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diff --git a/37451.txt b/37451.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cf5388c --- /dev/null +++ b/37451.txt @@ -0,0 +1,18274 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Rough-Hewn, by Dorothy Canfield + +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: Rough-Hewn + +Author: Dorothy Canfield + +Release Date: September 18, 2011 [EBook #37451] +[Last updated: August 22, 2012] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGH-HEWN *** + + + + +Produced by Cathy Maxam, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + +ROUGH-HEWN + + +_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + + THE SQUIRREL-CAGE + A MONTESSORI MOTHER + MOTHERS AND CHILDREN + THE BENT TWIG + THE REAL MOTIVE + FELLOW CAPTAINS + (With SARAH N. CLEGHORN) + UNDERSTOOD BETSY + HOME FIRES IN FRANCE + THE DAY OF GLORY + THE BRIMMING CUP + + + + + ROUGH-HEWN + + BY + DOROTHY CANFIELD + + "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, + Rough-hew them how we will." + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK + HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY + HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. + + PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + ANY LITTLE BOY 1 + + CULTURE IN THE AIR 29 + + NEALE BEGINS TO BE NEALE 85 + + "TO-DAY SHALL BE THE SAME AS YESTERDAY" 129 + + AN EDUCATION IN THE HUMANITIES AND THE LIBERAL ARTS 209 + + BIRTHDAYS IN SEVERAL LANGUAGES 317 + + THE END OF ALL ROADS 379 + + + + +_ANY LITTLE BOY_ + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +In the spring of 1893 Strindberg had just published "A Fool's +Confession," D'Annunzio was employing all the multicolored glory of his +style to prove "The Triumph of Death"; Hardy was somberly mixing on his +palette the twilight grays and blacks and mourning purples of "Jude the +Obscure"; Nordau, gnashing his teeth, was bellowing "Decadent" at his +contemporaries who smirked a complacent acceptance of the epithet ... +and, all unconscious of the futility and sordidness of the world, Neale +Crittenden swaggered along Central Avenue, brandishing his shinny stick. + +It was a new yellow shinny stick, broad and heavy and almost as long as +the boy who carried it. Ever since he had seen it in the window of +Schwartz's Bazar, his soul had yearned for it. For days he had hoarded +his pennies, foregoing ice-cream sodas, shutting his ears to the +seductive ding-dong of the waffle-man's cart, and this very afternoon +the immense sum of twenty-five cents had been completed and now he owned +a genuine boughten stick, varnished and shiny. What couldn't he do with +such a club! He beat it on the sidewalk till the flag-stones rang; he +swung it around his head. What stupendous long-distance goals he was +going to make! How he would dribble the ball through the enemy! + +Spring had turned the vacant lots into sticky red mud, but Central +Avenue was hard if somewhat undulating macadam. It had stone curbs too, +that bounced the ball back as if specially designed for side-boundaries +by a philanthropic Board of Supervisors. Somewhere along it he was sure +to find a game in progress. Yes, there they were in front of Number Two +School. Neale broke into a run and coming up breathless plunged into the +scrimmage. + +Shinny as played on Union Hill in the nineties had none of the +refinements of its dignified cousin, field-hockey. Roughly divided into +two sides, an indeterminate number of players tried with their sticks to +knock a hard rubber ball to opposite ends of a block. Team work was +elementary: the slowest runner on each side lay back to "tend gool"; the +rest, following the fortunes of the ball, pelted to and fro in a +seething melee of scuffling feet and clashing sticks. After each goal +the ball was brought to the middle of the block, the two captains took +their stand with sticks on either side of it. "One," they rapped their +sticks on the pavement; "two," they rapped them together; "one, two, +one, two." Then pandemonium broke out shrilly, sticks rapping against +each other or against opposing shins, yells of "shinny on your own +side," a welter of little boys battling around the ball as it shot up +and down, sometimes advancing rapidly, sometimes stationary among a +vortex of locked sticks until finally a lucky knock drove it past one or +the other side street. + +Once as they were walking back after a goal, Fatty Schmidt noticed +Neale's new weapon. "Oh, you gotta new shinny. Where'd you get it? +Schwartz? Huh, them kind ain't no good; they split." Neale was silent as +an Iroquois, but he had already begun to doubt. The heavy new stick +didn't seem to be turning out what he had expected. It tripped him up +occasionally and he never got it on the ball as quickly as he had his +old home-made locust-shoot with the knob of root at the end. But he kept +his doubts to himself, let out another notch of speed, and tried harder. +It began to go better. He stopped a dangerous rush by hooking Franz +Uhler's stick just as he was about to shoot for goal. Another time +unaided he took the ball away from Don Roberts, lost it, but Marty Ryan +retrieved it, and Neale and Marty raced down almost on top of the +opposing goal keeper. Marty hit the ball a terrific crack. "Gool!" they +cried exultingly, then on another note, indignantly, "Hi there, drop +that!" For as the ball bounded along the street, a ragged little boy who +had sprung up from nowhere grabbed it and made off. The pack gave chase. +The little gamin had a good start but the bigger boys ahead of Neale +were gaining on him. He turned off eastward. As Neale tore along he saw +Marty and Franz catch up with the little kid, and then ... what was +this? Where did all those other boys come from? + +With a whoop of joyous exultation he recognized the familiar ambush, the +welcome invitation to battle. "Come on, fellers!" he yelled back to his +own crowd. "Hoboken micks!" And with the rest of the Union Hill crowd +charged through a fire of stones at the invaders. + +Then it was that the new shinny stick vindicated itself. Swinging it +like a crusader's two-handed sword, Neale hacked and hewed. He landed on +the funny-bone of a boy struggling with Marty for the ball. He landed on +another mick's ribs. He heaved the stick up and was going to smash a +hostile head when the enemy broke and ran. Triumphant, the Union Hill +boys chased them to the edge of the hill, and sent a volley of stones +after them as they scrambled down the steep path among the rocks, but +pursued them no further. Below was the enemy's country. The Union Hill +crowd never ventured down the rocks to the level cinder-filled flats +beside the railroad tracks. That was Hoboken and a foreign land. + +It was supper time now. The victors said "So long" to each other and +dispersed. Neale, somewhat lame but elated, went up the wooden steps of +the porch. He stood his stick up in the umbrella-stand, went to the +bathroom, washed his hands, brushed his hair, at least the top layer of +it, and went quietly down to the dining-room. There he ate his buttered +toast and creamed potatoes and drank his cocoa silently, while his +father and mother talked. He paid no attention to what they said. He was +living over again the fight of the afternoon, and forecasting fresh +conquests for the future. His mother passed him a sauce-dish of +preserved cherries and a piece of cake. After he had eaten this, he got +up silently and went back to his room. His mother looked after him +tenderly. "Neale is a _good_ boy," she said. Although he was no longer +there, she still saw his honest round face, clear eyes, fresh color. She +smiled to herself lovingly. + +Her husband nodded, "Yes, he's a good boy." After a thoughtful pause, he +added, "Seems an awfully _quiet_ kid, though. I mean he keeps things to +himself. You haven't any idea whether he's having a real boy's fun or +not. He makes so little noise about it." + +As he passed through the hall Neale lingered a moment to handle the +shinny stick again. He looked at it carefully to see if perhaps there +was not a little blood on it. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Union Hill had been created by two very different classes of +home-makers, a fact which was obvious from its aspect. Its +undistinguished frame buildings for the most part sheltered families +who, having to live somewhere, had settled there where inadequate +communication with the rest of the world kept rents down. Side by side +with this drab majority, but mingling with it little, a few well-to-do +business men had built comfortable, roomy homes in an uninspired +compromise between their business connections in the city and their +preference for open-air life for their families. This narrow ridge of +trap rock continuing the Palisades southward between the partly +reclaimed back lots of Hoboken and the immense, irreclaimable salt +marshes of the Hackensack Valley, had a certain picturesqueness, had +seemed to promise freedom from malaria (supposed at that time to result +from the breathing the "miasma" hanging low about swamp land), and +certainly offered fresher air than a flat on a New York street or a town +beside a New Jersey marsh. It was a one-sided sort of compromise in +which the families came out rather badly. Whatever natural beauty might +be inherent in the site was largely nullified by the tawdry imaginings +of small architects and building contractors, and despite popular +medical theories, the malaria was about the same on the hill as on the +flats. But though the advance of the suburban idea was already +developing more attractive sites at no very great distance, few families +moved away. With the massive immobility characteristic of humanity, the +scattered well-to-do families of Union Hill stuck it out, grim and +disillusioned, taking the consequences of their error of judgment rather +than lose the sensation of stability, which means home. + +Little Neale was quite unconscious of all this. To his ten-year-old +thoughts "the Hill" was home, and where could you live except at home? +It never occurred to him that there might be other or better homes--the +Hill was where he lived. He accepted it as uncritically as he accepted +life, school, his parents. Being, for that region where every one took +quinine as a matter of course, rather a healthy boy, he accepted the +initial facts of nature without criticism or much interest, working off +the surplus of his young energy in baseball, shinny and guerilla +skirmishes with the boys from other localities. + +His unconcern with the world around him, except for the details of +boy-life, was complete. Home was warm and secure; he did not inquire +whether other homes might be less warm or more elegant. Food was good to +eat, though meals with adult conversation between his father and mother +were tedious and occupied far too much time that might have been spent +in play. His father was kind and remote. Neale thought very little about +his father. He went away in the morning after breakfast and came in just +before supper. He was in the lumber business, and when he went away, it +was to the "office." Neale never went to the office; but once in a +while, on Saturdays, Father took him walking down the long flight of +wooden steps, down to the enemy's country where, thanks to the size of +his father's protecting figure, never a Hoboken mick dared to throw a +mudball; across the railroad track and a long, long way on paved +sidewalks till they came out on a wide, noisy, muddy street filled with +trucks drawn by horses with gleaming round haunches. And on the other +side of the street there wasn't any more land, but long sheds that stuck +out into the oily, green Hudson River. These sheds had huge doors +through which the big, dappled horses kept hauling trucks, in and out. +Some of the wharves had ships tied beside them. Occasionally these were +sailing ships with bow-sprits slanting forward over the street, but more +often steamers, black except for a band of red down near the water. As +Neale walked along, although he never ventured to ask his busy father to +stop and let him stare his fill, he could catch glimpses through the +doorways of what went on inside the sheds. There were steep gang-ways, +sloping from the plank floor of the pier to the ships, and up and down +these, big men in blue jumpers wheeled hand-carts, always moving at a +dog-trot. Through other openings, bundles of boxes tied together with +rope slid down sloping boards, and other men with sharp hooks were +always loading them on trucks or unloading them from trucks; or huge +bales descended from the air, dangling at the end of a clinking chain. +This bustle and noise, the strange tarry smells and the clatter of steam +winches exhilarated Neale, excited him, made something quiver and glow +within him. He longed to go in and be part of it. + +But Father never went inside, and it never occurred to Neale to explain +how he felt, and to ask Father please to take him in. Silent as an +Iroquois, he walked beside his father, who often glanced down, baffled, +at the healthy, personable little boy beside him, looking so exactly +like any other well-dressed, middle-class little boy. + +And yet, often before he fell asleep at night, Neale heard again the +clanking clatter of the great unloading cranes, smelled again the +intoxicating tarry salty ocean smells and felt again something quiver +and glow within him. + +There was neither quiver nor glow about the place where Father finally +stopped of his own accord. In a wide part of the street, huge piles of +lumber were stacked. Father would walk slowly along these, looking at +them very hard, and then he would go into a tiny, stuffy little wooden +clap-boarded house--just one room, with men in shirt sleeves writing at +desks--and there he would talk incomprehensible grown-up talk with one +of the men, and the man would write at his desk, and Father standing up, +would write in a note-book with a fountain pen ... and that was all the +fun there was to the lumber business! + +Left to himself, Neale sat on the door-step and watched the fascinating +life on the docks. Once he slipped across the street and tried to follow +a truck in, but a big man with a red face yelled at him so loudly to +"get out of there" that Neale ran back again, furiously angry but not +knowing how to get around the big watchman. All he could do was to sit +just inside the door, hating the watchman, and stare at the tantalizing +activity so far away, and wish with all his heart that Father's business +were more romantic. + +Mother meant more to Neale than Father did. He knew her better ... a +little better. He had even some abstract ideas about her, that she was +beautiful when she dressed up to go out in the afternoon. Mother fussed +about his clothes more than was convenient, and insisted on baths, and +washing hands before meals, but when he was sick, Mother read him +stories, and let him leave the gas turned on in his room when he went to +bed. Mother gave him pennies, too, and when Father was away on a +business trip, he and Mother would eat alone together, and she would +talk to him and ask him questions about school and play, and his boy +friends. Neale didn't mind telling her things ... he liked Mother ... +but he couldn't seem to manage to think of a great deal to tell her. It +sounded foolish to talk about games to grown-ups. + +And games were really all that Neale cared about, almost all that he +ever thought about. As to telling Mother other things, the few other +things he did occasionally think about, why, there didn't seem to be +anywhere to start. He'd have to begin "way back at the beginning" and +now that Neale was ten years old, the beginning was too far back for him +to lay hold of. + +As a matter of fact, she did not often ask about any of it, even in her +distant careful way of asking. She just took good care of him, and had +what he liked for supper, and put the kind of books he liked up in his +room, and kept his buttons sewed on, and every night, till he was a big, +big boy came into his room to kiss him good-night in his bed. She didn't +say anything much then; just, "Have you enough covers?" maybe; or, "I +believe I'd better open that window wider," and then, with the kiss, +"Good-night, Neale." + +"Good-night, Mother." + +Then he turned over and nearly always went instantly to sleep. + +When Father was at home, mostly Father and Mother talked together at +table, and read together after supper in the sitting-room, while Neale +"did" his lessons upstairs. Or else Mother would dress up in one of her +pretty dresses and Father would put on a clean shirt and his dark suit +and they would go across the river to a theater in New York, leaving +Neale to Katie, the good-natured, middle-aged Irish cook who had been +with them since before Neale's birth. Or sometimes they had "company"; +other ladies in pretty dresses and other husbands in clean shirts and +dark suits. Then they had a specially good supper, the sort of expensive +things that were usually reserved for Sunday dinner, planked shad and +roast chicken and ice-cream, and coffee in the little gold-lined cups +that Mother always washed herself. Neale didn't mind company since +nobody paid much attention to him, and he liked the extra Sunday +eatables on a week-day, but one of his few impressions about his father +and mother was that, although they always talked and laughed a great +deal more when there was company, and seemed to have a lively time, they +really liked it better when there were only the two of them talking over +Neale's head at the table, and settling down afterwards to read and talk +to one another around the drop-light. + +Another of those impressions was the tone of his father's voice when +looking up from his book, he said, "Oh, Mary!" Neale always knew just +the look there would be in Mother's eyes as she laid down her own book +and asked, "Yes, what is it, dear?" + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Among the many things which Neale never thought of questioning was the +fact that he did not go to a public school as all his play-mates did. If +he had asked, he would have found that his father and mother had an +answer all ready for him, the completeness and thoroughness of which +might have indicated that they had perhaps silenced some questionings of +their own with it. He would have heard that of course they approved of +public schools, and that if they had continued to live in Massachusetts, +even if they had gone to live in a nice part of New York City, they +would certainly have sent their son to a public school. But here at +Union Hill, with the public schools so thickly populated by foreign +children, the conditions were really different. What could a little +American boy learn in a class-room with forty foreign children, whose +constant study must needs be English? + +There was no flaw in the reasoning they were prepared to present to +their son when he should ask the natural question about his schooling. +But Neale never asked it. By the time he was old enough to think of it, +habit had made him incapable of conceiving it. He no more wondered why +he went every morning to the Taylors' house on Bower Street, instead of +to Public School Number Two, than why he had two eyes instead of one. +That was the way things were. Neale was slow to question the way things +were. + +Dr. Taylor was another transplanted New Englander like Neale's father, +with another college-graduate wife (rarer in those days than now), like +Neale's mother. His ideas on children and the public schools would have +been exactly like those of the Crittendens, even if they had not been +fortified by the lameness of his only son. Jimmy's crutches made Public +School definitely out of the question, and since Jimmy must have +instruction at home, why, his two sisters, Elsie and Myrtle, might as +well profit by it. Dr. Taylor was glad enough to have the expense of +paying Miss Vanderwater shared by Mr. Crittenden, and to let Neale share +in the benefits of Miss Vanderwater's instruction. + +Hence it happened that every morning Neale rang at the Taylors' front +door, and when the maid let him in, went upstairs to the big front room +on the top floor and there did whatever Miss Vanderwater told him to do. +He was under her command from nine in the morning till noon, when he +went home and had lunch with Mother, who always asked how school had +gone, to which question Neale always made the same truthful answer that +he guessed it was all right. At one he returned for two more hours with +Miss Vanderwater. In this way he went through a series of Appleton's +Readers, filled copy-books with thin Spencerian script, copied maps in +colored ink with the coast-line shaded with scallops, did arithmetic on +a slate and made very fair progress in learning German. German was much +in the air in that locality. + +Of course he did not spend all those years of his life, side by side +with three other children without becoming intimately acquainted with +them. But one of the instinctive watertight compartments in Neale's +Anglo-Saxon mind was the one in which he kept his school separate from +his life. He studied with the Taylor children, but he never dreamed of +staying after hours to play with them. And yet he knew them infinitely +better than any of the innumerable chance street-acquaintances with whom +he flew kites or played one-old-cat. He knew instinctively, knew without +thinking of it, knew to the marrow of his brutally normal bones that +Jimmy Taylor was lame not only in his legs but in his character. Jimmy's +delicacy, the great care taken of him, the fact that he always played in +the house or back-yard with his sisters, made a sissy of him. That was +the plain fact, and Neale was not one to refuse to admit plain facts. He +was always kind to Jimmy, at least not unkind, but he was always +secretly relieved when the front door shut behind him, hiding from him +Jimmy's too-white hands, thin neck and querulous invalid's voice. + +Of the two girls, Elsie was only a little kid, so much younger than +Jimmy and Neale that they were barely aware of her existence. Myrtle, on +the contrary, was very much there, a little girl whose comments on +things never failed to arouse in Neale the profoundest astonishment. How +could anybody think of such dotty things to say? You never had the least +idea how anything was going to strike her, except that it was likely to +strike her so hard that she made an awful fuss about it. + +Myrtle lived in mortal terror of any little dirt, it seemed to Neale. +One day in May, when they had had a picnic-lunch out in the back-yard of +the Taylors' house, Myrtle carried on perfectly wild about a little +flying white thing that had fallen into her glass of lemonade. Holy +smoke! thought Neale, if she was afraid to get it out, _he_ wasn't. So +he fished it out with a spoon, and handed her back the glass. And what +did she do? She made up an awful face and threw the lemonade on the +ground! Neale was horrified at the waste. + +And the day when Miss Vanderwater in their "natural history lesson" told +them about angle-worms and how they keep the ground light and open, +didn't Myrtle go off in another fit, with her eyes goggling and her +fingers all stretched apart as though she felt angle-worms everywhere. +She insisted that Miss Vanderwater must be wrong, that such an awful +thing could not be true. + +"Why, what do you mean?" asked Miss Vanderwater, for once, Neale noticed +with satisfaction, as much at a loss as he. + +"Ugh! _Nasty!_" cried Myrtle. "So all we eat has grown out of what +angle-worms have vomited up! And so they're wriggling around, +_every_where, touching everything that grows! I never dreamed of such a +nasty thing! I'll never eat a radish again! It makes me sick to think of +it--to put my mouth where a horrible old angle-worm has been rubbing all +its slime off!" + +"Now what do you think of that?" Neale asked himself. + +Mostly, Myrtle was just the worst dead loss you ever saw; but once in a +while you got some good out of her foolishness, like the time when she +bit into a lovely-looking apple and laid it down, looking very white +and sick at her stomach. She had bitten into a rotten place, and +although Neale pointed out honestly to her that it was the only bad +spot, and that the rest of the apple was a corker, she refused to touch +it, or even to look at it. She said she never wanted to see another +apple again as long as she lived! So Neale ate it to save it, sinking +his strong teeth through the taut red skin, reveling in the craunchy, +juicy white flesh, chewing away on huge crisp delicious mouthfuls. It +was perhaps as well, too, that Myrtle hadn't tried to go on eating it, +for Neale found another rotten spot. But he spit out the +cottony-feeling, brown, bad-tasting stuff into the waste basket, and +having got rid of it, went on with the apple, his zest undiminished to +the last mouthful gnawed off the core. The idea of going back on apples +because you struck a rotten place! Nobody asked you to _eat_ the rotten +places! It was perfectly easy to spit them out, or, if you saw them +beforehand, to eat your way around them. He couldn't make anything out +of Myrtle, at all. + +But he didn't allow himself to be bothered by her, any more than by +rotten spots in apples, and he escaped from her and from the whole +genteel atmosphere of the Taylor household, the moment three o'clock +came. The instant Miss Vanderwater said, "dismissed," he hurried home, +left his books and hurried out again to hang around Number Two School, +till four o'clock sent all its mingled conglomeration, ranging from +tattered ragamuffins to little boys in white sailor-suits, yelling and +whooping out to the vacant lots. + +For, although the Crittendens' New England Americanism was not quite +resolute enough to make them send Neale to a public school full of +foreigners, it was more than enough to make them incapable of conceiving +so odious an act of tyranny as forbidding a little boy to play freely +with other little boys, whether any one knew their parents or not. They +would have detested the idea of keeping Neale alone in their safe, +sheltered back-yard, and would have been horrified to detect in him any +trace of feeling himself better than the public-school children--which +he certainly did not. + +Sundays had a special color of their own, not at all the traditional +one. The Crittendens were Unitarians, not much given to church-going +anywhere, and the nearest Unitarian church was across the river in New +York. Mr. Crittenden had enough of New York on week-days. So they never +went. Few of the Union Hill families did. Union Hill was anything but a +stronghold of Sabbatarianism. It considered Sunday rather as a +heaven-sent opportunity for much comfortable beer-drinking, attendance +on a Turn-verein, and for enormous family gatherings around a big +dinner. + +For Neale, with no other children in the family, the day was always +solitary; not unpleasantly so. It was a day for long imaginings, +stirring, warlike imaginings, realized through lead soldiers. Lead +soldiers were a passion of his little boyhood. He had two hundred and +ten, counting the ones with their legs broken, that he had mounted on +half corks. He did not move them around much. He did not knock them +down. When he got them set up in the order he wished, he fell into a +trance, imagining stories and incidents. It took a long time to get them +arranged to his satisfaction, with stiff marching columns, at +shoulder-arms in the middle, some Indian sharp-shooters prone or +kneeling behind painted lead shrubbery out in front, a squadron of +parade cavalry on one wing, a troop of galloping Arabs on the other. +Always he had a pile of blocks behind which a coal-black charger was +tethered, and on top, leaning against a spool of thread, stood the +general surveying his army. By uniform and whiskers the toymaker had +intended the figure for Kaiser Wilhelm I; but to the boy's eyes it was +no Prussian king, but Neale--Neale commanding his victorious troops. It +was all arranged with a careful hand and a loving heart, and it took a +long, long time. + +Very often the dinner-bell rang before he had even finished setting them +up. At Sunday dinner there was generally "company," men friends of +Father's mostly, but sometimes husbands and wives. Neale knew all their +names, and shook hands without self-consciousness. He grinned silently +if they spoke to him, and retired to his shell, busying himself with his +own thoughts, all concentrated on the impending battle. He liked the +things you had to eat on Sunday and had found that on Sunday he could +eat the soft parts out of his bread and hide the crusts under the edge +of his plate. Mother always caught him if he tried that on week-days, +but on Sundays, with company there, she never said a word. + +But no matter how slowly he ate, he was always through, wriggling +uncomfortably on his chair and horribly bored, while those tedious +grown-up people were still gabbling on. Mother always saw this, took +pity, and smiled a permission to him to be off. He slipped from his +chair and tip-toed silently into the kitchen where Katie was dressing +the salad. But she stopped long enough to open the pasteboard ice-cream +box from Schlauchter's candy-store and give him a saucer-full from the +soft part on top. + +Then he hurried upstairs again to act out with his army the glorious +scenes he had been imagining during dinner. Sometimes it was a surprise +attack on the march, with cavalry sweeping down on limbered guns, +sometimes it was artillery formed in triangles, a muzzle at each apex, +blowing the advancing cavalry to flinders. Sometimes it was a +magnificent parade of triumph through a city gate with Kaiser Wilhelm +(Neale) at their head. + +But at any moment, especially as he came on to be ten years old, quite +suddenly and inexplicably he grew tired of it. The illusion would +pass ... they would be just lifeless stupid dead soldiers, with broken +legs and rifles, and the paint flaking off ... impossible to imagine +anything with them. Also his arms and legs would feel numb with sitting +still on the floor so long. Then Neale would slide noiselessly down the +banisters, using his hands and legs as a brake to keep from crashing +into the newel-post, slip by the dining-room door with its clinking +coffee-cups and blue haze of cigar smoke, grab his cap and go quietly +outdoors. + +Nobody would have stopped him, he knew that, but it was more fun to keep +it quiet. Free from the house he would act out his drama of escape by +running for a block or so, and then drop into the roaming boy's slow, +zig-zag ramble. + +You can walk south or north on Union Hill for miles beyond a boy's +endurance, without finding a single feature to quicken the imagination; +but if you go east or west from anywhere on the Hill, you come at once +to a jumping-off place where below you stretches the flat, marshy river +or the flats. Neale preferred the western edge, even though it had no +steep rocks. He was far from having any conscious love for landscape, +but he found a certain satisfaction in looking over the yellow and brown +expanse of the marsh-grass and cat-tails, hazy in the afternoon sun, cut +with straight black lines of railroads (he named them over to himself, +identifying every one, the Jersey Central, Pennsylvania, Erie, +Lackawanna, and Jersey Northern), each with little toy-trains, each tiny +locomotive sending up little balls of cotton-wool to hang motionless in +the still afternoon air. To the southwest a hazy blur that was Newark, +and right in front, like a doomed mountain, bogged and sinking into the +marsh, the sinister bulk of Snake Hill. Neale used to stand and brood +over it, sometimes till the sun went down, all red and orange. He did +not stir till the cold roused him to think of home and supper. + +But his feet did not always turn westward. Sometimes he walked to the +eastern edge. The rocks were steeper here, steep enough to be the +impregnable fortress he always imagined them. When he came here, after +reconnoitering the ground (for his tribal enemy did not observe the +Truce of God on Sundays), Neale would go out to the edge of the sheerest +promontory and dangle his legs down. Under his feet were railroad tracks +again, then a belt of vacant lots, some of them black with +cinder-filling, others green with the scum of stagnant water, then a +belt of frame houses where the enemy lived, then a zone of city brick +and flat tin roofs. Beyond it all was Castle Point, high and green +(healthy green this, not scum), jutting out into the Hudson. +Indistinctly he could make out the other side of the river, the line of +ships at the wharves and more city ... New York. + +Occasionally Neale thought of New York, an almost mythical spot, though +he went there once in a while with Mother on tiresome quests for +clothes, as well as to matinees; sometimes he thought of the ships and +the wharves, and how much he wished he could see more of them. But +mostly he forgot the actual world. He was in command of the fort. All +around him his brave men were working the guns. Bang! Bang! The enemy +were marching along those straight paved streets. Their cannon balls +were bursting all around, but the garrison did not quail. Their +sharp-shooters were starting to climb the rocks. Ah, this was serious! +No time for delay. The commander seized the rifle from the hand of a +dying soldier ... how plainly Neale saw that dying soldier there at his +feet ... bang! bang! bang! ... with every shot one of the foremost +scalers dropped headlong. + +The engagement was a decisive victory. