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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Who Cares?, by Cosmo Hamilton
+
+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: Who Cares?
+
+Author: Cosmo Hamilton
+
+Posting Date: April 24, 2009 [EBook #3641]
+Release Date: January, 2003
+First Posted: July 1, 2001
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHO CARES? ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WHO CARES?
+
+A STORY OF ADOLESCENCE
+
+
+by
+
+COSMO HAMILTON
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+MY YOUNG BROTHER
+
+ARTHUR
+
+WHO PLAYS THE GAME
+
+
+
+
+"Another new novel?"
+
+"Well,--another novel."
+
+"What's it about?"
+
+"A boy and a girl."
+
+"A love story?"
+
+"Well,--it's about a boy and a girl."
+
+"Do they marry?"
+
+"I said it was about a boy and a girl."
+
+"And are they happy?"
+
+"Well,--it's a love story."
+
+"But all love stories aren't happy!"
+
+"Yes they are,--if it's love."
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PART ONE
+
+SPRING IN THE WORLD
+
+
+PART TWO
+
+THE ROUND-ABOUT
+
+
+PART THREE
+
+THE GREAT EMOTION
+
+
+PART FOUR
+
+THE PAYMENT
+
+
+
+
+PART ONE
+
+SPRING IN THE WORLD AND ALL THINGS FOR THE YOUNG
+
+
+I
+
+Birds called. Breezes played among branches just bursting into green.
+Daffodils, proud and erect, stood in clumps about the dazzling lawn.
+Young, pulsing, eager things elbowed their way through last year's
+leaves to taste the morning sun; the wide-eyed celandine, yellower than
+butter; the little violet, hugging the earth for fear of being seen;
+the sturdy bourgeois daisy; the pale-faced anemone, earliest to wake
+and earliest to sleep; the blue bird's-eye in small family groups; the
+blatant dandelion already a head and shoulders taller than any
+neighbor. Every twig in the old garden bore its new load of buds that
+were soft as kittens' paws; and up the wrinkled trunks of ancient trees
+young ivy leaves chased each other like school-boys.
+
+Spring had come again, and its eternal spirit spread the message of
+new-born hope, stirred the sap of awakening life, warmed the bosom of a
+wintry earth and put into the hearts of birds the old desire to mate.
+But the lonely girl turned a deaf ear to the call, and rounded her
+shoulders over the elderly desk with tears blistering her letter.
+
+"I'm miserable, miserable," she wrote. "There doesn't seem to be
+anything to live for. I suppose it's selfish and horrid to grumble
+because Mother has married again, but why did she choose the very
+moment when she was to take me into life? Oh, Alice, what am I to do? I
+feel like a rabbit with its foot in a trap, listening to the traffic on
+the main road--like a newly fledged bird brought down with a broken
+wing among the dead leaves of Rip Van Winkle's sleeping-place. You'll
+laugh when you read this, and say that I'm dramatizing my feelings and
+writing for effect; but if you've got any heart at all, you'd cry if
+you saw me (me of all girls!) buried alive out here without a single
+soul to speak to who's as young as I am--hushed if I laugh by mistake,
+scowled at if I let myself move quickly, catching old age every hour I
+stay here."
+
+"Why, Alice, just think of it! There's not a person or a thing in and
+out of this house that's not old. I don't mean old as we thought of it
+at school, thirty and thirty-five, but really and awfully old. The
+house is the oldest for miles round. My grandfather is seventy-two, and
+my grandmother's seventy. The servants are old, the trees are old, the
+horses are old; and even the dogs lie about with dim eyes waiting for
+death."
+
+"When Mother was here, it was bearable. We escaped as often as we
+could, and rode and drove and made secret visits to the city and saw
+the plays at matinees. There's nothing old about Mother. I suppose
+that's why she married again. But now that I'm left alone in this house
+of decay, where everybody and everything belongs to the past, I'm
+frightened of being so young, and catch looks that make me feel that I
+ought to be ashamed of myself. It's so long since I quarreled with a
+girl or flirted with a boy that I can't remember it. I'm forgetting how
+to laugh. I'm beginning not to care about clothes or whether I look
+nice."
+
+"One day is exactly like another. I wander about aimlessly with nothing
+to do, nowhere to go, no one to speak to. I've even begun to give up
+reading novels, because they make me so jealous. It's all wrong, Alice.
+It's bad and unhealthy. It puts mutinous thoughts into my head.
+Honestly, the only way in which I can get the sort of thrill that I
+ought to have now, if ever I am to thrill at all, is in making wild
+plans of escape, so wild and so naughty that I don't think I'd better
+write about them, even to you, dear."
+
+"Mother's on her honeymoon. She went away a week ago in a state of
+self-conscious happiness that left Grandfather and Grandmother snappy
+and disagreeable. She will be away four months, and every weekly letter
+that comes from her will make this place more and more unbearable and
+me more restless and dangerous. I could get myself invited away. Enid
+would have me and give me a wonderful time. She has four brothers.
+Fanny has begged me to stay with her in Boston for the whole of the
+spring and see and do everything, which would be absolutely heaven. And
+you know everybody in New York and could make life worth living."
+
+"But Grandfather won't let me go. He likes to see me about the house,
+he says, and I read the papers to him morning and evening. It does me
+good, he considers, to 'make a sacrifice and pay deference to those
+whose time is almost up.' So here I am, tied to the shadows, a prisoner
+till Mother comes back--a woman of eighteen forced to behave like a
+good little girl treated as if I were still content to amuse myself
+with dolls and picture books! But the fire is smolderin Alice, and one
+fine day it will burst into flame."
+
+
+A shaft of sunlight found its way through the branches of a chestnut
+tree and danced suddenly upon the envelope into which Joan had sealed
+up this little portion of her overcharged vitality. Through the open
+windows of her more than ample room with its Colonial four-post bed,
+dignified tallboys, stiff chairs and anemic engravings of
+early-Victorianism, all the stir and murmur of the year's youth came to
+Joan.
+
+If her eyes had not been turned inward and her ears had not been tuned
+only to catch her own natural complaints, this chatter of young things
+would have called her out to laugh and tingle and dance in the haunted
+wood and cry out little incoherent welcomes to the children of the
+earth. Something of the joy and emotion of that mother-month must have
+stirred her imagination and set her blood racing through her young
+body. She felt the call of youth and the urge to play. She sensed the
+magnetic pull of the voice of spring, but when, with her long brown
+lashes wet with impatient tears, she went to the window and looked out
+at the green spread of lawn and the yellow-headed daffodils, it seemed
+more than ever to her that she was peering through iron bars into the
+playground of a school to which she didn't belong. She was
+Joan-all-alone, she told herself, and added, with that touch of
+picturesque phrasing inherited from her well-read mother, that she was
+more like a racing motorboat tied to a crumbling wharf in a deserted
+harbor than anything else in the world.
+
+There was a knock on her door and the sound of a bronchial cough. "Come
+in," she said and darted an anxious look at the blond fat face of the
+clock on the mantelshelf. She had forgotten all about the time.
+
+It was Gleave who opened the door, Gleave the bald-headed manservant
+who had grown old along with his master with the same
+resentfulness--the ex-prizefighter, sailor, lumberman and adventurer
+who had thrown in his lot with Cumberland Ludlow, the sportsman, when
+both were in the full flush of middle age. His limp, the result of an
+epoch-making fight in an Australian mining camp, was emphasized by
+severe rheumatism, and the fretfulness of old age was heightened by his
+shortness of breath.
+
+He got no further than: "Your grandfather--"
+
+"I know," said Joan. "I'm late again. And there'll be a row, I suppose.
+Well, that will break the monotony, at any rate." Seizing the moment
+when Gleave was wrestling with his cough, she slipped her letter into
+her desk, rubbed her face vigorously with her handkerchief and made a
+dart at the door. Grandfather Ludlow demanded strict punctuality and
+made the house shake if it failed him. What he would have said if he
+could have seen this eager, brown-haired, vivid girl, built on the slim
+lines of a wood nymph, swing herself on to the banisters and slide the
+whole way down the wide stairway would have been fit only for the
+appreciative ears of his faithful man. As it was, Mrs. Nye, the
+housekeeper, was passing through the hall, and her gasp at this
+exhibition of unbecoming athletics was the least that could be expected
+from one who still thought in the terms of the crinoline and had never
+recovered from the habit of regarding life through the early-Victorian
+end of the telescope.
+
+Joan slipped into Mr. Cumberland Ludlow's own room, shut the door
+quickly and picked her way over the great skins that were scattered
+about the polished floor.
+
+"Good morning, Grandfather," she said, and stood waiting for the storm
+to break. She knew by heart the indignant remarks about the sloppiness
+of the younger generation, the dire results of modern anarchy and the
+universal disrespect that stamped the twentieth century, and set her
+quick mind to work to frame his opening sentence.
+
+But the old man, whose sense of humor was as keen as ever, saw in the
+girl's half-rebellious, half-deferential attitude an impatient
+expectation of his usual irritation, and so he merely pointed a shaking
+finger at the clock. His silence was far more eloquent and effective
+than his old-fashioned platitudes. He smiled as he saw her surprise,
+indicated a chair and gave her the morning paper. "Go ahead, my dear,"
+he said.
+
+Sitting bolt upright, with her back to the shaded light, her charming
+profile with its little blunt nose and rounded chin thrown up against
+the dark glistening oak of an old armoire, Joan began to read. Her
+clear, high voice seemed to startle the dead beasts whose heads hung
+thickly around the room and bring into their wide, fixed eyes a look of
+uneasiness.
+
+Several logs were burning sulkily in the great open fireplace, throwing
+out a pungent, juicy smell. The aggressive tick of an old and pompous
+clock endeavored to talk down the gay chatter of the birds beyond the
+closed windows. The wheeze of a veteran Airedale with its chin on the
+head of a lion came intermittently.
+
+They made a picture, these two, that fitted with peculiar rightness
+into the mood of Nature at that moment. Youth was king, and with all
+his followers had clambered over winter and seized the earth. The red
+remainders of autumn were almost over-powered. Standing with his hands
+behind him and his back to the fire, the old sportsman listened, with a
+queer, distrait expression, to the girl's reading. That he was still
+putting up a hard fight against relentless Time was proved by his
+clothes, which were those of a country-lover who dressed the part with
+care. A tweed shooting-coat hung from his broad, gaunt shoulders.
+Well-cut riding breeches, skin tight below his knees, ran into a pair
+of brown top-boots that shone like glass. A head and shoulders taller
+than the average tall man, his back was bent and his chest hollow. His
+thin hair, white as cotton wool, was touched with brilliantine, and his
+handsome face, deeply lined and wrinkled, was as closely shaved as an
+actor's after three o'clock. His sunken eyes, overshadowed by bushy
+brows, had lost their fire. He could no longer see to read. He too
+heard the call without, and when he looked at the young, sweet thing
+upon whom he was dependent for the news, and glanced about the room so
+full of memories of his own departed youth, he said to himself with
+more bitterness than usual: "I'm old; I'm very old, and helpless; life
+has no use for me, and it's an infernal shame."
+
+Joan read on patiently, glancing from time to time at the man who
+seemed to her to be older than the hills, startlingly, terribly old,
+and stopped only when, having lowered himself into his arm-chair, he
+seemed to have fallen asleep. Then, as usual, she laid the paper aside,
+eager to be up and doing, but sat on, fearful of moving. Her
+grandfather had a way of looking as though he would never wake up
+again, and of being as ready as a tiger to pounce upon her if she tried
+to slip away. She would never forget some of the sarcastic things he
+had said at these times, never! He seemed to take an unexplainable
+delight in making her feel that she had no right to be so young. He had
+never confided to her the tragedy of having a young mind and an old
+body, young desires and winter in his blood. He had never opened the
+door in his fourth wall and let her see how bitterly he resented having
+been forced out of life and the great chase, to creep like an old hound
+the ancient dogs among. He had never let her suspect that the tragedy
+of old age had hit him hard, filling his long hours with regret for
+what he might have done or done better. Perhaps he was ashamed to
+confess these things that were so futile and so foolish. Perhaps he was
+afraid to earn a young incredulous laugh at the pathetic picture of
+himself playing Canute with the on-coming tide of years. He was not
+understood by this girl, because he had never allowed her to get a
+glimpse into his heart; and so she failed to know that he insisted upon
+keeping her in his house, even to the point of extreme selfishness,
+because he lived his youth over again in the constant sight of her.
+What a long and exquisite string of pearls there could be made of our
+unspoken words!
+
+The logs glowed red; the hard tick of the pompous clock marked off the
+precious moments; and outside, spring had come. But Joan sat on with
+mutinous thoughts, and the man who not so long ago had stalked the
+beasts whose heads and skins were silent reminders of his strength, lay
+back in his chair with nodding head.
+
+"He's old," she said to herself, "dreadfully, awfully old, and he's
+punishing me for being young. Oh! It's wicked, it's wicked. If only I
+had a father to spoil me and let me live! If only Mother hadn't
+forgotten all about me in her own happiness! If only I had money of my
+own and could run away and join the throng!"
+
+She heard a sigh that was almost a groan, turned quickly and saw two
+slow tears running down her grandfather's face. He had been kicking
+against the pricks again and had hurt his foot.
+
+With all the elaborate care of a Deerslayer, Joan got up, gave the
+boards that creaked a wide berth--she knew them all--and tiptoed to the
+door. The fact that she, at eighteen years of age, a full-grown woman
+in her own estimation, should be obliged to resort to such methods made
+her angry and humiliated. She was, however, rejoicing at one thing. Her
+grandfather had fallen asleep several pages of the paper earlier than
+usual, and she was to be spared from the utter boredom of wading
+through the leading articles which dealt with subways and Tammany and
+foreign politics and other matters for which she had a lofty contempt.
+She was never required to read the notices of new plays and operas and
+the doings of society, which alone were interesting to her and made her
+mouth water.
+
+Just as she had maneuvered her way across the wide, long room and was
+within reach of the door, it opened and her grandmother hobbled in,
+leaning on her stick. There was a chuckle from the other end of the
+room. The blood flew to the girl's face. She knew without turning to
+look that the old man had been watching her careful escape and was
+enjoying the sight of her, caught at the moment when freedom was at
+hand.
+
+Mrs. Ludlow was one of those busy little women who are thorns in the
+flesh of servants. Her eyes had always been like those of an inspecting
+general. No detail, however small, went unnoticed and unrectified.
+
+She had been called by an uncountable number of housemaids and footmen
+"the little Madam"--the most sarcastic term of opprobrium contained in
+their dictionary. A leader of New York society, she had run charitable
+institutions and new movements with the same precision and efficiency
+that she had used in her houses. Every hour of her day had been filled.
+Not one moment had been wasted or frittered away. Her dinner parties
+had been famous, and she had had a spoke in the wheels of politics. Her
+witty sayings had been passed from mouth to mouth. Her little
+flirtations with prominent men and the ambitious tyros who had been
+drawn to her salon had given rise to much gossip. Not by any means a
+beauty, her pretty face and tiptilted nose, her perennial cheerfulness,
+birdlike vivacity and gift of repartee had made her the center of
+attraction for years.
+
+But she, like Cumberland Ludlow, had refused to grow old gracefully and
+with resignation. She had put up an equally determined fight against
+age, and it was only when the remorseless calendar proved her to be
+sixty-five that she resigned from the struggle, washed the dye out of
+her hair and the make-up from her face and retired to that old house.
+Not even then, however, did she resign from all activity and remain
+contented to sit with her hands in her lap and prepare herself for the
+next world. This one still held a certain amount of joy, and she
+concentrated all the vitality that remained with her to the perfect
+running of her house. At eleven o'clock every morning the tap of her
+stick on the polished floors was the signal of her arrival, and if
+every man and woman of the menage was not actively at work, she knew
+the reason why. Her tongue was still as sharp as the blade of a razor,
+and for sloppiness she had no mercy. Careless maids trembled before her
+tirades, and strong men shook in their shoes under her biting phrases.
+At seventy, with her snowy hair, little face that had gone into as many
+lines as a dried pippin, bent, fragile body and tiny hands twisted by
+rheumatism, she looked like one of the old women in a Grimm's fairy
+tale who frightened children and scared animals and turned giants into
+cowards.
+
+She drew up in front of the frustrated girl, stretched out her white
+hand lined with blue veins and began to tap her on the
+shoulder--announcing in that irritating manner that she had a complaint
+to make.
+
+"My dear," she said, "when you write letters to your little friends or
+your sentimental mother, bear in mind that the place for ink is on the
+note paper and not on the carpet."
+
+"Yes, Grandmother."
+
+"Try to remember also that if you put your hand behind a candle you can
+blow it out without scattering hot grease on the wall paper."
+
+"Yes, Grandmother"
+
+"There is one other thing, if I may have your patience. You are not
+required to be a Columbus to discover that there is a basket for soiled
+linen in your bedroom. It is a large one and eager to fulfill its
+function. The floor of your clothes closet is intended for your shoes
+only. Will you be so good as to make a note of these things?"
+
+"Yes, Grandmother."
+
+Ink, candle grease, wash basket--what did they matter in the scheme of
+life, with spring tapping at the window? With a huge effort Joan forced
+back a wild burst of insurrection, and remained standing in what she
+hoped was the correct attitude of a properly repentant child. "How long
+can I stand it?" she cried inwardly. "How long before I smash things
+and make a dash for freedom?"
+
+"Now go back and finish reading to your grand father."
+
+And once more, trembling with anger and mortification, the girl picked
+her way over the limp and indifferent skins, took up the paper and sat
+down. Once more her clear, fresh voice, this time with a little quiver
+in it, fitted in to the regular tick of the querulous clock, the
+near-by chatter of birds' tongues and the hiss of burning logs.
+
+The prim old lady, who had in her time borne a wonderful resemblance to
+the girl whom she watched so closely,--even to the chestnut-brown hair
+and the tip-tilted nose, the full lips, the round chin and the spirit
+that at any moment might urge her to break away from
+discipline,--retired to carry on her daily tour of inspection; and the
+old man stood again with his back to the fire to listen impatiently and
+with a futile jealousy to the deeds and misdeeds of an ever-young and
+ever-active world.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Joan was thankful when lunch was over, and murmured "Amen" to grace
+with a fervor that would have surprised an unimaginative and
+unobservant person. Like all the meals in that pompous dining-room, it
+was a form of torture to a young thing bubbling with health and high
+spirits, who was not supposed to speak unless directly addressed and
+was obliged to hold herself in check while her grandparents progressed
+slowly and deliberately through a menu of medically thought-out dishes.
+Both the old people were on a rigid diet, and mostly the conversation
+between them consisted of grumbles at having to dally with baby-food
+and reminiscences of the admirable dinners of the past. An aged butler
+and a footman in the sere and yellow only added to the general Rip van
+Winklism, and the presence of two very old dogs, one the grandfather's
+Airedale and the other Mrs. Ludlow's Irish terrier, with a white nose
+and rusty gray coat, did nothing to dispel the depression. The six
+full-length portraits in oils that hung on the walls represented men
+and women whose years, if added together, would have made a staggering
+grand total. Even the furniture was Colonial.
+
+But when Joan had put on her hat, sweater and a pair of thick-soled
+country boots, and having taken care to see that no one was about, slid
+down the banisters into the hall on her way out for her usual lonely
+walk, she slipped into the garden with a queer sense of excitement, an
+odd and unaccountable premonition that something was going to happen.
+This queer thing had come to her in the middle of lunch and had made
+her heart suddenly begin to race. If she had been given to self
+analysis, which she was not, she might have told herself that she had
+received a wireless message from some one as lonely as herself, who had
+sent out the S.O.S. call in the hope of its being picked up and
+answered. As it was, it stirred her blood and made her restless and
+intensely eager to get into the open, to feel the sun and smell the
+sweetness in the air and listen to the cheery note of the birds.
+
+It was with something of the excited interest which must have stirred
+Robinson Crusoe on seeing the foot-prints on the sand of what he had
+conceived to be a desert island that she ran up the hill, through the
+awakened woods whose thick carpet of brown leaves was alight with the
+green heads of young ferns, and out to the clearing from which she had
+so often gazed wist fully in the direction of the great city away in
+the distance.
+
+She was surprised to find that she was alone as usual, bitterly
+disappointed to see no other sign of life than her friends the rabbits
+and the squirrels--the latter of which ambled toward her in the
+expectation of peanuts. She had no sort of concrete idea of what she
+had expected to find: nor had she any kind of explanation of the wave
+of sympathy that had come to her as clearly as though it had been sent
+over an electric wire. All she knew was that she was out of breath for
+no apparent reason, and on the verge of tears at seeing no one there to
+meet her. Once before, on her sixth birth day, the same call had been
+sent to her when she was playing alone with her dolls in the
+semitropical garden of a hired house in Florida, and she had started up
+and toddled round to the front and found a large-eyed little girl
+peering through the gate. It was the beginning of a close and blessed
+friendship.
+
+This time, it seemed, the call had been meant for some other lonely
+soul, and so she stood and looked with blurred eyes over the wide
+valley that lay unrolled at her feet and, asked herself what she had
+ever done to deserve to be left out of all the joy of life. From
+somewhere near by the baying of hounds came, and from a farm to her
+left the crowing of a cock; and then a twig snapped behind her, and she
+turned eagerly.
+
+"Oh, hello," said the boy.
+
+"Oh, hello," she said.
+
+He was not the hero of her dreams, by a long way. His hair didn't curl;
+his nose was not particularly straight; nor were his eyes large and
+magnetic. He was not something over six feet two; nor was he dressed in
+wonderful clothes into which he might have been poured in liquid form.
+He was a cheery, square-shouldered, good-natured looking fellow with
+laughter in his gray eyes and a little quizzical smile playing round a
+good firm mouth. He looked like a man who ought to have been in the
+navy and who, instead, gave the impression of having been born among
+horses. His small, dark head was bare; his skin had already caught the
+sun, and as he stood in his brown sweater with his hands thrust into
+the pockets of his riding breeches, he seemed to her to be just exactly
+like the brother that she ought to have had if she had had any luck at
+all, and she held out a friendly hand with a comfortable feeling of
+absolute security.
+
+With some self-consciousness he took it and bowed with a nice touch of
+deference. He tried to hide the catch in his breath and the admiration
+in his eyes. "I'm glad it's spring," he said, not knowing quite what he
+was saying.
+
+"So am I," said Joan. "Just look at those violets and the way the
+leaves are bursting."
+
+"I know. Great, isn't it? Are you going anywhere?"
+
+"No. I've nowhere to go."
+
+"Same here. Let's go together."
+
+And they both laughed, and the squirrel that had come to meet Joan
+darted off with a sour look. He had anticipated a fat meal of peanuts.
+He was out of it now, he saw, and muttered whatever was the squirrel
+equivalent for a swear-word.
+
+The boy and girl took the path that ran round the outskirts of the
+wood, swung into step and chimed into the cantata of spring with talk
+and laughter.
+
+There had been rather a long silence.
+
+Joan was sitting with her back against the trunk of a fallen tree, with
+her hands clasped round her knees. She had tossed her hat aside, and
+the sunlight made her thick brown hair gleam like copper. They had come
+out at another aerie on the hill, from which a great stretch of open
+country could be seen. Her eyes were turned as usual in the direction
+of New York, but there was an expression of contentment in them that
+would have startled all the old people and things at home.
+
+Martin Gray was lying full stretch on the turf with his elbows up and
+his chin on his left fist. He had eyes for nothing but the vivid girl
+whom he had found so unexpectedly and who was the most alive thing that
+he had ever seen.
+
+During this walk their chatter had been of everything under the sun
+except themselves. Both were so frankly and unaffectedly glad to be
+able to talk at all that they broke into each other's laughing and
+childish comments on obvious things and forgot themselves in the
+pleasure of meeting. But now the time had come for mutual confidences,
+and both, in the inevitable young way, felt the desire to paint the
+picture of their own particular grievance against life which should
+make them out to be the two genuine martyrs of the century. It was now
+a question of which of them got the first look-in. The silence was
+deliberate and came out of the fine sense of sportsmanship that
+belonged to each. Although bursting to pour out her troubles, Joan
+wanted to be fair and give Martin the first turn, and Martin, equally
+keen to prove himself the champion of badly treated men, held himself
+in, in order that Joan, being a woman, should step into the limelight.
+It was, of course, the male member of the duet who began. A man's ego
+is naturally more aggressive than a woman's.
+
+"Do you know," said Martin, arranging himself in a more comfortable
+attitude, "that it's over two months since I spoke to any one of about
+my own age?"
+
+Joan settled herself to listen. With the uncanny intuition that makes
+women so disconcerting, she realized that she had missed her chance and
+must let the boy have his head.
+
+Not until he had unburdened his soul would she be able, she knew, to
+focus his complete attention upon herself.
+
+"Tell me about it," she said.
+
+He gave her a grateful look. "You know the house with the kennels over
+there--the hounds don't let you miss it. I've been wandering about the
+place without seeing anybody since Father died."
+
+"Oh, then, you're Martin Gray!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I was awfully sorry about your father."
+
+"Thanks." The boy's mouth trembled a little, and he worked his thumb
+into the soft earth. "He was one of the very best, and it was not
+right. He was too young and too much missed. I don't understand it. He
+had twenty-five years to his credit, and I wanted to show him what I
+was going to do. It's all a puzzle to me. There's something frightfully
+wrong about it all, and it's been worrying me awfully."
+
+Joan couldn't find anything to say. Years before, when she was four
+years old, Death had come to her house and taken her own father away,
+and she had a dim remembrance of dark rooms and of her mother crying as
+though she had been very badly hurt. It was a vague figure now, and the
+boy's queer way of talking about it so personally made the conventional
+expressions that she had heard seem out of place. It was the little
+shake in his voice that touched her.
+
+"He had just bought a couple of new hunters and was going to run the
+hunt this fall. I wanted him to live forever. He died in New York, and
+I came here to try and get used to being without him. I thought I
+should stay all alone for the rest of my life, but--this morning when I
+was moping about, everything looked so young and busy that I got a sort
+of longing to be young and busy again myself. I don't know how to
+explain it, but everything shouted at me to get up and shake myself
+together, and on the almanac in Father's room I read a thing that
+seemed to be a sort of message from him."
+
+"Did you? What was it?"
+
+"'We count it death to falter, not to die.' It was under to-day's date,
+and it was the first thing I saw when I went to the desk where Father
+used to sit, and it was his voice that read it to me. It was very
+wonderful and queer. It sort of made me ashamed of the way I was taking
+it, and I went out to begin again,--that's how it seemed to me,--and I
+woke everybody up and set things going and saw that the horses were all
+right, and then I climbed over the wall, and as I walked away, out
+again for the first time after all those bad weeks, I wanted to find
+some one young to talk to. I don't know how it was, but I went straight
+up the hill and wasn't a bit surprised when I saw you standing there."
+
+"That's funny," said Joan.
+
+"Funny--how?"
+
+"I don't know. But if you hadn't found me after the feeling that came
+to me at lunch--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I'm sure I should have turned bitter and never believed any more
+in fairies and all that. I don't think I mean fairies, and I can't
+explain what 'all that' stands for, but I know I should have been
+warped if I hadn't turned round and seen you."
+
+And she laughed and set him laughing, and the reason of their having
+met was waved aside. The fact remained that there they were--youth with
+youth, and that was good enough.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+There was a touch of idealism hidden away somewhere in Martin's
+character. A more than usually keen-eyed boy had once called him "the
+poet" at school. In order that this dubious nickname should be
+strangled at birth, there had been an epoch-making fight. Both lads
+came out of it in a more or less unrecognizable condition, but Martin
+reestablished his reputation and presently entered Yale free from the
+suspicion of being anything but a first-rate sportsman and an
+indisputable man.
+
+There Martin had played football with all the desired bullishness. He
+had hammered ragtime on the piano like the best ordinary man in the
+University. With his father he rode to hounds hell for leather, and he
+wrote comic stuff in a Yale magazine which made him admiringly regarded
+as a sort of junior George Ade. It was only in secret, and then with a
+sneaking sense of shame, that he allowed his idealistic side to feed on
+Browning and Ruskin, Maeterlinck and Barrie, and only when alone on
+vacation that he bathed in the beauty of French cathedrals, sat
+thrilled and stirred by the waves of melody of the great composers,
+drew up curiously touched and awed at the sight of the places in the
+famous cities of Europe that echoed with the footsteps of history.
+
+If the ideality of that boy had been seized upon and developed by a
+sympathetic hand, if his lively imagination and passion for the
+beautiful had been put through a proper educational course, he might
+have used the latent creative power with which nature had endowed him
+and taken a high place among artists, writers or composers. As it was,
+his machinelike, matter-of-fact training and his own self-conscious
+anxiety not to be different from the average good sportsman had made
+him conform admirably to type. He was a fine specimen of the eager,
+naive, quick-witted, clean-minded young American, free from "side,"
+devoid of mannerisms, determined to make the utmost of life and its
+possibilities.
+
+It is true that when death seized upon the man who was brother and pal
+as well as father to Martin, all the stucco beneath which he had so
+carefully hidden his spiritual and imaginative side cracked and broke.
+Under the indescribable shock of what seemed to him to be wanton and
+meaningless cruelty, the boy gave way to a grief that was angry and
+agonized by turns. He had left a fit, high-spirited father to drive to
+a golf shop to buy a new mashie, returned to take him out to Sleepy
+Hollow for a couple of rounds--and found him stretched out on the floor
+of the library, dead. Was it any wonder that he tortured himself with
+unanswerable questions, sat for hours in the dark trying with the most
+pitiful futility to fathom the riddle of life, or that he wandered
+aimlessly about the place, which was stamped with his father's fine and
+kindly personality,--like a stick suddenly swept out of the current of
+the main stream into a tideless backwater, untouched by the sun? And
+when finally, still deaf to the call of spring, his father's message of
+courage, "We count it death to falter, not to die," rang out and
+straightened him up and set him on the rails of action once again, it
+was not quite the same Martin Gray who uttered the silent cry for
+companionship that found an answer in Joan's lonely and rebellious
+heart. Sorrow had strengthened him. Out of the silent manliness of
+grief he went out again on the great main road with a wistful desire to
+love and be loved, to find some one with whom to link an arm in an
+empty world all crowded with strangers--and there stood Joan.
+
+It was natural that he should believe, under those circumstances, that
+he and she did not meet by mere accident, that they had been brought
+together by design--all the more natural when he listened to her story
+of mental and physical imprisonment and came to see, during their daily
+stolen meetings, that he was as necessary to her as she was to him.
+Every time he left her and watched her run back to that old house of
+old people, it was borne in upon him more definitely that he was
+appointed in the cosmic scheme to rescue Joan from her peculiar cage
+and help her to try her wings. All about that young fresh, eager
+creature whose eyes were always turned so ardently toward the city, his
+imagination and superstition built a bower of love.
+
+He had never met a girl in any way like her--one who wanted so much and
+would give so little in return for it, who had an eel-like way of
+dodging hard-and-fast facts and who had made up her mind with all the
+zest and thoughtlessness of youth to mold life, when finally she could
+prove how much alive she was, into no other shape than the one which
+most appealed to her. She surprised and delighted him with her quick
+mental turns and twists, and although she sometimes made him catch his
+breath at her astoundingly frank expression of individualism, he told
+himself that she was still in the chrysalis stage and could only get a
+true and normal hang of things after rubbing shoulders with what she
+called life with a capital L.
+
+Two weeks slipped away more quickly than these two young things had
+ever known them to go, and the daily meetings, utterly guileless and
+free from flirtation, were the best part of the day; but there was a
+new note in Joan's laugh as she swung out of the wood and went toward
+Martin one afternoon.
+
+He caught it and looked anxiously at her. "Is anything wrong?"
+
+"There will be," she said. "I just caught sight of Gleave among the
+trees. He was spying!"
+
+"Why do you think so?"
+
+"Oh, he never walks a yard unless he has to. I thought I saw him eying
+me rather queerly at lunch. I've been looking happy lately, and that's
+made him suspicious."
+
+"But what can he do?"
+
+"What can't he do! Grandmother's one of the old-fashioned sort who
+thinks that a girl must never speak to a man without a chaperon. They
+must have been a lively lot of young women in her time! Gleave will
+tell her that I've been coming here to meet you, and then there'll be a
+pretty considerable row."
+
+Martin was incredulous. He was in America in the twentieth century.
+Young people did as they liked, and parents hardly ventured to
+remonstrate. He showed his teeth in the silent laugh that was
+characteristic of him. "Oh, no! I'll be all right. Your grandfather
+knew my father."
+
+"That won't make any difference. I believe that in a sort of way he's
+jealous of my having a good time. Queer, isn't it? Are all old people
+like that? And as to Grandmother, this will give her one of the finest
+chances to let herself go that she's had since I set a curtain on fire
+with a candle; and when she does that, well, things fly, I assure you."
+
+"Are you worried about it?"
+
+Joan gave a gesture of the most eloquent impatience. "I have to be,"
+she said. "You can't understand it, but I'm treated just as if I were a
+little girl in short frocks. It's simply appalling. Everything I say
+and do and look is criticized from the point of view of 1850. Can't you
+imagine what will be thought of my sneaking out every afternoon to talk
+to a dangerous young man who has only just left Yale and lives among
+horses?"
+
+That was too much for Martin. His laugh echoed among the trees.
+
+But Joan didn't make it a duet. "It wouldn't be so funny to you if you
+stood in my shoes, Martin," she said. "If I had gone to Grandmother and
+asked her if I might meet you,--and just think of my having to do
+that,--she would have been utterly scandalized. Now, having done this
+perfectly dreadful thing without permission, I shall be hauled up on
+two charges,--deceit and unbecoming behavior,--and I shall be punished."
+
+The boy wheeled around in amazement. "You don't mean that?"
+
+"Of course I mean it. Haven't I told you over and over again that these
+two dear but irritating old people look down at me from their awful
+pile of years and only see me as a child?"
+
+"But what will they do to you?"
+
+Joan shrugged her shoulders. "Anything they like. I'm completely at
+their mercy. For Mother's sake I try to be patient and put up with it
+all. It's the only home I've got, and when you're dependent and haven't
+a cent to bless yourself with, you can't pack up and telephone for a
+cab and get out, can you? But it can't go on forever. Some day I shall
+answer back, and sparks will fly, and I shall borrow money from the
+coachman, who's my only friend, and go to Alice Palgrave and ask her to
+put me up until Mother comes back. I'm a queer case, Martin--that's the
+truth of it. In a book the other day I came across an exact description
+of myself. I could have laughed if it hadn't hit me so hard. It said:
+'She was a super-modern in an early-Victorian frame, a pint of
+champagne in a little old cut-glass bottle, a gnome engine attached to
+a coach and pair.'" She picked up a stone and flung it down the hill.
+
+One eager wild thought rushed through Martin's brain. It had made his
+blood race several times before, but he had thrown it aside because,
+during all their talks and walks, Joan had never once looked at him
+with anything but the eyes of a sister. As his wife he could free her,
+lift her out of her anomalous atmosphere and take her to the city to
+which her face was always turned. But he lacked the courage to speak
+and continued to hope that some day, by some miracle, she might become
+less superlatively neutral, less almost boyish in her way of treating
+him. He threw it aside again, tempted as he was to take advantage of a
+chance to bribe her into becoming his wife with an offer of life. Then
+too, she was only eighteen, and although he was twenty-four and in the
+habit of thinking of himself as a man of ripe years, he had to confess
+that the mere idea of marriage made him feel awfully young and scared.
+And so he said nothing and went on hoping.
+
+Joan broke the silence. "Everything will be different when Mother comes
+back," she said. "I shall live with her then, and I give you my word
+I'll make up for lost time. So who cares? There are three good hours
+before I face Grandmother. Let's enjoy ourselves."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Martin couldn't settle down after his solitary dinner that night.
+Several times he had jumped out of his father's reading chair and stood
+listening at the window. It seemed to him that some one had called his
+name. But the only sounds that broke the exquisite quietude of the
+night were the distant barking of a dog, the whirl of an automobile on
+the road or the pompous crowing of a master of a barnyard, taken up and
+answered by others near and far.
+
+Each time the boy had stood at the open window and peered out eagerly
+and wistfully, but nothing had moved across the moon-bathed lawn or
+disturbed the sleeping flowers. Under the cold light of the stars the
+earth appeared to be more than usually peaceful and drowsy. All was
+well.
+
+But the boy's blood tingled, and he was filled with an unexplainable
+sense of excitement. Some one needed him, and he wanted urgently to be
+needed. He turned from the window and ran his eyes over the long, wide,
+low-ceilinged masculine room, every single thing in which spelled
+Father to him; then he went back to the chair the right to sit in which
+had been given to him by death, persuaded that over the unseen wires
+that stretch from heart to heart a signal had been sent, certain that
+he was to hold himself in readiness to do something for Joan.
+
+He had written out the words, "We count it death to falter, not to die"
+on a long strip of card in big bold letters. They faced him as he sat
+and read over and over again what he regarded as his father's message.
+It was a call to service, an inspiration to activity, and it had
+already filled him with the determination to fall into step with the
+movement of the world, to put the money of which he was now the most
+reluctant owner to some use as soon as the necessary legal steps of
+proving his father's Will had been taken. He had made up his mind to
+leave the countryside at the end of the week and meet his father's
+lawyers and take advice as to how he could hitch himself to some
+vigorous and operative pursuit. He was going, please God, to build up a
+workmanlike monument to the memory of his father.
+
+Ten o'clock struck, and uninterested in his book, he would have gone to
+bed but for the growing feeling that he was not his own master, that he
+might be required at any moment. The feeling became so strong that
+finally he got up and went into the hall. He couldn't wait any longer.
+He must go out, slip into the garden of the Ludlow house and search the
+windows for a sight of Joan.
+
+He unbolted the front door, gave a little gasp and found himself face
+to face with the girl who was in his thoughts.
+
+There was a ripple of excited laughter; a bag was thrust into his hand,
+and like a bird escaped from a cage, Joan darted past him into the hall.
+
+"I've done it," she cried, "I've done it!" And she broke into a dance.
+
+Martin shut the door, put the bulging suit-case on a chair and watched
+the girl as she whirled about the hall, as graceful as a water sprite,
+with eyes alight with mischief and animation. The sight of her was so
+bewitching, the fact that she had come to him for help so good, that
+his curiosity to know what it was that she had done fell away.
+
+Suddenly she came to a breathless stop and caught hold of his arm.
+"Bolt the door, Marty," she said, "quickly, quickly! They may send
+after me when they find I've got away. I'll never go back, never,
+never!"
+
+All the spirit of romance in the boy's nature flamed. This was a great
+adventure. He had become a knight errant, the rescuer of a damsel in
+distress. He shot the bolts back, turned out the lights, took Joan's
+hand and led her into his father's room.
+
+"Turn these lights out too," she said. "Make it look as if everybody
+had gone to bed."
+
+He did so, with a sort of solemn sense of responsibility; and it was in
+a room lighted only by a shaft of pale moonlight that fell in a pool
+upon the polished floor that these two utterly inexperienced children
+sat knee to knee, the one to pour out her story, the other to listen
+and hold his breath.
+
+"I was right about Gleave. He was spying. It turns out that he's been
+watching us for two or three days. When I went back this afternoon, I
+got a look from Mrs. Nye that told me there was a row in the air. I was
+later than usual and rushed up to my room to change for dinner. The
+whole house seemed awfully quiet and ominous, like the air before a
+thunderstorm. I expected to be sent for at once to stand like a
+criminal before Grandfather and Grandmother--but nothing happened. All
+through dinner, while Gleave tottered about, they sat facing each other
+at the long table, conducting,--that's the only word to describe it,--a
+polite conversation. Neither of them took any notice of me or even once
+looked my way. Even Gleave put things in front of me as though he
+didn't see me, and when I caught the watery eyes of the old dogs, they
+both seemed to make faces and go 'Yah!'"
+
+"It was weird, and would have been frightfully funny if I hadn't known
+that sooner or later I should have to stand up and take my dose. Phew,
+it was a ghastly meal. I'm certain I shall dream it all over again
+every time I eat something that doesn't agree with me! It was a great
+relief when at last Grandmother turned at the door and looking at my
+feet as though they were curiosities, said: 'Joan, you will follow us
+to the drawing-room.' Her voice was cold enough to freeze the sea."
+
+"Then she went out, her stick rapping the floor, Grandfather after her
+with his shoulders bent and a piece of bread on the back of his dinner
+jacket. The two dogs followed, and I made up the tail of that queer
+procession. I hate that stiff, cheerless drawing room anyhow, with all
+its shiny cases of china and a collection of all the uncomfortable
+chairs ever designed since Adam. I wanted to laugh and cry, and when I
+saw myself in the glass, I couldn't believe that I wasn't a little
+shivering girl with a ribbon in my hair and white socks."
+
+Some one whistled outside. The girl seized the boy's arm in a sudden
+panic of fright.
+
+"It's all right," he said. "It's only the gardener going to his
+cottage."
+
+Joan laughed, and her grip relaxed. "I'm jumpy," she said. "My nerves
+are all over the place. Do you wonder?"
+
+"No, tell me the rest."
+
+Joan's voice took on a little deeper note like that of a child who has
+come to the really creepy bit of his story. "Marty," she went on, "I
+wish you could have heard the way in which Grandmother let herself go!
+She held me by the scruff of my neck and hit me right and left with the
+sort of sarcasm that made me crinkle. According to her, I was on the
+downward path. I had done something quite hopeless and unforgivable.
+She didn't know how she could bring herself to report the affair--think
+of calling it an affair, Marty!--to my poor mother. Mother, who'd never
+say a word to me, whatever I did! She might have out-of-date views, she
+said, of how young girls should behave, but they were the right views,
+and so long as I was under her roof and in her care, she would see that
+I conformed to them. She went on making a mountain out of our little
+molehill, till even Grandfather broke in with a word; and then she
+snapped at him, got into her second wind and went off again. I didn't
+listen half the time. I just stood and watched her as you'd watch one
+of those weird old women in one of Dickens' books come to life. What I
+remember of it all is that I am deceitful and fast, ungrateful,
+irresponsible, with no sense of decency, and when at last she
+pronounced sentence, what do you think it was? Confinement to the house
+for a week and if after that, I ever meet you again, to be packed off
+to a finishing-school in Massachusetts. She rapped her stick on the
+floor by way of a full stop, and waved her hand toward the door. I
+never said a word, not a single one. What was the use? I gave her a
+little bow and went. Just as I was going to rush upstairs and think
+over what I could do, Grandfather came out and told me to go to his
+room to read something to him. And there, for the first time, he let me
+see what a fine old fellow he really is. He agreed with Grandmother
+that I ought not to have met you on the sly. It was dangerous, he said,
+though perfectly natural. He was afraid I found it very trying to live
+among a lot of old grouches with their best feet in the grave, but he
+begged me to put up with it because he would miss me so. He liked
+having me about, not only to read to him but to look at. I reminded him
+of Grandmother when she was young, and life was worth living.
+
+"I cried then. I couldn't help it--more for his sake than mine. He
+spoke with such a funny sort of sadness. 'Be patient, my dear,' he
+said. 'Treat us both with a little kindness. You're top dog. You have
+all your life before you. Make allowances for two old people entering
+second childhood. You'll be old some day, you know.' And he said this
+with such a twisted sort of smile that I felt awfully sorry for him,
+and he saw it and opened out and told me how appalling it was to become
+feeble when the heart is as young as ever. I had no idea he felt like
+that."
+
+"When I left him I tried hard to be as patient as he asked me to be and
+wait till Mother comes back and make the allowances he spoke about and
+give up seeing you and all that. But when I got up to my room with the
+echo of Grandmother's rasping voice in my ears, the thought of being
+shut up in the house for a week and treated like a lunatic was too much
+for me. What had I done that every other healthy girl doesn't do every
+day without a question? How COULD I go on living there, watched and
+suspected? How could I put up any longer with the tyranny of an old
+lady who made me feel artificial and foolish and humiliated--a kind of
+doll stuffed with saw dust?
+
+"Marty, I couldn't do it. I simply couldn't. Something went snap, and I
+just flung a few things into a suit-case, dropped it out the window,
+climbed down the creeper and made a dash for freedom. Nothing on earth
+will ever take me back to that house again, nothing, nothing!"
+
+All this had been said with a mixture of humor and emotion that carried
+the boy before it. He saw and heard everything as she described it. His
+own relations with his father, which had been so free and friendly,
+made Joan's with those two old people seem fantastic and impossible.
+All his sympathy went out to her. To help her to get away appealed to
+him as being as humane as releasing a squirrel from a trap. No thought
+of the fact that she was a girl who had rushed impulsively into a most
+awkward position struck him. Into his healthy mind no sex question
+thrust itself. She was his friend, and as such, her claim upon him was
+overwhelming and unarguable.
+
+"What do you want me to do?" he asked. "Have you thought of anything?"
+
+"Of course I have. In the morning, early, before they find out that
+I've bolted, you must drive me to New York and take me to Alice
+Palgrave. She'll put me up, and I can telegraph to Mother for money to
+buy clothes with. Does it occur to you, Marty, that you're the cause of
+all this? If I hadn't turned and found you that afternoon, I should
+still be eating my soul away and having my young life crushed. As it
+is, you've forced my hand. So you're going to take me to the magic
+city, and if you want to see how a country cousin makes up for lost
+time and sets things humming, watch me!"
+
+So they talked and talked, sitting in that room which was made the very
+sanctum of romance by young blood and moonlight. Eleven o'clock slipped
+by, and twelve and one; and while the earth slept, watched by a million
+glistening eyes, and nature moved imperceptibly one step nearer to
+maturity, this boy and girl made plans for the discovery of a world out
+of which so many similar explorers have crept with wounds and
+bitterness.
+
+They were wonderful and memorable hours, not ever to be lived again.
+They were the hours that all youth enjoys and delights in once--when,
+like gold-diggers arrived in sight of El Dorado, they halt and peer at
+the chimera that lies at their feet--
+
+"I'm going to make my mark," Martin said. "I'm going to make something
+that will last. My father's name was Martin Gray, and I'll make it MEAN
+some thing out there for his sake."
+
+"And I," said Joan, springing to her feet and throwing up her chin,
+"will go joy-riding in the huge round-about. I've seen what it is to be
+old and useless, and so I shall make the most of every day and hour
+while I'm young. I can live only once, and so I shall make life spin
+whatever way I want it to go. If I can get anybody to pay my whack,
+good. If not, I'll pay it myself--whatever it costs. My motto's going
+to be a good time as long as I can get it, and who cares for the price?"
+
+The boy followed her to the window, and the moonlight fell upon them
+both. "Yes," he said, "you'll get a bill, all right. How did you know
+that?"
+
+"I haven't lived with all those old people so long for nothing," she
+answered. "But you won't catch me grumbling if I get half as much as
+I'm going out for. Listen to my creed, Martin, and take notes, if you
+want to keep up with me."
+
+"Go ahead," he said, watching the sparkle in her eyes.
+
+She squared her shoulders and folded her arms in a half-defiant way. "I
+shall open the door of every known Blue Room--hurrying out again if
+there are ugly things inside, staying to enjoy them if they're good to
+look at. I shall taste a little of every known bottle, feel everything
+there is to feel except the thing that hurts, laugh with any one whose
+laugh is catching, do everything there is to do, go into every booth in
+the big Bazaar; and when I'm tired out and there's nothing left, I
+shall slip out of the endless procession with a thousand things stored
+away in my memory. Isn't that the way to live?"
+
+From the superior height of twenty-four, Martin looked down on Joan
+indulgently. He didn't take her frank and unblushing individualism
+seriously. She was just a kid, he told himself. She was a girl who had
+been caged up and held in. It was natural for her to say all those wild
+things. She would alter her point of view as soon as the first surprise
+of being free had worn off--and then he would speak; then he would ask
+her to throw in her lot with his and walk in step with him along the
+street of adventure.
+
+"I sha'n't see the sun rise on this great day," she said, letting a
+yawn have full play. "I'm sleepy, Marty. I must lie down this very
+instant, even if the floor's the only place you can offer me. Quick!
+What else is there?" Before he could answer, she had caught sight of a
+low, long, enticing divan, and onto this, with a gurgle of pleasure,
+she made a dive, placed two cushions for her head, put one little hand
+under her face, snuggled into an attitude of perfect comfort and
+deliberately went to sleep. It was masterly.
+
+Martin, not believing that she could turn off so suddenly at a complete
+tangent, spoke to her once or twice but got no other answer than a
+long, contented sigh. He stood for a little while trying to make out
+her outline in the dim corner of the room. Then he tiptoed out to the
+hall, possessed himself of a warm motor-rug, returned with it and laid
+it gently and tenderly over the unconscious girl.
+
+He didn't intend to let sleep rob him of the first sight of a day that
+was to mean so much to him, and he went over to the open window, caught
+the scent of lilac and listened, with all his imagination and sense of
+beauty stirred, to the deep breathing of the night.... Yes, he had cut
+through the bars which had kept this girl from taking her place among
+the crowd. He was responsible for the fact that she was about to play
+her part in the comedy of life. He was glad to be responsible. He had
+passionately desired a cause to which to attach himself; and was there,
+in all the world, a better than Joan?
+
+Spring had come again, and all things were young, and the call to mate
+rang in his ears and set his heart beating and his thoughts racing
+ahead. He loved her, this girl that he had come upon standing out in
+all her freshness against a blue sky. He would serve her as the great
+lovers had served, and please God, she would some day return his love.
+They would build up a home and bring up a family and go together up the
+inevitable hill.
+
+And as he stood sentinel, in a waking dream, waiting for the finger of
+dawn to rub the night away, sleep tapped him on the shoulder, and he
+turned and went to the divan and sat down with his back to it, touched
+one of Joan's placid hands with his lips and drifted into further
+dreams with a smile around his mouth.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+It was ten o'clock in the morning when Martin brought his car to a stop
+and looked up at the heavy Gothic decorations of a pompous house in
+East Fifty-fifth Street. "Is this it?"
+
+"Yes," said Joan, getting out of the leather-lined coat that he had
+wrapped her in. "It really is a house, isn't it; and luckily, all the
+gargoyles are on the outside." She held out her hand and gave Martin
+the sort of smile for which any genuine man would sell his soul.
+"Marty," she added, "you've been far more than a brother to me. You've
+been a cousin. I shall never be able to thank you. And I adored the
+drive with our noses turned to the city. I shan't be able to be seen on
+the streets until I've got some frocks, so please come and see me every
+day. As soon as Alice has got over her shock at the sight of me, I'm
+going to compose an historical letter to Grandmother."
+
+"Let her down lightly," said Martin, climbing out with the suit-case.
+"You've won."
+
+"Yes, that's true; but I shouldn't be a woman if I didn't get in the
+last word."
+
+"You're not a woman," said Martin. "You're a kid, and you're in New
+York, and you're light-headed; so look out."
+
+Joan laughed at his sudden gravity and ran up the wide steps and put
+her finger on the bell. "I've written down your telephone number," she
+said, "and memorized your address. I'll call you up at three o'clock
+this afternoon, and if you've nothing else to do, you may take me for a
+walk in the Park."
+
+"I sha'n't have anything else to do."
+
+The door was opened. The footman was obviously English, with the art of
+footmanism in his blood.
+
+"Is Mrs. Gilbert Palgrave at home?" asked Joan as if the question were
+entirely superfluous.
+
+"No, miss."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Quite sure, miss. Mrs. Palgrave left for Boston yesterday on account
+of hillness in the family, miss."
+
+There was an awkward and appalled silence. Little did the man suspect
+the kind of blow that his statement contained.
+
+Joan darted an agonized look at Martin.
+
+"But Mr. Palgrave is at 'ome, miss."
+
+And that galvanized the boy into action. He had met Gilbert Palgrave
+out hunting. He had seen the impertinent, cocksure way in which he ran
+his eyes over women. He clutched the handle of the case and said:
+"That's all right, thanks. Miss Ludlow will write to Mrs. Palgrave."
+Then he turned and went down the steps to the car.
+
+Trying to look unconcerned, Joan followed.
+
+"Get in, quick," said Martin. "We'll talk as we go."
+
+"But why? If I don't stay here, where am I to stay?"
+
+"I don't know. Please get in."
+
+Joan stood firm. The color had come back to her face, and a look of
+something like anger had taken the place of fright. "I didn't tell you
+to march off like that. Gilbert's here."
+
+"That's why we're going," Said Martin.
+
+"I don't understand." Her eyes were blazing.
+
+"I know you don't. You can't stay in that house. It isn't done."
+
+"I can do it, and I must do it. Do you suppose I'm going back with my
+tail between my legs?"
+
+"If we argue here, we shall collect a crowd." He got into the car and
+held out his hand.
+
+Joan ignored it but followed him in. She was angry, puzzled,
+disappointed, nonplussed. Alice had no right to be away on such an
+occasion. Everything had looked so easy and smooth-sailing. Even Martin
+had changed into a different man, and was ordering her about. If he
+thought he could drive her back to that prison again, he was
+considerably wrong. She would never go back, never.
+
+The car was running slowly. "Have you any other friends in town?" asked
+Martin, who seemed to be trying to hide an odd kind of excitement.
+
+"No," said Joan. "Alice is my only friend here. Drive to some place
+where I can call up Gilbert Palgrave and explain the whole thing. What
+does it matter about my being alone? If I don't mind, who should?
+Please do as I say. There's no other place for me to go to, and wild
+horses sha'n't drag me back."
+
+"You sha'n't go back," said Martin. He turned the car up Madison Avenue
+and drove without another word to East Sixty-seventh Street and stopped
+in front of a small house that was sandwiched between a mansion and a
+twelve-story apartment-house. "This is mine," he said simply. "Will you
+come in?"
+
+A smile of huge relief came into Joan's eyes. "Why worry?" she said.
+"How foolish of us not to have thought of this before!"
+
+But there was no smile on Martin's face. His eyes were amazingly bright
+and his mouth set firmly. His chin looked squarer than ever. Once more
+he carried out the suit-case, put a latchkey into the lock and threw
+back the door. Joan went in and stood looking about the cheery hall
+with its old oak, and sporting prints, white wood and red carpet. "Oh,
+but this is perfectly charming, Marty," she cried out. "Why did we
+bother our heads about Alice when there is this haven of refuge?"
+
+Martin marched up to her and stood eye to eye. "Because I'm alone," he
+said, "and you're a girl. That's why."
+
+Joan made a face. "I see. The conventions again. Isn't there any sort
+of woman here?"
+
+"Yes, the cook."
+
+She laughed. There was a comic side to this tragedy, after all, it
+seemed. "Well, perhaps she'll give us some scrambled eggs and coffee. I
+could eat a horse."
+
+Martin opened the door of the sitting room. Like the one in which she
+had slept so soundly the previous night, it was stamped with the
+character and personality of the other Martin Gray. Books, warm and
+friendly, lined the walls. Mounted on wood, fish of different sizes and
+breeds hung above the cases, and over the fireplace there was a
+full-length oil painting of a man in a red coat and riding breeches.
+His kind eyes greeted Joan.
