +They were only a boy and girl jolting through the woods in the night in +a rattletrap buggy behind a caricature of a horse, but what looked out +of their angry eyes and spoke in their tense young voices was greater +than the immediate issue of their quarrel, and older and wiser than they +were; as old as the world. Ancient enemies were at war once more. A man +and a woman were making their age-old fight for mastery over themselves +and each other. + +"Never, Judy." + +"Where are we going, then?" + +"What difference does it make?" + +"Where?" + +"To Wells. We can make it by morning. I've got the mortgage money with +me." + +"Your uncle's?" + +"Yes. What difference does that make? That, or anything? We'd go if we +hadn't any money at all. We'd have to. Oh, Judith----" + +"You don't know what you're saying. Take me home. What are you laughing +at?" + +"You. You sounded just like them, then, giving me orders--just like your +whole rotten crowd, but you're through with them now, and you're through +ordering me about and making a fool of me. I've been afraid to say my +soul was my own. It wasn't, I guess. But we're all through with that. +We're through, Judith." + +"Yes, of course. Of course we're through. It's all right. Everything's +all right, Neil dear." + +"Everything's all wrong, and I know whose fault it is now: it's your +fault. Maybe I only had one chance in a hundred to get on, but one +chance is enough, and I was taking it. You made me ashamed to take it. I +was ashamed to do the work that was all I could get to do, and I had my +head so full of you I couldn't do any work. Maggie's better than I am. +She don't sit around with her hands folded and wait for Everard to get +tired of her. And the whole town don't laugh at her. The whole town +don't know----" + +"Neil, I said I was sorry. Please don't." + +"You've got the smooth ways of them all, but it's too late for that +between us, Judy. Smooth, lying ways." + +"We can't go to Wells, Neil dear. What could we do there? Think." + +"I'm sick of thinking. I'd get work maybe. I don't know. I don't care. +Judith----" + +"We can't. Not to-night, Neil. Wait." + +"I'm sick of waiting. I've got nothing to gain by it. I've done all the +waiting I could. I've stood all I could. You're the only thing I want in +the world, and I couldn't wait for you any longer if I could get you +that way--and I wouldn't get you. I'd lose you." + +"Not to-night. To-morrow, if you really want me to go. To-morrow, +truly." + +"You're lying to me, and I'm tired of it." + +"No, Neil--Neil dear." + +"You're lying." + +"How dare you say that! I hate you!" + +"That's right. We'll talk straight now. It's time." + +"I hate you. Don't touch me. You're going to take me home--you +must--and I'm never going to speak to you again. I think you're crazy. +But I'm not afraid of you--I'm not afraid." + +The low-keyed, hurrying voices broke off abruptly. There was no sound in +the buggy but Judith's rapid breathing, more and more like sobs, but no +tears came. The two faces that confronted each other were alike in the +gloom, white and angry and very young; alike as the faces of enemies are +when they measure each other's strength in silence. It was a cruel, +tense little silence, but the sound that broke it was more cruel. It was +dry and hard and had nothing to do with his own conquering laugh, that +the girl knew, but it came from the boy. + +"How dare you laugh at me. I hate you!" Judith's voice came hoarse and +unrecognizable. + +A hand caught blindly at the reins; another hand closed over it. Then +there was silence again in the buggy, broken by panting sounds and +little sobs. At the end of it Judith, forced back into her corner and +held there, was really crying now, with hysterical sobs that hurt, and +hot tears that hurt, too. + +"Let me go," she panted. "I hate you! You've got to let me go." + +"What for?" + +"I'm going home. I'm going to get out and walk home." + +"Ten miles?" + +"I'd walk a hundred miles to get away from you." + +"You'd have to walk farther to do that." The dry little laugh cut +through the dark again, and Judith struck furiously at the arm that held +her. + +"I hate you!" she sobbed. + +"No." + +"Oh, I do--I do----" + +"I don't care." The boy's voice sounded light and dry, like his laugh. +"I don't care. Kiss me." + +"I won't! I won't! I'll never speak to you again. I'll never forgive +you." + +"Lying to me--fooling me; taking me up and dropping me like Everard does +to women.... You're no better than he is. You're one of his crowd, but +you're through with them.... Lying to me, when you do care. You do." + +"I hate you!" + +"Ah, no, you don't." + +Little bursts of confused speech, all they had breath for and more, +disconnected, not always understood, not always articulate, but always +angry, came from them, with intervals of silent, panting struggle +between. The two young creatures in the buggy were struggling in earnest +now. The struggle was clumsy, like most really significant ones; sudden +and clumsy and blind. The two figures swayed aimlessly back and forth. +The boy and girl were both on their feet now. The boy had dropped the +reins. Both arms held the girl. Her pinioned arms fought to free +themselves. + +"Judith, you don't hate me. Say it--say it." + +[Illustration: "'_Judith, you don't hate me? Say it--say it_'"] + +The two shadowy figures were like one now, but the girl's arms were +free, pushing the boy away, striking at him impotently. + +"You needn't say it. I know. You had to come to-night. You couldn't stay +away. You don't hate me. You never will. You couldn't. I'm crazy about +you. You're the only thing that matters, if we should die the next +minute. Everything's all wrong, and it's not my fault or yours. +Everything's wrong, and this is wrong, too, but I don't care and you +don't. Do you? Do you?" + +"Neil, let me go. I can't breathe." + +"I love you." + +"Let me go." + +The shadow figures swayed and then were still. The girl's arms dropped. +The little, one-sided struggle was over. There was a long, tired sigh, +and then silence; silence, and one shadow face bending hungrily over the +other shadow face. "Judith," the boy whispered breathlessly, "do you +hate me now?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you want me to let you go? Do you want me to take you home?" + +"Yes," came the same answering whisper, the faintest and most uncertain +of whispers, but two arms, gently freeing themselves, found their way to +his shoulders, two hands locked behind his head and drew it gently down, +until the two shadow faces were close once more, and lips that were not +shadow lips met and clung together; not shadow lips, but hungry and warm +and alive--untaught but unafraid young lips, ready for kisses that are +no two alike and can never come again--wonderful kisses that blot +everything out of the changing world but themselves. + +"Judith"--the boy lifted his head at last, and looked down at the face +against his shoulder, pale and small, but with all the colour and light +and life that night had taken from the world and hidden, burning +undimmed in the awakening eyes--"you don't want me to take you home? You +don't--care what happens?" + +"No." + +He could hardly hear her low whisper, but her face was answer enough, +even for a boy who could not know what had touched it with new beauty, +but had to guess, as his own heart and the night might teach him. + +"No, I don't care. I don't care." + +"Judith, you do love me?" + +"Yes. Oh, yes." + +"You're so sweet," he whispered, "I feel as if I'd never kissed you +before--or seen you before. I love you, Judith." + +"Yes." + +"I love you and I don't want to hurt you. You know that, don't you?" + +"Yes." + +"But nothing's going to take you away from me now." + +"Nothing." + +"I don't want to hurt you." + +"I tell you, I don't care what happens. I--don't--care." + +"Judith!" + +Once more her hands drew him close; shy hands, groping uncertainly in +the dark, and shy lips kissed him. It was the coolest and lightest of +kisses, but it was worth all the others, if the boy knew how much it +promised--more than all her broken speech had promised, more than any +spoken words. + +Judith herself did not know, but some instinct older than she was made +her whisper: "Be good to me. Will you be good to me?" + +"Yes, Judith." + +The boy answered her small, shaken whisper solemnly, as if he were +taking a formal and irrevocable vow, but there was no one to listen to +it here, and bear witness to it as irrevocable. The girl did not answer +him. Suddenly shy, breathing quickly, and trying to laugh, she slipped +out of his arms. + +The boy let her go. Some time before the trailing reins had been caught +up and twisted twice round the whip socket. He had done this +instinctively, he could not have told just when. He bent down and +untwisted them now, rather slowly and awkwardly, not looking at Judith. +Then he sat down stiffly beside her. + +"You're tired," he said, with new gentleness in his voice. He put an arm +loosely round her waist in the manner of an affectionate but +inexperienced parent, and her head dropped on his shoulder. "Very +tired?" + +"No." + +"Judith, I'm sorry." + +"No, I'm sorry. How could I be so horrid? What made me? Did I hurt you, +dear, with my hands?" + +"You couldn't hurt me." + +"Neil, you know what you said just now?" + +"Never mind what I said." + +"You said you didn't want anything to take me away from you. Well, if it +did, if anything did take me away from you--now, I'd----" + +"What, dear?" + +"I'd never forgive you. I couldn't. I'd despise you." This warning came +in a low, uncertain voice, wasted, as countless warnings have been +wasted on wiser masculine ears than the boy's. "Look at our moon up +there. It's glad, I guess--glad about you and me. Why don't you listen +to me?" + +"I'm thinking, Judith. I've got to think." + +"You look very nice when you think. Your eyes look so big and still. You +look--beautiful. I could really sleep now, I guess." + +"All right, dear." + +"But I don't want to. I'm too happy. How late is it?" + +"I don't know." + +"Well, it's late. We couldn't get home now before awfully late--two or +something. And the road's so narrow here, we couldn't turn round. We +couldn't go home if we wanted to. Could we?" + +"Not very well, dear." + +"I'm glad.... Neil." + +"Yes." + +"Are you thinking now?" + +"Yes." + +"You do look beautiful. I don't know just why. I never saw you look just +like this before; kind, but years older than I am, and miles away. +Neil----" + +"Yes, dear." + +"Neil, don't think any more. Just love me.... I love you." + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN + + +Colonel Everard's little party was quite successful enough without the +guest of honour. At least, it would have seemed so to Judith, if she +could have looked in upon it just before midnight. A distinguished guest +of the Colonel's had made an ungrateful criticism of the inner circle, +on parade for his benefit only the week before at Camp Hiawatha, which +was elaborately rebuilt now, and rechristened Camp Everard. He +complained that the Colonel's parties were too successful. + +"Too many pretty women," he said, "or they work too hard at it--dress +too well, or talk too well--don't dare to let down. You need more +background, more men like Grant. You need to be bored. You can't have +cream without milk. You can't take the essentials of a society and make +a whole society out of them without adulterating them. It won't last. +That's why Adam and Eve didn't stay in the garden. They couldn't--too +much tension there. They needed casual acquaintances, and you need +background. You can't get on without it." + +"We do," said his host. + +The distinguished critic was far away from the Colonel's town to-night, +but the Colonel's party was all that he had complained of; the thing he +had felt and tried to account for and explain was here, as it was at all +the Colonel's parties, though a discreet selection of outsiders had been +admitted to-night; the same sense of effort and tension, of working too +hard, of a gayety brilliant but forced--artificial, but justifying the +elaborate processes that created it by its charm, like some rare +hothouse flower. + +You saw it in quick glimpses of passing faces thrown into strong relief +by the light of the swinging lanterns, and then dancing out of sight; +you heard it in strained, sweet laughter, and felt it in the beat of the +music, and in the whole picture the party made of itself in the garden, +the restless, changing picture, but this was not all--it was in the air. +You could close your eyes and breathe it and feel it. It was unusually +keen to-night, real, like a thing you could actually touch and see. + +You lost the keen sense of it if you looked too closely for signs of it. +If you overheard bits of talk, they were not always clever at all, or +even entirely gay. Worried lines showed under elaborate makeup in the +women's faces, as if Cinderella had put on white gloves to hide smutty +fingers; indeed, though they were trained to forget it and make you +forget it, they were only so many Cinderellas, after all. Seen too +closely, there was a look of strain about some of the men's faces. + +There was a reason for this look to-night, besides the set of reasons +which the gentlemen of the Colonel's circle always had for looking +worried; living beyond their incomes, living in uncertainty of any +income at all, and other private reasons, different in each case, but +all quite compelling; there was a reason, and the Colonel's guest of the +week before was connected with it. Others would follow him soon, secret +conferences would take place unrecorded, the Colonel's private telephone +wire would be busy, and the telegrams he received would be +frequent and not intelligible to the casual reader. These were the +months before election, when the things that were going to happen began +to happen. Their beginnings were obscure. The man in the street talked +politics, but the man with his hands in the game kept still. Even when +they slipped away to the smoking-room, or gathered at the edge of the +lawn in groups of two and three that scattered as their host approached, +the Colonel's guests were not discussing politics to-night. + +No tired lines were permitted to show in Mrs. Randall's face. Her fresh, +cool prettiness was of the valuable kind that shows off best at the +height of the evening, when other women look tired. If she was aware of +the fact and made the most of it, overworking her charming smile and +wide-open, tranquil eyes, you could not blame her. It was not the time +or place to overlook any weapons you might have. Whatever duties or +privileges belonged to the Colonel's inner circle, you had to take care +of yourself if you were part of it, and you learned to; that was evident +from her manner. It seemed easy for her to-night. Just now she was +sharing a bench and an evening cloak with Mrs. Burr, smooth, dark head +close to her fluffy, blond one, and smiling into her face confidingly, +as if all that lady's purring, disconnected remarks were equally +agreeable to her. + +"We miss Judy so much," she said sweetly. + +"I can see just how much, dear," said Judith's mother more sweetly +still. + +"And it's so long since she's been here." + +"She has her school work to do. She's just a child. She's not well +to-night." + +"But I got the idea he meant this to be her evening." + +"He did." + +"There he is." The third person singular, unqualified, could mean only +one gentleman to the ladies of the Colonel's circle, and that gentleman +was passing close to them now, though he seemed unconscious of the +fact. He was guiding Mrs. Kent through an old-fashioned waltz with +elaborate precision. His concentration upon the performance increased as +he passed them, and he did not look away from his partner's face, though +it was not absorbingly attractive just now. The piquant profile had a +blurred look, and the cheeks were flushed under the daintily calculated +touch of rouge. Mrs. Burr turned to her friend with a faint but +relentless light of amusement in her narrowed eyes. + +"Edie's had just one cocktail too many." + +"Yes." They ignored the more obvious fact that the Colonel had. The +evening had reached the stage when he always had. + +"He hasn't danced with you many times, Minna dear." + +"I'm tired of dancing, but don't let me keep you here, Lil." + +"I haven't seen him dance with you at all." + +"He hasn't yet." + +"No?" said Mrs. Burr, very casually. + +"No. Lil, I think Ranny wants you. He's wandering about, looking vague." + +"Don't you want me, dear? Well, Ranny always wants me." + +Mr. Randolph Sebastian, discovering her suddenly, gave exaggerated proof +of this as he carried her off. If the Colonel's secretary had really +been recruited from a dance hall, he had profited by what he saw there, +and showed it in every quick, graceful turn he made. His partner was the +type of woman that dancing might have been invented to show off; it gave +her lazy, graciously built body a reason for being, and put a flicker of +meaning into her shallow eyes so that she was not floridly pretty any +longer, but beautiful. This was peculiarly apparent when she danced with +Mr. Sebastian. She seemed to have been created for the purpose of +dancing with him; it could not have been more apparent if their +elaborate game of devotion to each other had been real, and they were +really lovers. + +Mrs. Clifford Kent, suddenly appearing alone, slipped into Mrs. Burr's +empty place. Her dance with the Colonel was over. "My Lord's in fine +form to-night," she confided without preliminary. "We're going to play +blind-man's buff after the duchess goes home." The duchess was Mrs. +Grant, the Honourable Joe's wife, still the first lady of Green River, +but the younger women were beginning to make fun of her discreetly +behind her back. "He told me the tiger story." This represented a +triumph. Getting the Colonel's smoking-room stories at first hand +instead of second hand, from their husbands, was the only form of +rivalry about which these ladies were frank with each other. "I got it +out of Cliff first, anyway. He said he couldn't tell me, but he did. I +made him. Where was Harry last night?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"Cliff had a crowd of men locked into his den until two, talking. Didn't +Harry know about it?" + +"What were they doing?" + +"Just talking. The Colonel and I don't know who else. I heard two +strange voices, and I didn't hear Harry's voice. Didn't Harry know?" + +"I suppose so. What did they talk about?" + +"Campaign stuff--prohibition or something. Cliff wouldn't tell me." + +"Was Teddy Burr there?" + +"I didn't hear him. What do you care?" + +"I don't care." + +"If Harry didn't know, I ought not to have told you, but I can't help it +now." + +"Edith, don't go. Wait." + +"I can't. I have this next with my Lord, too. I'm going to sit it out in +the library and meet him inside. The duchess is getting jealous. +Besides, there comes the dragon." Judge Saxon, looking shabby and old +and tired, was making a circuitous way toward them. "Let me go. Oh, +darling--" she put her small, flushed face suddenly close to her +friend's to ask the question, and after it, fluttered away without +waiting for the answer, leaving the echo of her pretty, empty laugh +behind--"why didn't Judith come? What's the real reason? Has anybody +been making trouble for her here? Never mind. You needn't tell me. +Good-bye." + +Mrs. Randall closed her eyes and pressed two fingers against her temples +for a moment, and then looked up with almost her usual welcoming smile +at Judge Saxon, who had come close to her, and stood looking down at her +keenly with his kind, near-sighted, blue eyes. + +"Hiding?" he said. "Tired?" + +"Not hiding from you. Take care of me." + +"Minna," he decided, "you little girls aren't so nice to me unless +you're in wrong somehow and feel sorry for yourselves. What's the +matter? Where's Harry?" + +"Inside somewhere. Don't ask me any more questions. I've answered all I +can to-night." + +"All right. I'll just sit here and enjoy the view and keep the other +boys away." + +The view was hardly one to promote unmixed enjoyment. The two settled +into a friendly silence in their corner, broken by an occasional quiet +word in the Judge's intimate, drawling voice. Around them the temper of +the party was changing, and a series of little signs marked the general +change. More men crowded into the smoking-room between dances, and they +stayed longer. Mrs. Grant left first according to her established +privilege, and a scattering of other guests followed her. Nobody seemed +to miss them or to be conspicuously happier without them. There was a +heavy, dull look about the passing faces, a heaviness and staleness now +about the whole atmosphere of the party, and this, like the unnatural +excitement which it followed, and like the light, endless fire of +inconsequent, malicious chatter, always the same, whether it meant +nothing or meant real trouble brewing, was an essential part of all the +Colonel's parties, too. + +The Judge regarded the change with faraway eyes, as he talked on in the +wistful voice that goes with talking your own private language openly to +people who cannot answer you in it. + +"Don't need the moon, do we, with those lanterns? But it was here first, +and will be a long time after, and it's a good moon, too; quite +decorative for a moon." + +"I hate it," said Mrs. Randall, with a personal vindictiveness not +usually directed against natural phenomena. The Judge took no immediate +notice of it. More guests had gone. In a cleared circle in the heart of +the lanternlight Mrs. Kent was performing one of the more expurgated +and perfunctory of her dances for the benefit of the select audience +that remained, to scattered, perfunctory applause. The motif of it was +faintly Spanish. + +"Paper doll," commented the Judge, "that's all that girl is. You and +Harry are the best of them, Minna. They're a faky lot, all of +them--about as real as a house of cards. It looks big, but it will all +tumble down if you pull one card out--only one card. The devil of it is +to know which card to take hold of, and who's to pull it out if you +haven't got the nerve? I haven't. I'm too old. But it's a comfort to +think of it. Don't you agree with me?" + +"I didn't really hear you." + +"Minna, I've known you since you were two. Can't you tell me what's the +matter? You're frightened." + +She looked at him for a minute as if she could, turning a paling face to +him, with the mask off and the eyes miserable, then she tried to laugh. + +"Nothing's the matter. Nothing new." + +"Well, there's enough wrong here without anything new," said the Judge, +rebuffed but still gentle. "I won't trouble you any longer, my dear. +There comes Harry." + +Mrs. Randall's husband, an unmistakable figure even with the garden and +the broad, unlighted lawn between, stood in the rectangle of light that +one of the veranda windows made, slender and boyish still in spite of +the slight stoop of his shoulders, and then started across the lawn +toward the garden. + +His wife got rather stiffly to her feet and waited, looking away from +the lighted enclosure, over the low hedge, at the lawn. Her eyes were +dizzy from the flickering lights. She could not see him clearly, and the +figure that followed him across the lawn was harder to see. + +It was a man's figure, slightly taller than her husband's. The man had +not come from the veranda windows, or from the house at all, he had +slipped round one corner of the house, stood still in the shelter of it, +seeming to hesitate there, and then plunged suddenly across the lawn at +a queer little staggering run. Twice she saw him stand still, so still +that she lost sight of him under the trees, as if he had slipped away +through the dark. + +In the garden Mrs. Kent's performance was over, and the game of +blind-man's buff was beginning. It was a novelty, and acclaimed even at +this stage of the evening. Lillian Burr's shrill laugh and Edith Kent's +pretty, childish one could be heard through the other sounds. They were +trying to blindfold the Colonel, who struggled but laughed, too, looking +somehow vacuous and old, with his longish, white hair straggling across +his forehead. No one in the garden but Minna Randall had attention to +spare for an arriving guest, expected or unexpected. + +Which was he? He was out of sight again, but this time she had seen him +reach the edge of the lighted enclosure. Was he gone, or waiting +outside, or had he stepped under the trellis of the rose arbour, to +appear suddenly at the end of it and among them? Instinctively she kept +her eyes upon it, though her husband had already passed through. She was +watching for the figure that it might frame next. + +"Harry," she said to her husband, who had seen her and elbowed his way +to her, and stood beside her, looking pale and tired like herself in the +lanternlight and not boyish at all, "who was that man? Who was it +following you?" + +He paid no attention to her question. He did not seem to hear it. He put +a hand on her arm, and she could feel that it trembled. + +"Oh, Harry, what is it?" she said. "I've had such a horrible evening. +I'm so afraid." + +"Don't be afraid, Minna," he said very gently, "but you must come to the +telephone. Norah's calling you. She's just come home. She wants to tell +you something about Judith." + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN + + +"Judith?" Mrs. Randall took her husband's news quietly, with something +that was almost relief in her face, the relief that comes when a +gathering storm breaks at last, and you learn what it is you have been +afraid of, though you must go on being afraid. "What is it? Is she ill, +Harry?" + +"Come and talk to Norah." + +"No, we'll go straight home." + +"But she's not there, Minna. That's all Norah'll say to me, but she's +got some idea where she is, and says she'll tell you. Judith isn't +there." + +"It must be nearly morning." + +"It's two." + +"It was after nine when we started." + +"Minna, didn't you hear what I said?" + +Mrs. Randall's face had not changed as she heard; it looked +unchangeable, like some fixed but charming mask that she wore. The lips +still smiled though they had stiffened slightly, and she watched the two +women's attempts to blindfold the Colonel--unaided now, but hilariously +applauded by the circle around her--with the same mild, interested eyes, +wide-set and Madonna calm. + +"I tell you, Judith's not there. What does Norah know? Why don't you do +something? Where is she?... My God, look at them. What are they doing +now? Look at Everard." + +Mrs. Burr had drawn the knot suddenly tight in the white scarf she was +manipulating, and slipped out of the Colonel's arms and out of reach. He +followed, and then swung round and stumbled awkwardly after Edith Kent, +who had brushed past him, leaving a light, challenging kiss on his +forehead, and was further guiding him with her pretty, empty laugh. The +game of blind-man's buff was under way. + +Crowding the garden enclosure, swaying this way and that and threatening +to overflow it, a pushing, struggling mass of people kept rather +laboriously out of one another's way and the Colonel's, not so much +amused by the effort as they were pretending to be; people with heavy +and stupid faces who had never looked more irrevocably removed from +childhood than now that they were playing a children's game. + +In the heart of the crowd, now plunging ahead of it, now lost in it, the +first gentleman of Green River disported himself. His white head was +easy to follow through the crowd, and the thing that made you follow it +was evident even now--much of his old dignity, and the charm that was +peculiarly his; you saw it in an occasional stubborn shake of his +beautifully shaped head, in the grace of the hand that caught at some +flying skirt and missed it. He was the first gentleman of Green River +still, but he was something else. + +His white hair straggled across his forehead moist and dishevelled, and +his face showed flushed and perspiring against the white of the scarf. +The trailing ends of the scarf flapped grotesquely about his head, and +the high, splendidly modelled forehead was obscured and the keen eyes +were hidden. The beauty of the face was lost, and the mouth showed thin +lipped and sensual. The Colonel was really a stumbling, red-faced old +man. + +"Look at him. That's what she's seen. This was Judith's party. That's +what we've hung on in this town for till it's too late to break loose. +We never can get away now. We can't----" + +"Keep still, Harry. Do you want to be heard? Did any one hear you at the +telephone? Keep still and come home." + +"You're right. You're wonderful. You don't lose your nerve." + +"I can't afford to, and neither can you. Come---- Oh, Harry, look. I saw +him following you. What does he want? What's the matter? What is he +going to do?" + +Mrs. Randall had adjusted her cloak deliberately, and turned to pilot +her husband out of the garden, slipping a firm little hand through his +arm. Now she clung to him and stood still, silent after her little fire +of excited questions. The entrance to the garden was blocked. An +uninvited and unexpected guest was standing there. + +His entrance had been unheralded, and his welcome was slow to come. The +crowd had closed in round the Colonel, with Edith Kent caught suddenly +in his arms, and giving a creditable imitation of attempting to escape. +Interested silence and bursts of laughter indicated the progress of it +clearly, though the two were entirely out of sight. Nobody saw the +newcomer except the Randalls. + +He stood in the entrance to the rose arbour, clutching at the trellis +with one unsteady hand, and managing to keep fairly erect, a slightly +built, swaying figure, black-haired and hatless. He kept one hand behind +him, awkwardly, as a shy boy guards a favourite plaything. He was +staring into the crowd in the garden as if he could see through into the +heart of it, but had not the intellect just then to understand what he +saw there. + +It was the man Mrs. Randall had seen lurking in the shadow of the trees, +but he was no mysterious stranger, though here in the light of the +lanterns she hardly recognized him as she looked at his pale, excited +face; it showed an excitement quite unaccounted for by the perfectly +obvious fact that he was drunk, and entirely unconnected with that fact. +Here and there on the outskirts of the crowd some one turned and saw +him, too, and stared at him. They all knew him. He was Neil Donovan's +cousin, the discredited young lawyer, Charlie Brady. + +He did not speak or move. He only stood still and looked at them with +vague, puzzled eyes, and lips that twitched as if he wanted to speak, +but standing so, he had the centre of the stage. He could not command +it, he had pushed his way into it doggedly, uncertain what to do first, +but he was there. One by one his audience had become conscious of it, +and were confronting him startled and uncertain, too. Young Chester +Gaynor elbowed his way to the front, but stopped there, grinning at the +invader, restrained perhaps by a lady's voice, which was to be heard +admonishing him excitedly. + +"Don't you get hurt, dear." + +"How did he get here? Why can't somebody get him out?" other excited +ladies inquired. + +"Get Judge Saxon," directed Mr. J. Cleveland Kent's calm and +authoritative voice. + +"Get Sebastian. Where is the fellow? Is he afraid?" demanded the +Honourable Joe from the extreme rear. Some one laughed hysterically. It +was Mrs. Burr. The laugh was quickly hushed, but the new guest had heard +it, though no other sound seemed to have impressed him. He laughed, too, +a dry, broken ghost of a laugh, as cracked and strange as his voice, +which he now found abruptly. + +"Lillie," he called. "Hello, Lillie dear." + +Mrs. Burr was not heard to reply to this affectionate greeting, but he +hardly paused for a reply. His light, high, curiously detached sounding +voice talked on with a kind of uncanny fluency. + +"Lillie," he urged cordially, "I heard you. I know you're there. Come +out and let's have a look at you. I don't see anything of you lately. +You're too grand for me. I don't care. I'm in love with a prettier girl. +But you used to treat me all right, Lillie dear, and I treated you +right, too. I never told. A gentleman don't tell. And you were straight +with me. You never double-crossed me, like you and the dago Sebastian do +to Everard. Everard! That's who I want to talk to. Where is he?" + +At the mention of the name his wavering gaze had steadied and +concentrated suddenly on the centre of the group in the garden, and now, +while he looked, the crowd parted. Pushing his way through, the Colonel +faced his uninvited guest. + +The great man was not at his best. His most ardent admirer could hardly +have claimed it. He had pulled the muffling scarf down from his eyes, +but was still tearing at the knot impatiently. Mrs. Kent had come +fluttering ineffectively after him, catching at his arm. He struck her +hands away, and pushed her back, addressing her with a lack of ceremony +which outsiders were not often permitted to hear him employ toward a +member of his favoured circle. + +"Keep out of this, Edith, and you keep quiet, Lil. You girls make me +sick," he snapped. "Half the trouble in this town comes because you +can't learn to hold your tongues. You'd better learn. You're going to +pay for it if you don't, and don't you lose sight of that. Well, Brady, +what does this mean? What can I do for you?" + +The ring of authority was in his voice again, as if he had called it +back by sheer will power. He had stepped forward alone, and stood +looking up at his guest, still framed in the sheltering trellis, and his +blurred eyes cleared and grew keen as he looked, regarding him +indifferently, like some refractory but mildly amusing animal. His +guest's defiant eyes avoided his, and the ineffective, swaying figure +seemed to shrink and droop and grow smaller, but it was a dignified +figure still and a dangerous one. There was the snarling menace of +impotent but inevitable rebellion about it, of men who fight on with +their backs against the wall; a menace that was not new born to-night, +but the gradual growth of years, just the number of years that the +Colonel had spent in Green River. + +"I'm sorry, sir," stammered his guest. + +"Then apologize and get out." + +"I can't." + +"I think you'll find you can, Brady." + +"I can't. I've got to ask you a few questions." + +They seemed to be slow in framing themselves. There was a little pause, +the kind of pause that for no apparent reason deprives you for the +moment of any desire to move or speak. The unassuming figure of the +young man under the trellis stood still, swaying only slightly from side +to side. A deprecating smile appeared on his lips, as if his errand were +distasteful to him and he wished to apologize for it. Gradually the +smile faded and the eyes grew steady again and unnaturally bright. He +held himself stiffly erect where he stood for a moment, took a few +lurching steps forward, paused, and then plunged suddenly across the +garden toward Colonel Everard. + +It would have been hard to tell which came first, the little, stumbling +run forward, the Colonel's instinctive move to check it, the stampede +of the devotees of the time-honoured game of blind-man's buff, acting +now with a promptness and spontaneity which they had not displayed in +that game, Lillian Burr's hysterical scream, the snarling words from the +Colonel that silenced it, or the quick flash of metal. It had all +happened at once. But now, in an amphitheatre of scared faces, as far +behind as the limits of the garden enclosure would allow, Mr. Brady and +his host stood facing each other alone, and the Colonel, now entirely +himself, with the high colour fading out of his cheeks, was looking with +cool and unwavering eyes straight into the barrel of Mr. Brady's +revolver. + +It was a clumsy, old-fashioned little weapon. Brady's thin hand grasped +it firmly, as if some stronger hand than his own were steadying his. He +laughed an ineffective laugh, like a boastful boy's, but there was a +threat in it, too. + +"What have you got to say for yourself? I'll give you a chance to say +it," he stated magnanimously, "but you shan't say a word against her. +She was always a good girl. She is a good girl. What have you done with +her? Where is she?" + +"You don't make yourself altogether clear, Brady," said the Colonel +smoothly. + +"Where's Maggie?" + +"Maggie?" The Colonel's eyes swept the circle of his guests +deliberately, as if to assure himself that no lady of that name was +among them. + +"Maggie. You know the name well enough." The sound of it seemed to give +the lady's champion new courage; it flamed in his eyes, hot, and quick +to burn itself out, but while it lasted, even a gentleman who had +learned to face drawn revolvers as indifferently as the Colonel might do +well to be afraid of him. "Maggie's missing. I'm going to find her. +That's all I want of you. I won't ask you who's worked on her and made a +fool of her. I won't ask you how far she's been going. But I want her +back before the whole town knows. I want to find her and find her quick. +She's a good girl and a decent girl. She's going to keep her good name. +She's coming home." + +"Commendable," said the Colonel, not quite smoothly enough. His guest +was past listening to him. + +"Maggie. That's all I want. You're getting off easy. Luck's with you. +I've stood a lot from you, the same as the town has. It will stand a lot +more, and I will. Get Maggie back. Get her back and give her to me and +leave her alone, and I'll eat out of your hand and starve when you don't +feed me, the same as the rest"--he came two wavering steps nearer, and +dropped his voice to a dry quaver meant to be confidential, a grotesque +and sinister parody of a confidence--"the rest, that don't know what I +know." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I won't tell. Don't be afraid. A gentleman don't tell, and there's +nobody that can but me. Young Neil don't know. The luck's with you, sir, +just the same as it always was." + +"I've had enough of this. Get home, Brady," cried the Colonel, in a +voice that was suddenly wavering and high, like an old man's, but his +guest only smiled and nodded wisely, beginning to sway as he stood, but +still gripping the clumsy revolver tight. + +"Just the same as it was when old Neil Donovan died." + +"Get home," shrilled the Colonel again, but his guest pursued the tenor +of his thoughts untroubled, still with the look of an amiably disposed +fellow-conspirator on his weak face, a maddening look, even if his words +conveyed no sting of their own. + +"Neil Donovan," he crooned, "my father's own half-brother, and a good +uncle to me, and a gentleman, too. He sold rum over a counter, but he +was a gentleman, for he didn't talk too much. A gentleman don't tell." + +But the catalogue of his uncle's perfections, whether in place here or +not, was to proceed no further. The audience pressed closer, as eager +to look on at a fight as it was to keep out of one. There was a new and +surprising development in this one. The two men had closed with each +other, and it was not the half-crazed boy who had made the attack, but +the Colonel himself. + +It was a sudden and awkward attack, and there was something stranger +about it still. The Colonel was angry. He had tried to knock the weapon +out of the boy's hand, failed, and tried instinctively, still, to get +possession of it, but he was not making an adequate and necessary +attempt to disarm him, he was no longer adequate or calm. He was angry, +suddenly angry with the poor specimen of humanity that was making its +futile attempt at protest and rebellion, as if it were an equal and an +enemy. His face was distorted and his eyes were dull and unseeing. His +breath came in panting gasps, and he made inarticulate little sounds in +his throat. He struck furious and badly directed blows. + +It was a curious thing to see, in the heart of the great man's admiring +circle, at the climax of his most successful party of the year. It did +not last long. The two struggling figures broke away from each other, +and the boy staggered backward and stood with the revolver still in his +hand. He was a little sobered by the struggle, and a little weakened by +it, pale and dangerous, with a fanatic light in his eyes. Some one who +had an eye for danger signals, if the Colonel had not, had made his +unobtrusive way forward, and joined him now. He was not the most +formidable looking of allies, but he stood beside them as if he had a +right to be there, and the Colonel turned to him as if he recognized it. + +"Hugh, you heard what he said?" he appealed; "you heard?" + +"Judge, you keep out of this," Brady called, "keep out, sir." + +Judge Saxon, keeping a casual hand on his most prominent client's arm, +stood regarding Mr. Brady with mild and friendly blue eyes. He had quite +his usual air of being detached from his surroundings, but benevolently +interested in them. + +"Charlie," he said, as if he were recognizing Mr. Brady for the first +time at this critical moment, and deriving pleasure from it. "Why, +Charlie," his voice became gently reproachful, but remained friendly, +too. "Everard, this boy don't mean a word he says," he went on, with +conviction, "he's excited and you're excited, too. This is a pretty poor +time for you to get excited, Everard." + +"You're right, Hugh," muttered the Judge's most prominent client +thickly; "you're right. Get him away. Get him home." + +"He's a good boy," pronounced the Judge. + +It was not the obvious description of Mr. Brady just at that moment. +There was only friendly amusement in the Judge's drawling voice and +shrewd eyes, but back of it, unmistakably there, was something that made +every careless word worth listening to. Mr. Brady was resisting it. His +face worked pitifully. + +"Judge, I told you to keep out. I don't want to hurt you." + +"Thanks, Charlie." + +"Every word I say is God's truth, Judge." + +The Judge did not contradict this sweeping statement. He was studying +Mr. Brady's weapon with some interest. "Your uncle's," he commented, +pleased. "Why, I didn't know you still owned that thing, Charlie." + +"I want Maggie. I want----" + +"I'll tell you what you want," offered the Judge, amicably, "you want to +hand that thing to me, and go home." + +Mr. Brady received this suggestion in silence, a silence which left his +audience uncertain how deeply he resented it. Indeed, they were +painfully uncertain, and showed it. Bits of advice reached the Judge's +ears, contradictory, though much of it sound, but he took no notice of +it. He only smiled his patient and wistful smile and waited, like a man +who knew what would happen next. + +"Hand it to me," he repeated gently. + +"I won't, Judge." Mr. Brady's weapon wavered, and then steadied itself. +His thin body trembled. The fanatic light in his eyes blazed bright. The +excitement which had gripped him, too keen to last long, reached its +climax now in one last burst of hysterical speech. + +"He's a liar and a thief," he asserted, uncontradicted. He was not to be +contradicted. There was a dignity of its own about the hysterical +indictment, grotesque as it was, an unforgettable suggestion of truth. +"He's a thief and a murderer, too. I don't have to tell what I know. +Everybody knows. You all know, all of you, and you don't dare to tell. +He's murdering the town." + +The high, screaming voice broke off abruptly. Mr. Brady, still with the +echo of his big words in his ears and apparently dazed by it, stood +looking blankly into the Judge's steady and friendly eyes. + +"I can't--I won't----" he stammered. + +"Hand it to me," said the Judge, as if no interruption had occurred. For +a moment the boy before him looked too dull and dazed to obey or to +hear. Then, as suddenly as if some unseen hand had struck it out of his, +the revolver dropped to the ground, and he collapsed, sobbing +heartbrokenly, into the Judge's arms. + +He was a heroic figure no longer. The alien forces that made him one +had deserted him abruptly, and he looked unworthy of their support +already, only an inconsiderable creature of jangled nerves and +hysterical speech, which would be discredited if you looked at him, even +if it still echoed in your ears. The Judge, holding him and quieting +him, looked allied with him, humble and discredited, too. The relieved +audience hung back for a moment, taking in the full force of the +picture, before it broke ranks to crowd round the Colonel and offer him +belated support. The Colonel said a few inaudible words to Judge Saxon, +and then turned from him and his protégé with the air of washing his +hands of the whole affair. He looked surprisingly unruffled by it, even +stimulated by it. The interruption to his party was over. + + * * * * * + +It ended as it had begun, the most successful party of the year. Mr. +Brady's invasion was not the first unscheduled event which had enlivened +a party at the Birches. There was more open and general speculation +about the fact that the Randalls left immediately after, did not linger +over their good-nights, and were obviously not permitted by their host +to do so. + +Mrs. Randall, leaning back in her corner with her hand tight in Harry's, +and her long-lashed eyes, that were like Judith's, tightly shut, showed +the full strain of the evening in her pale face. She was a woman who did +not look tired easily, but she was also a woman who could not afford to +look tired. + +There was no appeal or charm about her pale face now, only a naked look +of hardness and strain. Her husband, staring straight ahead of him with +troubled eyes, and his weak, boyish mouth set in a hard, worried line, +spoke rapidly and disconnectedly not of Judith, or the Colonel's ominous +coldness to him, but of Mr. Brady. + +"Maggie's a bad lot," he was explaining for approximately the fifth time +as they whirled into the drive and under their own dark windows. "She +always was. Everard isn't making away with the belle of Paddy Lane. Not +yet. He's not that far down. But that dope about old Neil Donovan----" + +"Oh, Harry, hush," his wife said, "here we are. What do you care about +Brady?" + +"Nothing," he whispered, his arm tightening round her as he lifted her +down. "I don't care about anything in the world but Judith." + +"Neither do I. Not really," she said in a hurried, shaken voice that was +not like her own, "you believe that, don't you, Harry?" + +He did not answer. Gathering up her skirts, she followed him silently to +the front of the house, single file along the narrow boardwalk, not yet +taken up for the summer, creaking loudly under their feet. + +"Look," she whispered, catching at his arm. The front of the house was +dark except for two lights, a flickering lamp that was being carried +nearer to them through the hall, and a soft, shaded light that showed at +a bedroom window. The window was Judith's. He fumbled for his key, but +the door opened before them. Norah, her forbidding face more militant +than ever in the flickering light of the kerosene hand-lamp she held, +her white pompadour belligerently erect, and her brown eyes maliciously +alight, peered at them across the door chain, and then gingerly admitted +them. + +"It's a sweet time of night to be coming home to the only child you've +got," she commented, "why do you take the trouble to come home at all?" + +It was a characteristic greeting from her. If it had not been, Mrs. +Randall would not have resented it now. She clutched at the old woman's +unresponsive shoulder. + +"Where is she?" she demanded breathlessly. + +"Judith is it you mean?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"How should I know how she spends her evenings? At some of the girls' +to-night. Rena Drew's maybe. I don't know. It's a new thing for you to +care. She was late in, and it's no wonder I was worried. She's like my +own to me. But she needs her sleep now. You'd better go softly +upstairs." + +"Do you mean she's here?" + +"What is it to you?" Norah, one bony hand clutching the newel post as if +it were a negotiable weapon of defense, and her brown eyes flashing as +if she were capable of using any weapon for Judith, barred the way up +the stairs. + +"I tell you, she needs her sleep, poor lamb--poor lamb," she said, "and +you're not to go near her to-night. You're to promise me that. But she's +here fast enough. My lamb is safe at home in her own bed." + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN + + +On an afternoon in June a year later than the interrupted party at the +Everards' a young man sat at Mr. Theodore Burr's desk in Judge Saxon's +outer office. It was still technically Mr. Burr's desk, but the young +man looked entirely at home there. A litter of papers which that +fastidious gentleman would never have permitted himself now covered it, +and the air was faintly scented with the smoke of a cigarette widely +popular in Green River, but not with devotees of twenty-five-cent +cigars, like Mr. Burr. The bulky volume open on the desk was thumbed and +used as Mr. Burr had never used any book that looked or was so heavy. +The book was Thayer on Constitutional Law, and the young man dividing +his attention between it and Main Street under his window flooded with +June sunshine was Neil Donovan. + +He divided his attention unequally, as Main Street late on that sunny +afternoon might persuade the most studious of young men to do. The +square was crowded--crowded, it is true, much as a busy street on the +stage is crowded, where the same overworked set of supers pass and +repass. The group of bareheaded girls now pacing slowly by arm in arm +under the window were returning from what was approximately their fourth +visit that afternoon to the post-office, the ice-cream parlours, the new +gift shop and tea-room, or some kindred attraction. The Nashes' new +touring car, driven by the prettiest girl in Willard's June house party, +under the devoted instruction of Willard himself, was whirling through +the shopping district for at least the third time. + +However, it was an imposing pageant enough, though the boy at the window +did not appear to find it so, regarding it with approving but grave +eyes, and returning Mr. Nash's flourishing salute unsmilingly--a brave +pageant of gay and flimsy gowns, of youth returning to the town, and +movement and colour, and June fairly begun. + +June so far was like other Junes in Green River. Colonel Everard and the +season of social and political intrigues were here. Rallies in the town +hall would soon begin. Men with big names in state politics would make +speeches there, while the Colonel presided with his usual self-effacing +charm, which did not advertise the known fact that he was a bigger power +in the state than any of them. The good old question of prohibition was +the chief issue, as usual; discreet representatives of the people +would, according to a catch phrase at the capital, vote for prohibition, +and then go round to the best hotel and get drunk; and discreet +politicians, like the Colonel, would make money out of both these facts +in their own way. + +Behind the closed door of Judge Saxon's office low-keyed, monotonous +voices were talking, and a secret conference was going on. Troubled +times were here again for those deep in the Colonel's councils. They +were never sure of a permanent place there, but always on the watch for +one of his sudden changes of front, which threatened not only his +enemies but his friends. But he had recovered and held their confidence +before, and he could this year. + +All scandals of the year before were decently hidden. Maggie Brady was +missing and continued to be missing. By this time it was the general +verdict that she had always been bound to come to a bad end, and Charlie +Brady to drink himself to death. Nobody interrupted his attempts to do +so. His drunken outburst of speech had echoed a growing sentiment in the +town, but it grew slowly, for under its thin veneer of sophistication +Green River was only a New England town still, conservative and slow to +change. + +Green River had not changed much in a year, but Neil Donovan's fortunes +had. Nobody knew the full history of the change except Neil, but others +could have thrown sidelights upon it, among them Mrs. Randall's second +maid, Mollie. On the morning after that same party of the Colonel's, +which Mr. Brady attended so unexpectedly, and Judith did not attend, +Mollie opened the Randalls' door to an early caller. + +Even in curl papers, she was usually too much for the young man now on +the doorstep. He was in the habit of looking at his boots and addressing +them instead of her, and Mollie quite understood that, for they were +shabby boots. They looked shabbier than ever to-day, and so did his +shiny coat, but his eyes were steady and clear, and there was clear +colour in his cheeks, as if he had had the only restful and well-earned +sleep in Green River. + +"Miss Judith," he said. + +"Not at home," said Mollie, in a manner successfully copied from French +maids in the ten, twenty, thirties. + +"Nonsense. Her curtains aren't up," replied the young man who was +usually made speechless by it. + +"She's asleep," conceded Mollie, in a manner more colloquial but also +more forbidding. "She don't want to see you." + +Mollie was incapable of interpreting Judith's wishes, but the young man +was not; his smile conveyed this, though it was friendly enough. "When +Miss Judith gets up, tell her----" + +"I tell you she don't want to see you," snapped Mollie in a tone any +French maid would have deplored. "She don't want to see anybody." + +"Tell her that I'll call again at three this afternoon," directed the +young man calmly, and completed his disturbing effect upon Mollie by +turning and walking briskly away without a backward glance, and without +his usual air of self-consciousness when her eyes were upon him. He +carried his shabby coat with an air, and held his head high, and swung +out of sight down the sleepy little street as if he were the only +wide-awake thing in the whole sunny, sleepy town. + +It was a disconcerting moment for Mollie or any lady properly conscious +of her power, and sorry to see a sign of it disappear, even the humblest +of signs. It would still have been disconcerting, if she could have +foreseen that Judith would not receive this young man alone, either at +three that afternoon, or for many afternoons. The young man was not +overawed by Mollie. That was established once and for all. He would +never be overawed by her again. She slammed the door rather viciously. + +"Keep quiet there," said Norah, appearing inopportunely, as her habit +was, with a heavily laden breakfast tray. "She needs her rest. But +she's awake. She rang. You can take this up and leave it outside her +door. Who was talking to you?" + +"Well, I don't know what's come to him," Mollie complained. "Who does he +think he is? Did anybody leave him a fortune over night? It was the +Donovan boy." + +A few minutes after Neil's encounter with Mollie, when Mr. Theodore Burr +admitted him listlessly after his third knock at Judge Saxon's door, he +could see no evidence that any one had left the Donovan boy a fortune +over night, but did note a change in him. There was something +appealingly grave and sedate about his face, as if a part of its youth, +the freakish, unconquerable laughter of it, that had defied and +antagonized Mr. Burr, were gone forever, burned away, somehow, in a +night. It was a look Mr. Burr was to grow well used to in the next few +months. Perhaps the unaccountable affection he was to feel for the boy +in the course of them was born then and there. + +Neil emerged from the Judge's private office after a briefer talk than +usual, and the Judge did not escort him to the door in his accustomed, +friendly fashion. Mr. Burr did, and made him clumsy and unwonted +confidences there. + +"The old man's not quite fit to-day," he said. "I ought to have told +you. It's a poor time to get anything out of him. Been shut up there by +himself doping out something. Won't say two words to me." + +"Then he must be in a bad way, Theodore," said the boy, with the ghost +of his old, mocking smile, which Mr. Burr somehow did not find annoying +at all. + +"Look here, Neil," he surprised himself by saying, "I like you. I always +did. You deserve a square deal. You're too good for the Brady gang. +You're too good for the town. If there was anything I could do for +you----" + +"Maybe there is, Theodore," the boy turned in the corridor to say. +"Cheer up. You'll have a chance to see. I'm coming to work for the +Judge, I start in next week." + +"But the Judge turned you down." Mr. Burr's brain struggled with the +problem, thinking out loud for the sake of greater clearness, but too +evidently not achieving it. "The Judge likes you, too, but he couldn't +take you in if he wanted to. He talked of it, but gave it up. He'd be +afraid to. Everard----" + +"I start in next week," repeated Mr. Donovan. + +"But what did you say to him?" demanded Mr. Burr. "What did he say to +you? How did you dare to ask him again?" + +"I didn't ask him. Don't worry, Theodore. I haven't been trying any +black magic on the Judge. I don't know any. Maybe I'll learn some. I'm +going to learn a good deal. I've got to. Nobody knows how much. Even the +Judge don't know. I'm coming to work for the Judge, that's all, but I +didn't ask him." Mr. Burr, listening incredulously, did not know that +this was a faithful if condensed account of his talk with the Judge and +more, the key to much that was to happen to this pale and determined +young man, the secret of all his success. He gave it away openly, and +without pride: + +"I just told him so." + +Neil started in the next week. If Mr. Burr watched his young associate +somewhat jealously at first in the natural belief that a boy who had +changed the course of his life in a five-minute interview would do +something equally spectacular next, and if the Judge, who had said to +him at last, "Well, it's my bad morning, son, and your good morning, so +you get your way, but you're climbing on a sinking ship, and remember I +told you so. And I'll tell you something else. It will be poor pickings +here for all of us, and I'm sorry, but I'm the sorriest for you," was +inclined to follow him furtively over the top of his spectacles with a +look that held all the pathetic apology of age to youth in his kind, +near-sighted eyes, this was only at first. + +Colonel Everard, returning a few weeks later from one of his sudden, +unexplained absences from town, and making an early morning visit to his +attorney, was admitted by a young man whom he recognized, but pretended +not to. + +"Who are you?" he inquired, "the office boy?" + +"Just about that, sir," the young man admitted, as if he had no higher +ambition, but the Judge, entering the room with more evidence of +beginning the day with the strength that the day required, than he had +been showing lately in his carriage and look, put a casual hand on the +boy's shoulder, and kept it there. + +"The last time we discussed enlarging my office force, you didn't +advocate it, Everard," he said rather formally. + +"So you aren't discussing it with me now?" + +"Do you think you'd better discuss it?" + +"Do you?" + +"I think you are in no position to discuss it. You've been recently +furnished with much more important material to discuss. I haven't seen +you since your garden party, have I?" + +"No." Both men seemed to have forgotten the boy's existence, but now the +Colonel recalled it, and apparently without annoyance, and flashed a +disarming smile at him, giving up gracefully, as he always did if he was +forced to give up at all. "Well, you're right, Hugh. You're always +right. Do as you please. But this boy's got a temper of his own +and--quite a flow of speech. Runs in his family, evidently. Properly +handled, these are assets, but----" + +"I'm sorry, sir," Neil found himself stammering. "I shouldn't have +spoken to you as I did that day. I'm sorry." + +"Next time be sure of your facts." The voice was friendly, almost +paternal, but it held an insidious challenge, too, and for one betraying +moment all the native antagonism that was really there flashed in the +Colonel's eyes. Few enemies of his had been permitted to see it so +clearly. It was a triumph for Neil, if a barren one. "Be very sure." + +"I will, sir," said Neil deliberately, but very courteously. Then the +Colonel disappeared into the private office with his arm about his +trusted attorney's shoulders, and the young man for whose sake his +attorney had openly defied him for the first time in years began to +empty the office waste-baskets. + +The winter weeks in the Judge's office passed without even moments of +repressed drama like this. There was little to prove that they were the +most important weeks of his life to Neil. At first they were lonely +weeks. Mr. Burr, unusually prompt, reached the office one crisp +September morning in time to find him staring out of the window at a +straggling procession passing on its way up the hill to the schoolhouse, +hurrying on foot in excited groups, or crowded into equipages of varying +sizes and degrees of elegance, properly theirs or pressed into service. + +"First day of school," said Neil, and did not need to explain further, +even to Mr. Burr. From to-day on new faces would look out of the +many-paned windows of the old, white-painted building. New voices would +sing in the night on their way home from barge rides and dances. There +were to be new occupants of the seats of the mighty; a new crowd would +own the town. The door of the country of the young was shut in this +boy's face from to-day, and that is always a hard day, but it was +peculiarly hard in Green River, where the country of the young was the +only unspoiled and safe place to live. And there were signs of a private +and more personal hurt in the boy's faraway eyes. + +"What's that letter?" said Mr. Burr. + +"Seed catalogue." + +"Don't she write to you every day?" + +"Who?" + +"Is she too proud, or did she forget all about you? She'll have +time to, away half the summer, and not coming home for vacations. She +won't see you till next June." + +"If you mean Judith Randall," her late class-mate replied in a carefully +expressionless voice, "why should she write to me, and why shouldn't she +forget all about me?" There was a faint, reminiscent light in his eyes, +as if he were not seriously threatened with the prospect, but it died +away quickly, and his face grew very grave. + +"I'm a business man now, Theodore." + +"You are," said his newest friend, "and we couldn't keep house without +you now. You're in a class by yourself." + +This was true. Neil did not take his big chance at life as other boys +equally in need of it would have done. He did not lose his head. He +showed no pride in it. Green River, soon seeing this, rewarded him in +various ways, each significant in its own fashion. Nondescript groups +round the stove in his uncle's little store ceased to look for signs +that he felt superior to them, and welcomed him as before, restoring to +him his privilege of listening to talk that was more important than it +seemed, public sentiment uncoloured and without reserve, the real voice +of the town. Mrs. Saxon, of the old aristocracy of the town, with +inborn social prejudices stronger than any acquired from the Everards, +broke all her rules and invited him to Sunday-night supper. + +"The boy's not spoiled," his old friend Luther Ward said to the Judge +approvingly. "He knows his place." + +"That's the surest way to climb out of it," said Judge Saxon, advisedly, +for it was the Judge who had the closest and most discerning eyes upon +Neil Donovan's career. Listlessly at first, because he had looked on at +too many uphill and losing fights against the world, but later with +interest, forced from him almost against his will, he watched it grow. + +To a casual observer the boy would have seemed to be fitting himself not +for an ornament to the legal profession, but for the office boy Colonel +Everard had called him, but he would have seemed a willing office boy. +He spent hours uncomplainingly looking up obscure points of law for some +purpose nobody explained to him. He devoted long, sunny afternoons to +looking up titles connected with some mortgage loan which nobody gave +him the details of, and he seemed satisfied with his occupation, and +equally satisfied to devote a morning to plodding through new-fallen +snow delivering invitations to some party of Mrs. Saxon's. + +When he was actually studying, he lost himself in the Judge's +out-of-date reference books, as if they contained some secret as vital +as the elixir of youth, and might yield it at any moment. Mr. Burr, at +first ridiculing pupil and course of instruction alike, and with some +show of reason, began shamefacedly and afterward openly to give him what +benefit he could from the more modern education which had been wasted +upon him. Between his two teachers the boy arrived at conclusions of his +own. Neil was studying law by the old method which evolved so many +different men of letters and keen-witted lawyers, a method obsolete as +the Judge's clothes, but Neil gave allegiance to it ardently, as if it +had been invented for him. + +"What do you get out of this?" the Judge demanded, coming upon Neil late +one afternoon, poring over the uninspired pages of Mr. Thayer by the +fading light. "What do you hope to get?" + +"All there is in it," said the boy simply, and without oratorical +intent. + +"Suppose you do pass your bar examinations. What then? What will you do +with it?" + +"I'll wait and see then. I had to begin somewhere." + +"Why?" said the Judge, and as he asked the question, the answer to it, +which he had once known so well and forgotten, looked at him in the +boy's pale face and glowing eyes, the great answer not to be silenced, +youth, and the wonderful, wasteful urge of youth. "Don't you know this +town's sick?" he demanded abruptly. "It's dirty. You can't clean it up. +Don't you ever try. Don't you stir things up. Don't you dig in too deep. +I suppose you know the town's got no room for you?" + +"Yes, sir, I know." + +"Where do you expect to end?" the Judge began irritably, "in the +poorhouse? You're so damn young," he grumbled. "It's a good thing I +didn't know you when I was young. I'd have listened to you then." + +"You will now, sir," said the boy, and the Judge did not contradict him, +but instead, under shy pretence of groping for the switch of the desk +lamp, found the boy's hand and gripped it. + +"You're a good boy," he remarked irrelevantly. "Mind what I said, and +don't dig in too deep." + +The Judge did not explain whose secrets he hoped to protect by this +vague warning. Probably he could not have explained. It was one of those +instinctive pronouncements which shape themselves in rare moments when +two people are close and mean more than either of them know. Certainly +if the key to any secret was to be found within the Judge's dingily +decorated walls or in his battered safe, or learned from his partner, +the boy had exceptional opportunities to unearth it. Theodore Burr's +intimacy with Neil developed rapidly. He stuck to it obstinately, in +spite of his wife, showing more independence about it than he had in +years. The two had tramped and snow-shoed together through long winter +hours of intimate talk and more intimate silence, and they found the +first Mayflowers of the year together. Only the week before he had +committed the crowning indiscretion of giving up a poker game at the +Everards' to go shooting with Neil. + +The Judge, in the strenuous days of Colonel Everard's summer campaign, +had no time to observe the growth of this intimacy or to think much +about Neil, but he might have been interested in a snatch of talk in the +Brady kitchen one evening, if he could have overheard it, more +interested than Mrs. Donovan, who did not remember it long. + +Her son was an hour late for supper, but she was used to that, for now +that he was on his feet the house revolved around him. She served him, +and then sat watching him with her hands folded, and the new dignity +that had come with his first bit of success straightening her tired +shoulders, and the look of age and pain that had been growing there +since Maggie disappeared widening her soft, deep eyes. He had dropped +wearily into his chair, and he ate almost in silence, but she was used +to that, too. + +Outside the short, June twilight was over, and a pattering summer rain +had begun to fall. Neil's dark hair was damp with it and clung to his +forehead in close curls. Once, passing his chair, she smoothed it with a +hand that was work hardened but finely made and could touch him lightly +and shyly still. Her son pulled her suddenly close, and hid his face +against her. + +"What is it?" she asked, softly and not too soon as she stood still and +held him. "What's wrong, then? Where have you been?" + +"Nothing's wrong. Nothing new. I went round to Theodore Burr's, but I +left there at five. I didn't mean to be late home or make work. But I +had a hunch to look in at Halloran's. I thought I'd find Charlie there. +I did, and I had to get him home." + +"Taking your strength," said Mr. Brady's aunt, unfeelingly but +truthfully, "a good-for-nothing----" + +"That's not the worst thing he does." + +"What is, then?" + +"Talking." + +"He don't mean anything by that." + +"Sometimes he does. Sometimes he tells you things that you never +suspected and you don't believe him at first, but you find they're true; +things that have been locked up in his addled brain so long that they're +out of date, and you don't know how to profit by them or handle them, +but they're true--all true." + +"Neil, you don't half know what you're saying. You're tired." + +Mrs. Donovan released herself abruptly to get the tea-pot from the +stove. Her son, who had been talking in a low, monotonous voice, more to +himself than her, watched her with dazed eyes that slowly cleared. + +"I guess you're right," he said. "I didn't mean to frighten you. Charlie +was no more loose mouthed to-day than he always is. I got hold of +nothing new, but I have hold of more than I can handle, and I'm tired +and I'm scared, and there's only one of me." + +But Mrs. Donovan preferred her own interpretation of the situation, as +most ladies would have. She made it tactfully, keeping her eyes away +from him, busy with the tea-pot. "You're young, and it's June. Neil, the +children walked round with the Sullivan girl to take home the wash to +the Randalls'. They had some talk with Norah there. Judith will be home +this week." + +She had mentioned the much-debated name in a voice which she kept +indifferent, but she flashed a quick, apprehensive glance at him. She +was quite unprepared for its effect upon him. He only laughed, and then +his face sobered quickly, and his eyes grew lonely and tired again. + +"Judith," he said, "you think that's my trouble, mother. Well, I'm not +so young as I was last June." Then he began with considerable relish to +drink his tea. + +"You're contrary and close mouthed, but you're only a boy like all other +boys," said Mrs. Donovan, sticking to her point, "and you're a good son +to me." + +The boy who had made this rare and abortive attempt at confidences only +the night before showed no need of repeating it as he gazed out of the +Judge's window. He looked quite competent to bear all his own troubles +alone, and a generous share of other people's, though somewhat saddened +by them. Perhaps his mother's diagnosis of him was correct. He leaned +his chin on his hands and stared out of the window like any dreaming +boy, as if it was. But the winter that had passed so lightly over Green +River had left traces of its own upon him. His profile had a clearer, +more sharply outlined look. The lines at the corners of his mouth were +firmer though they were no deeper, and the mouth was still a boy's +mouth, red-lipped and lightly closed. But the dreaming eyes were a +man's, dreaming still, but alert, and ready to banish dreams. + +The afternoon light was fading fast. It was not so easy now to read the +fine print of Mr. Thayer's notes, and the boy made no further pretence +of trying to. He let Mr. Thayer slip to the floor, and stretched himself +in his chair with a sigh of relief. The sounds of talk in the Judge's +room had grown fainter and more intermittent and finally ceased. The +Judge, still deep in conference with them, had left with his guests by +the private door. The boy was alone in the office. + +Gradually, as he sat there, the bright pageant of the busy little street +had dimmed. It made a softer and mellower picture, a blend of delicate +colours in the slant mellow light, and it was not so busy now. There +were fewer passers-by, and they hurried and did not loiter past. It was +almost supper-time. Willard Nash, not joy riding now, but dispatched +reluctantly alone on some emergency errand, flashed by in his car, and +disappeared up Main Street. + +Beyond the double row of shops the upper section of the street was +empty. The maples, in full leaf now and delicately green, shadowed the +upward slant of smooth road alluringly. Touched with golden afternoon +light, and half hidden by the spreading green, the old, solidly built +houses planted so heavily in the midst of their well-kept lawns had new +and unguessed possibilities. Any one of them just then might have +sheltered a fairy princess. The one that did was just within range of +the boy's grave, patient eyes, a protruding porch, disproportionately +enlarged and ugly, a sweep of vividly green lawn stripped bare of the +graceful, dishevelled growth of lilac and syringa bushes that had graced +it before Mrs. Randall's day. + +Not from that house, but from somewhere beyond it, a car flashed into +view and cut smoothly and quickly down through the street, almost +deserted now. The boy followed it idly with his eyes. The low-built, +graceful lines of it held them. It approached, and slowed down directly +under the windows, and the boy leaned forward and looked. + +It was stopping there. It was one of the Everard cars, as the trim lines +and perfection of detail would have shown without the English +chauffeur's familiar, supercilious face. The car had only one occupant, +a slender young person in white. She slipped quickly out, and +disappeared into the dingy entrance hall below. + +She had not seen the boy at the window. He stood still now in his +corner, and waited. The tap of her feet was light even on the old +creaking stairs, but he heard. She knocked once and a second time, and +then threw open the door impatiently, saw who was there, and stopped +just inside the door, and looked at him. + +Her white dress and big, beflowered hat looked as cool and as new as +June itself. They did not make the dingy room look dingier, they made +you forget it was dingy. Her soft, befrilled skirts fluffed and flared +in the brave and bewildering mode of the moment. Skirts, small shoes +that were built to dance, not to walk, the futuristic blend of flowers +in her hat, and the girdle, unrelentingly high and futuristic of colour, +too, that gave her waist an unbelievably slender look, were all in the +dainty and sophisticated taste of a sophisticated young lady, and under +the elaborate hat there was a sophisticated young face. It looked +smaller and more faintly pink. The small chin was more prominent. But +she still had the wide, reproachful eyes of a child. They regarded the +boy unwinkingly. One hand went behind her, found the knob of the door, +and closed it mechanically, but the eyes did not leave his face. + +He stepped uncertainly forward, and stopped. + +"Well, Judith," he said, in a voice that held all the authority Judge +Saxon's assistant had acquired in the long year of his service and more, +"Well?" and then, in a voice that held no authority at all, but was +suddenly husky and small: "Oh, Judith, won't you speak to me?" + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN + + +"Judith," Neil said. + +Neil's visitor flashed a quick glance round the dim office, empty except +for the lean young figure that confronted her. It was a hunted glance, +as if she really meant to turn without speaking and pick up her +beruffled skirts, and run away down the dusty stairs, but she did not +run away. Suddenly quite herself, recovering by tapping some emergency +reserve of strength as only ladies can, but as most of them can, even +the most amateurish and beruffled of ladies, she crossed the room to +him. + +She came deliberately, with an impressive flutter of hidden silk. She +was smiling a faint half-smile, sweet but indefinably teasing, and +holding out a daintily gloved hand. It touched Neil's lightly and +impersonally, not like a girl's warm hand at all, but like the hand of a +society forever beyond his reach, held out patronizingly to this boy +beyond its pale, only to emphasize the distance between them. + +"How do you do?" she murmured, formally but sweetly. + +"How do you do?" the boy stammered. "Judith, oh, Judith, I----" + +He broke off, staring helplessly into her eyes. They were dark and +accusing and grave, and a heartache shadowed the depths of them, the +lonely and infinite heartache of youth, when you cannot measure your +pain or argue it away, but must suffer and suffer instead. But the boy +was too miserable just then to read it there. + +"Judith," he began, "don't you care any more? Why wouldn't you read my +letters? Why wouldn't you let me explain? Won't you let me now? I can, +Judith." + +Still smiling, not taking the trouble to interrupt him, she waited for +him to finish, and as she waited and smiled, he had suddenly nothing +more to say. Judith was so slender and white and still as she stood +there. All the outraged dignity of an offended schoolgirl was helping to +make this overwhelming little effect of hers, and every trick of poise +and carriage that she had acquired in a year, and something else, +something that shamed and silenced the boy as no tricks could have done, +and made her pathetic little show of injured dignity real. A woman's shy +soul was reaching out for every defence it had to protect itself; a +woman's new-born, bewildered soul looked out of Judith's beautiful, +grieved eyes. + +It was very still in the office. Outside an automobile horn sounded +aggressively, once and again, and Judith gave the boy an amused, +apologetic glance. + +"Parks is in a hurry," she said. "He ought not to do that. The Colonel +wouldn't like it. But I won't keep him waiting. I'm going out to the +Camp for supper. Father and mother are there already. I stopped for the +Judge, but he doesn't seem to be here. He is walking out to the Camp, I +suppose. I'm--glad to have seen you." Her voice choked perilously over +this irreproachable sentiment, then steadied and modulated itself +according to the instructions of the highly accredited elocution teacher +of which she had enjoyed the benefit for a year. "Good-night." + +Again she put out her cool little hand, but this time the boy's hand +closed on it tight. + +"Judith," he began, his words coming fast, the contact seeming to +release all that had been storing itself up in his lonely heart for a +year. Once released, it came tumbling out incoherently, with the lilting +brogue of the ragged little boy that he used to be singing through it, +and the breathless catch in his voice that is the supremest eloquence +for the kind of words that he had to say. But Judith gave no sign of +being moved by it, and while she listened, a hard look, too unrelenting +for any eloquence to reach, was growing in her eyes. + +"Judith, you're so sweet, so sweet; sweeter than you were last +year--sweeter than you ever were before. I didn't know anybody could be +sweeter, even you. I was so lonely. I wanted you so, and now you've +come. Everything will be all right, now you've come. And you came +straight here. You knew I was here, and you came because you knew. You +came straight to me." + +"I came for the Judge," she corrected him gravely. + +"But you knew I was here." + +"I knew you were working for the Judge, but I didn't think you'd be here +so late in the afternoon. I didn't come to see you. I didn't want to. +Why should I? But I'm glad you are doing so well. Good-night, Neil." + +"Good-night," he muttered mechanically, checked once more in spite of +himself. + +But as he spoke, he felt her hands, both in his now, and held tight, +tremble and try softly at first, and then in sudden panic, to pull +themselves away. Her voice, that had been so grave and cool, with no +echo of the excitement that was in his, failed her now, though she kept +her wide-open eyes bravely upon him. She was afraid of him, this young +lady who was making such elaborate attempts to hide it, this young lady +not of his world, and so anxious to prove it to him, this calm stranger +with Judith's eyes. She was very much afraid, and she could not hide it +any longer. + +"Let me go," she tried to say. + +"Judith," he dropped her hands obediently, but his arms reached out for +her and caught her and held her close, "you didn't come for the Judge. +You came to see me." + +"No. No." + +Her face was hidden against his shoulder. Her voice came muffled and +soft. Neil paid no further attention to it. "No," it insisted faintly. +"Let me go." Then it insisted no more, and the boy laughed a soft, +triumphant little laugh. + +"You did come to see me, and you love me. You love me and I love you. +You were angry, of course. Of course you sent back my letters. But +you're going to listen to me now. You're going to let me explain. I +couldn't that night. I couldn't talk any more. I didn't dare. I had to +keep hold of myself. I had to get you home. And I did, dear. I turned +round and took you home, and I got you home--safe. You're going to +listen? And not be angry any more? You won't, will you? You +won't--dear?" + +Her face was still out of sight, and her white figure was motionless in +his arms. She did not relax there, but she did not struggle. She looked +very slender and helpless so. Her futuristic hat had slipped from its +daring and effective adjustment, and fallen to the Judge's dusty floor, +where it lay unregarded. The silvery blond head against his shoulder was +changed like the rest of her, a mass of delicately adjusted puffs and +curls, but in the fast-fading light he saw only the soft, pale colour of +her hair and the tender curve of her throat. He kissed it reverently and +lightly, once only, and then his arms let her go. + +"You're so sweet," he whispered; "too sweet for me. But you're mine, +aren't you? Tell me you are. And you forgive me for--everything? Tell +me, Judith." + +She seemed in no hurry to tell him. She faced him silently, her white +dress whiter than ever in the fading light, and her face big eyed and +expressionless. He waited reverently for her answer, and quite +confidently, picking up the elaborate hat mechanically, and then +smoothing the ribbons tenderly, and pulling at the flowers, as he +realized what he held. + +"Poor little hat," he said softly, with the brogue coaxing insinuatingly +in his voice. "Poor little girl. I didn't mean to frighten you. And I +didn't mean to--that night.... Judith!" + +It was undoubtedly Judith who confronted him, and no strange lady now. +It was as if she had been waiting for some cue from him, and heard it, +and sprung into life again, not the strange lady, not even the girl of +the year before, but a long-ago Judith, the child who had come to his +rescue on a forgotten May night, the child of the moonlit woods, with +her shrill voice and flashing eyes. She was that Judith again, but grown +to a woman, and now she was not his ally, but his enemy. She snatched +the beflowered hat away, and swung it upon her head with the same +reckless hand that had swept the lantern to the ground in her childish +defence of him. Her eyes defied him. + +"That night," she stormed, "that night. Don't you ever speak of that +night to me again. I never want to hear you speak again. I never want to +see you again. I'll never forgive you as long as I live. I hate you!" + +"Judith, listen to me," begged the boy. "Listen. You must." + +But the girl who swept past him and turned to confront him at the door +was past listening to him. Words that she hardly heard herself, and +would not remember, came to her, and she flung them at him in a +breathless little burst of speech that hurt and was meant to hurt. The +boy took it silently, not trying to interrupt, slow colour reddening his +cheeks, his eyes growing angry then sullen. The words that Judith used +hardly mattered. They were futile and childish words, but because of the +blaze of anger behind them, that had been gathering long and would go on +after they were forgotten, they were splendid, too. + +"I hate you! I don't belong to you. I don't belong to anybody. I'm not +like anybody else. Nobody cares what I do, and I don't care. I don't +care. Nobody ever takes care of me or knows when I need it. Well, I can +take care of myself. I'm going to now. I never want to belong to +anybody. If I did, it wouldn't be you." + +"Judith, stop! You'll be sorry for this." + +"If I am, it's no business of yours. It's nobody's business but mine." + +"You'll be sorry," the boy muttered again, and this time the girl did +not contradict him or answer. Her shrill little burst of defiance was +over, and with it the sullen resentment that had crimsoned the boy's +face as he listened began to die away. He was rebuffed and thrown back +upon himself. His heart would not open so easily again. It would be a +long time before it opened at all. But he did not resent this. He only +looked baffled and puzzled and miserable, and the girl staring mutely at +him from the doorway with big, starved eyes, looked miserable, too. She +would be angry again. All the hurt pride and anger that had been +gathering in her heart for a year was not to be relieved by an +unrehearsed burst of speech. It had been sleeping in her heart. It was +all awake now, and she would be angrier with the boy and the world than +ever before, angrier and more reckless. But just now her anger was +blotted out and she was only miserable. In the gloom of the office there +was something curiously alike about the two tragic young faces. + +The two were alone together there, but they had never been farther +apart. There was a whole world between them, a lonely world, where +people all speak different languages, and understand each other only by +a miracle, and most of them are so used to being alone that they forget +they once had a moment of first realizing it. But when it was upon them, +it was a bitter moment. These two young creatures were both living +through it now. They looked at each other blankly, all antagonism gone. + +"You won't listen?" said the boy wonderingly, admitting defeat. "You +won't forgive me?" + +"No," said Judith pitifully. "I can't." + +Neil looked at her forlornly, but did not contest this. He came meekly +forward, not trying to touch her again, and opened the door for her. + +"Well, good-night," he said. "Good-night, dear." + +"Good-bye," Judith said. "Good-bye, Neil." + +Then, jerking her flaunting hat into adjustment with trembling fingers, +and shaking out her befrilled skirts with a poor little imitation of her +earlier airs and graces, she slipped out into the corridor, groped for +the dusty stair rail, and clutched at it with a new disregard for her +immaculate whiteness, and disappeared down the stairs. + +In the street below the last of the afternoon light still lingered, +reflected from the polished windows of the bank building, and faintly +illuminating the half-deserted square, but the sun was just going down +behind the court-house roof, a big, crimson ball of vanishing light. +Judith, appearing below in the doorway, stood regarding it deliberately +for a minute, ignoring the chauffeur's discreet manifestations of +impatience, and then made herself comfortable deliberately in the +Colonel's car. + +She sat there proudly erect, a dainty, aloof little lady. She seemed to +have recovered her high estate upon entering it, and become a princess +beyond Neil's reach once more. Watching her gravely from the Judge's +window, he could not see the angry tears in her eyes or the reckless +light in them. + +Little preliminary pants and puffs came from the car, discreetly +impatient, as if they voiced all the feelings that the correct Parks +repressed. He relieved them with one blatant flourish of sound from the +horn, and swung the car grandly across the square, round the corner, and +out of sight. Judith was gone, and she had not once looked up at the boy +in the window. + +She had not even seen another cavalier, who dashed out of a shop and +tried to intercept and speak to her, but was just too late; Mr. Willard +Nash, thrilled by his first sight of her, ready to return to his old +allegiance at a word, and advertising the fact in every line of his +forlorn fat figure as he stood alone on the sidewalk gazing wistfully +after the vanished car. + +The boy at the window did not waste his time in this way. Judith was +gone, and with her the spell that had held him mute and helpless, and he +was a man of affairs once more. He was not a very cheerful man of +affairs to-night. He was not singing or whistling to himself, as he +usually did, but he moved competently enough about the room, entering +the Judge's private office with its smell of stale tobacco smoke and +group of chairs, so confidentially close that they looked capable of +carrying on the conference their late occupants had begun without help +from them. He rearranged this room, giving just the straightening +touches to the jumble of papers on the desk that the Judge permitted, +and no more, and putting the outer office in order, too. + +By his own desk he paused, fingering Mr. Thayer's thumbed pages +absently. He had no attention to spare for them just then, or for the +graver questions that had absorbed him just before Judith came. They +would soon claim him again. They awaited him now, but out in the +gathering dark that he watched from the darkening office something else +waited, too. + +His heart ached with it, but it beat harder and stronger for it, and new +strength to meet old issues came pulsing from it, as if he were awake +again after a year of sleep. He was grieved and miserable, but he was +awake. For his mother was right: he was only a boy like other boys; he +was young and it was June, and whether she was kind or unkind, Judith +Randall was back in Green River. + + * * * * * + +Judith, whirled along the fast-darkening road between close-growing +pines, dulling from green to black, and birches, silver against them, +looked for the welcoming lights of Camp Everard through a mist of angry +tears. + +She shed them decorously, even under cover of the dark; she was still a +dainty and proud little lady, with nothing about her to advertise +conspicuously that she was crying, or why. But her little gloved hands +were closing and unclosing themselves, her lips were trembling in spite +of her, and there was a hunted look in her eyes as she turned them +toward the dark woods, as if her quarrel with Neil were not her only +trouble. The tears that she controlled so gallantly were a protest +against a world only half understood and full of enemies whose alien +presence she was just beginning to feel. + +But Neil, as she had just seen him, was enough to occupy the mind of +such a young lady, or a much older one. The look in his eyes as he stood +holding open the Judge's door for her was a highly irritating one for +any lady to meet. He was older and wiser than she was, no matter what +she could say or do to hurt him; he was stronger than she was, and +patiently waiting to prove it to her; that was what Neil's eyes were +saying. + +They said it first when he left her at her own door without a good-night +on that strange May night a year ago; when she stood looking up at him +changed and alien and silent, with the May moon behind him, that had +brought her bad fortune instead of good, still dim and alluring with +false promises above the shadowy elms in the little street, and they +looked down at her just so--Neil's grave, unforgettable, conquering +eyes. They were eyes that followed you to-night, when you tried to +forget them and look at the dark woods and fields; eyes that looked at +you still when you closed your own. + +But Judith would not look at them. The eyes were lying to her. Neil was +not really wise or kind. He was cruel. He had hurt her and slighted her, +and she was through with him. + +"Parks, can't you go faster?" she said suddenly, in her clear little +voice. "It's so late, and I'm hungry and cold." + +"It's bad going through here, Miss," the chauffeur said. + +They were turning into a narrow mile or so of road that sloped gradually +down through a series of arbitrary curves and bends to the lake and the +camp, a changed and elaborate structure now, overweighted with verandas +and uncompromisingly lit with new electric lights. But the road was one +of the things that the Colonel did not improve when he changed the +public camp into a private one. It was unchanged and unspoiled, a +mysterious wood road still, alluring now in the gloom. + +Judith's own people were waiting for her there at the end of that road. +They were all the people she had. Willard and schooltime and playtime +were more than a year behind her; they were behind her forever. She +could never go back to them. She had never really been part of them. She +had forced herself into a place there, but she had lost it now, and it +could never be hers again. + +These were her people. They were strange to her still, but she had grown +up breathing the feverish air that they breathed, and with little +whispers of hidden scandal about her. Judith was alone between two +worlds: one was closed to her, and she was before the door of another, +where she did not know her way. She was really alone, as she had told +Neil, more alone than she knew; a lonely and tragic figure, white and +small in the corner of the big car. + +But she was not crying now. She dabbed expertly at her eyes with an +overscented scrap of handkerchief and sat up, looking eagerly down the +dark road. She could catch far echoes of a song through the still night +air, faint echoes only, but it was a song that she knew, a gay little +song, and it came from a place where people were always kind and gay. It +was like a hand stretched out to her through the dark, a warm hand, to +beckon her nearer, and then draw her close. She leaned forward and +listened and looked. + +There was the camp, the first glimpse of it, though soon a dip of the +road would hide it again. It was an enchanting glimpse, a far, +low-lying flicker of light. And there, just by the big, upstanding +boulder where the road turned abruptly, she saw something else. She saw +it before Parks did, as if she had been watching for it. It was a man's +figure that started forward, came to the edge of the road, and waited. +The man looked more than his slender height in the shadow, but his +light, quick walk was unmistakable. It was Colonel Everard. + +"Stop, Parks," Judith said, with new authority in her voice. + +He stood waiting for her silently, without any greeting at all, and she +slipped her hand into his and stepped out and stood beside him. + +"Go on," he said to the chauffeur. "It's too rough here for the car. +It's easier on foot. Miss Randall will walk with me." + +The car, skilfully manipulated along the steep, zigzag road, but a +clumsy thing at best here in the woods, and an artificial and ugly +thing, lumbered away, breaking through outreaching branches. Judith +watched it out of sight. Then and not till then she turned to her host. + +"Aren't you going to speak to me?" the great man inquired respectfully, +as if her intentions deserved the most serious consideration. + +"Yes," said Judith serenely, unflattered by it. + +"What are you going to say?" + +"What do you want me to say?" + +"I want you to shake hands with me." + +A hand touched his lightly. It drew quickly away, but it was a confiding +little hand. + +"You don't seem surprised to see me." + +"I'm not," said Judith. + +"But you're glad to see me?" + +"Yes." + +"It's stuffy inside, and they've got a fire in the billiard room and +won't leave it. I wanted----" + +Judith laughed and let him draw her hand through his arm as they began +to grope their way down the road. "You wanted to meet me." + +She made the correction triumphantly and confidently, as she would have +made it to Willard. All this was coquetry, as she and Willard understood +it, and it was an old game to her, and a childish game, but there was +something strangely exciting about the fact that the Colonel understood +it, too, and condescended to play at it. It was more exciting than usual +to-night. + +"Why should I want to meet you?" he said. + +"I don't know." + +"Why weren't you downstairs last night when I came to see your father?" + +"I was tired." + +"You weren't running away from me?" + +"No." + +"And you won't ever run away from me?" + +"I don't know." + +"You're afraid of me." + +"Am I?" + +"Aren't you?" + +"I don't know," said Judith. "Look, there's the moon." + +It was low above the trees, rising solemn and round and slow. It looked +reproachful and grave, like Neil's eyes. It was looking straight at +Judith. Judith turned her eyes sternly away. What was the Colonel +saying? Something that did not sound like Willard at all, or like the +Colonel, either. Nobody had ever spoken to her in just that voice +before. It was a choked, queer voice. But Judith smiled up at him and +listened, tightening the clasp of her hand on his arm. + +"Don't be afraid of me. Don't ever be afraid.... You're so sweet +to-night." + +"No, I won't," said Judith defiantly, straight to the round, accusing +moon. "I won't be afraid." + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + + +"I don't like the look of you," said Mrs. Donovan. + +"Then you're hard to please." Neil turned at the foot of the steps to +say, trying to smile as he said it. "Harder than I am. I do like the +look of you." + +The Donovans, mother and son, were both quite sufficiently attractive to +the eye at that moment. This was the second day of September, and also +the second day of the county fair in Madison, five miles away--the big +day of the fair, and Neil's uncle had been up at dawn to escort the +younger Bradys there in a borrowed rig, and in the company of at least +half Green River in equipages of varied style and state of repair. Neil +had slept late, breakfasted sketchily, and dined elaborately alone with +his mother. Now the long, still, sunny afternoon was half over, and she +stood in the kitchen door, watching him start for town. + +The kitchen, newly painted this year, looked empty and unnaturally neat +behind her, but friendly and lived in, too, with the old, creaking +rocker pulled to an inviting angle at the window overlooking the marsh, +and a sofa under the other window, its worn upholstery covered freshly +with turkey-red; one splash of clear colour, sketched in boldly, just in +the corner where it satisfied the eye. Her neighbours did not take this +humble fabric seriously for decorative purposes; indeed, they would not +have permitted a sofa in the kitchen at all, but her neighbours were not +of her gracious race. They could not wear a plain and necessary white +apron like the completing touch to a correct toilette assumed +deliberately. Mrs. Donovan could, and she did to-day. Also her brown +hair, dulled to a softer, more indefinite brown by its sprinkling of +white, rippled softly about her low forehead, and her dress was faded to +a tender, vague blue like the blue of her eyes. Her eyes, almost on a +level with Neil's as she stood on the step above him, had the charm that +was peculiarly their own to-day, cloudy as they were with the faraway +look of a race that believes in fairies, but warm and human, too, with +an intimate mother look of concern for Neil. + +Neil met it steadily, not a sullen boy as he would have been under that +questioning a year ago, not resenting it at all, but keeping his secrets +deliberately. It had always been hard for her to make him answer +questions. It was not even easy for her to ask them now. + +"You don't sleep," she began. + +"Neither do you, if you've been catching me at it," reasoned her son +correctly. + +"You work too hard." She had made an accusation that he could not deny, +so he only smiled his quick, flashing smile. "You won't even take a day +to yourself." + +"I'll have the office and most of the town to myself this afternoon. +I'll have to go. I've got something special to look into." + +"Where's Charlie?" she demanded at once. + +"Oh, he's not troubling me to-day. He's safe at Madison with his new +mare. He'll break loose there, then come home and repent and stay +straight for weeks and make no trouble for me. He's due to break loose. +He's been good too long--too good to be true. He was in fine form last +night." Mr. Charlie Brady's cousin grinned reminiscently. + +"What do you mean?" + +"He gave me quite a little side talk on good form in dress and diction. +Charlie claims I won't make an orator, and he don't like my taste in +ties." + +"Who does he think he is?" flashed Mr. Brady's aunt indignantly. + +"Who do you think he is?" her son inquired unexpectedly. "For whatever +you think, that's me. I'm no better than Charlie." + +"Charlie?" Mrs. Donovan gasped, and then plunged into an indignant +defence of her son, not pausing to take breath. + +"You?" she began. "You that's planted firm on the ladder and right-hand +to the Judge already, and him getting older every day, and Theodore Burr +just kept on in the office because Everard's after Burr's wife. So he +is, and the town knows it, and Theodore'll wake up to it soon. A fine +partner Theodore is for the Judge, poor boy, but he's a good boy, too, +though none too strong in the head; Lil Burr is a good girl, too, and +she'd make a good wife to Theodore if she could be left to herself. +She'd make it up with Theodore, as many a girl has done that's got more +for her husband to forgive than Lil. + +"Poor Lil. Her head's high above me now, but the time was she cried on +my shoulder; crying for Charlie, she was, before ever Charlie took up +with Maggie and Lil with Theodore; when the four of them were all young +together, and the one as good as the other. Young they were, and the +hearts of them young--wild, doubtful hearts. Many's the time Lil would +come to me then, here in this same kitchen, and go down on her knees, +her that was tall and a fine figure of a girl, and cling onto me, crying +her heart out; crying she was for all the world like--like----" + +Mrs. Donovan checked herself abruptly with shrewd eyes upon her son. + +"Like young things do cry, and tell you their troubles in tears, not +words." She ended somewhat vaguely, and came quickly back to her main +subject again. + +"You that can walk into the big rally next week and sit with the men +that count, and whisper and talk to them, and hold your head high, with +nothing against you, and will be sitting up on the platform soon, with +the best of them, and be mayor yet, like Everard's going to be, or +governor, maybe--you to compare yourself with Charlie, if he is my +half-sister's own son. He's a drunken good-for-nothing. He's got no +spirit in him if he'll stay here at all, where he's ashamed himself and +make a show of himself. How is it he's able to stay? Where does he get +the money he spends? This town don't pay it to him. Who does?" + +"What put that into your head?" her son asked sharply. + +"There's talk enough of it, and there'll be more. The whole town will be +asking soon." + +"The town asks a lot of questions it don't dare hear the answers to," +said Neil softly, unregarded. His mother returned to her grievance: + +"You to be likening yourself to Charlie." + +"When Charlie was twenty-five," Neil began slowly, "he was where I will +be then, or better. The Judge was a friend to him, too, and the Judge +was a better friend then to have. Charlie was setting up for himself, +well thought of. My own father trusted him. When I was a boy and not +grown, Charlie was a son to him, and more. He was a better spoken lawyer +than I'll ever make, quick and smooth with his tongue, and he was fine +appearing, and put up a better front than I do. I've gone part of the +road that Charlie went. What will stop me from going the whole road? +What's beat Charlie is strong enough to beat me.... Don't look so +scared, mother. I don't want to scare you. I only want you to be fair to +Charlie." + +"His heart's broke," she conceded, melting. "He's nothing with Maggie +gone." + +"His heart's broke, but that's not what beat him," her son stated with +authority. "He was beat before." + +"When?" + +"He was beat," Neil stated deliberately, "when Everard moved to Green +River." + +This was a sweeping statement, but Neil did not qualify it. He dropped +the subject and stood silent, turning absent eyes upon the green expanse +of marshy field that had been the starting-place of all his dreams when +he was a dream-struck, gazing boy. His mother's eyes followed his, +growing cloudier and soft as if even now she could read them there. + +"Rests your eyes," Neil said, after a minute; "looks pretty, too, in the +sun. It's a pretty green. We'll drain it, perhaps, by the time I'm mayor +or governor. It might pay. I'll be going now." + +"Neil, when did you see her last?" asked his mother suddenly. + +"See who?" he muttered, and then flushed, and straightened himself, and +met her eyes bravely. + +"I saw Judith yesterday," he said, "on Main Street, and--she cut me." + +"Did she walk past you?" + +"No, she wouldn't do that. She pretended not to see me, but she saw me, +all right. She passed me in an automobile." + +"Whose?" + +"One of Everard's." + +"Was he with her?" + +"Yes." + +"Neil," his mother began a little breathlessly, "I want to tell you +something. I've said hard things to you, and they weren't deserved. I +know it now, and I'm sorry. I want to take them all back. I've said hard +things about Judith Randall." + +She hurried on, afraid of being stopped, but he made no move to stop +her. He listened courteously, his face not changing. + +"Neil, she's not what I thought. There's no harm in her. There's no +pride in her. She's just lonesome. She's just a young, young girl. She's +sweet-spoken and sweet-faced. Neil, from all I hear----" + +"You didn't hear all this direct from--Judith, then?" + +"Judith?" she hesitated, flashing a questioning glance at him. "Is it +likely? How would I get the chance? But from all I hear, she's too good +for Everard and the like. And she's not safe with them. She needs----" + +"What?" interrupted her son gravely, with the air of seeking information +on a subject quite strange to him and rather distasteful. But she tried +to go on. + +"--Judith needs--any one that's fond of her, any one that she's fond of, +to be good to her now. I've seen her, and it's in the eyes of her. No +man ever knows just what a woman is grieving for, but that's all one if +he'll comfort her when she's grieving. She needs----" + +Neil's eyes were expressionless. She sighed and put her two hands on his +shoulders. "Have it your own way," she said. "I'll say no more." + +Neil caught at one of the hands on his shoulders and kissed it. + +"For one thing," he said, "Judith or any girl needs a mother with a +heart in her--like I've got, but you're the one in the world. I'm +going." + +But he did not go at once. Standing beside her, suddenly awkward and +shy, he first gave her the confidence that she could not force from him, +all in one generous breathless burst of words. + +"Mother, Charlie's not the only one with his heart broke. But +heart-break isn't the worst thing I've got to bear. There's something +else. I can't tell you. I'd rather bear it alone. I've got to. +Good-bye." + +Then he left her standing still in the door, shading her cloudy blue +eyes with one small hand and looking after him. He swung into the dusty +road and, keeping his head high and his eyes straight ahead, undazzled +by the sharp sunlight of mid-afternoon on the long stretch of unshaded +way, passed out of sight toward Green River. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + + +Neil turned into Post-office Square just on the stroke of four. The +square was as empty and strange to the eye as his mother's kitchen, +though this was the rush hour of the day in that business centre upon +ordinary days, when the fair had not emptied the town. + +A solitary Ford of prehistoric make stood before the post-office, and +even that was just cranking up. It lurched dispiritedly off, leaving a +cloud of dust behind. A dejected-looking group of children hung about +the door of the ice-cream parlour, and appeared to lack the initiative +to enter in. Half the shops were shut. In the big show-window of the +central section of Ward's Emporium Luther Ward, usually on parade and +magnificently in charge of his shop and his staff of employees at this +time of day, stood in his shirt sleeves, embracing an abnormally slender +lady in a mauve velveteen tailored suit. + +At first glance he seemed to be instructing her in the latest dance +steps, but on a nearer view the visible part of her proved to be wax, +and the suit was ticketed nineteen-fifty. He jerked her into place, +turned and saw Neil, and hailed him cheerfully, waving him round to the +main entrance door, where he joined him, still wiping his brow. + +"If you want a thing well done, do it yourself," he said, explaining his +late exertions with the air of believing the explanation was original +with him and did credit to his intellect. "What are you here for, +brother? Isn't Madison good enough for you?" + +"No," Neil said. "Not with the big race called off." + +"Called off? How's that?" + +"Because you weren't there, Luther." + +Mr. Ward gave a gratified laugh at this graceful compliment, and +descended to facts. + +"I'm too old for horse racing. It's my boy's turn. He went over with +Willard Nash's crowd to-day. Why didn't you?" Mr. Ward demanded +severely. + +"Oh, Willard asked me all right. He's quite strong for me now." Mr. Ward +had doubted this, being on the watch for slights to Neil and resenting +them, though he never made an effort to prevent them. This was the usual +attitude of Neil's more influential friends. + +"Willard's a shrimp," said Mr. Ward gruffly. "And I like you," he added +in a burst of frankness. "I always did like you, Neil. You've pulled +yourself up by your boot-straps, and I hope you hang on to them tight. +There's nobody better pleased than I am. Oh, I got a rig and sent all +the help from the store over to the fair to-day," he added, turning +quickly to impersonal subjects. + +"You always do treat them right." + +"Well, this wasn't my idea. I got it from the Colonel." A look of +harmless but plainly evident pride came into Mr. Ward's open and ruddy +countenance as he mentioned the great man's name. It was only the week +before that he had received his first dinner invitation from the +Everards. It came at the eleventh hour and did not include his wife, but +he was dazzled by it still. "You know what he's doing? Closing his +house, practically, for all three days of the fair, and sending all the +help on the place over there--two touring cars full. It's a fine thing +for them. They're high-class help and don't have it any too interesting +down here. Anybody that says he's not democratic don't know the Colonel. +This town don't half know him yet." + +"You're right," Neil put in softly. + +"Democratic," declaimed Mr. Ward, "and public spirited. Look at the +fountain he's going to put up in the square. Look at the old Grant house +going to be fitted up for a library. Look at him running for mayor, when +he's been turning down chances at bigger offices for years--willing to +stay here and serve for the good of the town. There's talk against him +more than ever this year. I know that. It amounts to an indignation +meeting when the boys get together at Halloran's. Well, failures hate a +successful man, and their talk don't count. It will die down. But I hate +to hear of it. For the Colonel's put this town on the map. He's not +perfect, but who is? And suppose he does have a good time his own way? +We've got a right to--all of us. It's a free country." + +Mr. Ward delivered this last sentiment with touching faith in its force +and freshness, and waved a plump hand of invitation toward the little +private office back of the main section of his store, where he had +developed his unfailing eloquence of speech upon subjects of public +interest, and liked best to practise it. But Neil, himself listened to +with growing deference by the groups that forgathered there, was not to +be lured to that sanctum to-day. Speaking hastily and vaguely of work to +be done, he escaped from his good friend and across the street to Judge +Saxon's office. + +He climbed the stairs heavily, and did not linger before the door to +picture the sign changed to "Saxon, Burr, and Donovan," as he had done +more times than he cared to admit. The office was not a thing to be +proud of as a step up in life for him to-day; it was a place to be alone +in, as men feel alone and safe in the place that is their own because +they have worked there. + +Showing this in every move, Neil locked the door, threw off his cap, and +dropped into the broken-springed chair at the desk that was nominally +Theodore Burr's, but really his. He groped mechanically for the handle +of the drawer where he usually rested his feet, found it hard to open, +gave up the attempt and, leaning back without its support, stared at Mr. +Burr's ornate, brass-mounted blotter with unseeing eyes. + +Sitting there, he was no longer the boy who had the privilege of +intimate talk with prominent citizens like Mr. Ward and valued it; or +the boy who had laughed at his mother's anxiety so bravely. He was not +even the boy that he used to be, sullen, but rebellious, too. To-day for +the first time he was something worse, a defeated boy. The long minutes +dragged like hours, and he sat through them as he would have sat through +hours, silent and motionless, losing run of time and acknowledging +defeat. + +For there was something that this boy wanted, and had always wanted, as +he could never want other things, even success or love, as a boy or a +man can want one thing only in one lifetime. It was a remote and +preposterous dream that he had, a dream that nobody else in Green River +was foolhardy enough to cherish long, but this boy belonged to the race +of poets and dreamers, the race that must sometimes dream true, because +it always dreams. His dream had taken different forms: sometimes he saw +himself doing desperate things, setting fire to a house that he knew and +hated, striking a blow in the dark for which nobody thanked him, but the +issue was always the same, and the dream never left him. He was to find +Green River a new master. He was to save the town. That was his dream. +It had never left him till now. + +He was only a lean, tense boy, crouched over a battered desk and staring +out of the window at a country street with absent, beautiful eyes, but +he was living through a tragic hour; the terrible hour that poets and +dreamers know when they lose hold upon their dreams. Measured by +minutes, this hour was not long. Neil passed a hand across his forehead +and sat up, reaching for his cap in a dazed way, for he was not to be +permitted to hide longer from his trouble here. The plump and personable +figure of Mr. Theodore Burr was crossing the square and disappearing +into the door below. His unhurried step climbed the stairs. Neil opened +the door to him. + +"Hello, stranger. Why aren't you at Madison?" Neil said. + +"I didn't go," said Mr. Burr lucidly. "Where are you going? I don't want +to drive you away from here." + +"Oh, just out. I was going anyway." + +"You don't invite me. I don't blame you. I'm poor company, and I've got +business to attend to here." + +"No!" + +"Why shouldn't I have business here?" snapped Mr. Burr. + +"You should, you should, Theodore. Say"--the question had been troubling +Neil subconsciously all the time he sat at the desk--"what's wrong with +that lower drawer? I can't open it." + +"It's locked." + +"What for?" + +"That," said Mr. Burr with dignity, "is my private drawer--for private +papers." + +"Papers!" Mr. Burr's private papers were known to consist chiefly of a +file of receipted bills and a larger file of unreceipted bills, both +kept with his usual fastidious neatness. "What papers?" + +"That's my business. I've got some rights here, if I am a figurehead. +I've got some privileges." + +"Sure. Don't you feel right to-day, Theodore?" + +"That," said Mr. Burr, "is my business, too." + +Neil stared at his friend. Mr. Burr was faultlessly groomed, as always, +his tie was of the vivid and unique blue that he affected so often, and +a very recent close shave had acted upon him as usual, giving him a pink +and new-born appearance, but his eyes looked old and tired, as if he had +not slept for weeks and had no immediate prospect of sleeping, and there +were lines of strain about his weak mouth. He was not himself. Even a +boy preoccupied with his own troubles could not ignore it. + +"Don't you feel right?" Neil said. "Don't you want me to do something, +Theodore?" + +"Yes. Get out of here. Leave me alone," Mr. Burr snapped angrily. + +"Sure," said Neil soothingly. + +Suddenly Mr. Burr gripped Neil's reluctant, shy, boy's hand, kept it in +his for a minute in silence, and then abruptly let it go, pushing Neil +toward the door. + +"Don't begrudge me one locked drawer when you'll own the whole place +some day," he said, with all the dignity that his fretful burst of +irritation had lacked. "I'd like to see that day. You're a good boy, +Donovan." + +"You're not right. You've got a grouch. Come with me and walk it off," +Neil said uneasily, but he did not press the invitation, and his friend +had little more to say. His silence was perhaps the most unusual thing +about his behaviour, which was all out of key to-day. Neil remembered +afterward that just as he closed the door upon Mr. Burr and his +vagaries, shutting them at the same time out of his mind, Mr. Burr, +sitting rather heavily down in the broken-springed desk chair, was +bending and stretching out a faultlessly manicured, slightly unsteady +hand toward the locked drawer of the desk. + +Neil stepped out into the street with a cautious eye upon the Emporium +across the way, but no portly form was in sight there now, and no hearty +voice hailed him. He crossed the square and turned north, walking +quickly, soon leaving the larger houses behind, and then the smaller +houses above the railroad track, always climbing gradually as he walked. +Finally, at the entrance to an overgrown road that led off to his left, +and at the highest point of his long and slow ascent, he turned and +looked back at the town. + +The town that Colonel Everard had put on the map hardly deserved the +honour, seen so in a glitter of afternoon light, with the long, sloping +hill leading down to it, and the white tower of the church pointing high +above it, a cozy huddle of houses at the foot of the hill. It looked +unassuming and sheltered and safe, only a group of homes to make a +simple and sheltered home in. The boy looked long at it, then turned +abruptly and plunged into the road before him. + +It led straight across a shallow belt of fields and deep into the woods. +Only a cart-track at first, it soon lost itself here in a path, and the +path in turn grew fainter and became a brown, alluring ghost of a path. +It was hard to trace, but this was ground that Neil knew, a favourite +haunt of his, though few other boys ventured to trespass here. The woods +were part of the Everard estate. + +Neil had found his first May flowers here on the first spring that he +was privileged to give them to Judith. Last year she had helped him look +for them here. His errand here was not so pleasant to-day. The brown +path did not really lead to the heart of the woods as it seemed to. It +was not so long as it looked. It was a fairly direct short cut to the +Everard house. + +The boy followed it quickly, with no eyes for the dim lure of the woods +to-day. + +"You've beat me," he muttered once to himself; "I'll have a look at +you." + +Soon the woods were not so thick. They fell away around him, carelessly +thinned at first, littered with fallen trees and stumps, but nearer the +house combed out accurately by the relentless processes of landscape +gardening, and looking orderly and empty. The little path vanished +entirely here. Ahead of Neil, through a thin fringe of trees, was the +Colonel's rose garden; beyond it, the broad stretch of lawn and the +house, bulky and towered and tall. + +Neil broke through the trees and stood and looked at it, straight ahead, +seen through the frame of the trellised entrance to the garden, +upstanding and ugly and arrogant. + +"You've beat me," he said to the Colonel's house. "You've beat me; you +and him. I hate you!" + +His voice had a hollow sound in the empty garden. Garden and lawn and +house had the same look that the whole deserted town had caught to-day; +the look of suddenly empty rooms where much life has been, a breathless +strangeness that holds echoes of what has happened there, and even hints +of what is to happen; haunted rooms. It is not best to linger there. +Neil turned uneasily toward the path again. + +He turned, then he turned back, stood for a tense minute listening, then +broke through the rose garden and began to run across the lawn. Very +faint and small, so that he could not tell whether it was in a man's +voice or a woman's, but echoing clearly across the deserted garden, he +had heard a scream from the house. + +It came from the house somewhere, though as Neil ran toward it the house +still looked tenantless. The veranda was without its usual gay litter of +cushions and books and serving trays. At the long windows that opened on +it all the curtains were close drawn--or at all but one. + +As Neil reached the house he saw that the middle window was thrown high +and the long, pale-coloured curtain was dragged from its rod and +dangling over the sill. Just then he heard a second scream from the +house. It was so choked and faint that he barely heard it. Neil ran up +the steps and slipped through the open window into the Everards' +library. + +Little light came through the curtained windows. The green room, +sparsely scattered with furniture in summer covers of light chintz that +glimmered pale and forbidding, looked twice its unfriendly length in the +gloom. There was a heavy, dead scent of too many flowers in the air. On +a table across the room a bowl of hothouse hyacinths, just overturned, +crushed the flowers with its weight and dripped water into the sodden +rug. + +Neil, at the window looking uncertainly into the half-dark room, saw the +bowl and the white mass of crushed flowers, and then something else, +something that shifted and stirred in a far corner of the room. He saw +it dimly at first, a dark, struggling group. There were two men in it. + +One was a man who had screamed, but he was not screaming now. It would +hardly have been convenient for him to scream, for the other, the +smaller and slighter man of the two, was clutching him by the throat, +gripping it with a hand that he could not shake off as the two figures +swayed back and forth. + +"Who's there?" Neil cried. + +Nobody answered him. Nobody needed to, for just then the two men who +seemed to be fighting swung into the narrow strip of light before the +uncurtained window and he could see their faces. He could see, too, that +they were not fighting now, though they had seemed to be. The bigger man +was choked into submission already. No sound came from him and he hung +limp and still in the little man's hold. Just in the centre of the strip +of light the little man relaxed his grip, and let him fall. He dropped +to the floor in a limp, untidy looking heap, and lay still there, with +the light full on his face, closed eyes and grinning mouth. The man was +Colonel Everard, the man who stood over him was Charlie Brady. + +As Neil looked Brady dropped on his knees beside the Colonel, felt for +his heart, and found it. He knelt there, motionless, holding his hand +pressed over it and peering intently into his face. Presently he got to +his feet deliberately, gave a deep sigh of entire content with himself, +and looked about him. Then and not until then he saw Neil. He saw him +without surprise, if without much pleasure, it appeared. + +"You're late," he remarked. + +"You drunken fool," Neil began furiously, then stopped, staring at his +cousin. Whatever the meaning of this exhibition was, Charlie was not +drunk. The excitement that possessed him was excitement of some other +kind. It possessed him entirely, though it was under control for the +moment. His muscles twitched with it. His shoulders shifted restlessly. +His hands closed and unclosed. His eyes were strangely lit, and there +was an absent, exalted look about them. Whatever the excitement, it was +strong--stronger than Charlie. Neil, his eyes now used to the +half-light, could see no weapon in the room, dropped on the floor or +discarded. Mr. Brady, normally a coward in his cups and out of them, had +attacked his enemy with his bare hands. + +"Charlie, what's got you?" Neil said. "What's come to you?" + +"What's come to him, there?" Charlie said, in a voice that was changed, +too, and was as remote and as strange as his eyes, a low voice, with the +deceptive, terrible calm of gathering hysteria about it. + +"Look what's come to him," the voice went on. "Don't he deserve it, and +worse? How did I find him to-day when I broke in through the window +there? At his old tricks again. There was a woman with him in the +library there, when he came out to me. He locked the door. She's there +now. Neil, you'd better get away from here. I don't know what you're +doing here, but you'd better go, and go quick." + +He had given this advice indifferently. He made his next observation +indifferently, too, with his furtive, absent eyes on the library door. + +"I've killed him." + +"What's got you? Are you crazy?" + +"No--not now. You'd better go. I want to take a look in there first. The +key's in the door." + +"Charlie, come back here." + +The note of command that he was used to responding to in his young +cousin's voice reached and controlled Mr. Brady even now; he obeyed and +swung round and stood still, looking at Neil. Neil's dark eyes, just +above the level of his own, and so like them, were unrecognizable now. +They were dull with anger, and they were angry with him. + +"What's the matter?" he quavered. "What's the matter, Neil?" + +Between the two cousins, as they stood facing each other, the Colonel +lay ominously still. The cruel eyes did not open, and the distorted +mouth did not change. + +"Look! You can see for yourself. Feel his heart," Mr. Brady offered, but +his cousin's dark, disconcerting eyes did not leave his face. "What's +the matter, Neil? What are you going to do?" + +"I'm going to make you talk out to me," Neil said. "You'll tell me +what's got you, and why you did this, which will be the ruin of you and +me, too, but first you'll tell me something else. You'll tell me what +you've hid from me for a year, you who can tell me the truth when you're +drunk and lie out of it when you're sober, till you've worn me out and +I'm sick of trying to get the truth from you. I'll be getting it now too +late, but I'll get it. Have you or have you not been living on this +man's money?" + +"Yes." + +"Was it hush money?" + +"Yes," Mr. Brady said. "Neil, I'll tell you everything. You've guessed +most of it, but I'll tell you the rest. I can prove it. I can prove +everything I know. I did take hush money. It was dirty money, but I +didn't care. I didn't care what happened. I didn't care till to-day." + +"To-day?" + +"I got--a letter." + +"Go on," Neil said. + +As he spoke Mr. Brady's face began suddenly to change, lighting again +with that strange excitement which had gripped him, revived, and burning +through its thin veneer of control. His eyes blazed with it, and his +voice shook with it. He waved a trembling hand toward the library door. +A sound had come from the library, the faintest of sounds, a low, +frightened cry. It was like the ghost of a cry, but he heard. Neil heard +it, too, and was at the door before him, trying to unlock it, fumbling +with the key. + +"She's there yet," Mr. Brady cried; "whoever she is. Well, she'll be the +last of them. I had a letter, I tell you, a letter from Maggie. She's +coming home, what's left of her--what he's left of her--Everard. I never +thought he was to blame. I said he was, but I was talked out of it. If +I'd thought so, if I'd suspected it, would I have touched a penny of his +dirty money? But she's coming home. Maggie's coming home." + +For the moment Neil was not concerned with the fact. Graver revelations +might have passed over him unheeded. The key had turned at last. Then +Neil felt the door being pushed open from inside. He stepped back and +waited. The door opened cautiously for an inch or two, then swung +suddenly wide. Standing motionless, framed in the library door, was +Judith. + + + + +CHAPTER NINETEEN + + +The two cousins, Mr. Brady shocked into sudden silence, stood with +Colonel Everard's unconscious body behind them, unregarded, like any +other bulky and motionless shape in the dim room, and stared at the girl +who had come from the locked library. + +"Not you," Neil's voice said dully. "Not here." + +But the girl was Judith. + +Bare-headed, slender in soft-falling white, she stood in the library +door with both hands behind her, clasping her big, limp hat by its +flaring brim. Her lightly poised, blond head was fluffy with small, +escaping curls, her clear-coloured cheeks were warmly flushed, and +between her red, slightly parted lips her breath came too quickly, but +softly, still. A sheer, torn ruffle trailed from her skirt. One +rose-coloured bow hung from her girdle awry and crushed, and looked the +softer for that, like a crumpled flower. + +About her dress and her whole small self there was a drooping and +crumpled look. It was the look of a child that has played too hard. +Surely the most incongruous and pathetic little figure that had ever +appeared from a room where a distressed or designing lady was suspected +of hiding, she stood and returned Neil's look, but there was blank panic +in her eyes. + +They turned from Neil to Mr. Brady, wild eyed and pale beside him, to +the disordered room, and back to Neil again, with no change of +expression at all. They were wide and dilated and dark, intent still on +some picture that they held and could not let go. Judith came an +uncertain step or two forward into the room, stiffly, as if she were +walking in her sleep, and stood still. + +"Neil, what did you come here for?" she said. "I'm glad you came." + +Her voice was sweet and expressionless, like her eyes, and though she +had called Neil by name, she looked at him as if she had never seen him +before. One small hand reached out uncertainly, pulled at his sleeve, +and then, as he made no move to take it, dropped again, and began to +finger the big hat that she held, and pluck at the flowers on it, but +her eyes did not leave his face. + +"Will they stand for this?" Mr. Brady was demanding incoherently behind +them, "as young as this? Will the town stand it? No. And they won't +blame me now. They can't. It was coming to you--you----" + +He was in the grip of his own troubles again, and breaking into little +mutterings of hysterical speech, which he now addressed directly to +Colonel Everard, standing over him and not seeming to feel the need of +an answer. It was an uncanny proceeding. The girl and boy did not watch +it. They were seeing only each other. + +"Judith," Neil began stumblingly, "what were you doing there? What's +frightened you so? What you heard out here? That's all that frightened +you, isn't it? Isn't it? But what made you come here alone like this? +Didn't you know---- Oh, Judith----" + +He stopped and looked down at her, saying nothing, but his eyes were +troubled and dark with questions that he did not dare to ask. There was +no answer to them in Judith's eyes, only blank fear. As Neil looked, the +fear in Judith's eyes was reflected in his, creeping into them and +taking possession there. + +"Oh, Judith," he whispered miserably. "Oh, Judith." + +Judith seemed to have heard what he said to her from far away, and to be +only faintly puzzled by it, not interested or touched. Her eyes kept +their secrets under his questioning eyes. They defied him. She was not +like his little lost sweet-heart found again, but a stranger and an +enemy, one of the people he hated, people who intrigued and lied, but +were out of his reach and above him, and were all his enemies. + +The boy's world was upsetting. Nothing that had happened to him in that +room or ever had happened to him before had shaken it like that minute +of doubt that he lived through in silence, with the strain of it showing +in his pale face, and Charlie's voice echoing half heard in his ears. He +drew back from Judith slightly as they stood. He was trembling. Judith's +face was a blur of white before his eyes, then he could not see it--and +then, as suddenly as it had come, his black minute was over. + +"Take me away. I don't want to stay where he is any more. Is he dead?" +Judith said, and she slipped her hand into Neil's. + +Judith's voice was as lifeless and strange as before, and the hand in +his was cold, but it was Judith's own little clinging hand, and the +boy's hand closed on it tight. He stood still, feeling it in his, and +holding it as if the poor little cold hand could give him back all his +strength again. He looked round him at the dim room and its motionless +owner and Charlie as if he were seeing them clearly for the first time. +He was not angry with Charlie any longer. He was not angry at all. He +drew a deep, sobbing breath of relief, dropped his dark head suddenly +and awkwardly toward Judith's unresponsive hand and kissed it, and then +very gently let it go. + +"Judith, you're you," he said, "just you, no matter what happens, and +nothing else matters; nothing in the world, as long as you are you." + +Judith only smiled her faint half smile at him, as if she guessed that +some crisis had come and passed, but did not greatly care. + +"Take me away," she repeated patiently. "I thought there'd be other +people here. He said so. But I've come here alone before, only he was +different to-day. He was different." + +"Don't tell me. I don't want to know. I won't ever ask you again. I +never ought to have asked you. It's all right, dear. It's all right." + +"I didn't know people were like that--anybody, ever. I just didn't +know----" + +"Don't, dear," said Neil sharply. The small, bewildered voice that held +more wonder and pain than her words broke off, but her bewildered eyes +still wondered and grieved. Neil's arms went out to her suddenly and +drew her close, holding her gently, and hiding her small, pathetic face +against his shoulder. + +"Don't," he whispered. "I'll take care of you. I'm going to take care of +you. Nobody's going to hurt you any more." + +"Neil, I just didn't know. I didn't know." + +"It's all right. I'm going to take you away. Just wait, dear. I'm going +to take care of you." + +He spoke to her softly, saying the same thing over and over, as if he +were quieting a frightened child. She was quiet in his arms like a +frightened and tired child in any arms held out to it. One arm had +slipped round his neck and clung to him. She drew long choking breaths +as if she were too tired to cry. Gradually they stopped, but the arm +round his neck only clung tighter. + +"Don't leave me," she whispered. + +"No, I'm not going to. I'm going to take care of you. You know that, +don't you, Judith?" + +"Yes. Neil?" + +"Yes, dear." + +"Neil." Still in his arms, because she felt safe and protected there, +Judith lifted her head and looked at him, and into her sweet, dazed +eyes, full of a terror that she could not understand, came a faint flash +of anger. This boy who held her so safe and comforted was her enemy, +too. Long before the ugly accident of what had happened behind the +library doors he had been her enemy, and he was her enemy now, though +she needed his protection and took it. Their quarrel was not over. +"Neil, I don't forgive you. I'm never going to forgive you." + +"All right, dear." + +"And I hate you. You know that, don't you? I hate you." + +"Yes, dear, I know it. We aren't going to talk about that now. Let me +go." + +Both arms were round him now. Judith let him draw them gently apart and +down, and drew back from him. The anger was gone from her eyes. She +watched him wide eyed and still, as children watch the incomprehensible +activities of grownups, or devoted but jealous dogs watch them. + +"Don't leave me," she said. "You're sweet to me." Then she gave a sharp, +startled little cry. + +"Neil," she begged, "don't touch him. I don't want you to touch him. +What are you going to do?" + +The light had not had time to dim or shift perceptibly in Colonel +Everard's big room while so much was settling itself for Neil and +Judith. The Colonel still lay with the pale shaft of afternoon light on +his unconscious face. Now the boy was kneeling beside him. He slipped a +strong, careful arm under his shoulders, and bent over him, touching him +with quick, sure hands. He ignored Mr. Brady, who stood crying out +incoherent protests beside him, and finally put a shaking hand on his +shoulder. + +Neil shook it off, and rose and stood facing his cousin. + +"I thought so," he said, with a short laugh. "You had me going at first, +Charlie, when I came in here and saw what a pretty picture you made. I +believed you. I thought you had killed him. I might have known things +like that don't happen in Green River." + +Neil put both hands on his cousin's shoulders and looked at him. Mr. +Brady was not an attractive sight at that moment. The excitement that +had held and swayed him was leaving him now, and he looked shaken and +weak. An unhealthy colour purpled his cheeks, and his sullen eyes glared +vindictively, but could not meet Neil's eyes. + +"Don't laugh at me," he muttered. "Don't you dare to laugh at me." + +"Going to beat me up, too?" his cousin inquired. "Poor old Charlie! +Let's hope your friend there will laugh at you when he talks this over +with you. He'll come out of this all right, but he'll be in a better +temper if he has a doctor here. I'll 'phone for one." + +"What do you mean? I've killed him. I'm glad I killed him." + +His cousin laughed again. "Killed him? The man's no more dead than you +are. You've knocked him out, that's all. But you didn't kill him. Is +that the 'phone over there?" + +A desk telephone on a big Louis Quinze table at one end of the room, the +instrument masked by the frilly skirts of a French mannequin, perhaps +the only lady who had ever been permitted to be insipid in that room and +to stay there long, answered Neil's question by ringing faintly, once +and again. Neil started toward it, but did not reach it. Mr. Brady had +flung himself suddenly upon him in a last burst of feverish strength, +which he dissipated recklessly by shrieking out incoherent things, and +striking misdirected blows. + +Neil parried them easily, caught his thin arms and held them at his +sides. Keeping them so, he forced him against the edge of the flimsy +table and held him there and looked at him. + +"You shan't answer that 'phone," Mr. Brady cried, in a last futile burst +of defiance. "You shan't stop me. You shan't interfere. I'll kill him, I +tell you, and you shan't answer that 'phone. You shan't----" + +Mr. Brady's voice died away, and he was silent under his cousin's eyes. + +"Through?" said Neil presently. + +"Yes," he muttered. + +"Do you mean it?" + +Mr. Brady nodded sullenly. + +"You've made a fool of yourself?" + +Mr. Brady nodded again. + +"Neil," he got out presently, "I can make it up to you. I haven't been +square with you, but I can. I will. You don't know----" + +"You've done talking enough. Will you go now?" + +"Yes." + +"You'll quiet down and go to mother's and stay there till I come?" + +"Yes." + +Neil let him go. + +"Maybe I'll finish up your friend for you myself, Charlie, after you +leave here," he offered. "I've thought of it often enough. Now I come +here and fight for him instead of fighting against him. I fight with +you. Poor old Charlie. Murder and sudden death! I tell you, things like +that don't happen in Green River." + +Neil stopped talking suddenly. The telephone at his elbow had rung +again, this time with a sharp, sudden peal, peremptory as an impatient +voice speaking. Neil caught it up, jerked off the simpering lady by her +audacious hat, and answered. + +At once, strangely intimate and near in that room where the three had +been shut in for the last half hour alone and away from the rest of the +world while it went on as usual or faster, a man's voice spoke to him. +It was almost unrecognizable, so excited and hoarse, but it was Luther +Ward's. + +"Hello," Neil said. "Hello. Yes, this is Everards'. No, he can't come to +the 'phone. He--what? What's that?" + +Neil stopped and listened breathlessly. Mr. Brady, slinking head down +from the room, turned curiously to stare at him, and Judith, slipping +across the room like a little white ghost, drew close to him and felt +for his hand. Neil took her hand, this time with no response of heart or +nerves. He had put down the telephone, replacing the receiver +mechanically, but Luther Ward's voice still echoed in his ears. + +It had spoken to an uncanny accompaniment of half-heard voices, rattling +unintelligibly in the room where Ward was, the prosaic, tobacco-scented +room that Neil knew so well. + +"Tell Everard to come," Ward's voice had said. "He's to come down here, +to Saxon's office. I'm there now. Theodore Burr has shot himself. Yes, +shot himself. He won't live through the night. Who's this talking to me? +Neil Donovan, it's you. What are you doing at Everard's? Never mind. +Come down here yourself. Come straight down. Theodore's conscious, and +talking, and he's been asking for you." + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY + + +Green River was getting ready for the rally in Odd Fellows' Hall. It was +six o'clock on the evening of the seventeenth of September, and "Grand +rally, Odd Fellows' Hall, September Seventeenth at eight-thirty," had +been featured for weeks in the Green River _Record_, on the list that +with a somewhat arrogant suggestion of prophetic powers possessed by the +_Record_ was headed "Coming Events." It was always a scanty list, +especially in the fall, when ten, twenty, thirty companies began to play +larger centres, and church lawn parties and circuses could no longer +appear on it. Sometimes not more than six events were to come in a gray +and workaday world. But six were enough to announce. Even a true prophet +is not expected to see all the future, only to see clearly all that he +sees, and the _Record_ did that. + +This rally was important enough to be listed all by itself, and it did +not need the adjective grand. It was The Rally. + +It was Green River's own--a local, almost a family, affair. No +out-of-town celebrities were to be imported this time, to be listened +to with awe and then wined and dined by the Colonel safe from the +curious eyes of the town. This time old Joe Grant was to preside, as he +had done as a matter of course on all such occasions when he was the +acknowledged head of the town in political and financial matters, in the +old days of high-sounding oratory and simpler politics that were gone +forever, but were not very long ago. Judge Saxon, an old timer, too, and +better loved than the Honourable Joe, had declined the honour of +presiding, but had the authentic offer of it, his first distinction of +the kind for years. + +It was a local but very important occasion. It was Colonel Everard's +first official appearance as candidate for mayor. It was to be a very +modest appearance. No more time was allotted for his speech than for +Luther Ward's. He was putting himself on a level with Luther and the +Judge and the Honourable Joe and identifying himself at last with local +politics. The evening emphasized the great man's condescension in +accepting this humble office and honouring Green River. Even with the +scandal of Theodore Burr's suicide unexplained still and only two weeks +old, interest centred on the rally. It was a triumph for the town. + +Green River was almost ready. Dugan's orchestra was engaged for the +evening, instead of a rival organization from Wells, which the Colonel +often imported upon private and public occasions. Jerry Dugan was +getting old, too, like the Judge and the Honourable Joe. He had not lost +the peculiar wail and lilt from his fiddling, but he had made few recent +additions to his repertoire. Just now the band concert in front of Odd +Fellows' Hall was winding up with his old favourite: "A Day on the +Battlefield." + +It had the old swing still, contagious as ever. Loafers in front of the +hall shuffled their feet in time to it. Moon-struck young persons +hanging two by two over the railings of the bridge to gaze at the water +straightened themselves and listened. An ambitious soloist lounging +against the court-house fence across the square began to whistle it with +elaborate variations, at the inspiring moment when "morning in the +forest" had bird-called and syncopated itself into silence, and actual +fighting, and the martial music of the charge began. + +High and lilting and shrill, it hung in the still night air, alive for +the hour, challenging the echoes of dead tunes that lingered about the +square, only to die away and be one with them at last; band music, +old-fashioned band music, blatant and empty and splendid, clear through +the still night air, attuned to the night and the town. + +"Good old tune. Gets into your feet," Judge Saxon said, while his wife +adjusted his tie before the black walnut mirror in their bedroom, but +his unusual tribute to the tune was perfunctory to-night, and his wife +ignored it, wisely taking this moment of helpfulness to plunge him +suddenly and briskly into a series of questions which she had been +trying in vain for some time to get the correct answers to. + +"Hugh," she said, "why wouldn't you take the chair to-night?" + +"You were the only thing I ever tried to take away from Joe Grant and +got away with it, Millie," the Judge explained gallantly. + +"Don't you think this rally is like old times? Don't you want to see the +town stand on its own feet again, instead of being run from outside?" + +"I do, Millie." + +Mrs. Saxon made her next point triumphantly, connecting it with the +point before by some obscure logic known only to ladies. + +"Hugh, a father could not do more for Lillian Burr than the Colonel has +since poor Theodore went. The house full of flowers, calling there +himself every day and twice a day, though she won't see him; but Lillian +won't see any one. The Colonel's been ailing himself, too, but he +wouldn't put off the rally and disappoint the town. And the new library +will open this fall, and there's talk that he's giving an organ to the +church. Hugh, don't you think Theodore's death may have sobered him? +Don't you think this may be the beginning of better things? Don't you +think----" + +"I think you're making a butterfly bow. I don't like them," said the +Judge, with the ingenuous smile that somehow closed a subject. She +sighed, but changed her attack. + +"Turn round now. I want to brush you. Hugh, what has happened to Neil +Donovan?" + +"What do you mean, happened to him?" snapped the Judge, and then added +soberly, "I don't know, Millie. I wish I did." + +"An Irish boy can get just so far and no farther." + +"How far, Millie?" + +"Don't be flippant, Hugh. There's something strange about Neil lately. +He didn't speak three times at the table last time he came to supper +here. He looks at me as if he didn't know who I was when I speak to him +on the street sometimes. There's no life in him. He's like Charlie and +all the rest of them--giving out just when things are going his way; +that's an Irish boy every time." + +"When things are going his way? When his best friend has just shot +himself?" + +"I didn't refer to that, Hugh," said Mrs. Saxon with dignity. + +"No?" + +"I referred to Neil's family affairs, and the fact that Colonel Everard +has taken him up." + +"Maggie home and behaving herself and no questions asked, Charlie +shipped to Wells, and Neil going shooting twice with the Colonel?" + +"Three times, Hugh." + +"And that's what you call things going his way." + +"Hugh, why should those two spend any time together at all? They hate +each other, or I always thought so--that is, if a man like the Colonel +could hate a boy like Neil. What does he want of Neil now? What does +Neil want of him?" + +"They don't tell me, Millie." + +"But it's queer. It frightens me, Hugh. It's as queer as----" + +"What?" + +"Everything," Mrs. Saxon said, goaded into an exaggeration foreign to +her placid type, "everything, lately. You refusing to preside to-night. +Lillian Burr shutting herself up in this uncanny way. It is uncanny, +even if she is in trouble. Minna Randall taking to church work, and +sewing for hours at a time, and taking long drives with her husband. +They haven't been inside the Colonel's doors for weeks. Their second +girl told our Mary that they have refused five invitations there in the +last month. It's my idea that he gave that last stag dinner because he +couldn't get Minna or Edith there, or any woman. Why should his own +circle turn against him, just when he's doing real good to the town? And +it's not only his own circle that's against him. I was matching curtains +at Ward's when Sebastian came in to-day, and Luther Ward was barely +civil to him--the Colonel's own secretary. What's wrong with the town, +Hugh? Can't it be grateful to the Colonel, now when he really deserves +it?" + +"Don't worry about what Everard deserves. He's not likely to get it, +Millie." + +Again the Judge was closing the subject, and this time his wife had no +more to say. She gave his threadbare, scrupulously pressed coat a final +pat and jerk of adjustment, and stood off and looked at him. + +"You'll do," she said, "now go along. The music's stopping. It won't +look well if you're late." + +She turned off the flickering gas jet above the marble-topped bureau +abruptly, but not before the Judge had caught the gleam of tears in her +eyes. + +"Why girl," he said, and came close to her and slipped an arm round her +plump, comfortable waist. "You're really troubled." + +"Yes." + +"And vexed with me for not helping you." + +"Yes." + +He had drawn her toward a front window of the big, square room. The +Judge and his wife stood by it quietly, looking down through a triangle +of white, starched curtains at the glimmering, sparsely lit length of +street below, and straightening out their difficulties in darkness and +silence, as all true lovers should, even lovers at fifty, as these two +were fortunate enough to be. + +"Millie, I don't want to tease you," the Judge said. "I'll tell you +anything you want to know." + +"I've been so worried," she wept comfortably against his shoulder. "I'm +so afraid." + +"Why?" + +"I feel as if something--anything might happen. I--oh, you'll only +laugh. I can't just tell you, Hugh." + +"I'll tell you," said the Judge. + +He hesitated and then went on slowly, speaking more to himself than to +her. + +"Women hate change. That makes them dread it, even when it's not coming. +You're dreading it, but it's not coming now, dear. There's feeling +against Everard. You're right, but you exaggerate it. It's instinctive +and unformulated. It hasn't gone far and won't go any farther. He won't +let it. The rally and the library and this new democracy stuff, stag +dinners to Ward's crowd and all, are part of a campaign to stop it. The +campaign will succeed. Everard's own crowd won't quarrel with him. They +can't afford to. Everard has pulled through worse times than this. I've +helped him myself, and I shall help him again. + +"There'll be no change, Millie. Things will go on just the way they are. +I've lived the best years of my life believing that it was best they +should, and if I'm wrong, I'm too old to change my mind. I've said +somebody had to own the town, and it might as well be Everard. I've said +the Burrs and Kents and Randalls, and old Joe Grant's young wife with +their parties and drinks and silly little love affairs, were playing too +hard, but doing no real harm, planting their cheap, fake smart set here +in Green River where it don't belong. Now poor Theodore Burr's dead. +That don't look like play. Harry Randall's so deep in debt to the bank +for what Everard's let him borrow that he has to stay on there at three +thousand a year, though he's been offered twice that in Wells. Everard +won't let him go. And the best I can say about myself in the years I've +worked for Everard is that I've kept my hands clean, if I have had to +keep my eyes shut, but I can say that to you, Millie." + +"It does look like old times down there," he went on softly, after a +minute. "The street and the lights are the same. And it sounds like old +times. It was from a rally in the hall that I first went home with you, +Millie. Remember? I was just a boy then, but I wish I was half the man I +was then, to-night." He heard a murmur of protest, and laughed. "But I +do, Millie. I--wouldn't be helping Everard." + +"Oh, Hugh!" + +"Don't worry. Everard will pull through all right. Look at the Randalls +over there, starting for the hall. Leave your windows open, Millie, and +you'll soon hear them all cheering for Everard. The moon won't rise till +late, but it will be full to-night. Listen, the band's going into the +hall now." + +The Judge rested his cheek for a moment against his wife's soft, smooth +hair, the decorous, satisfying caress of a decorous generation, then he +raised his head with a long, tired sigh. + +"I wish I was young," he said. "I wish I was young to-night." + + * * * * * + +"I wish I was young," the Judge had said, with a thrill and hunger that +was the soul of youth itself in his voice. At the moment when he said +it, a boy who had the privilege that the Judge coveted, and was not +enjoying it just then, was leaning against the court-house railing, and +watching Green River crowd into Odd Fellows' Hall. + +Another boy had pushed his way across the square to his side, and was +not heartily welcomed there, but was calmly unconscious of it. + +"Some night, Donovan," he remarked. + +"Some night, Willard," Neil agreed gravely. + +"Going in? Good for three hours of hot air?" + +"I'm not going. No." + +"Good boy. Say--" Mr. Willard Nash lowered his voice as he made this +daring suggestion--"we'll go around to Halloran's, and get into a little +game." + +His invitation was not accepted. + +"Jerry Dugan's not dead yet," observed Willard presently. + +Strains of a deservedly popular waltz tune, heard from inside the hall, +gave faint but unmistakable proof of this. Willard kept time with his +feet as he listened, paying the tune the tribute of silence, a rare one +from him. Standing so, the two were sharply contrasted figures, though +the flickering lamps in the square threw only faint light here, and +showed them darkly outlined against the railing, as they leaned there +side by side. Pose, carriage, every movement and turn of the head were +different, as different as a bulky and overgrown child is from a boy +turning into a man. + +"Some night," Willard repeated, unanswered, but unchilled by it, "and +some crowd." + +The hall had been filling fast. Though the waltz still swung its faint +challenge into the night, so much of Green River had responded to it +already that now it was arriving only by twos and threes. But the groups +still followed each other fast under the big globe of light at the +entrance door, gayly shaded with red for the occasion, and up the bare, +clattering stairs to the floor above, and the hall. + +Willard was right, more right than he knew. There was a crowd up there, +a crowd as Willard did not understand the word; a crowd with a tone and +temper of its own and a personality of its own. It was subject to laws +of its own and could think and feel for itself, and its thoughts and +feelings were made up of the brain stuff of every person in it, but +different from them all. It was a newly created thing, a new factor in +the world, and like all crowds it was born for one evening, to live for +that evening only, and do its work and die. + +Upstairs behind closed doors, such a crowd was forming; getting ready to +think its own thoughts and act and feel, and so many houses, little and +big, had emptied themselves to contribute to it, so many family +discussions like the Saxons' had gone on as a prelude to it, that you +might fairly say the crowd up there was Green River. + +Willard, watching the late arrivals and commenting upon them to Neil, +still an uncommunicative audience, was vaguely stirred. + +"This gets me," he conceded. "There's something about old Dugan's music +that always gets me. For two cents, I'd go in. I sat through a patent +medicine show there last week, because I didn't have the sense to stay +away. It always gets me when there is anything doing in the hall. +And--" he paused, heavily testing his powers of self-analysis, "it gets +me," he brought out at length, "more to-night than it ever did before. +It--gets me." + +"Look, there's Joe Grant," Willard went on. "This is his night, all +right. Look at the bulge to that manuscript case, and the shine to his +hair. He mixes varnish with his hair dye, all right. I said, look at +him." + +"I'm looking." + +"Well, you don't do much else. What's eating you to-night? Say, will you +go in if I will?" + +An inarticulate murmur answered him. + +"What's that?" + +"No." + +"All right. Well, what do you know about that? Look there." + +"I'm looking." + +The latest comers were crowding hurriedly into the entrance hall by this +time, and with them, a slender, heavily veiled figure had slipped +quickly through the door and out of sight. + +"Was that Lil?" Willard said. "Lil Burr?" + +"Yes." + +"She wouldn't come here; I don't believe it." + +"I know it." + +"How?" + +"She told me." + +"What was she doing, talking to you? Why, she won't talk to anybody. +She----" + +"You'll be late at Hallorans'." + +"Aren't you coming?" + +"No." + +"But you said you would. I don't want to go if you don't. I don't half +like to leave you here, you act so queer to-night. What makes you act +so? What's eating----" + +"Nothing." + +Willard detached himself from the railings and regarded his friend, +suddenly breathless with surprise, and deeply grieved. Nothing. The +word, harmless in itself, had been spoken so that it hit him like an +actual blow, straight from the shoulder. Neil, shifting so that the +light showed his face, was returning his look with the sudden, +unreasoning anger that we feel toward little sounds that beat their slow +way into our consciousness at night, to irritate us unendurably at last. + +"Go," he urged, "go along to Halloran's. Go anywhere." + +"Well, what do you know about that?" began Willard, offended, and then +forgave him. There was a look in Neil's pale face that commanded +forgiveness. It was pale and strained with a trouble that had nothing to +do with Willard, and Willard was respectful and inarticulate before it. + +"That's all right," Willard muttered, "that will be all right. I'll go." + +Neil took no notice of this promise. Up in the hall the waltz had +swelled to a high, light-hearted climax, heady and strained, like the +sudden excitements that sweep a crowd. It came clear through the open +windows, making one last appeal to the boy below to come up and be part +of what was there. And just then a small closed car swept down through +the empty square and stopped. Two men stepped out, and paused in the +doorway under the red-shaded light. + +One was the Colonel's secretary, waiting on the step beyond range of +the light, a tall, shadowy figure, and the other, who stood with the +light on his face, was Colonel Everard. + +He was still pale from his week of illness, but his keen eyes and +clear-cut profile were more effective for that. He stood listening to +the sounds from upstairs, and he smiled as he listened. He turned at +last and looked out across the square as if he could feel Neil's eyes +upon him and were returning their look, and then turned away and +disappeared up the stairs. + +"Neil," Willard was announcing uneasily, "I think a lot of you. I'd do a +lot for you. If you're in wrong, any way, if----" + +Willard broke off, rebuffed. Neil did not even look at him. He stood +staring at the lighted doorway where the Colonel had stood and smiled, +as if he could still see him there. He was a creature beyond Willard's +world, as he looked, but unaccountably fascinating to Willard. Willard +regarded him in awed silence. + +Now Dugan's music had stopped. Some one above shut a window with a +clatter that echoed disproportionately loud. Then there was silence up +there, tense silence, and the call of the silence was harder to resist +than the music. The boy by the court-house railing could not resist it. +He pushed away Willard's detaining hand, and without a word to him or +another glance at him, was across the square and through the red-lighted +door, and running up the stairs. + +"What do you know about that?" Willard demanded, in vain. "What do you +know----" + +Willard, certainly, knew nothing, and gave up the attempt to understand, +with a sigh. + +A little later the vantage point of the court-house fence was +unoccupied. Of the two boys who had occupied it, one was making a +belated and rather disconsolate way toward Halloran's--the one who would +be boasting to-morrow that he had spent the last fifteen minutes with +Neil Donovan. The other boy stood listening outside the closed doors of +the hall. + + * * * * * + +It was half an hour later and it had been an important half-hour in Odd +Fellows' Hall, that uneventful but vital time when the newly made +creature that is the crowd is passive, gathering its forces slowly, +getting ready to fling the weight of them into one side of a balance +irrevocably, if it has decisions to make; the most important half-hour +of the evening if you were interested in the psychology of crowds. The +Honourable Joe Grant was not. He would have said that the first speech +dragged and the half-hour had been dull. Dull or significant, that +half-hour was over, and Green River was waking up. In the listening +hush of the hall the big moments of the evening, whatever they were to +be, were creeping nearer and nearer. Now they were almost here. + +The Honourable Joe had just introduced Luther Ward and heavily resumed +his seat. He sat portly and erect and entirely happy behind the +thin-legged, inadequate looking table that held a water pitcher, his +important looking papers, and his watch. The ornately chased gold watch +that had measured so many epoch-making hours for Green River was in +public life again, like the Honourable Joe. He fingered it +affectionately, wiped his forehead delicately from time to time with a +purple silk handkerchief, followed Mr. Ward's remarks with unwavering +brown eyes, and smiled his benevolent, public-spirited smile. This was +his night indeed. + +Behind the Honourable Joe, on the stage in a semicircular row of chairs +were the speakers of the evening, and before him was Green River. + +The badly proportioned little hall was not at its best to-night. It was +too brightly lit and the footlights threw an uncompromising glare upon +the tiny stage. Red, white, and blue cheesecloth in crude, sharp +colouring draped windows and stage, making gay little splashes of colour +that emphasized the dinginess of the room. Only the Grand Army flag, +borrowed and draped elaborately above the stage, showed faded and thin +against the brightness of the cheesecloth, but kept its dignity and kept +up its claim to homage still. And the ugliness of the room was a thing +to be discounted and forgotten, like some beautiful, full-blooded +woman's tawdry, and ill-chosen clothes, because this room held Green +River. + +Green River, filling the little room to over-flowing, standing in the +rear of the room, crowding every available inch of space on benches, +window sills, and an emergency supply of camp chairs, impressive as that +much sheer bulk of humanity, crowded between four walls, becomes +impressive, and impressive in its own right, too; Green River +represented as it was, with all the warring, unreconciled elements that +made the town. + +For they were all here, Paddy Lane, and the Everard circle, and the +intermediate stages of society, the Gaynors and other prosperous farmers +and unprosperous farmers and their wives, from the outskirts of the +town, and citizens a cut above them both, like the Wards, were all +represented here. Mrs. Kent, hatless and evening coated, was elbowed by +a lady from Paddy Lane, hatless because she had no presentable hat, and +wearing a ragged shawl. These two were side by side, and they had the +same look on their faces. There was something of it now on every face +in the room. It was a look of listening and waiting. + +It was on every face, and it grew more intense every minute that Luther +Ward's speech droned on, though it was only a dry, illogical rehash of +political issues that could not have called that look into any face. It +was as if the audience listened eagerly through it because every word of +it was bringing them nearer to something that was to follow. What was +it? What did Green River want? What was it waiting for? Green River +itself did not know, but it was very near. + +Perhaps it was coming now. This might well be the climax of the evening. +No more important event was scheduled. Luther Ward, looking discontented +with his performance, but relieved to complete it, had sunk into his +chair to a scattered echoing of applause, and the next speaker was +Colonel Everard. + +The Honourable Joe was rising to introduce him. The little introductory +speech was a masterpiece, for, though the Colonel had edited every word +of it, it was still in the Honourable Joe's best style, flowery and +sprinkled with quotations. + +"I will not say more," it concluded magnificently, "of one whose life +and work among you can best speak for itself, and who will speak for +himself now, in his own person. I present to you the Republican +candidate for mayor, Colonel Everard." + +And now the Honourable Joe had bowed and smiled himself into his seat, +and the great man was on his feet, and coming forward to the centre of +the stage. The first real applause of the evening greeted him, not very +hearty or sustained, but prompt at least. He looked like a very great +man indeed, as he stood acknowledging it, his most effective self, a +strong man, though so lightly built, erect and pliant of carriage, a man +with infinite reserves of power and dignity. He was smiling, and his +smile was the same that the boy by the court-house fence had seen, a +tantalizing smile of assurance and charm and power, as if he were master +of himself and the town. + +This was his moment, planned for and led up to for weeks, but Colonel +Everard was slow to take advantage of it. He stood still, with his eyes +toward the rear of the hall. As he stood so, heads here and there turned +and looked where he was looking. Presently all Green River saw what the +Colonel saw. A boy was pushing his way toward the front of the hall--a +boy who had slipped quietly inside the doors unnoticed fifteen minutes +before, and came forward now just as quietly, but held their eyes as he +came. Now he had reached the stage, and he broke through the barrier of +goldenrod that fenced the short flight of steps, crushing the flowers +under his feet, and now he was on the stage confronting Colonel Everard. +It was Neil Donovan. + +"Sit down," he said to the great man. "They're not going to listen to +you. They're going to listen to me." + +After that he did not wait to see if the great man took his amazing +advice. He came forward alone, and spoke to Green River. He was not an +imposing figure as he stood there, only a lean, eager boy, with dark, +flashing eyes, and a face that was very pale in the glare of the +footlights. He hardly raised his tense, low-pitched voice as he spoke, +but Green River heard. + +"You're going to listen to me." + +And it was true. Green River was going to listen. In the middle of the +hall, where the chief delegation from Paddy Lane was massed, a ripple of +excitement promised the boy support. It was seconded by a muttering and +shuffling of feet on the rear benches, devoted to the youth of the town. +From here and there in the hall there were murmurs of protest, too, +dying out one by one, and ceasing automatically, like the whispered +consultation that went on behind him on the stage. + +But the boy did not wait for support or regard interruptions. He did not +need to. The audience was his in spite of them, and he knew it and they +knew it. Whatever he had to say, important or not, it was what they had +been waiting for; that was what the evening had been leading to, and it +was here at last. Pale and intent, the boy looked across the footlights +at Green River. The audience was his, but he had no pride in the +triumph. He began haltingly to speak. + +"It will do no good to you or me, but you're going to listen. I've got a +word to say about Everard. + +"He's sucked your town dry for years and you know it. He's had the pick +of your men and used their brains and their youth, and he's had the pick +of your women. If there are any of you here that he's got no hold on, +it's because you're worth nothing to him. He's got the town. Now he's +driven one of your boys to his death. + +"'I can't beat him.' That's what Theodore Burr said to me the night he +died. 'They won't blame him for this. I want to die because I don't want +to live in the world with him, but I'll do no harm to him by dying, only +to Lily and me. They won't blame him. You can't beat Everard.' + +"Well, you don't blame Everard. He's got you where you don't blame him, +whatever he does. You shut your eyes to it. He's got you. You know all +this and you shut your eyes. Now I'll tell you some things you don't +know. Everard's been trying for weeks to bribe me to keep my mouth shut, +like he bribed Charlie for years. He might have saved his breath and his +money. I can't hurt him, whether I keep my mouth shut or not. You won't +blame him. You'll let him get away with this, too. But you're going to +know." + +The boy came closer still to the footlights and leaned across them, +pausing and deliberately choosing his words. The pause, and the look in +his dark, intent eyes as he stood there challenged Green River and dared +it to interrupt him. But it was too late to interrupt, too late to stop +him now. And behind him in the place of honour in the centre of the row +of chairs on the stage, one man at least was powerless to stop him: +Colonel Everard, who listened with a set smile on his lips, and a set +stare in his eyes. + +"He's the man that broke Maggie Brady's life to pieces," Neil's low +voice went on. "Everard's the man. He got her away from town. He filled +her head with him and set her wild and she had to go. When he was tired +of her, he left her in a place he thought she'd be too proud to come +back from. She was proud, but he's broken her pride, and she crawled +back to us. The prettiest girl in the town, she was, and you all knew +that, and my sister and more to me----" he broke off abruptly, and +laughed a dry little laugh that echoed strangely in the silent room. His +voice sounded dry and hard as he went on. + +"He broke Maggie's life, but what's that to you, that give him a chance +at your women, knowing well what he is, and leave them to take care of +themselves with him, your own women that are yours to take care of, +daughters and wives? It's nothing to you, but you're going to know it, +and you're going to know this. I had it straight from Theodore Burr the +night he died. + +"Everard's going to sell you out at the next election, the whole of +you--his own crowd, too. He's been planning it for months. He's worked +prohibition for all it's worth to him; worked for it till the state went +dry, and then he's made money for you that are in it with him, and more +for himself, protecting places like Halloran's that sell liquor on the +quiet, and the smuggling of liquor into the state. Well, he's made money +enough that way, and it's getting risky, and now he sees a way to make +more and let nobody in on it. He's going to sell out to the liquor +interests and work against prohibition, and the big card he'll use will +be exposing Halloran's and the secret traffic in liquor, and all the +crowd that's been buying protection from him. There's a big campaign +started already, and big money being spent. There'll be big money in it +for him. There'll be arrests made here and a public scandal. He's going +to sell the town. + +"Maybe that interests you some. Maybe it gets you. It won't for long. +He'll crawl out of it and lie out of it and talk you and buy you back to +him. Well, I know one thing more, and he can't lie or crawl out of it. +My father could have put him behind bars any time in twenty years. He's +a common thief. + +"It was when he was seventeen, and studying law first, back in a town up +state that's not on the map or likely to get there, and he was called by +a name there that wasn't Everard. He was seventeen, but he was the same +then as now; he had the same will to get on and the power to, no matter +who he trampled on to get there, and the same charm that got men and +women both, though they didn't trust him--got them even when he was +trampling on them and they knew it. It got him into trouble there with +two girls at once. One was the girl that gave him his start, the chance +to go into her uncle's office. He was the biggest man in the town. Older +than Everard, this girl was, and teaching in the school he went to, when +she fell in love with him and brought him home to her town and gave him +his chance. He was tired of her, and she was where it was bound to come +out soon how things were with them, and so was the other girl, a girl +that he wasn't tired of, the daughter of the woman where he boarded. He +tried to get her to go away with him. She wouldn't go and she wouldn't +forgive him, but the town was getting too hot for him, and he had to go. + +"He had to go quick and make a clean getaway and he wanted a real start +this time. He had to have money. That was a dead little town. There was +only one place he could get money enough, in the little hotel there. It +was the only bank they had. The keeper of it used to cash checks and +make loans. Everard was lucky, the same then as now. There was almost +five thousand dollars in the safe in the hotel office the night he broke +into it, and that was enough for him. He had a fight with the hotel +clerk, but he got away with the money, and he got away from the town. + +"The clerk was his best friend in town--never trusted him, but fell for +him the same as the girls and lent him money and listened to his +troubles--and fell for him again when he ran across him again, years +later, here in Green River. Everard told him he'd sent the money back, +and he kept the secret. He never took hush money for it like Charlie. He +said Everard ought to have his chance, and was straight now. But he fell +for Everard again, that's what happened. Everard had him, the same as +the rest of you. + +"The clerk was my father." + +The boy's voice broke off. There was dead silence in the hall. Green +River had been listening almost in silence, and did not break it now. +Presently the boy sighed, shrugged his thin shoulders as if they were +throwing off an actual weight, and spoke again, this time in a lifeless +voice, with all the colour and drama wiped out of it, a voice that was +very tired. + +"That's all," he said. "That's back of him, with his fine airs and his +far-reaching schemes and his big name in the state. You've stood for a +crook. Will you stand for a common criminal, a common thief? Now you +know and it's up to you. That's all." + + * * * * * + +An hour later a boy was hurrying through the dark along the road to the +Falls. + +He was almost home. Green River lay far behind with its scattered, +sparsely strewn lights. The flat fields around him and the unshaded road +before him, so bleak by day, were beautiful to-night, far reaching and +mysterious. Above them, flat looking and unreal, remote in a coldly +clouded sky, hung the yellow September moon. + +"I've done for myself," the boy was saying half out loud, as if the +faraway moon could hear. "I've lost everything now. I've done for +myself." + +The boy was sure of this, but could have told little more about the +events of the evening. He remembered listening outside the hall doors +until he was drawn inside in spite of himself, and listening there until +something snapped in his brain, and suddenly the long days of +repression, of vainly wondering what to do with his hard-won knowledge, +were over, and he was pouring it all out in one jumbled burst of speech. +He had no plan and no hope of doing harm to his enemy by speaking. He +had to speak. + +After he had spoken he remembered getting down from the stage and out of +the hall somehow. He remembered the crushed goldenrod, slippery under +his feet. Against a background of blurred, unrecognizable faces, he +remembered a tall, black-garbed figure that rose to its feet swaying and +then steadying itself. It was Lilian Burr. Less clearly he remembered a +wave of sound from the hall that followed him as he hurried away across +the square. It was not like applause. He did not know or care what it +meant. After that, he remembered only the cool dark of the September +night as he walked through it aimlessly at first, and then turned toward +home. + +"I've lost everything," he had said, and it must be true. How could he +face the Judge again? How could he go on living in Green River? This +was what all his long-cherished dreams had come to; a scene that Charlie +might have made, and disgrace in the eyes of the town. He had lost +everything. + +Yet strangely, as he said it, he knew that it was not true. Whatever he +had lost, he had better things left. He had those free and splendid +minutes of speaking out his heart. They could not be taken from him. The +freedom and relief of them was with him still. And he had the road firm +under his feet, and the clean air blowing the fever out of his brain, +and the strength of his own young body, clean strength, good to feel as +he walked through the night. And along the dark road before him, +familiar as it was, and worn so many times by discouraged feet, the +white track of moonlight beckoned him, clean and new. It was a way that +might lead anywhere--to fairy-land, to success, to the end of the world. + +Now the boy made the turn in the road that brought him within sight of +home. Faint lights twinkling from it, intimate and warm, invited him as +never before. Was his mother waiting up for him? Home itself, lighted +and intimate and safe, was enough to find waiting. His heart gave a +strange little leap that hurt, but was keen pleasure, too. Almost +running, he covered the last bit of road, crossed the grassy front yard +and then climbed the creaking front steps, and stood for a minute that +was unendurably long, fumbling with the door. + +The door was unlocked and gave suddenly, opening wide, and he stood on +the threshold of the kitchen. The lights he had seen were in the +sitting-room beyond. In this room there was only moonlight. It came +through the window that looked out on the marshy field, the fairies' +field. Surely there must be fairies there to-night, out in the empty +green spaces, flooded with moonlight. But the fairies were not all in +the field, there was one in the room. Neil could see it. + +The old rocking chair stood in the moonlit window. It was holding two, +his mother, and some one else--the fairy, golden haired and white robed +and slender, and close in his mother's arms. As he stood and wondered +and looked, a board creaked under his feet. It was the faintest of +sounds, but a fairy's ears are keen, and the fairy heard, and stirred, +and turned in his mother's arms. + +Now Neil could see her face. It was flushed and human and warm, and in +her eyes, opening grave and deep, was a look that was the shyest but +surest of welcomes. The welcome was all for Neil, and the fairy was +Judith. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE + + +A boy and a girl sat on the doorsteps of the Randall house. + +It was almost a year since the night of the rally. It was an evening in +late May--late, but it was May, and the fairies' month still. There was +a pleasant, shivery chill in the air. A far sprinkling of stars made the +dark of the still, windless night look darker and warmer and safer to +whisper in. The big horse-chestnut tree at the corner of the syringa +hedge was only a darker blot against the surrounding dark, and the slope +of faintly lit street on the other side of the hedge looked far away, +with the dark sweep of lawn between. It was a night for the fairies, or +for the girl and boy, and that was quite as it should be, for it was +their first together for months. + +Judith and Neil sat discreetly erect on the steps, undoing what those +months apart had done with little bursts of shy speech, and long, shy +silences that helped them more. In the longest and shyest silence their +hands had groped for each other once, met as if they had never touched +before, and clung together for a minute as if they never meant to let +go, but Judith kept firmly to impersonal subjects still. + +"You did it all," she said. "Things do happen so fast when they happen. +Just think, this time last year he was like a king!" + +"Everard?" + +"Yes. Do you remember how I used to be cross when you called him that, +and wouldn't say Colonel? How childish that was!" Judith patronized her +dead self, as a young lady may, with her twentieth birthday almost upon +her. + +"You weren't childish." + +"What was I?" + +"Just what you are now." + +"What's that?" + +"Wonderful." Neil chose his one adequate word, from the tiny vocabulary +of youth, small because few words are worthy to voice the infinite +dreams of it. "Wonderful." + +"No, I'm not wonderful. You are. That dreadful old man, and every one +knew he was dreadful and wouldn't do anything about it till you----" + +"Bawled him out? That's all I did, you know, really. It was a kid's +trick. He lost out because it was coming to him anyway. Poor Theodore +saw to that. He turned the town against Everard when he killed himself. +It wasn't turning fast, but it was turning. I did give it a shove and +make it turn faster, but I didn't even have sense enough to know I had +until the day after the rally, when the Judge sent for me and told me. I +didn't dare go near him until he sent for me, and I thought he had sent +for me to fire me." + +"But you broke up the rally. They were dead still in the hall until you +left, and then they went crazy, calling for you, and all talking at +once, talking against you, some of them, till it really wasn't a rally +any more, but just like a mob. Oh, I know. The Judge tells me, every +time I go to ride with him, and when he came on to the school last +winter and saw me there, he told me all over again. Father has never +half told me. He hates to talk about the rally or the Colonel either, +but I don't care, he and mother are both so sweet to me lately--just +sweet. + +"So it was just like a mob, and then poor Mrs. Burr got up and tried to +speak, and they got quiet and listened, and she said "Every word the boy +says is true and more--more----" just like that, and then she got faint +and had to stop, and then the Judge took hold. That's what he says he +did, took hold, and he says it was time, because they might have tarred +and feathered the Colonel if he hadn't. I don't suppose they would, but +I wish I could have seen the Judge take hold. I love him." + +"Don't you love anybody else?" + +Judith ignored this frivolous interruption, as it deserved. + +"And so your work was done, though you didn't know it and ran away. And +the Judge says you are a born orator, Neil. That you've got the real +gift, the thing that makes an audience yours. I don't know just what he +means, but I know you've got it, too. You're going to be a great man, +Neil." + +"I didn't do anything." + +"You're the only man in town who thinks that, then, or has since that +night. He--Everard--was done for the minute you stepped on the stage, +the Judge says. Only they managed it decently, the Judge and the few +that kept their heads. They announced that Colonel Everard was +indisposed and couldn't speak, and the Judge took him home. He really +was ill next day. There's something wrong with his horrid heart. And +that gave him a good excuse not to run for mayor, he gave that up +himself. And in a few days the Judge and Luther Ward went to him and +told him what else he had to do, and he did it. He had to resign from +everything, everything he was in charge of or was trustee of, or had +anything to do with, and get out of town. If he'd do that, they wouldn't +make any scandal or bother him afterward, but let him start new. And +they gave him six months to do all that decently and save his face. Why +did he have to do it decently? Why couldn't they tar and feather him? I +wish they had. I wish----" + +"Wish something else, Judith. Something about us." + +"What do you mean by us?" + +"You and me." + +"Isn't it splendid the Judge is going to be president of the bank?" said +Judith hastily. + +"Splendid," said a future president of the Green River Bank, who was +occupying the step beside her. + +"And isn't it nice that poor Mrs. Burr is going to marry Mr. Sebastian, +even if she does have to move away from Green River? I like people to be +happy, don't you?" + +"No. No, I don't. Not other people. I don't care whether they are happy +or not, and I don't want to talk about them, only about you and me." + +"If you don't like the way I talk, I'll keep still," Judith said, in a +severe but small voice, but a small hand groping for his softened the +threat, and a soft, sudden laugh as his arm slipped round her atoned for +it entirely. Then there was silence on the steps, a long, whispering, +wonderful silence. Long before Judith spoke again all the work of the +lonely months was undone. And the low whispers that the two exchanged +conveyed no further information about Colonel Everard. + +But there was no more to tell. The master of Green River was master no +longer and the end of all the intricate planning and scheming that had +made and kept him master was a story that Judith could tell in a few +careless sentences and forget. If she had seen and guessed some things +that she could not forget, in the strange little circle that had found a +place for her, she would never see them again. That order was gone from +the town forever, with the man who had created it, and beside her on the +steps was the boy who could make her forget it, and see beyond the long, +hard years between. And, as she almost could guess, in these magic +minutes when she could dream and dream true, that boy was the future +master of Green River. + +Judith sighed, and stirred in his arms. + +"Are you happier now?" she whispered. + +"Yes." + +"But you're going to be great. You are, really." + +"I am if you want me to. Judith, how long does your father think you and +I ought to wait?" + +"I don't know. You can ask him. He likes you better than me. He always +wanted me to be a boy.... Neil, I want to tell you something. Keep your +arm like that, but don't look at me." + +"Why?" + +"It's about what you don't like me to talk about." + +"Everard?" + +"Yes, and it's about something dreadful, that day in his library when I +was alone with him, and you came. He--frightened me." + +"Never mind, dear, now." + +"He frightened me but that was--all. I wasn't hurt or anything. I just +didn't know he--anybody--could look the way he was looking, or act the +way he was acting, and then I felt sick all over. I was afraid. But he +was just trying to kiss me, of course, and I wasn't going to let him, +the horrid old man. So I think now it was silly to be frightened. Was +it?" + +"No, it wasn't silly, dear." + +"I'm glad. And Neil--I want to tell you something else. It's about--that +night--in the buggy, on the old road to Wells, you know, when you were +going to elope with me and changed your mind." + +"When I frightened you so. Oh, Judith." + +"You didn't--frighten me," said a very small voice indeed. "You----" + +"What, dear?" + +"Made me want you--want to go away with you. I never felt like that +before, all waked up and different and--happy. Oh, you didn't frighten +me. I wasn't angry because you tried to take me away. It was because you +brought me back." + +"Don't you know why I brought you back?" + +"No." + +"Why, because I loved you. I didn't love you till then, not really; not +till that minute in the carriage. I know just what minute. When you let +me kiss you, and didn't mind any more. Then I knew about--love. I never +knew before, but I'll never forget again. It isn't just wanting people, +it's taking care of them, and not hurting them. Waiting till you can +have things--right. So I wanted to have you right and be fit for you, +and after that night I went to work and I wouldn't be stopped, not by +anything in this town or the world. Oh, Judith, why don't you speak to +me? It isn't much use to talk. You don't understand." + +"I--do." + +"You're crying!" + +She was crying, and she did understand. Before this unexpected, +beautiful proof of it, the boy was reverent and half ashamed, as if a +woman's tears were a sacred miracle invented for him. He held her hand +timidly and pressed it. Presently she drew it away, and suddenly she was +not crying, but laughing, a low, full-throated laugh as wonderful to +him as her tears. + +"I told you, you did it all," she said softly. "Well, you didn't. Neil, +there's what did it all. Because, if you only go on believing in things +and being sweet and true and not afraid, and--wishing, then everything +will come right. It's got to, just because you want it to. So there's +what did it all and made us so happy, you and me. I love it. Love it, +Neil." + +Neil looked where Judith was looking. Above the horse-chestnut tree, so +filmy and faint that the stars looked brighter than ever, so pale that +it was not akin to the stars, but to the dark beyond, where adventures +were, so friendly and sweet that it could make the wish in your heart +come true, hung a new-risen silvery crescent of light. + +"But it's only the moon," Neil said. + +"It's--the wishing moon," said Judith. + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected +without note. Some illustrations have been relocated for +better flow. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WISHING MOON*** + + +******* This file should be named 31057-8.txt or 31057-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/0/5/31057 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Wishing Moon</p> +<p>Author: Louise Elizabeth Dutton</p> +<p>Release Date: January 23, 2010 [eBook #31057]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WISHING MOON***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Peter Vickers, Juliet Sutherland,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" > +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Cover" title="Cover" /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<table summary="CONTENTS"> +<tr><td><a href="#LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"><b>List of Illustrations</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_ONE"><b>Chapter One</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_TWO"><b>Chapter Two</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_THREE"><b>Chapter Three</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_FOUR"><b>Chapter Four</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_FIVE"><b>Chapter Five</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_SIX"><b>Chapter Six</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_SEVEN"><b>Chapter Seven</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_EIGHT"><b>Chapter Eight</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_NINE"><b>Chapter Nine</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_TEN"><b>Chapter Ten</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_ELEVEN"><b>Chapter Eleven</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_TWELVE"><b>Chapter Twelve</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_THIRTEEN"><b>Chapter Thirteen</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_FOURTEEN"><b>Chapter Fourteen</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_FIFTEEN"><b>Chapter Fifteen</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_SIXTEEN"><b>Chapter Sixteen</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_SEVENTEEN"><b>Chapter Seventeen</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_EIGHTEEN"><b>Chapter Eighteen</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_NINETEEN"><b>Chapter Nineteen</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_TWENTY"><b>Chapter Twenty</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#CHAPTER_TWENTY-ONE"><b>Chapter Twenty-One</b></a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>THE<br /> +WISHING MOON</h1> + +<h3>By</h3> +<h2>LOUISE DUTTON</h2> + +<h4>Author of<br /> +"THE GODDESS GIRL"</h4> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus002.png" alt="publishers logo" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center">Illustrated by<br /> +EVERETT SHINN +<br /> +<br /> +</p> +<p> </p> + +<p class="center" style="font-variant: small-caps">Garden City New York<br /> +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY<br /> +1916 +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="center"><i>Copyright</i>, 1916, <i>by</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">Louise Dutton</span><br /><br /> +<i>All rights reserved, including that of<br /> +translation into foreign languages,<br /> +including the Scandinavian</i></p> + +<p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1916, THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE COMPANY</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<table summary="ILLUSTRATIONS"> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><h2><a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><a href="#illus1">"'Oh, Judith, won't you speak to me?'"</a></td> +<td align="right"><i>Frontispiece</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2" style="padding-left: 5em;"><a href="#illus1">(See page 239)</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td> </td> +<td align="right"><small>FACING PAGE</small></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><a href="#illus2">"'I know what this means,' she asserted"</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#illus2">128</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><a href="#illus3">"'Shut your eyes'"</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#illus3">166</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><a href="#illus4">"'Judith, you don't hate me? Say it—say it'"</a></td> +<td align="right"><a href="#illus4">180</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE WISHING MOON</h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_ONE" id="CHAPTER_ONE"></a>CHAPTER ONE</h2> + +<p>A little girl sat on the worn front doorsteps of the Randall house. She +sat very still and straight, with her short, white skirts fluffed +daintily out on both sides, her hands tightly clasped over her thin +knees, and her long, silk-stockinged legs cuddled tight together. She +was bare-headed, and her short, soft hair showed silvery blonde in the +fading light. Her hair was bobbed. For one miserable month it had been +the only bobbed head in Green River. Her big, gray-green eyes had a +fugitive, dancing light in them. The little girl had beautiful eyes.</p> + +<p>The little girl was Miss Judith Devereux Randall. She was eleven years +old, and she felt happier to-night than she remembered feeling in all +the eleven years of her life.</p> + +<p>The Randalls' lawn was hedged with a fringe of lilac and syringa bushes, +with one great, spreading horse-chestnut tree at the corner. The house +did not stand far back from the street. The little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> girl could see a +generous section of Main Street sloping past, dark already under +shadowing trees. The street was empty. It was half-past six, and +supper-time in Green River, but the Randalls did not have supper, they +dined at night, like the Everards. To-night mother and father were +dining with the Everards, and the little girl had plans of her own.</p> + +<p>Father was dressed, and waiting, shut in the library. Mother was +dressing in her big corner room upstairs, with all the electric lights +lighted. The little girl could see them, if she turned her head, but +mother was very far away, in spite of that, for her door was locked, and +you could not go in. You could not watch her brush her long, wonderful +hair, or help her into her evening gown. Mother's evening gown was black +this summer, with shiny spangles—a fairy gown. Mother had to be alone +while she dressed, because she was going to the Everards'.</p> + +<p>There were two Everards, the Colonel, who was old because his hair was +white, and his wife, who wore even more beautiful clothes than mother. +She had heard her father say that the Colonel had made the town, and she +had heard Norah, the cook, say that he owned the town. She had an idea +that these two things were not quite the same, though they sounded +alike, for father was fond of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> the Colonel, and Norah was not. At any +rate, he was president of the bank—father and Norah agreed about +that—and he lived in a house at the edge of the town, in what used to +be a part of Larribees' woods. Father used to go Mayflowering there, but +now nobody could.</p> + +<p>The house was ugly, with things sticking out all over it, towers and +balconies and cupolas, and it was the little girl's twin. She was born +the year the Everards settled in Green River.</p> + +<p>"And you're marked with it," Norah said, in one of their serious talks, +when Mollie, the second girl, was out, and the two had the kitchen to +themselves. Norah was peeling apples for a pie, and allowing her +unlimited ginger-snaps, straight from the jar. "Marked with it, Miss +Judy."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"That house, and what goes on in it."</p> + +<p>"What does go on?"</p> + +<p>"You'll know soon enough."</p> + +<p>"I'm not marked with it. I've got a birthmark, but it's a strawberry, on +my left side, like the princesses have in the fairy tales."</p> + +<p>"You are a kind of a princess, Miss Judy."</p> + +<p>"Is that a bad thing to be, Nana?"</p> + +<p>"It's a lonesome thing."</p> + +<p>"My strawberry's fading. Mother says it will go away."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It won't go away. What we're born to be, +we will be, Miss Judy——. Bless your +heart, you're crying, with the big eyes of you. What for, dear?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I don't want to be a princess. I don't want to be +lonesome. I hate the Everards."</p> + +<p>"Well, there's many to say that now, and there'll be more to say it +soon." Norah muttered this darkly, into her yellow bowl of apples, but +Judith heard: "Here, eat this apple, child. You musn't hate anybody."</p> + +<p>"I do. I hate the Everards."</p> + +<p>Queer things came into your head to say when you were talking with +Norah, who had an aunt with the second sight, and told beautiful fairy +tales herself, and even believed in fairies; Judith did not. The +Everards gave Judith and no other little girl in town presents at +Christmas, and invited Judith and no other little girl to lunch. They +had a great deal to do with her trouble, her serious trouble, which she +would not discuss even with Norah. But she did not really hate the +Everards—certainly not to-night. She was too happy.</p> + +<p>Judith was going out to hang May-baskets.</p> + +<p>So was every other little girl in town who wanted to, and it was a +wonderful thing to be doing to-night. It was really May night, by the +weather as well as the calendar—the kind of night that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> Norah's fairies +meant should come on the first of May: warm, with a tiny chill creeping +into the air as the dark came, a pleasant, shivery chill, as if there +might really be fairies or ghosts about. It was still and clear. One +star, that had just come up above the horse-chestnut tree, looked very +small and bright and close, as if it had climbed up into the sky out of +the dark, clustering leaves of the tree.</p> + +<p>This was the star that Judith usually wished on, but she could wish on +the moon to-night; Norah had told her so; wish once instead of three +nights running, and get her wish whether she thought of the red fox's +tail or not. The new moon of May was a wishing moon.</p> + +<p>A wishing moon! The small white figure on the steps cuddled itself into +a smaller heap. Judith sighed happily and closed her eyes. She was going +with the others. She had her wish already.</p> + +<p>It was Judith's great trouble that she was not like other little girls. +Until she was six Judith had a vague idea that she was the only child in +the world. Then she tried to make friends with two small, dirty girls +over the back fence, and found out that there were other children, but +she must not play with them. One day Norah found her crying in the +nursery because she could not think what to play, and soon after Willard +Nash,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> the fat little boy next door, came to dinner and into her life, +and after that, Eddie and Natalie Ward, from the white house up the +street, and Lorena Drew, from over the river. Still other children came +to her parties, so many that she could not remember their names. Then +Judith's trouble began. She was not like them.</p> + +<p>She did not look like them; her clothes were not made by a seamstress, +but came from city shops, and had shorter skirts, and stuck out in +different places. She could not do what they did; Mollie called for her +at nine at evening parties, and she usually had to go to bed half an +hour after dinner, before it was dark. She had to do things that they +did not do: make grown-up calls with her mother and wear gloves, and +take lessons in fancy dancing instead of going to dancing school.</p> + +<p>But she had gone to school now for almost a year, a private school in +the big billiard-room at the Larribees', but a real school, with other +children in it. They did not make fun of her clothes, or the way she +pronounced her words, very often now. She belonged to a secret society +with Rena and Natalie. She had spent one night with Natalie, though she +had to come home before breakfast. The other children did not know she +was different, but Judith knew.</p> + +<p>Unexpected things might be required of her at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> a moment's notice: to be +excused from school and pass cakes at a tea at the Everards'; to leave a +picnic before the potatoes were roasted, because Mollie had appeared, +inexorable; unaccountable things, but she was to be safe to-night. May +night was not such a wonderful night for any little girl as it was for +Judith.</p> + +<p>The lights were on in Nashs' parlour, and not turned off in the +dining-room, which meant that the rest of the family were not through +supper, but Willard was. Presently she heard three loud, unmelodious +whistles, his private signal, and a stocky figure pushed itself through +a gap in the hedge which looked, and was, too small for it, and Judith +rubbed her eyes and sat up—it crossed the lawn to her.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Merry Sunshine," said Willard, ironically.</p> + +<p>"I wasn't asleep."</p> + +<p>"You were."</p> + +<p>"I heard you coming."</p> + +<p>"You did not."</p> + +<p>"I did so."</p> + +<p>These formalities over, she made room for him eagerly on the steps. +Willard looked fatter to Judith after a meal, probably because she knew +how much he ate. His clean collar looked much too clean and white in the +dark, and he was evi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>dently in a teasing mood, but such as he was, he +was her best friend, and she needed him.</p> + +<p>"Willard, guess what I'm going to do?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, kid." Willard's tone implied unmistakably that he did not +want to know.</p> + +<p>"To-night!"</p> + +<p>Judith's voice thrilled. Willard stared at her. Her eyes looked wider +than usual, and very bright. She was smiling a strange little smile, and +a rare dimple, which he really believed she had made with a slate +pencil, showed in her cheek. The light in her face was something new to +him, something he did not understand, and therefore being of masculine +mind, wished to remove.</p> + +<p>"You're going to miss it to-night for one thing, kid," he stated +deliberately.</p> + +<p>"Oh, am I?" Judith dimpled and glowed.</p> + +<p>"We're going to stay out until ten. Vivie's not going." Willard's big +sister had chaperoned the expedition the year before. Now it was to go +out unrestrained into the night.</p> + +<p>"That's lovely."</p> + +<p>Willard searched his brain for more overwhelming details.</p> + +<p>"We've got a dark lantern."</p> + +<p>"That's nice."</p> + +<p>"I got it. It's father's. He won't miss it. It's hidden in the Drews' +barn. We're going to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> meet at the Drews, to fool them. They'll be +watching the Wards'."</p> + +<p>"They will?"</p> + +<p>"Sure."</p> + +<p>"The—paddies?"</p> + +<p>"Sure."</p> + +<p>Judith drew an awed, ecstatic breath. He was touching now on the chief +peril and charm of the expedition. Hanging May-baskets, conferring an +elaborately-made gift upon a formal acquaintance, was not the object of +it—nothing so philanthropic; it was the escape after you had hung them. +You went out for adventure, to ring the bell and get away, to brave the +dangers of the night in small, intimate companies. And the chief danger, +which you fled from through the dark, was the paddies.</p> + +<p>She did not know much about them. She would not show her ignorance by +asking questions. But there were little boys with whom a state of war +existed. They chased you, even fought with you, made a systematic +attempt to steal your May-baskets. They were mixed up in her mind with +gnomes and pirates. She was deliciously afraid of them. She hardly +thought they had human faces. She understood that they were most of them +Irish, and that it was somehow a disgrace for them to be Irish, though +her own Norah was Irish and proud of it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sure!" said Willard. "Irish boys. Paddies from Paddy Lane. Ed got a +black eye last year. We'll get back at them. It will be some evening." +Judith did not look jealous or wistful yet. "The whole crowd's going."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," thrilled Judith. "Oh, Willard——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Willard," he mimicked. Judith pronounced all the letters in his +name, which was not the popular method. "Oh, Willard, what do you think +I heard Viv say to the Gaynor girl about you?"</p> + +<p>"Don't know. Willard, won't the paddies see the dark lantern?"</p> + +<p>"Viv said you were as pretty as a doll, but just as stiff and stuck-up," +pronounced Willard sternly. "And your father's only the cashier of the +bank, and just because the Everards have taken your mother up is no +reason for her to put on airs and get a second girl and get into +debt——"</p> + +<p>He broke off, discouraged. Judith did not appear to hear him. After the +masculine habit, as he could not control the situation, he rose to +leave.</p> + +<p>"Well, so long, kid. I've got to go to the post-office."</p> + +<p>Even the mention of this desirable rendezvous, which was denied to her +because Mollie always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> brought home the evening mail in a black silk +bag, did not dim the dancing light in Judith's eyes. She put a hand on +his sleeve.</p> + +<p>"Willard——"</p> + +<p>"Well, kid?"</p> + +<p>"Willard, don't you wish I was going to-night?"</p> + +<p>"What for, to fight the paddies, or carry the dark lantern?"</p> + +<p>"I could fight," said Judith, with a little quiver in her voice, as if +she could.</p> + +<p>"Fight? You couldn't even run away. They'd"—Willard hissed it +mysteriously—"they'd get you."</p> + +<p>"No, they wouldn't, because"—something had happened to her eyes, so +that they did not look tantalizing—"you'd take care of me, Willard," +she announced surprisingly, "wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Forget it," murmured Willard, flattered.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"I——"</p> + +<p>"Willard!"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well—I am. Father made mother let me. I'm going with you."</p> + +<p>The words she had been trying to say were out at last in a hushed voice, +because her heart was beating hard, but they sounded beautiful to her, +like a kind of song. Perhaps Willard heard it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> too. He really was her +best friend, and he did not look so fat, after all, in the twilight. She +waited breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"You are?"</p> + +<p>Judith nodded. She could not speak.</p> + +<p>"Well!" Willard's feelings were mixed, his face was not fashioned to +express a conflict of emotions, and words failed him, too. "You're a +queer kid. Why didn't you tell me before?"</p> + +<p>"Aren't you glad, Willard?"</p> + +<p>"You'll get sleepy."</p> + +<p>"Aren't you glad?"</p> + +<p>"Sure I'm glad. But you can't run, and you are a cry-baby."</p> + +<p>These were known facts, not insults, but now Judith's eyes had stopped +dancing.</p> + +<p>"Judy, are you mad with me?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"You're the queerest kid." Up the street, he caught sight of a member of +a simpler sex than Judith's. "There's Ed coming out of the gate. I've +got to see him about something. See you later. Don't be mad. So long!"</p> + +<p>The house was astir behind Judith. Father was opening and shutting +doors, and hunting for things. Norah was helping mother into her wraps +and scolding. Somebody was telephoning. Mother's carriage was late.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>But it was turning into the yard now, a big, black hack from the Inn, +with a white horse. Judith liked white horses best. The front door +opened, and her father, very tall and blond, with his shirt-front +showing white, and her mother, with something shiny in her black hair, +swept out.</p> + +<p>"Look who's here," said her father, and picked her up with his hands +under her elbows. "Going to paint the town red to-night, son?"</p> + +<p>"Red?" breathed Judith. How strong father was, and how beautiful mother +was. She smelled of the perfume in the smallest bottle on the +toilet-table. How kind they both were. "Red?"</p> + +<p>"Harry, you see she doesn't care a thing about going. She'd be better +off in bed. Careful, baby! Your hair is catching on my sequins. Put her +down, Harry. You'll spoil the shape of her shoulders some day."</p> + +<p>"Don't you want to go, son?"</p> + +<p>"I—" Judith choked, "I——"</p> + +<p>"Well, she's not crazy about it, is she?"</p> + +<p>"Then do send her to bed."</p> + +<p>"No, you can't break your promise to a child, Minna."</p> + +<p>"Prig," said mother sweetly, as if a prig were a pleasant thing to be. +"All right, let her go, then. Oh, Harry, look at that horse. They've +sent us the knock-kneed old white corpse again."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mother hurried him into the carriage, and it clattered out of the yard. +They did not look back. They were always in a hurry, and rather cross +when they went to the Everards. For once she was glad to see them go, +such a dreadful crisis had come and passed. How could father think she +did not want to go, father who used to hang May-baskets himself? Norah +was calling her, but she did not answer. Norah was cross to-night. She +did not know how happy Judith was.</p> + +<p>Nobody knew, but now Judith did not want to tell. She did not want +sympathy. She was not lonely. This secret was too important to tell. +And, before her eyes, a lovely and comforting thing was happening, +silently and suddenly, as lovely things do happen. Quite still on the +steps, a white little figure, alone in a preoccupied world, but calm in +spite of it, Judith looked and looked.</p> + +<p>Above the horse-chestnut tree, so filmy and faint that the star looked +brighter than ever, so pale that it was not akin to the stars or the +flickering lights in the street, but to the dark beyond, where +adventures were, so friendly and sweet that it could make the wish in +your heart come true, whether you were clever enough to wish it out loud +or not, hung the wishing moon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_TWO" id="CHAPTER_TWO"></a>CHAPTER TWO</h2> + +<p>A small, silent procession was edging its way along Church Street, +darkly silhouetted against a faintly starred sky. It was a long hour +later now, and looked later still on Church Street. There were few +lights left in the string of houses near the white church, at the lower +end of the street, and here, at the upper end, there were no lights but +the one street lamp near the railroad bridge that arched black overhead, +and there were few houses. The street did not look like a street at all, +but a country road, and a muddy one.</p> + +<p>The narrow board sidewalk creaked, so the procession avoided it, and +stuck to the muddy side of the road.</p> + +<p>The procession looked mysterious enough, even if you were walking at the +tail of it and carrying a heavy market basket; if you had to smell the +lantern, swung just in front of you, but did not have the fun of +carrying it; if a shaker cloak, hooded and picturesque, in the +procession, hampered your activities; if you had questions to ask, and +nobody answered you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Willard."</p> + +<p>"Sh!"</p> + +<p>One by one, they came into sight, in the wavering light of the street +lamp, and melted into the dark under the bridge; Ed, in his white +sweater, captaining them, and keenly aware of it; Rena and Natalie, with +the larger market basket between them; Willard, bulky in two sweaters, +and tenderly shielding his lantern with a third, and Judith. Her face +showed pale with excitement against the scarlet of her hood. One hand +plucked vainly at Willard's sleeve; he stalked on, and would not turn. +Only these five, but they had consulted and organized and reorganized +for half an hour in the Drews' barn before they started, and had hung +only three May-baskets yet. However, the adventure was under way now.</p> + +<p>"Willard, now it's my turn to carry the lantern."</p> + +<p>"Judy, you can't."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"It might explode." The feeble flame gave one dispirited upward spurt at +this encouragement, causing excitement in front.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ed!"</p> + +<p>"Ed, make him put it out."</p> + +<p>"Rena and Nat, you keep still. Judy's not scared, are you Judy?"</p> + +<p>"No! Oh, no!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The lantern's a sick looking sight, and he can carry it +if he wants to, but we don't need it."</p> + +<p>"I like that. You tried to get me to let you carry it, Ed."</p> + +<p>"Don't talk so much."</p> + +<p>"Who started the talk?"</p> + +<p>"Well, who's running this, anyway—you, Willard Nash?"</p> + +<p>"There's a dog in that house."</p> + +<p>"Sh!"</p> + +<p>"But that dog's only a cocker spaniel. He can't hurt you."</p> + +<p>"Judy, sh!"</p> + +<p>Sh! Somebody was always saying that. It was part of the ceremony, which +had been the same all three times. The procession was halting opposite +the Nealy house. A whispered quarrel started every time they approached +a house, and was hushed halfway through and not taken up again. The +quarrel and the hush were part of the ceremony, too.</p> + +<p>The Nealy house was small and harmless looking, and entirely dark, but +they did not allow that to make them reckless. They stood looking warily +across the dark street.</p> + +<p>"But there's nobody there. Maggie Nealy's out, too, to-night, and her +mother——"</p> + +<p>"Sh!" Willard put a hand over Judith's mouth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> It smelled of kerosene, +and she struggled, but did not make a noise. Just at this dramatic +moment the Nealy's dog barked.</p> + +<p>Judith could hear her heart beat and feel her damp feet getting really +wet and cold.</p> + +<p>"Now," Ed whispered, close to her ear and uncomfortably loud, and she +fumbled in her basket. Willard jiggled the lantern dizzily over her +shoulder, tissue paper tore under her fingers, and bonbons rattled. +Hanging May-baskets was certainly hard on the May-baskets, and they were +so pretty; pale coloured, like flowers.</p> + +<p>"I can't find the right one. The marks are all falling off. The candy's +falling out."</p> + +<p>"We can't stand here all night. Here——"</p> + +<p>"Willard, take your hands out. Not that one——"</p> + +<p>"Willard and Judy stop fighting. That one will do. I'm going."</p> + +<p>There was dead silence now, and Ed, clutching the wreck of a sizable +crêpe-paper creation to the bosom of his white sweater, doubled into a +crouching, boy scout attitude, crossed the road, and approached the +house. Nothing but his own commendable caution delayed his approach. The +small dog's dreams within were untroubled now. There were no signs of +life.</p> + +<p>He reached the front door, deposited the May-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>basket with a force that +further demolished it, and took to his heels. After another breathless +wait the procession formed behind him and trailed after him up the road, +hilly here, so that the market basket grew heavier.</p> + +<p>"Some evening," Willard murmured to himself, not the rest of the world, +but he sounded amiable.</p> + +<p>"Willard."</p> + +<p>"Well, kid,"</p> + +<p>"There wasn't anybody in that house. Ed knew it."</p> + +<p>"There might have been. They might have come home."</p> + +<p>"But they didn't ... Willard, is this all there is to it?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Hanging May-baskets. Throwing them down that way. I thought maybe they +really hung them, on the doorknob—I thought——"</p> + +<p>"Silly! Ed's going cross lots, and up the wood road to Larribees'. Good +work. That will throw them off the track."</p> + +<p>"Throw who off the track?"</p> + +<p>"You scared? Want to go home?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no! But who? There's nobody chasing us. Nobody."</p> + +<p>"No. We've got them fooled. It's some evening."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Willard, where are the paddies?"</p> + +<p>That was the question Judith had been wanting to ask more and more, for +an hour, but it came in a choked voice, and nobody heard. They were +plunging into a rough and stubbly wood lot, and hushing each other +excitedly. Twigs caught at Judith's skirt, and it was hard to see your +way, with the moon, small and high above the trees in Larribee's woods, +only making the trees look darker. The wood road was little used and +overgrown.</p> + +<p>"If they get us in here!"</p> + +<p>"They won't, Willard." Judith's voice trembled.</p> + +<p>"Cry-baby!"</p> + +<p>"I am not."</p> + +<p>"Here, buck up. We're coming out right here, back of the carriage house. +If Ed catches you crying he'll send you home."</p> + +<p>But Ed had his mind upon higher things. "You girls stay here with the +baskets. Don't move. Willard, you go right and I'll go left, and we'll +meet at the carriage-house steps, if the coast is clear."</p> + +<p>"If they get us——"</p> + +<p>If! The boys crunched out of hearing on the gravel, awesome silence set +in, and Rena and Natalie whispered; Judith was not to be awed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> Four +May-baskets hung, and nobody objecting; dark cross-streets chosen +instead of Main Street and no danger pursuing them there. If there was +no danger in the whole town, why should there be in one little strip of +woods, though it was dark and strange, and full of whispering noises? +Judith had clung to Willard's hand in terror, turning into the +cross-streets, and nothing came of it. She was not to be fooled any +longer. There was no danger.</p> + +<p>Not that she wanted to be chased. She did not know what she wanted. But +she had come out into the dark to find something that was not there. She +had been happier on the doorsteps thinking about it. This, then, was +hanging May-baskets—all there was to it. But it was pleasant here in +the dark, pleasanter than walking through mud, and quarrelling. Now Rena +and Nat were quarrelling again.</p> + +<p>"Get back there! Ed said not to move."</p> + +<p>"They've been gone too long. Something's the matter."</p> + +<p>"There they come. I hear them. Get back!"</p> + +<p>They were coming, but something else was happening. Willard's three +whistles sounded, then Ed's voice, and a noise of scuffling on the +gravel—and a new boy's voice.</p> + +<p>Rena and Natalie, upsetting their basket as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> they started, and not +noticing it, pushed through the trees and ran. Judith stood still and +listened. She did not know the voice. It was shrill and clear. She could +hear the words it said above the others' voices, all clamouring, now, at +once. She held her breath and listened. She could not move.</p> + +<p>"I don't want your damn May-baskets."</p> + +<p>"Liar! Get back of him, Rena. Come on, Nat."</p> + +<p>"You'll get hurt. Let me go."</p> + +<p>"Liar—Paddy!"</p> + +<p>The magic word fell unheeded. The boy was laughing, and the laugh filled +her ears, a splendid laugh, fearless and clear.</p> + +<p>"Paddy!"</p> + +<p>"I don't want your damn May-baskets."</p> + +<p>"Paddy—Paddy!"</p> + +<p>This time there was no answer. Judith, tearing at the hooks of her cape, +and throwing it off as she ran, broke through the circling trees. Then +she stopped and looked.</p> + +<p>Rena stood high on the carriage-house steps and held the lantern. It +wavered and swung in her hand, and threw a flickering circle of light +round the group by the steps.</p> + +<p>The sprawled shadows at their feet seemed to have an undue number of +arms and legs, and the children were a struggling, uncertain mass of +mo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>tion, hard to make out, like the shadows, but they were only four: +Willard, grunting and groaning; Natalie attacking spasmodically in the +rear, and the strange little boy, the enemy. He was the heart of the +struggling group, and Judith looked only at him. She could do nothing +but look, for Judith had never seen a little boy like this.</p> + +<p>They were three against one, and the one was a match for them. He was +slender and strong, holding his ground and making no noise. He was +coatless and ragged shirted, and one sleeve of his shirt was torn, so +that you could see how thin his shoulder was. He held his head high, and +smiled as he fought. A shock of blond hair was tossed high above his +forehead. He had a thin, white face, and dark jewels of flashing eyes. +As she stood and looked, they met Judith's eyes, and Judith knew that +she had never seen a boy like this, because there was no boy like +this—no little boy so wild and strange and free, so ragged and brave. +If he could come out of the dark, it was full of unguessable things, +splendid and strange and new. Judith's heart beat hard, a hot feeling +swept over her, and a queer mist came before her eyes. A wonderful boy; +a fairy boy! What would they do to him? What did they do to paddies? +There was no little boy like this in the world.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Judy!" The others had +seen her and were calling her. "Come on. Help get him down."</p> + +<p>"He chased Willard round here."</p> + +<p>"He led the gang last year."</p> + +<p>"It's Neil Donovan."</p> + +<p>"Get him down!"</p> + +<p>Judith did not answer then. Her cheeks flamed red, and her eyes looked +as big and dark as the stranger's, and her small hands clenched tight. +It was only a minute that she stood so. The three were close to him, +hiding him. She saw his face again, above Willard's pushing shoulder, +and then—she could not see it.</p> + +<p>"Judy, what's the matter? Come on!"</p> + +<p>And Judith came. She plunged straight into the struggling group, and +hammered at it indiscriminately with two small fists. She caught at a +waving coat sleeve, and pulled it—Willard's, and it tore in her hands. +She spotted Eds white sweater, and beat at it fiercely, with all her +strength.</p> + +<p>"That's me, Judy. Cut it out!"</p> + +<p>"Then let him go. Three to one is no fair. Let him go!" They did not +hear her, or care which side she was on, or take the trouble to drive +her away. Judith drew back and stood and looked at them, breathless and +glowing and undefeated, for one long minute.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Boy," she called then, +softly, as if he could hear when the others could not, "wait! It's all +right, boy. It's all right."</p> + +<p>Then she charged up the steps at Rena. Judy, the most demure and +faithful of allies, confronted Rena, amazingly but unmistakably changed +to a foe; Judy, with her immaculate and enviable frock smirched and +torn, and her sleek hair wildly tossed, her cheeks darkly flushed, and +her eyes strange and shining; a Judy to be reckoned with and admired and +feared—a new Judy.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter? Are you crazy? What do you want?"</p> + +<p>"Make them let him go. They've got to let him go."</p> + +<p>"He's a paddy—Neil Donovan—a paddy."</p> + +<p>"They've got to let him go.... Give that to me."</p> + +<p>"What for? Judy, don't hurt me. Judy!"</p> + +<p>Judith wasted no more words. She caught Rena's wrist, twisted it, and +snatched the lantern out of her hand. She held it high above her head, +and shook it recklessly.</p> + +<p>"Don't, Judy! Don't!" The flame sputtered crazily. Judy still shook the +lantern, dancing out of reach, and laughing. "Nat—everybody—stop Judy. +She's making the lantern explode. Oh, Ed!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> + +<p>Natalie heard, and then the others. They looked up at her, all of them. +Rena and Natalie screamed. Willard started toward her. "Put it down, +kid," he was calling.</p> + +<p>"I'll put it down.... Now boy."</p> + +<p>There he was, with Ed's arm gripping his shoulders. He did not give any +sign that he knew she was trying to help him, or that he wanted help. He +was not afraid of the lantern, like the others. His black eyes were +laughing at all of them—laughing at Judith, too. He was looking +straight at Judith.</p> + +<p>"Now, boy," she called, "now run!" and she gripped the lantern tight, +swung it high, and dashed it to the ground.</p> + +<p>It fell at the foot of the steps with a crash of breaking glass. The +light sputtered out. The air was full of the smell of spilled kerosene. +In the faint radiance that was not moonlight, but a glimmering +reflection of it, more confusing than darkness, dim figures struggled +and shrill voices were lifted.</p> + +<p>"Get him. Hold him."</p> + +<p>"Get the lantern."</p> + +<p>"Get Judy."</p> + +<p>"Hold him, Ed."</p> + +<p>"That's me."</p> + +<p>"Get him, Rena."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p> + +<p>Judith laughed, and out of the dark he had come from, +the dark of May-night, lit by a wishing moon, that grants your secret +wish for better or for worse, irrevocably, a far-away laugh answered +Judith's. The boy was gone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_THREE" id="CHAPTER_THREE"></a>CHAPTER THREE</h2> + +<p>Miss Judith Devereux Randall was getting into her first evening gown.</p> + +<p>The Green River High School football team was giving its annual +September concert and ball in Odd Fellows' Hall to-night. The occasion +was as important to the school as a coming-out party. The new junior +class, just graduated from seclusion upstairs to the big assembly room +where the seniors were, made its first public appearance in society +there. Judith was a junior now.</p> + +<p>Her first dance, and her first evening gown; it was a memorable scene, +fit to immortalize with the first love-letter and the first proposal, in +a series of pictures of great moments in a girl's life—chosen by some +masculine illustrator, touchingly confident that he knows what the great +moments of a girl's life are. Judith seemed to be taking this moment too +calmly for one.</p> + +<p>The dress lay ready on the bed, fluffy and light and sheer, a white +dream of a dress, with two unopened florist's boxes beside it, but there +was no picturesque disarray of excited toilet-making in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> her big, +brightly lighted room, and no dream-promoting candlelight. And there +were no pennants or football trophies disfiguring the daintily flowered +wall paper, and no pictures or programs in the mirror of the dainty +dressing-table; there was no other young girl's room in town where they +were prohibited, but there was no other room so charming as Judith's, +all blue-flowered chintz and bird's-eye maple and white fur rugs, and +whiter covers and curtains.</p> + +<p>Judith was the most charming and immaculate thing in the room, as she +stood before the cheval-glass, bare armed and slim and straight in +beruffled, beribboned white, pinning the soft, pale braids tight around +her small, high-poised head. Quite the most charming thing, and Norah, +fingering the dress on the bed disapprovingly, and giving her keen, +sidelong glances, was aware of it, but did not believe in compliments, +even to the creature she loved best in the world.</p> + +<p>Her mouth was set and her brown eyes were bright with the effort of +repressing them. Judith, seeing her face in the glass, turned suddenly +and slipped her arms round the formidable old creature's neck, and +laughed at her.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think I'm perfectly beautiful?" she demanded. "If you really +love me, why not tell me so?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Your colour's good." Judith pressed a delicately flushed cheek to +Norah's, and attempted a butterfly kiss, which she evaded grimly. "Good +enough—healthy and natural."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. I made it. Oh, with hot water and then cold, I mean. Nana, +don't begin about rouge. Don't be silly. That red stuff in the box on +mother's dresser is only nail paste, truly."</p> + +<p>"Who sent the flowers?"</p> + +<p>"Look and see."</p> + +<p>"Much you care, if you'll let me look."</p> + +<p>"Do you want me to care?"</p> + +<p>"Much you care about the flowers or the party."</p> + +<p>Judith had caught up the alluring dress without a second glance, and +slipped it expertly over her head, and was jerking capably at the +fastenings.</p> + +<p>"With the spoiled airs of you, and Willard Nash sending to Wells for +flowers, when his father clerked in a drygoods store at his age——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, carnations are cheap—or he wouldn't get them."</p> + +<p>"These aren't cheap, then."</p> + +<p>The smaller box was full of white violets.</p> + +<p>"Give them to me. No, you can't see the card. You don't deserve to. +You're too cross, and besides you wouldn't like it. Do my two top hooks. +Now, am I perfectly beautiful?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + +<p>Under her capable hands a pretty miracle had been going on, common +enough, but always new. Ruffle above ruffle, the soft, shapeless mass of +white had shaken itself into its proper lines and contours, lightly, +like a bird's plumage settling itself, and with it the change that comes +when a woman with the inborn, unteachable trick of wearing clothes puts +on a perfect gown, had come to her slight girl's figure. It looked +softer, rounder, and more lightly poised. Her throat looked whiter above +the encircling folds of white. Her shy half smile was sweeter. The white +violets, caught to her high girdle, were sweeter, too.</p> + +<p>Norah surrendered, her voice husky and reluctant.</p> + +<p>"You're too good for them."</p> + +<p>"For the G. H. S. dance? For Willard?" Judith pretended great humility: +"Nana!"</p> + +<p>"There's others you're more than too good for. Others——"</p> + +<p>"Nana, don't."</p> + +<p>"Come here." Norah put two heavy hands on her shoulders and regarded her +grimly. It was the kind of look that Judith used to associate with +second sight, and dread. It was quite formidable still. But Judith met +it steadily, with something mature and assured about her look that had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +nothing to do with the softness and sweetness of her in her fluffy +draperies, something that had no place in the heart of a child; +something that Norah saw.</p> + +<p>"Too good for them, and you know it," pronounced Norah. "You know it too +well. You know too many things. A heart of gold you've got, but your +head will rule your heart."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense." Norah permitted herself to be kissed, still looking +forbidding, but holding Judith tight.</p> + +<p>"Little white lamb, may you find what's good enough for you," she +conceded, unexpectedly, "and may you know it when you find it."</p> + +<p>"You're an old dear, and you're good enough for me."</p> + +<p>Downstairs there was a more critical audience to face. Judith saw it in +the library door, and stood still on the stair landing, looking down. +She held her head high, and coloured faintly. She looked very slender +and white against the dark woodwork of the hall. The Randall house had +been renovated the year before—becoming ten years older in the process, +early Colonial instead of a comfortable mixture of late Colonial and +mid-Victorian. The hall was particularly Colonial, and a becoming +background for Judith, but the dark-haired lady in the door had no more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +faith in compliments than Norah, and there was a worried wrinkle in her +low forehead to-night, as if her mind were on other things.</p> + +<p>"Will I do, mother?"</p> + +<p>"It's a good little gown, but there's something wrong with the neck +line. You're really going then?"</p> + +<p>"I thought I would."</p> + +<p>"Be back by half-past ten. We're going to have some cards here. The +Colonel likes you to pass things."</p> + +<p>"I thought father's head ached."</p> + +<p>"He's sleeping it off."</p> + +<p>"I—wanted him to see how I looked."</p> + +<p>"I can't see why you go."</p> + +<p>"I thought I would. I'll go outside now, and wait for Willard."</p> + +<p>Judith closed the early Colonial door softly behind her, and settled +down on the steps. She arranged her coat, not the one her mother lent +her for state occasions, but a white polo coat of her own, with due +regard for her ruffles and her violets. The violets were from Colonel +Everard. Norah, with her tiresome prejudice against the Everards, and +mother, who thought and talked so much about them that she was almost +tiresome, too, were both wrong about this party. She did want to go.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<p>The church clock was striking nine. There was nothing deep toned or +solemn about the chime; it was rather tinny, but she liked it. It +sounded wide awake, as if things were going to happen. Nine, and the +party was under way. The concert was almost over. The concert was only +for chaperones and girls who were afraid of not getting their dance +orders filled. The truly elect arrived just in time to dance. Some of +them were passing the house already. Judith saw girls with +light-coloured gowns showing under dark coats, and swathing veils that +preserved elaborate coiffures. Bits of conversation, monosyllabic and +formal, to fit the clothes, drifted across the lawn to her.</p> + +<p>She had not been allowed to help decorate the hall, but she had driven +with Willard to Nashes' Corners for goldenrod, and when they carried it +in, big, glowing bundles of it, she had seen fascinating things: +Japanese lanterns, cheesecloth in yellow and white, the school colours, +still in the piece, and full of unguessable possibilities, and a rough +board table, the foundation of the elaborately decorated counter where +Rena and other girls would serve the fruit punch. All the time she +dressed she had been listening for the music of Dugan's orchestra, and +caught only tantalizing strains of tunes that she could not identify. +There was a sameness about the repertoire. Most of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> the tunes sounded +unduly sentimental and resigned. But now they were playing their star +number, a dramatic piece of program music called "A Day on the +Battlefield."</p> + +<p>The day began with bird notes and bugle calls, but was soon enlivened by +cavalry charges and cannonades. The drum, and an occasional blank +cartridge, very telling in effect, were producing them now. Judith +listened eagerly.</p> + +<p>She needed friends of her own age for the next two years, but she must +not identify herself with them too closely, because she would have wider +social opportunities by and by; that was what her mother said, and she +did not contest it; by and by, but this party was to-night.</p> + +<p>Willard was coming for her now, half an hour ahead of time, as usual. He +crossed the lawn, and sat heavily down on the steps.</p> + +<p>"Hello. Don't talk," said Judith.</p> + +<p>Willard was silent only long enough to turn this remark over in his +mind, and decide that she could not mean it, but that was five minutes, +for all his mental processes were slow. Down in the hall the last of the +heroes was dying, and Dugan's orchestra rendered Taps sepulchrally. +Judith drew a long breath of shivering content.</p> + +<p>"Cold?" inquired Willard.</p> + +<p>"No."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You're looking great to-night."</p> + +<p>"In the dark? In an old polo coat?"</p> + +<p>"You always look great."</p> + +<p>Judith was aware of an ominous stir beside her, and changed her +position.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Judy."</p> + +<p>"When you know I won't let you hold my hand, what makes you try?"</p> + +<p>"If I didn't try, how would I know?" said Willard neatly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if you don't know without trying," Judith sighed. The cannonade in +the hall was over, and the night was empty without it.</p> + +<p>"They took in thirteen dollars and fifty-two cents selling tickets for +to-night." Willard, checked upon sentimental subjects, proceeded to +facts. He had so many at command that he could not be checked.</p> + +<p>"Who did?"</p> + +<p>"The team. They divide it. Only this year they've got to let the +sub-team in on it, the faculty made them, and they're sore. And there's +a sub on the reception committee."</p> + +<p>"I don't care."</p> + +<p>"You ought to. A sub, and a roughneck. The sub-team is a bunch of +roughnecks, but he's the worst. On the reception committee! But they'll +take it out of him."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who? The reception committee?"</p> + +<p>"No, the girls. They won't dance with him. He won't get a decent name on +his card. Roughneck, keeping Ed off the team. He's an Irish boy."</p> + +<p>"An Irish boy?" Something, vague as an unforgotten dream that comes back +at night, though you are too busy to recall it in waking hours, urged +Judith to protest. "So is the senior president Irish."</p> + +<p>"No, the vice-president." There was a wide distinction between the two +offices. "Besides"—this was a wider distinction—"Murph lives at the +Falls."</p> + +<p>Living at the Falls, the little settlement at the head of the river, and +lunching at noon, in the empty schoolhouse, out of tin boxes, with a +forlorn assembly of half a dozen or so, was a handicap that few could +live down.</p> + +<p>"Murph?"</p> + +<p>"The team calls him Murphy. I don't know why. They're crazy about him. +He lives a half mile north of the Falls. Walking five miles a day to +learn Latin! He's a fool and a roughneck, but he can play ball. +Yesterday on Brown's field——"</p> + +<p>Willard started happily upon technicalities of football formations. +Judith stopped listening.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> He could talk on unaided, pausing only for an +occasional yes or no.</p> + +<p>Brown's field! It was a tree-fringed stretch of level grass set high at +the edge of the woods, on the other side of the river, with glimpses of +the river showing through the trees far below. Here, on long autumn +afternoons, sparkling and cool, but golden at the heart, ending +gloriously in red, sudden sunsets, football practice went on every day; +shifting here and there, mysteriously, over the field, the arbitrary +evolutions that were football, the shuffling, and shouting, and panting +silence; on rugs and sweaters under the trees, an audience of girls, +shivering delightfully, or holding some hero's sweater, too proud to be +cold.</p> + +<p>Judith had seen all this through Willard's eyes, or from a passing +carriage, but now she would go herself, go perhaps every day. Her mother +would let her. She would not understand, but she would let her, just as +she had to-night. Judith could be part of the close-knit life of the +school in the last two years there—the years that counted. The party +was a test and her mother had met it favourably. That was why she was +glad to go, as nearly as she understood. She did not know quite what she +wanted of the party, only how very much she wanted to go.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> + +<p>Willard was asking a question insistently: "Didn't he do pretty work?"</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Why, the fellow I'm telling you about—the roughneck."</p> + +<p>"Roughneck," said Judith dreamily. The word had a fine, strong sound. +Willard was holding her hand again, and she felt too comfortable and +content to stop him.</p> + +<p>The orchestra down the street was playing the number that usually ended +its programs, a medley of plantation melodies. They were never such a +strain on the resources of a hard-working but only five-piece orchestra +as the ambitious, martial selections, and here, heard across the dark, +they were beautiful: plaintive and thrillingly sweet. "Old Kentucky +Home," was the sweetest of all, lonely and sad as youth, and insistent +as youth, claiming its own against an alien world.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Willard!" breathed Judith. Then, in quite another tone, "Oh, +Willard!"</p> + +<p>Encouraged by her silence, he was reaching for her other hand, and +slipping an arm round her waist.</p> + +<p>"You feel so soft," objected Judith frankly, getting up. "I do hope I'll +never fall in love with a fat man. Come on, let's go!"</p> + +<p>She waited for him politely on the sidewalk, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> permitted her arm to +be duly grasped. Willard, sulky and silent, but preserving appearances, +piloted her dutifully down the street. Willard's silences were rare, and +Judith usually made the most of them, but she did not permit this one to +last. She did not want any one, even Willard, to be unhappy to-night.</p> + +<p>"Willard."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Don't take such long steps, or I can't keep up with you. You're so +tall."</p> + +<p>"Do you want to be late?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no! Are we?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"But there's only one couple behind us, and the music's stopped."</p> + +<p>"It takes half an hour to get the chairs moved out."</p> + +<p>"Willard."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Is the first dance a grand march and circle?"</p> + +<p>"No, that's gone out. They have contras instead, but the first is a +waltz."</p> + +<p>"Willard, mother said I mustn't dance contras, but I shall—with you."</p> + +<p>"Well!"</p> + +<p>"Don't you want me to?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Willard, are you cross with me?"</p> + +<p>"No." They were in front of the Odd Fellows' Building now. The door was +open. The pair behind them crowded past and clattered hurriedly up the +bare, polished stairs. The orchestra could be heard tuning industriously +above. They were almost late, but Willard drew her into a corner of the +entrance hall, and pressed her hand ardently.</p> + +<p>"Judy, I couldn't be cross with you."</p> + +<p>"Don't be too sure!" Judith laughed, and ran upstairs ahead of him.</p> + +<p>"There's the ladies' dressing-room. I'll get the dance orders and meet +you outside."</p> + +<p>There was a whispering, giggling crowd in the dressing-room, mostly +seniors, girls she did not know, but they seemed to know her, and she +was conscious of curious looks at her hair and dress. It was the +simplest dress in the room, and her mother would not have approved of +the other dresses, but Judith did. There was something festive about the +bright colours, too bright most of them: sharp pinks, and cold, hard +blues. There was a yellow dress on a brunette, who was cheapened by the +crude colour, and a scarlet dress too bright for any one to wear +successfully on a big, pretty blond girl, who almost could. Judith +smelled three distinct kinds of cheap talcum powder, and preferred them +all to her own un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>scented French variety. She had a moment of sudden +loneliness. Was she so glad to be here, after all?</p> + +<p>It was only a moment. The tuning of instruments outside broke off, and +the first bars of a waltz droned invitingly out: "If you really love +me," the song that had been in her ears all the evening, a flimsy ballad +of the year, hauntingly sweet, as only such short-lived songs can be. +Moving to the tune of it, Judith crowded with the other girls out of the +dressing-room.</p> + +<p>The hall was transformed. It was not the room she had dreamed of, a +great room, dimly lit, peopled with low-talking dancers, circling +through the dimness. The place looked smaller decorated, and the +decorations themselves seemed to have shrunk since she saw them. The +lanterns had been hung only where nails were already driven, and under +the supervision of the janitor, who would not permit them to be lighted. +The cheesecloth was conspicuous nowhere except around the little stage, +which it draped in tight, mathematically measured festoons. Beneath, +under the misleading legend, "G. H. S.," painted in yellow on a +suspended football, Dugan's orchestra performed its duties faithfully, +with handkerchiefs guarding wilted collars.</p> + +<p>The goldenrod, tortured and wired into a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> screen to hide the footlights, +was drooping away already and showing the supporting wires. The benches +were stacked against the wall, all but an ill-omened row designed for +wall-flowers, and the floor was cleared and waxed. But little patches of +wax that were not rubbed in lurked for unwary feet, and there were +clouds of dust in the air. In one corner of the hall most of the +prominent guests of the evening were attempting to obtain dance orders +at once, or to push their way back with them to the young ladies they +were escorting.</p> + +<p>These ladies, and other ladies without escorts, were crowding each other +against the stacked benches and maneuvering for positions where their +dance orders would fill promptly. The atmosphere was one of strife and +stress. But Judith found no fault with it. She was not aware of it.</p> + +<p>In a corner near the stage, by the closed door of the refreshment-room, +a boy was standing alone. He was tearing up his dance order. It was +empty, and he was making no further attempts to fill it. He tore it +quite unostentatiously so that no young lady disposed to be amused by +his defeat could see anything worth staring at in his performance, and +he was forgotten in his corner. But Judith stared.</p> + +<p>She had remembered him tall, but he was only a little taller than +herself. His black suit was shiny,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> and a size too small for him, but it +was carefully brushed, and he wore it with an air. His hair was darker +than she remembered, a pale, soft brown. It was too long, and it curled +at the temples. He stood squarely, facing the room, as if he did not +care what anybody did to him, but there was a look about his mouth as if +he cared. He raised his eyes. They were darker than she remembered, +darker and stranger than any eyes in the world. They looked hurt, but +there was a laugh in them, too, and across the hall they were looking +straight at Judith.</p> + +<p>"Here you are. I've got myself down for all your contras. Just in time."</p> + +<p>Willard, mopping his brow, slipping on a patch of wax, and saving +himself with a skating motion, brought up triumphantly beside her, +waving two dance orders. Judith pushed them away, and said +something—she hardly knew what.</p> + +<p>"What, Judy? What's that? You're engaged for this? You can't dance it +with me?"</p> + +<p>"No. No, I can't."</p> + +<p>Judith slipped past him, and started across the floor. The music was +louder now, as if you were really meant to dance, and dance with the +person you wanted to most. The floor was filling now with dancers +stepping forward awkwardly, but turning into different creatures when +they danced,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> caught by the light, sure swing of the music, whirling and +gliding. The words sang themselves to Judith, the silly, beautiful +words:</p> + +<table summary="SONG"> +<tr><td> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Please don't keep me waiting.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Won't you let me know</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That you really love me?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Tell—me—so.</span><br /> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>A girl in red was dancing in a quick, darting sort of way, in and out, +among the others, and her dress was beautiful, too, like a flower. The +boy in the corner was watching it. He did not see Judith come.</p> + +<p>"I thought you couldn't be real. When I never saw you again I thought I +had dreamed you."</p> + +<p>Judith said it softly and breathlessly, and he did not hear. She put her +hand on his arm, and he turned and looked at her.</p> + +<p>"Don't you remember me?" Judith was too happy to be hurt even by this. +The light, sweet music called to her. "Don't you remember? Never mind! +Come and dance with me."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_FOUR" id="CHAPTER_FOUR"></a>CHAPTER FOUR</h2> + +<p>Willard stood still and stared after Judith for one bewildered minute; +that was as long as he could stand still. Odd Fellows' Hall had ceased +to afford standing-room.</p> + +<p>The floor was filling and more than filling with determined young +persons who were there to dance, and looked as if they had never had any +aim but to dance. The enthralled silence, which was more general than +conversation, advertised it. Even acknowledged belles, like the girl in +red, coquetted incidentally, with significant but brief confidences and +briefer upward glances. There was an alarming concentration, intent as +youth itself, to be read in their unsmiling faces and eager eyes.</p> + +<p>They danced quite wonderfully, most of them, as only country-bred young +people can, with free-limbed young bodies, more used to adventuring in +the open air than to dancing, but attuned to the rhythm of the dance by +right of their youth. The old-fashioned waltz, that our grandmothers +lost their hearts to the time of, still prevailed in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> Green River; not +the jerkier performance that was already opening the way for the +one-step and the dance craze in larger centres, but the old waltz, with +the first beat of each measure heavily emphasized—a slow swinging, +beautiful dance, and they danced it with all their hearts.</p> + +<p>In and out among them, two slender, quick-turning figures were making an +intricate way. The girl danced delicately and surely, a faint, half +smile parting her lips, her small, smooth head erect, the silvery gold +hair that crowned it shimmering and pale in the uncompromising light of +the newly installed electric chandeliers, her eyes intent on the boy.</p> + +<p>His performance was not expert, but it had a charm all its own. He put a +great deal of strength into it, and made it evident that he possessed +still more; strength enough to master the art of dancing once and for +all, by the sheer force of it, if he cared to exert it, and a laughing +light in his eyes, as if dancing was not important enough for that, and +nothing else was.</p> + +<p>An ambitious pair, experimenting with the dip waltz, just introduced +that year, and pausing on the most awkward spots in the crowded floor, +blocked his path, and he swung heavily out of their way just in time, +squaring his chin and holding his head a shade higher. The girl in red<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +was whirled toward him in double-quick time, and he dodged, +miscalculated his distance, but met the shock of her squarely, whisking +Judith out of her way.</p> + +<p>"Good try, Murph," her partner called.</p> + +<p>Willard regarded the encounter disapprovingly from the door of the +gentlemen's dressing-room, to which he had edged his way. His was not an +expressive countenance, and that was a protection to him just now. He +was bewildered and deeply hurt, but he merely looked fat and slightly +puzzled, as usual.