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Inevitably Saturdays were all devoted to play. Neither Neale's parents +nor he himself could have conceived of any other way of spending +Saturdays. What were Saturdays for? + +It is true that in some of the more prosperous German-American families, +Saturday was music-lesson day, just as four o'clock instead of ushering +in roller-skating or marbles meant sitting in front of a piano, or +stooping over a 'cello. But Neale felt for play-mates thus victimized +the same slightly contemptuous pity he felt for Jimmy Taylor's lameness, +and the same unsurprised acceptance of his own good luck in being free +from such limitations. + +Once in a while, too, Mother took him over to New York to a matinee, and +that was all right, too, if it didn't happen too often. Neale liked +going out with Mother pretty well, and if there was fighting in the play +he liked it fine. But all that was having something done to you, a +sensation of which school gave Neale more than enough, and which he +didn't like half so well--oh, not a quarter as well--oh, really not at +all, compared to the sensation of starting something and running it +yourself. If it really came right down to a comparison, there wasn't any +fun at all in seeing Irving pretend to be a crazy man, compared to the +fun of starting out Saturday morning, with no idea what you were going +to do, and rustling around till you got enough fellows together for the +game of the season. + +To stand in your old play-clothes on your front-step, of a Saturday +morning, all the world before you, unfettered by obligations, a long, +long, rich day of play before you that was _yours_ ... how could anybody +be expected to prefer to dress up in things you had to try to keep +clean, sit in a dark, hot theater and watch painted-up men and women +carry on like all possessed about things that weren't really so. But +that was all right enough for a change, and was as good a way as any to +spend a rainy afternoon. Also, you could occasionally get ideas about +fights, out of a play. + +But the real occupation of life was the playing of games. He nourished +his soul and grew strong on the emotional thrills of games. They were +the rich, fertile, substantial soil out of which he shot up into boyhood +from childhood. They were his religion, and his business-in-life, the +wide field where, unhampered, free as any naked savage, for all his +decent knickerbockers and sweater, he raced to and fro, elastic, +exultant, wild with the intoxication of the heady young strength poured +into him by every new day. + +The astounding volume of sound, bursting up like flame and lava from a +volcano, which rose from every group of boys at play bore witness to the +extravagant and superabundant splendor of the intensity with which they +lived, a splendor not at all recognized by suffering householders near +whose decent and quiet homes a gang of boys settled down to play and +yell and shriek and quarrel and run and yell again. + +It was the boys' world, not only untouched by grown-ups but blessedly +even unsuspected by parents. Since it was theirs, since they created it +anew every day, it exactly fitted their needs, and it grew and changed +with their inner growth as their school never did. They were far from +any self-conscious notion that they created it. Rather they seemed to +themselves to accept it from the outside, as they accepted the weather. +What had they to do with the succession of the seasons, either of games +or temperature? In the nature of things you could no more play marbles +in the autumn than pick wild strawberries in December. + +In the autumn, they played football, a sort of association-football with +no limit to the number on each side, played with a heavy black rubber +ball, blown up with a brass tube. The tube always got lost, and the +valve always leaked. After a few games it became deflated, with the +resiliency of a soggy sponge. But it was kicked to and fro just the +same. + +When snow came, there was snow-balling, with forts of a rich, chocolate +color, from the street-dirt mixed with the snow. About these raged +feudal chivalry, loyalty and pride of place, one street against another. +Sometimes all the district united against invading Huns from Hoboken or +Jersey City Heights. Only a few boys skated, and Neale was not one of +them, but everybody made slides in the slush. + +With spring came roller-skates, marbles (utilizing the cracks between +sidewalk slabs), tops, kites, cat (a game for two), and, ah! baseball in +the vacant lots! + +Neale was neither a star nor a dub at any game, but craving proficiency +more than anything else in the world, he learned to do pretty well at +all of them. At baseball, the major sport of the year, he toiled +incessantly, and when he was ten years old, he was pretty sure of his +job at second base on the Hancock Avenue Orioles. On ground balls he was +erratic, but so was everybody on those rough, vacant-lot diamonds, where +the ball ricocheted zig-zag from one stone to another. Long practice +catching fungoes gave him a death-like certainty on pop flies. His "wing +was poor," as he expressed it; strong enough in the arm, he had never +mastered the wrist snap that gives velocity. As a batsman he was +temperamental; one day he would feel right, and hit everything, another +day his batting eye would inexplicably be gone, and he would fan at the +widest dew-drops. + +One Saturday afternoon they were playing the Crescent Juniors, a +glorious swat-fest of a game in which Neale had run wild all the +afternoon. It was in the ninth, the score was 17 to 15, with the +Crescents ahead. One was down, Neale at the bat, Marty Ryan, the +captain, was dancing on the base line, ready to dart in from third, +Franz Uhler was taking a dangerous lead off second. Neale rapped his bat +professionally on the plate and glared at the pitcher. + +"Hit it out, Crit, old man!" yelled Fatty Schwartz, with a perfectly +unnecessary steam-calliope volume of tone, "Hit it out! Save me a lick!" + +"Much good you'd do with a lick," thought Neale to himself. "You +couldn't hit a basket-ball with a telegraph pole." Yes, it was up to +him, to him alone. It was like a scene from one of his favorite stories +about himself, actually happening; and it went on actually happening. A +wide one, another wide. They didn't call balls in Neale's league. He +rapped the plate, "Aw! put it over if you know how!" he taunted. A foul +tip caught, another wide one haughtily ignored, a strike. The catcher +put on his mask and moved up close behind the bat. Neale felt himself +nerved to great things. He glued his eyes to the pitcher. By the motion +it should be a slow out. It wasn't breaking. Neale stabbed at it, sliced +it and landed a Texas leaguer back of short. + +He didn't see what happened. He ran. He flew. As he rounded second he +caught a glimpse of the left fielder and short-stop falling over their +feet, both trying to pick up the ball. As he turned the corner at third +he saw the pitcher starting to run in to cover the plate and guessing +that the catcher was chasing a wild throw, Neale put his head down and +sprinted for dear life. Fifteen feet from the plate he dove, and shot +over in a cloud of dust. + +Neale, the ball, and the pitcher all arrived there at the same moment, +but a partial umpire called it "safe." Don Roberts fouled to the +catcher, Fatty Schwartz fanned. But the game was won. + +With his chest a couple of inches bigger than normal, Neale started for +home, and there on the sidewalk watching him, stood his father, looking +right at him, instead of over his head as Father was apt to do. Father +patted him on the shoulder. "That was a good swat, Neale," he said. + +Neale wriggled. "Well, we had to have a hit," he explained, "and I knew +Don and Fatty wouldn't do much." + +His father found no other comment to make. Neale had said his say. +Silent as Iroquois, they walked home to supper. + +The next afternoon Father brought him a Louisville Slugger bat and Neale +was in the seventh heaven. + +And yet, at the next game, he fanned the first three times up and Marty +waved him to the bench. This was terrible. + +But the sting did not last because two days later Miss Vanderwater gave +each of them a present of a little book in German, and said auf +wiedersehn for the summer. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +The end of school always meant the beginning of the yearly romance, the +beginning of the two months when Neale really lived all the time, not +just after four o'clock, and on Saturdays. And yet it was not all made +up of games! In fact there weren't any games at all. Queer! + +Neale's life was largely made up of things that happened over and over +the same way, and so did this. The last day of school he always went +home and found the house smelling trunky and Mother with piles of +clothes folded on all the chairs, packing a Saratoga trunk. All the +afternoon she would pack it, putting things in and taking things out to +make room for other things, and when Father came home, things would be +all unfinished. It happened just that way, always. When Father came home +things _were_ all unfinished, and Father took out his watch, and said +the expressman had said he'd come at five-thirty, and Mother answered, +"You know they're always two hours late." + +Nevertheless she stopped taking things out, and there was a scramble and +things put in any old way, with a good deal of laughing and funning from +Father and Mother, and finally with Mother and Neale sitting on the lid, +Father in his shirt sleeves strapped and locked it. Then while they were +eating supper, the expressman drove up (only an hour late, no, not even +quite an hour late, Neale thought), and took the trunk away, and now +Neale felt they were going. + +He lay awake that night thinking of the coming adventure, his heart +beating faster, and then it was morning, and Mother was shaking him and +getting him into his clothes. A hurried breakfast on lukewarm oatmeal. +They went outside and got into a coupe standing there. Father and Mother +sat on the back seat, and Neale on the little front seat you had to +unfold. Then jog, jog, they went along Griffith Street down the +curlycue road, the horse's feet going clatter on the cobblestones. Then +jog, jog, jog again till at last they stopped and got out. They had come +to the ferry. + +After they were on the ferry-boat, Father and Mother always waited so +that Neale could see the deck-hand pull down the gates that closed the +end of the boat and take out the iron hooks that held her fast to the +dock. Then the whistle blew, and the boat started, leaving the dock +looking as though a giant had bitten a half-circle out of it. Father +walked with him out to the front deck, where, holding to his +wide-brimmed sailor hat, Neale watched the waves and tug boats, and the +gulls flapping about. Father made him look at the city ahead, and +pointing out a building with a gold dome, told him that it was the World +Building, and the highest in the city. Neale looked, found it of no +interest and went back to his waves and gulls, which stirred something +of the quiver and wonder the wharves made him feel. + +When the boat got across, it went smash into the piles and slid along +into the dock, where men hitched it fast with iron hooks and pulled the +hooks tight by turning a wheel around. Neale always noticed just how +such things were managed, and Father always gave him plenty of time to +look. + +Then up went the gates and off went everybody. Outside they got into a +horse-car. After a while the horse-car began to run through a long, +white-washed cellar, and Father explained (just as he had last year and +the year before that), that _he_ could remember when the trains used to +be pulled through that tunnel by horses. At the other end of the tunnel +they all got out once more, and now, at last, you were really getting +quite "warm," for this was the railway station. + +After Father had bought the tickets and checked the baggage, they got on +the train, and Father and Mother talked for a while, till Father said, +with a long breath, "Well, it might as well be soon as late," and kissed +Mother and she kissed him. + +Until Neale was a pretty big boy, Father always stooped and kissed him +too. But Neale felt that this was quite a different sort of kiss, and he +noticed too, that after it, Father always kissed Mother again, and held +his cheek for an instant close to hers. But after this he always walked +right away, quietly, turning around once or twice to wave his hat at +them, his face as composed as that of any man in the crowd coming and +going beside the train. + +Mother let Neale settle things in the train, making no comment as he +fussed over it, putting the satchel up in the rack, and then deciding +that it would be better to have it down where he could put his feet on +it, arranging his coat and her golf-cape over the back of the seat and +then remembering the hook between the windows. Then the train started. A +smoky tunnel, a scraggly belt of half-city--and then the real country. +Neale never called anything the real country unless there were cows in +the fields. + +He was always astonishingly glad to see it, and stared and stared till +his eyes ached, and drooped shut, and he had a nap, hunched up with his +feet on the seat. When he woke up there was more real country, and +finally they got there. + +There was Grandfather Crittenden waiting for them, with the team and the +three-seater, only the two back seats were out to make room for the big +trunk. This was something like living! Grandfather Crittenden let him +hold the lines. He remembered--_how_ he remembered--every step of the +eight miles, every hill, every house and barn and big rock, till finally +they drove into the yard, got out, were kissed, and went up to the same +room as last year, with its rag-carpet and painted yellow bed. Mother +washed his face very hard in the cold water from the big white pitcher, +there was supper of fried ham and scrambled eggs and _soft_ rolls, and +cherry pie--and that was all a tired little boy could remember that +night. + +Next morning vacation really began with a rush outdoors to see the mill, +the saw-mill, the center of Neale's life in the country. There it was, +just as it ought to be, the big saw snarling its way through a pine log, +and old Silas with the lever in his hand, standing as though he hadn't +moved since the day Neale had gone away last September. Neale ran around +to the back, climbed on the carriage and rode back and forth as Silas +fed the log methodically down on the saw, and raced it back to set a +fresh cut. Silas only nodded without speaking. He didn't like wasting +words, and speaking was mostly wasted when the saw was screaming, the +belts slapping, and down below was the pound! pound! pound! of the +mill-wheel. + +After a time Neale went down to the far end of the mill where the fresh +sawed boards fell off from the logs. A new lad he didn't know was +"taking away." He wasn't keeping up with the work very well, and to help +him Neale picked up a slab and started to cut it into stove lengths on +the cut-off saw. + +"Hey there! Whacher doin'? You'll saw your arm off, boy!" yelled the +lad. But Silas, stopping the saw so that his voice could be heard, saved +Neale's face, "Let be, Nat. He won't get hurt. He knows more about the +mill now than you do, or ever will." + +Neale felt his heart swell with pride. He sawed pine slabs till his back +ached from lifting and his shirt and hands were black from the dried +resin. + +There were other things to do at Grandfather Crittenden's, all the other +things that boys do in the country, and Neale did them all. But none of +them came up to the mill. Day in and day out it was around the mill that +he spent his time, lying on the piles of fresh sawed boards in the +sunlight, watching teamsters roll huge logs on the skidway with +cant-hooks. Or he went below where you could look through the doorway at +the flapping belts, and watch the sawdust raining down and making a +great yellow pyramid. Even such an experienced millhand as Neale was not +allowed to go into the cellar while the mill was running, under pain of +all sorts of violent and disagreeable deaths. Getting your coat caught +by the shafting and being whirled round and round and beaten to a pulp +against the beams was one of the mildest. + +But after supper, when the mill was shut down, he used to saunter out to +it, in the long soft twilight, and then tip-toe down into the cellar and +play uneasily in the sawdust, casting scared looks now and then at the +shining semi-circle of the saw, with its wicked hooked teeth just over +his head. + +One day, as he played thus about the mill, his destiny came and tapped +him on the shoulder, and he knew not that day from any other day. + +As he was watching Silas take up the slack in a belt, a strange man, an +elderly, powerful, bent, old countryman came into the mill, and asked, +without salutations to any one, "Where's Jo?" + +"Gone to town for feed," said Silas. He added with a grin, "Mr. Burton, +make you acquainted with a relation of yours, Dan'el's boy." He jerked +his head at Neale. + +The stranger looked hard at the boy, out of sharp gray eyes, and the +harder he looked the sharper grew his eyes. + +"What's he doin' here?" he asked Silas. + +"Oh, he's always hangin' round. He knows the trade as well as some folks +twice his size," said Silas. + +"Well, what do you think of the sawyer's trade?" asked the old man +suddenly of Neale. + +Neale could not think of anything to answer except that he guessed he +liked it all right. + +The stranger seemed to dismiss him from his mind, fingered his gray +goatee, and looked all around as if seeing the establishment for the +first time. "Mebbe. Mebbe. All right for Massachusetts pine and saft +maple. But if you want to see a real mill, that'll handle tough Vermont +yellow birch and rock-maple, you come back to Ashley with me." + +The stranger stayed to supper, and Neale learned that he was his +great-uncle Burton Crittenden. He asked many sharp-sounding questions +that made his brother, Neale's grandfather, snort and say hotly, "Oh, we +all know there ain't any proper mill practice outside Vermont, but the +Commonwealth of Massachusetts is managing to worry along somehow, in her +shiftless fashion." + +But when the old man spoke to Neale there was a gentler note in his +voice. He talked of sugaring-off, and twenty-two-foot snowdrifts, and +asked Neale's mother if she wouldn't send the boy to Ashley some time, +to visit his great-uncle. + +His mother agreed to do it--"some time." + + + + +_CULTURE IN THE AIR_ + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +April 10, 1898. + +Old Jeanne Amigorena was on her way to Bayonne to complain to her niece +of her rheumatism and her daughter-in-law. She detested the railroad, as +she did everything new and not Basque, but at her age it was not easy to +foot it along the fourteen kilometres of white road between Midassoa and +Bayonne. So, grimly disapproving, she hoisted her square, stalwart, +black-clad body into the third-class compartment of the slow way-train +which comes shuffling up from the Spanish frontier about noon. + +Even for a Basque of the oldest rock, there is one satisfaction to be +had out of the forty-minute trip by rail to Bayonne. This is at the +station of La Negresse where your way-train meets the down express from +Paris. The chic people from the first-class compartments are there +summoned to get out and change to the little local line which jolts them +the three kilometres to Biarritz. This change of cars is never announced +at Paris, it is always furiously exasperating to tourists, and in +consequence they afford an entertaining spectacle to any one with a low +opinion of human nature. Jeanne, who had less than no regard for any +human nature outside the Basque race, always enjoyed the contempt she +felt for these fashionably-dressed, ineffectual French weaklings. She +took advantage of the leisurely wait at La Negresse, while the luggage +was noisily transferred from one train to the other, to lean her head +and shoulders out of the window, and to indulge herself in a hearty bout +of derision for the uncomely fashionable Parisians, city-pale and +flabby. She drew a long breath of satisfaction in her own untrammeled +ribs, to see their rigid bodies like badly carved pieces of wood in the +steel armor of their corsets, their shoulders grotesquely widened by +their high puffed sleeves. Used to stepping out for a daily ten-mile +walk over mountain paths, free and rhythmic in her flexible +cord-and-canvas sandals, she laughed inwardly at these fine ladies, +tottering on their high-heeled leather shoes. + +Some of them were dragging along tired, over-dressed, pasty-faced +children. Jeanne had a passion for children, and she now cried to +herself, for the thousandth time, "What can the Blessed Virgin be +thinking of, to trust babies to such creatures!" Straight as a lance, +with more vigor in her body at seventy than any of them at twenty, with +more glistening black hair of her own under her close black coif than +any of them could afford to buy, Jeanne who never altered her costume by +a hair or a line from one year's end to another, who looked forward +confidently to fifteen or twenty years of iron health, felt a cheerful +glow of contempt as she watched them, running here and there, screaming +nervously that one of their innumerable bags or valises was lost, their +faces distorted with apprehension for some part of their superfluities. + +She did not altogether approve of the hatted, conventionally dressed +women she passed half an hour later in the sunny streets of the little +city on her way to the home of Anna Etchergary. Anna was concierge of +one of the apartment houses on the Rue Thiers, opposite the Old Castle, +and to reach it, Jeanne had to pass through the new quarter of Bayonne, +the big open square where the fine shops are and the Frenchified madames +walking about. Bayonne was a poor enough apology for a Basque city, +thought Jeanne, but its somewhat backsliding and partly Gascon and +Spanish inhabitants were at least not such grimacing monkeys as those +Parisians. + +She strode along with the swift, sure, poised gait of sandal-wearing +people, her mind full of the grievances she wanted to pour out to Anna; +the disrespect of her son's wife, and the scandalous extravagances of +her expenditures. "Consider, Anna," she rehearsed her story beforehand. +"She uses the eggs herself, instead of sending them to market. She +serves _omelettes_, as though Michel's house were a hotel! And she will +not spin! She uses Michel's money to _buy yarn_! To think that money +from the Amigorena farm should go to buy yarn, with a distaff hanging on +the wall and ten idle, good-for-nothing fingers at the end of her arms." + +On the terrible subject of lack of children in that house Jeanne could +not trust herself to speak. It was too sore a spot that with all +Jeanne's five grown sons, she had not a grandchild to hold in her arms. +The two, Americans now, who were in the Argentine making their fortunes, +were married and had families, but what were grandchildren on the other +side of the globe to Jeanne? The two younger ones, who were sailors, +were not married, and Michel, who had promised to be the mainstay of her +life and had stayed at home to run the farm, here he had been caught by +that impudent little French girl, one of the chambermaids in a Biarritz +hotel, a girl who did not know how to spin, who laughed at the decent +Basque ways, and who had no shame for her sterility, refusing to go to +Lourdes to pray for children. + +Jeanne had never had any romantic feeling for her shiftless, +hard-drinking husband, whose irregular earnings as a fisher she had been +forced to piece out with much domestic service in the houses of others; +and now he was dead, she never thought of him. She had never been to a +theater in her life, nor read a novel, for she could not read at all. +None of her native capacity for emotion had been used in her youth, nor +frittered away later in the second-hand make-believes of modern life. It +had all been poured out upon children; on her five sons, and on the one +little dark-eyed, black-haired daughter, the little Marie--who had died +at eleven, so many years ago, just after her first communion--the +blessed saint Marise had looked, slim and straight in her white dress! +The Blessed Virgin had found her namesake too sweet to wait for, and had +taken her at once. + +And now those strong, yearning old arms were empty of young life, and +Jeanne's heart was bitter. She might scold her loudest over the waste of +butter and eggs at the farm, she might gossip her head off about the +faults of the neighbors, and shriek out maledictions on the stingy +bourgeoise who wanted to buy her vegetables for nothing, she could not +drown out the forlorn echo of emptiness and loneliness within. + +She turned up the Rue Thiers, glanced frowningly at the Paris-like +department store on the other side of the street with its gaudy +plate-glass show-windows, the pride of the younger generation in +Bayonne, and looked up with approval at the huge, thick, battlemented +walls of the Old Castle, substantial enough that, and plain enough and +old enough to please even a Basque. + +As she turned in at the door of Anna's apartment house, her mouth was +open to begin her litany of grievances; but when she entered Anna's +one-room, brick-paved lodging, she found her niece with a budget of +exciting news of her own, "Oh, Tante Jeanne, what do you think...." she +burst out as the old woman swung lightly in; but before she would go on, +she went to close the door, bearing herself so secretly, with such +self-importance that Jeanne was between exasperation and greediness to +hear. Like all illiterates who cannot glut on the newspapers their +appetite for gossip, she was insatiable for it in talk. She sat down on +the front of her chair, her ear cocked eagerly. Anna drew her own chair +up close and began to speak in Basque very rapidly. "I'm so glad you've +come, Tante Jeanne, you've had so much experience in working out in +families, you know about things. You know about those American farm +machines, that they're beginning to use on the big farms, painted red, +you know. Well, the American agent for that company, he has come here to +live, here in this house, the grand second-floor apartments, the ones +old Pere Lapagorry rents furnished, on _both_ sides of the landing, yes, +the two of them, because his wife, a very chic madame, didn't think one +was big enough, and what can one family do with two kitchens, tell me +that, and they with only one child to their name, a little girl, who +doesn't take up any more room than a flea, so to speak, and the lady has +asked me to find her a cook and a maid, and listen, Tante, she says she +will pay sixty francs a month _each_, and fed and lodged!" + +She paused to underline this and looked triumphantly at her aunt, who +for years had worked as cook in families for forty francs a month and +lodged herself. Jeanne looked back at her hard, a new possibility +lifting a corner of its veil in her mind. + +"What are they like, these Americans?" she asked, "Spanish-Basque or +French-Basque?" (To a Basque, the term "_American_" means one of his own +race who has emigrated to South America, made his pile, and returned to +his own country to spend it.) + +"They're not Basques at all," said Anna. + +"What, French?" said Jeanne instantly incredulous of Anna's story. There +was no use trying to tell _her_ that any French family was willing to +pay twice the usual wage for servants. + +"No, they