+
+For several minutes she stood beneath it, smiling back. Then she turned
+and put her hand involuntarily on the boy's shoulder. "Oh, Marty!" she
+said. "I AM sorry."
+
+The boy gave one quick upward glance, and cleared his throat. "I told
+you that this house is mine. It isn't. It's yours. It's the only way,
+if you're to remain in the city. Is it good enough? Do you want to stay
+as much as all that?"
+
+The puzzled look came back. For a moment Joan was silent, worrying out
+the meaning of Martin's abrupt and rather cryptic words. There seemed
+to be a tremendous amount of fuss because she happened to be a girl.
+
+Martin spoke again before she had emerged from the thicket of inward
+questions. She was only eighteen, after all.
+
+"I mean, you can marry me if you like." he said, "and then no one can
+take you back." He was amazed at his courage and hideously afraid that
+she would laugh at him. He had never dared to say how much he loved her.
+
+She did laugh, but with a ring of so much pleasure and relief that the
+blood flew to his head. "Why, Marty, what a brain! What organization!
+Of course I'll marry you. Why ever didn't we think of that last night?"
+
+But before he could pull himself together a man-servant entered with an
+air of extreme surprise. "I didn't know you'd come home, sir," he said,
+"until I saw the suit-case." He saw Joan, and his eyes rounded.
+
+"I was just going to ring," said Martin. "We want some breakfast. Will
+you see to it, please?" Alone again, Martin held out his hand to Joan,
+in an odd, boyish way. And she took it, boyishly too. "Thank you,
+Marty, dear," she said. "You've found the magic carpet. My troubles are
+over; and oh, what a pretty little bomb I shall have for Grandmamma!
+And now let's explore my house. If it's all like this, I shall simply
+love it!" And away she darted into the hall.
+
+"And now," said Joan, "being duly married,--and you certainly do make
+things move when you start, Marty,--to send a telegram to Grandmother!
+Lead me to the nearest place."
+
+Certain that every person in that crowded street saw in them a newly
+married couple, Martin tried to hide his joy under a mask of extreme
+callousness and universal indifference. With the challenging antagonism
+of an English husband,--whose national habit it is invariably to stalk
+ahead of his women-kind while they scramble along at his heels,--he led
+the way well in advance of his unblushing bride. But his eyes were
+black with emotion. He saw rainbows all over the sky, and rings of
+bright light round the square heads of all the buildings which competed
+in an endeavor to touch the clouds; and there was a song in his heart.
+
+They sat down side by side in a Western Union office, dallied for a
+moment or two with the tied pencils the points of which are always
+blunt, and to the incessant longs and shorts of a dozen telegraph
+instruments they put their epoch-making news on the neat blanks. Martin
+did not intend to be left out of it. His best pal was off the map, and
+so he chose a second-best friend and wrote triumphantly: "Have been
+married to-day. Staying in New York for honeymoon. How are you?" He was
+sorry that he couldn't remember the addresses of a hundred other men.
+He felt in the mood to pelt the earth with such telegrams as that.
+
+"Listen," said Joan, her eyes dancing with mischief. "I think this is a
+pretty good effort: 'Blessings and congratulations on her marriage
+to-day may be sent to Mrs. Martin Gray, at 26 East Sixty-seventh
+Street, New York.--Joan.' How's that?"
+
+It was the first time the boy had seen that name, and he blinked and
+smiled and got very red. "Terse and literary," he said, dying to put
+his arms round her and kiss her before all mankind. "They'll have
+something to talk about at dinner to-night. A nice whack in the eye for
+Gleave."
+
+He managed to achieve a supremely blase air while the words were being
+counted, but it crumbled instantly when the telegraphist shot a quick
+look at Joan and gave Martin a grin of cordial congratulation.
+
+As soon as he saw a taxi, Martin hailed it and told the chauffeur to
+drive to the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue. "We'll
+walk from there," he said to Joan, "--if you'd like to, that is."
+
+"I would like to. I want to peer into the shop windows and look at hats
+and dresses. I've got absolutely nothing to wear. Marty, tell me, are
+we well off?"
+
+Martin laughed. She reminded him of a youngster going for a picnic and
+pooling pocket money. "Yes," he said, "--quite."
+
+She sat back with her hands crossed in her lap. "I'm so glad. It
+simplifies everything to have plenty to spend." But for her exquisite
+slightness and freshness, no one would have imagined that she was an
+only just-fledged bird, flying for the first time. Her equability and
+poise were those of a completely sophisticated woman. Nothing seemed to
+surprise her. Whatever happened was all part and parcel of the great
+adventure. Yesterday she was an overwatched girl, looking yearningly at
+a city that appeared to be unattainable. To-day she was a married woman
+who, a moment ago, had been standing before a minister, binding herself
+for good or ill to a man who was delightfully a boy and of whom she
+knew next to nothing. What did it matter--what did anything matter--so
+long as she achieved her long-dreamed-of ambition to live and see life?
+
+"Then I can go ahead," she added, "and dress as becomes the wife of a
+man of one of our best families. I've never been able to dress before.
+Trust me to make an excellent beginning." There was a twinkle of humor
+in her eyes as she said these things, and excitement too. "Tell me
+this, Marty: is it as easy to get unmarried as it is to get married?"
+
+"You're not thinking about that already, surely!"
+
+"Oh, no. But information is always useful, isn't it?"
+
+Just for a moment the boy's heart went down into his boots. She didn't
+love him yet; he knew that He intended to earn her love as an honest
+man earns his living. What hurt was the note of flippancy in her voice
+in talking of an event that was to him so momentous and wonderful. It
+seemed to mean no more to her to have entered into a lifelong tie than
+the buying of a mere hat--not so much, not nearly so much, as to have
+found a way of not going back to those two old people in the country.
+She was young, awfully young, he told himself again. Presently her feet
+would touch the earth, and she would understand.
+
+As they walked up Fifth Avenue and with little gurgles of enthusiasm
+Joan halted at every other shop to look at hats that appealed to Martin
+as absurdly, willfully freakish, and evening dresses which seemed
+deliberately to have been handed over to a cat to be torn to ribbons,
+it came back to him that one just such soft spring evening, the year
+before, he had walked home from the Grand Central Station and been
+seized suddenly with an almost painful longing to be asked by some
+precious person who belonged wholly to him to share her delight in all
+the things which then stood for nothing in his life. Then and there he
+fulfilled an ambition long cherished and hidden away; he touched Joan
+on the arm and opened the elaborate door of a famous jeweler. He was
+known to the shop from the fact that he and his father had always dealt
+there for wedding and Christmas presents. He was welcomed by a man in
+the clothes of a concert singer and with the bedside manner of a family
+doctor.
+
+He was desperately self-conscious, and his collar felt two sizes too
+small, but he managed to get into his voice a tone that was
+sufficiently matter-of-fact to blunt the edge of the man's rather
+roguish smile. "Let me see your latest gold-mesh bags," he said as
+ordinary, everyday people ask to see collar studs.
+
+"Marty!" whispered Joan. "What are you going to do?"
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said Martin. "You can't get along without a
+bag, you see."
+
+Half a dozen yellow, insinuating things were laid out on the shining
+glass, and with a wonderful smile that was worth all the gold the earth
+contained to Martin, Joan made a choice--but not hastily, and not
+before she had inspected every other gold bag in the shop. Even at
+eighteen she was woman enough to want to be quite certain that she
+possessed herself of the very best thing of its kind and would never
+have, in future, to feel jealous of one that might lie alluringly in
+the window.
+
+"This one," she said finally. "I'm quite sure."
+
+Martin didn't ask the price. It was for his bride. He picked it up and
+hung it over her wrist, said "The old address," nodded to the man,--who
+was just about to call attention to a tray of diamond brooches,--and
+led the way out, feeling at least six feet two.
+
+And as Joan regained the street, she passed another milestone in her
+life. To be the proprietor of precisely just such a gold bag had been
+one of her steady dreams.
+
+"Marty," she said, "what a darling you are!"
+
+The boy's eyes filled with tears.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+It was an evening Martin would never forget.
+
+His suggestion that they should dine at Delmonico's and go to the
+Empire to see Ethel Barrymore, accepted with avidity, had stirred Joan
+to immediate action. She had hailed a taxi, said, "You'll see me in an
+hour, Marty," and disappeared with a quick injunction to have whatever
+she bought sent home C.O.D.
+
+It was actually two hours before he saw her again. He thanked his stars
+that he had enough money in the bank to meet the checks that he was
+required to make out in quick succession. Joan had not wasted time, and
+as she got into the car to drive away from that sandwich house of
+excited servants, two other milestones had been left behind. She was in
+a real evening frock, and all the other things she had bought were silk.
+
+They drove straight home from the theater. Joan was tired. The day had
+been long and filled with amazements. She was out in the world at last.
+Realization had exceeded expectation for the first time in history.
+
+The sand-man had been busy with Martin's eyes too, but he led the way
+into the dining room with shoulders square and chin high and spring in
+his blood. This was home indeed.
+
+"What a tempting little supper!" said Joan. "And just look at all these
+flowers."
+
+They were everywhere, lilacs and narcissi, daffodils, violets and
+hothouse roses. Hours ago he had sent out the almost unbelieving
+footman for them. Joan and flowers--they were synonymous.
+
+She put her pretty face into a great bowl of violets. "You remembered
+all my little friends, Marty," she said.
+
+They sat opposite each other at the long table. Martin's father looked
+down at Martin's wife, and his mother at the boy from whom she had been
+taken when his eager eyes came up to the level of her pillow. And there
+was much tenderness on both their faces.
+
+Martin caught the manservant's eyes. "Don't wait," he said. "We'll look
+after ourselves."
+
+Presently Joan gave a little laugh. "Please have something yourself.
+You're better than a footman. You're a butler."
+
+His smile as he took his place would have lighted up a tunnel.
+
+"I like Delmonico's," said Joan. "We'll often dine there. And the play
+was perfectly splendid. What a lot of others there are to see! I don't
+think we'll let the grass grow under our feet, Marty. And presently
+we'll have some very proper little dinner parties in this room, won't
+we? Interesting, vital people, who must all be good-looking and young.
+It will be a long time before I shall want to see anyone old again.
+Think what Alice Palgrave will say when she comes back! She'll
+underline every word if she can find any words. She wasn't married till
+she was twenty."
+
+And presently, having pecked at an admirable fruit salad, just sipped a
+glass of wine and made close-fitting plans that covered at least a
+month, Joan rose. "I shall go up now, Marty," she said. "It's twelve
+o'clock."
+
+He watched her go upstairs with his heart in his throat. Surely this
+was all a dream, and in a moment he would find himself rudely and
+coldly awake, standing in the middle of a crowded, lonely world? But
+she stopped on the landing, turned, smiled at him and waved her hand.
+He drew in a deep breath, went back into the dining room, put his lips
+to the violets that had been touched by her face, and switched off the
+lights. The scent of spring was in the air.
+
+"Come in," she said, when presently, after a long pause, he knocked at
+her door.
+
+She was sitting at a gleaming dressing table in something white and
+clinging, doing her hair that was so soft and brown and electrical.
+
+He dared not trust himself to speak. He sat down on the edge of a sofa
+at the foot of the bed and watched her.
+
+She went on brushing but with her unoccupied hand gathered her gown
+about her. "What is it, Marty?" she asked quietly.
+
+"Nothing," he said, finding something that sounded curiously unlike his
+voice.
+
+She could see his young, eager face and broad shoulders in the
+looking-glass. His hands were clasped tightly round one knee.
+
+"I've been listening to the sound of traffic," she said. "That's the
+sort of music that appeals to me. It seems a year since I did my hair
+in that great, prim room and heard the owls cry and watched myself grow
+old. Just think! It's really only a few hours ago that I dropped my
+suit-case out of a window and climbed down the creeper. We said we'd
+make things move, didn't we?"
+
+"I shall write to your grandfather in the morning," said Martin, with
+almost comical gravity and an unconscious touch of patronage. How
+childlike the old are to the very young!
+
+"That will be nice of you," answered Joan. "We'll be very kind to him,
+won't we? There'll be no one to read the papers to him now."
+
+"He was a great chap once," said Martin. "My father liked him awfully."
+
+She swung her hair free and turned her chair a little. "You must tell
+me what he said about him, in the morning. Heigh-ho, I'm so sleepy."
+
+Martin got up and went to see if the windows were all open. "They'll
+call us at eight," he said, "unless you'd like it to be later."
+
+Joan went to the door and opened it and held out her hand. "Eight's
+good," she said. "Good night, Marty."
+
+The boy looked at the little open hand with its long fingers, and at
+his wife, who seemed so cool and sweet and friendly. What did she mean?
+
+He asked her, with an odd catch in his voice.
+
+And she gave him the smile of a tired child. "Just that, old boy. Good
+night."
+
+"But--but we're married," he said with a little stammer.
+
+"Do you think I can forget that, in this room, with that sound in the
+street?"
+
+"Well, then, why say good night to me like this?"
+
+"How else, Marty dear?"
+
+An icy chill ran over Martin and struck at his heart. Was it really
+true that she could stand there and hold out her hand and with the
+beginning of impatience expect him to leave a room the right to which
+had been made over to him by law and agreement?
+
+He asked her that, as well as he could, in steadier, kinder words than
+he need have used.
+
+And she dropped her hand and sighed a little. "Don't spoil everything
+by arguing with me, Marty. I really am only a kid, you know. Be good
+and run along now. Look--it's almost one."
+
+The blood rushed to his head, and he held out his hands to her. "But I
+love you. I love you, Joany. You can't--you CAN'T tell me to go." It
+was a boy's cry, a boy profoundly, terribly hurt and puzzled.
+
+"Well, if we've got to go into all this now I may as well sit down,"
+she said, and did. "That air's rather chilly, too." She folded her arms
+over her breast.
+
+It was enough. All the chivalry in Martin came up and choked his anger
+and bitterness and untranslatable disappointment. He went out and shut
+the door and stumbled downstairs into the dark sitting room and stood
+there for a long time all among chaos and ruin. He loved her to
+adoration, and the spring was in his blood; and if she was young, she
+was not so young as all that; and where was her side of the bargain?
+And at last, through the riot and jumble of his thoughts, her creed of
+life came back to him, word for word: she took all she could get and
+gave nothing in return; and "Who cares?" was her motto.
+
+And after that he stood like a man balanced on the edge of a precipice.
+In cold blood he could go back and like a brute demand his price. And
+if he went forward and let her off because he loved her so and was a
+gentleman, down he must go, like a stone.
+
+He was very white, and his lips were set when he went up to his room.
+With curious deliberation he got back into his clothes and saw that he
+had money, returned to the hall, put on his coat and hat, shut the door
+behind him and walked out under the stars.
+
+"All right, then, who cares?" he said, facing toward the "Great White
+Way." "Who the devil cares?"
+
+And up in her room, with her hand under her cheek like a child, Joan
+had left the world with sleep.
+
+
+
+
+PART TWO
+
+
+THE ROUND-ABOUT
+
+I
+
+
+Alice Palgrave's partner had dealt, and having gone three in "no
+trumps" and found seven to the ace, king, queen in hearts lying before
+her in dummy, she wore a smile of beatific satisfaction. So also did
+Alice--for two reasons. The deal obviously spelled money, and Vere
+Millet could be trusted to get every trick out of it. There were four
+bridge tables fully occupied in the charming drawing-room, and as she
+caught the hostess' eye and smiled, she felt just a little bit like a
+fairy godmother in having surrounded Joan with so many of the smartest
+members of the younger set barely three weeks after her astonishing
+arrival in a city in which she had only one friend.
+
+Alice didn't blind herself to the fact that in order to gamble, most of
+the girls in the room would go, without the smallest discrimination, to
+anybody's house; but there were others,--notably Mrs. Alan Hosack, Mrs.
+Cooper Jekyll and Enid Ouchterlony,--whose pride it was to draw a hard,
+relentless line between themselves and every one, however wealthy, who
+did not belong to families of the same, or almost the same,
+unquestionable standing as their own. Their presence in the little
+house in East Sixty-seventh Street gave it, they were well aware, a
+most enviable cachet and placed Joan safely within the inner circle of
+New York society--the democratic royal inclosure. It was something to
+have achieved so soon--little as Joan appeared, in her astonishing
+coolness, to appreciate it. The Ludlows, as Joan had told Alice with
+one of her frequent laughs, might have come over in the only staterooms
+on the ship which towed the heavily laden Mayflower, but that didn't
+alter the fact that the Hosacks, the Jekylls and the Ouchterlonys were
+the three most consistently exclusive and difficult families in the
+country, to know whom all social climbers would joyously mortgage their
+chances of eternity. Alice placed a feather in her cap accordingly.
+
+Joan's table was the first to break up. She was a loser to the tune of
+seventy dollars, and while she wrote her check to Marie Littlejohn, a
+tiny blond exotic not much older than herself,--who laid down the law
+with the ripe authority of a Cabinet Minister and kept to a daily
+time-table with the unalterable effrontery of a fashionable
+doctor,--talked over her shoulder to Christine Hurley.
+
+"Alice tells me that your brother has gone to France with the Canadian
+Flying Corps. Aren't you proud of him?"
+
+"I suppose so, but it isn't our war, and they're awfully annoyed about
+it at Piping Rock. He was the crack man of the polo team, you know. I
+don't see that there was any need of his butting into this European
+fracas."
+
+"I quite agree with you," said Miss Littlejohn, with her eyes on the
+clock. "I broke my engagement to Metcalfe Hussey because he insisted on
+going over to join the English regiment his grandfather used to belong
+to. I've no patience with sentimentality." She took the check and
+screwed it into a small gold case. "I'm dining with my bandage-rolling
+aunt and going on to the opera. Thank goodness, the music will drown
+her war talk. Good-by." She nodded here and there and left, to be
+driven home with her adipose chow in a Rolls-Royce.
+
+Christine Hurley touched a photograph that stood on Joan's desk. "Who's
+this good-looking person?" she asked.
+
+"My husband," said Joan.
+
+"Oh, really! When are we to see something of him?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Joan. "He's about somewhere."
+
+Miss Hurley laughed. "It's like that already, is it? Haven't you only
+just been married?"
+
+"Yes," said Joan lightly, "but we've begun where most people leave off.
+It's a great saving of time and temper!"
+
+The sophisticated Christine, no longer in the first flush of giddy
+youth, still unmarried after four enterprising years, was surprised
+into looking with very real interest at the girl who had been until
+that moment merely a hostess. Her extreme finish, her unself-conscious
+confidence and intrepidity, her unassumed lightness of temper were not
+often found in one so young and apparently virginal. She dismissed as
+unbelievable the story that this girl had been brought up in the
+country in an atmosphere of early Victorianism. She had obviously just
+come from one of those elaborate finishing schools in which the
+daughters of rich people are turned into hothouse plants by sycophants
+and parasites and sent out into the world the most perfect specimens of
+superautocracy, to patronize their parents, scoff at discipline, ignore
+duty and demand the sort of luxury that brought Rome to its fall. With
+admiration and amusement she watched her say good-by to one woman after
+another as the various tables broke up. It really gave her quite a
+moment to see the way in which Joan gave as careless and unawed a hand
+to Mrs. Alan Hosack and Mrs. Cooper Jekyll as to the Countess Palotta,
+who had nothing but pride to rattle in her little bag; and when finally
+she too drove away, it was with the uneasy sense of dissatisfaction
+that goes with the dramatic critic from a production in which he has
+honestly to confess that there is something new--and arresting.
+
+Alice Palgrave stayed behind. She felt a natural proprietary interest
+in the success of the afternoon. "My dear," she said emotionally,
+"you're perfectly wonderful!"
+
+"I am? Why?"
+
+"To any other just-married girl this would have been an ordeal, a
+nerve-wrecking event. But you've been as cool as a fish--I've been
+watching you. You might have been brought up in a vice-regal lodge and
+hobnobbed all your life with ambassadors. How do you do it?"
+
+Joan laughed and threw out her arms. "Oh, I don't know," she said, with
+her eyes dancing and her nostrils extended. "I don't stop to think how
+to do things. I just do them. These people are young and alive, and
+it's good to be among them. I work off some of my own vitality on them
+and get recharged at the sound of their chatter. People, people--give
+me people and the clash of tongues and the sense of movement. I don't
+much care who they are. I shall pick up all the little snobbish stuff
+sooner or later, of course, and talk about the right set and all that,
+as you do. I'm bound to. At present everything's new and exciting, and
+I'm whipping it up. You wait a little. I'll cut out some of the dull
+and pompous when I've got things going, and limit myself to red-blooded
+speed-breakers. Give me time, Alice."
+
+She sat down at the piano and crashed out a fox-trot that was all over
+town. No one would have imagined from her freshness and vivacity that
+she had been dancing until daylight every night that week.
+
+"Well," said Alice when she could be heard, "I see you making history,
+my dear; there's no doubt about that."
+
+"None whatever," answered Joan. "I'm outside the walls at last, and
+I'll go the pace until the ambulance comes."
+
+"With or without Martin Gray?"
+
+"With, if he's quick enough--without, if not."
+
+"Be careful," said Alice.
+
+"Not I, my dear. I left care away back in the country with my little
+old frocks."
+
+Alice held out her hand. "You bewilder me a little," she said. "You
+make me feel as if I were in a high wind. You did when we were at
+school, I remember. Well, don't bother to thank me for having got up
+this party." She added this a little dryly.
+
+With a most winning smile Joan kissed her. "You're a good pal, Alice,"
+she said, "and I'm very grateful."
+
+Alice was compensated, although her shrewd knowledge of character told
+her how easily her friend won her points. "And I hope you're duly
+grateful to Martin Gray?"
+
+"To dear old Marty? Rather! He and I are great pals."
+
+But that was all Alice got. Her burning curiosity to know precisely how
+this young couple stood must go unsatisfied for the time being. She had
+only caught a few fleeting glimpses of the man who had given Joan the
+key to life, and every time had wondered, from something in his eyes,
+whether he found things wholly good. She was just a little suspicious
+of romances. Her own had worn thin so quickly. "Good-by, my dear," she
+said. "Don't forget you're dining with me to-morrow."
+
+"Not likely."
+
+"What are you doing to-night?"
+
+"Going to bed at nine o'clock to sleep the clock round. I'm awfully
+tired."
+
+She stood quite still for many minutes after Alice had gone, and shut
+her eyes. In a quick series of moving pictures she saw thousands of
+little lights and swaying people and clashing colors, and caught
+snatches of lilting music and laughter. She was tired, and something
+that seemed like a hand pressed her forehead tightly, but the near-by
+sound of incessant traffic sent her blood spinning, and she opened her
+eyes and gave a little laugh and went out.
+
+Martin was on his way downstairs. He drew up abruptly. "Oh, hello!" he
+said.
+
+"Oh, hello!" said Joan.
+
+He was in evening clothes. His face had lost its tan and his eyes their
+clear country early-to-bed look. "You've had a tea-fight, I see. I
+peered into the drawing-room an hour ago and backed out, quick."
+
+"Why? They were all consumed with curiosity about you. Alice has
+advertised our romantic story, you see." She clasped her hands together
+and adopted a pose in caricature of the play heroine in an ecstasy of
+egomania.
+
+But Martin's laugh was short and hollow. He wasn't amused. "How did you
+get on?" he asked.
+
+"Lost seventy dollars--that's all. Three-handed bridge with Grandfather
+and Grandmother was not a good apprenticeship. I must have a few
+lessons. D'you like my frock? Come up. You can't see it from there."
+
+And he came up and looked at her as she turned this way and that. How
+slim she was, and alluring! The fire in him flamed up, and his eyes
+flickered. "Awful nice!" he said.
+
+"You really like it?"
+
+"Yes, really. You look beyond criticism in anything, always."
+
+Joan stretched out her hand. "Thank you, Marty," she said. "You say and
+do the most charming things that have ever been said and done."
+
+He bent over the long-fingered hand. His pride begged him not to let
+her see the hunger and pain that were in his eyes.
+
+"Going out?" she asked.
+
+Martin gave a careless glance at one of B. C. Koekkoek's inimitable
+Dutch interiors that hung between two pieces of Flemish tapestry. His
+voice showed some of his eagerness, though. "I was going to have dinner
+with some men at the University Club, but I can chuck that and take you
+to the Biltmore or somewhere else if you like."
+
+Joan shook her head. "Not to-night, Marty. I'm going to bed early, for
+a change."
+
+"Aren't you going to give me one evening, then?" His question was
+apparently as casual as his attitude. He stood with his hands in his
+pockets and his legs wide apart and his teeth showing. He might have
+been talking to a sister.
+
+"Oh, lots, presently. I'm so tired to-night, old boy."
+
+He would have given Parnassus for a different answer. "All right then,"
+he said. "So long."
+
+"So long, Marty! Don't be too late." She nodded and smiled and went
+upstairs.
+
+And he nodded and smiled and went down--to the mental depths. "What am
+I to do?" he asked himself. "What am I to do?" And he put his arms into
+the coat that was held out and took his hat. In the street the soft
+April light was fading, and the scent of spring was blown to him from
+the Park. He turned into Fifth Avenue in company with a horde of
+questions that he couldn't shake off. He couldn't believe that any of
+all this was true. Was there no one in all this world of people who
+would help him and give him a few words of advice? "Oh, Father," he
+said from the bottom of his heart, "dear old Father, where are you?"
+
+The telephone bell was ringing as Joan went into her room. Gilbert
+Palgrave spoke--lightly and fluently and with easy words of flattery.
+
+She laughed and sat on the edge of the bed and crossed her legs and put
+the instrument on her knee. "You read all that in a book," she said.
+"I'm tired. Yesterday and the night before... No... No... All right,
+then. Fetch me in an hour." She put the receiver back.
+
+"Why not?" she said to herself, ringing for her maid. "Bed's for old
+people. Thank God, I sha'n't be old for a century."
+
+She presented her back to the deft-fingered girl and yawned. But the
+near-by clatter of traffic sounded in her ears.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Gilbert Palgrave turned back to his dressing table. An hour gave him
+ample time to get ready.
+
+"Don't let that bath get cold," he said. "And look here. You may take
+those links out. I'll wear the pearls instead."
+
+The small, eel-like Japanese murmured sibilantly and disappeared into
+the bathroom.
+
+This virginal girl, who imagined herself able to play with fire without
+burning her fingers, was providing him with most welcome amusement. And
+he needed it. He had been considerably bored of late--always a
+dangerous mood for him to fall into. He was thirty-one. For ten years
+he had paid far more than there had been any necessity to keep
+constantly amused, constantly interested. Thanks to a shrewd ancestor
+who had bought large tracts of land in a part of Manhattan which had
+then been untouched by bricks and mortar, and to others, equally
+shrewd, who had held on and watched a city spreading up the Island like
+a mustard plant, he could afford whatever price he was asked to pay.
+Whole blocks were his where once the sheep had grazed.
+
+Ingenuity to spend his income was required of Palgrave. He possessed
+that gift to an expert degree. But he was no easy mark, no mere
+degenerate who hacked off great chunks of a splendid fortune for the
+sake of violent exercise. He was too indolent for violence, too
+inherently fastidious for degeneracy. And deep down somewhere in a
+nature that had had no incentive to develop, there was the fag end of
+that family shrewdness which had made the early Palgraves envied and
+maligned. Tall and well built, with a handsome Anglo-Saxon type of
+face, small, soft, fair mustache, large, rather bovine gray eyes, and a
+deep cleft in his chin, he gave at first sight an impression of
+strength--which left him, however, when he spoke to pretty women. It
+was not so much the things he said,--light, jesting, personal
+things,--as the indications they gave of the overweening vanity of the
+spoiled boy and of a brain which occupied itself merely with the fluff
+and thistledown of life. He was, and he knew it and made no effort to
+disguise the fact, a typical specimen of the very small class of
+indolent bystanders made rich by the energy of other men who are to be
+found in every country. He was, in fact, the peculiar type of
+aristocrat only to be found in a democracy--the aristocrat not of blood
+and breeding or intellect, but of wealth. He was utterly without any
+ambition to shine either in social life or politics, or to achieve
+advertisement by the affectation of a half-genuine interest in any
+cause. On the contrary, he reveled in being idle and indifferent, and
+unlike the aristocrats of Europe he refused to catch that archaic
+habit, encouraged at Eton and Oxford, of relating everything in the
+universe to the standards and prejudices of a single class.
+
+Palgrave was triumphantly one-eyed and selfish; but he waited, with a
+sort of satirical wistfulness, for the time when some one person should
+cause him to stand eager and startled in a chaos of individualism and
+indolence and shake him into a Great Emotion. He had looked for her at
+all times and places, though without any troublesome optimism or
+personal energy, and had almost come to believe that she was to him
+what the end of the rainbow is to the idealist. In marrying Alice he
+had followed the path of least resistance. She was young, pretty and
+charming, and had been very much in love with him. Also it pleased his
+mother, and she had been worth pleasing. He gave his wife all that she
+could possibly need, except very much of himself. She was a perfectly
+dear little soul.
+
+Joan only kept him waiting about fifteen minutes. With perfect patience
+he stood in front of an Italian mirror in the drawing-room, smoking a
+cigarette through a long tortoise-shell holder. He regarded himself
+with keen and friendly interest, not in the least surprised that his
+wife's little friend from the country so evidently liked him. He found
+that he looked up to his best form, murmured a word of praise for the
+manner in which his evening coat was cut and smiled once or twice in
+order to have the satisfaction of getting a glimpse of his peculiarly
+good teeth. Then he laughed, called himself a conceited ass and went
+over to examine a rather virile sketch of a muscular, deep-chested
+young man in rowing costume which occupied an inconspicuous place among
+many well-chosen pictures. He recognized Martin, whom he had seen
+several times following the hounds, and tried to remember if Alice had
+told him whether Joan had run away with this strenuous young fellow or
+been run away with by him. There was much difference between the two
+methods.
+
+He heard nothing, but caught the scent of Peau d'Espagne. It carried
+his mind back to a charming little suite in the Hotel de Crillon in
+Paris. He turned and found Joan standing in the doorway, watching him.
+
+"Did you ever row?" she asked.
+
+"No," he said, "never. Too much fag. I played squash and roulette. You
+look like a newly risen moon in her first quarter. Where would you like
+to go?"
+
+"I don't know," said Joan. "Let's break away from the conventional
+places. I rather want to see queer people and taste different food. But
+don't let's discuss it. I leave it to you." She went downstairs. She
+might have been living in that house for years.
+
+He followed, admiring the way her small, patrician head was set on her
+shoulders, and the rich brown note of her hair. Extraordinary little
+person, this! He told his chauffeur to drive to the Brevoort, and got
+into the car. It was possible at that hour to deal with the Avenue as a
+street and not as a rest-cure interrupted by short spurts.
+
+"Would you rather the windows were up, Gehane?" he asked, looking at
+her through his long lashes.
+
+"No. The air's full of new ferns. But why Gehane?"
+
+"You remind me of her, and I'm pretty certain that you also could do
+your hair in the same two long braids. Given the chance, I can see you
+developing into some-thing like medievalism and joining the ranks of
+women who loved greatly."
+
+They passed the Plaza with all its windows gleaming, like a giant's
+house in a fairy tale.
+
+Joan shook her head. "No," she said. "No. I'm just the last word of
+this very minute. Everybody in America for a hundred and fifty years
+has worked to make me. I'm the reward of mighty effort. I'm the
+dream-child of the pioneers, as far removed from them as the chimney of
+the highest building from the rock on which it's rooted."
+
+Palgrave laughed a little. "It appears that you did some thinking out
+there in your country cage."
+
+"Thinking! That's all I had to do! I spent a lifetime standing on the
+hill with the woods behind me trying to catch the music of this street,
+the sound of this very car, and I thought it all out, every bit of it."
+
+"Every bit of what?"
+
+"Life and death and the great hereafter," she said, "principally life.
+That's why I'm going out to dinner with you instead of going early to
+bed."
+
+The glare of a lamp silvered her profile and the young curve of her
+bosom. Somewhere, at some time, Palgrave had knelt humbly, with strange
+anguish and hunger, at the feet of a girl with just that young proud
+face and those unawakened eyes. The memory of it was like an echo of an
+echo.
+
+"Why," said Joan, halting for a moment on her way to the steps of the
+old hotel, "this looks like a picture postcard of a bit of Paris."
+
+"Yes, on the other side of the Seine, near the Odeon. Our grandfathers
+imagined that they were very smart when they stayed here. It's one of
+the few places in town that has atmosphere."
+
+"I like it," said Joan.
+
+The hall was alive with people, laughing and talking, and the walls
+with the rather bold designs of the posters. A band, which made up in
+vim and go what it lacked in numbers, was playing a selection from "The
+Chocolate Soldier." The place was full of the smell of garlic and
+cigarette smoke and coffee. There was a certain dramatic animation
+among the waiters, characteristically Latin. Few of the diners wore
+evening clothes. The walls were refreshingly free from the hideous gold
+decorations of the average hotel.
+
+Men stared at Joan with undisguised interest and approbation. Her
+virginity was like the breath of spring in the room. Women looked after
+Palgrave in the same way. Into that semi-Bohemianism he struck a rather
+surprising note, like the sudden advent of caviar and champagne upon a
+table of beer and pickles.
+
+They were given a table near the wall by the window, far too close to
+other tables for complete comfort. Waiters were required to be gymnasts
+to slide between them and avoid an accident. Palgrave ordered without
+any hesitation, like a newspaper man finding his way through a daily
+paper.
+
+"How do you like it?" he said.
+
+Joan looked about her. Mostly the tables were occupied by a man and a
+woman, but at a few were four and six of both in equal numbers, and
+here and there parties of men. At one or two, women with eccentric
+heads sat together in curious garments which had the appearance of
+being made at home on the spur of the moment. They smoked between
+mouthfuls and laughed without restraint. Some of the men wore longish
+hair and the double tie of those who wish to be mistaken for
+dramatists. Others affected a poetic disarrangement of collar, and
+fantastic beards. There were others who had wandered over the border of
+middle age and who were bald and strangely adipose, with mackerel eyes
+and unpleasant mouths. They were with young girls, gaudily but shabbily
+dressed, shopgirls perhaps, or artists' models or stenographers, who in
+dull and sordid lives grappled any chance to obtain a square meal, even
+if it had to be accessory to such companionship. The minority of men
+present was made up of honest, clean, commonplace citizens who were
+there for a good dinner in surroundings that offered a certain stimulus
+to the imagination.
+
+"Who are they all?" asked Joan, beating time with a finger to the
+lilting tune which the little band had just begun, with obvious
+enjoyment. "Adventurers, mostly, I imagine," replied Palgrave, not
+unpleased to play Baedeker to a girl who was becoming more and more
+attractive to him. "I mean people who live by their wits--writers,
+illustrators, actors, newspaper men, with a smattering of Wall Street
+brokers seeking a little mild diversion as we are, and foreigners to
+whom this place has a sentimental interest because it reminds them of
+home. Sophisticated children, most of them, optimists with moments of
+hideous pessimism, enthusiasts at various stages of Parnassus, the peak
+of which is lighted with a huge dollar sign. A friendly, kindly lot,
+hard-working and temperamental, with some brilliance and a rather high
+level of cleverness--slaves of the magazine, probably, and therefore
+not able to throw stones farther into the future than the end of the
+month. This is not a country in which literature and art can ever grow
+big; the cost of living is too high. The modern Chatterton detests
+garrets and must drive something with an engine in it, whatever the
+name it goes by."
+
+There was one electrical moment during the next hour which shook the
+complacency of every one in the larger room and forced the thoughts,
+even of those who deliberately turned their backs to the drama of
+Europe, out across the waters which they fondly and fatuously hoped cut
+off the United States from ever being singed by the blaze. The little
+band was playing one of those rather feeble descriptive pieces which
+begin with soft, peaceful music with the suggestion of the life of a
+farmyard, and the sound of church bells, swing into the approach of
+armed men with shrill bugle calls, become chaotic with the rush of
+fearful women and children, and the commencement of heavy artillery,
+and wind up with the broad triumphant strains of a national anthem. It
+happened, naturally enough, that the particular national anthem chosen
+by the energetic and patriotic man who led the band at the piano was
+"The Marseillaise."
+
+The incessant chatter and laughter went on as usual. The music had no
+more effect upon the closely filled room than a hackneyed ragtime.
+Suddenly, as the first few notes of that immortal air rang out, a
+little old white-haired man, dining in a corner with a much-bosomed,
+elderly woman, sprang to his feet and in a voice vibrating with the
+fervor of emotion screamed "Vive la France--vive la patrie!" again and
+again.
+
+Instantly, from here and there, other men, stout and middle-aged,
+lifted out of their chairs by this intense and beautiful burst of
+feeling, joined in that old heart-cry, and for two or three shattering
+minutes the air was rent with hoarse shouts of "Vive Joffre," "Vive la
+France," "Vive la patrie," to the louder and louder undercurrent of
+music. Indifference, complacency, neutrality, gave way. There was a
+general uprising and uproar; and America, as represented by that olla
+podrida of the professions, including the one which is the oldest in
+the world, paid homage and tribute and yelled sympathy to those few
+Frenchmen among them whose passionate love of country found almost
+hysterical vent at the sound of the hymn which had stirred all France
+to a height of bravery and sacrifice never before reached in the
+history of nations.
+
+There were one or two hisses and several scoffing laughs, but these
+were instantly drowned by vigorous hand-clapping. The next moment the
+room resumed its normal appearance.
+
+When Palgrave, who had been surprised to find himself on his feet, sat
+down again, he saw that Joan's lips were trembling and that there were
+tears in her eyes. He gave a little laugh, but before he could say any
+thing, her hand was on his arm. "No, don't," she said. "Let it go
+without a single word. It was too good for sarcasm."
+
+"Oddly enough, I had no sarcasm ready," replied Palgrave. "When our
+time comes, I wonder whether we shall have an eightieth part of that
+enthusiasm for our little old tune. What do you think?"
+
+"Our time? What time?"
+
+"The time when we have to get into this melee or become the pariah dog
+among countries. I don't profess to any knowledge of international
+affairs, but any fool can see that our sham neutrality will be the most
+costly piece of political blundering ever perpetrated in history. Here
+we are in 1915. The war's nine months old. For every day we stand aside
+we shall eventually pay a year's bill."
+
+"That's all too deep for me," said Joan. "And anyway, I shan't be asked
+to pay anything. What shall we do now?"
+
+"What would you like to do? Go on to the Ritz and dance?" He had a
+sudden desire to hold this girl in his arms.
+
+"Why not? I'm on the verge of getting fed up with this place. Let's
+give civilization a turn."
+
+"I think so." He beckoned to his waiter. "The check," he said. "Sharp's
+the word, please."
+
+The Crystal Room was not content with one band. Even musicians must
+sometimes pause for breath, and anything like a break in the jangle and
+noise might bring depression to the diners who had crowded in to dance.
+As soon, therefore, as the left band was exhausted, the one on the
+right sprang in with renewed and feverish energy. Whatever melody there
+might have been in the incessant ragtime and fox trots was lost beneath
+the bang and clang of drum and cymbals, to which had been added other
+more ingenious ear tortures in the shape of rattles and whistles.
+Broken-collared men and faded women struggled for elbow room like a
+mass of flies caught on sticky paper. There was something both
+heathenish and pathetic in the whole thing. The place was reekingly hot.
+
+"Come on," said Joan, her blood stirred by the movement and sound.
+
+Palgrave held her close and edged his way into the crowd between
+pointed bare elbows and tightly clasped hands.
+
+"They call this dancing!" he said.
+
+"What do you call it?"
+
+"A bullfight in Hades." And he laughed and put his cheek against her
+hair and held her young slim body against his own. What did he care
+what it was or where they were? He had all the excuse that he needed to
+get the sense and scent of her. His utter distaste of being bruised and
+bumped, and of adding himself to a heterogeneous collection of people
+with no more individuality than sheep, who followed each other from
+place to place in flocks after the manner of sheep, left him. This girl
+was something more than a young, naive creature from the country,
+childishly keen to do everything and go everywhere at fever
+heat--something more than the very epitome of triumphant youth as clean
+and sweet as apple blossoms, with whom to flirt and pose as being the
+blase man of the world, the Mr. Know-All of civilization, a wild flower
+in a hot house. Attracted at once by her exquisite coloring and
+delicious profile, and amused by her imperative manner and intolerant
+point of view, he had now begun to be piqued and intrigued by her
+insurgent way of treating marriage and of ignoring her husband--by her
+assumption of sexlessness and the fact that she was unmoved by his
+compliments and looked at him with eyes in which there was no remote
+suggestion of physical interest.
+
+And it was this attitude, new to him hitherto on his easy way, that
+began to challenge him, to stir in him a desire to bring her down to
+his own level, to make her fall in love and become what he called
+human. He had given her several evenings, and had put himself out to
+cater to her eager demand to see life and burn the night away in crowds
+and noise. He had treated her, this young, new thing, as he was in the
+habit of treating any beautiful woman with whom he was on the verge of
+an affair and who realized the art of give and take. But more than ever
+she conveyed the impression of sex detachment to which he was wholly
+unaccustomed. He might have been any inarticulate lad of her own age,
+useful as a companion, to be ordered to fetch and carry, dance or walk,
+go or come. At that moment there was no woman in the city for whom he
+would undergo the boredom and the bruising and the dementia of such a
+place as the one to which she had drawn him. He was not a provincial
+who imagined that it was the smart thing to attend this dull orgy and
+struggle on a polished floor packed as in a sardine tin. Years ago he
+had outgrown cabaret mania and recovered from the fascination of
+syncopation. And yet here he was, once more, against all his
+fastidiousness, playing the out-of-town lad to a girl who took
+everything and gave nothing in return. It was absurd, fantastic. He was
+Gilbert Palgrave, the man who picked and chose, for whose attentions
+many women would give their ears, who stood in satirical aloofness from
+the general ruck; and as he held Joan in his arms and made sporadic
+efforts to dance whenever there was a few inches of room in which to do
+so, using all his ingenuity to dodge the menace of the elbows and feet
+of people who pushed and forced as though they were in a subway crush,
+he told himself that he would make it his business from that moment
+onward to lay siege to Joan, apply to her all his well-proved gifts of
+attraction and eventually make her pay his price for services rendered.
+
+He had just arrived at this cold-blooded determination when, to his
+complete astonishment and annoyance, a strong, muscular form thrust
+itself roughly between himself and Joan and swept her away.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+"Marty!" cried Joan.
+
+There was a curious glint in Martin's gray eyes, like the flash of
+steel in front of a window. His jaw was set, and his face strangely
+white.
+
+"You said you were going to bed."
+
+"I was going to bed, Marty dear."
+
+"What are you doing here, then?"
+
+"I changed my mind, old boy, and went out to dinner."
+
+"Chucked me in favor of Palgrave."
+
+"No, I didn't."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"He rang up after you'd gone; and going to bed like an old crock seemed
+silly and feeble, and so I dressed and went out."
+
+"Why with that rotter Palgrave?"
+
+"Why not? And why rotter?"
+
+"You don't answer my question!"
+
+"Have I got to answer your question?"
+
+"You're my wife, although you don't seem to know it; and I object to
+Pargrave."
+
+"I can't help that, Marty. I like him, you see, and humble little
+person as I am, I can't be expected to turn my back on every one except
+the men you choose for me."
+
+"I don't choose any men for you. I want you for myself."
+
+"Dear old Marty, but you've got me forever!"
+
+"No, I haven't. You're less mine now than you were when I only saw you
+in dreams. But all the same you're my wife, and I tell you now, you
+sha'n't be handled by a man like Palgrave."
+
+They were in the middle of the floor. There were people all round them,
+thickly. They were obliged to keep going in that lunatic movement or be
+run down. What a way and in what a place to bare a bleeding heart!
+
+For the first time since he had answered to her call and found her
+standing clean-cut against the sky, Martin held Joan in his arms. His
+joy in doing so was mixed with rage and jealousy. It had been worse
+than a blow in the mouth suddenly to see her, of whom he had thought as
+fast asleep in what was only the mere husk of home, dancing with a man
+like Palgrave.
+
+And her nearness maddened him. All the starved and pent-up passion that
+was in him flamed and blazed. It blinded him and buzzed in his ears. He
+held her so tight and so hungrily that she could hardly breathe. She
+was his, this girl. She had called him, and he had answered, and she
+was his wife. He had the right to her by law and nature. He adored her
+and had let her off and tried to be patient and win his way to her by
+love and gentleness. But with his lips within an inch of her sweet,
+impertinent face, and the scent of her hair in his brain, and the wound
+that she had opened again sapping his blood, he held her to his heart
+and charged the crowd to the beat of the music, like a man intoxicated,
+like a man heedless of his surroundings. He didn't give a curse who
+overheard what he said, or saw the look in his eyes. She had turned him
+down, this half-wife, on the plea of weariness; and as soon as he had
+left the house to go and eat his heart out in the hub of that swarming
+lonely city, she had darted out with this doll-man whom he wouldn't
+have her touch with the end of a pole. There was a limit to all things,
+and he had come to it.
+
+"You're coming home," he said.
+
+"Marty, but I can't. Gilbert Palgrave--"
+
+"Gilbert Palgrave be damned. You're coming home, I tell you, if I have
+to carry you out."
+
+She laughed. This was a new Marty, a high-handed, fiery Marty--one who
+must not be encouraged. "Are you often like this?" she asked.
+
+"Be careful. I've had enough, and if you don't want me to smash this
+place up and cause a riot, you'll do what I tell you."
+
+Her eyes flashed back at him, and two angry spots of color came into
+her cheeks. He was out of control. She realized that. She had never in
+her life seen any one so out of control--unaccountable as she found it.
+That he would smash up the place and cause a riot she knew
+instinctively. She put up no further opposition. If anything were to be
+avoided, it was a scene, and in her mind's eye she could see herself
+being carried out by this plunging boy, with a yard of stocking showing
+and the laughter of every one ringing in her ears. No, no, not that!
+She began to look for Palgrave, with her mind all alert and full of a
+mischievous desire to turn the tables on Martin. He must be shown
+quickly that if any one gave orders, she did.
+
+He danced her to the edge of the floor, led her panting through the
+tables to the foot of the stairs and with his hand grasping her arm
+like a vice, guided her up to the place where ladies left their wraps.
+
+"We're going home," he said, "to have things out. I'll wait here." Then
+he called a boy and told him to get his hat and coat and gave him his
+check.
+
+Five minutes later, in pulsating silence, both of them angry and
+inarticulate, they stood in the street waiting for a taxi. The soft air
+touched their hot faces with a refreshing finger. Hardly any one who
+saw that slip of a girl and that square-shouldered boy with his unlined
+face would have imagined that they could be anything but brother and
+sister. The marriage of babies! Was there no single apostle of common
+sense in all the country--a country so gloriously free that it granted
+licenses to every foolishness without a qualm?
+
+Palgrave was standing on the curb, scowling. His car moved up, and the
+porter went forward to open the door. As quick as lightning, Joan saw
+her chance to put Martin into his place and evade an argument. Wasn't
+she out of that old country cage at last? Couldn't she revel in free
+flight without being called to order and treated like a school-girl, at
+last? What fun to use Palgrave to show Martin her spirit!
+
+She touched him on the arm and looked up at him with dancing eyes and a
+teasing smile. "Not this time, Marty," she said, and was across the
+sidewalk in a bound. "Quick," she said to Palgrave. "Quick!" And he,
+catching the idea with something more than amusement, sprang into the
+car after her, and away they went.
+
+A duet of laughter hung briefly in the air.
+
+With all the blood in his head, Martin, coming out of utter surprise,
+made a dash for the retreating car, collided with the porter and stood
+ruefully and self-consciously over the burly figure that had gone down
+with a crash upon the pavement.
+
+It was no use. Joan had been one too many for him. What, in any case,
+was the good of trying to follow? She preferred Palgrave. She had no
+use, at that moment, for home. She was bored at the mere idea of
+talking things over. She was not serious. She refused to be faced up
+with seriousness. She was like a precocious child who snapped her
+fingers at authority and pursued the policy of the eel at the approach
+of discipline. What had she cried out that night in the dark with her
+chin tilted up and her arms thrown out? "I shall go joy-riding in that
+huge round-about. If I can get anybody to pay my score, good. If not,
+I'll pay it myself, whatever it costs. My motto's going to be 'A good
+time as long as I can get it, and who cares for the price!'"
+
+Martin helped the porter to his feet, stanched his flow of County Kerry
+reproaches with a ten-dollar bill and went back into the Crystal Room.
+He had gone there half an hour ago with a party of young people to kill
+loneliness and forget a bad hour of despair. His friend, Howard
+Oldershaw, who had breezed him out of the reading room of the Yale
+Club, was one of the party. He was in the first flush of speed-breaking
+and knew the town and its midnight haunts. He had offered to show
+Martin the way to get rid of depression. Right! He should be put to the
+test. Two could play the "Who cares?" game; and Martin, cut to the
+quick, angry and resisted, would enter his name. Not again would he put
+himself in the way of being laughed at and ridiculed and turned down,
+teased and tantalized and made a fool of.
+
+Patience and gentleness--to what end? He loved a will-o'-the-wisp; he
+had married a butterfly. Why continue to play the martyr and follow the
+fruitless path of rectitude? Hadn't she said, "I can only live once,
+and so I shall make life spin whichever way I want it to go?" He could
+only live once, and if life was not to spin with her, let it spin
+without her. "Who cares?" he said to himself. "Who the devil cares?" He
+gave up his coat and hat, and went back into that room of false joy and
+syncopation.
+
+It was one o'clock when he stood in the street once more, hot and wined
+and careless. "Let's hit it up," he said to Oldershaw as the car moved
+away with the sisters and cousins of the other two men. "I haven't
+started yet."
+
+The red-haired, roistering Oldershaw, newly injected with the virus of
+the Great White Way, clapped him on the back. "Bully for you, old son,"
+he said. "I'm in the mood to paint the little old town. I left my car
+round the corner in charge of a down-at-heel night-bird. Come on. Let's
+go and see if he's pinched it."
+
+It was one of those Italian semi-racing cars with a body which gave it
+the naked appearance of a muscular Russian dancer dressed in a skin and
+a pair of bangles. The night-bird, one of the large army of city
+gypsies who hang on to life by the skin of their teeth, was sitting on
+the running board with his arms folded across his shirtless chest,
+smoking a salvaged cigar, dreaming, probably, of hot sausages and
+coffee. He afforded a striking illustration of the under dog cringing
+contentedly at the knees of wealth.
+
+"Good man," said Oldershaw, paying him generously. "Slip aboard,
+Martin, and I'll introduce you to one of the choicest dives I know."
+
+But the introduction was not to be effected that night, at any rate.
+Driving the car as though it were a monoplane in a clear sky, with an
+open throttle that awoke the echoes, Oldershaw charged into Fifth
+Avenue and caught the bonnet of a taxicab that was going uptown. There
+was a crash, a scream, a rending of metal. And when Martin picked
+himself up with a bruised elbow and a curious sensation of having
+stopped a punching bag with his face, he saw Oldershaw bending over the
+crumpled body of the taxi driver and heard a girl with red lips and a
+small white hat calling on Heaven for retribution.
+
+"Some men oughtn't to be trusted with machinery," said Oldershaw with
+his inevitable grin. "If I can yank my little pet out of this
+buckled-up lump of stuff, I'll drive that poor chap to the nearest
+hospital. Look after the angel, Martin, and give my name and address to
+the policeman. As this is my third attempt to kill myself this month,
+things ought to settle down into humdrum monotony for a bit now."
+
+Martin went over to the girl. "I hope you're not hurt?" he asked.
+
+"Hurt?" she cried out hysterically, feeling herself all over. "Of
+course I'm hurt. I'm crippled for life. My backbone's broken; I shall
+have water on both knees, a glass eye and a mouth full of store teeth.
+But you don't care, you Hun. You like it."
+
+And on she went, at the top of her voice, in an endless flow of farce
+and tragedy, crying and laughing, examining herself with eager hands,
+disbelieving more and more in the fact that she was still in the only
+world that mattered to her.
+
+Having succeeded in backing his dented car out of the debris, Oldershaw
+leaped out. His face had been cut by the glass of the broken
+windshield. Blood was trickling down his fat, good-natured face. His
+hat was smashed and looked like that of the tramp cyclist of the
+vaudeville stage. "All my fault, old man," he said in his best
+irrepressible manner, as a policeman bore down upon him. "Help me to
+hike our prostrate friend into my car, and I'll whip him off to a
+hospital. He's only had the stuffing knocked out of him. It's no worse
+than that.... That's fine. Big chap, isn't he--weighs a ton. I'll get
+off right away, and my friend there will give you all you want to know.
+So long." And off he went, one of his front wheels wabbling foolishly.
+
+The policeman was not Irish or German-American. He was therefore
+neither loud nor browbeating. He was dry, quiet and accurate, and it
+seemed to Martin that either he didn't enjoy being dressed in a little
+brief authority or was a misanthrope, eager to return to his noiseless
+and solitary tramp under the April stars. Martin gave him Oldershaw's
+full name and address and his own; and the girl, still shrill and
+shattered, gave hers, after protesting that all automobiles ought to be
+put in a gigantic pile and scrapped, that all harum-scarum young men
+should be clapped in bed at ten o'clock and that all policemen should
+be locked up in their stations to play dominoes. "If it'll do you any
+good to know it," she said finally, "it's Susie Capper, commonly called
+'Tootles.' And I tell you what it is. If you come snooping round my
+place to get me before the beak, I'll scream and kick, so help me Bob,
+I will." There was an English cockney twang in her voice.
+
+The policeman left her in the middle of a paean, with the wounded taxi
+and Martin, and the light of a lamp-post throwing up the unnatural red
+of her lips on a pretty little white face. He had probably gone to call
+up the taxicab company.
+
+Then she turned to Martin. "The decent thing for you to do, Mr. Nut, is
+to see me home," she said. "I'm blowed if I'm going to face any more
+attempts at murder alone. My word, what a life!"
+
+"Come along, then," said Martin, and he put his hand under her elbow.
+That amazing avenue, which had the appearance of a great, deep cut down
+the middle of an uneven mountain, was almost deserted. From the long
+line of street lamps intermittent patches of light were reflected as
+though in glass. The night and the absence of thickly crawling motors
+and swarming crowds gave it dignity. A strange, incongruous Oriental
+note was struck by the deep red of velvet hangings thrown up by the
+lights in a furniture dealer's shop on the second floor of a white
+building.
+
+"Look for a row of women's ugly wooden heads painted by some one
+suffering from delirium tremens," said Miss Susie Capper as they turned
+down West Forty-sixth Street. "It's a dressmaker's, although you might
+think it was an asylum for dope fiends. I've got a bedroom, sitter and
+bath on the top floor. The house is a rabbit warren of bedrooms,
+sitters and baths, and in every one of them there's some poor devil
+trying to squeeze a little kindness out of fate. That wretched taxi
+driver! He may have a wife waiting for him. Do you think that
+red-haired feller's got to the hospital yet? He had a nice cut on his
+own silly face--and serve him right! I hope it'll teach him that he
+hasn't bought the blooming world--but of course it won't. He's the sort
+that never gets taught anything, worse luck! Nobody spanked him when he
+was young and soft. Come on up, and you shall taste my scrambled eggs.