</p> + +<p>"Judy turn you down?" inquired his friend Mr. Ward, also watching from +the dressing-room door, with the few other gentlemen who were without +partners for this dance. It was the most important dance of the evening, +for you danced it with the lady of your choice, or with nobody. It +cemented new intimacies or foreshadowed the breaking of old; settled +anew the continually agitated question of "who was going with who."</p> + +<p>"Judy turn you down?" said Mr. Ward, but he meant it as a pleasantry. +Mr. Willard Nash was not often turned down, even at this early age. He +was too eligible.</p> + +<p>"Rena turn you down, Ed?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." Mr. Ward became suddenly confidential, and lowered his voice. +"Mad. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> wanted me to get her a shinguard to mount tintypes +on—tintypes of the team."</p> + +<p>"Buy it or steal it?" inquired Willard sarcastically.</p> + +<p>"I offered to buy it," his friend confessed, "buy her a new pair, but +she wants one that's been used."</p> + +<p>"You spoil Rena. You can't spoil a girl." They laughed wisely. "It don't +pay."</p> + +<p>"Mad with Judy?"</p> + +<p>"Well—no," said Willard magnanimously. He thought quite rapidly, as his +brain, not overworked at other times, could do in emergencies. "My feet +hurt. Pumps slip at the heel. I've been stuffing them out. Judy came +with me, but I had to be excused for this dance."</p> + +<p>"Good thing for him."</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"For Murph—for Neil Donovan. They'll all dance with him if she does; +though Judy don't know that. She's not stuck on herself, and never will +be. I didn't know she knew Murph."</p> + +<p>"Well, you know it now," said Willard shortly, his man-of-the-world +composure failing him. Judith was circling nearer now, slender and +desirable. He hesitated between an angry glare and a forgiving smile, +but she did not look to see which he chose. She whirled quickly by.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Smooth little dancer, and she's no snob. Judy's all right," said Ed. +"Watch Murph! He's catching on—never danced till last night. Some of +the fellows taught him. He never danced with a girl before."</p> + +<p>"If my feet hurt," remarked Mr. Nash irrelevantly, and without the close +attention from his friend which this important announcement called for, +"I may not dance at all to-night."</p> + +<p>Willard stopped abruptly. "What do you know about that"; a voice was +saying, in the rear of the dressing-room; he stiffly refrained from +turning to see whose, "Judith is dancing the first dance with Neil +Donovan!"</p> + +<p>Judith was dancing the first dance with Neil Donovan. It was social +history already, accepted as such, and not further discussed, even by +Willard. But many epoch-making events are not even so much discussed, +they look so simple on the face of them. We cross a room, and change the +course of our lives by crossing it, and few people even observe that we +have crossed the room.</p> + +<p>If Judith had affected the course of her life materially by crossing the +room to the strange boy, she did not seem to be thinking of it just now. +She was not thinking at all. She was only dancing, following her +partner's erratic course quite faithfully, and quite intent on doing so; +feeling every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> beat of the music, and showing it, pink-cheeked and +sparkling eyed, and pleasantly excited, but nothing more.</p> + +<p>The wistful and dreamy look was gone from her eyes, and her half-formed +desire for something to happen this evening, something that had never +happened before, was gone from her, too. She felt content with whatever +was going to happen, and deeply interested in it, and particularly +interested in dancing.</p> + +<p>They had danced almost in silence, rather a grim silence at first, but +now that the boy could let the music carry him with it, and was +beginning to trust it, too, the silence was comfortable. But the few +words he managed to say were worth listening to and answering, not to be +dreamed through and ignored, like Willard's. His voice was not as she +remembered it, and that was interesting, too, deeply significant, though +she could not have said why. Everything seemed unaccountably interesting +to-night.</p> + +<p>"I thought it was louder," she said, "or higher—or something."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Your voice."</p> + +<p>It was quite husky and low, and he pronounced a word here and there with +a brogue like Norah's, only pleasanter, with a kind of singing sound. +It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> was never the word you expected. You had to watch for it. She could +hear it now.</p> + +<p>"Won't you please tell me who you are?"</p> + +<p>"I know who you are, and I know where you live."</p> + +<p>"Where do I?"</p> + +<p>"At the Falls, and I know when you moved there—five years ago, or six."</p> + +<p>"Six. How do you know?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know."</p> + +<p>As you grew older, and learned to call more boys and girls in the school +by name, and more of the clerks in the shops, you discovered new people +in the town where you thought you knew everybody, and it made the town +infinitely large. But this boy had not been so near her, or she would +have seen him. He could not have been in school with her. He must have +worked on a farm and studied by himself with the grammar-school teacher +at the Falls, and taken special examinations to enter the Junior class +this year, as Willard said that some boy at the Falls was doing. He must +be that boy or Judith would surely have seen him.</p> + +<p>She nodded her head wisely. "I know."</p> + +<p>"You know a lot." In his soft brogue this sounded like the most +complimentary thing that could be said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But you don't remember me." This had troubled her at first. Now it +seemed like the most delicious of jokes, and they laughed at it +together.</p> + +<p>"That was the first thing you said to me."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it queer"—Judith's eyes widened and darkened as if it were +something more than queer, something far worse—"so queer! I can't think +what the first thing was that you said to me."</p> + +<p>They confronted this problem in silence, staring at each other with +wide-open eyes. Though they were circling smoothly at last, carried on +by the slow, sweet music, so that they hardly seemed to be moving at +all, and though he did not really move his head, the boy's eyes seemed +to Judith to be coming nearer to hers, nearer all the time. They were +beautiful eyes, deep brown, and very clear. His brown hair grew in a +squarish line across his forehead, and waved softly at the temples. It +looked as if he had brushed it hard there to brush the curl out, but it +was curliest there.</p> + +<p>"You've got the brownest eyes," said Judith.</p> + +<p>"You've got the biggest eyes. Won't you tell me your name?"</p> + +<p>Judith did not answer. She looked away from the disconcerting brown eyes +and down at her hand, against his shoulder, her own little hand, with +the careful manicure and the dull polish that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> was all her mother +permitted; bare of rings, though Norah had given her a beautiful garnet +ring for Christmas. How shiny his coat-sleeve was, and her hand looked +unfamiliar to her—not like her own at all. She pressed tighter against +his shoulder to steady herself.</p> + +<p>The music was growing quicker and louder, working up gradually but +surely into a breathless crescendo that meant the end of the dance. It +whirled them dizzily about. The sleepy spell of the dance broke in this +final crash of noise, and as it broke a sudden panic caught Judith.</p> + +<p>What had she been saying to this boy? She had never talked like this to +a boy before. And why was she dancing with him? She ought to be dancing +with Willard—Willard, waiting there in the dressing-room door with her +dance order in his hand, with the patient and puzzled look in his eyes, +with brick-red colour in his cheeks from the affront she had subjected +him to. What would Willard think of her? What would her mother think? +And who was this boy? Just what the children had called him in taunting +screams, on that long-ago May night, and she would have liked to scream +it now—a paddy.</p> + +<p>Instead, she lifted her head, no longer afraid of the boy's brown eyes, +and said it, as cruelly as she could, in her soft and clear little +voice:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Paddy," she said; "a paddy from Paddy Lane."</p> + +<p>She looked defiantly into his eyes, but they did not grow angry. They +only grew very soft and kind, and they laughed at her. She wanted to +look away from the laughter in them, but she could not look away from +the kindness. Now she was not angry with him any more, but glad she was +dancing with him. She knew she never wanted to stop dancing.</p> + +<p>"Paddy?" He thought she had said it to remind him of that May night; he +was remembering it now. "Are you that little girl?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"The little girl who broke the lantern?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Judith proudly.</p> + +<p>"And had such long black legs, and went scuttling across the lawn, and +screaming out to me—that funny little girl?"</p> + +<p>"But I did break the lantern," said Judith.</p> + +<p>All the bravest stories that she had made up in the dark to put herself +to sleep with at night, all the perilous adventures of land and sea, +camp fire or pirate ship, began with the breaking of that lantern, and +the boy she rescued had been her companion upon them, her brushwood boy, +her own boy. She had found him at last, and he was laughing—laughing at +her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sure you did. As if I couldn't have broken away from a bunch of +fool kids, without being doped with the smell of kerosene, and yelled at +by another fool kid. Sure you broke the lantern. How mad I was."</p> + +<p>"You didn't remember." It was not a joke any longer now, but a tragedy, +and Judith felt overwhelmed by it, alone in the world. "You forgot, and +I—remembered."</p> + +<p>The brown eyes and the gray met in one last long look and when the brown +eyes saw the hurt in Judith's, the laughter died out of them. Again they +seemed to be growing nearer and nearer to hers, but this time Judith was +not afraid, she was glad.</p> + +<p>"If you didn't save my life then, you did to-night." It came in a husky +burst of confidence, straight from his shy boy's heart, very rare and +very precious. Judith caught her breath.</p> + +<p>"Oh, did I? Did I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. This crowd here had me mad—crazy mad. I was going home. I was +going to get off the team. I wasn't going to school next week, and I've +worked my hands off to get there. Maybe you remembered and I forgot, +but—I won't forget again. You were that little girl." It was not a +slight to the little girl she used to be, but a tribute to the girl she +was; that was what looked out of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> brown eyes at Judith, and sang +through the brogue in his voice.</p> + +<p>"You were that little girl—you!"</p> + +<p>"Yes," breathed Judith; "yes!"</p> + +<p>They whirled faster and faster. This was really the end of the dance, +and this dance could never come again. Judith held tight to his shiny +shoulder, breathless, hurrying to part with her secret and strip herself +bare of mystery generously in a breath. All sorts of barriers might come +between them, she might put them there herself, and she was quite aware +of it, but not yet, not until the music stopped.</p> + +<p>"My name's Judith—Judith Randall. Call me Judy."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_FIVE" id="CHAPTER_FIVE"></a>CHAPTER FIVE</h2> + +<p>Colonel Everard sat at the head of his dinner table. A little dinner for +twelve was well under way at the Birches. Mrs. Everard was confined to +her tower suite to-night with one of the sudden headaches which unkind +critics held were likely to come when the Colonel entertained. Randolph +Sebastian, his secretary, had superintended the arrangements for the +dinner.</p> + +<p>Pink roses, rather too many of them, were massed on the big, round +table. Rather too much polished silver was to be seen on it; the most +ornate candlesticks in the Everard collection, and a too complete array +of small, scattered objects, each with a possible but not an essential +function, littering a cloth already complicated by elaborate inserts of +lace. But the brilliantly lighted, over-decorated table was effective +enough in the big, darkly wainscoted room, a little island of light and +colour.</p> + +<p>The room was characterless, but finely and generously proportioned, and +not so blatantly new as the rest of the colonel's house still looked. +Against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> the dark walls the pale-coloured gowns around the table were +charming. Indeed, most of the gowns were designed for this setting.</p> + +<p>For there were no outsiders among the Colonel's guests to-night. +Sometimes there were distinguished outsiders, politicians and other big +men, diverted from triumphant tours through larger centres by the +Colonel's influence, and by his courtesy exhibited to Green River after +they had dined, or bigger men still, whose comings and goings the public +press was not permitted to chronicle. Sometimes, too, there were +outsiders on probation, the outer fringe of Green River society, +admitted to formal functions, and hoping in vain to penetrate to +intimate ones; ladies flustered and flattered, gentlemen sulky but +flattered, conscious that each appearance here might be their last, and +trying to seem indifferent to the fact.</p> + +<p>But this was the Colonel's inner circle, gathered by telephone at +twenty-four hours' notice, as they so often were. No course that the +chef had contributed to the rather too elaborate menu was new to them. +The Pol Roger which the big English butler was just starting on his +second round was of the vintage year usually to be found on the +Colonel's wine list, and on most intelligently supervised wine lists. A +dinner for twelve, like plenty of little dinners elsewhere, no more +correct<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> and no less, but it had this to distinguish it; it was being +served in Green River.</p> + +<p>Served complete from hors-d'œuvres to liqueurs, in a New England town +where high tea had been the fashion not ten years ago, and church +suppers were still important occasions—where you were rich on five +thousand a year, and there were not a dozen capitalists secure of so +much, where a second maid was an object of pride, and there was no +butler except the Colonel's. And he had imported this butler and his +chef and his wines, but not his guests; they were quite as impressive, +quite able to appreciate his hospitality, if not to return it in kind, +and they were all but one native products of Green River.</p> + +<p>The youngest guest was eating mushrooms <i>sous cloche</i> in contented +silence at the Colonel's left. The scene was not new to her. She could +not remember her first party here; she was probably the only person in +Green River who could pass over that momentous occasion so lightly. She +had grown up as the only child in the inner circle. She had been +privileged to excuse herself, when the formal succession of courses at +some holiday function was too much for her, and read fairy tales on a +cushion by the library fire, out of the fat, purple edition de luxe of +the "Arabian Nights" that was always waiting for her there.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> Though her +white ruffled skirts had grown long now, and her silvery gold braids +were pinned up, and she was allowed to fill an empty place at the +Colonel's table whenever he asked her, if not quite on his regular +dinner list yet, Judith was not much changed from that wide-eyed child, +and to-night her eyes looked sleepy and soft, as if she had serious +thoughts of the cushion by the fire and the fairy book still.</p> + +<p>The scene was not new, but it kept a fascination for her, like a +transformation scene in a pantomime. Mr. J. Cleveland Kent, the manager +of the shoe factory, who had taken her in to dinner, had been leaning +out of a factory window in his shirt-sleeves, his black hair tumbled, +and badly in need of a shave, when she passed on her way home from +school. He looked mysterious and interesting in a dinner coat, like her +idea of an Italian nobleman.</p> + +<p>When Judith knocked at the kitchen door to deliver a note, Mrs. Theodore +Burr, in a pink cooking apron, corsetless, and with her beautiful yellow +hair in patent curlers, had been blackening the kitchen stove, and +quarrelling with the furnace man about an overcharge of fifty cents on +his monthly bill. The Burrs had no maid. Theodore Burr had been +assisting Judge Saxon ever since he passed his bar examinations, but he +was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> admitted to partnership yet. This was beginning to make gossip, +for he worked hard. He had broken his dinner engagement to-night, as he +often did, to stay at home and work. Randolph Sebastian, the secretary, +with the queer, hybrid foreign name, and thin face and ingratiating +brown eyes, had his place at the table.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burr, stately and slender now in jetted black, the lowest cut gown +in the room, her yellow hair fluffing and flaring into an unbelievable +number of well-filled-out puffs, was chattering to the Colonel in a low +voice, so that Judith could not understand, and breaking into French at +intervals—Green River High School French, but she spoke it with an air, +narrowing her blue-gray eyes after an alluring fashion she had and +laughing her full-toned laugh. She was a full-blown, emphatic creature, +though she had been married only three years, and was Lil Gaynor still +to half the town.</p> + +<p>Auburn-haired little Mrs. Kent had been lying down all the afternoon, as +her disapproving domestic had informed any one who inquired at the door +in a shrill voice that did not promote repose. She was very piquant and +enticing now, with her bright, slanting hazel eyes, and a contagious +laugh, but her dinner partner, Judith's father, was tired and hard to +amuse. He looked very boy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>ish when he was tired; his blue eyes looked +large and pathetic.</p> + +<p>The other two young women and Judith's mother, whose dark, low-browed +Madonna beauty was gracious and fresh to-night, set off by her +clear-blue gown, with a gardenia caught in her sheer, white scarf, +deserved the Honourable Joseph Grant's flowery name for them, the Three +Graces.</p> + +<p>Before the Colonel's time and Judith's the Honourable Joe had been the +most important man in Green River, and in evening things, and after a +properly concocted cocktail he still looked it, florid and portly and +well set-up, with a big voice that could still sound hearty though it +rang rather empty and hollow sometimes. He looked ten years younger than +his old friend, Judge Saxon. The Judge's coat was getting shiny at the +seams, and—this appeared even more unfortunate to Judith—he was in the +habit of pointing out that it was shiny, and without embarrassment. Mrs. +Saxon's pearl-gray satin was of excellent quality, but of last year's +cut, and the modest neck was filled in with the net guimpe which she +affected at informal dinners. The Saxons were not quite in the picture, +but they were always very kind to Judith.</p> + +<p>And if they were not in the picture, Mrs. Joseph<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> Grant, certainly not +the youngest woman in the room, though she was not the oldest, occupied +the centre of it.</p> + +<p>She was like the picture of the beautiful princess on the hill of glass, +in a book of Judith's, and besides, she had once been a real débutante, +of the kind that Judith liked to read about in novels, before the +Honourable Joe brought her from Boston to Green River. Judith liked to +look at her better than any one here except Colonel Everard.</p> + +<p>"Cosmopolitan—ten years ahead of Wells, or any town in your state; real +give and take in the table talk; really pretty women; the same little +group of people rubbing wits against each other day after day and +getting them sharpened instead of dulled by it; a concentrated, pocket +edition of a social life, but complete—nothing provincial about it," a +very distinguished outsider had said after his last week-end with the +Colonel.</p> + +<p>But he was fresh from a visit to the state capital, the most provincial +city in the state when the legislature was not in session; also he had a +known weakness for pretty women. Green River did not admire the +Colonel's circle so unreservedly, but Green River was jealous. Whatever +you thought of it, it was made of fixed and unpromising material, and +making it was no mean achieve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>ment, and the man at the head of the table +looked capable of it, and of bigger things.</p> + +<p>The Colonel was a big man and a public character, and as with many +bigger men, you could divide the facts of his life into two classes: +what everybody knew and what nobody knew. If the known facts were not +the most dramatic ones, they were dramatic enough. He was sixty now. At +fifteen he had been a student in a small theological seminary, working +for his board on his uncle's farm, and engaged to the teacher of the +district school, who helped him with his Greek at night. He gave up the +ministry for the law, used his law practice as a stepping-stone into +state politics, climbed gradually into national politics, built up a +fortune somehow—these were the days of big graft—married for money and +got an assured position in Washington society thrown in, and soon after +his marriage chose Green River as a basis of operations, spending a +winter month in Washington which later lengthened to three, ostensibly +for the sake of his wife's health. The title of Colonel came from +serving on the Governor's staff in an uneventful year. He had held no +very important office, but his importance to his party in state and +national politics was not to be measured by that.</p> + +<p>White haired, slightly built, managing with per<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>fectly apparent tricks +of carriage and dress to look taller than he was, he was the effective +figure in this rather unusually good-looking group of people. Just now +he was lighting a fresh cigarette for Mrs. Burr so gracefully that even +Judge Saxon must enjoy watching, so Judith thought, though there was a +tradition that he did not like women to smoke. Shocking the Judge was +one of their favourite games here. It was only a game. Of course they +could never shock anybody. They were quite harmless people, too grown up +to be very interesting, but almost always kind, and always gay.</p> + +<p>The Colonel's profile was really beautiful through the curling, bluish +smoke, and Judith liked his quick, flashing smile. He turned now and +smiled at Judith. Her own smile was charming, a faint, half smile, that +never knew whether to turn into a real smile or to go away and not come +again, but was always just on the point of deciding.</p> + +<p>"Is our débutante bored?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; I was just thinking. No."</p> + +<p>"She's blushing. Look at her."</p> + +<p>"Yes, look at a real one. Do you good, Lil," agreed the Judge, and Mrs. +Burr rubbed a pink cheek with her table napkin, exhibited it daintily, +and laughed.</p> + +<p>"Rose-white youth! But she doth protest too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> much." The Honourable Joe +was fond of quotations, and often tried to make his remarks sound like +them, when he could not recall appropriate ones, raising a solemn fat +finger to emphasize them: "The thoughts of youth are long, long +thoughts."</p> + +<p>"Wrong, wrong thoughts," supplied Randolph Sebastian, so gravely that +the Honourable Joe accepted the amendment, and looked worried, as only +the thought of losing his grip on Bartlett's "Familiar Quotations" could +worry him at the end of a perfect meal.</p> + +<p>"Wrong thought?" he repeated, in a puzzled voice.</p> + +<p>"Thinking's barred here. What's the penalty, Judge?"</p> + +<p>"You aren't likely to get it inflicted on you, so I won't tell you, +Lil."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't think; I act," Mrs. Burr admitted cheerfully. She always +became a shade more cheerful just when you expected her to lose her +temper.</p> + +<p>"How true that is," observed Mr. Sebastian gently.</p> + +<p>"Ranny!"</p> + +<p>"Didn't you play auction with me last night? We're out just——"</p> + +<p>"Don't tell me. I can't think in anything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> beyond three figures. Ted's +doing higher mathematics over it. That's why he's home, really. I'll +play with you again to-night, for your sins."</p> + +<p>"For my sins!" He made melancholy eyes, as if he were really confessing +them. Mr. Sebastian always pretended a deep devotion to Mrs. Burr. +Judith thought it was one of the silliest of their games.</p> + +<p>"But what was Judy thinking about?" demanded Mrs. Grant, in the sweet, +indifferent voice that always made itself heard.</p> + +<p>"She met a fairy prince at the ball last night. They are still to be +met—at balls."</p> + +<p>"You'd meet one anywhere he made a date, wouldn't you, Edith Kent?" said +the Judge rudely. "Give Miss Judy a penny for her thoughts, if you want +them, Everard. You've got to pay sometimes, you know—even you."</p> + +<p>"Don't commercialize her too young," said Mr. Sebastian smoothly. +"Though, on the whole—can you commercialize them too young?"</p> + +<p>"Judith, what were you thinking about?" the Colonel interrupted, rather +quickly, turning every one's eyes upon her at once, as he could with a +word.</p> + +<p>Judith met them confidently—amused, curious eyes, but all friendly and +gay. They talked a great deal of nonsense here, but it did not irritate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +her, as it did her friend Judge Saxon, though she was not always amused, +and could not always understand. They never tried to shock her. She was +sorry for the Judge. He was not at home with these gay and good-natured +people, and it was so easy to be.</p> + +<p>She tipped her head backward in deliberate imitation of Edith Kent, whom +she admired, half closed her eyes, like Lillian Burr, whom she admired +still more, gazed up at the Colonel, and said, in her clear little +voice:</p> + +<p>"I was thinking about you."</p> + +<p>"That's the answer," said Mr. Kent, and rewarded it with a lump of sugar +dipped in his apricot brandy.</p> + +<p>"For an ingénue?" said Mrs. Burr, very sweetly indeed.</p> + +<p>"'She's getting older every day,'" hummed Mrs. Kent, in her charming, +throaty contralto.</p> + +<p>But Judge Saxon pushed back his chair and rose abruptly.</p> + +<p>"I've had dinner enough," he said, "and so have you, Miss Judy."</p> + +<p>"We all have, Hugh," said the Colonel quickly, and rose, too, and +slipped an intimate hand through his arm. "Run along, children! Hugh, +about that Brady matter——"</p> + +<p>Judge Saxon submitted sulkily, but was laugh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>ing companionably with the +Colonel by the time they all reached the library.</p> + +<p>Judith never admired the Colonel more than when he was managing Judge +Saxon in a sulky mood. And she never admired the Colonel and his friends +more than she did in the lazy intimate hour here before the cards began.</p> + +<p>The room was long and high, and too narrow; unfriendly, as only a room +that is both badly proportioned and unusually large can be, but you +forgot this in the softening glow of candles and rose-shaded lights. You +forgot, too, that you were an exile from your own generation, among +elders who bored you, though you were subtly flattered to be among them. +Safe on a high window-bench in the most remote window, entirely your +own, since the architect had not designed it to be sat on, and nobody +else took the trouble to climb up, it was so much pleasanter to watch +these people than to talk to them; they had such pretty clothes, and +wore them so well, and made such effective, changing pictures of +themselves in the big room.</p> + +<p>Sometimes they amused themselves with the parlour tricks that they had +so many of, and sometimes they drifted in and out in groups of two and +three, to more intimate parts of the house: the smoking-room, or Mrs. +Everard's suite, if she was well, or out through the French windows,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> +across the broad, glassed-in veranda that ran the length of the room and +darkened it unpleasantly by day, into the Colonel's rose garden. It was +warm enough for that to-night, and a yellow, September moon showed +invitingly through the windows. Mrs. Grant, who liked to be alone, as +Judith could quite understand, since she had to listen to the Honourable +Joe's big voice so much of the time, was slipping out through a window +now, taking the coat that Mr. Sebastian brought her, but refusing to let +him go with her.</p> + +<p>He went to the piano, ran his thin, flexible brown fingers over the +keys, struck into a Spanish serenade, and sang a verse of it in his +brilliant but tricky tenor, with his languishing eyes upon Mrs. Burr.</p> + +<p>"Ranny, do you want to tell the whole world of our love? You terrify +me," she said, and took refuge on one arm of the Colonel's chair. +Judith's mother, protesting that she needed a chaperon, promptly took +possession of the other arm, disposing her blue, trailing skirts +demurely, and looking more Madonna-like than ever through the cloudy +smoke of a belated cigarette. The others made themselves equally +comfortable, all but Judge Saxon, who had ceased to advertise the fact +that he was not.</p> + +<p>"Smile at me," Mrs. Kent begged, hovering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> over his chair; "I'm going to +sing by and by, and I need it. Do smile! If you don't, I'm going to kiss +you, Judge."</p> + +<p>"Go as far as you like, but be sure how far you like to go, Edith," said +the Judge quietly. She flushed, and turned away abruptly, playing with a +pile of songs.</p> + +<p>"I'm looking for a lullaby. Our youngest seems to need it."</p> + +<p>"Not in your line, are they?" said Sebastian, and began to improvise +one, while Judith, in her corner, closed her eyes contentedly. Whether +there was any truth or not in the report that he had been playing a +ramshackle piano in an East Side restaurant in New York when the Colonel +picked him up, Sebastian could do charming things with quite simple +little tunes, if you did not inquire into problems of harmony and +counterpoint too closely. He was doing them now, weaving odds and ends +of familiar tunes, rather scapegrace and thin, into a lovely, reassuring +whole, that made you feel rested and safe. Judith, making herself +comfortable against a stiff and unwieldy Arts and Crafts sort of +cushion, as long experience had taught her to, listened, smiling.</p> + +<p>She had no idea what a unique position she was occupying there. Judge +Saxon grumbled and scolded, but he was part of the group in the room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +He had grown into it, and belonged to them, as he might have belonged to +an uncongenial family. The Colonel's distinguished guests saw them only +on their best behaviour. Their local critics never penetrated here at +all. Judith was the only outsider who did, and she had besides the +irrevocable right of youth to pronounce judgment upon those who have +prepared the world for it to occupy. She was their only licensed critic. +What did she think of them? Her blond head drooped sleepily. She did not +look disposed to say.</p> + +<p>Sebastian played on, drifting into something sophisticated, with a +suggestion of waltz rhythms running through it. There was a stir of +movement in the room, and the sound of windows opening and shutting, +once, and then again. Judith did not turn her head to see who had gone +out. She was too comfortable. It was strange that he could make you so +comfortable with his music, when he made you so uncomfortable if you +talked to him, watching you so closely with his queer, bright eyes.</p> + +<p>He stopped abruptly, with a big, crashing discord, and Judith rubbed her +eyes and sat up. Mrs. Kent was going to sing now. She tossed some music +to him.</p> + +<p>"That's over your head," she said; "over all your heads; better put me +up there, too, Cleve.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> Besides, I want to dance. That table will do." +She cleared it unceremoniously, with her husband's help, and established +herself there, poised motionless, through the introductory bars of the +song, her sleepy eyes wide awake now, and a red rose from a bowl on the +table caught between her teeth.</p> + +<p>Quietly, always careful to avoid the reputation of being shocked, like +the Judge, Judith slipped down from her perch, and across the room, and +out through the window.</p> + +<table summary="SONG"> +<tr><td> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Please keep my folks from kickin';</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Grab me while I'm a chicken,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I'm getting older every day."</span><br /> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Mrs. Kent's fresh voice was urging, as Judith tiptoed across the +veranda.</p> + +<p>The rowdy words of her little songs and the demure plaintiveness of Mrs. +Kent's voice made an effective contrast. It amused Judith as much as any +one, and she liked to laugh, but she liked better to cry, and if you +could not hear the words, Mrs. Kent's voice made you cry; big, luxurious +tears, that stood in your eyes and did not fall. As she found her way +across the lawn, among the elaborate flower-beds, the voice followed +her, mellow and sweet. It had never sounded so sweet before. Everything +sweet in the world was sweeter to-night.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<p>At the edge of the lawn Judith paused. Ahead of her three marble steps, +flanked by urns filled with ivy, glaring things in the daytime but +glimmering shadowy white and alluring now, led up the terrace to the +rose garden; a fairy place, far from the world, so hedged in and +shadowed by trees that it was dark even by moonlight, entered through an +old-fashioned trellised arbour, that was so mysterious and dark, she +liked it almost as well now when the rambler roses were not in flower.</p> + +<p>When she left the room her mother had been sitting in Colonel Everard's +chair, she seemed to remember, and the Colonel and Mrs. Burr were +nowhere to be seen. The whole room looked emptier, though she did not +know who else was missing. But there were two people now in the rose +arbour. She could just hear their voices, low, with long silences +between.</p> + +<p>She wanted the place to herself. She stood still, hoping that they would +go. There was a path into the woods on the other side of the little +garden: the Colonel's bare, semicultivated woods, combed clean of +underbrush, but you did not miss it at night. The woods were full of +adventure, but the garden was better to dream in, and Judith had a great +deal to dream about.</p> + +<p>The lighted house looked quite small and far<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> away across the wide, +moonlit lawn. They had stopped singing, and the laughter that followed +the song did not sound so clear as the music; you could just hear it. +Presently you could hear nothing, and it was quiet in the rose arbour, +too. She waited until she was sure, standing quite still at the edge of +the dark enclosure, not a ruffle of her white dress fluttering, very +slender and small against the dark of the leaves. Then she slipped into +the arbour.</p> + +<p>Through a fringe of drooping vine that half hid the picture, she could +see the garden, empty and dimly moonlit, with the marble benches faintly +white. She hurried through, pushed a trailing vine aside, then dropped +it and shrank back under the trellis.</p> + +<p>The garden was empty. But across it, just at the entrance of the wood +path, she saw a man and a woman. At first she took the two figures for +one, they were standing so closely embraced. She could not see their +faces, only the two dark figures standing there like one. They stood +still a long time. They might have been lovers in a picture, only you +could not paint pictures of darkly clothed, ungraceful, shapeless +people. Finally they moved, the man turning suddenly, slipping an arm +higher around the woman's shoulders, and putting his face down to hers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then he drew her into the wood path, and they passed down it out of +sight. Judith did not know who the woman was, but the man was Colonel +Everard. And they had kissed each other.</p> + +<p>Now they were gone. Judith drew a deep breath of relief and stepped out +into the enclosure, pacing across it with slow steps, possessing it for +her own and dismissing alien presences. There was a high-backed marble +erection between the benches, which looked like a memorial to the dear +departed, but was designed for a chair. She seated herself there +deliberately, leaning back, at ease somehow in the unfriendly depths of +it, a slender, uncompromising creature, like a young princess sitting in +judgment on her throne.</p> + +<p>They had kissed each other. She knew they did things like this, but now +she had seen it, which was different, and not very pleasant. But they +were all so old. Did it really matter whether they kissed each other or +not?</p> + +<p>"Stupid old things," said Colonel Everard's only authorized critic, "I +don't care what they do."</p> + +<p>Here in the quiet of the garden you were free to think about more +interesting things than the Everards or even fairy princes.</p> + +<p>"Stupid," repeated Judith absently, and forgot the Everards. The moon, +far away but very clear,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> shone down at her in an unwinking, +concentrated way, as if it were shining into the Colonel's garden and +nowhere else, and at nobody but Judith. She did not look disconcerted by +the attention, but stared back at it with eyes that were not sleepy now, +but very big and bright—wondering, but not afraid.</p> + +<p>On still nights like this you could just hear the church clock strike +from the garden, but you could not count all the strokes. Judith +listened for the sound. It was early, and out here, in the cool, still +air, it felt early, though the time had passed so slowly in the +Colonel's sleepy rooms. She could hear no music from the house. They +would soon begin to put out the bridge tables. There was always a chance +that they would need her to complete a table, but if they did not, the +Colonel's car was to take her home at nine.</p> + +<p>And the Colonel's youngest guest had further plans for the evening.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_SIX" id="CHAPTER_SIX"></a>CHAPTER SIX</h2> + +<p>"That will be all, Miss?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Judith, with unnecessary emphasis. "Oh, yes, indeed!"</p> + +<p>The Everards' car turned and flashed out of the drive and up the street. +Judith stood still on the steps and watched it, if a young lady with her +breath coming fast and her eyes shining bright in the dark, and her +heart beating unaccountably hard can be said to be standing still. One +light burned forlornly over the entrance of the inn. Light was Judge +Saxon's one extravagance, and plenty of it was waiting for him in the +house next door, though it would be two before any one left the +Everards' but Judith.</p> + +<p>The house before her was dark, and the dimly lighted street was +profoundly still, with the heavy and brooding stillness that comes upon +village streets after nine and is to be found nowhere else in the world. +Judith did not seem depressed by it. Somewhere on a side street solitary +footsteps echoed hollow through the silence, and she listened intently, +but they came no nearer, and presently died away. She fumbled excitedly +with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> her key, threw open the door, and groped her way across the +unlighted hall. She encountered the telephone table prematurely, +clutched it, and laughed a high-keyed, strange little laugh.</p> + +<p>"Who's there?" demanded a voice from the stairs, disconcertingly close. +The lights, switched suddenly on, flashed into Judith's eyes, and Norah +confronted her, peculiarly forbidding in a discarded cape of Judith's +and her own beflowered best hat.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's you," she said.</p> + +<p>"Who did you expect? Anybody else? Did—anybody come?"</p> + +<p>"I expected you a half hour ago."</p> + +<p>"What made you wait for me?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't you want me to?"</p> + +<p>"Nana, of course, but if your sister is sick and needs you——"</p> + +<p>Norah listened to this irreproachable sentiment suspiciously. "It's late +to go," she said.</p> + +<p>"I'll walk up with you if you're frightened."</p> + +<p>"You! Can you unhook that dress?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'm going to bed pretty soon. I'm awfully sleepy."</p> + +<p>"There's some ginger ale on the ice."</p> + +<p>"I can get it open myself. Did anybody come?"</p> + +<p>"A boy you know."</p> + +<p>"Who?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You're too anxious to know, and too anxious to get rid of me. +And you're acting nervous."</p> + +<p>"I'm not. I'm just sleepy."</p> + +<p>Norah, her grimmest self, as she always was just before relenting, began +to fumble with her hat-pins.</p> + +<p>"Let me help, if you really want to take off your hat. You'll spoil your +beautiful roses. Darling, you look like your niece, the lovely Miss +Maggie Brady, in that hat. Don't take it off. You're cross because you +know where I've been. Well, they didn't eat me. I'm all here. It was +Willard who came, and I don't care whether you tell me or not. And I +don't want to get rid of you. And I love you and you love me, and you're +not cross now."</p> + +<p>"If I love you, you've got need of it, then." Norah struggled +perfunctorily, and permitted herself to be kissed. "Alone here till all +hours of the night, and Mollie at the dance at the Falls, and your own +mother——"</p> + +<p>"But you won't worry about me? And you'll go? And you'll go now, before +it gets later, so you won't be frightened. You'll go this minute? +And—oh, Nana——"</p> + +<p>Norah, departing by the front door because the back one was secured by +an elaborate system of locks of her own invention, and operated only by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +herself, turned to give Judith a farewell glance of grim adoration.</p> + +<p>"Nana, was it Willard that came?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And not—anybody else?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Norah, winding herself tightly into the cape in a way that converted +that traditionally graceful garment into a kind of armour, disappeared +up the street. When she was out of sight, and not until then, Judith +slammed the door shut, laughing her tense, excited laugh again.</p> + +<p>Then, for a sleepy young woman, she began to display surprising +activity. First she turned off all the lights in the hall but one, in an +opalescent globe, over the front door, looked at the faintly lighted +vestibule with a calculating eye, and turned that out also. She looked +critically in at the library, close curtained for the night, and dimly +lit by the embers of the wood fire, raked apart, but not dead. She +pushed them together expertly, and added a stick, a little one, which +would soon burn down to picturesque embers, like the rest. She pulled an +armchair closer to the fire, pushed it away again, and dropped two +cushions on the hearth with a discreet space between.</p> + +<p>The remains of Willard's last half-dozen carnations and a box of the +eighty-cent-a-pound candy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> which only Mr. Edward Ward was extravagant +enough to prefer to the generally popular fifty-cent Belle Isle, were +conspicuous on the table, and Judith carried them into the next room, +out of sight. Just then the telephone rang.</p> + +<p>Judith started, dropped the candy, ran into the hall, and stood looking +down at the small instrument resentfully, as if it were personally to +blame because she could not see who was calling her without answering +and committing herself. Once she picked it up doubtfully, but finally +put it down, still ringing intermittently, and hurried into the kitchen. +She put a second bottle of ginger ale on the ice, brought a hammered +brass tray and two glasses from the butler's pantry, then substituted a +less ostentatious bamboo tray, hesitated, and then put them all away +again.</p> + +<p>Now she went to her own room, turned on an unbecoming but searchingly +clear toplight, and frowned at herself in the mirror, jerked out her +hairpins, shook out her soft hair, and brushed and pulled at it with +unsteady hands. In spite of them, the pale gold braids, rearranged, +looked almost as well as before, if no better, and the heightened colour +in her cheeks was charming. From a corner of her glove-case she produced +the two cosmetics then in favour with the younger set in Green River, +burnt matches, and a bit of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> scarlet ribbon, which made an excellent +substitute for rouge if you moistened it. The ribbon was an unhealthy +red, and looked peculiarly so to-night. Judith dropped it impulsively +into her wastebasket, but experimented with the matches.</p> + +<p>She made both her delicately shaded eyebrows an even splotchy black, +admired the result, then suddenly rubbed it off, turned away from the +mirror without a backward glance, and ran down into the hall. The clock +was just striking ten.</p> + +<p>Judith paused for one breathless minute at the library door, pressing +both hands against her heart, then she went into the firelit room and +made the last and most important of her preparations. She switched on +the lights, toplights and sidelights and reading-lamp, all of them, went +to the middle one of the three front windows, crushed the curtains back, +and raised both shades high to the top, so that the light in the room +looked out at the street from this window from sill to ceiling. Judith +slipped quickly out of range of the window, dropped down on one of the +cushions by the fire, and waited.</p> + +<p>She had fluttered through her little hurry of preparation excitedly, but +now there was evidence of deeper excitement about the tense quiet of +her, huddled on her cushion, small hands clasping silken knees, and +brooding eyes on the fire. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> was a dignity about her, too, in spite +of her childish pose and a drooping grace that was almost a woman's.</p> + +<p>What she was waiting for was slow to come, but she did not seem +disturbed by that. The hands of the clock above her seemed to move with +the unbelievable quickness characteristic of clock hands when there is +no other activity in the room, and she observed them calmly. Soon they +pointed to the quarter hour, they passed it. She looked faintly worried +then. The telephone rang again; she pressed her hands over her ears and +shut her eyes tight, and did not answer. The stick on the fire burned +low and she did not replace it. It parted and fell from the andirons +with a dull noise that echoed loudly through the empty room. Judith +started and jumped up, her eyes hard and bright, her hands tightly +clenched.</p> + +<p>She eyed the clock threateningly, as if it were personally responsible +for whatever disappointment she might be feeling, and she were daring it +not to strike. It struck half-past ten in spite of her. Judith's mouth +trembled childishly, and tears started to her eyes. They did not fall. +Footsteps sounded outside. They turned into the drive. Judith stood on +tiptoe and peeped at herself in the mantel mirror—her flushed cheeks, +tumbled hair, and sparkling eyes. The steps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> crossed the porch, and she +ran to the door and threw it open—the length of the chain, and no +wider. She did not unbar the chain. On the threshold, with a substantial +box of Belle Isle under his arm, stood Mr. Willard Nash.</p> + +<p>Judith regarded Mr. Nash and his Belle Isle with disfavour.</p> + +<p>"You can't come in," she said.</p> + +<p>Mr. Nash, who had been stooping to flick some dust from his boots, +straightened guiltily. "Why?"</p> + +<p>"It's too late."</p> + +<p>"I've got to see you."</p> + +<p>"You do see me." A white dress, a face almost as white, and big, dark +eyes were all he could see, but it seemed to be enough. He inserted a +square-toed boot cautiously in the opening of the door.</p> + +<p>"I want to see you <i>about</i> something."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"A new comic song for the quartette. They won't let us do 'Amos Moss' at +the Lyceum concert. That part about the red shirt is vulgar. The new +one's close harmony. It will show off Murph's voice."</p> + +<p>"It's too late now. Go home, Willard."</p> + +<p>"But I brought you this."</p> + +<p>"Go home and eat it," suggested Judith.</p> + +<p>Willard turned scarlet, swung round, then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> changed his mind and inserted +his foot in the crack of the door again, this time with a purposeful +air. He was to develop into the type of man to whom an unpropitious time +and place are an irresistible temptation to demand a show-down. It is a +type that goes far, though it is not essentially popular. Judith sighed, +then resigned herself.</p> + +<p>"Judy, I don't make you out."</p> + +<p>"You don't have to."</p> + +<p>"I do." Willard's voice was impressive, as even a fat boy's can be when +he is in the grip of fate and conscious of it. "I do."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Willard, dear," murmured Judith, with disarming sweetness, +but he was not to be turned from his purpose.</p> + +<p>"Judy, are you going with me or not?"</p> + +<p>"Going with you?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be a snob. What else can I call it but going with me? I don't +know any other way to say it."</p> + +<p>"Then don't say it."</p> + +<p>"You've got my class pin and I've got yours. I know there isn't anybody +else. You let me call and take you places, but you won't let me——"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>Willard looked sheepishly down at his boots, then bravely up at Judith. +"Put my arm round you at picnics. Kiss you good-night."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> + +<p>Judith cut short this catalogue crisply.</p> + +<p>"Spoon?"</p> + +<p>This word was forbidden in the upper circles of the Green River younger +set, and Willard looked pained, but collected himself.</p> + +<p>"We are the same as engaged," he insisted sturdily.</p> + +<p>He had forced an issue at last, but Judith evaded it, laughing softly in +the dark.</p> + +<p>"Oh, are we?"</p> + +<p>"Aren't we?"</p> + +<p>"How do you know there isn't anybody else?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you won't look at Ed, and Murph don't count." Willard made this +pronouncement lightly, though the adamantine rules and impassable +barriers of a whole social order were embodied in it. "Murph that you're +so thick with, all of a sudden. He's a bully fellow, all right, next +captain of the team, probably. Good thing he's broken into the crowd a +little way. Too bad he's Irish. Murph don't count."</p> + +<p>"No—no!" A sudden and poignant sweetness thrilled in Judith's voice. +The tenor of the Green River High School quartette, not ordinarily +sensitive to variations of tone in the voices of others, could not +ignore it. The change had disturbed him vaguely. It seemed to call for +some comment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Judy, you look great to-night.... I'd do anything for +you."</p> + +<p>"Then go home, Willard."</p> + +<p>"You haven't answered my question."</p> + +<p>"What question?"</p> + +<p>"Don't tease."</p> + +<p>"I honestly don't know."</p> + +<p>"You don't hear one word I'm saying to you."</p> + +<p>Judith laughed guiltily. "Then what makes you talk to me?"</p> + +<p>"Judith—are we the same as engaged?"</p> + +<p>Judith hesitated. "Kissing each other good-night—and all that—is +silly. I don't want to. Only sometimes I want to, and then afterward I'm +ashamed, and can't understand why. Willard, I don't want to grow up. I +don't ever want to. I want things to stay just the way they are. They +are—lovely. Oh, Willard——"</p> + +<p>She stopped, with tears in her eyes. There had been a real appeal in his +earnest young voice, and she had done her best to answer it, painfully +thinking out loud, with her heart in her words, making him an authentic +confidence. But the confidence was off the point, and he ignored it, +pursuing his subject with the concentration which will keep his sex the +stronger one, votes for women or no votes for women.</p> + +<p>"Are you the same as engaged to me?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Will you go home if I say I am?"</p> + +<p>"Are you?"</p> + +<p>"There isn't any such thing as being the same as engaged."</p> + +<p>"Are you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Willard, forgetting himself in the heat of debate, had withdrawn his +foot from the door. Judith, narrowly on the watch for this moment, now +seized it, shutting him and his Belle Isle outside, and slamming the +door in his face. He had gained his point, and would not linger. She +heard him ring the bell once or twice in perfunctory protest, then put +down his candy on the steps.</p> + +<p>"Good-night," he called cheerfully, through the flimsy barrier of the +pseudo-Colonial door.</p> + +<p>"Good-night, Willard—dear!"</p> + +<p>Judith's voice was sweet, but indifferent, and her manner was +indifferent, for a young lady who would have seemed, to a literal-minded +person, to have materially affected her whole future life by this +conversation. She did not watch Willard go. She turned and stood in the +library door, smiling absently and humming a little snatch of a waltz +tune. It was eleven now, but the hour had ceased to concern her, as if +she had been watching the clock for Willard. Presently, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> if she +really had, she tossed the cushions back on the couch, drew the shades +over the window, turned off the lights, and disappeared upstairs. +Muffled sounds of a methodical but unhurried preparation for bed drifted +faintly down, one last ripple of song, and then it was silent there.</p> + +<p>It was very still in the library. The stillness of the whole empty house +and the moonless night outside seemed to centre there. The dying fire +threw out little spurts of flame and made wavering shadows on the hearth +as if Judith were still crouching there. The embers glowed as red as +when she had been fire-gazing, but they did not show what it was she had +seen in the fire. They kept her secrets as safely as she kept them +herself; as youth must keep its secrets, inarticulate, dumb, because it +sees into the heart of the world so deeply that if it were granted +speech it would make the world too wise. What Judith had seen in the +fire, what had really been in her heart when she talked to Willard in +the groping and pitiful language of youth, the only language she had, +the fire could not tell, and perhaps Judith did not know.</p> + +<p>It was still, and the tiniest sounds were exaggerated: a board creaking +at the head of the stairs, and creaking again, the stair-rail creaking, +the ghost of a faint little sigh; tiny and intermittent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> sounds, but the +silence became a listening hush because of them: listening harder and +harder. At last a sound broke it: the doorbell, rung three times, one +long peal and two short.</p> + +<p>It was rung faintly, but loud enough. There was a soft hurry of +slippered feet down the stairs, and a slender figure, tall in +straight-falling draperies, slipped cautiously down and across the hall +to the door, stopped and stood leaning with one ear pressed against it, +silent and motionless, hardly breathing. The faint signal was repeated. +Judith did not move.</p> + +<p>There was one more ring, a soft tapping, and then silence. Judith +listened for a minute, then whistled softly, a clear little signal, one +long and two short, like the signal ring. There was no answer. She +pulled frantically at the chain, got it loose, and threw open the door.</p> + +<p>A boy was standing on the steps, a stolid, unmoving figure, looming +deceptively tall in the dark. He did not step forward or greet her. +Judith put out a groping hand and caught at his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Is it you? Oh, I thought you had gone," she said. "I was watching for +you upstairs."</p> + +<p>"I am going. I can't come in so late."</p> + +<p>"No, of course not."</p> + +<p>"Then what made you watch for me?"</p> + +<p>"I wanted to see if you came."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, I did come, and now I'm going."</p> + +<p>"You walked past the house five times."</p> + +<p>"Eight." The boy laughed shortly, and Judith's soft laugh echoed his. +"Oh, what's the use? I'm going."</p> + +<p>"Don't you want to come in?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Then what made you walk past the house?"</p> + +<p>"You know well enough."</p> + +<p>"I want you to tell me.... You can come in just five minutes if you want +to."</p> + +<p>"I—you——"</p> + +<p>Judith caught her trailing draperies tighter round her, conscious that +they were under observation. "It's not a kimono, it's a negligee. And +you've seen my hair in braids before, when I played basket-ball. But you +needn't come in unless you want to."</p> + +<p>"I don't."</p> + +<p>"You're not very nice to me. Willard tried to break in. Rena's been +trying to get me by 'phone, to stay all night with me. You're not nice +to me at all."</p> + +<p>His only reply was a kind of tortured groan, but she seemed content with +it. Her voice grew compellingly sweet.</p> + +<p>"I want to talk to you."</p> + +<p>"Go on and talk."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<p>She huddled her draperies closer. "I'm too cold."</p> + +<p>"Go to bed then."</p> + +<p>"I won't. If you don't come in I shall stand here till mother comes. +I'll probably get pneumonia."</p> + +<p>This threat evoked no reply.</p> + +<p>"Neil," the name was said as only names are said that are new and +dear—not often used yet, but often dreamed over, but there was still no +answer.</p> + +<p>"Neil, I'm awfully cold."</p> + +<p>"I don't care."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"You know I do. You know—— Oh, Judith, won't you please let me go? I +don't want to come in, I tell you."</p> + +<p>"But you're coming?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Yielding abruptly, he stepped into the hall beside her. Judith, suddenly +silent, concerned herself conscientiously with the chain.</p> + +<p>"Don't stand there like that. I can't fasten this if you do," she said +breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Go into the library, and don't light the lights, if you're afraid of +pigtails."</p> + +<p>"I'm not afraid of—anything."</p> + +<p>"Well—I'm not." With a reckless laugh,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> which made this comprehensive +challenge to the world still more comprehensive, she followed him into +the firelit room. Slender and straight in soft-falling white, her face +flushed and sweet, framed between silvery gold braids, her eyes wide and +challenging, she stood looking at him across the hearth.</p> + +<p>He faced her awkwardly but bravely, tall in the shadowy room, his face +very white, his dark eyes catching the last rays of light from the dying +fire. The two did not move or speak till he gave a sudden, shaken laugh.</p> + +<p>"You wanted to talk to me—talk." He smiled a quick flashing smile. +Judith drew away from him and he followed. "Now you've got me here, +can't you shake hands with me?"</p> + +<p>"Neil, be careful."</p> + +<p>"I'm doing the best I can," he said in a choked voice. "You shouldn't +get me here. You shouldn't get me to a house by night that's not open to +me by day."</p> + +<p>"But it is. Only they'll never let me see you alone, and I like to. I +like to talk to you. It makes me feel—comfortable. Isn't it comfortable +here?" Judith paused, overcome by an unaccountable difficulty with her +breathing, but mastered it. "Comfortable and cozy? Aren't you glad you +came in?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Comfortable!" He laughed, came two steps nearer to her, and +stopped stiffly. Judith, disposing her soft, silky draperies daintily, +observed him in silence from a big chair which she had taken possession +of rather abruptly, faintly smiling.</p> + +<p>"Don't look at me like that," he commanded.</p> + +<p>"Like what? Sit down—over there, Neil. Isn't it cozy? Willard's got a +new song that——"</p> + +<p>"Willard!"</p> + +<p>"Don't be cross. We—haven't very much time."</p> + +<p>"Judith, where is this getting us? We're not children. Won't you talk +straight to me? You ought to leave me alone, or talk straight."</p> + +<p>"Please don't be cross."</p> + +<p>"Cross!" He came across the hearth and stood close before her, awkward +no longer, but splendid with youth in the firelight, his dark eyes +shining.</p> + +<p>"You knew I'd come, no matter how hard I tried not to?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Judith breathed.</p> + +<p>"And you meant to let me in?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes."</p> + +<p>"And you know, if I come, if you let me, I can't help—can't help——"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Judith!" He dropped on his knees beside<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> her and hid his face. +Judith did not touch the dark head that she could see dimly in the +shadowy room, outlined against her cloudy white, but she leaned closer +to it, her lips parting softly, her eyes wide and strange.</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to help it," she breathed.</p> + +<p>"But where will it get us?" pleaded a muffled voice.</p> + +<p>"I don't care." Her hand hovered over the dark hair, touching it with +the wonderful, blended awkwardness and adroitness of first caresses.</p> + +<p>He brushed the butterfly touch away and raised his head and looked long +at her, slipping both arms round her waist and holding her tight.</p> + +<p>"Will you always say that?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Judith!" Her sweet, flushed face was close above him now, eyes +drooping, lips faintly apart, drawn down to his as gently and inevitably +as tired eyes close into sleep. "Judith, some day you'll have to care."</p> + +<p>"Not yet. Neil, don't talk any more."</p> + +<p>"I—can't."</p> + +<p>"Then kiss me."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_SEVEN" id="CHAPTER_SEVEN"></a>CHAPTER SEVEN</h2> + +<p>It was winter in Green River.</p> + +<p>The town, attracting Colonel Everard to it sixteen years before, newly +prosperous, outgrowing its old lumbering days, with the ship-building +industry already a thing of the past, with the power in the little river +awaiting development, money in the small but thriving bank, and a new +spirit everywhere, beyond the control of old leaders, too progressive +for a provincial magnate's direction, had been in the interesting and +dangerous condition of a woman ready for her next love affair; if the +right man comes, she may live happy ever after, but even if the wrong +man comes, a flirtation is due. Like a woman again, the town showed the +strength of his hold on her in his absence; in winter, when the big, +unfriendly house was shuttered and closed, the ladies of the inner +circle wore out their summer evening gowns at mild winter gayeties, +church socials, Village Improvement Society bridge parties, and the +old-fashioned supper parties which the Nashes and Larribees and Saxons +still ventured to give.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<p>Humble festivities which he would not have +honoured with his presence lacked allurement because he was not in town +and staying away from them. Great matters and small hung fire to await +his deciding vote, from the list of books to be bought for the library +to the chairmanship of the school board. Marking time and waiting for +the Colonel to come home; that was what winter meant to most of Green +River, but not to Judith Randall. Winter was a charmed time to her; the +time when her mother did not care what she did. Freedom was always +sweet, but this winter it was sweeter than ever before to Judith.</p> + +<p>She was never lonely now. Whispering groups in the dingy corridor of the +old schoolhouse, or in that sacred spot, the senior's corner, a cluster +of seats in the northwest corner of the assembly-room devoted by +tradition to secret conclaves, though not distinguishable from the rest +of the seats in the room to uninitiated eyes, drew her in without +question, slipping intimate arms round her waist.</p> + +<p>Attempts at informal gatherings in the Randall drawing-room were +failures, chilled by brief but devastating invasions of Mrs. Randall +with a too polite manner and disapproving eyes. But wherever the crowd +drifted after school hours, Judith drifted, too, or was summoned by +telephone, by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> imperative messages, vague, and of infinite +possibilities:</p> + +<p>"Judy, this is Ed. There'll be something doing to-night at our house. +Bring your new dance records." Or, as the outer fringe of the younger +set, jealously on the watch for snobbishness, but disarmed at last, +claimed her diffidently but eagerly, new names at which her mother +raised her eyebrows appeared on her dance orders: Joe Garland, whose +father kept the fish market, and Abie Stern, Junior, the tailor's son. +"Is this Judith Randall? Well, Judith, this is Joe; Joe Garland. I'm +getting up a crowd to go skating to-night, and have a rarebit afterward. +Would you care to come?"</p> + +<p>She was one of the crowd. Natalie, little, sparkling-eyed, and +black-haired, with the freshest and readiest of laughs, was more +popular, filling her dance orders first and playing the lead in +theatricals, and Rena Drew was more prominent, president of the class +and the debating society, and the proud owner of the strongest voice in +the school quartette, a fine big contralto which wrapped itself round +Judith's small, clear soprano at public appearances and nearly +extinguished it. Willard, the most eligible of the boys, was Judith's +unquestioned property, otherwise nothing distinguished her. She was one +of the crowd,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> and accepted the fact demurely, as if it were a matter of +course, not a dream come true. Just as discreetly she conducted her +affair with Neil Donovan, captain-elect of the team, literary editor of +the school paper, star debater, and in his way a creditable conquest, if +she had cared to claim him openly.</p> + +<p>"Neil danced three dances with me," confided Natalie, in the hushed +whisper appropriate to the confidences that were part of the ceremony of +spending the night together after a party, though Natalie's room, with +the old-fashioned feather bed, where the two were cuddling together, was +on the third story of the rambling white house, and safe out of hearing.</p> + +<p>"Neil?"</p> + +<p>"Judy, it's too bad to call him Murph and make fun of him. The day he +came into the store to solicit ads for the <i>Record</i> father said that boy +would go far, if he had half a chance, but no boy had a chance in this +town, the way it is run, and no Irish boy ever did have a chance. Well, +an Irish boy is just as good as anybody, if they only thought so."</p> + +<p>"But they don't."</p> + +<p>"Judy, you are horrid about Neil. You always are about any boy I get +crushed on. Neil has perfectly beautiful eyes, and he is so sensi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>tive. +He kept looking at you all through that last schottische as if you had +hurt his feelings. He must have gone home soon after that. I didn't see +him again. You didn't dance with him once."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Poor boy. And he's up there in the schoolhouse with you, hour after +hour, practising quartette stuff, and Willard so crazy about you he +can't see, and Rena crazy about Willard——"</p> + +<p>"Rena can have Willard."</p> + +<p>Miss Ward was not to be diverted. "Neil's father did keep a saloon, but +he died when Neil was a baby. His uncle that he lives with keeps a store +at the Falls, and that's all right. His aunt took in washing, but his +mother never did. Charles Brady does get drunk, but Maggie drives him to +it. She's getting awfully wild. She's a perfect beauty, though, and I +wish I had her hair. But Charlie's only Neil's second cousin. And Neil +is so quiet and pleasant, not like that Brady boy that was in my sister +Lutie's crowd; just as fascinating, but Neil doesn't take liberties."</p> + +<p>"I'm getting sleepy, Nat."</p> + +<p>"Judy, the way I feel about Neil, about Irish boys, is this: we can't go +with them afterward, but while they're in school with us, they are just +as good as we are, and we ought to give them just as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> good a time as we +can. If you know what I mean."</p> + +<p>"I don't. I'm sleepy."</p> + +<p>"I'm not. I shan't shut my eyes." But Miss Ward did shut them. "Judy."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Judy, Abraham Lincoln split rails."</p> + +<p>"Cheer up. The Warren Worth Comedy Company is going to play at the Hall +next week, and Warren Worth has perfectly beautiful eyes, too."</p> + +<p>"Not like Neil's."</p> + +<p>"Go to sleep, Nat."</p> + +<p>But Judith did not go to sleep until after an hour of staring wide-eyed +into the dark, and she did not confide to Natalie or any one what had +happened in the intermission after the schottische.</p> + +<p>"You act restless," Willard complained to her then. "You hardly looked +at me all through the encore."</p> + +<p>"I'll look at you now, but get me some water first," she directed, and +having disposed of him, slipped out alone into the dim and draughty +corridor. Odd Fellows' Building, the centre of various business +activities by day, looked deserted and forlorn at night, when the suites +of offices were dark and closed, and the hall where they danced, gayly +lighted and tenanted, was a little island of brightness in the +surrounding dark.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Neil," Judith called softly, "Neil, where are you? I +saw you come out here. I know you're here." The corridor was empty, but +several office doors opened on it, and on one of them she saw Charlie +Brady's name. She knocked at it. "You're in there. I know you are. Let +me in." She tried the door, found it unlocked, and opened it. The room +was dark, faintly lighted by the street lamps outside the one +uncurtained window, where he sat with his head in his hands, huddled in +a discouraged heap over Charlie Brady's desk. Judith came and perched on +it triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"Running away?" she said.</p> + +<p>"It's all I'm good for."</p> + +<p>"Look at me."</p> + +<p>"I thought you hadn't any dances free."</p> + +<p>"I haven't. This is Willard's."</p> + +<p>"Go back to Willard.... What did you come here for?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Don't you?" He looked up now, with magic in his eyes and voice, the +strange magic that came and went, and when it left him Judith could +never believe it would come again. But it was here. With a little sigh +she slipped off the desk and into the arms he held out for her, closing +her eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I didn't want to dance with you," she whispered; "not with +all those lights, and before those people."</p> + +<p>"No, dear."</p> + +<p>"I can't stay very long. They'd miss me."</p> + +<p>"I'll let you go when you want to."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to. I feel so comfortable—all sleepy, but so wide-awake. +I never want to go."</p> + +<p>Judith, remembering this moment until she carried it into her dreams +with her, could not have shared it with Natalie. It was a dream already, +to be wondered at and forgotten by daylight, as she stared across the +schoolroom at Neil, not a romantic figure at all with his ill-fitting +suit and his tumbled hair; forgotten until the next moment like it +came—next in a lengthening series of dream pictures, of moonlight and +candlelight and faintly heard music, a secret too sweet to share, a +hidden treasure of dreams.</p> + +<p>Certain pictures stood out clearest. In one, she was skating with Neil. +Willard was giving a chowder party at the Hiawatha Club. This imposing +name belonged to a rough one-room camp with a kitchen in a lean-to and a +row of bunks in the loft above, and a giant chimney, with a crackling +blaze of fire to combat the bleakness of the view through the +uncurtained windows<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>—Mirror Lake. It was a failure as a mirror that +day, veiled with snow, and the white birches fringing it showed bare and +cold among the warm green of spruce and pine.</p> + +<p>The camp was built and owned and the canoes and iceboats kept in repair +in the boathouse, and the cook maintained and replaced when he left from +loneliness, all by a syndicate with Judge Saxon as president. Forming it +was one of the last independent social activities of the town before the +Colonel took charge.</p> + +<p>It was bad ice-boating to-day. The wind was fitful, and the boat, a +graceful and winged thing in full flight, dragged heavily along, looking +the clumsy makeshift box of unpainted boards that it was. It was a day +to be towed along on your skates with one hand on the boat. Judith and +Neil had tired of this and fallen behind.</p> + +<p>Close together, but not taking hands, they swung slowly through the +unpeopled emptiness, leaving a tiny scattering of tracks behind, the +blue-white ice firm under their feet through a light film of snow. The +ice-boat was out of sight, the sprightly and unexpurgated ballad of +"Amos Moss," rendered in the closest of close harmony, could be heard no +longer, and a heavy silence hung over the lake. The camp lay far behind +them, a vanishing speck.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Neil, take me back," Judith directed suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Not yet."</p> + +<p>"Please. I want some pop-corn.... Neil, I don't like you. You won't +talk. You're queer to-day."</p> + +<p>He did not answer. They cut through the ice in silence. It was rougher +here. They were near the north end of the lake. There was open water +there to-day, black water into which a boat might crash and go down; it +made the water under them seem nearer to Judith, black water with only +the floor of ice between. She shivered, and Neil broke the silence +abruptly, his eyes still straight ahead.</p> + +<p>"Judith."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you can talk then?"</p> + +<p>"Judith—do you love me?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be silly." Judith spoke sharply. Days at the camp were always a +trial to her. The crowd, bunched together in a big hay-rack mounted on +runners, started out noisy and gay, like a party of children, singing, +groping for apples in the straw, and playing children's games. But at +night, slipping home under the moon to a tinkle of sleigh-bells, covered +with rugs two by two, a change would take place: arms would slip around +waists that yielded after perfunctory protest; in the dark of the woods +there would be significant whis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>pering and more significant silences; +Willard would be unmanageable. Judith saw this with alien eyes because +of Neil, and dreaded it. This that was between them was so much more +beautiful, not love-making, not real love, only a strange, white dream.</p> + +<p>"You don't, then? You don't love me?"</p> + +<p>"We're too young."</p> + +<p>He did not argue the point. His silence had made her lonely before, now +it frightened her. She slipped a hand into his, warm through its clumsy +glove.</p> + +<p>"Cross hands. Don't you want to?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"But I want to. I'm tired. How limp your hand feels. Hold my hands +tighter. Neil——"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"You don't mind—what I said just now?"</p> + +<p>"What did you say?"</p> + +<p>"That about not loving you."</p> + +<p>"That?" He laughed a bitter, lonely sort of laugh, as if she were +talking about something that happened a long time ago. "You had to say +it. It's true. I knew it well enough. I just thought I'd ask you."</p> + +<p>"Do you want me to very much—want me to love you?"</p> + +<p>"Don't talk any more about it."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Neil, suppose I should marry Willard?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose you will."</p> + +<p>"You won't mind too much?"</p> + +<p>"What call would I have to mind? Who am I? What am I?"</p> + +<p>He laughed again, the same hard and bitter laugh, and struck out faster, +gripping her hands hard, so that it hurt, but looking away from her +across the dead, even white of the trackless snow. There was a pain not +to be comforted or reached in his beautiful eyes. It had nothing to do +with her.</p> + +<p>"Neil, wouldn't you care at all?" she said jealously.</p> + +<p>"Care?"</p> + +<p>"If I married Willard?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes."</p> + +<p>"Neil, do you love me?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer or seem to hear, and now Judith gave up asking +questions. Carried along at his side in silence, she listened to the +muffled creak of the skates on the snow-covered ice, hushed by the +steady and sleepy sound of it, half closing her eyes. His left arm was +behind her shoulders now, to support her, and she could feel it there, +warm and strong. Breathing when he breathed, her heart beating in time +with his, swinging far to right and left, tense with the stroke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> or +yielding deliciously in the recovery, caught in the rhythm of it as if +some force outside them both were carrying them on like one, and not +two, and would never let them go, Judith yet felt far away from him.</p> + +<p>She was alone in the heart of a snow-covered world, but she was growing +content to be alone. She looked up at his white, set face with wide and +fearless eyes, while the lure of unexplored and unseen ice invited them +all around, and the gray and brooding sky shut them in closer and +closer.</p> + +<p>"Neil," she said softly, not caring now whether he answered or heard, "I +wish we needn't ever go back. I love to-day."</p> + +<p>Not long after this Judith and Neil went snow-shoeing one Saturday +afternoon by special appointment, an epoch-making event for them. Judith +did not often walk with him or take him driving when the sleigh was +entrusted to her. She was not often seen with him. With quartette +practice and committee work for the dramatic club and other official +pretexts for the time they spent together, Willard was not jealous yet, +though the winter was almost over, and the treasury of dreams was +filling fast.</p> + +<p>But this time she made an engagement with Neil as openly as if he were +Willard, while Natalie<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> listened jealously. She started with him openly +from the front door, with her mother's disapproving eyes upon them from +the library window, and Neil proudly carrying her snowshoes, all +unconscious of the critical eyes. The afternoon began well, but no +afternoon with Neil could be counted upon to go as it began. Two hours +later, when they emerged from the Everard woods into the Colonel's +snow-covered rose garden, they had quarrelled about half a dozen +unrelated subjects, all equally unimportant in themselves, but suddenly +important to Neil, who now found further matter for debate.</p> + +<p>"What did you bring me in here for?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't you know I was?"</p> + +<p>"How should I know? I'm no friend of Everard's. I don't know my way +through his grounds."</p> + +<p>"What makes you call him Everard, without any Colonel or Mr.? It sounds +so—common."</p> + +<p>"It's good enough for me. Here, I don't want to go near his house. I +hate the sight of it."</p> + +<p>"But you can't go back by the path. It's too broken up." Judith plunged +into the dismantled rose arbour. "Come on, if you don't want to see the +house, take my hand and shut your eyes."</p> + +<p>"That's what Green River does," Neil muttered darkly, "shuts its eyes." +But he followed her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The Red Etin's castle," Judith announced; "you +know, in the fairy tale:</p> + +<table summary="SONG"> +<tr><td> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"The Red Etin of Ireland,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">He lived in Ballygan.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He stole King Malcolm's daughter,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The pride of fair Scotlan'.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Tis said there's one predestinate</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">To be his mortal foe——</span><br /> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Well, you talk as if the Colonel were the Red Etin, poor dear. Oh, Neil, +look!"</p> + +<p>Sinister enough, looming turreted and tall against a background of +winter woods, its windows, unshuttered still, since the last of the +Colonel's week-end parties, and curtainless, catching the slanting rays +of the afternoon sun and glaring malignantly, the house confronted them +across the drifted lawn.</p> + +<p>In the woods that circled the house, denuded of undergrowth, seeming +always to be edging forlornly closer to the upstanding edifice for +comfort because it was barren and unfriendly, too, the new-fallen snow +lay shadowy and soft, clothing the barrenness with grace. Giant pine and +spruce that had survived his invasion stood up proud and green under the +crown of snow that lay lightly upon them, as it had lain long ago, +before the Colonel came. And between woods and house,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> erasing all trace +of tortuous landscape gardening, flower-bed and border and path, as if +it had never been, lay a splendid, softly shining sweep of blue-white +snow. The Colonel's unbidden guests forgot their quarrel and plunged +eagerly across the white expanse.</p> + +<p>"Catch me," Judith called, but it was Neil, snatching off her toboggan +cap by its impudent tassel, who had to be caught. It was heavy and +breath-taking work on the broad, old-fashioned snowshoes which she +managed with clumsy grace. Judith, short-skirted and trim in fleecy +white sweater, collar rolled high to the tips of small, pink ears, blond +curls blowing in the wind, pursued ardently. Neil evaded her like a lean +and darting shadow, hands deep in the pockets of his old gray sweater, +cap low over his brooding eyes.</p> + +<p>Under the unrelenting glare of the Colonel's windows, and across the +deserted grandeur of his lawn, the two small and dishevelled figures +dodged and doubled and retreated, only to grapple and trip each other up +at last at the foot of the veranda steps, and collapse there, breathless +and laughing. But their laughter died quickly, and Judith, pulling the +recovered cap over her wind-tossed curls, watched the brooding gloom +come back into Neil's eyes as he settled into a sulky heap on the step +below her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> + +<p>Her quarrels with Neil were as strange as her beautiful +hours with him, fed by black undercurrents of feeling that swept and +surprised her, flaming up suddenly like banked fires. She was hotly +angry with him now.</p> + +<p>"Neil, I heard what you said about Green River shutting its eyes. It was +foolish."</p> + +<p>"I'd say it to his face." Neil flashed a black look at the bland and +elegant drawing-room windows, as if he could talk to the Colonel through +them. "I've got worse than that to say to Everard."</p> + +<p>"Then say it to me. Don't hint. I'm tired of hearing you. You're as bad +as Norah."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't understand."</p> + +<p>That is the irresistible challenge to any woman. Judith's eyes kindled. +Neil slouched lower on the steps, dropping his head in his hands. +"Everard," he threw out presently, "has bought the Hiawatha Club Camp."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it."</p> + +<p>"The club was in debt. That's a bad thing for a club or a man to be, if +the Colonel knows it. And it's a worse thing for a woman."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>He did not explain or raise his head. "I've got a job for the summer +vacation," he said presently.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Already? Fine."</p> + +<p>"Oh, fine. In the fish market—tend store, drive the cart. And I'm fired +from the <i>Record</i>, Judith."</p> + +<p>"Fired?"</p> + +<p>"They're going to take on one more man, and pay him real money."</p> + +<p>"But you've got the Green River Jottings to do for the Wells <i>Clarion</i>."</p> + +<p>"And I may get two dollars a month out of it."</p> + +<p>"Did you see Judge Saxon again?"</p> + +<p>"Last week."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell me what he said?"</p> + +<p>"I told you what he would say."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Neil!"</p> + +<p>"The Judge hates to say no, that's why he took time to think it over. +He'd be a bigger man if he didn't hate to say no. He was right to say no +to me."</p> + +<p>"Then I wouldn't admit it."</p> + +<p>"What's it worth to read law in a country law office? The time for +that's past. He's right. And suppose he took me on, what would it do for +me? Look at Charlie. Doing hack work and dirty work to pay the rent of a +place to drink himself to death in. He's got brains enough. He knows law +enough. He's slaved and starved and got ready for his chance, and his +chance don't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> come. Why? Because he's Charlie Brady. Well I'm Neil +Donovan. I'm Irish, too, what they called me the first time I saw you—a +paddy."</p> + +<p>"That's not the Colonel's fault."</p> + +<p>"Who do you think gets the <i>Record</i> job?"</p> + +<p>Judith shook her blond head, disdaining to answer, a gathering storm in +her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Chet Gaynor—Mr. J. Chester Gaynor. Lil Burr's brother. Her prize +brother, the one that's been fired from three prep schools. Everard got +him a scholarship at the last one."</p> + +<p>"Why not? He ought to help his friends. He's a kind man and lots of fun. +It's not his fault if you don't get on. It's your own fault. You don't +have to work in a fish market if you don't want to, or sit there and +sneer at a man who doesn't care what you think of him. Abraham Lincoln +split rails——"</p> + +<p>Judith stopped, amazed. Quite abruptly Neil had ceased to sit on the +steps and sneer. He was on his feet, hands clenched, thin body tense and +dangerous, face dead white and eyes blazing, as Judith had never seen +him before, or only once before, too angry for words, but not needing +them.</p> + +<p>"Neil, do you really hate him? Hate him like that? I never thought you +meant it. But why—what has he done?"</p> + +<p>"Care what I think? If I was any one else<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>—your fool of a Willard—any +one in this town but me, I'd make him care."</p> + +<p>"He's done nothing wrong. Neil, don't. Your eyes look all queer. You're +frightening me."</p> + +<p>"No, he's done nothing wrong, nothing you could get him for. He's too +careful. He plays favourites. He fools women. He locks the door to every +chance to get on in this town and he sells the keys. He's got his hand +on the neck of the town, and he's shutting it tighter and tighter. +That's all he does. That's all Everard does."</p> + +<p>"You can't prove it."</p> + +<p>"He takes good care I can't."</p> + +<p>"You can't prove a word of it."</p> + +<p>"Your father could."</p> + +<p>"He's kind to father. He's kind to me."</p> + +<p>"You talk like a child."</p> + +<p>"Well, you talk like my mother's cook.... Oh, Neil, I didn't mean to say +that. Forgive me. Where are you going? I didn't mean to say it."</p> + +<p>"Let me go."</p> + +<p>"You're hurting me."</p> + +<p>"I hate you! You're one of them—one of the Everard crowd. I hate you, +too!"</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do?" Her short, panting struggle with him over, +her wrists smarting from the backward twist that had broken her hold on +him, she leaned against the veranda rail breath<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>less and stared with +fascinated eyes. When this quarrel had gone the way of their other +quarrels, atoned for by inarticulate words of infinite meaning, +justified by the keen delight of reconciling kisses, Judith was to keep +one picture from it: Neil as she saw him then, standing over her +white-faced and angry, ragged and splendid, Neil as she had seen him +once before.</p> + +<p>"May-night!" she cried. "You look the way you did that May-night. I'm +afraid of you."</p> + +<p>"Everard!" He turned from her, and looking at the windows again as if +the Colonel were behind him, swung back his arm, and sent it crashing +through the glass of the nearest one—once and a second time. "Oh, you +don't want me to call him Everard. Colonel Everard!"</p> + +<p>"Neil, I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>He looked at the fragments of broken glass and at Judith scornfully, but +the angry light was fading out of his eyes already, the magic light; +against her will she was sorry to see it go.</p> + +<p>"Are you hurt? Did you hurt your hand?"</p> + +<p>"What do you care if I did? Don't be afraid, Judy. He can pay for a pane +of glass or two. He wouldn't care if I burned his house down. Nobody +cares what I do. I'm a paddy."</p> + +<p>Awkward, suddenly conscious of his snowshoes, he shuffled across the +matched boards of the Colo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>nel's veranda and down the steps, turning +there for a farewell word:</p> + +<p>"I'm going. Don't cry. I'm not worth it. I'm a paddy, from Paddy Lane."</p> + +<p>Dream pictures, pleasant or sad, making her cheeks burn in the dark, or +little secret smiles come when Judith recalled them. Some lived in her +heart and some faded. Judith did not choose or reject them deliberately. +They chose or rejected themselves, arranging themselves into an +intricate pattern of growing clearness. She did not watch it grow. It +was only when it was quite complete that she would see it, but it was +growing fast.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_EIGHT" id="CHAPTER_EIGHT"></a>CHAPTER EIGHT</h2> + +<p>"You'll find the coffee pot on the back of the stove. I'm washing out a +few things," said Mrs. Donovan.</p> + +<p>Though she kept her five little nephews and nieces in dark-patterned +dresses or shirts, as the case might be, and encouraged her brother +Michael to wear flannel shirts, and even limited her eldest niece, +Maggie Brady, clerking in the Green River Dry Goods Emporium now, +instead of helping her father in his little store at the Falls, to three +white waists a week, she was usually washing out a few things.</p> + +<p>The contending odours of damp clothes and rank coffee were as much a +part of the Brady kitchen as the dishes stacked in the sink for Neil to +wash, or the broken-legged, beautifully grained mahogany card table in +the warm corner near the stove, where his school books were piled, a +relic of his dead father's prosperous saloon-keeping days, or the view +of Larribee's Marsh through the curtainless windows with their torn +green shades.</p> + +<p>The swampy field was the most improvident part of an improvident +purchase—a brown, tum<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>bledown house, wind swept and cold, +inconveniently far from the settlement at the Falls and the larger town, +heavily mortgaged, and not paid for yet, but early on sunny spring +mornings like this the field was beautiful; level and empty and green, +the only monotonous thing in that restless stretch of New England +country, billowy with little hills, and rugged with clumps of trees. A +boy could people the sunlit emptiness of the field with airy creatures +of folk-lore, eagerly gleaned in a busy mother's rare story-telling +moments, or with Cæsar's cohorts marching across it, splendid in the +sun, if he had eyes for them. The only boy who ever had regarded the +familiar, glinting green of the field with unkindled eyes to-day as he +sat finishing his lukewarm breakfast. Yet it was Saturday morning, that +magic time, the last Saturday of his last spring vacation, and he had +only one more term of school before him.</p> + +<p>On this Saturday morning he had an unpleasant errand to do, and he was +carefully dressed for it, just as he had been dressed for the Lyceum +declamation contest and ball the night before, but not so effectively, +for his best black suit showed threadbare in the morning sun, and the +shine on his shoes was painstakingly applied, and a heavy, even, blue +black, but they needed tapping. His brown eyes had a big, rather hungry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +look that was unquestionably picturesque, and Miss Natalie Ward would +have approved of it, if his mother did not, watching him as she trailed +in and out of the room.</p> + +<p>"Making out all right? Don't hurry," she said.</p> + +<p>"I'm in no hurry to get there," agreed her son.</p> + +<p>"He won't say no to you. He never has yet, and he likes you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he won't say no. Nothing new will happen to me in this town; not +even that."</p> + +<p>Neil's mother paused, balancing her clothes basket against one hip, and +deftly favouring the string-mended handle, then put it heavily down, and +leaned on the table and looked at him—a small, tired, pretty woman, +with gray, far-away eyes that were like no other eyes in Green River, +and a smile like Neil's.</p> + +<p>"Tired?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Dog tired."</p> + +<p>"Well, you were out till three."</p> + +<p>"One. That was Maggie you heard at three. Where was she?"</p> + +<p>"That's her business."</p> + +<p>"It's Charlie's, if he's going to marry her."</p> + +<p>"It's not yours, then. Never mind Maggie. Your uncle and I had a talk +about you last night."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you ask to see my dance order?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> He made a defensive clutch +at his pocket as if she had, and quick colour swept into his cheeks. She +watched it, and watched it fade, leaving his face tired and sullen, and +too old for its years. "Uncle!"</p> + +<p>"He's been like a father to you."</p> + +<p>"I've been two sons to him, then. He's worked me like two. If he grudges +the time I take off, I can make it up to him. There's been little enough +of it, and there'll be little more, and there's been little enough +enjoyment in it, and I'm not ashamed of it. Why don't he spy on his own +daughter, if he's curious? Why——" This outburst ended as suddenly as +it began, in a short, sullen laugh as he pushed his empty cup away. "Dan +thinks he can land something for me with the telephone company. I +couldn't send money home at first, but I'd be off your hands. Tell that +to Uncle."</p> + +<p>"Would you be with Dan, in Wells?"</p> + +<p>"Somewhere outside Wells. It won't be too gay. You needn't be afraid +I'll go to too many dances."</p> + +<p>"Don't glare at me. I'm not your uncle."</p> + +<p>"Sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me."</p> + +<p>"Don't you?"</p> + +<p>He flushed, laughed, and ignored the question, producing a small box and +offering it. "I got that last night. Don't wipe your hands. They're good +enough to handle it wet." A gold medal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> glittered in her hand. He +observed it without enthusiasm, and noticing that, his mother shut the +box abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Neil, that's the first prize."</p> + +<p>"Looks like it. I spoke the Gettysburg address, and they always fall for +that. Good-bye, I'm off."</p> + +<p>"Neil, come back here."</p> + +<p>He swung round with his cap doubled under his arm, and stood before her, +helpless and sullen, hedged about with that sudden dignity which no +woman creature can break through, but seeming to derive no comfort from +it. Painful colour mounted to her cheeks, as if the effort of keeping +him there was all she could manage without the effort of opening +delicate subjects.</p> + +<p>"Neil, I'm worried about you."</p> + +<p>"Why? Are you afraid I'll marry beneath me? I won't marry without your +consent. It's not being done."</p> + +<p>"You got three dollars from the <i>Clarion</i> last week."</p> + +<p>"Are you afraid I'll try to support a wife on it?"</p> + +<p>"It's the most you've made from them. Why weren't you proud of it? Why +aren't you proud of this prize? A year ago you'd have had me up at one +to speak your piece to me. There's no life in you, and no pride, and I +know why."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Me with so much to be proud of."</p> + +<p>"You're good enough for any girl, but——"</p> + +<p>"Do you think I don't know my place, with the whole town teaching it to +me going on eighteen years? I've got no false hopes, and I shan't lose +my head over any girl. Let me be."</p> + +<p>"It's not the town that's taught you your place, it's——"</p> + +<p>"Don't you say her name."</p> + +<p>"—empty headed and overdressed."</p> + +<p>"Go on. Judith Randall don't care what you think of her."</p> + +<p>"Can't you even get up enough spirit to stand up for her? You that +thought you had your fortune all but made when you got the chickens paid +for, and followed me round the house, telling me how you'd run the town? +You that could tell what was wrong with the <i>Record</i> editorials, if you +couldn't pay for a year's subscription to the paper? You——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I come from one of the five lines in Ireland what have a right to +the O', but you never tell me that unless you've got something else to +tell me that you're afraid to tell. What is it this time?"</p> + +<p>"You come of Irish kings."</p> + +<p>"What did Uncle say last night?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he's getting to be an old man."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What did he say?"</p> + +<p>His mother did not reply. She avoided his eyes, and made no further +criticism of him, or of a young lady who was no doubt as indifferent to +her criticisms as Neil said, since she did not recognize Mrs. Donovan on +the street.</p> + +<p>"Uncle," Neil decided deliberately, "wants me to help in the store. I +can't go to Wells."</p> + +<p>"He can't get on alone now Maggie's gone. We need your board money to +run the house at all. Dan was wild to get away from Green River, but in +two years he's got no farther than Wells, and ten dollars a week. I know +we ought to leave you free to start yourself, if we can't give you a +start, but——"</p> + +<p>"Is that all you want to tell me?"</p> + +<p>She put out an unaccustomed arm and pulled him awkwardly close. He came +obediently, and patted her shoulder stiffly but did not kiss her. "I +know what this means," she asserted, and showed a rapidly forming +intention of crying on his shoulder. "It hurts me like it does you."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" > +<a id="illus2" name="illus2"></a> +<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt="'I know what this means,'" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"It don't hurt me. I ought to have seen it myself. I ought not to have +planned to go. It's all right, mother. Is that all?"</p> + +<p>"All? It's enough. I was awake half the night planning to break it to +you."</p> + +<p>"You broke it all right. I'll be going." He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> shook out his crushed +cap, and adjusted it with dignity, looking at her calmly out of +impenetrable eyes, like a young prince ending an audience, with more +power behind him than he knew, kissed her gravely on the cheek with cool +young lips, and opened the door, and walked off into the sunshine.</p> + +<p>"It's the girl," said his mother, but not until the door had closed +behind him. "No girl is good enough to do what she's done to you." Then +she selected the frilliest of Maggie's blouses, which had dried while +she talked, and spread it on the ironing table to sprinkle again.</p> + +<p>Neil did not look like a young man crossed in love, or a young man with +his future wrecked by a word. He did not give a backward glance to the +little brown house with the sun on its many-paned windows, or seem to +hear the children's voices from the old barn behind the house—the +favourite refuge of the little Bradys when they were banished from the +kitchen—that echoed after him in the clear morning air, shrill and then +fainter as he left the place behind.</p> + +<p>He had settled into his usual pace for this familiar walk—a steady +stride that you could fit the unmanageable parts of a Latin verb to the +rhythm of, or the refractory words of a song; but it was not a usual +day. It was the first warm day of that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> April, warmer already, with the +goading urge of spring in the softening air that frets and troubles with +new desires and a sense of unfitness for them at once, and will not let +you be. The road, fringed with scattering trees, and wind-swept and +bleak on winter days, was golden with new sunlight, spongy underfoot, +but drying under your eyes in the morning sun. The boy's brooding face +did not change as he walked, but his shoulders straightened themselves, +and lost their patient look, and his lean young body gave itself more +gayly to the swing of his pace and looked strong and free, alive with +the unconscious strength of youth that must be caught and harnessed to +make the wheels of the world go round before it can be taught what its +purpose is.</p> + +<p>Whether it troubled him or not—his face did not tell—all that his +mother had hinted was wrong with his world, and more. No outsider had +ever won a place like Neil's in Green River High School society so far +as the unwritten history of it recorded. Charlie Brady in his time, and +Dan after him, had been extra men at big dances, hard worked and +patronized in school entertainments, more intimate with the boys than +the girls. Charlie, deep in a secret love affair with Lil Gaynor, had +still called her Miss in public, and treated her as respectfully as he +did now that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> the affair was forgotten and she was Mrs. Burr and one of +the Everard circle. Charlie and Dan had only looked over impassable +barriers. Neil had been really inside—included in small, intimate +parties, like week-ends at Camp Hiawatha, openly favoured by Natalie, if +not Judith—inside and he would soon be shut out.</p> + +<p>There were new signs of it every day. The long, friendly winter, when he +had been safe in that intimate fellowship, was over. The girls were +planning their gowns for college commencement dances. Willard came back +from a week-end at the state university pledged to a fraternity there +and refusing to discuss minor subjects. God-like creatures in amazing +neckties condescended to visit him, and Natalie was beginning to collect +fraternity pins. Rena and Ed were engaged, and under the impression that +it was a secret, and a place was being made for Ed in the bank. In one +way or another, the world was opening to all of them, and closing to +Neil.</p> + +<p>And with the spring, the Everards had come back to Green River. The big, +over-decorated house had not been open a week, but already they pervaded +the town. Their cars whirled through the splashing spring streets, and +ladies not upon Mrs. Everard's calling list peered at the passengers to +see who was in her favour. The Colonel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> was turning the Hiawatha Club +into a private camp, and closing it to the town, but nobody protested +much. He was ordering a complete set of slip covers from the furniture +department of Ward's Emporium, and the daring group of prominent +business men who ventured to assail the Colonel's political views and +private morals sometimes in the little room at the rear of the store +lacked support from Ward. Neil had the run of the store and hung about +and listened, but never contributed. Whether these criticisms were +justified or not, the Everards were back again.</p> + +<p>Judith had given up the Lyceum dance for the first of the Everard +dinners the night before. It was three days since Neil had seen her, and +he was to see her to-day, but he was showing no impatience for the +meeting. The end of the world, not the beginning of it, that was what +spring would mean to him, and that is a graver catastrophe at eighteen +than at eighty. The boy who was facing it had passed the outlying +straggle of houses, and had come to the edge of the town, and to the end +of the long, hilly street that led down past the court-house, straight +into Post Office Square, the heart of the town. It was still empty of +traffic at ten, and looked sunny and empty and clean, wide-awake for the +day. He took his hands out of his pockets, stopped whistling "Amos +Moss,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> and hurried down Court-house Hill, stepping in time to the tune +of it.</p> + +<p>A mud-splashed Ford clattered down Main Street, and drew up in front of +the post-office as Neil reached it with a flourish that would have done +credit to a more elegant equipage than this second-hand one of the +Nashes. Two elegant young gentlemen, week-end guests of Willard's and +duly presented to Neil the night before, ignored his existence, perusing +a gaudily covered series of topical songs with exaggerated attention on +the rear seat of the car, but Willard greeted him exuberantly:</p> + +<p>"Ah, there, Murph. You don't look like the morning after. Sorry I +haven't got room for you. We've got other plans. We love the ladies."</p> + +<p>"I'm tied up, anyway. So long."</p> + +<p>Willard's tone was too patronizing, but he was not to blame, for the +days when they would exchange intimate greetings at all were numbered. +As Neil left them one of the elegant guests demanded audibly:</p> + +<p>"Who's your friend?"</p> + +<p>Neil flushed but did not look back. He had an errand to do in the few +minutes before his appointment with Judge Saxon. He crossed the street +to Ward's store.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> + +<p>Ward's Dry Goods Emporium, three stores in one, and +literally three stores bought out one by one, and joined by connecting +doors, though they could never be united in their style of architecture, +was rather dark and chaotic inside, though a brave showing of plate +glass across the front advertised its prosperity. Luther Ward himself, +in his shirt sleeves, was looking over a tray of soiled, pale-coloured +spats, assisted by a tall, full-bodied girl with a sweet, sulky mouth, +and a towering mass of blue-black hair.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Donovan, what's new?" he said, with only a shade more +condescension than Willard, and distinctly more friendliness.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, sir," said Neil with conviction.</p> + +<p>"You want to talk to Maggie, here. I won't intrude on a family quarrel," +said Mr. Ward, and chuckling heartily at his own mild joke, as he +generally did, and few others did, disappeared into the furniture +department, the central one of the three stores, and his favourite. The +two cousins regarded each other across the tray of spats as if the +family quarrel were not a joke, but an unpleasant reality.</p> + +<p>"You can't come here and take up my time," stated Miss Brady.</p> + +<p>"Your time is pretty full—evenings, too. Do you know where Charlie was +last night?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't care."</p> + +<p>"You ought. He's your second cousin, and goes by the same name as you, +if you're not in love with him. He was in Halloran's billiard hall."</p> + +<p>"If he can't keep himself out of the gutter, I can't keep him out," +stated Miss Brady logically.</p> + +<p>"Well, don't push him in," her cousin advised, but the light of battle +had died out of his eyes, leaving them listless. "It's nothing to me. I +only came to bring you this."</p> + +<p>He produced something from an inner pocket and tossed it on the counter, +something wrapped in a twist of newspaper, which parted as the girl bent +eagerly over it, something which shone and twinkled alluringly, as she +straightened it out with caressing fingers and held it up to the +light—a little necklace of rather ornate design and startling colours, +crimson stones and green and blue, the gayest of toys.</p> + +<p>"Seems to be yours all right."</p> + +<p>His cousin, who seemed to have forgotten his existence for one rapt +moment, remembered it with a start. "Did you show this to your mother?" +she asked sharply.</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Well, she don't like to have me spend my money on imitation jewellery." +Miss Brady delivered this very natural explanation haltingly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you?"</p> + +<p>One of the sudden, vivid blushes which had helped to establish her +reputation as a beauty overspread Miss Brady's cheek. "I missed it this +morning and didn't have time to hunt for it, and I was worried. I don't +want to show it to her. It cost a good deal."</p> + +<p>"It must have. They say a ruby's the only stone you can't imitate."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" Miss Brady's cheeks grew still redder. "Why don't +you save your big talk for Saxon? You may need it. Why don't you mind +your own affairs, and leave mine alone?"</p> + +<p>"Leave that on the kitchen floor for mother to find and sweep up in a +broken dust-pan, or one of the kids to show to your father?"</p> + +<p>"Why not? Haven't I got a right to do what I want with my own money? +Haven't I got a right to do what I want with myself? Who are you to +dictate to me, with the Randall girl making a fool of you? Why——"</p> + +<p>"That will be all." Though Miss Brady's voice had been threatening to +make itself heard throughout all the three stores in one, she stopped +obediently, looking defiant but frightened, but when her cousin spoke +again the ring of authority which had shocked her was gone from his +voice.</p> + +<p>"Don't be scared. It's nothing to me what you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> do, and I shan't talk too +much. You know me, Mag."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't, not lately. You act doped, not half there. I can't make +you out. If you think—if you suspect——"</p> + +<p>"I don't. It's nothing to me. I'm due at Saxon's. Put your glass beads +away before Ward sees them. Good luck to you."</p> + +<p>Miss Brady, standing quite still in one of her carefully cultivated, +statuesque poses, watched her cousin cross the street and disappear into +a narrow and shabbily painted doorway there. Then she took his advice, +and producing a red morocco wrist bag from under the counter, shut the +necklace into it with a vicious snap, as if she did not derive so much +pleasure as before from handling it now.</p> + +<p>Her cousin climbed the three flights of stairs to Judge Saxon's office. +The stairs were dingy and looked unswept, and a pane of glass in the +door of the untenanted suite across the landing from the Judge's was +broken. Nothing about the Judge's quarters indicated that he was Colonel +Everard's attorney, a big man in the town before the Everard régime, and +under it—an unusual combination. His office was shabby outside and in. +The lettering on the door, Saxon and Burr, Attorneys-at-Law, looked +newer than it was by contrast, and it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> was still only six months old. +Theodore Burr had his delayed junior partnership at last.</p> + +<p>The Judge's young client did not pause to collect himself on the worn +door-mat, as he had done when he first came here on errands like this. +They were an old story to him now, and so were scenes like the one with +Maggie, which he had just come through so creditably. He looked quite +unruffled by it, calm as people are when they have no troubles to +bear—or when they have borne all they can, and are about to find relief +in establishing the fact. He knocked and stepped inside.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_NINE" id="CHAPTER_NINE"></a>CHAPTER NINE</h2> + +<p>A fire in the air-tight stove in the corner had taken the early morning +chill from the room and been permitted to burn out, now that the morning +sun came in warm through the dusty windows, but the room was still close +and cloudy with wood smoke. At a battered, roll-topped desk in the +sunniest window Mr. Theodore Burr was struggling with the eccentricities +of an ancient Remington, and looking superior to it and to all his +surroundings, but the Judge was nowhere to be seen.</p> + +<p>Mr. Burr was a very large, very pink young man, with blond hair which +would have looked too good to be true on a woman, and near-set, +green-blue eyes which managed to look vacant and aggressive at the same +time. He was wearing a turquoise-blue tie which accentuated their +effectiveness, and he occupied himself ostentatiously with the Remington +for quite three minutes before he turned his most vacant and aggressive +look upon his client.</p> + +<p>"Well, Donovan?" he said.</p> + +<p>Mr. Burr's manner was as patronizing as Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> Ward's with the +friendliness left out, but his client was not chilled by it.</p> + +<p>"Theodore, where's the Judge?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Burr." The pink young man turned two shades pinker as he made the +correction. "The Judge is engaged."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it."</p> + +<p>Mr. Burr laughed unpleasantly and held up his hand. From the other side +of a door labelled private—misleadingly, for the Judge's little +sanctum, where half the town had the privilege of crowding in and +tipping back chairs and smoking, was the nearest approach to a clubroom +that the town afforded, now that the Hiawatha Club was no more—muffled +voices were faintly audible.</p> + +<p>"You can talk to me," said Mr. Burr.</p> + +<p>"I can, and I can go away and come back when he's not engaged. He said +he'd see me."</p> + +<p>"He's changed his mind. He don't want to see you. I know all about your +case."</p> + +<p>"You've learned a lot in six months."</p> + +<p>"Talk like that won't get you anything, Donovan, here or anywhere else," +remarked Mr. Burr, reasonably, if somewhat offensively. Admitting it, +his client dropped into one of the Judge's big office chairs, and sat +there, fingering his cap as he talked, and looking suddenly beaten and +tired.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You're right, Theodore. Well, what's all this you know about my +case?"</p> + +<p>"Mike Brady sends you here begging when he's ashamed to come himself. +It's hard on you, Neil."</p> + +<p>"My uncle's too busy to come. Is that all you know?"</p> + +<p>"I know what you want to-day, and you can't have it."</p> + +<p>"What do I want?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Burr's manner had become alarmingly official, but his client +continued to smile at him, and to fold and unfold his cap methodically.</p> + +<p>"An extension of time on your uncle's mortgage. The principal is due the +first of next month. You've kept the Judge waiting twice for the +interest, the security is insufficient, the bank holds a first mortgage +on the house, and for fourteen months your uncle has made no payment to +the Judge whatever."</p> + +<p>"Don't rub it in, Theodore."</p> + +<p>"This is no laughing matter. Business is business," stated the junior +partner importantly.</p> + +<p>"More like charity, with the Judge, but Uncle isn't holding him up for +much this time. Uncle's getting on his feet. The Judge never expected +him to, and I didn't, but the automobiles help. Maggie served tea before +she went to Ward's,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> and he's going on with it. His luck has turned. +He's got the money to pay this year's interest and half the back +interest that's due, but he wants to keep it and put it into +repairs—the roof wants shingling, and if we could fix up the storeroom +for a place to serve tea and ice-cream we could double trade. Then, next +year——"</p> + +<p>"We've heard too much about next year, Donovan."</p> + +<p>"Don't get tragic, Theodore. This is a new proposition. I'll go into +figures with the Judge and prove it to him—don't want to waste them on +you. But he won't be sending good money after bad this time, like he's +done too many times. I'm as glad for him as I am for Uncle."</p> + +<p>"It can't be done."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Theodore. I won't wait to see the Judge now, but you tell +him——"</p> + +<p>"It don't make any difference what I tell him. The Judge has made up his +mind, and he won't change it. You can take it from me as well as him. +You won't get another dollar of his money, and you won't get another +month's extension of time. We're done with you."</p> + +<p>"I almost believe you mean that, Theodore."</p> + +<p>"As I said, the house is insufficient security, but for the sake of the +dignity of the firm we must protect ourselves——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I believe you mean it, and the Judge gave you authority to say it."</p> + +<p>"We must go through the form of protecting ourselves and——"</p> + +<p>His client laughed. "You don't mean the Judge wants to take over the +house. That's 'Way Down East stuff. If money's tight with him, we'll pay +the interest and manage some way, though I don't see how. But the house +would be no good to him if he took it, and he wouldn't take it if it +was. I know the Judge. Don't let your imagination get away with you, +Theodore."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry for you, Donovan."</p> + +<p>"You think he's going to take it?"</p> + +<p>"I know he is."</p> + +<p>"You mean that," his client decided slowly, "and you've got the Judge's +authority for it, too."</p> + +<p>"Take it quietly. It's the best way," urged the junior partner +helpfully.</p> + +<p>"I understand that's your motto, Theodore," said his client, and +proceeded to take his advice, sitting quite still in the Judge's big +chair, and fixing a clear-seeing but unappreciative gaze upon the +immaculate folds of Mr. Burr's turquoise-blue tie. He took the advice +too literally. The silence grew oppressive and sinister, and as if he +found it so,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> Mr. Burr broke into a monologue, disjointed, but made up +of irreproachable sentiments.</p> + +<p>"This is hard on your uncle, Neil, and it's hard on you, but it may be +the best thing in the end. He's been hiding behind you too long. A +business that can't stand on its own feet deserves to fail. He can start +new and start clean. The Judge has been a good friend to you——"</p> + +<p>"Don't explain him to me. You don't own him, whoever else does," +interrupted the Judge's protégé softly.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean? If you don't think you're getting a square deal, say +so."</p> + +<p>"Do you want me to weep on your shoulder, Theodore?"</p> + +<p>"The Judge is your friend, and," Mr. Burr added handsomely, "I'm your +friend, too."</p> + +<p>His client arose briskly, as if encouraged by this. "Theodore, you don't +want to tell me what's back of your turning me down?" he asked. "No, I +thought not. Well——"</p> + +<p>"I'm your friend," repeated Mr. Burr, generously if irrelevantly, and +this time without effect. His client had crossed the room without +another glance at him, and had his hand on the knob of the Judge's +office door. His manner still had the composure which Mr. Burr had +advocated, but his face was very pale, ominously pale, and his brown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> +eyes were changed and bright, dangerously bright. To imaginative eyes +like Mr. Burr's he must have looked suddenly taller.</p> + +<p>Mr. Burr was facing an unmistakable crisis, with no time to wonder how +long it had been forming, or why. He hurried after the boy and caught +him fiercely if ineffectively by the arm.</p> + +<p>"You can't go in there," stated Mr. Burr arbitrarily, all logic +deserting him. "You can't. You don't know——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm not going to knife the Judge," his client explained kindly. +"I'm only going to find out what's back of this."</p> + +<p>"Take it quietly," was the ill-chosen sentiment which suggested itself +to Mr. Burr. Neil Donovan swung round angrily, and paused to reply to +it, with fires which the somewhat negative though offensive personality +of the pink young man could never have kindled alight in his brown eyes.</p> + +<p>"Quietly? There's been too much of that in this town. I'm sick of it. +The only friend I've got who hasn't got one foot in the gutter goes back +on me for no reason at all, the first time I ask a favour of him that +don't amount to picking his pockets. The only big man in this rotten +town who's halfway straight since Everard turned the town rotten begins +to act like he wasn't straight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> What's back of it? I'm going to know. +Get out of my way, Theodore."</p> + +<p>"You don't know who's in there."</p> + +<p>"I don't care. I'm going to know." Disposing of the hovering and anxious +intervention of Mr. Burr, and throwing the door open, he slammed it in +the pink young man's perturbed face, and stepped alone out of the +sunshine into the Judge's dim little inner office.</p> + +<p>The Judge's friendly littered little room was not so inviting in working +hours as it was in the hospitable hours of late afternoon. It was like a +woman seen in evening dress by daylight. But the boy who had invaded it +so hotly unmasked no conspiracy here. The men at the table near the one +window, with a pile of official but entirely innocent looking papers +between them, had every right to be there. They were the Judge and +Colonel Everard.</p> + +<p>The great man looked quite undisturbed by the boy's invasion, glancing +up at him indifferently from the papers that he was turning over with +his finely moulded, delicately used hands; he even looked mildly amused, +but the boy turned to him first instinctively, and not to the Judge, who +was peering at him with troubled and kindly eyes over the top of his +glasses.</p> + +<p>"I've got to speak to the Judge. I'm sorry."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p> + +<p>He stammered out his half-apology awkwardly enough, but the smouldering +fires were still alight in his brown eyes, tragic fires of cowed and +rebellious youth. The great man regarded him indifferently for a minute +and then turned rather ostentatiously to his papers again.</p> + +<p>"Judge, I've got to speak to you alone."</p> + +<p>"You can't just now, son."</p> + +<p>"I've got to."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>The Judge's kind, drawling voice was not quite as usual, and his blue, +near-sighted eyes were not; they were wistful and deprecating, and +rather tired, a beaten man's eyes, eyes with an irresistible appeal to +the race that is vowed to lost causes, this boy's race. The boy stepped +instinctively closer.</p> + +<p>"I don't blame you, sir, but I've got to understand this and know what's +behind it."</p> + +<p>"Better go home before you say anything you'll be sorry for, Neil."</p> + +<p>"Why did you go back on me?"</p> + +<p>"You're taking a sentimental attitude about a business matter. It's +natural enough that you should. I'm sorry for you, son."</p> + +<p>"Why——"</p> + +<p>The Judge drew himself up a shade straighter in his chair, and met the +boy's insistent challenge with sudden dignity, kindly but judicial, +peculiarly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> his own, but his flashes of it were not very frequent now.</p> + +<p>"Neil," he said deliberately, "I've got nothing to say to you alone. +I've got nothing to say to you at all that Mr. Burr hasn't said. Is that +quite clear to you?"</p> + +<p>It was entirely clear. The Judge had left no room for uncertainty or +argument, and the boy did not attempt to argue or even to answer. He +stood looking uncertainly down at the Judge, as if for the moment he +could not see anything in the room quite distinctly, the Judge's face, +with its near-sighted blue eyes and red-gold beard and thinning hair, or +Colonel Everard's clear-cut profile.</p> + +<p>"Better go," said the Judge gently.</p> + +<p>"I'd better go," the boy repeated mechanically, but he did not move.</p> + +<p>Colonel Everard put down his papers deliberately, and favoured him with +a glance, amused and surprised, as if he had not expected to find him +still in the room, and was prepared to forget at once that he was there; +a disconcerting sort of glance, but the boy's brown eyes met it +gallantly, and cleared as they looked. They grew bright and defiant +again, with a little laugh in the depths of them. The ghost of a laugh, +too, lurked in the boy's low voice somewhere.