don't even understand French, but the madame can read it a +little." + +"Oh, Spanish, then." + +"No, I had Pedro Gallon go up to see them and they don't speak a word of +Spanish. They're not even Catholics!" + +The two women stared at each other. What could people be who were not +Spanish or French or Basque, or even Catholics? + +Anna went on, "Tante Jeanne, come upstairs and see for yourself what +they are like. You have seen so many bourgeois families, you can tell +better than I. I'll only say you have come to help me find servants for +them." + +Anna followed her aunt out into the hall and locked the door behind her. +The key to the door hung with a dozen others, large and clanking at the +belt of her blue jeans apron. Anna's philosophy of life consisted in +having plenty of keys and keeping them in constant use. The only things +you could be sure of were the things you yourself had locked up. + +They climbed the shining, well-waxed, oaken stairway, Anna's special +care and pride, turning itself around and around in the circular +white-washed well, lighted by small pointed windows, which showed the +three-foot thickness of the stone walls. They stood before the dark +paneled door, its highly polished brass knob in the middle, and pulled +hard at the thick, tasseled bell-rope. A bell jangled nervously, light +uneven footsteps sounded on the bare floor inside, and a small, pretty, +fair-haired woman stood before them, dressed in a pale blue house-gown +elaborately trimmed with white silk. She smiled a pleasant recognition +at Anna, and gave a friendly nod to the older woman.... Jeanne disliked +her on sight. + +The old peasant assumed a respectful, decorous, submissive attitude as +became her social position, and made a quick estimate at the age of the +other woman. She made it thirty-six at a guess although she reflected +that probably any man would guess not more than twenty-eight. Jeanne +knew by the sixth sense which comes from many years of unbiased +observation of life, that the other woman was the sort who looks much +younger than she is. She also was aware as by an emanation, that the +other woman was not French. That was apparent from every inch of her, +the way she stood and smiled and wore her gown; and yet she was dressed +like any French lady, with a high, boned collar up to her ears, sleeves +with a stiff puff at the shoulders, and a full, long, heavy skirt that +hung in ripples and lay on the floor behind. Also her fair hair was +tousled up into a pompadour, with a big, shining knot on top. Jeanne, +her head a little to one side and bent forward in a patient pose of +silent respect, wondered if that fair hair were her own or were false, +and made a guess that a good deal of it was false. + +All this Jeanne took in and pondered while Anna was trying to explain by +dumb-show who her aunt was and why she had come. The foreign lady +listened intently, but it was evident that she did not understand at +all. + +Jeanne took advantage of her absorption with Anna to look at her +intently, with the ruthless peasant scrutiny, going straight through all +the finer distinctions of character, deep down to the one fundamental, +the one question essential to the peasant mind in all human +relationships, "Is she stronger than I?" + +Jeanne saw at once that the lady before her was not stronger than she, +was not indeed strong at all, although she looked as though she might +have an irritable temper. She was one you could always get around, +thought Jeanne, her strong hands folded meekly before her, her powerful +body a little stooped to make herself look politely mild. She was one +who didn't know what she wanted enough to go after it and get it, +thought Jeanne, casting her black eyes down, the picture of a +well-trained, European servant, with a proper respect for the upper +classes she served. + +The lady, laughing and fluttering, now motioned them into the salon. +Some of the furnishings had been taken away, thought Jeanne, looking +about out of the corner of her eye--no lace over the windows! In this +room sat the monsieur of the family, a large man, smoking a large cigar, +and reading an enormous newspaper. + +On encountering a new member of the male sex, Jeanne, although she had +long passed the age when she needed personally to make the distinction, +always made a first, sweeping division of them into two classes: those +who were dangerous to women and those who were not. She instantly put +down the monsieur of the new family among those who were not, although +he was not bad looking, not more than forty-five, with all his teeth +still in his mouth and all his thick, dark hair still on his head. But a +woman of Jeanne's disillusioned experience of human nature knew from the +expression of his listless brown eyes, from his careless attitude in his +chair, from the indifferent way he looked at the three women before him, +from the roughness of his hair, evidently combed but once a day, with no +perfumed dressing on it, that he was not now and never had been a man +who cared for conquests among women, or who had had many. She +immediately felt for him a slight contempt as for somebody not all there +mentally, and wondered if his wife were not occasionally unfaithful to +him. She looked as though she might be that kind, a rattling, +bird-headed little thing like that, reflected Jeanne behind her downcast +eyes, changing imperceptibly from one humble, self-effacing pose to +another. + +Anna now turned to her aunt with a long breath, "I cannot make her +understand," she said in Basque. "Think of a nice, pretty-looking lady +like that not being able to talk! I cannot make her think anything but +that you have come to be the cook yourself." + +"Well, I might do worse," said Jeanne unexpectedly, her mouth watering +at the chance for pickings. She spoke in Basque. Her face remained as +unmoved as though it were the wood-carving it seemed. + +Her niece stared for a moment, horizons opening before her. "Oh, Tante +Jeanne, if you only would! With you here and me in the concierge's loge, +what a chance for commissions off everybody from the grocer to the +wash-woman!" + +Jeanne agreed although with no enthusiasm. "But I'm not young. I don't +need the money, if only Michel's wife would...." She gave a quick look +at the man and woman before her, who were now exchanging some words in +their queer-sounding tongue. "They seem such odd people. Who knows what +they are like? Their not being able to talk, and all--and not even +Catholics!" She hesitated, feeling a distaste for their foreignness, and +for the fussy, effusive smilingness of the madame. Jeanne always +distrusted ladies who smiled at their servants. There could only be war +to the knife between servants and their employer. Why pretend anything +else? + +A little girl in a white dress came swiftly into the room now, a +long-legged, slim child of eleven. She darted in as though she was +looking for something, and in a hurry to find it. When she saw the two +Basque women, she paused, suddenly motionless, and gave them a steady +inquiring gaze out of clear dark eyes. + +Jeanne stared at her, startled. The child had thick black hair, glossy +and straight, a cream-like skin, and long eyes with arching eyebrows as +black as her hair, which made a finely-drawn curving line on her +forehead and ran back at the sides upon her temples. + +Anna noticed the older woman's surprise and said casually, "Yes, isn't +it queer how the little girl looks like one of us, a real little Basque? +She seems nice enough, only with no manners. See how she comes bursting +into a room and then only stares; but none of the family have any +manners, if it comes to that." + +The child made a quick move now and still moving swiftly stepped to +Jeanne's side. To Jeanne's astonishment she put out her small white +fingers and took Jeanne's gnarly old hand in a firm grip. "Bonjour, +Madame," she said, smiling faintly at her attempt to speak the foreign +language, although her eyes were grave. + +Jeanne had for an instant a strange impression that the child seemed to +think that she had found what she was looking for. At the sight of the +little girl, at the living touch of that small, warm hand, Jeanne forgot +the chic madame with the shallow eyes, and the dull monsieur with the +tired eyes. She looked down at the child who had eyes that were looking +for something. The old woman and the little girl exchanged a long +serious gaze, one of those deep, inarticulate contacts of human souls +which come and go like a breath taken, and leave human lives altered for +always. + +Jeanne drew a long breath. She said in a low tone to the child, +forgetting that she could not understand, "What do you call yourself, +dear?" + +The child answered in French haltingly, but with a pure accent, "I call +myself Mary." + +"Oh, yes," explained Anna, "the little girl is picking up French fast. I +can make her mother understand now, through her. She does the ordering +for them at the Bouyenval pension already. They are taking their meals +there, till they get servants to begin housekeeping. Madame Bouyenval +was telling me this morning...." + +Jeanne interrupted her niece, speaking in Basque, "Well, if you think +you can make that featherhead of her mother understand anything, you can +tell them that I'll come to-morrow to stay, and I'll bring a +chamber-maid with me." + +To the foreign lady she said respectfully in French, with a deferential +inclination of her tall strong body, "A votre service, Madame." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +May 10, 1898. + +Marise sat in her room, in front of her table, a copy-book opening blank +pages of coarse paper before her, a thin, mean-looking, pale-blue book +marked "Mots Usuels" on her lap. It was her own impression that she had +stopped for a minute's rest from study (although she had not yet begun), +and that she was thinking hard. But she was not thinking. She was +feeling. + +She sat with her elbows on the table, her chin in her two hands, braced +so that she was quite motionless. Her eyes were fixed on the candle +flame, burning bright, fluttering and throbbing in the draughts which +came into the old room, around the decrepit window-casing, under the +door, through the worm-eaten base-board. There seemed to be a thousand +wandering puffs from every direction. What Marise called her "thoughts" +were burning bright, fluttering and throbbing like the tiny flame at +which she stared. They too were blown upon by a thousand breaths from +every direction. If they would only hold still for a moment, Marise +thought, and give out a steady light that she could see something by! If +she only had some shade to put around those flickering thoughts so they +wouldn't quiver so! It upset her, jerking around so, from one way of +seeing things to another. What she wanted to know was, how did things +_really_ look? + +Of course it was worse here in France, where everything was so +uncertain, but it had started back home in America, it had always been +going on ever since she could remember. It had always made her feel +queer, as though she were holding an envelope up to a mirror to read the +address and saw it wrong end to, the way everything looked different at +Ashley the moment Maman came up to Vermont to take her home after +vacations with Cousin Hetty. Marise loved it so there at Ashley, the +dear darling old house in the mountains, with its nice atticky smell +that no other house in the world had! It just fitted all around you, +when you went in the door, the way Cousin Hetty's arms fitted around +you, when she took you up on her lap, and rocked and sang, "We hunted +and we hallooed." + +At the memory, Marise's heart gave a great homesick throb. How far away +she was from Cousin Hetty and Ashley now! How long since she had sat on +anybody's lap. + +And yet when Maman came to take you away, from the first minute she went +in and looked around her, you could see right through her eyes and what +you saw was something different. After all it was just a homely old +house with ugly crocheted tidies on the chairs, and splashers done in +outline stitch back of the wash-stands, and old red figured carpets on +the floors, the way _no_body did at home in Belton. And Cousin Hetty +talking so queer and Vermonty, her white hair smoothed down flat over +her ears instead of all roughed up, fluffy, over a rat the pretty way +other ladies did, with her funny clothes, her big cameo pin holding down +her little flat round collar, and all other ladies so stylish with high +collars under their ears. Yes, of course, the minute Maman looked at +her, you saw how ashamed you'd be of Cousin Hetty if she came to visit +your school at Belton. And yet there _was_ the other Cousin Hetty you'd +been having such a good time with. You just flickered away from Maman's +way of seeing it to yours and never could make up your mind which was +the real way. + +Marise shook her head, drew a long breath and looked down again at her +spelling lesson. It was a list of the names of furniture and household +utensils, all very familiar to her from old Jeanne's thinking them so +terribly important. My! How much more Jeanne cared about her work than +any girl they'd ever had in Belton. + +"_Lit ... sommier ... traversin ..._" all the names of the complicated +parts of a bed, a sacred French bed. As Marise looked at them on the +page she could see Jeanne in the mornings, taking poor stupid little +Isabelle's head right off because she didn't make the bed up smoothly +enough; and all the time it was about a million times smoother than any +bed ever was in America! Marise didn't believe the President of the +United States had his bed-clothes pulled so tight and smooth. And she +wondered if Jeanne worked in the White House, if she would let even the +President's little girl sit down on the bed in the daytime. How +_particular_ they were about things in France! About everything. When +you bought anything in a store how they did drive you wild with their +slowness in getting it put up in the package just _so_, as if it +mattered, when you were going to take it out of the package three +minutes later, as soon as you got home. And at school how they did fuss +about neatness! The lessons were easy enough to learn. Marise never had +any trouble with lessons, but how could anybody ever do things as neatly +as they wanted you to. And how the teacher jumped on you if you didn't, +ever so much worse than if you got the answer to an arithmetic problem +wrong. Mercy! How she did scold! There wasn't anybody in America knew +_how_ to scold like that even if they wanted to, and they didn't. It had +scared Marise at first, and made her feel like crying, and she never had +got entirely used to it although she saw how all the other girls did, +just took it and didn't care and did whatever they liked behind her +back. + +Marise couldn't get used to Jeanne that way either, to her yelling so +when she scolded. Marise hated to have people get mad and excited. And +how Jeanne did carry on about the house being neat, the part that is, +where company could come; (under her kitchen sink it smelled awfully and +was full of greasy rags) and yet she'd shine up the salon floor over and +over when it was already shiny, and never think of those rags. The least +little bit of clutter left around in the dining-room, or even your own +room, and how she would scold! And yet she was so awfully good to you, +and was always giving you big, smacking kisses, and hugging you, and she +always saved over the best things to eat when Maman had a lunch party, +and you were at school. Even when Maman had said you couldn't have any +of something Jeanne always brought it to your room, under her apron, +after you'd gone to bed. It wasn't very nice to do things behind Maman's +back, but everybody seemed to be doing things behind everybody else's +back. Maman did behind Father's, lots of times, and it was perfectly +understood between them that Marise was never to tell Father on her. And +it would be telling on Jeanne if you told Mother. And anyhow Marise +didn't see Maman so very much any more, to tell her things; it was +mostly Jeanne who did things for her. + +Marise laid down her book again, lost in one of her recurrent attacks of +amazement at there being so many different Jeannes inside that one +leathery skin. There was the Jeanne who came every morning to take +orders, and folded her hands on her apron, and sort of stooped herself +over and said, "Oui, Madame," to everything Maman said. You'd think she +was scared to death of Maman, and yet she went away to the kitchen on +the other side of the landing and became another Jeanne who never paid +the least attention to what Maman had said, but ran the house just the +way she thought it ought to be. + +There were two Jeannes right there, and there was another one, the +outdoor Jeanne, who took her to school every morning--how funny that in +France a great girl of eleven had to have somebody tagging along every +time she stepped outside the house! This was the most interesting Jeanne +of all. She told stories every single minute. Lots of them were about +when she had been a little girl--gracious! think of Jeanne ever having +been a little girl! That was ever so long ago, before the Emperor and +the Empress had made Biarritz the fashion. Jeanne said those were the +good days, when the Basques had their country to themselves, and you +never saw a hat on any woman's head; they all wore the black kerchief +for everyday and mantillas on Sunday for Mass, and lived like +Christians. Jeanne could remember when Biarritz was just a little +fishing village, a decent place, and _now_ look at it! She could +remember just as well when Napoleon and his Spanish wife first began to +come down there so the Empress could get as near to Spain as possible. +Many and many's the time Jeanne had seen them in their springy +barouche, driving right along this very street, he with his eyes as dead +as a three-days-caught fish's, and she as handsome as any Basque girl! + +They weren't all stories of Jeanne when she was a little girl. Lots of +them were of what had happened hundreds and hundreds of years ago around +here. There were ever so many stories of witches and ghosts and +sorcerers. There were plenty of those still in the Basque country. There +was a sorcerer living in that little tumble-down house near the river on +the road to St. Barthelemy. Why, Jeanne's own mother, years ago, one day +looked up from her spinning and saw a monstrous pig, big and black. She +jumped up and ran out to try to catch it. Her grandmother went out too, +and there were a lot of the neighbors who were trying to drive the pig +away. But it didn't pay a bit of attention, butted at them so fierce +when they came near they were afraid, for he was as tall as a calf, and +whoever saw a pig as big as that? And then the grandmother made the sign +of the cross, Spanish fashion ... and like snapping your fingers, didn't +the pig change, right before their eyes, into a little wee woman they'd +never seen, and she went up in the air as thin and light as a loose +spider's thread, and drifted away and there was nothing there. + +The little American girl knew enough to know that this story couldn't be +true, of course. And yet Jeanne's mother and all those people had seen +it. They saw a pig and it turned into a wee witch woman. + +Marise stopped thinking about that, leaned forward and began kneading +the softened tallow at the upper end of the candle. Father could say all +he liked about candles being a bother, they were lots of fun. This part +up next the flame got just right so you could poke it and it stayed put, +any way you wanted it. And it was fun to lean the candle over and drop +the melted tallow on your hands in little drops that got hard and you +could peel them off. + +As she poked at it, a dozen pictures flickered through her mind; the +bridge over the Adour with the river flowing yellow and strong under +it, and the bright painted vessels loading and unloading; the Sister who +opened the door at school, always so calm and silent; the playground at +school with the black-aproned girls, their faces twisted up with running +and screaming and catching each other; and the same girls at their +desks, with their faces all smoothed and empty, looking up at +Mademoiselle as though they had never thought of doing anything she told +them not to; the school-room itself, battered and gray with age, the old +black desks with the slant lids that lifted up; Reverend Mother stopping +in to hear a lesson, with her old, old quiet face; Maman so pretty and +stylish, looking so sweet when she made mistakes in French that nobody +minded, or thought of laughing at her. + +Marise tipped the candle over carefully and let some melted tallow fall +on the back of her hand. As she set it back and waited for the tallow to +harden, she was thinking how very different from home Bayonne was; the +Basque fish-women, with the shiny fish in the round flat baskets on +their heads; the white oxen with the sheep-skin on their horns, and +their red-striped white canvas covering, pulling those two-wheeled +carts; everybody streaking it along in canvas sandals and berets, +talking French and Basque and Spanish and never a word of English. And +yet, Marise reflected as she slowly peeled off the hardened tallow +drops, none of that was the _real_ difference. And there was a real +difference. The real difference was something inside you. You felt +different, as if you'd looked in the glass and seen somebody not quite +you. It was.... + +Somebody was walking slowly down the brick-floored hall to her room. It +was Father's heavy step. That was nice! She hadn't thought she would see +either Father or Maman, because there had been company to dinner again. +She gathered the tallow drops together and dropped them in the base of +the brass candle-stick. Then she remembered that Jeanne would scold if +she did that. These candle-sticks like everything else in the house had +to be just _so_, or everybody caught it. She swept them out again with +her fingers, and stood holding them in her hand, looking around her for +some place to put them. The waste-paper basket was too open, they would +fall right through on the floor, and what a fuss there would be over +that! Oh, there was the fireplace, if you put things way back of the +sticks, Jeanne didn't see them. + +She was just straightening up from reaching back of the wood, when +Father came in. He said, "Hello, kid," and she answered, "Hello, Poppa." +They did this for a kind of a joke, to be extra American when Maman +couldn't hear them. + +Father sat down on the edge of the bed, making a big dent in the +fluffed-up crimson, eider-down quilt, which Jeanne rounded so carefully +each morning, and which she never let anybody disturb. Not, of course, +that Jeanne would dare to say anything to Father, le patron. She would +only grumble in Basque, under her breath, and Marise would feel her +opinion of Americans going down even lower than it was. Marise could +always feel everybody's opinions as they went up and down. And how she +did hate to feel them going down, anybody's about anything! She always +tried to fix it so they would go up. She now planned to fluff the +edredon to a puff again, after Father had gone back. She didn't say +anything about it to Father. You never did, about that sort of thing, +even Maman didn't, although it made her awfully provoked not to have +Father care, and she always said a lot afterwards. Marise didn't even +say anything to him about the white down that would be sure to work +through the cover of the edredon and get on his clothes. Father wouldn't +care if it did. There were such lots of things Father didn't care about. +But Maman would. She must remember to brush him off before he went to +the salon. + +"Having a good time?" asked Father slowly, the way he did, that let you +see how he knew perfectly well you weren't. + +"Not so very," she answered. + +"Neither am I," he returned, "though you needn't mention it to Momma." +There were always a great many things that were not to be mentioned to +Maman, and a lot of quite other things that were not to be mentioned to +Father, and Isabelle told her things she didn't want Jeanne to know, and +_everything_ that Jeanne said was not to be mentioned either to Father +or Maman. Marise, coming back from school, used to feel when she opened +the door of the apartment, as though she were walking into cobwebs +spread around in the dark, and you mustn't on any account brush into any +one of them. + +Father now went on, "What are you doing with yourself?" + +Marise looked down at the cahier, its pages as blank as when she had sat +down. Her father looked with her. "That's lovely paper, I must say," he +commented, always with his way of showing that he meant just the +opposite. "Are you supposed to write on it in ink?" + +"Oh, yes," cried Marise, flashing up to seize the chance of sympathy for +one of her grievances, "they _never_ let you use lead-pencils because in +lead-pencil there's a chance to rub out your mistakes. You're not +supposed to _make_ any mistakes." + +"Doesn't your pen get stuck in it--it must be like writing on +mosquito-netting," said Father. + +"Yes, it does," complained Marise, "and you spatter the ink all over and +break off the tips of the pen, and everything. And the teachers just +kill you if it's not perfectly neat." + +Father took up the cahier and looked at the paper hard, scratching it a +little with his finger-nail. "Well, there's culture in the air, anyhow," +he said without smiling, although Marise knew he was quoting Maman. He +looked around the room now without saying anything more. Marise followed +his eyes and saw with him the dingy, high-ceilinged room, dimly lighted +by the one weak candle-flame, the heavy, figured tapestry curtains drawn +over the window, the draught, although the window was closed, making +them suck in and out; the ugly, ugly wall-paper, dark and scriggly; the +stuffed red chair, the only comfortable one, where Jeanne would never +let her curl up with her feet under her, because she said the place for +shoes was on the floor; the marble-topped wash-stand with its little +chipped white earthen-ware basin and pitcher like the old things at +Cousin Hetty's; the clock on the chimney-piece that looked as though it +were carved out of greasy, dark-green soap with a greasy dark-green man +in a Roman toga on top of it; the shabby, dingy, red-and-white checked +curtains hanging over the hooks where Marise hung up her dresses, the +tall dark armoire whose slightly greenish mirror reflected all these +things as if you were looking at them through water; and finally over +the bed, the big, shiny lithograph of Our Lady of Lourdes in her bright +blue cloak, standing in front of her grotto. + +"Well, maybe it's in the _air_," said Father. He spoke in his usual +tired, slow voice, sagging down on the bed the way he always sat. + +But then he surprised Marise very much and said something she never +forgot. It gave her such a jump of astonishment to have Father say +something as though he really meant it, that she sat up straight at his +first words, staring at him. He said in a strong voice, "But look here, +Molly, there _is_ something in the air here, by heck, and I wish you'd +get it. I mean the way every one of them in this country keeps right +after what he's doing, till he's got it just right. That's the way to +do, and we're all off the track with our 'that'll do,' the way we say +back in America. It's the only thing in their whole darned country _I_ +can see, that don't make you sick. Now, look here, kid, you go after it +and get it. Start right in now. Learn how to make that infernal +note-book perfectly all right in spite of the bad paper. I wish to the +Lord _I_ had been taught that." + +And then, while Marise was still staring, the words echoing loudly in +her ears because of the strangeness of hearing them from Father, he went +on in his usual voice, "It might be _something_ to hold on to, and I +don't see much else." + +Marise had never before known Father in any way to try to "bring her +up!" He made Maman so much provoked because he always said that he +didn't know, any more than Marise, how she ought to be brought up, and +he didn't see that it made so much difference what you did, everything +turned out about the same in the long run. Now her little room seemed +full of the oddness of his thinking that something did matter, of his +telling her so hard that he wished she'd do something. In the loud +silence which followed, she could hear his voice and what it said, +sinking deeper and deeper into her mind. + +After a while Father yawned very wide and rubbed his hair forward and +back so that it was all rumpled up the way Maman didn't like to see it. +"What did you say you were doing?" he asked again. + +"I'm writing down my lecon d'orthographe," said Marise. + +"Your _what_!" said Father. + +"My spelling lesson," Marise corrected herself with a jerk. She knew how +Father hated to have people mix up their languages. + +"Well, I don't know that you're any worse off at that than we are in the +sitting-room," said Father. He always called the _salon_ the +sitting-room. He added, glancing at her blank note-book, "You haven't +got very far, I see." He paused, and smiled a little with one corner of +his mouth, "But then neither have we in the sitting-room." + +It came into Marise's mind that perhaps Father, seeing he was so +specially serious to-night, might tell her some way to keep her thoughts +from jiggling around so, from one way of feeling to another, according +to what other people thought of things, instead of knowing what she +thought of things. But she had no chance to ask him, for when she began, +"Well, I sort of forgot about my spelling. I got to thinking," Father +broke in, as he got up heavily to go, "I wouldn't advise you to do +_that_, either. It never gets anybody anywhere." + +Marise forgot till after he had got clear back to the salon that she had +not brushed off the down from the edredon. Maman wouldn't like that a +bit, to have him look untidy when company was there! Oh, dear! + +But she forgot this as she thought again about the queerness of Father's +seeming to care so much about her doing one thing rather than another. +It was still there, this wonder at him, when she turned to her book +finally to study that spelling lesson. "Lit ... sommier ... +traversin...." She wrote the words down on the coarse paper, with +infinite care, drawing on some deep, unfamiliar store of patience when +the pen sputtered and caught its point and stuck. She was going to try +to do as Father said. She would take as much trouble