+I'll show you what a forgiving little soul I am."
+
+She laughed, ran her eyes quickly over Martin, and opened the door with
+a latchkey. Half a dozen small letter boxes were fastened to the wall,
+with cards in their slots.
+
+"Who the devil cares?" said Martin to himself, and he followed the girl
+up the narrow, ill-lighted staircase covered with shabby carpet. Two or
+three inches of white stockings gleamed above the drab uppers of her
+high-heeled boots. Outside the open door of a room on the first floor
+there was a line of milk bottles, and Martin sighted a man in shirt
+sleeves, cooking sausages on a small gas jet in a cubby-hole. He looked
+up, and a cheery smile broke out on his clean-shaven face. There was
+brown grease paint on his collar. "Hello, Tootles," he called out.
+
+"Hello, Laddy," she said. "How'd it go to-night?"
+
+"Fine. Best second night in the history of the theater. Come in and
+have a bite."
+
+"Can't. Got company."
+
+And up they went, the aroma following.
+
+A young woman in a sky-blue peignoir scuttled across the next landing,
+carrying a bottle of beer in each hand. There was a smell of onions and
+hot cheese. "What ho, Tootles," she said.
+
+"What ho, Irene. Is it true they've put your notice up?"
+
+"Yep, the dirty dogs! Twelve weeks' rehearsals and eight nights'
+playing! Me for the novelties at Gimbel's, if this goes on."
+
+A phonograph in another room ground out an air from "Boheme."
+
+They mounted again. "Here's me," said Miss Capper, waving her hand to a
+man in a dirty dressing gown who was standing on the threshold of the
+front apartment, probably to achieve air. The room behind him was foggy
+with tobacco smoke which rose from four men playing cards. He himself
+was conspicuously drunk and would have spoken if he had been able. As
+it was, he nodded owlishly and waggled his fingers.
+
+The girl threw open her door and turned up the light. "England, Home
+and Beauty," she said. "Excuse me while I dress the ship."
+
+Seizing a pair of corsets that sprawled loosely on the center table,
+she rammed them under a not very pristine cushion on the sofa.
+
+Martin burst out laughing. The Crystal Room wine was still in his head.
+"Very nippy!" he said.
+
+"Have to be nippy in this life, believe me. Give me a minute to powder
+my nose and murmur a prayer of thanksgivin', and then I'll set the
+festive board and show you how we used to scramble eggs in Shaftesbury
+Avenue."
+
+"Right," said Martin, getting out of his overcoat. How about it? Was
+this one way of making the little old earth spin?
+
+Susie Capper went into a bedroom even smaller than the sitting room,
+turned up the light over her dressing table and took off her little
+white hat. From where Martin stood, he could see in the looking-glass
+the girl's golden bobbed hair, pretty oval face with too red lips and
+round white neck. There, it was obvious, stood a little person feminine
+from the curls around her ears to the hole in one of her stockings, and
+as highly and gladly sexed as a purring cat.
+
+"Buck up, Tootles," cried Martin. "Where do you keep the frying pan?"
+
+She turned and gave him another searching look, this time of marked
+approval. "My word, what a kid you look in the light!" she said. "No
+one would take you for a blooming road-hog. Well, who knows? You and I
+may have been brought together like this to work out one of Fate's
+little games. This may be the beginning of a side-street romance, eh?"
+
+And she chuckled at the word and turned her nose into a small
+snow-capped hill.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Pagliacci was to be followed as usual by "Cavalleria." It was the swan
+song of the opera season.
+
+In a part that he acted as well as he sang, Caruso had been permitted
+finally to retire, wringing wet, to his dressing room. With all the
+dignity of a man of genuine feeling and sensitiveness he had taken call
+after call on the fall of the curtain and stood bent almost double
+before the increasing breakers of applause. Once more he had done his
+best in a role which demanded everything that he had of voice and
+passion, comedy and tragedy. Once more, although his soul was with his
+comrades in battle, he had played the fool and broken his heart for the
+benefit of his good friends in front.
+
+In her box on the first tier Mrs. Cooper Jekyll, in a dress
+imaginatively designed to display a considerable quantity of her
+figure, was surrounded by a party which attracted many glasses. Alice
+Palgrave was there, pretty and scrupulously neat, even perhaps a little
+prim, her pearls as big as marbles. Mrs. Alan Hosack made a most
+effective picture with her black hair and white skin in a
+geranium-colored frock--a Van Beers study to the life. Mrs. Noel d'Oyly
+lent an air of opulence to the box, being one of those lovely but all
+too ample women who, while compelling admiration, dispel intimacy.
+Joan, a young daffodil, sat bolt upright among them, with diamonds
+glistening in her hair like dew. Of the four men, Gilbert Palgrave,
+standing where he could be seen, might have been an illustration by Du
+Maurier of one of Ouida's impossible guardsmen. He made the other
+three, all of the extraordinary ordinary type, appear fifty per cent,
+more manly than they really were--the young old Hosack with his
+groomlike face and immaculate clothes, the burly Howard Cannon, who
+retained a walrus mustache in the face of persistent chaff, and Noel
+d'Oyly, who when seen with his Junoesque wife made the gravest
+naturalists laugh at the thought of the love manners of the male and
+female spider.
+
+Turning her chair round, Alice touched Joan's arm. "Will you do
+something for me?" she asked.
+
+Joan looked at her with a smile of disturbing frankness. "It all
+depends whether it will upset any of my plans," she said.
+
+"I wouldn't have asked you if I had thought that."
+
+Joan laughed. "You've been studying my character, Alice."
+
+"I did that at school, my dear." Mrs. Palgrave spoke lightly, but it
+was plain to see that there was something on her mind. "Don't go out to
+supper with Howard Cannon. Come back with me. I want to talk to you.
+Will you?"
+
+Joan had recently danced in Cannon's huge studio-apartment and been
+oppressed by its Gulliveresque atmosphere, and she had just come from
+the Fifth Avenue house of the Hosack family, where a characteristically
+dignified dinner had got on her nerves. Gilbert, she knew, was engaged
+to play roulette at the club, and none of her other new men friends was
+available for dancing. She hadn't seen anything of Martin for several
+days. She could easily oblige Alice under the circumstances.
+
+So she said: "Yes, of course I will--just to prove how very little you
+really know about me."
+
+"Thank you," said Alice. "I'll say that I have a headache and that
+you're coming home with me. Don't be talked out of it."
+
+A puzzled expression came into Joan's eyes, and she turned her shoulder
+to Palgrave, who was giving her his most amorous glances. "It doesn't
+matter," she said, "but I notice that you are all beginning to treat me
+like a sort of moral weathercock. I wonder why?" She gave no more
+thought to the matter which just for the most fleeting moment had
+rather piqued her, but sat drinking in the music of Mascagni's immortal
+opera entirely ignoring the fact that Palgrave's face was within an
+inch of her shoulder and that Alan Hosack, on her other side, was
+whispering heavy compliments.
+
+Alice sat back and looked anxiously from the face of the girl who had
+been her closest friend at school to that of the man to whom she had
+given all her heart. In spite of the fact that she had been married a
+year and had taken her place in the comparatively small set which made
+up New York society, Mrs. Palgrave was an optimist. As a fiction-fed
+girl she had expected, with a thrill of excitement, that after marriage
+she would find herself in a whirlpool of careless and extravagant
+people who made their own elastic code of morals and played ducks and
+drakes with the Commandments. She had accepted as a fact the
+novelist-playwright contention that society was synonymous with
+flippancy, selfishness and unchastity, and that the possession of money
+and leisure necessarily undermined all that was excellent in human
+nature. Perhaps a little to her disappointment, she had soon discovered
+how grotesque and ignorant this play-and-book idea was. She had
+returned from her honeymoon in November of the first year of the war
+and had been astonished to find that nearly all the well-known women
+whose names, in the public imagination, were associated with decadence
+and irresponsibility, were as a matter of fact devoted to Red Cross
+work and allied war charities; that the majority of the men who were
+popularly supposed to be killing time with ingenious wickedness worked
+as hard as the average downtown merchant, and that even the debutantes
+newly burst upon the world had, for the most part, banded themselves
+together as a junior war-relief society and were turning out weekly an
+immense number of bandages for the wounded soldiers of France and
+England. Young men of high and gallant spirit, who bore the old names
+of New York, had disappeared without a line of publicity--to be heard
+of later as members of the already famous Escadrille or as ambulance
+workers on the Western front. Beautiful girls had slipped quietly away
+from their usual haunts, touched by a deep and rare emotion, to work in
+Allied hospitals three thousand miles and more away--if not as
+full-blown nurses, then as scullery maids or motor drivers.
+
+There were, of course, the Oldershaws and the Marie Littlejohns and the
+Christine Hurleys and the rest. Alice had met and watched them throwing
+themselves against any bright light like all silly moths. And there
+were the girls like Joan, newly released from the exotic atmosphere of
+those fashionable finishing schools which no sane country should
+permit. But even these wild and unbroken colts and fillies, she
+believed, had excuses. They were the natural results of a complete lack
+of parental discipline and school training. They ran amuck, advertised
+by the press and applauded by the hawks who pounced upon their wallets.
+They were more to be pitied than condemned, far more foolish and
+ridiculous than decadent. They were not unique, either, or peculiar to
+their own country. Every nation possessed its "smart set," its little
+group of men and women who were ripe for the lunatic asylum, and even
+the war and its iron tonic had failed to shock them into sanity. In her
+particularly sane way of looking at things, Alice saw all this, was
+proud to know that the majority of the people who formed American
+society were fine and sound and generous, and kept as much as possible
+out of the way of those others whose one object in life was to outrage
+the conventions. It was only when people began to tell her of seeing
+her husband and her friend about together night after night that she
+found herself wondering, with jealousy in her heart, how long her
+optimism would endure, because Gilbert had already shown her a foot of
+clay, and Joan was deliberately flying wild.
+
+It was, at any rate, all to the good that Joan kept her promise and
+utterly refused to be turned by the pleadings and blandishments of
+Cannon and Hosack. They drove together to Palgrave's elaborate house, a
+faithful replica of one of the famous Paris mansions in the Avenue
+Wagram and sat down to a little supper in Alice's boudoir.
+
+They made a curious picture, these two children, one just over twenty,
+the other under nineteen; and as they sat in that lofty room hung with
+French tapestries and furnished with the spindle-legged gilt chairs and
+tables of Louis XIV, they might have been playing, with all the gravity
+and imitative genius of little girls in a nursery, at being grown up.
+
+While the servants moved discreetly about, Joan kept up a rattle of
+impersonalities, laughing at Cannon's amazing mustache and Gargantuan
+furniture, enthusing wildly over Caruso's once-in-a-century voice,
+throwing satire at Mrs. Cooper Jekyll's confirmed belief in her divine
+right to queen it, and saying things that made Alice chuckle about the
+d'Oylys--that apparently ill-matched pair. She drank a glass of
+champagne with the air of a connoisseur and finally, having displayed
+an excellent appetite, mounted a cigarette into a long thin
+mother-of-pearl holder, lighted it and sank with a sigh into the room's
+one comfortable chair.
+
+"Gilbert gave me a cigarette holder like that," said Alice.
+
+"Yes? I think this comes from him," said Joan. "A thoughtful person!"
+
+That Joan was not quite sure from whom she received it annoyed Alice
+far more than if she had boasted of it as one of Gilbert's numerous
+gifts. She needed no screwing up now to say what she had rather timidly
+brought this cool young slip of a thing there to discuss.
+
+"Will you tell me about yourself and Gilbert?" she asked quietly. There
+was no need for Joan to act complete composure. She felt it. "What is
+there to tell, my dear?"
+
+"I hope there isn't anything--I mean anything that matters. But perhaps
+you don't know that people have begun to talk about you, and I think
+you owe it to me to be perfectly frank."
+
+Even then it didn't occur to Joan that there was anything serious in
+the business. "I'll be as frank as the front page of The Times--'All
+the news that's fit to print,'" she said. "What do you want to know?"
+
+Alice proved her courage. She drew up a chair, bent forward and came
+straight to the point. "Be honest with me, Joan, even if you have to
+hurt me. Gilbert is very handsome, and women throw themselves at him. I
+did, I suppose; but having won him and being still in my first year of
+marriage, I'm naturally jealous when he lets himself be drawn off by
+them. The women who have tried to take Gilbert away from me I didn't
+know, and they owed me no friendship. But you're different, and I can't
+believe that you--"
+
+Joan broke in with a peal of laughter. "Can't you? Why not? I haven't
+got wings on my shoulders. Isn't everything fair in love and war?"
+
+Alice drew back. She had many times been called prim and old-fashioned,
+especially at school, by Joan and others when men were talked about,
+and the glittering life that lay beyond the walls. Sophistication, to
+put it mildly, had been the order of the day in that temporary home of
+the young idea. But this calm declaration of disloyalty took her color
+away, and her breath. Here was honesty with a vengeance!
+
+"Joan!" she cried. "Joan!" And she put up her hand as though to ward
+off an unbelievable thought.
+
+In an instant Joan was on her feet with her arms around the shoulders
+of the best friend she had, whose face had gone as white as stone. "Oh,
+my dear," she said, "I'm sorry. Forgive me. I didn't mean that in the
+least, not in the very least. It was only one of my cheap flippancies,
+said just to amuse myself and shock you. Don't you believe me?"
+
+Tears came to Alice. She had had at least one utterly sleepless night
+and several days of mental anguish. She was one of the women who love
+too well. She confessed to these things, brokenly, and it came as a
+kind of shock to Joan to find some one taking things seriously and
+allowing herself to suffer.
+
+"Why, Alice," she said, "Gilbert means nothing to me. He's a dear old
+thing; he's awfully nice to look at; he sums things up in a way that
+makes me laugh; and he dances like a streak. But as to flirting with
+him or anything of that sort--why, my dear, he looks on me as a little
+boob from the country, and in my eyes he's simply a man who carries a
+latchkey to amusement and can give me a good time. That's true. I swear
+it."
+
+It was true, and Alice realized it, with immense relief. She dried her
+eyes and held Joan away from her at arm's length and looked at her
+young, frank, intrepid face with puzzled admiration. It didn't go with
+her determined trifling. "I shall always believe what you tell me,
+Joan," she said. "You've taken a bigger load than you imagine off my
+heart--which is Gilbert's. And now sit down again and be comfortable
+and let's do what we used to do at school at night and talk about
+ourselves. We've both changed since those days, haven't we?"
+
+"Have we? I don't think I have." Joan took another cigarette and went
+back to her chair. Her small round shoulders looked very white against
+the black of a velvet cushion. If there was nothing boyish or
+unfeminine about her, there was certainly an indefinable appearance of
+being untouched, unawakened. She was the same girl who had been found
+by Martin that afternoon clean-cut against the sky--the determined
+individualist.
+
+Alice sat in front of her on a low stool with her hands clasped round a
+knee. "What a queer mixture you are of--of town and country, Joany.
+You're like a piece of honeysuckle playing at being an orchid."
+
+"That's because I'm a kid," said Joan. "The horrible hour will come
+when I shall be an orchid and try and palm myself off as honeysuckle,
+never fear."
+
+"Don't you think marriage has changed you a little?" asked Alice. "It
+usually does. It changed me from an empty-headed little fool to a woman
+with oh, such a tremendous desire to be worthy of it."
+
+"Yes, but then you married for love."
+
+"Didn't you, Joany?"
+
+"I? Marry for love?" Joan waved her arm for joy at the idea.
+
+Alice knew the story of the escape from old age. She also knew from the
+way in which Martin looked at Joan why he had given her his name and
+house. Here was her chance to get to the bottom of a constant puzzle.
+"You may not have married for love," she said, "but of course you're
+fond of Martin."
+
+Joan considered the matter. It might be a good thing to go into it now
+that there was an unexpected lull in the wild rush that she had made to
+get into life. There had been something rather erratic about Martin's
+comings and goings during the last week. She hadn't spoken to him since
+the night at the Ritz.
+
+"Yes, I am fond of him," she said. "That's the word. As fond as I might
+be of a very nice, sound boy whom I'd known all my life."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+Joan made a series of smoke rings and watched them curl into the air.
+"Yes, that's all," she said.
+
+Alice became even more interested and curious and puzzled. She held
+very serious views about marriage. "And are you happy with him?"
+
+"I don't know that I can be said to be happy with him," said Joan. "I'm
+perfectly happy as things are."
+
+"Tell me how they are." There was obviously something here that was far
+from right.
+
+Joan was amused at her friend's gravity. She had always been a
+responsible little person with very definite and old-fashioned views.
+"Well," she said, "it's a charming little story, really. I was the
+maiden who had to be rescued from the ugly castle, and Martin was the
+knight who performed the deed. And being a knight with a tremendous
+sense of convention and a castle of his own full of well-trained
+servants, it didn't seem to him that he could give me the run of his
+house in the Paul and Virginia manner, which isn't being done now; and
+so, like a little gentleman, he married me, or as I suppose you would
+put it, went through the form of marriage. It's all part of the
+adventure that we started one afternoon on the edge of the woods. I
+call it the cool and common-sense romance of two very modern and
+civilized people."
+
+"I don't think there's any place in romance for such things as coolness
+and common sense," said Alice warmly. "And as to there being two very
+modern and civilized people in your adventure, as you call it, that I
+doubt."
+
+Joan's large brown eyes grew a little larger, and she looked at the
+enthusiastic girl in front of her with more interest. "Do you?" she
+asked. "Why?"
+
+Alice got up. She was disturbed and worried. She had a great affection
+for Joan, and that boy was indeed a knight. "I saw Martin walking away
+from your house the night you dined with Gilbert at the Brevoort--I was
+told about that!--and there was something in his eyes that wasn't the
+least bit cool. Also I rode in the Park with him one morning a week
+ago, and I thought he looked ill and haggard and--if you must
+know--starved. No one would say that you aren't modern and
+civilized,--and those are tame words,--but if Martin were to come in
+now and make a clean breast of it, you'd be surprised to find how
+little he is of either of those things, if I know anything about him."
+
+"Then, my dear," replied Joan, making a very special ring of smoke,
+"you know more about him than I do."
+
+Alice began to walk about. A form of marriage--that was the phrase that
+stuck in her mind. And here was a girl who was without a genuine friend
+in all that heartless town except herself, and a fine boy who needed
+one, she began to see, very badly. She, at any rate, and she thanked
+God for it, was properly married, and she owed it to friendship to make
+a try to put things right with these two.
+
+"Joan, I believe I do," she said. "I really believe I do, although I've
+only had one real talk with him. You're terribly and awfully young, I
+know. You had a bad year with your grandfather and grandmother, and the
+reaction has made you wild and careless. But you're not a girl who has
+been brought up behind a screen in a room lighted with one candle. You
+know what marriage means. There isn't a book you haven't read or a
+thing you haven't talked over. And if you imagine that Martin is
+content to play Paul to your imitation Virginia, you're wrong. Oh,
+Joan, you're dangerously wrong."
+
+Settling into her chair and working her shoulders more comfortably into
+the cushion, Joan crossed one leg over the other and lighted another
+cigarette. "Go on," she said with a tantalizing smile. "I love to hear
+you talk. It's far more interesting than listening to Howard Cannon's
+dark prophecies about the day after to-morrow and his gloomy rumblings
+about the writing on the wall. You stand for the unemancipated married
+woman. Don't you?"
+
+"Yes, I do," said Alice quickly, her eyes gleaming. "I consider that a
+girl who lets a man marry her under false pretenses is a cheat."
+
+"A strong word, my dear!"
+
+"But not too strong."
+
+"Wait a minute. Suppose she doesn't love him. What then?"
+
+"Then she oughtn't to have married him."
+
+"Yes, but it may have suited her to marry him."
+
+"Then she should fulfill the bargain honestly and play the game
+according to the rules. However modern and civilized people are, they
+do that."
+
+Joan shrugged her round white shoulders and flicked her cigarette ash
+expertly into the china tray on the spindle-legged table at her elbow.
+She was quite unmoved. Alice had always taken it upon herself to
+lecture her about individualism--the enthusiastic little thing. "Dear
+old girl," she said, "don't you remember that I always make my own
+rules?"
+
+"I know you do, but you can't tell me that Martin wants to go by
+them--or that he'll be able to remain a knight long, while you're going
+by one set and he's keen to go by another? Where will it end?"
+
+"End? But why drag in the end when Martin and I are only at the
+beginning?"
+
+Alice sat down again and bent forward and caught up Joan's unoccupied
+hand. "Listen, dear," she said with more than characteristic
+earnestness. "Last night I went with the Merrills to the Ziegfeld
+Follies, and I saw Martin there with a little white-faced girl with red
+lips and the golden hair that comes out of a bottle."
+
+"Good old Martin!" said Joan. "The devil you did!"
+
+"Doesn't that give you a jar?"
+
+"Good heavens, no! If you'd peeked into the One-o'clock Club this
+morning at half past two, you would have seen me with a white-faced man
+with a red mustache and a kink in his hair that comes from a hot iron.
+Martin and I are young and giddy, and we're on the round-about, and
+we're hitting it up. Who cares?"
+
+There was a little silence--and then Alice drew back, shaking her
+pretty neat head. "It won't do, Joany," she said, "it won't do. I've
+heard you say 'Who cares?' loads of times and never seen anybody take
+you by the shoulders and shake you into caring. That's why you go on
+saying it. But somebody always cares, Joany dear, and there's not one
+thing that any of us can say or do that doesn't react on some one else,
+either to hurt or bless. Martin Gray's your knight. You said so. Don't
+you be the one to turn his gleaming armor into common
+broadcloth--please, please don't."
+
+Joan gave a little laugh and a little yawn and stretched herself like a
+boy and got up. "Who'd have thought it? It's half-past twelve, and
+we're both losing our much needed beauty sleep. I must really tear
+myself away." She put her arm around Alice and kissed her. "The same
+dear little wise, responsible Alice who would like to put the earth
+into woolens with a mustard plaster on its chest. But it takes all
+sorts to make up a world, you know, and it would be rather drab without
+a few butterflies. Don't throw bricks at me until I've fluttered a bit
+more, Ally. My colors won't last long, and I know what old age means,
+better than most. If I were in love as you are, my man's rules would be
+the ones I'd go by all the time; but I'm not in love, and I don't want
+to be--yet; and I'm only a kid, and I think I have the right to my
+fling. This marriage of mine is just a part of the adventure that
+Martin and I plunged into as a great joke, and he knows it and he's one
+of the best, and I'm grateful to him, believe me. Good night. God bless
+you!"
+
+She stood for a moment on the top step to taste the air that was filled
+with the essence of youth. Across a sky as clear as crystal a series of
+young clouds were chasing each other, putting out the stars for a
+moment as they scurried playfully along. It was a joy to be alive and
+fit and careless. Summer was lying in wait for spring, and autumn would
+lay a withering hand upon summer, and winter with its crooked limbs and
+lack-luster eyes was waiting its inevitable turn.
+
+"A short life and a merry one!" whispered Joan to the moon, throwing it
+a kiss.
+
+A footman, sullen for want of sleep, opened the door of the limousine.
+Some one was sitting in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest.
+
+"Marty! Is that you?"
+
+"It's all right," said Gilbert Palgrave. "I've been playing patience
+for half an hour. I'm going to see you home."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+"You are going home?"
+
+"Yes," said Joan, "without the shadow of a doubt."
+
+"Which means that I'd better tell the chauffeur to drive round to the
+One-o'clock, eh?"
+
+"I'll drop you there if you like. I'm really truly going home."
+
+"All right."
+
+Joan began to sing as the car bowled up Fifth Avenue. Movement always
+made her sing, and the effect of things slipping behind her. But she
+stopped suddenly as an expression of Alice's flicked across her memory.
+"You'll catch Alice up, if you go straight back," she said.
+
+"Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire! I wonder why it is the really good woman is
+never appreciated by a man until he's obliged to sit on the other side
+of the fireplace? I wish we were driving away out into the country. I
+have an unusual hankering to stand on the bank of a huge lake and watch
+the moonlight on the water."
+
+Joan was singing again. The trees in the Park were bespattered with
+young leaves.
+
+Palgrave controlled an ardent desire to touch with his lips that cool
+white shoulder from which the cloak had slipped. It was extraordinary
+how this mere girl inflamed him. Alice--Alice-Sit-by-the-Fire! She
+seemed oddly like some other man's wife, these days.
+
+"Suppose I tell your man to drive out of the city beyond this rabble of
+bricks and mortar?"
+
+But Joan went on singing. Spring was in her blood. How fast the car was
+moving, and those young clouds.
+
+Palgrave helped her out with a hot hand.
+
+She opened the door with her latch-key. "Thank you, Gilbert," she said.
+"Good night."
+
+But Palgrave followed her in. "Don't you think I've earned the right to
+one cigarette?" He threw his coat into a chair in the hall and hung his
+hat on the longest point of an antler. It was a new thing for this much
+flattered man to ask for favors. This young thing's exultant youth made
+him feel old and rather humble.
+
+"There are sandwiches in the dining room and various things to drink,"
+said Joan, waving her hand toward it.
+
+"No, no. Let's go up to the drawing-room--that is, unless you--"
+
+But Joan was already on the stairs, with the chorus of her song. She
+didn't feel in the least like sleep with its escape from life. It was
+so good to be awake, to be vital, to be tingling with the current of
+electricity like a telegraph wire. She flung back the curtains, raised
+all the windows, opened her arms to the air, spilled her cloak on the
+floor, sat at the piano and ragged "The Spring Song."
+
+"I am a kid," she said, speaking above the sound, and going on with her
+argument to Alice. "I am and I will be, I will be. And I'll play the
+fool and revel in it as long as I can--so there!"
+
+Palgrave had picked up the cloak and was holding it unconsciously
+against his immaculate shirt. It was the sentimental act of a virtuoso
+in the art of pleasing women--who are so easily pleased. At the moment
+he had achieved forgetfulness of boudoir trickery and so retained
+almost all his usual assumption of dignity. Even Joan, with her quick
+eye for the ridiculous, failed to detect the bathos of his attitude,
+and merely thought that he was trying to be funny and not succeeding.
+
+It so happened that over Palgrave's shoulder she could see the bold
+crayon drawing of Martin, brown and healthy and muscular, without an
+ounce of affectation, an unmistakable man with his nice irregular
+features and clean, merry eyes. There was strength and capability
+stamped all over him, and there was, as well, a pleasing sense of
+reliability which gained immediate confidence. With the sort of shock
+one gets on going into the fresh air from a steam-heated room, she
+realized the contrast between these two.
+
+There is always something as unreal about handsome men as there is
+about Japanese gardens. Palgrave's hair was so scrupulously sleek and
+wiglike, his features so well-balanced and well-chosen, his wide-set
+eyes so large and long-lashed, and his fair, soft mustache so
+miraculously precise. His clothes, too, were a degree more than
+perfect. They were so right as to be a little freakish because they
+attracted as much attention as if they were badly cut. He was born for
+tea fights and winter resorts, to listen with a distrait half-smile to
+the gushing adulation of the oh-my-dear type of women.
+
+He attracted Joan. She admired his assurance and polish and manners.
+With these three things even a man with a broken nose and a head bald
+as an egg can carry a beautiful woman to the altar. He was something
+new to her, too, and she found much to amuse her in his way of
+expressing himself. He observed, and sometimes crystallized his
+observations with a certain neatness. Also, and she made no bones about
+owning to it, his obvious attention flattered her. All the same, she
+was in the mood just then for Martin. He went better with the time of
+year, and there was something awfully companionable about his sudden
+laugh. She would have hailed his appearance at that moment with an
+outdoor cry.
+
+It was bad luck for Palgrave, because he now knew definitely that in
+Joan he had found the girl who was to give him the great emotion.
+
+She broke away from "The Spring Song" and swung into "D'ye Ken John
+Peel with His Coat So Gay?" It was Martin's favorite air. How often she
+had heard him shout it among the trees on his way to meet her out there
+on the edge of the woods where they had found each other. It was
+curious how her thoughts turned to Martin that night.
+
+She left the piano in the middle of a bar. "One cigarette," she said,
+and held out a silver box.
+
+Palgrave's hand closed tightly over her slim white arm. In his throat
+his heart was pumping. He spoke incoherently, like a man. "God," he
+said, "you--you take my breath away. You make my brain whirl. Why
+didn't you come out of your garden a year ago?"
+
+He was acting, she thought, and she laughed. "My arm, I think," she
+said.
+
+"No, mine. It's got to be mine. What's the good of beating about the
+bush?" He spoke with a queer hoarseness, and his hand shook.
+
+She laughed again. He was trying his parlor tricks, as Hosack had
+called them one night at the Crystal Room, watching him greet a woman
+with both hands. What a joke to see what he would do if she pretended
+to be carried away. He might as well be made to pay for keeping her up.
+"Oh, Gilbert," she said, "what are you saying!" Her shyness and fright
+were admirable.
+
+They added fuel to his fire. "What I've been waiting to say for years
+and never thought I should. I love you. You've just got me."
+
+How often had he said those very words to other women! He did it
+surpassingly well. She continued to act. "Oh, Gilbert," she said in a
+low voice, "you mustn't. There's Alice." Two could play at his pet game.
+
+"Yes, there is Alice. But what does that matter? I don't care, and you
+don't. Your motto is not to care. You're always saying so. I'm no more
+married to Alice than you are to Gray. They're accidents, both of them.
+I love you, I tell you." And he ran his hand up to her shoulder and
+bore down upon her. Where were his manners and polish and assurance? It
+was amazing to see the change in the man.
+
+But she dodged away and took up a stand behind the piano and laughed at
+him. "You're an artist, Gilbert," she said. "It's all very well for you
+to practice on women of your own age, but I'm an unsophisticated girl.
+You might turn my head, you know."
+
+Her sarcasm threw him up short. She was mocking. He was profoundly
+hurt. "But you've chosen me. You've picked me out. You've used me to
+take you to places night after night! Don't fool with me, Joan. I'm in
+dead earnest."
+
+And she saw with astonishment that he was. His face was white, and he
+stood in a curious attitude of supplication, with his hands out. She
+was amazed, and for a moment thrilled. Gilbert Palgrave, the woman's
+man, in love with her. Think of it!
+
+"But Gilbert," she said, "there's Alice. She's my friend." That seemed
+to matter more than the fact that she was his wife.
+
+"That hasn't mattered to you all along. Why drag it in now? Night after
+night you've danced with me; I've been at your beck and call; you used
+me to rescue you from Gray that time. What are you? What are you made
+of? Unsophisticated! You!" He wasn't angry. He was fumbling at reasons
+in order to try and get at her point of view. "You know well enough
+that a man doesn't put himself out to that extent for nothing. What
+becomes of give and take? Do you conceive that you are going to sail
+through life taking everything and giving nothing?"
+
+Martin had asked her this, and Alice, and now here was Gilbert Palgrave
+putting it to her as though it were an indictment! "But I'm a kid," she
+cried out. "What do you all mean? Can't I be allowed to have any fun
+without paying for it? I'm only just out of the shell. I've only been
+living for a few weeks. Can't you see that I'm a kid? I have the right
+to take all I can get for nothing,--the right of youth. What do you
+mean--all of you?"
+
+She came out from behind the piano and stood in front of him, as erect
+as a silver birch, and as slim and young. There was a great indignation
+all about her.
+
+His eager hands went out, and fell. He was not a brute. It would be
+cowardly to touch this amazing child. She was armed with fearlessness
+and virginity--and he had mistaken these things for callousness.
+
+"I don't know what to say," he said. "You stagger me. How long are you
+going to hide behind this youthfulness? When are you going to be old
+enough to be honest? Men have patience only up to a point. At any rate,
+you didn't claim youth when Gray asked you to marry him--though you may
+have done so afterward. Did you?"
+
+She kept silent. But her eyes ran over him with contempt. According to
+her, she had given him no right to put such questions.
+
+He ignored it. It was undeserved. It was she who deserved contempt, not
+he. And he threw it back at her in a strange incoherent outburst in
+which, all the same, there was a vibrating note of gladness and relief.
+And all the while, unmoved by the passion into which he broke, she
+stood watching with a curious gravity his no longer immobile face. She
+was thinking about Martin. She was redeveloping Martin's expression
+when she had opened the door of her bedroom the night of her marriage
+and let him out. What about her creed, then? Was she hiding behind
+youthfulness? Were there, after all, certain things that must be paid
+for? Was she already old enough to be what Alice and this man called
+honest? Was every man made of the stuff that only gave for what he
+hoped to get in return?
+
+His words trailed off. He was wasting them, he saw. She was looking
+through his head. But he rejoiced as to one thing like a potter who
+opens the door of his oven and finds his masterpiece unbroken. And
+silence fell upon them, interrupted only by the intermittent humming of
+passing cars.
+
+Finally Palgrave took the cigarette box out of Joan's hand and put it
+down on a little table and stood looking more of a man than might have
+been expected.
+
+"I've always hoped that one day I should meet you--just you," he said
+quietly; "and when I did, I knew that it would be to love. Well, I've
+told you. Do what you can for me until you decide that you're grown up.
+I'll wait."
+
+And he turned and went away, and presently she heard a door shut and
+echo, and slow footsteps in the street below.
+
+Where was Martin?
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+She wanted Martin. Everything that had happened that night made her
+want Martin. He knew that she was a kid, and treated her as such. He
+didn't stand up and try and force her forward into being a
+woman--although, of all men, he had the right. He was big and generous
+and had given her his name and house and the run of the world, but not
+from his lips ever came the hard words that she had heard that night.
+How extraordinary that they should have come from Alice as well as from
+Gilbert.
+
+She wanted Martin. Where was Martin? She felt more like a bird, at that
+moment, than a butterfly--like a bird that had flown too far from its
+nest and couldn't find its way back. She had been honest with Martin,
+all along. Why, the night before they had started on the street of
+adventure, she had told him her creed, in that dark, quiet room with
+the moonlight on the floor in a little pool, and had frankly cried out,
+"Who cares?" for the first time. And later, upstairs in her room, in
+his house, she had asked him to leave her; and he had gone, because he
+understood that she wanted to remain irresponsible for a time and must
+not be taken by the shoulders and shaken into caring until she had had
+her fling. He understood everything--especially as to what she meant by
+saying that she would go joy-riding, that she would make life spin
+whichever way she wanted it to go. It was the right of youth, and what
+was she but just a kid? He had never stood over her and demanded
+payment, and yet he had given her everything. He understood that she
+was new to the careless and carefree, and had never flung the word
+honest at her head, because, being so young, she considered that she
+could be let off from making payments for a time.
+
+She wanted Martin. She wanted the comforting sight of his clean eyes
+and deep chest and square shoulders. She wanted to sit down knee to
+knee with him as they had done so often on the edge of the woods, and
+talk and talk. She wanted to hear his man's voice and see the
+laughter-lines come and go round his eyes. He was her pal and was as
+reliable as the calendar. He would wipe out the effect of the
+reproaches that she had been made to listen to by Alice and Gilbert.
+They might be justified; they were justified; but they showed a lack of
+understanding of her present mood that was to her inconceivable. She
+was a kid. Couldn't they see that she was a kid? Why should they both
+throw bricks at her as though she were a hawk and not a mere butterfly?
+
+Where was Martin? Why hadn't she seen him for several days? Why had he
+stayed away from home without saying where he was and what he was
+doing? And what was all this about a girl with a white face and red
+lips? Martin must have friends, of course. She had hers--Gilbert and
+Hosack and the others, if they could be called friends. But why a girl
+with a white face and red lips and hair that came out of a bottle? That
+didn't sound much like Martin.
+
+All these thoughts ran through Joan's mind as she walked about the
+drawing-room with its open windows, in the first hour of the morning,
+sending out an S. O. S. to Martin. She ought to be in bed and
+asleep--not thinking and going over everything as if she were a woman.
+She wasn't a woman yet, and could only be a kid once. It was too bad of
+Alice to try and force her to take things seriously so soon.
+Seriousness was for older people, and even then something to avoid if
+possible. And as for Gilbert--well, she didn't for one instant deny the
+fact that it was rather exciting and exhilarating for him to be in love
+with her, although she was awfully sorry for Alice. She had done
+nothing to encourage him, and it was really a matter of absolute
+indifference to her whether he loved her or not, so long as he was at
+hand to take her about. And she didn't intend to encourage him, either.
+Love meant ties and responsibility--Alice proved that clearly enough.
+There was plenty of time for love. Let her flit first. Let her remain
+young as long as she could, careless and care-free. The fact that she
+was married was just an accident, an item in her adventure. It didn't
+make her less young to be married, and she didn't see why it should.
+Martin understood, and that was why it was so far-fetched of Alice to
+suggest that her attitude could turn Martin's armor into broadcloth,
+and hint at his having ceased to be a knight because he had been seen
+with a girl--never mind whether her face was white and her lips red,
+and her hair too golden.
+
+"I'm a kid, I tell you," she said aloud, throwing out her justification
+to the whole world. "I am and I will be, I will be. I'll play the fool
+and revel in it as long as I can--so there. Who cares?" And she laughed
+once more, and ran her hand over her hair as though waving all these
+thoughts away, and shut the windows and turned out the lights and went
+upstairs to her bedroom. "I'm a selfish, self-willed little devil,
+crazy about myself, thinking of nothing but having a good time," she
+added inwardly. "I know it, all of you, as well as you do, but give me
+time. Give me my head for a bit. When I must begin to pay, I'll pay
+with all I've got."
+
+But presently, all ready for bed, she put on a dressing gown and left
+her room and padded along the passage in heelless slippers to Martin's
+room. He might have been asleep all this time. How silly not to have
+thought of that! She would wake him for one of their talks. It seemed
+an age since they had sat on the hill together among the young buds,
+and she had conjured up the high-reaching buildings of New York against
+the blue sky, like a mirage.
+
+She had begun to think again. Alice and Gilbert between them had set
+her brain working--and she couldn't stop it. What if the time had come
+already when she must pull herself together and face facts and play
+what everybody called the game? Well, if it had, and she simply
+couldn't hide behind youthfulness any longer, as Gilbert had said, she
+would show that she could change her tune of "Who cares?" to "I care"
+with the best of them! "I'm only a little over eighteen. I don't know
+quite what it is, but I'm something more than pretty. I'm still not
+much more than a flapper--an irritating, empty-headed,
+fashionable-school-fed, undisciplined, sophisticated kid. I know all
+about that as well as they do. I'm making no pretense to be anything
+different. Heaven knows, I'm frank enough about it--even to myself. But
+it's only a phase. Why not let me get over it and live it down? If
+there's anything good in me, and there is, it will come out sooner or
+later. Why not let me go through it my own way? A few months to play
+the fool in--it isn't much to ask, and don't I know what it means to be
+old?"
+
+She hadn't been along that passage before. It was Martin's side of the
+house. She hadn't given much thought to Martin's side of anything. She
+tried a door and opened it, fumbled for the button that would turn the
+light on and found it. It was a large and usefully fitted dressing room
+with a hanging cupboard that ran all along one wall, with several
+doors. Two old shiny-faced English tallboys were separated by a boot
+rack. Between the two windows was a shaving glass over a basin. There
+was a bookcase on each side of the fire-place and a table conveniently
+near a deep armchair with a tobacco jar, pipes and a box of cigarettes.
+Every available space of wall was crammed with framed photographs of
+college groups, some showing men with the whiskered faces and the
+strange garments of the early Victorian period, others of the
+clean-shaven men of the day, but all of them fit and eager and
+care-free, caught in their happiest hours. It was a man's room,
+arranged by one, now used by another.
+
+Joan went through into the bedroom. The light followed her. There was
+no Martin. It was all strangely tidy. Its owner might have been away
+for weeks.
+
+With a sense of chill and a feeling of queer loneliness, she went back
+to the dressing room. She wanted Martin. If Martin had been there, she
+would have had it all out with him, freely and frankly. Somehow she
+couldn't wave away the idea any longer that the time had come for her
+to cross another bridge. Thank God she would still be young, but the
+kid of her would be left on the other side. If Martin had been there,
+she would have told him some of the things that Alice had said about
+being honest and paying up, and left it to him to say whether the
+girlhood which she had wanted to spin out was over and must be put away
+among her toys.
+
+Alice and Gilbert Palgrave,--curious that it should have been those
+two,--had shaken her individualism, as well as something else, vague
+and untranslatable, that she couldn't quite grasp, that eluded her
+hand. She sat down in the deep chair and with a little smile took up
+one of Martin's pipes and looked at it. The good tobaccoey scent of it
+took her back to the hill on the edge of the woods, and in her mind's
+eye there was a picture of two clean eyes with laughter-lines coming
+and going, a strong young face that had already caught the sun, square
+shoulders and a broad chest, and a pair of reliable hands with
+spatulate fingers clasped round a knee. She could hear birds calling.
+Spring was in the air.
+
+Where was Martin?
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+It was the first dress rehearsal of "The Ukelele Girl," to be produced
+"under the personal direction of Stanwood Mosely." The piece had been
+in rehearsal for eleven weeks.
+
+The curtain had been up on the second act for an hour. Scene designers,
+scene painters and scene shifters were standing about with a stage
+director, whose raucous voice cut the fuggy atmosphere incessantly in
+what was intended to represent the exterior of a hotel at Monte Carlo.
+It more nearly resembled the materialization of a dope fiend's dream of
+an opium factory. What might have been a bank building in Utopia, an
+old Spanish galleon in drydock, or the exterior of a German beer garden
+according to the cover of Vogue occupied the center of the scene. The
+bricks were violet and old gold, sprayed with tomato juice and marked
+by the indeterminate silver tracks of snails. Pillars, modeled on the
+sugar-stick posts that advertise barber's shops, ran up and lost
+themselves among the flies. A number of wide stairs, all over wine
+stains, wandered aimlessly about, coming to a conclusion between
+gigantic urns filled with unnatural flowers of all the colors of a
+diseased rainbow. Jotted about here and there on the stage were
+octopus-limbed trees with magenta leaves growing in flower pots all
+covered with bilious blobs. Stan Mosely didn't profess to understand
+it, but having been assured by the designer that it was art nouveau,
+which also he didn't understand, he was wholly satisfied.
+
+Not so the stage director, whose language in describing the effect it
+had upon him would have done credit to a gunman under the influence of
+cheap brandy and fright. The rehearsal, which had commenced at eight
+o'clock, had been hung up for a time considerable enough to allow him
+to give vent to his sentiments. The pause enabled Mosely, squatting
+frog-wise in the middle of the orchestra stalls, to surround himself
+with several women whose gigantic proportions were horribly exposed to
+the eye. The rumble of his voice and the high squeals of their laughter
+clashed with the sounds of the vitriolic argument on the stage, and the
+noises of a bored band, in which an oboe was giving a remarkable
+imitation of a gobbling turkey cock, and a cornet of a man blowing his
+nose. The leader of the band was pacing up and down the musicians'
+room, saying to himself: "Zis is ze last timer. Zis is ze last timer,"
+well knowing that it wasn't. The poor devil had a wife and children to
+feed.
+
+Bevies of weary and spirit-broken chorus girls in costume were
+sprawling on the chairs in the lower boxes, some sleeping, some too
+tired to sleep, and some eating ravenously from paper bags. Chorus men
+and costumers, wig makers and lyric writers, authors and friends of the
+company, sat about singly and in pairs in the orchestra seats. They
+were mostly bored so far beyond mere impatience by all this
+super-inefficiency and chaos as to have arrived at a state of
+intellectual coma. The various men out of whose brains had originally
+come the book and lyrics no longer hated each other and themselves;
+they lusted for the blood of the stage director or saw gorgeous mental
+pictures of a little fat oozy corpse surrounded by the gleeful faces of
+the army of people who had been impotent to protest against the lash of
+his whip, the impertinence of his tongue or the gross dishonesty of his
+methods.
+
+One other man in addition to the raucous, self-advertising stage
+director, Jackrack, commonly called "Jack-in-office," showed distinct
+signs of life--a short, overdressed, perky person with piano fingers
+and baldish head much too big for his body, who flitted about among the
+chorus girls, followed by a pale, drab woman with pins, and touched
+their dresses and sniggered and made remarks with a certain touch of
+literary excellence in a slightly guttural voice. This was Poppy
+Shemalitz, the frock expert, the man milliner of the firm, who was
+required to make bricks out of straw, or as he frequently said to the
+friends of his "bosom," "make fifteen dollars look like fifty."
+Self-preservation and a sense of humor encouraged him through the
+abusive days of a dog's life.
+
+Sitting in the last row of the orchestra, wearing the expression of
+interest and astonishment of a man who had fallen suddenly into another
+world, was Martin. He had been there since eight o'clock. For over six
+hours he had watched banality emerge from chaos and had listened to the
+blasphemy and insults of Jackrack. He would have continued to watch and
+listen until daylight peered upbraidingly through the chinks in the
+exit doors but for the sudden appearance of Susie Capper, dressed for
+the street.
+
+"Hello, Tootles! But you're not through, are you?"
+
+"Absobloominlootely," she said emphatically.
+
+"I thought you said your best bit was in the second act?"
+
+"'Was' is right. Come on outer here. I can't stand the place a minute
+longer. It'll give me apoplexy."
+
+Martin followed her into the foyer. The tragic rage on the girl's
+little, pretty, usually good-natured face worried him. He knew that she
+had looked forward to this production to make her name on Broadway.
+
+"My dear Tootles, what's happened?"
+
+She turned to him and clutched his arm. Tears welled up into her eyes,
+and her red lips began to tremble. "What did I look like?" she demanded.
+
+"Splendid!"
+
+"Didn't I get every ounce of comedy out of my two scenes in Act One?"
+
+"Every ounce."
+
+"I know I did. Even the stage hands laughed, and if you can do that
+there's no argument. And didn't my number go over fine? Wasn't it the
+best thing in the act? I don't care what you say. I know it was. Even
+the orchestra wanted it over again."
+
+"But it was," said Martin, "and I heard one of the authors say that it
+would be the hit of the piece."
+
+"Oh, Martin, I've been sweating blood for this chance for five years,
+and I'm not going to get it. I'm not going to get it. I wish I was
+dead." She put her arms against the wall and her face down on her arms
+and burst into an agony of tears.
+
+Martin was moved. This plucky, struggling, hardworking atom of a
+remorseless world deserved a little luck for a change. Hitherto it had
+eluded her eager hands, although she had paid for it in advance with
+something more than blood and energy. "Dear old Tootles," he said,
+"what's happened? Try and tell me what's happened? I don't understand."
+
+"You don't understand, because you don't know the tricks of this rotten
+theater. For eleven weeks I've been rehearsing. For eleven weeks--time
+enough to produce a couple of Shakespeare's bally plays in Latin,--I've
+put up with the brow-beating of that mad dog Jackrack. For eleven
+weeks, without touching one dirty little Mosely cent, I've worked at my
+part and numbers, morning, noon and night; and now, on the edge of
+production, he cuts me out and puts in a simpering cow with a
+fifteen-thousand-dollar necklace and a snapping little Pekinese to
+oblige one of his angels, and I'm reduced to the chorus. I wish I was
+dead, I tell you--I wish I was dead and buried and at peace. I wish I
+could creep home and get into bed and never see another day of this
+cruel life. Oh, I'm just whipped and broke and out. Take me away, take
+me away, Martin. I'm through."
+
+Martin put his arm round the slight, shaking form, led her to one of
+the doors and out into a narrow passage that ran up into the deserted
+street. To have gone down into the stalls and hit that oily martinet in
+the mouth would have been to lay himself open to a charge of cruelty to
+animals. He was so puny and fat and soft. Poor little Tootles, who had
+had a tardy and elusive recognition torn from her grasp! It was a
+tragedy.
+
+It was not much more than a stone's-throw from the theater to the
+rabbit warren in West Forty-sixth Street, but Martin gave a shout at a
+prowling taxi. Not even policemen and newspaper boys and street
+cleaners must see this girl as she was then, in a collapse of smashed
+hopes, sobbing dreadfully, completely broken down. It wasn't fair. In
+all that city of courageous under-dogs and fate-fighters, there was not
+one who pretended to careless contentment with a chin so high as
+Tootles. He half carried her into the cab, trying with a queer
+blundering sympathy to soothe and quiet her. And he had almost
+succeeded by the time they reached the brownstone house of sitters,
+bedrooms and baths, gas stoves, cubby-holes, the persistent reek of
+onions, cigarettes and hot cheese. The hysteria of the artistic
+temperament, or the natural exaggeration of an artificial life, had
+worn itself out for the time being. Rather pathetic little sobs had
+taken its place, it was with a face streaked with the black stuff from
+her eyelashes that Tootles turned quickly to Martin at the foot of the
+narrow, dirty staircase.
+
+"Let's go up quiet," she said. "If any of the others are about, I don't
+want 'em to know tonight. See?"
+
+"I see," said Martin.
+
+And it was good to watch the way in which she took hold of herself with
+a grip of iron, scrubbed her face with his handkerchief, dabbed it
+thickly with powder from a small silver box, threw back her head and
+went up two stairs at a time. On the second floor there was a cackle of
+laughter, but doors were shut. On the third all was quiet. But on the
+fourth the tall, thin, Raphael-headed man was drunk again, arguing
+thickly in the usual cloud of smoke, which drifted sullenly into the
+passage through the open door.
+
+With deft fingers Tootles used her latchkey, and they slipped into the
+apartment like thieves. And then Martin took the pins out of her little
+once-white hat, drew her coat off, picked her up as if she were a child
+and put her on the sofa.
+
+"There you are, Tootles," he said, without aggressive cheerfulness, but
+still cheerful. "You lie there, young 'un, and I'll get you something
+to eat. It's nearly a day since you saw food."
+
+And after a little while, humanized by the honest kindness of this
+obvious man, she sat up and leaned on an elbow and watched him through
+the gap in the curtains that hid her domestic arrangements. He was
+scrambling some eggs. He had made a pile of chicken sandwiches and laid
+the table. He had put some flowers that he had brought for her earlier
+in the evening in the middle of it, stuck into an empty milk bottle. In
+her excitement and joy about the play, she had forgotten to put them in
+water. They were distinctly sad.
+
+"Me word!" she said to herself, through the aftermath of her emotion.
+"That's some boy. Gee, that's some good boy." Even her thoughts were
+conducted in a mixture of Brixton and Broadway.
+
+"Now, then," he said, "all ready, marm," and put his handiwork in what
+he hoped was an appetizing manner on the table. The hot eggs were on a
+cold plate, but did that really matter?
+
+Not to Tootles, who was glad to get anything, anyhow. That room was the
+Ritz Hotel in comparison with the slatterly tenement in which she had
+won through the first unsoaped years of a sordid life. And
+Martin--well, Martin was something out of a fairy tale.
+
+Between them they made a clean sweep of everything, falling back
+finally on a huge round box of candies contributed the previous day by
+Martin.
+
+They made short work of several bottles of beer, also contributed by
+Martin. He knew that Tootles was not paid a penny during rehearsals.
+She laughed several times and cracked one or two feeble jokes--poor
+little soul with the swollen eyes and powder-dabbed face! Her bobbed
+hair glistened under the light like the dome of the Palace of Cooch
+Behar under the Indian sun.
+
+"Boy," she said presently, putting her hand on his knees and closing
+her tired eyes, "where's that magic carpet? If I could sit on it with
+you and be taken to where the air's clean and the trees are whisperin'
+and all the young things hoppin' about--I'd give twenty-five years of
+me life, s'elp me Bob, I would."
+
+"Would you, Tootles?" A sudden thought struck Martin. Make use of that
+house in the country, make use of it, lying idle and neglected!
+
+"Oh," she said, "to get away from all this for a bit--to shake Broadway
+and grease paint and slang and electric light, if only for a week. I'm
+fed up, boy. I'm all out, like an empty gasoline tin. I want to see
+something clean and sweet."
+
+Martin had made up his mind. Look at that poor little bruised soul, as
+much in need of water as those sad flowers in the milk bottle.
+"Tootles," he said, "pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag, and be
+ready for me in the morning."
+
+"What d'yer mean, boy?"
+
+"What I say. At eleven o'clock to-morrow--to-day, I'll have a car here
+and drive you away to woods and birds and all clean things. I'll give
+you a holiday in a big cathedral, and you shall lie and listen to God's
+own choir."
+
+"Go on--ye're pullin' me leg!"
+
+She waved her hand to stop him. It was all too good to joke about.
+
+"No, I'm not. I've got a house away in the country. It was my father's.
+We shall both be proud to welcome you there, Tootles."
+
+She sprang up, put her hands on his face and tilted it back and looked
+into his eyes. It was true! It was true! She saw it there. And she
+kissed him and gave a great sobbing sigh and went into her bedroom and
+began to undress. Was there anything like life, after all?
+
+Martin cleared the table and drew the curtains over the domestic
+arrangements. He didn't like domestic arrangements. Then he sat down
+and lighted a cigarette. His head was all blurred with sleep.
+
+And presently a tired voice, called "Boy!" and he went in. The
+all-too-golden head was deep into the pillow and long lashes made fans
+on that powdered face.
+
+"Where did you pinch the magic carpet?" she asked, and smiled, and fell
+into sleep as a stone disappears into water.
+
+As Martin drew the clothes over her thinly clad shoulder, something
+touched him. It was like a tap on the heart. Before he knew what he was
+doing, he had turned out the light, gone into the sitting room, the
+passage, down the stairs and into the silent street. At top speed he
+ran into Sixth Avenue, yelled to a cab that was slipping along the
+trolley lines and told the driver to go to East Sixty-seventh Street
+for all that he was worth.
+
+Joan wanted him.
+
+Joan!
+
+Joan heard the cab drive up and stop, heard Martin sing out "That's all
+right," open and shut the front door and mount the stairs; heard him go
+quickly to her room and knock.
+
+She went out and called "Marty, Marty," and stood on the threshold of
+his dressing room, smiling a welcome. She was glad, beyond words glad,
+and surprised. There had seemed to be no chance of seeing him that
+morning.
+
+Martin came along the passage with his characteristic light tread and
+drew up short. He looked anxious.
+
+"You wanted me?" he said.
+
+And Joan held out her hand. "I did and do, Marty. But how did you
+guess?"
+
+"I didn't guess; I knew." And he held her hand nervously.
+
+She looked younger and sweeter than ever in her blue silk dressing gown
+and shorter in her heelless slippers. What a kid she was, after all, he
+thought.
+
+"How amazing!" she said. "I wonder how?"
+
+He shook his head. "I dunno--just as I did the first time, when I tore
+through the woods and found you on the hill."
+
+"Isn't that wonderful! Do you suppose I shall always be able to get you
+when I want you very much?"
+
+"Yes, always."
+
+"Why?"
+
+She had gone back into the dressing room. The light was on her face.