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You're right, Judge. I'll go. I'm wasting my time here," he said, +"asking you who's back of what you've done to me—when I know. I +won't ask you again, but I'll ask you, I'll ask you both, who's back of +everything that's crooked or wrong in this town? Little or big, he's +back of it all; straight back of it, or well back of it, hiding his face +and pulling the wires. He's to blame for it all, for he's made the town +what it is.</p> + +<p>"He's got his hand on the neck of the town, and got hold of it tighter, +gradual, so nobody saw it and knocked it off; tighter and tighter, +squeezing the life out. He never made a gift to the town with one hand +that he didn't take it back with the other. What the town gets without +him giving it, he won't let it keep. The whole town's got his stamp on +it, grafting and lying and putting up a front. The whole town's afraid +of him. The Judge here, that's the best man in town, don't dare call his +soul his own. Me, I'm afraid of him, too, and the only reason I dare +stand up and say to his face what's said behind his back is because I've +got nothing to lose. It's him, there——"</p> + +<p>"Don't, son," muttered the Judge tardily, unregarded, but Colonel +Everard listened courteously, with a faint, amused smile growing rather +stiff on his thin lips.</p> + +<p>"Him, that's too good to speak to me or look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> at me, sitting there +grinning, and reading fine print, making out not to care, he's back of +it all—him, Everard."</p> + +<p>The two men, who had heard him out, did not interrupt him now. It was +only a passionate jumble of boyish words they had listened to, but +behind it, vibrating in his tense voice, was something bigger than he +could frame words to express, something that commanded silence; pain +forcing its way into speech, long repression broken at last. The dignity +of it was about him still, though his brown eyes flashed no more +defiance, and he was only a shabby and hopeless boy walking uncertainly +to the office door, and fumbling with the handle.</p> + +<p>"I'll go out this way," he said. "I've had enough of Theodore. And I've +had enough of this place. I'll say good morning, gentlemen."</p> + +<p>In a prosaic and too often unsatisfactory world, which is not the stage, +no curtain drops to relieve you of the embarrassment of thinking what to +say next after a record speech; you have to step out of the limelight, +and walk somewhere else. Neil Donovan, emerging from the ancient +building which contained Judge Saxon's office into Post-office Square +after a brief interval of struggling successfully for self-control in a +dusty corridor little suited to such struggles, and not even en<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>suring +the privacy which is wrongly believed to be necessary for them, had one +more appointment to keep. He was late for it already. He glanced at the +town clock and started off hurriedly to keep it.</p> + +<p>Back of Court-house Hill another street, starting parallel to Court +Street, rapidly loses its sense of direction and its original character +of a business street, wavers to right and left, past a scatter of +discouraged looking houses, and finally slants off in the general +direction of the woods at the edge of the town, and the abortive, +sparsely wooded hill known to generations of picnickers—not the élite +of the town, but humbler, more rowdy picnickers—as Mountain Rock.</p> + +<p>The street never reaches it, but loses itself in a grubby tangle of +smaller streets, thickly set with small houses, densely and untidily +populated, the section known at first derisively and later in good faith +as Paddy Lane. Through the intricate geography of this quarter Colonel +Everard's only openly declared enemy might have been seen making a hasty +and expert way ten minutes later; quickly and directly as it permitted +him to, he approached the base of the hill.</p> + +<p>Disregarding more public and usual ways of ascent, he struck straight +across a stubbly field that lay behind a row of peculiarly forlorn and +tumble<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>down houses into a path so narrow that it was hard to see until +you were actually looking down it, between the twin birches that marked +the entrance. He followed it to the base of the cliff itself. The belt +of stunted birches and dusty-looking alders that skirted the cliff was +broken by an occasional scraggly pine. The boy stopped under one of +them, leaned against the decaying trunk, produced a letter, and read it.</p> + +<p>It was only a pencilled scrawl of a letter, on the roughest of copy +paper, and so crumpled that he must have been quite familiar with it, +but he read it intently.</p> + +<table summary="LETTER"> +<tr><td> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"Neil," it ran, "I'll meet you Saturday, on top of Mountain Rock,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">same time and place. I shan't see you till then. I don't want to.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">You frightened me last night. I don't like you lately. Be nice to</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">me Saturday. <span class="smcap">Judith</span>."</span><br /> +</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Only a pencilled scrawl, but he knew every word of it by heart, and of +the burst of excited speech in the Judge's office nothing remained in +his mind but the general impression that he had made a fool of himself +there. Perhaps he was too familiar with Judith's letter, for the sting +he had found there at first was gone from the words. He looked at them +dully.</p> + +<p>"I can't stand much more," he said aloud.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> + +<p>He said it lifelessly, and with no defiance in his eyes, stating only a +wearisome fact. He had seen the Colonel's face through a kind of red +mist in the Judge's office, and felt reckless and strong. He did not +feel like a hero now. He was tired.</p> + +<p>He would hardly have cared just now if you had told him that back in +Judge Saxon's office two men who had not moved from their chairs since +he left them, and who would not move until several vital points were +settled, were discussing something he would not have believed them +capable of discussing at such length and with so much feeling—the +fortunes of the Donovan family.</p> + +<p>He did not care just now for the little sights and sounds of spring that +were all around him, the cluster of arbutus leaves at his feet, the +faint, nestling bird noises, sweeter than song, and the stir and rustle +of tiny, unclassified sounds that were signs of the pulse of spring +beating everywhere, of change and growth going on whether human beings +perceived or denied it.</p> + +<p>"I can't stand any more," said the boy.</p> + +<p>Up the cliff to his right, strewn with pine needles that were brown-gold +in the sun, a steep and tiny trail led the way to the top of the hill +and his rendezvous. Now the boy crushed Judith's letter into his pocket, +turned to the trail with a sigh, and began to climb.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_TEN" id="CHAPTER_TEN"></a>CHAPTER TEN</h2> + +<p>"They won't like it, Judith," said Mrs. Randall for the last time, as +she slipped into her evening coat.</p> + +<p>"They? If you mean the Colonel——"</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>Judith, looking up at her mother from the chaise-longue, could not have +seen the radiant vision that she had adored as a child, when the spring +and the Everards and the habit of evening dress all returned at once to +Green River. Mrs. Randall's blue gown was the creation of a Wells +dressmaker, but lacked the charm of earlier evening frocks, anxiously +contrived with the help of a local seamstress, when the clear blue that +was still her favourite colour had been her best colour, when there was +a touch more pink in the warm white of her complexion, and before the +tiny, worried line in her broad, low forehead was there to stay. But +there was no reflection of these changes in her daughter's big, watching +eyes.</p> + +<p>"It will do him good not to like it," said Judith sweetly.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing, Mamma. Is that the carriage? Don't be +late."</p> + +<p>Minna Randall looked down at her daughter in puzzled silence a moment, +with the little line in her forehead deepening, then slipped to her +knees beside her with a disregard for her new gown which was unusual, +and put a caressing hand on her forehead, a demonstration which was more +unusual still.</p> + +<p>"Your head does feel hot," she said, "but to stay away from a dance at +your age, just for a headache——"</p> + +<p>"I went to one last night."</p> + +<p>"A high school dance!"</p> + +<p>"There won't be any more of them. You needn't grudge it to me." Judith +buried her face in the cushions, and lay very still.</p> + +<p>"But the Colonel really arranged this for you. Dancing bores him. He +said you ought to be amused."</p> + +<p>"He didn't say so to me."</p> + +<p>"Are you laughing? I thought you were crying a minute ago." Judith gave +no further signs of either laughing or crying. "Judith, what does he say +to you? When you went with him to look at that night-blooming flower +with the queer name, last week, and were gone so long, what did he talk +to you about? You heard me. Please answer."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He's a stupid old thing."</p> + +<p>"What did he talk about?"</p> + +<p>"I don't remember."</p> + +<p>"Judith," Judith's mother stood plucking ineffectively at her long +gloves, and looking at the motionless white figure, very slender and +childish against the chintz of the cushions, soft, tumbled hair, and +hidden face, with a growing trouble in her eyes, "I ought to talk to +you—I ought to tell you—you're old enough now—old enough——"</p> + +<p>Judith turned with a soft, nestling movement, and opened her eyes again, +deep, watchful eyes that asked endless questions, and made it impossible +to answer them, eyes that knew no language but their own, the secret and +alien language of youth. Her mother sighed.</p> + +<p>"You're the strangest child. Sometimes you seem a hundred years old, and +sometimes—you don't feel too badly to stay alone? Mollie would have +stayed in with you, or Norah."</p> + +<p>"No. I would have gone, if I'd known you cared so much, but it won't do +any good to make yourself late, Mamma. Father's calling," said Judith +gravely. Still grave and unrelaxed, she returned her mother's rare +good-night kiss, and watched her sweep out of the room, turning the +rose-shaded night lamp low as she passed.</p> + +<p>There was a hurry of preparation downstairs,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> her mother's low, fretful +voice and her father's high and strained one joined in a heated +argument, and they started still deep in it, for her father did not call +a good-night to Judith. The street door shut, and she was alone in the +house. Carriage wheels creaked out of the yard and there was no +returning sound of them in search of some forgotten thing; a long enough +interval passed so that it was safe to infer that there would not be, +but Judith lay as her mother had left her, as still as if her headache +were really authentic, her questioning eyes on the rose-shaded light.</p> + +<p>There was much that might have increased her mother's concern for her in +her face, if you could interpret it fully; sometimes the eyes suggested +a fair proportion of the hundred years her mother had credited her with, +sometimes there was dawning fear in them, and sometimes an inconsequent, +gipsy light; sometimes her soft lips trembled pitifully, and sometimes +they smiled. Always it was a lovely face, rose flushed and eager in the +rosy light, and always something was evident which was enough to account +for her mother's concern and for more concern than her mother was +capable of feeling; Miss Judith Devereux Randall was growing up.</p> + +<p>Whatever questions occupied her answered themselves in a satisfactory +way at last, even an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> amusing way, for her smile had come to stay and +her eyes were dancing, when she jumped up from the chaise-longue at +last, turned on more lights, opened closets and bureau drawers all at +once, dropped various hastily chosen and ill-assorted articles on the +immaculate counterpane of her bed, and began to dress.</p> + +<p>She dressed without a glance into the mirror, and without need of it, it +appeared, when she stood before it at last, pulling a left-over winter +tam over rebellious curls which she had made no attempt to subdue. She +had buttoned herself hastily into the dress she had taken off last, a +tumbled organdy, and thrown a disreputable polo coat over it, white like +the cap, but of more prehistoric date, but on her slender person these +incongruous garments had acquired a harmony of their own, and become a +costume somehow. It might not have withstood a long or critical +inspection, but it was not subjected to one. Youth, in its divinely +suited garb of white, regarded itself with grave eyes for one breathless +minute, flushed and coquetted with itself for another, and then was gone +from the mirror. Judith turned off the lights and stole out of the room, +and downstairs.</p> + +<p>There was nothing in the dark and empty house to frighten her. It must +have been fear of whatever was before her that made her slip so softly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> +across the hall, and tremble and stand still when the door chain +rattled. The door was open at last. With a soft, inarticulate gasp of +excitement, she stepped out into the May night.</p> + +<p>Colonel Everard had an ideal night for the little dance in his garden, +warm, but with a quiver of new life in the air. The May moon was in its +last quarter, but lanterns were to supplement it. But the Colonel's +guest of honour, pausing at the corner of Main Street and looking +sharply to left and right, and then turning quickly off it, found very +little light on the narrow and tree-fringed cross-street through which +she was hurrying now but the moon.</p> + +<p>It hung slender and pale and low above the ragged row of little houses, +and seemed to go with her through the dark, but she took no notice of +its companionship. The street was deserted, and the tap of her little +heels sounded disconcertingly loud in the emptiness of it as she hurried +on, turning from the narrow street into a narrower one.</p> + +<p>This street had only one real end; pending the appropriation needed to +carry it straight through, witheld by agencies which could only be +connected by guess with Colonel Everard, it led feebly past a few houses +which were nearly all untenanted and looked peculiarly so to-night, to a +clump of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> alders at the edge of an unpenetrated wood lot, where it had +paused. Just in front of it the girl paused, too.</p> + +<p>Her small, white-coated figure was only dimly to be seen in the dark of +the street; the group in the shadow of the trees was harder to see, but +it moved; a horse pawed the ground impatiently, the boy in the buggy +leaned forward and spoke to him. Then Judith started uncertainly toward +him, and spoke softly, in the arrogant phrasing of lovers, to whom there +is only one "you" in the world:</p> + +<p>"Is that you?"</p> + +<p>"Is it you?" the boy's voice came hoarse through the dark. "I thought +you weren't coming. I waited an hour for you yesterday on the Rock."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't help it. I oughn't to be here now, and I almost didn't come, +but I thought we'd have to-night. Neil, you hurt my hand. Be nice to +me."</p> + +<p>She was standing close beside him now, and they could see each other's +faces, white and strange in the dark, but the boy's looked whiter, and +his breath came oddly, in irregular gasps. He held both her hands in +his, but he did not bend down to her, nor kiss her.</p> + +<p>"What makes you look so queer? I don't like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> you. Be nice to me." There +was something terribly wrong with the smug little phrases, or with any +words at all just then, there in the heart of the silent dark, and +facing the strangeness of the boy's eyes; words failed her suddenly, and +she pulled her hands away, and hid her face in them. "I won't go with +you—I'll go home, if you aren't nice to me—if——"</p> + +<p>"You can't go home now." There was something in the boy's voice that was +like the fierce clasp of his hands, something from which it was not so +easy to escape. "It might be better if you hadn't come, better for both +of us, but you can't go back now. It's too late. Yes, we'll have +to-night. Get in, Judith."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_ELEVEN" id="CHAPTER_ELEVEN"></a>CHAPTER ELEVEN</h2> + +<p>"Get in, Judith."</p> + +<p>"I won't go. You can't make me."</p> + +<p>The boy did not answer or move. Boy and buggy and horse—Charlie Brady's +ancient chestnut mare, not such a dignified creature by daylight, but +high shouldered and mysterious now against the dark of the grove—might +all have been part of the surrounding dark, they were so still, and +Judith's little white figure was motionless, too.</p> + +<p>Judith stood looking up at the boy for one long, silent minute. Such +minutes are really longer than other minutes, if you measure them by +heartbeats, and how else are you to measure them? Strange, breathless +minutes, that settle grave questions irrevocably by the mere fact of +their passing, whether you watch them pass with open eyes or are +helpless and young and vaguely afraid before them; helpless, but full of +the untaught strength of youth, which works miracles without knowing how +or why.</p> + +<p>"Get in," said the boy, very softly this time, so that his voice just +made itself heard through the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> dark; it was like part of the dark, +caressing and hushed and secret, and not to be denied. With a soft +little laugh that was attuned to it, Judith yielded suddenly, and +slipped into the carriage beside him, drawing the robe tight round her, +and settling into her corner, all with one quick, nestling motion, like +a bird perching.</p> + +<p>"Where are we going?" she said rather breathlessly, "Hurry. Let's go a +long, long way."</p> + +<p>"All right. Don't be frightened, Judith."</p> + +<p>"Frightened?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer. Charlie's horse, debarred from its destined career by +bad driving, that broke its wind in its first race, but of sporting +ancestry and unable to forget it, especially when Charlie's adventures +in the Green River under-world cheated it of exercise too long, was +remembering it now, and bolting down the hilly little street, settled at +last into a jerky and tentative gait with the air of accepting their +guidance until it could arrange further plans, but remembering its +ancestry still.</p> + +<p>"Splendid," Judith breathed. "Keep off Main Street."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>The ancient vehicle, well oiled, but rattling faintly still, swung +alarmingly close to one street corner lamp-post and then another. Judith +nestled almost out of sight in her corner. Neil leaned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> forward, +gripping the reins with an ungloved hand that whitened at the knuckles, +his dark eyes looking straight ahead. His brooding eyes and quiet mouth, +and even the whiteness of his face had something unfamiliar about them, +something that did not all come from the unhealthy light of the street +lamps, something strange but unaccountably charming, too. Judith had no +eyes for it just then.</p> + +<p>"This is silly. I ought not to have come. Who's that?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody. Just a tree. Sit still. We'll go under the railroad bridge and +out over Grant's Hill. There won't be any more lights."</p> + +<p>"It looked like some one."</p> + +<p>"What do you care?"</p> + +<p>"It looked like your cousin Maggie."</p> + +<p>"She's at home in bed. She was tired to-night."</p> + +<p>"Oh. Well, it looked like her. It was silly to come. I never shall come +again."</p> + +<p>As if this were not a new threat, or had for some reason lost it terrors +to-night, the boy did not contradict her. They had left track and +railroad bridge behind now, darker blots against the surrounding dark, +with the lights of the station showing faintly far down the track. They +were passing the last of the houses that straggled along the +unfashionable quarter above the railroad track.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> Most of the houses here +were dark now. In the Nashs' windows the last light puffed suddenly out +as they went by.</p> + +<p>Down in the town behind them other sleepy little lights were burning +faintly, or going out, but ahead of them the faintly moonlit road looked +wide-awake. It was an alluring road. It dipped into wooded hollows, it +broke suddenly into arbitrary curves and windings but found its way out +again, and kept on somehow, and gradually lifted itself higher and +higher toward the crest of the hill five miles away that you reached +without ever seeming to climb it, to be confronted all at once with the +only real view between Wells and Green River.</p> + +<p>"I used to think Grant's Hill was the end of the world," said Judith +softly. "Maybe it is. It's funny I can say things like that to you, when +you only laugh and won't answer. Listen. Isn't it still, so still it +almost makes a noise."</p> + +<p>It was very still. You could feel the pulse of the night here. There was +a whisper and stir of life in the rustling trees when the road crossed +some belt of woods; there was a look of blind, creeping life about the +clustering shadows in stretches of moonlight, and the low-hanging moon +above the dark fields they passed was a living thing, too, the most +alive of all. Judith stirred in her corner, and turned and looked at +it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<p>"It's sweet," she said. "And it's ours. It's still May. But we +can't wish on the moon now; it's too late. And I don't want to wish, I'm +so comfortable. Aren't you? Well, you needn't answer, then, and you +needn't hold my hand." She had felt for a hand that avoided hers. With a +sleepy, satisfied laugh, like a petted kitten purring, she settled +herself again, with her head against an unresponsive shoulder, and +pulled an unresponsive arm round her waist.</p> + +<p>"You aren't as soft as the cushions—not nearly. You're pretty hard, but +I like you. I was afraid to come, but now——"</p> + +<p>"Now what?"</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to be afraid of. I'm so happy. There's nobody in the +world but you and me. Neil, I'm going to sleep."</p> + +<p>"All right. Shut your eyes, then, and don't keep staring at me. What +makes your eyes so bright?"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" > +<a id="illus3" name="illus3"></a> +<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt="'Shut your eyes'" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"You."</p> + +<p>"Shut your eyes."</p> + +<p>"All right. Nobody but you and me."</p> + +<p>They were really alone in the world now, alone in the heart of the +night. Their little murmur of talk, so low that they could just hear it +themselves, had been such a tiny trickle of sound that it did not quite +break the silence, and now it had died<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> away. Asleep or awake, the +girl was quite still, with her cheek pressed against the boy's shoulder, +and her long-lashed eyes tight shut. The horse carried them over the +moonlit road at a rate of speed that did not seem possible from its +strange, loping gait. The effect of it was uncanny.</p> + +<p>Boy and girl and queer, high-shouldered horse, darkly silhouetted in the +moonlight, lost to sight in the shadows of tall trees that looked taller +in the dark, and then coming silently into view again, were like dim, +flitting shadows in the night; like peculiarly helpless and +insignificant shadows, restless and purposeless. The moon, soft and far +away and still, seemed more alive than they did, and more competent to +adjust their affairs.</p> + +<p>They required adjusting. That was in the watching brightness of the +girl's eyes, fluttering open once or twice, only to close quickly again, +in the tenseness of the boy's arm around her, in the set of his +shoulders and lift of his stubborn young chin, in the very air that he +breathed uneasily, the soft, disturbing air of the May night. It was not +a boy and girl quarrel that was before them: it was something more. It +was the strangest hour that had come to them in their secret treasury of +strange hours that were touched with the glamour of black magic and +swayed by laws they did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> know. It might be the darkest hour. It was +the test hour.</p> + +<p>There is no sure and easy way through such hours. If they faced theirs +unprepared and afraid, so must the rest of the world, the part that is +older and counted wiser. But this could have been no comfort just then +to the boy and girl in the antiquated buggy, under the untroubled gaze +of the wishing moon.</p> + +<p>They were almost on the crest of the hill now. One long, upward slant of +road led straight to it, bare of trees, and silvery in the moonlight. At +the foot, and just at the edge of a thick belt of woods, the boy pulled +up as if to rest his horse for the gradual ascent. At his left, hardly +visible at all to-night unless you stopped your horse to look for it, a +narrow and overgrown road led off through the trees. Tightening the arm +that held her cautiously, the boy looked down at the face against his +shoulder, the faint, half-smile on the lips, and the lightly closed +eyes.</p> + +<p>The girl did not move. Her cap had slipped off, and one small, bare hand +clutched the fuzzy white thing tight, as a sleeping child's hand might +have closed on some favourite toy. Her hair showed silvery blond and +soft against his dark coat. With a quick, hungry motion, the boy dropped +his head and kissed it lightly. Then, gripping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> the reins with a +firmness that no present activity of the animal called for, he left +Green River's only noteworthy view without a backward glance, and turned +his horse into the road through the woods.</p> + +<p>For the next few minutes he had no attention to spare for Judith, +suspiciously quiet in his arms. He could not see her face. It was black +dark under the trees, dark as if it had never been light. The track was +wider than it looked, but also rougher. The trees grew close. Branches +that he brushed aside sprinkled dew into his face. The buggy creaked out +vain protests and useless warnings. Finally moonlight showed at the end +of the black tunnel, and the horse, which had been encountering its +difficulties in resourceful silence, made a faint, snorting comment +which sounded relieved, and presently, with unexpected jauntiness, swung +into the road again.</p> + +<p>It was technically a road, and it was the wreck of a very good road, but +it was not in much better shape than the track they had reached it by. +Aspiring amateurs had sketched it and camera fiends haunted it in their +day. It was Colonel Everard's favourite bridle path, which naturally +prevented repairs upon it. But before the railroad went through it had +been Green River's only link with a wider world. Now a better built but +more circuitous road had replaced it, designed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> for motoring. No motors +ever penetrated here, and few carriages. It was left to the ghosts of +ancient traffic, if they ventured here. The glancing moonlight under the +close-growing trees might have been full of them to-night.</p> + +<p>But the boy was not looking for ghosts or interested in the history of +the road or its charm, as he hurried his high-shouldered horse along it, +still responding jauntily. He squared his chin more stubbornly than +ever, and muttered encouragingly to the horse, and reached for his +battered whip. Round this corner, beyond this milestone, the stage +drivers used to make up time when the mail was late. A generous mile of +almost level road curved ahead of Neil into the moonlight, a fairly +clean bit of going even now. Judith and Neil were on the old coaching +road to Wells.</p> + +<p>Neil reached for his whip, but did not take it out of the socket. A +small hand closed over his. The head on his shoulder did not move, but +dark eyes, watchful and deliberate, opened and looked up at him quietly.</p> + +<p>"Now," said a cool little voice, "you can take me home."</p> + +<p>"You're awake?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"Then why——"</p> + +<p>"I waited to see where you were going, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> what you were going to do," +explained Judith simply. They were covering the banner stretch of road +at a rate the old stage drivers had never emulated. Judith pushed Neil's +arm away, and sat straight and looked at him. Her cheeks were gloriously +flushed with the quick motion, and her soft, tumbled hair had broken +into baby curls round her forehead, but her eyes were a woman's dark, +unforgiving eyes. Neil gave her one furtive glance, and looked away.</p> + +<p>"I told you to take me home," she said.</p> + +<p>He made a muttered reply, inarticulate, so that it would have been hard +to tell whether it was really addressed to Judith or the horse, and bent +forward over the reins.</p> + +<p>The colour deepened in Judith's cheeks, her soft lips tightened into a +straight line that was like her mother's mouth. Her cool, unhurried +voice was like her mother's, too: "I knew when we started out I'd have +trouble with you. Now I don't intend to have any more. I don't want to +have to tell you again. Take me home."</p> + +<p>She had adopted the tone which Green River's self-made gentlewomen like +Mrs. Theodore Burr mistakenly believed to be effective with servants. +The boy beside her gave no sign that it was effective with him. He spoke +softly to the horse again, and flicked at it coaxingly with the whip.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Neil, I am sorry for you," Judith stated presently, with no sympathy +whatever in her judicial young voice. "I have been awfully good to you."</p> + +<p>"Good!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, good. I—had to be. Because I knew we didn't have much time. I +knew—this—would have to stop some day. I knew it and you knew it, too. +You always knew it. Well, I've been trying to tell you for a long time +that it had got to stop. I tried, but you wouldn't let me. We're both +getting older, too old for this, and I'm going away next year. And some +things have happened to me, just lately—last week—that made me think. +I've got to be careful. I've got to take care of myself. This has got to +stop now—to-night. I wanted to tell you so. That's why I came; +because——"</p> + +<p>"I know why you came."</p> + +<p>"Don't be cross. Be good, and turn round now, and take me home. Neil, +I'm not sorry, you know, for—anything. Ever since that first night at +the dance you've been so sweet to me. I'm not sorry. Are you?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"How funny your voice sounds. Why don't you turn round?"</p> + +<p>He had no explanation to offer. The buggy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> plunged faster through the +dark, and Judith braced herself in her corner.</p> + +<p>"Neil, turn round. Don't you hear me?"</p> + +<p>He gave no sign of hearing. The horse swung gallantly into a bit of road +where the stage drivers had never been in the habit of hurrying, a +tricky bit of road, with overhanging rocks jutting out just where you +might graze them at sudden turns, and with abrupt dips into precipitous +hollows. One stretched dark ahead of them now. Judith caught her breath +as they plunged into it, and clutched Neil's arm. He laughed shortly, +and did not shake off her hand. She pulled at his wrist and shook it.</p> + +<p>"Upset us if you want to. We'd go together," he urged, with a logic not +to be questioned. "Together, and that suits me, Judy."</p> + +<p>"Neil, turn round. Neil!" Judith's voice was shrill with sudden terror +repressed too long, but she struggled to make it steady and cold again, +in one last effort at control.</p> + +<p>"Who do you think you are, Neil Donovan? I tell you to take me home."</p> + +<p>He did not even turn to look at her. He was getting the horse down the +rocky slant of dimly lit road with a patience and concentration which +there was nobody to appreciate just then. Judith collapsed into her +corner. There was a faint sound<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> of helpless crying from her, then +silence as she choked back the tears; silence, and an erect, stubborn +figure showing oppressively big and dark between Judith and the moon.</p> + +<p>"Neil, I'm sorry ... Neil, I can't stand this," came a muffled voice. +"Please speak to me."</p> + +<p>They were on level ground again, and the horse was disposed to make the +most of it. The boy pulled her into a jolting walk which was not the +most successful of her gaits, but represented a triumph for him just +now, and then he turned abruptly to Judith, gathering both her hands +into his free hand and gripping them tight.</p> + +<p>"I'll talk to you now," he said. "It's time I told you. Judith, you and +I are not going back."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_TWELVE" id="CHAPTER_TWELVE"></a>CHAPTER TWELVE</h2> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"We're not going back," he repeated deliberately.</p> + +<p>"We are!" flashed Judith.</p> + +<p>"We're not going back. We're never going back."</p> + +<p>Judith drew back and stared at him, her hands still in his, and the boy +stared back with a look that matched her own in his big, deeply lit, +dark eyes. White faces, with angry, dark eyes, were all that they could +see clearly, though they were crossing a patch of road where a ragged +gap in the trees let some of the moonlight through; white faces like +strangers' faces.</p> + +<p>They were only a boy and girl jolting through the woods in the night in +a rattletrap buggy behind a caricature of a horse, but what looked out +of their angry eyes and spoke in their tense young voices was greater +than the immediate issue of their quarrel, and older and wiser than they +were; as old as the world. Ancient enemies were at war once more. A man +and a woman were making their age-old fight for mastery over themselves +and each other.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Never, Judy."</p> + +<p>"Where are we going, then?"</p> + +<p>"What difference does it make?"</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"To Wells. We can make it by morning. I've got the mortgage money with +me."</p> + +<p>"Your uncle's?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. What difference does that make? That, or anything? We'd go if we +hadn't any money at all. We'd have to. Oh, Judith——"</p> + +<p>"You don't know what you're saying. Take me home. What are you laughing +at?"</p> + +<p>"You. You sounded just like them, then, giving me orders—just like your +whole rotten crowd, but you're through with them now, and you're through +ordering me about and making a fool of me. I've been afraid to say my +soul was my own. It wasn't, I guess. But we're all through with that. +We're through, Judith."</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course. Of course we're through. It's all right. Everything's +all right, Neil dear."</p> + +<p>"Everything's all wrong, and I know whose fault it is now: it's your +fault. Maybe I only had one chance in a hundred to get on, but one +chance is enough, and I was taking it. You made me ashamed to take it. I +was ashamed to do the work that was all I could get to do, and I had my +head so full of you I couldn't do any work. Mag<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>gie's better than I am. +She don't sit around with her hands folded and wait for Everard to get +tired of her. And the whole town don't laugh at her. The whole town +don't know——"</p> + +<p>"Neil, I said I was sorry. Please don't."</p> + +<p>"You've got the smooth ways of them all, but it's too late for that +between us, Judy. Smooth, lying ways."</p> + +<p>"We can't go to Wells, Neil dear. What could we do there? Think."</p> + +<p>"I'm sick of thinking. I'd get work maybe. I don't know. I don't care. +Judith——"</p> + +<p>"We can't. Not to-night, Neil. Wait."</p> + +<p>"I'm sick of waiting. I've got nothing to gain by it. I've done all the +waiting I could. I've stood all I could. You're the only thing I want in +the world, and I couldn't wait for you any longer if I could get you +that way—and I wouldn't get you. I'd lose you."</p> + +<p>"Not to-night. To-morrow, if you really want me to go. To-morrow, +truly."</p> + +<p>"You're lying to me, and I'm tired of it."</p> + +<p>"No, Neil—Neil dear."</p> + +<p>"You're lying."</p> + +<p>"How dare you say that! I hate you!"</p> + +<p>"That's right. We'll talk straight now. It's time."</p> + +<p>"I hate you. Don't touch me. You're going<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> to take me home—you +must—and I'm never going to speak to you again. I think you're crazy. +But I'm not afraid of you—I'm not afraid."</p> + +<p>The low-keyed, hurrying voices broke off abruptly. There was no sound in +the buggy but Judith's rapid breathing, more and more like sobs, but no +tears came. The two faces that confronted each other were alike in the +gloom, white and angry and very young; alike as the faces of enemies are +when they measure each other's strength in silence. It was a cruel, +tense little silence, but the sound that broke it was more cruel. It was +dry and hard and had nothing to do with his own conquering laugh, that +the girl knew, but it came from the boy.</p> + +<p>"How dare you laugh at me. I hate you!" Judith's voice came hoarse and +unrecognizable.</p> + +<p>A hand caught blindly at the reins; another hand closed over it. Then +there was silence again in the buggy, broken by panting sounds and +little sobs. At the end of it Judith, forced back into her corner and +held there, was really crying now, with hysterical sobs that hurt, and +hot tears that hurt, too.</p> + +<p>"Let me go," she panted. "I hate you! You've got to let me go."</p> + +<p>"What for?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going home. I'm going to get out and walk home."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ten miles?"</p> + +<p>"I'd walk a hundred miles to get away from you."</p> + +<p>"You'd have to walk farther to do that." The dry little laugh cut +through the dark again, and Judith struck furiously at the arm that held +her.</p> + +<p>"I hate you!" she sobbed.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I do—I do——"</p> + +<p>"I don't care." The boy's voice sounded light and dry, like his laugh. +"I don't care. Kiss me."</p> + +<p>"I won't! I won't! I'll never speak to you again. I'll never forgive +you."</p> + +<p>"Lying to me—fooling me; taking me up and dropping me like Everard does +to women.... You're no better than he is. You're one of his crowd, but +you're through with them.... Lying to me, when you do care. You do."</p> + +<p>"I hate you!"</p> + +<p>"Ah, no, you don't."</p> + +<p>Little bursts of confused speech, all they had breath for and more, +disconnected, not always understood, not always articulate, but always +angry, came from them, with intervals of silent, panting struggle +between. The two young creatures in the buggy were struggling in earnest +now. The struggle was clumsy, like most really significant ones; sudden +and clumsy and blind. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> two figures swayed aimlessly back and forth. +The boy and girl were both on their feet now. The boy had dropped the +reins. Both arms held the girl. Her pinioned arms fought to free +themselves.</p> + +<p>"Judith, you don't hate me. Say it—say it."</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a id="illus4" name="illus4"></a> +<img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt="'Judith, you don't hate me. Say it—say it.'" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>The two shadowy figures were like one now, but the girl's arms were +free, pushing the boy away, striking at him impotently.</p> + +<p>"You needn't say it. I know. You had to come to-night. You couldn't stay +away. You don't hate me. You never will. You couldn't. I'm crazy about +you. You're the only thing that matters, if we should die the next +minute. Everything's all wrong, and it's not my fault or yours. +Everything's wrong, and this is wrong, too, but I don't care and you +don't. Do you? Do you?"</p> + +<p>"Neil, let me go. I can't breathe."</p> + +<p>"I love you."</p> + +<p>"Let me go."</p> + +<p>The shadow figures swayed and then were still. The girl's arms dropped. +The little, one-sided struggle was over. There was a long, tired sigh, +and then silence; silence, and one shadow face bending hungrily over the +other shadow face. "Judith," the boy whispered breathlessly, "do you +hate me now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you want me to let you go? Do you want me to take you home?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," came the same answering whisper, the faintest and most uncertain +of whispers, but two arms, gently freeing themselves, found their way to +his shoulders, two hands locked behind his head and drew it gently down, +until the two shadow faces were close once more, and lips that were not +shadow lips met and clung together; not shadow lips, but hungry and warm +and alive—untaught but unafraid young lips, ready for kisses that are +no two alike and can never come again—wonderful kisses that blot +everything out of the changing world but themselves.</p> + +<p>"Judith"—the boy lifted his head at last, and looked down at the face +against his shoulder, pale and small, but with all the colour and light +and life that night had taken from the world and hidden, burning +undimmed in the awakening eyes—"you don't want me to take you home? You +don't—care what happens?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>He could hardly hear her low whisper, but her face was answer enough, +even for a boy who could not know what had touched it with new beauty, +but had to guess, as his own heart and the night might teach him.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't care. I don't care."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Judith, you do love me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Oh, yes."</p> + +<p>"You're so sweet," he whispered, "I feel as if I'd never kissed you +before—or seen you before. I love you, Judith."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I love you and I don't want to hurt you. You know that, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"But nothing's going to take you away from me now."</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to hurt you."</p> + +<p>"I tell you, I don't care what happens. I—don't—care."</p> + +<p>"Judith!"</p> + +<p>Once more her hands drew him close; shy hands, groping uncertainly in +the dark, and shy lips kissed him. It was the coolest and lightest of +kisses, but it was worth all the others, if the boy knew how much it +promised—more than all her broken speech had promised, more than any +spoken words.</p> + +<p>Judith herself did not know, but some instinct older than she was made +her whisper: "Be good to me. Will you be good to me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Judith."</p> + +<p>The boy answered her small, shaken whisper solemnly, as if he were +taking a formal and irrev<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>ocable vow, but there was no one to listen to +it here, and bear witness to it as irrevocable. The girl did not answer +him. Suddenly shy, breathing quickly, and trying to laugh, she slipped +out of his arms.</p> + +<p>The boy let her go. Some time before the trailing reins had been caught +up and twisted twice round the whip socket. He had done this +instinctively, he could not have told just when. He bent down and +untwisted them now, rather slowly and awkwardly, not looking at Judith. +Then he sat down stiffly beside her.</p> + +<p>"You're tired," he said, with new gentleness in his voice. He put an arm +loosely round her waist in the manner of an affectionate but +inexperienced parent, and her head dropped on his shoulder. "Very +tired?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Judith, I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm sorry. How could I be so horrid? What made me? Did I hurt you, +dear, with my hands?"</p> + +<p>"You couldn't hurt me."</p> + +<p>"Neil, you know what you said just now?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind what I said."</p> + +<p>"You said you didn't want anything to take me away from you. Well, if it +did, if anything did take me away from you—now, I'd——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What, dear?"</p> + +<p>"I'd never forgive you. I couldn't. I'd despise you." This warning came +in a low, uncertain voice, wasted, as countless warnings have been +wasted on wiser masculine ears than the boy's. "Look at our moon up +there. It's glad, I guess—glad about you and me. Why don't you listen +to me?"</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking, Judith. I've got to think."</p> + +<p>"You look very nice when you think. Your eyes look so big and still. You +look—beautiful. I could really sleep now, I guess."</p> + +<p>"All right, dear."</p> + +<p>"But I don't want to. I'm too happy. How late is it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's late. We couldn't get home now before awfully late—two or +something. And the road's so narrow here, we couldn't turn round. We +couldn't go home if we wanted to. Could we?"</p> + +<p>"Not very well, dear."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad.... Neil."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Are you thinking now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You do look beautiful. I don't know just why. I never saw you look just +like this before; kind,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> but years older than I am, and miles away. +Neil——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear."</p> + +<p>"Neil, don't think any more. Just love me.... I love you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_THIRTEEN" id="CHAPTER_THIRTEEN"></a>CHAPTER THIRTEEN</h2> + +<p>Colonel Everard's little party was quite successful enough without the +guest of honour. At least, it would have seemed so to Judith, if she +could have looked in upon it just before midnight. A distinguished guest +of the Colonel's had made an ungrateful criticism of the inner circle, +on parade for his benefit only the week before at Camp Hiawatha, which +was elaborately rebuilt now, and rechristened Camp Everard. He +complained that the Colonel's parties were too successful.</p> + +<p>"Too many pretty women," he said, "or they work too hard at it—dress +too well, or talk too well—don't dare to let down. You need more +background, more men like Grant. You need to be bored. You can't have +cream without milk. You can't take the essentials of a society and make +a whole society out of them without adulterating them. It won't last. +That's why Adam and Eve didn't stay in the garden. They couldn't—too +much tension there. They needed casual acquaintances, and you need +background. You can't get on without it."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We do," said his host.</p> + +<p>The distinguished critic was far away from the Colonel's town to-night, +but the Colonel's party was all that he had complained of; the thing he +had felt and tried to account for and explain was here, as it was at all +the Colonel's parties, though a discreet selection of outsiders had been +admitted to-night; the same sense of effort and tension, of working too +hard, of a gayety brilliant but forced—artificial, but justifying the +elaborate processes that created it by its charm, like some rare +hothouse flower.</p> + +<p>You saw it in quick glimpses of passing faces thrown into strong relief +by the light of the swinging lanterns, and then dancing out of sight; +you heard it in strained, sweet laughter, and felt it in the beat of the +music, and in the whole picture the party made of itself in the garden, +the restless, changing picture, but this was not all—it was in the air. +You could close your eyes and breathe it and feel it. It was unusually +keen to-night, real, like a thing you could actually touch and see.</p> + +<p>You lost the keen sense of it if you looked too closely for signs of it. +If you overheard bits of talk, they were not always clever at all, or +even entirely gay. Worried lines showed under elaborate makeup in the +women's faces, as if Cinderella had put on white gloves to hide smutty +fingers;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> indeed, though they were trained to forget it and make you +forget it, they were only so many Cinderellas, after all. Seen too +closely, there was a look of strain about some of the men's faces.</p> + +<p>There was a reason for this look to-night, besides the set of reasons +which the gentlemen of the Colonel's circle always had for looking +worried; living beyond their incomes, living in uncertainty of any +income at all, and other private reasons, different in each case, but +all quite compelling; there was a reason, and the Colonel's guest of the +week before was connected with it. Others would follow him soon, secret +conferences would take place unrecorded, the Colonel's private telephone +wire would be busy, and the telegrams he received would be +frequent and not intelligible to the casual reader. These were the +months before election, when the things that were going to happen began +to happen. Their beginnings were obscure. The man in the street talked +politics, but the man with his hands in the game kept still. Even when +they slipped away to the smoking-room, or gathered at the edge of the +lawn in groups of two and three that scattered as their host approached, +the Colonel's guests were not discussing politics to-night.</p> + +<p>No tired lines were permitted to show in Mrs. Randall's face. Her fresh, +cool prettiness was of the valuable kind that shows off best at the +height<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> of the evening, when other women look tired. If she was aware of +the fact and made the most of it, overworking her charming smile and +wide-open, tranquil eyes, you could not blame her. It was not the time +or place to overlook any weapons you might have. Whatever duties or +privileges belonged to the Colonel's inner circle, you had to take care +of yourself if you were part of it, and you learned to; that was evident +from her manner. It seemed easy for her to-night. Just now she was +sharing a bench and an evening cloak with Mrs. Burr, smooth, dark head +close to her fluffy, blond one, and smiling into her face confidingly, +as if all that lady's purring, disconnected remarks were equally +agreeable to her.</p> + +<p>"We miss Judy so much," she said sweetly.</p> + +<p>"I can see just how much, dear," said Judith's mother more sweetly +still.</p> + +<p>"And it's so long since she's been here."</p> + +<p>"She has her school work to do. She's just a child. She's not well +to-night."</p> + +<p>"But I got the idea he meant this to be her evening."</p> + +<p>"He did."</p> + +<p>"There he is." The third person singular, unqualified, could mean only +one gentleman to the ladies of the Colonel's circle, and that gentleman +was passing close to them now, though he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> seemed unconscious of the +fact. He was guiding Mrs. Kent through an old-fashioned waltz with +elaborate precision. His concentration upon the performance increased as +he passed them, and he did not look away from his partner's face, though +it was not absorbingly attractive just now. The piquant profile had a +blurred look, and the cheeks were flushed under the daintily calculated +touch of rouge. Mrs. Burr turned to her friend with a faint but +relentless light of amusement in her narrowed eyes.</p> + +<p>"Edie's had just one cocktail too many."</p> + +<p>"Yes." They ignored the more obvious fact that the Colonel had. The +evening had reached the stage when he always had.</p> + +<p>"He hasn't danced with you many times, Minna dear."</p> + +<p>"I'm tired of dancing, but don't let me keep you here, Lil."</p> + +<p>"I haven't seen him dance with you at all."</p> + +<p>"He hasn't yet."</p> + +<p>"No?" said Mrs. Burr, very casually.</p> + +<p>"No. Lil, I think Ranny wants you. He's wandering about, looking vague."</p> + +<p>"Don't you want me, dear? Well, Ranny always wants me."</p> + +<p>Mr. Randolph Sebastian, discovering her suddenly, gave exaggerated proof +of this as he carried<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> her off. If the Colonel's secretary had really +been recruited from a dance hall, he had profited by what he saw there, +and showed it in every quick, graceful turn he made. His partner was the +type of woman that dancing might have been invented to show off; it gave +her lazy, graciously built body a reason for being, and put a flicker of +meaning into her shallow eyes so that she was not floridly pretty any +longer, but beautiful. This was peculiarly apparent when she danced with +Mr. Sebastian. She seemed to have been created for the purpose of +dancing with him; it could not have been more apparent if their +elaborate game of devotion to each other had been real, and they were +really lovers.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Clifford Kent, suddenly appearing alone, slipped into Mrs. Burr's +empty place. Her dance with the Colonel was over. "My Lord's in fine +form to-night," she confided without preliminary. "We're going to play +blind-man's buff after the duchess goes home." The duchess was Mrs. +Grant, the Honourable Joe's wife, still the first lady of Green River, +but the younger women were beginning to make fun of her discreetly +behind her back. "He told me the tiger story." This represented a +triumph. Getting the Colonel's smoking-room stories at first hand +instead of second hand, from their husbands, was the only form of +rivalry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> about which these ladies were frank with each other. "I got it +out of Cliff first, anyway. He said he couldn't tell me, but he did. I +made him. Where was Harry last night?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Cliff had a crowd of men locked into his den until two, talking. Didn't +Harry know about it?"</p> + +<p>"What were they doing?"</p> + +<p>"Just talking. The Colonel and I don't know who else. I heard two +strange voices, and I didn't hear Harry's voice. Didn't Harry know?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so. What did they talk about?"</p> + +<p>"Campaign stuff—prohibition or something. Cliff wouldn't tell me."</p> + +<p>"Was Teddy Burr there?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't hear him. What do you care?"</p> + +<p>"I don't care."</p> + +<p>"If Harry didn't know, I ought not to have told you, but I can't help it +now."</p> + +<p>"Edith, don't go. Wait."</p> + +<p>"I can't. I have this next with my Lord, too. I'm going to sit it out in +the library and meet him inside. The duchess is getting jealous. +Besides, there comes the dragon." Judge Saxon, looking shabby and old +and tired, was making a circuitous way toward them. "Let me go. Oh, +darling—" she put her small, flushed face suddenly close to her +friend's to ask the question, and after it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> fluttered away without +waiting for the answer, leaving the echo of her pretty, empty laugh +behind—"why didn't Judith come? What's the real reason? Has anybody +been making trouble for her here? Never mind. You needn't tell me. +Good-bye."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Randall closed her eyes and pressed two fingers against her temples +for a moment, and then looked up with almost her usual welcoming smile +at Judge Saxon, who had come close to her, and stood looking down at her +keenly with his kind, near-sighted, blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"Hiding?" he said. "Tired?"</p> + +<p>"Not hiding from you. Take care of me."</p> + +<p>"Minna," he decided, "you little girls aren't so nice to me unless +you're in wrong somehow and feel sorry for yourselves. What's the +matter? Where's Harry?"</p> + +<p>"Inside somewhere. Don't ask me any more questions. I've answered all I +can to-night."</p> + +<p>"All right. I'll just sit here and enjoy the view and keep the other +boys away."</p> + +<p>The view was hardly one to promote unmixed enjoyment. The two settled +into a friendly silence in their corner, broken by an occasional quiet +word in the Judge's intimate, drawling voice. Around them the temper of +the party was changing, and a series of little signs marked the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> general +change. More men crowded into the smoking-room between dances, and they +stayed longer. Mrs. Grant left first according to her established +privilege, and a scattering of other guests followed her. Nobody seemed +to miss them or to be conspicuously happier without them. There was a +heavy, dull look about the passing faces, a heaviness and staleness now +about the whole atmosphere of the party, and this, like the unnatural +excitement which it followed, and like the light, endless fire of +inconsequent, malicious chatter, always the same, whether it meant +nothing or meant real trouble brewing, was an essential part of all the +Colonel's parties, too.</p> + +<p>The Judge regarded the change with faraway eyes, as he talked on in the +wistful voice that goes with talking your own private language openly to +people who cannot answer you in it.</p> + +<p>"Don't need the moon, do we, with those lanterns? But it was here first, +and will be a long time after, and it's a good moon, too; quite +decorative for a moon."</p> + +<p>"I hate it," said Mrs. Randall, with a personal vindictiveness not +usually directed against natural phenomena. The Judge took no immediate +notice of it. More guests had gone. In a cleared circle in the heart of +the lanternlight Mrs. Kent was performing one of the more expurgated +and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> perfunctory of her dances for the benefit of the select audience +that remained, to scattered, perfunctory applause. The motif of it was +faintly Spanish.</p> + +<p>"Paper doll," commented the Judge, "that's all that girl is. You and +Harry are the best of them, Minna. They're a faky lot, all of +them—about as real as a house of cards. It looks big, but it will all +tumble down if you pull one card out—only one card. The devil of it is +to know which card to take hold of, and who's to pull it out if you +haven't got the nerve? I haven't. I'm too old. But it's a comfort to +think of it. Don't you agree with me?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't really hear you."</p> + +<p>"Minna, I've known you since you were two. Can't you tell me what's the +matter? You're frightened."</p> + +<p>She looked at him for a minute as if she could, turning a paling face to +him, with the mask off and the eyes miserable, then she tried to laugh.</p> + +<p>"Nothing's the matter. Nothing new."</p> + +<p>"Well, there's enough wrong here without anything new," said the Judge, +rebuffed but still gentle. "I won't trouble you any longer, my dear. +There comes Harry."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Randall's husband, an unmistakable figure even with the garden and +the broad, unlighted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> lawn between, stood in the rectangle of light that +one of the veranda windows made, slender and boyish still in spite of +the slight stoop of his shoulders, and then started across the lawn +toward the garden.</p> + +<p>His wife got rather stiffly to her feet and waited, looking away from +the lighted enclosure, over the low hedge, at the lawn. Her eyes were +dizzy from the flickering lights. She could not see him clearly, and the +figure that followed him across the lawn was harder to see.</p> + +<p>It was a man's figure, slightly taller than her husband's. The man had +not come from the veranda windows, or from the house at all, he had +slipped round one corner of the house, stood still in the shelter of it, +seeming to hesitate there, and then plunged suddenly across the lawn at +a queer little staggering run. Twice she saw him stand still, so still +that she lost sight of him under the trees, as if he had slipped away +through the dark.</p> + +<p>In the garden Mrs. Kent's performance was over, and the game of +blind-man's buff was beginning. It was a novelty, and acclaimed even at +this stage of the evening. Lillian Burr's shrill laugh and Edith Kent's +pretty, childish one could be heard through the other sounds. They were +trying to blindfold the Colonel, who struggled but laughed, too, looking +somehow vacuous and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> old, with his longish, white hair straggling across +his forehead. No one in the garden but Minna Randall had attention to +spare for an arriving guest, expected or unexpected.</p> + +<p>Which was he? He was out of sight again, but this time she had seen him +reach the edge of the lighted enclosure. Was he gone, or waiting +outside, or had he stepped under the trellis of the rose arbour, to +appear suddenly at the end of it and among them? Instinctively she kept +her eyes upon it, though her husband had already passed through. She was +watching for the figure that it might frame next.</p> + +<p>"Harry," she said to her husband, who had seen her and elbowed his way +to her, and stood beside her, looking pale and tired like herself in the +lanternlight and not boyish at all, "who was that man? Who was it +following you?"</p> + +<p>He paid no attention to her question. He did not seem to hear it. He put +a hand on her arm, and she could feel that it trembled.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Harry, what is it?" she said. "I've had such a horrible evening. +I'm so afraid."</p> + +<p>"Don't be afraid, Minna," he said very gently, "but you must come to the +telephone. Norah's calling you. She's just come home. She wants to tell +you something about Judith."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_FOURTEEN" id="CHAPTER_FOURTEEN"></a>CHAPTER FOURTEEN</h2> + +<p>"Judith?" Mrs. Randall took her husband's news quietly, with something +that was almost relief in her face, the relief that comes when a +gathering storm breaks at last, and you learn what it is you have been +afraid of, though you must go on being afraid. "What is it? Is she ill, +Harry?"</p> + +<p>"Come and talk to Norah."</p> + +<p>"No, we'll go straight home."</p> + +<p>"But she's not there, Minna. That's all Norah'll say to me, but she's +got some idea where she is, and says she'll tell you. Judith isn't +there."</p> + +<p>"It must be nearly morning."</p> + +<p>"It's two."</p> + +<p>"It was after nine when we started."</p> + +<p>"Minna, didn't you hear what I said?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Randall's face had not changed as she heard; it looked +unchangeable, like some fixed but charming mask that she wore. The lips +still smiled though they had stiffened slightly, and she watched the two +women's attempts to blindfold the Colonel—unaided now, but hilariously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> +applauded by the circle around her—with the same mild, interested eyes, +wide-set and Madonna calm.</p> + +<p>"I tell you, Judith's not there. What does Norah know? Why don't you do +something? Where is she?... My God, look at them. What are they doing +now? Look at Everard."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burr had drawn the knot suddenly tight in the white scarf she was +manipulating, and slipped out of the Colonel's arms and out of reach. He +followed, and then swung round and stumbled awkwardly after Edith Kent, +who had brushed past him, leaving a light, challenging kiss on his +forehead, and was further guiding him with her pretty, empty laugh. The +game of blind-man's buff was under way.</p> + +<p>Crowding the garden enclosure, swaying this way and that and threatening +to overflow it, a pushing, struggling mass of people kept rather +laboriously out of one another's way and the Colonel's, not so much +amused by the effort as they were pretending to be; people with heavy +and stupid faces who had never looked more irrevocably removed from +childhood than now that they were playing a children's game.</p> + +<p>In the heart of the crowd, now plunging ahead of it, now lost in it, the +first gentleman of Green River disported himself. His white head was +easy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> to follow through the crowd, and the thing that made you follow it +was evident even now—much of his old dignity, and the charm that was +peculiarly his; you saw it in an occasional stubborn shake of his +beautifully shaped head, in the grace of the hand that caught at some +flying skirt and missed it. He was the first gentleman of Green River +still, but he was something else.</p> + +<p>His white hair straggled across his forehead moist and dishevelled, and +his face showed flushed and perspiring against the white of the scarf. +The trailing ends of the scarf flapped grotesquely about his head, and +the high, splendidly modelled forehead was obscured and the keen eyes +were hidden. The beauty of the face was lost, and the mouth showed thin +lipped and sensual. The Colonel was really a stumbling, red-faced old +man.</p> + +<p>"Look at him. That's what she's seen. This was Judith's party. That's +what we've hung on in this town for till it's too late to break loose. +We never can get away now. We can't——"</p> + +<p>"Keep still, Harry. Do you want to be heard? Did any one hear you at the +telephone? Keep still and come home."</p> + +<p>"You're right. You're wonderful. You don't lose your nerve."</p> + +<p>"I can't afford to, and neither can you. Come—— Oh, Harry, look. I saw +him following you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> What does he want? What's the matter? What is he +going to do?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Randall had adjusted her cloak deliberately, and turned to pilot +her husband out of the garden, slipping a firm little hand through his +arm. Now she clung to him and stood still, silent after her little fire +of excited questions. The entrance to the garden was blocked. An +uninvited and unexpected guest was standing there.</p> + +<p>His entrance had been unheralded, and his welcome was slow to come. The +crowd had closed in round the Colonel, with Edith Kent caught suddenly +in his arms, and giving a creditable imitation of attempting to escape. +Interested silence and bursts of laughter indicated the progress of it +clearly, though the two were entirely out of sight. Nobody saw the +newcomer except the Randalls.</p> + +<p>He stood in the entrance to the rose arbour, clutching at the trellis +with one unsteady hand, and managing to keep fairly erect, a slightly +built, swaying figure, black-haired and hatless. He kept one hand behind +him, awkwardly, as a shy boy guards a favourite plaything. He was +staring into the crowd in the garden as if he could see through into the +heart of it, but had not the intellect just then to understand what he +saw there.</p> + +<p>It was the man Mrs. Randall had seen lurking in the shadow of the trees, +but he was no mysterious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> stranger, though here in the light of the +lanterns she hardly recognized him as she looked at his pale, excited +face; it showed an excitement quite unaccounted for by the perfectly +obvious fact that he was drunk, and entirely unconnected with that fact. +Here and there on the outskirts of the crowd some one turned and saw +him, too, and stared at him. They all knew him. He was Neil Donovan's +cousin, the discredited young lawyer, Charlie Brady.</p> + +<p>He did not speak or move. He only stood still and looked at them with +vague, puzzled eyes, and lips that twitched as if he wanted to speak, +but standing so, he had the centre of the stage. He could not command +it, he had pushed his way into it doggedly, uncertain what to do first, +but he was there. One by one his audience had become conscious of it, +and were confronting him startled and uncertain, too. Young Chester +Gaynor elbowed his way to the front, but stopped there, grinning at the +invader, restrained perhaps by a lady's voice, which was to be heard +admonishing him excitedly.</p> + +<p>"Don't you get hurt, dear."</p> + +<p>"How did he get here? Why can't somebody get him out?" other excited +ladies inquired.</p> + +<p>"Get Judge Saxon," directed Mr. J. Cleveland Kent's calm and +authoritative voice.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Get Sebastian. Where is the fellow? Is he afraid?" demanded the +Honourable Joe from the extreme rear. Some one laughed hysterically. It +was Mrs. Burr. The laugh was quickly hushed, but the new guest had heard +it, though no other sound seemed to have impressed him. He laughed, too, +a dry, broken ghost of a laugh, as cracked and strange as his voice, +which he now found abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Lillie," he called. "Hello, Lillie dear,"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Burr was not heard to reply to this affectionate greeting, but he +hardly paused for a reply. His light, high, curiously detached sounding +voice talked on with a kind of uncanny fluency.</p> + +<p>"Lillie," he urged cordially, "I heard you. I know you're there. Come +out and let's have a look at you. I don't see anything of you lately. +You're too grand for me. I don't care. I'm in love with a prettier girl. +But you used to treat me all right, Lillie dear, and I treated you +right, too. I never told. A gentleman don't tell. And you were straight +with me. You never double-crossed me, like you and the dago Sebastian do +to Everard. Everard! That's who I want to talk to. Where is he?"</p> + +<p>At the mention of the name his wavering gaze had steadied and +concentrated suddenly on the centre of the group in the garden, and now, +while<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> he looked, the crowd parted. Pushing his way through, the Colonel +faced his uninvited guest.</p> + +<p>The great man was not at his best. His most ardent admirer could hardly +have claimed it. He had pulled the muffling scarf down from his eyes, +but was still tearing at the knot impatiently. Mrs. Kent had come +fluttering ineffectively after him, catching at his arm. He struck her +hands away, and pushed her back, addressing her with a lack of ceremony +which outsiders were not often permitted to hear him employ toward a +member of his favoured circle.</p> + +<p>"Keep out of this, Edith, and you keep quiet, Lil. You girls make me +sick," he snapped. "Half the trouble in this town comes because you +can't learn to hold your tongues. You'd better learn. You're going to +pay for it if you don't, and don't you lose sight of that. Well, Brady, +what does this mean? What can I do for you?"</p> + +<p>The ring of authority was in his voice again, as if he had called it +back by sheer will power. He had stepped forward alone, and stood +looking up at his guest, still framed in the sheltering trellis, and his +blurred eyes cleared and grew keen as he looked, regarding him +indifferently, like some refractory but mildly amusing animal. His +guest's defiant eyes avoided his, and the ineffective, swaying figure +seemed to shrink and droop and grow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> smaller, but it was a dignified +figure still and a dangerous one. There was the snarling menace of +impotent but inevitable rebellion about it, of men who fight on with +their backs against the wall; a menace that was not new born to-night, +but the gradual growth of years, just the number of years that the +Colonel had spent in Green River.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, sir," stammered his guest.</p> + +<p>"Then apologize and get out."</p> + +<p>"I can't."</p> + +<p>"I think you'll find you can, Brady."</p> + +<p>"I can't. I've got to ask you a few questions."</p> + +<p>They seemed to be slow in framing themselves. There was a little pause, +the kind of pause that for no apparent reason deprives you for the +moment of any desire to move or speak. The unassuming figure of the +young man under the trellis stood still, swaying only slightly from side +to side. A deprecating smile appeared on his lips, as if his errand were +distasteful to him and he wished to apologize for it. Gradually the +smile faded and the eyes grew steady again and unnaturally bright. He +held himself stiffly erect where he stood for a moment, took a few +lurching steps forward, paused, and then plunged suddenly across the +garden toward Colonel Everard.</p> + +<p>It would have been hard to tell which came first, the little, stumbling +run forward, the Colonel's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> instinctive move to check it, the stampede +of the devotees of the time-honoured game of blind-man's buff, acting +now with a promptness and spontaneity which they had not displayed in +that game, Lillian Burr's hysterical scream, the snarling words from the +Colonel that silenced it, or the quick flash of metal. It had all +happened at once. But now, in an amphitheatre of scared faces, as far +behind as the limits of the garden enclosure would allow, Mr. Brady and +his host stood facing each other alone, and the Colonel, now entirely +himself, with the high colour fading out of his cheeks, was looking with +cool and unwavering eyes straight into the barrel of Mr. Brady's +revolver.</p> + +<p>It was a clumsy, old-fashioned little weapon. Brady's thin hand grasped +it firmly, as if some stronger hand than his own were steadying his. He +laughed an ineffective laugh, like a boastful boy's, but there was a +threat in it, too.</p> + +<p>"What have you got to say for yourself? I'll give you a chance to say +it," he stated magnanimously, "but you shan't say a word against her. +She was always a good girl. She is a good girl. What have you done with +her? Where is she?"</p> + +<p>"You don't make yourself altogether clear, Brady," said the Colonel +smoothly.</p> + +<p>"Where's Maggie?"</p> + +<p>"Maggie?" The Colonel's eyes swept the circle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> of his guests +deliberately, as if to assure himself that no lady of that name was +among them.</p> + +<p>"Maggie. You know the name well enough." The sound of it seemed to give +the lady's champion new courage; it flamed in his eyes, hot, and quick +to burn itself out, but while it lasted, even a gentleman who had +learned to face drawn revolvers as indifferently as the Colonel might do +well to be afraid of him. "Maggie's missing. I'm going to find her. +That's all I want of you. I won't ask you who's worked on her and made a +fool of her. I won't ask you how far she's been going. But I want her +back before the whole town knows. I want to find her and find her quick. +She's a good girl and a decent girl. She's going to keep her good name. +She's coming home."</p> + +<p>"Commendable," said the Colonel, not quite smoothly enough. His guest +was past listening to him.</p> + +<p>"Maggie. That's all I want. You're getting off easy. Luck's with you. +I've stood a lot from you, the same as the town has. It will stand a lot +more, and I will. Get Maggie back. Get her back and give her to me and +leave her alone, and I'll eat out of your hand and starve when you don't +feed me, the same as the rest"—he came two wavering steps nearer, and +dropped his voice to a dry quaver meant to be confidential, a grotesque<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> +and sinister parody of a confidence—"the rest, that don't know what I +know."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I won't tell. Don't be afraid. A gentleman don't tell, and there's +nobody that can but me. Young Neil don't know. The luck's with you, sir, +just the same as it always was."</p> + +<p>"I've had enough of this. Get home, Brady," cried the Colonel, in a +voice that was suddenly wavering and high, like an old man's, but his +guest only smiled and nodded wisely, beginning to sway as he stood, but +still gripping the clumsy revolver tight.</p> + +<p>"Just the same as it was when old Neil Donovan died."</p> + +<p>"Get home," shrilled the Colonel again, but his guest pursued the tenor +of his thoughts untroubled, still with the look of an amiably disposed +fellow-conspirator on his weak face, a maddening look, even if his words +conveyed no sting of their own.</p> + +<p>"Neil Donovan," he crooned, "my father's own half-brother, and a good +uncle to me, and a gentleman, too. He sold rum over a counter, but he +was a gentleman, for he didn't talk too much. A gentleman don't tell."</p> + +<p>But the catalogue of his uncle's perfections, whether in place here or +not, was to proceed no further. The audience pressed closer, as eager +to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> look on at a fight as it was to keep out of one. There was a new and +surprising development in this one. The two men had closed with each +other, and it was not the half-crazed boy who had made the attack, but +the Colonel himself.</p> + +<p>It was a sudden and awkward attack, and there was something stranger +about it still. The Colonel was angry. He had tried to knock the weapon +out of the boy's hand, failed, and tried instinctively, still, to get +possession of it, but he was not making an adequate and necessary +attempt to disarm him, he was no longer adequate or calm. He was angry, +suddenly angry with the poor specimen of humanity that was making its +futile attempt at protest and rebellion, as if it were an equal and an +enemy. His face was distorted and his eyes were dull and unseeing. His +breath came in panting gasps, and he made inarticulate little sounds in +his throat. He struck furious and badly directed blows.</p> + +<p>It was a curious thing to see, in the heart of the great man's admiring +circle, at the climax of his most successful party of the year. It did +not last long. The two struggling figures broke away from each other, +and the boy staggered backward and stood with the revolver still in his +hand. He was a little sobered by the struggle, and a little weakened by +it, pale and dangerous, with a fanatic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> light in his eyes. Some one who +had an eye for danger signals, if the Colonel had not, had made his +unobtrusive way forward, and joined him now. He was not the most +formidable looking of allies, but he stood beside them as if he had a +right to be there, and the Colonel turned to him as if he recognized it.</p> + +<p>"Hugh, you heard what he said?" he appealed; "you heard?"</p> + +<p>"Judge, you keep out of this," Brady called, "keep out, sir."</p> + +<p>Judge Saxon, keeping a casual hand on his most prominent client's arm, +stood regarding Mr. Brady with mild and friendly blue eyes. He had quite +his usual air of being detached from his surroundings, but benevolently +interested in them.</p> + +<p>"Charlie," he said, as if he were recognizing Mr. Brady for the first +time at this critical moment, and deriving pleasure from it. "Why, +Charlie," his voice became gently reproachful, but remained friendly, +too. "Everard, this boy don't mean a word he says," he went on, with +conviction, "he's excited and you're excited, too. This is a pretty poor +time for you to get excited, Everard."</p> + +<p>"You're right, Hugh," muttered the Judge's most prominent client +thickly; "you're right. Get him away. Get him home."</p> + +<p>"He's a good boy," pronounced the Judge.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was not the obvious description of Mr. Brady just at that moment. +There was only friendly amusement in the Judge's drawling voice and +shrewd eyes, but back of it, unmistakably there, was something that made +every careless word worth listening to. Mr. Brady was resisting it. His +face worked pitifully.</p> + +<p>"Judge, I told you to keep out. I don't want to hurt you."</p> + +<p>"Thanks, Charlie."</p> + +<p>"Every word I say is God's truth, Judge."</p> + +<p>The Judge did not contradict this sweeping statement. He was studying +Mr. Brady's weapon with some interest. "Your uncle's," he commented, +pleased. "Why, I didn't know you still owned that thing, Charlie."</p> + +<p>"I want Maggie. I want——"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what you want," offered the Judge, amicably, "you want to +hand that thing to me, and go home."</p> + +<p>Mr. Brady received this suggestion in silence, a silence which left his +audience uncertain how deeply he resented it. Indeed, they were +painfully uncertain, and showed it. Bits of advice reached the Judge's +ears, contradictory, though much of it sound, but he took no notice of +it. He only smiled his patient and wistful smile and waited, like a man +who knew what would happen next.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Hand it to me," he repeated gently.</p> + +<p>"I won't, Judge." Mr. Brady's weapon wavered, and then steadied itself. +His thin body trembled. The fanatic light in his eyes blazed bright. The +excitement which had gripped him, too keen to last long, reached its +climax now in one last burst of hysterical speech.</p> + +<p>"He's a liar and a thief," he asserted, uncontradicted. He was not to be +contradicted. There was a dignity of its own about the hysterical +indictment, grotesque as it was, an unforgettable suggestion of truth. +"He's a thief and a murderer, too. I don't have to tell what I know. +Everybody knows. You all know, all of you, and you don't dare to tell. +He's murdering the town."</p> + +<p>The high, screaming voice broke off abruptly. Mr. Brady, still with the +echo of his big words in his ears and apparently dazed by it, stood +looking blankly into the Judge's steady and friendly eyes.</p> + +<p>"I can't—I won't——" he stammered.</p> + +<p>"Hand it to me," said the Judge, as if no interruption had occurred. For +a moment the boy before him looked too dull and dazed to obey or to +hear. Then, as suddenly as if some unseen hand had struck it out of his, +the revolver dropped to the ground, and he collapsed, sobbing +heartbrokenly, into the Judge's arms.</p> + +<p>He was a heroic figure no longer. The alien<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> forces that made him one +had deserted him abruptly, and he looked unworthy of their support +already, only an inconsiderable creature of jangled nerves and +hysterical speech, which would be discredited if you looked at him, even +if it still echoed in your ears. The Judge, holding him and quieting +him, looked allied with him, humble and discredited, too. The relieved +audience hung back for a moment, taking in the full force of the +picture, before it broke ranks to crowd round the Colonel and offer him +belated support. The Colonel said a few inaudible words to Judge Saxon, +and then turned from him and his protégé with the air of washing his +hands of the whole affair. He looked surprisingly unruffled by it, even +stimulated by it. The interruption to his party was over.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It ended as it had begun, the most successful party of the year. Mr. +Brady's invasion was not the first unscheduled event which had enlivened +a party at the Birches. There was more open and general speculation +about the fact that the Randalls left immediately after, did not linger +over their good-nights, and were obviously not permitted by their host +to do so.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Randall, leaning back in her corner with her hand tight in Harry's, +and her long-lashed eyes, that were like Judith's, tightly shut, showed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> +the full strain of the evening in her pale face. She was a woman who did +not look tired easily, but she was also a woman who could not afford to +look tired.</p> + +<p>There was no appeal or charm about her pale face now, only a naked look +of hardness and strain. Her husband, staring straight ahead of him with +troubled eyes, and his weak, boyish mouth set in a hard, worried line, +spoke rapidly and disconnectedly not of Judith, or the Colonel's ominous +coldness to him, but of Mr. Brady.</p> + +<p>"Maggie's a bad lot," he was explaining for approximately the fifth time +as they whirled into the drive and under their own dark windows. "She +always was. Everard isn't making away with the belle of Paddy Lane. Not +yet. He's not that far down. But that dope about old Neil Donovan——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Harry, hush," his wife said, "here we are. What do you care about +Brady?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," he whispered, his arm tightening round her as he lifted her +down. "I don't care about anything in the world but Judith."</p> + +<p>"Neither do I. Not really," she said in a hurried, shaken voice that was +not like her own, "you believe that, don't you, Harry?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer. Gathering up her skirts, she followed him silently to +the front of the house,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> single file along the narrow boardwalk, not yet +taken up for the summer, creaking loudly under their feet.</p> + +<p>"Look," she whispered, catching at his arm. The front of the house was +dark except for two lights, a flickering lamp that was being carried +nearer to them through the hall, and a soft, shaded light that showed at +a bedroom window. The window was Judith's. He fumbled for his key, but +the door opened before them. Norah, her forbidding face more militant +than ever in the flickering light of the kerosene hand-lamp she held, +her white pompadour belligerently erect, and her brown eyes maliciously +alight, peered at them across the door chain, and then gingerly admitted +them.</p> + +<p>"It's a sweet time of night to be coming home to the only child you've +got," she commented, "why do you take the trouble to come home at all?"</p> + +<p>It was a characteristic greeting from her. If it had not been, Mrs. +Randall would not have resented it now. She clutched at the old woman's +unresponsive shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Where is she?" she demanded breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"Judith is it you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes."</p> + +<p>"How should I know how she spends her even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>ings? At some of the girls' +to-night. Rena Drew's maybe. I don't know. It's a new thing for you to +care. She was late in, and it's no wonder I was worried. She's like my +own to me. But she needs her sleep now. You'd better go softly +upstairs."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean she's here?"</p> + +<p>"What is it to you?" Norah, one bony hand clutching the newel post as if +it were a negotiable weapon of defense, and her brown eyes flashing as +if she were capable of using any weapon for Judith, barred the way up +the stairs.</p> + +<p>"I tell you, she needs her sleep, poor lamb—poor lamb," she said, "and +you're not to go near her to-night. You're to promise me that. But she's +here fast enough. My lamb is safe at home in her own bed."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_FIFTEEN" id="CHAPTER_FIFTEEN"></a>CHAPTER FIFTEEN</h2> + +<p>On an afternoon in June a year later than the interrupted party at the +Everards' a young man sat at Mr. Theodore Burr's desk in Judge Saxon's +outer office. It was still technically Mr. Burr's desk, but the young +man looked entirely at home there. A litter of papers which that +fastidious gentleman would never have permitted himself now covered it, +and the air was faintly scented with the smoke of a cigarette widely +popular in Green River, but not with devotees of twenty-five-cent +cigars, like Mr. Burr. The bulky volume open on the desk was thumbed and +used as Mr. Burr had never used any book that looked or was so heavy. +The book was Thayer on Constitutional Law, and the young man dividing +his attention between it and Main Street under his window flooded with +June sunshine was Neil Donovan.</p> + +<p>He divided his attention unequally, as Main Street late on that sunny +afternoon might persuade the most studious of young men to do. The +square was crowded—crowded, it is true, much as a busy street on the +stage is crowded, where the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> same overworked set of supers pass and +repass. The group of bareheaded girls now pacing slowly by arm in arm +under the window were returning from what was approximately their fourth +visit that afternoon to the post-office, the ice-cream parlours, the new +gift shop and tea-room, or some kindred attraction. The Nashes' new +touring car, driven by the prettiest girl in Willard's June house party, +under the devoted instruction of Willard himself, was whirling through +the shopping district for at least the third time.</p> + +<p>However, it was an imposing pageant enough, though the boy at the window +did not appear to find it so, regarding it with approving but grave +eyes, and returning Mr. Nash's flourishing salute unsmilingly—a brave +pageant of gay and flimsy gowns, of youth returning to the town, and +movement and colour, and June fairly begun.</p> + +<p>June so far was like other Junes in Green River. Colonel Everard and the +season of social and political intrigues were here. Rallies in the town +hall would soon begin. Men with big names in state politics would make +speeches there, while the Colonel presided with his usual self-effacing +charm, which did not advertise the known fact that he was a bigger power +in the state than any of them. The good old question of prohibition was +the chief issue, as usual; discreet representatives of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> people +would, according to a catch phrase at the capital, vote for prohibition, +and then go round to the best hotel and get drunk; and discreet +politicians, like the Colonel, would make money out of both these facts +in their own way.</p> + +<p>Behind the closed door of Judge Saxon's office low-keyed, monotonous +voices were talking, and a secret conference was going on. Troubled +times were here again for those deep in the Colonel's councils. They +were never sure of a permanent place there, but always on the watch for +one of his sudden changes of front, which threatened not only his +enemies but his friends. But he had recovered and held their confidence +before, and he could this year.</p> + +<p>All scandals of the year before were decently hidden. Maggie Brady was +missing and continued to be missing. By this time it was the general +verdict that she had always been bound to come to a bad end, and Charlie +Brady to drink himself to death. Nobody interrupted his attempts to do +so. His drunken outburst of speech had echoed a growing sentiment in the +town, but it grew slowly, for under its thin veneer of sophistication +Green River was only a New England town still, conservative and slow to +change.</p> + +<p>Green River had not changed much in a year, but Neil Donovan's fortunes +had. Nobody<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> knew the full history of the change except Neil, but others +could have thrown sidelights upon it, among them Mrs. Randall's second +maid, Mollie. On the morning after that same party of the Colonel's, +which Mr. Brady attended so unexpectedly, and Judith did not attend, +Mollie opened the Randalls' door to an early caller.</p> + +<p>Even in curl papers, she was usually too much for the young man now on +the doorstep. He was in the habit of looking at his boots and addressing +them instead of her, and Mollie quite understood that, for they were +shabby boots. They looked shabbier than ever to-day, and so did his +shiny coat, but his eyes were steady and clear, and there was clear +colour in his cheeks, as if he had had the only restful and well-earned +sleep in Green River.</p> + +<p>"Miss Judith," he said.</p> + +<p>"Not at home," said Mollie, in a manner successfully copied from French +maids in the ten, twenty, thirties.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense. Her curtains aren't up," replied the young man who was +usually made speechless by it.</p> + +<p>"She's asleep," conceded Mollie, in a manner more colloquial but also +more forbidding. "She don't want to see you."</p> + +<p>Mollie was incapable of interpreting Judith's wishes, but the young man +was not; his smile<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> conveyed this, though it was friendly enough. "When +Miss Judith gets up, tell her——"</p> + +<p>"I tell you she don't want to see you," snapped Mollie in a tone any +French maid would have deplored. "She don't want to see anybody."</p> + +<p>"Tell her that I'll call again at three this afternoon," directed the +young man calmly, and completed his disturbing effect upon Mollie by +turning and walking briskly away without a backward glance, and without +his usual air of self-consciousness when her eyes were upon him. He +carried his shabby coat with an air, and held his head high, and swung +out of sight down the sleepy little street as if he were the only +wide-awake thing in the whole sunny, sleepy town.</p> + +<p>It was a disconcerting moment for Mollie or any lady properly conscious +of her power, and sorry to see a sign of it disappear, even the humblest +of signs. It would still have been disconcerting, if she could have +foreseen that Judith would not receive this young man alone, either at +three that afternoon, or for many afternoons. The young man was not +overawed by Mollie. That was established once and for all. He would +never be overawed by her again. She slammed the door rather viciously.</p> + +<p>"Keep quiet there," said Norah, appearing inopportunely, as her habit +was, with a heavily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> laden breakfast tray. "She needs her rest. But +she's awake. She rang. You can take this up and leave it outside her +door. Who was talking to you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know what's come to him," Mollie complained. "Who does he +think he is? Did anybody leave him a fortune over night? It was the +Donovan boy."</p> + +<p>A few minutes after Neil's encounter with Mollie, when Mr. Theodore Burr +admitted him listlessly after his third knock at Judge Saxon's door, he +could see no evidence that any one had left the Donovan boy a fortune +over night, but did note a change in him. There was something +appealingly grave and sedate about his face, as if a part of its youth, +the freakish, unconquerable laughter of it, that had defied and +antagonized Mr. Burr, were gone forever, burned away, somehow, in a +night. It was a look Mr. Burr was to grow well used to in the next few +months. Perhaps the unaccountable affection he was to feel for the boy +in the course of them was born then and there.</p> + +<p>Neil emerged from the Judge's private office after a briefer talk than +usual, and the Judge did not escort him to the door in his accustomed, +friendly fashion. Mr. Burr did, and made him clumsy and unwonted +confidences there.</p> + +<p>"The old man's not quite fit to-day," he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> "I ought to have told +you. It's a poor time to get anything out of him. Been shut up there by +himself doping out something. Won't say two words to me."</p> + +<p>"Then he must be in a bad way, Theodore," said the boy, with the ghost +of his old, mocking smile, which Mr. Burr somehow did not find annoying +at all.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Neil," he surprised himself by saying, "I like you. I always +did. You deserve a square deal. You're too good for the Brady gang. +You're too good for the town. If there was anything I could do for +you——"</p> + +<p>"Maybe there is, Theodore," the boy turned in the corridor to say. +"Cheer up. You'll have a chance to see. I'm coming to work for the +Judge, I start in next week."</p> + +<p>"But the Judge turned you down." Mr. Burr's brain struggled with the +problem, thinking out loud for the sake of greater clearness, but too +evidently not achieving it. "The Judge likes you, too, but he couldn't +take you in if he wanted to. He talked of it, but gave it up. He'd be +afraid to. Everard——"</p> + +<p>"I start in next week," repeated Mr. Donovan.</p> + +<p>"But what did you say to him?" demanded Mr. Burr. "What did he say to +you? How did you dare to ask him again?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I didn't ask him. Don't worry, Theodore. I haven't been trying any +black magic on the Judge. I don't know any. Maybe I'll learn some. I'm +going to learn a good deal. I've got to. Nobody knows how much. Even the +Judge don't know. I'm coming to work for the Judge, that's all, but I +didn't ask him." Mr. Burr, listening incredulously, did not know that +this was a faithful if condensed account of his talk with the Judge and +more, the key to much that was to happen to this pale and determined +young man, the secret of all his success. He gave it away openly, and +without pride:</p> + +<p>"I just told him so."</p> + +<p>Neil started in the next week. If Mr. Burr watched his young associate +somewhat jealously at first in the natural belief that a boy who had +changed the course of his life in a five-minute interview would do +something equally spectacular next, and if the Judge, who had said to +him at last, "Well, it's my bad morning, son, and your good morning, so +you get your way, but you're climbing on a sinking ship, and remember I +told you so. And I'll tell you something else. It will be poor pickings +here for all of us, and I'm sorry, but I'm the sorriest for you," was +inclined to follow him furtively over the top of his spectacles with a +look that held all the pathetic apology of age to youth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> in his kind, +near-sighted eyes, this was only at first.</p> + +<p>Colonel Everard, returning a few weeks later from one of his sudden, +unexplained absences from town, and making an early morning visit to his +attorney, was admitted by a young man whom he recognized, but pretended +not to.</p> + +<p>"Who are you?" he inquired, "the office boy?"</p> + +<p>"Just about that, sir," the young man admitted, as if he had no higher +ambition, but the Judge, entering the room with more evidence of +beginning the day with the strength that the day required, than he had +been showing lately in his carriage and look, put a casual hand on the +boy's shoulder, and kept it there.</p> + +<p>"The last time we discussed enlarging my office force, you didn't +advocate it, Everard," he said rather formally.</p> + +<p>"So you aren't discussing it with me now?"</p> + +<p>"Do you think you'd better discuss it?"</p> + +<p>"Do you?"</p> + +<p>"I think you are in no position to discuss it. You've been recently +furnished with much more important material to discuss. I haven't seen +you since your garden party, have I?"</p> + +<p>"No." Both men seemed to have forgotten the boy's existence, but now the +Colonel recalled it, and apparently without annoyance, and flashed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> a +disarming smile at him, giving up gracefully, as he always did if he was +forced to give up at all. "Well, you're right, Hugh. You're always +right. Do as you please. But this boy's got a temper of his own +and—quite a flow of speech. Runs in his family, evidently. Properly +handled, these are assets, but——"</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, sir," Neil found himself stammering. "I shouldn't have +spoken to you as I did that day. I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>"Next time be sure of your facts." The voice was friendly, almost +paternal, but it held an insidious challenge, too, and for one betraying +moment all the native antagonism that was really there flashed in the +Colonel's eyes. Few enemies of his had been permitted to see it so +clearly. It was a triumph for Neil, if a barren one. "Be very sure."</p> + +<p>"I will, sir," said Neil deliberately, but very courteously. Then the +Colonel disappeared into the private office with his arm about his +trusted attorney's shoulders, and the young man for whose sake his +attorney had openly defied him for the first time in years began to +empty the office waste-baskets.</p> + +<p>The winter weeks in the Judge's office passed without even moments of +repressed drama like this. There was little to prove that they were the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> +most important weeks of his life to Neil. At first they were lonely +weeks. Mr. Burr, unusually prompt, reached the office one crisp +September morning in time to find him staring out of the window at a +straggling procession passing on its way up the hill to the schoolhouse, +hurrying on foot in excited groups, or crowded into equipages of varying +sizes and degrees of elegance, properly theirs or pressed into service.</p> + +<p>"First day of school," said Neil, and did not need to explain further, +even to Mr. Burr. From to-day on new faces would look out of the +many-paned windows of the old, white-painted building. New voices would +sing in the night on their way home from barge rides and dances. There +were to be new occupants of the seats of the mighty; a new crowd would +own the town. The door of the country of the young was shut in this +boy's face from to-day, and that is always a hard day, but it was +peculiarly hard in Green River, where the country of the young was the +only unspoiled and safe place to live. And there were signs of a private +and more personal hurt in the boy's faraway eyes.</p> + +<p>"What's that letter?" said Mr. Burr.</p> + +<p>"Seed catalogue."</p> + +<p>"Don't she write to you every day?"</p> + +<p>"Who?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Is she too proud, or did she forget all about you? She'll have +time to, away half the summer, and not coming home for vacations. She +won't see you till next June."</p> + +<p>"If you mean Judith Randall," her late class-mate replied in a carefully +expressionless voice, "why should she write to me, and why shouldn't she +forget all about me?" There was a faint, reminiscent light in his eyes, +as if he were not seriously threatened with the prospect, but it died +away quickly, and his face grew very grave.</p> + +<p>"I'm a business man now, Theodore."</p> + +<p>"You are," said his newest friend, "and we couldn't keep house without +you now. You're in a class by yourself."</p> + +<p>This was true. Neil did not take his big chance at life as other boys +equally in need of it would have done. He did not lose his head. He +showed no pride in it. Green River, soon seeing this, rewarded him in +various ways, each significant in its own fashion. Nondescript groups +round the stove in his uncle's little store ceased to look for signs +that he felt superior to them, and welcomed him as before, restoring to +him his privilege of listening to talk that was more important than it +seemed, public sentiment uncoloured and without reserve, the real voice +of the town. Mrs. Saxon, of the old aristocracy of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> town, with +inborn social prejudices stronger than any acquired from the Everards, +broke all her rules and invited him to Sunday-night supper.</p> + +<p>"The boy's not spoiled," his old friend Luther Ward said to the Judge +approvingly. "He knows his place."</p> + +<p>"That's the surest way to climb out of it," said Judge Saxon, advisedly, +for it was the Judge who had the closest and most discerning eyes upon +Neil Donovan's career. Listlessly at first, because he had looked on at +too many uphill and losing fights against the world, but later with +interest, forced from him almost against his will, he watched it grow.</p> + +<p>To a casual observer the boy would have seemed to be fitting himself not +for an ornament to the legal profession, but for the office boy Colonel +Everard had called him, but he would have seemed a willing office boy. +He spent hours uncomplainingly looking up obscure points of law for some +purpose nobody explained to him. He devoted long, sunny afternoons to +looking up titles connected with some mortgage loan which nobody gave +him the details of, and he seemed satisfied with his occupation, and +equally satisfied to devote a morning to plodding through new-fallen +snow delivering invitations to some party of Mrs. Saxon's.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p> + +<p>When he was actually studying, he lost himself in the Judge's +out-of-date reference books, as if they contained some secret as vital +as the elixir of youth, and might yield it at any moment. Mr. Burr, at +first ridiculing pupil and course of instruction alike, and with some +show of reason, began shamefacedly and afterward openly to give him what +benefit he could from the more modern education which had been wasted +upon him. Between his two teachers the boy arrived at conclusions of his +own. Neil was studying law by the old method which evolved so many +different men of letters and keen-witted lawyers, a method obsolete as +the Judge's clothes, but Neil gave allegiance to it ardently, as if it +had been invented for him.</p> + +<p>"What do you get out of this?" the Judge demanded, coming upon Neil late +one afternoon, poring over the uninspired pages of Mr. Thayer by the +fading light. "What do you hope to get?"</p> + +<p>"All there is in it," said the boy simply, and without oratorical +intent.</p> + +<p>"Suppose you do pass your bar examinations. What then? What will you do +with it?"</p> + +<p>"I'll wait and see then. I had to begin somewhere."</p> + +<p>"Why?" said the Judge, and as he asked the question, the answer to it, +which he had once<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> known so well and forgotten, looked at him in the +boy's pale face and glowing eyes, the great answer not to be silenced, +youth, and the wonderful, wasteful urge of youth. "Don't you know this +town's sick?" he demanded abruptly. "It's dirty. You can't clean it up. +Don't you ever try. Don't you stir things up. Don't you dig in too deep. +I suppose you know the town's got no room for you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, I know."</p> + +<p>"Where do you expect to end?" the Judge began irritably, "in the +poorhouse? You're so damn young," he grumbled. "It's a good thing I +didn't know you when I was young. I'd have listened to you then."</p> + +<p>"You will now, sir," said the boy, and the Judge did not contradict him, +but instead, under shy pretence of groping for the switch of the desk +lamp, found the boy's hand and gripped it.</p> + +<p>"You're a good boy," he remarked irrelevantly. "Mind what I said, and +don't dig in too deep."</p> + +<p>The Judge did not explain whose secrets he hoped to protect by this +vague warning. Probably he could not have explained. It was one of those +instinctive pronouncements which shape themselves in rare moments when +two people are close and mean more than either of them know. Certainly +if the key to any secret was to be found<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> within the Judge's dingily +decorated walls or in his battered safe, or learned from his partner, +the boy had exceptional opportunities to unearth it. Theodore Burr's +intimacy with Neil developed rapidly. He stuck to it obstinately, in +spite of his wife, showing more independence about it than he had in +years. The two had tramped and snow-shoed together through long winter +hours of intimate talk and more intimate silence, and they found the +first Mayflowers of the year together. Only the week before he had +committed the crowning indiscretion of giving up a poker game at the +Everards' to go shooting with Neil.</p> + +<p>The Judge, in the strenuous days of Colonel Everard's summer campaign, +had no time to observe the growth of this intimacy or to think much +about Neil, but he might have been interested in a snatch of talk in the +Brady kitchen one evening, if he could have overheard it, more +interested than Mrs. Donovan, who did not remember it long.</p> + +<p>Her son was an hour late for supper, but she was used to that, for now +that he was on his feet the house revolved around him. She served him, +and then sat watching him with her hands folded, and the new dignity +that had come with his first bit of success straightening her tired +shoulders, and the look of age and pain that had been grow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>ing there +since Maggie disappeared widening her soft, deep eyes. He had dropped +wearily into his chair, and he ate almost in silence, but she was used +to that, too.</p> + +<p>Outside the short, June twilight was over, and a pattering summer rain +had begun to fall. Neil's dark hair was damp with it and clung to his +forehead in close curls. Once, passing his chair, she smoothed it with a +hand that was work hardened but finely made and could touch him lightly +and shyly still. Her son pulled her suddenly close, and hid his face +against her.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" she asked, softly and not too soon as she stood still and +held him. "What's wrong, then? Where have you been?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing's wrong. Nothing new. I went round to Theodore Burr's, but I +left there at five. I didn't mean to be late home or make work. But I +had a hunch to look in at Halloran's. I thought I'd find Charlie there. +I did, and I had to get him home."</p> + +<p>"Taking your strength," said Mr. Brady's aunt, unfeelingly but +truthfully, "a good-for-nothing——"</p> + +<p>"That's not the worst thing he does."</p> + +<p>"What is, then?"</p> + +<p>"Talking."</p> + +<p>"He don't mean anything by that."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sometimes he does. Sometimes he tells you things that you never +suspected and you don't believe him at first, but you find they're true; +things that have been locked up in his addled brain so long that they're +out of date, and you don't know how to profit by them or handle them, +but they're true—all true."</p> + +<p>"Neil, you don't half know what you're saying. You're tired."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Donovan released herself abruptly to get the tea-pot from the +stove. Her son, who had been talking in a low, monotonous voice, more to +himself than her, watched her with dazed eyes that slowly cleared.</p> + +<p>"I guess you're right," he said. "I didn't mean to frighten you. Charlie +was no more loose mouthed to-day than he always is. I got hold of +nothing new, but I have hold of more than I can handle, and I'm tired +and I'm scared, and there's only one of me."</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Donovan preferred her own interpretation of the situation, as +most ladies would have. She made it tactfully, keeping her eyes away +from him, busy with the tea-pot. "You're young, and it's June. Neil, the +children walked round with the Sullivan girl to take home the wash to +the Randalls'. They had some talk with Norah there. Judith will be home +this week."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> + +<p>She had mentioned the much-debated name in a voice which +she kept indifferent, but she flashed a quick, apprehensive glance at +him. She was quite unprepared for its effect upon him. He only laughed, +and then his face sobered quickly, and his eyes grew lonely and tired +again.</p> + +<p>"Judith," he said, "you think that's my trouble, mother. Well, I'm not +so young as I was last June." Then he began with considerable relish to +drink his tea.</p> + +<p>"You're contrary and close mouthed, but you're only a boy like all other +boys," said Mrs. Donovan, sticking to her point, "and you're a good son +to me."</p> + +<p>The boy who had made this rare and abortive attempt at confidences only +the night before showed no need of repeating it as he gazed out of the +Judge's window. He looked quite competent to bear all his own troubles +alone, and a generous share of other people's, though somewhat saddened +by them. Perhaps his mother's diagnosis of him was correct. He leaned +his chin on his hands and stared out of the window like any dreaming +boy, as if it was. But the winter that had passed so lightly over Green +River had left traces of its own upon him. His profile had a clearer, +more sharply outlined look. The lines at the corners of his mouth were +firmer though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> they were no deeper, and the mouth was still a boy's +mouth, red-lipped and lightly closed. But the dreaming eyes were a +man's, dreaming still, but alert, and ready to banish dreams.</p> + +<p>The afternoon light was fading fast. It was not so easy now to read the +fine print of Mr. Thayer's notes, and the boy made no further pretence +of trying to. He let Mr. Thayer slip to the floor, and stretched himself +in his chair with a sigh of relief. The sounds of talk in the Judge's +room had grown fainter and more intermittent and finally ceased. The +Judge, still deep in conference with them, had left with his guests by +the private door. The boy was alone in the office.</p> + +<p>Gradually, as he sat there, the bright pageant of the busy little street +had dimmed. It made a softer and mellower picture, a blend of delicate +colours in the slant mellow light, and it was not so busy now. There +were fewer passers-by, and they hurried and did not loiter past. It was +almost supper-time. Willard Nash, not joy riding now, but dispatched +reluctantly alone on some emergency errand, flashed by in his car, and +disappeared up Main Street.</p> + +<p>Beyond the double row of shops the upper section of the street was +empty. The maples, in full leaf now and delicately green, shadowed the +upward<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> slant of smooth road alluringly. Touched with golden afternoon +light, and half hidden by the spreading green, the old, solidly built +houses planted so heavily in the midst of their well-kept lawns had new +and unguessed possibilities. Any one of them just then might have +sheltered a fairy princess. The one that did was just within range of +the boy's grave, patient eyes, a protruding porch, disproportionately +enlarged and ugly, a sweep of vividly green lawn stripped bare of the +graceful, dishevelled growth of lilac and syringa bushes that had graced +it before Mrs. Randall's day.</p> + +<p>Not from that house, but from somewhere beyond it, a car flashed into +view and cut smoothly and quickly down through the street, almost +deserted now. The boy followed it idly with his eyes. The low-built, +graceful lines of it held them. It approached, and slowed down directly +under the windows, and the boy leaned forward and looked.</p> + +<p>It was stopping there. It was one of the Everard cars, as the trim lines +and perfection of detail would have shown without the English +chauffeur's familiar, supercilious face. The car had only one occupant, +a slender young person in white. She slipped quickly out, and +disappeared into the dingy entrance hall below.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + +<p>She had not seen the boy at the window. He stood still now in his +corner, and waited. The tap of her feet was light even on the old +creaking stairs, but he heard. She knocked once and a second time, and +then threw open the door impatiently, saw who was there, and stopped +just inside the door, and looked at him.</p> + +<p>Her white dress and big, beflowered hat looked as cool and as new as +June itself. They did not make the dingy room look dingier, they made +you forget it was dingy. Her soft, befrilled skirts fluffed and flared +in the brave and bewildering mode of the moment. Skirts, small shoes +that were built to dance, not to walk, the futuristic blend of flowers +in her hat, and the girdle, unrelentingly high and futuristic of colour, +too, that gave her waist an unbelievably slender look, were all in the +dainty and sophisticated taste of a sophisticated young lady, and under +the elaborate hat there was a sophisticated young face. It looked +smaller and more faintly pink. The small chin was more prominent. But +she still had the wide, reproachful eyes of a child. They regarded the +boy unwinkingly. One hand went behind her, found the knob of the door, +and closed it mechanically, but the eyes did not leave his face.</p> + +<p>He stepped uncertainly forward, and stopped.</p> + +<p>"Well, Judith," he said, in a voice that held all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> the authority Judge +Saxon's assistant had acquired in the long year of his service and more, +"Well?" and then, in a voice that held no authority at all, but was +suddenly husky and small: "Oh, Judith, won't you speak to me?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" > +<a id="illus1" name="illus1"></a> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt="'Oh, Judith, won't you speak to me?'" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_SIXTEEN" id="CHAPTER_SIXTEEN"></a>CHAPTER SIXTEEN</h2> + +<p>"Judith," Neil said.</p> + +<p>Neil's visitor flashed a quick glance round the dim office, empty except +for the lean young figure that confronted her. It was a hunted glance, +as if she really meant to turn without speaking and pick up her +beruffled skirts, and run away down the dusty stairs, but she did not +run away. Suddenly quite herself, recovering by tapping some emergency +reserve of strength as only ladies can, but as most of them can, even +the most amateurish and beruffled of ladies, she crossed the room to +him.</p> + +<p>She came deliberately, with an impressive flutter of hidden silk. She +was smiling a faint half-smile, sweet but indefinably teasing, and +holding out a daintily gloved hand. It touched Neil's lightly and +impersonally, not like a girl's warm hand at all, but like the hand of a +society forever beyond his reach, held out patronizingly to this boy +beyond its pale, only to emphasize the distance between them.</p> + +<p>"How do you do?" she murmured, formally but sweetly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> "How do you do?" +the boy stammered. "Judith, oh, Judith, I——"</p> + +<p>He broke off, staring helplessly into her eyes. They were dark and +accusing and grave, and a heartache shadowed the depths of them, the +lonely and infinite heartache of youth, when you cannot measure your +pain or argue it away, but must suffer and suffer instead. But the boy +was too miserable just then to read it there.</p> + +<p>"Judith," he began, "don't you care any more? Why wouldn't you read my +letters? Why wouldn't you let me explain? Won't you let me now? I can, +Judith."</p> + +<p>Still smiling, not taking the trouble to interrupt him, she waited for +him to finish, and as she waited and smiled, he had suddenly nothing +more to say. Judith was so slender and white and still as she stood +there. All the outraged dignity of an offended schoolgirl was helping to +make this overwhelming little effect of hers, and every trick of poise +and carriage that she had acquired in a year, and something else, +something that shamed and silenced the boy as no tricks could have done, +and made her pathetic little show of injured dignity real. A woman's shy +soul was reaching out for every defence it had to protect itself; a +woman's new-born, bewildered soul looked out of Judith's beautiful, +grieved eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was very still in the office. Outside an automobile +horn sounded aggressively, once and again, and Judith gave the boy an +amused, apologetic glance.</p> + +<p>"Parks is in a hurry," she said. "He ought not to do that. The Colonel +wouldn't like it. But I won't keep him waiting. I'm going out to the +Camp for supper. Father and mother are there already. I stopped for the +Judge, but he doesn't seem to be here. He is walking out to the Camp, I +suppose. I'm—glad to have seen you." Her voice choked perilously over +this irreproachable sentiment, then steadied and modulated itself +according to the instructions of the highly accredited elocution teacher +of which she had enjoyed the benefit for a year. "Good-night."</p> + +<p>Again she put out her cool little hand, but this time the boy's hand +closed on it tight.</p> + +<p>"Judith," he began, his words coming fast, the contact seeming to +release all that had been storing itself up in his lonely heart for a +year. Once released, it came tumbling out incoherently, with the lilting +brogue of the ragged little boy that he used to be singing through it, +and the breathless catch in his voice that is the supremest eloquence +for the kind of words that he had to say. But Judith gave no sign of +being moved by it, and while she listened, a hard look, too unrelenting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +for any eloquence to reach, was growing in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Judith, you're so sweet, so sweet; sweeter than you were last +year—sweeter than you ever were before. I didn't know anybody could be +sweeter, even you. I was so lonely. I wanted you so, and now you've +come. Everything will be all right, now you've come. And you came +straight here. You knew I was here, and you came because you knew. You +came straight to me."</p> + +<p>"I came for the Judge," she corrected him gravely.</p> + +<p>"But you knew I was here."</p> + +<p>"I knew you were working for the Judge, but I didn't think you'd be here +so late in the afternoon. I didn't come to see you. I didn't want to. +Why should I? But I'm glad you are doing so well. Good-night, Neil."</p> + +<p>"Good-night," he muttered mechanically, checked once more in spite of +himself.</p> + +<p>But as he spoke, he felt her hands, both in his now, and held tight, +tremble and try softly at first, and then in sudden panic, to pull +themselves away. Her voice, that had been so grave and cool, with no +echo of the excitement that was in his, failed her now, though she kept +her wide-open eyes bravely upon him. She was afraid of him, this young +lady who was making such elaborate at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>tempts to hide it, this young lady +not of his world, and so anxious to prove it to him, this calm stranger +with Judith's eyes. She was very much afraid, and she could not hide it +any longer.</p> + +<p>"Let me go," she tried to say.</p> + +<p>"Judith," he dropped her hands obediently, but his arms reached out for +her and caught her and held her close, "you didn't come for the Judge. +You came to see me."</p> + +<p>"No. No."</p> + +<p>Her face was hidden against his shoulder. Her voice came muffled and +soft. Neil paid no further attention to it. "No," it insisted faintly. +"Let me go." Then it insisted no more, and the boy laughed a soft, +triumphant little laugh.</p> + +<p>"You did come to see me, and you love me. You love me and I love you. +You were angry, of course. Of course you sent back my letters. But +you're going to listen to me now. You're going to let me explain. I +couldn't that night. I couldn't talk any more. I didn't dare. I had to +keep hold of myself. I had to get you home. And I did, dear. I turned +round and took you home, and I got you home—safe. You're going to +listen? And not be angry any more? You won't, will you? You +won't—dear?"</p> + +<p>Her face was still out of sight, and her white figure was motionless in +his arms. She did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> relax there, but she did not struggle. She looked +very slender and helpless so. Her futuristic hat had slipped from its +daring and effective adjustment, and fallen to the Judge's dusty floor, +where it lay unregarded. The silvery blond head against his shoulder was +changed like the rest of her, a mass of delicately adjusted puffs and +curls, but in the fast-fading light he saw only the soft, pale colour of +her hair and the tender curve of her throat. He kissed it reverently and +lightly, once only, and then his arms let her go.</p> + +<p>"You're so sweet," he whispered; "too sweet for me. But you're mine, +aren't you? Tell me you are. And you forgive me for—everything? Tell +me, Judith."</p> + +<p>She seemed in no hurry to tell him. She faced him silently, her white +dress whiter than ever in the fading light, and her face big eyed and +expressionless. He waited reverently for her answer, and quite +confidently, picking up the elaborate hat mechanically, and then +smoothing the ribbons tenderly, and pulling at the flowers, as he +realized what he held.</p> + +<p>"Poor little hat," he said softly, with the brogue coaxing insinuatingly +in his voice. "Poor little girl. I didn't mean to frighten you. And I +didn't mean to—that night.... Judith!"</p> + +<p>It was undoubtedly Judith who confronted him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> and no strange lady now. +It was as if she had been waiting for some cue from him, and heard it, +and sprung into life again, not the strange lady, not even the girl of +the year before, but a long-ago Judith, the child who had come to his +rescue on a forgotten May night, the child of the moonlit woods, with +her shrill voice and flashing eyes. She was that Judith again, but grown +to a woman, and now she was not his ally, but his enemy. She snatched +the beflowered hat away, and swung it upon her head with the same +reckless hand that had swept the lantern to the ground in her childish +defence of him. Her eyes defied him.</p> + +<p>"That night," she stormed, "that night. Don't you ever speak of that +night to me again. I never want to hear you speak again. I never want to +see you again. I'll never forgive you as long as I live. I hate you!"</p> + +<p>"Judith, listen to me," begged the boy. "Listen. You must."</p> + +<p>But the girl who swept past him and turned to confront him at the door +was past listening to him. Words that she hardly heard herself, and +would not remember, came to her, and she flung them at him in a +breathless little burst of speech that hurt and was meant to hurt. The +boy took it silently, not trying to interrupt, slow colour reddening his +cheeks, his eyes growing angry then sullen. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> words that Judith used +hardly mattered. They were futile and childish words, but because of the +blaze of anger behind them, that had been gathering long and would go on +after they were forgotten, they were splendid, too.