with writing those +words about a bed, as old Jeanne took in making the bed every morning; +and that was more trouble than anybody in America ever took about +anything. + +Her dark, shining hair fell forward about her cheeks as she leaned over +the copy-book, writing slowly, chewing her tongue, frowning in her +concentration on the formation of those letters. + +She forgot all about her uncertainties as to how things really were; she +forgot her loneliness. All her flickering thoughts steadied themselves +and grew quiet as she worked. A stillness came over her. She felt +happier than she had since they came to France to live. + +Later, ever so much later, after she had undressed, washed in the cold +water in the little earthen-ware basin, gone to bed and to sleep, the +night-time Jeanne tip-toed in to see that she was all right. This Jeanne +was very different from all the others, because she was so quiet. Marise +half-waked up when she felt the energetic French kiss on her cheek +(Jeanne always kissed you so hard), and as she dozed off again, she +heard Jeanne saying a prayer over her, half in Basque and half in Latin. +Marise couldn't understand either Latin or Basque, but she understood +the intention of that nightly prayer at her bed, and she caught sleepily +at old Jeanne to return her kiss. It wasn't as good as Cousin Hetty's +taking you on her lap and putting her arms around you, but it was enough +sight better than nothing. Also she heard Jeanne carefully close the +window. Jeanne always did this every night, although Maman said to leave +it open. Jeanne was the last one in there always so she had it her way. +She didn't think it healthy to let night air into rooms. Marise was too +sleepy to get up and open it again. Anyhow Jeanne often told her about +the evil spirits, that come in through open bedroom windows, and sit on +your chest and suck your life into their black bodies, as you sleep. +Marise did not believe this, in the least, of course, and yet.... + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +I + +May 12, 1898. + +Two plump ladies with large busts and very small waists were sitting in +the salon of the Allen apartment, waiting for the mistress of the house. +They wore very tight-fitting dresses of excellent silk, obviously not +new, obviously made by the sort of "little dressmaker" who goes from +house to house. Their shoes were stout and clumsy, their hats somewhat +heavy in line, their gloves exquisitely fitting, perfectly fresh, made +of the finest-grained leather. Although the sky was blue, each lady +carried a small silk umbrella of the very best quality, tightly rolled +with a masterly smoothness, as smoothly tubular as the day it was +bought. + +The two women held their cruelly corseted bodies very erect, and sat +squarely on their chairs, both feet on the floor, their knees close +together, their backbones very straight. Under the brims of their heavy, +much-ornamented hats, their fresh, healthy faces wore an expression of +perfect stability. They knew that they produced exactly the impression +they meant to produce, and that they looked exactly like what they were. +From every inch of them was proclaimed the fact that they were fine +housekeepers and economical managers of their husbands' incomes, that +they were of the well-to-do bourgeoisie and proud of it, as of +everything else they were and did. They looked out on their lives and +found them good in every detail, from their slightly and purposely +behind-the-fashion dresses to their stout shoes, evidence of their +respectability; from their fixed ideas to their excellent gloves. + +They glanced about them now, keenly, with the penetrating survey of the +professional good housekeeper, and found much to comment on. + +"How strange to have no lace curtains over the windows, only the heavy +ones at the side. Why, people outside must be able to _look right in_! +Do you suppose they have taken them out to be washed? Or don't they know +about curtains in America?" + +They murmured their remarks in a low tone, keeping a weather-ear cocked +to the hall. + +"That wall-paper is disgraceful. It was on when the Charpentiers lived +here." + +"M. Lapagorry had expected, you know, of course, to do this apartment +over after the Charpentiers moved out. But these new people never made a +single comment, or complaint. Just accepted it." + +"I daresay they are used to log-cabins at home, with Indians at the +door." + +"Oh, no, Madame Garnier, my Henri says that the Indians are quite +civilized in America now." + +Madame Garnier frowned slightly at the mention of Henri. + +The other woman went on, "Apparently they thought it was all right to +have faded paper and those awful old curtains. M. Lapagorry was so +astonished he almost fell over backward. And when he saw they didn't +find fault with anything, he asked a higher rent, ever so much higher +than the Charpentiers had paid, and they took _that_ too without a word. +People say M. Lapagorry can't sleep nights now because he didn't ask +more." + +Madame Garnier observed, as one mentioning an obvious fact, "Oh, well, +Madame Fortier, he will, of course, next time." + +Madame Fortier saw nothing to smile at in this. "Yes, of course," she +said seriously. + +Madame Garnier now said, "They must be _very_ rich. Where is it they are +from, Buenos Aires?" + +"Oh, no, Madame Garnier. I think it is somewhere in North America. My +Henri says that...." + +Madame Garnier broke in, irritated, to say with suppressed heat, "Oh, +North America or South America, what's the difference? They are all +foreigners, and who knows what strange, immoral ideas they have? They +don't come to Mass, you know. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the +man is a Free-Mason. I wish M. Garnier had not asked me to call on +them." + +The other shrugged her shoulders resignedly, "Yes, it's a very strange +thing to do, make the first call, and on people you know nothing about. +But M. Fortier says the man, M. Allen, is very important in a business +way, and he specially asked all the business men to have their wives +call on his wife. He almost seemed to make it a sort of condition, so M. +Fortier said, almost made them promise before he would talk business +with them. It may be in America, they do. And of course anything M. +Fortier thinks may be good for his business...." + +Madame Garnier's nod signified that of course that principle went +without saying for any good wife; the expression of her face adding that +this was an application of it which might count as one of a good wife's +sacrifices. But she said hopefully, "Well, they won't stay very long, +foreigners never do." + +Madame Fortier now murmured, "They say she's very free with the +gentlemen. M. Fortier and his friends are laughing about her. They say +they really don't know how much of what she says is due to her bad +French; or how far she really does expect them to go." + +This did not surprise Madame Garnier. "What can you expect? I shall see +to it that our Jean-Pierre has nothing to do with them." + +This apparently started a new train of thought for Madame Fortier, for +she now said with the cheery warmth of one who brings out something +which will be a bitter pill to her interlocutor. "It seems the American, +M. Allen, has taken quite a fancy to our Henri. We think we can get a +position for Henri, through him, in America, where Henri can learn +English, and study the American market. It would be a great help in the +business if Henri knew English and all about American imports. And of +course the salaries paid in America are enormous." + +Madame Garnier's eyes opened wide. She fell into a trance-like +meditation, and presently murmured, "Our Jean-Pierre made quite a +specialty of English in the lycee. I should think...." + +The mother of Henri shook her head decidedly, "I don't think America +would suit your Jean-Pierre's temperament," she said. "He's not at all +practical. And you get skinned alive by American business men if you're +not as sharp as they. No, you'd better keep Jean-Pierre away from them." + +The two looked at each other hard. A brilliant light of rivalry came +into their eyes. It brought an animation, a zest into their faces, which +made them look years younger. A main-spring had been touched, and all +their wheels began visibly to turn. + +Steps were heard in the hall. + +They composed their faces, and turned towards the door. The American +lady now came in, and they rose to greet her. They were extremely +cordial, a competitive friendliness in their manner. + + * * * * * + +They went down the well-polished oaken stairs in silence, each holding +up her long heavy skirt with one gloved hand and letting the other rest +on the railing. At the bottom, each with an automatic gesture like a +reflex action, looked at the palm of her glove to see if it had been +soiled by the railing, and with a similar mechanical action, shook their +heads disapprovingly, although there was not a grain of dust on the +smooth, tightly-stretched, pale kid. + +They shook out the trains of their skirts and swept into the street, +conscious of the pouncing inspection of Anna Etchergary, gazing at them +from the loge of the concierge, and proudly aware that there was nothing +to criticize in any detail of their backs or anywhere else about them. +They turned to the left and began to climb the steep street which led +towards the Cathedral. Madame Fortier remarked presently, "Very bad +taste, that dress, like an actress. All that white silk and lace. And +slippers like a dancing girl's. It must be she never puts her hand to +anything in the house." + +"No, she doesn't," returned the other disapprovingly. "My Marguerite +meets her Jeanne every morning at market. She says that Jeanne says the +American lady never does anything about the house, and doesn't even +verify her accounts. You can just imagine what Jeanne is getting out of +it. It quite upsets Marguerite, and I have to be specially careful with +my own accounts. Everybody near them is getting a rake-off on +everything." She made these revelations with a satisfied look as though +the words had a pleasant taste in her mouth. + +Madame Fortier's comment was made with the accent of mature, worldly +experience, "Mark my words, money spent in a loose careless way like +that _must have been ill come by_. That's the way disreputable women +spend money." + +"It's very hard on the rest of us, at any rate. And Jeanne tells our +Margot that she is a very poor housekeeper, as heedless as a child, +wears her best tailored street dress in the house as like as not, lies +down on the bed when she is not sick at all, and doesn't do a thing but +read novels all the time; or fool away a whole afternoon in the Museum. +Very suspicious, that, too. Why should anybody go to the Museum so much? +I'd just like to know whom she meets there. A regular place of +rendezvous, the Museum. I wonder if her husband knows." + +They were enjoying the conversation so much that their faces looked +quite sunny and bright. The other shook her head forebodingly. There was +a silence as they climbed steadily up the steep, narrow, stone-flagged +street. + +Then Madame Garnier remarked, "The little girl is quite pretty, though +so mannerless." + +"Her dress was covered with grease spots, and had a hook off the back," +reported Madame Fortier. + +"I didn't see but _three_ grease spots," demurred Madame Garnier, "and +she really has lovely eyes and hair." + +"How badly that woman speaks French. Without the little girl to +interpret, it would actually have been hard to know what she was saying. +Strange they don't know French better. But perhaps they don't have +regular schools like ours." + +Madame Garnier made no answer to this conjecture, but asked, looking +sideways at her neighbor, "Shall you ask them to dinner?" + +Madame Fortier all but groaned, and said in a martyr's tone, "Oh, I +suppose so, for Henri's sake." + +The other digested this thrust in silence, and then changed the subject. +"What was that she was saying about De Maupassant? Was she quoting him, +to _us_? What did she take us for?" + +"Yes, she didn't realize what we might think of her. It was that +indecent Boule-de-Suif, too. But she knows so little French most likely +she didn't understand what it was all about." + +"Have you read that?" asked Madame Garnier. + +"Yes, I thought it my duty to, as a mother, to know what it is. But I +burned the book, and you may be sure _I_ don't go around letting +everybody know I've read it. Did you find her pretty?" + +Madame Garnier answered obliquely, but quite understandably. "I daresay +a man would think so. I couldn't think of anything but her manners. How +she lolled in her chair, and crossed her legs. I wouldn't want my +Gabrielle to see her. And to my eyes she had a faded look. Queer, her +being so fair. I don't see any trace of Indian blood. I thought all +Americans had Indian blood." + +"Oh, no, Madame Garnier, my Henri says that...." + +Madame Garnier made a gesture of one thoroughly out of patience with +Henri, and ended the conversation abruptly, "Oh, here we are at the +corner. I must turn down here. Good-day, Madame Fortier." + + +II + +May 15, 1898. + +The rosy, wrinkled face of the Sister of Charity shone out from the +white quilled band over which the black veil was draped. Beside her the +distinguished old lady showed, under her long crape veil, a face as +quiet as that of the nun. The two elderly women sat at ease, their hands +folded in their laps, chatting in a pleasant low tone. + +"Yes, so every one says, a great deal of money, Madame la Marquise," +said the nun in her murmuring monotone, "as all Americans have." + +The other breathed out with a great wistful sigh, "Oh, Soeur Ste. Lucie, +if only the good God has sent us at last the opportunity to get our +chapel." + +"Yes, yes indeed," assented the nun, drawing in her breath sharply +between her teeth. She raised her eyes, singularly bright and personal +in her professionally passive face. "They say there is a child, too. +Perhaps a soul to save. Our Mother Superior always so zealous for the +honor of our Order has asked us specially, specially ... the Bishop has +so much to say about one of the Sisters of the St. Francis Order because +of the conversion of a Swedish sailor, whom she nursed in their +hospital. The Mother Superior hopes very much that some one in _our_ +Order...." + +"Yes, yes, I understand," said the great lady, nodding. + +The nun went on, deferentially, "Madame la Marquise is so good to be +willing to come to call on the foreign lady! I shall see to it that the +foreign lady understands the honor done her." + +The other made a graceful deprecatory gesture with a shapely +black-gloved hand, and explained with great simplicity and gentleness, +"Oh, no, ma soeur, it is nothing, nothing to praise. I would make a far +greater sacrifice for the sake of our beloved work. But in this case, +there is no risk of being misunderstood. It is not as though they were +French bourgeois, who might have their heads turned. There can be no +question of social equality with transient foreigners." She smiled, +bowed her head with humility and said, "So you see, dear Soeur Ste. +Lucie, that I deserve no praise for making a sacrifice." + +The nun nodded her understanding. It was evident that they understood +each other to perfection. "Yes, yes, of course, I see. No social +equality possible," she murmured, drawing in a sharply taken breath +again. + +They looked about them in silence now, the restrained calm of their +faces uncolored by their thoughts. Hearing steps in the hall, Soeur +Ste. Lucie shook out her long black sleeves to cover her hands more +completely, and cast down her eyes so that her sweet, rosy, wrinkled old +face was once more blank and impassive. + + * * * * * + +Anna Etchergary was waiting at the door of her loge as they descended +the stairs, and she ran before them out to the old closed carriage, +which stood at the curb. Bowing deferentially and murmuring under her +breath, "... Madame la Marquise...." she held the door open for them. +The lady smiled her thanks at her, a pre-occupied, well-modulated smile +which took for granted the deference and the service. + +As the nun stepped into the carriage she said with unction, "Now I see +how lives in the world can be as useful to Our Lady as those of the +convent. No one could have resisted Madame this afternoon. To have a +great name and all worldly graces, and to use them only for the greater +glory of Our Lady!" + +The other sighed and said sadly, "Dear Ste. Lucie, since the death of my +dear one, there is nothing for me in the life of the world, except an +opportunity to serve our good work." She went on more cheerfully, with a +little animation, "Yes, I must say, it seemed like fruitful ground this +afternoon, fruitful ground. I think we may say we made a good +beginning." + +The old coachman came to the door for his orders. "To 4 rue Marengo, in +the Petit Bayonne," said his mistress, and as he stepped to his seat, +she explained to the nun, "I feel so much encouraged that I am going +straight to an architect to have him make an estimate of what the chapel +would cost." + +The carriage proceeded very slowly and rackingly over the rounded +boulders of the pavement. Inside it, the two women, accustomed to such +joltings, thrust their arms through the broad, hanging loops, and went +on talking. + +"Not a disagreeable person," said the great lady in a kind tone of +tolerance. "A very middle-class little woman, but no harm in her, I +should say. I was afraid to find some one not quite--not quite--you know +it is said that American women are not very moral--so many divorces in +America." + +"And still you went...!" breathed the nun, lost in admiration of the +other's heroic devotion, "when you ran the risk of meeting a _divorced_ +woman!" + +The Marquise made another gentle, fatigued gesture of warding off +praise. It was a practised gesture as though she had occasion to make it +often. + +After a time she said, "Odd she should be so interested in the Cathedral +here, and yet a free-thinker. What made her talk so much about the South +Portal? I never heard of anything unusual about it, did you? Except that +that disagreeable, anti-clerical fountain is somewhere near there, to +the memory of those wicked revolutionists." + +The nun shook her head, indifferently. "I always enter by the North +Portal," she said. "I don't believe I ever happened to see the south +one." + +After reflection, the marquise said, "I don't believe I ever saw it +either. Why should any one? You never enter from that side. Nobody lives +on the rue d'Espagne, that anybody would ever have occasion to visit." + + +III + +May 20, 1898. + +Anna Etchergary measured accurately the social status of the two ladies +who asked for Madame Allen's apartment, and without getting up, or +stopping her sewing, she answered in the careless tone suitable for +people who wore home-made hats and cotton gloves, that Madame Allen was +at the top of the first flight. After they had passed, she thought to +herself that she believed she knew them, Mlle. Hasparren, the +school-teacher and her married sister. They were Basques, like Anna, but +of the small government employee class, who put on airs of gentility, +and wore hats and leather shoes. Mlle. Hasparren gave music lessons, as +well as teaching school. Probably she had come to try to be taken on as +Marise's music-teacher. + +The two ladies were mounting the stairs in silence and very slowly, +because the school-teacher had taken off her cotton gloves and was +putting on a pair of kid ones, which she had pulled from her hand-bag. +She explained half-apologetically, to her sister, who had only cotton +gloves, "It's to do honor to America!" and then with a long breath, "The +first American I ever saw." + +"What do you care if it is, Rachel?" asked her sister languidly. She +added with more animation, "Your hat is over one ear again." + +The other stopped short on a stair. "America! ... free America!" she +said passionately, "don't you remember what Voltaire said, 'Europe can +never be wholly a prison so long as it has America for open window?'" +She knocked her hat back into place with the effect of using the gesture +to emphasize violently what she said. + +"I wouldn't quote Voltaire, if I were you," advised her sister mildly. +"You never know who may be listening. People think badly enough of you +for being a school-teacher in a lay-school as it is." + +"There you are!" Rachel caught this up as a point for her side. "There +it is, our airless, stagnant European prison-house of prejudice!" She +struck a hand, gloved in kid now, on her breast, with the gesture of one +suffocating. + +Her sister shrugged her shoulders resignedly and said, "Which door do +you suppose it is? We forgot to ask which side." + +They were now on the landing, hesitating between the two exactly similar +doors. Rachel made a quick decision at random, crossed to the right-hand +side, and pulled the bell-rope. + +The door opened, and showed the upright frame of Jeanne Amigorena. There +was a moment of mutual surprise, and exclamations of greeting and +inquiry. "Why, Jeanne, you here? I thought you were on the farm at +Midassoa!" + +Jeanne broke out upon them with a great rush of Basque, enchanted to see +familiar faces, enchanted to have a new audience. "Oh, good-day, Madame +Hardoye. Good-day, Mlle. Hasparren. Who ever would think to see you +here? Yes, here I am in a family of the queerest foreigners you ever +saw. But they pay very well. They have both apartments on this floor. +Yes, they must be _made_ of money, and I have little Isabelle from +Midassoa with me, as femme de chambre, and what do you think, we have +each a room, a real furnished bedroom, just as though we were guests. +The madame took one look at the maids' rooms, under the roof, on the +fifth floor, you know, and when she saw they are all dark except that +little sky-light, with no furniture to speak of, she said she wouldn't +let a dog sleep there. The idea! It would have been plenty good enough +for Isabelle and enough sight better than what she ever had at home. She +is getting beyond herself all the time, Isabelle is. I have an awful +time keeping her in her place. The lady hasn't the least idea of doing +it. They are such queer people, I can't tell you! She knows no more +about taking care of a child, our madame! She started to let our little +mademoiselle go _alone_ to school, through the _streets_! And the poor +child was so disgraceful with spots and dirt on her dresses that I was +ashamed to have people see her and had Madame buy her some aprons and +now I keep her in order myself. She is a sweet child, only brought up +the way you'd expect a little savage to be, puts her _feet_ on the +_chairs_! Or else sits on the _floor_! And _runs_ on the street, or else +loiters along looking at shop-windows. But she is learning fast. I don't +complain, oh, no. I know well enough that when you are a servant, you +must take what comes to you, and make the best of it. But I never +thought I would work in a family of free-thinkers! Still, they sleep +over there on that side of the landing, and Isabelle and I sleep here. I +keep the holy-water shell well filled, and we brought the branch of box +from home that had been blessed last Palm Sunday, and we sprinkle a few +drops of Lourdes water on the table before we eat. I hope we are safe. +M. le Cure says that is enough. I often think that...." + +Madame Hardoye had been listening to this flood of talk, her lively +interest in the matter struggling with her distaste for Jeanne's +familiar manner. + +She now broke in with an accent which she meant to express, "There +you've talked quite enough. After all, though my sister has queer ideas, +we are not in your class. We are not peasants. And it's high time you +remembered that." What she actually said in a curt tone was, "Where do +we ring to make a call on your mistress?" + +Jeanne understood the implication perfectly. It was one quite familiar +to her. With a change of manner she motioned them silently across the +hall. "There," she said laconically, her face suddenly hard and somber. + +Rachel Hasparren also understood the implication and flushed an even +more vivid color than that habitually on her dark cheeks. She held out +her hand, her kid-gloved hand, to Jeanne, with a defiant gesture of +equality, "Good-by, Jeanne. I'm glad we had a glimpse of you." + +Jeanne took the hand awkwardly, with a sort of rancorous reluctance to +have her grievance appeased, and turning back, shut the door behind her. + +"Now, Rachel!" expostulated her sister. + +Rachel breathed ragingly and stared at her sister in an old resentment, +which the other took calmly, looking inside her card-case. + +Rachel advanced provocatively, "Did you hear what old Jeanne said, how +the American lady would not put a dog to sleep in lodgings in which we +French expect to house our servants?" + +The married sister resented this spiritedly. "Spoiling servants for the +rest of us, that's what it is!" she said impatiently. "And what good +does it do? You saw how old Jeanne only thinks the less of her for it. +The more you try to do for that class, the less they think of you." + +"That's because Jeanne's whole nature has been degraded by our caste +ideals!" shouted Rachel. "She's a poor, superstitious, medieval old +thing, incapable of ordinary decent human relations. If she'd lived in +America...!" + +Angele pulled the other bell-cord here with an air of cutting short +another out-burst, and they both stood silently looking at the closed +door, which presently was opened by little Isabelle. + +As they went down the stairs, Angele remarked, "Well, she seems to be +all right. Like everybody else, as far as I can see. I expected to see +her with a Liberty cap on her head and swinging a lighted bomb, to hear +you going on." + +Rachel was taking off her kid gloves and putting on cotton ones. She +said dreamily, her black eyes deep and glowing, "When I asked her how +the peasants lived in America, she said ... the dear American ... 'there +aren't any peasants in America.'" + +Her dark flushed face was shining as they came out on the rue Thiers and +stood for an instant, glancing up at the battlemented walls of the dark +old Castle. + +Rachel suddenly shook her fist at it, her cotton-gloved fist, and cried +out, "You needn't glower down like that, you hideous old relic of an +evil past! There's a great, wide, rich country across the seas, that +never heard of such as you, that never had a feudal castle in it, that +isn't darkened by a single hateful shadow such as you still throw down +on us here." + +"Hush, Rachel," said her sister, patiently attempting to quiet her, +"Anna Etchergary is looking out of the window at us." + +Rachel instantly lowered her voice, with an instinctive response of +caution to this warning, but she was furious that she had done so. +"That's Europe, that's Europe for you!" she said hotly, under her +breath. "Spied upon every minute by suspicious, mean, malicious eyes." + +Angele broke in on her to say reasonably, "Well, anyhow, your hat is on +one side again." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +_Round-robin Letter to Mrs. Horace Allen's Neighbors and Friends in +Belton, New Jersey_ + + +Bayonne, France, May 25, 1898. + +MES CHERE AMIES: + +Je vous demande pardon for being so late with this letter, I know I +promised to write just as soon as we got here. But, chere amies, I know +you would forgive me if you knew how _marvelous_ our new life is here in +this old, beautiful, _civilized_ world. I have just been letting myself +go in it, just _grabbing_ at its charm and wonder, and all I can tell +you is that Europe is even more _wonderful_ than I thought. I just wish +every one of you could persuade your husbands, as I did, to take a +position that will bring you across the seas to this "fabled old land of +story and art." _You owe it to your children_ to give them the culture +which they would get here. + +But let me begin first with the material things. Mr. Allen, you know, +felt sort of badly because the position here didn't seem to be as +important and have as big a salary as the job the Company offered him in +Chicago--_Chicago_! Well, you cannot imagine anything like the cheapness +of the life here. We have two flats of six rooms each, on the same +floor, just the landing between them, twelve rooms in all, furnished +elaborately down to the last little things in the kitchen even, and we +pay about half the rent we paid in Belton for our unfurnished house. +There is perhaps a little old-world dinginess about the wall-paper and +the curtains and things, but that only adds to the delightful +_atmosphere_ and makes you realize that you are really in old Europe and +not raw young America. + +We have two maids for _less than three dollars a week_ each, and such +maids! In America we haven't any idea what it is to have good servants. +I am not expected to lift my hand or think about the housekeeping. My +old cook, the most _fas_cinating creature, in a quaint peasant's +costume, takes _all_ the responsibility on her own shoulders. She gets +up frightfully early in the morning, and goes off to market with a big, +flat basket, and comes bringing it in _on her head_ all filled with the +loveliest things to eat you ever saw, and bought for almost nothing! But +she buys just as closely for me as she would for herself. Servants +identify themselves with the family of their masters here, and are glad +to! I know the word "masters" sounds very un-American; but one so soon +gets used to the vocabulary of the country. Pardonnez moi! + +Jeanne--that is our cook--brings our breakfast to us _in bed_, all +except of course for Mr. Allen, who can't seem to adapt himself to other +ways of living. The first morning when she started to, he just jumped +out of bed as though the house were on fire, and slammed the door shut +in her face. He can't get over his Anglo-Saxon prudishness. But we have +separate rooms now, and I have my tray in bed, and read my mail there, +and between you and me, it makes me feel just like a heroine in a novel, +to lie there in my pretty negligee--you know in America we don't realize +what negligees are for. When do you ever have a chance to wear one +except when you are sick? And then you don't care. Marise has hers--her +breakfast I mean--in her room, too, as she dresses, and Jeanne always +expects to help her dress, so I don't have to think at all about getting +her off to school! Oh, mes amies, _what_ a rest to one's nerves that is! +Not to have that horrid, hurried hour trying to find clothes and books +and get Marise off in time. I just lie in bed reading the mail or a book +and Marise comes in, all fresh and combed (Jeanne is wonderful with her +hair), and kisses me and says, "Au revoir, Maman." We always try to +speak French together for the practice. + +Then, as I am getting dressed, Jeanne comes in, with a clean apron to +"take her orders," in the good old European way. And from that minute +on, I have no more bother about it. Everything is set on the table at +the right time, beautifully cooked, the house is kept clean and in the +most _perfect_ order. + +Perhaps you are wondering why I call Mary, "Marise?" It is a quaint +nickname for her that the servants have, and I have picked it up from +them. Isn't it delightful? I never liked Mary, and I detest "Molly." +Both the maids are devoted to Marise, and it is the European custom for +the servants to do a great deal more for the children of the house than +our girls ever dream of doing. Without a word, Jeanne has simply taken +over the care of Marise's clothes as a part of her regular work, and she +is always ready to go out with her, for it seems that no nice children +go alone on the streets here. Every morning, Jeanne takes Marise to her +school, and goes for her in the afternoon and brings her back. Marise is +perfectly happy here, in a splendid school, and having wonderful +opportunities. I am so happy about her advantages. It is not a public +school (the "lay" schools as they say, because all the others are run by +Catholic nuns). It seems the public schools are something quite new in +France, and nobody sends children to them except the poor, or people who +are queer in some way, with unbalanced ideas. I can easily believe this, +since I had a call the other day from a school-teacher in the public +schools, who also gives music lessons. She is a very queer and dowdy +person, with the most awful hat you ever saw. Didn't you think that all +Frenchwomen wore pretty, stylish hats? Not in the least. Quite the +contrary. Her sister was with her, quite middle-class, both of them, and +not at all like the other ladies who have called on me. + +For they _have_ called! Do you remember that little old French teacher +who came to see me about getting a job in our High School, how +discouraging she was about our coming to live in France, and how she +said nobody would come to see me, at all? Well, if you ever see her, +just tell her she is _entirely mistaken_. People are just as cordial as +_they can be_, with the most beautiful manners you ever saw. + +Do you wonder how I manage about the language? It is _much_ easier to +get along than I expected. Of course my thorough reading and writing +knowledge of the language is a great help. And I have been making +_won_derful progress in speaking it. Being right in the midst of the +language all the time it just soaks into you. No one here speaks any +English; not from provincial ignorance, the sort we have in America, but +from choice, because of their concentration on their own perfect +language. They are all deeply cultured. It is _won_derful to be in the +midst of cultured people, to be able in casual afternoon calls to +discuss De Maupassant with one lady and Gothic architecture with +another. + +For we have here in Bayonne--you notice that I already say "We,"--a +simply splendid Gothic cathedral, the first one of my life. It is right +up the street from where we live, and it is _won_derful. Chere amies, +think what it means for a town to have in its midst such a marvelous +thing! Think what people must be like who live right close to it, go in +and out of it every day, and feel its "beauty and puissant power" (as +Matthew Arnold says). The South Portal is especially fine, _starred by +Baedeker_, which means a great deal, as you know. I make a pilgrimage +there every day, to just _gaze_ at that South Portal. _I_ have a +life-time of arrears to make up, not having lived with it from +childhood, as these fortunate people have. It is no wonder that you meet +here people absolutely _won_derful in their polish, like a lady who +called on me the other day, the Marquise de Charmieres. Her husband's +family dates back to the days of Louis XII. I am ashamed to say I had to +go and look up who Louis XII was, after she had gone. She had with her a +nun, who lives with her, by special permission, the dearest old thing +with her sweeping black robes and the quaint, quilled, picturesque +head-dress. I suppose they used, in the old days, the Charmieres did, to +live in the _won_derful old castle, just across the street from us, +which is another of my great admirations. Think of living across the +street from a real castle! It was constructed in 1100, on the remains of +the _old Roman wall_, if you please, for Bayonne is very, very old. And +it is right there, just the way it always was, with battlements and a +real drawbridge and everything, just as it was in feudal times. Many +famous people have lived there, Richard Coeur de Lion, Louis Quatorze, +and others. It was there that Catherine de Medicis planned the St. +Bartholomew massacre, and in a house on this very street that Napoleon +took the Spanish crown away from the King, and gave it to his brother. +Isn't it marvelous to think of? + +I have had some of the curtains taken down in our _salon_ (the French +simply swathe their windows in curtains, simply _swathe_ them!) and I +often stand at the window and just gaze out at those old castle walls +and try to imagine the splendid life that went on here then, the streets +full of people in costumes and knights in armor and everything. I see +the modern crowds coming and going under those massive walls, and I keep +thinking how proud they must be of such an inheritance from the past, +and how they must often wish the good old feudal days back again, when +"life had color," as a writer said in a book I was reading the other +day. No such inspiriting reminders of past glories in America! No such +past glories! Nothing but what Ruskin calls the drab, dead level of +democracy. + +There is a fine Museum here too, with perfectly splendid works of art in +it, pictures by Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Raphael, Rubens, Ribera, Murillo, +Poussin, Delacroix, Ingres, Troyon, Meissonier, Corot, Isabey, Bonnat, +Bouguereau, Gervex, and many others. I am simply _studying_ them, +absorbing them, I go every day with a handbook on art which I bought +here (in French, of course), and just gaze at them till their very +spirit enters into me. I must tell you that Bouguereau is considered +very much out of fashion here, and not at all admired any more. The +Meissonier are simply _mar_velous. You could take a microscope to them, +and still not see any brush-marks. Indeed it is said that he painted +with a microscope. There is a _perfect_ copy here of the Mona Lisa, +which people who know say is just as good as the original. Mes chere +amies, think what a privilege it is to sit there, right before her, with +the book in my hand, looking up into that mysterious face, and reading +those wonderful words of Pater's, which I have studied with you so +often. "Here is the head upon which all the ends of the world are come, +and the eyelids are a little weary. She is older than the rocks among +which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times and +learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and +keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with +Eastern merchants; and as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and as +Ste. Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the +sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it +has molded the changing lineaments and tinged the eyelids and the +hands." + +Mes amies, we have often read and studied this marvelous passage +together, and now I can only say to you _that it is true_! But every bit +of culture means so much more to me than it ever did before and now that +I know what European life is, I can understand why they are more +cultured than we are. It is because they have _leisure_. Here the +working classes _expect to work_, as our American working class does +not. And the material cares are just taken right off the shoulders of +the upper classes. _We_ are _expected_ to occupy ourselves with higher +things. I am reading, reading, reading as never before, and getting a +closer knowledge of French literature, even than our studies together +gave me. It all _means_ so much more to me, now that I am right among +the very people who are described in it. Think of looking up from a +volume of Zola, and having a caller come in, who might be a character +right out of the book. I often tell Mr. Allen, that the life around me +illustrates and explains the literature, and the literature illustrates +and explains the life. It is a wonderful, _won_derful experience! + +I have just finished De Maupassant's "Notre Coeur," and I am not +surprised that we found it impossible to get hold of the French edition +in America. Our strait-laced, old-fashioned, Puritanic America doesn't +know enough to appreciate such a picture of this _free_ European world, +where relations between men and women are different from those between +high school boys and girls. At home the girls rule the roost, if you +will excuse a vulgar expression. But not here. Here they are put off in +a corner, till they get a husband, and _then_ they are allowed to +blossom out. A woman of my age, so a French gentleman told me the other +day, is considered _just at the right age_ for being fascinating. And he +assured me he didn't say that because it might apply to me, but _because +it is so_. The men have temperament here. They really look at you, and +are just as different as can be from the American business-man who never +thinks of any woman but his wife, and never pays any attention to _her_! +Here the men positively sparkle in conversation, and they all say they +would hardly know I am an American, I have acquired the French manner so +entirely. Here a woman is not expected to have become a mummy, because +she puts on a wedding-ring. _Quite the contrary_, I assure you! + +But this is a terribly long letter. I have poured out my heart to you in +untrammeled spontaneity, such as comes to you in the free +intellectuality of this finished civilization. + +May you all be able some day to enjoy it! + +Your devouee friend, + +FLORA ALLEN. + +P.S.--Mr. Allen says the business part seems to be all right. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +As happens to us all, there were certain moments which stayed alive in +Marise's memory for years; and as is always the case, those moments did +not at all correspond with apparently important events. Such events +come, seem of great consequence, happen, and therewith sink down into +the featureless mass of things which happen only once and then are in +the past forever. The other moments, those queerly, heterogeneously +tumbled-together impressions, are the things which happen over again +every time one thinks of them. + +One of Marise's fantastic notions was that the things which had happened +were piled up in a big junk-heap in your memory in front of a great +black curtain. But there were pinholes in the curtain, and if you put +your eye to one, there, right before you, one of the things that had +happened was alive again, and your heart knocked and your throat felt +queer just as it did the first time. This notion may have come to her in +this form because it was generally in the night that she experienced the +vivid living-over of some long past moment. Wakened from a sound sleep +by the hoarse whistle of one of the steamers in the Adour, taking +advantage of a favorable tide to weigh anchor and be off, she saw in the +instant while she drew a long breath and turned over in bed, one of +those living scenes again, as actual, as piercingly real to her as +though it were happening for the first time. Some of these she greatly +dreaded, some set her to ringing all through with happiness, others she +never understood at all. + + +I + +One of the very happy ones was the moment when she had first really +heard music. She had been "taking lessons" of Mlle. Hasparren for weeks +and months. Mlle. Hasparren taught as Marise thought all the teachers +in France taught, the hardest possible way; scales, scales, scales and +then thumping, monotonous exercises, played over forty, fifty, sixty +times, till Marise felt as though there wasn't anything left of her +except that exercise, pound, pound, pound all over her. Marise saw +nothing in music except hatefully numerous little black dots on white +paper, and heard nothing in it beyond a combination of sounds as +interesting to hear as a problem in arithmetic is to look at. + +She rather liked Mlle. Hasparren, although Maman thought she didn't have +a bit of style; but she certainly did hate the three-times-a-week music +lesson. She never could have kept on with it in America, but here +everything was hard work, and if you weren't working at your music +lesson, they'd expect you to be working at something else. And then, +too, there was what Father had said about keeping at what you were doing +until you got it just right. Marise's bed-room seemed to have taken up +the sound of Father's voice as he said that, so that many times, as she +sat there doing her lessons and not thinking of it, all of a sudden, the +very curtains and walls and chairs seemed to be reminding her of it. +That was really what kept her going, as day by day she sat down heavily +before the piano, prodding her mind up to keep it fixed on the little +black dots. + +That at least was what had kept her at it till the evening which came +back to Marise so clearly. Father and Maman had gone out to dinner; she +had eaten alone, with Jeanne's chatter for company, and then on her way +back to her room, had wandered into the salon, candle-stick in hand, +sort of hoping she could think of something nice to do before she +settled down to study. + +But there was certainly nothing nice to do in the salon. It was awfully +lonely in there, the chairs all empty and stiff, standing around +heavily, the thick curtains drawn close over the tall windows, and in +front of the alcove where Maman's writing-desk stood, the polished floor +shining hard and bright, the stands, the table with one of Maman's +yellow-covered books on it, the dark little cave of a fireplace. Marise +set her candle down on a stand, and herself sank down on the piano +stool, her back towards the keys, staring at the lonesome looking room. +How perfectly dead it did look. Marise could hear faintly in the +distance an echo of the brisk voice of Jeanne and Isabelle, laughing and +carrying on over the dishes. But in here, in the empty salon, there +wasn't a sound. Her ears fairly rang with the nothingness all around +her. Her heart was big and heavy. + +At school that day, the girls had started up a new fad, the "wishbook." +You got a little blank book, and then went around asking everybody to +write down in it what she most wished to be. Marise was astonished at +what the other girls wrote; one, "I wish I could be a great actress," +another, "I wish I could marry a millionaire," another, "I wish I could +be a great and holy saint." Marise had not been able to understand why +everybody did not write what she did, instantly, instantly, something +she had always known she wanted. What she had written in everybody's +book was, "I wish I could be happy." She thought of this now, and in the +empty, cold, echoing room cried it aloud, "I wish I could be happy." + +There was no answer from the stiff stuffed chairs, from the +well-polished tables, from the black hole of the fireplace. Marise had +expected no answer, would not have expected one if her parents had been +there, never expected one. What answer could Father give, Father who +apparently never thought of such a thing as being happy, and never hoped +for anything more than to be a little less tired and bored. And if Maman +had been there, she wouldn't even have heard what Marise said, busy as +she always was with thinking something of her own. Maman wasn't nearly +so cheerful as she had been. What _was_ it Maman was thinking about when +she sat so still and her face got dark and drawn? Certainly not about +Marise. + +The little girl sat on the piano stool, dangling her long legs and +looking straight ahead into the empty room, which looked back at her, +she thought, as though it had a low opinion of her and a very high +opinion of its own importance and elegance. She knew she ought to get up +and go into her own room and study a very long lesson on the reign of +Henri IV. But she couldn't seem to get up the strength to do this, +sitting fallen together on the piano stool, her heart heavier and +heavier. + +She looked hard at the empty chairs, and thought to herself that it +wasn't any worse to see them empty, than to see the people that usually +sat on them--not one who could help a little girl to be more happy. +There wasn't a single person she knew, whom she'd wish sitting there +now, unless it might be Cousin Hetty! Marise felt a knot come in her +throat, and the corners of her mouth began to tremble. She would _like_ +to get up in Cousin Hetty's lap again. + +But Cousin Hetty was not there. There was nothing there but the circle +of unfriendly chairs and tables and the empty, silent room. The +trembling of her lips got worse; Marise was afraid she was going to cry. +She turned round on the piano stool, put one bent arm up on the music +which stood there, and hid her face in it. She was not crying; though +she wished she could, because the ache in her heart and the knot in her +throat hurt too much. + +The silent, motionless room stood aloof and meaningless about the +silent, motionless child. Marise pressed her face closer against her +arm. She was trembling now, all over her body. + +The silence was intense. + +And then it seemed to her that the silence had been broken by a voice, a +beautiful, quivering voice, deep and true, which went straight to her +heart, as though some one had spoken a strong, loving word. At the sound +she stopped trembling and sat motionless. + +Before she could draw her breath in wonder, she knew what it had +been ... only a note of music. Her own hand falling on a key of the +piano had struck a note, which was even then echoing in her ears. + +But the first impression was ineffaceable. That, too, rang in her ears. +It seemed as though it was the first time she had ever heard a note of +music. Really, really that was so. She had never been _still_ enough +before to hear how a note sounded. How it rang and rang in the +stillness, its deep vibration stirring echoes deep within Marise's +heart! She had thought it was a voice. Why, it was like a voice, a +voice speaking to her, just when she had been so sure that there wasn't +any voice she could possibly expect to hear. + +She sat up marveling, and struck another note. Into the dead, stagnant +air of the room, and into her loneliness, it sang out bravely, the same +living voice, thrilling and speaking to her. She struck a chord, +astonished at what she heard in it--all those separate voices, each one +rich and true and strong and different from the others, and all shouting +together in glorious friendliness. "That's the way things _ought_ to +be," thought Marise, "that's the way _people_ ought to be." But, oh, how +little they were like that! But here was a world where she could always +make it come true, where she could have that singing-together any time +she wished to make it for herself. + +She struck more chords, her fingers finding the keys with the +second-nature sureness, learned in her months of dreary practice. + +She listened to the sounds, shaken and transported to hear how they +flooded the barren emptiness of the room with glory, how they filled her +heart full, full of happiness ... only if she were happy, why was she +crying, the tears running as fast as they could down her cheeks? + +This was one of the remembered moments which brought nothing but a pang +of joy to Marise. When it came, the world about her brightened. + + +II + +There was another, one of those which came very seldom, which brought +something deeper than pain or joy. This was the recollection of an +instant, just one instant, of the day when Maman let Soeur Ste. Lucie +take her to Lourdes. It was the feast of St. Louis, and Soeur Ste. Lucie +always went every year then. She had been awfully nice and jolly, the +way she always was with Marise, and it was fun to start off with her +early in the morning, at dawn, in the special excursion train. At +Lourdes it was fun, too, really exciting to be in such a monstrously +big crowd, oh, _what_ a crowd! She heard somebody tell Soeur Ste. Lucie +that there were thirty thousand pilgrims there that day. It amused +Marise very much to hear them called pilgrims and to think that she and +Soeur Ste. Lucie were counted as pilgrims, too. She had always thought +of "pilgrims" as people who landed on a stern and rock-bound coast and +began to fight with Indians; and nothing could be more unlike that than +the crowd at Lourdes, swimming in the dusty, yellow sunshine, everybody +dressed up in his best, walking around in groups, talking and singing. +Marise held on to the Sister's nice, soft, old hand and followed her +around from one thing to another, taking a good big drink of the water, +and kneeling down whenever Soeur Ste. Lucie stopped to pray before a +shrine. Marise didn't pray much, but watched the crowd, the endless +crowd shuffling slowly past. She was proud to be kneeling there beside a +Sister, who had the right of entrance everywhere, who opened any gate in +any railing she liked, and walked right in to say a prayer where the +common run of people didn't dare go. + +At noon, after three hours of this, Soeur Ste. Lucie took her charge off +up along the bright, quick-flowing stream, off into the real country, +till finally they came to a field that wasn't too thick with people. +There they sat down on the grass, under a tree. Soeur Ste. Lucie got out +the pasteboard shoe-box they had taken turns carrying around all the +morning and they ate their lunch. Marise was simply starving by that +time and anything would have tasted good. But that lunch would have made +a stone statue eat, it was so good. Cold roast chicken, plenty of it, +big slices cut recklessly right off the breast, tender and juicy and +_flavored_; and crispy, crunchy rolls and fresh butter; and little +radishes and green onions and salt, and a half bottle of the best white +wine, which they watered down in their cups with Lourdes water. Soeur +Ste. Lucie laughed over this as she poured it out and said they ought to +be saints at least for a day or so, after drinking Lourdes water with +their lunch, oughtn't they? She was as jolly as could be, anyhow, and +was enjoying herself so much that she kept Marise laughing at her jokes +all the time. One of those numerous friends of hers turned up here too, +a stout, red-faced farmer's wife, who shouted with pleasure at seeing +Soeur Ste. Lucie, and came over from the other side of the field to +bring her lunch and eat with them. She and Soeur Ste. Lucie got into +gales of laughter in which Marise joined with all her heart although she +didn't always quite see what the joke was. Then they had their dessert, +a triangle of creamy Camembert cheese, spread on the crust end of their +roll, and after this a great golden pear apiece, so full of sweet juice +that you couldn't take a bite of it without its running down your chin, +so you had to lean way forward, to the tune of everybody laughing at +you, and doing the same thing themselves. + +After they had packed up what was left, and the farmer woman had gone +back to her family, Soeur Ste. Lucie got very quiet and still, pulled +out her rosary and began to murmur her prayers in a very fast, low tone, +her eyes almost shut up. Marise sat beside her in the grass, watched the +crowds beginning to turn back towards the Basilica, and a couple of +little gnats dancing round and round each other in the air. The murmur +of the prayers was like a bee-hum in her ears. She leaned back against +the tree and drew a long breath, and the next thing she knew it was +hours later, and Soeur Ste. Lucie was shaking her gently and saying +she'd better wake up because it was time to go back if they were going +to get a place to see the blessing of the sick. + +After that ceremony was over, everybody was perfectly worn out and +almost starved. Soeur Ste. Lucie went to one of the convents for supper, +where the good Sisters took care of hundreds of the pilgrims, and looked +as tired as Marise felt, and walked as though their feet hurt as hers +did. But there was still one more Lourdes sight to see, the procession +of the lights in the evening. When they came out of the convent, they +found the weather changed, the wind blowing hard and a light rain +falling and not a bit of light coming from the black, black sky. The +damp was bad for rheumatism, and Soeur Ste. Lucie's knee began to pain +her, so that she said they would not march in the procession but go up +along the side of the high horse-shoe staircase, where they could see on +both sides and along the esplanade. How black and empty that looked, +that enormous stretch of pavement, like a great empty hole, outlined by +the street lights on all four sides of it. Back of it, down towards the +Grotto, there seemed to be millions of people, judging by the lights +which danced around, every way at once; and through the wind and the +rain and the darkness, Marise and Soeur Ste. Lucie could hear snatches +of singing, the chant which fairly rings from the stones and walls of +Lourdes. + +[Music: A-ve! A-ve! A-ve Ma-ri-a! A-ve! A-ve! A-ve Ma-ri-a!] + +Then as Marise stuck her head through the railing to watch what went on +there, far, far below them, she saw the lights begin to straighten out +into two long lines and start streaming up the lower part of the +horse-shoe staircase where she and Soeur Ste. Lucie stood. The +procession had started; two by two they were marching up towards the +blaze of light at the top where the door of the upper church stood open. +The sound of their voices grew louder and louder and there they were! +The first ones were a mother and her little girl; after them a couple of +working men; after them a man and his wife; after them a priest and a +soldier; after them--after them--Marise lost count, she felt her head +whirl, she couldn't see the people any more, only the little dancing, +quivering lights they were carrying, candle-flames, scarcely at all +protected from the wind by a bit of card-board, or a hand curved about +them. + +They kept going by and going by, those little flames, until Marise's +eyes ached. And yet she couldn't look at anything else, she couldn't +stop staring at those flickering, swaying little flames. + +After a long time she was able to pull her eyes away from them, to look +past them down at the great esplanade--and oh! now it was not a black +and empty hole; it was all full, full of lights, a million little +marching and singing flames, in endless lines, ordered, purposeful, +marching to and fro. So small, so tiny and feeble each one, but enough +all together to make a great light in the blackness, to fill all the +emptiness with glory. + +It was then that the terrible great moment came to Marise, something +that she could never think about long enough to try to understand, +because when she tried to think about it, she began to shake all over +just as she had then, when, across the line of chanting pilgrims, she +looked down at all those little, marching, singing flames. What was it +that came to her then? The most aching sorrow; and yet an exaltation as +though broad wings were lifting her up in a solemn beat of power. + +It was all over in an instant. Whenever it came after that, it always +came and went between heart-beats. But after it had come and gone, +everything looked different. It was as though, plodding along on foot, a +great wind had snatched her up, and blowing mightily for an instant so +that all the world was filled with it, had set her down, ever so much +farther along the road she had to go. And always after this moment, she +had an hour or so when she liked people better, everybody, the dirty old +flower-vendor, the street-sweeper, Jeanne, the teachers at school, +Father and Maman. It was as though she saw them all in a procession, +each trying to keep alive a precious, flickering flame. + + +III + +There was another, a horrid one from which Marise always looked away the +instant she knew it was coming because she couldn't bear it. And yet she +never could be quick enough. She always saw it, as though in her, as in +a camera, a lens had whirringly clicked open and shut. + +And yet there was nothing to it. She had come from school with Jeanne, +who had gone to the kitchen. Marise had crossed the landing and started +to pull the bell-rope, and then noticed that the door happened to be a +little ajar. So she pushed it open and walked in. As she walked past the +salon door she had glanced in, and saw M. Fortier there, just going +away from making a call, the father of Elise Fortier, her classmate at +school. He had his broad, fat back turned to her and was stooping to +kiss Maman's hand. There was nothing surprising in this; everybody knew +that gentlemen who kept on with the old ways of doing things, always +kissed ladies' hands. She had seen the father of one of the girls kiss +the bony hand of Mlle. Ballot, the head teacher at school. What was +registered indelibly on Marise's mind was the expression on Maman's +face. Maman was looking--oh, it was horrid to think such a thing, to say +such a thing, to have looked at her and seen such a thing.... Maman was +looking sort of.... Marise could never, try as she might, shut down on +this moment quickly enough to shut out the ugly thought she hated so.... +Maman was looking sort of foolish and silly, as though, as though.... +But here Marise was always able to snap the shutter shut and put it all +out of her mind, except the dull heaviness it left. + + +IV + +But the worst, the very worst and most awful of all those remembered +parts of the past, was what happened about the gray cat. No, that +wasn't the way to put it, because you couldn't say that anything had +_happened_ ... and yet how sick it had made Marise, and did every time +something reminded her of it! + +One day when Marise came home from school, Jeanne gave her a big, +pretty, gray, yellow-eyed cat and said she thought it might be company +for her. Marise was awfully pleased, took the cat in her arms, bending +her cheek down to rest it against the soft fur, and carried her off to +her room to try