+Her usual expression of elfish impertinence was not there. She was the
+girl of the stolen meetings once more, the girl whose eyes reflected
+the open beauty of what Martin had called the big cathedral. For all
+that, she was the girl who had hurt him to the soul, shown him her
+door, played that trick upon him at the Ritz and sent him adrift full
+of the spirit of "Who cares?" which was her fetish. It was in his heart
+to say: "Because I adore you! Because I am so much yours that you have
+only to think my name for me to hear it across the world as if you had
+shouted it through a giant megaphone! Because whatever I do and
+whatever you do, I shall love you!" But she had hurt him twice. She had
+cut him to the very core. He couldn't forget. He was too proud to lay
+himself open to yet another of her laughing snubs.
+
+So he shook his head again. "I dunno," he said. "It's like that. It's
+something that can't be explained."
+
+She sat on the arm of the chair with her hands round a knee. A little
+of her pink ankle showed. The pipe that she had dropped when his voice
+had come up from the street lay on the floor.
+
+His answer had disappointed her; she didn't quite know why. The old
+Marty would have been franker and more spontaneous. The old Marty might
+have made her laugh with his boyish ingenuousness, but he would have
+warmed her and made her feel delightfully vain. Could it be that she
+was responsible for this new Marty? Was Alice too terribly right when
+she had talked about armor turning into broadcloth because of her
+selfish desire to remain a kid a little longer? She was afraid to ask
+him where he was when he had felt that she wanted him, and she hated
+herself for that.
+
+There was a short silence.
+
+These two young things had lost the complete confidence that had been
+theirs before they had come to that great town. What a pity!
+
+"Well," he asked, standing straight like a man ready to take orders,
+"why did you call?"
+
+And then an overwhelming shyness seized her. It had seemed easy enough
+in thought to tell Martin that she was ready to cross the bridge and
+be, as Alice had called it, honest, and as Gilbert had said, to play
+the game. But it was far from easy when he stood in the middle of the
+room in the glare of the light, with something all about him that froze
+her words and made her self-conscious and timid. And yet a clear,
+unmistakable voice urged her to have courage and make her confession,
+say that she was sorry for having been a feather-brained little fool
+and ask him to forgive--to win him back, if--if she hadn't already lost
+him.
+
+But she blundered into an answer and spoke flippantly from nervousness.
+"Because it's rather soon to become a grass widow, and I want you to be
+seen with me somewhere to-morrow."
+
+That was all, then. She was only amusing herself. It was a case of
+"Horse, horse, play with me!"--the other horses being otherwise
+occupied. She wasn't serious. He needn't have come. "I can't," he said.
+"I'm sorry, but I'm going out of town."
+
+She saw him look at the clock on the mantelshelf and crinkle up his
+forehead. Day must be stretching itself somewhere. She got up, quickly.
+How could she say it? She was losing him.
+
+"Are you angry with me, Marty?" she asked, trying to fumble her way to
+honesty.
+
+"No, Joan. But it's very late. You ought to be in bed."
+
+"Didn't you think that I should miss you while you've been away?"
+
+"No, Joan. Look. It's half-past two. A kid like you ought to have been
+asleep hours ago." He went over to the door.
+
+"I'm not a kid--I'm not" she burst out.
+
+He was too tired to be surprised. He had not forgotten how she had
+hidden behind her youth. He couldn't understand her mood. "I must get
+to bed," he said, "if you don't mind. I must be up pretty early. Run
+along, Joany."
+
+He couldn't have hurt her more awfully whatever he had said. To be
+treated like a naughty girl! But it served her right, and she knew it.
+Her plea had come back like a boomerang.
+
+"Well, have a good time," she said, with her chin high. "I shall see
+you again some day, I suppose," and she went out.
+
+It was no use. She had lost him--she had lost him, just as she had
+discovered that she wanted him. There was a girl with a white face and
+red lips and hair that came out of a bottle. Martin watched her go and
+shut the door, and stood with his hands over his face.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Mr. and Mrs. George Harley had made an appointment to meet at half-past
+eleven sharp on the doorstep of the little house in Sixty-seventh
+Street. Business had interrupted their honeymoon and brought them
+unexpectedly to New York. Harley had come by subway from Wall Street to
+the Grand Central and taken a taxicab. It was twelve o'clock before he
+arrived. Nevertheless he wore a smile of placid ease of mind. His
+little wife had only to walk from the Plaza, it was true, but he knew,
+although a newly married man, that to be half an hour late was to be
+ten minutes early.
+
+At exactly five minutes past twelve he saw her turn off the Avenue, and
+as he strolled along to meet her, charmed and delighted by her
+daintiness, proud and happy at his possession of her, he did a thing
+that all wise and tactful husbands do--he forced back an irresistible
+desire to be humorous at her expense and so won an entry of approval
+from the Recording Angel.
+
+If they had both been punctual they would have seen Martin go off in
+his car to drive the girl who had had no luck to the trees and the wild
+flowers and the good green earth.
+
+Joan's mother, all agog to see the young couple who had taken life into
+their own hands with the sublime faith of youth, had made it her first
+duty to call, however awkward and unusual the hour. Her choice of hats
+in which to do so had been a matter of the utmost importance.
+
+They were told that Mr. Gray had gone out of town, that Mrs. Gray was
+not yet awake and followed the butler upstairs to the drawing-room with
+a distinct sense of disappointment. The room still quivered under the
+emotion of Gilbert Palgrave.
+
+Rather awkwardly they waited to be alone. Butlers always appear to
+resent the untimely visitation of relations. Sunlight poured in through
+the windows. It was a gorgeous morning.
+
+"Well," said George Harley, "I've seen my brokers and can do nothing
+more to-day. Let the child have her sleep out. I'm just as happy to be
+here with you, Lil, as anywhere else." And he bent over his wife as if
+he were her lover, as indeed he was, and kissed her pretty ear. His
+clothes were very new and his collar the shade of an inch too high for
+comfort and his patent leather shoes something on the tight side, but
+the spirits of the great lovers had welcomed him and were unafraid.
+
+He won a most affectionate and grateful smile from the neat little lady
+whose brown hair was honestly tinged with white, and whose unlined face
+was innocent of make-up. Mrs. Harley had not yet recovered from her
+astonishment at having been swept to the altar after fifteen years of
+widowhood by this most simple and admirable man. Even then she was not
+quite sure that she was not dreaming all this. She patted his big hand
+and would have put her head against his chest if the brim of her hat
+had permitted her to do so.
+
+"That's very sweet of you, Geordie," she said. "How good you are to me."
+
+He echoed the word "Good!" and laughed and waved his hands. It was the
+gesture of a man whose choice of ready words was not large enough to
+describe all that he longed and tried to be to her. And then he stood
+back with his long legs wide apart and his large hands thrust into his
+pockets and his rather untidy gray head stuck on one side and studied
+her as if she were a picture in a gallery. He looked like a great big
+faithful St. Bernard dog.
+
+Mrs. Harley didn't think so. He seemed to her to be the boy of whom she
+had dreamed in her first half-budding dreams and who had gone wandering
+and come under the hand of Time, but remained a boy in his heart. She
+was glad that she had made him change his tie. She loved those deep
+cuts in his face.
+
+"Very well, then," she said. "Although it is twelve o'clock I'll let
+her sleep another half an hour." And then she stopped with a little cry
+of dismay, "Let her! ... I'm forgetting that it's no longer in my power
+to say what she's to do or not to do!"
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"She's no longer the young, big-eyed, watchful child who startled us by
+saying uncanny things. She's no longer the slip of a thing that I left
+with her grandparents, with her wistful eyes on the horizon. She's a
+married woman, Geordie, with a house of her own, and it isn't for me to
+'let' her do anything or tell her or even ask her. She can do what she
+likes now. I've lost her, Geordie."
+
+"Why, how's that, Lil?" There was surprise as well as sympathy in
+Harley's voice. He had only known other people's children.
+
+She went on quickly, with a queer touch of emotion. "The inevitable
+change has come before I've had time to realize it. It's a shock. It
+takes my breath away. I feel as if I had been set adrift from an
+anchor. Instead of being my little girl she's my daughter now. I'm no
+longer 'mammy.' I'm mother. Isn't it,--isn't it wonderful? It's like
+standing under a mountain that's always seemed to be a little hill
+miles and miles away. From now on I shall be the one to be told to do
+things, I shall be the child to be kept in order. It's a queer moment
+in the life of a mother, Geordie."
+
+She laughed, but she didn't catch her tears before they were halfway
+down her cheeks. "I'm an old lady, my dear."
+
+Harley gave one of his hearty, incredulous laughs. "You, old. You're
+one of the everlasting young ones, you are, Lil," and he stood and
+beamed with love and admiration.
+
+"But I've got you, Geordie," she added, and her surprised heart that
+had suddenly felt so empty warmed again and was soothed when he took
+her hand eagerly and pressed it to his lips.
+
+Grandfather and Grandmother Ludlow, Joan and many others who had formed
+the habit of believing that Christopher Ludlow's widow would remain
+true to his memory, failed utterly to understand the reason for her
+sudden breakaway from a settled and steady routine, to plunge into
+belated matrimony with a self-made man of fifty-five who seemed to them
+to be not only devoid of all attractiveness but bourgeois and rather
+ridiculous. But why? A little sympathy, a little knowledge of human
+nature,--that's all that was necessary to make this romance
+understandable. Because it was romance, in the best sense of that much
+abused word. It was not the romance defined in the dictionary as an
+action or adventure of an unusual or wonderful character, soaring
+beyond the limits of fact and real life and often of probability, but
+the result of loneliness and middle age, and of two hearts starving for
+love and the expression of love, for sympathy, companionship and the
+natural desire for something that would feed vanity, which, if it is
+permitted to die, is replaced by bitterness and a very warped point of
+view.
+
+Christopher Ludlow, a wild, harum-scarum fellow who had risked his life
+many times during his hunting trips, came to his death in a prosaic
+street accident. For fifteen years his widow, then twenty-five, lived
+in the country with his parents and his little daughter. She was at
+their mercy, because Christopher had left no money. He had been
+dependent on an allowance from his father. Either she lived with them
+and bore cheerfully and tactfully with their increasing crotchetiness
+and impatience of old age, or left them to eke out a purposely small
+income in a second-rate hotel or a six by six apartment barely on the
+edge of the map. A timid woman, all for peace, without the grit and
+courage that goes with self-direction, she pursued the easy policy of
+least resistance, sacrificed her youth on the altar of Comfort and
+dwindled with only a few secret pangs into middle age. From time to
+time, with Joan, she left the safe waters of Lethe and put an almost
+frightened foot into the swift main stream. As time went on and Spring
+went out of her and Summer ripened to maturity, she was more and more
+glad to return from these brief excursions to the quiet country and the
+safe monotonous round. Then the day came when her no longer little girl
+came finally out of school, urgent and rebellious, kicking against the
+pricks, electrically alive and eager, autocrat and individualist rolled
+into one. Catching something of this youthfulness and shocked to wake
+to a realization of her lost years, she made a frantic and despairing
+effort to grasp at the tail-end of Summer and with a daughter far more
+worldly than herself escaped as frequently as possible into town to
+taste the pleasures that she had almost forgotten, and revive under the
+influence of the theater and the roar of life. It was during one of
+these excursions, while Joan was lunching with Alice Palgrave, that she
+caught an arrow shot at random by that mischievous little devil Cupid,
+which landed plum in the middle of a heart that had been placid so
+long. In getting out of a taxicab she had slipped and fallen, was
+raised deferentially to her feet, and looked up to catch the lonely and
+bewildered eyes of George Harley. They were outside their mutual hotel.
+What more natural and courteous than that he should escort her into the
+hotel with many expressions of anxious regret, ascend with her in the
+elevator to their mutual floor, linger with her for a polite few
+minutes in the sunlight that poured through the passage windows and
+leave her to hurry finally to her room thrilling under the recollection
+of two admiring eyes and a lingering handshake? She, even she, then, at
+her time of life, plump and partridge-like as she was, could inspire
+the interest and approval of a man. It was wonderful. It was absurd. It
+was ... altogether too good to be true! Later, after she had spent a
+half-amused, half-wistful quarter of an hour in front of her glass,
+seeing inescapable white hairs and an irremediable double chin, she had
+gone down to the dining room for lunch. All the tables being occupied,
+what more natural or disconcerting than for this modern Raleigh to rise
+and rather clumsily and eagerly beg that she would share the one just
+allotted to himself.
+
+To the elderly man, whose nose had been too close to the grindstone to
+permit of dalliance, and who now, monied and retired, found himself
+terribly alone in the pale sun of St. Martin's Summer, and to the
+little charming woman of forty, led back to life by an ardent and
+impetuous girl, this quite ordinary everyday incident, which seemed to
+them to be touched by romance, came at a moment when both were
+pathetically receptive. They arranged to meet again, they met again,
+and one fine afternoon while Joan was at a theater with Alice, he spoke
+and she listened. It was in the more than usually hotel-like
+drawing-room of their mutual hotel. People were having tea, and the
+band was playing. There was a jangle of voices, the jingle of a musical
+comedy, the movement of waiters. Under the leaves of a tame palm which
+once had known the gorgeous freedom of a semi-tropical forest he
+stumbled over a proposal, the honest, fearful, pulsating proposal of a
+man who conceived that he was trying hopelessly to hitch his wagon to a
+star, and she, tremulous, amazed, and on the verge of tears, accepted
+him. Hers presumably the dreadful ordeal of facing an incredulous
+daughter and two sarcastic parents-in-law and his of standing for
+judgment before them,--argument, discussion, satire, irony, abuse
+even,--a quiet and determined marriage and a new and beautiful life.
+
+"What a delightful room," said Mrs. Harley. "It looks so comfortable
+for a drawing-room that it must have been furnished by a man."
+
+"We'll have a house in town by October, around here, and I'll bet it
+won't be uncomfortable when you've finished with it."
+
+The raucous shouts of men crying an "extra" took Harley quickly to the
+open window. He watched one scare-monger edge his way up one side of
+the street and another, whose voice was like the jagged edge of a rusty
+saw, bandy leg his way up the other side. "Sounds like big sea battle,"
+he said, after listening carefully. "Six German warships sunk, five
+British. Horrible loss of life. But I may be wrong. These men do their
+best not to be quite understood. Only six German ships! I wish the
+whole fleet of those dirty dogs could be sunk to the bottom."
+
+There was nothing neutral or blind-eyed about George Harley. He had
+followed all the moves that had forced the war upon the nations whose
+spineless and inefficient governments had so long been playing the
+policy of the ostrich. He had nothing but detestation for the vile and
+ruthless methods of the German war party and nation and nothing but
+contempt for the allied politicians who had made such methods possible.
+He had followed the course of the war with pain, anguish and bated
+breath, thrilling at the supreme bravery of the Belgians and the
+French, and the First Hundred Thousand, thanking God for the miracle
+that saved Paris from desecration, and paying honest tribute to the
+giant effort of the British to wipe out the stain of a scandalous and
+criminal unpreparedness. He had squirmed with humiliation at the
+attempts of the little, dreadful clever people of his own
+country,--professors, parsons, pacifists and pro-Germans,--to prove
+that it was the duty of the United States to stand aloof and unmoved in
+the face of a menace which affected herself in no less a degree than it
+affected the nations then fighting for their lives, and had watched
+with increasing alarm the fatuous complacency of Congress which
+continued to deceive itself into believing that a great stretch of mere
+water rendered the country immune from taking its honest part in its
+own war. "Oh, my God," he had said in his heart, as all clear-sighted
+Americans had been saying, "has commercialism eaten into our very
+vitals? Has the good red blood of the early pioneers turned to water?
+Are we without the nerve any longer to read the writing on the wall?"
+And the only times that his national pride had been able to raise its
+head beneath the weight of shame and foreboding were those when he
+passed the windows of Red Cross Depots and caught sight of a roomful of
+good and noble women feverishly at work on bandages; when he read of
+the keen and splendid training voluntarily undergone by the far-sighted
+men who were making Plattsburg the nucleus of an officers' training
+corps, when he was told how many of his young and red-blooded
+fellow-countrymen had taken up arms with the Canadian contingents or
+had slipped over to France as ambulance men. What would he not have
+given to be young again!
+
+He heaved a great sigh and turned back to the precious little woman who
+had placed her life into his hands for love. The hoarse alarming voices
+receded into the distance, leaving their curious echo behind.
+
+"What were we talking about?" he asked. "Oh, ah, yes. The house. Lil,
+during the few days that I have to be in the city, let's find the
+house, let's nose around and choose the roof under which you and I will
+spend all the rest of our honeymoon. What do you say, dear?"
+
+"I'd love it, Geordie; I'd just love it. A little house, smaller than
+this, with windows that catch the sun, quite near the Park, so that we
+can toddle across and watch the children playing. Wouldn't that be
+nice? And now I think I'll ring for some one to show me Joan's room and
+creep in and suggest that she gets up."
+
+But there was no need. The door opened, and Joan came in, with eyes
+like stars.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Three o'clock that afternoon found the Harleys still in Martin's house,
+with Mrs. Harley fidgetting to get George out for a walk in order that
+she might enjoy an intimate, mother-talk with Joan, and Joan
+deliberately using all her gifts to keep him there in order to avoid it.
+
+Lunch had been a simple enough affair as lunches go, lifted above the
+ordinary ruck of such meals by the 1906 Chateau Latour and the
+Courvoisier Cognac from the cellar carefully stocked by Martin's
+father. From the psychological side of it, however, nothing could well
+have been more complicated. George had not forgotten his reception by
+the Ludlows that day of his ever-to-be-remembered visit of
+inspection--the cold, satirical eyes of Grandmother, the freezing
+courtesy of Grandfather, and the silent, eloquent resentment of the
+girl who saw herself on the verge of desertion by the one person who
+made life worth living in intermittent spots. He was nervous and
+overanxious to appear to advantage. The young thoroughbred at the head
+of the table who had given him a swift all-embracing look, an
+enigmatical smile and a light laughing question as to whether he would
+like to be called "Father, papa, Uncle George or what" awed him. He
+couldn't help feeling like a clumsy piece of modern pottery in the
+presence of an exquisite specimen of porcelain. His hands and feet
+multiplied themselves, and his vocabulary seemed to contain no more
+than a dozen slang phrases. He was conscious of the fact that his
+collar was too high and his clothes a little too bold in pattern, and
+he was definitely certain for the first time in his life, that he had
+not yet discovered a barber who knew how to cut hair.
+
+Overeager to emphasize her realization of the change in her
+relationship to Joan, overanxious to let it be seen at once that she
+was merely an affectionate and interested visitor and not a mother with
+a budget of suggestions and corrections and rearrangements, Mrs. Harley
+added to the complication. Usually the most natural woman in the world
+with a soft infectious laugh, a rather shrewd humor and a neat gift of
+comment, she assumed a metallic artificiality that distressed herself
+and surprised Joan. She babbled about absolutely nothing by the yard,
+talked over George's halting but gallant attempts to make things easy
+like any Clubwoman, and in an ultra-scrupulous endeavor to treat Joan
+as if she were a woman of the world, long emancipated from maternal
+apron strings, said things to her, inane, insincere things, that she
+would not have said to a complete stranger on the veranda of a summer
+hotel or the sun deck of a transatlantic liner. She hated herself and
+was terrified.
+
+For two reasons this unexpected lunch was an ordeal so far as Joan was
+concerned. She remembered how antagonistic she had been to Harley under
+the first rough shock of her mother's startling and what then had
+appeared to be disloyal aberration, and wanted to make up for it to the
+big, simple, uncomfortable man who was so obviously in love. Also she
+was still all alone in the mental chaos into which everything that had
+happened last night had conspired to plunge her and was trying, with
+every atom of courage that she possessed, to hide the fact from her
+mother's quick solicitous eyes. SHE of all people must not know that
+Martin had gone away or find the loose end of her married life!
+
+It was one of those painful hours that crop up from time to time in
+life and seem to leave a little scratch upon the soul.
+
+But when quarter past three came Mrs. Harley pulled herself together.
+She had already dropped hints of every known and well-recognized kind
+to George, without success. She had even invented appointments for him
+at the dentist's and the tailor's. But George was basking in Joan's
+favor and was too dazzled to be able to catch and concentrate upon his
+wife's insinuations as to things and people that didn't exist. And Joan
+held him with her smile and led him from one anecdote to another.
+Finally, with no one realized how supreme an effort, Mrs. Harley came
+to the point. As a rule she never came to points.
+
+"Geordie," she said, seizing a pause, "you may run along now, dear, and
+take a walk. It will do you good to get a little exercise before
+dinner. I want to be alone with Joan for a while."
+
+And before Joan could swing the conversation off at a tangent the
+faithful and obedient St. Bernard was on his feet, ready and willing to
+ramble whichever way he was told to go. With unconscious dignity and a
+guilelessness utterly unknown to drawing-rooms he bent over Joan's
+reluctant hand and said, "Thank you for being so kind to me," laid a
+hearty kiss on his wife's cheek and went.
+
+"And now, darling," said Mrs. Harley, settling into her chair with an
+air of natural triumph, "tell me where Martin is and how long he's
+going to be away and all about everything."
+
+These were precisely the questions that Joan had worked so hard and
+skilfully to dodge. "Well, first of all, Mummy," she said, with filial
+artfulness, "you must come and see the house."
+
+And Mrs. Harley, who had been consumed with the usual feminine
+curiosity to examine every corner and cranny of it, rose with alacrity.
+"What I've already seen is all charming," she said. "I knew Martin's
+father, you know. He spent a great deal of time at his house near your
+grandfather's, and was nearly always in the saddle. He was not a bit
+like one's idea of a horsey man. He was, in fact, a gentleman who was
+fond of horses. There is a world of difference. He had a most
+delightful smile and was the only man I ever met, except your
+grandfather, who could drink too much wine without showing it. Who's
+this good-looking boy with the trustworthy eyes?"
+
+"Martin," said Joan. "Martin," she added inwardly, "who treated me like
+a kid last night."
+
+Mrs. Harley looked up at the portrait. An involuntary smiled played
+round her mouth. "Yes, of course. I remember him. What a dear boy! No
+wonder you fell in love with him, darling. You must be very happy."
+
+Joan followed her mother out of the room. She was glad of the chance to
+control her expression. She went upstairs with a curious lack of the
+spirit of proprietorship. It hurt her to feel as if she were showing a
+house taken furnished for the season in which she had no rights, no
+pride and no personal interest. Martin had treated her like a kid last
+night and gone away in the morning without a word. Alice and Gilbert
+had taunted her with not being a wife. She wasn't, and this was
+Martin's house, not hers and Martin's ... it hurt.
+
+"Ah," said Mrs. Harley softly as she went into Joan's bedroom. "Ah.
+Very nice. You both have room to move here." But the mass of little
+filet lace pillows puzzled her, and she darted a quick look at the tall
+young thing with the inscrutable face who had ceased to be her little
+girl and had become her daughter.
+
+"The sun pours in," said Joan, turning away.
+
+Mrs. Harley noticed a door and brightened up.
+
+"Martin's dressing room?" she asked. "No. My maid's room!" Joan said.
+
+Mrs. Harley shook her head ever so little. She was not in sympathy with
+what she called new-fashioned ideas. It was on the tip of her tongue to
+say so and to forget, just this once, the inevitable change in their
+relationship and speak like mammy once more. But she was a timid,
+sensitive little woman, and the indefinable barrier that had suddenly
+sprung up held her back. Joan made no attempt to meet her halfway. The
+moment passed.
+
+They went along the passage. "There are Martin's rooms," said Joan.
+
+Mrs. Harley went halfway in. "Like a bachelor's rooms, aren't they?"
+she said, without guile. And while she glanced at the pictures and the
+crowded bootrack and the old tallboys, Joan's sudden color went away
+again.... He was a bachelor. He had left her on the other side of the
+bridge. He had hurt her last night. How awfully she must have hurt him!
+
+"When will Martin be back?"
+
+"I don't know," said Joan. "Probably to-morrow. I'm not sure." She
+stumbled a little, realized that she was giving herself away,--because
+if a bride is not to know her husband's movements, who is?--and made a
+desperate effort to recover her position. "It all depends on how long
+he's kept. But he needed exercise, and golf's such a good game, isn't
+it? I sha'n't hurry him back."
+
+She looked straight into her mother's anxious eyes, saw them clear, saw
+a smile come--and took a deep breath of relief. If there was one thing
+that she had to put up the most strenuous fight to avoid, in her
+present chaotic state of mind, it was a direct question as to her life
+with Martin. Of all people, her mother must be left in the belief that
+she was happy. Pride demanded that, even to the extent of lying. It was
+hard luck to be caught by her mother, at the very moment when she was
+standing among all the debris of her kid's ideas, among all the broken
+beams of carelessness, and the shattered panes of high spirits.
+
+She was thankful that her mother was not one of those aggressive,
+close-questioning women, utterly devoid of sensitiveness and delicacy
+who are not satisfied until they have forced open all the secret
+drawers of the mind and stuck the contents on a bill file,--one of
+those hard-bosomed women who stump into church as they stump into a
+department store with an air of "Now then, what can you show me that's
+new," who go about with a metaphorical set of burglar's tools in a
+large bag with which to break open confidences and who have no faith in
+human nature.
+
+And with a sudden sense of gratitude she turned to the woman whom she
+had always accepted as a fact, an institution, and looked at her with
+new eyes, a new estimate and a new emotion. The little, loving, gentle,
+anxious woman with the capacity of receiving impressions from external
+objects that amounted to a gift but with a reticence of so fine and
+tender a quality that she seemed always to stand on tiptoes on the
+delicate ground of people's feelings, was HERS, was her mother. The
+word burst into a new meaning, blossomed into a new truth. She had been
+accepted all these years,--loved, in a sort of way; obeyed, perhaps,
+expected to do things and provide things and make things easy, and here
+she stood more needed, at the moment when she imagined that the need of
+her had passed, than at any other time of her motherhood.
+
+In a flash Joan understood all this and its paradox, looked all the way
+back along the faithful, unappreciated years, and being no longer a
+child was stirred with a strange maternal fellow feeling that started
+her tears. Nature is merciless. Everything is sacrificed to youth.
+Birds build their nests and rear their young and are left as soon as
+wings are ready. Women marry and bear children and bring them up with
+love and sacrifice, only to be relegated to a second place at the first
+moment of independence. Joan saw this then. Her mother's altered
+attitude, and her own feeling of having grown out of maternal
+possession brought it before her. She saw the underlying drama of this
+small inevitable scene in the divine comedy of life and was touched by
+a great sympathy and made sorry and ashamed.
+
+But pride came between her and a desire to go down on her knees at her
+mother's side, make a clean breast of everything and beg for advice and
+help.
+
+And so these two, between whom there should have been complete
+confidence, were like people speaking to each other from opposite banks
+of a stream, conscious of being overheard.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Day after day went by with not a word from Martin. April was slipping
+off the calendar. A consistent blue sky hung over a teeming city that
+grew warm and dry beneath a radiant sun. Winter forgotten, spring an
+overgrown boy, the whole town underwent a subtle change. Its rather
+sullen winter expression melted into a smile, and all its foreign
+characteristics and color broke out once more under the influence of
+sun and blue sky. Alone among the great cities of the world stands New
+York for contrariety and contrast. Its architecture is as various as
+its citizenship, its manners are as dissimilar as its accents, its
+moods as diverse as its climate. Awnings appeared, straw hats peppered
+the streets like daisies in long fields, shadows moved, days
+lengthened, and the call of the country fell on city ears like the thin
+wistful notes of the pipes of Pan.
+
+Brought up against a black wall Joan left the Roundabout, desisted from
+joy-riding, and, spending most of her time with her mother, tried
+secretly and without any outward sign, to regain her equilibrium. She
+saw nothing of Alice and the set, now beginning to scatter, in which
+Alice had placed her. She was consistently out to Gilbert Palgrave and
+the other men who had been gathering hotly at her heels. Her policy of
+"who cares?" had received a shock and left her reluctantly and
+impatiently serious. She had withdrawn temporarily into a backwater in
+order to think things over and wait for Martin to reappear. It seemed
+to her that her future way of life was in his hands. If Martin came
+back soon and caught her in her present mood she would play the game
+according to the rules. If he stayed away or, coming back, persisted in
+considering her as a kid and treating her as such, away would go
+seriousness, life being short, and youth but a small part of it, and
+back she would go to the Merry-go-round, and once more, at twice the
+pace, with twice the carelessness, the joy-ride would continue. It was
+all up to Martin, little as he knew it.
+
+And where was Martin?
+
+There was no letter, no message, no sign as day followed day. Without
+allowing herself to send out an S. O. S. to him, which she well knew
+that she had the power to do, she waited, as one waits at crossroads,
+to go either one way or the other. Although tempted many times to tap
+the invisible wire which stretched between them, and to put an end to a
+state of uncertainty which was indescribably irksome to her impulsive
+and imperative nature, she held her hand. Pride steeled her, and vanity
+gave her temporary patience. She even went so far as to think of him
+under another name so that no influence of hers might bring him back.
+She wanted him to return naturally, on his own account, because he was
+unable to keep away. She wanted him, wherever he was and whatever he
+was doing, to want her, not to come in cold blood from a sense of duty,
+in the spirit of martyrdom. She wanted him, for her pride's sake, to be
+again the old eager Marty, the burning-eyed, inarticulate Marty, who
+had brought her to his house and laid it at her feet with all that was
+his. In no other way was she prepared to cross what she thought of as
+the bridge.
+
+And so, seeing only her mother and George Harley, she waited, saying to
+herself confidently "If he doesn't come to-day, he will come to-morrow.
+I told him that I was a kid, and he understood. I've hurt him awfully,
+but he loves me. He will come to-morrow."
+
+But to-morrow came and where was Martin?
+
+It was a curious time for this girl-woman to go through alone, hiding
+her crisis from her mother behind smiling eyes, disguising her anxiety
+under a cloak of high spirits, herself hurt but realizing that she had
+committed a hurt. It made her feel like an aeroplane voluntarily landed
+in perfect condition at the start of a race, waiting for the pilot to
+get aboard. That he would return at any moment and take her up again
+she never doubted. Why should she? She knew Martin. His eyes won
+confidence, and there was a heart of gold behind his smile. She didn't
+believe that she could have lost him so soon. He would come back
+because he loved her. Hadn't he agreed that she was a kid? And when he
+did come back she would take her courage in both hands and tell him
+that she wanted to play the game. And then, having been honest, she
+would hitch on to life again with a light heart, and neither Alice nor
+Gilbert could stand up and flick her conscience. Martin would be happy.
+
+To-morrow and to-morrow, and no Martin.
+
+At the end of a week a letter was received by her mother from
+Grandmother Ludlow, in which, with a tinge of sarcasm, she asked that
+she might be honored by a visit of a few days, always supposing that
+trains still ran between New York and Peapack and gasolene could still
+be procured for privately owned cars. And there was a postscript in
+these words. "Perhaps you have the necessary eloquence to induce the
+athletic Mrs. Martin Gray to join you."
+
+The letter was handed to Joan across the luncheon table at the Plaza.
+She read the characteristic effusion with keen amusement. She could
+hear the old lady's incisive voice in every word and the tap of her
+stick across the hall as she laid the letter in the box. How good to
+see the country again and go through the woods to the old high place
+where she had turned and found Martin. How good to go back to that old
+prison house as an independent person, with the right to respect and
+even consideration. It would serve Martin right to find her away when
+he came back. She would leave a little note on his dressing table.
+
+"No wonder the old lady asks if the trains have broken down," said Mrs.
+Harley. "Of course, we ought to have gone out to see her, Geordie."
+
+"Of course," said George, "of course"--but he darted a glance at Joan
+which very plainly conveyed the hope that she would find some reason
+why the visit should not be made. Would he ever forget standing in that
+stiff drawing-room before that contemptuous old dame, feeling exactly
+like a very small worm?
+
+The strain of waiting for Martin day after day had told on Joan. She
+longed for a change of atmosphere, a change of scene. And what a joke
+it would be to be able to face her grandfather and grandmother without
+shaking in her shoes! "Of course," said Joan. "Let's drive out to-day
+in time for dinner, and send a telegram at once. Nothing like striking
+while the iron's hot. Papa Geordie, tell the waiter to bring a blank,
+and we'll concoct a message between us. Is that all right for you,
+Mother?"
+
+Mrs. Harley looked rather like a woman being asked to run a quarter of
+a mile to catch a train, but she gave a little laugh and said, "Yes,
+dear. I think so, although, perhaps, to-morrow--"
+
+"To-day is a much better word," said Joan. She was sick of to-morrow
+and to-morrow. "Packing won't take any time. I'll go home directly
+after lunch and set things moving and be here in the car at three
+thirty. We can see the trees and smell the ferns and watch the sun set
+before we have to change for dinner. I'm dying to do that."
+
+No arguments or objections were put forward.
+
+This impetuous young thing must have her way.
+
+And when the car drove away from the Plaza a few minutes after the
+appointed time Joan was as excited as a child, Mrs. Harley quite
+certain that she had forgotten her sponge bag and her bedroom slippers,
+and George Harley betting on a time that would put more lines on his
+face.
+
+There was certainly more than a touch of irony in Joan's gladness to go
+back so soon to the cage from which she had escaped with such eagerness.
+
+There had been no word and no sign of Martin.
+
+But as Joan had run upstairs Gilbert Palgrave had come out from the
+drawing-room and put himself deliberately in her way.
+
+"I can't stay now, Gilbert," she had said. "I'm going into the country,
+and I haven't half a second to spare. I'm so sorry."
+
+He had held his place. "You've got to give me five minutes. You've got
+to," and something in his eyes had made her take hold of her impatience.
+
+"You don't know what you're doing to me," he had said, with no sign of
+his usual style and self-consciousness, but simply, like a man who had
+sat in the dark and suffered. "Or if you do know your cruelty is
+inhuman. I've tried to see you every day--not to talk about myself or
+bore you with my love, but just to look at you. You've had me turned
+away as if I were a poor relation. You've sent your maid to lie to me
+over the telephone as if I were a West Point cadet in a primitive state
+of sloppy sentiment. Don't do it. It isn't fair. I hauled down my
+fourth wall to you, and however much you may scorn what you saw there
+you must respect it. Love must always be respected. It's the rarest
+thing on earth. I'm here to tell you that you must let me see you, just
+see you. I've waited for many years for this. I'm all upheaved. You've
+exploded me. I'm different. I'm remade. I'm beginning again. I shall
+ask for nothing but kindness until I've made you love me, and then I
+shall not have to ask. You will come to me. I can wait. That's all I
+want you to know. When you come back ring me up. I'll be patient."
+
+With that he had stood aside with a curious humbleness, had gripped the
+hand that she had given him and had gone downstairs and away.
+
+The country round Peapack was in its first glorious flush of young
+beauty. The green of everything dazzled under the sun. The woods were
+full of the echo of fairy laughter. Wild flowers ran riot among the
+fields. Delicate-footed May was following on the heels of April with
+its slight fingers full of added glory for the earth.
+
+There was something soft and English in the look of the trees and
+fields as they came nearer to the old house. They might have been
+driving through the kind garden of Kent.
+
+Framed in the fine Colonial doorway stood the tall old man with his
+white head and fireless eyes, the little distinguished woman still
+charged with electricity and the two veteran dogs with their hollow
+barks.
+
+"Not one blushing bride, but two," said Grandmother Ludlow. "How
+romantic." She presented her cheek to the nervous Mrs. Harley. "You
+look years younger, my dear. Quite fluttery and foolish. How do you do,
+Mr. Harley? You are very welcome, Sir." She passed them both on to the
+old man and turned to Joan with the kind of smile that one sees on the
+faces of Chinese gods. "And here is our little girl in whose marvellous
+happiness we have all rejoiced."
+
+Joan stood up bravely to the little old lady whose sarcasm went home
+like the sharp point of a rapier.
+
+"How do you do, dear Grandmamma," she said.
+
+"No better than can be expected, my love, but no worse." The queer
+smile broadened. "But surely you haven't torn yourself away from the
+young husband from whom, I hear, you have never been parted for a
+moment? That I can't believe. People tell me that there has never been
+such a devoted and love-sick couple. Martin Gray is driving another
+car, of course."
+
+Joan never flicked an eyelash. She would rather die than let this
+cunning old lady have the satisfaction of seeing that she had drawn
+blood. "No, Grandmamma," she said. "Martin needed exercise and is
+playing golf at Shinnecock. He rang me up this morning and asked me to
+say how sorry he was not to have the pleasure of seeing you this time."
+She went over to her grandfather and held up a marvellously equable
+face.
+
+The old dame watched her with reluctant admiration. The child had all
+the thoroughbred points of a Ludlow. All the same she should be shown
+that, even in the twentieth century, young girls could not break away
+from discipline and flout authority without punishment. The smile
+became almost gleeful at the thought of the little surprise that was in
+store for her.
+
+The old sportsman took Joan in his arms and held her tight for a
+moment. "I've missed you, my dear," he said. "The house has been like a
+mausoleum without you. But I've no reproaches. Youth to youth,--it's
+right and proper." And he led her into the lofty hall with his arm
+round her shoulder.
+
+There was a sinister grin on Gleave's poacher-like face when Joan gave
+him a friendly nod. And it was with a momentary spasm of uneasiness
+that she asked herself what he and her grandmother knew. It was evident
+that they had something up their sleeves. But when, after a tea during
+which she continued to fence and play the part of happy bride, she went
+out into the scented garden that was like an old and loving friend,
+this premonition of something evil left her. With every step she felt
+herself greeted and welcomed. Young flowers as guileless as children
+waved their green hands. Heads nodded as she passed. The old trees that
+had watched her grow up rustled their leaves in affectionate
+excitement. She had not understood until that very moment how many true
+friends she had or how warm a place in her heart that old house had
+taken. It was with a curious maternal emotion that clouded her eyes
+with tears that she stood for a moment and kissed her hands to the
+right and left like a young queen to her subjects. Then she ran along
+the familiar path through the woods to the spot where she had been
+found by Martin and stood once more facing the sweep of open country
+and the distant horizon beyond which lay the Eldorado of her girl's
+dreams. She was still a girl, but she had come back hurt and sorry and
+ashamed. Martin might have lost his faith in her. He had gone away
+without a word or sign. Gilbert Palgrave held her in such small respect
+that he waited with patience for her to come, although married, into
+his arms. And there was not a man or a woman on the Round-about, except
+Alice, who really cared whether she ever went back again. The greedy
+squirrel peeked at her from behind a fern, recognized his old playmate,
+and came forward in a series of runs and leaps. With a little cry Joan
+bent down and held out her hand. And away in the distance there was the
+baying of Martin's hounds. But where was Martin?
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+"Rather beg than work, wouldn't he? I call him Micawber because he's
+always waiting for something to turn up."
+
+Joan wheeled round. To hear a stranger's voice in a place that was
+peculiarly hers and Martin's amazed and offended her. It was
+unbelievable.
+
+A girl was sitting in the long grass, hatless, with her hands clasped
+round her knees. The sun lit up her bobbed hair that shone like brass
+and had touched her white skin with a warm finger. Wistful and elfish,
+sitting like Puck on a toadstool, she might have slipped out of some
+mossy corner of the woods to taste the breeze and speculate about life.
+She wore a butter-colored sport shirt wide open at the neck and brown
+cord riding breeches and puttees. Slight and small boned and rather
+thin she could easily have passed for a delicate boy or, except for
+something at the back of her eyes that showed that she had not always
+lived among trees, for Peter Pan's brother of whom the world had never
+heard.
+
+Few people would have recognized in this spring maid the Tootles of
+Broadway and that rabbit warren in West Forty-sixth Street. The dew of
+the country had washed her face and lips, and the choir voices of
+Martin's big cathedral had put peace and gentleness into her expression.
+
+She ran her eyes with frank admiration over the unself-consciously
+patrician Joan in her immaculate town clothes and let them rest finally
+on a face that seemed to her to be the most attractive that she had
+ever seen, for all that its expression made her want to scramble to her
+feet and take to her heels. But she controlled herself and sat tight,
+summoned her native impertinence to the rescue and gave a friendly nod.
+After all, it was a free country. There were no princesses knocking
+about.
+
+"You don't look as if you were a pal of squirrels," she said.
+
+Joan's resentment at the unexpected presence of this interloper only
+lasted a moment. It gave way almost immediately before interest and
+curiosity and liking,--even, for a vague reason, sympathy.
+
+"I've known this one all his life," she said. "His father and mother
+were among my most intimate friends and, what's more, his grandfather
+and grandmother relied on me to help them out in bad times."
+
+The duet of laughter echoed among the trees.
+
+With a total lack of dignity the squirrel retired and stood, with erect
+tail, behind a tuft of coarse grass, wondering what had happened.
+
+"It's a gift to be country and look town," said Tootles, with
+unconcealed flattery. "It's having as many ancestors as the squirrels,
+I suppose. According to the rules I ought to feel awkward, oughtn't I?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well, I'm trespassing. I saw it in your eyes. 'Pon my soul it never
+occurred to me before. Shall I try and make a conventional exit or may
+I stay if I promise not to pinch the hill? This view is better than
+face massage. It rubs out all the lines. My word, but it's good to be
+alive up here!"
+
+The mixture of cool cheek and ecstasy, given forth in the patois of the
+London suburbs, amused Joan. Here was a funny, whimsical, pathetic,
+pretty little thing, she thought--queerly wise, too, and with all about
+her a curious appeal for friendship and kindness. "Stay, of course,"
+she said. "I'm very glad you like my hill. Use it as often as you can."
+She sat down on the flat-topped piece of rock that she had so often
+shared with Martin. There was a sense of humanity about this girl that
+had the effect of a magnet. She inspired confidence, as Martin did.
+
+"Thanks most awfully," said Tootles. "You're kinder than you think to
+let me stay here. And I'm glad you're going to sit down for a bit. I
+like you, and I don't mind who knows it."
+
+"And I like you," said Joan.
+
+And they both laughed again, feeling like children. It was a
+characteristic trick of Fate's to bring about this meeting.
+
+"I don't mind telling you now," went on Tootles, all barriers down,
+"that I've come up here every evening for a week. It's a thousand years
+since I've seen the sun go to bed and watched the angels light the
+stars. It's making me religious. The Broadway electrics have always
+been between me and the sky.... Gee, but it's goin' to be great this
+evening." She settled herself more comfortably, leaned back against the
+stump of a tree and began to smile like a child at the Hippodrome in
+expectation of one of the "colossal effects."
+
+Joan's curiosity was more and more piqued, but it was rather to know
+what than who this amazingly natural little person was. For all her
+youth there were lines round her mouth that were eloquent of a story
+begun early. Somehow, with Martin away and giving no sign, Joan was
+glad, and in a way comforted, to have stumbled on some one, young like
+herself, who had obviously faced uncertainty and stood at the
+crossroads. "I'd like to ask you hundreds of questions," she said
+impulsively. "Do you mind?"
+
+"No, dearie. Fire away. I shan't have to tell you any fables to keep
+you interested. I broke through the paper hoop into the big ring when I
+was ten. Look! See those ducks flyin' home? The first time I saw them I
+thought it was a V-shaped bit of smoke running away from one of the
+factories round Newark."
+
+She had told Martin that. His laugh seemed still to be in the air.
+
+"Are you married?" asked Joan suddenly.
+
+"Not exactly, dearie," replied Tootles, without choosing her words. But
+a look at the young, eager, sweet face bent towards her made her decide
+to use camouflage. "What I mean is, no, I'm not. Men don't marry me
+when it isn't absolutely necessary. I'm a small part chorus lady, if
+you get my point."
+
+Joan was not quite sure that she did. Her sophistication had not gone
+farther up than Sixty-seventh Street or farther down than Sherry's, and
+it was bounded by Park Avenue on the one side and Fifth Avenue on the
+other. "But would you like to have been married?" All her thoughts just
+then were about marriage and Marty.
+
+Tootles shook her head and gave a downward gesture with an open hand
+that hardly needed to be amplified. "No, not up to a few weeks ago.
+I've lived by the stage, you see, and that means that the men I've come
+across have not been men but theatricals. Very different. You may take
+my word. When I met my first man I didn't believe it. I thought he was
+the same kind of fake. But when I knew that he was a man
+alright,--well, I wanted to be married as much as a battered fishing
+smack wants to get into harbor." She was thinking of Marty too,
+although not of marriage any more.
+
+"And are you going to be?"
+
+"No, dearie. He's got a wife, it turns out. It was a bit o' cheek ever
+to dream of hitting a streak of such luck as that. All the same, I've
+won something that I shall treasure all the days of my life.... Look.
+Here come some of the mourners." She pointed to three crows that
+flapped across a sky all hung with red and gold.
+
+Joan was puzzled. "Mourners?"
+
+"Why, yes. Isn't this the death bed of a day?"
+
+"I never thought of it in that way," said Joan.
+
+"No," said Tootles, running her eyes again over Joan's well-groomed
+young body. "That's easy to see. You will, though, if ever you want
+every day to last a year. You're married, anyway."
+
+"Not exactly," said Joan, unconsciously repeating the other girl's
+expression.
+
+Tootles looked at Martin's ring. "What about that, then?"
+
+Joan looked at it too, with a curious gravity. It stood for so much
+more than she had ever supposed that it would. "But I don't know
+whether it's going to bind us, or not."
+
+"And you so awfully young!"
+
+"I was," said Joan.
+
+The girl who had never had any luck darted a keen, examining glance at
+the girl who had all the appearance of having been born lucky. Married,
+as pretty as a picture, everything out of the smartest shops, the
+owner, probably, of this hill and those woods, and the old house that
+she had peeped at all among that lovely garden--she couldn't have come
+up against life's sharp elbow, surely? She hoped not, most awfully she
+hoped not.
+
+Joan caught the look and smiled back. There was kindness here, and
+comradeship. "I've nothing to tell," she said, "yet. I'm just beginning
+to think, that's the truth, only just. I've been very young and
+thoughtless, but I'm better now and I'm waiting to make up for it. I'm
+not unhappy, only a little anxious. Everything will come right though,
+because my man's a man, too."
+
+Tootles made a long arm and put her hand on Joan's. "In that case, make
+up for it bigly, dearie," she said earnestly. "Don't be afraid to give.
+There are precious few real men about and lots of women to make a
+snatch at them. It isn't being young that matters. Most troubles are
+brought about, at your time of life, by not knowing when to stop being
+young. Good luck, Lady-bird. I hope you never have anything to tell.
+Oh, just look, just look!"
+
+Joan followed the pointing finger, but held the kind hand. And they sat
+in silence watching "the fair frail palaces, the fading Alps and
+archipelagoes, and great cloud-continents of sunset seas." And as she
+sat, enthralled, the whole earth hushed and still, shadows lurking
+towards the east, the evening air holding its breath, the night ready
+behind the horizon for its allotted work, God's hand on everything, it
+was of Marty that Joan thought, Marty whom she must have hurt so deeply
+and who had gone away without a word or a sign, believing that she was
+still a kid. Yes, she WOULD make up for it, bigly, bigly, and he should
+be happy, this boy-man who was a knight.
+
+And it was of Martin that Tootles, poor, little, unlucky Tootles,
+thought also. All her life she would have something to which to look
+back, something precious and beautiful, and his name, stamped upon her
+heart, would go down with her to the grave.
+
+And they stayed there, in silence, holding hands, until the last touch
+of color had gone out of the sky and the evening air sighed and moved
+on and the night climbed slowly over the dim horizon. They might have
+been sisters.
+
+And then Joan rose in a sort of panic. "I must go," she said nervously,
+forgetting that she had grown up. "Good night, Fairy."
+
+Tootles stood up too. "Good night, Lady-bird. Make everything come
+right," and held out her hand.
+
+Joan took it again and went forward and kissed the odd little girl who
+was her friend.
+
+And a moment later Tootles saw her disappearing into the wood, like a
+spirit. When she looked up at the watching star and waved her hand, it
+seemed all misty.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+"And now, Mr. Harley," said Grandmother Ludlow, lashing the
+septuagenarian footman with one sharp look because he had spilt two or
+three drops of Veuve Cliquot on the tablecloth, "tell me about the
+present state of the money market."
+
+Under his hostess's consistent courtesy and marked attentions George
+Harley had been squirming during the first half of dinner. He had led
+her into the fine old dining room with all the style that he could
+muster and been placed, to his utter dismay, on her right. He would
+infinitely rather have been commanded to dine with the Empress of
+China, which he had been told was the last word in mental and physical
+torture. Remembering vividly the cold and satirical scorn to which he
+had been treated during his former brief and nightmare visit the old
+lady's change of attitude to extreme politeness and even deference made
+him feel that he was having his leg pulled. In a brand new dinner
+jacket with a black tie poked under the long points of a turned-down
+collar, which, in his innocence, he had accepted as the mode of
+gentlemen and not, as he rightly supposed of waiters, he had done his
+best to give coherent answers to a rapid fire of difficult questions.
+The most uneasy man on earth, he had committed himself to statements
+that he knew to be unsound, had seen his untouched plate whisked away
+while he was floundering among words, and started a high temperature
+beneath what he was perfectly certain was lurking mockery behind
+apparently interested attention.
+
+If any banker at that moment had overheard him describing the state of
+the money market he would have won for himself a commission in the
+earth's large army of unconfined lunatics.
+
+The old sportsman, sitting with Joan on his right and his
+daughter-in-law on his left, was more nearly merry and bright than any
+one had seen him since the two great changes in his household. His
+delight in having Joan near him again was pathetic. He had shaved for
+the second time that day, a most unusual occurrence. His white hair
+glistened with brilliantine, and there was a gardenia in his
+buttonhole. Some of the old fire had returned to his eyes, and his
+tongue had regained its once invariable knack of paying charming
+compliments. In his excitement and delight he departed from his rigid
+diet, and, his wife's attention being focussed upon George Harley,
+punished the champagne with something of his old vigor, and revived as
+a natural result many of the stories which Joan and her mother had been
+told ad nauseam over any number of years with so much freshness as to
+make them seem almost new.
+
+Mrs. Harley, wearing a steady smile, was performing the painful feat of
+listening with one ear to the old gentleman and with the other to the
+old lady. All her sympathy was with her unfortunate and uneasy husband
+who looked exactly like a great nervous St. Bernard being teased by a
+Pekinese.
+
+Joan missed none of the underlying humor of the whole thing. It was
+amusing and satisfactory to be treated as the guest of honor in a house
+in which she had always been regarded as the naughty and rebellious
+child. She was happy in being able to put her usually morose
+grandfather into such high spirits and moved to a mixture of mirth and
+pity at the sight of George Harley's plucky efforts. Also she had
+brought away with her from the girl she called the fairy a strengthened
+desire to play the game and a good feeling that Marty was nearer to her
+than he had been for a long and trying week. It's true that from time
+to time she caught in her grandmother's eyes that queer look of
+triumphant glee that had disturbed her when they met and the same
+expression of malicious spite at the corner of Gleave's sunken mouth
+which had made her wonder what he knew, but these things she waved
+aside. Instinct, and her complete knowledge of Mrs. Cumberland Ludlow's
+temperament, made her realize that if the old lady could find a way to
+get even with her for having run off she would leave no stone unturned,
+and that she would not hesitate to use the cunning ex-fighting man to
+help her. But, after all, what could they do? It would be foolish to
+worry.
+
+Far from foolish, if she had had an inkling of the trap that had been
+laid for her and into which she was presently going to fall without
+suspicion.
+
+The facts were that Gleave had seen Martin drive up to his house with
+Tootles, had watched them riding and walking together throughout the
+week, had reported what he had seen to Mrs. Ludlow and left it to her
+fertile imagination to make use of what was to him an ugly business.
+And the old lady, grasping her chance, had written that letter to Mrs.
+Harley and having achieved her point of getting Joan into her hands,
+had discovered that she did not know where Martin was and had made up
+her mind to show her. Revenge is sweet, saith the phrasemonger, and to
+the old lady whose discipline had been flouted and whose amour propre
+had been rudely shaken it was very sweet indeed. Her diabolical scheme,
+conceived in the mischievous spirit of second childhood, was to lead
+Joan on to a desire to show off her country house to her relations at
+the moment when the man she had married and the girl with whom he was
+amusing himself on the sly were together. "How dramatic," she chuckled,
+in concocting the plan. "How delightfully dramatic." And she might have
+added, "How hideously cruel."
+
+But it was not until some little time after they had all adjourned to
+the drawing-room, and Joan had played the whole range of her old pieces
+for the edification of her grandfather, that she set her trap.
+
+"If I had my time over again," she said, looking the epitome of
+benevolence, "I would never spend spring in the city."
+
+"Wouldn't you, dear?" prompted Mrs. Harley, eager to make the
+conversation general and so give poor George a rest.
+
+"No, my love. I would make my winter season begin in November and end
+in February--four good months for the Opera, the theatres, entertaining
+and so forth. Then on the first of March, the kind-hearted month that
+nurses April's violets, I would leave town for my country place and, as
+the poets have it watch the changing skies and the hazel blooms peep
+through the swelling buds and hear the trees begin to whisper and the
+throstles break into song. One loses these things by remaining among
+bricks and mortar till the end of April. Joan, my dear, give this your
+consideration next year. If your good husband is anything like his
+father, whom we knew very slightly and admired, he is a lover of the
+country and should be considered."
+
+"Yes, Grandmamma," said Joan, wondering if Marty had come back and
+found her note on his dressing-table.
+
+"Always supposing, of course, that next year finds you both as much in
+love as you are to-day,--the most devoted pair of turtle doves, as I am
+told." She laughed a little roguishly to disguise the sting.
+
+"They will be," said Mrs. Harley quickly. "There is no doubt about
+that."
+
+"None," said Joan, looking full at the old lady with a confident smile
+and a high chin. Would her grandmother never forget that escape from
+the window?
+
+"Why suggest the possibility of a break?" asked Mr. Ludlow, with a
+touch of anger. "Really, my dear."
+
+"A little joke, Cumberland, merely a little joke. Joan understands me,
+I know."
+
+"I think so," said Joan, smiling back. Not on her, whatever happened,
+would she see the white feather. Some one had told the tale of her
+kid's rush into the heart of things and her many evenings with Palgrave
+and the others, when "Who cares?" was her motto.
+
+The old lady went on, with infinite artfulness. "During the coming
+summer, my love, you should look out for a pleasant little house in
+some charming part of the country, furnish it, put men to work on the
+garden, and have it all ready for the following spring."
+
+"I know just the place," put in George. "Near a fine golf course and
+country club with a view across the Hudson that takes your breath away."
+
+"That might necessitate the constant attendance of a doctor," said Mrs.
+Ludlow drily, "which would add considerably to the expenses. I would
+advise the Shinnecock Hills, for instance, which are swept by sea
+breezes and so reminiscent of Scotland. Martin would be within a
+stone's throw of his favorite course, there, wouldn't he, Joan?"
+
+"Yes, Grandmamma," said Joan, still with a high head and a placid
+smile, although it came to her in a flash that her statement as to
+where Martin was had not been believed. What if Grandmother knew where
+Martin had gone? How absurd. How could she?
+
+And then Mr. Ludlow broke in again, impatiently. The effect of the
+champagne was wearing off. He hated feminine conversation in
+drawing-rooms, anyhow. "Why go searching about for a house for the
+child when she's got one already."