</p> + +<p>"I hate you! I don't belong to you. I don't belong to anybody. I'm not +like anybody else. Nobody cares what I do, and I don't care. I don't +care. Nobody ever takes care of me or knows when I need it. Well, I can +take care of myself. I'm going to now. I never want to belong to +anybody. If I did, it wouldn't be you."</p> + +<p>"Judith, stop! You'll be sorry for this."</p> + +<p>"If I am, it's no business of yours. It's nobody's business but mine."</p> + +<p>"You'll be sorry," the boy muttered again, and this time the girl did +not contradict him or answer. Her shrill little burst of defiance was +over, and with it the sullen resentment that had crimsoned the boy's +face as he listened began to die away. He was rebuffed and thrown back +upon himself. His heart would not open so easily again. It would be a +long time before it opened at all. But he did not resent this. He only +looked baffled and puzzled and miserable, and the girl staring mutely at +him from the doorway with big, starved eyes, looked miserable, too. She +would be angry again. All the hurt pride and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> anger that had been +gathering in her heart for a year was not to be relieved by an +unrehearsed burst of speech. It had been sleeping in her heart. It was +all awake now, and she would be angrier with the boy and the world than +ever before, angrier and more reckless. But just now her anger was +blotted out and she was only miserable. In the gloom of the office there +was something curiously alike about the two tragic young faces.</p> + +<p>The two were alone together there, but they had never been farther +apart. There was a whole world between them, a lonely world, where +people all speak different languages, and understand each other only by +a miracle, and most of them are so used to being alone that they forget +they once had a moment of first realizing it. But when it was upon them, +it was a bitter moment. These two young creatures were both living +through it now. They looked at each other blankly, all antagonism gone.</p> + +<p>"You won't listen?" said the boy wonderingly, admitting defeat. "You +won't forgive me?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Judith pitifully. "I can't."</p> + +<p>Neil looked at her forlornly, but did not contest this. He came meekly +forward, not trying to touch her again, and opened the door for her.</p> + +<p>"Well, good-night," he said. "Good-night, dear."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Good-bye," Judith said. "Good-bye, Neil."</p> + +<p>Then, jerking her flaunting hat into adjustment with trembling fingers, +and shaking out her befrilled skirts with a poor little imitation of her +earlier airs and graces, she slipped out into the corridor, groped for +the dusty stair rail, and clutched at it with a new disregard for her +immaculate whiteness, and disappeared down the stairs.</p> + +<p>In the street below the last of the afternoon light still lingered, +reflected from the polished windows of the bank building, and faintly +illuminating the half-deserted square, but the sun was just going down +behind the court-house roof, a big, crimson ball of vanishing light. +Judith, appearing below in the doorway, stood regarding it deliberately +for a minute, ignoring the chauffeur's discreet manifestations of +impatience, and then made herself comfortable deliberately in the +Colonel's car.</p> + +<p>She sat there proudly erect, a dainty, aloof little lady. She seemed to +have recovered her high estate upon entering it, and become a princess +beyond Neil's reach once more. Watching her gravely from the Judge's +window, he could not see the angry tears in her eyes or the reckless +light in them.</p> + +<p>Little preliminary pants and puffs came from the car, discreetly +impatient, as if they voiced all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> the feelings that the correct Parks +repressed. He relieved them with one blatant flourish of sound from the +horn, and swung the car grandly across the square, round the corner, and +out of sight. Judith was gone, and she had not once looked up at the boy +in the window.</p> + +<p>She had not even seen another cavalier, who dashed out of a shop and +tried to intercept and speak to her, but was just too late; Mr. Willard +Nash, thrilled by his first sight of her, ready to return to his old +allegiance at a word, and advertising the fact in every line of his +forlorn fat figure as he stood alone on the sidewalk gazing wistfully +after the vanished car.</p> + +<p>The boy at the window did not waste his time in this way. Judith was +gone, and with her the spell that had held him mute and helpless, and he +was a man of affairs once more. He was not a very cheerful man of +affairs to-night. He was not singing or whistling to himself, as he +usually did, but he moved competently enough about the room, entering +the Judge's private office with its smell of stale tobacco smoke and +group of chairs, so confidentially close that they looked capable of +carrying on the conference their late occupants had begun without help +from them. He rearranged this room, giving just the straightening +touches to the jumble of papers on the desk that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> the Judge permitted, +and no more, and putting the outer office in order, too.</p> + +<p>By his own desk he paused, fingering Mr. Thayer's thumbed pages +absently. He had no attention to spare for them just then, or for the +graver questions that had absorbed him just before Judith came. They +would soon claim him again. They awaited him now, but out in the +gathering dark that he watched from the darkening office something else +waited, too.</p> + +<p>His heart ached with it, but it beat harder and stronger for it, and new +strength to meet old issues came pulsing from it, as if he were awake +again after a year of sleep. He was grieved and miserable, but he was +awake. For his mother was right: he was only a boy like other boys; he +was young and it was June, and whether she was kind or unkind, Judith +Randall was back in Green River.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Judith, whirled along the fast-darkening road between close-growing +pines, dulling from green to black, and birches, silver against them, +looked for the welcoming lights of Camp Everard through a mist of angry +tears.</p> + +<p>She shed them decorously, even under cover of the dark; she was still a +dainty and proud little lady, with nothing about her to advertise +con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>spicuously that she was crying, or why. But her little gloved hands +were closing and unclosing themselves, her lips were trembling in spite +of her, and there was a hunted look in her eyes as she turned them +toward the dark woods, as if her quarrel with Neil were not her only +trouble. The tears that she controlled so gallantly were a protest +against a world only half understood and full of enemies whose alien +presence she was just beginning to feel.</p> + +<p>But Neil, as she had just seen him, was enough to occupy the mind of +such a young lady, or a much older one. The look in his eyes as he stood +holding open the Judge's door for her was a highly irritating one for +any lady to meet. He was older and wiser than she was, no matter what +she could say or do to hurt him; he was stronger than she was, and +patiently waiting to prove it to her; that was what Neil's eyes were +saying.</p> + +<p>They said it first when he left her at her own door without a good-night +on that strange May night a year ago; when she stood looking up at him +changed and alien and silent, with the May moon behind him, that had +brought her bad fortune instead of good, still dim and alluring with +false promises above the shadowy elms in the little street, and they +looked down at her just so—Neil's grave, unforgettable, conquering +eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> They were eyes that followed you to-night, when you tried to +forget them and look at the dark woods and fields; eyes that looked at +you still when you closed your own.</p> + +<p>But Judith would not look at them. The eyes were lying to her. Neil was +not really wise or kind. He was cruel. He had hurt her and slighted her, +and she was through with him.</p> + +<p>"Parks, can't you go faster?" she said suddenly, in her clear little +voice. "It's so late, and I'm hungry and cold."</p> + +<p>"It's bad going through here, Miss," the chauffeur said.</p> + +<p>They were turning into a narrow mile or so of road that sloped gradually +down through a series of arbitrary curves and bends to the lake and the +camp, a changed and elaborate structure now, overweighted with verandas +and uncompromisingly lit with new electric lights. But the road was one +of the things that the Colonel did not improve when he changed the +public camp into a private one. It was unchanged and unspoiled, a +mysterious wood road still, alluring now in the gloom.</p> + +<p>Judith's own people were waiting for her there at the end of that road. +They were all the people she had. Willard and schooltime and playtime +were more than a year behind her; they were be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>hind her forever. She +could never go back to them. She had never really been part of them. She +had forced herself into a place there, but she had lost it now, and it +could never be hers again.</p> + +<p>These were her people. They were strange to her still, but she had grown +up breathing the feverish air that they breathed, and with little +whispers of hidden scandal about her. Judith was alone between two +worlds: one was closed to her, and she was before the door of another, +where she did not know her way. She was really alone, as she had told +Neil, more alone than she knew; a lonely and tragic figure, white and +small in the corner of the big car.</p> + +<p>But she was not crying now. She dabbed expertly at her eyes with an +overscented scrap of handkerchief and sat up, looking eagerly down the +dark road. She could catch far echoes of a song through the still night +air, faint echoes only, but it was a song that she knew, a gay little +song, and it came from a place where people were always kind and gay. It +was like a hand stretched out to her through the dark, a warm hand, to +beckon her nearer, and then draw her close. She leaned forward and +listened and looked.</p> + +<p>There was the camp, the first glimpse of it, though soon a dip of the +road would hide it again. It was an enchanting glimpse, a far, +low-lying<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> flicker of light. And there, just by the big, upstanding +boulder where the road turned abruptly, she saw something else. She saw +it before Parks did, as if she had been watching for it. It was a man's +figure that started forward, came to the edge of the road, and waited. +The man looked more than his slender height in the shadow, but his +light, quick walk was unmistakable. It was Colonel Everard.</p> + +<p>"Stop, Parks," Judith said, with new authority in her voice.</p> + +<p>He stood waiting for her silently, without any greeting at all, and she +slipped her hand into his and stepped out and stood beside him.</p> + +<p>"Go on," he said to the chauffeur. "It's too rough here for the car. +It's easier on foot. Miss Randall will walk with me."</p> + +<p>The car, skilfully manipulated along the steep, zigzag road, but a +clumsy thing at best here in the woods, and an artificial and ugly +thing, lumbered away, breaking through outreaching branches. Judith +watched it out of sight. Then and not till then she turned to her host.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you going to speak to me?" the great man inquired respectfully, +as if her intentions deserved the most serious consideration.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Judith serenely, unflattered by it.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to say?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What do you want me to say?"</p> + +<p>"I want you to shake hands with me."</p> + +<p>A hand touched his lightly. It drew quickly away, but it was a confiding +little hand.</p> + +<p>"You don't seem surprised to see me."</p> + +<p>"I'm not," said Judith.</p> + +<p>"But you're glad to see me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"It's stuffy inside, and they've got a fire in the billiard room and +won't leave it. I wanted——"</p> + +<p>Judith laughed and let him draw her hand through his arm as they began +to grope their way down the road. "You wanted to meet me."</p> + +<p>She made the correction triumphantly and confidently, as she would have +made it to Willard. All this was coquetry, as she and Willard understood +it, and it was an old game to her, and a childish game, but there was +something strangely exciting about the fact that the Colonel understood +it, too, and condescended to play at it. It was more exciting than usual +to-night.</p> + +<p>"Why should I want to meet you?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Why weren't you downstairs last night when I came to see your father?"</p> + +<p>"I was tired."</p> + +<p>"You weren't running away from me?"</p> + +<p>"No."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And you won't ever run away from me?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"You're afraid of me."</p> + +<p>"Am I?"</p> + +<p>"Aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Judith. "Look, there's the moon."</p> + +<p>It was low above the trees, rising solemn and round and slow. It looked +reproachful and grave, like Neil's eyes. It was looking straight at +Judith. Judith turned her eyes sternly away. What was the Colonel +saying? Something that did not sound like Willard at all, or like the +Colonel, either. Nobody had ever spoken to her in just that voice +before. It was a choked, queer voice. But Judith smiled up at him and +listened, tightening the clasp of her hand on his arm.</p> + +<p>"Don't be afraid of me. Don't ever be afraid.... You're so sweet +to-night."</p> + +<p>"No, I won't," said Judith defiantly, straight to the round, accusing +moon. "I won't be afraid."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_SEVENTEEN" id="CHAPTER_SEVENTEEN"></a>CHAPTER SEVENTEEN</h2> + +<p>"I don't like the look of you," said Mrs. Donovan.</p> + +<p>"Then you're hard to please." Neil turned at the foot of the steps to +say, trying to smile as he said it. "Harder than I am. I do like the +look of you."</p> + +<p>The Donovans, mother and son, were both quite sufficiently attractive to +the eye at that moment. This was the second day of September, and also +the second day of the county fair in Madison, five miles away—the big +day of the fair, and Neil's uncle had been up at dawn to escort the +younger Bradys there in a borrowed rig, and in the company of at least +half Green River in equipages of varied style and state of repair. Neil +had slept late, breakfasted sketchily, and dined elaborately alone with +his mother. Now the long, still, sunny afternoon was half over, and she +stood in the kitchen door, watching him start for town.</p> + +<p>The kitchen, newly painted this year, looked empty and unnaturally neat +behind her, but friendly and lived in, too, with the old, creaking +rocker pulled to an inviting angle at the window<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> overlooking the marsh, +and a sofa under the other window, its worn upholstery covered freshly +with turkey-red; one splash of clear colour, sketched in boldly, just in +the corner where it satisfied the eye. Her neighbours did not take this +humble fabric seriously for decorative purposes; indeed, they would not +have permitted a sofa in the kitchen at all, but her neighbours were not +of her gracious race. They could not wear a plain and necessary white +apron like the completing touch to a correct toilette assumed +deliberately. Mrs. Donovan could, and she did to-day. Also her brown +hair, dulled to a softer, more indefinite brown by its sprinkling of +white, rippled softly about her low forehead, and her dress was faded to +a tender, vague blue like the blue of her eyes. Her eyes, almost on a +level with Neil's as she stood on the step above him, had the charm that +was peculiarly their own to-day, cloudy as they were with the faraway +look of a race that believes in fairies, but warm and human, too, with +an intimate mother look of concern for Neil.</p> + +<p>Neil met it steadily, not a sullen boy as he would have been under that +questioning a year ago, not resenting it at all, but keeping his secrets +deliberately. It had always been hard for her to make him answer +questions. It was not even easy for her to ask them now.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You don't sleep," she began.</p> + +<p>"Neither do you, if you've been catching me at it," reasoned her son +correctly.</p> + +<p>"You work too hard." She had made an accusation that he could not deny, +so he only smiled his quick, flashing smile. "You won't even take a day +to yourself."</p> + +<p>"I'll have the office and most of the town to myself this afternoon. +I'll have to go. I've got something special to look into."</p> + +<p>"Where's Charlie?" she demanded at once.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he's not troubling me to-day. He's safe at Madison with his new +mare. He'll break loose there, then come home and repent and stay +straight for weeks and make no trouble for me. He's due to break loose. +He's been good too long—too good to be true. He was in fine form last +night." Mr. Charlie Brady's cousin grinned reminiscently.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"He gave me quite a little side talk on good form in dress and diction. +Charlie claims I won't make an orator, and he don't like my taste in +ties."</p> + +<p>"Who does he think he is?" flashed Mr. Brady's aunt indignantly.</p> + +<p>"Who do you think he is?" her son inquired unexpectedly. "For whatever +you think, that's me. I'm no better than Charlie."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Charlie?" Mrs. Donovan gasped, and then plunged into an indignant +defence of her son, not pausing to take breath.</p> + +<p>"You?" she began. "You that's planted firm on the ladder and right-hand +to the Judge already, and him getting older every day, and Theodore Burr +just kept on in the office because Everard's after Burr's wife. So he +is, and the town knows it, and Theodore'll wake up to it soon. A fine +partner Theodore is for the Judge, poor boy, but he's a good boy, too, +though none too strong in the head; Lil Burr is a good girl, too, and +she'd make a good wife to Theodore if she could be left to herself. +She'd make it up with Theodore, as many a girl has done that's got more +for her husband to forgive than Lil.</p> + +<p>"Poor Lil. Her head's high above me now, but the time was she cried on +my shoulder; crying for Charlie, she was, before ever Charlie took up +with Maggie and Lil with Theodore; when the four of them were all young +together, and the one as good as the other. Young they were, and the +hearts of them young—wild, doubtful hearts. Many's the time Lil would +come to me then, here in this same kitchen, and go down on her knees, +her that was tall and a fine figure of a girl, and cling onto me, crying +her heart out; crying she was for all the world like—like——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Donovan checked herself abruptly with shrewd eyes upon her son.</p> + +<p>"Like young things do cry, and tell you their troubles in tears, not +words." She ended somewhat vaguely, and came quickly back to her main +subject again.</p> + +<p>"You that can walk into the big rally next week and sit with the men +that count, and whisper and talk to them, and hold your head high, with +nothing against you, and will be sitting up on the platform soon, with +the best of them, and be mayor yet, like Everard's going to be, or +governor, maybe—you to compare yourself with Charlie, if he is my +half-sister's own son. He's a drunken good-for-nothing. He's got no +spirit in him if he'll stay here at all, where he's ashamed himself and +make a show of himself. How is it he's able to stay? Where does he get +the money he spends? This town don't pay it to him. Who does?"</p> + +<p>"What put that into your head?" her son asked sharply.</p> + +<p>"There's talk enough of it, and there'll be more. The whole town will be +asking soon."</p> + +<p>"The town asks a lot of questions it don't dare hear the answers to," +said Neil softly, unregarded. His mother returned to her grievance:</p> + +<p>"You to be likening yourself to Charlie."</p> + +<p>"When Charlie was twenty-five," Neil began<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> slowly, "he was where I will +be then, or better. The Judge was a friend to him, too, and the Judge +was a better friend then to have. Charlie was setting up for himself, +well thought of. My own father trusted him. When I was a boy and not +grown, Charlie was a son to him, and more. He was a better spoken lawyer +than I'll ever make, quick and smooth with his tongue, and he was fine +appearing, and put up a better front than I do. I've gone part of the +road that Charlie went. What will stop me from going the whole road? +What's beat Charlie is strong enough to beat me.... Don't look so +scared, mother. I don't want to scare you. I only want you to be fair to +Charlie."</p> + +<p>"His heart's broke," she conceded, melting. "He's nothing with Maggie +gone."</p> + +<p>"His heart's broke, but that's not what beat him," her son stated with +authority. "He was beat before."</p> + +<p>"When?"</p> + +<p>"He was beat," Neil stated deliberately, "when Everard moved to Green +River."</p> + +<p>This was a sweeping statement, but Neil did not qualify it. He dropped +the subject and stood silent, turning absent eyes upon the green expanse +of marshy field that had been the starting-place of all his dreams when +he was a dream-struck,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> gazing boy. His mother's eyes followed his, +growing cloudier and soft as if even now she could read them there.</p> + +<p>"Rests your eyes," Neil said, after a minute; "looks pretty, too, in the +sun. It's a pretty green. We'll drain it, perhaps, by the time I'm mayor +or governor. It might pay. I'll be going now."</p> + +<p>"Neil, when did you see her last?" asked his mother suddenly.</p> + +<p>"See who?" he muttered, and then flushed, and straightened himself, and +met her eyes bravely.</p> + +<p>"I saw Judith yesterday," he said, "on Main Street, and—she cut me."</p> + +<p>"Did she walk past you?"</p> + +<p>"No, she wouldn't do that. She pretended not to see me, but she saw me, +all right. She passed me in an automobile."</p> + +<p>"Whose?"</p> + +<p>"One of Everard's."</p> + +<p>"Was he with her?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Neil," his mother began a little breathlessly, "I want to tell you +something. I've said hard things to you, and they weren't deserved. I +know it now, and I'm sorry. I want to take them all back. I've said hard +things about Judith Randall."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> + +<p>She hurried on, afraid of being stopped, but he made no move to stop +her. He listened courteously, his face not changing.</p> + +<p>"Neil, she's not what I thought. There's no harm in her. There's no +pride in her. She's just lonesome. She's just a young, young girl. She's +sweet-spoken and sweet-faced. Neil, from all I hear——"</p> + +<p>"You didn't hear all this direct from—Judith, then?"</p> + +<p>"Judith?" she hesitated, flashing a questioning glance at him. "Is it +likely? How would I get the chance? But from all I hear, she's too good +for Everard and the like. And she's not safe with them. She needs——"</p> + +<p>"What?" interrupted her son gravely, with the air of seeking information +on a subject quite strange to him and rather distasteful. But she tried +to go on.</p> + +<p>"—Judith needs—any one that's fond of her, any one that she's fond of, +to be good to her now. I've seen her, and it's in the eyes of her. No +man ever knows just what a woman is grieving for, but that's all one if +he'll comfort her when she's grieving. She needs——"</p> + +<p>Neil's eyes were expressionless. She sighed and put her two hands on his +shoulders. "Have it your own way," she said. "I'll say no more."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<p>Neil caught at one of the hands on his shoulders and kissed it.</p> + +<p>"For one thing," he said, "Judith or any girl needs a mother with a +heart in her—like I've got, but you're the one in the world. I'm +going."</p> + +<p>But he did not go at once. Standing beside her, suddenly awkward and +shy, he first gave her the confidence that she could not force from him, +all in one generous breathless burst of words.</p> + +<p>"Mother, Charlie's not the only one with his heart broke. But +heart-break isn't the worst thing I've got to bear. There's something +else. I can't tell you. I'd rather bear it alone. I've got to. +Good-bye."</p> + +<p>Then he left her standing still in the door, shading her cloudy blue +eyes with one small hand and looking after him. He swung into the dusty +road and, keeping his head high and his eyes straight ahead, undazzled +by the sharp sunlight of mid-afternoon on the long stretch of unshaded +way, passed out of sight toward Green River.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_EIGHTEEN" id="CHAPTER_EIGHTEEN"></a>CHAPTER EIGHTEEN</h2> + +<p>Neil turned into Post-office Square just on the stroke of four. The +square was as empty and strange to the eye as his mother's kitchen, +though this was the rush hour of the day in that business centre upon +ordinary days, when the fair had not emptied the town.</p> + +<p>A solitary Ford of prehistoric make stood before the post-office, and +even that was just cranking up. It lurched dispiritedly off, leaving a +cloud of dust behind. A dejected-looking group of children hung about +the door of the ice-cream parlour, and appeared to lack the initiative +to enter in. Half the shops were shut. In the big show-window of the +central section of Ward's Emporium Luther Ward, usually on parade and +magnificently in charge of his shop and his staff of employees at this +time of day, stood in his shirt sleeves, embracing an abnormally slender +lady in a mauve velveteen tailored suit.</p> + +<p>At first glance he seemed to be instructing her in the latest dance +steps, but on a nearer view the visible part of her proved to be wax, +and the suit was ticketed nineteen-fifty. He jerked her into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> place, +turned and saw Neil, and hailed him cheerfully, waving him round to the +main entrance door, where he joined him, still wiping his brow.</p> + +<p>"If you want a thing well done, do it yourself," he said, explaining his +late exertions with the air of believing the explanation was original +with him and did credit to his intellect. "What are you here for, +brother? Isn't Madison good enough for you?"</p> + +<p>"No," Neil said. "Not with the big race called off."</p> + +<p>"Called off? How's that?"</p> + +<p>"Because you weren't there, Luther."</p> + +<p>Mr. Ward gave a gratified laugh at this graceful compliment, and +descended to facts.</p> + +<p>"I'm too old for horse racing. It's my boy's turn. He went over with +Willard Nash's crowd to-day. Why didn't you?" Mr. Ward demanded +severely.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Willard asked me all right. He's quite strong for me now." Mr. Ward +had doubted this, being on the watch for slights to Neil and resenting +them, though he never made an effort to prevent them. This was the usual +attitude of Neil's more influential friends.</p> + +<p>"Willard's a shrimp," said Mr. Ward gruffly. "And I like you," he added +in a burst of frankness. "I always did like you, Neil. You've pulled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> +yourself up by your boot-straps, and I hope you hang on to them tight. +There's nobody better pleased than I am. Oh, I got a rig and sent all +the help from the store over to the fair to-day," he added, turning +quickly to impersonal subjects.</p> + +<p>"You always do treat them right."</p> + +<p>"Well, this wasn't my idea. I got it from the Colonel." A look of +harmless but plainly evident pride came into Mr. Ward's open and ruddy +countenance as he mentioned the great man's name. It was only the week +before that he had received his first dinner invitation from the +Everards. It came at the eleventh hour and did not include his wife, but +he was dazzled by it still. "You know what he's doing? Closing his +house, practically, for all three days of the fair, and sending all the +help on the place over there—two touring cars full. It's a fine thing +for them. They're high-class help and don't have it any too interesting +down here. Anybody that says he's not democratic don't know the Colonel. +This town don't half know him yet."</p> + +<p>"You're right," Neil put in softly.</p> + +<p>"Democratic," declaimed Mr. Ward, "and public spirited. Look at the +fountain he's going to put up in the square. Look at the old Grant house +going to be fitted up for a library. Look at him running for mayor, when +he's been turning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> down chances at bigger offices for years—willing to +stay here and serve for the good of the town. There's talk against him +more than ever this year. I know that. It amounts to an indignation +meeting when the boys get together at Halloran's. Well, failures hate a +successful man, and their talk don't count. It will die down. But I hate +to hear of it. For the Colonel's put this town on the map. He's not +perfect, but who is? And suppose he does have a good time his own way? +We've got a right to—all of us. It's a free country."</p> + +<p>Mr. Ward delivered this last sentiment with touching faith in its force +and freshness, and waved a plump hand of invitation toward the little +private office back of the main section of his store, where he had +developed his unfailing eloquence of speech upon subjects of public +interest, and liked best to practise it. But Neil, himself listened to +with growing deference by the groups that forgathered there, was not to +be lured to that sanctum to-day. Speaking hastily and vaguely of work to +be done, he escaped from his good friend and across the street to Judge +Saxon's office.</p> + +<p>He climbed the stairs heavily, and did not linger before the door to +picture the sign changed to "Saxon, Burr, and Donovan," as he had done +more times than he cared to admit. The office<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> was not a thing to be +proud of as a step up in life for him to-day; it was a place to be alone +in, as men feel alone and safe in the place that is their own because +they have worked there.</p> + +<p>Showing this in every move, Neil locked the door, threw off his cap, and +dropped into the broken-springed chair at the desk that was nominally +Theodore Burr's, but really his. He groped mechanically for the handle +of the drawer where he usually rested his feet, found it hard to open, +gave up the attempt and, leaning back without its support, stared at Mr. +Burr's ornate, brass-mounted blotter with unseeing eyes.</p> + +<p>Sitting there, he was no longer the boy who had the privilege of +intimate talk with prominent citizens like Mr. Ward and valued it; or +the boy who had laughed at his mother's anxiety so bravely. He was not +even the boy that he used to be, sullen, but rebellious, too. To-day for +the first time he was something worse, a defeated boy. The long minutes +dragged like hours, and he sat through them as he would have sat through +hours, silent and motionless, losing run of time and acknowledging +defeat.</p> + +<p>For there was something that this boy wanted, and had always wanted, as +he could never want other things, even success or love, as a boy or a +man can want one thing only in one lifetime. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> was a remote and +preposterous dream that he had, a dream that nobody else in Green River +was foolhardy enough to cherish long, but this boy belonged to the race +of poets and dreamers, the race that must sometimes dream true, because +it always dreams. His dream had taken different forms: sometimes he saw +himself doing desperate things, setting fire to a house that he knew and +hated, striking a blow in the dark for which nobody thanked him, but the +issue was always the same, and the dream never left him. He was to find +Green River a new master. He was to save the town. That was his dream. +It had never left him till now.</p> + +<p>He was only a lean, tense boy, crouched over a battered desk and staring +out of the window at a country street with absent, beautiful eyes, but +he was living through a tragic hour; the terrible hour that poets and +dreamers know when they lose hold upon their dreams. Measured by +minutes, this hour was not long. Neil passed a hand across his forehead +and sat up, reaching for his cap in a dazed way, for he was not to be +permitted to hide longer from his trouble here. The plump and personable +figure of Mr. Theodore Burr was crossing the square and disappearing +into the door below. His unhurried step climbed the stairs. Neil opened +the door to him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Hello, stranger. Why aren't you at Madison?" Neil said.</p> + +<p>"I didn't go," said Mr. Burr lucidly. "Where are you going? I don't want +to drive you away from here."</p> + +<p>"Oh, just out. I was going anyway."</p> + +<p>"You don't invite me. I don't blame you. I'm poor company, and I've got +business to attend to here."</p> + +<p>"No!"</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't I have business here?" snapped Mr. Burr.</p> + +<p>"You should, you should, Theodore. Say"—the question had been troubling +Neil subconsciously all the time he sat at the desk—"what's wrong with +that lower drawer? I can't open it."</p> + +<p>"It's locked."</p> + +<p>"What for?"</p> + +<p>"That," said Mr. Burr with dignity, "is my private drawer—for private +papers."</p> + +<p>"Papers!" Mr. Burr's private papers were known to consist chiefly of a +file of receipted bills and a larger file of unreceipted bills, both +kept with his usual fastidious neatness. "What papers?"</p> + +<p>"That's my business. I've got some rights here, if I am a figurehead. +I've got some privileges."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Sure. Don't you feel right to-day, Theodore?"</p> + +<p>"That," said Mr. Burr, "is my business, too."</p> + +<p>Neil stared at his friend. Mr. Burr was faultlessly groomed, as always, +his tie was of the vivid and unique blue that he affected so often, and +a very recent close shave had acted upon him as usual, giving him a pink +and new-born appearance, but his eyes looked old and tired, as if he had +not slept for weeks and had no immediate prospect of sleeping, and there +were lines of strain about his weak mouth. He was not himself. Even a +boy preoccupied with his own troubles could not ignore it.</p> + +<p>"Don't you feel right?" Neil said. "Don't you want me to do something, +Theodore?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Get out of here. Leave me alone," Mr. Burr snapped angrily.</p> + +<p>"Sure," said Neil soothingly.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Mr. Burr gripped Neil's reluctant, shy, boy's hand, kept it in +his for a minute in silence, and then abruptly let it go, pushing Neil +toward the door.</p> + +<p>"Don't begrudge me one locked drawer when you'll own the whole place +some day," he said, with all the dignity that his fretful burst of +irritation had lacked. "I'd like to see that day. You're a good boy, +Donovan."</p> + +<p>"You're not right. You've got a grouch.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> Come with me and walk it off," +Neil said uneasily, but he did not press the invitation, and his friend +had little more to say. His silence was perhaps the most unusual thing +about his behaviour, which was all out of key to-day. Neil remembered +afterward that just as he closed the door upon Mr. Burr and his +vagaries, shutting them at the same time out of his mind, Mr. Burr, +sitting rather heavily down in the broken-springed desk chair, was +bending and stretching out a faultlessly manicured, slightly unsteady +hand toward the locked drawer of the desk.</p> + +<p>Neil stepped out into the street with a cautious eye upon the Emporium +across the way, but no portly form was in sight there now, and no hearty +voice hailed him. He crossed the square and turned north, walking +quickly, soon leaving the larger houses behind, and then the smaller +houses above the railroad track, always climbing gradually as he walked. +Finally, at the entrance to an overgrown road that led off to his left, +and at the highest point of his long and slow ascent, he turned and +looked back at the town.</p> + +<p>The town that Colonel Everard had put on the map hardly deserved the +honour, seen so in a glitter of afternoon light, with the long, sloping +hill leading down to it, and the white tower of the church pointing high +above it, a cozy huddle of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> houses at the foot of the hill. It looked +unassuming and sheltered and safe, only a group of homes to make a +simple and sheltered home in. The boy looked long at it, then turned +abruptly and plunged into the road before him.</p> + +<p>It led straight across a shallow belt of fields and deep into the woods. +Only a cart-track at first, it soon lost itself here in a path, and the +path in turn grew fainter and became a brown, alluring ghost of a path. +It was hard to trace, but this was ground that Neil knew, a favourite +haunt of his, though few other boys ventured to trespass here. The woods +were part of the Everard estate.</p> + +<p>Neil had found his first May flowers here on the first spring that he +was privileged to give them to Judith. Last year she had helped him look +for them here. His errand here was not so pleasant to-day. The brown +path did not really lead to the heart of the woods as it seemed to. It +was not so long as it looked. It was a fairly direct short cut to the +Everard house.</p> + +<p>The boy followed it quickly, with no eyes for the dim lure of the woods +to-day.</p> + +<p>"You've beat me," he muttered once to himself; "I'll have a look at +you."</p> + +<p>Soon the woods were not so thick. They fell away around him, carelessly +thinned at first, littered with fallen trees and stumps, but nearer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> the +house combed out accurately by the relentless processes of landscape +gardening, and looking orderly and empty. The little path vanished +entirely here. Ahead of Neil, through a thin fringe of trees, was the +Colonel's rose garden; beyond it, the broad stretch of lawn and the +house, bulky and towered and tall.</p> + +<p>Neil broke through the trees and stood and looked at it, straight ahead, +seen through the frame of the trellised entrance to the garden, +upstanding and ugly and arrogant.</p> + +<p>"You've beat me," he said to the Colonel's house. "You've beat me; you +and him. I hate you!"</p> + +<p>His voice had a hollow sound in the empty garden. Garden and lawn and +house had the same look that the whole deserted town had caught to-day; +the look of suddenly empty rooms where much life has been, a breathless +strangeness that holds echoes of what has happened there, and even hints +of what is to happen; haunted rooms. It is not best to linger there. +Neil turned uneasily toward the path again.</p> + +<p>He turned, then he turned back, stood for a tense minute listening, then +broke through the rose garden and began to run across the lawn. Very +faint and small, so that he could not tell whether it was in a man's +voice or a woman's, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> echoing clearly across the deserted garden, he +had heard a scream from the house.</p> + +<p>It came from the house somewhere, though as Neil ran toward it the house +still looked tenantless. The veranda was without its usual gay litter of +cushions and books and serving trays. At the long windows that opened on +it all the curtains were close drawn—or at all but one.</p> + +<p>As Neil reached the house he saw that the middle window was thrown high +and the long, pale-coloured curtain was dragged from its rod and +dangling over the sill. Just then he heard a second scream from the +house. It was so choked and faint that he barely heard it. Neil ran up +the steps and slipped through the open window into the Everards' +library.</p> + +<p>Little light came through the curtained windows. The green room, +sparsely scattered with furniture in summer covers of light chintz that +glimmered pale and forbidding, looked twice its unfriendly length in the +gloom. There was a heavy, dead scent of too many flowers in the air. On +a table across the room a bowl of hothouse hyacinths, just overturned, +crushed the flowers with its weight and dripped water into the sodden +rug.</p> + +<p>Neil, at the window looking uncertainly into the half-dark room, saw the +bowl and the white mass<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> of crushed flowers, and then something else, +something that shifted and stirred in a far corner of the room. He saw +it dimly at first, a dark, struggling group. There were two men in it.</p> + +<p>One was a man who had screamed, but he was not screaming now. It would +hardly have been convenient for him to scream, for the other, the +smaller and slighter man of the two, was clutching him by the throat, +gripping it with a hand that he could not shake off as the two figures +swayed back and forth.</p> + +<p>"Who's there?" Neil cried.</p> + +<p>Nobody answered him. Nobody needed to, for just then the two men who +seemed to be fighting swung into the narrow strip of light before the +uncurtained window and he could see their faces. He could see, too, that +they were not fighting now, though they had seemed to be. The bigger man +was choked into submission already. No sound came from him and he hung +limp and still in the little man's hold. Just in the centre of the strip +of light the little man relaxed his grip, and let him fall. He dropped +to the floor in a limp, untidy looking heap, and lay still there, with +the light full on his face, closed eyes and grinning mouth. The man was +Colonel Everard, the man who stood over him was Charlie Brady.</p> + +<p>As Neil looked Brady dropped on his knees<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> beside the Colonel, felt for +his heart, and found it. He knelt there, motionless, holding his hand +pressed over it and peering intently into his face. Presently he got to +his feet deliberately, gave a deep sigh of entire content with himself, +and looked about him. Then and not until then he saw Neil. He saw him +without surprise, if without much pleasure, it appeared.</p> + +<p>"You're late," he remarked.</p> + +<p>"You drunken fool," Neil began furiously, then stopped, staring at his +cousin. Whatever the meaning of this exhibition was, Charlie was not +drunk. The excitement that possessed him was excitement of some other +kind. It possessed him entirely, though it was under control for the +moment. His muscles twitched with it. His shoulders shifted restlessly. +His hands closed and unclosed. His eyes were strangely lit, and there +was an absent, exalted look about them. Whatever the excitement, it was +strong—stronger than Charlie. Neil, his eyes now used to the +half-light, could see no weapon in the room, dropped on the floor or +discarded. Mr. Brady, normally a coward in his cups and out of them, had +attacked his enemy with his bare hands.</p> + +<p>"Charlie, what's got you?" Neil said. "What's come to you?"</p> + +<p>"What's come to him, there?" Charlie said, in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> voice that was changed, +too, and was as remote and as strange as his eyes, a low voice, with the +deceptive, terrible calm of gathering hysteria about it.</p> + +<p>"Look what's come to him," the voice went on. "Don't he deserve it, and +worse? How did I find him to-day when I broke in through the window +there? At his old tricks again. There was a woman with him in the +library there, when he came out to me. He locked the door. She's there +now. Neil, you'd better get away from here. I don't know what you're +doing here, but you'd better go, and go quick."</p> + +<p>He had given this advice indifferently. He made his next observation +indifferently, too, with his furtive, absent eyes on the library door.</p> + +<p>"I've killed him."</p> + +<p>"What's got you? Are you crazy?"</p> + +<p>"No—not now. You'd better go. I want to take a look in there first. The +key's in the door."</p> + +<p>"Charlie, come back here."</p> + +<p>The note of command that he was used to responding to in his young +cousin's voice reached and controlled Mr. Brady even now; he obeyed and +swung round and stood still, looking at Neil. Neil's dark eyes, just +above the level of his own, and so like them, were unrecognizable now. +They were dull with anger, and they were angry with him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" he quavered. "What's the matter, Neil?"</p> + +<p>Between the two cousins, as they stood facing each other, the Colonel +lay ominously still. The cruel eyes did not open, and the distorted +mouth did not change.</p> + +<p>"Look! You can see for yourself. Feel his heart," Mr. Brady offered, but +his cousin's dark, disconcerting eyes did not leave his face. "What's +the matter, Neil? What are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to make you talk out to me," Neil said. "You'll tell me +what's got you, and why you did this, which will be the ruin of you and +me, too, but first you'll tell me something else. You'll tell me what +you've hid from me for a year, you who can tell me the truth when you're +drunk and lie out of it when you're sober, till you've worn me out and +I'm sick of trying to get the truth from you. I'll be getting it now too +late, but I'll get it. Have you or have you not been living on this +man's money?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Was it hush money?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Mr. Brady said. "Neil, I'll tell you everything. You've guessed +most of it, but I'll tell you the rest. I can prove it. I can prove +everything I know. I did take hush money. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> was dirty money, but I +didn't care. I didn't care what happened. I didn't care till to-day."</p> + +<p>"To-day?"</p> + +<p>"I got—a letter."</p> + +<p>"Go on," Neil said.</p> + +<p>As he spoke Mr. Brady's face began suddenly to change, lighting again +with that strange excitement which had gripped him, revived, and burning +through its thin veneer of control. His eyes blazed with it, and his +voice shook with it. He waved a trembling hand toward the library door. +A sound had come from the library, the faintest of sounds, a low, +frightened cry. It was like the ghost of a cry, but he heard. Neil heard +it, too, and was at the door before him, trying to unlock it, fumbling +with the key.</p> + +<p>"She's there yet," Mr. Brady cried; "whoever she is. Well, she'll be the +last of them. I had a letter, I tell you, a letter from Maggie. She's +coming home, what's left of her—what he's left of her—Everard. I never +thought he was to blame. I said he was, but I was talked out of it. If +I'd thought so, if I'd suspected it, would I have touched a penny of his +dirty money? But she's coming home. Maggie's coming home."</p> + +<p>For the moment Neil was not concerned with the fact. Graver revelations +might have passed over him unheeded. The key had turned at last.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> Then +Neil felt the door being pushed open from inside. He stepped back and +waited. The door opened cautiously for an inch or two, then swung +suddenly wide. Standing motionless, framed in the library door, was +Judith.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_NINETEEN" id="CHAPTER_NINETEEN"></a>CHAPTER NINETEEN</h2> + +<p>The two cousins, Mr. Brady shocked into sudden silence, stood with +Colonel Everard's unconscious body behind them, unregarded, like any +other bulky and motionless shape in the dim room, and stared at the girl +who had come from the locked library.</p> + +<p>"Not you," Neil's voice said dully. "Not here."</p> + +<p>But the girl was Judith.</p> + +<p>Bare-headed, slender in soft-falling white, she stood in the library +door with both hands behind her, clasping her big, limp hat by its +flaring brim. Her lightly poised, blond head was fluffy with small, +escaping curls, her clear-coloured cheeks were warmly flushed, and +between her red, slightly parted lips her breath came too quickly, but +softly, still. A sheer, torn ruffle trailed from her skirt. One +rose-coloured bow hung from her girdle awry and crushed, and looked the +softer for that, like a crumpled flower.</p> + +<p>About her dress and her whole small self there was a drooping and +crumpled look. It was the look of a child that has played too hard. +Surely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> the most incongruous and pathetic little figure that had ever +appeared from a room where a distressed or designing lady was suspected +of hiding, she stood and returned Neil's look, but there was blank panic +in her eyes.</p> + +<p>They turned from Neil to Mr. Brady, wild eyed and pale beside him, to +the disordered room, and back to Neil again, with no change of +expression at all. They were wide and dilated and dark, intent still on +some picture that they held and could not let go. Judith came an +uncertain step or two forward into the room, stiffly, as if she were +walking in her sleep, and stood still.</p> + +<p>"Neil, what did you come here for?" she said. "I'm glad you came."</p> + +<p>Her voice was sweet and expressionless, like her eyes, and though she +had called Neil by name, she looked at him as if she had never seen him +before. One small hand reached out uncertainly, pulled at his sleeve, +and then, as he made no move to take it, dropped again, and began to +finger the big hat that she held, and pluck at the flowers on it, but +her eyes did not leave his face.</p> + +<p>"Will they stand for this?" Mr. Brady was demanding incoherently behind +them, "as young as this? Will the town stand it? No. And they won't +blame me now. They can't. It was coming to you—you——"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p> + +<p>He was in the grip of his own troubles again, and breaking into little +mutterings of hysterical speech, which he now addressed directly to +Colonel Everard, standing over him and not seeming to feel the need of +an answer. It was an uncanny proceeding. The girl and boy did not watch +it. They were seeing only each other.</p> + +<p>"Judith," Neil began stumblingly, "what were you doing there? What's +frightened you so? What you heard out here? That's all that frightened +you, isn't it? Isn't it? But what made you come here alone like this? +Didn't you know—— Oh, Judith——"</p> + +<p>He stopped and looked down at her, saying nothing, but his eyes were +troubled and dark with questions that he did not dare to ask. There was +no answer to them in Judith's eyes, only blank fear. As Neil looked, the +fear in Judith's eyes was reflected in his, creeping into them and +taking possession there.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Judith," he whispered miserably. "Oh, Judith."</p> + +<p>Judith seemed to have heard what he said to her from far away, and to be +only faintly puzzled by it, not interested or touched. Her eyes kept +their secrets under his questioning eyes. They defied him. She was not +like his little lost sweet-heart found again, but a stranger and an +enemy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> one of the people he hated, people who intrigued and lied, but +were out of his reach and above him, and were all his enemies.</p> + +<p>The boy's world was upsetting. Nothing that had happened to him in that +room or ever had happened to him before had shaken it like that minute +of doubt that he lived through in silence, with the strain of it showing +in his pale face, and Charlie's voice echoing half heard in his ears. He +drew back from Judith slightly as they stood. He was trembling. Judith's +face was a blur of white before his eyes, then he could not see it—and +then, as suddenly as it had come, his black minute was over.</p> + +<p>"Take me away. I don't want to stay where he is any more. Is he dead?" +Judith said, and she slipped her hand into Neil's.</p> + +<p>Judith's voice was as lifeless and strange as before, and the hand in +his was cold, but it was Judith's own little clinging hand, and the +boy's hand closed on it tight. He stood still, feeling it in his, and +holding it as if the poor little cold hand could give him back all his +strength again. He looked round him at the dim room and its motionless +owner and Charlie as if he were seeing them clearly for the first time. +He was not angry with Charlie any longer. He was not angry at all. He +drew a deep, sobbing breath of relief, dropped<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> his dark head suddenly +and awkwardly toward Judith's unresponsive hand and kissed it, and then +very gently let it go.</p> + +<p>"Judith, you're you," he said, "just you, no matter what happens, and +nothing else matters; nothing in the world, as long as you are you."</p> + +<p>Judith only smiled her faint half smile at him, as if she guessed that +some crisis had come and passed, but did not greatly care.</p> + +<p>"Take me away," she repeated patiently. "I thought there'd be other +people here. He said so. But I've come here alone before, only he was +different to-day. He was different."</p> + +<p>"Don't tell me. I don't want to know. I won't ever ask you again. I +never ought to have asked you. It's all right, dear. It's all right."</p> + +<p>"I didn't know people were like that—anybody, ever. I just didn't +know——"</p> + +<p>"Don't, dear," said Neil sharply. The small, bewildered voice that held +more wonder and pain than her words broke off, but her bewildered eyes +still wondered and grieved. Neil's arms went out to her suddenly and +drew her close, holding her gently, and hiding her small, pathetic face +against his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Don't," he whispered. "I'll take care of you. I'm going to take care of +you. Nobody's going to hurt you any more."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Neil, I just didn't know. I didn't know."</p> + +<p>"It's all right. I'm going to take you away. Just wait, dear. I'm going +to take care of you."</p> + +<p>He spoke to her softly, saying the same thing over and over, as if he +were quieting a frightened child. She was quiet in his arms like a +frightened and tired child in any arms held out to it. One arm had +slipped round his neck and clung to him. She drew long choking breaths +as if she were too tired to cry. Gradually they stopped, but the arm +round his neck only clung tighter.</p> + +<p>"Don't leave me," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not going to. I'm going to take care of you. You know that, +don't you, Judith?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Neil?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear."</p> + +<p>"Neil." Still in his arms, because she felt safe and protected there, +Judith lifted her head and looked at him, and into her sweet, dazed +eyes, full of a terror that she could not understand, came a faint flash +of anger. This boy who held her so safe and comforted was her enemy, +too. Long before the ugly accident of what had happened behind the +library doors he had been her enemy, and he was her enemy now, though +she needed his protection and took it. Their quarrel was not over.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Neil, I don't forgive you. I'm never going to forgive you."</p> + +<p>"All right, dear."</p> + +<p>"And I hate you. You know that, don't you? I hate you."</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, I know it. We aren't going to talk about that now. Let me +go."</p> + +<p>Both arms were round him now. Judith let him draw them gently apart and +down, and drew back from him. The anger was gone from her eyes. She +watched him wide eyed and still, as children watch the incomprehensible +activities of grownups, or devoted but jealous dogs watch them.</p> + +<p>"Don't leave me," she said. "You're sweet to me." Then she gave a sharp, +startled little cry.</p> + +<p>"Neil," she begged, "don't touch him. I don't want you to touch him. +What are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>The light had not had time to dim or shift perceptibly in Colonel +Everard's big room while so much was settling itself for Neil and +Judith. The Colonel still lay with the pale shaft of afternoon light on +his unconscious face. Now the boy was kneeling beside him. He slipped a +strong, careful arm under his shoulders, and bent over him, touching him +with quick, sure hands. He ignored Mr. Brady, who stood crying out +inco<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>herent protests beside him, and finally put a shaking hand on his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>Neil shook it off, and rose and stood facing his cousin.</p> + +<p>"I thought so," he said, with a short laugh. "You had me going at first, +Charlie, when I came in here and saw what a pretty picture you made. I +believed you. I thought you had killed him. I might have known things +like that don't happen in Green River."</p> + +<p>Neil put both hands on his cousin's shoulders and looked at him. Mr. +Brady was not an attractive sight at that moment. The excitement that +had held and swayed him was leaving him now, and he looked shaken and +weak. An unhealthy colour purpled his cheeks, and his sullen eyes glared +vindictively, but could not meet Neil's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Don't laugh at me," he muttered. "Don't you dare to laugh at me."</p> + +<p>"Going to beat me up, too?" his cousin inquired. "Poor old Charlie! +Let's hope your friend there will laugh at you when he talks this over +with you. He'll come out of this all right, but he'll be in a better +temper if he has a doctor here. I'll 'phone for one."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean? I've killed him. I'm glad I killed him."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> + +<p>His cousin laughed again. "Killed him? The man's no more dead than you +are. You've knocked him out, that's all. But you didn't kill him. Is +that the 'phone over there?"</p> + +<p>A desk telephone on a big Louis Quinze table at one end of the room, the +instrument masked by the frilly skirts of a French mannequin, perhaps +the only lady who had ever been permitted to be insipid in that room and +to stay there long, answered Neil's question by ringing faintly, once +and again. Neil started toward it, but did not reach it. Mr. Brady had +flung himself suddenly upon him in a last burst of feverish strength, +which he dissipated recklessly by shrieking out incoherent things, and +striking misdirected blows.</p> + +<p>Neil parried them easily, caught his thin arms and held them at his +sides. Keeping them so, he forced him against the edge of the flimsy +table and held him there and looked at him.</p> + +<p>"You shan't answer that 'phone," Mr. Brady cried, in a last futile burst +of defiance. "You shan't stop me. You shan't interfere. I'll kill him, I +tell you, and you shan't answer that 'phone. You shan't——"</p> + +<p>Mr. Brady's voice died away, and he was silent under his cousin's eyes.</p> + +<p>"Through?" said Neil presently.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he muttered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Do you mean it?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Brady nodded sullenly.</p> + +<p>"You've made a fool of yourself?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Brady nodded again.</p> + +<p>"Neil," he got out presently, "I can make it up to you. I haven't been +square with you, but I can. I will. You don't know——"</p> + +<p>"You've done talking enough. Will you go now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You'll quiet down and go to mother's and stay there till I come?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Neil let him go.</p> + +<p>"Maybe I'll finish up your friend for you myself, Charlie, after you +leave here," he offered. "I've thought of it often enough. Now I come +here and fight for him instead of fighting against him. I fight with +you. Poor old Charlie. Murder and sudden death! I tell you, things like +that don't happen in Green River."</p> + +<p>Neil stopped talking suddenly. The telephone at his elbow had rung +again, this time with a sharp, sudden peal, peremptory as an impatient +voice speaking. Neil caught it up, jerked off the simpering lady by her +audacious hat, and answered.</p> + +<p>At once, strangely intimate and near in that room where the three had +been shut in for the last half hour alone and away from the rest of the +world<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> while it went on as usual or faster, a man's voice spoke to him. +It was almost unrecognizable, so excited and hoarse, but it was Luther +Ward's.</p> + +<p>"Hello," Neil said. "Hello. Yes, this is Everards'. No, he can't come to +the 'phone. He—what? What's that?"</p> + +<p>Neil stopped and listened breathlessly. Mr. Brady, slinking head down +from the room, turned curiously to stare at him, and Judith, slipping +across the room like a little white ghost, drew close to him and felt +for his hand. Neil took her hand, this time with no response of heart or +nerves. He had put down the telephone, replacing the receiver +mechanically, but Luther Ward's voice still echoed in his ears.</p> + +<p>It had spoken to an uncanny accompaniment of half-heard voices, rattling +unintelligibly in the room where Ward was, the prosaic, tobacco-scented +room that Neil knew so well.</p> + +<p>"Tell Everard to come," Ward's voice had said. "He's to come down here, +to Saxon's office. I'm there now. Theodore Burr has shot himself. Yes, +shot himself. He won't live through the night. Who's this talking to me? +Neil Donovan, it's you. What are you doing at Everard's? Never mind. +Come down here yourself. Come straight down. Theodore's conscious, and +talking, and he's been asking for you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_TWENTY" id="CHAPTER_TWENTY"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY</h2> + +<p>Green River was getting ready for the rally in Odd Fellows' Hall. It was +six o'clock on the evening of the seventeenth of September, and "Grand +rally, Odd Fellows' Hall, September Seventeenth at eight-thirty," had +been featured for weeks in the Green River <i>Record</i>, on the list that +with a somewhat arrogant suggestion of prophetic powers possessed by the +_Record_ was headed "Coming Events." It was always a scanty list, +especially in the fall, when ten, twenty, thirty companies began to play +larger centres, and church lawn parties and circuses could no longer +appear on it. Sometimes not more than six events were to come in a gray +and workaday world. But six were enough to announce. Even a true prophet +is not expected to see all the future, only to see clearly all that he +sees, and the <i>Record</i> did that.</p> + +<p>This rally was important enough to be listed all by itself, and it did +not need the adjective grand. It was The Rally.</p> + +<p>It was Green River's own—a local, almost a family, affair. No +out-of-town celebrities were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> to be imported this time, to be listened +to with awe and then wined and dined by the Colonel safe from the +curious eyes of the town. This time old Joe Grant was to preside, as he +had done as a matter of course on all such occasions when he was the +acknowledged head of the town in political and financial matters, in the +old days of high-sounding oratory and simpler politics that were gone +forever, but were not very long ago. Judge Saxon, an old timer, too, and +better loved than the Honourable Joe, had declined the honour of +presiding, but had the authentic offer of it, his first distinction of +the kind for years.</p> + +<p>It was a local but very important occasion. It was Colonel Everard's +first official appearance as candidate for mayor. It was to be a very +modest appearance. No more time was allotted for his speech than for +Luther Ward's. He was putting himself on a level with Luther and the +Judge and the Honourable Joe and identifying himself at last with local +politics. The evening emphasized the great man's condescension in +accepting this humble office and honouring Green River. Even with the +scandal of Theodore Burr's suicide unexplained still and only two weeks +old, interest centred on the rally. It was a triumph for the town.</p> + +<p>Green River was almost ready. Dugan's or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>chestra was engaged for the +evening, instead of a rival organization from Wells, which the Colonel +often imported upon private and public occasions. Jerry Dugan was +getting old, too, like the Judge and the Honourable Joe. He had not lost +the peculiar wail and lilt from his fiddling, but he had made few recent +additions to his repertoire. Just now the band concert in front of Odd +Fellows' Hall was winding up with his old favourite: "A Day on the +Battlefield."</p> + +<p>It had the old swing still, contagious as ever. Loafers in front of the +hall shuffled their feet in time to it. Moon-struck young persons +hanging two by two over the railings of the bridge to gaze at the water +straightened themselves and listened. An ambitious soloist lounging +against the court-house fence across the square began to whistle it with +elaborate variations, at the inspiring moment when "morning in the +forest" had bird-called and syncopated itself into silence, and actual +fighting, and the martial music of the charge began.</p> + +<p>High and lilting and shrill, it hung in the still night air, alive for +the hour, challenging the echoes of dead tunes that lingered about the +square, only to die away and be one with them at last; band music, +old-fashioned band music, blatant and empty and splendid, clear through +the still night air, attuned to the night and the town.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Good old tune. Gets into your feet," Judge Saxon said, while his wife +adjusted his tie before the black walnut mirror in their bedroom, but +his unusual tribute to the tune was perfunctory to-night, and his wife +ignored it, wisely taking this moment of helpfulness to plunge him +suddenly and briskly into a series of questions which she had been +trying in vain for some time to get the correct answers to.</p> + +<p>"Hugh," she said, "why wouldn't you take the chair to-night?"</p> + +<p>"You were the only thing I ever tried to take away from Joe Grant and +got away with it, Millie," the Judge explained gallantly.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think this rally is like old times? Don't you want to see the +town stand on its own feet again, instead of being run from outside?"</p> + +<p>"I do, Millie."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Saxon made her next point triumphantly, connecting it with the +point before by some obscure logic known only to ladies.</p> + +<p>"Hugh, a father could not do more for Lillian Burr than the Colonel has +since poor Theodore went. The house full of flowers, calling there +himself every day and twice a day, though she won't see him; but Lillian +won't see any one. The Colonel's been ailing himself, too, but he +wouldn't put off the rally and disappoint the town. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> the new library +will open this fall, and there's talk that he's giving an organ to the +church. Hugh, don't you think Theodore's death may have sobered him? +Don't you think this may be the beginning of better things? Don't you +think——"</p> + +<p>"I think you're making a butterfly bow. I don't like them," said the +Judge, with the ingenuous smile that somehow closed a subject. She +sighed, but changed her attack.</p> + +<p>"Turn round now. I want to brush you. Hugh, what has happened to Neil +Donovan?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, happened to him?" snapped the Judge, and then added +soberly, "I don't know, Millie. I wish I did."</p> + +<p>"An Irish boy can get just so far and no farther."</p> + +<p>"How far, Millie?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be flippant, Hugh. There's something strange about Neil lately. +He didn't speak three times at the table last time he came to supper +here. He looks at me as if he didn't know who I was when I speak to him +on the street sometimes. There's no life in him. He's like Charlie and +all the rest of them—giving out just when things are going his way; +that's an Irish boy every time."</p> + +<p>"When things are going his way? When his best friend has just shot +himself?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't refer to that, Hugh," said Mrs. Saxon with dignity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No?"</p> + +<p>"I referred to Neil's family affairs, and the fact that Colonel Everard +has taken him up."</p> + +<p>"Maggie home and behaving herself and no questions asked, Charlie +shipped to Wells, and Neil going shooting twice with the Colonel?"</p> + +<p>"Three times, Hugh."</p> + +<p>"And that's what you call things going his way."</p> + +<p>"Hugh, why should those two spend any time together at all? They hate +each other, or I always thought so—that is, if a man like the Colonel +could hate a boy like Neil. What does he want of Neil now? What does +Neil want of him?"</p> + +<p>"They don't tell me, Millie."</p> + +<p>"But it's queer. It frightens me, Hugh. It's as queer as——"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Everything," Mrs. Saxon said, goaded into an exaggeration foreign to +her placid type, "everything, lately. You refusing to preside to-night. +Lillian Burr shutting herself up in this uncanny way. It is uncanny, +even if she is in trouble. Minna Randall taking to church work, and +sewing for hours at a time, and taking long drives with her husband. +They haven't been inside the Colonel's doors for weeks. Their second +girl told<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> our Mary that they have refused five invitations there in the +last month. It's my idea that he gave that last stag dinner because he +couldn't get Minna or Edith there, or any woman. Why should his own +circle turn against him, just when he's doing real good to the town? And +it's not only his own circle that's against him. I was matching curtains +at Ward's when Sebastian came in to-day, and Luther Ward was barely +civil to him—the Colonel's own secretary. What's wrong with the town, +Hugh? Can't it be grateful to the Colonel, now when he really deserves +it?"</p> + +<p>"Don't worry about what Everard deserves. He's not likely to get it, +Millie."</p> + +<p>Again the Judge was closing the subject, and this time his wife had no +more to say. She gave his threadbare, scrupulously pressed coat a final +pat and jerk of adjustment, and stood off and looked at him.</p> + +<p>"You'll do," she said, "now go along. The music's stopping. It won't +look well if you're late."</p> + +<p>She turned off the flickering gas jet above the marble-topped bureau +abruptly, but not before the Judge had caught the gleam of tears in her +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Why girl," he said, and came close to her and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> slipped an arm round her +plump, comfortable waist. "You're really troubled."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And vexed with me for not helping you."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>He had drawn her toward a front window of the big, square room. The +Judge and his wife stood by it quietly, looking down through a triangle +of white, starched curtains at the glimmering, sparsely lit length of +street below, and straightening out their difficulties in darkness and +silence, as all true lovers should, even lovers at fifty, as these two +were fortunate enough to be.</p> + +<p>"Millie, I don't want to tease you," the Judge said. "I'll tell you +anything you want to know."</p> + +<p>"I've been so worried," she wept comfortably against his shoulder. "I'm +so afraid."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"I feel as if something—anything might happen. I—oh, you'll only +laugh. I can't just tell you, Hugh."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you," said the Judge.</p> + +<p>He hesitated and then went on slowly, speaking more to himself than to +her.</p> + +<p>"Women hate change. That makes them dread it, even when it's not coming. +You're dreading it, but it's not coming now, dear. There's feeling +against Everard. You're right, but you exagger<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>ate it. It's instinctive +and unformulated. It hasn't gone far and won't go any farther. He won't +let it. The rally and the library and this new democracy stuff, stag +dinners to Ward's crowd and all, are part of a campaign to stop it. The +campaign will succeed. Everard's own crowd won't quarrel with him. They +can't afford to. Everard has pulled through worse times than this. I've +helped him myself, and I shall help him again.</p> + +<p>"There'll be no change, Millie. Things will go on just the way they are. +I've lived the best years of my life believing that it was best they +should, and if I'm wrong, I'm too old to change my mind. I've said +somebody had to own the town, and it might as well be Everard. I've said +the Burrs and Kents and Randalls, and old Joe Grant's young wife with +their parties and drinks and silly little love affairs, were playing too +hard, but doing no real harm, planting their cheap, fake smart set here +in Green River where it don't belong. Now poor Theodore Burr's dead. +That don't look like play. Harry Randall's so deep in debt to the bank +for what Everard's let him borrow that he has to stay on there at three +thousand a year, though he's been offered twice that in Wells. Everard +won't let him go. And the best I can say about myself in the years I've +worked for Everard is that I've kept my hands clean, if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> I have had to +keep my eyes shut, but I can say that to you, Millie."</p> + +<p>"It does look like old times down there," he went on softly, after a +minute. "The street and the lights are the same. And it sounds like old +times. It was from a rally in the hall that I first went home with you, +Millie. Remember? I was just a boy then, but I wish I was half the man I +was then, to-night." He heard a murmur of protest, and laughed. "But I +do, Millie. I—wouldn't be helping Everard."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Hugh!"</p> + +<p>"Don't worry. Everard will pull through all right. Look at the Randalls +over there, starting for the hall. Leave your windows open, Millie, and +you'll soon hear them all cheering for Everard. The moon won't rise till +late, but it will be full to-night. Listen, the band's going into the +hall now."</p> + +<p>The Judge rested his cheek for a moment against his wife's soft, smooth +hair, the decorous, satisfying caress of a decorous generation, then he +raised his head with a long, tired sigh.</p> + +<p>"I wish I was young," he said. "I wish I was young to-night."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"I wish I was young," the Judge had said, with a thrill and hunger that +was the soul of youth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> itself in his voice. At the moment when he said +it, a boy who had the privilege that the Judge coveted, and was not +enjoying it just then, was leaning against the court-house railing, and +watching Green River crowd into Odd Fellows' Hall.</p> + +<p>Another boy had pushed his way across the square to his side, and was +not heartily welcomed there, but was calmly unconscious of it.</p> + +<p>"Some night, Donovan," he remarked,</p> + +<p>"Some night, Willard," Neil agreed gravely.</p> + +<p>"Going in? Good for three hours of hot air?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not going. No."</p> + +<p>"Good boy. Say—" Mr. Willard Nash lowered his voice as he made this +daring suggestion—"we'll go around to Halloran's, and get into a little +game."</p> + +<p>His invitation was not accepted.</p> + +<p>"Jerry Dugan's not dead yet," observed Willard presently.</p> + +<p>Strains of a deservedly popular waltz tune, heard from inside the hall, +gave faint but unmistakable proof of this. Willard kept time with his +feet as he listened, paying the tune the tribute of silence, a rare one +from him. Standing so, the two were sharply contrasted figures, though +the flickering lamps in the square threw only faint light here, and +showed them darkly outlined against the railing, as they leaned there +side by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> side. Pose, carriage, every movement and turn of the head were +different, as different as a bulky and overgrown child is from a boy +turning into a man.</p> + +<p>"Some night," Willard repeated, unanswered, but unchilled by it, "and +some crowd."</p> + +<p>The hall had been filling fast. Though the waltz still swung its faint +challenge into the night, so much of Green River had responded to it +already that now it was arriving only by twos and threes. But the groups +still followed each other fast under the big globe of light at the +entrance door, gayly shaded with red for the occasion, and up the bare, +clattering stairs to the floor above, and the hall.</p> + +<p>Willard was right, more right than he knew. There was a crowd up there, +a crowd as Willard did not understand the word; a crowd with a tone and +temper of its own and a personality of its own. It was subject to laws +of its own and could think and feel for itself, and its thoughts and +feelings were made up of the brain stuff of every person in it, but +different from them all. It was a newly created thing, a new factor in +the world, and like all crowds it was born for one evening, to live for +that evening only, and do its work and die.</p> + +<p>Upstairs behind closed doors, such a crowd was forming; getting ready to +think its own thoughts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> and act and feel, and so many houses, little and +big, had emptied themselves to contribute to it, so many family +discussions like the Saxons' had gone on as a prelude to it, that you +might fairly say the crowd up there was Green River.</p> + +<p>Willard, watching the late arrivals and commenting upon them to Neil, +still an uncommunicative audience, was vaguely stirred.</p> + +<p>"This gets me," he conceded. "There's something about old Dugan's music +that always gets me. For two cents, I'd go in. I sat through a patent +medicine show there last week, because I didn't have the sense to stay +away. It always gets me when there is anything doing in the hall. +And—" he paused, heavily testing his powers of self-analysis, "it gets +me," he brought out at length, "more to-night than it ever did before. +It—gets me."</p> + +<p>"Look, there's Joe Grant," Willard went on. "This is his night, all +right. Look at the bulge to that manuscript case, and the shine to his +hair. He mixes varnish with his hair dye, all right. I said, look at +him."</p> + +<p>"I'm looking."</p> + +<p>"Well, you don't do much else. What's eating you to-night? Say, will you +go in if I will?"</p> + +<p>An inarticulate murmur answered him.</p> + +<p>"What's that?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"All right. Well, what do you know about that? Look there."</p> + +<p>"I'm looking."</p> + +<p>The latest comers were crowding hurriedly into the entrance hall by this +time, and with them, a slender, heavily veiled figure had slipped +quickly through the door and out of sight.</p> + +<p>"Was that Lil?" Willard said. "Lil Burr?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"She wouldn't come here; I don't believe it."</p> + +<p>"I know it."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>"She told me."</p> + +<p>"What was she doing, talking to you? Why, she won't talk to anybody. +She——"</p> + +<p>"You'll be late at Hallorans'."</p> + +<p>"Aren't you coming?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"But you said you would. I don't want to go if you don't. I don't half +like to leave you here, you act so queer to-night. What makes you act +so? What's eating——"</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>Willard detached himself from the railings and regarded his friend, +suddenly breathless with surprise, and deeply grieved. Nothing. The +word, harmless in itself, had been spoken so that it hit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> him like an +actual blow, straight from the shoulder. Neil, shifting so that the +light showed his face, was returning his look with the sudden, +unreasoning anger that we feel toward little sounds that beat their slow +way into our consciousness at night, to irritate us unendurably at last.</p> + +<p>"Go," he urged, "go along to Halloran's. Go anywhere."</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you know about that?" began Willard, offended, and then +forgave him. There was a look in Neil's pale face that commanded +forgiveness. It was pale and strained with a trouble that had nothing to +do with Willard, and Willard was respectful and inarticulate before it.</p> + +<p>"That's all right," Willard muttered, "that will be all right. I'll go."</p> + +<p>Neil took no notice of this promise. Up in the hall the waltz had +swelled to a high, light-hearted climax, heady and strained, like the +sudden excitements that sweep a crowd. It came clear through the open +windows, making one last appeal to the boy below to come up and be part +of what was there. And just then a small closed car swept down through +the empty square and stopped. Two men stepped out, and paused in the +doorway under the red-shaded light.</p> + +<p>One was the Colonel's secretary, waiting on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> step beyond range of +the light, a tall, shadowy figure, and the other, who stood with the +light on his face, was Colonel Everard.</p> + +<p>He was still pale from his week of illness, but his keen eyes and +clear-cut profile were more effective for that. He stood listening to +the sounds from upstairs, and he smiled as he listened. He turned at +last and looked out across the square as if he could feel Neil's eyes +upon him and were returning their look, and then turned away and +disappeared up the stairs.</p> + +<p>"Neil," Willard was announcing uneasily, "I think a lot of you. I'd do a +lot for you. If you're in wrong, any way, if——"</p> + +<p>Willard broke off, rebuffed. Neil did not even look at him. He stood +staring at the lighted doorway where the Colonel had stood and smiled, +as if he could still see him there. He was a creature beyond Willard's +world, as he looked, but unaccountably fascinating to Willard. Willard +regarded him in awed silence.</p> + +<p>Now Dugan's music had stopped. Some one above shut a window with a +clatter that echoed disproportionately loud. Then there was silence up +there, tense silence, and the call of the silence was harder to resist +than the music. The boy by the court-house railing could not resist it. +He pushed away Willard's detaining hand, and with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>out a word to him or +another glance at him, was across the square and through the red-lighted +door, and running up the stairs.</p> + +<p>"What do you know about that?" Willard demanded, in vain. "What do you +know——"</p> + +<p>Willard, certainly, knew nothing, and gave up the attempt to understand, +with a sigh.</p> + +<p>A little later the vantage point of the court-house fence was +unoccupied. Of the two boys who had occupied it, one was making a +belated and rather disconsolate way toward Halloran's—the one who would +be boasting to-morrow that he had spent the last fifteen minutes with +Neil Donovan. The other boy stood listening outside the closed doors of +the hall.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was half an hour later and it had been an important half-hour in Odd +Fellows' Hall, that uneventful but vital time when the newly made +creature that is the crowd is passive, gathering its forces slowly, +getting ready to fling the weight of them into one side of a balance +irrevocably, if it has decisions to make; the most important half-hour +of the evening if you were interested in the psychology of crowds. The +Honourable Joe Grant was not. He would have said that the first speech +dragged and the half-hour had been dull. Dull or significant, that +half-hour was over, and Green<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> River was waking up. In the listening +hush of the hall the big moments of the evening, whatever they were to +be, were creeping nearer and nearer. Now they were almost here.</p> + +<p>The Honourable Joe had just introduced Luther Ward and heavily resumed +his seat. He sat portly and erect and entirely happy behind the +thin-legged, inadequate looking table that held a water pitcher, his +important looking papers, and his watch. The ornately chased gold watch +that had measured so many epoch-making hours for Green River was in +public life again, like the Honourable Joe. He fingered it +affectionately, wiped his forehead delicately from time to time with a +purple silk handkerchief, followed Mr. Ward's remarks with unwavering +brown eyes, and smiled his benevolent, public-spirited smile. This was +his night indeed.</p> + +<p>Behind the Honourable Joe, on the stage in a semicircular row of chairs +were the speakers of the evening, and before him was Green River.</p> + +<p>The badly proportioned little hall was not at its best to-night. It was +too brightly lit and the footlights threw an uncompromising glare upon +the tiny stage. Red, white, and blue cheesecloth in crude, sharp +colouring draped windows and stage, making gay little splashes of colour +that emphasized the dinginess of the room. Only the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> Grand Army flag, +borrowed and draped elaborately above the stage, showed faded and thin +against the brightness of the cheesecloth, but kept its dignity and kept +up its claim to homage still. And the ugliness of the room was a thing +to be discounted and forgotten, like some beautiful, full-blooded +woman's tawdry, and ill-chosen clothes, because this room held Green +River.</p> + +<p>Green River, filling the little room to over-flowing, standing in the +rear of the room, crowding every available inch of space on benches, +window sills, and an emergency supply of camp chairs, impressive as that +much sheer bulk of humanity, crowded between four walls, becomes +impressive, and impressive in its own right, too; Green River +represented as it was, with all the warring, unreconciled elements that +made the town.</p> + +<p>For they were all here, Paddy Lane, and the Everard circle, and the +intermediate stages of society, the Gaynors and other prosperous farmers +and unprosperous farmers and their wives, from the outskirts of the +town, and citizens a cut above them both, like the Wards, were all +represented here. Mrs. Kent, hatless and evening coated, was elbowed by +a lady from Paddy Lane, hatless because she had no presentable hat, and +wearing a ragged shawl. These two were side by side, and they had the +same look on their faces. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> was something of it now on every face +in the room. It was a look of listening and waiting.</p> + +<p>It was on every face, and it grew more intense every minute that Luther +Ward's speech droned on, though it was only a dry, illogical rehash of +political issues that could not have called that look into any face. It +was as if the audience listened eagerly through it because every word of +it was bringing them nearer to something that was to follow. What was +it? What did Green River want? What was it waiting for? Green River +itself did not know, but it was very near.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was coming now. This might well be the climax of the evening. +No more important event was scheduled. Luther Ward, looking discontented +with his performance, but relieved to complete it, had sunk into his +chair to a scattered echoing of applause, and the next speaker was +Colonel Everard.</p> + +<p>The Honourable Joe was rising to introduce him. The little introductory +speech was a masterpiece, for, though the Colonel had edited every word +of it, it was still in the Honourable Joe's best style, flowery and +sprinkled with quotations.</p> + +<p>"I will not say more," it concluded magnificently, "of one whose life +and work among you can best speak for itself, and who will speak for +himself now, in his own person. I present to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> you the Republican +candidate for mayor, Colonel Everard."</p> + +<p>And now the Honourable Joe had bowed and smiled himself into his seat, +and the great man was on his feet, and coming forward to the centre of +the stage. The first real applause of the evening greeted him, not very +hearty or sustained, but prompt at least. He looked like a very great +man indeed, as he stood acknowledging it, his most effective self, a +strong man, though so lightly built, erect and pliant of carriage, a man +with infinite reserves of power and dignity. He was smiling, and his +smile was the same that the boy by the court-house fence had seen, a +tantalizing smile of assurance and charm and power, as if he were master +of himself and the town.</p> + +<p>This was his moment, planned for and led up to for weeks, but Colonel +Everard was slow to take advantage of it. He stood still, with his eyes +toward the rear of the hall. As he stood so, heads here and there turned +and looked where he was looking. Presently all Green River saw what the +Colonel saw. A boy was pushing his way toward the front of the hall—a +boy who had slipped quietly inside the doors unnoticed fifteen minutes +before, and came forward now just as quietly, but held their eyes as he +came. Now he had reached the stage, and he broke through the barrier of +golden-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>rod that fenced the short flight of steps, crushing the flowers +under his feet, and now he was on the stage confronting Colonel Everard. +It was Neil Donovan.</p> + +<p>"Sit down," he said to the great man. "They're not going to listen to +you. They're going to listen to me."</p> + +<p>After that he did not wait to see if the great man took his amazing +advice. He came forward alone, and spoke to Green River. He was not an +imposing figure as he stood there, only a lean, eager boy, with dark, +flashing eyes, and a face that was very pale in the glare of the +footlights. He hardly raised his tense, low-pitched voice as he spoke, +but Green River heard.</p> + +<p>"You're going to listen to me."</p> + +<p>And it was true. Green River was going to listen. In the middle of the +hall, where the chief delegation from Paddy Lane was massed, a ripple of +excitement promised the boy support. It was seconded by a muttering and +shuffling of feet on the rear benches, devoted to the youth of the town. +From here and there in the hall there were murmurs of protest, too, +dying out one by one, and ceasing automatically, like the whispered +consultation that went on behind him on the stage.</p> + +<p>But the boy did not wait for support or regard interruptions. He did not +need to. The audience<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> was his in spite of them, and he knew it and they +knew it. Whatever he had to say, important or not, it was what they had +been waiting for; that was what the evening had been leading to, and it +was here at last. Pale and intent, the boy looked across the footlights +at Green River. The audience was his, but he had no pride in the +triumph. He began haltingly to speak.</p> + +<p>"It will do no good to you or me, but you're going to listen. I've got a +word to say about Everard.</p> + +<p>"He's sucked your town dry for years and you know it. He's had the pick +of your men and used their brains and their youth, and he's had the pick +of your women. If there are any of you here that he's got no hold on, +it's because you're worth nothing to him. He's got the town. Now he's +driven one of your boys to his death.</p> + +<p>"'I can't beat him.' That's what Theodore Burr said to me the night he +died. 'They won't blame him for this. I want to die because I don't want +to live in the world with him, but I'll do no harm to him by dying, only +to Lily and me. They won't blame him. You can't beat Everard.'</p> + +<p>"Well, you don't blame Everard. He's got you where you don't blame him, +whatever he does. You shut your eyes to it. He's got you. You know all +this and you shut your eyes. Now I'll<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span> tell you some things you don't +know. Everard's been trying for weeks to bribe me to keep my mouth shut, +like he bribed Charlie for years. He might have saved his breath and his +money. I can't hurt him, whether I keep my mouth shut or not. You won't +blame him. You'll let him get away with this, too. But you're going to +know."</p> + +<p>The boy came closer still to the footlights and leaned across them, +pausing and deliberately choosing his words. The pause, and the look in +his dark, intent eyes as he stood there challenged Green River and dared +it to interrupt him. But it was too late to interrupt, too late to stop +him now. And behind him in the place of honour in the centre of the row +of chairs on the stage, one man at least was powerless to stop him: +Colonel Everard, who listened with a set smile on his lips, and a set +stare in his eyes.</p> + +<p>"He's the man that broke Maggie Brady's life to pieces," Neil's low +voice went on. "Everard's the man. He got her away from town. He filled +her head with him and set her wild and she had to go. When he was tired +of her, he left her in a place he thought she'd be too proud to come +back from. She was proud, but he's broken her pride, and she crawled +back to us. The prettiest girl in the town, she was, and you all knew +that, and my sister and more to me——" he broke off<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> abruptly, and +laughed a dry little laugh that echoed strangely in the silent room. His +voice sounded dry and hard as he went on.</p> + +<p>"He broke Maggie's life, but what's that to you, that give him a chance +at your women, knowing well what he is, and leave them to take care of +themselves with him, your own women that are yours to take care of, +daughters and wives? It's nothing to you, but you're going to know it, +and you're going to know this. I had it straight from Theodore Burr the +night he died.</p> + +<p>"Everard's going to sell you out at the next election, the whole of +you—his own crowd, too. He's been planning it for months. He's worked +prohibition for all it's worth to him; worked for it till the state went +dry, and then he's made money for you that are in it with him, and more +for himself, protecting places like Halloran's that sell liquor on the +quiet, and the smuggling of liquor into the state. Well, he's made money +enough that way, and it's getting risky, and now he sees a way to make +more and let nobody in on it. He's going to sell out to the liquor +interests and work against prohibition, and the big card he'll use will +be exposing Halloran's and the secret traffic in liquor, and all the +crowd that's been buying protection from him. There's a big campaign +started already, and big money being spent. There'll be big<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> money in it +for him. There'll be arrests made here and a public scandal. He's going +to sell the town.</p> + +<p>"Maybe that interests you some. Maybe it gets you. It won't for long. +He'll crawl out of it and lie out of it and talk you and buy you back to +him. Well, I know one thing more, and he can't lie or crawl out of it. +My father could have put him behind bars any time in twenty years. He's +a common thief.</p> + +<p>"It was when he was seventeen, and studying law first, back in a town up +state that's not on the map or likely to get there, and he was called by +a name there that wasn't Everard. He was seventeen, but he was the same +then as now; he had the same will to get on and the power to, no matter +who he trampled on to get there, and the same charm that got men and +women both, though they didn't trust him—got them even when he was +trampling on them and they knew it. It got him into trouble there with +two girls at once. One was the girl that gave him his start, the chance +to go into her uncle's office. He was the biggest man in the town. Older +than Everard, this girl was, and teaching in the school he went to, when +she fell in love with him and brought him home to her town and gave him +his chance. He was tired of her, and she was where it was bound to come +out soon how things were with them, and so was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> the other girl, a girl +that he wasn't tired of, the daughter of the woman where he boarded. He +tried to get her to go away with him. She wouldn't go and she wouldn't +forgive him, but the town was getting too hot for him, and he had to go.</p> + +<p>"He had to go quick and make a clean getaway and he wanted a real start +this time. He had to have money. That was a dead little town. There was +only one place he could get money enough, in the little hotel there. It +was the only bank they had. The keeper of it used to cash checks and +make loans. Everard was lucky, the same then as now. There was almost +five thousand dollars in the safe in the hotel office the night he broke +into it, and that was enough for him. He had a fight with the hotel +clerk, but he got away with the money, and he got away from the town.</p> + +<p>"The clerk was his best friend in town—never trusted him, but fell for +him the same as the girls and lent him money and listened to his +troubles—and fell for him again when he ran across him again, years +later, here in Green River. Everard told him he'd sent the money back, +and he kept the secret. He never took hush money for it like Charlie. He +said Everard ought to have his chance, and was straight now. But he fell +for Everard again, that's what happened. Everard had him, the same as +the rest of you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The clerk was my father."</p> + +<p>The boy's voice broke off. There was dead silence in the hall. Green +River had been listening almost in silence, and did not break it now. +Presently the boy sighed, shrugged his thin shoulders as if they were +throwing off an actual weight, and spoke again, this time in a lifeless +voice, with all the colour and drama wiped out of it, a voice that was +very tired.</p> + +<p>"That's all," he said. "That's back of him, with his fine airs and his +far-reaching schemes and his big name in the state. You've stood for a +crook. Will you stand for a common criminal, a common thief? Now you +know and it's up to you. That's all."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>An hour later a boy was hurrying through the dark along the road to the +Falls.</p> + +<p>He was almost home. Green River lay far behind with its scattered, +sparsely strewn lights. The flat fields around him and the unshaded road +before him, so bleak by day, were beautiful to-night, far reaching and +mysterious. Above them, flat looking and unreal, remote in a coldly +clouded sky, hung the yellow September moon.</p> + +<p>"I've done for myself," the boy was saying half out loud, as if the +faraway moon could hear. "I've lost everything now. I've done for +myself."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p> + +<p>The boy was sure of this, but could have told little more +about the events of the evening. He remembered listening outside the +hall doors until he was drawn inside in spite of himself, and listening +there until something snapped in his brain, and suddenly the long days +of repression, of vainly wondering what to do with his hard-won +knowledge, were over, and he was pouring it all out in one jumbled burst +of speech. He had no plan and no hope of doing harm to his enemy by +speaking. He had to speak.</p> + +<p>After he had spoken he remembered getting down from the stage and out of +the hall somehow. He remembered the crushed goldenrod, slippery under +his feet. Against a background of blurred, unrecognizable faces, he +remembered a tall, black-garbed figure that rose to its feet swaying and +then steadying itself. It was Lilian Burr. Less clearly he remembered a +wave of sound from the hall that followed him as he hurried away across +the square. It was not like applause. He did not know or care what it +meant. After that, he remembered only the cool dark of the September +night as he walked through it aimlessly at first, and then turned toward +home.</p> + +<p>"I've lost everything," he had said, and it must be true. How could he +face the Judge again? How could he go on living in Green River? This<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> +was what all his long-cherished dreams had come to; a scene that Charlie +might have made, and disgrace in the eyes of the town. He had lost +everything.</p> + +<p>Yet strangely, as he said it, he knew that it was not true. Whatever he +had lost, he had better things left. He had those free and splendid +minutes of speaking out his heart. They could not be taken from him. The +freedom and relief of them was with him still. And he had the road firm +under his feet, and the clean air blowing the fever out of his brain, +and the strength of his own young body, clean strength, good to feel as +he walked through the night. And along the dark road before him, +familiar as it was, and worn so many times by discouraged feet, the +white track of moonlight beckoned him, clean and new. It was a way that +might lead anywhere—to fairy-land, to success, to the end of the world.</p> + +<p>Now the boy made the turn in the road that brought him within sight of +home. Faint lights twinkling from it, intimate and warm, invited him as +never before. Was his mother waiting up for him? Home itself, lighted +and intimate and safe, was enough to find waiting. His heart gave a +strange little leap that hurt, but was keen pleasure, too. Almost +running, he covered the last bit of road, crossed the grassy front yard +and then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> climbed the creaking front steps, and stood for a minute that +was unendurably long, fumbling with the door.</p> + +<p>The door was unlocked and gave suddenly, opening wide, and he stood on +the threshold of the kitchen. The lights he had seen were in the +sitting-room beyond. In this room there was only moonlight. It came +through the window that looked out on the marshy field, the fairies' +field. Surely there must be fairies there to-night, out in the empty +green spaces, flooded with moonlight. But the fairies were not all in +the field, there was one in the room. Neil could see it.</p> + +<p>The old rocking chair stood in the moonlit window. It was holding two, +his mother, and some one else—the fairy, golden haired and white robed +and slender, and close in his mother's arms. As he stood and wondered +and looked, a board creaked under his feet. It was the faintest of +sounds, but a fairy's ears are keen, and the fairy heard, and stirred, +and turned in his mother's arms.</p> + +<p>Now Neil could see her face. It was flushed and human and warm, and in +her eyes, opening grave and deep, was a look that was the shyest but +surest of welcomes. The welcome was all for Neil, and the fairy was +Judith.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_TWENTY-ONE" id="CHAPTER_TWENTY-ONE"></a>CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE</h2> + +<p>A boy and a girl sat on the doorsteps of the Randall house.</p> + +<p>It was almost a year since the night of the rally. It was an evening in +late May—late, but it was May, and the fairies' month still. There was +a pleasant, shivery chill in the air. A far sprinkling of stars made the +dark of the still, windless night look darker and warmer and safer to +whisper in. The big horse-chestnut tree at the corner of the syringa +hedge was only a darker blot against the surrounding dark, and the slope +of faintly lit street on the other side of the hedge looked far away, +with the dark sweep of lawn between. It was a night for the fairies, or +for the girl and boy, and that was quite as it should be, for it was +their first together for months.</p> + +<p>Judith and Neil sat discreetly erect on the steps, undoing what those +months apart had done with little bursts of shy speech, and long, shy +silences that helped them more. In the longest and shyest silence their +hands had groped for each other once, met as if they had never touched +before, and clung together for a minute as if they never meant to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> let +go, but Judith kept firmly to impersonal subjects still.</p> + +<p>"You did it all," she said. "Things do happen so fast when they happen. +Just think, this time last year he was like a king!"</p> + +<p>"Everard?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Do you remember how I used to be cross when you called him that, +and wouldn't say Colonel? How childish that was!" Judith patronized her +dead self, as a young lady may, with her twentieth birthday almost upon +her.</p> + +<p>"You weren't childish."</p> + +<p>"What was I?"</p> + +<p>"Just what you are now."</p> + +<p>"What's that?"</p> + +<p>"Wonderful." Neil chose his one adequate word, from the tiny vocabulary +of youth, small because few words are worthy to voice the infinite +dreams of it. "Wonderful."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not wonderful. You are. That dreadful old man, and every one +knew he was dreadful and wouldn't do anything about it till you——"</p> + +<p>"Bawled him out? That's all I did, you know, really. It was a kid's +trick. He lost out because it was coming to him anyway. Poor Theodore +saw to that. He turned the town against Everard when he killed himself. +It wasn't turning fast,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> but it was turning. I did give it a shove and +make it turn faster, but I didn't even have sense enough to know I had +until the day after the rally, when the Judge sent for me and told me. I +didn't dare go near him until he sent for me, and I thought he had sent +for me to fire me."</p> + +<p>"But you broke up the rally. They were dead still in the hall until you +left, and then they went crazy, calling for you, and all talking at +once, talking against you, some of them, till it really wasn't a rally +any more, but just like a mob. Oh, I know. The Judge tells me, every +time I go to ride with him, and when he came on to the school last +winter and saw me there, he told me all over again. Father has never +half told me. He hates to talk about the rally or the Colonel either, +but I don't care, he and mother are both so sweet to me lately—just +sweet.</p> + +<p>"So it was just like a mob, and then poor Mrs. Burr got up and tried to +speak, and they got quiet and listened, and she said "Every word the boy +says is true and more—more——" just like that, and then she got faint +and had to stop, and then the Judge took hold. That's what he says he +did, took hold, and he says it was time, because they might have tarred +and feathered the Colonel if he hadn't. I don't suppose they would, but +I wish I could have seen the Judge take hold. I love him."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Don't you love anybody else?"</p> + +<p>Judith ignored this frivolous interruption, as it deserved.</p> + +<p>"And so your work was done, though you didn't know it and ran away. And +the Judge says you are a born orator, Neil. That you've got the real +gift, the thing that makes an audience yours. I don't know just what he +means, but I know you've got it, too. You're going to be a great man, +Neil."</p> + +<p>"I didn't do anything."</p> + +<p>"You're the only man in town who thinks that, then, or has since that +night. He—Everard—was done for the minute you stepped on the stage, +the Judge says. Only they managed it decently, the Judge and the few +that kept their heads. They announced that Colonel Everard was +indisposed and couldn't speak, and the Judge took him home. He really +was ill next day. There's something wrong with his horrid heart. And +that gave him a good excuse not to run for mayor, he gave that up +himself. And in a few days the Judge and Luther Ward went to him and +told him what else he had to do, and he did it. He had to resign from +everything, everything he was in charge of or was trustee of, or had +anything to do with, and get out of town. If he'd do that, they wouldn't +make any scandal or bother him afterward, but let<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> him start new. And +they gave him six months to do all that decently and save his face. Why +did he have to do it decently? Why couldn't they tar and feather him? I +wish they had. I wish——"</p> + +<p>"Wish something else, Judith. Something about us."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by us?"</p> + +<p>"You and me."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it splendid the Judge is going to be president of the bank?" said +Judith hastily.</p> + +<p>"Splendid," said a future president of the Green River Bank, who was +occupying the step beside her.</p> + +<p>"And isn't it nice that poor Mrs. Burr is going to marry Mr. Sebastian, +even if she does have to move away from Green River? I like people to be +happy, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"No. No, I don't. Not other people. I don't care whether they are happy +or not, and I don't want to talk about them, only about you and me."</p> + +<p>"If you don't like the way I talk, I'll keep still," Judith said, in a +severe but small voice, but a small hand groping for his softened the +threat, and a soft, sudden laugh as his arm slipped round her atoned for +it entirely. Then there was silence on the steps, a long, whispering, +wonderful silence. Long before Judith spoke again all the work of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> the +lonely months was undone. And the low whispers that the two exchanged +conveyed no further information about Colonel Everard.</p> + +<p>But there was no more to tell. The master of Green River was master no +longer and the end of all the intricate planning and scheming that had +made and kept him master was a story that Judith could tell in a few +careless sentences and forget. If she had seen and guessed some things +that she could not forget, in the strange little circle that had found a +place for her, she would never see them again. That order was gone from +the town forever, with the man who had created it, and beside her on the +steps was the boy who could make her forget it, and see beyond the long, +hard years between. And, as she almost could guess, in these magic +minutes when she could dream and dream true, that boy was the future +master of Green River.</p> + +<p>Judith sighed, and stirred in his arms.</p> + +<p>"Are you happier now?" she whispered.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"But you're going to be great. You are, really."</p> + +<p>"I am if you want me to. Judith, how long does your father think you and +I ought to wait?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. You can ask him. He likes you better than me. He always +wanted me to be a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> boy.... Neil, I want to tell you something. Keep your +arm like that, but don't look at me."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"It's about what you don't like me to talk about."</p> + +<p>"Everard?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and it's about something dreadful, that day in his library when I +was alone with him, and you came. He—frightened me."</p> + +<p>"Never mind, dear, now."</p> + +<p>"He frightened me but that was—all. I wasn't hurt or anything. I just +didn't know he—anybody—could look the way he was looking, or act the +way he was acting, and then I felt sick all over. I was afraid. But he +was just trying to kiss me, of course, and I wasn't going to let him, +the horrid old man. So I think now it was silly to be frightened. Was +it?"</p> + +<p>"No, it wasn't silly, dear."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad. And Neil—I want to tell you something else. It's about—that +night—in the buggy, on the old road to Wells, you know, when you were +going to elope with me and changed your mind."</p> + +<p>"When I frightened you so. Oh, Judith."</p> + +<p>"You didn't—frighten me," said a very small voice indeed. "You——"</p> + +<p>"What, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Made me want you—want to go away with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> you. I never felt like that +before, all waked up and different and—happy. Oh, you didn't frighten +me. I wasn't angry because you tried to take me away. It was because you +brought me back."</p> + +<p>"Don't you know why I brought you back?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Why, because I loved you. I didn't love you till then, not really; not +till that minute in the carriage. I know just what minute. When you let +me kiss you, and didn't mind any more. Then I knew about—love. I never +knew before, but I'll never forget again. It isn't just wanting people, +it's taking care of them, and not hurting them. Waiting till you can +have things—right. So I wanted to have you right and be fit for you, +and after that night I went to work and I wouldn't be stopped, not by +anything in this town or the world. Oh, Judith, why don't you speak to +me? It isn't much use to talk. You don't understand."</p> + +<p>"I—do."</p> + +<p>"You're crying!"</p> + +<p>She was crying, and she did understand. Before this unexpected, +beautiful proof of it, the boy was reverent and half ashamed, as if a +woman's tears were a sacred miracle invented for him. He held her hand +timidly and pressed it. Presently she drew it away, and suddenly she was +not crying,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> but laughing, a low, full-throated laugh as wonderful to +him as her tears.</p> + +<p>"I told you, you did it all," she said softly. "Well, you didn't. Neil, +there's what did it all. Because, if you only go on believing in things +and being sweet and true and not afraid, and—wishing, then everything +will come right. It's got to, just because you want it to. So there's +what did it all and made us so happy, you and me. I love it. Love it, +Neil."</p> + +<p>Neil looked where Judith was looking. Above the horse-chestnut tree, so +filmy and faint that the stars looked brighter than ever, so pale that +it was not akin to the stars, but to the dark beyond, where adventures +were, so friendly and sweet that it could make the wish in your heart +come true, hung a new-risen silvery crescent of light.</p> + +<p>"But it's only the moon," Neil said.</p> + +<p>"It's—the wishing moon," said Judith.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p><br /><br /></p> + +<div class="tranotes"> +<span class="smcap">Transcriber's Note:</span><br /><br />Minor spelling and typographical errors have been +corrected without note. Some illustrations have been relocated for +better flow. The illustration used for the frontispiece has been +moved to its proper place in the text (page 239). The Table of Contents does not appear +in the original.<br /><br /> + +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WISHING MOON***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 31057-h.txt or 31057-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/0/5/31057">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/0/5/31057</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Wishing Moon + + +Author: Louise Elizabeth Dutton + + + +Release Date: January 23, 2010 [eBook #31057] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WISHING MOON*** + + +E-text prepared by Peter Vickers, Juliet Sutherland, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 31057-h.htm or 31057-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31057/31057-h/31057-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31057/31057-h.zip) + + + + + +THE WISHING MOON + +by + +LOUISE DUTTON + +Author of "The Goddess Girl" + + +[Illustration: "'_Oh, Judith, won't you speak to me?_'"] + +[Illustration: Publisher's logo] + +Illustrated by Everett Shinn + + + + + + + +Garden City New York +Doubleday, Page & Company +1916 + +Copyright, 1916, by +Louise Dutton + +All rights reserved, including that of +translation into foreign languages, +including the Scandinavian + +Copyright, 1916, The Metropolitan Magazine Company + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + "'Oh, Judith, won't you speak to me?'" _Frontispiece_ + (See page 239) + + FACING PAGE + + "'I know what this means,' she asserted" 128 + + "'Shut your eyes'" 166 + + "'Judith, you don't hate me? Say it--say it'" 180 + + + + +THE WISHING MOON + + + + +The Wishing Moon + +CHAPTER ONE + + +A little girl sat on the worn front doorsteps of the Randall house. She +sat very still and straight, with her short, white skirts fluffed +daintily out on both sides, her hands tightly clasped over her thin +knees, and her long, silk-stockinged legs cuddled tight together. She +was bare-headed, and her short, soft hair showed silvery blonde in the +fading light. Her hair was bobbed. For one miserable month it had been +the only bobbed head in Green River. Her big, gray-green eyes had a +fugitive, dancing light in them. The little girl had beautiful eyes. + +The little girl was Miss Judith Devereux Randall. She was eleven years +old, and she felt happier to-night than she remembered feeling in all +the eleven years of her life. + +The Randalls' lawn was hedged with a fringe of lilac and syringa bushes, +with one great, spreading horse-chestnut tree at the corner. The house +did not stand far back from the street. The little girl could see a +generous section of Main Street sloping past, dark already under +shadowing trees. The street was empty. It was half-past six, and +supper-time in Green River, but the Randalls did not have supper, they +dined at night, like the Everards. To-night mother and father were +dining with the Everards, and the little girl had plans of her own. + +Father was dressed, and waiting, shut in the library. Mother was +dressing in her big corner room upstairs, with all the electric lights +lighted. The little girl could see them, if she turned her head, but +mother was very far away, in spite of that, for her door was locked, and +you could not go in. You could not watch her brush her long, wonderful +hair, or help her into her evening gown. Mother's evening gown was black +this summer, with shiny spangles--a fairy gown. Mother had to be alone +while she dressed, because she was going to the Everards'. + +There were two Everards, the Colonel, who was old because his hair was +white, and his wife, who wore even more beautiful clothes than mother. +She had heard her father say that the Colonel had made the town, and she +had heard Norah, the cook, say that he owned the town. She had an idea +that these two things were not quite the same, though they sounded +alike, for father was fond of the Colonel, and Norah was not. At any +rate, he was president of the bank--father and Norah agreed about +that--and he lived in a house at the edge of the town, in what used to +be a part of Larribees' woods. Father used to go Mayflowering there, but +now nobody could. + +The house was ugly, with things sticking out all over it, towers and +balconies and cupolas, and it was the little girl's twin. She was born +the year the Everards settled in Green River. + +"And you're marked with it," Norah said, in one of their serious talks, +when Mollie, the second girl, was out, and the two had the kitchen to +themselves. Norah was peeling apples for a pie, and allowing her +unlimited ginger-snaps, straight from the jar. "Marked with it, Miss +Judy." + +"What?" + +"That house, and what goes on in it." + +"What does go on?" + +"You'll know soon enough." + +"I'm not marked with it. I've got a birthmark, but it's a strawberry, on +my left side, like the princesses have in the fairy tales." + +"You are a kind of a princess, Miss Judy." + +"Is that a bad thing to be, Nana?" + +"It's a lonesome thing." + +"My strawberry's fading. Mother says it will go away." + +"It won't go away. What we're born to be, we will be, Miss Judy----. +Bless your heart, you're crying, with the big eyes of you. What for, +dear?" + +"I don't know. I don't want to be a princess. I don't want to be +lonesome. I hate the Everards." + +"Well, there's many to say that now, and there'll be more to say it +soon." Norah muttered this darkly, into her yellow bowl of apples, but +Judith heard: "Here, eat this apple, child. You musn't hate anybody." + +"I do. I hate the Everards." + +Queer things came into your head to say when you were talking with +Norah, who had an aunt with the second sight, and told beautiful fairy +tales herself, and even believed in fairies; Judith did not. The +Everards gave Judith and no other little girl in town presents at +Christmas, and invited Judith and no other little girl to lunch. They +had a great deal to do with her trouble, her serious trouble, which she +would not discuss even with Norah. But she did not really hate the +Everards--certainly not to-night. She was too happy. + +Judith was going out to hang May-baskets. + +So was every other little girl in town who wanted to, and it was a +wonderful thing to be doing to-night. It was really May night, by the +weather as well as the calendar--the kind of night that Norah's fairies +meant should come on the first of May: warm, with a tiny chill creeping +into the air as the dark came, a pleasant, shivery chill, as if there +might really be fairies or ghosts about. It was still and clear. One +star, that had just come up above the horse-chestnut tree, looked very +small and bright and close, as if it had climbed up into the sky out of +the dark, clustering leaves of the tree. + +This was the star that Judith usually wished on, but she could wish on +the moon to-night; Norah had told her so; wish once instead of three +nights running, and get her wish whether she thought of the red fox's +tail or not. The new moon of May was a wishing moon. + +A wishing moon! The small white figure on the steps cuddled itself into +a smaller heap. Judith sighed happily and closed her eyes. She was going +with the others. She had her wish already. + +It was Judith's great trouble that she was not like other little girls. +Until she was six Judith had a vague idea that she was the only child in +the world. Then she tried to make friends with two small, dirty girls +over the back fence, and found out that there were other children, but +she must not play with them. One day Norah found her crying in the +nursery because she could not think what to play, and soon after Willard +Nash, the fat little boy next door, came to dinner and into her life, +and after that, Eddie and Natalie Ward, from the white house up the +street, and Lorena Drew, from over the river. Still other children came +to her parties, so many that she could not remember their names. Then +Judith's trouble began. She was not like them. + +She did not look like them; her clothes were not made by a seamstress, +but came from city shops, and had shorter skirts, and stuck out in +different places. She could not do what they did; Mollie called for her +at nine at evening parties, and she usually had to go to bed half an +hour after dinner, before it was dark. She had to do things that they +did not do: make grown-up calls with her mother and wear gloves, and +take lessons in fancy dancing instead of going to dancing school. + +But she had gone to school now for almost a year, a private school in +the big billiard-room at the Larribees', but a real school, with other +children in it. They did not make fun of her clothes, or the way she +pronounced her words, very often now. She belonged to a secret society +with Rena and Natalie. She had spent one night with Natalie, though she +had to come home before breakfast. The other children did not know she +was different, but Judith knew. + +Unexpected things might be required of her at a moment's notice: to be +excused from school and pass cakes at a tea at the Everards'; to leave a +picnic before the potatoes were roasted, because Mollie had appeared, +inexorable; unaccountable things, but she was to be safe to-night. May +night was not such a wonderful night for any little girl as it was for +Judith. + +The lights were on in Nashs' parlour, and not turned off in the +dining-room, which meant that the rest of the family were not through +supper, but Willard was. Presently she heard three loud, unmelodious +whistles, his private signal, and a stocky figure pushed itself through +a gap in the hedge which looked, and was, too small for it, and Judith +rubbed her eyes and sat up--it crossed the lawn to her. + +"Good morning, Merry Sunshine," said Willard, ironically. + +"I wasn't asleep." + +"You were." + +"I heard you coming." + +"You did not." + +"I did so." + +These formalities over, she made room for him eagerly on the steps. +Willard looked fatter to Judith after a meal, probably because she knew +how much he ate. His clean collar looked much too clean and white in the +dark, and he was evidently in a teasing mood, but such as he was, he +was her best friend, and she needed him. + +"Willard, guess what I'm going to do?" + +"I don't know, kid." Willard's tone implied unmistakably that he did not +want to know. + +"To-night!" + +Judith's voice thrilled. Willard stared at her. Her eyes looked wider +than usual, and very bright. She was smiling a strange little smile, and +a rare dimple, which he really believed she had made with a slate +pencil, showed in her cheek. The light in her face was something new to +him, something he did not understand, and therefore being of masculine +mind, wished to remove. + +"You're going to miss it to-night for one thing, kid," he stated +deliberately. + +"Oh, am I?" Judith dimpled and glowed. + +"We're going to stay out until ten. Vivie's not going." Willard's big +sister had chaperoned the expedition the year before. Now it was to go +out unrestrained into the night. + +"That's lovely." + +Willard searched his brain for more overwhelming details. + +"We've got a dark lantern." + +"That's nice." + +"I got it. It's father's. He won't miss it. It's hidden in the Drews' +barn. We're going to meet at the Drews, to fool them. They'll be +watching the Wards'." + +"They will?" + +"Sure." + +"The--paddies?" + +"Sure." + +Judith drew an awed, ecstatic breath. He was touching now on the chief +peril and charm of the expedition. Hanging May-baskets, conferring an +elaborately-made gift upon a formal acquaintance, was not the object of +it--nothing so philanthropic; it was the escape after you had hung them. +You went out for adventure, to ring the bell and get away, to brave the +dangers of the night in small, intimate companies. And the chief danger, +which you fled from through the dark, was the paddies. + +She did not know much about them. She would not show her ignorance by +asking questions. But there were little boys with whom a state of war +existed. They chased you, even fought with you, made a systematic +attempt to steal your May-baskets. They were mixed up in her mind with +gnomes and pirates. She was deliciously afraid of them. She hardly +thought they had human faces. She understood that they were most of them +Irish, and that it was somehow a disgrace for them to be Irish, though +her own Norah was Irish and proud of it. + +"Sure!" said Willard. "Irish boys. Paddies from Paddy Lane. Ed got a +black eye last year. We'll get back at them. It will be some evening." +Judith did not look jealous or wistful yet. "The whole crowd's going." + +"Yes, I know," thrilled Judith. "Oh, Willard----" + +"Oh, Willard," he mimicked. Judith pronounced all the letters in his +name, which was not the popular method. "Oh, Willard, what do you think +I heard Viv say to the Gaynor girl about you?" + +"Don't know. Willard, won't the paddies see the dark lantern?" + +"Viv said you were as pretty as a doll, but just as stiff and stuck-up," +pronounced Willard sternly. "And your father's only the cashier of the +bank, and just because the Everards have taken your mother up is no +reason for her to put on airs and get a second girl and get into +debt----" + +He broke off, discouraged. Judith did not appear to hear him. After the +masculine habit, as he could not control the situation, he rose to +leave. + +"Well, so long, kid. I've got to go to the post-office." + +Even the mention of this desirable rendezvous, which was denied to her +because Mollie always brought home the evening mail in a black silk +bag, did not dim the dancing light in Judith's eyes. She put a hand on +his sleeve. + +"Willard----" + +"Well, kid?" + +"Willard, don't you wish I was going to-night?" + +"What for, to fight the paddies, or carry the dark lantern?" + +"I could fight," said Judith, with a little quiver in her voice, as if +she could. + +"Fight? You couldn't even run away. They'd"--Willard hissed it +mysteriously--"they'd get you." + +"No, they wouldn't, because"--something had happened to her eyes, so +that they did not look tantalizing--"you'd take care of me, Willard," +she announced surprisingly, "wouldn't you?" + +"Forget it," murmured Willard, flattered. + +"Wouldn't you?" + +"I----" + +"Willard!" + +"Yes." + +"Well--I am. Father made mother let me. I'm going with you." + +The words she had been trying to say were out at last in a hushed voice, +because her heart was beating hard, but they sounded beautiful to her, +like a kind of song. Perhaps Willard heard it, too. He really was her +best friend, and he did not look so fat, after all, in the twilight. She +waited breathlessly. + +"You are?" + +Judith nodded. She could not speak. + +"Well!" Willard's feelings were mixed, his face was not fashioned to +express a conflict of emotions, and words failed him, too. "You're a +queer kid. Why didn't you tell me before?" + +"Aren't you glad, Willard?" + +"You'll get sleepy." + +"Aren't you glad?" + +"Sure I'm glad. But you can't run, and you are a cry-baby." + +These were known facts, not insults, but now Judith's eyes had stopped +dancing. + +"Judy, are you mad with me?" + +"No." + +"You're the queerest kid." Up the street, he caught sight of a member of +a simpler sex than Judith's. "There's Ed coming out of the gate. I've +got to see him about something. See you later. Don't be mad. So long!" + +The house was astir behind Judith. Father was opening and shutting +doors, and hunting for things. Norah was helping mother into her wraps +and scolding. Somebody was telephoning. Mother's carriage was late. + +But it was turning into the yard now, a big, black hack from the Inn, +with a white horse. Judith liked white horses best. The front door +opened, and her father, very tall and blond, with his shirt-front +showing white, and her mother, with something shiny in her black hair, +swept out. + +"Look who's here," said her father, and picked her up with his hands +under her elbows. "Going to paint the town red to-night, son?" + +"Red?" breathed Judith. How strong father was, and how beautiful mother +was. She smelled of the perfume in the smallest bottle on the +toilet-table. How kind they both were. "Red?" + +"Harry, you see she doesn't care a thing about going. She'd be better +off in bed. Careful, baby! Your hair is catching on my sequins. Put her +down, Harry. You'll spoil the shape of her shoulders some day." + +"Don't you want to go, son?" + +"I--" Judith choked, "I----" + +"Well, she's not crazy about it, is she?" + +"Then do send her to bed." + +"No, you can't break your promise to a child, Minna." + +"Prig," said mother sweetly, as if a prig were a pleasant thing to be. +"All right, let her go, then. Oh, Harry, look at that horse. They've +sent us the knock-kneed old white corpse again." + +Mother hurried him into the carriage, and it clattered out of the yard. +They did not look back. They were always in a hurry, and rather cross +when they went to the Everards. For once she was glad to see them go, +such a dreadful crisis had come and passed. How could father think she +did not want to go, father who used to hang May-baskets himself? Norah +was calling her, but she did not answer. Norah was cross to-night. She +did not know how happy Judith was. + +Nobody knew, but now Judith did not want to tell. She did not want +sympathy. She was not lonely. This secret was too important to tell. +And, before her eyes, a lovely and comforting thing was happening, +silently and suddenly, as lovely things do happen. Quite still on the +steps, a white little figure, alone in a preoccupied world, but calm in +spite of it, Judith looked and looked. + +Above the horse-chestnut tree, so filmy and faint that the star looked +brighter than ever, so pale that it was not akin to the stars or the +flickering lights in the street, but to the dark beyond, where +adventures were, so friendly and sweet that it could make the wish in +your heart come true, whether you were clever enough to wish it out loud +or not, hung the wishing moon. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + + +A small, silent procession was edging its way along Church Street, +darkly silhouetted against a faintly starred sky. It was a long hour +later now, and looked later still on Church Street. There were few +lights left in the string of houses near the white church, at the lower +end of the street, and here, at the upper end, there were no lights but +the one street lamp near the railroad bridge that arched black overhead, +and there were few houses. The street did not look like a street at all, +but a country road, and a muddy one. + +The narrow board sidewalk creaked, so the procession avoided it, and +stuck to the muddy side of the road. + +The procession looked mysterious enough, even if you were walking at the +tail of it and carrying a heavy market basket; if you had to smell the +lantern, swung just in front of you, but did not have the fun of +carrying it; if a shaker cloak, hooded and picturesque, in the +procession, hampered your activities; if you had questions to ask, and +nobody answered you. + +"Willard." + +"Sh!" + +One by one, they came into sight, in the wavering light of the street +lamp, and melted into the dark under the bridge; Ed, in his white +sweater, captaining them, and keenly aware of it; Rena and Natalie, with +the larger market basket between them; Willard, bulky in two sweaters, +and tenderly shielding his lantern with a third, and Judith. Her face +showed pale with excitement against the scarlet of her hood. One hand +plucked vainly at Willard's sleeve; he stalked on, and would not turn. +Only these five, but they had consulted and organized and reorganized +for half an hour in the Drews' barn before they started, and had hung +only three May-baskets yet. However, the adventure was under way now. + +"Willard, now it's my turn to carry the lantern." + +"Judy, you can't." + +"Why?" + +"It might explode." The feeble flame gave one dispirited upward spurt at +this encouragement, causing excitement in front. + +"Oh, Ed!" + +"Ed, make him put it out." + +"Rena and Nat, you keep still. Judy's not scared, are you Judy?" + +"No! Oh, no!" + +"The lantern's a sick looking sight, and he can carry it +if he wants to, but we don't need it." + +"I like that. You tried to get me to let you carry it, Ed." + +"Don't talk so much." + +"Who started the talk?" + +"Well, who's running this, anyway--you, Willard Nash?" + +"There's a dog in that house." + +"Sh!" + +"But that dog's only a cocker spaniel. He can't hurt you." + +"Judy, sh!" + +Sh! Somebody was always saying that. It was part of the ceremony, which +had been the same all three times. The procession was halting opposite +the Nealy house. A whispered quarrel started every time they approached +a house, and was hushed halfway through and not taken up again. The +quarrel and the hush were part of the ceremony, too. + +The Nealy house was small and harmless looking, and entirely dark, but +they did not allow that to make them reckless. They stood looking warily +across the dark street. + +"But there's nobody there. Maggie Nealy's out, too, to-night, and her +mother----" + +"Sh!" Willard put a hand over Judith's mouth. It smelled of kerosene, +and she struggled, but did not make a noise. Just at this dramatic +moment the Nealy's dog barked. + +Judith could hear her heart beat and feel her damp feet getting really +wet and cold. + +"Now," Ed whispered, close to her ear and uncomfortably loud, and she +fumbled in her basket. Willard jiggled the lantern dizzily over her +shoulder, tissue paper tore under her fingers, and bonbons rattled. +Hanging May-baskets was certainly hard on the May-baskets, and they were +so pretty; pale coloured, like flowers. + +"I can't find the right one. The marks are all falling off. The candy's +falling out." + +"We can't stand here all night. Here----" + +"Willard, take your hands out. Not that one----" + +"Willard and Judy stop fighting. That one will do. I'm going." + +There was dead silence now, and Ed, clutching the wreck of a sizable +crepe-paper creation to the bosom of his white sweater, doubled into a +crouching, boy scout attitude, crossed the road, and approached the +house. Nothing but his own commendable caution delayed his approach. The +small dog's dreams within were untroubled now. There were no signs of +life. + +He reached the front door, deposited the May-basket with a force that +further demolished it, and took to his heels. After another breathless +wait the procession formed behind him and trailed after him up the road, +hilly here, so that the market basket grew heavier. + +"Some evening," Willard murmured to himself, not the rest of the world, +but he sounded amiable. + +"Willard." + +"Well, kid." + +"There wasn't anybody in that house. Ed knew it." + +"There might have been. They might have come home." + +"But they didn't ... Willard, is this all there is to it?" + +"What?" + +"Hanging May-baskets. Throwing them down that way. I thought maybe they +really hung them, on the doorknob--I thought----" + +"Silly! Ed's going cross lots, and up the wood road to Larribees'. Good +work. That will throw them off the track." + +"Throw who off the track?" + +"You scared? Want to go home?" + +"Oh, no! But who? There's nobody chasing us. Nobody." + +"No. We've got them fooled. It's some evening." + +"Willard, where are the paddies?" + +That was the question Judith had been wanting to ask more and more, for +an hour, but it came in a choked voice, and nobody heard. They were +plunging into a rough and stubbly wood lot, and hushing each other +excitedly. Twigs caught at Judith's skirt, and it was hard to see your +way, with the moon, small and high above the trees in Larribee's woods, +only making the trees look darker. The wood road was little used and +overgrown. + +"If they get us in here!" + +"They won't, Willard." Judith's voice trembled. + +"Cry-baby!" + +"I am not." + +"Here, buck up. We're coming out right here, back of the carriage house. +If Ed catches you crying he'll send you home." + +But Ed had his mind upon higher things. "You girls stay here with the +baskets. Don't move. Willard, you go right and I'll go left, and we'll +meet at the carriage-house steps, if the coast is clear." + +"If they get us----" + +If! The boys crunched out of hearing on the gravel, awesome silence set +in, and Rena and Natalie whispered; Judith was not to be awed. Four +May-baskets hung, and nobody objecting; dark cross-streets chosen +instead of Main Street and no danger pursuing them there. If there was +no danger in the whole town, why should there be in one little strip of +woods, though it was dark and strange, and full of whispering noises? +Judith had clung to Willard's hand in terror, turning into the +cross-streets, and nothing came of it. She was not to be fooled any +longer. There was no danger. + +Not that she wanted to be chased. She did not know what she wanted. But +she had come out into the dark to find something that was not there. She +had been happier on the doorsteps thinking about it. This, then, was +hanging May-baskets--all there was to it. But it was pleasant here in +the dark, pleasanter than walking through mud, and quarrelling. Now Rena +and Nat were quarrelling again. + +"Get back there! Ed said not to move." + +"They've been gone too long. Something's the matter." + +"There they come. I hear them. Get back!" + +They were coming, but something else was happening. Willard's three +whistles sounded, then Ed's voice, and a noise of scuffling on the +gravel--and a new boy's voice. + +Rena and Natalie, upsetting their basket as they started, and not +noticing it, pushed through the trees and ran. Judith stood still and +listened. She did not know the voice. It was shrill and clear. She could +hear the words it said above the others' voices, all clamouring, now, at +once. She held her breath and listened. She could not move. + +"I don't want your damn May-baskets." + +"Liar! Get back of him, Rena. Come on, Nat." + +"You'll get hurt. Let me go." + +"Liar--Paddy!" + +The magic word fell unheeded. The boy was laughing, and the laugh filled +her ears, a splendid laugh, fearless and clear. + +"Paddy!" + +"I don't want your damn May-baskets." + +"Paddy--Paddy!" + +This time there was no answer. Judith, tearing at the hooks of her cape, +and throwing it off as she ran, broke through the circling trees. Then +she stopped and looked. + +Rena stood high on the carriage-house steps and held the lantern. It +wavered and swung in her hand, and threw a flickering circle of light +round the group by the steps. + +The sprawled shadows at their feet seemed to have an undue number of +arms and legs, and the children were a struggling, uncertain mass of +motion, hard to make out, like the shadows, but they were only four: +Willard, grunting and groaning; Natalie attacking spasmodically in the +rear, and the strange little boy, the enemy. He was the heart of the +struggling group, and Judith looked only at him. She could do nothing +but look, for Judith had never seen a little boy like this. + +They were three against one, and the one was a match for them. He was +slender and strong, holding his ground and making no noise. He was +coatless and ragged shirted, and one sleeve of his shirt was torn, so +that you could see how thin his shoulder was. He held his head high, and +smiled as he fought. A shock of blond hair was tossed high above his +forehead. He had a thin, white face, and dark jewels of flashing eyes. +As she stood and looked, they met Judith's eyes, and Judith knew that +she had never seen a boy like this, because there was no boy like +this--no little boy so wild and strange and free, so ragged and brave. +If he could come out of the dark, it was full of unguessable things, +splendid and strange and new. Judith's heart beat hard, a hot feeling +swept over her, and a queer mist came before her eyes. A wonderful boy; +a fairy boy! What would they do to him? What did they do to paddies? +There was no little boy like this in the world. + +"Judy!" The others had seen her and were calling her. "Come on. Help get +him down." + +"He chased Willard round here." + +"He led the gang last year." + +"It's Neil Donovan." + +"Get him down!" + +Judith did not answer then. Her cheeks flamed red, and her eyes looked +as big and dark as the stranger's, and her small hands clenched tight. +It was only a minute that she stood so. The three were close to him, +hiding him. She saw his face again, above Willard's pushing shoulder, +and then--she could not see it. + +"Judy, what's the matter? Come on!" + +And Judith came. She plunged straight into the struggling group, and +hammered at it indiscriminately with two small fists. She caught at a +waving coat sleeve, and pulled it--Willard's, and it tore in her hands. +She spotted Eds white sweater, and beat at it fiercely, with all her +strength. + +"That's me, Judy. Cut it out!" + +"Then let him go. Three to one is no fair. Let him go!" They did not +hear her, or care which side she was on, or take the trouble to drive +her away. Judith drew back and stood and looked at them, breathless and +glowing and undefeated, for one long minute. + +"Boy," she called then, softly, as if he could hear when the others +could not, "wait! It's all right, boy. It's all right." + +Then she charged up the steps at Rena. Judy, the most demure and +faithful of allies, confronted Rena, amazingly but unmistakably changed +to a foe; Judy, with her immaculate and enviable frock smirched and +torn, and her sleek hair wildly tossed, her cheeks darkly flushed, and +her eyes strange and shining; a Judy to be reckoned with and admired and +feared--a new Judy. + +"What's the matter? Are you crazy? What do you want?" + +"Make them let him go. They've got to let him go." + +"He's a paddy--Neil Donovan--a paddy." + +"They've got to let him go.... Give that to me." + +"What for? Judy, don't hurt me. Judy!" + +Judith wasted no more words. She caught Rena's wrist, twisted it, and +snatched the lantern out of her hand. She held it high above her head, +and shook it recklessly. + +"Don't, Judy! Don't!" The flame sputtered crazily. Judy still shook the +lantern, dancing out of reach, and laughing. "Nat--everybody--stop Judy. +She's making the lantern explode. Oh, Ed!" + +Natalie heard, and then the others. They looked up at her, all of them. +Rena and Natalie screamed. Willard started toward her. "Put it down, +kid," he was calling. + +"I'll put it down.... Now boy." + +There he was, with Ed's arm gripping his shoulders. He did not give any +sign that he knew she was trying to help him, or that he wanted help. He +was not afraid of the lantern, like the others. His black eyes were +laughing at all of them--laughing at Judith, too. He was looking +straight at Judith. + +"Now, boy," she called, "now run!" and she gripped the lantern tight, +swung it high, and dashed it to the ground. + +It fell at the foot of the steps with a crash of breaking glass. The +light sputtered out. The air was full of the smell of spilled kerosene. +In the faint radiance that was not moonlight, but a glimmering +reflection of it, more confusing than darkness, dim figures struggled +and shrill voices were lifted. + +"Get him. Hold him." + +"Get the lantern." + +"Get Judy." + +"Hold him, Ed." + +"That's me." + +"Get him, Rena." + +Judith laughed, and out of the dark he had come from, the dark of +May-night, lit by a wishing moon, that grants your secret wish for +better or for worse, irrevocably, a far-away laugh answered Judith's. +The boy was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + + +Miss Judith Devereux Randall was getting into her first evening gown. + +The Green River High School football team was giving its annual +September concert and ball in Odd Fellows' Hall to-night. The occasion +was as important to the school as a coming-out party. The new junior +class, just graduated from seclusion upstairs to the big assembly room +where the seniors were, made its first public appearance in society +there. Judith was a junior now. + +Her first dance, and her first evening gown; it was a memorable scene, +fit to immortalize with the first love-letter and the first proposal, in +a series of pictures of great moments in a girl's life--chosen by some +masculine illustrator, touchingly confident that he knows what the great +moments of a girl's life are. Judith seemed to be taking this moment too +calmly for one. + +The dress lay ready on the bed, fluffy and light and sheer, a white +dream of a dress, with two unopened florist's boxes beside it, but there +was no picturesque disarray of excited toilet-making in her big, +brightly lighted room, and no dream-promoting candlelight. And there +were no pennants or football trophies disfiguring the daintily flowered +wall paper, and no pictures or programs in the mirror of the dainty +dressing-table; there was no other young girl's room in town where they +were prohibited, but there was no other room so charming as Judith's, +all blue-flowered chintz and bird's-eye maple and white fur rugs, and +whiter covers and curtains. + +Judith was the most charming and immaculate thing in the room, as she +stood before the cheval-glass, bare armed and slim and straight in +beruffled, beribboned white, pinning the soft, pale braids tight around +her small, high-poised head. Quite the most charming thing, and Norah, +fingering the dress on the bed disapprovingly, and giving her keen, +sidelong glances, was aware of it, but did not believe in compliments, +even to the creature she loved best in the world. + +Her mouth was set and her brown eyes were bright with the effort of +repressing them. Judith, seeing her face in the glass, turned suddenly +and slipped her arms round the formidable old creature's neck, and +laughed at her. + +"Don't you think I'm perfectly beautiful?" she demanded. "If you really +love me, why not tell me so?" + +"Your colour's good." Judith pressed a delicately flushed cheek to +Norah's, and attempted a butterfly kiss, which she evaded grimly. "Good +enough--healthy and natural." + +"Oh, no. I made it. Oh, with hot water and then cold, I mean. Nana, +don't begin about rouge. Don't be silly. That red stuff in the box on +mother's dresser is only nail paste, truly." + +"Who sent the flowers?" + +"Look and see." + +"Much you care, if you'll let me look." + +"Do you want me to care?" + +"Much you care about the flowers or the party." + +Judith had caught up the alluring dress without a second glance, and +slipped it expertly over her head, and was jerking capably at the +fastenings. + +"With the spoiled airs of you, and Willard Nash sending to Wells for +flowers, when his father clerked in a drygoods store at his age----" + +"Oh, carnations are cheap--or he wouldn't get them." + +"These aren't cheap, then." + +The smaller box was full of white violets. + +"Give them to me. No, you can't see the card. You don't deserve to. +You're too cross, and besides you wouldn't like it. Do my two top hooks. +Now, am I perfectly beautiful?" + +Under her capable hands a pretty miracle had been going on, common +enough, but always new. Ruffle above ruffle, the soft, shapeless mass of +white had shaken itself into its proper lines and contours, lightly, +like a bird's plumage settling itself, and with it the change that comes +when a woman with the inborn, unteachable trick of wearing clothes puts +on a perfect gown, had come to her slight girl's figure. It looked +softer, rounder, and more lightly poised. Her throat looked whiter above +the encircling folds of white. Her shy half smile was sweeter. The white +violets, caught to her high girdle, were sweeter, too. + +Norah surrendered, her voice husky and reluctant. + +"You're too good for them." + +"For the G. H. S. dance? For Willard?" Judith pretended great humility: +"Nana!" + +"There's others you're more than too good for. Others----" + +"Nana, don't." + +"Come here." Norah put two heavy hands on her shoulders and regarded her +grimly. It was the kind of look that Judith used to associate with +second sight, and dread. It was quite formidable still. But Judith met +it steadily, with something mature and assured about her look that had +nothing to do with the softness and sweetness of her in her fluffy +draperies, something that had no place in the heart of a child; +something that Norah saw. + +"Too good for them, and you know it," pronounced Norah. "You know it too +well. You know too many things. A heart of gold you've got, but your +head will rule your heart." + +"Nonsense." Norah permitted herself to be kissed, still looking +forbidding, but holding Judith tight. + +"Little white lamb, may you find what's good enough for you," she +conceded, unexpectedly, "and may you know it when you find it." + +"You're an old dear, and you're good enough for me." + +Downstairs there was a more critical audience to face. Judith saw it in +the library door, and stood still on the stair landing, looking down. +She held her head high, and coloured faintly. She looked very slender +and white against the dark woodwork of the hall. The Randall house had +been renovated the year before--becoming ten years older in the process, +early Colonial instead of a comfortable mixture of late Colonial and +mid-Victorian. The hall was particularly Colonial, and a becoming +background for Judith, but the dark-haired lady in the door had no more +faith in compliments than Norah, and there was a worried wrinkle in her +low forehead to-night, as if her mind were on other things. + +"Will I do, mother?" + +"It's a good little gown, but there's something wrong with the neck +line. You're really going then?" + +"I thought I would." + +"Be back by half-past ten. We're going to have some cards here. The +Colonel likes you to pass things." + +"I thought father's head ached." + +"He's sleeping it off." + +"I--wanted him to see how I looked." + +"I can't see why you go." + +"I thought I would. I'll go outside now, and wait for Willard." + +Judith closed the early Colonial door softly behind her, and settled +down on the steps. She arranged her coat, not the one her mother lent +her for state occasions, but a white polo coat of her own, with due +regard for her ruffles and her violets. The violets were from Colonel +Everard. Norah, with her tiresome prejudice against the Everards, and +mother, who thought and talked so much about them that she was almost +tiresome, too, were both wrong about this party. She did want to go. + +The church clock was striking nine. There was nothing deep toned or +solemn about the chime; it was rather tinny, but she liked it. It +sounded wide awake, as if things were going to happen. Nine, and the +party was under way. The concert was almost over. The concert was only +for chaperones and girls who were afraid of not getting their dance +orders filled. The truly elect arrived just in time to dance. Some of +them were passing the house already. Judith saw girls with +light-coloured gowns showing under dark coats, and swathing veils that +preserved elaborate coiffures. Bits of conversation, monosyllabic and +formal, to fit the clothes, drifted across the lawn to her. + +She had not been allowed to help decorate the hall, but she had driven +with Willard to Nashes' Corners for goldenrod, and when they carried it +in, big, glowing bundles of it, she had seen fascinating things: +Japanese lanterns, cheesecloth in yellow and white, the school colours, +still in the piece, and full of unguessable possibilities, and a rough +board table, the foundation of the elaborately decorated counter where +Rena and other girls would serve the fruit punch. All the time she +dressed she had been listening for the music of Dugan's orchestra, and +caught only tantalizing strains of tunes that she could not identify. +There was a sameness about the repertoire. Most of the tunes sounded +unduly sentimental and resigned. But now they were playing their star +number, a dramatic piece of program music called "A Day on the +Battlefield." + +The day began with bird notes and bugle calls, but was soon enlivened by +cavalry charges and cannonades. The drum, and an occasional blank +cartridge, very telling in effect, were producing them now. Judith +listened eagerly. + +She needed friends of her own age for the next two years, but she must +not identify herself with them too closely, because she would have wider +social opportunities by and by; that was what her mother said, and she +did not contest it; by and by, but this party was to-night. + +Willard was coming for her now, half an hour ahead of time, as usual. He +crossed the lawn, and sat heavily down on the steps. + +"Hello. Don't talk," said Judith. + +Willard was silent only long enough to turn this remark over in his +mind, and decide that she could not mean it, but that was five minutes, +for all his mental processes were slow. Down in the hall the last of the +heroes was dying, and Dugan's orchestra rendered Taps sepulchrally. +Judith drew a long breath of shivering content. + +"Cold?" inquired Willard. + +"No." + +"You're looking great to-night." + +"In the dark? In an old polo coat?" + +"You always look great." + +Judith was aware of an ominous stir beside her, and changed her +position. + +"Oh, Judy." + +"When you know I won't let you hold my hand, what makes you try?" + +"If I didn't try, how would I know?" said Willard neatly. + +"Oh, if you don't know without trying," Judith sighed. The cannonade in +the hall was over, and the night was empty without it. + +"They took in thirteen dollars and fifty-two cents selling tickets for +to-night." Willard, checked upon sentimental subjects, proceeded to +facts. He had so many at command that he could not be checked. + +"Who did?" + +"The team. They divide it. Only this year they've got to let the +sub-team in on it, the faculty made them, and they're sore. And there's +a sub on the reception committee." + +"I don't care." + +"You ought to. A sub, and a roughneck. The sub-team is a bunch of +roughnecks, but he's the worst. On the reception committee! But they'll +take it out of him." + +"Who? The reception committee?" + +"No, the girls. They won't dance with him. He won't get a decent name on +his card. Roughneck, keeping Ed off the team. He's an Irish boy." + +"An Irish boy?" Something, vague as an unforgotten dream that comes back +at night, though you are too busy to recall it in waking hours, urged +Judith to protest. "So is the senior president Irish." + +"No, the vice-president." There was a wide distinction between the two +offices. "Besides"--this was a wider distinction--"Murph lives at the +Falls." + +Living at the Falls, the little settlement at the head of the river, and +lunching at noon, in the empty schoolhouse, out of tin boxes, with a +forlorn assembly of half a dozen or so, was a handicap that few could +live down. + +"Murph?" + +"The team calls him Murphy. I don't know why. They're crazy about him. +He lives a half mile north of the Falls. Walking five miles a day to +learn Latin! He's a fool and a roughneck, but he can play ball. +Yesterday on Brown's field----" + +Willard started happily upon technicalities of football formations. +Judith stopped listening. He could talk on unaided, pausing only for an +occasional yes or no. + +Brown's field! It was a tree-fringed stretch of level grass set high at +the edge of the woods, on the other side of the river, with glimpses of +the river showing through the trees far below. Here, on long autumn +afternoons, sparkling and cool, but golden at the heart, ending +gloriously in red, sudden sunsets, football practice went on every day; +shifting here and there, mysteriously, over the field, the arbitrary +evolutions that were football, the shuffling, and shouting, and panting +silence; on rugs and sweaters under the trees, an audience of girls, +shivering delightfully, or holding some hero's sweater, too proud to be +cold. + +Judith had seen all this through Willard's eyes, or from a passing +carriage, but now she would go herself, go perhaps every day. Her mother +would let her. She would not understand, but she would let her, just as +she had to-night. Judith could be part of the close-knit life of the +school in the last two years there--the years that counted. The party +was a test and her mother had met it favourably. That was why she was +glad to go, as nearly as she understood. She did not know quite what she +wanted of the party, only how very much she wanted to go. + +Willard was asking a question insistently: "Didn't he do pretty work?" + +"Who?" + +"Why, the fellow I'm telling you about--the roughneck." + +"Roughneck," said Judith dreamily. The word had a fine, strong sound. +Willard was holding her hand again, and she felt too comfortable and +content to stop him. + +The orchestra down the street was playing the number that usually ended +its programs, a medley of plantation melodies. They were never such a +strain on the resources of a hard-working but only five-piece orchestra +as the ambitious, martial selections, and here, heard across the dark, +they were beautiful: plaintive and thrillingly sweet. "Old Kentucky +Home," was the sweetest of all, lonely and sad as youth, and insistent +as youth, claiming its own against an alien world. + +"Oh, Willard!" breathed Judith. Then, in quite another tone, "Oh, +Willard!" + +Encouraged by her silence, he was reaching for her other hand, and +slipping an arm round her waist. + +"You feel so soft," objected Judith frankly, getting up. "I do hope I'll +never fall in love with a fat man. Come on, let's go!" + +She waited for him politely on the sidewalk, and permitted her arm to +be duly grasped. Willard, sulky and silent, but preserving appearances, +piloted her dutifully down the street. Willard's silences were rare, and +Judith usually made the most of them, but she did not permit this one to +last. She did not want any one, even Willard, to be unhappy to-night. + +"Willard." + +"What?" + +"Don't take such long steps, or I can't keep up with you. You're so +tall." + +"Do you want to be late?" + +"Oh, no! Are we?" + +"No." + +"But there's only one couple behind us, and the music's stopped." + +"It takes half an hour to get the chairs moved out." + +"Willard." + +"Well?" + +"Is the first dance a grand march and circle?" + +"No, that's gone out. They have contras instead, but the first is a +waltz." + +"Willard, mother said I mustn't dance contras, but I shall--with you." + +"Well!" + +"Don't you want me to?" + +"Yes." + +"Willard, are you cross with me?" + +"No." They were in front of the Odd Fellows' Building now. The door was +open. The pair behind them crowded past and clattered hurriedly up the +bare, polished stairs. The orchestra could be heard tuning industriously +above. They were almost late, but Willard drew her into a corner of the +entrance hall, and pressed her hand ardently. + +"Judy, I couldn't be cross with you." + +"Don't be too sure!" Judith laughed, and ran upstairs ahead of him. + +"There's the ladies' dressing-room. I'll get the dance orders and meet +you outside." + +There was a whispering, giggling crowd in the dressing-room, mostly +seniors, girls she did not know, but they seemed to know her, and she +was conscious of curious looks at her hair and dress. It was the +simplest dress in the room, and her mother would not have approved of +the other dresses, but Judith did. There was something festive about the +bright colours, too bright most of them: sharp pinks, and cold, hard +blues. There was a yellow dress on a brunette, who was cheapened by the +crude colour, and a scarlet dress too bright for any one to wear +successfully on a big, pretty blond girl, who almost could. Judith +smelled three distinct kinds of cheap talcum powder, and preferred them +all to her own unscented French variety. She had a moment of sudden +loneliness. Was she so glad to be here, after all? + +It was only a moment. The tuning of instruments outside broke off, and +the first bars of a waltz droned invitingly out: "If you really love +me," the song that had been in her ears all the evening, a flimsy ballad +of the year, hauntingly sweet, as only such short-lived songs can be. +Moving to the tune of it, Judith crowded with the other girls out of the +dressing-room. + +The hall was transformed. It was not the room she had dreamed of, a +great room, dimly lit, peopled with low-talking dancers, circling +through the dimness. The place looked smaller decorated, and the +decorations themselves seemed to have shrunk since she saw them. The +lanterns had been hung only where nails were already driven, and under +the supervision of the janitor, who would not permit them to be lighted. +The cheesecloth was conspicuous nowhere except around the little stage, +which it draped in tight, mathematically measured festoons. Beneath, +under the misleading legend, "G. H. S.," painted in yellow on a +suspended football, Dugan's orchestra performed its duties faithfully, +with handkerchiefs guarding wilted collars. + +The goldenrod, tortured and wired into a screen to hide the footlights, +was drooping away already and showing the supporting wires. The benches +were stacked against the wall, all but an ill-omened row designed for +wall-flowers, and the floor was cleared and waxed. But little patches of +wax that were not rubbed in lurked for unwary feet, and there were +clouds of dust in the air. In one corner of the hall most of the +prominent guests of the evening were attempting to obtain dance orders +at once, or to push their way back with them to the young ladies they +were escorting. + +These ladies, and other ladies without escorts, were crowding each other +against the stacked benches and maneuvering for positions where their +dance orders would fill promptly. The atmosphere was one of strife and +stress. But Judith found no fault with it. She was not aware of it. + +In a corner near the stage, by the closed door of the refreshment-room, +a boy was standing alone. He was tearing up his dance order. It was +empty, and he was making no further attempts to fill it. He tore it +quite unostentatiously so that no young lady disposed to be amused by +his defeat could see anything worth staring at in his performance, and +he was forgotten in his corner. But Judith stared. + +She had remembered him tall, but he was only a little taller than +herself. His black suit was shiny, and a size too small for him, but it +was carefully brushed, and he wore it with an air. His hair was darker +than she remembered, a pale, soft brown. It was too long, and it curled +at the temples. He stood squarely, facing the room, as if he did not +care what anybody did to him, but there was a look about his mouth as if +he cared. He raised his eyes. They were darker than she remembered, +darker and stranger than any eyes in the world. They looked hurt, but +there was a laugh in them, too, and across the hall they were looking +straight at Judith. + +"Here you are. I've got myself down for all your contras. Just in time." + +Willard, mopping his brow, slipping on a patch of wax, and saving +himself with a skating motion, brought up triumphantly beside her, +waving two dance orders. Judith pushed them away, and said +something--she hardly knew what. + +"What, Judy? What's that? You're engaged for this? You can't dance it +with me?" + +"No. No, I can't." + +Judith slipped past him, and started across the floor. The music was +louder now, as if you were really meant to dance, and dance with the +person you wanted to most. The floor was filling now with dancers +stepping forward awkwardly, but turning into different creatures when +they danced, caught by the light, sure swing of the music, whirling and +gliding. The words sang themselves to Judith, the silly, beautiful +words: + + Please don't keep me waiting. + Won't you let me know + That you really love me? + Tell--me--so. + +A girl in red was dancing in a quick, darting sort of way, in and out, +among the others, and her dress was beautiful, too, like a flower. The +boy in the corner was watching it. He did not see Judith come. + +"I thought you couldn't be real. When I never saw you again I thought I +had dreamed you." + +Judith said it softly and breathlessly, and he did not hear. She put her +hand on his arm, and he turned and looked at her. + +"Don't you remember me?" Judith was too happy to be hurt even by this. +The light, sweet music called to her. "Don't you remember? Never mind! +Come and dance with me." + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + + +Willard stood still and stared after Judith for one bewildered minute; +that was as long as he could stand still. Odd Fellows' Hall had ceased +to afford standing-room. + +The floor was filling and more than filling with determined young +persons who were there to dance, and looked as if they had never had any +aim but to dance. The enthralled silence, which was more general than +conversation, advertised it. Even acknowledged belles, like the girl in +red, coquetted incidentally, with significant but brief confidences and +briefer upward glances. There was an alarming concentration, intent as +youth itself, to be read in their unsmiling faces and eager eyes. + +They danced quite wonderfully, most of them, as only country-bred young +people can, with free-limbed young bodies, more used to adventuring in +the open air than to dancing, but attuned to the rhythm of the dance by +right of their youth. The old-fashioned waltz, that our grandmothers +lost their hearts to the time of, still prevailed in Green River; not +the jerkier performance that was already opening the way for the +one-step and the dance craze in larger centres, but the old waltz, with +the first beat of each measure heavily emphasized--a slow swinging, +beautiful dance, and they danced it with all their hearts. + +In and out among them, two slender, quick-turning figures were making an +intricate way. The girl danced delicately and surely, a faint, half +smile parting her lips, her small, smooth head erect, the silvery gold +hair that crowned it shimmering and pale in the uncompromising light of +the newly installed electric chandeliers, her eyes intent on the boy. + +His performance was not expert, but it had a charm all its own. He put a +great deal of strength into it, and made it evident that he possessed +still more; strength enough to master the art of dancing once and for +all, by the sheer force of it, if he cared to exert it, and a laughing +light in his eyes, as if dancing was not important enough for that, and +nothing else was. + +An ambitious pair, experimenting with the dip waltz, just introduced +that year, and pausing on the most awkward spots in the crowded floor, +blocked his path, and he swung heavily out of their way just in time, +squaring his chin and holding his head a shade higher. The girl in red +was whirled toward him in double-quick time, and he dodged, +miscalculated his distance, but met the shock of her squarely, whisking +Judith out of her way. + +"Good try, Murph," her partner called. + +Willard regarded the encounter disapprovingly from the door of the +gentlemen's dressing-room, to which he had edged his way. His was not an +expressive countenance, and that was a protection to him just now. He +was bewildered and deeply hurt, but he merely looked fat and slightly +puzzled, as usual. + +"Judy turn you down?" inquired his friend Mr. Ward, also watching from +the dressing-room door, with the few other gentlemen who were without +partners for this dance. It was the most important dance of the evening, +for you danced it with the lady of your choice, or with nobody. It +cemented new intimacies or foreshadowed the breaking of old; settled +anew the continually agitated question of "who was going with who." + +"Judy turn you down?" said Mr. Ward, but he meant it as a pleasantry. +Mr. Willard Nash was not often turned down, even at this early age. He +was too eligible. + +"Rena turn you down, Ed?" + +"Yes." Mr. Ward became suddenly confidential, and lowered his voice. +"Mad. She wanted me to get her a shinguard to mount tintypes +on--tintypes of the team." + +"Buy it or steal it?" inquired Willard sarcastically. + +"I offered to buy it," his friend confessed, "buy her a new pair, but +she wants one that's been used." + +"You spoil Rena. You can't spoil a girl." They laughed wisely. "It don't +pay." + +"Mad with Judy?" + +"Well--no," said Willard magnanimously. He thought quite rapidly, as his +brain, not overworked at other times, could do in emergencies. "My feet +hurt. Pumps slip at the heel. I've been stuffing them out. Judy came +with me, but I had to be excused for this dance." + +"Good thing for him." + +"Who?" + +"For Murph--for Neil Donovan. They'll all dance with him if she does; +though Judy don't know that. She's not stuck on herself, and never will +be. I didn't know she knew Murph." + +"Well, you know it now," said Willard shortly, his man-of-the-world +composure failing him. Judith was circling nearer now, slender and +desirable. He hesitated between an angry glare and a forgiving smile, +but she did not look to see which he chose. She whirled quickly by. + +"Smooth little dancer, and she's no snob. Judy's all right," said Ed. +"Watch Murph! He's catching on--never danced till last night. Some of +the fellows taught him. He never danced with a girl before." + +"If my feet hurt," remarked Mr. Nash irrelevantly, and without the close +attention from his friend which this important announcement called for, +"I may not dance at all to-night." + +Willard stopped abruptly. "What do you know about that"; a voice was +saying, in the rear of the dressing-room; he stiffly refrained from +turning to see whose, "Judith is dancing the first dance with Neil +Donovan!" + +Judith was dancing the first dance with Neil Donovan. It was social +history already, accepted as such, and not further discussed, even by +Willard. But many epoch-making events are not even so much discussed, +they look so simple on the face of them. We cross a room, and change the +course of our lives by crossing it, and few people even observe that we +have crossed the room. + +If Judith had affected the course of her life materially by crossing the +room to the strange boy, she did not seem to be thinking of it just now. +She was not thinking at all. She was only dancing, following her +partner's erratic course quite faithfully, and quite intent on doing so; +feeling every beat of the music, and showing it, pink-cheeked and +sparkling eyed, and pleasantly excited, but nothing more. + +The wistful and dreamy look was gone from her eyes, and her half-formed +desire for something to happen this evening, something that had never +happened before, was gone from her, too. She felt content with whatever +was going to happen, and deeply interested in it, and particularly +interested in dancing. + +They had danced almost in silence, rather a grim silence at first, but +now that the boy could let the music carry him with it, and was +beginning to trust it, too, the silence was comfortable. But the few +words he managed to say were worth listening to and answering, not to be +dreamed through and ignored, like Willard's. His voice was not as she +remembered it, and that was interesting, too, deeply significant, though +she could not have said why. Everything seemed unaccountably interesting +to-night. + +"I thought it was louder," she said, "or higher--or something." + +"What?" + +"Your voice." + +It was quite husky and low, and he pronounced a word here and there with +a brogue like Norah's, only pleasanter, with a kind of singing sound. +It was never the word you expected. You had to watch for it. She could +hear it now. + +"Won't you please tell me who you are?" + +"I know who you are, and I know where you live." + +"Where do I?" + +"At the Falls, and I know when you moved there--five years ago, or six." + +"Six. How do you know?" + +"Oh, I know." + +As you grew older, and learned to call more boys and girls in the school +by name, and more of the clerks in the shops, you discovered new people +in the town where you thought you knew everybody, and it made the town +infinitely large. But this boy had not been so near her, or she would +have seen him. He could not have been in school with her. He must have +worked on a farm and studied by himself with the grammar-school teacher +at the Falls, and taken special examinations to enter the Junior class +this year, as Willard said that some boy at the Falls was doing. He must +be that boy or Judith would surely have seen him. + +She nodded her head wisely. "I know." + +"You know a lot." In his soft brogue this sounded like the most +complimentary thing that could be said. + +"But you don't remember me." This had troubled her at first. Now it +seemed like the most delicious of jokes, and they laughed at it +together. + +"That was the first thing you said to me." + +"Isn't it queer"--Judith's eyes widened and darkened as if it were +something more than queer, something far worse--"so queer! I can't think +what the first thing was that you said to me." + +They confronted this problem in silence, staring at each other with +wide-open eyes. Though they were circling smoothly at last, carried on +by the slow, sweet music, so that they hardly seemed to be moving at +all, and though he did not really move his head, the boy's eyes seemed +to Judith to be coming nearer to hers, nearer all the time. They were +beautiful eyes, deep brown, and very clear. His brown hair grew in a +squarish line across his forehead, and waved softly at the temples. It +looked as if he had brushed it hard there to brush the curl out, but it +was curliest there. + +"You've got the brownest eyes," said Judith. + +"You've got the biggest eyes. Won't you tell me your name?" + +Judith did not answer. She looked away from the disconcerting brown eyes +and down at her hand, against his shoulder, her own little hand, with +the careful manicure and the dull polish that was all her mother +permitted; bare of rings, though Norah had given her a beautiful garnet +ring for Christmas. How shiny his coat-sleeve was, and her hand looked +unfamiliar to her--not like her own at all. She pressed tighter against +his shoulder to steady herself. + +The music was growing quicker and louder, working up gradually but +surely into a breathless crescendo that meant the end of the dance. It +whirled them dizzily about. The sleepy spell of the dance broke in this +final crash of noise, and as it broke a sudden panic caught Judith. + +What had she been saying to this boy? She had never talked like this to +a boy before. And why was she dancing with him? She ought to be dancing +with Willard--Willard, waiting there in the dressing-room door with her +dance order in his hand, with the patient and puzzled look in his eyes, +with brick-red colour in his cheeks from the affront she had subjected +him to. What would Willard think of her? What would her mother think? +And who was this boy? Just what the children had called him in taunting +screams, on that long-ago May night, and she would have liked to scream +it now--a paddy. + +Instead, she lifted her head, no longer afraid of the boy's brown eyes, +and said it, as cruelly as she could, in her soft and clear little +voice: + +"Paddy," she said; "a paddy from Paddy Lane." + +She looked defiantly into his eyes, but they did not grow angry. They +only grew very soft and kind, and they laughed at her. She wanted to +look away from the laughter in them, but she could not look away from +the kindness. Now she was not angry with him any more, but glad she was +dancing with him. She knew she never wanted to stop dancing. + +"Paddy?" He thought she had said it to remind him of that May night; he +was remembering it now. "Are you that little girl?" + +"Yes." + +"The little girl who broke the lantern?" + +"Yes," said Judith proudly. + +"And had such long black legs, and went scuttling across the lawn, and +screaming out to me--that funny little girl?" + +"But I did break the lantern," said Judith. + +All the bravest stories that she had made up in the dark to put herself +to sleep with at night, all the perilous adventures of land and sea, +camp fire or pirate ship, began with the breaking of that lantern, and +the boy she rescued had been her companion upon them, her brushwood boy, +her own boy. She had found him at last, and he was laughing--laughing at +her. + +"Sure you did. As if I couldn't have broken away from a bunch of fool +kids, without being doped with the smell of kerosene, and yelled at by +another fool kid. Sure you broke the lantern. How mad I was." + +"You didn't remember." It was not a joke any longer now, but a tragedy, +and Judith felt overwhelmed by it, alone in the world. "You forgot, and +I--remembered." + +The brown eyes and the gray met in one last long look and when the brown +eyes saw the hurt in Judith's, the laughter died out of them. Again they +seemed to be growing nearer and nearer to hers, but this time Judith was +not afraid, she was glad. + +"If you didn't save my life then, you did to-night." It came in a husky +burst of confidence, straight from his shy boy's heart, very rare and +very precious. Judith caught her breath. + +"Oh, did I? Did I?" + +"Yes. This crowd here had me mad--crazy mad. I was going home. I was +going to get off the team. I wasn't going to school next week, and I've +worked my hands off to get there. Maybe you remembered and I forgot, +but--I won't forget again. You were that little girl." It was not a +slight to the little girl she used to be, but a tribute to the girl she +was; that was what looked out of his brown eyes at Judith, and sang +through the brogue in his voice. + +"You were that little girl--you!" + +"Yes," breathed Judith; "yes!" + +They whirled faster and faster. This was really the end of the dance, +and this dance could never come again. Judith held tight to his shiny +shoulder, breathless, hurrying to part with her secret and strip herself +bare of mystery generously in a breath. All sorts of barriers might come +between them, she might put them there herself, and she was quite aware +of it, but not yet, not until the music stopped. + +"My name's Judith--Judith Randall. Call me Judy." + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + + +Colonel Everard sat at the head of his dinner table. A little dinner for +twelve was well under way at the Birches. Mrs. Everard was confined to +her tower suite to-night with one of the sudden headaches which unkind +critics held were likely to come when the Colonel entertained. Randolph +Sebastian, his secretary, had superintended the arrangements for the +dinner. + +Pink roses, rather too many of them, were massed on the big, round +table. Rather too much polished silver was to be seen on it; the most +ornate candlesticks in the Everard collection, and a too complete array +of small, scattered objects, each with a possible but not an essential +function, littering a cloth already complicated by elaborate inserts of +lace. But the brilliantly lighted, over-decorated table was effective +enough in the big, darkly wainscoted room, a little island of light and +colour. + +The room was characterless, but finely and generously proportioned, and +not so blatantly new as the rest of the colonel's house still looked. +Against the dark walls the pale-coloured gowns around the table were +charming. Indeed, most of the gowns were designed for this setting. + +For there were no outsiders among the Colonel's guests to-night. +Sometimes there were distinguished outsiders, politicians and other big +men, diverted from triumphant tours through larger centres by the +Colonel's influence, and by his courtesy exhibited to Green River after +they had dined, or bigger men still, whose comings and goings the public +press was not permitted to chronicle. Sometimes, too, there were +outsiders on probation, the outer fringe of Green River society, +admitted to formal functions, and hoping in vain to penetrate to +intimate ones; ladies flustered and flattered, gentlemen sulky but +flattered, conscious that each appearance here might be their last, and +trying to seem indifferent to the fact. + +But this was the Colonel's inner circle, gathered by telephone at +twenty-four hours' notice, as they so often were. No course that the +chef had contributed to the rather too elaborate menu was new to them. +The Pol Roger which the big English butler was just starting on his +second round was of the vintage year usually to be found on the +Colonel's wine list, and on most intelligently supervised wine lists. A +dinner for twelve, like plenty of little dinners elsewhere, no more +correct and no less, but it had this to distinguish it; it was being +served in Green River. + +Served complete from hors-d'oeuvres to liqueurs, in a New England town +where high tea had been the fashion not ten years ago, and church +suppers were still important occasions--where you were rich on five +thousand a year, and there were not a dozen capitalists secure of so +much, where a second maid was an object of pride, and there was no +butler except the Colonel's. And he had imported this butler and his +chef and his wines, but not his guests; they were quite as impressive, +quite able to appreciate his hospitality, if not to return it in kind, +and they were all but one native products of Green River. + +The youngest guest was eating mushrooms _sous cloche_ in contented +silence at the Colonel's left. The scene was not new to her. She could +not remember her first party here; she was probably the only person in +Green River who could pass over that momentous occasion so lightly. She +had grown up as the only child in the inner circle. She had been +privileged to excuse herself, when the formal succession of courses at +some holiday function was too much for her, and read fairy tales on a +cushion by the library fire, out of the fat, purple edition de luxe of +the "Arabian Nights" that was always waiting for her there. Though her +white ruffled skirts had grown long now, and her silvery gold braids +were pinned up, and she was allowed to fill an empty place at the +Colonel's table whenever he asked her, if not quite on his regular +dinner list yet, Judith was not much changed from that wide-eyed child, +and to-night her eyes looked sleepy and soft, as if she had serious +thoughts of the cushion by the fire and the fairy book still. + +The scene was not new, but it kept a fascination for her, like a +transformation scene in a pantomime. Mr. J. Cleveland Kent, the manager +of the shoe factory, who had taken her in to dinner, had been leaning +out of a factory window in his shirt-sleeves, his black hair tumbled, +and badly in need of a shave, when she passed on her way home from +school. He looked mysterious and interesting in a dinner coat, like her +idea of an Italian nobleman. + +When Judith knocked at the kitchen door to deliver a note, Mrs. Theodore +Burr, in a pink cooking apron, corsetless, and with her beautiful yellow +hair in patent curlers, had been blackening the kitchen stove, and +quarrelling with the furnace man about an overcharge of fifty cents on +his monthly bill. The Burrs had no maid. Theodore Burr had been +assisting Judge Saxon ever since he passed his bar examinations, but he +was not admitted to partnership yet. This was beginning to make gossip, +for he worked hard. He had broken his dinner engagement to-night, as he +often did, to stay at home and work. Randolph Sebastian, the secretary, +with the queer, hybrid foreign name, and thin face and ingratiating +brown eyes, had his place at the table. + +Mrs. Burr, stately and slender now in jetted black, the lowest cut gown +in the room, her yellow hair fluffing and flaring into an unbelievable +number of well-filled-out puffs, was chattering to the Colonel in a low +voice, so that Judith could not understand, and breaking into French at +intervals--Green River High School French, but she spoke it with an air, +narrowing her blue-gray eyes after an alluring fashion she had and +laughing her full-toned laugh. She was a full-blown, emphatic creature, +though she had been married only three years, and was Lil Gaynor still +to half the town. + +Auburn-haired little Mrs. Kent had been lying down all the afternoon, as +her disapproving domestic had informed any one who inquired at the door +in a shrill voice that did not promote repose. She was very piquant and +enticing now, with her bright, slanting hazel eyes, and a contagious +laugh, but her dinner partner, Judith's father, was tired and hard to +amuse. He looked very boyish when he was tired; his blue eyes looked +large and pathetic. + +The other two young women and Judith's mother, whose dark, low-browed +Madonna beauty was gracious and fresh to-night, set off by her +clear-blue gown, with a gardenia caught in her sheer, white scarf, +deserved the Honourable Joseph Grant's flowery name for them, the Three +Graces. + +Before the Colonel's time and Judith's the Honourable Joe had been the +most important man in Green River, and in evening things, and after a +properly concocted cocktail he still looked it, florid and portly and +well set-up, with a big voice that could still sound hearty though it +rang rather empty and hollow sometimes. He looked ten years younger than +his old friend, Judge Saxon. The Judge's coat was getting shiny at the +seams, and--this appeared even more unfortunate to Judith--he was in the +habit of pointing out that it was shiny, and without embarrassment. Mrs. +Saxon's pearl-gray satin was of excellent quality, but of last year's +cut, and the modest neck was filled in with the net guimpe which she +affected at informal dinners. The Saxons were not quite in the picture, +but they were always very kind to Judith. + +And if they were not in the picture, Mrs. Joseph Grant, certainly not +the youngest woman in the room, though she was not the oldest, occupied +the centre of it. + +She was like the picture of the beautiful princess on the hill of glass, +in a book of Judith's, and besides, she had once been a real debutante, +of the kind that Judith liked to read about in novels, before the +Honourable Joe brought her from Boston to Green River. Judith liked to +look at her better than any one here except Colonel Everard. + +"Cosmopolitan--ten years ahead of Wells, or any town in your state; real +give and take in the table talk; really pretty women; the same little +group of people rubbing wits against each other day after day and +getting them sharpened instead of dulled by it; a concentrated, pocket +edition of a social life, but complete--nothing provincial about it," a +very distinguished outsider had said after his last week-end with the +Colonel. + +But he was fresh from a visit to the state capital, the most provincial +city in the state when the legislature was not in session; also he had a +known weakness for pretty women. Green River did not admire the +Colonel's circle so unreservedly, but Green River was jealous. Whatever +you thought of it, it was made of fixed and unpromising material, and +making it was no mean achievement, and the man at the head of the table +looked capable of it, and of bigger things. + +The Colonel was a big man and a public character, and as with many +bigger men, you could divide the facts of his life into two classes: +what everybody knew and what nobody knew. If the known facts were not +the most dramatic ones, they were dramatic enough. He was sixty now. At +fifteen he had been a student in a small theological seminary, working +for his board on his uncle's farm, and engaged to the teacher of the +district school, who helped him with his Greek at night. He gave up the +ministry for the law, used his law practice as a stepping-stone into +state politics, climbed gradually into national politics, built up a +fortune somehow--these were the days of big graft--married for money and +got an assured position in Washington society thrown in, and soon after +his marriage chose Green River as a basis of operations, spending a +winter month in Washington which later lengthened to three, ostensibly +for the sake of his wife's health. The title of Colonel came from +serving on the Governor's staff in an uneventful year. He had held no +very important office, but his importance to his party in state and +national politics was not to be measured by that. + +White haired, slightly built, managing with perfectly apparent tricks +of carriage and dress to look taller than he was, he was the effective +figure in this rather unusually good-looking group of people. Just now +he was lighting a fresh cigarette for Mrs. Burr so gracefully that even +Judge Saxon must enjoy watching, so Judith thought, though there was a +tradition that he did not like women to smoke. Shocking the Judge was +one of their favourite games here. It was only a game. Of course they +could never shock anybody. They were quite harmless people, too grown up +to be very interesting, but almost always kind, and always gay. + +The Colonel's profile was really beautiful through the curling, bluish +smoke, and Judith liked his quick, flashing smile. He turned now and +smiled at Judith. Her own smile was charming, a faint, half smile, that +never knew whether to turn into a real smile or to go away and not come +again, but was always just on the point of deciding. + +"Is our debutante bored?" + +"Oh, no; I was just thinking. No." + +"She's blushing. Look at her." + +"Yes, look at a real one. Do you good, Lil," agreed the Judge, and Mrs. +Burr rubbed a pink cheek with her table napkin, exhibited it daintily, +and laughed. + +"Rose-white youth! But she doth protest too much." The Honourable Joe +was fond of quotations, and often tried to make his remarks sound like +them, when he could not recall appropriate ones, raising a solemn fat +finger to emphasize them: "The thoughts of youth are long, long +thoughts." + +"Wrong, wrong thoughts," supplied Randolph Sebastian, so gravely that +the Honourable Joe accepted the amendment, and looked worried, as only +the thought of losing his grip on Bartlett's "Familiar Quotations" could +worry him at the end of a perfect meal. + +"Wrong thought?" he repeated, in a puzzled voice. + +"Thinking's barred here. What's the penalty, Judge?" + +"You aren't likely to get it inflicted on you, so I won't tell you, +Lil." + +"No, I don't think; I act," Mrs. Burr admitted cheerfully. She always +became a shade more cheerful just when you expected her to lose her +temper. + +"How true that is," observed Mr. Sebastian gently. + +"Ranny!" + +"Didn't you play auction with me last night? We're out just----" + +"Don't tell me. I can't think in anything beyond three figures. Ted's +doing higher mathematics over it. That's why he's home, really. I'll +play with you again to-night, for your sins." + +"For my sins!" He made melancholy eyes, as if he were really confessing +them. Mr. Sebastian always pretended a deep devotion to Mrs. Burr. +Judith thought it was one of the silliest of their games. + +"But what was Judy thinking about?" demanded Mrs. Grant, in the sweet, +indifferent voice that always made itself heard. + +"She met a fairy prince at the ball last night. They are still to be +met--at balls." + +"You'd meet one anywhere he made a date, wouldn't you, Edith Kent?" said +the Judge rudely. "Give Miss Judy a penny for her thoughts, if you want +them, Everard. You've got to pay sometimes, you know--even you." + +"Don't commercialize her too young," said Mr. Sebastian smoothly. +"Though, on the whole--can you commercialize them too young?" + +"Judith, what were you thinking about?" the Colonel interrupted, rather +quickly, turning every one's eyes upon her at once, as he could with a +word. + +Judith met them confidently--amused, curious eyes, but all friendly and +gay. They talked a great deal of nonsense here, but it did not irritate +her, as it did her friend Judge Saxon, though she was not always amused, +and could not always understand. They never tried to shock her. She was +sorry for the Judge. He was not at home with these gay and good-natured +people, and it was so easy to be. + +She tipped her head backward in deliberate imitation of Edith Kent, whom +she admired, half closed her eyes, like Lillian Burr, whom she admired +still more, gazed up at the Colonel, and said, in her clear little +voice: + +"I was thinking about you." + +"That's the answer," said Mr. Kent, and rewarded it with a lump of sugar +dipped in his apricot brandy. + +"For an ingenue?" said Mrs. Burr, very sweetly indeed. + +"'She's getting older every day,'" hummed Mrs. Kent, in her charming, +throaty contralto. + +But Judge Saxon pushed back his chair and rose abruptly. + +"I've had dinner enough," he said, "and so have you, Miss Judy." + +"We all have, Hugh," said the Colonel quickly, and rose, too, and +slipped an intimate hand through his arm. "Run along, children! Hugh, +about that Brady matter----" + +Judge Saxon submitted sulkily, but was laughing companionably with the +Colonel by the time they all reached the library. + +Judith never admired the Colonel more than when he was managing Judge +Saxon in a sulky mood. And she never admired the Colonel and his friends +more than she did in the lazy intimate hour here before the cards began. + +The room was long and high, and too narrow; unfriendly, as only a room +that is both badly proportioned and unusually large can be, but you +forgot this in the softening glow of candles and rose-shaded lights. You +forgot, too, that you were an exile from your own generation, among +elders who bored you, though you were subtly flattered to be among them. +Safe on a high window-bench in the most remote window, entirely your +own, since the architect had not designed it to be sat on, and nobody +else took the trouble to climb up, it was so much pleasanter to watch +these people than to talk to them; they had such pretty clothes, and +wore them so well, and made such effective, changing pictures of +themselves in the big room. + +Sometimes they amused themselves with the parlour tricks that they had +so many of, and sometimes they drifted in and out in groups of two and +three, to more intimate parts of the house: the smoking-room, or Mrs. +Everard's suite, if she was well, or out through the French windows, +across the broad, glassed-in veranda that ran the length of the room and +darkened it unpleasantly by day, into the Colonel's rose garden. It was +warm enough for that to-night, and a yellow, September moon showed +invitingly through the windows. Mrs. Grant, who liked to be alone, as +Judith could quite understand, since she had to listen to the Honourable +Joe's big voice so much of the time, was slipping out through a window +now, taking the coat that Mr. Sebastian brought her, but refusing to let +him go with her. + +He went to the piano, ran his thin, flexible brown fingers over the +keys, struck into a Spanish serenade, and sang a verse of it in his +brilliant but tricky tenor, with his languishing eyes upon Mrs. Burr. + +"Ranny, do you want to tell the whole world of our love? You terrify +me," she said, and took refuge on one arm of the Colonel's chair. +Judith's mother, protesting that she needed a chaperon, promptly took +possession of the other arm, disposing her blue, trailing skirts +demurely, and looking more Madonna-like than ever through the cloudy +smoke of a belated cigarette. The others made themselves equally +comfortable, all but Judge Saxon, who had ceased to advertise the fact +that he was not. + +"Smile at me," Mrs. Kent begged, hovering over his chair; "I'm going to +sing by and by, and I need it. Do smile! If you don't, I'm going to kiss +you, Judge." + +"Go as far as you like, but be sure how far you like to go, Edith," said +the Judge quietly. She flushed, and turned away abruptly, playing with a +pile of songs. + +"I'm looking for a lullaby. Our youngest seems to need it." + +"Not in your line, are they?" said Sebastian, and began to improvise +one, while Judith, in her corner, closed her eyes contentedly. Whether +there was any truth or not in the report that he had been playing a +ramshackle piano in an East Side restaurant in New York when the Colonel +picked him up, Sebastian could do charming things with quite simple +little tunes, if you did not inquire into problems of harmony and +counterpoint too closely. He was doing them now, weaving odds and ends +of familiar tunes, rather scapegrace and thin, into a lovely, reassuring +whole, that made you feel rested and safe. Judith, making herself +comfortable against a stiff and unwieldy Arts and Crafts sort of +cushion, as long experience had taught her to, listened, smiling. + +She had no idea what a unique position she was occupying there. Judge +Saxon grumbled and scolded, but he was part of the group in the room. +He had grown into it, and belonged to them, as he might have belonged to +an uncongenial family. The Colonel's distinguished guests saw them only +on their best behaviour. Their local critics never penetrated here at +all. Judith was the only outsider who did, and she had besides the +irrevocable right of youth to pronounce judgment upon those who have +prepared the world for it to occupy. She was their only licensed critic. +What did she think of them? Her blond head drooped sleepily. She did not +look disposed to say. + +Sebastian played on, drifting into something sophisticated, with a +suggestion of waltz rhythms running through it. There was a stir of +movement in the room, and the sound of windows opening and shutting, +once, and then again. Judith did not turn her head to see who had gone +out. She was too comfortable. It was strange that he could make you so +comfortable with his music, when he made you so uncomfortable if you +talked to him, watching you so closely with his queer, bright eyes. + +He stopped abruptly, with a big, crashing discord, and Judith rubbed her +eyes and sat up. Mrs. Kent was going to sing now. She tossed some music +to him. + +"That's over your head," she said; "over all your heads; better put me +up there, too, Cleve. Besides, I want to dance. That table will do." +She cleared it unceremoniously, with her husband's help, and established +herself there, poised motionless, through the introductory bars of the +song, her sleepy eyes wide awake now, and a red rose from a bowl on the +table caught between her teeth. + +Quietly, always careful to avoid the reputation of being shocked, like +the Judge, Judith slipped down from her perch, and across the room, and +out through the window. + + "Please keep my folks from kickin'; + Grab me while I'm a chicken, + I'm getting older every day." + +Mrs. Kent's fresh voice was urging, as Judith tiptoed across the +veranda. + +The rowdy words of her little songs and the demure plaintiveness of Mrs. +Kent's voice made an effective contrast. It amused Judith as much as any +one, and she liked to laugh, but she liked better to cry, and if you +could not hear the words, Mrs. Kent's voice made you cry; big, luxurious +tears, that stood in your eyes and did not fall. As she found her way +across the lawn, among the elaborate flower-beds, the voice followed +her, mellow and sweet. It had never sounded so sweet before. Everything +sweet in the world was sweeter to-night. + +At the edge of the lawn Judith paused. Ahead of her three marble steps, +flanked by urns filled with ivy, glaring things in the daytime but +glimmering shadowy white and alluring now, led up the terrace to the +rose garden; a fairy place, far from the world, so hedged in and +shadowed by trees that it was dark even by moonlight, entered through an +old-fashioned trellised arbour, that was so mysterious and dark, she +liked it almost as well now when the rambler roses were not in flower. + +When she left the room her mother had been sitting in Colonel Everard's +chair, she seemed to remember, and the Colonel and Mrs. Burr were +nowhere to be seen. The whole room looked emptier, though she did not +know who else was missing. But there were two people now in the rose +arbour. She could just hear their voices, low, with long silences +between. + +She wanted the place to herself. She stood still, hoping that they would +go. There was a path into the woods on the other side of the little +garden: the Colonel's bare, semicultivated woods, combed clean of +underbrush, but you did not miss it at night. The woods were full of +adventure, but the garden was better to dream in, and Judith had a great +deal to dream about. + +The lighted house looked quite small and far away across the wide, +moonlit lawn. They had stopped singing, and the laughter that followed +the song did not sound so clear as the music; you could just hear it. +Presently you could hear nothing, and it was quiet in the rose arbour, +too. She waited until she was sure, standing quite still at the edge of +the dark enclosure, not a ruffle of her white dress fluttering, very +slender and small against the dark of the leaves. Then she slipped into +the arbour. + +Through a fringe of drooping vine that half hid the picture, she could +see the garden, empty and dimly moonlit, with the marble benches faintly +white. She hurried through, pushed a trailing vine aside, then dropped +it and shrank back under the trellis. + +The garden was empty. But across it, just at the entrance of the wood +path, she saw a man and a woman. At first she took the two figures for +one, they were standing so closely embraced. She could not see their +faces, only the two dark figures standing there like one. They stood +still a long time. They might have been lovers in a picture, only you +could not paint pictures of darkly clothed, ungraceful, shapeless +people. Finally they moved, the man turning suddenly, slipping an arm +higher around the woman's shoulders, and putting his face down to hers. + +Then he drew her into the wood path, and they passed down it out of +sight. Judith did not know who the woman was, but the man was Colonel +Everard. And they had kissed each other. + +Now they were gone. Judith drew a deep breath of relief and stepped out +into the enclosure, pacing across it with slow steps, possessing it for +her own and dismissing alien presences. There was a high-backed marble +erection between the benches, which looked like a memorial to the dear +departed, but was designed for a chair. She seated herself there +deliberately, leaning back, at ease somehow in the unfriendly depths of +it, a slender, uncompromising creature, like a young princess sitting in +judgment on her throne. + +They had kissed each other. She knew they did things like this, but now +she had seen it, which was different, and not very pleasant. But they +were all so old. Did it really matter whether they kissed each other or +not? + +"Stupid old things," said Colonel Everard's only authorized critic, "I +don't care what they do." + +Here in the quiet of the garden you were free to think about more +interesting things than the Everards or even fairy princes. + +"Stupid," repeated Judith absently, and forgot the Everards. The moon, +far away but very clear, shone down at her in an unwinking, +concentrated way, as if it were shining into the Colonel's garden and +nowhere else, and at nobody but Judith. She did not look disconcerted by +the attention, but stared back at it with eyes that were not sleepy now, +but very big and bright--wondering, but not afraid. + +On still nights like this you could just hear the church clock strike +from the garden, but you could not count all the strokes. Judith +listened for the sound. It was early, and out here, in the cool, still +air, it felt early, though the time had passed so slowly in the +Colonel's sleepy rooms. She could hear no music from the house. They +would soon begin to put out the bridge tables. There was always a chance +that they would need her to complete a table, but if they did not, the +Colonel's car was to take her home at nine. + +And the Colonel's youngest guest had further plans for the evening. + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + + +"That will be all, Miss?" + +"Yes," said Judith, with unnecessary emphasis. "Oh, yes, indeed!" + +The Everards' car turned and flashed out of the drive and up the street. +Judith stood still on the steps and watched it, if a young lady with her +breath coming fast and her eyes shining bright in the dark, and her +heart beating unaccountably hard can be said to be standing still. One +light burned forlornly over the entrance of the inn. Light was Judge +Saxon's one extravagance, and plenty of it was waiting for him in the +house next door, though it would be two before any one left the +Everards' but Judith. + +The house before her was dark, and the dimly lighted street was +profoundly still, with the heavy and brooding stillness that comes upon +village streets after nine and is to be found nowhere else in the world. +Judith did not seem depressed by it. Somewhere on a side street solitary +footsteps echoed hollow through the silence, and she listened intently, +but they came no nearer, and presently died away. She fumbled excitedly +with her key, threw open the door, and groped her way across the +unlighted hall. She encountered the telephone table prematurely, +clutched it, and laughed a high-keyed, strange little laugh. + +"Who's there?" demanded a voice from the stairs, disconcertingly close. +The lights, switched suddenly on, flashed into Judith's eyes, and Norah +confronted her, peculiarly forbidding in a discarded cape of Judith's +and her own beflowered best hat. + +"Oh, it's you," she said. + +"Who did you expect? Anybody else? Did--anybody come?" + +"I expected you a half hour ago." + +"What made you wait for me?" + +"Didn't you want me to?" + +"Nana, of course, but if your sister is sick and needs you----" + +Norah listened to this irreproachable sentiment suspiciously. "It's late +to go," she said. + +"I'll walk up with you if you're frightened." + +"You! Can you unhook that dress?" + +"Yes. I'm going to bed pretty soon. I'm awfully sleepy." + +"There's some ginger ale on the ice." + +"I can get it open myself. Did anybody come?" + +"A boy you know." + +"Who?" + +"You're too anxious to know, and too anxious to get rid of me. +And you're acting nervous." + +"I'm not. I'm just sleepy." + +Norah, her grimmest self, as she always was just before relenting, began +to fumble with her hat-pins. + +"Let me help, if you really want to take off your hat. You'll spoil your +beautiful roses. Darling, you look like your niece, the lovely Miss +Maggie Brady, in that hat. Don't take it off. You're cross because you +know where I've been. Well, they didn't eat me. I'm all here. It was +Willard who came, and I don't care whether you tell me or not. And I +don't want to get rid of you. And I love you and you love me, and you're +not cross now." + +"If I love you, you've got need of it, then." Norah struggled +perfunctorily, and permitted herself to be kissed. "Alone here till all +hours of the night, and Mollie at the dance at the Falls, and your own +mother----" + +"But you won't worry about me? And you'll go? And you'll go now, before +it gets later, so you won't be frightened. You'll go this minute? +And--oh, Nana----" + +Norah, departing by the front door because the back one was secured by +an elaborate system of locks of her own invention, and operated only by +herself, turned to give Judith a farewell glance of grim adoration. + +"Nana, was it Willard that came?" + +"Yes." + +"And not--anybody else?" + +"No." + +Norah, winding herself tightly into the cape in a way that converted +that traditionally graceful garment into a kind of armour, disappeared +up the street. When she was out of sight, and not until then, Judith +slammed the door shut, laughing her tense, excited laugh again. + +Then, for a sleepy young woman, she began to display surprising +activity. First she turned off all the lights in the hall but one, in an +opalescent globe, over the front door, looked at the faintly lighted +vestibule with a calculating eye, and turned that out also. She looked +critically in at the library, close curtained for the night, and dimly +lit by the embers of the wood fire, raked apart, but not dead. She +pushed them together expertly, and added a stick, a little one, which +would soon burn down to picturesque embers, like the rest. She pulled an +armchair closer to the fire, pushed it away again, and dropped two +cushions on the hearth with a discreet space between. + +The remains of Willard's last half-dozen carnations and a box of the +eighty-cent-a-pound candy which only Mr. Edward Ward was extravagant +enough to prefer to the generally popular fifty-cent Belle Isle, were +conspicuous on the table, and Judith carried them into the next room, +out of sight. Just then the telephone rang. + +Judith started, dropped the candy, ran into the hall, and stood looking +down at the small instrument resentfully, as if it were personally to +blame because she could not see who was calling her without answering +and committing herself. Once she picked it up doubtfully, but finally +put it down, still ringing intermittently, and hurried into the kitchen. +She put a second bottle of ginger ale on the ice, brought a hammered +brass tray and two glasses from the butler's pantry, then substituted a +less ostentatious bamboo tray, hesitated, and then put them all away +again. + +Now she went to her own room, turned on an unbecoming but searchingly +clear toplight, and frowned at herself in the mirror, jerked out her +hairpins, shook out her soft hair, and brushed and pulled at it with +unsteady hands. In spite of them, the pale gold braids, rearranged, +looked almost as well as before, if no better, and the heightened colour +in her cheeks was charming. From a corner of her glove-case she produced +the two cosmetics then in favour with the younger set in Green River, +burnt matches, and a bit of scarlet ribbon, which made an excellent +substitute for rouge if you moistened it. The ribbon was an unhealthy +red, and looked peculiarly so to-night. Judith dropped it impulsively +into her wastebasket, but experimented with the matches. + +She made both her delicately shaded eyebrows an even splotchy black, +admired the result, then suddenly rubbed it off, turned away from the +mirror without a backward glance, and ran down into the hall. The clock +was just striking ten. + +Judith paused for one breathless minute at the library door, pressing +both hands against her heart, then she went into the firelit room and +made the last and most important of her preparations. She switched on +the lights, toplights and sidelights and reading-lamp, all of them, went +to the middle one of the three front windows, crushed the curtains back, +and raised both shades high to the top, so that the light in the room +looked out at the street from this window from sill to ceiling. Judith +slipped quickly out of range of the window, dropped down on one of the +cushions by the fire, and waited. + +She had fluttered through her little hurry of preparation excitedly, but +now there was evidence of deeper excitement about the tense quiet of +her, huddled on her cushion, small hands clasping silken knees, and +brooding eyes on the fire. There was a dignity about her, too, in spite +of her childish pose and a drooping grace that was almost a woman's. + +What she was waiting for was slow to come, but she did not seem +disturbed by that. The hands of the clock above her seemed to move with +the unbelievable quickness characteristic of clock hands when there is +no other activity in the room, and she observed them calmly. Soon they +pointed to the quarter hour, they passed it. She looked faintly worried +then. The telephone rang again; she pressed her hands over her ears and +shut her eyes tight, and did not answer. The stick on the fire burned +low and she did not replace it. It parted and fell from the andirons +with a dull noise that echoed loudly through the empty room. Judith +started and jumped up, her eyes hard and bright, her hands tightly +clenched. + +She eyed the clock threateningly, as if it were personally responsible +for whatever disappointment she might be feeling, and she were daring it +not to strike. It struck half-past ten in spite of her. Judith's mouth +trembled childishly, and tears started to her eyes. They did not fall. +Footsteps sounded outside. They turned into the drive. Judith stood on +tiptoe and peeped at herself in the mantel mirror--her flushed cheeks, +tumbled hair, and sparkling eyes. The steps crossed the porch, and she +ran to the door and threw it open--the length of the chain, and no +wider. She did not unbar the chain. On the threshold, with a substantial +box of Belle Isle under his arm, stood Mr. Willard Nash. + +Judith regarded Mr. Nash and his Belle Isle with disfavour. + +"You can't come in," she said. + +Mr. Nash, who had been stooping to flick some dust from his boots, +straightened guiltily. "Why?" + +"It's too late." + +"I've got to see you." + +"You do see me." A white dress, a face almost as white, and big, dark +eyes were all he could see, but it seemed to be enough. He inserted a +square-toed boot cautiously in the opening of the door. + +"I want to see you _about_ something." + +"What?" + +"A new comic song for the quartette. They won't let us do 'Amos Moss' at +the Lyceum concert. That part about the red shirt is vulgar. The new +one's close harmony. It will show off Murph's voice." + +"It's too late now. Go home, Willard." + +"But I brought you this." + +"Go home and eat it," suggested Judith. + +Willard turned scarlet, swung round, then changed his mind and inserted +his foot in the crack of the door again, this time with a purposeful +air. He was to develop into the type of man to whom an unpropitious time +and place are an irresistible temptation to demand a show-down. It is a +type that goes far, though it is not essentially popular. Judith sighed, +then resigned herself. + +"Judy, I don't make you out." + +"You don't have to." + +"I do." Willard's voice was impressive, as even a fat boy's can be when +he is in the grip of fate and conscious of it. "I do." + +"I'm sorry, Willard, dear," murmured Judith, with disarming sweetness, +but he was not to be turned from his purpose. + +"Judy, are you going with me or not?" + +"Going with you?" + +"Don't be a snob. What else can I call it but going with me? I don't +know any other way to say it." + +"Then don't say it." + +"You've got my class pin and I've got yours. I know there isn't anybody +else. You let me call and take you places, but you won't let me----" + +"What?" + +Willard looked sheepishly down at his boots, then bravely up at Judith. +"Put my arm round you at picnics. Kiss you good-night." + +Judith cut short this catalogue crisply. + +"Spoon?" + +This word was forbidden in the upper circles of the Green River younger +set, and Willard looked pained, but collected himself. + +"We are the same as engaged," he insisted sturdily. + +He had forced an issue at last, but Judith evaded it, laughing softly in +the dark. + +"Oh, are we?" + +"Aren't we?" + +"How do you know there isn't anybody else?" + +"Well, you won't look at Ed, and Murph don't count." Willard made this +pronouncement lightly, though the adamantine rules and impassable +barriers of a whole social order were embodied in it. "Murph that you're +so thick with, all of a sudden. He's a bully fellow, all right, next +captain of the team, probably. Good thing he's broken into the crowd a +little way. Too bad he's Irish. Murph don't count." + +"No--no!" A sudden and poignant sweetness thrilled in Judith's voice. +The tenor of the Green River High School quartette, not ordinarily +sensitive to variations of tone in the voices of others, could not +ignore it. The change had disturbed him vaguely. It seemed to call for +some comment. + +"Judy, you look great to-night.... I'd do anything for you." + +"Then go home, Willard." + +"You haven't answered my question." + +"What question?" + +"Don't tease." + +"I honestly don't know." + +"You don't hear one word I'm saying to you." + +Judith laughed guiltily. "Then what makes you talk to me?" + +"Judith--are we the same as engaged?" + +Judith hesitated. "Kissing each other good-night--and all that--is +silly. I don't want to. Only sometimes I want to, and then afterward I'm +ashamed, and can't understand why. Willard, I don't want to grow up. I +don't ever want to. I want things to stay just the way they are. They +are--lovely. Oh, Willard----" + +She stopped, with tears in her eyes. There had been a real appeal in his +earnest young voice, and she had done her best to answer it, painfully +thinking out loud, with her heart in her words, making him an authentic +confidence. But the confidence was off the point, and he ignored it, +pursuing his subject with the concentration which will keep his sex the +stronger one, votes for women or no votes for women. + +"Are you the same as engaged to me?" + +"Will you go home if I say I am?" + +"Are you?" + +"There isn't any such thing as being the same as engaged." + +"Are you?" + +"Yes." + +Willard, forgetting himself in the heat of debate, had withdrawn his +foot from the door. Judith, narrowly on the watch for this moment, now +seized it, shutting him and his Belle Isle outside, and slamming the +door in his face. He had gained his point, and would not linger. She +heard him ring the bell once or twice in perfunctory protest, then put +down his candy on the steps. + +"Good-night," he called cheerfully, through the flimsy barrier of the +pseudo-Colonial door. + +"Good-night, Willard--dear!" + +Judith's voice was sweet, but indifferent, and her manner was +indifferent, for a young lady who would have seemed, to a literal-minded +person, to have materially affected her whole future life by this +conversation. She did not watch Willard go. She turned and stood in the +library door, smiling absently and humming a little snatch of a waltz +tune. It was eleven now, but the hour had ceased to concern her, as if +she had been watching the clock for Willard. Presently, as if she +really had, she tossed the cushions back on the couch, drew the shades +over the window, turned off the lights, and disappeared upstairs. +Muffled sounds of a methodical but unhurried preparation for bed drifted +faintly down, one last ripple of song, and then it was silent there. + +It was very still in the library. The stillness of the whole empty house +and the moonless night outside seemed to centre there. The dying fire +threw out little spurts of flame and made wavering shadows on the hearth +as if Judith were still crouching there. The embers glowed as red as +when she had been fire-gazing, but they did not show what it was she had +seen in the fire. They kept her secrets as safely as she kept them +herself; as youth must keep its secrets, inarticulate, dumb, because it +sees into the heart of the world so deeply that if it were granted +speech it would make the world too wise. What Judith had seen in the +fire, what had really been in her heart when she talked to Willard in +the groping and pitiful language of youth, the only language she had, +the fire could not tell, and perhaps Judith did not know. + +It was still, and the tiniest sounds were exaggerated: a board creaking +at the head of the stairs, and creaking again, the stair-rail creaking, +the ghost of a faint little sigh; tiny and intermittent sounds, but the +silence became a listening hush because of them: listening harder and +harder. At last a sound broke it: the doorbell, rung three times, one +long peal and two short. + +It was rung faintly, but loud enough. There was a soft hurry of +slippered feet down the stairs, and a slender figure, tall in +straight-falling draperies, slipped cautiously down and across the hall +to the door, stopped and stood leaning with one ear pressed against it, +silent and motionless, hardly breathing. The faint signal was repeated. +Judith did not move. + +There was one more ring, a soft tapping, and then silence. Judith +listened for a minute, then whistled softly, a clear little signal, one +long and two short, like the signal ring. There was no answer. She +pulled frantically at the chain, got it loose, and threw open the door. + +A boy was standing on the steps, a stolid, unmoving figure, looming +deceptively tall in the dark. He did not step forward or greet her. +Judith put out a groping hand and caught at his shoulder. + +"Is it you? Oh, I thought you had gone," she said. "I was watching for +you upstairs." + +"I am going. I can't come in so late." + +"No, of course not." + +"Then what made you watch for me?" + +"I wanted to see if you came." + +"Well, I did come, and now I'm going." + +"You walked past the house five times." + +"Eight." The boy laughed shortly, and Judith's soft laugh echoed his. +"Oh, what's the use? I'm going." + +"Don't you want to come in?" + +"No." + +"Then what made you walk past the house?" + +"You know well enough." + +"I want you to tell me.... You can come in just five minutes if you want +to." + +"I--you----" + +Judith caught her trailing draperies tighter round her, conscious that +they were under observation. "It's not a kimono, it's a negligee. And +you've seen my hair in braids before, when I played basket-ball. But you +needn't come in unless you want to." + +"I don't." + +"You're not very nice to me. Willard tried to break in. Rena's been +trying to get me by 'phone, to stay all night with me. You're not nice +to me at all." + +His only reply was a kind of tortured groan, but she seemed content with +it. Her voice grew compellingly sweet. + +"I want to talk to you." + +"Go on and talk." + +She huddled her draperies closer. "I'm too cold." + +"Go to bed then." + +"I won't. If you don't come in I shall stand here till mother comes. +I'll probably get pneumonia." + +This threat evoked no reply. + +"Neil," the name was said as only names are said that are new and +dear--not often used yet, but often dreamed over, but there was still no +answer. + +"Neil, I'm awfully cold." + +"I don't care." + +"Oh, don't you?" + +"You know I do. You know---- Oh, Judith, won't you please let me go? I +don't want to come in, I tell you." + +"But you're coming?" + +"Yes." + +Yielding abruptly, he stepped into the hall beside her. Judith, suddenly +silent, concerned herself conscientiously with the chain. + +"Don't stand there like that. I can't fasten this if you do," she said +breathlessly. + +"Why?" + +"Go into the library, and don't light the lights, if you're afraid of +pigtails." + +"I'm not afraid of--anything." + +"Well--I'm not." With a reckless laugh, which made this comprehensive +challenge to the world still more comprehensive, she followed him into +the firelit room. Slender and straight in soft-falling white, her face +flushed and sweet, framed between silvery gold braids, her eyes wide and +challenging, she stood looking at him across the hearth. + +He faced her awkwardly but bravely, tall in the shadowy room, his face +very white, his dark eyes catching the last rays of light from the dying +fire. The two did not move or speak till he gave a sudden, shaken laugh. + +"You wanted to talk to me--talk." He smiled a quick flashing smile. +Judith drew away from him and he followed. "Now you've got me here, +can't you shake hands with me?" + +"Neil, be careful." + +"I'm doing the best I can," he said in a choked voice. "You shouldn't +get me here. You shouldn't get me to a house by night that's not open to +me by day." + +"But it is. Only they'll never let me see you alone, and I like to. I +like to talk to you. It makes me feel--comfortable. Isn't it comfortable +here?" Judith paused, overcome by an unaccountable difficulty with her +breathing, but mastered it. "Comfortable and cozy? Aren't you glad you +came in?" + +"Comfortable!" He laughed, came two steps nearer to her, and +stopped stiffly. Judith, disposing her soft, silky draperies daintily, +observed him in silence from a big chair which she had taken possession +of rather abruptly, faintly smiling. + +"Don't look at me like that," he commanded. + +"Like what? Sit down--over there, Neil. Isn't it cozy? Willard's got a +new song that----" + +"Willard!" + +"Don't be cross. We--haven't very much time." + +"Judith, where is this getting us? We're not children. Won't you talk +straight to me? You ought to leave me alone, or talk straight." + +"Please don't be cross." + +"Cross!" He came across the hearth and stood close before her, awkward +no longer, but splendid with youth in the firelight, his dark eyes +shining. + +"You knew I'd come, no matter how hard I tried not to?" + +"Yes," Judith breathed. + +"And you meant to let me in?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"And you know, if I come, if you let me, I can't help--can't help----" + +"What?" + +"Oh, Judith!" He dropped on his knees beside her and hid his face. +Judith did not touch the dark head that she could see dimly in the +shadowy room, outlined against her cloudy white, but she leaned closer +to it, her lips parting softly, her eyes wide and strange. + +"I don't want you to help it," she breathed. + +"But where will it get us?" pleaded a muffled voice. + +"I don't care." Her hand hovered over the dark hair, touching it with +the wonderful, blended awkwardness and adroitness of first caresses. + +He brushed the butterfly touch away and raised his head and looked long +at her, slipping both arms round her waist and holding her tight. + +"Will you always say that?" + +"I don't know." + +"Oh, Judith!" Her sweet, flushed face was close above him now, eyes +drooping, lips faintly apart, drawn down to his as gently and inevitably +as tired eyes close into sleep. "Judith, some day you'll have to care." + +"Not yet. Neil, don't talk any more." + +"I--can't." + +"Then kiss me." + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + + +It was winter in Green River. + +The town, attracting Colonel Everard to it sixteen years before, newly +prosperous, outgrowing its old lumbering days, with the ship-building +industry already a thing of the past, with the power in the little river +awaiting development, money in the small but thriving bank, and a new +spirit everywhere, beyond the control of old leaders, too progressive +for a provincial magnate's direction, had been in the interesting and +dangerous condition of a woman ready for her next love affair; if the +right man comes, she may live happy ever after, but even if the wrong +man comes, a flirtation is due. Like a woman again, the town showed the +strength of his hold on her in his absence; in winter, when the big, +unfriendly house was shuttered and closed, the ladies of the inner +circle wore out their summer evening gowns at mild winter gayeties, +church socials, Village Improvement Society bridge parties, and the +old-fashioned supper parties which the Nashes and Larribees and Saxons +still ventured to give. + +Humble festivities which he would not have honoured with his presence +lacked allurement because he was not in town and staying away from them. +Great matters and small hung fire to await his deciding vote, from the +list of books to be bought for the library to the chairmanship of the +school board. Marking time and waiting for the Colonel to come home; +that was what winter meant to most of Green River, but not to Judith +Randall. Winter was a charmed time to her; the time when her mother did +not care what she did. Freedom was always sweet, but this winter it was +sweeter than ever before to Judith. + +She was never lonely now. Whispering groups in the dingy corridor of the +old schoolhouse, or in that sacred spot, the senior's corner, a cluster +of seats in the northwest corner of the assembly-room devoted by +tradition to secret conclaves, though not distinguishable from the rest +of the seats in the room to uninitiated eyes, drew her in without +question, slipping intimate arms round her waist. + +Attempts at informal gatherings in the Randall drawing-room were +failures, chilled by brief but devastating invasions of Mrs. Randall +with a too polite manner and disapproving eyes. But wherever the crowd +drifted after school hours, Judith drifted, too, or was summoned by +telephone, by imperative messages, vague, and of infinite +possibilities: + +"Judy, this is Ed. There'll be something doing to-night at our house. +Bring your new dance records." Or, as the outer fringe of the younger +set, jealously on the watch for snobbishness, but disarmed at last, +claimed her diffidently but eagerly, new names at which her mother +raised her eyebrows appeared on her dance orders: Joe Garland, whose +father kept the fish market, and Abie Stern, Junior, the tailor's son. +"Is this Judith Randall? Well, Judith, this is Joe; Joe Garland. I'm +getting up a crowd to go skating to-night, and have a rarebit afterward. +Would you care to come?" + +She was one of the crowd. Natalie, little, sparkling-eyed, and +black-haired, with the freshest and readiest of laughs, was more +popular, filling her dance orders first and playing the lead in +theatricals, and Rena Drew was more prominent, president of the class +and the debating society, and the proud owner of the strongest voice in +the school quartette, a fine big contralto which wrapped itself round +Judith's small, clear soprano at public appearances and nearly +extinguished it. Willard, the most eligible of the boys, was Judith's +unquestioned property, otherwise nothing distinguished her. She was one +of the crowd, and accepted the fact demurely, as if it were a matter of +course, not a dream come true. Just as discreetly she conducted her +affair with Neil Donovan, captain-elect of the team, literary editor of +the school paper, star debater, and in his way a creditable conquest, if +she had cared to claim him openly. + +"Neil danced three dances with me," confided Natalie, in the hushed +whisper appropriate to the confidences that were part of the ceremony of +spending the night together after a party, though Natalie's room, with +the old-fashioned feather bed, where the two were cuddling together, was +on the third story of the rambling white house, and safe out of hearing. + +"Neil?" + +"Judy, it's too bad to call him Murph and make fun of him. The day he +came into the store to solicit ads for the _Record_ father said that boy +would go far, if he had half a chance, but no boy had a chance in this +town, the way it is run, and no Irish boy ever did have a chance. Well, +an Irish boy is just as good as anybody, if they only thought so." + +"But they don't." + +"Judy, you are horrid about Neil. You always are about any boy I get +crushed on. Neil has perfectly beautiful eyes, and he is so sensitive. +He kept looking at you all through that last schottische as if you had +hurt his feelings. He must have gone home soon after that. I didn't see +him again. You didn't dance with him once." + +"No." + +"Poor boy. And he's up there in the schoolhouse with you, hour after +hour, practising quartette stuff, and Willard so crazy about you he +can't see, and Rena crazy about Willard----" + +"Rena can have Willard." + +Miss Ward was not to be diverted. "Neil's father did keep a saloon, but +he died when Neil was a baby. His uncle that he lives with keeps a store +at the Falls, and that's all right. His aunt took in washing, but his +mother never did. Charles Brady does get drunk, but Maggie drives him to +it. She's getting awfully wild. She's a perfect beauty, though, and I +wish I had her hair. But Charlie's only Neil's second cousin. And Neil +is so quiet and pleasant, not like that Brady boy that was in my sister +Lutie's crowd; just as fascinating, but Neil doesn't take liberties." + +"I'm getting sleepy, Nat." + +"Judy, the way I feel about Neil, about Irish boys, is this: we can't go +with them afterward, but while they're in school with us, they are just +as good as we are, and we ought to give them just as good a time as we +can. If you know what I mean." + +"I don't. I'm sleepy." + +"I'm not. I shan't shut my eyes." But Miss Ward did shut them. "Judy." + +"Well?" + +"Judy, Abraham Lincoln split rails." + +"Cheer up. The Warren Worth Comedy Company is going to play at the Hall +next week, and Warren Worth has perfectly beautiful eyes, too." + +"Not like Neil's." + +"Go to sleep, Nat." + +But Judith did not go to sleep until after an hour of staring wide-eyed +into the dark, and she did not confide to Natalie or any one what had +happened in the intermission after the schottische. + +"You act restless," Willard complained to her then. "You hardly looked +at me all through the encore." + +"I'll look at you now, but get me some water first," she directed, and +having disposed of him, slipped out alone into the dim and draughty +corridor. Odd Fellows' Building, the centre of various business +activities by day, looked deserted and forlorn at night, when the suites +of offices were dark and closed, and the hall where they danced, gayly +lighted and tenanted, was a little island of brightness in the +surrounding dark. + +"Neil," Judith called softly, "Neil, where are you? I saw you come out +here. I know you're here." The corridor was empty, but several office +doors opened on it, and on one of them she saw Charlie Brady's name. She +knocked at it. "You're in there. I know you are. Let me in." She tried +the door, found it unlocked, and opened it. The room was dark, faintly +lighted by the street lamps outside the one uncurtained window, where he +sat with his head in his hands, huddled in a discouraged heap over +Charlie Brady's desk. Judith came and perched on it triumphantly. + +"Running away?" she said. + +"It's all I'm good for." + +"Look at me." + +"I thought you hadn't any dances free." + +"I haven't. This is Willard's." + +"Go back to Willard.... What did you come here for?" + +"I don't know." + +"Don't you?" He looked up now, with magic in his eyes and voice, the +strange magic that came and went, and when it left him Judith could +never believe it would come again. But it was here. With a little sigh +she slipped off the desk and into the arms he held out for her, closing +her eyes. + +"I didn't want to dance with you," she whispered; "not with all those +lights, and before those people." + +"No, dear." + +"I can't stay very long. They'd miss me." + +"I'll let you go when you want to." + +"I don't want to. I feel so comfortable--all sleepy, but so wide-awake. +I never want to go." + +Judith, remembering this moment until she carried it into her dreams +with her, could not have shared it with Natalie. It was a dream already, +to be wondered at and forgotten by daylight, as she stared across the +schoolroom at Neil, not a romantic figure at all with his ill-fitting +suit and his tumbled hair; forgotten until the next moment like it +came--next in a lengthening series of dream pictures, of moonlight and +candlelight and faintly heard music, a secret too sweet to share, a +hidden treasure of dreams. + +Certain pictures stood out clearest. In one, she was skating with Neil. +Willard was giving a chowder party at the Hiawatha Club. This imposing +name belonged to a rough one-room camp with a kitchen in a lean-to and a +row of bunks in the loft above, and a giant chimney, with a crackling +blaze of fire to combat the bleakness of the view through the +uncurtained windows--Mirror Lake. It was a failure as a mirror that +day, veiled with snow, and the white birches fringing it showed bare and +cold among the warm green of spruce and pine. + +The camp was built and owned and the canoes and iceboats kept in repair +in the boathouse, and the cook maintained and replaced when he left from +loneliness, all by a syndicate with Judge Saxon as president. Forming it +was one of the last independent social activities of the town before the +Colonel took charge. + +It was bad ice-boating to-day. The wind was fitful, and the boat, a +graceful and winged thing in full flight, dragged heavily along, looking +the clumsy makeshift box of unpainted boards that it was. It was a day +to be towed along on your skates with one hand on the boat. Judith and +Neil had tired of this and fallen behind. + +Close together, but not taking hands, they swung slowly through the +unpeopled emptiness, leaving a tiny scattering of tracks behind, the +blue-white ice firm under their feet through a light film of snow. The +ice-boat was out of sight, the sprightly and unexpurgated ballad of +"Amos Moss," rendered in the closest of close harmony, could be heard no +longer, and a heavy silence hung over the lake. The camp lay far behind +them, a vanishing speck. + +"Neil, take me back," Judith directed suddenly. + +"Not yet." + +"Please. I want some pop-corn.... Neil, I don't like you. You won't +talk. You're queer to-day." + +He did not answer. They cut through the ice in silence. It was rougher +here. They were near the north end of the lake. There was open water +there to-day, black water into which a boat might crash and go down; it +made the water under them seem nearer to Judith, black water with only +the floor of ice between. She shivered, and Neil broke the silence +abruptly, his eyes still straight ahead. + +"Judith." + +"Oh, you can talk then?" + +"Judith--do you love me?" + +"Don't be silly." Judith spoke sharply. Days at the camp were always a +trial to her. The crowd, bunched together in a big hay-rack mounted on +runners, started out noisy and gay, like a party of children, singing, +groping for apples in the straw, and playing children's games. But at +night, slipping home under the moon to a tinkle of sleigh-bells, covered +with rugs two by two, a change would take place: arms would slip around +waists that yielded after perfunctory protest; in the dark of the woods +there would be significant whispering and more significant silences; +Willard would be unmanageable. Judith saw this with alien eyes because +of Neil, and dreaded it. This that was between them was so much more +beautiful, not love-making, not real love, only a strange, white dream. + +"You don't, then? You don't love me?" + +"We're too young." + +He did not argue the point. His silence had made her lonely before, now +it frightened her. She slipped a hand into his, warm through its clumsy +glove. + +"Cross hands. Don't you want to?" + +"No." + +"But I want to. I'm tired. How limp your hand feels. Hold my hands +tighter. Neil----" + +"What?" + +"You don't mind--what I said just now?" + +"What did you say?" + +"That about not loving you." + +"That?" He laughed a bitter, lonely sort of laugh, as if she were +talking about something that happened a long time ago. "You had to say +it. It's true. I knew it well enough. I just thought I'd ask you." + +"Do you want me to very much--want me to love you?" + +"Don't talk any more about it." + +"Neil, suppose I should marry Willard?" + +"I suppose you will." + +"You won't mind too much?" + +"What call would I have to mind? Who am I? What am I?" + +He laughed again, the same hard and bitter laugh, and struck out faster, +gripping her hands hard, so that it hurt, but looking away from her +across the dead, even white of the trackless snow. There was a pain not +to be comforted or reached in his beautiful eyes. It had nothing to do +with her. + +"Neil, wouldn't you care at all?" she said jealously. + +"Care?" + +"If I married Willard?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"Neil, do you love me?" + +He did not answer or seem to hear, and now Judith gave up asking +questions. Carried along at his side in silence, she listened to the +muffled creak of the skates on the snow-covered ice, hushed by the +steady and sleepy sound of it, half closing her eyes. His left arm was +behind her shoulders now, to support her, and she could feel it there, +warm and strong. Breathing when he breathed, her heart beating in time +with his, swinging far to right and left, tense with the stroke or +yielding deliciously in the recovery, caught in the rhythm of it as if +some force outside them both were carrying them on like one, and not +two, and would never let them go, Judith yet felt far away from him. + +She was alone in the heart of a snow-covered world, but she was growing +content to be alone. She looked up at his white, set face with wide and +fearless eyes, while the lure of unexplored and unseen ice invited them +all around, and the gray and brooding sky shut them in closer and +closer. + +"Neil," she said softly, not caring now whether he answered or heard, "I +wish we needn't ever go back. I love to-day." + +Not long after this Judith and Neil went snow-shoeing one Saturday +afternoon by special appointment, an epoch-making event for them. Judith +did not often walk with him or take him driving when the sleigh was +entrusted to her. She was not often seen with him. With quartette +practice and committee work for the dramatic club and other official +pretexts for the time they spent together, Willard was not jealous yet, +though the winter was almost over, and the treasury of dreams was +filling fast. + +But this time she made an engagement with Neil as openly as if he were +Willard, while Natalie listened jealously. She started with him openly +from the front door, with her mother's disapproving eyes upon them from +the library window, and Neil proudly carrying her snowshoes, all +unconscious of the critical eyes. The afternoon began well, but no +afternoon with Neil could be counted upon to go as it began. Two hours +later, when they emerged from the Everard woods into the Colonel's +snow-covered rose garden, they had quarrelled about half a dozen +unrelated subjects, all equally unimportant in themselves, but suddenly +important to Neil, who now found further matter for debate. + +"What did you bring me in here for?" + +"Didn't you know I was?" + +"How should I know? I'm no friend of Everard's. I don't know my way +through his grounds." + +"What makes you call him Everard, without any Colonel or Mr.? It sounds +so--common." + +"It's good enough for me. Here, I don't want to go near his house. I +hate the sight of it." + +"But you can't go back by the path. It's too broken up." Judith plunged +into the dismantled rose arbour. "Come on, if you don't want to see the +house, take my hand and shut your eyes." + +"That's what Green River does," Neil muttered darkly, "shuts its eyes." +But he followed her. + +"The Red Etin's castle," Judith announced; "you know, in the fairy tale: + + "The Red Etin of Ireland, + He lived in Ballygan. + He stole King Malcolm's daughter, + The pride of fair Scotlan'. + 'Tis said there's one predestinate + To be his mortal foe---- + +Well, you talk as if the Colonel were the Red Etin, poor dear. Oh, Neil, +look!" + +Sinister enough, looming turreted and tall against a background of +winter woods, its windows, unshuttered still, since the last of the +Colonel's week-end parties, and curtainless, catching the slanting rays +of the afternoon sun and glaring malignantly, the house confronted them +across the drifted lawn. + +In the woods that circled the house, denuded of undergrowth, seeming +always to be edging forlornly closer to the upstanding edifice for +comfort because it was barren and unfriendly, too, the new-fallen snow +lay shadowy and soft, clothing the barrenness with grace. Giant pine and +spruce that had survived his invasion stood up proud and green under the +crown of snow that lay lightly upon them, as it had lain long ago, +before the Colonel came. And between woods and house, erasing all trace +of tortuous landscape gardening, flower-bed and border and path, as if +it had never been, lay a splendid, softly shining sweep of blue-white +snow. The Colonel's unbidden guests forgot their quarrel and plunged +eagerly across the white expanse. + +"Catch me," Judith called, but it was Neil, snatching off her toboggan +cap by its impudent tassel, who had to be caught. It was heavy and +breath-taking work on the broad, old-fashioned snowshoes which she +managed with clumsy grace. Judith, short-skirted and trim in fleecy +white sweater, collar rolled high to the tips of small, pink ears, blond +curls blowing in the wind, pursued ardently. Neil evaded her like a lean +and darting shadow, hands deep in the pockets of his old gray sweater, +cap low over his brooding eyes. + +Under the unrelenting glare of the Colonel's windows, and across the +deserted grandeur of his lawn, the two small and dishevelled figures +dodged and doubled and retreated, only to grapple and trip each other up +at last at the foot of the veranda steps, and collapse there, breathless +and laughing. But their laughter died quickly, and Judith, pulling the +recovered cap over her wind-tossed curls, watched the brooding gloom +come back into Neil's eyes as he settled into a sulky heap on the step +below her. + +Her quarrels with Neil were as strange as her beautiful hours with him, +fed by black undercurrents of feeling that swept and surprised her, +flaming up suddenly like banked fires. She was hotly angry with him now. + +"Neil, I heard what you said about Green River shutting its eyes. It was +foolish." + +"I'd say it to his face." Neil flashed a black look at the bland and +elegant drawing-room windows, as if he could talk to the Colonel through +them. "I've got worse than that to say to Everard." + +"Then say it to me. Don't hint. I'm tired of hearing you. You're as bad +as Norah." + +"You wouldn't understand." + +That is the irresistible challenge to any woman. Judith's eyes kindled. +Neil slouched lower on the steps, dropping his head in his hands. +"Everard," he threw out presently, "has bought the Hiawatha Club Camp." + +"I don't believe it." + +"The club was in debt. That's a bad thing for a club or a man to be, if +the Colonel knows it. And it's a worse thing for a woman." + +"What do you mean?" + +He did not explain or raise his head. "I've got a job for the summer +vacation," he said presently. + +"Already? Fine." + +"Oh, fine. In the fish market--tend store, drive the cart. And I'm fired +from the _Record_, Judith." + +"Fired?" + +"They're going to take on one more man, and pay him real money." + +"But you've got the Green River Jottings to do for the Wells _Clarion_." + +"And I may get two dollars a month out of it." + +"Did you see Judge Saxon again?" + +"Last week." + +"Why didn't you tell me what he said?" + +"I told you what he would say." + +"Oh, Neil!" + +"The Judge hates to say no, that's why he took time to think it over. +He'd be a bigger man if he didn't hate to say no. He was right to say no +to me." + +"Then I wouldn't admit it." + +"What's it worth to read law in a country law office? The time for +that's past. He's right. And suppose he took me on, what would it do for +me? Look at Charlie. Doing hack work and dirty work to pay the rent of a +place to drink himself to death in. He's got brains enough. He knows law +enough. He's slaved and starved and got ready for his chance, and his +chance don't come. Why? Because he's Charlie Brady. Well I'm Neil +Donovan. I'm Irish, too, what they called me the first time I saw you--a +paddy." + +"That's not the Colonel's fault." + +"Who do you think gets the _Record_ job?" + +Judith shook her blond head, disdaining to answer, a gathering storm in +her eyes. + +"Chet Gaynor--Mr. J. Chester Gaynor. Lil Burr's brother. Her prize +brother, the one that's been fired from three prep schools. Everard got +him a scholarship at the last one." + +"Why not? He ought to help his friends. He's a kind man and lots of fun. +It's not his fault if you don't get on. It's your own fault. You don't +have to work in a fish market if you don't want to, or sit there and +sneer at a man who doesn't care what you think of him. Abraham Lincoln +split rails----" + +Judith stopped, amazed. Quite abruptly Neil had ceased to sit on the +steps and sneer. He was on his feet, hands clenched, thin body tense and +dangerous, face dead white and eyes blazing, as Judith had never seen +him before, or only once before, too angry for words, but not needing +them. + +"Neil, do you really hate him? Hate him like that? I never thought you +meant it. But why--what has he done?" + +"Care what I think? If I was any one else--your fool of a Willard--any +one in this town but me, I'd make him care." + +"He's done nothing wrong. Neil, don't. Your eyes look all queer. You're +frightening me." + +"No, he's done nothing wrong, nothing you could get him for. He's too +careful. He plays favourites. He fools women. He locks the door to every +chance to get on in this town and he sells the keys. He's got his hand +on the neck of the town, and he's shutting it tighter and tighter. +That's all he does. That's all Everard does." + +"You can't prove it." + +"He takes good care I can't." + +"You can't prove a word of it." + +"Your father could." + +"He's kind to father. He's kind to me." + +"You talk like a child." + +"Well, you talk like my mother's cook.... Oh, Neil, I didn't mean to say +that. Forgive me. Where are you going? I didn't mean to say it." + +"Let me go." + +"You're hurting me." + +"I hate you! You're one of them--one of the Everard crowd. I hate you, +too!" + +"What are you going to do?" Her short, panting struggle with him over, +her wrists smarting from the backward twist that had broken her hold on +him, she leaned against the veranda rail breathless and stared with +fascinated eyes. When this quarrel had gone the way of their other +quarrels, atoned for by inarticulate words of infinite meaning, +justified by the keen delight of reconciling kisses, Judith was to keep +one picture from it: Neil as she saw him then, standing over her +white-faced and angry, ragged and splendid, Neil as she had seen him +once before. + +"May-night!" she cried. "You look the way you did that May-night. I'm +afraid of you." + +"Everard!" He turned from her, and looking at the windows again as if +the Colonel were behind him, swung back his arm, and sent it crashing +through the glass of the nearest one--once and a second time. "Oh, you +don't want me to call him Everard. Colonel Everard!" + +"Neil, I'm afraid." + +He looked at the fragments of broken glass and at Judith scornfully, but +the angry light was fading out of his eyes already, the magic light; +against her will she was sorry to see it go. + +"Are you hurt? Did you hurt your hand?" + +"What do you care if I did? Don't be afraid, Judy. He can pay for a pane +of glass or two. He wouldn't care if I burned his house down. Nobody +cares what I do. I'm a paddy." + +Awkward, suddenly conscious of his snowshoes, he shuffled across the +matched boards of the Colonel's veranda and down the steps, turning +there for a farewell word: + +"I'm going. Don't cry. I'm not worth it. I'm a paddy, from Paddy Lane." + +Dream pictures, pleasant or sad, making her cheeks burn in the dark, or +little secret smiles come when Judith recalled them. Some lived in her +heart and some faded. Judith did not choose or reject them deliberately. +They chose or rejected themselves, arranging themselves into an +intricate pattern of growing clearness. She did not watch it grow. It +was only when it was quite complete that she would see it, but it was +growing fast. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + + +"You'll find the coffee pot on the back of the stove. I'm washing out a +few things," said Mrs. Donovan. + +Though she kept her five little nephews and nieces in dark-patterned +dresses or shirts, as the case might be, and encouraged her brother +Michael to wear flannel shirts, and even limited her eldest niece, +Maggie Brady, clerking in the Green River Dry Goods Emporium now, +instead of helping her father in his little store at the Falls, to three +white waists a week, she was usually washing out a few things. + +The contending odours of damp clothes and rank coffee were as much a +part of the Brady kitchen as the dishes stacked in the sink for Neil to +wash, or the broken-legged, beautifully grained mahogany card table in +the warm corner near the stove, where his school books were piled, a +relic of his dead father's prosperous saloon-keeping days, or the view +of Larribee's Marsh through the curtainless windows with their torn +green shades. + +The swampy field was the most improvident part of an improvident +purchase--a brown, tumbledown house, wind swept and cold, +inconveniently far from the settlement at the Falls and the larger town, +heavily mortgaged, and not paid for yet, but early on sunny spring +mornings like this the field was beautiful; level and empty and green, +the only monotonous thing in that restless stretch of New England +country, billowy with little hills, and rugged with clumps of trees. A +boy could people the sunlit emptiness of the field with airy creatures +of folk-lore, eagerly gleaned in a busy mother's rare story-telling +moments, or with Caesar's cohorts marching across it, splendid in the +sun, if he had eyes for them. The only boy who ever had regarded the +familiar, glinting green of the field with unkindled eyes to-day as he +sat finishing his lukewarm breakfast. Yet it was Saturday morning, that +magic time, the last Saturday of his last spring vacation, and he had +only one more term of school before him. + +On this Saturday morning he had an unpleasant errand to do, and he was +carefully dressed for it, just as he had been dressed for the Lyceum +declamation contest and ball the night before, but not so effectively, +for his best black suit showed threadbare in the morning sun, and the +shine on his shoes was painstakingly applied, and a heavy, even, blue +black, but they needed tapping. His brown eyes had a big, rather hungry +look that was unquestionably picturesque, and Miss Natalie Ward would +have approved of it, if his mother did not, watching him as she trailed +in and out of the room. + +"Making out all right? Don't hurry," she said. + +"I'm in no hurry to get there," agreed her son. + +"He won't say no to you. He never has yet, and he likes you." + +"Oh, he won't say no. Nothing new will happen to me in this town; not +even that." + +Neil's mother paused, balancing her clothes basket against one hip, and +deftly favouring the string-mended handle, then put it heavily down, and +leaned on the table and looked at him--a small, tired, pretty woman, +with gray, far-away eyes that were like no other eyes in Green River, +and a smile like Neil's. + +"Tired?" she said. + +"Dog tired." + +"Well, you were out till three." + +"One. That was Maggie you heard at three. Where was she?" + +"That's her business." + +"It's Charlie's, if he's going to marry her." + +"It's not yours, then. Never mind Maggie. Your uncle and I had a talk +about you last night." + +"Why don't you ask to see my dance order?" He made a defensive clutch +at his pocket as if she had, and quick colour swept into his cheeks. She +watched it, and watched it fade, leaving his face tired and sullen, and +too old for its years. "Uncle!" + +"He's been like a father to you." + +"I've been two sons to him, then. He's worked me like two. If he grudges +the time I take off, I can make it up to him. There's been little enough +of it, and there'll be little more, and there's been little enough +enjoyment in it, and I'm not ashamed of it. Why don't he spy on his own +daughter, if he's curious? Why----" This outburst ended as suddenly as +it began, in a short, sullen laugh as he pushed his empty cup away. "Dan +thinks he can land something for me with the telephone company. I +couldn't send money home at first, but I'd be off your hands. Tell that +to Uncle." + +"Would you be with Dan, in Wells?" + +"Somewhere outside Wells. It won't be too gay. You needn't be afraid +I'll go to too many dances." + +"Don't glare at me. I'm not your uncle." + +"Sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me." + +"Don't you?" + +He flushed, laughed, and ignored the question, producing a small box and +offering it. "I got that last night. Don't wipe your hands. They're good +enough to handle it wet." A gold medal glittered in her hand. He +observed it without enthusiasm, and noticing that, his mother shut the +box abruptly. + +"Neil, that's the first prize." + +"Looks like it. I spoke the Gettysburg address, and they always fall for +that. Good-bye, I'm off." + +"Neil, come back here." + +He swung round with his cap doubled under his arm, and stood before her, +helpless and sullen, hedged about with that sudden dignity which no +woman creature can break through, but seeming to derive no comfort from +it. Painful colour mounted to her cheeks, as if the effort of keeping +him there was all she could manage without the effort of opening +delicate subjects. + +"Neil, I'm worried about you." + +"Why? Are you afraid I'll marry beneath me? I won't marry without your +consent. It's not being done." + +"You got three dollars from the _Clarion_ last week." + +"Are you afraid I'll try to support a wife on it?" + +"It's the most you've made from them. Why weren't you proud of it? Why +aren't you proud of this prize? A year ago you'd have had me up at one +to speak your piece to me. There's no life in you, and no pride, and I +know why." + +"Me with so much to be proud of." + +"You're good enough for any girl, but----" + +"Do you think I don't know my place, with the whole town teaching it to +me going on eighteen years? I've got no false hopes, and I shan't lose +my head over any girl. Let me be." + +"It's not the town that's taught you your place, it's----" + +"Don't you say her name." + +"--empty headed and overdressed." + +"Go on. Judith Randall don't care what you think of her." + +"Can't you even get up enough spirit to stand up for her? You that +thought you had your fortune all but made when you got the chickens paid +for, and followed me round the house, telling me how you'd run the town? +You that could tell what was wrong with the _Record_ editorials, if you +couldn't pay for a year's subscription to the paper? You----" + +"Yes, I come from one of the five lines in Ireland what have a right to +the O', but you never tell me that unless you've got something else to +tell me that you're afraid to tell. What is it this time?" + +"You come of Irish kings." + +"What did Uncle say last night?" + +"Well, he's getting to be an old man." + +"What did he say?" + +His mother did not reply. She avoided his eyes, and made no further +criticism of him, or of a young lady who was no doubt as indifferent to +her criticisms as Neil said, since she did not recognize Mrs. Donovan on +the street. + +"Uncle," Neil decided deliberately, "wants me to help in the store. I +can't go to Wells." + +"He can't get on alone now Maggie's gone. We need your board money to +run the house at all. Dan was wild to get away from Green River, but in +two years he's got no farther than Wells, and ten dollars a week. I know +we ought to leave you free to start yourself, if we can't give you a +start, but----" + +"Is that all you want to tell me?" + +She put out an unaccustomed arm and pulled him awkwardly close. He came +obediently, and patted her shoulder stiffly but did not kiss her. "I +know what this means," she asserted, and showed a rapidly forming +intention of crying on his shoulder. "It hurts me like it does you." + +[Illustration: "'_I know what this means,' she asserted_'"] + +"It don't hurt me. I ought to have seen it myself. I ought not to have +planned to go. It's all right, mother. Is that all?" + +"All? It's enough. I was awake half the night planning to break it to +you." + +"You broke it all right. I'll be going." He shook out his crushed +cap, and adjusted it with dignity, looking at her calmly out of +impenetrable eyes, like a young prince ending an audience, with more +power behind him than he knew, kissed her gravely on the cheek with cool +young lips, and opened the door, and walked off into the sunshine. + +"It's the girl," said his mother, but not until the door had closed +behind him. "No girl is good enough to do what she's done to you." Then +she selected the frilliest of Maggie's blouses, which had dried while +she talked, and spread it on the ironing table to sprinkle again. + +Neil did not look like a young man crossed in love, or a young man with +his future wrecked by a word. He did not give a backward glance to the +little brown house with the sun on its many-paned windows, or seem to +hear the children's voices from the old barn behind the house--the +favourite refuge of the little Bradys when they were banished from the +kitchen--that echoed after him in the clear morning air, shrill and then +fainter as he left the place behind. + +He had settled into his usual pace for this familiar walk--a steady +stride that you could fit the unmanageable parts of a Latin verb to the +rhythm of, or the refractory words of a song; but it was not a usual +day. It was the first warm day of that April, warmer already, with the +goading urge of spring in the softening air that frets and troubles with +new desires and a sense of unfitness for them at once, and will not let +you be. The road, fringed with scattering trees, and wind-swept and +bleak on winter days, was golden with new sunlight, spongy underfoot, +but drying under your eyes in the morning sun. The boy's brooding face +did not change as he walked, but his shoulders straightened themselves, +and lost their patient look, and his lean young body gave itself more +gayly to the swing of his pace and looked strong and free, alive with +the unconscious strength of youth that must be caught and harnessed to +make the wheels of the world go round before it can be taught what its +purpose is. + +Whether it troubled him or not--his face did not tell--all that his +mother had hinted was wrong with his world, and more. No outsider had +ever won a place like Neil's in Green River High School society so far +as the unwritten history of it recorded. Charlie Brady in his time, and +Dan after him, had been extra men at big dances, hard worked and +patronized in school entertainments, more intimate with the boys than +the girls. Charlie, deep in a secret love affair with Lil Gaynor, had +still called her Miss in public, and treated her as respectfully as he +did now that the affair was forgotten and she was Mrs. Burr and one of +the Everard circle. Charlie and Dan had only looked over impassable +barriers. Neil had been really inside--included in small, intimate +parties, like week-ends at Camp Hiawatha, openly favoured by Natalie, if +not Judith--inside and he would soon be shut out. + +There were new signs of it every day. The long, friendly winter, when he +had been safe in that intimate fellowship, was over. The girls were +planning their gowns for college commencement dances. Willard came back +from a week-end at the state university pledged to a fraternity there +and refusing to discuss minor subjects. God-like creatures in amazing +neckties condescended to visit him, and Natalie was beginning to collect +fraternity pins. Rena and Ed were engaged, and under the impression that +it was a secret, and a place was being made for Ed in the bank. In one +way or another, the world was opening to all of them, and closing to +Neil. + +And with the spring, the Everards had come back to Green River. The big, +over-decorated house had not been open a week, but already they pervaded +the town. Their cars whirled through the splashing spring streets, and +ladies not upon Mrs. Everard's calling list peered at the passengers to +see who was in her favour. The Colonel was turning the Hiawatha Club +into a private camp, and closing it to the town, but nobody protested +much. He was ordering a complete set of slip covers from the furniture +department of Ward's Emporium, and the daring group of prominent +business men who ventured to assail the Colonel's political views and +private morals sometimes in the little room at the rear of the store +lacked support from Ward. Neil had the run of the store and hung about +and listened, but never contributed. Whether these criticisms were +justified or not, the Everards were back again. + +Judith had given up the Lyceum dance for the first of the Everard +dinners the night before. It was three days since Neil had seen her, and +he was to see her to-day, but he was showing no impatience for the +meeting. The end of the world, not the beginning of it, that was what +spring would mean to him, and that is a graver catastrophe at eighteen +than at eighty. The boy who was facing it had passed the outlying +straggle of houses, and had come to the edge of the town, and to the end +of the long, hilly street that led down past the court-house, straight +into Post Office Square, the heart of the town. It was still empty of +traffic at ten, and looked sunny and empty and clean, wide-awake for the +day. He took his hands out of his pockets, stopped whistling "Amos +Moss," and hurried down Court-house Hill, stepping in time to the tune +of it. + +A mud-splashed Ford clattered down Main Street, and drew up in front of +the post-office as Neil reached it with a flourish that would have done +credit to a more elegant equipage than this second-hand one of the +Nashes. Two elegant young gentlemen, week-end guests of Willard's and +duly presented to Neil the night before, ignored his existence, perusing +a gaudily covered series of topical songs with exaggerated attention on +the rear seat of the car, but Willard greeted him exuberantly: + +"Ah, there, Murph. You don't look like the morning after. Sorry I +haven't got room for you. We've got other plans. We love the ladies." + +"I'm tied up, anyway. So long." + +Willard's tone was too patronizing, but he was not to blame, for the +days when they would exchange intimate greetings at all were numbered. +As Neil left them one of the elegant guests demanded audibly: + +"Who's your friend?" + +Neil flushed but did not look back. He had an errand to do in the few +minutes before his appointment with Judge Saxon. He crossed the street +to Ward's store. + +Ward's Dry Goods Emporium, three stores in one, and literally three +stores bought out one by one, and joined by connecting doors, though +they could never be united in their style of architecture, was rather +dark and chaotic inside, though a brave showing of plate glass across +the front advertised its prosperity. Luther Ward himself, in his shirt +sleeves, was looking over a tray of soiled, pale-coloured spats, +assisted by a tall, full-bodied girl with a sweet, sulky mouth, and a +towering mass of blue-black hair. + +"Hello, Donovan, what's new?" he said, with only a shade more +condescension than Willard, and distinctly more friendliness. + +"Nothing, sir," said Neil with conviction. + +"You want to talk to Maggie, here. I won't intrude on a family quarrel," +said Mr. Ward, and chuckling heartily at his own mild joke, as he +generally did, and few others did, disappeared into the furniture +department, the central one of the three stores, and his favourite. The +two cousins regarded each other across the tray of spats as if the +family quarrel were not a joke, but an unpleasant reality. + +"You can't come here and take up my time," stated Miss Brady. + +"Your time is pretty full--evenings, too. Do you know where Charlie was +last night?" + +"I don't care." + +"You ought. He's your second cousin, and goes by the same name as you, +if you're not in love with him. He was in Halloran's billiard hall." + +"If he can't keep himself out of the gutter, I can't keep him out," +stated Miss Brady logically. + +"Well, don't push him in," her cousin advised, but the light of battle +had died out of his eyes, leaving them listless. "It's nothing to me. I +only came to bring you this." + +He produced something from an inner pocket and tossed it on the counter, +something wrapped in a twist of newspaper, which parted as the girl bent +eagerly over it, something which shone and twinkled alluringly, as she +straightened it out with caressing fingers and held it up to the +light--a little necklace of rather ornate design and startling colours, +crimson stones and green and blue, the gayest of toys. + +"Seems to be yours all right." + +His cousin, who seemed to have forgotten his existence for one rapt +moment, remembered it with a start. "Did you show this to your mother?" +she asked sharply. + +"Why?" + +"Well, she don't like to have me spend my money on imitation jewellery." +Miss Brady delivered this very natural explanation haltingly. + +"Do you?" + +One of the sudden, vivid blushes which had helped to establish her +reputation as a beauty overspread Miss Brady's cheek. "I missed it this +morning and didn't have time to hunt for it, and I was worried. I don't +want to show it to her. It cost a good deal." + +"It must have. They say a ruby's the only stone you can't imitate." + +"What do you mean?" Miss Brady's cheeks grew still redder. "Why don't +you save your big talk for Saxon? You may need it. Why don't you mind +your own affairs, and leave mine alone?" + +"Leave that on the kitchen floor for mother to find and sweep up in a +broken dust-pan, or one of the kids to show to your father?" + +"Why not? Haven't I got a right to do what I want with my own money? +Haven't I got a right to do what I want with myself? Who are you to +dictate to me, with the Randall girl making a fool of you? Why----" + +"That will be all." Though Miss Brady's voice had been threatening to +make itself heard throughout all the three stores in one, she stopped +obediently, looking defiant but frightened, but when her cousin spoke +again the ring of authority which had shocked her was gone from his +voice. + +"Don't be scared. It's nothing to me what you do, and I shan't talk too +much. You know me, Mag." + +"No, I don't, not lately. You act doped, not half there. I can't make +you out. If you think--if you suspect----" + +"I don't. It's nothing to me. I'm due at Saxon's. Put your glass beads +away before Ward sees them. Good luck to you." + +Miss Brady, standing quite still in one of her carefully cultivated, +statuesque poses, watched her cousin cross the street and disappear into +a narrow and shabbily painted doorway there. Then she took his advice, +and producing a red morocco wrist bag from under the counter, shut the +necklace into it with a vicious snap, as if she did not derive so much +pleasure as before from handling it now. + +Her cousin climbed the three flights of stairs to Judge Saxon's office. +The stairs were dingy and looked unswept, and a pane of glass in the +door of the untenanted suite across the landing from the Judge's was +broken. Nothing about the Judge's quarters indicated that he was Colonel +Everard's attorney, a big man in the town before the Everard regime, and +under it--an unusual combination. His office was shabby outside and in. +The lettering on the door, Saxon and Burr, Attorneys-at-Law, looked +newer than it was by contrast, and it was still only six months old. +Theodore Burr had his delayed junior partnership at last. + +The Judge's young client did not pause to collect himself on the worn +door-mat, as he had done when he first came here on errands like this. +They were an old story to him now, and so were scenes like the one with +Maggie, which he had just come through so creditably. He looked quite +unruffled by it, calm as people are when they have no troubles to +bear--or when they have borne all they can, and are about to find relief +in establishing the fact. He knocked and stepped inside. + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + + +A fire in the air-tight stove in the corner had taken the early morning +chill from the room and been permitted to burn out, now that the morning +sun came in warm through the dusty windows, but the room was still close +and cloudy with wood smoke. At a battered, roll-topped desk in the +sunniest window Mr. Theodore Burr was struggling with the eccentricities +of an ancient Remington, and looking superior to it and to all his +surroundings, but the Judge was nowhere to be seen. + +Mr. Burr was a very large, very pink young man, with blond hair which +would have looked too good to be true on a woman, and near-set, +green-blue eyes which managed to look vacant and aggressive at the same +time. He was wearing a turquoise-blue tie which accentuated their +effectiveness, and he occupied himself ostentatiously with the Remington +for quite three minutes before he turned his most vacant and aggressive +look upon his client. + +"Well, Donovan?" he said. + +Mr. Burr's manner was as patronizing as Mr. Ward's with the +friendliness left out, but his client was not chilled by it. + +"Theodore, where's the Judge?" he asked. + +"Mr. Burr." The pink young man turned two shades pinker as he made the +correction. "The Judge is engaged." + +"I don't believe it." + +Mr. Burr laughed unpleasantly and held up his hand. From the other side +of a door labelled private--misleadingly, for the Judge's little +sanctum, where half the town had the privilege of crowding in and +tipping back chairs and smoking, was the nearest approach to a clubroom +that the town afforded, now that the Hiawatha Club was no more--muffled +voices were faintly audible. + +"You can talk to me," said Mr. Burr. + +"I can, and I can go away and come back when he's not engaged. He said +he'd see me." + +"He's changed his mind. He don't want to see you. I know all about your +case." + +"You've learned a lot in six months." + +"Talk like that won't get you anything, Donovan, here or anywhere else," +remarked Mr. Burr, reasonably, if somewhat offensively. Admitting it, +his client dropped into one of the Judge's big office chairs, and sat +there, fingering his cap as he talked, and looking suddenly beaten and +tired. + +"You're right, Theodore. Well, what's all this you know about my case?" + +"Mike Brady sends you here begging when he's ashamed to come himself. +It's hard on you, Neil." + +"My uncle's too busy to come. Is that all you know?" + +"I know what you want to-day, and you can't have it." + +"What do I want?" + +Mr. Burr's manner had become alarmingly official, but his client +continued to smile at him, and to fold and unfold his cap methodically. + +"An extension of time on your uncle's mortgage. The principal is due the +first of next month. You've kept the Judge waiting twice for the +interest, the security is insufficient, the bank holds a first mortgage +on the house, and for fourteen months your uncle has made no payment to +the Judge whatever." + +"Don't rub it in, Theodore." + +"This is no laughing matter. Business is business," stated the junior +partner importantly. + +"More like charity, with the Judge, but Uncle isn't holding him up for +much this time. Uncle's getting on his feet. The Judge never expected +him to, and I didn't, but the automobiles help. Maggie served tea before +she went to Ward's, and he's going on with it. His luck has turned. +He's got the money to pay this year's interest and half the back +interest that's due, but he wants to keep it and put it into +repairs--the roof wants shingling, and if we could fix up the storeroom +for a place to serve tea and ice-cream we could double trade. Then, next +year----" + +"We've heard too much about next year, Donovan." + +"Don't get tragic, Theodore. This is a new proposition. I'll go into +figures with the Judge and prove it to him--don't want to waste them on +you. But he won't be sending good money after bad this time, like he's +done too many times. I'm as glad for him as I am for Uncle." + +"It can't be done." + +"Nonsense, Theodore. I won't wait to see the Judge now, but you tell +him----" + +"It don't make any difference what I tell him. The Judge has made up his +mind, and he won't change it. You can take it from me as well as him. +You won't get another dollar of his money, and you won't get another +month's extension of time. We're done with you." + +"I almost believe you mean that, Theodore." + +"As I said, the house is insufficient security, but for the sake of the +dignity of the firm we must protect ourselves----" + +"I believe you mean it, and the Judge gave you authority to say it." + +"We must go through the form of protecting ourselves and----" + +His client laughed. "You don't mean the Judge wants to take over the +house. That's 'Way Down East stuff. If money's tight with him, we'll pay +the interest and manage some way, though I don't see how. But the house +would be no good to him if he took it, and he wouldn't take it if it +was. I know the Judge. Don't let your imagination get away with you, +Theodore." + +"I'm sorry for you, Donovan." + +"You think he's going to take it?" + +"I know he is." + +"You mean that," his client decided slowly, "and you've got the Judge's +authority for it, too." + +"Take it quietly. It's the best way," urged the junior partner +helpfully. + +"I understand that's your motto, Theodore," said his client, and +proceeded to take his advice, sitting quite still in the Judge's big +chair, and fixing a clear-seeing but unappreciative gaze upon the +immaculate folds of Mr. Burr's turquoise-blue tie. He took the advice +too literally. The silence grew oppressive and sinister, and as if he +found it so, Mr. Burr broke into a monologue, disjointed, but made up +of irreproachable sentiments. + +"This is hard on your uncle, Neil, and it's hard on you, but it may be +the best thing in the end. He's been hiding behind you too long. A +business that can't stand on its own feet deserves to fail. He can start +new and start clean. The Judge has been a good friend to you----" + +"Don't explain him to me. You don't own him, whoever else does," +interrupted the Judge's protege softly. + +"What do you mean? If you don't think you're getting a square deal, say +so." + +"Do you want me to weep on your shoulder, Theodore?" + +"The Judge is your friend, and," Mr. Burr added handsomely, "I'm your +friend, too." + +His client arose briskly, as if encouraged by this. "Theodore, you don't +want to tell me what's back of your turning me down?" he asked. "No, I +thought not. Well----" + +"I'm your friend," repeated Mr. Burr, generously if irrelevantly, and +this time without effect. His client had crossed the room without +another glance at him, and had his hand on the knob of the Judge's +office door. His manner still had the composure which Mr. Burr had +advocated, but his face was very pale, ominously pale, and his brown +eyes were changed and bright, dangerously bright. To imaginative eyes +like Mr. Burr's he must have looked suddenly taller. + +Mr. Burr was facing an unmistakable crisis, with no time to wonder how +long it had been forming, or why. He hurried after the boy and caught +him fiercely if ineffectively by the arm. + +"You can't go in there," stated Mr. Burr arbitrarily, all logic +deserting him. "You can't. You don't know----" + +"Oh, I'm not going to knife the Judge," his client explained kindly. +"I'm only going to find out what's back of this." + +"Take it quietly," was the ill-chosen sentiment which suggested itself +to Mr. Burr. Neil Donovan swung round angrily, and paused to reply to +it, with fires which the somewhat negative though offensive personality +of the pink young man could never have kindled alight in his brown eyes. + +"Quietly? There's been too much of that in this town. I'm sick of it. +The only friend I've got who hasn't got one foot in the gutter goes back +on me for no reason at all, the first time I ask a favour of him that +don't amount to picking his pockets. The only big man in this rotten +town who's halfway straight since Everard turned the town rotten begins +to act like he wasn't straight. What's back of it? I'm going to know. +Get out of my way, Theodore." + +"You don't know who's in there." + +"I don't care. I'm going to know." Disposing of the hovering and anxious +intervention of Mr. Burr, and throwing the door open, he slammed it in +the pink young man's perturbed face, and stepped alone out of the +sunshine into the Judge's dim little inner office. + +The Judge's friendly littered little room was not so inviting in working +hours as it was in the hospitable hours of late afternoon. It was like a +woman seen in evening dress by daylight. But the boy who had invaded it +so hotly unmasked no conspiracy here. The men at the table near the one +window, with a pile of official but entirely innocent looking papers +between them, had every right to be there. They were the Judge and +Colonel Everard. + +The great man looked quite undisturbed by the boy's invasion, glancing +up at him indifferently from the papers that he was turning over with +his finely moulded, delicately used hands; he even looked mildly amused, +but the boy turned to him first instinctively, and not to the Judge, who +was peering at him with troubled and kindly eyes over the top of his +glasses. + +"I've got to speak to the Judge. I'm sorry." + +He stammered out his half-apology awkwardly enough, but the smouldering +fires were still alight in his brown eyes, tragic fires of cowed and +rebellious youth. The great man regarded him indifferently for a minute +and then turned rather ostentatiously to his papers again. + +"Judge, I've got to speak to you alone." + +"You can't just now, son." + +"I've got to." + +"Why?" + +The Judge's kind, drawling voice was not quite as usual, and his blue, +near-sighted eyes were not; they were wistful and deprecating, and +rather tired, a beaten man's eyes, eyes with an irresistible appeal to +the race that is vowed to lost causes, this boy's race. The boy stepped +instinctively closer. + +"I don't blame you, sir, but I've got to understand this and know what's +behind it." + +"Better go home before you say anything you'll be sorry for, Neil." + +"Why did you go back on me?" + +"You're taking a sentimental attitude about a business matter. It's +natural enough that you should. I'm sorry for you, son." + +"Why----" + +The Judge drew himself up a shade straighter in his chair, and met the +boy's insistent challenge with sudden dignity, kindly but judicial, +peculiarly his own, but his flashes of it were not very frequent now. + +"Neil," he said deliberately, "I've got nothing to say to you alone. +I've got nothing to say to you at all that Mr. Burr hasn't said. Is that +quite clear to you?" + +It was entirely clear. The Judge had left no room for uncertainty or +argument, and the boy did not attempt to argue or even to answer. He +stood looking uncertainly down at the Judge, as if for the moment he +could not see anything in the room quite distinctly, the Judge's face, +with its near-sighted blue eyes and red-gold beard and thinning hair, or +Colonel Everard's clear-cut profile. + +"Better go," said the Judge gently. + +"I'd better go," the boy repeated mechanically, but he did not move. + +Colonel Everard put down his papers deliberately, and favoured him with +a glance, amused and surprised, as if he had not expected to find him +still in the room, and was prepared to forget at once that he was there; +a disconcerting sort of glance, but the boy's brown eyes met it +gallantly, and cleared as they looked. They grew bright and defiant +again, with a little laugh in the depths of them. The ghost of a laugh, +too, lurked in the boy's low voice somewhere. + +"You're right, Judge. I'll go. I'm wasting my time here," he said, +"asking you who's back of what you've done to me--when I know. I won't +ask you again, but I'll ask you, I'll ask you both, who's back of +everything that's crooked or wrong in this town? Little or big, he's +back of it all; straight back of it, or well back of it, hiding his face +and pulling the wires. He's to blame for it all, for he's made the town +what it is. + +"He's got his hand on the neck of the town, and got hold of it tighter, +gradual, so nobody saw it and knocked it off; tighter and tighter, +squeezing the life out. He never made a gift to the town with one hand +that he didn't take it back with the other. What the town gets without +him giving it, he won't let it keep. The whole town's got his stamp on +it, grafting and lying and putting up a front. The whole town's afraid +of him. The Judge here, that's the best man in town, don't dare call his +soul his own. Me, I'm afraid of him, too, and the only reason I dare +stand up and say to his face what's said behind his back is because I've +got nothing to lose. It's him, there----" + +"Don't, son," muttered the Judge tardily, unregarded, but Colonel +Everard listened courteously, with a faint, amused smile growing rather +stiff on his thin lips. + +"Him, that's too good to speak to me or look at me, sitting there +grinning, and reading fine print, making out not to care, he's back of +it all--him, Everard." + +The two men, who had heard him out, did not interrupt him now. It was +only a passionate jumble of boyish words they had listened to, but +behind it, vibrating in his tense voice, was something bigger than he +could frame words to express, something that commanded silence; pain +forcing its way into speech, long repression broken at last. The dignity +of it was about him still, though his brown eyes flashed no more +defiance, and he was only a shabby and hopeless boy walking uncertainly +to the office door, and fumbling with the handle. + +"I'll go out this way," he said. "I've had enough of Theodore. And I've +had enough of this place. I'll say good morning, gentlemen." + +In a prosaic and too often unsatisfactory world, which is not the stage, +no curtain drops to relieve you of the embarrassment of thinking what to +say next after a record speech; you have to step out of the limelight, +and walk somewhere else. Neil Donovan, emerging from the ancient +building which contained Judge Saxon's office into Post-office Square +after a brief interval of struggling successfully for self-control in a +dusty corridor little suited to such struggles, and not even ensuring +the privacy which is wrongly believed to be necessary for them, had one +more appointment to keep. He was late for it already. He glanced at the +town clock and started off hurriedly to keep it. + +Back of Court-house Hill another street, starting parallel to Court +Street, rapidly loses its sense of direction and its original character +of a business street, wavers to right and left, past a scatter of +discouraged looking houses, and finally slants off in the general +direction of the woods at the edge of the town, and the abortive, +sparsely wooded hill known to generations of picnickers--not the elite +of the town, but humbler, more rowdy picnickers--as Mountain Rock. + +The street never reaches it, but loses itself in a grubby tangle of +smaller streets, thickly set with small houses, densely and untidily +populated, the section known at first derisively and later in good faith +as Paddy Lane. Through the intricate geography of this quarter Colonel +Everard's only openly declared enemy might have been seen making a hasty +and expert way ten minutes later; quickly and directly as it permitted +him to, he approached the base of the hill. + +Disregarding more public and usual ways of ascent, he struck straight +across a stubbly field that lay behind a row of peculiarly forlorn and +tumbledown houses into a path so narrow that it was hard to see until +you were actually looking down it, between the twin birches that marked +the entrance. He followed it to the base of the cliff itself. The belt +of stunted birches and dusty-looking alders that skirted the cliff was +broken by an occasional scraggly pine. The boy stopped under one of +them, leaned against the decaying trunk, produced a letter, and read it. + +It was only a pencilled scrawl of a letter, on the roughest of copy +paper, and so crumpled that he must have been quite familiar with it, +but he read it intently. + + "Neil," it ran, "I'll meet you Saturday, on top of Mountain Rock, + same time and place. I shan't see you till then. I don't want to. + You frightened me last night. I don't like you lately. Be nice to + me Saturday. JUDITH." + +Only a pencilled scrawl, but he knew every word of it by heart, and of +the burst of excited speech in the Judge's office nothing remained in +his mind but the general impression that he had made a fool of himself +there. Perhaps he was too familiar with Judith's letter, for the sting +he had found there at first was gone from the words. He looked at them +dully. + +"I can't stand much more," he said aloud. + +He said it lifelessly, and with no defiance in his eyes, stating only a +wearisome fact. He had seen the Colonel's face through a kind of red +mist in the Judge's office, and felt reckless and strong. He did not +feel like a hero now. He was tired. + +He would hardly have cared just now if you had told him that back in +Judge Saxon's office two men who had not moved from their chairs since +he left them, and who would not move until several vital points were +settled, were discussing something he would not have believed them +capable of discussing at such length and with so much feeling--the +fortunes of the Donovan family. + +He did not care just now for the little sights and sounds of spring that +were all around him, the cluster of arbutus leaves at his feet, the +faint, nestling bird noises, sweeter than song, and the stir and rustle +of tiny, unclassified sounds that were signs of the pulse of spring +beating everywhere, of change and growth going on whether human beings +perceived or denied it. + +"I can't stand any more," said the boy. + +Up the cliff to his right, strewn with pine needles that were brown-gold +in the sun, a steep and tiny trail led the way to the top of the hill +and his rendezvous. Now the boy crushed Judith's letter into his pocket, +turned to the trail with a sigh, and began to climb. + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + + +"They won't like it, Judith," said Mrs. Randall for the last time, as +she slipped into her evening coat. + +"They? If you mean the Colonel----" + +"I do." + +Judith, looking up at her mother from the chaise-longue, could not have +seen the radiant vision that she had adored as a child, when the spring +and the Everards and the habit of evening dress all returned at once to +Green River. Mrs. Randall's blue gown was the creation of a Wells +dressmaker, but lacked the charm of earlier evening frocks, anxiously +contrived with the help of a local seamstress, when the clear blue that +was still her favourite colour had been her best colour, when there was +a touch more pink in the warm white of her complexion, and before the +tiny, worried line in her broad, low forehead was there to stay. But +there was no reflection of these changes in her daughter's big, watching +eyes. + +"It will do him good not to like it," said Judith sweetly. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Oh, nothing, Mamma. Is that the carriage? Don't be +late." + +Minna Randall looked down at her daughter in puzzled silence a moment, +with the little line in her forehead deepening, then slipped to her +knees beside her with a disregard for her new gown which was unusual, +and put a caressing hand on her forehead, a demonstration which was more +unusual still. + +"Your head does feel hot," she said, "but to stay away from a dance at +your age, just for a headache----" + +"I went to one last night." + +"A high school dance!" + +"There won't be any more of them. You needn't grudge it to me." Judith +buried her face in the cushions, and lay very still. + +"But the Colonel really arranged this for you. Dancing bores him. He +said you ought to be amused." + +"He didn't say so to me." + +"Are you laughing? I thought you were crying a minute ago." Judith gave +no further signs of either laughing or crying. "Judith, what does he say +to you? When you went with him to look at that night-blooming flower +with the queer name, last week, and were gone so long, what did he talk +to you about? You heard me. Please answer." + +"He's a stupid old thing." + +"What did he talk about?" + +"I don't remember." + +"Judith," Judith's mother stood plucking ineffectively at her long +gloves, and looking at the motionless white figure, very slender and +childish against the chintz of the cushions, soft, tumbled hair, and +hidden face, with a growing trouble in her eyes, "I ought to talk to +you--I ought to tell you--you're old enough now--old enough----" + +Judith turned with a soft, nestling movement, and opened her eyes again, +deep, watchful eyes that asked endless questions, and made it impossible +to answer them, eyes that knew no language but their own, the secret and +alien language of youth. Her mother sighed. + +"You're the strangest child. Sometimes you seem a hundred years old, and +sometimes--you don't feel too badly to stay alone? Mollie would have +stayed in with you, or Norah." + +"No. I would have gone, if I'd known you cared so much, but it won't do +any good to make yourself late, Mamma. Father's calling," said Judith +gravely. Still grave and unrelaxed, she returned her mother's rare +good-night kiss, and watched her sweep out of the room, turning the +rose-shaded night lamp low as she passed. + +There was a hurry of preparation downstairs, her mother's low, fretful +voice and her father's high and strained one joined in a heated +argument, and they started still deep in it, for her father did not call +a good-night to Judith. The street door shut, and she was alone in the +house. Carriage wheels creaked out of the yard and there was no +returning sound of them in search of some forgotten thing; a long enough +interval passed so that it was safe to infer that there would not be, +but Judith lay as her mother had left her, as still as if her headache +were really authentic, her questioning eyes on the rose-shaded light. + +There was much that might have increased her mother's concern for her in +her face, if you could interpret it fully; sometimes the eyes suggested +a fair proportion of the hundred years her mother had credited her with, +sometimes there was dawning fear in them, and sometimes an inconsequent, +gipsy light; sometimes her soft lips trembled pitifully, and sometimes +they smiled. Always it was a lovely face, rose flushed and eager in the +rosy light, and always something was evident which was enough to account +for her mother's concern and for more concern than her mother was +capable of feeling; Miss Judith Devereux Randall was growing up. + +Whatever questions occupied her answered themselves in a satisfactory +way at last, even an amusing way, for her smile had come to stay and +her eyes were dancing, when she jumped up from the chaise-longue at +last, turned on more lights, opened closets and bureau drawers all at +once, dropped various hastily chosen and ill-assorted articles on the +immaculate counterpane of her bed, and began to dress. + +She dressed without a glance into the mirror, and without need of it, it +appeared, when she stood before it at last, pulling a left-over winter +tam over rebellious curls which she had made no attempt to subdue. She +had buttoned herself hastily into the dress she had taken off last, a +tumbled organdy, and thrown a disreputable polo coat over it, white like +the cap, but of more prehistoric date, but on her slender person these +incongruous garments had acquired a harmony of their own, and become a +costume somehow. It might not have withstood a long or critical +inspection, but it was not subjected to one. Youth, in its divinely +suited garb of white, regarded itself with grave eyes for one breathless +minute, flushed and coquetted with itself for another, and then was gone +from the mirror. Judith turned off the lights and stole out of the room, +and downstairs. + +There was nothing in the dark and empty house to frighten her. It must +have been fear of whatever was before her that made her slip so softly +across the hall, and tremble and stand still when the door chain +rattled. The door was open at last. With a soft, inarticulate gasp of +excitement, she stepped out into the May night. + +Colonel Everard had an ideal night for the little dance in his garden, +warm, but with a quiver of new life in the air. The May moon was in its +last quarter, but lanterns were to supplement it. But the Colonel's +guest of honour, pausing at the corner of Main Street and looking +sharply to left and right, and then turning quickly off it, found very +little light on the narrow and tree-fringed cross-street through which +she was hurrying now but the moon. + +It hung slender and pale and low above the ragged row of little houses, +and seemed to go with her through the dark, but she took no notice of +its companionship. The street was deserted, and the tap of her little +heels sounded disconcertingly loud in the emptiness of it as she hurried +on, turning from the narrow street into a narrower one. + +This street had only one real end; pending the appropriation needed to +carry it straight through, witheld by agencies which could only be +connected by guess with Colonel Everard, it led feebly past a few houses +which were nearly all untenanted and looked peculiarly so to-night, to a +clump of alders at the edge of an unpenetrated wood lot, where it had +paused. Just in front of it the girl paused, too. + +Her small, white-coated figure was only dimly to be seen in the dark of +the street; the group in the shadow of the trees was harder to see, but +it moved; a horse pawed the ground impatiently, the boy in the buggy +leaned forward and spoke to him. Then Judith started uncertainly toward +him, and spoke softly, in the arrogant phrasing of lovers, to whom there +is only one "you" in the world: + +"Is that you?" + +"Is it you?" the boy's voice came hoarse through the dark. "I thought +you weren't coming. I waited an hour for you yesterday on the Rock." + +"I couldn't help it. I oughn't to be here now, and I almost didn't come, +but I thought we'd have to-night. Neil, you hurt my hand. Be nice to +me." + +She was standing close beside him now, and they could see each other's +faces, white and strange in the dark, but the boy's looked whiter, and +his breath came oddly, in irregular gasps. He held both her hands in +his, but he did not bend down to her, nor kiss her. + +"What makes you look so queer? I don't like you. Be nice to me." There +was something terribly wrong with the smug little phrases, or with any +words at all just then, there in the heart of the silent dark, and +facing the strangeness of the boy's eyes; words failed her suddenly, and +she pulled her hands away, and hid her face in them. "I won't go with +you--I'll go home, if you aren't nice to me--if----" + +"You can't go home now." There was something in the boy's voice that was +like the fierce clasp of his hands, something from which it was not so +easy to escape. "It might be better if you hadn't come, better for both +of us, but you can't go back now. It's too late. Yes, we'll have +to-night. Get in, Judith." + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + + +"Get in, Judith." + +"I won't go. You can't make me." + +The boy did not answer or move. Boy and buggy and horse--Charlie Brady's +ancient chestnut mare, not such a dignified creature by daylight, but +high shouldered and mysterious now against the dark of the grove--might +all have been part of the surrounding dark, they were so still, and +Judith's little white figure was motionless, too. + +Judith stood looking up at the boy for one long, silent minute. Such +minutes are really longer than other minutes, if you measure them by +heartbeats, and how else are you to measure them? Strange, breathless +minutes, that settle grave questions irrevocably by the mere fact of +their passing, whether you watch them pass with open eyes or are +helpless and young and vaguely afraid before them; helpless, but full of +the untaught strength of youth, which works miracles without knowing how +or why. + +"Get in," said the boy, very softly this time, so that his voice just +made itself heard through the dark; it was like part of the dark, +caressing and hushed and secret, and not to be denied. With a soft +little laugh that was attuned to it, Judith yielded suddenly, and +slipped into the carriage beside him, drawing the robe tight round her, +and settling into her corner, all with one quick, nestling motion, like +a bird perching. + +"Where are we going?" she said rather breathlessly, "Hurry. Let's go a +long, long way." + +"All right. Don't be frightened, Judith." + +"Frightened?" + +He did not answer. Charlie's horse, debarred from its destined career by +bad driving, that broke its wind in its first race, but of sporting +ancestry and unable to forget it, especially when Charlie's adventures +in the Green River under-world cheated it of exercise too long, was +remembering it now, and bolting down the hilly little street, settled at +last into a jerky and tentative gait with the air of accepting their +guidance until it could arrange further plans, but remembering its +ancestry still. + +"Splendid," Judith breathed. "Keep off Main Street." + +"Yes." + +The ancient vehicle, well oiled, but rattling faintly still, swung +alarmingly close to one street corner lamp-post and then another. Judith +nestled almost out of sight in her corner. Neil leaned forward, +gripping the reins with an ungloved hand that whitened at the knuckles, +his dark eyes looking straight ahead. His brooding eyes and quiet mouth, +and even the whiteness of his face had something unfamiliar about them, +something that did not all come from the unhealthy light of the street +lamps, something strange but unaccountably charming, too. Judith had no +eyes for it just then. + +"This is silly. I ought not to have come. Who's that?" + +"Nobody. Just a tree. Sit still. We'll go under the railroad bridge and +out over Grant's Hill. There won't be any more lights." + +"It looked like some one." + +"What do you care?" + +"It looked like your cousin Maggie." + +"She's at home in bed. She was tired to-night." + +"Oh. Well, it looked like her. It was silly to come. I never shall come +again." + +As if this were not a new threat, or had for some reason lost it terrors +to-night, the boy did not contradict her. They had left track and +railroad bridge behind now, darker blots against the surrounding dark, +with the lights of the station showing faintly far down the track. They +were passing the last of the houses that straggled along the +unfashionable quarter above the railroad track. Most of the houses here +were dark now. In the Nashs' windows the last light puffed suddenly out +as they went by. + +Down in the town behind them other sleepy little lights were burning +faintly, or going out, but ahead of them the faintly moonlit road looked +wide-awake. It was an alluring road. It dipped into wooded hollows, it +broke suddenly into arbitrary curves and windings but found its way out +again, and kept on somehow, and gradually lifted itself higher and +higher toward the crest of the hill five miles away that you reached +without ever seeming to climb it, to be confronted all at once with the +only real view between Wells and Green River. + +"I used to think Grant's Hill was the end of the world," said Judith +softly. "Maybe it is. It's funny I can say things like that to you, when +you only laugh and won't answer. Listen. Isn't it still, so still it +almost makes a noise." + +It was very still. You could feel the pulse of the night here. There was +a whisper and stir of life in the rustling trees when the road crossed +some belt of woods; there was a look of blind, creeping life about the +clustering shadows in stretches of moonlight, and the low-hanging moon +above the dark fields they passed was a living thing, too, the most +alive of all. Judith stirred in her corner, and turned and looked at +it. + +"It's sweet," she said. "And it's ours. It's still May. But we can't +wish on the moon now; it's too late. And I don't want to wish, I'm so +comfortable. Aren't you? Well, you needn't answer, then, and you needn't +hold my hand." She had felt for a hand that avoided hers. With a sleepy, +satisfied laugh, like a petted kitten purring, she settled herself +again, with her head against an unresponsive shoulder, and pulled an +unresponsive arm round her waist. + +"You aren't as soft as the cushions--not nearly. You're pretty hard, but +I like you. I was afraid to come, but now----" + +"Now what?" + +"There's nothing to be afraid of. I'm so happy. There's nobody in the +world but you and me. Neil, I'm going to sleep." + +"All right. Shut your eyes, then, and don't keep staring at me. What +makes your eyes so bright?" + +[Illustration: "'_Shut your eyes_'"] + +"You." + +"Shut your eyes." + +"All right. Nobody but you and me." + +They were really alone in the world now, alone in the heart of the +night. Their little murmur of talk, so low that they could just hear it +themselves, had been such a tiny trickle of sound that it did not quite +break the silence, and now it had died away. Asleep or awake, the +girl was quite still, with her cheek pressed against the boy's shoulder, +and her long-lashed eyes tight shut. The horse carried them over the +moonlit road at a rate of speed that did not seem possible from its +strange, loping gait. The effect of it was uncanny. + +Boy and girl and queer, high-shouldered horse, darkly silhouetted in the +moonlight, lost to sight in the shadows of tall trees that looked taller +in the dark, and then coming silently into view again, were like dim, +flitting shadows in the night; like peculiarly helpless and +insignificant shadows, restless and purposeless. The moon, soft and far +away and still, seemed more alive than they did, and more competent to +adjust their affairs. + +They required adjusting. That was in the watching brightness of the +girl's eyes, fluttering open once or twice, only to close quickly again, +in the tenseness of the boy's arm around her, in the set of his +shoulders and lift of his stubborn young chin, in the very air that he +breathed uneasily, the soft, disturbing air of the May night. It was not +a boy and girl quarrel that was before them: it was something more. It +was the strangest hour that had come to them in their secret treasury of +strange hours that were touched with the glamour of black magic and +swayed by laws they did not know. It might be the darkest hour. It was +the test hour. + +There is no sure and easy way through such hours. If they faced theirs +unprepared and afraid, so must the rest of the world, the part that is +older and counted wiser. But this could have been no comfort just then +to the boy and girl in the antiquated buggy, under the untroubled gaze +of the wishing moon. + +They were almost on the crest of the hill now. One long, upward slant of +road led straight to it, bare of trees, and silvery in the moonlight. At +the foot, and just at the edge of a thick belt of woods, the boy pulled +up as if to rest his horse for the gradual ascent. At his left, hardly +visible at all to-night unless you stopped your horse to look for it, a +narrow and overgrown road led off through the trees. Tightening the arm +that held her cautiously, the boy looked down at the face against his +shoulder, the faint, half-smile on the lips, and the lightly closed +eyes. + +The girl did not move. Her cap had slipped off, and one small, bare hand +clutched the fuzzy white thing tight, as a sleeping child's hand might +have closed on some favourite toy. Her hair showed silvery blond and +soft against his dark coat. With a quick, hungry motion, the boy dropped +his head and kissed it lightly. Then, gripping the reins with a +firmness that no present activity of the animal called for, he left +Green River's only noteworthy view without a backward glance, and turned +his horse into the road through the woods. + +For the next few minutes he had no attention to spare for Judith, +suspiciously quiet in his arms. He could not see her face. It was black +dark under the trees, dark as if it had never been light. The track was +wider than it looked, but also rougher. The trees grew close. Branches +that he brushed aside sprinkled dew into his face. The buggy creaked out +vain protests and useless warnings. Finally moonlight showed at the end +of the black tunnel, and the horse, which had been encountering its +difficulties in resourceful silence, made a faint, snorting comment +which sounded relieved, and presently, with unexpected jauntiness, swung +into the road again. + +It was technically a road, and it was the wreck of a very good road, but +it was not in much better shape than the track they had reached it by. +Aspiring amateurs had sketched it and camera fiends haunted it in their +day. It was Colonel Everard's favourite bridle path, which naturally +prevented repairs upon it. But before the railroad went through it had +been Green River's only link with a wider world. Now a better built but +more circuitous road had replaced it, designed for motoring. No motors +ever penetrated here, and few carriages. It was left to the ghosts of +ancient traffic, if they ventured here. The glancing moonlight under the +close-growing trees might have been full of them to-night. + +But the boy was not looking for ghosts or interested in the history of +the road or its charm, as he hurried his high-shouldered horse along it, +still responding jauntily. He squared his chin more stubbornly than +ever, and muttered encouragingly to the horse, and reached for his +battered whip. Round this corner, beyond this milestone, the stage +drivers used to make up time when the mail was late. A generous mile of +almost level road curved ahead of Neil into the moonlight, a fairly +clean bit of going even now. Judith and Neil were on the old coaching +road to Wells. + +Neil reached for his whip, but did not take it out of the socket. A +small hand closed over his. The head on his shoulder did not move, but +dark eyes, watchful and deliberate, opened and looked up at him quietly. + +"Now," said a cool little voice, "you can take me home." + +"You're awake?" + +"Of course." + +"Then why----" + +"I waited to see where you were going, and what you were going to do," +explained Judith simply. They were covering the banner stretch of road +at a rate the old stage drivers had never emulated. Judith pushed Neil's +arm away, and sat straight and looked at him. Her cheeks were gloriously +flushed with the quick motion, and her soft, tumbled hair had broken +into baby curls round her forehead, but her eyes were a woman's dark, +unforgiving eyes. Neil gave her one furtive glance, and looked away. + +"I told you to take me home," she said. + +He made a muttered reply, inarticulate, so that it would have been hard +to tell whether it was really addressed to Judith or the horse, and bent +forward over the reins. + +The colour deepened in Judith's cheeks, her soft lips tightened into a +straight line that was like her mother's mouth. Her cool, unhurried +voice was like her mother's, too: "I knew when we started out I'd have +trouble with you. Now I don't intend to have any more. I don't want to +have to tell you again. Take me home." + +She had adopted the tone which Green River's self-made gentlewomen like +Mrs. Theodore Burr mistakenly believed to be effective with servants. +The boy beside her gave no sign that it was effective with him. He spoke +softly to the horse again, and flicked at it coaxingly with the whip. + +"Neil, I am sorry for you," Judith stated presently, with no sympathy +whatever in her judicial young voice. "I have been awfully good to you." + +"Good!" + +"Yes, good. I--had to be. Because I knew we didn't have much time. I +knew--this--would have to stop some day. I knew it and you knew it, too. +You always knew it. Well, I've been trying to tell you for a long time +that it had got to stop. I tried, but you wouldn't let me. We're both +getting older, too old for this, and I'm going away next year. And some +things have happened to me, just lately--last week--that made me think. +I've got to be careful. I've got to take care of myself. This has got to +stop now--to-night. I wanted to tell you so. That's why I came; +because----" + +"I know why you came." + +"Don't be cross. Be good, and turn round now, and take me home. Neil, +I'm not sorry, you know, for--anything. Ever since that first night at +the dance you've been so sweet to me. I'm not sorry. Are you?" + +"No." + +"How funny your voice sounds. Why don't you turn round?" + +He had no explanation to offer. The buggy plunged faster through the +dark, and Judith braced herself in her corner. + +"Neil, turn round. Don't you hear me?" + +He gave no sign of hearing. The horse swung gallantly into a bit of road +where the stage drivers had never been in the habit of hurrying, a +tricky bit of road, with overhanging rocks jutting out just where you +might graze them at sudden turns, and with abrupt dips into precipitous +hollows. One stretched dark ahead of them now. Judith caught her breath +as they plunged into it, and clutched Neil's arm. He laughed shortly, +and did not shake off her hand. She pulled at his wrist and shook it. + +"Upset us if you want to. We'd go together," he urged, with a logic not +to be questioned. "Together, and that suits me, Judy." + +"Neil, turn round. Neil!" Judith's voice was shrill with sudden terror +repressed too long, but she struggled to make it steady and cold again, +in one last effort at control. + +"Who do you think you are, Neil Donovan? I tell you to take me home." + +He did not even turn to look at her. He was getting the horse down the +rocky slant of dimly lit road with a patience and concentration which +there was nobody to appreciate just then. Judith collapsed into her +corner. There was a faint sound of helpless crying from her, then +silence as she choked back the tears; silence, and an erect, stubborn +figure showing oppressively big and dark between Judith and the moon. + +"Neil, I'm sorry.... Neil, I can't stand this," came a muffled voice. +"Please speak to me." + +They were on level ground again, and the horse was disposed to make the +most of it. The boy pulled her into a jolting walk which was not the +most successful of her gaits, but represented a triumph for him just +now, and then he turned abruptly to Judith, gathering both her hands +into his free hand and gripping them tight. + +"I'll talk to you now," he said. "It's time I told you. Judith, you and +I are not going back." + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + + +"What do you mean?" + +"We're not going back," he repeated deliberately. + +"We are!" flashed Judith. + +"We're not going back. We're never going back." + +Judith drew back and stared at him, her hands still in his, and the boy +stared back with a look that matched her own in his big, deeply lit, +dark eyes. White faces, with angry, dark eyes, were all that they could +see clearly, though they were crossing a patch of road where a ragged +gap in the trees let some of the moonlight through; white faces like +strangers' faces. + +They were only a boy and girl jolting through the woods in the night in +a rattletrap buggy behind a caricature of a horse, but what looked out +of their angry eyes and spoke in their tense young voices was greater +than the immediate issue of their quarrel, and older and wiser than they +were; as old as the world. Ancient enemies were at war once more. A man +and a woman were making their age-old fight for mastery over themselves +and each other. + +"Never, Judy." + +"Where are we going, then?" + +"What difference does it make?" + +"Where?" + +"To Wells. We can make it by morning. I've got the mortgage money with +me." + +"Your uncle's?" + +"Yes. What difference does that make? That, or anything? We'd go if we +hadn't any money at all. We'd have to. Oh, Judith----" + +"You don't know what you're saying. Take me home. What are you laughing +at?" + +"You. You sounded just like them, then, giving me orders--just like your +whole rotten crowd, but you're through with them now, and you're through +ordering me about and making a fool of me. I've been afraid to say my +soul was my own. It wasn't, I guess. But we're all through with that. +We're through, Judith." + +"Yes, of course. Of course we're through. It's all right. Everything's +all right, Neil dear." + +"Everything's all wrong, and I know whose fault it is now: it's your +fault. Maybe I only had one chance in a hundred to get on, but one +chance is enough, and I was taking it. You made me ashamed to take it. I +was ashamed to do the work that was all I could get to do, and I had my +head so full of you I couldn't do any work. Maggie's better than I am. +She don't sit around with her hands folded and wait for Everard to get +tired of her. And the whole town don't laugh at her. The whole town +don't know----" + +"Neil, I said I was sorry. Please don't." + +"You've got the smooth ways of them all, but it's too late for that +between us, Judy. Smooth, lying ways." + +"We can't go to Wells, Neil dear. What could we do there? Think." + +"I'm sick of thinking. I'd get work maybe. I don't know. I don't care. +Judith----" + +"We can't. Not to-night, Neil. Wait." + +"I'm sick of waiting. I've got nothing to gain by it. I've done all the +waiting I could. I've stood all I could. You're the only thing I want in +the world, and I couldn't wait for you any longer if I could get you +that way--and I wouldn't get you. I'd lose you." + +"Not to-night. To-morrow, if you really want me to go. To-morrow, +truly." + +"You're lying to me, and I'm tired of it." + +"No, Neil--Neil dear." + +"You're lying." + +"How dare you say that! I hate you!" + +"That's right. We'll talk straight now. It's time." + +"I hate you. Don't touch me. You're going to take me home--you +must--and I'm never going to speak to you again. I think you're crazy. +But I'm not afraid of you--I'm not afraid." + +The low-keyed, hurrying voices broke off abruptly. There was no sound in +the buggy but Judith's rapid breathing, more and more like sobs, but no +tears came. The two faces that confronted each other were alike in the +gloom, white and angry and very young; alike as the faces of enemies are +when they measure each other's strength in silence. It was a cruel, +tense little silence, but the sound that broke it was more cruel. It was +dry and hard and had nothing to do with his own conquering laugh, that +the girl knew, but it came from the boy. + +"How dare you laugh at me. I hate you!" Judith's voice came hoarse and +unrecognizable. + +A hand caught blindly at the reins; another hand closed over it. Then +there was silence again in the buggy, broken by panting sounds and +little sobs. At the end of it Judith, forced back into her corner and +held there, was really crying now, with hysterical sobs that hurt, and +hot tears that hurt, too. + +"Let me go," she panted. "I hate you! You've got to let me go." + +"What for?" + +"I'm going home. I'm going to get out and walk home." + +"Ten miles?" + +"I'd walk a hundred miles to get away from you." + +"You'd have to walk farther to do that." The dry little laugh cut +through the dark again, and Judith struck furiously at the arm that held +her. + +"I hate you!" she sobbed. + +"No." + +"Oh, I do--I do----" + +"I don't care." The boy's voice sounded light and dry, like his laugh. +"I don't care. Kiss me." + +"I won't! I won't! I'll never speak to you again. I'll never forgive +you." + +"Lying to me--fooling me; taking me up and dropping me like Everard does +to women.... You're no better than he is. You're one of his crowd, but +you're through with them.... Lying to me, when you do care. You do." + +"I hate you!" + +"Ah, no, you don't." + +Little bursts of confused speech, all they had breath for and more, +disconnected, not always understood, not always articulate, but always +angry, came from them, with intervals of silent, panting struggle +between. The two young creatures in the buggy were struggling in earnest +now. The struggle was clumsy, like most really significant ones; sudden +and clumsy and blind. The two figures swayed aimlessly back and forth. +The boy and girl were both on their feet now. The boy had dropped the +reins. Both arms held the girl. Her pinioned arms fought to free +themselves. + +"Judith, you don't hate me. Say it--say it." + +[Illustration: "'_Judith, you don't hate me? Say it--say it_'"] + +The two shadowy figures were like one now, but the girl's arms were +free, pushing the boy away, striking at him impotently. + +"You needn't say it. I know. You had to come to-night. You couldn't stay +away. You don't hate me. You never will. You couldn't. I'm crazy about +you. You're the only thing that matters, if we should die the next +minute. Everything's all wrong, and it's not my fault or yours. +Everything's wrong, and this is wrong, too, but I don't care and you +don't. Do you? Do you?" + +"Neil, let me go. I can't breathe." + +"I love you." + +"Let me go." + +The shadow figures swayed and then were still. The girl's arms dropped. +The little, one-sided struggle was over. There was a long, tired sigh, +and then silence; silence, and one shadow face bending hungrily over the +other shadow face. "Judith," the boy whispered breathlessly, "do you +hate me now?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you want me to let you go? Do you want me to take you home?" + +"Yes," came the same answering whisper, the faintest and most uncertain +of whispers, but two arms, gently freeing themselves, found their way to +his shoulders, two hands locked behind his head and drew it gently down, +until the two shadow faces were close once more, and lips that were not +shadow lips met and clung together; not shadow lips, but hungry and warm +and alive--untaught but unafraid young lips, ready for kisses that are +no two alike and can never come again--wonderful kisses that blot +everything out of the changing world but themselves. + +"Judith"--the boy lifted his head at last, and looked down at the face +against his shoulder, pale and small, but with all the colour and light +and life that night had taken from the world and hidden, burning +undimmed in the awakening eyes--"you don't want me to take you home? You +don't--care what happens?" + +"No." + +He could hardly hear her low whisper, but her face was answer enough, +even for a boy who could not know what had touched it with new beauty, +but had to guess, as his own heart and the night might teach him. + +"No, I don't care. I don't care." + +"Judith, you do love me?" + +"Yes. Oh, yes." + +"You're so sweet," he whispered, "I feel as if I'd never kissed you +before--or seen you before. I love you, Judith." + +"Yes." + +"I love you and I don't want to hurt you. You know that, don't you?" + +"Yes." + +"But nothing's going to take you away from me now." + +"Nothing." + +"I don't want to hurt you." + +"I tell you, I don't care what happens. I--don't--care." + +"Judith!" + +Once more her hands drew him close; shy hands, groping uncertainly in +the dark, and shy lips kissed him. It was the coolest and lightest of +kisses, but it was worth all the others, if the boy knew how much it +promised--more than all her broken speech had promised, more than any +spoken words. + +Judith herself did not know, but some instinct older than she was made +her whisper: "Be good to me. Will you be good to me?" + +"Yes, Judith." + +The boy answered her small, shaken whisper solemnly, as if he were +taking a formal and irrevocable vow, but there was no one to listen to +it here, and bear witness to it as irrevocable. The girl did not answer +him. Suddenly shy, breathing quickly, and trying to laugh, she slipped +out of his arms. + +The boy let her go. Some time before the trailing reins had been caught +up and twisted twice round the whip socket. He had done this +instinctively, he could not have told just when. He bent down and +untwisted them now, rather slowly and awkwardly, not looking at Judith. +Then he sat down stiffly beside her. + +"You're tired," he said, with new gentleness in his voice. He put an arm +loosely round her waist in the manner of an affectionate but +inexperienced parent, and her head dropped on his shoulder. "Very +tired?" + +"No." + +"Judith, I'm sorry." + +"No, I'm sorry. How could I be so horrid? What made me? Did I hurt you, +dear, with my hands?" + +"You couldn't hurt me." + +"Neil, you know what you said just now?" + +"Never mind what I said." + +"You said you didn't want anything to take me away from you. Well, if it +did, if anything did take me away from you--now, I'd----" + +"What, dear?" + +"I'd never forgive you. I couldn't. I'd despise you." This warning came +in a low, uncertain voice, wasted, as countless warnings have been +wasted on wiser masculine ears than the boy's. "Look at our moon up +there. It's glad, I guess--glad about you and me. Why don't you listen +to me?" + +"I'm thinking, Judith. I've got to think." + +"You look very nice when you think. Your eyes look so big and still. You +look--beautiful. I could really sleep now, I guess." + +"All right, dear." + +"But I don't want to. I'm too happy. How late is it?" + +"I don't know." + +"Well, it's late. We couldn't get home now before awfully late--two or +something. And the road's so narrow here, we couldn't turn round. We +couldn't go home if we wanted to. Could we?" + +"Not very well, dear." + +"I'm glad.... Neil." + +"Yes." + +"Are you thinking now?" + +"Yes." + +"You do look beautiful. I don't know just why. I never saw you look just +like this before; kind, but years older than I am, and miles away. +Neil----" + +"Yes, dear." + +"Neil, don't think any more. Just love me.... I love you." + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN + + +Colonel Everard's little party was quite successful enough without the +guest of honour. At least, it would have seemed so to Judith, if she +could have looked in upon it just before midnight. A distinguished guest +of the Colonel's had made an ungrateful criticism of the inner circle, +on parade for his benefit only the week before at Camp Hiawatha, which +was elaborately rebuilt now, and rechristened Camp Everard. He +complained that the Colonel's parties were too successful. + +"Too many pretty women," he said, "or they work too hard at it--dress +too well, or talk too well--don't dare to let down. You need more +background, more men like Grant. You need to be bored. You can't have +cream without milk. You can't take the essentials of a society and make +a whole society out of them without adulterating them. It won't last. +That's why Adam and Eve didn't stay in the garden. They couldn't--too +much tension there. They needed casual acquaintances, and you need +background. You can't get on without it." + +"We do," said his host. + +The distinguished critic was far away from the Colonel's town to-night, +but the Colonel's party was all that he had complained of; the thing he +had felt and tried to account for and explain was here, as it was at all +the Colonel's parties, though a discreet selection of outsiders had been +admitted to-night; the same sense of effort and tension, of working too +hard, of a gayety brilliant but forced--artificial, but justifying the +elaborate processes that created it by its charm, like some rare +hothouse flower. + +You saw it in quick glimpses of passing faces thrown into strong relief +by the light of the swinging lanterns, and then dancing out of sight; +you heard it in strained, sweet laughter, and felt it in the beat of the +music, and in the whole picture the party made of itself in the garden, +the restless, changing picture, but this was not all--it was in the air. +You could close your eyes and breathe it and feel it. It was unusually +keen to-night, real, like a thing you could actually touch and see. + +You lost the keen sense of it if you looked too closely for signs of it. +If you overheard bits of talk, they were not always clever at all, or +even entirely gay. Worried lines showed under elaborate makeup in the +women's faces, as if Cinderella had put on white gloves to hide smutty +fingers; indeed, though they were trained to forget it and make you +forget it, they were only so many Cinderellas, after all. Seen too +closely, there was a look of strain about some of the men's faces. + +There was a reason for this look to-night, besides the set of reasons +which the gentlemen of the Colonel's circle always had for looking +worried; living beyond their incomes, living in uncertainty of any +income at all, and other private reasons, different in each case, but +all quite compelling; there was a reason, and the Colonel's guest of the +week before was connected with it. Others would follow him soon, secret +conferences would take place unrecorded, the Colonel's private telephone +wire would be busy, and the telegrams he received would be +frequent and not intelligible to the casual reader. These were the +months before election, when the things that were going to happen began +to happen. Their beginnings were obscure. The man in the street talked +politics, but the man with his hands in the game kept still. Even when +they slipped away to the smoking-room, or gathered at the edge of the +lawn in groups of two and three that scattered as their host approached, +the Colonel's guests were not discussing politics to-night. + +No tired lines were permitted to show in Mrs. Randall's face. Her fresh, +cool prettiness was of the valuable kind that shows off best at the +height of the evening, when other women look tired. If she was aware of +the fact and made the most of it, overworking her charming smile and +wide-open, tranquil eyes, you could not blame her. It was not the time +or place to overlook any weapons you might have. Whatever duties or +privileges belonged to the Colonel's inner circle, you had to take care +of yourself if you were part of it, and you learned to; that was evident +from her manner. It seemed easy for her to-night. Just now she was +sharing a bench and an evening cloak with Mrs. Burr, smooth, dark head +close to her fluffy, blond one, and smiling into her face confidingly, +as if all that lady's purring, disconnected remarks were equally +agreeable to her. + +"We miss Judy so much," she said sweetly. + +"I can see just how much, dear," said Judith's mother more sweetly +still. + +"And it's so long since she's been here." + +"She has her school work to do. She's just a child. She's not well +to-night." + +"But I got the idea he meant this to be her evening." + +"He did." + +"There he is." The third person singular, unqualified, could mean only +one gentleman to the ladies of the Colonel's circle, and that gentleman +was passing close to them now, though he seemed unconscious of the +fact. He was guiding Mrs. Kent through an old-fashioned waltz with +elaborate precision. His concentration upon the performance increased as +he passed them, and he did not look away from his partner's face, though +it was not absorbingly attractive just now. The piquant profile had a +blurred look, and the cheeks were flushed under the daintily calculated +touch of rouge. Mrs. Burr turned to her friend with a faint but +relentless light of amusement in her narrowed eyes. + +"Edie's had just one cocktail too many." + +"Yes." They ignored the more obvious fact that the Colonel had. The +evening had reached the stage when he always had. + +"He hasn't danced with you many times, Minna dear." + +"I'm tired of dancing, but don't let me keep you here, Lil." + +"I haven't seen him dance with you at all." + +"He hasn't yet." + +"No?" said Mrs. Burr, very casually. + +"No. Lil, I think Ranny wants you. He's wandering about, looking vague." + +"Don't you want me, dear? Well, Ranny always wants me." + +Mr. Randolph Sebastian, discovering her suddenly, gave exaggerated proof +of this as he carried her off. If the Colonel's secretary had really +been recruited from a dance hall, he had profited by what he saw there, +and showed it in every quick, graceful turn he made. His partner was the +type of woman that dancing might have been invented to show off; it gave +her lazy, graciously built body a reason for being, and put a flicker of +meaning into her shallow eyes so that she was not floridly pretty any +longer, but beautiful. This was peculiarly apparent when she danced with +Mr. Sebastian. She seemed to have been created for the purpose of +dancing with him; it could not have been more apparent if their +elaborate game of devotion to each other had been real, and they were +really lovers. + +Mrs. Clifford Kent, suddenly appearing alone, slipped into Mrs. Burr's +empty place. Her dance with the Colonel was over. "My Lord's in fine +form to-night," she confided without preliminary. "We're going to play +blind-man's buff after the duchess goes home." The duchess was Mrs. +Grant, the Honourable Joe's wife, still the first lady of Green River, +but the younger women were beginning to make fun of her discreetly +behind her back. "He told me the tiger story." This represented a +triumph. Getting the Colonel's smoking-room stories at first hand +instead of second hand, from their husbands, was the only form of +rivalry about which these ladies were frank with each other. "I got it +out of Cliff first, anyway. He said he couldn't tell me, but he did. I +made him. Where was Harry last night?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"Cliff had a crowd of men locked into his den until two, talking. Didn't +Harry know about it?" + +"What were they doing?" + +"Just talking. The Colonel and I don't know who else. I heard two +strange voices, and I didn't hear Harry's voice. Didn't Harry know?" + +"I suppose so. What did they talk about?" + +"Campaign stuff--prohibition or something. Cliff wouldn't tell me." + +"Was Teddy Burr there?" + +"I didn't hear him. What do you care?" + +"I don't care." + +"If Harry didn't know, I ought not to have told you, but I can't help it +now." + +"Edith, don't go. Wait." + +"I can't. I have this next with my Lord, too. I'm going to sit it out in +the library and meet him inside. The duchess is getting jealous. +Besides, there comes the dragon." Judge Saxon, looking shabby and old +and tired, was making a circuitous way toward them. "Let me go. Oh, +darling--" she put her small, flushed face suddenly close to her +friend's to ask the question, and after it, fluttered away without +waiting for the answer, leaving the echo of her pretty, empty laugh +behind--"why didn't Judith come? What's the real reason? Has anybody +been making trouble for her here? Never mind. You needn't tell me. +Good-bye." + +Mrs. Randall closed her eyes and pressed two fingers against her temples +for a moment, and then looked up with almost her usual welcoming smile +at Judge Saxon, who had come close to her, and stood looking down at her +keenly with his kind, near-sighted, blue eyes. + +"Hiding?" he said. "Tired?" + +"Not hiding from you. Take care of me." + +"Minna," he decided, "you little girls aren't so nice to me unless +you're in wrong somehow and feel sorry for yourselves. What's the +matter? Where's Harry?" + +"Inside somewhere. Don't ask me any more questions. I've answered all I +can to-night." + +"All right. I'll just sit here and enjoy the view and keep the other +boys away." + +The view was hardly one to promote unmixed enjoyment. The two settled +into a friendly silence in their corner, broken by an occasional quiet +word in the Judge's intimate, drawling voice. Around them the temper of +the party was changing, and a series of little signs marked the general +change. More men crowded into the smoking-room between dances, and they +stayed longer. Mrs. Grant left first according to her established +privilege, and a scattering of other guests followed her. Nobody seemed +to miss them or to be conspicuously happier without them. There was a +heavy, dull look about the passing faces, a heaviness and staleness now +about the whole atmosphere of the party, and this, like the unnatural +excitement which it followed, and like the light, endless fire of +inconsequent, malicious chatter, always the same, whether it meant +nothing or meant real trouble brewing, was an essential part of all the +Colonel's parties, too. + +The Judge regarded the change with faraway eyes, as he talked on in the +wistful voice that goes with talking your own private language openly to +people who cannot answer you in it. + +"Don't need the moon, do we, with those lanterns? But it was here first, +and will be a long time after, and it's a good moon, too; quite +decorative for a moon." + +"I hate it," said Mrs. Randall, with a personal vindictiveness not +usually directed against natural phenomena. The Judge took no immediate +notice of it. More guests had gone. In a cleared circle in the heart of +the lanternlight Mrs. Kent was performing one of the more expurgated +and perfunctory of her dances for the benefit of the select audience +that remained, to scattered, perfunctory applause. The motif of it was +faintly Spanish. + +"Paper doll," commented the Judge, "that's all that girl is. You and +Harry are the best of them, Minna. They're a faky lot, all of +them--about as real as a house of cards. It looks big, but it will all +tumble down if you pull one card out--only one card. The devil of it is +to know which card to take hold of, and who's to pull it out if you +haven't got the nerve? I haven't. I'm too old. But it's a comfort to +think of it. Don't you agree with me?" + +"I didn't really hear you." + +"Minna, I've known you since you were two. Can't you tell me what's the +matter? You're frightened." + +She looked at him for a minute as if she could, turning a paling face to +him, with the mask off and the eyes miserable, then she tried to laugh. + +"Nothing's the matter. Nothing new." + +"Well, there's enough wrong here without anything new," said the Judge, +rebuffed but still gentle. "I won't trouble you any longer, my dear. +There comes Harry." + +Mrs. Randall's husband, an unmistakable figure even with the garden and +the broad, unlighted lawn between, stood in the rectangle of light that +one of the veranda windows made, slender and boyish still in spite of +the slight stoop of his shoulders, and then started across the lawn +toward the garden. + +His wife got rather stiffly to her feet and waited, looking away from +the lighted enclosure, over the low hedge, at the lawn. Her eyes were +dizzy from the flickering lights. She could not see him clearly, and the +figure that followed him across the lawn was harder to see. + +It was a man's figure, slightly taller than her husband's. The man had +not come from the veranda windows, or from the house at all, he had +slipped round one corner of the house, stood still in the shelter of it, +seeming to hesitate there, and then plunged suddenly across the lawn at +a queer little staggering run. Twice she saw him stand still, so still +that she lost sight of him under the trees, as if he had slipped away +through the dark. + +In the garden Mrs. Kent's performance was over, and the game of +blind-man's buff was beginning. It was a novelty, and acclaimed even at +this stage of the evening. Lillian Burr's shrill laugh and Edith Kent's +pretty, childish one could be heard through the other sounds. They were +trying to blindfold the Colonel, who struggled but laughed, too, looking +somehow vacuous and old, with his longish, white hair straggling across +his forehead. No one in the garden but Minna Randall had attention to +spare for an arriving guest, expected or unexpected. + +Which was he? He was out of sight again, but this time she had seen him +reach the edge of the lighted enclosure. Was he gone, or waiting +outside, or had he stepped under the trellis of the rose arbour, to +appear suddenly at the end of it and among them? Instinctively she kept +her eyes upon it, though her husband had already passed through. She was +watching for the figure that it might frame next. + +"Harry," she said to her husband, who had seen her and elbowed his way +to her, and stood beside her, looking pale and tired like herself in the +lanternlight and not boyish at all, "who was that man? Who was it +following you?" + +He paid no attention to her question. He did not seem to hear it. He put +a hand on her arm, and she could feel that it trembled. + +"Oh, Harry, what is it?" she said. "I've had such a horrible evening. +I'm so afraid." + +"Don't be afraid, Minna," he said very gently, "but you must come to the +telephone. Norah's calling you. She's just come home. She wants to tell +you something about Judith." + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN + + +"Judith?" Mrs. Randall took her husband's news quietly, with something +that was almost relief in her face, the relief that comes when a +gathering storm breaks at last, and you learn what it is you have been +afraid of, though you must go on being afraid. "What is it? Is she ill, +Harry?" + +"Come and talk to Norah." + +"No, we'll go straight home." + +"But she's not there, Minna. That's all Norah'll say to me, but she's +got some idea where she is, and says she'll tell you. Judith isn't +there." + +"It must be nearly morning." + +"It's two." + +"It was after nine when we started." + +"Minna, didn't you hear what I said?" + +Mrs. Randall's face had not changed as she heard; it looked +unchangeable, like some fixed but charming mask that she wore. The lips +still smiled though they had stiffened slightly, and she watched the two +women's attempts to blindfold the Colonel--unaided now, but hilariously +applauded by the circle around her--with the same mild, interested eyes, +wide-set and Madonna calm. + +"I tell you, Judith's not there. What does Norah know? Why don't you do +something? Where is she?... My God, look at them. What are they doing +now? Look at Everard." + +Mrs. Burr had drawn the knot suddenly tight in the white scarf she was +manipulating, and slipped out of the Colonel's arms and out of reach. He +followed, and then swung round and stumbled awkwardly after Edith Kent, +who had brushed past him, leaving a light, challenging kiss on his +forehead, and was further guiding him with her pretty, empty laugh. The +game of blind-man's buff was under way. + +Crowding the garden enclosure, swaying this way and that and threatening +to overflow it, a pushing, struggling mass of people kept rather +laboriously out of one another's way and the Colonel's, not so much +amused by the effort as they were pretending to be; people with heavy +and stupid faces who had never looked more irrevocably removed from +childhood than now that they were playing a children's game. + +In the heart of the crowd, now plunging ahead of it, now lost in it, the +first gentleman of Green River disported himself. His white head was +easy to follow through the crowd, and the thing that made you follow it +was evident even now--much of his old dignity, and the charm that was +peculiarly his; you saw it in an occasional stubborn shake of his +beautifully shaped head, in the grace of the hand that caught at some +flying skirt and missed it. He was the first gentleman of Green River +still, but he was something else. + +His white hair straggled across his forehead moist and dishevelled, and +his face showed flushed and perspiring against the white of the scarf. +The trailing ends of the scarf flapped grotesquely about his head, and +the high, splendidly modelled forehead was obscured and the keen eyes +were hidden. The beauty of the face was lost, and the mouth showed thin +lipped and sensual. The Colonel was really a stumbling, red-faced old +man. + +"Look at him. That's what she's seen. This was Judith's party. That's +what we've hung on in this town for till it's too late to break loose. +We never can get away now. We can't----" + +"Keep still, Harry. Do you want to be heard? Did any one hear you at the +telephone? Keep still and come home." + +"You're right. You're wonderful. You don't lose your nerve." + +"I can't afford to, and neither can you. Come---- Oh, Harry, look. I saw +him following you. What does he want? What's the matter? What is he +going to do?" + +Mrs. Randall had adjusted her cloak deliberately, and turned to pilot +her husband out of the garden, slipping a firm little hand through his +arm. Now she clung to him and stood still, silent after her little fire +of excited questions. The entrance to the garden was blocked. An +uninvited and unexpected guest was standing there. + +His entrance had been unheralded, and his welcome was slow to come. The +crowd had closed in round the Colonel, with Edith Kent caught suddenly +in his arms, and giving a creditable imitation of attempting to escape. +Interested silence and bursts of laughter indicated the progress of it +clearly, though the two were entirely out of sight. Nobody saw the +newcomer except the Randalls. + +He stood in the entrance to the rose arbour, clutching at the trellis +with one unsteady hand, and managing to keep fairly erect, a slightly +built, swaying figure, black-haired and hatless. He kept one hand behind +him, awkwardly, as a shy boy guards a favourite plaything. He was +staring into the crowd in the garden as if he could see through into the +heart of it, but had not the intellect just then to understand what he +saw there. + +It was the man Mrs. Randall had seen lurking in the shadow of the trees, +but he was no mysterious stranger, though here in the light of the +lanterns she hardly recognized him as she looked at his pale, excited +face; it showed an excitement quite unaccounted for by the perfectly +obvious fact that he was drunk, and entirely unconnected with that fact. +Here and there on the outskirts of the crowd some one turned and saw +him, too, and stared at him. They all knew him. He was Neil Donovan's +cousin, the discredited young lawyer, Charlie Brady. + +He did not speak or move. He only stood still and looked at them with +vague, puzzled eyes, and lips that twitched as if he wanted to speak, +but standing so, he had the centre of the stage. He could not command +it, he had pushed his way into it doggedly, uncertain what to do first, +but he was there. One by one his audience had become conscious of it, +and were confronting him startled and uncertain, too. Young Chester +Gaynor elbowed his way to the front, but stopped there, grinning at the +invader, restrained perhaps by a lady's voice, which was to be heard +admonishing him excitedly. + +"Don't you get hurt, dear." + +"How did he get here? Why can't somebody get him out?" other excited +ladies inquired. + +"Get Judge Saxon," directed Mr. J. Cleveland Kent's calm and +authoritative voice. + +"Get Sebastian. Where is the fellow? Is he afraid?" demanded the +Honourable Joe from the extreme rear. Some one laughed hysterically. It +was Mrs. Burr. The laugh was quickly hushed, but the new guest had heard +it, though no other sound seemed to have impressed him. He laughed, too, +a dry, broken ghost of a laugh, as cracked and strange as his voice, +which he now found abruptly. + +"Lillie," he called. "Hello, Lillie dear." + +Mrs. Burr was not heard to reply to this affectionate greeting, but he +hardly paused for a reply. His light, high, curiously detached sounding +voice talked on with a kind of uncanny fluency. + +"Lillie," he urged cordially, "I heard you. I know you're there. Come +out and let's have a look at you. I don't see anything of you lately. +You're too grand for me. I don't care. I'm in love with a prettier girl. +But you used to treat me all right, Lillie dear, and I treated you +right, too. I never told. A gentleman don't tell. And you were straight +with me. You never double-crossed me, like you and the dago Sebastian do +to Everard. Everard! That's who I want to talk to. Where is he?" + +At the mention of the name his wavering gaze had steadied and +concentrated suddenly on the centre of the group in the garden, and now, +while he looked, the crowd parted. Pushing his way through, the Colonel +faced his uninvited guest. + +The great man was not at his best. His most ardent admirer could hardly +have claimed it. He had pulled the muffling scarf down from his eyes, +but was still tearing at the knot impatiently. Mrs. Kent had come +fluttering ineffectively after him, catching at his arm. He struck her +hands away, and pushed her back, addressing her with a lack of ceremony +which outsiders were not often permitted to hear him employ toward a +member of his favoured circle. + +"Keep out of this, Edith, and you keep quiet, Lil. You girls make me +sick," he snapped. "Half the trouble in this town comes because you +can't learn to hold your tongues. You'd better learn. You're going to +pay for it if you don't, and don't you lose sight of that. Well, Brady, +what does this mean? What can I do for you?" + +The ring of authority was in his voice again, as if he had called it +back by sheer will power. He had stepped forward alone, and stood +looking up at his guest, still framed in the sheltering trellis, and his +blurred eyes cleared and grew keen as he looked, regarding him +indifferently, like some refractory but mildly amusing animal. His +guest's defiant eyes avoided his, and the ineffective, swaying figure +seemed to shrink and droop and grow smaller, but it was a dignified +figure still and a dangerous one. There was the snarling menace of +impotent but inevitable rebellion about it, of men who fight on with +their backs against the wall; a menace that was not new born to-night, +but the gradual growth of years, just the number of years that the +Colonel had spent in Green River. + +"I'm sorry, sir," stammered his guest. + +"Then apologize and get out." + +"I can't." + +"I think you'll find you can, Brady." + +"I can't. I've got to ask you a few questions." + +They seemed to be slow in framing themselves. There was a little pause, +the kind of pause that for no apparent reason deprives you for the +moment of any desire to move or speak. The unassuming figure of the +young man under the trellis stood still, swaying only slightly from side +to side. A deprecating smile appeared on his lips, as if his errand were +distasteful to him and he wished to apologize for it. Gradually the +smile faded and the eyes grew steady again and unnaturally bright. He +held himself stiffly erect where he stood for a moment, took a few +lurching steps forward, paused, and then plunged suddenly across the +garden toward Colonel Everard. + +It would have been hard to tell which came first, the little, stumbling +run forward, the Colonel's instinctive move to check it, the stampede +of the devotees of the time-honoured game of blind-man's buff, acting +now with a promptness and spontaneity which they had not displayed in +that game, Lillian Burr's hysterical scream, the snarling words from the +Colonel that silenced it, or the quick flash of metal. It had all +happened at once. But now, in an amphitheatre of scared faces, as far +behind as the limits of the garden enclosure would allow, Mr. Brady and +his host stood facing each other alone, and the Colonel, now entirely +himself, with the high colour fading out of his cheeks, was looking with +cool and unwavering eyes straight into the barrel of Mr. Brady's +revolver. + +It was a clumsy, old-fashioned little weapon. Brady's thin hand grasped +it firmly, as if some stronger hand than his own were steadying his. He +laughed an ineffective laugh, like a boastful boy's, but there was a +threat in it, too. + +"What have you got to say for yourself? I'll give you a chance to say +it," he stated magnanimously, "but you shan't say a word against her. +She was always a good girl. She is a good girl. What have you done with +her? Where is she?" + +"You don't make yourself altogether clear, Brady," said the Colonel +smoothly. + +"Where's Maggie?" + +"Maggie?" The Colonel's eyes swept the circle of his guests +deliberately, as if to assure himself that no lady of that name was +among them. + +"Maggie. You know the name well enough." The sound of it seemed to give +the lady's champion new courage; it flamed in his eyes, hot, and quick +to burn itself out, but while it lasted, even a gentleman who had +learned to face drawn revolvers as indifferently as the Colonel might do +well to be afraid of him. "Maggie's missing. I'm going to find her. +That's all I want of you. I won't ask you who's worked on her and made a +fool of her. I won't ask you how far she's been going. But I want her +back before the whole town knows. I want to find her and find her quick. +She's a good girl and a decent girl. She's going to keep her good name. +She's coming home." + +"Commendable," said the Colonel, not quite smoothly enough. His guest +was past listening to him. + +"Maggie. That's all I want. You're getting off easy. Luck's with you. +I've stood a lot from you, the same as the town has. It will stand a lot +more, and I will. Get Maggie back. Get her back and give her to me and +leave her alone, and I'll eat out of your hand and starve when you don't +feed me, the same as the rest"--he came two wavering steps nearer, and +dropped his voice to a dry quaver meant to be confidential, a grotesque +and sinister parody of a confidence--"the rest, that don't know what I +know." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I won't tell. Don't be afraid. A gentleman don't tell, and there's +nobody that can but me. Young Neil don't know. The luck's with you, sir, +just the same as it always was." + +"I've had enough of this. Get home, Brady," cried the Colonel, in a +voice that was suddenly wavering and high, like an old man's, but his +guest only smiled and nodded wisely, beginning to sway as he stood, but +still gripping the clumsy revolver tight. + +"Just the same as it was when old Neil Donovan died." + +"Get home," shrilled the Colonel again, but his guest pursued the tenor +of his thoughts untroubled, still with the look of an amiably disposed +fellow-conspirator on his weak face, a maddening look, even if his words +conveyed no sting of their own. + +"Neil Donovan," he crooned, "my father's own half-brother, and a good +uncle to me, and a gentleman, too. He sold rum over a counter, but he +was a gentleman, for he didn't talk too much. A gentleman don't tell." + +But the catalogue of his uncle's perfections, whether in place here or +not, was to proceed no further. The audience pressed closer, as eager +to look on at a fight as it was to keep out of one. There was a new and +surprising development in this one. The two men had closed with each +other, and it was not the half-crazed boy who had made the attack, but +the Colonel himself. + +It was a sudden and awkward attack, and there was something stranger +about it still. The Colonel was angry. He had tried to knock the weapon +out of the boy's hand, failed, and tried instinctively, still, to get +possession of it, but he was not making an adequate and necessary +attempt to disarm him, he was no longer adequate or calm. He was angry, +suddenly angry with the poor specimen of humanity that was making its +futile attempt at protest and rebellion, as if it were an equal and an +enemy. His face was distorted and his eyes were dull and unseeing. His +breath came in panting gasps, and he made inarticulate little sounds in +his throat. He struck furious and badly directed blows. + +It was a curious thing to see, in the heart of the great man's admiring +circle, at the climax of his most successful party of the year. It did +not last long. The two struggling figures broke away from each other, +and the boy staggered backward and stood with the revolver still in his +hand. He was a little sobered by the struggle, and a little weakened by +it, pale and dangerous, with a fanatic light in his eyes. Some one who +had an eye for danger signals, if the Colonel had not, had made his +unobtrusive way forward, and joined him now. He was not the most +formidable looking of allies, but he stood beside them as if he had a +right to be there, and the Colonel turned to him as if he recognized it. + +"Hugh, you heard what he said?" he appealed; "you heard?" + +"Judge, you keep out of this," Brady called, "keep out, sir." + +Judge Saxon, keeping a casual hand on his most prominent client's arm, +stood regarding Mr. Brady with mild and friendly blue eyes. He had quite +his usual air of being detached from his surroundings, but benevolently +interested in them. + +"Charlie," he said, as if he were recognizing Mr. Brady for the first +time at this critical moment, and deriving pleasure from it. "Why, +Charlie," his voice became gently reproachful, but remained friendly, +too. "Everard, this boy don't mean a word he says," he went on, with +conviction, "he's excited and you're excited, too. This is a pretty poor +time for you to get excited, Everard." + +"You're right, Hugh," muttered the Judge's most prominent client +thickly; "you're right. Get him away. Get him home." + +"He's a good boy," pronounced the Judge. + +It was not the obvious description of Mr. Brady just at that moment. +There was only friendly amusement in the Judge's drawling voice and +shrewd eyes, but back of it, unmistakably there, was something that made +every careless word worth listening to. Mr. Brady was resisting it. His +face worked pitifully. + +"Judge, I told you to keep out. I don't want to hurt you." + +"Thanks, Charlie." + +"Every word I say is God's truth, Judge." + +The Judge did not contradict this sweeping statement. He was studying +Mr. Brady's weapon with some interest. "Your uncle's," he commented, +pleased. "Why, I didn't know you still owned that thing, Charlie." + +"I want Maggie. I want----" + +"I'll tell you what you want," offered the Judge, amicably, "you want to +hand that thing to me, and go home." + +Mr. Brady received this suggestion in silence, a silence which left his +audience uncertain how deeply he resented it. Indeed, they were +painfully uncertain, and showed it. Bits of advice reached the Judge's +ears, contradictory, though much of it sound, but he took no notice of +it. He only smiled his patient and wistful smile and waited, like a man +who knew what would happen next. + +"Hand it to me," he repeated gently. + +"I won't, Judge." Mr. Brady's weapon wavered, and then steadied itself. +His thin body trembled. The fanatic light in his eyes blazed bright. The +excitement which had gripped him, too keen to last long, reached its +climax now in one last burst of hysterical speech. + +"He's a liar and a thief," he asserted, uncontradicted. He was not to be +contradicted. There was a dignity of its own about the hysterical +indictment, grotesque as it was, an unforgettable suggestion of truth. +"He's a thief and a murderer, too. I don't have to tell what I know. +Everybody knows. You all know, all of you, and you don't dare to tell. +He's murdering the town." + +The high, screaming voice broke off abruptly. Mr. Brady, still with the +echo of his big words in his ears and apparently dazed by it, stood +looking blankly into the Judge's steady and friendly eyes. + +"I can't--I won't----" he stammered. + +"Hand it to me," said the Judge, as if no interruption had occurred. For +a moment the boy before him looked too dull and dazed to obey or to +hear. Then, as suddenly as if some unseen hand had struck it out of his, +the revolver dropped to the ground, and he collapsed, sobbing +heartbrokenly, into the Judge's arms. + +He was a heroic figure no longer. The alien forces that made him one +had deserted him abruptly, and he looked unworthy of their support +already, only an inconsiderable creature of jangled nerves and +hysterical speech, which would be discredited if you looked at him, even +if it still echoed in your ears. The Judge, holding him and quieting +him, looked allied with him, humble and discredited, too. The relieved +audience hung back for a moment, taking in the full force of the +picture, before it broke ranks to crowd round the Colonel and offer him +belated support. The Colonel said a few inaudible words to Judge Saxon, +and then turned from him and his protege with the air of washing his +hands of the whole affair. He looked surprisingly unruffled by it, even +stimulated by it. The interruption to his party was over. + + * * * * * + +It ended as it had begun, the most successful party of the year. Mr. +Brady's invasion was not the first unscheduled event which had enlivened +a party at the Birches. There was more open and general speculation +about the fact that the Randalls left immediately after, did not linger +over their good-nights, and were obviously not permitted by their host +to do so. + +Mrs. Randall, leaning back in her corner with her hand tight in Harry's, +and her long-lashed eyes, that were like Judith's, tightly shut, showed +the full strain of the evening in her pale face. She was a woman who did +not look tired easily, but she was also a woman who could not afford to +look tired. + +There was no appeal or charm about her pale face now, only a naked look +of hardness and strain. Her husband, staring straight ahead of him with +troubled eyes, and his weak, boyish mouth set in a hard, worried line, +spoke rapidly and disconnectedly not of Judith, or the Colonel's ominous +coldness to him, but of Mr. Brady. + +"Maggie's a bad lot," he was explaining for approximately the fifth time +as they whirled into the drive and under their own dark windows. "She +always was. Everard isn't making away with the belle of Paddy Lane. Not +yet. He's not that far down. But that dope about old Neil Donovan----" + +"Oh, Harry, hush," his wife said, "here we are. What do you care about +Brady?" + +"Nothing," he whispered, his arm tightening round her as he lifted her +down. "I don't care about anything in the world but Judith." + +"Neither do I. Not really," she said in a hurried, shaken voice that was +not like her own, "you believe that, don't you, Harry?" + +He did not answer. Gathering up her skirts, she followed him silently to +the front of the house, single file along the narrow boardwalk, not yet +taken up for the summer, creaking loudly under their feet. + +"Look," she whispered, catching at his arm. The front of the house was +dark except for two lights, a flickering lamp that was being carried +nearer to them through the hall, and a soft, shaded light that showed at +a bedroom window. The window was Judith's. He fumbled for his key, but +the door opened before them. Norah, her forbidding face more militant +than ever in the flickering light of the kerosene hand-lamp she held, +her white pompadour belligerently erect, and her brown eyes maliciously +alight, peered at them across the door chain, and then gingerly admitted +them. + +"It's a sweet time of night to be coming home to the only child you've +got," she commented, "why do you take the trouble to come home at all?" + +It was a characteristic greeting from her. If it had not been, Mrs. +Randall would not have resented it now. She clutched at the old woman's +unresponsive shoulder. + +"Where is she?" she demanded breathlessly. + +"Judith is it you mean?