to get acquainted with her. + +But there seemed to be something the matter. She didn't act like Cousin +Hetty's Tommy, up in Ashley, nice and cuddlesome; she seemed to have +something on her mind. She wouldn't sit still on Marise's lap and be +petted, she wouldn't play with a string nor drink the milk Marise put in +a saucer for her, nor lie down and go to sleep the cozy way cats usually +do. She tramped around and around the room, and every once in a while +she'd give a loud miauw, in an anxious voice. + +Marise thought it was because she was with strangers in a strange place, +and that as she grew wonted, she would be happier. But she kept this up +all that day, and at night when Marise shut her up in the extra kitchen +they didn't use, she yowled so that Maman complained. And the next day +she was even worse, acting so queer, doing such funny things, stooping +her front paws down, and tramping hard with her back paws. And as she +did this, she would look up at Marise and miauw in a loud, anxious way +as though she were asking Marise to do something for her. At the end of +that second day, Marise was too worried to keep it to herself, although +she had resolved not to bother either Maman or Jeanne because they +didn't like cats. She went across the landing to ask Jeanne to come. +Jeanne came and Isabelle too, instantly sure of the worst as usual, and +declaring that the man who had sold them the cat was a thief and a +robber and had palmed off on them a sick cat that nobody wanted. They +added emphatic precautions to Marise about not touching her if she was +sick, because a sick cat's bite meant poison. + +They went into the room. The cat got up and came towards them that same +queer way, stooping and treading and switching her tail. And she gave +again that strange, anxious cry. + +"There, that's the way she does all the time," said Marise, troubled and +concerned. She came round in front of the two women, so that she could +look full up into their two faces, to see what they thought. + +Not a turn, or color, or tone, or line of what they looked and said and +did ever faded from her mind. Her first feeling as she looked up into +their faces was of utter amazement; and after this an instant cold +premonition of something evil. She stood perfectly still gazing at +them.... What could it mean?... What made them look so...? + +Jeanne and Isabelle looked down at the cat; the anger went out of +their faces, and in its place came a singular, secret expression, half +amused ... half _horrid_.... Marise could never think of any other +name for it. + +Then they looked at each other, their eyes meeting, their eyebrows +arched high, and they laughed. + +At the sort of laugh they gave, Marise burned hot all over, although she +had no idea of what there could be to laugh at. But every line of the +two women's bodies and faces, the tone of their laugh, the look of their +glistening, amused eyes told her that it was something they thought +shameful. And she was ashamed. + +Then, as she stood there, cold and burning hot, they had both as by a +common impulse glanced at her as if something about her also seemed very +funny to them. That glance was the worst of all--like a smear she could +never wipe off. + +She felt very sick, her knees shook under her. But something furious and +strong inside her told her that whatever else she did, she must not let +them see how sick they made her. She stood her ground, her eyes burning, +utterly at a loss. What could it be? What was this awful joke they +laughed at and she couldn't see? + +Jeanne said, as they looked at the cat with a greedy amusement in their +eyes, "Oh, she's not _sick_. She's looking for a husband, that's all." + +Isabelle laughed again at this, and said something to Jeanne in Basque. +Marise could not understand a word of this, but her hot, straining eyes, +fixed on their two faces, with a helpless fascination, received another +deep and indelible impression of conscious shamefulness. + +Jeanne nodded and said to Marise, "I'll take her back to M. Bergeret's +brother-in-law for a few days, where there are other cats, and then +she'll be all right again." + +She picked the cat up by the middle and held her so, while she listened +to Isabelle, who now said something else in Basque, half-grinning, her +lips curled in an embarrassed, half-pleased way. Jeanne glanced sharply +at Marise, as if to see whether she had understood this, in spite of its +being said in Basque. + +Then they both went out of the room, Jeanne carrying the cat by a hard, +careless grasp about her middle. Outside the door they both burst into +giggles, as though they had been restraining themselves before Marise. +The little girl heard them giggling all the way down the hall, the +sound broken once by the loud anxious miauw of the cat. + +Marise stood perfectly still till she heard the outer door open and +close. Then she looked about her wildly. She wanted to run somewhere and +hide her face. She wanted to sink down on the floor; she wanted somebody +to help her, to make it up to her, some one to wipe it away and put her +back where she had been three minutes before, when Jeanne and Isabelle +had come in the door. She _couldn't_ go on, living the way she felt now, +as though she were dirty inside and couldn't wash herself clean. What +was it all about? What had it meant? What was there about having a +husband that people thought was so...? + +At this it came over her in a wave again, so that she started as though +she had been struck a slashing blow, and ran, ran breathlessly out to +get help. + +In the dark hall she stood still, the thump, thump of her heart loud in +her ears. A murmur of voices came from the salon. Maman had callers.... +But even if she hadn't, Marise now knew she could not have spoken to +Maman about it. Something came and stood between her and Maman so that +she knew she could not tell her. She had a horrible fear that Maman +would look that way, too, perhaps she might laugh that way ... perhaps +everybody would. Perhaps that was one of the things they _did_. Not +Father, either ... no, she'd be ashamed of ... not ... why, there was +_nobody_ she could tell; there was nowhere to run for help. + +She went slowly back to her room. The sight of it brought up before her +again the glistening eyes of the two women as they had looked at the cat +and laughed. A terrible burning came up all over her so that she was +almost suffocated. She wanted to hide her face. She found herself +leaning against the dingy, checked red-and-white curtains. They smelled +of dust as she buried her face in them, burrowing deeper and deeper +among them as though she must hide herself, hide herself from ... but +she couldn't hide herself from what was inside her own mind. + +She stood there a long time, her face pressed into the dusty curtains, +her body buried in them. She was sick, sick from head to foot. + +And then ... nobody came to help her, since there was nobody to come; +nothing happened ... nothing could happen. She had thought she +_couldn't_ live, feeling like this. But she would have to, since there +wasn't anything else to do. + + * * * * * + +This came to her slowly, and slowly sank into her, like still, deep +cold. + +Two days after this, as Jeanne was brushing her hair, she said to +Marise, "Our cat will be brought back to us to-morrow. She is all right +now, M. Bergeret says." + +Marise waited until the wave of sickness passed and she felt she could +make her voice sound as usual. Then she said casually, "I've changed my +mind. I don't want a cat now. It would bother Maman too much." + +Jeanne was relieved. "Oh, very well. I don't ask anything better. I hate +cats around the house anyhow." She went on brushing Marise's hair, with +careful, loving skill, proud of its thickness, its sheen, its silky +blackness. She thought to herself, "What a beautiful child our Marise +is. And how I love her! There isn't anything I wouldn't do for her! May +the Holy Virgin guard her and keep her safe always, Amen." She never +thought again of the cat. + + + + +_NEALE BEGINS TO BE NEALE_ + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +On Neale's thirteenth birthday, his mother gave him a little silver +watch and his father, a bicycle. In addition to the excitement of +getting into his teens and of owning these visible and outward symbols +of advancement, he was told that he would now be sent to a real school, +with no girls in the classes, where he would really learn something; +that is to say where he would be prepared for college. + +Hadley Prep. was an excellent school, a sort of model school, an +information factory. You fed a small boy into it and at the end of four +years the school turned him out completely filled with classified +information. Boys entered with all sorts of hazy disorders of learning; +they were ground out, possessed of a chain of facts, every link shining, +polished and joined by flawless welding to the preceding and consequent +facts. The curriculum took no count of modern educational fads; +"spiritual awakening, character building, intellectual growth" had no +place there. What would you have? Four years is a short enough time to +prepare boys for their college entrance examinations. The non-essentials +had to be cut out. The great point was that when the Principal signed a +certificate of graduation he knew that the boy in question could produce +any piece of information required of him, from the preterit of recevoir +to the formula for accelerated motion of falling bodies, at any college +entrance examination in the United States. + +Into the hopper of this mental polishing-machine, Neale was poured with +fifty other little boys and began painfully to adapt himself to its +rigorous codes. It was a process trying to the most robust among them, +and devastating to the weaker ones. The devastating quality was not only +recognized and admitted but sedulously fostered by the faculty and +Principal. It was part of their business to see that the weaklings fell +by the wayside long before the flock was led up to the narrow gate of +the college entrance examinations. And as some hospitals achieve a +miraculously low death-rate by the simple process of never admitting a +patient whom they are not sure they can cure, so Hadley Prep. achieved +the miraculously low rate of examination mortality for which it was +famous the country over, by the simple process of knocking on the head +and throwing out on the scrap-heap any boy whose brains seemed reluctant +to admit college-entrance examination facts. + +Those whose heads were hard enough to resist the knocking, found +themselves completely absorbed by the mental gymnastics which filled +their days. The first two years of his life at Hadley Prep. had almost +nothing in them for Neale except his over-time struggle to make up for +the omissions of Miss Vanderwater's haphazard tuition. Everything else, +even the assuming of long trousers, even the summers in the country, +_even games_, were banished to the fringe of consciousness, like things +seen out of the corner of your eye while you are gazing with all your +might at something else. The life of his personality, his inner self, +during those two years, realized the ideal of the eighteenth century +educator who felt that the only safe up-bringing for boys would be to +shut them up in a barrel, between the ages of twelve and eighteen, and +feed them through the bung-hole. The record of what was fed through the +Hadley bung-hole was set down on Neale's report cards, which he +dutifully brought home to his parents. They glanced up from their +absorption in each other, read, and smiled over the mathematical +accuracy of the Hadley information about the state of Neale's mind (the +Hadley professor often marked a boy as 87.75 proficient in American +history, or 90.3 learned in German). At times they wondered if Hadley +were the best place for him. But they were exactly like all other +parents: they really had no idea what else to do with Neale. His health +continued good and he did not seem rebellious, so they confined their +supervision of his education to paying his rather expensive tuition, +signing his report cards, and handing them back to him. + +Towards the end of the second year Neale began to master the new +technique. He memorized the magic pass-words which are accepted as a +proof of understanding many subjects. He began to draw breath, to tread +water less frantically and still not to fear the closing over his head +of smothering floods. The third year he felt earth beneath his feet +again, and relaxed enough from his mental concentration to spend +occasionally an hour or two on the school athletic field. He was fifteen +years old now, wore long trousers and suits with vests, a stand-up +collar, ties he tied himself, and carried a fountain pen. Underneath all +this grown-up bravery of exterior, there was a brain that had learned to +acquire and pigeon-hole information, and a perfectly dormant +personality. + +Life at the Crittenden home was, as far as he was concerned, exactly the +same life he had always known, except that instead of playing on the +streets, he went out on the school athletic-field, and instead of +playing with his tin soldiers, he usually went up to his room to grind +over his lessons. At breakfast and supper his father and mother talked +peaceably to one another just as they always had, and although Neale was +able now to understand the subjects of their chat, their talk was, as a +matter of fact, often quite as incomprehensible to him as it had been +when he was a small boy. They had grown so much together, had so shared +life with each other and no one else, that they possessed almost a +language of their own, made up of references, only half-expressed, to +things they had said long ago, or to experiences they had had together, +or to opinions they both knew so well there was no need to formulate +them in words. Neale was not surprised at this, nor yet resentful. On +his side he was absorbed in his studies and the life at school. It was +true that every once in a while they talked directly to Neale; asked him +questions--what studies he liked best--how the teachers treated +him--what he had to eat at lunch. Whatever they asked Neale always tried +to answer in accordance with the facts; that he was getting along all +right he guessed, that everything was satisfactory as far as he could +see, that he hadn't any idea what he should like to do later on to earn +his living. + +Occasionally, instead of taking the trolley cars, Father and Neale +walked together down the long steps to Hoboken and along 6th Street to +Hudson, where his father turned south and Neale went to the school. Then +talk was harder to dodge--not that Neale ever consciously dodged. They +would walk a dozen blocks. Father would ask a question, Neale would +answer it. Another dozen blocks, and another question. Once Father asked +if Neale wasn't sticking indoors too much. Couldn't he manage to get a +little more exercise? Neale explained the seriousness of his studies and +pointed out that he still rode his wheel on Saturdays. But the +suggestion took root. Neale bought a pair of Indian clubs and an +instruction book, and took to swinging the clubs fifteen minutes night +and morning with the windows open. + +Another time Father said, "Look here, Neale, haven't you any friends?" + +Neale was astonished, "Why, yes, I'm friends with the whole class." + +"Yes, I suppose so, but you never seem to be with them outside of +school. When I went to school we were always playing around in each +other's yards and barns." + +"You went to school in the country," Neale reminded him. "We haven't any +yards or barns here. We have the athletic field at school." + +"Yes, that's so," his father admitted. After a time he made a further +admission, "Athletics are all right, too." But something in his tone +intimated that he was baffled rather than convinced. Since Neale +considered that athletics were not only all right, but all there was to +life, he found no comment to make. + +A moment later, "But, great Scott," began his father with some heat as +though struck afresh with some aspect of Neale's life. He seemed to hear +the too-great vivacity of his accent and to wait until he could ask +quite casually, "Aren't there any of your school-mates you'd like to +have visit you?" + +Neale considered. It hadn't struck him before, but it was a fact that +after school and athletic practice, all the boys vanished to their +various homes. Never having known any other than this city relation with +school-mates it seemed to him obvious and natural. "Visit me?" he said, +trying to imagine one of his classmates sitting at the Crittenden +dinner-table, and then, "No, I don't believe I do. There wouldn't be +anything special to do at home, would there?" + +His father drew on his cigar thoughtfully, and walked on in silence. + +But he had a long talk with Neale's mother that evening, the two country +and village-bred parents putting their heads together, earnestly though +helplessly. The only course which occurred to them was proposed to +Neale, a week later, when Mother asked him if he would do something to +please her. Incautiously Neale said, of course, yes, he would. He was +always willing enough to please Mother, and he had never made the +slightest objection to anything his parents planned for him. But this +plan turned out to be something very alarming. It was all arranged, +Mother told him, that he was to go to dancing-school in the Germania +Club ball-room on Tuesday afternoons. Mother pointed out that, now he +was fifteen years old, and half-way through prep.-school, he ought to +learn to dance. Neale had no theoretic objections to offer and had given +his word that he would not object. So hiding, except for his first wild +look of dismay, the terror and repugnance which filled him, he wrapped +up the newly bought patent-leather oxfords and started. There were +limits even to the Iroquois stoicism of his acceptance of what Fate +brought him. No power on earth could have made him walk through the +streets in those patent-leather shoes. But Mother never pushed him +anywhere near one of those limits. She did not even suggest that he wear +his dancing shoes. She helped him find the paper and string to wrap them +up. Also she did not fuss over him ... not much. She looked at him hard, +picked a thread off the sleeve of the blue serge which was his dress-up +costume, and called his attention to the fact that a button of his vest +was unbuttoned. She did not offer to button it herself, or handle him in +any way. Mother was all right, if she did want him to go to +dancing-school. + +So he went. And it was not so bad, not nearly so bad as he feared, the +reassuring factor being that everybody else there was in the same boat. +You could see how they all despised it. Except, of course, the girls. +While he was changing his shoes in silent alarm and disgust in the +cloak-room, who should come in but Jenkins, a "Lower Middle" at school. +Neale didn't know Jenkins except by name, but at least he was some one +to lean on. Neale was at once very cordial and Jenkins, surprised and +flattered by this attention from an upper-class man, promised to show +him how everything was done. They went into the ball-room, Neale +clinging morally for dear life to Jenkins. A number of other young men +of fifteen and sixteen, and girls who looked almost like young ladies, +were sitting on opposite sides of the room. A bald-headed man to whom +Jenkins referred as "One Lung" sat at the piano. The dancing master was +young, German, energetic and thorough. He called the class to their +feet, explained and illustrated the step and made them all practice it +en masse, "_One_ and _two_! _One_ and _two_!" Then after a few minutes +the music struck up and he left them to choose partners and dance. +Neale, of course, did nothing of the kind, but pretended he couldn't +find a partner (there were twice as many girls as boys), and went back +to his seat. This was a tactical error. The Master spotted him at once. +"Couldn't find a partner? Oh, dance with me, then." He whirled Neale +about the room till his soul sickened, led him up to the other side of +the room and sent him off with a bony, red-haired girl with freckles. +Neale was caught that way twice, but no more after that. He had at least +ordinary sense, he told himself. Next time the music started, he gulped +down his objections to the whole proceeding and bowed to the prettiest +girl in the room. + +The course was very thorough, covering much that was obsolescent, and a +good deal that was definitely dead. In that and succeeding lessons Neale +received instruction in the steps of the Polka, the Schottische, the +Varsovienne. The two-step he really learned, managing to "Yale" down the +length of the hall without stepping on his partner's feet; and although +he hated the waltz, he was forced by infinite repetition into mastering +it. Oh, the misery of the hour-long waltz-lesson, with the Master's +constant exhortation, "Don't hop! _Slide!_" + +Neale carried into his dancing the same minute earnestness that won him +success at his games and studies. He did not see the use of dancing, any +more than he saw the use of learning German. But as the jobs seemed to +have to be done, he tackled both of them conscientiously. He remembered +to reverse in waltzing just as he remembered to put the auxiliary at the +end of a sentence after "als." He came to be considered a good dancer. +The girls did not claim to be tired when he asked them to dance with +him. But he went no further. Even after he had mastered the steps and +"leading," he did not talk as he spun methodically around. What was +there to say? And even when he waltzed with Flossie Winters, the +admitted belle, his heart beat no faster. It was nothing to him to put +his arm around her waist. In spite of his long trousers and stick-up +collar, the spirit of the thing escaped him; his time had not come. + +After some months (they seemed very long months to Neale), the +conscientious and thorough instructor gave him a printed testimonial of +efficiency; there was no more he could teach Neale. + +Over this his mother looked at him, "Wouldn't you like to go on, for the +fun of it, Neale?" she asked him rather urgently. Neale's father took +his cigar out of his mouth to hear Neale's answer. + +"For the _fun_ of it!" said Neale, stupefied at the idea. His parents +exchanged glances and shook their heads, beaten. + +"Oh, of course you don't _have_ to!" his mother assured him hastily. His +father put his cigar back in his mouth. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +In June 1899 when Hadley Prep. unlocked its grim doors and spewed forth +the fifteen-year-old Neale for his third vacation, he did not as he had +always done before, go at once with Mother to West Adams and the +saw-mill. The invariable program of his journey there, Mother's two +weeks' stay with him to get him settled, her going on to visit vague +relatives of her own elsewhere in Massachusetts, and her return to spend +the rest of the summer with Father, was upset by the news from the West +Adams Crittendens. Jenny, the hired girl, had been to visit friends in +Troy, and had fallen ill on her return. The doctor thought it might be +typhoid. Certainly they did not want a boy visitor bothering around, +until the matter was settled and they knew whether they were in for a +long siege. + +The Crittendens like all methodical people were quite at a loss when +circumstances interfered with their routine. If there was one part of +Neale's year the rightness of which they did not doubt, it was the +summer spent in the country where his father had grown up. Now they were +confronted with a perfectly new aspect of the problem of what to do with +him. They solved it by not doing anything for the present. Mrs. +Crittenden went off to visit the usual relatives in Massachusetts, +delicate old ladies, whose nerves could not hold out against the idea of +a great ramping boy; and Neale was left temporarily with his father to +wait developments in West Adams. + +The first days of liberty were sweet enough, after the strain of +examinations. Neale loafed or rode his wheel (he had a new 24-inch frame +bicycle now) at random up to Hudson Heights, and beyond on the +Palisades. But less than a week of this was enough. He tried to amuse +himself with baseball again, but it was not as he remembered it. The +three years he had been at Hadley Prep. had separated him from his old +friends. They were no longer to be found. Some were at work, some had +moved away. The boys playing ball seemed absurdly young. The vacant lots +themselves were absurdly small and rough. How could he have played +there? He gave the thing up and moped. + +What was there to do? He got on his wheel again and went out over the +Plank Road as far as Passaic, swung left through Montclair, the Oranges, +out to Elizabeth and home through Newark. Home was just as dull as he +had left it. Neale was bored to desperation, and on a chance went into +the parlor and opened the book-case. He was no great reader. In his own +room there was a fair collection of Henty, G. Manville Fenn and Harry +Castleman, but none of these seemed worth re-reading. He didn't suppose +these grown-up books in the library could be worth anything, but he took +down a volume to see. + +"Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within twenty miles of +the sea. My first most vivid impression of the identity of things seems +to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. +At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place over-grown +with nettles was the churchyard ... and that the dark flat wilderness +beyond the churchyard intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with +scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden +line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which +the wind was rushing, was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers +growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip. + +"'Hold your noise!' cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from +among the graves at the side of the church porch. 'Keep still, you +little devil, or I'll cut your throat!'" + +Half an hour later Neale was still standing by the book-case, the book +in his hand, his mouth hanging open, shivering in the clammy mist +together with Pip and the man with the iron chain. An hour later he was +tucked into the Morris chair, among the cushions of which he hid the +book when the dinner bell made him reluctantly lay it aside. + +What made him hide it? An invincible sense of moral decency made him +hide it. He would have shuddered and cowered like a modest girl whose +bed-room door is opened inadvertently by a stranger, at the very idea of +carrying the book to the table and pouring out to his father what it +made him feel. With a shy, virginal delicacy he stood guard, +half-frightened, half-enchanted, over the first warm gush from the +unexpected well-springs of emotion in his heart. If his father had come +into the room, had seen what he was reading and asked him how he liked +it, he would have answered briefly, "Oh, all right." + +But for the next three days he did nothing but live with Pip, and feel +intolerable sympathy, far deeper than anything he had ever felt in his +own healthy life, for the convict victim of society. On the afternoon of +the third day, his heart pounding hard with hope, he was in the +row-boat, in the track of the steamer. The Morris-chair in which he sat, +swayed up and down to the ocean rhythm of the great deeps which bore him +along. He peered forward. There was the steamer at last, coming head on. +He called to Provis to sit still, "she was nearing us very fast," ... +"her shadow on us," ... and then, oh, _gosh_! ... the police-boat, the +betrayal, the summons to surrender! + +Neale's soul recoiled upon itself in a shudder of horrified revolt. He +recognized the traitor, a white terror on his face. Grinding his teeth, +Neale leaped at his throat. With a roar the water closed over their +heads ... he would never let him go, never, never.... Down they went to +the depths, to the black depths, fiercely locked in each other's arms. +Neale smothered and strangled there ... and came up into another world, +the world of books. + +At the table that night, his father looked at him and asked, "You're not +getting a cold, are you, Neale?" + +"No, I guess not," said Neale, blinking his reddened eyelids, and eating +with a ravenous appetite his large slice of rare roast beef. + +After that, time did not hang heavy on his hands. The days were not long +enough. The volume which stood next to "Great Expectations" was called +"The Tale of Two Cities." "Which two cities?" Neale wondered. He opened +it and began to read. In a moment, wrapped in a caped great-coat, shod +with muddy jack-boots, he was plodding up-hill beside the Dover Mail, +his hand on his horse-pistol. The panting rider on his blown horse--the +message, "Wait at Dover for Mam'selle,"--the answer in capital letters, +"RECALLED TO LIFE!" With a long quivering breath Neale slid back a +century and a quarter, into a world vibrating with sorrow, hope, +indignation, hatred, love. + +He dipped his handkerchief in the muddy wine spilled in the street; he +looked up, not surprised to see the squalid joker scrawl "BLOOD," on the +wall; he climbed the filthy staircase, and averted his eyes in horrified +sympathy from the ruin of humanity who sat in the dark, cobbling shoes. + +And then, brushed in with great colorful strokes, the causes and authors +of the filthy stairway, the squalid joker, the ruined man, the endless +misery. With the four serving-men pouring out the chocolate of +Monseigneur, Neale began to burn, like a carefully constructed bon-fire, +alight at last. He had never in his life before, given a conscious +thought to social injustice or the poor, but every instinct for fair +play, sound and intact in his heart, flared up hotly and honestly, as he +gave himself naively to the spell of the magnetic exaggeration and +over-emphasis of the story. He had "had" the French Revolution in his +history at Hadley Prep. and could have recited correctly almost any date +in it. But, quite literally, he had no idea until after he had finished +the story, that this panting, bleeding, weeping, thundering book had any +connection with what he had learned at school. + +"David Copperfield" was good, not so terribly exciting as the others, +but solid food on which Neale, aware for the first time of his hunger, +feasted with a deep content--all except the parts about Dora, who made +him tired. After this for a change, he reached up to a shelf above and +took down at random one of the set in green and gold binding. This was +"Kidnapped." Thereafter he read nothing but green and gold, till his +eyes gave out and his father drove him out to spend a whole afternoon on +his wheel. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Although he had gone reluctantly, once he was out it seemed fine to be +on his bicycle again. His forgotten body reacted with a rush to exercise +and fresh air. Generally he expected to make at least fifty miles in a +half-day but to-day was hot. Pedaling easily through Nutley he caught +sight of a young man playing tennis against two girls and stopped in the +shade of a maple to watch the game, still sitting on his wheel, his +right pedal locked over the curb-stone. Tennis was not so universal then +as now: Neale knew little about the game. + +Presently a chance stroke sent the ball into the street. "Out!" +announced the young man, and turning ran back to retrieve it. As any +American would do anywhere in the world when a ball is in question, +Neale stooped, picked it up and was just going to toss it back when +amazement paralyzed his arm. Could this slim youth in immaculate +flannels possibly be Don Roberts? Don, the big boy who had played shinny +and vacant-lot baseball with him, whom he had never seen but with a +dirty shirt and unkempt hair! The elegant youth cried out, "Neale +Crittenden! I'll be blessed if it isn't old man Crit! That's luck! Come +on and meet my friends and we'll have a set of doubles." + +He ushered Neale up to the net, where laying a patronizing hand on his +friend's shoulder, he presented him. "Ladies, my old friend, Crittenden. +We used to be boys together long ago. Neale, the Misses Underhill, +Nutley's peerless blondine duet, Polly and Natalie. Now, how about some +doubles? Neale can use my old racket." + +"But I don't play," said Neale, alarmed at the idea. "No, I honestly +don't. I've never had a racket in my hand. I'll watch." + +"Oh, fudge! That's all right. You'll learn. Nat and Neale, that's your +team. Polly, my dear, come over to this court and back up your Uncle +Don. No fair banging everything at Polly." + +The essential rudiments were explained. Neale gripped the racket and the +game began. At first his partner politely kept her own court but as the +completeness of his ineptness became awfully apparent, she began +covering more and more territory, running across and snatching the ball +from in front of his hesitating racket. In vain, for Don continually +placed his return down her undefended alley. The set was soon over, +6--love. + +"Now, Crit," said Don, jumping over the net, "we'll have sex against +sex." + +The second set went better. Now that he was playing on Don's side, Don +gave him a little coaching. Neale learned to run in to the net and found +volleying much simpler than playing ground strokes. Natalie's low +returns often went through him and he did nothing with her service, but +not infrequently he managed to pat back Polly's gentle offerings. When +points were needed Don monopolized the court. The boys won,--a love set. + +Don lit a cigarette and pretended to fan himself with his racket. "How +about lemonade for the victors?" he cried, but the girls demurred. It +was five o'clock, they had to go home and dress. They laughed over +nothing at all, shook hands with Neale, told a few friendly lies about +his progress, and walked off laughing over nothing at all, swinging +their rackets; white-shod, yellow-haired, pink-skinned. + +"Dear little sweethearts, aren't they?" commented Don. "A little insipid +like most nice girls, but you have to take what you can get. Polly's a +dub at tennis, of course, uses her racket like a snow-shovel, but she's +not such a worse little flirt. Look here, Crit, old boy. I've got to +stay in this stinking hole all summer, cramming for deficient exams. The +old man won't let me go to the Water Gap till I can answer those damn +questions. And there isn't a soul to play with but those girls. It's +rotten for my game. Why don't you come out here? Come to-morrow. Of +course you can't play, but I'll teach you. I can teach anybody." + +Neale blushed and accepted the magnificent offer. + +"Well, ta, ta, old man, sorry you can't stay to supper." + +Neale mounted his wheel with a very high heart. This was something like. +Something was beginning to happen in his life. Wasn't Don great? As he +rode home he decided that he would ask his father to let him go to +Princeton. Don was at Princeton. + +But he didn't. Father read him Mother's latest letter, all about the +particular great-aunt she was visiting in Cambridge, and after they had +commented on this, Father looked at his evening paper sideways as he +ate, and Neale went over in his mind the events of the afternoon, and +the wonder of Don Roberts turning out such a splendid fellow, such a +good sport, such clothes, such a way with him. Neale thought about him a +great deal more than about the girls, and with vastly more admiration. +He was sure that David Copperfield's Steerforth was nothing to Don +Roberts. Once when he glanced up, he saw Father looking at him instead +of his newspaper. + +"Well, Neale," he asked, "what are you up to these days?" + +This was his opportunity, Neale knew it was, to introduce the subject of +Princeton, but he could not think of any way to do it. Instead he said +vaguely, "Oh, nothing much. Sort of hanging around." And then with a +great effort, he brought out, for once, a vital piece of news, "I'm +learning to play tennis." + +"That's _good_," said Father. "It's a great game." + +This seemed to be final. He looked back at his newspaper. But after a +while, as though something had occurred to him he asked, "Who's teaching +you? Where do you play?" + +"I ran across Don Roberts, over in Nutley. They used to live here, on +Central Avenue. He used to go to Number Two School." He wanted to go on +and tell about Don's being in Princeton, but could not propel himself +past the full-stop, where an inadvertent cadence of his voice had +dropped him. + +Next morning he found Don with a whitewash brush touching up the marking +of the court. For three hours they practised--a most exhausting three +hours! He thought he began to make a little progress. He knew he was +almost all in, when noon came, worn out far more by the mental strain of +struggling his way into a new technique, than by the physical effort, +although that had been enough to leave him blown and panting, as they +went into the house to have lunch. + +The two boys were alone at the table. Don swaggered a little as he +served his guest. "No one at home," he explained. "Mother and the girls +are down at Asbury. The old man doesn't get back from the office till +the 5.45. I can hear his train whistle from here. He finds his loving +son deep in his books, you bet." + +Through luncheon Don fired Neale's enthusiasm with stories of Big Bill +Edwards, Arthur Poe, Lady Jayne and other heroes of his Alma Mater. +Afterwards he strolled to the living-room, sat down at the piano, and +sang "The Orange and the Black,"--"There's a college we call Princeton." +Then lowering his voice, with many nods and knowing winks, he sang a +long song with the refrain, "Keep your eye on tricky little Sarah." + +Neale's play on the streets and in vacant lots with perfectly +heterogeneous and casual little boys had given him quite enough of a +vocabulary to understand the words of this song; and odds and ends of +the older boys' talk overheard in the locker-room at Hadley made the +spirit of it by no means unfamiliar. But this was the first time that +either words or spirit had ever been more than one of the casual +by-products of boy-life. What put it in the center of his attention now +was his admiration of Don as the model of colorful, sophisticated life. +Evidently this was a part of such life. Neale applied his mind therefore +to the words and the spirit and learned to hum the air. + +That evening Father read another uneventful letter from Mother; then +they sat in silence till, as father was filling his pipe, he remarked, +as if it had just come into his mind, "Oh, I thought you ought to have a +racket of your own, Neale. I got one. It's in the hall on the +coat-rack." + +Neale bounded upstairs and carried his prize to his room. There was not +only a Sears racket, but three Wright and Ditson balls, Spalding's +"Tennis Guide," and a little pamphlet on "How to Play Lawn Tennis." +Neale dropped into his Morris chair and devoured both books before going +to bed. + +The hard protective husk of his little boyhood was so newly sloughed +off, that his adolescence had as yet received scarcely a mark upon its +new freshness to impression. Ready now, responsive with an inward quiver +to a whole range of experience to which he had been blind and deaf +before, he was catching up from the chance materials about him, the +stuff with which to construct his new world. And here was material ready +to his hand. The editor, an enthusiast, an idealist of sportsmanship had +put a great deal in his little treatise beside his copious advice as to +the proper grip on the racket and the laying out of a court. Without the +slightest self-consciousness (because he had the not-to-be-imitated +single-heartedness of the sincere devotee) he had charged every section +of his treatise with the spirit of the game, the spirit of sport, not of +border warfare. So matter-of-factly was this message conveyed that even +the adolescent soul, half-crusader, half-Hun, did not guess that it was +being preached to. The word "honor" was never mentioned, yet Neale +understood perfectly the significance of what he read, under the caption +"Tournaments:" "The committee should provide adequate linesmen, for +while the contestants themselves can generally tell whether a ball is +good or not, yet close decisions occur in every match and it is +obviously unfair to force a player to penalize himself (as he naturally +would feel bound to do) by giving his opponent the benefit of the doubt +on all uncertain cases." He nodded approvingly over the phrase, "as he +naturally would feel bound to do." It did not strike him as a new idea, +but merely a clearer statement of something he had always felt was in +the air about sports. Yes, that was how a college man would act, how Don +would act. + +Again, among the illustrations he was struck by a photograph of the +winner and runner-up shaking hands after the Newport tournament. Neale +looked long at the expression of cordial congratulation and admiration +on the loser's face. He moved uneasily in his chair at the recollection +of a nine of disgruntled urchins muttering after a defeat, "Aw, you +bunch of stiffs, wait till we get you on our own diamond." Neale had +been one of those who muttered, one of those so stung by defeat that the +idea of admiring the better playing which had beaten them would have +been inconceivable to him. Neale knew himself well enough to know the +fierceness of his lust for victory. He knew it was going to be a job to +tame that lust to this civilized code. But he would try. Morally on +tip-toe, he resolved to be worthy of Don's friendship. + +When he turned the last page, relaxed the intense concentration with +which he had been absorbing the essence and spirit of the book, and +stood up to stretch and yawn before going to bed, he felt that he had +learned a lot. And he had. Silently, with the incalculable silence of +natural processes, an ideal had crystallized in his heart around a +standard of conduct. + +And yet this was all under the surface. As he dropped off to sleep, his +mind retained as the chief lesson of the book a mass of stimulating +suggestions about rolling strokes, the reverse twist service, and the +advice for a solitary beginner to practise against a brick wall. + +He knew where such a wall could be found; in a vacant lot on Poplar +Street, just off Summit Avenue. He often had played hand-ball there in +the old days. Next morning he went there after breakfast, postponing his +ride to Nutley till after lunch. The result was so good that thereafter +he spent every morning there. + +The summer days went by. Neale progressed far in his imitation of Don +and Don's manner and standards. He learned after practising with a box +of his own, to accept the cigarettes Don constantly offered him. To be +like Don, he learned to call the girls by their first names without +choking, although he never could bring himself to squeeze their hands or +pat their shoulders or stroke their hair as Don did so casually; and he +did manage to pick up a fair game of tennis. + +When he challenged Natalie to singles and beat her 7-5, Don looked at +him with a new expression, and a few days later announced great news. +"It's all arranged. Tournament here next Saturday, lemonade, lawn party, +picnic-supper, dance. The old man's agreed not to butt in and spoil +things. I've got four fellows from here, Peterson, and a friend of his +from Montclair. You and I make eight. Just right for a day's tournament +on one court." + +"But I don't play well enough," protested Neale. + +"You'll be put out in the first round of course," Don admitted, "but I +need you to make the even eight, and you can chase balls and make +yourself useful. Entry fee's a dollar. That'll buy a Pim racket as a +prize. I _need_ a new racket." + +The great day came and Neale, flustered and tense, was put out in the +first round according to schedule. It didn't surprise him, although deep +in his heart he had had a fluttering hope--but no matter. What happened +to him was of no consequence. Don came through easily, of course. After +lunch Neale sat with Natalie and together they gasped and clapped and +cried, "played!" as Don captured his match in the semi-finals. + +"Isn't he splendid?" said Natalie. Neale nodded, too much moved to +speak. + +The finals were called. Neale focussed himself on the game, blind to +anything else. Don was matched against the Peterson boy, a high-school +lad from Montclair. Don got the first set. Good. The second set +unexpectedly went to deuce. What had happened! Neale leaned forward, his +eyes hot from staring, and tried to make out the meaning of what he saw. +Peterson didn't hit the ball as hard as Don did, but his long, bony arm +pulled off the most impossible of "gets." Deuce, vantage, deuce, +vantage. Don put on more steam, served doubles, lost his service. +Peterson won his own service, and the sets were even. Don's face was a +blank. He walked to his place, hitched up his trousers, pulled the brim +of his white felt sports-hat low over his eyes, set his jaw and faced +his opponent. Neale's anxious eyes had not left him for a second. + +The last set was astounding, paralyzing to the spectators. Don had gone +to pieces and the high-school boy had pulled himself together. His +gawky, graceless body and long arms seemed to cover the whole court. Don +served with murderous force, his rising fury burning with a sensible +heat all around him as he raced and plunged and stroked the ball. +Peterson broke through his service again--four-two. Don struck out +dazzling drives, but many of them landed in the net. He got by Peterson +with wily stroke after stroke--only so many of them landed in the +alleys; four-three; five-three. Peterson kept on steadily, with his +stiff, mechanical, chopped returns, his intent eyes gleaming in his +impassive face. He had Don forty-love. Neale's heart was bursting. Don +rushed to the net. Peterson lobbed to the base-line, and it was all +over. Don was beaten. + + * * * * * + +In a flash Neale found an excuse for his hero, "Every one has his +off-days ... but...." + +Though half-forewarned by the look on Don's face, he could not turn his +eyes away from the dashing figure in white flannels, which stood there +frozen in mid-flight as the fatal ball fell inside the back-line. Then +with a furious swing of his arm Don flung his racket from him as if he +wished to break it into a thousand pieces. By good luck it did not hit +one of the girl spectators, but fell with a little crash of broken twigs +into the midst of a lilac bush. He took a step or two after this, as if +he meant to leave the court at once. With an effort, he turned about, +walked up to the net where the Peterson boy stood panting, and gave him +in silence, a limp hand-shake. + +Then he pushed through the spectators, and went into the house calling +over his shoulder that Polly was to award the prize. Neale did not dare +to look at Natalie; the moment was too awful. + +The Peterson boy did not stay to flaunt his triumph. Pleading an +impending thunder-storm as an excuse (the sky was as a matter of fact +very black and lowering), he scorched off on his wheel back to Montclair +with the spoils of victory bound to his handle-bars. With his departure, +the atmosphere of gloom among Don's friends began to lift. When the +storm broke, as it did shortly, they all hurried indoors. The girls set +about getting supper with a great clatter of chafing-dishes, and much +screaming, with each clap of thunder. By the time the cheese was melted, +Don reappeared in blue serge and negligee silk shirt. Coming down stairs +he passed Neale standing apart with his back against the newel post. + +"Oh, drop your grouch, Crit, old man," he said. "Forget it! Of course +Nordhoff's a pretty rotten umpire. I suppose he thought he'd give the +kid a chance, but he needn't have stung me on _all_ the close ones." + +On this, he passed lightly to the supper-table, where later, on being +loudly called, Neale followed him, starting up from his moody silence as +though he had forgotten where he was. It was his first supper out with +young people, the first time he had eaten welsh-rabbit; the first time +he had seen anything prepared over a chafing-dish; the first time he had +encountered the traditional young people's menu of that +date--welsh-rabbit, fruit cake, nut-fudge made on the spot, all washed +down with ginger-ale. It might have been bread and milk for all Neale +knew. What he saw was the photograph in the Tennis Guide of Davis +shaking hands with Whitman. + +Presently loyalty flared up. If Don fell short of the standard perhaps +the standard was wrong.... It would not do, even as he thought of this +excuse, he knew it would not do. He was aware of a streak of iron in his +soul. An idol might sweep away the warmth and color of life by its +fall--let them go then! No warping of standards could keep it on its +pedestal. But the real sorrow in his heart drove him to try to find +excuses for Don. Great Scott! it _was_ hard to lose! How could you blame +anybody for not coming up to such a terribly high standard? Anybody on +earth would naturally feel sore at being beaten in such a.... + +Even as he tried falteringly thus to lower his ideal to fit his +affection, he was aware of something stern and relentless within him. +The gallant face of the defeated player in the photograph stood out +beside Don's startled, angry resentment at a wound to his vanity. Nine +generations of Puritan forebears would not let Neale abandon his ideal +because it hurt him. + +He passed into a condition of acute amazement at the others. How could +they take it so light-heartedly? Perhaps they didn't care. Or perhaps +they felt themselves obliged to pretend since they were still in Don's +house. Yes, of course, he ought to pretend too. + +Smarting, he sprang up at a new word of command. "How about a little +rag-time?" Don was crying in his role of master of ceremonies. "Polly, +you to the piano. Get the old banjo, Dick. Clear the floor, boys. Oh, +pitch the rugs out of the window, a little rain won't hurt 'em." For +through the open windows came the steady voice of a summer downpour. + +The musicians struck up "Whistling Rufus," couples were formed and +racketed noisily to and fro from the dining-room to the sitting-room and +back, with much bumping and giggling at the congested doorway. Neale +danced absent-mindedly with a girl whose name he could not remember, and +whom he exchanged for a similarly anonymous girl when the tune changed +to the "Georgia Camp-meeting." He went on thus, setting his body to do +the decent thing, while his spirit lay prostrate within him. + +They were dancing harder than ever now, racing long-leggedly from one +end of the room to the other, the boys carrying the girls bodily off +their feet at some of the turns, the girls abandoning themselves like +romping children to the whirlwind of the insistent rhythm, which they +marked by shouting out as they danced, "Oh, la la, la, la-la, la la la! +There'll be a _hot_ time in the _old_ town _to-night_!" Neale danced on +with the rest. Under his grimly silent exterior, something fine and high +and deeply wounded, cried out silently to the others, and received no +answer. + +The music ended with a crash, the exhausted couples sank into chairs, +gasping and fanning each other. Neale's heart leaped to see, half-way up +the stairs, Natalie sitting alone as if she had not been dancing. Why, +of course. There was Natalie! He had forgotten her. She had understood. +The tragedy of the afternoon must have gone home to her. _She_ was a +good sport! With a warm glow he hurried up to where she sat, and sank +down beside her, his stifling sense of isolation gone. + +She lifted the sweet, flower-like mask of her youth to him, her eyes +gleaming in the half-light of the stairs. But at the moment, Neale had +forgotten whether she was a girl or a boy. She was a good sport. That +was what he needed. He started to speak, but a shout of laughter burst +out of the room below them. They looked down. In the center of the +vociferously amused circle of spectators, Don was making fun of his late +adversary's gawky manners and poor eye-sight. He had a racket in his +hand, and glaring through it with a burlesque of Peterson's intent +short-sighted gaze, he was mimicking the school-boy's strained awkward +position at the net. + +Neale fell back appalled, and looked to Natalie for sympathy and +understanding. + +Natalie had also leaned forward, and as they turned towards each other, +her face was so close to his that he could see the peach-like bloom on +her cheeks. + +All the pretty face was quivering with mirth. "Isn't Don the _wittiest_ +man!" + +Neale got up stiffly and walked down the stairs without a word. Nobody +in the crowd of laughing boys and girls paid the least attention to his +silent passage through them. He went out on the porch, the beating +downpour of the rain suddenly loud in his ears. Oh, all the better! He'd +like getting soaked. + +He found his wheel on the side-porch, mounted it without troubling to +light his lamp or turn up his coat collar, and delighting in the clammy +discomfort of the streaming water, pedaled stolidly over the nine miles +to his home. + +Alone in his room he took off his steaming clothes, rubbed down and got +into pajamas and a bath-robe. + +"Crittenden," he said sternly, "the world is no place for you. You're a +lone wolf. A lone wolf." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +When Neale turned out his Welsbach burner and rolled into bed, he +encountered a strange, new sensation, an immense relief just to lay +himself down, and to have darkness about him. For the first time in his +life he was consciously very tired, for the first time he knew the adult +sensation of having lived to the point of weariness, for the first time +he felt the passive sweetness of the resigned adult welcome of repose +which is perhaps a premonition of our ultimate weariness and our +ultimate welcome to death. + +For a moment Neale lay there, drowned in astonishment at this new, +unguessed-at pleasure. Then, without warning, the thick cloud of a boy's +sleep dropped over him like black velvet. + + * * * * * + +The next morning, his father, passing on the way to his cold bath, +looked in and saw the boy, sunk fathoms deep in sleep, the bright new +sunlight of the early morning shining full on his face. Heavens! How can +children sleep so soundly! His father stepped into the room, walking +silently on bare feet, and drew down the shades. The shadowing of the +room did not waken the sleeper. He still lay profoundly at rest and yet +profoundly alive, one long, big-boned arm thrown over his head on the +pillow, as he always had slept when he was a child. + +"As he had when he was a child!" His father was struck by the phrase and +looked again at the tall, rather gaunt young body flung on the bed. That +was no child who lay there, nor was that a child's face, for all the +pure, childlike curves of the young lips, firmly held together even in +this utter abandon to sleep. The older man stood by the bed for a +moment, looking down on his son, his own face grave and observant. He +would be a fine-looking fellow, Neale, with those honest eyes, wide +apart under his good, square forehead. Yes, Neale's father had always +known the extreme satisfaction of being able to respect his son, there +was no doubt about that. But there was something else, the something +that had always baffled him, that he had never been able to penetrate, +the closed look, locked tight over ... what? Was it locked tight over +something, or nothing? Did Neale have a real personal life? Would he +ever have? Would there ever be anything, anybody who would have the key +to unlock and set free what was there, before it died of its +imprisonment? + +For an instant the face of Neale's father was unlocked as he stood +looking down on his son. Then, with a long breath, he stepped back into +the hallway, silent on his bare feet, and went on to shave, and to take +his cold bath. + +It was after ten when Neale awakened and the day had sunk from its first +fresh hopefulness into the resigned apathy of a hot mid-morning, with +the stale smell of dusty, sun-baked pavements, the slow, unimportant +jog, jog, jog of the horse hauling the grocer's delivery-cart, and the +distant, jingling of the scissors-grinder's bell. + +Neale came slowly to himself and rolled over, a very bad taste in his +mouth, both physically and mentally. He had not noticed it at the time, +but he now thought, scraping his coated tongue against his teeth, that +melted cheese and cake and nut-fudge and ginger-ale were a darned bad +combination to be swallowing of an evening. And as for the rest ... oh, +gosh! Never again! + +He turned his big, strong feet out of bed and sat sunk together for a +moment, recalling it all, and steeping his soul in wormwood once more. +_Now_ what? + +The telephone rang; he heard Katie answer, and clump up the stairs to +see if he were awake. + +"Somebody to talk to you, Neale," she said, seeing him sitting up. +Neale's father might note he was no longer a child, Neale's mother might +keep her hands from fussing over him, but for Katie he would always be +the little boy she had helped to bring up. She laid her hand on his head +now, and Neale did not mind. + +"_You_ answer," he said stolidly. + +"It's him that's always telephonin'," she explained. "He's after wantin' +you to go and play tennis." + +"You tell him I can't go," Neale repeated. + +Katie retreated astonished. Neale heard the sound of her voice at the +telephone two flights below. Then she shouted up, "Neale!" + +He went to the stairs and answered crossly, "What?" + +"He wants to know will you be goin' this afternoon?" + +"_No!