+
+"Why, so I have," cried Joan. "Here. I'd forgotten all about it!"
+
+Nothing could have suited the old lady so well. Her husband could not
+have said anything more right if he had been prompted. "Of course you
+have," she said, with a cackle of laughter. "I had forgotten it too.
+Mr. Harley, can you believe our overlooking the fact that there is a
+most excellent house in the family a gunshot from where we are all
+sitting? It's natural enough for me, who have never met Joan's young
+husband. But for you, my love, who spent such a romantic night there!
+Where are your wits?"
+
+Joan's laugh rang out. "Goodness knows, but I really had forgotten all
+about it. And although I've only been in it once I've known it by sight
+all my life. Martin's father had it built, Papa George, and it's
+awfully nice and sporting, with kennels, and tennis courts, and
+everything."
+
+"Yes, and beautifully furnished, I remember. I dined there several
+times, years ago before Mr. Gray had--" Mrs. Harley drew up short.
+
+Mrs. Ludlow finished the sentence. "A little quarrel with me," she
+said. "I objected to his hounds scrambling over this property and wrote
+pithily to that effect. We never spoke again. My dear, while we are all
+together, why not personally conduct us over this country house of
+yours and give us an unaccustomed thrill of excitement."
+
+"Yes, do, darling," said Mrs. Harley. "George would love to see it."
+
+"I will," said Joan. "I'd adore to. I don't know a bit what it's like,
+except the hall and the library. It will come as a perfect surprise to
+me."
+
+"A very perfect surprise," said Mrs. Ludlow.
+
+Joan sprang to her feet. "Let's go now. No time like the present."
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Harley cautiously, though equally keen.
+
+"No, no, not to-night. Bear with your aged grandparents. Besides, the
+housekeeper and the other servants will probably be in bed. To-morrow
+now, early--"
+
+"All right," said Joan. "To-morrow then, directly after breakfast.
+Fancy forgetting that one possessed a country house. It's almost
+alarming." And she put her hands on her grandfather's shoulders, and
+bent down and kissed him. She was excited and thrilled. It was her
+house because it was Martin's, and soon she would be Martin's too. And
+they would spend a real honeymoon in the place in which they had sat
+together in the dark and laid their whispered plans for the great
+adventure. How good that would be!
+
+And when she went back to the piano and rattled off a fox trot,
+Grandmother Ludlow got up and hobbled out of the room, on her tapping
+stick, to hide her glee.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+It was ten o'clock when Joan stood once more in the old, familiar
+bedroom in which she had slept all through her childhood and
+adolescence.
+
+Nothing had been altered since the night from which she dated the
+beginning of her life. Her books were in the same places. Letters from
+her school friends were in the same neat pile on her desk. The things
+that she had been obliged to leave on her dressing-table had not been
+touched. A framed photograph of her mother, with her hands placed in
+the incredible way that is so dear to the photographer's heart, still
+hung crooked over a colonial chest of drawers. Her blue and white bath
+wrap was in its place over the back of a chair, with her slippers
+beneath it.
+
+She opened the door of the hospitable closet. There were all the
+clothes and shoes and hats that she had left. She drew out a drawer in
+the chest. Nothing had been disturbed.... It was uncanny. She seemed to
+have been away for years. And yet, as she looked about and got the
+familiar scent of the funny little lavender sachets made by Mrs. Nye,
+she found it hard to believe that Marty and Gilbert Palgrave, the house
+in New York, all the kaleidoscope of Crystal rooms and restaurants, all
+the murmur of voices and music and traffic were not the elusive
+memories of last night's dream. But for the longing for Marty that
+amounted to an absorbing, ever-present homesickness, it was difficult
+to accept the fact that she was not still the same early-to-bed,
+early-to-rise country girl, kicking against the pricks, rebelling
+against the humdrum daily routine, spoiling to try her wings.
+
+"Dear old room," she whispered, suddenly stretching out her arms to it.
+"My dear old room. I didn't think I'd miss you a little bit. But I
+have. I didn't think I should be glad to get back to you. But I am.
+What are you doing to me to make me feel a tiny pain in my heart?
+You're crowding all the things I did here and all the things I thought
+about like a thousand white pigeons round my head. All my impatient
+sighs, and big ambitions, and silly young hopes and fears are coming to
+meet me and make me want to laugh and cry. But it isn't the same me
+that you see; it isn't. You haven't changed, dear old room, but I have.
+I'm different. I'm older. I'm not a kid any more. I'm grown up. Oh, my
+dear, dear old room, be kind to me, be gentle with me. I haven't played
+the game since I went away or been honest. I've been thoughtless,
+selfish and untamed. I've done all the wrong things. I've attracted all
+the wrong people. I've sent Marty away, Marty--my knight--and I want
+him back. I want to make up to him bigly, bigly for what I ought to
+have done. Be kind to me, be kind to me."
+
+And she closed her arms as if in an embrace and put her head down as
+though on the warm breast of an old friend and the good tears ran down
+her cheeks.
+
+All the windows were open. The air was warm and scented. There was no
+sound. The silent voices of the stars sang their nightly anthem. The
+earth was white with magic moonshine. Joan looked out. The old creeper
+down which she had climbed to go to Martin that night which seemed so
+far away was all in leaf. With what exhilaration she had dropped her
+bag out. Had ever a girl been so utterly careless of consequences then
+as she? How wonderfully and splendidly Martinish Martin had been when
+she plunged in upon him, and how jolly and homelike the hall of his
+house--her house--had seemed to be. To-morrow she would explore it all
+and show it off to her family. To-morrow.... Yes, but to-night? Should
+she allow herself to be carried away by a sudden longing to follow her
+flying footsteps through the woods, pretend that Martin was waiting for
+her and take a look at the outside of the house alone? Why not? No one
+need know, and she had a sort of aching to see the place again that was
+so essentially a part of Martin. Martin--Martin--he obsessed her, body
+and brain. If only she could find Martin.
+
+With hasty fingers she struggled with the intricate hooks of her
+evening frock. Out of it finally, and slipping off her silk stockings
+and thin shoes she went quickly to the big clothes closet, chose a
+short country skirt, a pair of golf stockings, thick shoes and a
+tam-o'-shanter, made for the drawer in which were her sport shirts and
+sweaters and before the old round-faced clock on the mantelpiece could
+recover from his astonishment became once more the Joan-all-alone for
+whom he had ticked away the hours. Then to the window, and hand over
+hand down the creeper again and away across the sleeping garden to the
+woods.
+
+The fairies were out. Their laughter was blown to her like thistledown.
+But she was a woman now and only Martin called her--Martin who had
+married her for love but was not her husband yet. Oh, where was Martin?
+
+And as she went quickly along the winding path through the trees the
+moon dropped pools of light in her way, the scrub oaks threw out their
+arms to hold her back and hosts of little shadows seemed to run out to
+catch at her frock. But on went Joan, just to get a sight of the house
+that was Martin's and hers and to cast her spirit forward to the time
+when he and she would live there as they had not lived in the city.
+
+She marvelled and rejoiced at the change that had come over
+her,--gradually, underminingly,--a change, the seeds of which had been
+thrown by Alice, watered by Palgrave and forced by the disappearance of
+Martin, and brought to bloom in the silent hours of wakeful nights when
+the thought of all the diffidence and deference of Martin won her
+gratitude and respect. In the strong, frank and rather harsh light that
+had been flung on her way of life it was Martin, Martin, who stood out
+clean and tender and lenient--Martin, who had developed from the Paul
+of the woods, the boy chum, her fellow adventurer, her sexless Knight,
+into the man who had won her love and whom she needed and ached for and
+longed to find. She had been brought up with a round turn, found
+herself face to face with the truth of things and, deaf to the
+incessant jangle of the Merry-go-round, had discovered that Martin was
+not merely the gallant and obliging boy, playing a game, trifling on
+the edge of reality, but the man with the other blade of the penknife
+who, like his prototype in the fairy tale, had the ordained right to
+her as she had to him.
+
+And as she went on through the silvered trees, with a sort of dignity,
+her chin high, her eyes sparkling like stars, her mouth soft and sweet,
+it was to see the roof under which she would begin her married life
+again, rightly, honestly and as a woman, crossing the bridge between
+thoughtlessness and responsibility with a true sense of its
+meaning,--not in cold blood.
+
+She came out to the road, dry and white, bordered by coarse grasses and
+wild flowers all asleep, with their petals closed over their eyes,
+opened the gate that led into the long avenue, splashed through the
+patches of moonlight on the driveway and came finally to the door under
+which she had stood that other time with dancing eyes and racing blood
+and "Who cares?" ringing in her head.
+
+There was no light to be seen in any of the front windows. The house
+seemed to be fast asleep. How warm and friendly and unpretentious it
+looked, and there was all about it the same sense of strength that
+there was about Martin. In which window had they stood in the dark,
+looking out on to a world that they were going to brave together? Was
+it in the right wing? Yes. She remembered that tree whose branches
+turned over like a waterfall and something that looked like a little
+old woman in a shawl bending to pick up sticks but which was an old
+stump covered with creepers.
+
+She went round, her heart fluttering like a bird, all her femininity
+stirred at the thought of what this house must mean and shelter--and
+drew up short with a quick intake of breath. A wide streak of yellow
+light fell through open French windows across the veranda and on to the
+grass, all dew-covered. Some one was there ... a woman's voice, not
+merry, and with a break in it.... When the cat's away, the mice, in the
+shape of one of the servants...
+
+Joan went on again. What a joke to peep in! She wouldn't frighten the
+girl or walk in and ask questions. It was, as yet, too much Marty's
+house for that--and, after all, what harm was she doing by sitting up
+on such a lovely night? The only thing was it was Martin's very own
+room filled with his intimate things and with his father's message
+written largely on a card over the fireplace--"We count it death to
+falter, not to die."
+
+But she went on, unsuspecting, her hand unconsciously clasped in the
+stern relentless hand of Fate, who never forgets to punish.... A shadow
+crossed the yellow patch. There was the sound of a pipe being knocked
+out on one of the firedogs. A man was there, then. Should she take one
+look, or go back? She would go back. It was none of her business,
+unfortunately. But she was drawn on and on, until she could see into
+the long, low, masculine room.
+
+A man was sitting on the arm of a sofa, a man with square shoulders and
+a deep chest, a man with his strong young face turned to the light,
+smiling--
+
+"Marty," cried Joan. "Marty!" and went up and across the veranda and
+into the room. "Why, Marty," and held out her hand, all glad and
+tremulous.
+
+And Martin got on his feet and stood in amazement, wide-eyed, and
+suddenly white.
+
+"You here!" cried Joan. "I've been waiting and wondering, but I didn't
+call because I wanted you to come back for yourself and not for me.
+It's been a long week, Marty, and in every hour of it I've grown. Can't
+you see the change?"
+
+And Martin looked at her, and his heart leaped, and the blood blazed in
+his veins and he was about to go forward and catch her in his arms with
+a great cry...
+
+"Oh, hello, Lady-bird; who'd have expected to see you!"
+
+Joan wheeled to the left.
+
+Lying full stretched on the settee, her settee, was a girl with her
+hands under her bobbed hair, a blue dress caught up under one knee, her
+bare arms agleam, her elfin face all white and a smile round her too
+red lips.
+
+("White face and red lips and hair that came out of a bottle.")
+
+Martin said something, inarticulately, and moved a chair forward. The
+girl spoke again, cheerily, in the spirit of good-fellowship,
+astonished a little, but too comfortable to move.
+
+But a cold hand was laid on Joan's heart, and all that rang in her
+brain were the words that Alice had used,--"white face and red lips and
+hair that came out of a bottle.... Don't YOU be the one to turn his
+armor into common broadcloth."
+
+And for a moment she stood, looking from Marty to the girl and back to
+Marty, like one struck dumb, like one who draws up at the very lip of a
+chasm.... And in that cruel and terrible minute her heart seemed to
+break and die. Marty, Marty in broadcloth, and she had put it in his
+hands. She had turned him away from her room and lost him. There's not
+one thing that any of us can do or say that doesn't react on some one
+else to hurt or bless.
+
+With a little gasp, the sense of all this going home to her, Tootles
+scrambled awkwardly off the settee, dropping a book and a handkerchief.
+This, then, this beautiful girl who belonged to a quarter of life of
+which she had sometimes met the men but never the women, was Martin's
+wife--the wife of the man whom she loved to adoration.
+
+"Why, then, you're--you're Mrs. Gray," she stammered, her impertinence
+gone, her hail-fellow-well-met manner blown like a bubble.
+
+Catching sight of the message, "We count it death to falter not to
+die," Joan summoned her pride, put up her chin and gave a curious
+little bow. "Forgive me," she said, "I'm trespassing," and not daring
+to look at Marty, turned and went out. She heard him call her name, saw
+his sturdy shadow fall across the yellow patch, choked back a sob,
+started running, and stumbled away and away, with the blood from her
+heart bespattering the grasses and the wild flowers, and the fairies
+whimpering at her heels,--and, at last, climbing back into the room
+that knew and loved and understood, threw herself down on its bosom in
+a great agony of grief.
+
+"Be kind to me, old room, be kind to me. It's Joan-all-alone,--all
+alone."
+
+
+
+
+PART THREE
+
+
+THE GREAT EMOTION
+
+I
+
+
+Mrs. Alan Hosack, bearing a more than ever remarkable resemblance to
+those ship's figureheads that are still to be seen in the corners of
+old lumber yards, led the way out to the sun porch. Her lavish charms,
+her beaming manner, her clear blue eye, milky complexion, reddish hair,
+and the large bobbles and beads with which she insisted upon decorating
+herself made Howard Cannon's nickname of Cornucopia exquisitely right.
+She was followed by Mrs. Cooper Jekyll and a man servant, whose arms
+were full of dogs and books and newspapers.
+
+"The dogs on the ground, Barrett," she said, "the books and papers on
+the table there, my chair on the right-hand side of it and bring that
+chair forward for Mrs. Jekyll. We will have the lemonade at once. Tell
+Lestocq that I shall not want the car before lunch, ask Miss Disberry
+to telephone to Mrs. John Ward Harrison and say that I will have tea
+with her this afternoon with pleasure, and when those two good little
+Sisters of Mercy finally arrive,--I could see them, all sandy,
+struggling along the road from my room, Augusta; dear me, what a
+life,--they are to be given luncheon as usual and the envelope that is
+on the hall table. That will do, I think."
+
+The man servant was entirely convinced that it would.
+
+"And now, make yourself comfortable, dear Augusta, and tell me
+everything. So very kind of you to drive over like this on such a sunny
+morning. Yes, that's right. Take off that lugubrious Harem veil,--the
+mark of a Southampton woman,--and let me see your beautiful face.
+Before I try to give you a chance to speak I must tell you, and I'm
+sure you won't mind with your keen sense of humor, how that nice boy,
+Harry Oldershaw, describes those things. No, after all, perhaps I don't
+think I'd better. For one reason, it was a little bit undergraduate,
+and for another, I forget." She chuckled and sat down, wabbling for a
+moment like an opulent blancmange.
+
+Minus the strange dark blue thing which had hidden her ears and nose
+and mouth and which suggested nothing but leprosy, Mrs. Jekyll became
+human, recognizable and extremely good to look at. She wore her
+tight-fitting suit of white flannel like a girl and even in that clear
+detective light she did not look a day over thirty. She painted with
+all the delicacy of an artist. She was there, as a close friend of
+Alice Palgrave, to discover why Gilbert had not gone with her to the
+Maine coast.
+
+"I haven't heard from you since we left town," she said, beating about
+the bush, "and being in the neighborhood I thought it would be
+delightful to catch a glimpse of you and hear your news. I have none,
+except that I have just lost the butler who has been with me for so
+long, and Edmond is having his portrait painted again for some club or
+institution. It's the ninth time, I believe. He likes it. It's a sort
+of rest cure."
+
+"And how did you lose that very admirable butler? Illness or
+indiscretion?"
+
+"Neither. Commerce, I suppose one might call it. It appears that one of
+these get-rich-quick munition men offered him double his wages to leave
+me, and Derbyshire couldn't resist it. He came to me with tears in his
+eyes and told me that he had to make the sacrifice owing to the
+increased cost of living. He has a family, you know. He said that the
+comic atmosphere of his new place might bring on neuritis, but he must
+educate his three boys. Really, there is a great deal of unsung heroism
+in the world, isn't there? In the meantime, I am trying to get
+accustomed to a Swiss, who's probably a German spy and who will set up
+a wireless installation on the roof." Then she dropped her baited hook.
+"You have a large house party, I suppose."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Hosack, swinging her foot to keep the flies away. The
+wind was off the land.
+
+"Primrose is so depressed if the house isn't full. And so the d'Oylys
+are here,--Nina more Junoesque than ever and really quite like an
+Amazon in bathing clothes; Enid Ouchterlony, a little bitter, I'm
+afraid, at not being engaged to any one yet,--men are horribly scared
+of an intelligent girl and, after all, they don't marry for
+intelligence, do they?--Harry Oldershaw, Frank Milwood and Courtney
+Millet, all nice boys, and I almost forgot to add, Joan Gray, that
+charming girl. My good man is following at her heels like a bob-tailed
+sheep dog. Poor old dear! He's arrived at that pathetic period of a
+man's life when almost any really blond girl still in her teens
+switches him into a second state of adolescence and makes him a most
+ridiculous object--what the novelists call the 'Forty-nine feeling,' I
+believe."
+
+Bennett brought the lemonade and hurried away before his memory could
+be put to a further strain. "Tell me about Joan Gray," said Mrs.
+Jekyll, letting out her line. "There's probably no truth in it, but I
+hear that she and Martin have agreed to differ. How quickly these
+romantic love matches burn themselves out. I always say that a marriage
+made in Heaven breaks up far sooner than one made on earth. It has so
+much farther to fall. Whose fault is it, hers or his?"
+
+Mrs. Hosack bent forward and endeavored to lower her voice. She was a
+kind-hearted woman who delighted to see every one happy and normal.
+"I'm very worried about those two, my dear," she answered. "There are
+all sorts of stories afloat,--one to the effect that Martin has gone
+off with a chorus girl, another that Joan only married him to get away
+from her grandparents and a third that they quarreled violently on the
+way home from church and have not been on speaking terms since. I
+daresay there are many others, but whatever did happen, and something
+evidently did, Joan is happy enough, and every man in the house is
+sentimental about her. Look out there, for instance."
+
+Mrs. Jekyll followed her glance and saw a girl in bathing clothes
+sitting on the beach under a red and blue striped umbrella encircled by
+the outstretched forms of half a dozen men. Beyond, on the fringe of a
+sea alive with bursting breakers, several girls were bathing alone.
+
+"H'm," said Mrs. Jekyll. "I should think that the second story is the
+true one. A tip-tilted nose, chestnut hair and brown eyes are better to
+flirt with than marry. Well, I must run away if I'm to be back to
+lunch. I wish I could stay, but Edmond and his artist may kill my new
+butler unless I intervene. They are both hotly pro-Ally. By the way, I
+hear that Alice Palgrave has gone to the Maine coast with her mother,
+who is ill again; I wonder where Gilbert is going?"
+
+"Well, I had a very charming letter from him two days ago, asking me if
+he could come and stay with us. He loves this house and the beach, and
+I always cheer him up, he said, and he is very lonely without Alice. Of
+course I said yes, and he will be here this afternoon."
+
+Whereupon, having landed her fish, Mrs. Jekyll rose to go. Gilbert
+Palgrave and Joan Gray,--there was truth in that story, as she had
+thought. She had heard of his having been seen everywhere with Joan
+night after night, and her sister-in-law, who lived opposite to the
+little house in East Sixty-seventh Street, had seen him leaving in the
+early hours of the morning more than once. A lucky strike, indeed.
+Intuition was a wonderful gift. She was highly pleased with herself.
+
+"Good-by, my dear," she said. "I will drive over again one day this
+week and see how you are all getting on in this beautiful corner of the
+world. My love to Prim, please, and do remember me to the little siren."
+
+And away she went, leaving Mrs. Hosack to wonder what was the meaning
+of her rather curious smile. Only a hidebound prejudice on the part of
+the Ministries of all the nations has precluded women from the
+Diplomatic Service.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+"Ah, here you are," said Hosack, scrambling a little stiffly out of a
+hammock. "Well, have you had a good ride?"
+
+Joan came up the steps with Harry Oldershaw, the nice boy. She was in
+white linen riding kit, with breeches and brown top boots. A man's
+straw hat sat squarely on her little head and there was a brown and
+white spotted tie under her white silk collar. Color danced on her
+cheeks, health sparkled in her eyes and there was a laugh of sheer high
+spirits floating behind her like the blown petals of a daisy.
+
+"Perfectly wonderful," she said. "I love the country about here, with
+the little oaks and sturdy ferns. It's so springy. And aren't the
+chestnut trees in the village a sight for the blind? I don't wonder you
+built a house in Easthampton, Mr. Hosack. Are we too late for tea?"
+
+Hosack ran his eyes over her and blinked a little as though he had
+looked at the sun. "Too late by an hour," he said, with a sulky glance
+at young Oldershaw. "I thought you were never coming back." His
+resentment of middle age and jealousy of the towering youth of the
+sun-tanned lad who had been Joan's companion were a little pitiful.
+
+Harry caught his look and laughed with the sublime audacity of one who
+believes that he ranks among the Immortals. To him forty-nine seemed to
+be a colossal sum of years, almost beyond belief. It was pathetic of
+this old fellow to imagine that he had any right to the company of a
+girl so springlike as Joan. "If we hadn't worn the horses to a
+frazzle," he said, "we shouldn't have been back till dark. Have a
+drink, Joan?"
+
+"Yes, water. Buckets of it. Hurry up, Harry."
+
+The boy, triumphant at being in favor, swung away, and Joan flung her
+crop on to a cane sofa. "Where's everybody?" she asked.
+
+"What's it matter," said Hosack. "Sit here and talk to me for a change.
+I've hardly had a word with you all day." He caught her hand and drew
+her into the swinging hammock. "What a pretty thing you are," he added,
+with a catch in his breath. "I know," said Joan. "Otherwise, probably,
+I shouldn't be here, should I?" She forgot all about him, and an
+irresistible desire to tease, at the sight of the sea which, a stone's
+throw from the house, pounded on the yellow sweep of sand and swooped
+up in large half circles of glistening water. "I've a jolly good mind
+to have another dip before changing. What do you say?"
+
+"No, don't," said Hosack, a martyr to the Forty-nine-feeling.
+"Concentrate on me for ten minutes, if only because, damn it, I'm your
+host."
+
+Joan pushed his hand away. "I've given up concentrating," she said. "I
+gave it a turn a little while ago, but it led nowhere, so why worry?
+I'm on the good old Merry-go-round again, and if it doesn't whack up to
+the limit of its speed I'll know the reason why. There's a dance at the
+Club to-night, isn't there?"
+
+"Yes, but we don't go."
+
+She was incredulous. "Don't go,--to a dance? Why?"
+
+"It's rather a mixed business," he said. "The hotel pours its crowd
+out. It isn't amusing. We can dance here if you want to."
+
+But her attention was caught by young Oldershaw who came out carrying a
+glass and a jug of iced water. She sprang up and went to meet him, the
+dance forgotten, Hosack forgotten. Her mood was that of a bird,
+irresponsible, restless. "Good for you," she said, and drank like a
+thirsty plant. "Nothing like water, is there?" She smiled up at him.
+
+He was as pleased with himself as though he owned the reservoir. "Have
+another?"
+
+"I should think so." And she drank again, put the glass down on the
+first place that came to hand, relieved him of the jug, put it next to
+the glass, caught hold of his muscular arm, ran him down the steps, and
+along the board path to the beach. "I'll race you to the sea," she
+cried, and was off like a mountain goat. He was too young to let her
+beat him and waited for her with the foam frothing round his ankles and
+a broad grin on his attractive face.
+
+He was about to cheek her when she held up a finger and with a little
+exclamation of delight pointed to the sky behind the house. The sun was
+setting among a mass of royal clouds. A golden wand had touched the
+dunes and the tips of the scrub and all over the green of the golf
+course, still dotted with scattered figures, waves of reflected lusters
+played. To the left of the great red ball one clear star sparkled like
+an eye. Just for a moment her lips trembled and her young breasts rose
+and fell, and then she threw her head up and wheeled round and went off
+at a run. Not for her to think back, or remember similar sights behind
+the woods near Marty's place. Life was too short for pain. "Who Cares?"
+was her motto once more, and this time joy-riding must live up to its
+name.
+
+Harry Oldershaw followed, much puzzled at Joan's many quick changes of
+mood. Several times during their irresponsible chatter on the beach
+between dips her laughter had fallen suddenly, like a dead bird, and
+she had sat for several minutes as far away from himself and the other
+men as though they were cut off by a thick wall. Yesterday, in the
+evening after dinner, during which her high spirits had infected the
+whole table, he had walked up and down the board path with her under
+the vivid white light of a full moon, and she had whipped out one or
+two such savage things about life that he had been startled. During
+their ride that afternoon, too, her bubbling chatter of light stuff
+about people and things had several times shifted into comments as to
+the conventions that were so careless as to make him ask himself
+whether they could really have come from lips so fresh and young. And
+why had that queer look of almost childlike grief come into her eyes a
+moment ago at the sight of ah everyday sunset? He was mightily
+intrigued. She was a queer kid, he told himself, as changeable and
+difficult to follow as some of the music by men with such weird names
+as Rachmaninoff and Tschaikowsky that his sister was so precious fond
+of playing. But she was unattached and frightfully pretty and always
+ready for any fun that was going, and she liked him more than the
+others, and he liked being liked, and although not hopelessly in love
+was ready and willing and even anxious to be walked on if she would
+acknowledge his existence in no other way. It was none of his business,
+he told himself, to speculate as to what she was trying to hide away in
+the back of her mind, from herself as well as from everybody else. This
+was his last vacation as a Yale man, and he was all out to make the
+most of it.
+
+As soon as he was at her side she ran her hand through his arm and fell
+into step. The shadow had passed, and her eyes were dancing again. "It
+appears that the Hosacks turn up their exclusive noses at the club
+dances," she said. "What are we going to do about it?"
+
+"There's one to-night, isn't there? Do you want to go?"
+
+"Of course I do. I haven't danced since away back before the great
+wind. Let's sneak off after dinner for an hour without a word to a soul
+and get our fill of it. There's to be a special Jazz band to-night, I
+hear, and I simply can't keep away. Are you game, Harry?"
+
+"All the way," said young Oldershaw, "and it will be the first time in
+the history of the Hosacks that any members of their house parties have
+put in an appearance at the club at night. No wonder Easthampton has
+nicknamed the place St. James's Palace, eh?"
+
+Joan shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, my dear boy," she said, "life's too
+short for all that stuff, and there's no hobby so painful as cutting
+off one's nose to spite one's face. And, after all, what's the matter
+with Easthampton people? I'd go to a chauffeurs' ball if the band was
+the right thing. Wouldn't you?"
+
+"With you," said Harry. "Democracy forever!"
+
+"Oh, I'm not worrying about democracy. I'm out for a good time under
+any conditions. That's the only thing that matters. Now let's go back
+and change. It's too late to bathe. I'll wear a new frock to-night,
+made for fox-trotting, and if Mrs. Hosack wants to know where we've
+been when we come back as innocent as spring lambs, leave it to me. Men
+can't lie as well as women can."
+
+"It won't be Mrs. Hosack who'll ask," said Harry. "Bridge will do its
+best to rivet her ubiquitous mind. It's the old man who'll be peeved.
+He's crazy about you, you know."
+
+Joan laughed. "He's very nice and means awfully well and all that," she
+said, "but of course he isn't to be taken seriously. No men of middle
+age ought to be. They all say the same things with the same expressions
+as though they got them from the same books, and their gambolling makes
+their joints creak. It's all like playing with a fire of damp logs. I
+like something that can blaze and scorch. The game counts then."
+
+"Then you ought to like me," said Harry, doing his best to look the
+very devil of a fellow. Even he had to join in Joan's huge burst of
+merriment. He had humor as well as a sense of the ridiculous, and the
+first made it possible for him to laugh at himself,--a rare and
+disconcerting gift which would utterly prevent his ever entering the
+Senate.
+
+"You might grow a moustache and wax the tips, Harry," she said, when
+she had recovered sufficiently well to be able to speak. "Curl your
+hair with tongs and take dancing lessons from a tango lizard or go in
+for a course of sotto voce sayings from a French portrait painter, but
+you'd still remain the Nice Boy. That's why I like you. You're as
+refreshing and innocuous as a lettuce salad, and you may glare as much
+as you like. I hope you'll never be spoilt. Come on. We shall be late
+for dinner." And she made him quicken his step through the dry sand.
+
+Being very young he was not quite sure that he appreciated that type of
+approval. He had liked to imagine that he was distinctly one of the
+bold bad boys, a regular dog and all that. He had often talked that
+sort of thing in the rooms of his best chums whose mantelpieces were
+covered with the photographs of little ladies, and he hoarded in his
+memory two episodes at least of jealous looks from engaged men. But,
+after all, with Joan, who was married, although it was difficult to
+believe it, it wouldn't be wise to exert the whole force of the danger
+that was in him. He would let her down lightly, he told himself, and
+grinned as he said it. She was right. He was only a nice boy, and that
+was because he had had the inestimable luck to possess a mother who was
+one in a million.
+
+The rather pretentious but extremely civilized house that stood alone
+in all its glory between the sea and the sixth hole was blazing with
+lights as they returned to it. The color had gone out of the sky and
+other twinkling eyes had appeared, and the breeze, now off the sea, had
+a sting to it. Toad soloists were trying their voices for their evening
+concert in near-by water and crickets were at work with all their
+well-known enthusiasm. Bennett, with a sunburned nose, was tidying up
+the veranda, and some one with a nice light touch was playing the
+rhythmic jingles of Jerome Kern on the piano in the drawing-room.
+
+Still with her hand on Harry Oldershaw's arm, Joan made her way across
+the lofty hall, caught sight of Gilbert Palgrave coming eagerly to meet
+her, and waved her hand.
+
+"Oh, hello, Gilbert," she cried out. "Welcome to Easthampton," and ran
+upstairs.
+
+With a strange contraction of the heart, Palgrave watched her out of
+sight. She was his dream come to life. All that he was and hoped to be
+he had placed forever at her feet. Dignity, individualism, egoism,--all
+had fallen before this young thing. She was water in the desert, the
+north star to a man without a compass. He had seen her and come into
+being.
+
+Good God, it was wonderful and awful!
+
+But who was that cursed boy?
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Six weeks had dropped off the calendar since the night at Martin's
+house.
+
+Facing Grandmother Ludlow in the morning with her last handful of
+courage Joan had told her that she had been called back to town. She
+had left immediately after breakfast in spite of the protests and
+entreaties of every one, including her grandfather, down whose wrinkled
+cheeks the tears had fallen unashamed. With a high head and her best
+wilful manner she had presented to them all in that old house the bluff
+of easy-mindedness only to burst like a bubble as soon as the car had
+turned the corner into the main road. She had gone to the little house
+in New York, and with a numbed heart and a constant pain in her soul,
+had packed some warm-weather clothes and, leaving her maid behind,
+hidden herself away in the cottage, on the outskirts of Greenwich, of
+an old woman who had been in the service of her school. As a
+long-legged girl of twelve she had stayed there once with her mother
+for several days before going home for the holidays. She felt like a
+wounded animal, and her one desire was to drag herself into a quiet
+place to die.
+
+It seemed to her then, under the first stupendous shock of finding that
+Marty was with that girl, that death was the next certain thing. Day
+after day and night after night, cut to the quick, she waited for it to
+lay its cold hand upon her and snuff her out like a tired candle, whose
+little light was meaningless in a brutal world. Marty, even Marty, was
+no longer a knight, and she had put him into broadcloth.
+
+Not in the sun, but in the shadow of a chestnut all big with bloom, her
+days had passed in lonely suffering. Death was in the village, that was
+certain. She had seen a little procession winding along the road to the
+cemetery the morning after her arrival. She was ready. Nothing mattered
+now that Marty, even Marty, had done this thing while she had been
+waiting for him to come and take her across the bridge, anxious to play
+the game to the very full, eager to prove to him that she was no longer
+the kid that he thought her who had coolly shown him her door. "I am
+here, Death," she whispered, "and I want you. Come for me."
+
+All her first feelings were that she ought to die, that she had failed
+and that her disillusion as to Marty had been directly brought about by
+herself. She saw it all honestly and made no attempt to hedge. By day,
+she sat quietly, big-eyed, amazingly childlike, waiting for her
+punishment, watched by the practical old woman, every moment of whose
+time was filled, with growing uneasiness and amazement. By night she
+lay awake as long as she could, listening for the soft footstep of the
+one who would take her away. At meals, the old woman bullied for she
+was of the school that hold firmly to the belief that unless the people
+who partake of food do not do so to utter repletion a personal insult
+is intended. At other times she went out into the orchard and sat with
+Joan and, burning with a desire to cheer her up, gave her, in the
+greatest detail, the story of all the deaths, diseases and quarrels
+that had ever been known to the village. And every day the good sun
+warmed and encouraged the earth, drew forth the timid heads of plants
+and flowers, gave beauty even to the odd corners once more and did his
+allotted task with a generosity difficult to praise too highly. And
+Death paid visits here and there but passed the cottage by. At the
+beginning of the second week, Nature, who has no patience with any
+attempt to refute her laws, especially on the part of those who are
+young and vigorous, took Joan in hand. "What is all this, my girl?" she
+said, "sitting here with your hands in your lap while everybody and
+everything is working and making and preparing. Stir yourself, bustle
+up, get busy, there's lots to be done in the springtime if the autumn
+is to bear fruit. You're sound and whole for all that you've been hurt.
+If you were not, Death would be here without your calling him. Up you
+get, now." And, with good-natured roughness, she laid her hand under
+Joan's elbow, gave a hoist and put her on her feet.
+
+Whereupon, in the natural order of things, Joan turned from self-blame
+to find a victim who should be held responsible for the pain that she
+had suffered, and found the girl with the red lips and the white face
+and the hair that came out of a bottle. Ah, yes! It was she who had
+caught Marty when he was hurt and disappointed. It was she who had
+taken advantage of his loneliness and dragged him clown to her own
+level, this girl whom she had called Fairy and who had had the
+effrontery to go up to the place on the edge of the woods that was the
+special property of Marty and herself. And for the rest of the week,
+with the sap running eagerly in her veins once more, she moved
+restlessly about the orchard and the garden, heaping coals of fire on
+to the all too golden head of Tootles.
+
+Then came the feeling of wounded pride, the last step towards
+convalescence. Marty had chosen between herself and this girl. Without
+giving her a real chance to put things right he had slipped away
+silently and taken Tootles with him. Not she, but the girl with the red
+lips and the pale face and the hair that came out of a bottle had
+stripped Marty of his armor, and the truth of it was that Marty, yes,
+even Marty, was not really a knight but a very ordinary man.
+
+Out of the orchard and the garden she went, once she had arrived at
+this stage, and tramped the countryside with her ears tuned to catch
+the alluring strains of the mechanical music of the Round-about. She
+had not only been making a fool of herself but had been made to look a
+fool, she thought. Her pain and suffering and disillusion had been
+wasted. All these dull and lonely days had been wasted and thrown away.
+Death must have laughed to see her sitting in the shadow of the apple
+trees waiting for a visit that was undeserved. Marty could live and
+enjoy himself without her. That was evident. Very well, then, she could
+live and enjoy herself without Marty. The earth was large enough for
+them both, and if he could find love in the person of that small girl
+she could surely find it in one or other of the men who had whispered
+in her ear. Also there was Gilbert Palgrave, who had gone down upon his
+knees.
+
+And that was the end of her isolation, her voluntary retirement. Back
+she went to the City of Dreadful Nonsense, bought clothes and shoes and
+hats, found an invitation to join a house party at Southampton, made no
+effort to see or hear from Marty, and sprang back into her seat in the
+Merry-go-round. "Who Cares?" she cried again. "Nobody," she answered.
+"What I do with my life matters to no one but myself. Set the pace, my
+dear, laugh and flirt and play with fire and have a good time. A short
+life and a merry one."
+
+And then she joined the Hosacks, drank deep of the wine of adulation,
+and when, at odd times, the sound of Marty's voice echoed in her
+memory, she forced it out and laughed it away. "Who Cares?" was his
+motto too,--red lips and white face and hair that came out of a bottle!
+
+And now here was Gilbert Palgrave with the fire of love in his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+When Mrs. Hosack rose from the dinner table and sailed Olympically into
+the drawing-room, surrounded by graceful light craft in the persons of
+Primrose and her girl friends, the men, as usual, followed immediately.
+The house was bridge mad, and the tables called every one except Joan,
+the nice boy, and Gilbert Palgrave.
+
+During the preliminaries of an evening which would inevitably run into
+the small hours, Joan went over to the piano and, with what was a quite
+unconscious touch of irony, played one of Heller's inimitable
+"Sleepless Nights," with the soft pedal down. The large imposing room,
+a chaotic mixture of French and Italian furniture with Flemish
+tapestries and Persian rugs, which accurately typified the ubiquitous
+mind of the hostess, was discreetly lighted. The numerous screened
+windows were open and the soft warm air came in tinged with the salt of
+the sea.
+
+Palgrave, refusing to cut in, stood about like a disembodied spirit,
+with his eyes on Joan, from whom, since his arrival, he had received
+only a few fleeting glances. He watched the cursed boy, as he had
+labelled him, slip over to her, lean across the piano and talk eagerly.
+He went nearer and caught, "the car in half an hour," and "not a word
+to a soul." After which, with jealousy gnawing at his vitals, he saw
+Harry Oldershaw moon about for a few minutes and then make a fishlike
+dart out of the room. He had been prepared to find Joan amorously
+surrounded by the men of the party but not on terms of sentimental
+intimacy with a smooth-faced lad. In town she had shown preference for
+sophistication. He went across to the piano and waited impatiently for
+Joan to finish the piece which somehow fitted into his mood. "Come
+out," he said, then, "I want to speak to you."
+
+But Joan let her fingers wander into a waltz and raised her eyebrows.
+"Do I look so much like Alice that you can order me about?" she asked.
+
+He turned on his heel with the look of a dog at which a stone had been
+flung by a friend, and disappeared.
+
+Two minutes later there was a light touch on his arm, and Joan stood at
+his side on the veranda. "Well, Gilbert," she said, "it's good to see
+you again."
+
+"So good that I might be a man touting for an encyclopedia," he
+answered angrily.
+
+She sat upon the rough stone wall and crossed her little feet. Her new
+frock was white and soft and very perfectly simple. It demanded the
+young body of a nymph,--and was satisfied. The magic of the moon was on
+her. She might have been Spring resting after a dancing day.
+
+"If you were," she said, taking a delight in unspoiling this immaculate
+man, "I'm afraid you'd never get an order from me. Of all things the
+encyclopedia must be accompanied by a winning smile and irresistible
+manners. I suppose you've done lots of amusing things since I saw you
+last."
+
+He went nearer so that her knees almost touched him. "No," he said.
+"Only one, and that was far from amusing. It has marked me like a blow.
+I've been waiting for you. Where have you been, and why haven't you
+taken the trouble to write me a single letter?"
+
+"I've been ill," she said. "Yes, I have. Quite ill. I deliberately set
+out to hurt myself and succeeded. It was an experiment that I sha'n't
+repeat. I don't regret it. It taught me something that I shall never
+forget. Never too young to learn, eh? Isn't it lovely here? Just smell
+the sea, and look at those lights bobbing up and down out there. I
+never feel any interest in ships in the daytime, but at night, when
+they lie at anchor, and I can see nothing but their lonely eyes, I
+would give anything to be able to fly round them like a gull and peep
+into their cabins. Do they affect you like that?"
+
+Palgrave wasn't listening to her. It was enough to look at her and
+refresh his memory. She had been more than ever in his blood all these
+weeks. She was like water in a desert or sunlight to a man who comes up
+from a mine. He had found her again and he thanked whatever god he
+recognized for that, but he was forced to realize from her
+imperturbable coolness and unaffected ease that she was farther away
+from him than ever. To one of his temperament and schooling this was
+hard to bear with any sort of self-control. The fact that he wanted her
+of all the creatures on earth, that she, alone among women, had touched
+the fuse of his desire, and that, knowing this, she could sit there a
+few inches from his lips and put a hundred miles between them, maddened
+him, from whom nothing hitherto had been impossible.
+
+"Have I got to begin all over again?" he asked, with a sort of
+petulance.
+
+"Begin what, Gilbert?" There was great satisfaction in playing with one
+who thought that he had only to touch a bell to bring the moon and the
+sun and the stars to his bidding.
+
+"Good God," he cried out. "You're like wet sand on which a man expects
+to find yesterday's footmarks. Hasn't anything of me and the things
+I've said to you remained in your memory?"
+
+"Of course," she said. "I shall never forget the night you took me to
+the Brevoort, for instance, and supplied the key to all the people with
+unkempt hair and comic ties."
+
+Some one on the beach below shot out a low whistle.
+
+A little thrill ran through Joan. In ten minutes, perhaps less, she
+would be dancing once more to the lunatic medley of a Jazz band,
+dancing with a boy who gave her all that she needed of him and asked
+absolutely nothing of her; dancing among people who were less than the
+dust in the scheme of things, so far as she was concerned, except to
+give movement and animation to the room and to be steered through. That
+was the right attitude towards life and its millions, she told herself.
+As salt was to an egg so was the element of false romance to this Golf
+Club dance. In a minute she would get rid of Palgrave, yes, even the
+fastidious Gilbert Palgrave, who had never been able quite to disguise
+the fact that his love for her was something of a condescension; she
+would fly in the face of the unwritten law of the pompous house on the
+dunes and mingle with what Hosack had called the crowd from the hotel.
+It was all laughable and petty, but it was what she wanted to do. It
+was all in the spirit of "Who Cares?" that she had caught at again. Why
+worry as to what Mrs. Hosack might say or Palgrave might feel? Wasn't
+she as free as the air to follow her whims without a soul to make a
+claim upon her or to hold out a hand to stop?
+
+Through these racing thoughts she heard Palgrave talking and crickets
+rasping and frogs croaking and a sudden burst of laughter and talk in
+the drawing-room,--and the whistle come again.
+
+"Yes," she said, because yes was as good as any other word. "Well,
+Gilbert, dear, if you're not an early bird you will see me again
+later,"--and jumped down from the wall.
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"Does that matter?"
+
+"Yes, it does. I want you here. I've been waiting all these weeks."
+
+She laughed. "It's a free country," she said, "and you have the right
+to indulge in any hobby that amuses you. Au revoir, old thing." And she
+spread out her arms like wings and flew to the steps and down to the
+beach and away with some one who had sent out a signal.
+
+"That boy," said Palgrave. "I'm to be turned down for a cursed boy! By
+God, we'll know about that."
+
+And he followed, seeing red.
+
+He saw them get into a low-lying two-seater built on racing lines,
+heard a laugh flutter into the air, watched the tail light sweep round
+the drive and become smaller and smaller along the road.
+
+So that was it, was it? He had been relegated to the hangers-on,
+reduced to the ranks, put into the position of any one of the number of
+extraneous men who hung round this girl-child for a smile and a word!
+That was the way he was to be treated, he, Gilbert Palgrave, the
+connoisseur, the decorative and hitherto indifferent man who had
+refused to be subjected to any form of discipline, who had never, until
+Joan had come into his life, allowed any one to put him a single inch
+out of his way, who had been triumphantly one-eyed and selfish,--that
+was the way he was to be treated by the very girl who had fulfilled his
+once wistful hope of making him stand, eager and startled and love-sick
+among the chaos of individualism and indolence, who had shaken him into
+the Great Emotion! Yes, by God, he'd know about that.
+
+Bare-headed and surging with untranslatable anger he started walking.
+He was in no mood to go into the drawing-room and cut into a game of
+bridge and show his teeth and talk the pleasant inanities of polite
+society. All the stucco of civilization fell about him in slabs as he
+made his way with long strides out of the Hosacks' place, across the
+sandy road and on to the springy turf of the golf links. It didn't
+matter where he went so long as he got elbow room for his indignation,
+breathing space for his rage and a wide loneliness for his blasphemy....
+
+He had stood humble and patient before this virginal girl. He had
+confessed himself to her with the tremendous honesty of a man made
+simple by an overwhelming love. She was married. So was he. But what
+did that matter to either of them whose only laws were self-made? The
+man to whom she was not even tied meant as little to her as the girl he
+had foolishly married meant or would ever mean to him. He had placed
+himself at her beck and call. In order to give her amusement he had
+taken her to places in which he wouldn't have been seen dead, had
+danced his good hours of sleep away for the pleasure of seeing her
+pleased, had revolutionized his methods with women and paid her tribute
+by the most scrupulous behavior and, finally, instead of setting out to
+turn her head with pearls and diamonds and carry her by storm while she
+was under the hypnotic influence of priceless glittering things for
+bodily adornment, which render so many women easy to take, he had
+recognized her as intelligent and paid her the compliment of treating
+her as such, had stated his case and waited for the time when the blaze
+of love would set her alight and bring her to his arms.
+
+There was something more than mere egotism in all this,--the natural
+egotism of a man of great wealth and good looks, who had walked through
+life on a metaphorical red carpet pelted with flowers by adoring women
+to whom even virtue was well lost in return for his attention. Joan,
+like the spirit of spring, had come upon Palgrave at that time of his
+life when youth had left him and he had stood at the great crossroads,
+one leading down through a morass of self-indulgence to a hideous
+senility, the other leading up over the stones of sacrifice and service
+to a dignified usefulness. Her fresh young beauty and enthusiasm, her
+golden virginity and unself-consciousness, her unaffected joy in being
+alive, her superb health and vitality had shattered his conceit and
+self-obsession, broken down his aloofness and lack of scruple and
+filled the empty frame that he had hung in his best thoughts with her
+face and form.
+
+There was something of the great lover about Palgrave in his new and
+changed condition. He had laid everything unconditionally at the feet
+of this young thing. He had shown a certain touch of bigness, of
+nobility, he of all men, when, after his outburst in the little
+drawing-room that night, he had stood back to wait until Joan had grown
+up. He had waited for six weeks, going through tortures of
+Joan-sickness that were agonizing. He had asked her to do what she
+could for him in the way of a little kindness, but had not received one
+single line. He was prepared to continue to wait because he knew his
+love to be so great that it must eventually catch hold of her like the
+licking flame of a prairie fire. It staggered him to arrive at the
+Hosacks' place and find her fooling with a smooth-faced lad. It
+outraged him to be left cold, as though he were a mere member of the
+house party and watch her to whom he had thrown open his soul go
+joy-riding with a cursed boy. It was, in a sort of way, heresy. It
+proved an almost unbelievable inability to realize the great thing that
+this was. Such love as his was not an everyday affair, to be treated
+lightly and carelessly. It was, on the contrary, rare and wonderful and
+as such to be, at any rate, respected. That's how it seemed to him, and
+by God he would see about it.
+
+He drew up short, at last, on his strange walk across the undulating
+course. The light from the Country Club streamed across his feet, and
+the jangle of the Jazz band broke into his thoughts. From where he
+stood, surprised to find himself in civilization, he could see the
+crowd of dancers through the open windows of what resembled a huge
+bungalow, at one side of which a hundred motor cars were parked. He
+went nearer, drawn forward against his will. He was in no mood to watch
+a summer dance of the younger set. He made his way to the wide veranda
+and stood behind the rocking chairs of parents and friends. But not for
+more than fifty seconds. There was Joan, with her lovely laughing face
+alight with the joy of movement, held in the arms of the cursed boy.
+Between two chairs he went, into and across the room in which he was a
+trespasser, tapped young Oldershaw sharply on the arm, cut into the
+dance, and before the boy could recover from his surprise, was out of
+reach with Joan against his heart.
+
+"Oh, well done, Gilbert," said Joan, a little breathlessly. "When Marty
+did that to you at the Crystal Room..."
+
+She stopped, and a shadow fell on her face and a little tremble ran
+across her lips.
+
+Smoking a cigarette on the veranda young Oldershaw waited for the dance
+to end. It was encored several times but being a sportsman and having
+achieved a monopoly of Joan during all the previous dances, he let this
+man enjoy his turn. He was a great friend of hers, she had said on the
+way to the club, and was, without doubt, a very perfect person with his
+wide-set eyes and well-groomed head, his smooth moustache and the cleft
+on his chin. He didn't like him. He had decided that at a first glance.
+He was too supercilious and self-assured and had a way of looking clean
+through men's heads. He conveyed the impression of having bought the
+earth,--and Joan. A pity he was too old for a year or two of Yale. That
+would make him a bit more of a man.
+
+When presently the Jazzers paused in order to recuperate,--every one of
+them deserving first aid for the wounded,--and Joan came out for a
+little air with Palgrave, Harry strolled up. This was his evening, and
+in a perfectly nice way he conveyed that impression by his manner. He
+was, moreover, quite determined to give nothing more away. He conveyed
+that, also.
+
+"Shall we sit on the other side?" he asked. "The breeze off the sea
+keeps the mosquitoes away a bit."
+
+Refusing to acknowledge his existence Palgrave guided Joan towards a
+vacant chair. He went on with what he had been saying and swung the
+chair round.
+
+Joan was smiling again.
+
+Oldershaw squared his jaw. "I advise against this side, Joan," he said.
+"Let me take you round."
+
+He earned a quick amused look and a half shrug of white shoulders from
+Joan. Palgrave continued to talk in a low confidential voice. He
+regarded Oldershaw's remarks as no more of an interruption than the
+chorus of the frogs. Oldershaw's blood began to boil, and he had a
+queer prickly sensation at the back of his neck. Whoo, but there'd have
+to be a pretty good shine in a minute, he said to himself. This man
+Palgrave must be taught.
+
+He marched up to Joan and held out his arm. "We may as well get back,"
+he said. "The band's going to begin again."
+
+But Joan sat down, looking from one man to the other. All the woman in
+her revelled in this rivalry,--all that made her long-dead sisters
+crowd to the arenas, wave to armored knights in deadly combat, lean
+forward in grand stands to watch the Titanic struggles of Army and
+Navy, Yale and Harvard on the football field. Her eyes danced, her lips
+were parted a little, her young bosom rose and fell.
+
+"And so you see," said Palgrave, putting his hand on the back of her
+chair, "I can stay as long as the Hosacks will have me, and one day
+I'll drive you over to my bachelor cottage on the dune. It will
+interest you."
+
+"The only thing that has any interest at the moment is dancing," said
+Oldershaw loudly. "By the way, you don't happen to be a member of the
+club, do you, Mr. Palgrave?"
+
+With consummate impudence Palgrave caught his eye and made a sort of
+policeman gesture. "Run away, my lad," he said, "run away and amuse
+yourself." He almost asked for death.
+
+With a thick mutter that sounded like "My God," Oldershaw balanced
+himself to hit, his face the color of a beet-root,--and instantly Joan
+was on her feet between them with a hand on the boy's chest.
+
+"No murder here," she said, "please!"
+
+"Murder!" echoed Palgrave, scoffing.
+
+"Yes, murder. Can't you see that this boy could take you and break you
+like a dry twig? Let's go back, all three of us. We don't want to
+become the center of a sight-seeing crowd." And she took an arm of each
+shaking man and went across the drive to where the car was parked.
+
+And so the danger moment was evaded,--young Oldershaw warm with pride,
+Palgrave sullen and angry. They made a trio which had its prototypes
+all the way back to the beginning of the world.
+
+It did Palgrave no good to crouch ignominiously on the step of the car
+which Oldershaw drove back hell for leather.
+
+The bridge tables were still occupied. The white lane was still across
+the sea. Frogs and crickets still continued their noisy rivalry, but it
+was a different climate out there on the dunes from that of the village
+with its cloying warmth.
+
+Palgrave went into the house at once with a brief "Thank you." Joan
+waited while Harry put the car into a garage. Bed made no appeal.
+Bridge bored,--it required concentration. She would play the game of
+sex with Gilbert if he were to be found. So the boy had to be disposed
+of.
+
+"Harry," she said, when he joined her, chuckling at having come top dog
+out of the recent blaze, "you'd better go straight to bed now. We're
+going to be up early in the morning, you know."
+
+"Just what I was thinking," he answered. "By Jove, you've given me a
+corking good evening. The best of my young life. You ... you certainly
+are,--well, I don't know how to do you justice. I'd have to be a poet."
+He fumbled for her hand and kissed it a little sheepishly.
+
+They went in. "You're a nice boy, Harry," she said. There was something
+in his charming simplicity and muscular strength that reminded her
+of,--but she refused to let the name enter her mind.
+
+"I could have broken that chap like a dry twig, too, easy. Who does he
+think he is?" He would have pawned his life at that moment for the
+taste of her lips.
+
+She stood at the bottom of the stairs and held out her hand. "Good
+night, old boy," she said.
+
+And he took it and hurt it. "Good night, Joany," he answered.
+
+That pet name hurt her more than his eager grasp. It was Marty's own
+word--Marty, who--who--
+
+She threw up her head and stamped her foot, and slammed the door of her
+thoughts. "Who cares?" she said to herself, challenging life and fate.
+"Come on. Make things move."
+
+She saw Palgrave standing alone in the library looking at the sea. "You
+might be Canute," she said lightly.
+
+His face was curiously white. "I'm off in the morning," he said. "We
+may as well say good-by now."
+
+"Good-by, then," she answered.
+
+"I can't stay in this cursed place and let you play the fool with me."
+
+"Why should you?"
+
+"There'll be Hosack and the others as well as your new pet."
+
+"That's true."
+
+He caught her suddenly by the arms. "Damn you," he said. "I wish to God
+I'd never seen you."
+
+She laughed. "Cave man stuff, eh?"
+
+He let her go. She had the most perfect way of reducing him to ridicule.
+
+"I love you," he said. "I love you. Aren't you going to try, even to
+try, to love me back?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not ever?"
+
+"Never." She went up to him and stood straight and slim and bewitching,
+eye to eye. "If you want me to love you, make me. Work for it, move
+Heaven and earth. You can't leave it to me. I don't want to love you.
+I'm perfectly happy as I am. If you want me, win me, carry me off my
+feet and then you shall see what it is to be loved. It's entirely up to
+you, understand that. I shall fight against it tooth and nail, but I
+give you leave to do your best. Do you accept the challenge?"
+
+"Yes," he said, and his face cleared, and his eyes blazed.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+At the moment when the Nice Boy, as brown as the proverbial berry, was
+playing a round of golf with Joan within sound of the sea, Howard
+Oldershaw, his cousin, drove up to the little house in East Sixty-fifth
+Street to see Martin.
+
+He, too, had caught the sun, and his round fat face was rounder and
+fatter than ever. He, too, had the epitome of health, good nature, and
+misdirected energy. He performed a brief but very perfect double
+shuffle on the top step while waiting for the door to open, and then
+barged past the constitutionally unsurprised man servant, sang out a
+loud woo-hoo and blew into the library like an equinoctial gale.