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"How should I know how she spends her evenings? At some of the girls' +to-night. Rena Drew's maybe. I don't know. It's a new thing for you to +care. She was late in, and it's no wonder I was worried. She's like my +own to me. But she needs her sleep now. You'd better go softly +upstairs." + +"Do you mean she's here?" + +"What is it to you?" Norah, one bony hand clutching the newel post as if +it were a negotiable weapon of defense, and her brown eyes flashing as +if she were capable of using any weapon for Judith, barred the way up +the stairs. + +"I tell you, she needs her sleep, poor lamb--poor lamb," she said, "and +you're not to go near her to-night. You're to promise me that. But she's +here fast enough. My lamb is safe at home in her own bed." + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN + + +On an afternoon in June a year later than the interrupted party at the +Everards' a young man sat at Mr. Theodore Burr's desk in Judge Saxon's +outer office. It was still technically Mr. Burr's desk, but the young +man looked entirely at home there. A litter of papers which that +fastidious gentleman would never have permitted himself now covered it, +and the air was faintly scented with the smoke of a cigarette widely +popular in Green River, but not with devotees of twenty-five-cent +cigars, like Mr. Burr. The bulky volume open on the desk was thumbed and +used as Mr. Burr had never used any book that looked or was so heavy. +The book was Thayer on Constitutional Law, and the young man dividing +his attention between it and Main Street under his window flooded with +June sunshine was Neil Donovan. + +He divided his attention unequally, as Main Street late on that sunny +afternoon might persuade the most studious of young men to do. The +square was crowded--crowded, it is true, much as a busy street on the +stage is crowded, where the same overworked set of supers pass and +repass. The group of bareheaded girls now pacing slowly by arm in arm +under the window were returning from what was approximately their fourth +visit that afternoon to the post-office, the ice-cream parlours, the new +gift shop and tea-room, or some kindred attraction. The Nashes' new +touring car, driven by the prettiest girl in Willard's June house party, +under the devoted instruction of Willard himself, was whirling through +the shopping district for at least the third time. + +However, it was an imposing pageant enough, though the boy at the window +did not appear to find it so, regarding it with approving but grave +eyes, and returning Mr. Nash's flourishing salute unsmilingly--a brave +pageant of gay and flimsy gowns, of youth returning to the town, and +movement and colour, and June fairly begun. + +June so far was like other Junes in Green River. Colonel Everard and the +season of social and political intrigues were here. Rallies in the town +hall would soon begin. Men with big names in state politics would make +speeches there, while the Colonel presided with his usual self-effacing +charm, which did not advertise the known fact that he was a bigger power +in the state than any of them. The good old question of prohibition was +the chief issue, as usual; discreet representatives of the people +would, according to a catch phrase at the capital, vote for prohibition, +and then go round to the best hotel and get drunk; and discreet +politicians, like the Colonel, would make money out of both these facts +in their own way. + +Behind the closed door of Judge Saxon's office low-keyed, monotonous +voices were talking, and a secret conference was going on. Troubled +times were here again for those deep in the Colonel's councils. They +were never sure of a permanent place there, but always on the watch for +one of his sudden changes of front, which threatened not only his +enemies but his friends. But he had recovered and held their confidence +before, and he could this year. + +All scandals of the year before were decently hidden. Maggie Brady was +missing and continued to be missing. By this time it was the general +verdict that she had always been bound to come to a bad end, and Charlie +Brady to drink himself to death. Nobody interrupted his attempts to do +so. His drunken outburst of speech had echoed a growing sentiment in the +town, but it grew slowly, for under its thin veneer of sophistication +Green River was only a New England town still, conservative and slow to +change. + +Green River had not changed much in a year, but Neil Donovan's fortunes +had. Nobody knew the full history of the change except Neil, but others +could have thrown sidelights upon it, among them Mrs. Randall's second +maid, Mollie. On the morning after that same party of the Colonel's, +which Mr. Brady attended so unexpectedly, and Judith did not attend, +Mollie opened the Randalls' door to an early caller. + +Even in curl papers, she was usually too much for the young man now on +the doorstep. He was in the habit of looking at his boots and addressing +them instead of her, and Mollie quite understood that, for they were +shabby boots. They looked shabbier than ever to-day, and so did his +shiny coat, but his eyes were steady and clear, and there was clear +colour in his cheeks, as if he had had the only restful and well-earned +sleep in Green River. + +"Miss Judith," he said. + +"Not at home," said Mollie, in a manner successfully copied from French +maids in the ten, twenty, thirties. + +"Nonsense. Her curtains aren't up," replied the young man who was +usually made speechless by it. + +"She's asleep," conceded Mollie, in a manner more colloquial but also +more forbidding. "She don't want to see you." + +Mollie was incapable of interpreting Judith's wishes, but the young man +was not; his smile conveyed this, though it was friendly enough. "When +Miss Judith gets up, tell her----" + +"I tell you she don't want to see you," snapped Mollie in a tone any +French maid would have deplored. "She don't want to see anybody." + +"Tell her that I'll call again at three this afternoon," directed the +young man calmly, and completed his disturbing effect upon Mollie by +turning and walking briskly away without a backward glance, and without +his usual air of self-consciousness when her eyes were upon him. He +carried his shabby coat with an air, and held his head high, and swung +out of sight down the sleepy little street as if he were the only +wide-awake thing in the whole sunny, sleepy town. + +It was a disconcerting moment for Mollie or any lady properly conscious +of her power, and sorry to see a sign of it disappear, even the humblest +of signs. It would still have been disconcerting, if she could have +foreseen that Judith would not receive this young man alone, either at +three that afternoon, or for many afternoons. The young man was not +overawed by Mollie. That was established once and for all. He would +never be overawed by her again. She slammed the door rather viciously. + +"Keep quiet there," said Norah, appearing inopportunely, as her habit +was, with a heavily laden breakfast tray. "She needs her rest. But +she's awake. She rang. You can take this up and leave it outside her +door. Who was talking to you?" + +"Well, I don't know what's come to him," Mollie complained. "Who does he +think he is? Did anybody leave him a fortune over night? It was the +Donovan boy." + +A few minutes after Neil's encounter with Mollie, when Mr. Theodore Burr +admitted him listlessly after his third knock at Judge Saxon's door, he +could see no evidence that any one had left the Donovan boy a fortune +over night, but did note a change in him. There was something +appealingly grave and sedate about his face, as if a part of its youth, +the freakish, unconquerable laughter of it, that had defied and +antagonized Mr. Burr, were gone forever, burned away, somehow, in a +night. It was a look Mr. Burr was to grow well used to in the next few +months. Perhaps the unaccountable affection he was to feel for the boy +in the course of them was born then and there. + +Neil emerged from the Judge's private office after a briefer talk than +usual, and the Judge did not escort him to the door in his accustomed, +friendly fashion. Mr. Burr did, and made him clumsy and unwonted +confidences there. + +"The old man's not quite fit to-day," he said. "I ought to have told +you. It's a poor time to get anything out of him. Been shut up there by +himself doping out something. Won't say two words to me." + +"Then he must be in a bad way, Theodore," said the boy, with the ghost +of his old, mocking smile, which Mr. Burr somehow did not find annoying +at all. + +"Look here, Neil," he surprised himself by saying, "I like you. I always +did. You deserve a square deal. You're too good for the Brady gang. +You're too good for the town. If there was anything I could do for +you----" + +"Maybe there is, Theodore," the boy turned in the corridor to say. +"Cheer up. You'll have a chance to see. I'm coming to work for the +Judge, I start in next week." + +"But the Judge turned you down." Mr. Burr's brain struggled with the +problem, thinking out loud for the sake of greater clearness, but too +evidently not achieving it. "The Judge likes you, too, but he couldn't +take you in if he wanted to. He talked of it, but gave it up. He'd be +afraid to. Everard----" + +"I start in next week," repeated Mr. Donovan. + +"But what did you say to him?" demanded Mr. Burr. "What did he say to +you? How did you dare to ask him again?" + +"I didn't ask him. Don't worry, Theodore. I haven't been trying any +black magic on the Judge. I don't know any. Maybe I'll learn some. I'm +going to learn a good deal. I've got to. Nobody knows how much. Even the +Judge don't know. I'm coming to work for the Judge, that's all, but I +didn't ask him." Mr. Burr, listening incredulously, did not know that +this was a faithful if condensed account of his talk with the Judge and +more, the key to much that was to happen to this pale and determined +young man, the secret of all his success. He gave it away openly, and +without pride: + +"I just told him so." + +Neil started in the next week. If Mr. Burr watched his young associate +somewhat jealously at first in the natural belief that a boy who had +changed the course of his life in a five-minute interview would do +something equally spectacular next, and if the Judge, who had said to +him at last, "Well, it's my bad morning, son, and your good morning, so +you get your way, but you're climbing on a sinking ship, and remember I +told you so. And I'll tell you something else. It will be poor pickings +here for all of us, and I'm sorry, but I'm the sorriest for you," was +inclined to follow him furtively over the top of his spectacles with a +look that held all the pathetic apology of age to youth in his kind, +near-sighted eyes, this was only at first. + +Colonel Everard, returning a few weeks later from one of his sudden, +unexplained absences from town, and making an early morning visit to his +attorney, was admitted by a young man whom he recognized, but pretended +not to. + +"Who are you?" he inquired, "the office boy?" + +"Just about that, sir," the young man admitted, as if he had no higher +ambition, but the Judge, entering the room with more evidence of +beginning the day with the strength that the day required, than he had +been showing lately in his carriage and look, put a casual hand on the +boy's shoulder, and kept it there. + +"The last time we discussed enlarging my office force, you didn't +advocate it, Everard," he said rather formally. + +"So you aren't discussing it with me now?" + +"Do you think you'd better discuss it?" + +"Do you?" + +"I think you are in no position to discuss it. You've been recently +furnished with much more important material to discuss. I haven't seen +you since your garden party, have I?" + +"No." Both men seemed to have forgotten the boy's existence, but now the +Colonel recalled it, and apparently without annoyance, and flashed a +disarming smile at him, giving up gracefully, as he always did if he was +forced to give up at all. "Well, you're right, Hugh. You're always +right. Do as you please. But this boy's got a temper of his own +and--quite a flow of speech. Runs in his family, evidently. Properly +handled, these are assets, but----" + +"I'm sorry, sir," Neil found himself stammering. "I shouldn't have +spoken to you as I did that day. I'm sorry." + +"Next time be sure of your facts." The voice was friendly, almost +paternal, but it held an insidious challenge, too, and for one betraying +moment all the native antagonism that was really there flashed in the +Colonel's eyes. Few enemies of his had been permitted to see it so +clearly. It was a triumph for Neil, if a barren one. "Be very sure." + +"I will, sir," said Neil deliberately, but very courteously. Then the +Colonel disappeared into the private office with his arm about his +trusted attorney's shoulders, and the young man for whose sake his +attorney had openly defied him for the first time in years began to +empty the office waste-baskets. + +The winter weeks in the Judge's office passed without even moments of +repressed drama like this. There was little to prove that they were the +most important weeks of his life to Neil. At first they were lonely +weeks. Mr. Burr, unusually prompt, reached the office one crisp +September morning in time to find him staring out of the window at a +straggling procession passing on its way up the hill to the schoolhouse, +hurrying on foot in excited groups, or crowded into equipages of varying +sizes and degrees of elegance, properly theirs or pressed into service. + +"First day of school," said Neil, and did not need to explain further, +even to Mr. Burr. From to-day on new faces would look out of the +many-paned windows of the old, white-painted building. New voices would +sing in the night on their way home from barge rides and dances. There +were to be new occupants of the seats of the mighty; a new crowd would +own the town. The door of the country of the young was shut in this +boy's face from to-day, and that is always a hard day, but it was +peculiarly hard in Green River, where the country of the young was the +only unspoiled and safe place to live. And there were signs of a private +and more personal hurt in the boy's faraway eyes. + +"What's that letter?" said Mr. Burr. + +"Seed catalogue." + +"Don't she write to you every day?" + +"Who?" + +"Is she too proud, or did she forget all about you? She'll have +time to, away half the summer, and not coming home for vacations. She +won't see you till next June." + +"If you mean Judith Randall," her late class-mate replied in a carefully +expressionless voice, "why should she write to me, and why shouldn't she +forget all about me?" There was a faint, reminiscent light in his eyes, +as if he were not seriously threatened with the prospect, but it died +away quickly, and his face grew very grave. + +"I'm a business man now, Theodore." + +"You are," said his newest friend, "and we couldn't keep house without +you now. You're in a class by yourself." + +This was true. Neil did not take his big chance at life as other boys +equally in need of it would have done. He did not lose his head. He +showed no pride in it. Green River, soon seeing this, rewarded him in +various ways, each significant in its own fashion. Nondescript groups +round the stove in his uncle's little store ceased to look for signs +that he felt superior to them, and welcomed him as before, restoring to +him his privilege of listening to talk that was more important than it +seemed, public sentiment uncoloured and without reserve, the real voice +of the town. Mrs. Saxon, of the old aristocracy of the town, with +inborn social prejudices stronger than any acquired from the Everards, +broke all her rules and invited him to Sunday-night supper. + +"The boy's not spoiled," his old friend Luther Ward said to the Judge +approvingly. "He knows his place." + +"That's the surest way to climb out of it," said Judge Saxon, advisedly, +for it was the Judge who had the closest and most discerning eyes upon +Neil Donovan's career. Listlessly at first, because he had looked on at +too many uphill and losing fights against the world, but later with +interest, forced from him almost against his will, he watched it grow. + +To a casual observer the boy would have seemed to be fitting himself not +for an ornament to the legal profession, but for the office boy Colonel +Everard had called him, but he would have seemed a willing office boy. +He spent hours uncomplainingly looking up obscure points of law for some +purpose nobody explained to him. He devoted long, sunny afternoons to +looking up titles connected with some mortgage loan which nobody gave +him the details of, and he seemed satisfied with his occupation, and +equally satisfied to devote a morning to plodding through new-fallen +snow delivering invitations to some party of Mrs. Saxon's. + +When he was actually studying, he lost himself in the Judge's +out-of-date reference books, as if they contained some secret as vital +as the elixir of youth, and might yield it at any moment. Mr. Burr, at +first ridiculing pupil and course of instruction alike, and with some +show of reason, began shamefacedly and afterward openly to give him what +benefit he could from the more modern education which had been wasted +upon him. Between his two teachers the boy arrived at conclusions of his +own. Neil was studying law by the old method which evolved so many +different men of letters and keen-witted lawyers, a method obsolete as +the Judge's clothes, but Neil gave allegiance to it ardently, as if it +had been invented for him. + +"What do you get out of this?" the Judge demanded, coming upon Neil late +one afternoon, poring over the uninspired pages of Mr. Thayer by the +fading light. "What do you hope to get?" + +"All there is in it," said the boy simply, and without oratorical +intent. + +"Suppose you do pass your bar examinations. What then? What will you do +with it?" + +"I'll wait and see then. I had to begin somewhere." + +"Why?" said the Judge, and as he asked the question, the answer to it, +which he had once known so well and forgotten, looked at him in the +boy's pale face and glowing eyes, the great answer not to be silenced, +youth, and the wonderful, wasteful urge of youth. "Don't you know this +town's sick?" he demanded abruptly. "It's dirty. You can't clean it up. +Don't you ever try. Don't you stir things up. Don't you dig in too deep. +I suppose you know the town's got no room for you?" + +"Yes, sir, I know." + +"Where do you expect to end?" the Judge began irritably, "in the +poorhouse? You're so damn young," he grumbled. "It's a good thing I +didn't know you when I was young. I'd have listened to you then." + +"You will now, sir," said the boy, and the Judge did not contradict him, +but instead, under shy pretence of groping for the switch of the desk +lamp, found the boy's hand and gripped it. + +"You're a good boy," he remarked irrelevantly. "Mind what I said, and +don't dig in too deep." + +The Judge did not explain whose secrets he hoped to protect by this +vague warning. Probably he could not have explained. It was one of those +instinctive pronouncements which shape themselves in rare moments when +two people are close and mean more than either of them know. Certainly +if the key to any secret was to be found within the Judge's dingily +decorated walls or in his battered safe, or learned from his partner, +the boy had exceptional opportunities to unearth it. Theodore Burr's +intimacy with Neil developed rapidly. He stuck to it obstinately, in +spite of his wife, showing more independence about it than he had in +years. The two had tramped and snow-shoed together through long winter +hours of intimate talk and more intimate silence, and they found the +first Mayflowers of the year together. Only the week before he had +committed the crowning indiscretion of giving up a poker game at the +Everards' to go shooting with Neil. + +The Judge, in the strenuous days of Colonel Everard's summer campaign, +had no time to observe the growth of this intimacy or to think much +about Neil, but he might have been interested in a snatch of talk in the +Brady kitchen one evening, if he could have overheard it, more +interested than Mrs. Donovan, who did not remember it long. + +Her son was an hour late for supper, but she was used to that, for now +that he was on his feet the house revolved around him. She served him, +and then sat watching him with her hands folded, and the new dignity +that had come with his first bit of success straightening her tired +shoulders, and the look of age and pain that had been growing there +since Maggie disappeared widening her soft, deep eyes. He had dropped +wearily into his chair, and he ate almost in silence, but she was used +to that, too. + +Outside the short, June twilight was over, and a pattering summer rain +had begun to fall. Neil's dark hair was damp with it and clung to his +forehead in close curls. Once, passing his chair, she smoothed it with a +hand that was work hardened but finely made and could touch him lightly +and shyly still. Her son pulled her suddenly close, and hid his face +against her. + +"What is it?" she asked, softly and not too soon as she stood still and +held him. "What's wrong, then? Where have you been?" + +"Nothing's wrong. Nothing new. I went round to Theodore Burr's, but I +left there at five. I didn't mean to be late home or make work. But I +had a hunch to look in at Halloran's. I thought I'd find Charlie there. +I did, and I had to get him home." + +"Taking your strength," said Mr. Brady's aunt, unfeelingly but +truthfully, "a good-for-nothing----" + +"That's not the worst thing he does." + +"What is, then?" + +"Talking." + +"He don't mean anything by that." + +"Sometimes he does. Sometimes he tells you things that you never +suspected and you don't believe him at first, but you find they're true; +things that have been locked up in his addled brain so long that they're +out of date, and you don't know how to profit by them or handle them, +but they're true--all true." + +"Neil, you don't half know what you're saying. You're tired." + +Mrs. Donovan released herself abruptly to get the tea-pot from the +stove. Her son, who had been talking in a low, monotonous voice, more to +himself than her, watched her with dazed eyes that slowly cleared. + +"I guess you're right," he said. "I didn't mean to frighten you. Charlie +was no more loose mouthed to-day than he always is. I got hold of +nothing new, but I have hold of more than I can handle, and I'm tired +and I'm scared, and there's only one of me." + +But Mrs. Donovan preferred her own interpretation of the situation, as +most ladies would have. She made it tactfully, keeping her eyes away +from him, busy with the tea-pot. "You're young, and it's June. Neil, the +children walked round with the Sullivan girl to take home the wash to +the Randalls'. They had some talk with Norah there. Judith will be home +this week." + +She had mentioned the much-debated name in a voice which she kept +indifferent, but she flashed a quick, apprehensive glance at him. She +was quite unprepared for its effect upon him. He only laughed, and then +his face sobered quickly, and his eyes grew lonely and tired again. + +"Judith," he said, "you think that's my trouble, mother. Well, I'm not +so young as I was last June." Then he began with considerable relish to +drink his tea. + +"You're contrary and close mouthed, but you're only a boy like all other +boys," said Mrs. Donovan, sticking to her point, "and you're a good son +to me." + +The boy who had made this rare and abortive attempt at confidences only +the night before showed no need of repeating it as he gazed out of the +Judge's window. He looked quite competent to bear all his own troubles +alone, and a generous share of other people's, though somewhat saddened +by them. Perhaps his mother's diagnosis of him was correct. He leaned +his chin on his hands and stared out of the window like any dreaming +boy, as if it was. But the winter that had passed so lightly over Green +River had left traces of its own upon him. His profile had a clearer, +more sharply outlined look. The lines at the corners of his mouth were +firmer though they were no deeper, and the mouth was still a boy's +mouth, red-lipped and lightly closed. But the dreaming eyes were a +man's, dreaming still, but alert, and ready to banish dreams. + +The afternoon light was fading fast. It was not so easy now to read the +fine print of Mr. Thayer's notes, and the boy made no further pretence +of trying to. He let Mr. Thayer slip to the floor, and stretched himself +in his chair with a sigh of relief. The sounds of talk in the Judge's +room had grown fainter and more intermittent and finally ceased. The +Judge, still deep in conference with them, had left with his guests by +the private door. The boy was alone in the office. + +Gradually, as he sat there, the bright pageant of the busy little street +had dimmed. It made a softer and mellower picture, a blend of delicate +colours in the slant mellow light, and it was not so busy now. There +were fewer passers-by, and they hurried and did not loiter past. It was +almost supper-time. Willard Nash, not joy riding now, but dispatched +reluctantly alone on some emergency errand, flashed by in his car, and +disappeared up Main Street. + +Beyond the double row of shops the upper section of the street was +empty. The maples, in full leaf now and delicately green, shadowed the +upward slant of smooth road alluringly. Touched with golden afternoon +light, and half hidden by the spreading green, the old, solidly built +houses planted so heavily in the midst of their well-kept lawns had new +and unguessed possibilities. Any one of them just then might have +sheltered a fairy princess. The one that did was just within range of +the boy's grave, patient eyes, a protruding porch, disproportionately +enlarged and ugly, a sweep of vividly green lawn stripped bare of the +graceful, dishevelled growth of lilac and syringa bushes that had graced +it before Mrs. Randall's day. + +Not from that house, but from somewhere beyond it, a car flashed into +view and cut smoothly and quickly down through the street, almost +deserted now. The boy followed it idly with his eyes. The low-built, +graceful lines of it held them. It approached, and slowed down directly +under the windows, and the boy leaned forward and looked. + +It was stopping there. It was one of the Everard cars, as the trim lines +and perfection of detail would have shown without the English +chauffeur's familiar, supercilious face. The car had only one occupant, +a slender young person in white. She slipped quickly out, and +disappeared into the dingy entrance hall below. + +She had not seen the boy at the window. He stood still now in his +corner, and waited. The tap of her feet was light even on the old +creaking stairs, but he heard. She knocked once and a second time, and +then threw open the door impatiently, saw who was there, and stopped +just inside the door, and looked at him. + +Her white dress and big, beflowered hat looked as cool and as new as +June itself. They did not make the dingy room look dingier, they made +you forget it was dingy. Her soft, befrilled skirts fluffed and flared +in the brave and bewildering mode of the moment. Skirts, small shoes +that were built to dance, not to walk, the futuristic blend of flowers +in her hat, and the girdle, unrelentingly high and futuristic of colour, +too, that gave her waist an unbelievably slender look, were all in the +dainty and sophisticated taste of a sophisticated young lady, and under +the elaborate hat there was a sophisticated young face. It looked +smaller and more faintly pink. The small chin was more prominent. But +she still had the wide, reproachful eyes of a child. They regarded the +boy unwinkingly. One hand went behind her, found the knob of the door, +and closed it mechanically, but the eyes did not leave his face. + +He stepped uncertainly forward, and stopped. + +"Well, Judith," he said, in a voice that held all the authority Judge +Saxon's assistant had acquired in the long year of his service and more, +"Well?" and then, in a voice that held no authority at all, but was +suddenly husky and small: "Oh, Judith, won't you speak to me?" + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN + + +"Judith," Neil said. + +Neil's visitor flashed a quick glance round the dim office, empty except +for the lean young figure that confronted her. It was a hunted glance, +as if she really meant to turn without speaking and pick up her +beruffled skirts, and run away down the dusty stairs, but she did not +run away. Suddenly quite herself, recovering by tapping some emergency +reserve of strength as only ladies can, but as most of them can, even +the most amateurish and beruffled of ladies, she crossed the room to +him. + +She came deliberately, with an impressive flutter of hidden silk. She +was smiling a faint half-smile, sweet but indefinably teasing, and +holding out a daintily gloved hand. It touched Neil's lightly and +impersonally, not like a girl's warm hand at all, but like the hand of a +society forever beyond his reach, held out patronizingly to this boy +beyond its pale, only to emphasize the distance between them. + +"How do you do?" she murmured, formally but sweetly. + +"How do you do?" the boy stammered. "Judith, oh, Judith, I----" + +He broke off, staring helplessly into her eyes. They were dark and +accusing and grave, and a heartache shadowed the depths of them, the +lonely and infinite heartache of youth, when you cannot measure your +pain or argue it away, but must suffer and suffer instead. But the boy +was too miserable just then to read it there. + +"Judith," he began, "don't you care any more? Why wouldn't you read my +letters? Why wouldn't you let me explain? Won't you let me now? I can, +Judith." + +Still smiling, not taking the trouble to interrupt him, she waited for +him to finish, and as she waited and smiled, he had suddenly nothing +more to say. Judith was so slender and white and still as she stood +there. All the outraged dignity of an offended schoolgirl was helping to +make this overwhelming little effect of hers, and every trick of poise +and carriage that she had acquired in a year, and something else, +something that shamed and silenced the boy as no tricks could have done, +and made her pathetic little show of injured dignity real. A woman's shy +soul was reaching out for every defence it had to protect itself; a +woman's new-born, bewildered soul looked out of Judith's beautiful, +grieved eyes. + +It was very still in the office. Outside an automobile horn sounded +aggressively, once and again, and Judith gave the boy an amused, +apologetic glance. + +"Parks is in a hurry," she said. "He ought not to do that. The Colonel +wouldn't like it. But I won't keep him waiting. I'm going out to the +Camp for supper. Father and mother are there already. I stopped for the +Judge, but he doesn't seem to be here. He is walking out to the Camp, I +suppose. I'm--glad to have seen you." Her voice choked perilously over +this irreproachable sentiment, then steadied and modulated itself +according to the instructions of the highly accredited elocution teacher +of which she had enjoyed the benefit for a year. "Good-night." + +Again she put out her cool little hand, but this time the boy's hand +closed on it tight. + +"Judith," he began, his words coming fast, the contact seeming to +release all that had been storing itself up in his lonely heart for a +year. Once released, it came tumbling out incoherently, with the lilting +brogue of the ragged little boy that he used to be singing through it, +and the breathless catch in his voice that is the supremest eloquence +for the kind of words that he had to say. But Judith gave no sign of +being moved by it, and while she listened, a hard look, too unrelenting +for any eloquence to reach, was growing in her eyes. + +"Judith, you're so sweet, so sweet; sweeter than you were last +year--sweeter than you ever were before. I didn't know anybody could be +sweeter, even you. I was so lonely. I wanted you so, and now you've +come. Everything will be all right, now you've come. And you came +straight here. You knew I was here, and you came because you knew. You +came straight to me." + +"I came for the Judge," she corrected him gravely. + +"But you knew I was here." + +"I knew you were working for the Judge, but I didn't think you'd be here +so late in the afternoon. I didn't come to see you. I didn't want to. +Why should I? But I'm glad you are doing so well. Good-night, Neil." + +"Good-night," he muttered mechanically, checked once more in spite of +himself. + +But as he spoke, he felt her hands, both in his now, and held tight, +tremble and try softly at first, and then in sudden panic, to pull +themselves away. Her voice, that had been so grave and cool, with no +echo of the excitement that was in his, failed her now, though she kept +her wide-open eyes bravely upon him. She was afraid of him, this young +lady who was making such elaborate attempts to hide it, this young lady +not of his world, and so anxious to prove it to him, this calm stranger +with Judith's eyes. She was very much afraid, and she could not hide it +any longer. + +"Let me go," she tried to say. + +"Judith," he dropped her hands obediently, but his arms reached out for +her and caught her and held her close, "you didn't come for the Judge. +You came to see me." + +"No. No." + +Her face was hidden against his shoulder. Her voice came muffled and +soft. Neil paid no further attention to it. "No," it insisted faintly. +"Let me go." Then it insisted no more, and the boy laughed a soft, +triumphant little laugh. + +"You did come to see me, and you love me. You love me and I love you. +You were angry, of course. Of course you sent back my letters. But +you're going to listen to me now. You're going to let me explain. I +couldn't that night. I couldn't talk any more. I didn't dare. I had to +keep hold of myself. I had to get you home. And I did, dear. I turned +round and took you home, and I got you home--safe. You're going to +listen? And not be angry any more? You won't, will you? You +won't--dear?" + +Her face was still out of sight, and her white figure was motionless in +his arms. She did not relax there, but she did not struggle. She looked +very slender and helpless so. Her futuristic hat had slipped from its +daring and effective adjustment, and fallen to the Judge's dusty floor, +where it lay unregarded. The silvery blond head against his shoulder was +changed like the rest of her, a mass of delicately adjusted puffs and +curls, but in the fast-fading light he saw only the soft, pale colour of +her hair and the tender curve of her throat. He kissed it reverently and +lightly, once only, and then his arms let her go. + +"You're so sweet," he whispered; "too sweet for me. But you're mine, +aren't you? Tell me you are. And you forgive me for--everything? Tell +me, Judith." + +She seemed in no hurry to tell him. She faced him silently, her white +dress whiter than ever in the fading light, and her face big eyed and +expressionless. He waited reverently for her answer, and quite +confidently, picking up the elaborate hat mechanically, and then +smoothing the ribbons tenderly, and pulling at the flowers, as he +realized what he held. + +"Poor little hat," he said softly, with the brogue coaxing insinuatingly +in his voice. "Poor little girl. I didn't mean to frighten you. And I +didn't mean to--that night.... Judith!" + +It was undoubtedly Judith who confronted him, and no strange lady now. +It was as if she had been waiting for some cue from him, and heard it, +and sprung into life again, not the strange lady, not even the girl of +the year before, but a long-ago Judith, the child who had come to his +rescue on a forgotten May night, the child of the moonlit woods, with +her shrill voice and flashing eyes. She was that Judith again, but grown +to a woman, and now she was not his ally, but his enemy. She snatched +the beflowered hat away, and swung it upon her head with the same +reckless hand that had swept the lantern to the ground in her childish +defence of him. Her eyes defied him. + +"That night," she stormed, "that night. Don't you ever speak of that +night to me again. I never want to hear you speak again. I never want to +see you again. I'll never forgive you as long as I live. I hate you!" + +"Judith, listen to me," begged the boy. "Listen. You must." + +But the girl who swept past him and turned to confront him at the door +was past listening to him. Words that she hardly heard herself, and +would not remember, came to her, and she flung them at him in a +breathless little burst of speech that hurt and was meant to hurt. The +boy took it silently, not trying to interrupt, slow colour reddening his +cheeks, his eyes growing angry then sullen. The words that Judith used +hardly mattered. They were futile and childish words, but because of the +blaze of anger behind them, that had been gathering long and would go on +after they were forgotten, they were splendid, too. + +"I hate you! I don't belong to you. I don't belong to anybody. I'm not +like anybody else. Nobody cares what I do, and I don't care. I don't +care. Nobody ever takes care of me or knows when I need it. Well, I can +take care of myself. I'm going to now. I never want to belong to +anybody. If I did, it wouldn't be you." + +"Judith, stop! You'll be sorry for this." + +"If I am, it's no business of yours. It's nobody's business but mine." + +"You'll be sorry," the boy muttered again, and this time the girl did +not contradict him or answer. Her shrill little burst of defiance was +over, and with it the sullen resentment that had crimsoned the boy's +face as he listened began to die away. He was rebuffed and thrown back +upon himself. His heart would not open so easily again. It would be a +long time before it opened at all. But he did not resent this. He only +looked baffled and puzzled and miserable, and the girl staring mutely at +him from the doorway with big, starved eyes, looked miserable, too. She +would be angry again. All the hurt pride and anger that had been +gathering in her heart for a year was not to be relieved by an +unrehearsed burst of speech. It had been sleeping in her heart. It was +all awake now, and she would be angrier with the boy and the world than +ever before, angrier and more reckless. But just now her anger was +blotted out and she was only miserable. In the gloom of the office there +was something curiously alike about the two tragic young faces. + +The two were alone together there, but they had never been farther +apart. There was a whole world between them, a lonely world, where +people all speak different languages, and understand each other only by +a miracle, and most of them are so used to being alone that they forget +they once had a moment of first realizing it. But when it was upon them, +it was a bitter moment. These two young creatures were both living +through it now. They looked at each other blankly, all antagonism gone. + +"You won't listen?" said the boy wonderingly, admitting defeat. "You +won't forgive me?" + +"No," said Judith pitifully. "I can't." + +Neil looked at her forlornly, but did not contest this. He came meekly +forward, not trying to touch her again, and opened the door for her. + +"Well, good-night," he said. "Good-night, dear." + +"Good-bye," Judith said. "Good-bye, Neil." + +Then, jerking her flaunting hat into adjustment with trembling fingers, +and shaking out her befrilled skirts with a poor little imitation of her +earlier airs and graces, she slipped out into the corridor, groped for +the dusty stair rail, and clutched at it with a new disregard for her +immaculate whiteness, and disappeared down the stairs. + +In the street below the last of the afternoon light still lingered, +reflected from the polished windows of the bank building, and faintly +illuminating the half-deserted square, but the sun was just going down +behind the court-house roof, a big, crimson ball of vanishing light. +Judith, appearing below in the doorway, stood regarding it deliberately +for a minute, ignoring the chauffeur's discreet manifestations of +impatience, and then made herself comfortable deliberately in the +Colonel's car. + +She sat there proudly erect, a dainty, aloof little lady. She seemed to +have recovered her high estate upon entering it, and become a princess +beyond Neil's reach once more. Watching her gravely from the Judge's +window, he could not see the angry tears in her eyes or the reckless +light in them. + +Little preliminary pants and puffs came from the car, discreetly +impatient, as if they voiced all the feelings that the correct Parks +repressed. He relieved them with one blatant flourish of sound from the +horn, and swung the car grandly across the square, round the corner, and +out of sight. Judith was gone, and she had not once looked up at the boy +in the window. + +She had not even seen another cavalier, who dashed out of a shop and +tried to intercept and speak to her, but was just too late; Mr. Willard +Nash, thrilled by his first sight of her, ready to return to his old +allegiance at a word, and advertising the fact in every line of his +forlorn fat figure as he stood alone on the sidewalk gazing wistfully +after the vanished car. + +The boy at the window did not waste his time in this way. Judith was +gone, and with her the spell that had held him mute and helpless, and he +was a man of affairs once more. He was not a very cheerful man of +affairs to-night. He was not singing or whistling to himself, as he +usually did, but he moved competently enough about the room, entering +the Judge's private office with its smell of stale tobacco smoke and +group of chairs, so confidentially close that they looked capable of +carrying on the conference their late occupants had begun without help +from them. He rearranged this room, giving just the straightening +touches to the jumble of papers on the desk that the Judge permitted, +and no more, and putting the outer office in order, too. + +By his own desk he paused, fingering Mr. Thayer's thumbed pages +absently. He had no attention to spare for them just then, or for the +graver questions that had absorbed him just before Judith came. They +would soon claim him again. They awaited him now, but out in the +gathering dark that he watched from the darkening office something else +waited, too. + +His heart ached with it, but it beat harder and stronger for it, and new +strength to meet old issues came pulsing from it, as if he were awake +again after a year of sleep. He was grieved and miserable, but he was +awake. For his mother was right: he was only a boy like other boys; he +was young and it was June, and whether she was kind or unkind, Judith +Randall was back in Green River. + + * * * * * + +Judith, whirled along the fast-darkening road between close-growing +pines, dulling from green to black, and birches, silver against them, +looked for the welcoming lights of Camp Everard through a mist of angry +tears. + +She shed them decorously, even under cover of the dark; she was still a +dainty and proud little lady, with nothing about her to advertise +conspicuously that she was crying, or why. But her little gloved hands +were closing and unclosing themselves, her lips were trembling in spite +of her, and there was a hunted look in her eyes as she turned them +toward the dark woods, as if her quarrel with Neil were not her only +trouble. The tears that she controlled so gallantly were a protest +against a world only half understood and full of enemies whose alien +presence she was just beginning to feel. + +But Neil, as she had just seen him, was enough to occupy the mind of +such a young lady, or a much older one. The look in his eyes as he stood +holding open the Judge's door for her was a highly irritating one for +any lady to meet. He was older and wiser than she was, no matter what +she could say or do to hurt him; he was stronger than she was, and +patiently waiting to prove it to her; that was what Neil's eyes were +saying. + +They said it first when he left her at her own door without a good-night +on that strange May night a year ago; when she stood looking up at him +changed and alien and silent, with the May moon behind him, that had +brought her bad fortune instead of good, still dim and alluring with +false promises above the shadowy elms in the little street, and they +looked down at her just so--Neil's grave, unforgettable, conquering +eyes. They were eyes that followed you to-night, when you tried to +forget them and look at the dark woods and fields; eyes that looked at +you still when you closed your own. + +But Judith would not look at them. The eyes were lying to her. Neil was +not really wise or kind. He was cruel. He had hurt her and slighted her, +and she was through with him. + +"Parks, can't you go faster?" she said suddenly, in her clear little +voice. "It's so late, and I'm hungry and cold." + +"It's bad going through here, Miss," the chauffeur said. + +They were turning into a narrow mile or so of road that sloped gradually +down through a series of arbitrary curves and bends to the lake and the +camp, a changed and elaborate structure now, overweighted with verandas +and uncompromisingly lit with new electric lights. But the road was one +of the things that the Colonel did not improve when he changed the +public camp into a private one. It was unchanged and unspoiled, a +mysterious wood road still, alluring now in the gloom. + +Judith's own people were waiting for her there at the end of that road. +They were all the people she had. Willard and schooltime and playtime +were more than a year behind her; they were behind her forever. She +could never go back to them. She had never really been part of them. She +had forced herself into a place there, but she had lost it now, and it +could never be hers again. + +These were her people. They were strange to her still, but she had grown +up breathing the feverish air that they breathed, and with little +whispers of hidden scandal about her. Judith was alone between two +worlds: one was closed to her, and she was before the door of another, +where she did not know her way. She was really alone, as she had told +Neil, more alone than she knew; a lonely and tragic figure, white and +small in the corner of the big car. + +But she was not crying now. She dabbed expertly at her eyes with an +overscented scrap of handkerchief and sat up, looking eagerly down the +dark road. She could catch far echoes of a song through the still night +air, faint echoes only, but it was a song that she knew, a gay little +song, and it came from a place where people were always kind and gay. It +was like a hand stretched out to her through the dark, a warm hand, to +beckon her nearer, and then draw her close. She leaned forward and +listened and looked. + +There was the camp, the first glimpse of it, though soon a dip of the +road would hide it again. It was an enchanting glimpse, a far, +low-lying flicker of light. And there, just by the big, upstanding +boulder where the road turned abruptly, she saw something else. She saw +it before Parks did, as if she had been watching for it. It was a man's +figure that started forward, came to the edge of the road, and waited. +The man looked more than his slender height in the shadow, but his +light, quick walk was unmistakable. It was Colonel Everard. + +"Stop, Parks," Judith said, with new authority in her voice. + +He stood waiting for her silently, without any greeting at all, and she +slipped her hand into his and stepped out and stood beside him. + +"Go on," he said to the chauffeur. "It's too rough here for the car. +It's easier on foot. Miss Randall will walk with me." + +The car, skilfully manipulated along the steep, zigzag road, but a +clumsy thing at best here in the woods, and an artificial and ugly +thing, lumbered away, breaking through outreaching branches. Judith +watched it out of sight. Then and not till then she turned to her host. + +"Aren't you going to speak to me?" the great man inquired respectfully, +as if her intentions deserved the most serious consideration. + +"Yes," said Judith serenely, unflattered by it. + +"What are you going to say?" + +"What do you want me to say?" + +"I want you to shake hands with me." + +A hand touched his lightly. It drew quickly away, but it was a confiding +little hand. + +"You don't seem surprised to see me." + +"I'm not," said Judith. + +"But you're glad to see me?" + +"Yes." + +"It's stuffy inside, and they've got a fire in the billiard room and +won't leave it. I wanted----" + +Judith laughed and let him draw her hand through his arm as they began +to grope their way down the road. "You wanted to meet me." + +She made the correction triumphantly and confidently, as she would have +made it to Willard. All this was coquetry, as she and Willard understood +it, and it was an old game to her, and a childish game, but there was +something strangely exciting about the fact that the Colonel understood +it, too, and condescended to play at it. It was more exciting than usual +to-night. + +"Why should I want to meet you?" he said. + +"I don't know." + +"Why weren't you downstairs last night when I came to see your father?" + +"I was tired." + +"You weren't running away from me?" + +"No." + +"And you won't ever run away from me?" + +"I don't know." + +"You're afraid of me." + +"Am I?" + +"Aren't you?" + +"I don't know," said Judith. "Look, there's the moon." + +It was low above the trees, rising solemn and round and slow. It looked +reproachful and grave, like Neil's eyes. It was looking straight at +Judith. Judith turned her eyes sternly away. What was the Colonel +saying? Something that did not sound like Willard at all, or like the +Colonel, either. Nobody had ever spoken to her in just that voice +before. It was a choked, queer voice. But Judith smiled up at him and +listened, tightening the clasp of her hand on his arm. + +"Don't be afraid of me. Don't ever be afraid.... You're so sweet +to-night." + +"No, I won't," said Judith defiantly, straight to the round, accusing +moon. "I won't be afraid." + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + + +"I don't like the look of you," said Mrs. Donovan. + +"Then you're hard to please." Neil turned at the foot of the steps to +say, trying to smile as he said it. "Harder than I am. I do like the +look of you." + +The Donovans, mother and son, were both quite sufficiently attractive to +the eye at that moment. This was the second day of September, and also +the second day of the county fair in Madison, five miles away--the big +day of the fair, and Neil's uncle had been up at dawn to escort the +younger Bradys there in a borrowed rig, and in the company of at least +half Green River in equipages of varied style and state of repair. Neil +had slept late, breakfasted sketchily, and dined elaborately alone with +his mother. Now the long, still, sunny afternoon was half over, and she +stood in the kitchen door, watching him start for town. + +The kitchen, newly painted this year, looked empty and unnaturally neat +behind her, but friendly and lived in, too, with the old, creaking +rocker pulled to an inviting angle at the window overlooking the marsh, +and a sofa under the other window, its worn upholstery covered freshly +with turkey-red; one splash of clear colour, sketched in boldly, just in +the corner where it satisfied the eye. Her neighbours did not take this +humble fabric seriously for decorative purposes; indeed, they would not +have permitted a sofa in the kitchen at all, but her neighbours were not +of her gracious race. They could not wear a plain and necessary white +apron like the completing touch to a correct toilette assumed +deliberately. Mrs. Donovan could, and she did to-day. Also her brown +hair, dulled to a softer, more indefinite brown by its sprinkling of +white, rippled softly about her low forehead, and her dress was faded to +a tender, vague blue like the blue of her eyes. Her eyes, almost on a +level with Neil's as she stood on the step above him, had the charm that +was peculiarly their own to-day, cloudy as they were with the faraway +look of a race that believes in fairies, but warm and human, too, with +an intimate mother look of concern for Neil. + +Neil met it steadily, not a sullen boy as he would have been under that +questioning a year ago, not resenting it at all, but keeping his secrets +deliberately. It had always been hard for her to make him answer +questions. It was not even easy for her to ask them now. + +"You don't sleep," she began. + +"Neither do you, if you've been catching me at it," reasoned her son +correctly. + +"You work too hard." She had made an accusation that he could not deny, +so he only smiled his quick, flashing smile. "You won't even take a day +to yourself." + +"I'll have the office and most of the town to myself this afternoon. +I'll have to go. I've got something special to look into." + +"Where's Charlie?" she demanded at once. + +"Oh, he's not troubling me to-day. He's safe at Madison with his new +mare. He'll break loose there, then come home and repent and stay +straight for weeks and make no trouble for me. He's due to break loose. +He's been good too long--too good to be true. He was in fine form last +night." Mr. Charlie Brady's cousin grinned reminiscently. + +"What do you mean?" + +"He gave me quite a little side talk on good form in dress and diction. +Charlie claims I won't make an orator, and he don't like my taste in +ties." + +"Who does he think he is?" flashed Mr. Brady's aunt indignantly. + +"Who do you think he is?" her son inquired unexpectedly. "For whatever +you think, that's me. I'm no better than Charlie." + +"Charlie?" Mrs. Donovan gasped, and then plunged into an indignant +defence of her son, not pausing to take breath. + +"You?" she began. "You that's planted firm on the ladder and right-hand +to the Judge already, and him getting older every day, and Theodore Burr +just kept on in the office because Everard's after Burr's wife. So he +is, and the town knows it, and Theodore'll wake up to it soon. A fine +partner Theodore is for the Judge, poor boy, but he's a good boy, too, +though none too strong in the head; Lil Burr is a good girl, too, and +she'd make a good wife to Theodore if she could be left to herself. +She'd make it up with Theodore, as many a girl has done that's got more +for her husband to forgive than Lil. + +"Poor Lil. Her head's high above me now, but the time was she cried on +my shoulder; crying for Charlie, she was, before ever Charlie took up +with Maggie and Lil with Theodore; when the four of them were all young +together, and the one as good as the other. Young they were, and the +hearts of them young--wild, doubtful hearts. Many's the time Lil would +come to me then, here in this same kitchen, and go down on her knees, +her that was tall and a fine figure of a girl, and cling onto me, crying +her heart out; crying she was for all the world like--like----" + +Mrs. Donovan checked herself abruptly with shrewd eyes upon her son. + +"Like young things do cry, and tell you their troubles in tears, not +words." She ended somewhat vaguely, and came quickly back to her main +subject again. + +"You that can walk into the big rally next week and sit with the men +that count, and whisper and talk to them, and hold your head high, with +nothing against you, and will be sitting up on the platform soon, with +the best of them, and be mayor yet, like Everard's going to be, or +governor, maybe--you to compare yourself with Charlie, if he is my +half-sister's own son. He's a drunken good-for-nothing. He's got no +spirit in him if he'll stay here at all, where he's ashamed himself and +make a show of himself. How is it he's able to stay? Where does he get +the money he spends? This town don't pay it to him. Who does?" + +"What put that into your head?" her son asked sharply. + +"There's talk enough of it, and there'll be more. The whole town will be +asking soon." + +"The town asks a lot of questions it don't dare hear the answers to," +said Neil softly, unregarded. His mother returned to her grievance: + +"You to be likening yourself to Charlie." + +"When Charlie was twenty-five," Neil began slowly, "he was where I will +be then, or better. The Judge was a friend to him, too, and the Judge +was a better friend then to have. Charlie was setting up for himself, +well thought of. My own father trusted him. When I was a boy and not +grown, Charlie was a son to him, and more. He was a better spoken lawyer +than I'll ever make, quick and smooth with his tongue, and he was fine +appearing, and put up a better front than I do. I've gone part of the +road that Charlie went. What will stop me from going the whole road? +What's beat Charlie is strong enough to beat me.... Don't look so +scared, mother. I don't want to scare you. I only want you to be fair to +Charlie." + +"His heart's broke," she conceded, melting. "He's nothing with Maggie +gone." + +"His heart's broke, but that's not what beat him," her son stated with +authority. "He was beat before." + +"When?" + +"He was beat," Neil stated deliberately, "when Everard moved to Green +River." + +This was a sweeping statement, but Neil did not qualify it. He dropped +the subject and stood silent, turning absent eyes upon the green expanse +of marshy field that had been the starting-place of all his dreams when +he was a dream-struck, gazing boy. His mother's eyes followed his, +growing cloudier and soft as if even now she could read them there. + +"Rests your eyes," Neil said, after a minute; "looks pretty, too, in the +sun. It's a pretty green. We'll drain it, perhaps, by the time I'm mayor +or governor. It might pay. I'll be going now." + +"Neil, when did you see her last?" asked his mother suddenly. + +"See who?" he muttered, and then flushed, and straightened himself, and +met her eyes bravely. + +"I saw Judith yesterday," he said, "on Main Street, and--she cut me." + +"Did she walk past you?" + +"No, she wouldn't do that. She pretended not to see me, but she saw me, +all right. She passed me in an automobile." + +"Whose?" + +"One of Everard's." + +"Was he with her?" + +"Yes." + +"Neil," his mother began a little breathlessly, "I want to tell you +something. I've said hard things to you, and they weren't deserved. I +know it now, and I'm sorry. I want to take them all back. I've said hard +things about Judith Randall." + +She hurried on, afraid of being stopped, but he made no move to stop +her. He listened courteously, his face not changing. + +"Neil, she's not what I thought. There's no harm in her. There's no +pride in her. She's just lonesome. She's just a young, young girl. She's +sweet-spoken and sweet-faced. Neil, from all I hear----" + +"You didn't hear all this direct from--Judith, then?" + +"Judith?" she hesitated, flashing a questioning glance at him. "Is it +likely? How would I get the chance? But from all I hear, she's too good +for Everard and the like. And she's not safe with them. She needs----" + +"What?" interrupted her son gravely, with the air of seeking information +on a subject quite strange to him and rather distasteful. But she tried +to go on. + +"--Judith needs--any one that's fond of her, any one that she's fond of, +to be good to her now. I've seen her, and it's in the eyes of her. No +man ever knows just what a woman is grieving for, but that's all one if +he'll comfort her when she's grieving. She needs----" + +Neil's eyes were expressionless. She sighed and put her two hands on his +shoulders. "Have it your own way," she said. "I'll say no more." + +Neil caught at one of the hands on his shoulders and kissed it. + +"For one thing," he said, "Judith or any girl needs a mother with a +heart in her--like I've got, but you're the one in the world. I'm +going." + +But he did not go at once. Standing beside her, suddenly awkward and +shy, he first gave her the confidence that she could not force from him, +all in one generous breathless burst of words. + +"Mother, Charlie's not the only one with his heart broke. But +heart-break isn't the worst thing I've got to bear. There's something +else. I can't tell you. I'd rather bear it alone. I've got to. +Good-bye." + +Then he left her standing still in the door, shading her cloudy blue +eyes with one small hand and looking after him. He swung into the dusty +road and, keeping his head high and his eyes straight ahead, undazzled +by the sharp sunlight of mid-afternoon on the long stretch of unshaded +way, passed out of sight toward Green River. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + + +Neil turned into Post-office Square just on the stroke of four. The +square was as empty and strange to the eye as his mother's kitchen, +though this was the rush hour of the day in that business centre upon +ordinary days, when the fair had not emptied the town. + +A solitary Ford of prehistoric make stood before the post-office, and +even that was just cranking up. It lurched dispiritedly off, leaving a +cloud of dust behind. A dejected-looking group of children hung about +the door of the ice-cream parlour, and appeared to lack the initiative +to enter in. Half the shops were shut. In the big show-window of the +central section of Ward's Emporium Luther Ward, usually on parade and +magnificently in charge of his shop and his staff of employees at this +time of day, stood in his shirt sleeves, embracing an abnormally slender +lady in a mauve velveteen tailored suit. + +At first glance he seemed to be instructing her in the latest dance +steps, but on a nearer view the visible part of her proved to be wax, +and the suit was ticketed nineteen-fifty. He jerked her into place, +turned and saw Neil, and hailed him cheerfully, waving him round to the +main entrance door, where he joined him, still wiping his brow. + +"If you want a thing well done, do it yourself," he said, explaining his +late exertions with the air of believing the explanation was original +with him and did credit to his intellect. "What are you here for, +brother? Isn't Madison good enough for you?" + +"No," Neil said. "Not with the big race called off." + +"Called off? How's that?" + +"Because you weren't there, Luther." + +Mr. Ward gave a gratified laugh at this graceful compliment, and +descended to facts. + +"I'm too old for horse racing. It's my boy's turn. He went over with +Willard Nash's crowd to-day. Why didn't you?" Mr. Ward demanded +severely. + +"Oh, Willard asked me all right. He's quite strong for me now." Mr. Ward +had doubted this, being on the watch for slights to Neil and resenting +them, though he never made an effort to prevent them. This was the usual +attitude of Neil's more influential friends. + +"Willard's a shrimp," said Mr. Ward gruffly. "And I like you," he added +in a burst of frankness. "I always did like you, Neil. You've pulled +yourself up by your boot-straps, and I hope you hang on to them tight. +There's nobody better pleased than I am. Oh, I got a rig and sent all +the help from the store over to the fair to-day," he added, turning +quickly to impersonal subjects. + +"You always do treat them right." + +"Well, this wasn't my idea. I got it from the Colonel." A look of +harmless but plainly evident pride came into Mr. Ward's open and ruddy +countenance as he mentioned the great man's name. It was only the week +before that he had received his first dinner invitation from the +Everards. It came at the eleventh hour and did not include his wife, but +he was dazzled by it still. "You know what he's doing? Closing his +house, practically, for all three days of the fair, and sending all the +help on the place over there--two touring cars full. It's a fine thing +for them. They're high-class help and don't have it any too interesting +down here. Anybody that says he's not democratic don't know the Colonel. +This town don't half know him yet." + +"You're right," Neil put in softly. + +"Democratic," declaimed Mr. Ward, "and public spirited. Look at the +fountain he's going to put up in the square. Look at the old Grant house +going to be fitted up for a library. Look at him running for mayor, when +he's been turning down chances at bigger offices for years--willing to +stay here and serve for the good of the town. There's talk against him +more than ever this year. I know that. It amounts to an indignation +meeting when the boys get together at Halloran's. Well, failures hate a +successful man, and their talk don't count. It will die down. But I hate +to hear of it. For the Colonel's put this town on the map. He's not +perfect, but who is? And suppose he does have a good time his own way? +We've got a right to--all of us. It's a free country." + +Mr. Ward delivered this last sentiment with touching faith in its force +and freshness, and waved a plump hand of invitation toward the little +private office back of the main section of his store, where he had +developed his unfailing eloquence of speech upon subjects of public +interest, and liked best to practise it. But Neil, himself listened to +with growing deference by the groups that forgathered there, was not to +be lured to that sanctum to-day. Speaking hastily and vaguely of work to +be done, he escaped from his good friend and across the street to Judge +Saxon's office. + +He climbed the stairs heavily, and did not linger before the door to +picture the sign changed to "Saxon, Burr, and Donovan," as he had done +more times than he cared to admit. The office was not a thing to be +proud of as a step up in life for him to-day; it was a place to be alone +in, as men feel alone and safe in the place that is their own because +they have worked there. + +Showing this in every move, Neil locked the door, threw off his cap, and +dropped into the broken-springed chair at the desk that was nominally +Theodore Burr's, but really his. He groped mechanically for the handle +of the drawer where he usually rested his feet, found it hard to open, +gave up the attempt and, leaning back without its support, stared at Mr. +Burr's ornate, brass-mounted blotter with unseeing eyes. + +Sitting there, he was no longer the boy who had the privilege of +intimate talk with prominent citizens like Mr. Ward and valued it; or +the boy who had laughed at his mother's anxiety so bravely. He was not +even the boy that he used to be, sullen, but rebellious, too. To-day for +the first time he was something worse, a defeated boy. The long minutes +dragged like hours, and he sat through them as he would have sat through +hours, silent and motionless, losing run of time and acknowledging +defeat. + +For there was something that this boy wanted, and had always wanted, as +he could never want other things, even success or love, as a boy or a +man can want one thing only in one lifetime. It was a remote and +preposterous dream that he had, a dream that nobody else in Green River +was foolhardy enough to cherish long, but this boy belonged to the race +of poets and dreamers, the race that must sometimes dream true, because +it always dreams. His dream had taken different forms: sometimes he saw +himself doing desperate things, setting fire to a house that he knew and +hated, striking a blow in the dark for which nobody thanked him, but the +issue was always the same, and the dream never left him. He was to find +Green River a new master. He was to save the town. That was his dream. +It had never left him till now. + +He was only a lean, tense boy, crouched over a battered desk and staring +out of the window at a country street with absent, beautiful eyes, but +he was living through a tragic hour; the terrible hour that poets and +dreamers know when they lose hold upon their dreams. Measured by +minutes, this hour was not long. Neil passed a hand across his forehead +and sat up, reaching for his cap in a dazed way, for he was not to be +permitted to hide longer from his trouble here. The plump and personable +figure of Mr. Theodore Burr was crossing the square and disappearing +into the door below. His unhurried step climbed the stairs. Neil opened +the door to him. + +"Hello, stranger. Why aren't you at Madison?" Neil said. + +"I didn't go," said Mr. Burr lucidly. "Where are you going? I don't want +to drive you away from here." + +"Oh, just out. I was going anyway." + +"You don't invite me. I don't blame you. I'm poor company, and I've got +business to attend to here." + +"No!" + +"Why shouldn't I have business here?" snapped Mr. Burr. + +"You should, you should, Theodore. Say"--the question had been troubling +Neil subconsciously all the time he sat at the desk--"what's wrong with +that lower drawer? I can't open it." + +"It's locked." + +"What for?" + +"That," said Mr. Burr with dignity, "is my private drawer--for private +papers." + +"Papers!" Mr. Burr's private papers were known to consist chiefly of a +file of receipted bills and a larger file of unreceipted bills, both +kept with his usual fastidious neatness. "What papers?" + +"That's my business. I've got some rights here, if I am a figurehead. +I've got some privileges." + +"Sure. Don't you feel right to-day, Theodore?" + +"That," said Mr. Burr, "is my business, too." + +Neil stared at his friend. Mr. Burr was faultlessly groomed, as always, +his tie was of the vivid and unique blue that he affected so often, and +a very recent close shave had acted upon him as usual, giving him a pink +and new-born appearance, but his eyes looked old and tired, as if he had +not slept for weeks and had no immediate prospect of sleeping, and there +were lines of strain about his weak mouth. He was not himself. Even a +boy preoccupied with his own troubles could not ignore it. + +"Don't you feel right?" Neil said. "Don't you want me to do something, +Theodore?" + +"Yes. Get out of here. Leave me alone," Mr. Burr snapped angrily. + +"Sure," said Neil soothingly. + +Suddenly Mr. Burr gripped Neil's reluctant, shy, boy's hand, kept it in +his for a minute in silence, and then abruptly let it go, pushing Neil +toward the door. + +"Don't begrudge me one locked drawer when you'll own the whole place +some day," he said, with all the dignity that his fretful burst of +irritation had lacked. "I'd like to see that day. You're a good boy, +Donovan." + +"You're not right. You've got a grouch. Come with me and walk it off," +Neil said uneasily, but he did not press the invitation, and his friend +had little more to say. His silence was perhaps the most unusual thing +about his behaviour, which was all out of key to-day. Neil remembered +afterward that just as he closed the door upon Mr. Burr and his +vagaries, shutting them at the same time out of his mind, Mr. Burr, +sitting rather heavily down in the broken-springed desk chair, was +bending and stretching out a faultlessly manicured, slightly unsteady +hand toward the locked drawer of the desk. + +Neil stepped out into the street with a cautious eye upon the Emporium +across the way, but no portly form was in sight there now, and no hearty +voice hailed him. He crossed the square and turned north, walking +quickly, soon leaving the larger houses behind, and then the smaller +houses above the railroad track, always climbing gradually as he walked. +Finally, at the entrance to an overgrown road that led off to his left, +and at the highest point of his long and slow ascent, he turned and +looked back at the town. + +The town that Colonel Everard had put on the map hardly deserved the +honour, seen so in a glitter of afternoon light, with the long, sloping +hill leading down to it, and the white tower of the church pointing high +above it, a cozy huddle of houses at the foot of the hill. It looked +unassuming and sheltered and safe, only a group of homes to make a +simple and sheltered home in. The boy looked long at it, then turned +abruptly and plunged into the road before him. + +It led straight across a shallow belt of fields and deep into the woods. +Only a cart-track at first, it soon lost itself here in a path, and the +path in turn grew fainter and became a brown, alluring ghost of a path. +It was hard to trace, but this was ground that Neil knew, a favourite +haunt of his, though few other boys ventured to trespass here. The woods +were part of the Everard estate. + +Neil had found his first May flowers here on the first spring that he +was privileged to give them to Judith. Last year she had helped him look +for them here. His errand here was not so pleasant to-day. The brown +path did not really lead to the heart of the woods as it seemed to. It +was not so long as it looked. It was a fairly direct short cut to the +Everard house. + +The boy followed it quickly, with no eyes for the dim lure of the woods +to-day. + +"You've beat me," he muttered once to himself; "I'll have a look at +you." + +Soon the woods were not so thick. They fell away around him, carelessly +thinned at first, littered with fallen trees and stumps, but nearer the +house combed out accurately by the relentless processes of landscape +gardening, and looking orderly and empty. The little path vanished +entirely here. Ahead of Neil, through a thin fringe of trees, was the +Colonel's rose garden; beyond it, the broad stretch of lawn and the +house, bulky and towered and tall. + +Neil broke through the trees and stood and looked at it, straight ahead, +seen through the frame of the trellised entrance to the garden, +upstanding and ugly and arrogant. + +"You've beat me," he said to the Colonel's house. "You've beat me; you +and him. I hate you!" + +His voice had a hollow sound in the empty garden. Garden and lawn and +house had the same look that the whole deserted town had caught to-day; +the look of suddenly empty rooms where much life has been, a breathless +strangeness that holds echoes of what has happened there, and even hints +of what is to happen; haunted rooms. It is not best to linger there. +Neil turned uneasily toward the path again. + +He turned, then he turned back, stood for a tense minute listening, then +broke through the rose garden and began to run across the lawn. Very +faint and small, so that he could not tell whether it was in a man's +voice or a woman's, but echoing clearly across the deserted garden, he +had heard a scream from the house. + +It came from the house somewhere, though as Neil ran toward it the house +still looked tenantless. The veranda was without its usual gay litter of +cushions and books and serving trays. At the long windows that opened on +it all the curtains were close drawn--or at all but one. + +As Neil reached the house he saw that the middle window was thrown high +and the long, pale-coloured curtain was dragged from its rod and +dangling over the sill. Just then he heard a second scream from the +house. It was so choked and faint that he barely heard it. Neil ran up +the steps and slipped through the open window into the Everards' +library. + +Little light came through the curtained windows. The green room, +sparsely scattered with furniture in summer covers of light chintz that +glimmered pale and forbidding, looked twice its unfriendly length in the +gloom. There was a heavy, dead scent of too many flowers in the air. On +a table across the room a bowl of hothouse hyacinths, just overturned, +crushed the flowers with its weight and dripped water into the sodden +rug. + +Neil, at the window looking uncertainly into the half-dark room, saw the +bowl and the white mass of crushed flowers, and then something else, +something that shifted and stirred in a far corner of the room. He saw +it dimly at first, a dark, struggling group. There were two men in it. + +One was a man who had screamed, but he was not screaming now. It would +hardly have been convenient for him to scream, for the other, the +smaller and slighter man of the two, was clutching him by the throat, +gripping it with a hand that he could not shake off as the two figures +swayed back and forth. + +"Who's there?" Neil cried. + +Nobody answered him. Nobody needed to, for just then the two men who +seemed to be fighting swung into the narrow strip of light before the +uncurtained window and he could see their faces. He could see, too, that +they were not fighting now, though they had seemed to be. The bigger man +was choked into submission already. No sound came from him and he hung +limp and still in the little man's hold. Just in the centre of the strip +of light the little man relaxed his grip, and let him fall. He dropped +to the floor in a limp, untidy looking heap, and lay still there, with +the light full on his face, closed eyes and grinning mouth. The man was +Colonel Everard, the man who stood over him was Charlie Brady. + +As Neil looked Brady dropped on his knees beside the Colonel, felt for +his heart, and found it. He knelt there, motionless, holding his hand +pressed over it and peering intently into his face. Presently he got to +his feet deliberately, gave a deep sigh of entire content with himself, +and looked about him. Then and not until then he saw Neil. He saw him +without surprise, if without much pleasure, it appeared. + +"You're late," he remarked. + +"You drunken fool," Neil began furiously, then stopped, staring at his +cousin. Whatever the meaning of this exhibition was, Charlie was not +drunk. The excitement that possessed him was excitement of some other +kind. It possessed him entirely, though it was under control for the +moment. His muscles twitched with it. His shoulders shifted restlessly. +His hands closed and unclosed. His eyes were strangely lit, and there +was an absent, exalted look about them. Whatever the excitement, it was +strong--stronger than Charlie. Neil, his eyes now used to the +half-light, could see no weapon in the room, dropped on the floor or +discarded. Mr. Brady, normally a coward in his cups and out of them, had +attacked his enemy with his bare hands. + +"Charlie, what's got you?" Neil said. "What's come to you?" + +"What's come to him, there?" Charlie said, in a voice that was changed, +too, and was as remote and as strange as his eyes, a low voice, with the +deceptive, terrible calm of gathering hysteria about it. + +"Look what's come to him," the voice went on. "Don't he deserve it, and +worse? How did I find him to-day when I broke in through the window +there? At his old tricks again. There was a woman with him in the +library there, when he came out to me. He locked the door. She's there +now. Neil, you'd better get away from here. I don't know what you're +doing here, but you'd better go, and go quick." + +He had given this advice indifferently. He made his next observation +indifferently, too, with his furtive, absent eyes on the library door. + +"I've killed him." + +"What's got you? Are you crazy?" + +"No--not now. You'd better go. I want to take a look in there first. The +key's in the door." + +"Charlie, come back here." + +The note of command that he was used to responding to in his young +cousin's voice reached and controlled Mr. Brady even now; he obeyed and +swung round and stood still, looking at Neil. Neil's dark eyes, just +above the level of his own, and so like them, were unrecognizable now. +They were dull with anger, and they were angry with him. + +"What's the matter?" he quavered. "What's the matter, Neil?" + +Between the two cousins, as they stood facing each other, the Colonel +lay ominously still. The cruel eyes did not open, and the distorted +mouth did not change. + +"Look! You can see for yourself. Feel his heart," Mr. Brady offered, but +his cousin's dark, disconcerting eyes did not leave his face. "What's +the matter, Neil? What are you going to do?" + +"I'm going to make you talk out to me," Neil said. "You'll tell me +what's got you, and why you did this, which will be the ruin of you and +me, too, but first you'll tell me something else. You'll tell me what +you've hid from me for a year, you who can tell me the truth when you're +drunk and lie out of it when you're sober, till you've worn me out and +I'm sick of trying to get the truth from you. I'll be getting it now too +late, but I'll get it. Have you or have you not been living on this +man's money?" + +"Yes." + +"Was it hush money?" + +"Yes," Mr. Brady said. "Neil, I'll tell you everything. You've guessed +most of it, but I'll tell you the rest. I can prove it. I can prove +everything I know. I did take hush money. It was dirty money, but I +didn't care. I didn't care what happened. I didn't care till to-day." + +"To-day?" + +"I got--a letter." + +"Go on," Neil said. + +As he spoke Mr. Brady's face began suddenly to change, lighting again +with that strange excitement which had gripped him, revived, and burning +through its thin veneer of control. His eyes blazed with it, and his +voice shook with it. He waved a trembling hand toward the library door. +A sound had come from the library, the faintest of sounds, a low, +frightened cry. It was like the ghost of a cry, but he heard. Neil heard +it, too, and was at the door before him, trying to unlock it, fumbling +with the key. + +"She's there yet," Mr. Brady cried; "whoever she is. Well, she'll be the +last of them. I had a letter, I tell you, a letter from Maggie. She's +coming home, what's left of her--what he's left of her--Everard. I never +thought he was to blame. I said he was, but I was talked out of it. If +I'd thought so, if I'd suspected it, would I have touched a penny of his +dirty money? But she's coming home. Maggie's coming home." + +For the moment Neil was not concerned with the fact. Graver revelations +might have passed over him unheeded. The key had turned at last. Then +Neil felt the door being pushed open from inside. He stepped back and +waited. The door opened cautiously for an inch or two, then swung +suddenly wide. Standing motionless, framed in the library door, was +Judith. + + + + +CHAPTER NINETEEN + + +The two cousins, Mr. Brady shocked into sudden silence, stood with +Colonel Everard's unconscious body behind them, unregarded, like any +other bulky and motionless shape in the dim room, and stared at the girl +who had come from the locked library. + +"Not you," Neil's voice said dully. "Not here." + +But the girl was Judith. + +Bare-headed, slender in soft-falling white, she stood in the library +door with both hands behind her, clasping her big, limp hat by its +flaring brim. Her lightly poised, blond head was fluffy with small, +escaping curls, her clear-coloured cheeks were warmly flushed, and +between her red, slightly parted lips her breath came too quickly, but +softly, still. A sheer, torn ruffle trailed from her skirt. One +rose-coloured bow hung from her girdle awry and crushed, and looked the +softer for that, like a crumpled flower. + +About her dress and her whole small self there was a drooping and +crumpled look. It was the look of a child that has played too hard. +Surely the most incongruous and pathetic little figure that had ever +appeared from a room where a distressed or designing lady was suspected +of hiding, she stood and returned Neil's look, but there was blank panic +in her eyes. + +They turned from Neil to Mr. Brady, wild eyed and pale beside him, to +the disordered room, and back to Neil again, with no change of +expression at all. They were wide and dilated and dark, intent still on +some picture that they held and could not let go. Judith came an +uncertain step or two forward into the room, stiffly, as if she were +walking in her sleep, and stood still. + +"Neil, what did you come here for?" she said. "I'm glad you came." + +Her voice was sweet and expressionless, like her eyes, and though she +had called Neil by name, she looked at him as if she had never seen him +before. One small hand reached out uncertainly, pulled at his sleeve, +and then, as he made no move to take it, dropped again, and began to +finger the big hat that she held, and pluck at the flowers on it, but +her eyes did not leave his face. + +"Will they stand for this?" Mr. Brady was demanding incoherently behind +them, "as young as this? Will the town stand it? No. And they won't +blame me now. They can't. It was coming to you--you----" + +He was in the grip of his own troubles again, and breaking into little +mutterings of hysterical speech, which he now addressed directly to +Colonel Everard, standing over him and not seeming to feel the need of +an answer. It was an uncanny proceeding. The girl and boy did not watch +it. They were seeing only each other. + +"Judith," Neil began stumblingly, "what were you doing there? What's +frightened you so? What you heard out here? That's all that frightened +you, isn't it? Isn't it? But what made you come here alone like this? +Didn't you know---- Oh, Judith----" + +He stopped and looked down at her, saying nothing, but his eyes were +troubled and dark with questions that he did not dare to ask. There was +no answer to them in Judith's eyes, only blank fear. As Neil looked, the +fear in Judith's eyes was reflected in his, creeping into them and +taking possession there. + +"Oh, Judith," he whispered miserably. "Oh, Judith." + +Judith seemed to have heard what he said to her from far away, and to be +only faintly puzzled by it, not interested or touched. Her eyes kept +their secrets under his questioning eyes. They defied him. She was not +like his little lost sweet-heart found again, but a stranger and an +enemy, one of the people he hated, people who intrigued and lied, but +were out of his reach and above him, and were all his enemies. + +The boy's world was upsetting. Nothing that had happened to him in that +room or ever had happened to him before had shaken it like that minute +of doubt that he lived through in silence, with the strain of it showing +in his pale face, and Charlie's voice echoing half heard in his ears. He +drew back from Judith slightly as they stood. He was trembling. Judith's +face was a blur of white before his eyes, then he could not see it--and +then, as suddenly as it had come, his black minute was over. + +"Take me away. I don't want to stay where he is any more. Is he dead?" +Judith said, and she slipped her hand into Neil's. + +Judith's voice was as lifeless and strange as before, and the hand in +his was cold, but it was Judith's own little clinging hand, and the +boy's hand closed on it tight. He stood still, feeling it in his, and +holding it as if the poor little cold hand could give him back all his +strength again. He looked round him at the dim room and its motionless +owner and Charlie as if he were seeing them clearly for the first time. +He was not angry with Charlie any longer. He was not angry at all. He +drew a deep, sobbing breath of relief, dropped his dark head suddenly +and awkwardly toward Judith's unresponsive hand and kissed it, and then +very gently let it go. + +"Judith, you're you," he said, "just you, no matter what happens, and +nothing else matters; nothing in the world, as long as you are you." + +Judith only smiled her faint half smile at him, as if she guessed that +some crisis had come and passed, but did not greatly care. + +"Take me away," she repeated patiently. "I thought there'd be other +people here. He said so. But I've come here alone before, only he was +different to-day. He was different." + +"Don't tell me. I don't want to know. I won't ever ask you again. I +never ought to have asked you. It's all right, dear. It's all right." + +"I didn't know people were like that--anybody, ever. I just didn't +know----" + +"Don't, dear," said Neil sharply. The small, bewildered voice that held +more wonder and pain than her words broke off, but her bewildered eyes +still wondered and grieved. Neil's arms went out to her suddenly and +drew her close, holding her gently, and hiding her small, pathetic face +against his shoulder. + +"Don't," he whispered. "I'll take care of you. I'm going to take care of +you. Nobody's going to hurt you any more." + +"Neil, I just didn't know. I didn't know." + +"It's all right. I'm going to take you away. Just wait, dear. I'm going +to take care of you." + +He spoke to her softly, saying the same thing over and over, as if he +were quieting a frightened child. She was quiet in his arms like a +frightened and tired child in any arms held out to it. One arm had +slipped round his neck and clung to him. She drew long choking breaths +as if she were too tired to cry. Gradually they stopped, but the arm +round his neck only clung tighter. + +"Don't leave me," she whispered. + +"No, I'm not going to. I'm going to take care of you. You know that, +don't you, Judith?" + +"Yes. Neil?" + +"Yes, dear." + +"Neil." Still in his arms, because she felt safe and protected there, +Judith lifted her head and looked at him, and into her sweet, dazed +eyes, full of a terror that she could not understand, came a faint flash +of anger. This boy who held her so safe and comforted was her enemy, +too. Long before the ugly accident of what had happened behind the +library doors he had been her enemy, and he was her enemy now, though +she needed his protection and took it. Their quarrel was not over. +"Neil, I don't forgive you. I'm never going to forgive you." + +"All right, dear." + +"And I hate you. You know that, don't you? I hate you." + +"Yes, dear, I know it. We aren't going to talk about that now. Let me +go." + +Both arms were round him now. Judith let him draw them gently apart and +down, and drew back from him. The anger was gone from her eyes. She +watched him wide eyed and still, as children watch the incomprehensible +activities of grownups, or devoted but jealous dogs watch them. + +"Don't leave me," she said. "You're sweet to me." Then she gave a sharp, +startled little cry. + +"Neil," she begged, "don't touch him. I don't want you to touch him. +What are you going to do?" + +The light had not had time to dim or shift perceptibly in Colonel +Everard's big room while so much was settling itself for Neil and +Judith. The Colonel still lay with the pale shaft of afternoon light on +his unconscious face. Now the boy was kneeling beside him. He slipped a +strong, careful arm under his shoulders, and bent over him, touching him +with quick, sure hands. He ignored Mr. Brady, who stood crying out +incoherent protests beside him, and finally put a shaking hand on his +shoulder. + +Neil shook it off, and rose and stood facing his cousin. + +"I thought so," he said, with a short laugh. "You had me going at first, +Charlie, when I came in here and saw what a pretty picture you made. I +believed you. I thought you had killed him. I might have known things +like that don't happen in Green River." + +Neil put both hands on his cousin's shoulders and looked at him. Mr. +Brady was not an attractive sight at that moment. The excitement that +had held and swayed him was leaving him now, and he looked shaken and +weak. An unhealthy colour purpled his cheeks, and his sullen eyes glared +vindictively, but could not meet Neil's eyes. + +"Don't laugh at me," he muttered. "Don't you dare to laugh at me." + +"Going to beat me up, too?" his cousin inquired. "Poor old Charlie! +Let's hope your friend there will laugh at you when he talks this over +with you. He'll come out of this all right, but he'll be in a better +temper if he has a doctor here. I'll 'phone for one." + +"What do you mean? I've killed him. I'm glad I killed him." + +His cousin laughed again. "Killed him? The man's no more dead than you +are. You've knocked him out, that's all. But you didn't kill him. Is +that the 'phone over there?" + +A desk telephone on a big Louis Quinze table at one end of the room, the +instrument masked by the frilly skirts of a French mannequin, perhaps +the only lady who had ever been permitted to be insipid in that room and +to stay there long, answered Neil's question by ringing faintly, once +and again. Neil started toward it, but did not reach it. Mr. Brady had +flung himself suddenly upon him in a last burst of feverish strength, +which he dissipated recklessly by shrieking out incoherent things, and +striking misdirected blows. + +Neil parried them easily, caught his thin arms and held them at his +sides. Keeping them so, he forced him against the edge of the flimsy +table and held him there and looked at him. + +"You shan't answer that 'phone," Mr. Brady cried, in a last futile burst +of defiance. "You shan't stop me. You shan't interfere. I'll kill him, I +tell you, and you shan't answer that 'phone. You shan't----" + +Mr. Brady's voice died away, and he was silent under his cousin's eyes. + +"Through?" said Neil presently. + +"Yes," he muttered. + +"Do you mean it?" + +Mr. Brady nodded sullenly. + +"You've made a fool of yourself?" + +Mr. Brady nodded again. + +"Neil," he got out presently, "I can make it up to you. I haven't been +square with you, but I can. I will. You don't know----" + +"You've done talking enough. Will you go now?" + +"Yes." + +"You'll quiet down and go to mother's and stay there till I come?" + +"Yes." + +Neil let him go. + +"Maybe I'll finish up your friend for you myself, Charlie, after you +leave here," he offered. "I've thought of it often enough. Now I come +here and fight for him instead of fighting against him. I fight with +you. Poor old Charlie. Murder and sudden death! I tell you, things like +that don't happen in Green River." + +Neil stopped talking suddenly. The telephone at his elbow had rung +again, this time with a sharp, sudden peal, peremptory as an impatient +voice speaking. Neil caught it up, jerked off the simpering lady by her +audacious hat, and answered. + +At once, strangely intimate and near in that room where the three had +been shut in for the last half hour alone and away from the rest of the +world while it went on as usual or faster, a man's voice spoke to him. +It was almost unrecognizable, so excited and hoarse, but it was Luther +Ward's. + +"Hello," Neil said. "Hello. Yes, this is Everards'. No, he can't come to +the 'phone. He--what? What's that?" + +Neil stopped and listened breathlessly. Mr. Brady, slinking head down +from the room, turned curiously to stare at him, and Judith, slipping +across the room like a little white ghost, drew close to him and felt +for his hand. Neil took her hand, this time with no response of heart or +nerves. He had put down the telephone, replacing the receiver +mechanically, but Luther Ward's voice still echoed in his ears. + +It had spoken to an uncanny accompaniment of half-heard voices, rattling +unintelligibly in the room where Ward was, the prosaic, tobacco-scented +room that Neil knew so well. + +"Tell Everard to come," Ward's voice had said. "He's to come down here, +to Saxon's office. I'm there now. Theodore Burr has shot himself. Yes, +shot himself. He won't live through the night. Who's this talking to me? +Neil Donovan, it's you. What are you doing at Everard's? Never mind. +Come down here yourself. Come straight down. Theodore's conscious, and +talking, and he's been asking for you." + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY + + +Green River was getting ready for the rally in Odd Fellows' Hall. It was +six o'clock on the evening of the seventeenth of September, and "Grand +rally, Odd Fellows' Hall, September Seventeenth at eight-thirty," had +been featured for weeks in the Green River _Record_, on the list that +with a somewhat arrogant suggestion of prophetic powers possessed by the +_Record_ was headed "Coming Events." It was always a scanty list, +especially in the fall, when ten, twenty, thirty companies began to play +larger centres, and church lawn parties and circuses could no longer +appear on it. Sometimes not more than six events were to come in a gray +and workaday world. But six were enough to announce. Even a true prophet +is not expected to see all the future, only to see clearly all that he +sees, and the _Record_ did that. + +This rally was important enough to be listed all by itself, and it did +not need the adjective grand. It was The Rally. + +It was Green River's own--a local, almost a family, affair. No +out-of-town celebrities were to be imported this time, to be listened +to with awe and then wined and dined by the Colonel safe from the +curious eyes of the town. This time old Joe Grant was to preside, as he +had done as a matter of course on all such occasions when he was the +acknowledged head of the town in political and financial matters, in the +old days of high-sounding oratory and simpler politics that were gone +forever, but were not very long ago. Judge Saxon, an old timer, too, and +better loved than the Honourable Joe, had declined the honour of +presiding, but had the authentic offer of it, his first distinction of +the kind for years. + +It was a local but very important occasion. It was Colonel Everard's +first official appearance as candidate for mayor. It was to be a very +modest appearance. No more time was allotted for his speech than for +Luther Ward's. He was putting himself on a level with Luther and the +Judge and the Honourable Joe and identifying himself at last with local +politics. The evening emphasized the great man's condescension in +accepting this humble office and honouring Green River. Even with the +scandal of Theodore Burr's suicide unexplained still and only two weeks +old, interest centred on the rally. It was a triumph for the town. + +Green River was almost ready. Dugan's orchestra was engaged for the +evening, instead of a rival organization from Wells, which the Colonel +often imported upon private and public occasions. Jerry Dugan was +getting old, too, like the Judge and the Honourable Joe. He had not lost +the peculiar wail and lilt from his fiddling, but he had made few recent +additions to his repertoire. Just now the band concert in front of Odd +Fellows' Hall was winding up with his old favourite: "A Day on the +Battlefield." + +It had the old swing still, contagious as ever. Loafers in front of the +hall shuffled their feet in time to it. Moon-struck young persons +hanging two by two over the railings of the bridge to gaze at the water +straightened themselves and listened. An ambitious soloist lounging +against the court-house fence across the square began to whistle it with +elaborate variations, at the inspiring moment when "morning in the +forest" had bird-called and syncopated itself into silence, and actual +fighting, and the martial music of the charge began. + +High and lilting and shrill, it hung in the still night air, alive for +the hour, challenging the echoes of dead tunes that lingered about the +square, only to die away and be one with them at last; band music, +old-fashioned band music, blatant and empty and splendid, clear through +the still night air, attuned to the night and the town. + +"Good old tune. Gets into your feet," Judge Saxon said, while his wife +adjusted his tie before the black walnut mirror in their bedroom, but +his unusual tribute to the tune was perfunctory to-night, and his wife +ignored it, wisely taking this moment of helpfulness to plunge him +suddenly and briskly into a series of questions which she had been +trying in vain for some time to get the correct answers to. + +"Hugh," she said, "why wouldn't you take the chair to-night?" + +"You were the only thing I ever tried to take away from Joe Grant and +got away with it, Millie," the Judge explained gallantly. + +"Don't you think this rally is like old times? Don't you want to see the +town stand on its own feet again, instead of being run from outside?" + +"I do, Millie." + +Mrs. Saxon made her next point triumphantly, connecting it with the +point before by some obscure logic known only to ladies. + +"Hugh, a father could not do more for Lillian Burr than the Colonel has +since poor Theodore went. The house full of flowers, calling there +himself every day and twice a day, though she won't see him; but Lillian +won't see any one. The Colonel's been ailing himself, too, but he +wouldn't put off the rally and disappoint the town. And the new library +will open this fall, and there's talk that he's giving an organ to the +church. Hugh, don't you think Theodore's death may have sobered him? +Don't you think this may be the beginning of better things? Don't you +think----" + +"I think you're making a butterfly bow. I don't like them," said the +Judge, with the ingenuous smile that somehow closed a subject. She +sighed, but changed her attack. + +"Turn round now. I want to brush you. Hugh, what has happened to Neil +Donovan?" + +"What do you mean, happened to him?" snapped the Judge, and then added +soberly, "I don't know, Millie. I wish I did." + +"An Irish boy can get just so far and no farther." + +"How far, Millie?" + +"Don't be flippant, Hugh. There's something strange about Neil lately. +He didn't speak three times at the table last time he came to supper +here. He looks at me as if he didn't know who I was when I speak to him +on the street sometimes. There's no life in him. He's like Charlie and +all the rest of them--giving out just when things are going his way; +that's an Irish boy every time." + +"When things are going his way? When his best friend has just shot +himself?" + +"I didn't refer to that, Hugh," said Mrs. Saxon with dignity. + +"No?" + +"I referred to Neil's family affairs, and the fact that Colonel Everard +has taken him up." + +"Maggie home and behaving herself and no questions asked, Charlie +shipped to Wells, and Neil going shooting twice with the Colonel?" + +"Three times, Hugh." + +"And that's what you call things going his way." + +"Hugh, why should those two spend any time together at all? They hate +each other, or I always thought so--that is, if a man like the Colonel +could hate a boy like Neil. What does he want of Neil now? What does +Neil want of him?" + +"They don't tell me, Millie." + +"But it's queer. It frightens me, Hugh. It's as queer as----" + +"What?" + +"Everything," Mrs. Saxon said, goaded into an exaggeration foreign to +her placid type, "everything, lately. You refusing to preside to-night. +Lillian Burr shutting herself up in this uncanny way. It is uncanny, +even if she is in trouble. Minna Randall taking to church work, and +sewing for hours at a time, and taking long drives with her husband. +They haven't been inside the Colonel's doors for weeks. Their second +girl told our Mary that they have refused five invitations there in the +last month. It's my idea that he gave that last stag dinner because he +couldn't get Minna or Edith there, or any woman. Why should his own +circle turn against him, just when he's doing real good to the town? And +it's not only his own circle that's against him. I was matching curtains +at Ward's when Sebastian came in to-day, and Luther Ward was barely +civil to him--the Colonel's own secretary. What's wrong with the town, +Hugh? Can't it be grateful to the Colonel, now when he really deserves +it?" + +"Don't worry about what Everard deserves. He's not likely to get it, +Millie." + +Again the Judge was closing the subject, and this time his wife had no +more to say. She gave his threadbare, scrupulously pressed coat a final +pat and jerk of adjustment, and stood off and looked at him. + +"You'll do," she said, "now go along. The music's stopping. It won't +look well if you're late." + +She turned off the flickering gas jet above the marble-topped bureau +abruptly, but not before the Judge had caught the gleam of tears in her +eyes. + +"Why girl," he said, and came close to her and slipped an arm round her +plump, comfortable waist. "You're really troubled." + +"Yes." + +"And vexed with me for not helping you." + +"Yes." + +He had drawn her toward a front window of the big, square room. The +Judge and his wife stood by it quietly, looking down through a triangle +of white, starched curtains at the glimmering, sparsely lit length of +street below, and straightening out their difficulties in darkness and +silence, as all true lovers should, even lovers at fifty, as these two +were fortunate enough to be. + +"Millie, I don't want to tease you," the Judge said. "I'll tell you +anything you want to know." + +"I've been so worried," she wept comfortably against his shoulder. "I'm +so afraid." + +"Why?" + +"I feel as if something--anything might happen. I--oh, you'll only +laugh. I can't just tell you, Hugh." + +"I'll tell you," said the Judge. + +He hesitated and then went on slowly, speaking more to himself than to +her. + +"Women hate change. That makes them dread it, even when it's not coming. +You're dreading it, but it's not coming now, dear. There's feeling +against Everard. You're right, but you exaggerate it. It's instinctive +and unformulated. It hasn't gone far and won't go any farther. He won't +let it. The rally and the library and this new democracy stuff, stag +dinners to Ward's crowd and all, are part of a campaign to stop it. The +campaign will succeed. Everard's own crowd won't quarrel with him. They +can't afford to. Everard has pulled through worse times than this. I've +helped him myself, and I shall help him again. + +"There'll be no change, Millie. Things will go on just the way they are. +I've lived the best years of my life believing that it was best they +should, and if I'm wrong, I'm too old to change my mind. I've said +somebody had to own the town, and it might as well be Everard. I've said +the Burrs and Kents and Randalls, and old Joe Grant's young wife with +their parties and drinks and silly little love affairs, were playing too +hard, but doing no real harm, planting their cheap, fake smart set here +in Green River where it don't belong. Now poor Theodore Burr's dead. +That don't look like play. Harry Randall's so deep in debt to the bank +for what Everard's let him borrow that he has to stay on there at three +thousand a year, though he's been offered twice that in Wells. Everard +won't let him go. And the best I can say about myself in the years I've +worked for Everard is that I've kept my hands clean, if I have had to +keep my eyes shut, but I can say that to you, Millie." + +"It does look like old times down there," he went on softly, after a +minute. "The street and the lights are the same. And it sounds like old +times. It was from a rally in the hall that I first went home with you, +Millie. Remember? I was just a boy then, but I wish I was half the man I +was then, to-night." He heard a murmur of protest, and laughed. "But I +do, Millie. I--wouldn't be helping Everard." + +"Oh, Hugh!" + +"Don't worry. Everard will pull through all right. Look at the Randalls +over there, starting for the hall. Leave your windows open, Millie, and +you'll soon hear them all cheering for Everard. The moon won't rise till +late, but it will be full to-night. Listen, the band's going into the +hall now." + +The Judge rested his cheek for a moment against his wife's soft, smooth +hair, the decorous, satisfying caress of a decorous generation, then he +raised his head with a long, tired sigh. + +"I wish I was young," he said. "I wish I was young to-night." + + * * * * * + +"I wish I was young," the Judge had said, with a thrill and hunger that +was the soul of youth itself in his voice. At the moment when he said +it, a boy who had the privilege that the Judge coveted, and was not +enjoying it just then, was leaning against the court-house railing, and +watching Green River crowd into Odd Fellows' Hall. + +Another boy had pushed his way across the square to his side, and was +not heartily welcomed there, but was calmly unconscious of it. + +"Some night, Donovan," he remarked. + +"Some night, Willard," Neil agreed gravely. + +"Going in? Good for three hours of hot air?" + +"I'm not going. No." + +"Good boy. Say--" Mr. Willard Nash lowered his voice as he made this +daring suggestion--"we'll go around to Halloran's, and get into a little +game." + +His invitation was not accepted. + +"Jerry Dugan's not dead yet," observed Willard presently. + +Strains of a deservedly popular waltz tune, heard from inside the hall, +gave faint but unmistakable proof of this. Willard kept time with his +feet as he listened, paying the tune the tribute of silence, a rare one +from him. Standing so, the two were sharply contrasted figures, though +the flickering lamps in the square threw only faint light here, and +showed them darkly outlined against the railing, as they leaned there +side by side. Pose, carriage, every movement and turn of the head were +different, as different as a bulky and overgrown child is from a boy +turning into a man. + +"Some night," Willard repeated, unanswered, but unchilled by it, "and +some crowd." + +The hall had been filling fast. Though the waltz still swung its faint +challenge into the night, so much of Green River had responded to it +already that now it was arriving only by twos and threes. But the groups +still followed each other fast under the big globe of light at the +entrance door, gayly shaded with red for the occasion, and up the bare, +clattering stairs to the floor above, and the hall. + +Willard was right, more right than he knew. There was a crowd up there, +a crowd as Willard did not understand the word; a crowd with a tone and +temper of its own and a personality of its own. It was subject to laws +of its own and could think and feel for itself, and its thoughts and +feelings were made up of the brain stuff of every person in it, but +different from them all. It was a newly created thing, a new factor in +the world, and like all crowds it was born for one evening, to live for +that evening only, and do its work and die. + +Upstairs behind closed doors, such a crowd was forming; getting ready to +think its own thoughts and act and feel, and so many houses, little and +big, had emptied themselves to contribute to it, so many family +discussions like the Saxons' had gone on as a prelude to it, that you +might fairly say the crowd up there was Green River. + +Willard, watching the late arrivals and commenting upon them to Neil, +still an uncommunicative audience, was vaguely stirred. + +"This gets me," he conceded. "There's something about old Dugan's music +that always gets me. For two cents, I'd go in. I sat through a patent +medicine show there last week, because I didn't have the sense to stay +away. It always gets me when there is anything doing in the hall. +And--" he paused, heavily testing his powers of self-analysis, "it gets +me," he brought out at length, "more to-night than it ever did before. +It--gets me." + +"Look, there's Joe Grant," Willard went on. "This is his night, all +right. Look at the bulge to that manuscript case, and the shine to his +hair. He mixes varnish with his hair dye, all right. I said, look at +him." + +"I'm looking." + +"Well, you don't do much else. What's eating you to-night? Say, will you +go in if I will?" + +An inarticulate murmur answered him. + +"What's that?" + +"No." + +"All right. Well, what do you know about that? Look there." + +"I'm looking." + +The latest comers were crowding hurriedly into the entrance hall by this +time, and with them, a slender, heavily veiled figure had slipped +quickly through the door and out of sight. + +"Was that Lil?" Willard said. "Lil Burr?" + +"Yes." + +"She wouldn't come here; I don't believe it." + +"I know it." + +"How?" + +"She told me." + +"What was she doing, talking to you? Why, she won't talk to anybody. +She----" + +"You'll be late at Hallorans'." + +"Aren't you coming?" + +"No." + +"But you said you would. I don't want to go if you don't. I don't half +like to leave you here, you act so queer to-night. What makes you act +so? What's eating----" + +"Nothing." + +Willard detached himself from the railings and regarded his friend, +suddenly breathless with surprise, and deeply grieved. Nothing. The +word, harmless in itself, had been spoken so that it hit him like an +actual blow, straight from the shoulder. Neil, shifting so that the +light showed his face, was returning his look with the sudden, +unreasoning anger that we feel toward little sounds that beat their slow +way into our consciousness at night, to irritate us unendurably at last. + +"Go," he urged, "go along to Halloran's. Go anywhere." + +"Well, what do you know about that?" began Willard, offended, and then +forgave him. There was a look in Neil's pale face that commanded +forgiveness. It was pale and strained with a trouble that had nothing to +do with Willard, and Willard was respectful and inarticulate before it. + +"That's all right," Willard muttered, "that will be all right. I'll go." + +Neil took no notice of this promise. Up in the hall the waltz had +swelled to a high, light-hearted climax, heady and strained, like the +sudden excitements that sweep a crowd. It came clear through the open +windows, making one last appeal to the boy below to come up and be part +of what was there. And just then a small closed car swept down through +the empty square and stopped. Two men stepped out, and paused in the +doorway under the red-shaded light. + +One was the Colonel's secretary, waiting on the step beyond range of +the light, a tall, shadowy figure, and the other, who stood with the +light on his face, was Colonel Everard. + +He was still pale from his week of illness, but his keen eyes and +clear-cut profile were more effective for that. He stood listening to +the sounds from upstairs, and he smiled as he listened. He turned at +last and looked out across the square as if he could feel Neil's eyes +upon him and were returning their look, and then turned away and +disappeared up the stairs. + +"Neil," Willard was announcing uneasily, "I think a lot of you. I'd do a +lot for you. If you're in wrong, any way, if----" + +Willard broke off, rebuffed. Neil did not even look at him. He stood +staring at the lighted doorway where the Colonel had stood and smiled, +as if he could still see him there. He was a creature beyond Willard's +world, as he looked, but unaccountably fascinating to Willard. Willard +regarded him in awed silence. + +Now Dugan's music had stopped. Some one above shut a window with a +clatter that echoed disproportionately loud. Then there was silence up +there, tense silence, and the call of the silence was harder to resist +than the music. The boy by the court-house railing could not resist it. +He pushed away Willard's detaining hand, and without a word to him or +another glance at him, was across the square and through the red-lighted +door, and running up the stairs. + +"What do you know about that?" Willard demanded, in vain. "What do you +know----" + +Willard, certainly, knew nothing, and gave up the attempt to understand, +with a sigh. + +A little later the vantage point of the court-house fence was +unoccupied. Of the two boys who had occupied it, one was making a +belated and rather disconsolate way toward Halloran's--the one who would +be boasting to-morrow that he had spent the last fifteen minutes with +Neil Donovan. The other boy stood listening outside the closed doors of +the hall. + + * * * * * + +It was half an hour later and it had been an important half-hour in Odd +Fellows' Hall, that uneventful but vital time when the newly made +creature that is the crowd is passive, gathering its forces slowly, +getting ready to fling the weight of them into one side of a balance +irrevocably, if it has decisions to make; the most important half-hour +of the evening if you were interested in the psychology of crowds. The +Honourable Joe Grant was not. He would have said that the first speech +dragged and the half-hour had been dull. Dull or significant, that +half-hour was over, and Green River was waking up. In the listening +hush of the hall the big moments of the evening, whatever they were to +be, were creeping nearer and nearer. Now they were almost here. + +The Honourable Joe had just introduced Luther Ward and heavily resumed +his seat. He sat portly and erect and entirely happy behind the +thin-legged, inadequate looking table that held a water pitcher, his +important looking papers, and his watch. The ornately chased gold watch +that had measured so many epoch-making hours for Green River was in +public life again, like the Honourable Joe. He fingered it +affectionately, wiped his forehead delicately from time to time with a +purple silk handkerchief, followed Mr. Ward's remarks with unwavering +brown eyes, and smiled his benevolent, public-spirited smile. This was +his night indeed. + +Behind the Honourable Joe, on the stage in a semicircular row of chairs +were the speakers of the evening, and before him was Green River. + +The badly proportioned little hall was not at its best to-night. It was +too brightly lit and the footlights threw an uncompromising glare upon +the tiny stage. Red, white, and blue cheesecloth in crude, sharp +colouring draped windows and stage, making gay little splashes of colour +that emphasized the dinginess of the room. Only the Grand Army flag, +borrowed and draped elaborately above the stage, showed faded and thin +against the brightness of the cheesecloth, but kept its dignity and kept +up its claim to homage still. And the ugliness of the room was a thing +to be discounted and forgotten, like some beautiful, full-blooded +woman's tawdry, and ill-chosen clothes, because this room held Green +River. + +Green River, filling the little room to over-flowing, standing in the +rear of the room, crowding every available inch of space on benches, +window sills, and an emergency supply of camp chairs, impressive as that +much sheer bulk of humanity, crowded between four walls, becomes +impressive, and impressive in its own right, too; Green River +represented as it was, with all the warring, unreconciled elements that +made the town. + +For they were all here, Paddy Lane, and the Everard circle, and the +intermediate stages of society, the Gaynors and other prosperous farmers +and unprosperous farmers and their wives, from the outskirts of the +town, and citizens a cut above them both, like the Wards, were all +represented here. Mrs. Kent, hatless and evening coated, was elbowed by +a lady from Paddy Lane, hatless because she had no presentable hat, and +wearing a ragged shawl. These two were side by side, and they had the +same look on their faces. There was something of it now on every face +in the room. It was a look of listening and waiting. + +It was on every face, and it grew more intense every minute that Luther +Ward's speech droned on, though it was only a dry, illogical rehash of +political issues that could not have called that look into any face. It +was as if the audience listened eagerly through it because every word of +it was bringing them nearer to something that was to follow. What was +it? What did Green River want? What was it waiting for? Green River +itself did not know, but it was very near. + +Perhaps it was coming now. This might well be the climax of the evening. +No more important event was scheduled. Luther Ward, looking discontented +with his performance, but relieved to complete it, had sunk into his +chair to a scattered echoing of applause, and the next speaker was +Colonel Everard. + +The Honourable Joe was rising to introduce him. The little introductory +speech was a masterpiece, for, though the Colonel had edited every word +of it, it was still in the Honourable Joe's best style, flowery and +sprinkled with quotations. + +"I will not say more," it concluded magnificently, "of one whose life +and work among you can best speak for itself, and who will speak for +himself now, in his own person. I present to you the Republican +candidate for mayor, Colonel Everard." + +And now the Honourable Joe had bowed and smiled himself into his seat, +and the great man was on his feet, and coming forward to the centre of +the stage. The first real applause of the evening greeted him, not very +hearty or sustained, but prompt at least. He looked like a very great +man indeed, as he stood acknowledging it, his most effective self, a +strong man, though so lightly built, erect and pliant of carriage, a man +with infinite reserves of power and dignity. He was smiling, and his +smile was the same that the boy by the court-house fence had seen, a +tantalizing smile of assurance and charm and power, as if he were master +of himself and the town. + +This was his moment, planned for and led up to for weeks, but Colonel +Everard was slow to take advantage of it. He stood still, with his eyes +toward the rear of the hall. As he stood so, heads here and there turned +and looked where he was looking. Presently all Green River saw what the +Colonel saw. A boy was pushing his way toward the front of the hall--a +boy who had slipped quietly inside the doors unnoticed fifteen minutes +before, and came forward now just as quietly, but held their eyes as he +came. Now he had reached the stage, and he broke through the barrier of +goldenrod that fenced the short flight of steps, crushing the flowers +under his feet, and now he was on the stage confronting Colonel Everard. +It was Neil Donovan. + +"Sit down," he said to the great man. "They're not going to listen to +you. They're going to listen to me." + +After that he did not wait to see if the great man took his amazing +advice. He came forward alone, and spoke to Green River. He was not an +imposing figure as he stood there, only a lean, eager boy, with dark, +flashing eyes, and a face that was very pale in the glare of the +footlights. He hardly raised his tense, low-pitched voice as he spoke, +but Green River heard. + +"You're going to listen to me." + +And it was true. Green River was going to listen. In the middle of the +hall, where the chief delegation from Paddy Lane was massed, a ripple of +excitement promised the boy support. It was seconded by a muttering and +shuffling of feet on the rear benches, devoted to the youth of the town. +From here and there in the hall there were murmurs of protest, too, +dying out one by one, and ceasing automatically, like the whispered +consultation that went on behind him on the stage. + +But the boy did not wait for support or regard interruptions. He did not +need to. The audience was his in spite of them, and he knew it and they +knew it. Whatever he had to say, important or not, it was what they had +been waiting for; that was what the evening had been leading to, and it +was here at last. Pale and intent, the boy looked across the footlights +at Green River. The audience was his, but he had no pride in the +triumph. He began haltingly to speak. + +"It will do no good to you or me, but you're going to listen. I've got a +word to say about Everard. + +"He's sucked your town dry for years and you know it. He's had the pick +of your men and used their brains and their youth, and he's had the pick +of your women. If there are any of you here that he's got no hold on, +it's because you're worth nothing to him. He's got the town. Now he's +driven one of your boys to his death. + +"'I can't beat him.' That's what Theodore Burr said to me the night he +died. 'They won't blame him for this. I want to die because I don't want +to live in the world with him, but I'll do no harm to him by dying, only +to Lily and me. They won't blame him. You can't beat Everard.' + +"Well, you don't blame Everard. He's got you where you don't blame him, +whatever he does. You shut your eyes to it. He's got you. You know all +this and you shut your eyes. Now I'll tell you some things you don't +know. Everard's been trying for weeks to bribe me to keep my mouth shut, +like he bribed Charlie for years. He might have saved his breath and his +money. I can't hurt him, whether I keep my mouth shut or not. You won't +blame him. You'll let him get away with this, too. But you're going to +know." + +The boy came closer still to the footlights and leaned across them, +pausing and deliberately choosing his words. The pause, and the look in +his dark, intent eyes as he stood there challenged Green River and dared +it to interrupt him. But it was too late to interrupt, too late to stop +him now. And behind him in the place of honour in the centre of the row +of chairs on the stage, one man at least was powerless to stop him: +Colonel Everard, who listened with a set smile on his lips, and a set +stare in his eyes. + +"He's the man that broke Maggie Brady's life to pieces," Neil's low +voice went on. "Everard's the man. He got her away from town. He filled +her head with him and set her wild and she had to go. When he was tired +of her, he left her in a place he thought she'd be too proud to come +back from. She was proud, but he's broken her pride, and she crawled +back to us. The prettiest girl in the town, she was, and you all knew +that, and my sister and more to me----" he broke off abruptly, and +laughed a dry little laugh that echoed strangely in the silent room. His +voice sounded dry and hard as he went on. + +"He broke Maggie's life, but what's that to you, that give him a chance +at your women, knowing well what he is, and leave them to take care of +themselves with him, your own women that are yours to take care of, +daughters and wives? It's nothing to you, but you're going to know it, +and you're going to know this. I had it straight from Theodore Burr the +night he died. + +"Everard's going to sell you out at the next election, the whole of +you--his own crowd, too. He's been planning it for months. He's worked +prohibition for all it's worth to him; worked for it till the state went +dry, and then he's made money for you that are in it with him, and more +for himself, protecting places like Halloran's that sell liquor on the +quiet, and the smuggling of liquor into the state. Well, he's made money +enough that way, and it's getting risky, and now he sees a way to make +more and let nobody in on it. He's going to sell out to the liquor +interests and work against prohibition, and the big card he'll use will +be exposing Halloran's and the secret traffic in liquor, and all the +crowd that's been buying protection from him. There's a big campaign +started already, and big money being spent. There'll be big money in it +for him. There'll be arrests made here and a public scandal. He's going +to sell the town. + +"Maybe that interests you some. Maybe it gets you. It won't for long. +He'll crawl out of it and lie out of it and talk you and buy you back to +him. Well, I know one thing more, and he can't lie or crawl out of it. +My father could have put him behind bars any time in twenty years. He's +a common thief. + +"It was when he was seventeen, and studying law first, back in a town up +state that's not on the map or likely to get there, and he was called by +a name there that wasn't Everard. He was seventeen, but he was the same +then as now; he had the same will to get on and the power to, no matter +who he trampled on to get there, and the same charm that got men and +women both, though they didn't trust him--got them even when he was +trampling on them and they knew it. It got him into trouble there with +two girls at once. One was the girl that gave him his start, the chance +to go into her uncle's office. He was the biggest man in the town. Older +than Everard, this girl was, and teaching in the school he went to, when +she fell in love with him and brought him home to her town and gave him +his chance. He was tired of her, and she was where it was bound to come +out soon how things were with them, and so was the other girl, a girl +that he wasn't tired of, the daughter of the woman where he boarded. He +tried to get her to go away with him. She wouldn't go and she wouldn't +forgive him, but the town was getting too hot for him, and he had to go. + +"He had to go quick and make a clean getaway and he wanted a real start +this time. He had to have money. That was a dead little town. There was +only one place he could get money enough, in the little hotel there. It +was the only bank they had. The keeper of it used to cash checks and +make loans. Everard was lucky, the same then as now. There was almost +five thousand dollars in the safe in the hotel office the night he broke +into it, and that was enough for him. He had a fight with the hotel +clerk, but he got away with the money, and he got away from the town. + +"The clerk was his best friend in town--never trusted him, but fell for +him the same as the girls and lent him money and listened to his +troubles--and fell for him again when he ran across him again, years +later, here in Green River. Everard told him he'd sent the money back, +and he kept the secret. He never took hush money for it like Charlie. He +said Everard ought to have his chance, and was straight now. But he fell +for Everard again, that's what happened. Everard had him, the same as +the rest of you. + +"The clerk was my father." + +The boy's voice broke off. There was dead silence in the hall. Green +River had been listening almost in silence, and did not break it now. +Presently the boy sighed, shrugged his thin shoulders as if they were +throwing off an actual weight, and spoke again, this time in a lifeless +voice, with all the colour and drama wiped out of it, a voice that was +very tired. + +"That's all," he said. "That's back of him, with his fine airs and his +far-reaching schemes and his big name in the state. You've stood for a +crook. Will you stand for a common criminal, a common thief? Now you +know and it's up to you. That's all." + + * * * * * + +An hour later a boy was hurrying through the dark along the road to the +Falls. + +He was almost home. Green River lay far behind with its scattered, +sparsely strewn lights. The flat fields around him and the unshaded road +before him, so bleak by day, were beautiful to-night, far reaching and +mysterious. Above them, flat looking and unreal, remote in a coldly +clouded sky, hung the yellow September moon. + +"I've done for myself," the boy was saying half out loud, as if the +faraway moon could hear. "I've lost everything now. I've done for +myself." + +The boy was sure of this, but could have told little more about the +events of the evening. He remembered listening outside the hall doors +until he was drawn inside in spite of himself, and listening there until +something snapped in his brain, and suddenly the long days of +repression, of vainly wondering what to do with his hard-won knowledge, +were over, and he was pouring it all out in one jumbled burst of speech. +He had no plan and no hope of doing harm to his enemy by speaking. He +had to speak. + +After he had spoken he remembered getting down from the stage and out of +the hall somehow. He remembered the crushed goldenrod, slippery under +his feet. Against a background of blurred, unrecognizable faces, he +remembered a tall, black-garbed figure that rose to its feet swaying and +then steadying itself. It was Lilian Burr. Less clearly he remembered a +wave of sound from the hall that followed him as he hurried away across +the square. It was not like applause. He did not know or care what it +meant. After that, he remembered only the cool dark of the September +night as he walked through it aimlessly at first, and then turned toward +home. + +"I've lost everything," he had said, and it must be true. How could he +face the Judge again? How could he go on living in Green River? This +was what all his long-cherished dreams had come to; a scene that Charlie +might have made, and disgrace in the eyes of the town. He had lost +everything. + +Yet strangely, as he said it, he knew that it was not true. Whatever he +had lost, he had better things left. He had those free and splendid +minutes of speaking out his heart. They could not be taken from him. The +freedom and relief of them was with him still. And he had the road firm +under his feet, and the clean air blowing the fever out of his brain, +and the strength of his own young body, clean strength, good to feel as +he walked through the night. And along the dark road before him, +familiar as it was, and worn so many times by discouraged feet, the +white track of moonlight beckoned him, clean and new. It was a way that +might lead anywhere--to fairy-land, to success, to the end of the world. + +Now the boy made the turn in the road that brought him within sight of +home. Faint lights twinkling from it, intimate and warm, invited him as +never before. Was his mother waiting up for him? Home itself, lighted +and intimate and safe, was enough to find waiting. His heart gave a +strange little leap that hurt, but was keen pleasure, too. Almost +running, he covered the last bit of road, crossed the grassy front yard +and then climbed the creaking front steps, and stood for a minute that +was unendurably long, fumbling with the door. + +The door was unlocked and gave suddenly, opening wide, and he stood on +the threshold of the kitchen. The lights he had seen were in the +sitting-room beyond. In this room there was only moonlight. It came +through the window that looked out on the marshy field, the fairies' +field. Surely there must be fairies there to-night, out in the empty +green spaces, flooded with moonlight. But the fairies were not all in +the field, there was one in the room. Neil could see it. + +The old rocking chair stood in the moonlit window. It was holding two, +his mother, and some one else--the fairy, golden haired and white robed +and slender, and close in his mother's arms. As he stood and wondered +and looked, a board creaked under his feet. It was the faintest of +sounds, but a fairy's ears are keen, and the fairy heard, and stirred, +and turned in his mother's arms. + +Now Neil could see her face. It was flushed and human and warm, and in +her eyes, opening grave and deep, was a look that was the shyest but +surest of welcomes. The welcome was all for Neil, and the fairy was +Judith. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE + + +A boy and a girl sat on the doorsteps of the Randall house. + +It was almost a year since the night of the rally. It was an evening in +late May--late, but it was May, and the fairies' month still. There was +a pleasant, shivery chill in the air. A far sprinkling of stars made the +dark of the still, windless night look darker and warmer and safer to +whisper in. The big horse-chestnut tree at the corner of the syringa +hedge was only a darker blot against the surrounding dark, and the slope +of faintly lit street on the other side of the hedge looked far away, +with the dark sweep of lawn between. It was a night for the fairies, or +for the girl and boy, and that was quite as it should be, for it was +their first together for months. + +Judith and Neil sat discreetly erect on the steps, undoing what those +months apart had done with little bursts of shy speech, and long, shy +silences that helped them more. In the longest and shyest silence their +hands had groped for each other once, met as if they had never touched +before, and clung together for a minute as if they never meant to let +go, but Judith kept firmly to impersonal subjects still. + +"You did it all," she said. "Things do happen so fast when they happen. +Just think, this time last year he was like a king!" + +"Everard?" + +"Yes. Do you remember how I used to be cross when you called him that, +and wouldn't say Colonel? How childish that was!" Judith patronized her +dead self, as a young lady may, with her twentieth birthday almost upon +her. + +"You weren't childish." + +"What was I?" + +"Just what you are now." + +"What's that?" + +"Wonderful." Neil chose his one adequate word, from the tiny vocabulary +of youth, small because few words are worthy to voice the infinite +dreams of it. "Wonderful." + +"No, I'm not wonderful. You are. That dreadful old man, and every one +knew he was dreadful and wouldn't do anything about it till you----" + +"Bawled him out? That's all I did, you know, really. It was a kid's +trick. He lost out because it was coming to him anyway. Poor Theodore +saw to that. He turned the town against Everard when he killed himself. +It wasn't turning fast, but it was turning. I did give it a shove and +make it turn faster, but I didn't even have sense enough to know I had +until the day after the rally, when the Judge sent for me and told me. I +didn't dare go near him until he sent for me, and I thought he had sent +for me to fire me." + +"But you broke up the rally. They were dead still in the hall until you +left, and then they went crazy, calling for you, and all talking at +once, talking against you, some of them, till it really wasn't a rally +any more, but just like a mob. Oh, I know. The Judge tells me, every +time I go to ride with him, and when he came on to the school last +winter and saw me there, he told me all over again. Father has never +half told me. He hates to talk about the rally or the Colonel either, +but I don't care, he and mother are both so sweet to me lately--just +sweet. + +"So it was just like a mob, and then poor Mrs. Burr got up and tried to +speak, and they got quiet and listened, and she said "Every word the boy +says is true and more--more----" just like that, and then she got faint +and had to stop, and then the Judge took hold. That's what he says he +did, took hold, and he says it was time, because they might have tarred +and feathered the Colonel if he hadn't. I don't suppose they would, but +I wish I could have seen the Judge take hold. I love him." + +"Don't you love anybody else?" + +Judith ignored this frivolous interruption, as it deserved. + +"And so your work was done, though you didn't know it and ran away. And +the Judge says you are a born orator, Neil. That you've got the real +gift, the thing that makes an audience yours. I don't know just what he +means, but I know you've got it, too. You're going to be a great man, +Neil." + +"I didn't do anything." + +"You're the only man in town who thinks that, then, or has since that +night. He--Everard--was done for the minute you stepped on the stage, +the Judge says. Only they managed it decently, the Judge and the few +that kept their heads. They announced that Colonel Everard was +indisposed and couldn't speak, and the Judge took him home. He really +was ill next day. There's something wrong with his horrid heart. And +that gave him a good excuse not to run for mayor, he gave that up +himself. And in a few days the Judge and Luther Ward went to him and +told him what else he had to do, and he did it. He had to resign from +everything, everything he was in charge of or was trustee of, or had +anything to do with, and get out of town. If he'd do that, they wouldn't +make any scandal or bother him afterward, but let him start new. And +they gave him six months to do all that decently and save his face. Why +did he have to do it decently? Why couldn't they tar and feather him? I +wish they had. I wish----" + +"Wish something else, Judith. Something about us." + +"What do you mean by us?" + +"You and me." + +"Isn't it splendid the Judge is going to be president of the bank?" said +Judith hastily. + +"Splendid," said a future president of the Green River Bank, who was +occupying the step beside her. + +"And isn't it nice that poor Mrs. Burr is going to marry Mr. Sebastian, +even if she does have to move away from Green River? I like people to be +happy, don't you?" + +"No. No, I don't. Not other people. I don't care whether they are happy +or not, and I don't want to talk about them, only about you and me." + +"If you don't like the way I talk, I'll keep still," Judith said, in a +severe but small voice, but a small hand groping for his softened the +threat, and a soft, sudden laugh as his arm slipped round her atoned for +it entirely. Then there was silence on the steps, a long, whispering, +wonderful silence. Long before Judith spoke again all the work of the +lonely months was undone. And the low whispers that the two exchanged +conveyed no further information about Colonel Everard. + +But there was no more to tell. The master of Green River was master no +longer and the end of all the intricate planning and scheming that had +made and kept him master was a story that Judith could tell in a few +careless sentences and forget. If she had seen and guessed some things +that she could not forget, in the strange little circle that had found a +place for her, she would never see them again. That order was gone from +the town forever, with the man who had created it, and beside her on the +steps was the boy who could make her forget it, and see beyond the long, +hard years between. And, as she almost could guess, in these magic +minutes when she could dream and dream true, that boy was the future +master of Green River. + +Judith sighed, and stirred in his arms. + +"Are you happier now?" she whispered. + +"Yes." + +"But you're going to be great. You are, really." + +"I am if you want me to. Judith, how long does your father think you and +I ought to wait?" + +"I don't know. You can ask him. He likes you better than me. He always +wanted me to be a boy.... Neil, I want to tell you something. Keep your +arm like that, but don't look at me." + +"Why?" + +"It's about what you don't like me to talk about." + +"Everard?" + +"Yes, and it's about something dreadful, that day in his library when I +was alone with him, and you came. He--frightened me." + +"Never mind, dear, now." + +"He frightened me but that was--all. I wasn't hurt or anything. I just +didn't know he--anybody--could look the way he was looking, or act the +way he was acting, and then I felt sick all over. I was afraid. But he +was just trying to kiss me, of course, and I wasn't going to let him, +the horrid old man. So I think now it was silly to be frightened. Was +it?" + +"No, it wasn't silly, dear." + +"I'm glad. And Neil--I want to tell you something else. It's about--that +night--in the buggy, on the old road to Wells, you know, when you were +going to elope with me and changed your mind." + +"When I frightened you so. Oh, Judith." + +"You didn't--frighten me," said a very small voice indeed. "You----" + +"What, dear?" + +"Made me want you--want to go away with you. I never felt like that +before, all waked up and different and--happy. Oh, you didn't frighten +me. I wasn't angry because you tried to take me away. It was because you +brought me back." + +"Don't you know why I brought you back?" + +"No." + +"Why, because I loved you. I didn't love you till then, not really; not +till that minute in the carriage. I know just what minute. When you let +me kiss you, and didn't mind any more. Then I knew about--love. I never +knew before, but I'll never forget again. It isn't just wanting people, +it's taking care of them, and not hurting them. Waiting till you can +have things--right. So I wanted to have you right and be fit for you, +and after that night I went to work and I wouldn't be stopped, not by +anything in this town or the world. Oh, Judith, why don't you speak to +me? It isn't much use to talk. You don't understand." + +"I--do." + +"You're crying!" + +She was crying, and she did understand. Before this unexpected, +beautiful proof of it, the boy was reverent and half ashamed, as if a +woman's tears were a sacred miracle invented for him. He held her hand +timidly and pressed it. Presently she drew it away, and suddenly she was +not crying, but laughing, a low, full-throated laugh as wonderful to +him as her tears. + +"I told you, you did it all," she said softly. "Well, you didn't. Neil, +there's what did it all. Because, if you only go on believing in things +and being sweet and true and not afraid, and--wishing, then everything +will come right. It's got to, just because you want it to. So there's +what did it all and made us so happy, you and me. I love it. Love it, +Neil." + +Neil looked where Judith was looking. Above the horse-chestnut tree, so +filmy and faint that the stars looked brighter than ever, so pale that +it was not akin to the stars, but to the dark beyond, where adventures +were, so friendly and sweet that it could make the wish in your heart +come true, hung a new-risen silvery crescent of light. + +"But it's only the moon," Neil said. + +"It's--the wishing moon," said Judith. + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected +without note. Some illustrations have been relocated for +better flow. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WISHING MOON*** + + +******* This file should be named 31057.txt or 31057.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/0/5/31057 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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