+
+Pipe in mouth, and wearing a thin silk dressing gown, Martin was
+standing under the portrait of his father. He slipped something quickly
+into his pocket and turned about. It was a photograph of Joan.
+
+"Well, you Jack-o'-Lantern," he said. "It's better late than never, I
+suppose."
+
+Howard sent his straw hat spinning across the room. It landed expertly
+in a chair. "My dear chap, your note's been lying in my apartment for a
+week, snowed under my bills. I drove back this morning, washed the
+bricks out of my eyes and came right around. What are you grumbling
+about?"
+
+"I'm not grumbling. When you didn't show up in answer to my note I
+telephoned, and they told me you were away. Where've you been?"
+
+"Putting in a week at the Field Club at Greenwich," replied Howard,
+filling a large cigarette case from the nearest box, as was his most
+friendly habit. "Two sweaters, tennis morning, noon and night, no
+sugar, no beer, no butter, no bread, gallons of hot water--and look at
+me! Martin, it's a tragedy. If I go on like this, it's me for Barnum's
+Circus as the world's prize pig. What's the trouble?"
+
+There was not the usual number of laughter lines round Martin's eyes,
+but one or two came back at the sight and sound of his exuberant
+friend. "No trouble," he said, lying bravely. "I got here the day you
+left and tried to find you. That's all. I wanted you to come down to
+Shinnecock and play golf. Everybody else seems to be at Plattsburg, and
+I was at a loose end."
+
+"Golf's no good to me. It wouldn't reduce me any more than playing the
+piano with somebody dying in the next room. Been here all the week?"
+
+"Yes," said Martin.
+
+"What? In this fug hole, with the sun shining? Out with it, Martin. Get
+it off your chest, old son."
+
+Just for an instant Martin was hugely tempted to make a clean breast of
+everything to this good-hearted, tempestuous person, under whose tight
+skin there was an uncommon amount of shrewdness. But it meant dragging
+Joan into open discussion, and that was all against his creed. He had
+inherited from his father and his father's father an absolute
+incapability of saying anything to anybody about his wife. And so he
+slammed the door of his soul and presented an enigmatical front.
+
+"There's nothing on my chest," he said. "Business downtown has kept me
+here,--legal stuff and that sort of thing. But I'm free now. Got any
+suggestions?"
+
+Howard accepted this. If a pal was determined not to confide and get
+invaluable advice, what was the use of going for him with a can opener?
+But one good look at the face whose every expression he knew so well
+convinced him that something was very much the matter. "Why, good
+Lord," he said to himself, "the old thing looks as if he'd been working
+night and day for an examination and had been plucked. I wonder which
+of the two girls is at the back of all this,--the wife or the other?"
+Rumors had reached his way about both.
+
+"What do you want to do?" he asked.
+
+"I don't care," said Martin. "Any damn thing so long as it's something
+with somebody. What's it matter?"
+
+He didn't quite manage to hide the little quiver in his voice, and it
+came to Howard Oldershaw for the first time how young they both were to
+be floundering on the main road, himself with several entanglements and
+money worries, his friend married and with another complication. They
+were both making a pretty fine hash of things, it seemed, and just for
+a moment, with something of boyishness that still remained behind his
+sophistication, he wished that they were both back at Yale, unhampered
+and unencumbered, their days filled with nothing but honest sport and
+good lectures and the whole joy of life.
+
+"It's like this with me, Martin," he said, with a rather rueful grin.
+"I'm out of favor at home just now and broke to the wide. There are one
+or two reasons why I should lie low for a while, too. How about going
+out to your place in the country? I'll hit the wily ball with you and
+exercise your horses, lead the simple life and, please God, lose some
+flesh, and guarantee to keep you merry and bright in my well-known,
+resilient way. What do you say, old son?"
+
+Martin heartily appreciated Howard's sound method of swinging
+everything round to himself and trying to make out that it was all on
+his side to go out to the house in which Joan ought to be. He was not a
+horseman or a golfer, and the simple life had few attractions for him.
+Well, that was friendship.
+
+"Thanks, old man," he said. "That's you to the life, but I vote we get
+a change from golf and riding. Come down to Devon with me, and let's do
+some sailing. You remember Gilmore? I had a letter from him this
+morning, asking if I'd like to take his cottage and yawl. Does that
+sound good?"
+
+"Great," cried Howard. "Sailing--that's the game, and by gum,
+swimming's the best of all ways of dropping adipose deposit. Wire
+Gilmore and fix it. I'll drive you out to-morrow. By the way, I found a
+letter from my cousin Harry among the others. He's in that part of the
+world. He's frightfully gone on your wife, it appears."
+
+Martin looked up quickly. "Where is she?" he asked.
+
+"Why, they're both staying at the Hosacks' place at Easthampton. Didn't
+you know that?" He was incredulous.
+
+"No," said Martin.
+
+Howard metaphorically clapped his hand over his mouth. Questions were
+on the tip of his tongue. If Martin were not in the mood to take him
+into his confidence, however, there must be a good reason for it,
+but,--not to know where his wife was! What on earth was at the bottom
+of all this? "All right," he said. "I've one or two things I must do,
+and I'll be round in the morning, or is that too soon?"
+
+"The sooner the better," said Martin. "I'll send the cook and Judson
+down by the early train. They'll have things in shape by the time we
+show up. I'm fed up with New York and can smell the water already. Will
+you dine with me to-night and see a show?"
+
+"I can't," said Howard, and laughed.
+
+"I see. To-morrow, then."
+
+"Right. Great work. So long, old son. Get busy and do what you have to
+do to-day, then we can leave this frying pan to-morrow with nothing on
+our minds."
+
+"I haven't anything to do," said Martin.
+
+Howard picked up his hat and caught it with his head in the manner of a
+vaudeville artist. But he didn't go. He stood waiting, keyed to a great
+sympathy. There was something in Martin's voice and at the back of his
+eyes which made him see him plainly and suddenly as a man standing all
+alone and wounded. But he waited in vain. There was a curious
+silence,--a rather painful and embarrassing silence, during which these
+two lads, who had been pretending to be men, dodged each other's eyes.
+
+And then Howard, with an uncharacteristic awkwardness, and looking very
+young, made a quick step forward, and with a sort of gentle roughness
+grasped Martin by the arm. "But you've got something to say," he said.
+"Good God, man, have we been pals for nothing? I hide nothing from you.
+I can help."
+
+But Martin shook his head. He tried to speak and failed. There was
+something hard in his throat. But he put his hand very warmly on his
+friend's shoulder for a moment and turned away abruptly. "Joan, Joan,"
+he cried in his heart, "what are you doing, what are we both doing? Why
+are we killing the days that can never come back?"
+
+He heard Howard go out. He heard the front door close and the honk of
+the horn. And for a long time he stood beneath the portrait of the man
+who had gone so far away and who alone could have helped him.
+
+The telephone bell rang.
+
+Martin was spoken to by the girl that lived in the rabbit warren in
+West Forty-sixth Street in the rooms below those of Tootles. "Can you
+come round at once?" she asked. "It's about Tootles--urgent."
+
+And Martin answered, "Yes, now, at once."
+
+After all, then, there might be something to do.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Master of all the sky, the sun fell warmly on the city, making
+delicious shadows, gliding giant buildings, streaming across the park,
+chasing the endless traffic along the Avenue, and catching at points of
+color. It was one of those splendid mornings of full-blown Tune, when
+even New York,--that paradox of cities,--had beauty. It was too early
+in the year for the trees to have grown blowsy and the grass worn and
+burnt. The humidity of midsummer was held back by the energy of a merry
+breeze which teased the flags and sent them spinning against the
+oriental blue of the spotless sky.
+
+Martin walked to West Forty-sixth Street. There was an air of half-time
+about the Avenue. The ever-increasingly pompous and elaborate shops,
+whose window contents never seem to vary, wore a listless, uninterested
+expression like that of a bookmaker during the luncheon hour at the
+races. Their glittering smile, their enticement and solicitation, their
+tempting eye-play were relaxed. The cocottes of Monte Carlo at the end
+of the season could not have assumed a greater indifference. But there
+were the same old diamonds and pearls, the same old canvases, the same
+old photographs, the same old antiques, the same old frocks and shoes
+and men's shirtings, the same old Persian rugs and Japanese ware, the
+same cold, hard plates and china, the very same old hats and dinks and
+dressing-gowns and cut flowers and clubs, and all the same doormen in
+the uniforms that are a cross between those of admirals and generals,
+the men whose only exercise during the whole of the year is obtained by
+cutting ice and sweeping snow from just their particular patch of
+pavement. In all the twists and changes, revolutions and cross
+currents, upheavals and in-fallings that affect this world, there is
+one great street which, except for a new building here and there,
+resolutely maintains its persistent sameness. Its face is like that of
+a large, heavily made-up and not unbeautiful woman, veil-less and with
+some dignity but only two expressions, enticement and indifference. A
+man may be lost at the North Pole, left to die on the west coast of
+Africa, married in London, or forcibly detained in Siberia, but, let
+him return to life and New York, and he will find that whatever
+elsewhere Anno Domini may have defaced and civilization made different,
+next to nothing has happened to Fifth Avenue.
+
+Martin had told Howard of the way he had found Joan on the hill, how
+she had climbed out of window that night and come to him to be rescued
+and how he had brought her to town to find Alice Palgrave away and
+married her. All that, but not one word of his having been shown the
+door on the night of the wedding, of her preference for Palgrave, her
+plunge into night life, or his own odd hut human adventure with Susie
+Capper as a result of the accident. But for the fact that it wasn't his
+way to speak about his wife whatever she did or left undone, Martin
+would have been thankful to have made a clean breast of everything.
+Confession is good for the soul, and Martin's young soul needed to be
+relieved of many bewilderments and pains and questionings. He wished
+that he could have continued the story to Howard of the kid's way Joan
+had treated him,--a way which had left him stultified,--of how, touched
+by the tragedy that had reduced the poor little waif of the chorus to
+utter grief and despair, he had taken her out to the country to get
+healing in God's roofless cathedral, and of how, treating her, because
+of his love and admiration of Joan, with all the respect and tenderness
+that he would have shown a sister, it had given him the keenest
+pleasure and delight to help her back to optimism and sanity. He would
+like to have told Howard all the simple and charming details of that
+good week, giving him a sympathetic picture of the elfish Tootles
+enjoying her brief holiday out in the open, and of her recovery under
+the inspiration of trees and flowers and brotherliness, to all of which
+she was so pathetically unaccustomed. He wouldn't have told of the many
+efforts made by Tootles to pay him back in the only way that seemed to
+her to be possible, even if he had known of them,--he had not been on
+the lookout for anything of that sort. Nor would he, of course, have
+gone into the fact that Tootles loved him quite as much as he loved
+Joan,--he knew nothing of that. But he would have said much of the joy
+that turned cold at the sight of Joan's face when she saw Tootles lying
+on the sofa in his den, of her rush to get away, of the short, sharp
+scene which followed her unexpected visit, and of his having driven
+Tootles back to town the following morning at her urgent request,--a
+curious, quiet Tootles with the marks of a sleepless night on her face.
+Also he would have said something of his wild despair at having been
+just ten minutes too late to find Joan at the house in East Sixty-fifth
+Street, of his futile attempts to discover where she had gone, and of
+the ghastly, mystifying days back in the country, waiting and wondering
+and writing letters that he never posted,--utterly unaware of the
+emotion which had prompted Joan to walk into his den that night, but
+quite certain of the impression that she had taken away with her.
+
+It was with a sense of extraordinary isolation that Martin walked down
+Fifth Avenue. Two good things had, however, come out of his talk with
+Howard Oldershaw. One was the certainty of this man's friendship. The
+other the knowledge of the place at which Joan was staying. This last
+fact made him all the more anxious to get down to the cottage. Devon
+was only a short drive from Easthampton, and that meant the possibility
+of seeing and speaking to Joan. Good God, if only she could understand
+a little of what she meant to him, and how he craved and pined for her.
+
+The dressmaker on the street floor of the rabbit warren had gone out of
+business. Failed probably, poor thing. Tootles had once said that the
+only people she ever saw in the shop were pressing creditors. A colored
+woman of bulbous proportions and stertorous breathing was giving a
+catlick to the dirty stairway. A smell of garlic and onions met Martin
+on his way to the rooms of Tootles' friend, and on the first landing he
+drew back to let two men pass down who looked like movie actors. They
+wore violet ties and tight-fitting jackets with trench belts and short
+trousers that should have been worn by their younger brothers. The
+actor on the next floor, unshaven and obviously just out of bed, was
+cooking breakfast in his cubby-hole. He wore the upper part of his
+pajamas and a pair of incredibly dirty flannel trousers. The marks of
+last night's grease paint were on his temples and eyebrows. He hummed a
+little song to the accompaniment of sizzling bacon.
+
+When Martin knocked on the door of the apartment of the girl to whom he
+had never spoken except over the telephone and whose name he remembered
+to be Irene Stanton, a high-pitched, nasal voice cried out.
+
+"Come right in." He went right in and was charged at by a half-bred
+Chow whose bark was like a gunman's laugh, and a tiny pink beast which
+worked itself into a state of hysterical rage. But when a high-heeled
+shoe was flung at them from the bedroom, followed by a volley of
+fruit-carrier words of the latest brand, they retired, awed and
+horror-stricken, to cover.
+
+Martin found himself in a small, square living room with two windows
+looking over the intimate backs of other similar houses. Under the best
+of conditions it was not a room of very comfortable possibilities. In
+the hands of its present occupant, it was, to Martin's eyes, the most
+depressing and chaotic place he had ever seen. The cheap furniture and
+the cheaper wall paper went well with a long-unwhite-washed ceiling and
+smudged white paint. A line of empty beer bottles which stood on a
+mantelpiece littered with unframed photographs and dog-eared Christmas
+cards struck a note so blase that it might almost have been committed
+for a reason. On the square mission table in the center there was a
+lamp with a belaced pink shade at a cock-eyed angle which resembled the
+bonnet of a streetwalker in the early hours of the morning. An electric
+iron stood coldly beneath it with its wire attached to a fixture in the
+wall. Various garments littered the chairs and sofa, and jagged pieces
+of newspaper which had been worried by the dogs covered the floor.
+
+But the young woman who shortly made her appearance was very different
+from the room. Her frock was neat and clean, her face most carefully
+made up, her shoes smart. She had a wide and winning grin, teeth that
+should have advertised a toothpaste, and a pair of dimples which ought
+to have been a valuable asset to any chorus. "Why, but you HAVE done a
+hustle," she said. "I haven't even had time to tidy up a bit." She
+cleared a chair and shook a finger at the dogs, who, sneaking out from
+under the sofa, were eyeing her with apprehensive affection. The Chow's
+mother had evidently lost her heart to a bulldog. "Excuse the look of
+this back attic," she added. "I've got to move, and I'm in the middle
+of packing."
+
+"Of course," said Martin, eager to know why he had been sent for. "It's
+about Tootles, you said."
+
+"Very much so." She sat on the edge of the table, crossed her arms, and
+deliberately looked Martin over with expert eyes. Knowing as much about
+men as a mechanic of a main-road motor-repairing shop knows about
+engines, her examination was acute and thorough.
+
+Martin waited quietly, amused at her coolness, but impatient to come to
+cues. She was a good sort, he knew. Tootles had told him so, and he was
+certain that she had asked to see him out of friendship for the girl
+upstairs.
+
+Her first question was almost as disconcerting and abrupt as a Zeppelin
+bomb. "What did you do to Tootles?"
+
+Martin held her examining gaze. "Nothing, except give her a bit of a
+holiday," he said.
+
+"I saw you go off with her that morning." She smiled and her eyes
+became a little more friendly. "She wrote me a letter from your place
+and said she'd found out what song writers meant by the word heaven."
+
+"Did she?" said Martin. "I'm glad."
+
+It came to her in a flash that her little pal had fallen in love with
+this boy and instantly she understood the mystery of Tootles' change of
+method and point of view--her moping, her relaxed grip on life. She
+meant almost nothing to the boy and knew it.
+
+"But don't you think you might have been to see her since you brought
+her back?" she asked.
+
+"I've been very worried," said Martin simply.
+
+"Is that so?" and then, after another pause, this girl said a second
+astonishing thing. "I wish I didn't see in you a man who tells the
+truth. I wish you were just one of the ordinary sort that comes our
+way. I should know how to deal with you better."
+
+"Tell me what you mean," said Martin.
+
+"Shall I? All right, I will." She stood up with her hands on her hips.
+"If you'd played the usual game with little Tootles and dropped her
+cold, I wouldn't let you get out of this room without coming up to
+scratch. I'd make you cough up a good-sized check. There's such a thing
+as playing the game even by us strap-hangers, you know. As it is, I can
+see that you were on the square, that you're a bit of a poet or
+something and did Tootles a good turn for nothing, and honestly, I
+don't know the next move. You don't owe her anything, you see."
+
+"Is money the trouble?" asked Martin.
+
+Irene Stanton shot out an odd, short laugh. "Let me tell you
+something," she said. "You know what happened at the dress rehearsal of
+'The Ukelele Girl'? Well, the word's gone around about her chucking the
+show at the last minute, and it's thumbs down for Tootles. She hadn't a
+nickel when she came back from your place, and since then she's pawned
+herself right down to the bone to pay her rent and get a few eats. She
+wouldn't take nothing from me because I'm out too, and this is a bad
+time to get into anything new. Only two things can stop her from being
+put out at the end of the week. One's going across the passage to the
+drunken fellow that writes music, and the other's telling the tale to
+you. She won't do either. I've never seen her the way she is now. She
+sits around, staring at the wall, and when I try to put some of her
+usual pep into her she won't listen. She's all changed since that taste
+of the country, and I figure she won't get on her feet again without a
+big yank up. She keeps on saying to herself, like a sort of song, 'Oh,
+Gawd, for a sight of the trees,' and I've known girls end it quick when
+they get that way."
+
+Martin got up. "Where do you keep your pen and ink?" he asked. Poor old
+Tootles. There certainly was something to do.
+
+Irene bent forward eagerly. "Are you going to see her through this
+snag?"
+
+"Of course I am."
+
+"Ah, that's the talk. But wait a second. We got to be tricky about
+this." She was excited and tremendously in earnest. "If she gets to
+know I've been holding out the hat to you, we're wasting time. Give me
+the money, see? I'll make up a peach of a story about how it came to
+me,--the will of a rich uncle in Wisconsin or something, you know,--and
+ask her to come and help me blow it in somewhere on the coast, see? She
+gave me three weeks' holiday once. It's my turn now, me being in
+luck.... But perhaps you don't trust me?"
+
+"You trust me," said Martin, and gave her one of his honest smiles.
+
+He caught sight of a bottle of ink on the window sill. There was a pen
+of sorts there also. He brought them to the table and made out a check
+in the name of his fellow conspirator. He was just as anxious as she
+was to put "a bit of pep" into the little waif who had sat beneath the
+portrait of his father. There was no blotting paper, so he waved it in
+the air before handing it over.
+
+A rush of tears came to Irene's eyes when she saw what he had written.
+She held out her hand, utterly giving up an attempt to find words.
+
+"Thank you for calling up," said Martin, doing his best to be perfectly
+natural and ordinary. "I wish you'd done so sooner. Poor old Tootles.
+Write to the Devon Yacht Club, Long Island, and let me know how you get
+on. We've all three been up against some rotten bad luck, haven't we?
+Good-by, then. I'll go up to Tootles now."
+
+"No, no," she said, "don't. That'd bring my old uncle to life right
+away. She'd guess you was in on this, all right. Slip off and let me
+have a chance with my movie stuff." With a mixture of emotion and
+hilarity she suddenly waved the check above her head. "Can you imagine
+the fit the receiving teller at my little old bank'll throw when I slip
+this across as if it meant nothing to me?"
+
+And then she caught up one of Martin's hands and did the most
+disconcerting thing of all. She pressed it to her lips and kissed it.
+
+Martin got as red as a beet. "Well, then, good-by," he said, making for
+the door. "Good luck."
+
+"Good-by and good luck to you. My word, but you've made optimism sprout
+all over my garden, and I thought the very roots of it were dead."
+
+For a few minutes after Martin was gone, she danced about her appalling
+room, and laughed and cried and said the most extraordinary things to
+her dogs. The little pink beast became hysterical again, and the Chow
+leaped into a bundle of under-clothing and worried the life out of it.
+Finally, having hidden the check in a safe place, the girl ran upstairs
+to break the good news of her uncle's death to Tootles. Why, they could
+do the thing like ladies, the pair of them. It was immense, marvellous,
+almost beyond belief! That old man of Wisconsin deserved a place in
+Heaven.... Heaven--Devon.
+
+It was an inspiration. "Gee, but that's the idea!" she said to herself.
+"Devon--and the sight of that boy. That'll put the pep back, unless I'm
+the original nut. And if he doesn't care about her now, he may
+presently. Others have."
+
+And when she went in, there was Tootles staring at the wall, and
+through it and away beyond at the place Martin had called the
+Cathedral, and at Martin, with his face dead-white because Joan had
+turned and gone.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+It was a different Tootles who, ten days later, sat on a bank of dry
+ferns that overlooked a superb stretch of water and watched the sun go
+down. The little half-plucked bird of the Forty-sixth Street garret
+with the pale thin face and the large tired eyes had almost become the
+fairy of Joan's hill once more, the sun-tanned little brother of Peter
+Pan again. A whole week of the air of Devon and the smell of its pines,
+of the good wholesome food provided by the family with whom she and
+Irene were lodging, of long rambles through the woods, of bathing and
+sleeping, and the joy of finding herself among trees had performed that
+"yank" of which her fellow chorus lady had spoken.
+
+Tootles was on her feet again. Her old zest to live had been given back
+to her by the wonder and the beauty of sky and water and trees. A child
+of nature, hitherto forced to struggle for her bread in cities, she was
+revived and renewed and refreshed by the sweet breath and the warm
+welcome of that simple corner of God's earth to which Irene had so
+cunningly brought her. Her starved, city-ridden spirit had blossomed
+and become healthy out there in the country like a root of Creeping
+Jenny taken from a pot on the window-sill of a slum house and put back
+into good brown earth.
+
+The rough and ready family with whom they were lodging kept a duck
+farm, and it was to this white army of restless, greedy things that
+Tootles owed her first laugh. Tired and smut-bespattered after a
+tedious railway journey she had eagerly and with childish joy gone at
+once to see them fed, the old and knowing, the young and optimistic,
+and all the yellow babies with uncertain feet and tiny noises. After
+that, a setting sun which set fire to the sky and water and trees,
+melting and mingling them together, and Tootles turned the corner. The
+motherless waif slept that night on Nature's maternal breast and was
+comforted.
+
+The warm-hearted Irene was proud of herself. Devon--Heaven--it was
+indeed an inspiration. The only fly in her amber came from the fact
+that Martin was away. But when she discovered that he and his friend
+had merely gone for a short trip on the yawl she waited with great
+content for their return, setting the seeds in Tootles' mind, with
+infinite diplomacy and feminine cunning, of a determination to use all
+her wiles to win even a little bit of love from Martin as soon as she
+saw him again.
+
+Playing the part of one who had unexpectedly benefited from the will of
+an almost-forgotten relative she never, of course, said a word of why
+she had chosen Devon for this gorgeous holiday. Temporarily wealthy it
+was not necessary to look cannily at every nickel. Before leaving New
+York she had bought herself and Tootles some very necessary clothes and
+saw to it that they lived on as much of the fat of the land as could be
+obtained in the honest and humble house in which she had found a large
+two-bedded room. Her cigarettes were Egyptian now and on the train she
+had bought half a dozen new novels at which she looked with pride.
+Hitherto she had been obliged to read only those much-handled
+blase-looking books which went the round of the chorus. Conceive what
+that meant! Also she had brought with her a bottle of the scent that
+was only, so far as she knew, within reach of leading ladies. Like the
+cigarettes and the books, this was really for Tootles to use, but she
+borrowed a little from time to time.
+
+As for Irene Stanton, then, she was having, and said so, the time of
+her young life. She richly deserved it, and if her kindness and
+thoughtfulness, patience and sympathy had not been entered in the big
+volume of the Recording Angel that everlasting young woman must have
+neglected her pleasant job for several weeks.
+
+And, as for Tootles, it is true that her bobbed hair still owed its
+golden brilliance to a bottle, but the white stuff on her face had been
+replaced by sunburn, and her lips were red all by themselves.
+
+She was watching the last of the great red globe when her friend joined
+her. There had been a race of sloops that afternoon, and there was
+unusual animation on the quay and at the little club house. A small
+power boat, on which were the starter and judges and others, had just
+put in with a good deal of splutter and fuss. On the stoop of the club
+a small band was playing, and a bevy of young people were dancing.
+Following in the wake of the last sloop a yawl with a dingey in tow was
+coming towards the quay.
+
+Seeing that Tootles was in one of her ecstatic moods and was deaf to
+remarks, Irene saved her words to cool her porridge and watched the
+incoming yawl. She did so at first without much interest. It was merely
+a sailboat to her city eyes, and her good lines and good management
+meant nothing. But as she came nearer something familiar in the cut of
+the man at her helm caught her attention. Surely those broad shoulders
+and that deep chest and small head could belong only to Martin Gray?
+They did, they did. It was that boy at last, that boy about whom
+Tootles had gone dippy, that boy whose generosity had made their
+holiday possible, that boy the first sight of whom would put the last
+touch to Tootles' recovery--that boy who, if her friend set her mind
+and feminine charm to work, might, it seemed to the practical Irene,
+make her future safe. Strap-hangers had very few such chances.
+
+With a tremendous effort she sat wordless and waited, knowing that
+Martin must come that way to his cottage. With all her sense of the
+dramatic stirred she watched the business of coming to anchor with some
+impatience and when finally the dingey was hauled in and the two men
+got aboard, loosed off and rowed to shore, excitement sent the blood
+tingling through her veins. She heard them laugh and look up towards
+the club, now almost deserted; cars were being driven inland in quick
+succession. She watched them, hatless and sun-tanned, come nearer and
+nearer. She got up as if to go, hesitated, caught Martin's eye, gave an
+exclamation of well-acted amazement and waved her hand. "Well," she
+cried out, "for Heaven's sake! I never thought you meant this little
+old Devon!"
+
+Howard had long ago caught sight of the two girls and wondered if they
+were pretty, hoping they would remain until he could decide the point
+for himself. They were, both of them, and Martin knew them. Good
+enough. He stood by while Martin greeted the one who spoke and then saw
+the other wake suddenly at the sound of his friend's voice, stumble to
+her feet and go forward with a little cry.
+
+"Why, Tootles," said Martin warmly. "I never thought of seeing you
+here. How well you look."
+
+It was like dreaming true. Tootles could only smile and cling to his
+hand.
+
+"By Jove, the other girl," thought Howard, with what, after all, was
+only an easy touch of intuition. The girl's face told her story. "What
+will this mean?" Then there were introductions, questions and answers,
+laughter, jokes, a quick exchange of glances between Martin and Irene,
+in which he received and acknowledged her warning, and a little silence.
+
+"Come up to the cottage and have dinner with us," said Martin, breaking
+it rather nervously. "Can you?"
+
+Tootles nodded. Devon--Heaven. How perfectly the words rhymed.
+
+"You couldn't keep us away with a stick," said Irene. This was the way
+things should go. Also, the jovial, fat person with the roving eyes
+might brighten things considerably for her.
+
+"Great work!" Said Howard.
+
+And then, taking Tootle's arm and breaking into enthusiastic details of
+the sailing trip, Martin led the way up to the cottage among the firs.
+It was good to have been able to put little Tootles into spirits again.
+
+Howard followed with Irene. "Gee whiz!" he said to himself, "some
+dimples!"
+
+A few miles away as the crow flies Gilbert Palgrave In his bedroom in
+St. James's Palace cursed himself and life because Joan was still as
+difficult to win as sunshine was to bottle.
+
+And up in the sky that hung above them all the angels were lighting the
+stars.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Martin was not given to suspicion. He accepted people at their face
+value and believed in human nature. It never occurred to him, then,
+that the apparently ingenuous and disarming Irene, with her straight
+glance and wide smile, had brought Tootles to Devon except by accident
+or for anything but health and peace. He was awfully glad to see them.
+They added to the excellent effect upon his spirits which had been
+worked by the constant companionship of the irrepressible Howard,
+before whose habitual breeziness depression could stand little chance.
+
+Also he had youth and health and plenty to do in gorgeous weather, and
+so his case, which he had been examining rather morbidly, assumed a
+less painful aspect. His love and need of Joan remained just as strong,
+but the sense of martyrdom brought about by loneliness and
+self-analysis left him. Once more he assured himself that Joan was a
+kid and must have her head until she became a woman and faced facts.
+Over and over again he repeated to himself the creed that she had flung
+into the teeth of fate, and in this he found more excuse than she
+deserved for the way in which she had used him to suit her purpose and
+put him into the position of a big elder brother whose duty it was to
+support her, in loco parentis, and not interfere with her pastimes.
+However much she fooled and flirted, he had an unshakable faith in her
+cleanness and sweetness, and if he continued to let her alone, to get
+fed up with what she called the Merry-go-round, she would one day come
+home and begin all over again. She was a kid, just a kid as she had
+said, and why, after all, should she be bullied and bully-ragged before
+she had had time to work it off? That's how he argued.
+
+Meanwhile, he was, thankfully enough, no longer alone. Here were Howard
+and the two girls and the yawl and the sun, and he would keep merry and
+bright until Joan came back. He was too proud and sensitive to go to
+Joan and have it all out with her and thus dispel what had developed
+into a double misunderstanding, and too loyal to go to Joan's mother
+and tell his story and beg for help. Like Joan and Howard, and who
+knows how many other young things in the world, he was paying the
+inevitable penalty for believing that he could face the problems of
+life unassisted, unadvised and was making a dreadful hash of it in
+consequence. He little knew that his kindness to Tootles had made Joan
+believe that he had exchanged his armor for broadcloth and put her in a
+"who cares?" mood far more dangerous than the one which had sent her
+into the night life of New York, or that, owing to Tootles, she was, at
+that very moment, for the fun of the thing, driving Gilbert Palgrave to
+a state of anger and desperation which might lead to tragedy. Poor
+young things, misguided and falsely proud and at a loose end! What a
+waste of youth and spring which a few wise words of counsel would
+retrieve and render blessed.
+
+And as for Tootles, with her once white face and red lips and hair that
+came out of a bottle, Martin was to her what Joan was to Palgrave and
+for the same reason. Irene's hints and innuendos had taken root. Caring
+nothing for the practical side of her friend's point of view,--the
+assured future business,--all her energies were bent to attract Martin,
+all that was feminine in her was making a huge effort to win, by hook
+or crook, somehow soon, an answer, however temporary, to her love.
+Never mind what happened after these summer weeks were over. What
+matter if she went mad so that she had her day? She had never come
+across any man like this young Martin, with his clean eyes and
+sensitive soul and honest hands, his, to her, inconceivable capacity of
+"being brother," his puzzling aloofness from the lure of sex. She
+didn't understand what it meant to a boy of Martin's type to cherish
+ideals and struggle to live up to a standard that had been set for him
+by his father. In her daily fight for mere self-preservation, in which
+joy came by accident, any such thing as principle seemed crazy. Her
+street--Arab interpretation of the law of life was to snatch at
+everything that she could reach because there was so much that was
+beyond her grasp. Her love for Martin was the one passion of her sordid
+little life, and she would be thankful and contented to carry memories
+back to her garret which no future rough-and-tumble could ever take
+away or blot out.
+
+For several days after the first of many dinners with the boys, Tootles
+played her cards with the utmost care. The foursome became inseparable,
+bathing, sailing and motoring from morning to night. If there was any
+truth in the power of propinquity, it must have been discovered then.
+Howard attached himself to Irene whom he found something more than
+merry and amusing,--a girl of indomitable courage and optimism, in
+fact. He liked her immensely. And so Tootles paired off with Martin and
+had innumerable opportunities of putting forward the challenge of sex.
+She took them all, but with the most carefully considered subtlety. She
+descended to nothing obvious, as was to be expected from one of her
+type, which was not famous for such a thing as self-restraint. She paid
+great attention to her appearance and kept a close watch on her tongue.
+She played what she imagined was the part of a little lady, toned down
+her usual exuberance, her too loud laugh and her characteristic habit
+of giving quick and smart back answers. But in all her long talks with
+Martin she hinted ever so lightly that she and he had not been thrown
+together from opposite poles without a reason. She tried to touch his
+mind with the thought that it was to become what she said it might the
+night of the accident,--a romance, a perfectly private little affair of
+their own, stolen from their particular routine, which could be ended
+at a moment's notice. She tried to wrap the episode up in a page of
+poetry which might have been torn from a little book by Francois Villon
+and give it a wistfulness and charm that she thought would appeal to
+him. But it was not until one more than usually exquisite night, when
+the spirit of July lingered in the air and the warmth of the sun still
+lay among the stars, that she made her first step towards her goal.
+Howard and Irene had wandered down to the water, and she was left with
+Martin sitting elfishly among the ferns on the bank below the cottage
+and above the silver lapping water. Martin, very much alive to the
+magic spell of the night, with the young sap stirring in his veins, lay
+at her feet, and she put her hand caressingly on his head and began to
+talk in a half whisper.
+
+"Boy, oh, boy," she said, "what shall I do without you when this dream
+comes to an end?"
+
+"Dream again," said Martin.
+
+"Down there in the city, so far away from trees?"
+
+"Why not? We can take our dreams with us wherever we go. But it isn't
+coming to an end yet."
+
+"How long will it last?"
+
+"Until the sun gets cold," said Martin, catching her mood, "and there's
+a chill in the air."
+
+She slipped down a little so that he should see the light in her eyes.
+There was hardly an inch between their lips, and the only sound was the
+beating of her heart. Youth and July and the scent of honeysuckle.
+
+"I thought I was dead when you helped me out of that wreck," she went
+on in a quivering voice, and her long-fingered hand on his face. "I
+think I must be really dead to-night. Surely this is too sweet to be
+life."
+
+"Dear little Tootles," said Martin softly. She was so close that he
+could feel the rise and fall of her breasts. "Don't let's talk of
+death. We're too young."
+
+The sap was stirring in his veins. She was like a fairy, this girl, who
+ought never to have wandered into a city.
+
+"Martin," she said, "when the sun gets cold and there's a chill in the
+air will you ever come back to this hour in a dream?"
+
+"Often, Tootles, my dear."
+
+"And will you see the light in my eyes and feel my hands on your face
+and my lips on your lips?"
+
+She bent forward and put them there and drew back with a shaking sob
+and scrambled up and fled.
+
+She had seen the others coming, but that was not why she had torn
+herself away. One flash of sex was enough that night. The next time he
+must do the kissing.
+
+Eve and July and the scent of honeysuckle!
+
+ Breakfast was on the table. To Irene, who came down in her dressing
+gown with her hair just bundled up and her face coated with powder,
+eight o'clock was an unearthly hour at which to begin the day. In New
+York she slept until eleven, read the paper until twelve, cooked and
+disposed of a combined breakfast-lunch at one, and if it was a matinee
+day, rushed round to the theater, and if it wasn't, killed time until
+her work called her in the evening. A boob's life, as she called it,
+was a trying business, but the tyranny of the bustling woman with whom
+she lodged was such that if breakfast was not eaten at eight o'clock it
+was not there to eat. Like an English undergraduate who scrambles out
+of bed to attend Chapel simply to avoid a fine, this product of
+Broadway theaterdom conformed to the rule of Mrs. Burrell's energetic
+house because the good air of Devon gave her a voracious appetite.
+Then, too, even if she missed breakfast, she had to pay for it, "so
+there you are, old dear."
+
+Tootles, up with the lark as usual, was down among the ducks, giving
+Farmer Burrell a useful hand. She delighted in doing so. From a country
+grandfather she had inherited a love of animals and of the early
+freshness of the morning that found eager expression, now that she had
+the chance of giving it full rein. Then, too, all that was maternal in
+her nature warmed at the sight and sound of all those new, soft, yellow
+things that waddled closely behind the wagging tails of their mothers,
+and it gave her a sort of sweet comfort to go down on her knees and
+hold one of these frightened babies against her cheek.
+
+Crying out, "Oo-oo, Tootles," from halfway down the cinder path, Irene,
+stimulated by the aroma of hot coffee and toast, and eggs and bacon,
+returned to the living room and fell to humming, "You're here and I'm
+here."
+
+Tootles joined her immediately, a very different looking little person
+from the tired-eyed, yawning girl of the city rabbit warren. Health was
+in her eyes and a little smile at the corners of her mouth. Quick work
+was made of the meal to the intermittent duck talk of Mrs. Burrell who
+came in and out of the kitchen through a creaking door,--a normal,
+noisy soul, to whom life was a succession of laborious days spent
+between the cooking stove and the washtub with a regular Saturday
+night, in her best clothes, at the motion-picture theater at Sag Harbor
+to gape at the abnormality of Theda Bara and scream with uncontrolled
+mirth at the ingenious antics of Charlie Chaplin. An ancient Ford made
+possible this weekly dip into these intense excitements.
+
+And then the two girls left the living room with its inevitable rocking
+chairs and framed texts and old heating stove with a funnel through the
+wall and went out into the sun.
+
+"Well, dearie," said Irene, sitting on the edge of the stoop, within
+sound of the squeaking of a many-armed clothes drier, teased by a nice
+sailing wind. "Us for the yawl to-day."
+
+"You for the yawl," said Tootles. "I'm staying here to help old man
+Burrell. It's his busy day."
+
+Irene looked up quickly. "What's the idea?"
+
+"Just that,--and something else. I don't want to see Martin till this
+evening. I moved things last night, and I want him to miss me a bit."
+
+"Ah," said Irene. "I guessed it meant something when you made that
+quick exit when we moved up. Have you got him, dearie?"
+
+Tootles shot out a queer little sigh and nodded.
+
+"That's fine. He's not like the others, is he? But you've played him
+great. Oh, I've seen it all, never you fear. Subtle, old dear, very
+subtle. Shouldn't have had the patience myself. Go in and win. He's
+worth it." Tootles put her hands over her face and a great sob shook
+her.
+
+In an instant, Irene had her in her arms. "Dear old Tootles," she said,
+"it means an awful lot to you, don't it? Don't give way, girlie. You've
+done mighty well so far. Now follow it up, hot and fast. That boy's got
+a big heart and he's generous and kind, and he won't forget. I brought
+you here for this, such a chance as it was, and if I can see you
+properly fixed up and happy, my old uncle's little bit of velvet will
+have come in mighty useful, eh? Got a plan for to-night?"
+
+Tootles nodded again. "If I don't win to-night," she said, "it's all
+over. I shall have to own that he cares for me less than the dust. I
+shall have to throw up my hands and creep away and hide. Oh, my God, am
+I such a rotten little freak as all that, Irene? Tell me, go on, tell
+me."
+
+"Freak? You! For Heaven's sake. Don't the two front rows give nobody
+but you the supper signal whenever the chorus is on?"
+
+"But they're not like Martin. He's,--well, I dunno just what he is. For
+one thing there's that butterfly he's married to. He's never said as
+much as half a word about her to me, but the look that came into his
+eyes when he saw her the night I told you about,--I'd be run over by a
+train for it any time. He's a man alright and wants love as bad as I
+do. I know that, but sometimes, when I watch his face, when neither of
+us is talking, there's a queer smile on it, like a man who's looking up
+at somebody, and he sets his jaw and squares his shoulders just as if
+he had heard a voice telling him to play straight. Many times I've seen
+it, Irene, and after that I have to begin all over again. I respect him
+for it, and it makes me love him more and more. I've never had the luck
+to meet a man like him. The world would be a bit less rotten for the
+likes of you and me if there were more of him about, I tell you. But it
+hurts me like the devil because it makes me feel no better than a shoe
+with the buttons off and the heel all worn down, and I ask myself
+what's the blooming use. But last night I kissed him, and I saw his
+eyes glint for the first time and to-night,--to-night, Irene, I'm going
+to play my last card. Yes, that's what I'm going to do, play the last
+card in the pack."
+
+"How?" asked Irene eagerly, sympathy and curiosity bubbling to the top.
+
+Tootles shook her head. "It isn't lucky to go talking about it." she
+said, with a most wistful smile. "You'll know whether it's the heights
+or the depths for me when you see me in the morning."
+
+"In the morning? Shan't you be..."
+
+"Don't ask. Just wish me luck and go and have a good day with the boys.
+I shall be waiting for you at the cottage. And now I'm off down to the
+ducks. Say I've got a headache and don't let 'em come round and try to
+fetch me. So long, Irene; you've been some pal to me through this and I
+shall never forget."
+
+Whereupon Tootles went off to lend the unloquacious Burrell a helping
+hand, and Irene ran up to the bedroom to dress.
+
+From the pompous veranda of the Hosack place Gilbert Palgrave, sick
+with jealousy, watched Joan swimming out to the barrels with that
+cursed boy in tow. And he, too, had made up his mind to play his last
+card that night.
+
+Man and woman and love,--the old, inevitable story.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+The personnel of the Hosacks' house party had changed.
+
+Mrs. Noel d'Oyly had led her little husband away to Newport to stay
+with Mrs. Henry Vanderdyke, where were Beatrix and Pelham Franklin,
+with a bouncing baby boy, the apple of Mr. Vanderdyke's eye. Enid
+Ouchterlony had left for Gloucester, Massachusetts, where her aunt,
+Mrs. Horace Pallant, entertained in an almost royal fashion and was
+eager to set her match-making arts to work on behalf of her only
+unmarried niece. Enid had gone to the very edge of well-bred lengths to
+land Courtney Millet, but Scots ancestry and an incurable habit of
+talking sensibly and rather well had handicapped her efforts. She had
+confided to Primrose with a sudden burst of uncharacteristic incaution
+that she seemed doomed to become an old man's darling. Her last words
+to the sympathetic Primrose were, "Oh, Prim, Prim, pray that you may
+never become intellectual. It will kill all your chances." Miss Hosack
+was, however, perfectly safe.
+
+Milwood, fired by a speech at the Harvard Club by Major General Leonard
+Wood, had scratched all his pleasant engagements for the summer, and
+was at Plattsburg learning for the first time, at the camp which will
+some day occupy an inspiring chapter in the history of the United
+States, the full meaning of the words "duty" and "discipline." Their
+places had been taken by Major and Mrs. Barnet Thatcher and dog, Regina
+Waterhouse and Vincent Barclay, a young English officer invalided out
+of the Royal Flying Corps after bringing down eight German machines. A
+cork leg provided him with constant amusement. He had a good deal of
+property in Canada and was making his way to Toronto by easy stages. A
+cheery fellow, cut off from all his cherished sports but free from even
+the suggestion of grousing. Of his own individual stunts, as he called
+them, he gave no details and made no mention of the fact that he
+carried the D.S.O. and the Croix de Guerre in his bag. He had met the
+Hosacks at the American Embassy in London in 1913. He was rather sweet
+on Primrose.
+
+The fact that Joan was still there was easily accounted for. She liked
+the place, and her other invitations were not interesting. Hosack
+didn't want her to go either, but of course that had nothing to do with
+it, and so far as Mrs. Hosack was concerned, let the bedroom be
+occupied by some one of her set and she was happy enough. Indeed, it
+saved her the brain fag of inviting some one else, "always difficult
+with so many large houses to fill and so few people to go round, my
+dear."
+
+Harry Oldershaw was such a nice boy that he did just as he liked. If it
+suited him he could keep his room until the end of the season. The case
+of Gilbert Palgrave was entirely different. A privileged, spoiled
+person, who made no effort to be generally agreeable and play up, he
+was rather by way of falling into the same somewhat difficult category
+as a minor member of the British Royalty. His presence was an honor
+although his absence would have been a relief. He chose to prolong his
+visit indefinitely and there was an end of it.
+
+Every day at Easthampton had, however, been a nightmare to Palgrave.
+Refusing to take him seriously, Joan had played with him as a cat plays
+with a mouse. Kind to him one minute she had snubbed him the next. The
+very instant that he had congratulated himself on making headway his
+hopes had been scattered to the four winds by some scathing remarks and
+her disappearance for hours with Harry Oldershaw. She had taken a
+mischievous delight in leading him on with winning smiles and charming
+and appealing ways only to burst out laughing at his blazing
+protestations of love and leave him inarticulate with anger and wounded
+vanity. "If you want me to love you, make me," she had said. "I shall
+fight against it tooth and nail, but I give you leave to do your best."
+He had done his best. With a totally uncharacteristic humbleness,
+forgetting the whole record of his former easy conquests, and with this
+young slim thing so painfully in his blood that there were times when
+he had the greatest difficulty to retain his self-control, he had
+concentrated upon the challenge that she had flung at him and set
+himself to teach her how to love with all the thirsty eagerness of a
+man searching for water. People who had watched him in his too wealthy
+adolescence and afterwards buying his way through life and achieving
+triumphs on the strength of his, handsome face and unique position
+would have stared in incredulous amazement at the sight of this
+love-sick man in his intense pursuit of a girl who was able to twist
+him around her little finger and make him follow her about as if he
+were a green and callow youth. Palgrave, the lady-killer; Palgrave, the
+egoist; Palgrave, the superlative person, who, with nonchalant
+impertinence, had picked and chosen. Was it possible?
+
+Everything is possible when a man is whirled off his feet by the Great
+Emotion. History reeks with the stories of men whose natures were
+changed, whose careers were blasted, whose honor and loyalty and common
+sense were sacrificed, whose pride and sense of the fitness of things
+were utterly and absolutely forgotten under the stress of the sex storm
+that hits us all and renders us fools or heroes, breaking or making as
+luck will have it and, in either case, bringing us to the common level
+of primevality for the love of a woman. Nature, however refined and
+cultivated the man, or rarified his atmosphere, sees to this. Herself
+feminine, she has no consideration for persons. To her a man is merely
+a man, a creature with the same heart and the same senses, working to
+the same end from the same beginning. Let him struggle and cry
+"Excelsior!" and fix his eyes upon the heights, let him devote himself
+to prayer or go grimly on his way with averted eyes, let him become
+cynic or misogynist, what's it matter? Sooner or later she lays hands
+upon him and claims him as her child. Man, woman and love. It is the
+oldest and the newest story in the world, and in spite of the sneers of
+thin-blooded intellectuals who think that it is clever to speak of love
+as the particular pastime of the Bolsheviki and the literary parasites
+who regard themselves as critics and dismiss love as "mere sex stuff,"
+it is the everlasting Story of Everyman.
+
+Young and new and careless, obsessed only with the one idea of having a
+good time,--never mind who paid for it,--Joan knew nothing of the
+danger of trifling with the feelings of a high-strung man who had never
+been denied, a man over-civilized to the point of moral decay. If she
+had paused in her determined pursuit of amusement and distraction to
+analyze her true state of mind she might have discovered an angry
+desire to pay Fate out for the way in which he had made things go with
+Martin by falling really and truly in love with Gilbert. As it was, she
+recognized his attraction and in the few serious moments that forced
+themselves upon her when she was alone she realized that he could give
+her everything that would make life easy and pleasant. She liked his
+calm sophistication, she was impressed, being young, by his utter
+disregard of laws and conventions, and she was flattered at the
+unmistakable proofs of his passionate devotion. But she would have been
+surprised to find beneath her careless way of treating herself and
+everybody round her an unsuspected root of loyalty towards Alice and
+Martin that put up a hedge between herself and Gilbert. There was also
+something in the fine basic qualities of her undeveloped character that
+unconsciously made her resent this spoiled man's assumption of the fact
+that, married or not, she must sooner or later fall in with his wishes.
+She was in no mood for self-analysis, however, because that meant the
+renewal of the pain and deep disappointment as to Martin which was her
+one object to hide and to forget. So she kept Gilbert in tow, and
+supplied her days with the excitement for which she craved by leading
+him on and laughing him off. It is true that once or twice she had
+caught in his eyes a look of madness that caused her immediately to
+call the nice boy to her support and make a mental note of the fact
+that it would be wise never to trust herself quite alone with him, but
+with a shrug of the shoulders she continued alternately to tease and
+charm, according to her mood.
+
+She did both these things once again when she came up from the sea to
+finish the remainder of the morning in the sun. Seeing Gilbert pacing
+the veranda like a bear with a sore ear, she told Harry Oldershaw to
+leave her to her sun bath and signalled to Gilbert to come down to the
+edge of the beach. The others were still in the sea. He joined her with
+a sort of reluctance, with a look of gall and ire in his eyes that was
+becoming characteristic. There was all about him the air of a man who
+had been sleeping badly. His face was white and drawn, and his fingers
+were never still. He twisted a signet ring round and round at one
+moment and worried at a button on his coat the next. His nerves seemed
+to be outside his skin. He stood in front of Joan antagonistically and
+ran his eyes over her slim young form in its wet bathing suit with
+grudging admiration. He was too desperately in love to be able to apply
+to himself any of the small sense of humor that was his in normal times
+and hide his feelings behind it. He was very far from being the Gilbert
+Palgrave of the early spring,--the cool, satirical, complete man of the
+world.
+
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+Joan pretended to be surprised. "Well what, Gilbert dear? I wanted to
+have a nice little talk before lunch, that's all, and so I ventured to
+disturb you."
+
+"Ventured to disturb me! You're brighter than usual this morning."
+
+"Ah I? Is that possible? How sweet of you to say so. Do sit down and
+look a little less like an avenging angel. The sand's quite warm and
+dry."
+
+He kicked a little shower of it into the air. "I don't want to sit
+down," he said. "You bore me. I'm fed up with this place and sick to
+tears of you."
+
+"Sick to tears of me? Why, what in the world have I done?"
+
+"Every conceivable and ingenious thing that I might have expected of
+you. Loyalty was entirely left out of your character, it appears. Young
+Oldershaw and the doddering Hosack measure up to your standard. I can't
+compete."
+
+Joan allowed almost a minute to go by in silence. She felt at the very
+tip-top of health, having ridden for some hours and gone hot into the
+sea. To be mischievous was natural enough. This man took himself so
+seriously, too. She would have been made of different stuff or have
+acquired a greater knowledge of Palgrave's curious temperament to have
+been able to resist the temptation to tantalize.
+
+"Aren't you, by any chance, a little on the rude side this morning,
+Gilbert?"
+
+"If you call the truth rude," he said, "yes."
+
+"I do. Very. The rudest thing I know."
+
+He looked down at her. She was leaning against the narrow wooden back
+of a beach chair. Her hands were clasped round her white knees. She
+wore little thin black shoes and no stockings. A tight rubber bathing
+cap which came low down on her forehead gave her a most attractively
+boyish look. She might have been a young French Pierrot in a picture by
+Sem or Van Beers. He almost hated her at that moment, sitting there in
+all the triumph of youth, untouched by his ardor, unaffected by his
+passion.
+
+"You needn't worry," he said. "You won't get any more of it from me. So
+that you may continue to amuse yourself undisturbed I withdraw from the
+baby hunt. I'm off this afternoon."
+
+He had cried "Wolf!" so many times that Joan didn't believe him.
+
+"I daresay a change of air will do you good," she said. "Where are you
+going?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "What's it matter? Probably to that cottage
+of mine to play hermit and scourge myself for having allowed you to
+mortify me and hold me up to the ridicule of your fulsome court of
+admirers."
+
+"Yes, that cottage of yours. You've forgotten your promise to drive me
+over to see it, haven't you?"
+
+Palgrave wheeled round. This was too much of a good thing. "Be careful,
+or my rudeness will become more truthful than even you will be able to
+swallow. Twice last week you arranged for me to take you over and both
+times you turned me down and went off with young Oldershaw."
+
+"What IS happening to my memory?" asked Joan.
+
+"It must be the sea air."
+
+He turned on his heel and walked away.
+
+In an instant she was up and after him, with her hand on his arm.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry, Gilbert," she said. "Do forgive me."
+
+"I'd forgive you if you were sorry, but you're not."
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+He drew his arm away. "No. You're not really anything; in fact you're
+not real. You're only a sort of mermaid, half fish, half girl. Nothing
+comes of knowing you. It's a waste of time. You're not for men. You're
+for lanky youths with whom you can talk nonsense, and laugh at silly
+jokes. You belong to the type known in England as the flapper--that
+weird, paradoxical thing with the appearance of flagrant innocence and
+the mind of an errand boy. Your unholy form of enjoyment is to put men
+into false positions and play baby when they lay hands on you. Your
+hourly delight is to stir passion and then run into a nursery and slam
+the door. You dangle your sex in the eyes of men and as soon as you've
+got them crazy, claim chastity and make them ashamed. One of these days
+you'll drive a man into the sort of mad passion that will make him give
+you a sound thrashing or seduce you. I don't want to be that man.
+Oldershaw is too young for you to hurt and Hosack too old, and
+apparently Martin Gray has chucked you and found some human real
+person. As for me, I've had enough. Good morning."
+
+And once more, having delivered himself coldly and clearly of this
+brutally frank indictment he went up the steps to the veranda and into
+the house.
+
+There was not even the tail of a smile on Joan's face as she watched
+him go.
+
+Lunch was not quite the usual pleasant, happy-go-lucky affair that day.
+The gallant little Major, recently married to the fluffy-minded Mrs.
+Edgar Lee Reeves and her peevish little dog, sat on the right of the
+overwhelmingly complacent Cornucopia. With the hope of rendering
+himself more youthful for this belated adventure with the babbling
+widow he had been treated by a hair specialist. The result was, as
+usual, farcically pathetic. His nice white hair which had given him a
+charming benignity and cleanness had been turned into a dead and musty
+black which made him look unearthly and unreal. His smart and carefully
+cherished moustache which once had laid upon his upper lip like cotton
+wool had been treated with the same ink-colored mixture. His clothes,
+once so perfectly suitable, were now those built for a man of Harry
+Oldershaw's youthful lines and gave him the appearance of one who had
+forced himself into a suit made for his son. It was of a very blue
+flannel with white lines,--always a trying combination. His tie and
+socks were en suite and his gouty feet were martyrized to this scheme
+of camouflage by being pressed into a pair of tight brown and white
+shoes. Having been deprived of his swim for fear that his youthfulness
+might come off in the water and with the rather cruel badinage of his
+old friend Hosack still rankling in his soul, the poor little old
+gentleman was not in the best of tempers. Also he had spent most of the
+morning exercising Pinkie-Winkie while his wife had been writing
+letters, and his nerves were distinctly jaded. The pampered animal
+which had taken almost as solemn a part of his marriage vows as the
+bride herself had insisted upon making a series of strategic attacks
+against Mrs. Hosack's large, yellow-eyed, resentful Persian Tom, and
+his endeavors to read the morning paper and rescue Pinkie from certain
+wreckage had made life a bitter and a restless business. He was unable
+to prevent himself from casting his mind back to those good bachelor
+days of the previous summer when he had taken his swim with the young
+people, enjoyed his sunbath at the feet of slim and beautiful girls,
+and looked forward to a stiff cocktail in his bathhouse like a natural
+and irresponsible old buck.
+
+Gilbert Palgrave faced him, an almost silent man who, to Cornucopia's
+great and continually voiced distress, allowed her handsomely paid
+cook's efforts to go by contemptuously untouched. It rendered her own
+enthusiastic appetite all the more conspicuous.
+
+For two reasons Hosack was far from happy. One was because Mrs. Barnet
+Thatcher was seated on his right pelting him with brightness and the
+other because Joan, on his left, looked clean through his head whenever
+he tried to engage her in sentimental sotto voce.
+
+Gaiety was left to Prim and the wounded Englishman and to young
+Oldershaw and the towering Regina who continually threw back her head
+to emit howls of laughter at Barclay's drolleries while she displayed
+the large red cavern of her mouth and all her wonderful teeth. After
+every one of these exhausting paroxysms she said, with her
+characteristic exuberance of sociability, "Isn't he the best thing?"
+
+"Don't you think he's the most fascinating creature?" to any one whose
+eye she caught,--a nice, big, beautiful, insincere girl who had been
+taught at her fashionable school that in order to succeed in Society
+and help things along she must rave about everything in extravagant
+language and make as much noise as her lungs would permit.
+
+Joan's unusual lack of spirits was noticed by every one and especially,
+with grim satisfaction, by Gilbert Palgrave. With a return of optimism
+he told himself that his rudeness expressed so pungently had had its
+effect. He congratulated himself upon having, at last, been able to
+show Joan the sort of foolish figure that she cut in his sight and even
+went so far as to persuade himself that, after all, she must do
+something more than like him to be so silent and depressed.
+
+His deductions were, however, as hopelessly wrong as usual. His drastic
+criticism had been like water on a duck's back. It inspired amusement
+and nothing else. It was his remark that Martin Gray had chucked her
+and found some human real person that had stuck, and this, with the
+efficiency of a surgeon's knife, had cut her sham complacence and
+opened up the old wound from which she had tried so hard to persuade
+herself that she had recovered. Martin-Martin-what was he doing? Where
+was he, and where was that girl with the white face and the red lips
+and the hair that came out of a bottle?
+
+The old overwhelming desire to see Martin again had been unconsciously
+set blazing by this tactless and provoked man. It was so passionate and
+irresistible that she could hardly remain at the table until the
+replete Cornucopia rose, rattling with beads. And when, after what
+seemed to be an interminable time, this happened and the party
+adjourned to the shaded veranda to smoke and catch the faint breeze
+from the sea, she instantly beckoned to Harry and made for the
+drawing-room.
+
+In this furniture be-clogged room all the windows were open, but the
+blazing sun of the morning had left it hot and stuffy. A hideous
+squatting Chinese goddess, whose tongue, by a mechanical appliance,
+lolled from side to side, appeared to be panting for breath, and the
+cut flowers in numerous pompous vases hung their limp heads. It was a
+gorgeously hot day.
+
+Young Oldershaw bounded in, the picture of unrealized health. His tan
+was almost black, and his teeth and the whites of, his eyes positively
+gleamed. He might have been a Cuban.
+
+"Didn't I hear you tell Prim last night that you'd had a letter from
+your cousin?"
+
+"Old Howard? Yes." He was sorry that she had.
+
+"Is Martin with him?" It was an inspiration, an uncanny piece of
+feminine intuition.
+
+Young Oldershaw was honest. "He's staying with Gray," he said
+reluctantly.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At Devon."
+
+"Devon? Isn't that the place we drove to the other day--with a little
+club and a sort of pier and sailboats gliding about?"
+
+"Yes. They've got one."
+
+Ah, that was why she had had a queer feeling of Martinism while she had
+sat there having tea, watching the white sails against the sky. On one
+of those boats bending gracefully to the wind Martin must have been.
+
+"Where are they living?"
+
+"In a cottage that belongs to a pal of Gray's, so far as I could
+gather."
+
+In a cottage, together! Then the girl whom she had called "Fairy,"--the
+girl who was human and real, according to Gilbert, couldn't be, surely
+couldn't be, with them.
+
+"Will you drive me over?" she asked.
+
+"When?"
+
+"Now."
+
+"Why, of course, Joan, if I--must," he said. It somehow seemed to him
+to be wrong and incredible that she had a husband,--this girl, so free
+and young and at the very beginning of things, like himself, and whom
+he had grown into the habit of regarding as his special--hardly
+property, but certainly companion and playmate.
+
+"If you're not keen about it, Harry, I'll ask Mr. Hosack or a
+chauffeur. Pray don't let me take you an inch out of your way."
+
+In an instant he was off his stilts and on his marrow bones. "Please
+don't look like that and say those things. You've only got to tell me
+what you want and I'll get it. You know that."
+
+"Thank you, Harry, the sooner the better, then," she said, with a smile
+that lit up her face like a sunbeam. She must see Martin, she must, she
+must! The old longing had come back. It was like a pain. And being with
+Howard Oldershaw in that cottage he was alone, and being alone he had
+got back into his armor. SHE had a clean slate.
+
+"Hurry, hurry," she said.
+
+And when Harry hurried, as he did then, though with a curious
+misgiving, there were immediate results. Before Joan had chosen a hat,
+and for once it was difficult to make a choice, she heard his whistle
+and from the window of her bedroom saw him seated, hatless and sunburnt
+to the roots of his fair hair, in his low-lying two-seater.
+
+It was, at his pace, a short run eastward over sandy roads, lined with
+stunted oaks and thick undergrowth of poison ivy, scrub and ferns;
+characteristic Long Island country with here a group of small untidy
+shacks and there a farm and outhouses with stone walls and scrap heaps,
+clothes drying on a line, chickens on the ceaseless hunt and a line of
+geese prowling aimlessly, easily set acackle,--a primitive
+end-of-everywhere sort of country just there, with sometimes a mile of
+half burned trees, whether done for a purpose or by accident it would
+be difficult to say. At any rate, no one seemed to care. It all had the
+look of No Man's Land,--unreclaimed and unreclaimable.
+
+For a little while nothing was said. Out of a clear sky the sun beat
+down upon the car and the brown sand of the narrow road. Many times the
+boy shot sidelong glances at the silent girl beside him, burning to ask
+questions about this husband who was never mentioned and who appeared
+to him to be something of a myth and a mystery. He didn't love Joan,
+because it had been mutually agreed that he shouldn't. But he held her
+in the sort of devoted affection which, when it exists between a boy
+and a girl, is very good and rare and even beautiful and puts them
+close to the angels.
+
+Presently, catching one of these deeply concerned glances, she put her
+little shoulder against his shoulder in a sisterly way. "Go on, then,
+Harry," she said. "Ask me about it. I know you want to know."
+
+And he did. Somehow he felt that he ought to know, that he had the
+right. After all he had stopped himself from loving her at her urgent
+request, and their friendship was the best thing that he had ever
+known. And he began with, "When did you do it?"
+
+"Away back in history," she said, "or so it seems. It's really only a
+few months."
+
+"A few months! But you can hardly have been with him any time."
+
+"I have never really been with him," she said. She wanted him to know
+everything. Now that the wound was open again and Martin in possession
+of her once more, she felt that she must talk about it all to some one,
+and who could be better than Harry, who was so like a brother?
+
+The boy couldn't believe that she meant what she implied but would have
+bitten off his tongue rather than put a direct question. "Is he such a
+rotter?" he asked instead.
+
+"He's not a rotter. He's just Martin--generous, sensitive, dead
+straight and as reliable as a liner. You and he were made in twin
+molds."
+
+He flushed with pleasure--but it was like meeting a new Joan, a
+serious, laughterless Joan, with an odd little quiver in her voice and
+tears behind her eyes. He felt a new sense of responsibility by being
+confided in. Older, too. It was queer--this sudden switch from
+thoughtless gaiety to something which was like illness in a house and
+which made Joan almost unrecognizable.
+
+He began again. "But then--" and stopped.
+
+"I'm the rotter," she said. "It's because of me that he's in Devon and
+I'm at Easthampton, that he's sailing with your cousin, and I'm playing
+the fool with Gilbert. I was a kid, Harry, and thought I might go on
+being a kid for a bit, and everything has gone wrong and all the blame
+is mine."
+
+"You're only a kid now," said Harry, trying to find excuses for her. He
+resented her taking all the blame.
+
+She shook her head. "No, I'm not. I'm only pretending to be. I came to
+Easthampton to pretend to be. All the time you've known me I've been
+pretending,--pretending to pretend. I ceased to be a kid before the
+spring was over,--when I came face to face with something I had driven
+Martin to do and it broke me. I've been bluffing since then,--bluffing
+myself that I didn't care and that it wasn't my fault. I might have
+kept it up a bit longer,--even to the end of the summer, but Gilbert
+said something this morning that took the lynch pin out of the sham and
+brought it all about my ears."
+
+And there was another short silence,--if it could be called silence
+with the whirring of the engine and the boy driving with the throttle
+out.
+
+"You care for him, then?" he asked finally, looking at her.
+
+She nodded and the tears came.
+
+It was a great shock to him, somehow; he couldn't quite say why. This
+girl had, as she had said, played the fool with Gilbert,--led the man
+on and teased him into desperation. He loathed the supercilious fellow
+and didn't give a hang how much he suffered. Anyway, he was married and
+ought to have known better. But what hit was the fact that all the
+while she had loved this Martin of hers,--she, by whom he dated things,
+who had given him a new point of view about girls and who was his own
+very best pal. That was not up to her form and somehow hurt.
+
+And she saw that it did and was deeply sorry and ashamed. Was she to
+have a bad effect on every man she met? "I won't make excuses, Harry,"
+she said. "They're so hopeless. But I want you to know that I sprang
+into marriage before I'd given a thought to what it all meant, and I
+took it as a lark, a chapter in my adventure, something that I could
+easily stop and look at after I'd seen and done everything and was a
+little breathless. I thought that Martin had gone into it in the same
+spirit and that for the joke of the thing we were just going to play at
+keeping house, as we might have played at being Indians away in the
+woods. It was the easiest way out of a hole I was in and made it
+possible for me not to creep back to my grandmother and take a whipping
+like a dog. Do you understand?"
+
+The boy nodded. He had seen her do things and heard her say things on
+the spur of the moment that were almost as unbelievable.
+
+His sympathy and quick perception were like water to her. And it was
+indescribably good to be believed without incredulous side-looks and
+suspicions, half-smiles such as Hosack would have given,--and some of
+the others who had lost their fineness in the world.
+
+"And when Martin,--who was to me then just what you are, Harry
+dear,--came up to my room in his own particular natural way, I thought
+it was hard luck to be taken so literally and not be left alone to find
+my wings for a little. I had just escaped from a long term of
+subjection, and I wanted to have the joy of being free--quite
+absolutely free. Still not thinking, I sent him away and like a brick
+he went, and I didn't suppose it really mattered to him, any more than
+it did to me, and honestly if it had mattered it wouldn't have made any
+difference because I had promised myself to hit it up and work off the
+marks of my shackles and I was full of the 'Who Cares?' feeling. And
+then Gilbert Palgrave came along and helped to turn my head. Oh, what a
+perfect little fool I was, what a precocious, shallow, selfish little
+fool. And while I was having what I imagined was a good time and seeing
+life, Martin was wandering about alone, suffering from two things that
+aren't good for boys,--injustice and ingratitude. And then of course I
+woke up and saw things straight and knew his value, and when I went to
+get him and begin all over again he wasn't mine. I'd lost him."
+
+The boy's eyebrows contracted sharply. "What a beastly shame," he said,
+"I mean for both of you." He included Martin because he liked him now,
+reading between the lines. He must be an awfully decent chap who had
+had a pretty bad time.
+
+"Yes," said Joan, "it is, for both of us." And she was grateful to him
+for such complete understanding,--grateful for Martin, too. They might
+have been brothers, these boys. "But for you, Easthampton would have
+been impossible," she added. "I don't mean the house or the place or
+the sea, which is glorious. I mean from what I have forced myself to
+do. I came down labelled 'Who Cares?' caring all the time, and just to
+share my hurt with some one I've made Gilbert care too. He's in an ugly
+mood. I feel that he'll make me pay some day--in full. But I'm not
+afraid to be alone now and drop my bluff because I believe Martin is
+waiting for me and is back in armor again with your cousin. And I
+believe the old look will come into his eyes when he sees me, and he'll
+hear me ask him to forgive and we'll go back and play at keeping house
+in earnest. Harry, I believe that. Little as I deserve it I'm going to
+have another chance given to me,--every mile we go I feel that! After
+all, I'm awfully young and I've kept my slate clean and I ought to be
+given another chance, oughtn't I?"
+
+Harry nodded and presently brought the car to a stop under the shadow
+of the little clubhouse. Half a dozen other cars were parked there, and
+a colored chauffeur was sitting on the steps of the back entrance, fast
+asleep with his chin on his chest. The small but vigorous orchestra was
+playing a fox-trot on the far veranda, and the sound of shuffling feet
+resembled that of a man cleaning something with sandpaper. There was an
+army of flies on the screen door of the kitchen and on several
+galvanized iron bins stuffed with ginger-ale bottles and orange peel.
+
+"We'll leave the car here," said Harry, "and go and have a look for the
+cottage. It'll be easy to find. There aren't many of 'em, if I remember
+right."
+
+Joan took his arm. She had begun to tremble. "Let's go this way first,"
+she said, going the right way by instinct.
+
+"If they're in," said Harry, "and I should guess they are.--there's no
+wind,--I'll draw old Howard off for an hour or so."
+
+"Yes, please do, Harry."
+
+And they went up the sandy incline, over the thick undergrowth, and the
+sun blazed down on the shining water, and half a dozen canvas-covered
+catboats near the little pier. Several people were sitting on it in
+bathing clothes, and some one was teaching a little girl to swim. The
+echo of her gurgling laughter and little cries came to them clearly.
+The sound of music and shuffling feet grew fainter and fainter.
+Gardiner's Island lay up against the horizon like a long inflated sand
+bag. There were crickets everywhere. Three or four large butterflies
+gamboled in the shimmering air.
+
+Away out, heading homewards, Martin's yawl, with Irene lying full
+stretch on the roof of the cabin, and Howard whistling for a wind,
+crept through the water, inch by inch.
+
+With the tiller under one arm and a pipe in his mouth, long empty, sat
+Martin, thinking about Joan. Hearing voices, Tootles looked up from a
+book that she was trying to read. She had been lying in the hammock on
+the stoop of Martin's cottage for an hour, waiting for Martin. It had
+taken her a long time to do her hair and immense pains to satisfy
+herself that she looked nice,--for Martin. Her plan was cut and dried
+in her mind, and she had been killing time with all the impatience and
+throbbing of nerves of one who had brought herself up to a crisis which
+meant either success and joy, or failure and a drab world. She couldn't
+bear to go through another day without bringing about a decision. She
+felt that she had to jog Fate's elbow, whatever was to be the insult.
+She had discovered from a casual remark of Howard's that Martin, those
+hot nights, had taken to sleeping on the boat. Her plan, deliberately
+conceived as a follow-up to what had happened out under the stars the
+night before, was to swim out to it and wait for him in the cabin. She
+knew, no one so well, that it was in the nature of a forlorn hope, but
+she was desperate. She loved him intransitively, to the utter
+extinction of the little light of modesty which her hand-to-mouth
+existence had left burning. She wanted love or death, and she was going
+to put up this last fight for love with all the unscrupulousness of a
+lovesick woman.
+
+She saw two people coming towards the cottage, a tall, fair, sun-tanned
+youth, hatless and frank-eyed like Martin, and--
+
+She got up. A cold hand seemed suddenly to have been placed on her
+heart. Joan,--it was Joan, the girl who, once before, at Martin's
+house, had sent the earth spinning from under her feet and put Martin
+suddenly behind barbed wire. What hideous trick was this of Fate's? Why
+was this moment the one chosen for the appearance of this girl,--his
+wife? This moment,--her moment?
+
+Fight? With tooth and nail, with all the cunning and ingenuity of a
+member of the female species to protect what she regarded as her own.
+She and her plan against the world,--that was what it was. Thank God,
+Martin was not in sight. She had a free hand.
+
+She had not been seen. A thick honeysuckle growing up the pillar had
+hidden her. She slipped into the house quickly, her heart beating in
+her throat. "I'll try this," said Harry. "Wait here." He left Joan
+within a few feet of the stoop, went up the two steps, and not finding
+a bell, knocked on the screen door. In less than an instant he saw the
+girl with bobbed hair come forward. "I'm sorry to trouble you," he
+said, with a little bow, "I thought Mr. Gray might live here," and
+turned to go. Obviously it was the wrong house.
+
+Very clearly and distinctly Tootles spoke. "Mr. Gray does live here.
+I'm Mrs. Gray. Will you leave a message?"
+
+Harry wheeled round. He felt that the bullet which had gone through his
+back had lodged in Joan's heart. He opened his mouth to speak but no
+word came. And Tootles spoke again, even more clearly and distinctly.
+She intended that her voice should travel.
+
+"My husband won't be back for several days," she said, "but I shall be
+very glad to tell him that you called if you will leave your name."
+
+"It--it doesn't matter," said Harry, stammering. After an irresolute,
+unhappy pause, he turned to go--
+
+He went straight to Joan. She was standing with her eyes shut and both
+hands on her heart, as white as a white rose. She looked like a young
+slim tree that had been struck by lightning.
+
+"Joan," he said, "Joan," and touched her arm. There was no answer.
+
+"Joan," he said, "Joany."
+
+And with a little sob she tottered forward.
+
+He caught her, blazing with anger that she had been so hurt,
+inarticulate with indignation and a huge sympathy, and with the one
+strong desire to get her away from that place, picked her up in his
+arms,--a dead delicious weight,--and carried her down the incline of
+sand and undergrowth to his car, put her in ever so gently, got in
+himself, backed the machine out, turned it and drove away.
+
+And Tootles, breathing hard and shaking, stood on the edge of the
+stoop, and with tears streaming down her face, watched the car become a
+speck and disappear.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+The sun had gone down, and the last of its lingering glory had died
+before the yawl managed to cajole her way back to her mooring.
+
+Dinner was ready by the time the hungry threesome, laughing and
+talking, arrived at the cottage. Howard, spoiling for a cocktail, made
+for the small square dining-room, and Irene, waving her hand to
+Tootles, cried out, "Cheero, dearie, you missed a speedy trip, I don't
+think," and took her into the house to tidy up in the one bathroom.
+Martin drew up short on the edge of the stoop, listened and looked
+about, holding his breath. It was most odd, but--there was something in
+the still air that had the sense of Joan in it.
+
+After a moment, during which his very soul asked for a sight of her, he
+stumped into the living room and rang the bell impatiently.
+
+The imperturbable Judson appeared at once, his eyebrows slightly raised.
+
+"Has any one been here while I've been away?" asked Martin.
+
+"No, sir. No one except Miss Capper, who's been reading on the stoop."
+
+"You're quite sure?"
+
+"You never can be quite sure about anything in this life, sir, but I
+saw no one."
+
+"Oh," said Martin. "All right, then." But when he was alone, he stood
+again, listening and looking. There was nothing of Joan in the room. A
+mixture of honeysuckle and tobacco and the aroma of cooking that had
+slipped through the swing door into the the kitchen. That was all. And
+Martin sighed deeply and said to himself "Not yet. I must go on
+waiting," and went upstairs to his bedroom. He could hear Irene's voice
+above the rush of water in the bathroom and Howard's, outside, raised
+in song. In the trees outside his window a bird was piping to its mate,
+and in the damp places here and there the frogs had already begun to
+try their voices for their community chorus. It was a peaceful earth,
+thereabouts falsely peaceful. An acute ear could easily have detected
+an angry roar of guns that came ever nearer and nearer, and caught the
+whisper of a Voice calling and calling.
+
+When Martin returned to the wood-lined sitting room with its large
+brick chimney, its undergraduate chairs and plain oak furniture, its
+round thick blue and white mats and disorderly bookcase, Tootles was
+there, a Tootles with a high chin, a half defiant smile, and
+honeysuckle at her belt.
+
+"Tootles."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Have you been alone all the afternoon?"
+
+"Yes." (Fight? Tooth and nail.) "Except for the flies.... Why, boy?"
+
+"Oh, nothing. I thought--I mean, I wondered--but it doesn't matter. By
+gum, you have made the room look smart, haven't you? Good old Tootles.
+Even a man's room can be made to look like something when a girl takes
+an interest in it."
+
+If she had been a dog she would have wagged her tail and crinkled up
+her nose and jumped up to put her nozzle against his hand. As it was
+she flushed with pleasure and gave a little laugh. She was a
+thousandfold repaid for all her pains. But, during the first half of a
+meal made riotous by the invincible Howard and the animated Irene,
+Tootles sat very quiet and thoughtful and even a little awed. How could
+Martin have sensed the fact that she had been there?... Could
+she,--could she possibly, even with the ever-ready help of
+nature,--hope to win against such a handicap? She would see. She would
+see. It was her last card. But during all the rest of the meal she saw
+the picture of a muscular sun-tanned youth carrying that pretty
+unconscious thing down the incline to a car, and, all against her will,
+she was sorry. That girl, pampered as she was, outside the big ring of
+hard daily effort and sordid struggle as she always had had the luck to
+be, loved, too. Gee, it was a queer world.
+
+The stoop called them when they left the boxlike dining room. It was
+still hot and airless. But the mosquitoes were out with voracious
+appetite and discretion held them to the living room.
+
+Irene flung herself on the bumpy sofa with a cigarette between her lips
+and a box near to her elbow. "This's the life," she said. "I shall
+never be able to go back to lil' old Broadway and grease paint and a
+dog kennel in Chorusland."
+
+"Sufficient for the day," said Howard, loosening his belt. "If a
+miracle man blew in here right now with a million dollars in each hand
+and said: 'Howard Guthrie Oldershaw,'--he'd be sure to know about the
+Guthrie,--'this is all yours if you'll come to the city,' I'd..."
+
+Irene leaned forward with her mouth open and her round eyes as big as
+headlights. "Well?"
+
+"Take it and come right back."
+
+"You disappoint me, Funny-face. Go to the piano and hit the notes.
+That's all you're fit for."
+
+It was a baby grand, much out of tune, but Howard, bulging over the
+stool, made it sound like an orchestra,--a cabaret orchestra, and ran
+from Grieg to Jerome Kern and back to Gounod, syncopating everything
+with the gusto and the sense of time that is almost peculiar to a
+colored professional. Then he suddenly burst into song and sang about a
+baby in the soft round high baritone of all men who run to fat and with
+the same quite charming sympathy. A useful, excellent fellow, amazingly
+unself-conscious and gifted.
+
+Martin was infinitely content to listen and lie back in a deep straw
+chair with a pipe between his teeth, the memories of good evenings at
+Yale curling up in his smoke. And Tootles, thinking and thinking, sat,
+Puck-like, at his feet, with her warm shoulders against his knees. Not
+in her memory could she delve for pleasant things, not yet. Eh, but
+some day she might be among the lucky ones, if--if her plan went
+through--
+
+Howard lit another cigarette at the end of the song, but before he
+could get his hands on the notes again Irene bounded to her feet and
+went over to the piano. "Say, can you play 'Love's Epitome'?" she
+pronounced it "Eppy-tomy."
+
+"Can a duck swim?" asked Howard, resisting a temptation to emit a howl
+of mirth. She was too good a sort to chaff about her frequent
+maltreatment of the language.
+
+"Go ahead, then, and I'll give you all a treat." He played the
+sentimental prelude of this characteristic product of the vaudeville
+stage, every note of which was plagiarized from a thousand plagiarisms
+and which imagined that eternity rhymed with serenity and mother with
+weather. With gestures that could belong to no other school than that
+of the twice-dailies and the shrill nasal voice that inevitably goes
+with them, Irene, with the utmost solemnity, went solidly through the
+whole appalling thing, making the frequent yous "yee-ooo" in the true
+"vawdville" manner.
+
+To Tootles it was very moving, and she was proud of her friend. Martin
+almost died of it, and Howard was weak from suppressed laughter. It was
+the first time that Irene had shown the boys what she could do, and she
+was delighted at their enthusiastic applause. She would have rendered
+another of the same sort gladly enough,--she knew dozens of them, if
+Tootles had not given her a quick look and risen to her feet.
+
+"Us for the downey," she said, and put the palm of her hand on Martin's
+lips. He kissed it.
+
+"Not yet," said Howard. "It's early."
+
+"Late enough for those who get up at dawn, old dear. Come on, Irene."
+
+And Irene, remembering what her friend had said that morning, played
+the game loyally, although most reluctant to leave that pleasant
+atmosphere, and said "Good night." And she was in such good voice and
+Howard played her accompaniment like a streak. Well, well.
+
+Tootles took her hand away gently, gave Martin a little disturbing
+smile, put her arm round the robust shoulders of her chum, opened the
+screen door and was gone.
+
+Howard immediately left the piano. He had only played to keep things
+merry and bright. "Me for a drink," he said. "And I think I've earned
+it."
+
+Martin's teeth gleamed as he gave one of his silent laughs.
+
+"How well you know me, old son," he said.
+
+"Of course. But--why?"
+
+"I like Tootles awfully. She's one in a million. But somehow it's--oh,
+I dunno,--mighty difficult to talk to her."
+
+"Poor little devil," said Howard involuntarily.
+
+"But she's having a real good time--isn't she?"
+
+"Is she?" He helped himself to a mild highball in reluctant deference
+to his weight.
+
+"I've never seen her look so well," said Martin.
+
+Wondering whether to tell the truth about her state of mind, which his
+quick sophisticated eyes had very quickly mastered, Howard drank, and
+decided that he wouldn't. It would only make things uncomfortable for
+Martin and be of no service to Tootles. If she loved him, poor little
+soul, and he was not made of the stuff to take advantage of it, well,
+there it was. He, himself, was different, but then he had no Joan as a
+silent third. No, he would let things alone. Poor old Tootles.
+
+"Great weather," he said, wrenching the conversation into a harmless
+generality. "Are you sleeping on the yawl to-night?"
+
+"Yes," replied Martin. "It's wonderful on the water. So still. I can
+hear the stars whisper."
+
+"Most of the stars I know get precious noisy at night," said Howard,
+characteristically unable to let such a chance go by. Then he grew
+suddenly grave and sat down. "Martin, I'm getting frightfully fed up
+with messing about in town. I'm going to turn a mental and physical
+somersault and get a bit of self-respect."
+
+"Oh? How's that, old man."
+
+"It's this damn war, I think. I've been reading a book in bed by a man
+called Philip Gibbs. Martin, I'm going to Plattsburg this August to see
+if they can make something of me."
+
+Martin got up. "I'm with you," he said. "If ever we get into this
+business I'm going to be among the first bunch to go. So we may as well
+know something. Well, how about turning in now? There'll be a wind
+to-morrow. Hear the trees?" He filled his pocket with cigarettes and
+slung a white sweater over his shoulder.
+
+"All right," said Howard. "I shall read down here a bit. I won't forget
+to turn out and lock up." He had forgotten one night and Judson had
+reported him.
+
+"Good night, old son."
+
+"Good night, old man."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+He was not given much to reading, but when Martin left the cottage and
+stood out in the liquid silver of the moon under the vast dome which
+dazzled with stars, and he caught the flash of fireflies among the
+undergrowth that were like the lanterns of the fairies a line came into
+his mind that he liked and repeated several times, rather whimsically
+pleased with himself for having found it at exactly the right moment.
+It was "the witching hour of night."
+
+He remained on top of the incline for a little while, moved to that
+spirit of the realization of God which touches the souls of sensitive
+men when they are awed by the wonder and the beauty of the earth. He
+stood quite still, disembodied for the moment, uplifted, stirred, with
+all the scents and all the whisperings about him, humble, childlike,
+able, in that brief flight of ecstasy, to understand the language of
+another world.
+
+And then the stillness was suddenly cut by a scream of vacuous
+laughter, probably that of an exuberant Irish maid-servant, to whom
+silences are made to break, carrying on, most likely, a rough
+flirtation with a chauffeur.
+
+It brought Martin back to earth like the stick of a rocket. But he
+didn't go down immediately to the water. He sat there and nursed his
+knees and began to think. Whether it was Howard's unexpected talk of
+Plattsburg and of being made something of or not he didn't know. What
+he did know was that he was suddenly filled with a sort of fright....
+"Good God," he said to himself, "time's rushing away, and I'm nearly
+twenty-six. I'm as old as some men who have done things and made things
+and are planted on their feet. What have I done? What am I fit to do?
+Nearly twenty-six and I'm still playing games like a schoolboy!...
+What's my father saying? 'We count it death to falter not to die' ...
+I've been faltering--and before I know anything about it I shall be
+thirty--half-time.... This can't go on. This waiting for Joan is
+faltering. If she's not coming to me I must go to her. If it's not
+coming right it must end and I must get mended and begin again. I can't
+stand in father's shoes with all he worked to make in my hands like
+ripe plums. It isn't fair, or straight. I must push up a rung and carry
+things on for him. Could I look him in the face having slacked? My God,
+I wish I'd watched the time rush by! I'm nearly twenty-six ...
+Joan--to-morrow. That's the thing to do." He got up and strode quickly
+down to the water. "If she's going to be my wife, that's a good step
+on. And she can help me like no one but my father. And then I'll make
+something of myself. If not ... if not,--no faltering, Gray,--then I'll
+do it alone for both their sakes."
+
+He chucked his sweater into the dingey, shoved it off the beach and
+sprang in and rowed strongly towards the yawl. Somehow he felt broader
+of back and harder of muscle for this summing up of things, this audit
+of his account. He was nearly twenty-six and nothing was done. That was
+the report he had to make to his conscience, that was what he had to
+say to the man who smiled down upon him from his place in the New York
+house.... Good Lord, it was about time that he pulled himself together.
+
+The yawl was lying alone, aloof from the other small craft anchored
+near the pier. Her mast seemed taller and her lines more graceful
+silhouetted against the sky, silvered by the moon. It was indeed the
+witching hour of night.
+
+He got aboard and tied up the dingey, cast a look round to see that
+everything was shipshape, took in a deep breath and went into the
+cabin. He was not tired and never felt less like sleep. His brain was
+clear as though a fog had risen from it, and energy beat in him like a
+running engine. He would light the lamp, get into his pajamas and think
+about to-morrow and Joan. He was mighty glad to have come to a decision.
+
+Stooping, he lit the lamp, turned and gave a gasp of surprise.
+
+There, curled up like a water sprite on the unmade bunk lay Tootles in
+bathing clothes, holding a rubber cap in her hand, her head, with its
+golden bobbed hair, dented into a cushion.
+
+For a moment she pretended to be asleep, but anxiety to see how Martin
+was looking was too much for her. Also her clothes were wet and not
+very comfortable. She opened her eyes and sat up.
+
+"My dear Tootles!" said Martin, "what's the idea? You said you were
+going home to bed." She would rather that he had been angry than
+amused. "It was the night," she said, "and something in the air. I just
+had to bathe and swam out here. I didn't think you'd be coming yet. I
+suppose you think I'm bug-house."
+
+"No, I don't. If I hadn't taken my bathing suit to the cottage to be
+mended I'd have a dip myself. Cigarette?" He held one out.
+
+But she shook her head. How frightfully natural and brotherly this boy
+was, she thought. Was her last desperate card to be as useless as all
+the rest of the pack? How could it be! They might as well be on a
+desert island out there on the water and she the only woman on it.
+
+"Feel a bit chilly? You'd better put on this sweater."
+
+She took it from him but laid it aside. "No. The air's too warm," she
+said. "Oh, ho, I'm so sleepy," and she stretched herself out again with
+her hands under her head.
+
+"I'm not," said Martin. "I'm tremendously awake. Let's talk if you're
+not in a hurry to get back."
+
+"I'm very happy here," she answered. "But must we have that lamp? It
+glares and makes the cabin hot."
+
+"The moon's better than all the lamps," said Martin, and put it out. He
+sat on his bunk and the gleam of his cigarette came and went. It was
+like a big firefly in the half dark cabin. "To-morrow," he said to
+himself, with a tingle running through his blood, "to-morrow--and Joan."
+
+Tootles waited for him to speak. She might as well have been miles away
+for all that she affected him. He seemed to have forgotten that she was
+alive.
+
+He had. And there was a long silence.
+
+"To-morrow,--and Joan. That's it. I'll go over to Easthampton and take
+her away from that house and talk to her. This time I'll break
+everything down and tell her what she means to me. I've never told her
+that."
+
+"He doesn't care," thought Tootles. "I'm no more than an old shoe to
+him."
+
+"If I'd told her it might have made a difference. Even if she had
+laughed at me she would have had something to catch hold of if she
+wanted it. By Jove, I wish I'd had the pluck to tell her."
+
+"He even looks at me and doesn't see me," she went on thinking, her
+hopes withering like cut flowers, her eagerness petering out and a
+great humiliation creeping over her. "What's the matter with me? Some
+people think I'm pretty. Irene does ... and last night, when I kissed
+him there was an answer.... Has that girl come between us again?"
+
+And so they went on, these two, divided by a thousand miles, each
+absorbed in individual thought, and there was a long queer silence.
+
+But she was there to fight, and having learned one side of men during
+her sordid pilgrimage and having an ally in Nature, she got up and sat
+down on the bunk at his side, snuggling close.
+
+"You are cold, Tootles," he said, and put his arm round her.
+
+And hope revived, like a dying fire licked by a sudden breeze, and she
+put her bobbed head on his broad shoulder.
+
+But he was away again, miles and miles away, thinking back, unfolding
+all the moments of his first companionship with Joan and looking at
+them wistfully to try and find some tenderness; thinking forward, with
+the picture of Joan's face before him and wondering what would come
+into her eyes when he laid his heart bare for her gaze.
+
+Waiting and waiting, on the steady rise and fall of his chest,--poor
+little starved Tootles, poor little devil,--tears began to gather,
+tears as hot as blood, and at last they broke and burst in an awful
+torrent, and she flung herself face down upon the other bunk, crying
+incoherently to God to let her die.
+
+And once more the boy's spirit, wandering high in pure air, fell like
+the stick of a rocket, and he sprang up and bent over the pitiful
+little form,--not understanding because Joan held his heart and kept it
+clean.
+
+"Tootles," he cried out. "Dear old Tootles. What is it? What's
+happened?"
+
+But there was only brotherliness in his kind touch, only the same
+solicitude that he had shown her all along. Nothing else. Not a thing.
+And she knew it, at last, definitely. This boy was too different, too
+much the other girl's--curse her for having all the luck.
+
+For an instant, for one final desperate instant, she was urged to try
+again, to fling aside control and restraint and with her trembling body
+pressed close and her eager arms clasped about his neck, pour out her
+love and make a passionate stammering plea for something,--just
+something to put into her memory, her empty loveless memory,--but
+suddenly, like the gleam of a lamp in a tunnel, her pride lit up, the
+little streak of pride which had taken her unprofaned through all her
+sordid life, and she sat up, choked back her sobs, and dried her face
+with the skirt of her bathing dress.
+
+"Don't mind me," she said. "It's the night or something. It got on my
+nerves, I suppose, like--like the throb of an organ. I dunno. I'm all
+right now, anyway." And she stood in front of him bravely, with her
+chin up, but her heart breaking, and her attempt to make a laugh must
+surely have been entered in the book of human courage.
+
+But before Martin could say anything, she slipped into the cockpit,
+balanced herself on the ledge of the cabin house, said "Good night, old
+dear," and waved her hand, dived into the silver water and swam
+strongly towards the beach.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+It began to dawn upon Hosack that Joan had slipped away with Harry
+Oldershaw from the fact that Palgrave first became restless and
+irritable, then had a short sharp spat with Barclay about the length of
+the line on the Western front that was held by the British and finally
+got up and went into the house and almost immediately prowled out alone
+for a sulky walk along the beach.
+
+Chortling as he watched him, although annoyed that he, himself, was not
+going to have an opportunity of saying soft things to Joan for some
+hours, Hosack made himself comfortable, lit another cigar and pondered
+sleepily about what he called "the infatuation of Gilbert the precious."
+
+"I can sympathize with the feller's being gone on the girl," he said to
+himself, undisturbed by Regina's frequent bursts of loud laughter at
+young Barclay's quiet but persistent banter, "but dammit, why make a
+conspicuous ass of himself? Why make the whole blessed house party,
+including his hostess, pay for his being turned down in favor of young
+Harry? Bad form, I call it. Any one would imagine that he was engaged
+to be married to Joan and therefore had some right to a monopoly by the
+way he goes on, snarling at everybody and showing the whites of his
+eyes like a jealous collie. Everybody's talking, of course, and making
+jokes about him, especially as it's perfectly obvious that the harder
+he hunts her the more she dodges him.... Curious chap, Gilbert. He goes
+through life like the ewe lamb of an over-indulgent mother and when he
+takes a fancy to a thing he can't conceive why everybody doesn't rush
+to give it him, whatever the cost or sacrifice.... If young Harry
+hadn't been here to keep her amused and on the move I wonder if Joan
+would have been a bit kinder to our friend G. P.? She's been in a weird
+mood, as perverse as April. I don't mind her treating me as if I was a
+doddering old gentleman so long as she keeps Gilbert off.... A
+charming, pretty, heart-turning thing. I'd give something to know the
+real reason why that husband of hers lets her run loose this way. And
+where's her mother, and why don't those old people step in?--such a
+child as she is. Well, it's a pretty striking commentary on the way our
+young people are brought up, there's no doubt about it. If she was my
+daughter, now--but I suppose she'd tell me to go and hang myself if I
+tried to butt in. Divorce and a general mess-up-the usual end, I take
+it."
+
+He shook his head, and his ash dropped all over his clothes and he
+began to nod. He would have given a great deal to put his feet on a
+chair and a handkerchief over his face and sink into a blissful nap.
+The young people had gone off somewhere, and there were only his wife,
+the Major, and the bride on the veranda. And, after all, why shouldn't
+he? Cornucopia could always be relied upon to play up--her
+conversational well was inexhaustible, and as for Mrs.
+Thatcher--nothing natural ever stopped the incessant wagging of her
+tongue.
+
+But it was not to be. He heard a new voice, the squeak of a cane chair
+suddenly pushed back, looked up to see the Major in an attitude of
+false delight and out came Mrs. Cooper Jekyll followed,--as he inwardly
+exclaimed,--"by the gentle Alice Palgrave, by all that's complicating!
+Well, I'm jiggered."
+
+"Well," cried Cornucopia, extending her ample hand. "This IS a
+surprise."
+
+"Yes, I intended it to be," said Mrs. Jekyll, more than ever
+Southampton in her plague veil and single eyeglass, "just to break the
+aloofness of your beach life."
+
+"And dear Alice, too,--neater than ever. How very nice to see you, my
+dear, and how's your poor mother?"
+
+Her little hand disappearing between Mrs. Hosack's two podgy members
+like the contents of a club sandwich, Alice allowed herself to be
+kissed on both cheeks, murmured an appropriate response, greeted the
+Thatchers, waved to Hosack who came forward as quickly as he could with
+pins and needles in one leg and threw a searching glance about for
+Gilbert.
+
+Every one caught it and gathered instinctively that Mrs. Jekyll had
+been making mischief. She had certainly succeeded in her desire to
+break the aloofness. The presence of Alice at that moment, with Gilbert
+behaving like a madman, was calculated to set every imagination jumping.
+
+"Um, this won't make G. P. any better tempered," thought Hosack, not
+without a certain sense of glee.
+
+Mrs. Jekyll disclosed her nose and mouth, which, it seemed, were both
+there and in perfect condition. "I was in town yesterday interviewing
+butlers,--that Swiss I told you about refused to be glared at by Edmond
+and left us on the verge of a dinner party, summing us all up in a
+burst of pure German,--and there was Alice having a lonely lunch at the
+Ritz, just back from her mother's convalescent chair. I persuaded her
+to come to me for a few days and what more natural than that she should
+want to see what this wonderful air has done for Gilbert--who has
+evidently become one of the permanent decorative objects of your
+beautiful house."
+
+"Cat," thought Mrs. Thatcher.
+
+"And also for the pleasure of seeing so many old friends," said Alice.
+"What a gorgeous stretch of sea!" She bent forward and whispered
+congratulations to the Major's bride. Her quiet courage in the face of
+what she knew perfectly well was a universal knowledge of the true
+state of Gilbert's infatuation was good to watch. With his one brief
+cold letter in her pocket and Mrs. Jekyll's innuendoes,--"all in the
+friendliest spirit,"--raking her heart, her self-control deserved all
+the admiration that it won from the members of the house party. To
+think that Joan, her friend and schoolfellow in whose loyalty she had
+had implicit faith should be the one to take Gilbert away from her.
+
+With shrewd eyes, long accustomed to look below the surface of the thin
+veneer of civilization that lay upon his not very numerous set, Hosack
+observed and listened for the next half an hour, expecting at any
+moment to see Joan burst upon the group or Gilbert make his appearance,
+sour, immaculate and with raised eyebrows. He studied Mrs. Jekyll, with
+her brilliantly made-up face, her apparent lack of guile, and her
+ever-watchful eye. He paid tribute to his copious wife for her
+determined babble of generalities, well-knowing that she was bursting
+with suppressed excitement under the knowledge that Alice had come to
+try and patch up a lost cause. He chuckled at the feline manners of the
+little lady whom they had all known so long as Mrs. Edgar Lee Reeves,
+her purring voice, her frequent over-emphasis of exuberant adjectives,
+her accidental choice of the sort of verb that had the effect of
+smashed crockery, her receptiveness to the underlying drama of the
+situation and the cunning with which she managed to hide her anxiety to
+be "on" in the scene which must inevitably come. He examined his old
+friend, Thatcher, under whose perfect drawing-room manners, felicitous
+quips and ready laughter there was an almost feminine curiosity as to
+scandal and the inadvertent display of the family wash. And, having a
+certain amount of humor, he even turned an introspective eye inwards
+and owned up to more than a little excitement as to what was going to
+happen when Gilbert realized that Mrs. Jekyll had brought his wife over
+to rescue him. Conceive Gilbert being rescued! "All of us as near the
+primeval as most of us are to lunacy," he told himself. "Education,
+wealth, leisure and all the shibboleths of caste and culture,--how
+easily they crack and gape before a touch of nature. Brooks Brothers
+and Lucile do their derndest to disguise us, but we're still Adam and
+Eve in a Turkish bath.... Somehow I feel,--I can't quite say why,--that
+this comedy of youth in which the elements of tragedy have been dragged
+in by Gilbert, is coming to a head, and unless things run off at a
+sudden tangent I don't see how the curtain can fall on a happy ending
+for Joan and the husband who never shows himself and the gentle Alice.
+Spring has its storms and youth its penalties. I'm beginning to believe
+that safety is only to be found in the dull harbor of middle-age, curse
+it, and only then with a good stout anchor."
+
+It was at the exact moment that Joan and Harry went together up the
+incline towards Martin's cottage at Devon, eyed by Tootles through the
+screen door, that Gilbert came back to the veranda and drew up short at
+the sight of his wife.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+It was when Gilbert, after a most affectionate greeting and ten minutes
+of easy small talk, led her away from the disappointed group, that
+Alice made her first mistake.
+
+"You don't look at all well, Gilbert," she said anxiously.
+
+The very fact that he knew himself to be not at all well made him hate
+to be told so. An irritable line ran across his forehead. "Oh, yes, I'm
+well," he said, "never better. Come along to the summer house and let's
+put a dune between us and those vultures."
+
+He led her down a flight of stone steps and over a stretch of
+undulating dry sand to the place where Hosack invariably read the
+morning paper and to which his servants led their village beaux when
+the moon was up, there to give far too faithful imitations of the
+hyena. And there he sat her down and stood in front of her,
+enigmatically, wondering how much she knew. "If it comes to that," he
+said, "you look far from well yourself, Alice."
+
+And she turned her pretty, prim face up to him with a sudden trembling
+of the lips. "What do you expect," she asked, quite simply, "when I've
+only had one short letter from you all the time I've been away."
+
+"I never write letters," he said. "You know that. How's your mother?"
+
+"But I wrote every day, and if you read them you'd know."
+
+He shifted one shoulder. These gentle creatures could be horribly
+disconcerting and direct. As a matter of fact he had failed to open
+more than two of the collection. They were too full of the vibration of
+a love that had never stirred him. "Yes, I'm glad she's better. I'm
+afraid you've been rather bored. Illness is always boring."
+
+"I can only have one mother," said Alice.
+
+Palgrave felt the need of a cigarette. Alice, admirable as she was, had
+a fatal habit, he thought, of uttering bromides.
+
+And she instantly regretted the remark. She knew that way of his of
+snapping his cigarette case. Was that heavily be-flowered church a
+dream and that great house in New York only part of a mirage? He seemed
+to be the husband of some other girl, barely able to tolerate this
+interruption. She had come determined to get the truth, however
+terrible it might be. But it was very difficult, and he was obviously
+not going to help her, and now that she saw him again, curiously worn
+and nervous and petulant, she dreaded to ask for facts under which her
+love was to be laid in waste.
+
+"No wonder you like this place," she said, beating about the bush.
+
+"I don't. I loathe it. The everlasting drumming of the sea puts me on
+edge. It's as bad as living within sound of the elevated railway. And
+at night the frogs on the land side of the house add to the racket and
+make a row like a factory in full blast. I'd rather be condemned to a
+hospital for incurables than live on a dune." He said all this with the
+sort of hysteria that she had never noticed in him before. He was
+indeed far from well. Hardly, in fact, recognizable. The suave,
+imperturbable Gilbert, with the quiet air of patronage and the cool
+irony of the polished man of the world,--what had become of him? Was it
+possible that Joan had resisted him? She couldn't believe such a thing.
+
+"Then why have you stayed so long?" she asked, with this new point of
+view stirring hope.
+
+"There was nowhere else to go to," he answered, refusing to meet her
+eyes.
+
+This was too absurd to let pass. "But nothing has happened to the house
+at Newport, and the yacht's been lying in the East River since the
+first of June and you said in your only letter that the two Japanese
+servants have been at the cottage near Devon for weeks!"
+
+"I'm sick of Newport with all its tuft-hunting women, and the yacht
+doesn't call me. As for the cottage, I'm going there to-morrow,
+possibly to-night."
+
+Alice got up quickly and stood in front of him. There was a spot of
+color on both her cheeks, and her hands were clasped together.
+"Gilbert, let's both go there. Let's get away from all these people for
+a time. I won't ask you any questions or try and pry into what's
+happened to you. I'll be very quiet and help you to find yourself
+again."
+
+She had made another mistake. His sensitiveness gave him as many quills
+as a porcupine. "Find myself," he said, quoting her unfortunate words
+with sarcasm. "What on earth do you mean by that, my good child?"
+
+She forced back her rising tears. Had she utterly lost her rights as a
+wife? He was speaking to her in the tone that a man uses to an
+interfering sister. "What's to become of me?" she asked.
+
+"Newport, of course. Why not? Fill the house up. I give you a free
+hand."
+
+"And will you join me there, Gilbert?"
+
+"No. I'm not in the mood."
+
+He turned on his heel and went to the other side of the summer house,
+and flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the scrub below. A frog took
+a leap. When he spoke again it was with his back to her. "Don't you
+think you'd better rejoin Mrs. Jekyll? She may be impatient to get off."
+
+But Alice took her courage in both hands. If this was to be the end she
+must know it. Uncertainty was not to be endured any longer. All her
+sleepless nights and fluctuations of hope and despair had marked her,
+perhaps for life. Hers was not the easily blown away infatuation of a
+debutante, the mere summer love of a young girl. It was the steady and
+devoted love of a wife, ready to make sacrifices, to forgive
+inconstancies, to make allowances for temporary aberrations and, when
+necessary, to nurse back to sanity, without one word or look of
+reproach, the husband who had slipped into delinquency. Not only her
+future and his were at stake, but there were the children for whom she
+prayed. They must be considered.
+
+And so, holding back her emotion, she followed him across the pompous
+summer house in which, with a shudder, she recognized a horrible
+resemblance to a mausoleum, and laid her little hand upon his arm.
+
+"Gilbert," she said, "tell me the truth. Be frank with me. Let me help
+you, dear."
+
+Poor little wife. For the third time she had said the wrong thing.
+"Help"--the word angered him. Did she imagine that he was a callow
+youth crossed in love?
+
+He drew his arm away sharply. There was something too domestic in all
+this to be borne with patience. Humiliating, also, he had to confess.
+
+"When did I ever give you the right to delve into my private affairs?"
+he asked, with amazing cruelty. "We're married,--isn't that enough?
+I've given you everything I have except my independence. You can't ask
+for more than that,--from me."
+
+He added "from me" because the expression of pain on her pretty face
+made him out to be a brute, and he was not that. He tried to hedge by
+the use of those two small words and put it to her, without
+explanation, that he was different from most men,--more careless and
+callous to the old-fashioned vows of marriage, if she liked, but
+different. That might be due to character or upbringing or the times to
+which he belonged. He wasn't going to argue about it. The fact
+remained. "I'll take you back," he added.
+
+But she blocked the way. "I only want your love," she said. "If you've
+taken that away from me, nothing else counts."
+
+He gave a sort of groan. Her persistence was appalling, her courage an
+indescribable reproach. For a moment he remained silent, with a drawn
+face and twitching fingers, strangely white and wasted, like a man who
+had been through an illness,--a caricature of the once easy-going
+Gilbert Palgrave, the captain of his fate and the master of his soul.
+
+"All right then," he said, "if you must know, you shall, but do me the
+credit to remember that I did my best to leave things vague and
+blurred." He took her by the elbow and put her into a chair. With a
+touch of his old thoughtfulness and rather studied politeness he chose
+one that was untouched by the sun that came low over the dune. Then he
+sat down and bent forward and looked her full in the eyes.
+
+"This is going to hurt you," he said, "but you've asked for the truth,
+and as everything seems to be coming to a head, you'd better have it,
+naked and undisguised. In any case, you're one of the women who always
+gets hurt and always thrives on it. You're too earnest and sincere to
+be able to apply eye-wash to the damn thing we call life, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes, Gilbert," she answered, with the look of one who had been placed
+in front of a firing squad, without a bandage over her eyes.
+
+There was a brief pause, filled by what he had called the everlasting
+drumming of the sea.
+
+"One night, in Paris, when I was towering on the false confidence of
+twenty-one,"--curious how, even at that moment, he spoke with a certain
+self-consciousness,--"I came out of the Moulin Rouge alone and walked
+back to the Maurice. It was the first time I'd ever been on the other
+side, and I was doing it all in the usual way of the precocious
+undergraduate. But the 'gay Paree' stuff that was specially
+manufactured to catch the superfluous francs of the pornographic
+tourist and isn't really in the least French, bored me, almost at once.
+And that night, going slowly to the hotel, sickened by painted women,
+chypre and raw champagne I turned a mental somersault and built up a
+picture of what I hoped I should find in life. It contained a woman, of
+course--a girl, very young, the very spirit of spring, whose laugh
+would turn my heart and who, like an elusive wood nymph, would lead me
+panting and hungry through a maze of trees. I called it the Great
+Emotion and from that night on I tried to find the original of that
+boyish picture, looking everywhere with no success. At twenty-nine,
+coming out of what seemed to be the glamor of the impossible, I married
+you to oblige my mother,--you asked for this,--and imagined that I had
+settled into a conventional rut. Do you want me to go on with it?"
+
+"Please, Gilbert," said Alice.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders as much as to say, "Well, if you enjoy the
+Christian martyr business it's entirely your lookout."
+
+But he dropped his characteristic habit of phrase making and became
+more jerky and real. "I respected you, Alice," he went on. "I didn't
+love you but I hoped I might, and I played the game. I liked to see you
+in my house. You fitted in and made it more of a home than that barrack
+had ever been. I began to collect prints and first editions, adjust
+myself to respectability and even to look forward with pride to a young
+Gilbert."
+
+Alice gave a little cry and put her hand up to her breast. But he was
+too much obsessed by his own pain to notice hers.
+
+"And then,--it's always the way,--I saw the girl. Yes, by God, I saw
+the girl, and the Great Emotion blew me out of domestic content and the
+pleasant sense of responsibility and turned me into the panting hungry
+youth that I had always wanted to be." He stopped and got up and walked
+up and down that mausoleum, with his eyes burning and the color back in
+his face.
+
+"And the girl is Joan?" asked Alice in a voice that had an oddly sharp
+note for once.
+
+"Yes," he said. "Joan.... She's done it," he added, no longer choosing
+his words. "She's got me. She's in my blood. I'm insane about her. I
+follow her like a dog, leaping up at a kind word, slinking away with my
+tail between my legs when she orders me to heel. My God, it's hell! I'm
+as near madness as a poor devil of a dope fiend out of reach of his
+joy. I wish I'd never seen her. She's made me loathe myself. She's put
+me through every stage of humiliation. I'd rather be dead than endure
+this craving that's worse than a disease. You were right when you said
+that I'm ill. I am ill. I'm horribly ill. I'm ... I'm..."
+
+He stammered and his voice broke, and he covered his face with his
+hands.
+
+And instantly, with the maternal spirit that goes with all true womanly
+love ablaze in her heart, Alice went to him and put her arms about his
+neck and drew his head down on her shoulder.
+
+And he left it there, with tears.
+
+A little later they sat down again side by side, holding hands.
+
+As Hosack had told himself, and Gilbert had just said, things seemed to
+be coming to a head. At that moment Tootles was strung up to play her
+last card, Joan was being driven back by Harry from the cottage of
+"Mrs. Gray" and Martin, becalmed on the water, with an empty pipe
+between his teeth, was thinking about Joan.
+
+Palgrave was comforted. The making of his confession was like having an
+abscess lanced. In his weakness, in his complete abandonment of
+affectation, he had never been so much of a man.
+
+There was not to Alice, who had vision and sympathy, anything either
+strange or perverse in the fact that Gilbert had told his story and was
+not ashamed. Love had been and would remain the one big thing in her
+own life, the only thing that mattered, and so she could understand,
+even as she suffered, what this Great Emotion meant to Gilbert. She
+adopted his words in thinking it all over. They appealed to her as
+being exactly right.
+
+She too was comforted, because she saw a chance that Gilbert, with the
+aid of the utmost tact and the most tender affection, might be drawn
+back to her and mended. She almost used Hosack's caustic expression
+"rescued." The word came into her mind but was instantly discarded
+because it was obvious that Joan, however impishly she had played with
+Gilbert, was unaffected. Angry as it made her to know that any girl
+could see in Gilbert merely a man with whom to fool she was supremely
+thankful that the complication was not as tragic as it might have been.
+So long as Joan held out, the ruin of her marriage was incomplete.
+Hope, therefore, gleamed like a distant light. Gilbert had gone back to
+youth. It seemed to her that she had better treat him as though he were
+very young and hurt.
+
+"Dearest," she said, "I'm going to take you away."
+
+"Are you, Alice?"
+
+"Yes. We will go on the yacht, and you shall read and sleep and get
+your strength back."
+
+He gave a queer laugh. "You talk like a mother," he said, with a catch
+in his voice.
+
+She went forward and kissed him passionately.
+
+"I love you like a mother as well as a wife, my man," she whispered.
+"Never forget that."
+
+"You're,--you're a good woman, Alice; I'm not worthy of you, my dear."
+
+It pained her exquisitely to see him so humble.... Wait until she met
+Joan. She should be made to pay the price for this! "Who cares?" had
+been her cry. How many others had she made to care?
+
+"I'll go back to Mrs. Jekyll now," she went on, almost afraid that
+things were running too well to be true, "and stay at Southampton
+to-night. To-morrow I'll return to New York and have everything packed
+and ready by the time you join me there. And I'll send a telegram to
+Captain Stewart to expect us on Friday. Then we'll go to sea and be
+alone and get refreshment from the wide spaces and the clean air."
+
+"Just as you say," he said, patting her hand. He was terribly like a
+boy who had slipped and fallen.
+
+Then she got up, nearer to a breakdown than ever before. It was such a
+queer reversal of their old positions. And in order that he shouldn't
+rise she put her hands on his shoulders and stood close to him so that
+his head was against her breast.
+
+"God bless you, dearest boy," she said softly. "Trust in me. Give all
+your troubles to me. I'm your wife, and I need them. They belong to me.
+They're mine. I took them all over when you gave me my ring." She
+lifted his face that was worn as from a consuming fire and kissed his
+unresponsive lips. "Stay here," she added, "and I'll go back. To-morrow
+then, in New York."
+
+He echoed her. "To-morrow then, in New York," and held her hand against
+his forehead.
+
+Just once she looked back, saw him bent double and stopped. A prophetic
+feeling that she was never to hear his voice again seized her in a cold
+grip,--but she shook it off and put a smile on her face with which to
+stand before the scandal-mongers.
+
+And there stood Joan, looking as though she had seen a ghost.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Alice marched up to her, blazing with anger and indignation. She was
+not, at that moment, the gentle Alice, as everybody called her,
+Alice-sit-by-the-fire, equable and pacific, believing the best of
+people. She was the mother-woman eager to revenge the hurt that had
+been done to one who had all her love.
+
+"Ah," she said, "you're just in time for me to tell you what I think of
+you."
+
+"Whatever you may think of me," replied Joan, "is nothing to what I
+think of myself."
+
+But Alice was not to be diverted by that characteristic way of evading
+hard words, as she thought it. She had seen Joan dodge the issues like
+that before, many times, at school. They were still screened from the
+veranda by a scrub-supported dune. She could let herself go.
+
+"You're a thief," she blurted out, trembling and out of all control for
+once. "Not a full-blown thief because you don't steal to keep. But a
+kleptomaniac who can't resist laying hands on other women's men. You
+ought not to be allowed about loose. You're a danger, a trap. You have
+no respect for yourself and none for friendship. Loyalty? You don't
+know the meaning of the word. You're not to be trusted out of sight. I
+despise you and never want to see you again."
+
+Could this be Alice,--this little fury, white and tense, with clenched
+hands and glinting eyes, animal-like in her fierce protectiveness?
+
+Joan looked at her in amazement. Hadn't she already been hit hard
+enough? But before she could speak Alice was in breath again. "You
+can't answer me back,--even you, clever as you are. You've nothing to
+say. That night at my house, when we had it out before, you said that
+you were not interested in Gilbert. If that wasn't a cold-blooded lie
+what was it? Your interest has been so great that you've never let him
+alone since. You may not have called him deliberately, but when he came
+you flaunted your sex in his face and teased him just to see him
+suffer. You were flattered, of course, and your vanity swelled to see
+him dogging your heels. There's a pretty expressive word for you and
+your type, and you know it as well as I do. Let me pass, please."
+
+Joan moved off the narrow board-walk without a word.
+
+And Alice passed, but piqued by this unexpected silence, turned and
+went for her once most intimate friend again. If she was callous and
+still in her "Who Cares?" mood words should be said that could never be
+forgotten.
+
+"I am Mrs. Gray. My husband won't be back for several days," These were
+the only words that rang in Joan's ears now. Alice might as well have
+been talking to a stone.
+
+"Things are coming to a head," Alice went on, unconsciously using
+Gilbert's expression and Hosack's.
+
+"And all the seeds that you've carelessly sown have grown into great
+rank weeds. Ask Mrs. Jekyll what you've driven Martin into doing if
+you're curious to know. She can tell you. Many people have seen. But if
+you still don't care, don't trouble, because it's too late. Go a few
+yards down there and look at that man bent double in the summer house.
+If you do that and can still cry out 'Who Cares?' go on to the hour
+when everything will combine to make you care. It can't be far away."
+
+"I'm Mrs. Gray. My husband won't be back for several days." Like the
+song of death the refrain of that line rose above the sound of the sea
+and of Alice's voice. Joan could listen to nothing else.
+
+And Alice caught the wounded look in the eyes of the girl in whom she
+had once had faith and was recompensed. And having said all that she
+had had in her mind and more than she had meant to say, she turned on
+her heel, forced herself back into control and went smiling towards the
+group on the veranda. And there Joan remained standing looking as
+though she had seen a ghost,--the ghost of happiness.
+
+"Mrs. Gray,--and her husband Martin.... But what have I got to say,--I,
+who refused to be his wife? It only seemed half true when I found them
+together before, although that was bad enough. But this time, now that
+my love for Martin has broken through all those days of pretending to
+pretend and that girl is openly in that cottage, nothing could be
+truer. It isn't Martin who has taken off his armor. It's I who have cut
+the straps and made it fall from his shoulders Oh, my God, if only I
+hadn't wanted to finish being a kid."
+
+She moved away, at last, from the place where Alice had left her and
+without looking to the right or left walked slowly down to the edge of
+the sea. Vaguely, as though it was something that had happened in a
+former life, she remembered the angry but neat figure of Alice and a
+few of the fierce words that had got through to her. "Rank weeds ...
+driven Martin ... too late.... Who Cares?" Only these had stuck. But
+why should Alice have said them? It was all unnecessary. She knew them.
+She had said them all on the way back from Devon, all and many more,
+seated beside that nice boy, Harry, in his car.... She had died a few
+feet from the stoop of the cottage, in the scent of honeysuckle and
+Come back to something that wasn't life to be tortured with regrets.
+All the way back she had said things to herself that Alice, angry and
+bitter as she had seemed to be, never could have invented. But they too
+were unnecessary. Saying things now was of no more use than throwing
+stones into the sea at any time. Rank weeds ... driven Martin ... too
+late ... who cares--only who cares should have come first because
+everything else was the result.
+
+And for a little while, with the feeling that she was on an island,
+deserted and forgotten, she stood on the edge of the sea, looking at a
+horizon that was utterly blank. What was she to do? Where was she to
+go? ... Not yet a woman, and all the future lay about her in chaos....
+Once more she went back in spirit to that room of Martin's which had
+been made the very sanctum of Romance by young blood and moonlight and
+listened to the plans they had made together for the discovery of a
+world out of which so many similar explorers had crept with wounds and
+bitterness.
+
+"I'm going to make my mark," she heard Martin cry. "I'm going to make
+something that will last. My father's name was Martin Gray, and I'll
+make it mean something out here for his sake."
+
+"And I," she heard herself say, "will go joy-riding on that huge
+Round-about. I've seen what it is to be old and useless, and so I shall
+make the most of every day and hour while I'm young. I can live only
+once, and I shall make life spin whichever way I want it to go. If I
+can get anybody to pay my whack, good. If not, I'll pay it
+myself,--whatever it costs. My motto's going to be a good time as long
+as I can get it and who cares for the price!"
+
+Young fool, you young fool!
+
+The boy followed her to the window, and the moonlight fell upon them
+both.
+
+"Yes, you'll get a bill all right. How did you know that?"
+
+And once more she heard her answer. "I haven't lived with all those old
+people so long for nothing. But you won't catch me grumbling if I get
+half as much as I'm going out for. Listen to my creed, Martin, and take
+notes if you want to keep up with me.... I shall open the door of every
+known Blue Room, hurrying out if there are ugly things inside. I shall
+taste a little of every known bottle, feel everything there is to feel
+except the thing that hurts, laugh with everybody whose laugh is
+catching, do everything there is to do, go into every booth in the big
+Bazaar, and when I'm tired and there's nothing left, slip out of the
+endless procession with a thousand things stored in my memory. Isn't
+that the way to live?"
+
+"Young fool, you young fool," she cried, with the feeling of being
+forgotten and deserted, with not one speck on the blank horizon.
+"You've failed--failed in everything. You haven't even carried out your
+program. Others have paid,--Martin and Gilbert and Alice, but the big
+bill has come in to you ... Who cares? You do, you do, you young fool,
+and you must creep out of the procession with only one thing stored in
+your memory,--the loss of Martin, Martin."
+
+It was a bad hour for this girl-child who had tried her wings too young.
+
+And when Gilbert straightened up and gave thanks to God for the woman
+who had never stirred him, but whose courage and tenderness had added
+to his respect, he too turned towards the sea with its blank
+horizon,--the sea upon which he was to be taken by his good wife for
+rest and sleep, and there was Joan ... young, and slight and alluring,
+with her back to him and her hands behind her back, and the mere sight
+of her churned his blood again, and set his dull fire into flames. Once
+more the old craving returned, the old madness revived, as it always
+would when the sight and sound of her caught him, and all the common
+sense and uncommon goodness of the little woman who had given him
+comfort rose like smoke and was blown away.... To win this girl he
+would sacrifice Alice and barter his soul. She was in his blood. She
+was the living picture of his youthful vision. She only could satisfy
+the Great Emotion.... There was the plan that he had forgotten,--the
+lunatic plan from which, even in his most desperate moment, he had
+drawn back, afraid,--to cajole her to the cottage away from which he
+would send his servants; make, with doors and windows locked, one last
+passionate appeal, and then, if mocked and held away, to take her with
+him into death and hold her spirit in his arms.
+
+To own himself beaten by this slip of a girl, to pack his traps and
+leave her the field and sneak off like a beardless boy,--was that the
+sort of way he did things who had had merely to raise his voice to hear
+the approach of obsequious feet? ... Alice and the yacht and nothing
+but sea to a blank horizon? He laughed to think of it. It was, in fact,
+unthinkable.
+
+He would put it to Joan in a different way this time. He would hide his
+fire and be more like that cursed boy. That would be a new way. She
+liked new things.
+
+He left the summer house, only the roof of which was touched by the
+last golden rays of the sun, and with curious cunning adopted a sort of
+caricature of his old light manner. There was a queer jauntiness in his
+walk as he made his way over the sand, carrying his hat, and a flippant
+note in his voice when he arrived at her side.
+
+"Waiting for your ship to come home?" he asked.
+
+"It's come," she said.
+
+"You have all the luck, don't you?"
+
+She choked back a sob.
+
+He saw the new look on her face. Something,--perhaps boredom,--perhaps
+the constant companionship of that cursed boy,--had brought her down
+from her high horse. This was his chance! ...
+
+"You thought I had gone, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"To-morrow suits me best. I'm off to-morrow,--I've not decided where. A
+long journey, it may be. If you're fed up with these people what do you
+say to my driving you somewhere for dinner? A last little dinner to
+remind us of the spring in New York?"
+
+"Would you like me to very much?"
+
+He steadied his voice. "We might be amused, I think."
+
+"That doesn't answer my question," she said.
+
+"I'd love you to," he answered. "It would be fair, too. I've not seen
+much of you here."
+
+Yes, it would be fair. Let her try, even at that late stage of the
+game, to make things a little even. This man had paid enough.
+
+"Very well," she said. "Let's go." It would be good to get away from
+prying eyes and the dull ache of pain for a few hours.
+
+He could hardly believe his ears. Joan,--to give him something! It was
+almost incredible.
+
+She turned and led the way up. The sun had almost gone. "I'll get my
+hat at once," she said, "I'll be ready in ten minutes."
+
+His heart was thumping. "I'll telephone to a place I know, and be
+waiting in the car."
+
+"Let me go in alone," she said. "We don't want to be held up to explain
+and argue. You're sure you want me to come?" She drew up and looked at
+him.
+
+He bowed to hide his face. "Of all things on earth," he said.
+
+She ran on ahead, slipped into the house and up to her room.
+
+Exultant and full of hope, Gilbert waited for a moment before following
+her in. Going straight to the telephone room he shut the door, asked
+for the number of his cottage and drummed the instrument with his
+fingers.
+
+At last!
+
+"Is that you, Itrangi? ... Lay some sort of dinner for two,--cold
+things with wine. It doesn't matter what, but at once. I shall be over
+in about an hour. Then get out, with the cook. I want the place to
+myself to-night. Put the door key on the earth at the left-hand corner
+of the bottom step. Telephone for a car and go to the hotel at Sag
+Harbor. Be back in the morning about nine. Do these things without
+fail. I rely upon you."
+
+He hardly waited for the sibilant assurance before putting back the
+receiver. He went round to the garage himself. This was the first time
+he had driven Joan in his car. It might be the last.
+
+Harry was at the bottom of the stairs as Joan came down.
+
+"You're not going out?" he asked. She was still in day clothes, wearing
+a hat.
+
+"Yes, I am, Harry."
+
+"Where? Why?"
+
+She laid her hand on his arm. "Don't grudge Gilbert one evening,--his
+last. I've been perfectly rotten to him all along."
+
+"Palgrave? Are you going out with Palgrave?"
+
+"Yes, to dine somewhere. I want to, Harry, oh, for lots of reasons. You
+know one. Don't stop me." Her voice broke a little.
+
+"But not with Palgrave."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I saw him dodge out of the telephone room a minute ago. He
+looked--queer. Don't go, Joan."
+
+"I must," she said and went to the door. He was after her and caught
+hold of her arm.
+
+"Joan, don't go. I don't want you to."
+
+"I must," she said again. "Surely you can understand? I have to get
+away from myself."
+
+"But won't I do?"
+
+"It's Gilbert's turn," she said. "Let go, Harry dear." It was good to
+know that she hadn't hurt this boy.
+
+"I don't like it. Please stay," but he let her go, and watched her down
+the steps and into the car, with unaccountable misgiving. He had seen
+Gilbert's face.
+
+And he saw it again under the strong light of the entrance--triumphant.
+
+For minutes after the car had gone, with a wave from Joan, he stood
+still, with an icy hand on his heart.
+
+"I don't like it," he repeated. "I wish to God I'd had the right to
+stop her."
+
+She thought that he didn't love her, and he had done his best to obey.
+But he did love her, more than Martin, it seemed, more than Gilbert, he
+thought, and by this time she was well on her way to--what?
+
+
+
+
+PART FOUR
+
+
+THE PAYMENT
+
+I
+
+
+It was one of those golden evenings that sometimes follows a hot clear
+day--one of those rare evenings which linger in the memory when summer
+has slipped away and which come back into the mind like a smile, an
+endearment or a broad sweet melody, renewing optimism and replenishing
+faith. The sun had gone, but its warm glow lingered in a sky that was
+utterly unspotted. The quiet unruffled trees in all the rich green of
+early maturity stood out against it almost as though they were painted
+on canvas. The light was so true that distances were brought up to the
+eye. Far-away sounds came closely to the ear. The murmur from the earth
+gathered like that of a multitude of voices responding to prayers.
+
+Palgrave drove slowly. The God-given peace and beauty that lay over
+everything quieted the stress and storm of his mind. Somehow, too, with
+Joan at his side on the road to the cottage in which he was to play out
+the second or the last act of the drama of his Great Emotion, life and
+death caught something of the truth and dignity of that memorable
+evening--the sounds of life and the distance of death. If he was not to
+live with Joan he would die with her. There was, to him, in the state
+of mind into which this absorbing passion had worked him, no
+alternative. Love, that he had made his lodestar in early youth and
+sought in vain, had come at last. Marriage, convention, obligations,
+responsibility, balance and even sanity mattered nothing. They were
+swept like chaff before this sex-storm. Ten years of dreams were
+epitomized in Joan. She was the ideal that he had placed on the secret
+altar of his soul. She struck, all vibrant with youth, the one poetic
+note that was hidden in his character behind vanity and sloth, cynicism
+and the ingrained belief that whatever he desired he must have. And as
+he drove away from Easthampton and the Hosack house he left behind him
+Alice and all that she was and meant. She receded from his mind like
+the white cliffs of a shore to which he never intended to return. He
+was happier than he had ever been. In his curious exaltation, life,
+with its tips and downs, its pettiness, its monotony, lay far below
+him, as the moving panorama of land does to a flying man. His head was
+clear, his plan definite. He felt years younger--almost boyish.
+Laughter came easy--the sort of reasonless laughter that comes to tired
+men as they start out on a holiday. He saw the strangeness of it all
+with some wonder and much triumph. The Gilbert Palgrave who had been
+molded by money and inertia and autocracy was discarded, and the man
+with Joan at his side was the young Gilbert whom he had caught sight of
+that night in Paris, when, on his way home under the stars, Joan, with
+her brown hair and laughing eyes, tip-tilted nose and the spirit of
+spring in her breath, had come out of his inner consciousness and
+established herself like a shape in a dream.
+
+His heart turned when he looked at Joan's face. Was its unusual gravity
+due to the fact that she had come to the end of fooling--that she, too,
+had sensed the finality or the beginning? He thought so. He believed
+so. She looked younger than ever, but sweeter, less flippant, less
+triumphantly irresponsible. She sat, like a child, with her hands in
+her lap, her mouth soft, an odd wistfulness in her eyes with their long
+curling lashes. A black straight-brimmed straw hat sat well down on her
+small head and put a shadow on her face. The slim roundness of her arms
+showed through the white silk shirt, and her low collar proved all the
+beauty of her throat and neck. She looked more than ever unplucked,
+untouched, like a rosebud.
+
+On the tip of his tongue there were words of adoration, not fastidious
+and carefully chosen, but simple, elemental words such as a farmhand
+might blunder out in the deep shadow of a lane, after dark. But he held
+them back. He would wait until after they had dined together and all
+round them there were silence and solitude. He drove still more slowly
+in order to give the two Japanese servants time to carry out his
+instructions and remove themselves. That cottage, which he had bought
+on the spur of the moment, fitted out with elaborate care and used only
+twice, for two weeks since, was to justify itself, after all. Who
+knows? He might have bought it two years before under an inspiration.
+Even then, months and months before he met Joan or knew of her
+existence, this very evening might have been mapped out He was a
+fatalist, and it fell into his creed to think so.
+
+He didn't wonder why Joan was silent or ask himself jealously of what
+she was thinking. He chose to believe that she had arrived at the end
+of impishness, had grown weary of Harry Oldershaw and his cubbish ways
+and had turned to himself naturally and with relief, choosing her
+moment with the uncanny intuition that is the gift of women. She was
+only just in time. To-morrow would have found him following the
+faithful Alice on her forlorn hope--the incurable man.
+
+It was only when they turned into the narrow sandy road that was within
+a quarter of a mile of the club at Devon that Joan came out of the
+numbness that had settled upon her and recognized things that were
+stamped with the marks of an afternoon that was never to be forgotten.
+Martin--Martin--and it was all her fault.
+
+"But why are you coming this way?" she asked, drawing back into her
+seat.
+
+"Because my cottage is just here," said Gilbert.
+
+"At Devon?"
+
+"Yes. Why not? I had a fancy for playing hermit from time to time. I
+saw the sun set behind the water,--a Byron sunset,--and in the hope of
+seeing just such another I bought this shack. I did those things once
+for want of something better. Look at it," he said, and turned the car
+through a rustic gate, alive with honeysuckle.
+
+It was a bungalow, put up on a space cleared among a wood of young
+trees that was carpeted with ferns. It might have been built for a poet
+or a novelist or just an ordinary muscular man who loved the water and
+the silences and the sense of being on the edge of the world. It was a
+bungalow of logs, roughly constructed and saved from utter banality by
+being almost completely clothed in wisteria. It was admirably suited to
+two men who found amusement in being primitive or to a romantic
+honeymoon couple who wanted to fancy themselves on a desert island.
+Better still, it might have been built for just that night, for
+Palgrave and the girl who had taken shape in his one good dream.
+
+Joan got out of the opulent car and watched Gilbert run it round to the
+side of the house. There was no garage and not even a shed to give it
+cover. Gilbert left it in the open, where it remained sulky and
+supercilious, like a grand piano in an empty kitchen.
+
+Joan had noticed this place twice that day--on the way out to find
+Martin, and again on the way back from having heard the voice of the
+girl with the white face and the red lips and the hair that came out of
+a bottle. Martin--Martin--and it was all her fault.
+
+She wondered for a moment why no one came to open the door. Some one
+was there because smoke was coming out of a chimney. But she refused to
+be impatient. She had decided to give Gilbert one evening--to be nice
+to him for one evening. He was terribly humble. Fate had dealt her a
+smashing blow on the heart, and she had returned to consciousness
+wistfully eager to make up at least to this man as well as she could
+for the pain that she had caused. There was only this one evening in
+which to do so because to-morrow she was going back to the old house,
+the old people, the old servants and the old days, a failure, having
+fallen off the Round-about, of which she had spoken so much. She was
+going back a sort of cripple to the place from which she had escaped to
+put the key into life; once more to read to her grandfather, to obey
+the orders of her grandmother, to sleep in the warm kind arms of her
+old bedroom, to go among the flowers and trees among which she had
+grown up, herself old and tired and ashamed and broken-hearted, with
+her gold ring burning into her finger and the constant vision of
+Martin's shining armor lying bent and rusty before her eyes. What an
+end to her great adventure!
+
+Gilbert came up. He walked without his usual affectation of never
+permitting anything to hurry him. All about him there was still a sort
+of exaltation. His eyes were amazingly bright. His face had lost its
+cynicism. Ten years seemed to have fallen from his shoulders like a
+pack. He was a youth again, like Martin and Harry and Howard. Joan
+noticed all this and was vaguely surprised--and glad, because obviously
+she was giving him pleasure. He deserved it after her impish treatment
+of him. What a fool she had been.
+
+He said, bending down, "We keep the key here," and picked it up,
+unlocked the door and stood back for her to pass.
+
+"Oh, isn't this nice!" said Joan.
+
+"Do you like it? It amused me to make it comfortable."
+
+"Comfortable! But it's like a picture."
+
+Gilbert laughed boyishly. Her enthusiasm delighted him. To make the
+long low living room with its big brick chimney and open fireplace
+absolutely right had dispelled his boredom--little as he had intended
+to use it. The whole thing was carried out on the lines of the main
+room in an English shooting box. The walls were matchboarded and
+stained an oak color, and the floor was polished and covered with
+skins. Old pewter plates and mugs, and queer ugly delightful bits of
+pottery were everywhere--on shelves, on the wide mantelpiece, and
+hanging from the beams. Colored sporting prints covered the walls,
+among stuffed fish and heads of deer with royal antlers and beady eyes
+with a fixed stare. The furniture was Jacobean--the chairs with ladder
+backs and cane seats; a wide dresser, lined with colored plates; a long
+narrow table with rails and bulging legs. Two old oak church pews were
+set on each side of the fireplace filled with cushions covered with a
+merry chintz. There were flowers everywhere in big bowls--red rambler
+roses, primula, sweet williams, Shasta daisies, and scarlet poppies.
+All the windows were open, and there was nothing damp or musty in the
+smell of the room. On the contrary, the companionable aroma of tobacco
+smoke hung in the air mixed with the sweet faint scent of flowers. The
+place seemed "lived-in"--as well it might. The two Japs had played
+gentlemen there for some weeks. The table was laid for two, and
+appetizing dishes of cold food, salad and fruit were spread out on the
+dresser and sideboard, with iced champagne and claret cup.
+
+"The outside of the cottage didn't suggest all this comfort," said Joan.
+
+"Comfort's the easiest thing in the world when you can pay for it.
+There's one bedroom half the size of this and two small ones. A
+bathroom and kitchen beyond. There's water, of course, and electric
+light, and there's a telephone. I loathe the telephone, the destroyer
+of aloofness, the missionary that breaks into privacy." He switched on
+the lights in several old lanterns as he spoke. The day had almost
+disappeared.
+
+He went over to her and stood smiling.
+
+"Well, isn't this better than a road-house reeking of food and flies
+and made hideous by a Jazz band?"
+
+"Much better," she said.
+
+The delightful silence was broken by the crickets.
+
+"Martin--Martin," she thought, "and it was all my fault."
+
+A sort of tremble ran over Gilbert as he looked at her. Agony and joy
+clashed in his heart. He had suffered, gone sleepless, worn himself out
+by hard, grim exercise in order, who knew how many times, to master his
+almost unendurable passion. He had killed long nights, the very thought
+of which made him shudder, by reading books of which he never took in a
+word. He had stood up in the dark, unmanned, and cursed himself and her
+and life. He had denounced her to himself and once to her as a flapper,
+a fool-girl, an empty-minded frivolous thing encased in a body as
+beautiful as spring. He had thrown himself on his knees and wept like a
+young boy who had been hurt to the very quick by a great injustice. He
+had faced himself up, and with the sort of fear that comes to men in
+moments of physical danger, recognized madness in his eyes. But not
+until that instant, as she stood before him unguarded in his lonely
+cottage, so slight and sweet and unexpectedly gentle, her eyes as
+limpid as the water of a brook, her lips soft and kind and unkissed,
+her whole young body radiating virginity, did he really know how
+amazingly and frighteningly he loved her. But once again he held back a
+rush of adoring words and a desire to touch and hold and claim. The
+time had not come yet. Let her warm to him. Let him live down the
+ugliness of the mood that she had recently put him into, do away with
+the impression he must have given her of jealousy and petulance and
+scorn. Let her get used to him as a man who had it in him to be as
+natural and impersonal, and even as cubbish, as some of the boys she
+knew. Later, when night had laid its magic on the earth, he would make
+his last bid for her kisses--or take her with him across the horizon.
+
+"How do you like that?" he asked, and pointed to a charmingly grotesque
+piece of old Staffordshire pottery which made St. George a stunted
+churchwarden with the legs of a child, his horse the kind of animal
+that would be used in a green grocer's cart and the dragon a cross
+between a leopard and a half-bred bulldog.
+
+"Very amusing," she said, going over to it.
+
+And the instant her back was turned, he opened a drawer in a sideboard
+and satisfied himself that the thing which might have to put them into
+Eternity together lay there, loaded.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+"And now," he said gayly, "let's dine and, if you don't mind, I will
+buttle. I hate servants in a place like this." He went to the head of
+the table and drew back a chair.
+
+Joan sat down, thanking him with a smile. It was hard to believe that,
+with the words of that girl still ringing in her ears and the debris of
+her hopes lying in a heap about her feet, she was going through the
+process of being nice to this man who had his claims. It was unreal,
+fantastic. It wasn't really happening. She must be lying face down on
+some quiet corner of Mother Earth and watering its bosom with tears of
+blood. Martin--Martin! It was all her fault.
+
+Tomorrow she would be back again in the old house, with the old people
+and the old dogs and the old trees and follow her old routine--old,
+old. That was the price she must pay for being a kid when she should
+have been a woman.
+
+Palgrave stood at the sideboard and carved a cold chicken decorated
+with slips of parsley. "Have you ever gone into a room in which you've
+never been before and recognized everything in it or done some thing
+for the first time that you suddenly realize isn't new to you?"
+
+"Yes, often," replied Joan. "Why?"
+
+"You've never sat in that chair until this minute and this chicken was
+probably killed this morning. But I've seen you sitting in just that
+attitude at that table and cut the wing of this very bird and watched
+that identical smile round your lips when I put the plate in front of
+you." He put it in front of her and the scent of her hair made him
+catch his breath. "Oh, my God!" he said to himself. "This girl--this
+beautiful, cool, bewitching thing--the dew of youth upon her, as chaste
+as unsunned snow--Oh, my God...."
+
+But Joan had caught the scent of honeysuckle, and back into her brain
+came that cottage splashed with sun, the lithe figure of Harry
+Oldershaw with his face tanned the color of mahogany and the clear
+voice of "Mrs. Gray."
+
+Gilbert filled her glass with champagne cup, carved for himself and sat
+at the foot of the table. "The man from whom I bought this place," he
+said, saying anything to make conversation and keep himself rig idly
+light and, as he hoped, like Oldershaw, "owns a huge ready-made clothes
+store on Broadway--appalling things with comic belts and weird pockets."
+
+"Oh!" said Joan. Always, for ever, the scent of honeysuckle would bring
+that picture back. Martin--Martin.
+
+"He makes any amount of money by dressing that portion of young America
+which sells motors and vacuum cleaners and gramaphone records and hangs
+about stage doors smoking cheap cigarettes."
+
+"Yes?" Joan listened but heard nothing except that high clear voice
+coming through the screen door.
+
+"He built this cottage as an antidote and spent his week-ends here
+entirely alone with the trees and crickets, trying to write poetry. He
+was very pleased with it and believed that this atmosphere was going to
+make him immortal."
+
+"I see,"--but all she saw was a porch covered with honeysuckle, a
+hammock with an open book face downwards in it and the long shadow of
+Harry Oldershaw flung across the white steps.
+
+Gilbert went on--pathetically unable to catch the unaffected young
+stuff of the nice boy and his kind. He had never been young.
+
+"He had had no time during his hard struggle to read the masters, and
+when, without malice, I quoted a chunk of Grey's 'Elegy' to him, the
+poor devil's jaw fell, he withdrew his blank refusal to sell the place
+to me, pocketed my cheque, packed his grip, and slouched off then and
+there, looking as if a charge of dynamite had blown his chest away. His
+garments, I notice, are as comic as ever, and I suppose he is now
+living in a turretted house with stucco walls and stone lions at New
+Rochelle, wedded to Commerce and a buxom girl who talks too much and
+rag-times through her days."
+
+Joan joined in his laugh. She was there to make up for her unkindness.
+She would do her best under the circumstances. She hoped he would tell
+lots of long stories to cover her wordlessness.
+
+Gilbert emptied his glass and filled it again. He was half conscious of
+dramatizing the episode as it unrolled itself and thrilled to think
+that this might be the last time that he would eat and drink in the
+only life that he knew. Death, upon which he had looked hitherto with
+horror, didn't scare him if he went into it hand in hand with Joan.
+With Alice trying, in her persistently gentle way, to cure him, life
+was unthinkable. Life with Joan--there was that to achieve. Let the law
+unravel the knots while he and she wandered in France and Italy, she
+triumphantly young, and he a youth again, his dream come true.... Would
+she have come with him to-night if she hadn't grown weary of playing
+flapper? She knew what she meant to him. He had told her often enough.
+Too often, perhaps. He had taken the surprise of it away, discounted
+the romance..
+
+He got up and gave her some salad and stood by her for a moment. He was
+like a moth hovering about a lamp.
+
+She smiled up at him again--homesick for the old bedroom and the old
+trees, eager to sit in her grand father's room and read the paper to
+him. He was old and out of life and so was she. Oh, Martin, Martin. Why
+couldn't he have waited a little while longer?
+
+The shock of touching her fingers as she took the salad plate sent the
+blood to Gilbert's brain. But he reined himself in. He was afraid to
+come to the point yet. Life was too good like this. The abyss yawned at
+their feet. He would turn his back to it and see only the outstretched
+landscape of hope.
+
+They ate very little, and Joan ignored her glass. Gilbert frequently
+filled his own, but he might just as well have been drinking water. He
+was already drunk with love.
+
+Finally, after a long silence, Joan pushed her chair back and got up.
+
+Instantly he was in front of her, with his back to the door. "Joan," he
+said, and held out his hands in supplication.
+
+"Don't you think we ought to drive home now?" she asked.
+
+"Home?"
+
+"Yes. It must be getting late."
+
+"Not yet," he said, steadying his voice. "Time is ours. Don't hurry."
+
+He went down suddenly on to his knees and kissed her feet.
+
+At any other time, in any other mood, the action would have stirred her
+sense of the ridiculous. She would have laughed and whipped him with
+sarcasm. He had done exuberant things before and left her unmoved
+except to mirth. But this time she raised him up without a word, and he
+answered her touch with curious unresistance, like a man hypnotized and
+stood speechless, but with eyes that were filled with eloquence.
+
+"Be good to-night, Gilbert," she said. "I've ... I've been awfully hurt
+to-day and I feel tired and worn--not up to fencing with you."
+
+The word "fencing" didn't strike home at first, nor did he gather at
+once from her simple appeal that she had not come in the mood that he
+had persuaded himself was hers.
+
+"This is the first time that you've given me even an hour since you
+drew me to the Hosacks," he said. "Be generous. Don't do things by
+halves."
+
+She could say nothing to that. She was there only because of a desire
+to make up ever so little for having teased him. He had been
+consistently generous to her. She had hoped, from his manner, that he
+was simply going to be nice and kind and not indulge in romantics. She
+was wrong, evidently. It was no new thing, though. She was well
+accustomed to his being dramatic and almost foreign. He had said many
+amazing things but always remained the civilized man, and never
+attempted to make a scene. She liked him for that, and she had tried
+him pretty high, she knew. She did wish that he would be good that
+night, but there was nothing to say in reply to his appeal. And so she
+went over to one of the pews and sat down among the cushions.
+
+"I'll give you another hour, then," she said.
+
+But the word had begun to rankle. "Fencing!--Fencing! ..."
+
+He repeated it several times.
+
+She watched him wander oddly about the room, thinking aloud rather than
+speaking to her. How different he had become. For the first time it
+dawned upon her that the whole look of the man had undergone a change.
+He held himself with less affectation. His petulance had gone. He was
+like a Gilbert Palgrave who had been ill and had come out of it with
+none of his old arrogance.
+
+He took up a cigarette and began wandering again, muttering her
+unfortunate word. She was sorry to have hurt his feelings. It was the
+very last thing that she had wanted to do. "Aren't there any matches?"
+she asked. "Ring for some."
+
+She was impatient of indecision.
+
+He drew up and looked at her. "Ring? Why? No one will come."
+
+"Are we the only people in the house, then?"
+
+"Yes," he said. "That's part of my plan."
+
+"Plan?" She was on her feet. "What do you mean? Have you thought all
+this out and made a scheme of it?"
+
+"Yes; all out," he said. "The moment has come, Joan."
+
+No longer did the scent of honeysuckle take Joan back to the sun-bathed
+cottage and the voice behind the door. No longer did she feel that all
+this wasn't really happening, that it was fantastic. Stark reality
+forced itself upon her and brought her into the present as though some
+one had turned up all the lights in a dark room. She was alone with the
+man whom she had driven to the limit of his patience. No one knew that
+she was there. It was a trick into which she had fallen out of a new
+wish to be kind. A sense of self-preservation scattered the dire
+effects of everything that had happened during the afternoon. She must
+get out, quickly. She made for the door.
+
+But Gilbert was there first. He locked it, drew out the key, put it in
+his pocket and before she could turn towards the door leading to the
+other rooms, he was there. He repeated the process with peculiar
+deftness and when he saw her dart a look at the windows, he shook his
+head.
+
+"You can't jump through those screens," he said.
+
+"It isn't fair," she cried.
+
+"Have you been fair?"
+
+"I shall shout for help."
+
+"The nearest cottage is too far away for any one to hear you."
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+He went back to her. He was far too quiet and dignified and unlike
+himself. She could have managed the old vain Gilbert. A scoffing laugh,
+and he would have withered. But this new Gilbert, who looked at her
+with such a curious, exalted expression--what was she to do with him?
+
+"Joan," he said, "listen. This is the end or the beginning. I haven't
+locked the doors and sent the servants away to get you into a vulgar
+trap. I might have done it a few weeks ago, but not as I am now. This
+is my night, my beautiful Joan. You have given it to me. After all this
+fencing, as you call it, you are here with me alone, as far away from
+the old foolishness as if you were out at sea. What I have to say is so
+much a private thing, and what I may have to do so much a matter to be
+treated with the profoundest solemnity that we must run no risk of
+disturbance. Do you begin to understand, little Joan?"
+
+"No," she said.
+
+"I will explain it to you, then. You are very young and have been very
+thoughtless. You haven't stopped to think that you have been playing
+with a soul as well as a heart. I have brought you here to-night to
+face things up simply and quietly and finally, and leave it to you to
+make a choice."
+
+"A choice?"
+
+"Yes, between life with me or death in my arms."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+All that was healthy and normal in Joan broke into revolt. There was
+something erotic, uncanny about all this. Life or death? What was he
+talking about? Her pride, too, which had never been put to such a test,
+was up in arms against the unfairness and cunning of the way in which
+she had been taken advantage of. She had meant to be kind and pay
+something of her debt to this man, and it was a vulgar trap, whatever
+he said in excuse. Let him dare to touch her. Let him dare. She would
+show him how strong she was and put up such a fight as would amaze him.
+Just now she had placed herself among those old people and old trees,
+because she had suffered. But she was young, tingling with youth, and
+her slate was clean, notwithstanding the fool game that she had played,
+and she would keep it clean, if she had to fight her way out.
+
+She took up her stand behind the table, alert and watchful.
+
+"I don't get you when you go in for melodrama," she said. "I much
+prefer your usual way of talking. Translate for me." She spoke
+scornfully because hitherto she had been able to turn him off by scorn.
+
+But it didn't work this time. It was not anger that came into his eyes,
+only an unexpected and disconcerting reproach. He made no attempt to go
+near her. He looked extraordinarily patient and gentle. She had never
+seen him like this before. "Don't stand there," he said. "Come and sit
+down and let's go into this sensibly, like people who have emerged from
+stupidity. In any case you are not going back to Easthampton to-night."
+
+She began to be frightened. "Not going back to Easthampton?"
+
+"No, my dear."
+
+She left her place behind the table and went up to him. Had all the
+world gone wrong? Had her foolishness been so colossal that she was to
+be broken twice on the same day? "Gilbert," she said. "What is it? What
+do you mean? Why do you say these odd things in this queer way?
+You're--you're frightening me, Gilbert."
+
+Young? She was a child as she stood there with her lovely face
+upturned. It was torture to keep his hands off her and not take her
+lips. But he did nothing. He stood steady and waited for his brain to
+clear. "Odd things in a queer way? Is that how I strike you?"
+
+"Yes. I've never seen you in this mood before. If you've brought me
+here to make me say I'm sorry, I will, because I am sorry. I'd do
+anything to have all these days over again--every one since I climbed
+out of my old bedroom window. If you said hard things to me all night I
+should deserve them all and I'll pay you what I can of my debt, but
+don't ask me to pay too much. I trusted you by coming here alone. Don't
+go back on me, Gilbert."
+
+He touched her cheek and drew his hand away.
+
+"But I haven't brought you here to make you humble yourself," he said.
+"There's nothing small in this. What you've done to me has left its
+marks, of course, deep marks. I don't think you ever really understood
+the sort of love mine is. But the hour has gone by for apologies and
+arguments and regrets. I'm standing on the very edge of things. I'm
+just keeping my balance on the lip of eternity. It's for you to draw me
+back or go tumbling over with me. That's why you're here. I told you
+that. Are you really so young that you don't understand?"
+
+"I'm a kid, I'm a kid," she cried out, going back to her old excuse.
+"That's the trouble."
+
+"Then I'll put it into plain words," he said, with the same appalling
+composure. "I've had these things in my mind to say to you for hours. I
+can repeat them like a parrot. If the sort of unimaginative people who
+measure everybody by themselves were to hear what I'm going to say, I
+suppose they would think I'm insane. But you won't. You have
+imagination. You've seen me in every stage of what I call the Great
+Emotion. But you've not treated me well, Joan, or taken me seriously,
+and this is the one serious thing of my life."
+
+He was still under control, although his voice had begun to shake and
+his hands to tremble. She could do nothing but wait for him to go on.
+The crickets and the frogs filled in the short silence.
+
+"And now it's come to this. I can be played with no longer. I can't
+wait for you any more. Either you love me, or you don't. If you do, you
+must be as serious as I am, tear up your roots such as they are and
+come away with me. Your husband, who counts for as little as my wife,
+will set the law in action. So will Alice. We will wander among any
+places that take your fancy until we can be married and then if you
+want to come back, we will. But if you don't and won't love me, I can't
+live and see you love any other man. I look upon you as mine. I created
+you for myself ten years ago. Not being able to live without you, I am
+not made of the stuff to leave you behind me. I shall take you and if
+there's another life on the other side, live it with you. If not, then
+we'll snuff out together. Like all great lovers, I'm selfish, you see.
+That's what I meant when I talked just now about choice."
+
+He moved away, quietly, and piled several cushions into a corner of one
+of the pews. The look of exaltation was on his face again.
+
+"Sit here, my dream girl," he added, with the most wonderful
+tenderness, "and think it over. Don't hurry. The night belongs to us."
+He found a match and lit a cigarette and stood at one of the windows
+looking out at the stars.
+
+But Joan was unable to move. Her blood was as cold as ice. As though a
+searchlight had suddenly been thrown on to Gilbert, she saw him as he
+was. "Unimaginative people will think I'm insane." ... SHE didn't think
+he was insane, imaginative as he said she was. She KNEW it. If she had
+been able to think of one thing but Martin and that girl and her own
+chaos, she must have guessed it at Easthampton from the look in his
+eyes when he helped her into his car.... He had lost his balance, gone
+over the dividing hue between soundness and unsoundness. And it was her
+fault for having fooled with his feelings. Everything was her fault,
+everything. And now she stood on what Gilbert had called the lip of
+Eternity. "Who Cares?" had come back at her like a boomerang. And as to
+a choice between giving herself to Gilbert or to death, what was the
+good of thinking that over? She didn't love this man and never could.
+She loved Martin, Martin. She had always loved Martin from the moment
+that she had turned and found him on the hill. She had lost him, that
+was true, He had been unable to wait. He had gone to the girl with the
+white face and the red lips and the hair that came out of a bottle. She
+had sent him to her, fool that she had been. Already she had decided to
+creep back to the old prison house and thus to leave life. Without
+Martin nothing mattered. Why put up a fight for something that didn't
+count? Why continue mechanically to live when living meant waiting for
+death? Why not grasp this opportunity of leaving it actually, at once,
+and urge Gilbert on to stop the beating of her wounded and contrite
+heart? ... Death, the great consoler. Sleep, endless sleep and peace.
+
+But as she stood there, tempted, with the weight of Martin's discarded
+armor on her shoulders and the sense of failure hanging like a
+millstone round her neck, she saw the creeper bursting into buds on the
+wall beneath the window of her old room, caught the merry glint of
+young green on the trees below her hill, heard the piping of birds to
+their nesting mates, the eager breeze singing among the waving grasses
+and the low sweet crooning of baby voices--felt a tiny greedy hand upon
+her breast, was bewildered with a sudden overwhelming rush of
+mother-longing ... young, young? Oh, God, she was young, and in the
+springtime with its stirring sap, its call to life and action, its urge
+to create, to build, its ringing cry to be up and doing, serving,
+sowing, tending--the pains of winter forgotten, hope in the warming sun.
+
+She must live. Even without Martin she must live. She was too young for
+death and sleep and peace. Life called and claimed and demanded. It had
+need of the young for a good spring, a ripe summer, a golden autumn.
+She must live and work and justify.
+
+But how?
+
+There was Gilbert watching the stars with a smile, calmly and quietly
+and horribly waiting for her to make a choice, having slipped over on
+the other side of the dividing line. A scream of fear and terror rose
+to her throat. This quiet, exalted man, so gentle and determined, with
+the look in his eyes of one who intended to own one way or the
+other--Live? How was she to live? He had given her a choice between
+something that was impossible and something that all Nature held her
+back from. She was locked into a lonely house as far away from help as
+though they were out at sea.
+
+"We hold it death to falter not to die." The words seemed suddenly to
+stand out in blazing letters over the mantelpiece, as they did in
+Martin's room--Martin, Martin.... With a mighty effort she wound the
+reins round her hands and pulled herself up. In this erotic and
+terrible position she must not falter or show fear or exaggerate this
+man's sudden derangement by cries or struggles. He must be humored,
+kept gentle and quiet, and she must pray for help. God loved young
+things, and if she had forgotten Him until the very moment of great
+danger, He might forgive. She must, with courage and practicality, gain
+time so that some one might be sent. The servants might return. Harry
+Oldershaw might have followed them. He hadn't liked the look of
+Gilbert. He had said so. But if that was too good, there was Martin,
+Martin...
+
+She saw herself sitting in a dressing gown on the arm of a chair in
+Martin's room in the little New York house. She heard Martin come along
+the passage with his characteristic light tread and saw him draw up
+short. He looked anxious. "You wanted me?" she heard him say.
+
+"I did and do, Marty. But how did you guess?"
+
+"I didn't guess. I knew."
+
+"Isn't that wonderful? Do you suppose I shall always be able to get you
+when I want you very much?"
+
+"Yes, always."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I dunno. It's like that. It's something that can't be explained...."
+
+Gilbert turned and smiled at her. She smiled back. Martin was not far
+away, Martin. "How quiet the night is," she said, and went over to a
+window. Hope gleamed like a star. And then, with all her strength and
+urgency she gave a silent cry. "Martin, Martin. I want you, so much,
+oh, so much. Come to me, quickly, quickly. Martin, Martin."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The crickets and the frogs vied with each other to fill the silence
+with sound. The moon was up and had laid a silver carpet under the
+trees. Fireflies flashed their little lights among the undergrowth like
+fairies signalling.
+
+Joan had sent her S. O. S. into the air and with supreme confidence
+that it would reach Martin wherever he might be, left the window, went
+to the pew in which Gilbert had arranged the cushions and sat down...
+Martin had grown tired of waiting for her. She had lost him. But twice
+before he had answered her call, and he would come. She knew it. Martin
+was like that. He was reliable. And even if he held her in contempt
+now, he had loved her once. Oh, what it must have cost him to leave her
+room that night--it seemed so long ago--she had clung to being a kid
+and had conceived it to be her right to stay on the girlhood side of
+the bridge. To be able to live those days over again--how different she
+would be.
+
+Without permitting Gilbert to guess what she was doing, she must humor
+him and gain time. She gave thanks to God that he was in this gentle,
+exalted mood, and was treating her with a sort of reverence. Behind the
+danger and the terror of it all she recognized the wonder of his love.
+
+"Gilbert," she said softly.
+
+"Well, my little spring girl?"
+
+"Come and sit here, where I can see you."
+
+"You have only to tell me what I'm to do," he said and obeyed at once.
+
+How different from the old affected Gilbert--this quiet man with the
+burning eyes who sat with his elbows on his knees and his back bent
+towards her and the light of one of the lanterns on his handsome face.
+She had played with a soul as well as with a heart, and also, it
+appeared, with a brain. How fatal had been her effect upon men--Martin
+out of armor and Gilbert on the wrong side of the thin dividing line.
+Men's love--it was too big and good a thing to have played with, if she
+had only stopped to think, or some one had been wise and kind enough to
+tell her. Who cares? These two men cared and so did she, bitterly,
+terribly, everlastingly.
+
+Would Martin hear--oh, would he hear? Martin, Martin!
+
+There was a long, strange silence.
+
+"Well, my little Joan?"
+
+"Well, Gilbert?"
+
+He picked up her hand and put his lips to it. "Still thinking?" he
+asked, with a curious catch in his voice.
+
+"Yes, Gilbert, give me time."
+
+He gave back her hand. "The night is ours," he said, but there was pain
+in his eyes.
+
+And there they sat, these two, within an arm's reach, on the edge of
+the abyss. And for a little while there was silence--broken only by the
+crickets and the frogs and the turning of many leaves by the puffs of a
+sudden breeze.
+
+Was she never going to hear the breaking of twigs and the light tread
+outside the window? Martin, Martin.
+
+And then Gilbert began to speak. "I can see a long way to-night, Joan,"
+he said, in a low voice. "I can see all the way back to the days when I
+was a small boy--years away. It's a long stretch."
+
+"Yes, Gilbert," said Joan. (Martin, Martin, did you hear?)
+
+"It's not good for a boy to have no father, my sweet. No discipline, no
+strong hand, no man to imitate, no inspiration, no one to try and keep
+step with. I see that now. I suffered from all that."
+
+"Did you, Gilbert?" Oh, when would the twigs break and the light step
+come? Martin, Martin.
+
+"A spoilt boy, a mother's darling, unthrashed, unled. What a cub at
+school with too much money! What a conceited ass at college, buying
+deference and friends. I see myself with amazement taking to life with
+an air of having done it all, phrase-making and paying deference to
+nothing but my excellent profile. God, to have those years over again!
+We'd both do things differently given another chance, eh, Joan?"
+
+"Yes, Gilbert." He wasn't coming. He wasn't coming. Martin, Martin.
+
+She strained her ears to catch the sound of breaking twigs. The
+crickets and the frogs had the silence to themselves. She got up and
+went to the window, with Gilbert at her elbow. She felt that he was
+instantly on his feet. Martin's face was not pressed against the
+screen. He had heard. She knew that he had heard, because she was
+always able to make him hear. But he didn't care. When he had come
+before it was for nothing. She had lost him. She was un-Martined. She
+was utterly without help. She must give up. What was the good of making
+a fight for it now that Martin cared so little as to turn a deaf ear to
+her call? He had even forgotten that he had loved her once. Death was
+welcome then. Yes, welcome. But there was one way to make some sort of
+retribution--just one. She would remain true to Martin.
+
+Gilbert touched her on the arm. "Come, Joan," he said. "The night's
+running away. Is it so hard to decide?"
+
+But against her will Nature, to whom life is so precious, put words
+into her mouth. "I want you to try and understand something more about
+me," she said eagerly.
+
+"The time has gone for arguing," he replied, stiffening a little.
+
+"I'm not going to argue," she went on quickly, surprised at herself,
+deserted as she was. "I only want you to think a little more deeply
+about all this."
+
+He drew his hand across his forehead. "Think? I've thought until my
+brain's hot, like an overheated engine."
+
+She leaned forward. Spring was fighting her battle. "I'm not worth a
+love like yours," she said. "I'm too young, too unserious. I'm not half
+the woman that Alice is."
+
+"You came to me in spirit that night in Paris. I placed yuu in my
+heart. I've waited all these years."
+
+"Yes, but there's Alice--no, don't turn away. Let me say what's in my
+mind. This is a matter of life or death, you said."
+
+He nodded. "Yes, life or death, together."
+
+"Alice doesn't disappoint," she went on, the words put upon her lips.
+"I may, I shall. I already have, remember. This is your night, Gilbert,
+not mine, and whichever step we decide to take matters more to you than
+to me. Let it be the right one. Let it be the best for you."
+
+But he made a wild sweeping gesture. His patience was running out.
+"Nothing is best for me if you're not in it. I tell you you've got me,
+whatever you are. You have your choice. Make it, make it. The night
+won't last for ever."
+
+Once more she listened for the breaking twig and the light step. There
+was nothing but the sound of the crickets and the frogs. Martin had
+forgotten. He had heard, she was sure of that, but he didn't care.
+Nature had its hand upon her arm, but she pushed it away. Her choice
+was easy, because she wouldn't forget. She would be true to Martin.
+
+"I've made my choice," she said.
+
+"Joan, Joan--what is it?"
+
+"I don't love you."
+
+He went up to her, with his old note of supplication. "But I can teach
+you, Joan, I can teach you, my dear."
+
+"No. Never. I love Martin. I always have and always shall."
+
+"Oh, my God," he said.
+
+"That's the truth.... Please be quick. I'm very tired!" She drew
+herself up like a young lily.
+
+For a moment he stood irresolute, swaying. Everything seemed to be
+running past him. He was spinning like a top. He had hoped against
+hope, during her silence and her argument. But now to be told not only
+that she would never love him but that she loved another man....
+
+He staggered across the room to the sideboard, opened the drawer, and
+the thing glistened in his hand.
+
+Joan was as cold as ice. "I will be true," she whispered to herself. "I
+will be true. Martin, oh, Martin."
+
+With a superhuman effort Gilbert caught hold of himself. The cold thing
+in his hand helped him to this. His mouth became firm again and his
+face gentle and tender. And he stood up with renewed dignity and the
+old strange look of exaltation. "I claim you then," he said. "I claim
+you, Joan. Here, on this earth, we have both made mistakes. I with
+Alice. You with Martin Gray. In the next life, whatever it may be, we
+will begin again together. I will teach you from the beginning. Death
+and the Great Emotion. It will be very beautiful. Shut your eyes, my
+sweet, and we will take the little step together." The thing glistened
+in his grasp.
+
+And Joan shut her eyes with her hands to her breast. "I love you,
+Martin," she whispered. "I love you. I will wait until you come."
+
+And Gilbert cried out, in a loud ringing voice, "Eternity, oh, God!"
+and raised his hand.
+
+There was a crash, a ripping of window screen. Coatless, hatless, his
+shirt gaping at the neck, his deep chest heaving, Martin swept into the
+room like a storm, flung himself in front of Joan, staggered as the
+bullet hit him, cried out her name, crumpled into a heap at her feet.
+
+And an instant later lay beneath the sweet burden of the girl whose
+call he had answered once again and to whom life broke like a glass
+ball at the sight of him and let her through into space.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+"You may go in," said the doctor.
+
+And Joan, whiter than a lily, rose from the corner in which she had
+been crouching through all the hours of the night and went to the
+doorway of the room to which Martin had been carried by the Nice Boy
+and Gilbert, the man who had been shocked back to sanity.
+
+On a narrow bed, near a window through which a flood of sunlight
+poured, lay Martin from whom Death had turned away,--honest, normal,
+muscular, reliable Martin, the bullet no longer in his shoulder. His
+eyes, eager and wistful, lit up as he saw her standing there and the
+brown hand that was outside the covers opened with a sort of quiver.
+
+With a rush Joan went forward, slipped down on her knees at the side of
+the bed, broke into a passion of weeping and pressed her lips to that
+outstretched hand.
+
+Making no bones about it, being very young and very badly hurt, Martin
+cried too, and their tears washed the bridge away and the barriers and
+misunderstandings and criss-crosses that had sprung up between them
+during all those adolescent months.
+
+"Martin, Martin, it was all my fault."
+
+"No, it wasn't, Joany. It was mine. I wasn't merely your pal, ever. I
+loved and adored you from the very second that I found you out on the
+hill. You thought it was a game, but it wasn't. It was the real thing,
+and I was afraid to say so."
+
+She crept a little nearer and put her head on his chest. "I was all
+wrong, Marty, from the start. I was a fool and a cheat, and you and
+Gilbert and Alice have paid my bill. I've sent Gilbert back to Alice,
+and they'll forget, but it will take me all my life to earn my way back
+to you." She flung her arm across his body, and her tears fell on his
+face.
+
+"Oh, God," he cried out, "don't you understand that I love you, Joany?
+Send all your bills to me. They're mine, because I'm yours, my baby,
+just all yours. You were so young and you had to work it off. I knew
+all that and waited. Didn't you know me well enough to be dead sure
+that I would wait?"
+
+The burden on her shoulders fell with a crash, and with a great cry of
+pent-up gratitude and joy her lips went down to his lips.
+
+But the doctor was not so old that he had forgotten love and youth, and
+he left those two young clinging things alone again and went back into
+the sun.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Who Cares?, by Cosmo Hamilton
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