_" shouted Neale, leaning over the banisters. + +In a moment she cried again, "He wants to know will you be goin' +to-morrow morning?" + +"NO!" shouted Neale again, and going into the bathroom locked the door +behind him. + +When rather damp as to hair, he came out, silence and the smell of +frying bacon told him that Katie had left the telephone to get his +breakfast ready. Gee Whiz! He didn't want any breakfast, not with a +taste like that in his mouth. + + * * * * * + +To act the part of a lone wolf of sixteen, one must read poetry. He had +never read much poetry except some of Milton's Paradise Lost, for a +specially loathed English Literature course at Hadley. But there were +plenty of poetry books in the library at home. After some false starts, +Neale began to know his way among them, concentrating on the slim +volumes with pasteboard covers and paper backs. + + "Beneath the bludgeonings of chance ..." + +Yes, Neale too would hold up an unbowed, bloody head. + + "... without fear, without wish, + Insensate save of a dull crushed ache in my heart...." + + ... "Just to reach the dreaming, + And the sleep." + +Sitting alone in the darkened library how Neale soaked himself in this +sort of thing, hunting up one page and down another till he found the +voice that spoke to him. + + "The irresponsive silence of the lands + The irresponsive sounding of the sea + Breathe but one language and one voice to me + Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof!" + +When Katie's carpet-sweeper and feather-duster and kind, gossiping voice +sounded too close, he escaped out of doors, but not on his bicycle. +That, like his tennis-racket brought up painful memories. Every evening +he walked to the Boulevard, and gazed over the Hackensack meadows till +the sun set. + +"No sweet thing left to savor; no sad thing left to fear...." + +On the evening of the third day, a letter from West Adams arrived, +announcing that Jenny was up and around, and the farm-house was ready +for Neale. The evening after that, Neale was undressing in the +slant-ceilinged big-beamed, white-washed bedroom, as familiar to him as +his room at Union Hill--but uncontaminated with any of the new, +troubling sensations. The air of the hills blew in at the window. Neale +felt that it was a different air. He began to feel a difference in +himself, but fell asleep in the midst of this perception. The next +morning, scorning the mill, the barn-yard, the brook, he climbed to the +highest back-pasture where the young white birches and quivering aspens, +skirmishers of the unconquered forest, were leading the way in the +reconquest of the fields man had taken from them. Here he lay down and +prepared to nurse his sorrow.... + +"Pain gnaws at my heart like a rat that gnaws in a drain...." + +But what was this? What was this? As unexpectedly as the impudent little +mick had sprung out of the ground to carry off his shinny ball, so did a +cheerful little imp of high spirits spring up in his heart, leaping and +skipping to meet the glory of the great sun pouring down its mellow gold +upon him through the flickering, tricksy aspen leaves. He lay back on +the soft, deep moss, his hands clasped under his head. Huge, +jovial-looking clouds floated, piled up in strong, rounded masses +against the summer sky. Miles off in the valley he could see the Hoosick +River winding its way among the green, green hills. He was warmed, cool, +alive ... and, oh, yes, there was no use in pretending otherwise, mighty +well pleased to be alive. + +The ten-year-old Neale when suddenly the glamor had faded from his lead +soldiers, had never wasted time in pretending that it was there. He had +risen at once, left the little heap of clumsily-made mannequins to lie +foolish in their flaking paint, and sliding down the banisters, had gone +out of doors in a great hurry. Well, he wasted no time now. He looked +with an ironic eye upon the glamorless lost illusion, with the paint +flaking off, and hurriedly turning his back on it all, he went, +metaphorically, out of doors. + +What had happened after all? He'd thought the world of Don Roberts, who +had turned out a four-flusher. Well, he'd been stung. But why holler so +about it? And whose fault was it? His own, for not knowing better. Don +hadn't ever pretended to be any less of a four-flusher than he was. It +was just that he, Neale, had been taken in by a cheap, flashy guy when +any kid ought to have had enough sense to see through him, and those +would-be smart college-man airs and manners. + +But anyhow if that was a false scent, it had put him on a true one. +There was a lot inside those slim, pasteboard covered books beside rats +gnawing in drains, and twilight and all-goneness. You bet your life +there was. Neale had never dreamed what was inside them, poems that +stood up to a glorious day like this, and called it brother, poems of +foot-free wanderings and high-hearted scorn of prosperity and +conventions. + + "I tell you that we, + While you are smirking + And lying and shirking + Life's duty of duties, + Honest sincerity, + We are in verity + Free! + Free as the word + Of the sun to the sea; + Free!" + +Neale's voice quavered with another sort of emotion ... that was the +doctrine! "Off with the fetters!" He pictured himself in a blue flannel +shirt and flowing neckerchief, alone, or with some perfect comrade, +knowing reality, sneering at railway trains and cities. + +It was a gorgeous dream ... but of course the first Tuesday in September +found him back at a desk at Hadley with all the grinding and polishing +wheels of that well-appointed educational mill at work on the corners of +his individuality, bent on turning out the fifty young Seniors smooth +and identical, the perfection of the Hadley type. And since this was the +last year, the faculty speeded up the hunt and all the pack put their +noses to the ground and ran their legs off in pursuit of mathematics and +science. The pace was cruelly hot, and it was specially hard for Neale +because he had yielded to the captain's entreaties and had come out for +the football team. He made left tackle with little competition and +through October and November practised almost without coaching (Hadley +permitted athletics but was too busy to encourage anything so childish), +and played and was beaten with painful regularity. + +Neale found himself dropping far below the rating he had maintained in +the lower classes. He began to pant and strain as he had the first year. +It was a gruelling race; but temperamentally he liked races and his wind +got better as the months went by. He cut out all superfluities--no +dancing--no reading for amusement except on Sunday mornings, and then +only short poems about Vagabondia and the Open Road. Work, work, work +through every waking hour. By April he had risen to sixth in his class, +and felt grimly sure of holding his stride to the end. + +On the night of Easter Monday, Neale was bent over his desk with a green +eye-shade, trying various combinations to solve a problem in analytical +geometry, when his father knocked at the door, walked in and sat down on +the bed. This was so remarkable that Neale knew something was up. One of +the things that Neale had always taken for granted in his home-life was +that his room was practically inviolate when he was in it. His father +and his mother respected his privacy in this as in other things with +scrupulous exactitude. It was a little corner of the world which was +his, where he could come out from his tightly-clutched shell, and move +about freely with no fear of intruders spying on his nakedness. The +security of this privacy had been one of the well-squared stones Neale +had found ready to his hand, when slowly, rather later than most boys, +he began to build. Hence it was now apparent to him that Father must +have something on his chest. He looked up, nodded and greeted him with, +"Hello, Dad." + +"Hello, Neale," said Father quite as casually. "Don't want to interrupt +your studies. How late do you expect to keep at them?" + +"Sometime between eleven and twelve, I guess. His Nibs gave us some +stinkers, and I haven't touched the German prose yet." + +"That would be pretty late for me. We'd better take a few minutes now. +The fact is, Neale, we mustn't let you slide along any more without some +sort of an idea what you are going to do next." + +Neale having no idea beyond that night's work, said nothing. + +"The work you're doing this year has given your mother and me a great +deal of pleasure," Father went on. "Your marks are getting better and +better. I did think of putting you through an engineering school, but I +notice you seem to do better at the liberal subjects. Have you set your +heart on any college in particular?" + +"I'm not sure I want to go to any college." + +Oh, now for a break into the Open Road, and a flaming neckerchief and +far lands! + +Mr. Crittenden looked thoughtful. + +"I'll admit it's a waste of time for some, but I don't think it would be +for you. I understand your wish to get to work, and begin to make your +own way, but it's wiser not to start with too little preparation. And +there's no need for it yet. It's no hardship for me. It's a real +pleasure for us to be able to help you to an education...." + +Neale chewed his pen hard. How hard it was to have things out with a +father! When a man takes it for granted that if you don't want to go to +college you must want to be a bank-clerk or sell shoes, how are you to +make him understand anything about Freedom and the Open Road and +Comradeship and Vagabondia, distant countries and ships that smell of +tar and salt like the wharves. How could a man in a three-button, +pepper-and-salt cut-away understand? A man who wore a derby hat and went +to his office in the city every day? And Father was getting fat, too, +the three-button cut-away was heavily rounded. No--all that was in +another world. There weren't any words to express any of it to a Father. +So he said nothing, jabbing his pen into the blotting paper. Presently +Father went on, "Of course, I should like to have you go to my old +college, Williams, but Mother feels--we both feel--that it would be a +pity to break up the family circle. What would you think of Columbia? +They say since it has moved up to Morningside Heights there is more +college life--and of course it's one of the leading Universities...." + +Another pause, so long that Neale felt bound to say something. + +"Oh, I guess I would like Columbia as well as any," he finally brought +out. + +Father looked at him several minutes. Then he stood up, "We needn't +settle it to-night, of course. Think it over; we'll talk it over again." + +But of course they never did. They never talked anything over. The +subject was not raised again. Nevertheless it was somehow understood in +the family that Neale was going to enter Columbia. And Neale made no +protest. To tell the truth, as spring advanced and all his classmates +began talking over their plans for next year, the uniformity of having a +recognized respectable destination was not disagreeable. It saved talk, +and useless talk about his affairs was one of the things Neale detested. +Till he could be really independent and do as he liked without +suffering the ignominy of having people know about it and talk him over, +it might be better just to slide along the grooves provided, get the +usual labels stuck on you. It couldn't do you any harm. They'd soak off +easy enough, later on. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +With June came examinations at Hadley. Long, long experience and +concentration on the subject had taught Hadley administrators exactly +how to time their training so that when examinations came, the boys +would be in the pink of condition. Two weeks later they would be stale, +horribly, sickeningly stale, but nobody at Hadley cared a continental +what happened two weeks after examinations. That was no business of +theirs. Weary, but still docilely answering the crack of the +ring-master's questions, the thoroughly disciplined Troupe of Trained +Boys went through subject after subject, with the automatic rear and +plunge of circus-riders breaking paper hoops. That was all right. Those +were only the Hadley examinations. They expected to be able to pass +those. + +But now for the College Entrance examinations, the Apollyon which from +afar their professors at Hadley had pointed out to them, straddling over +all their roads, belching out brimstone-fire on all who tried to pass. +With much trepidation hidden under his usual decent impassivity, Neale +journeyed up to take his first examinations at Columbia. He was glad +that the first chanced to be in history. That was one of his good +subjects. He stood a better chance there. With a careful air of +carelessness, he went up to the proctor's desk, took one off the pile of +the printed examination sheets, and with it in his hand, not entirely +steady, he went back to his seat. Safe from observation there, he laid +it before him and his eyes leaping to know the worst, took in the first +three questions at one glance. Holy Smoke! Was this all? Was it for this +he had sweat blood! There was an outline map of the United States, with +a request to mark on it the location of such idiotically well-known +places as Acadia, Pittsburgh, New Orleans. There was "_French and Indian +Wars. State causes immediate and remote._" There was, "_What do you +consider to be the relation between the Missouri Compromise and the +Civil War? Justify your opinion in 500 words._" + +Neale leaned back in his chair faint with relief. Why, he could eat it +up like candy. And he ate it up like candy; emerging from it, his head +in the air and the world at his feet. This aspect caused him to be +chastened by a gang of Sophomores who played hare and hounds with him +(he was the hare), through Riverside Park from 120th to 81st Street, +where his long legs finally distanced them. + +The other examinations were of the same sort, exactly the same sort, of +a childish facility compared to anything the Hadley professors had +described. Why--it came to Neale with a shock--why, the Hadley purpose +had not been to enable them to pass the exams,--it had been to use +Hadley boys to exalt the name of Hadley throughout the collegiate world! +He felt a deep resentment, a burning bitterness at having been taken in; +and by people who had consciously intended to, who had known very well +what they were about, and had taken advantage of his defenselessness. He +thought of those four years of driving drudgery and causeless dread, and +hated Hadley as the quintessence of cheating. The idea that the subjects +of his study had any value other than as legal tender for college +entrance, that he was the better off for his thorough acquaintance with +them did not once cross his mind. In that respect, too, he was a product +of Hadley. + +He came away from the last examination, as stale and worthless as an +overworked colt. The Sophomores let him alone. He looked to them as +though he had not been able to pass. + + * * * * * + +A wide, green pasture with running brooks is the best place for a tired +colt, and it was such a one that Neale now entered, his head hanging, +his big legs like cotton twine. Oh, shucks! What was the use of +anything? + +Grandfather and Grandmother kept a Crittenden shut mouth about his drawn +face and sallow skin, and at first were careful to keep out of the way +and let him even more alone than usual. He fell into bed at eight +o'clock, unable to keep his eyes open another moment, and lay as though +he were dead for twelve or fourteen hours every night, awaking to see +the country sun shining in on the slant, hewed beams over his head, and +to hear the country sounds, as clear as crystal coming in through the +open window; the mill-brook chanting, the wind in the big maple, the +bright, brazen call of the rooster, the sociable grunting of the pigs. + +The pigs were a great comfort to Neale at this time. After he had washed +in the brown rain-water in his wash-bowl, and had gone down to the +clean, sunny kitchen, always empty at this hour, and had eaten heartily +of the fried potatoes, hash, and pan-cakes which he found waiting for +him in the warming-oven of the kitchen stove, he sauntered out, a +doughnut in his hand, to lean over the pig-pen and commune with the +pigs. He stood there an hour at a time, occasionally scratching their +backs as an excuse for staying so long with them, but for the most part +gazing dreamily down, lost in the magnificent sensuality of their joy in +life. They had always been fed an hour or so earlier, so there was no +excitement in their profound beatitude, none of the homeric scramblings +of meal-times. Neale was not ready for that yet. What he needed, what +slowly floated him up from the depths, was their rapt ecstasy of +repletion, their voluptuous pleasure in sinking thoughtfully into the +cool, wet filth and the glow of their peace as they stood sunning +themselves, visibly penetrated to every fleshly cell of their vast +bodies, by the most perfect accord with the scheme of the universe, as +they saw it. Neale gazed at them as they lay sprawled in the mud, or +moved about very slowly, grunting very gently, occasionally turning upon +the boy a small, wise, philosophic eye; and they did his heart good, +like medicine. + +When he was ashamed to stand there any longer ... although no one ever +commented on it, and indeed no one was there to see it, except +Grandmother and Jenny busy in the house, he loitered along the path +which led to the seldom-used foot-bridge across the mill-brook. The +sound of the water always threw him into another contemplative pause +here. He often lay down on the rusty-colored pine-needles and lay +looking up at the distant dark green branches of the forest-roof, the +voice of the water rising and falling, so insistent that he could think +of nothing else, so unintelligible that it made him think of nothing at +all, sliding, breaking, turning, slipping down, leaping up, like an +endlessly curving line drawn endlessly before his eyes. He usually shut +his eyes after a little, and not infrequently added an hour or two of +sleep to the fourteen he had spent in his bed; this time, sleep not +black and opaque, but shot through with the gleaming pattern of the +brook's song. + + * * * * * + +One morning when he woke up, while he still lay in bed staring up at the +beams over his head, some chance association of ideas made him think of +Hadley and he was astonished to find his resentment against Hadley had +gone. Hadley seemed very remote and vague to him. He did not hate it any +more. He could scarcely remember what Hadley had been like. Nor anything +that he had studied there. That day for the first time he went down to +the mill, walking, not sauntering, his legs solid under him again. + +He found Grandfather and old Si "making out" very badly, with no boy to +"take away." The last one had followed all his predecessors into the +cotton-spinning mills at North Adams, and as this was haying-time no +other help was to be had. The two old men had to stop the saw every few +minutes till Si could run around and catch up on taking away. It was +fretful work, like trying to lace up your shoes with one hand. Neale +stood and watched them for a while. Then although he had not really +meant to say it, he was not sorry to hear his voice suggesting, "Why +don't you take me on? I haven't got anything else to do." + +"What say, Si?" asked Grandfather, laughing so at the idea, that Neale +was nettled and had a picture of how unutterably lazy he had looked for +the last fortnight! + +Si spit tobacco-juice into the mill-race and shifted his quid. + +"Wa'll, I know hands is scurse these days, but land! have we got down to +taking _any_body?" + +Neale was used to the Yankee roughness which they meant for humor, but +this touched him a little closely. Didn't they think he could do any +work? + +Grandfather puckered his old face into a grin and nodded him into the +job. + +"If so be so, then so be it. Kin or no kin, I guess we can afford to pay +him what we were giving Hubbard." + + * * * * * + +So Neale bought a suit of overalls at the general store and began to +work. For the first three days he wished with all his heart he'd kept +his mouth shut. Handling green beech for ten hours a day was very +different from helping out a half-hour at a time. Besides, his muscles +and above all his hands were pitifully soft after an indoor winter and +his fortnight of vegetating. It didn't seem worth while to make an ox of +himself for five cents an hour and board--the wage of unskilled labor in +that non-unionized Arcadia--but he was ashamed to quit on a job that was +always handled by boys of his age. Nobody had asked him to do it. He had +offered himself, pushed himself in. It would be too worthless to back +out. But, oh gee! he was tired when he got through at six o'clock, and +clumped heavily up the hill after Grandfather and Si, walking, it seemed +to him, with as stiff and aged a gait as theirs. He shovelled supper up, +starved, starved to his toes, and staggered to bed immediately +afterward. The first week he lost five pounds. Thereafter he gained +steadily, and all solid muscle. + +After a time he mastered the mill-hand's basic axiom, "Never lift a +plank if you can slide it," his hands stopped blistering and hardened, +and he grew muscles in various places up and down his back, where he had +never had any before, so that the boards became singularly lighter in +his hands. + +And then, just when he had mastered his job, the water-god took a hand +in the game. Since the spring rains, there had been nothing but the +gentlest showers. The mill-pond had shrunk to a pool, and grass began to +show far down its dried-up sides. The water no longer ran over the +mill-dam. One day about five o'clock the mill stopped, with a log +half-sawed. + +"No water," said Silas, "got to shut down till the pond fills up." They +sat down instantly, hanging their empty hands over their knees, in an +ecstasy of idleness. They managed to finish that log by supper time, but +the drought held. + +Soon they could saw only by pondfuls. A couple of hours in the early +morning, a scant hour after lunch, and somewhat less after supper, in +the twilight. Between times Si patched belts, or hoed corn, or sat and +smoked, Grandfather pottered around the garden, or sat and smoked as he +waited for the pond to fill. + +This was delightful--just enough work for exercise, and lots of +blameless leisure. But with so many hours to read, Neale ran through at +an alarming rate the books he had brought with him. Even "Vanity Fair" +didn't hold out forever, and with Dobbin and Amelia finally united, +Neale was at the end of his literary resources. Boredom settled down +heavily. Si's reiterated anecdotes lost all savor; he had read all the +books on the sitting-room book-shelves, or had given them up as +hopeless. He felt bound by his contract to be on hand whenever the mill +could be run, so that long walks were out of the question. + +At last as he sat gloomily killing time trying to whittle a wooden +chain, and making a botch of it, he seemed to remember one rainy day +when he was a little boy, wandering into a room with another book-case +in it. Not being a little girl, he had had small interest in exploring +the inside of the house, and where that room was he had forgotten; but +if there had been any books in it, they were there still; no single +decade ever made any change in that house. It was worth having a look. + +Anybody but a Crittenden, dealing with Crittendens, would have gone to +Grandfather or Grandmother and asked where that book-case was. But it +did not occur to Neale to do that, and if he had thought of the +possibility, he would never have done it. That would have meant talk +about his wanting to read, about what books he liked, and why he liked +them ... all sorts of talk from which Neale shrank away as he did from +physical pawing-over. He set off silently, with a casual air, upon his +search, looking first into the darkened best-room, and going from that +to the garret, the attic over the ell, and the woodshed loft. There were +scattered books in all these places; in the best-room a few big, +illustrated, show-off books, with gold on the bindings, like the Dore +Bible he had so often looked at, and the big Pilgrim's Progress that he +had opened only once. In the garret were dusty old school-books of past +generations, and in the attic over the ell, piles of well-bound black +books, with gold lettering, which turned out to be, desolatingly, +nothing but by-gone Congressional Records and Census Reports. But he had +not found the little brown book-case which he dimly remembered. Perhaps +it wasn't here at all. Well, he'd try the chambers, mostly vacant now, +which had been so full in the days Grandfather liked to tell about, when +he was a little boy, one of fourteen children all growing up +tumultuously together in this big old house. + +Neale went down the attic stairs and began to open doors. Nothing doing. +Everywhere the same sparsely furnished room, with painted floor, braided +mat, dark old bed and battered dresser, and ladder-back, flag-bottomed +chairs. Their vacancy struck cold even on Neale's not very +impressionable mind. "A room that hadn't been lived in for a long time +was the limit, anyhow," he thought. + +But at the other end of the hall from his own low-ceilinged, little +boy's room, he found one like it, rather more cheerful. The sun came in +through a dormer window as it did in his own room. He remembered now +that this was the room Father had always had, till he went away to +college and after that to New York to live. And there, sure enough was +the little book-case. Of course. He must have seen it lots of times, +going by when the door was open. Now, what was in it? Maybe, after all, +nothing to his purpose; probably this had been used like the shelves in +the attic as a place to put volumes that nobody wanted to read. + +Mather's Invisible Providence--sounded religious. Neale did not even +take it out. A big, old book with the back off proved, when he opened +it, to be Rollin's Ancient History. With a true Hadley horror for +learning anything out of hours, he slammed it shut, and took down the +next one, Butler's Analogy. Seemed as though he had heard of that one. +He sat down on the edge of the little four-poster, and opened it at +random, skimming the pages. Oh, awful! Fierce! _Worse_ than religious! +He put it back, discouraged, and ran over the titles on that shelf. A +name struck his eye. Emerson. Wasn't there a poem by Emerson at the +beginning of "The Children of the Zodiac?" Neale like every one else at +that time had read a good deal of Kipling, although he was vague as to +Emerson. + +He took down Volume I, and opened to the first page. + +"But thought is always prior to the fact; all the facts of history +pre-exist in the mind as laws." + +"Pretty rough sledding!" thought Neale, "bad as Butler." + +He turned over a page. His eye was struck by a thick black pencil-mark +along the margin; a passage that had interested somebody. Neale read, "I +have no expectation that any man will read history aright, who thinks +that what was done in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded +far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing to-day." + +An idea knocked at Neale's head. He looked up from the book to take it +in. It echoed and re-echoed in his brain, the first idea about history +which had ever penetrated to fertilize the facts piled up by Hadley. +Gee! there was something _to_ that! Neale began to walk around it +speculatively. Wonder if that's true? Sounds good. + +Were there perhaps more passages marked? He turned over the pages again +and came on another of the black pencil lines in the margin. + +"When a thought of Plato becomes a thought to me--when a truth that +fired the soul of Pindar fires mine, time is no more." + +"Time is no more...." The grandeur of those four words unrolled a great +scroll from before Neale's eyes. + +Say, who was it who had marked these places, anyhow? Who was it, who, +before Neale, had sat in this low-ceilinged room and had caught that +glimpse of timeless infinity? Neale turned back to the fly-leaf and +found written in a familiar handwriting, "Daniel W. Crittenden, Williams +1876." + +Why, that was _Father_! + +Neale stared at the name. Could it be Father? Yes, he had gone to +Williams and although 1876 was incredibly long ago, that might have been +Father's class. And this was Father's room! He looked about him, +astonished. + +For the first time in his life it occurred to Neale that his father had +not always been a father and a successful, conservative business man of +forty-something, but that long, long ago he had also been a person. + +The idea made Neale feel very shy and queer as though through the pages +of this chance-found book he were spying on the privacy of that +unsuspecting person. But all the same, it was too strange that _Father_ +should have ... what else had he marked? Intensely curious, Neale turned +the pages over. What else had struck the fancy of that young man, so +many years ago, before he dreamed that he was to be a business man and a +father. It was like looking straight into some one's heart; the first +time Neale had ever dreamed of such a thing. + +There they were, those glimpses of what had fed his father's spirit. +Neale read them because they were marked. Some he understood, others he +only felt. + +"In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they +come back to us with a certain alienated majesty." + +"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the +conviction that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his +portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, one kernel of +nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that +plot of ground which is given to him to till." + +"Life only avails, not having lived." Good enough! + +"For every stoic was a stoic, but in Christendom, where is the +Christian?" every word underlined in ink. + +"Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. Punishment is a fruit that +unsuspected ripens within the flower of pleasure which concealed it." +On the margin the note was, "True, think of E. B." "Wonder who E. B. +was," thought Neale, "but the old man's right." + +Ah, this is bully! "Life itself is a bubble and a skepticism, and a +sleep within a sleep. Grant it, and as much more as they will ... but +thou, God's darling, heed thy private dream; thou wilt not be missed in +the scorning and skepticism; there are enough of them...." + +Why, this was not marked! The old man must have been asleep at the +switch. + +Neale stopped turning the pages and jumping from one marked passage to +another. He began to read for himself, a deep vibration within answering +the organ-note which throbbed up at him out of the page. + +"This," he said to himself, after a long, absorbed silence, "this is my +meat." + + * * * * * + +There was a good place on top of the plate-beam of the mill, dry and +safe. One morning before Grandfather and Si came down to work, Neale +climbed up to this, dusted it clean of the litter of a century or more +and put the three volumes there. Whenever the water got low, and the +mill shut down, and Si went off to oil the harness and Grandfather to +have a visit with Grandmother in the kitchen, Neale clambered up and +clinging with one hand, reached in and took out a volume ... any one of +the three. From there to the top of the highest lumber-pile outside, in +the clean sunlight. + +The pungent smell of the newly-sawed wood, the purifying wind, wide +space about him, solitude, silence, and this deep, strong voice, +purifying, untroubled, speaking to him in a language which was his own, +although he had not known it. + + + + +"_TO-DAY SHALL BE THE SAME AS YESTERDAY_" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +March, 1902. + +Flora Allen found she was not following the words on the page, and let +the book slowly fall shut. As it lay there among her hair-brushes and +cold-cream pots, she looked at it with a listless distaste. How sick she +was of reading instructive books! She never wanted to see another! She +turned sideways in her chair with the gesture of a person about to stand +up, but the motive power was not enough, and she continued to sit, one +arm hanging over the back of her chair. Why get up? Why do anything more +than anything else? + +How horribly lonely she was! How horribly empty her room was! + +The emptiness echoed in her ears. It was an echo she often heard. She +always heard it more or less. She told herself that it was like the +emptiness of a long stone corridor along which she seemed to be always +hurrying, hoping to come to a door that would let her out into life--the +warm, quivering life that other people--women in books for +instance--seemed to have. + +Now she was tired. She had almost worn herself out in the long flight +down the empty passage-way that led from birth to death. She began +dreadfully to fear that she would never find a door. Wherever she +thought she saw one ajar, it was slammed in her face. + +Looking back, how she envied her earlier rebellious unhappy self, bright +with the animation of her naive hatred for Belton and America; quivering +with her aspiring cry of "Europe" and "culture!" She had been married +almost sixteen years--was it possible! A life-time! A life-time filled +with nothing. A life-time spent between Belton and Bayonne! Oh, it +wasn't fair! She had never had a chance--never! And soon it would be too +late for her chance! + +How hideously fate always discriminated against her. She was always +thrown in the dreariest places with the dreariest dead-and-alive people, +flat and insipid and tiresome. + +Other women encountered big and moving things in their lives, knew +adventure and excitement, had something to look forward to, something to +look back on. But she had nothing but stagnation. And nobody to care +_what_ she had, because they all assumed that if sawdust and chips were +good enough for them, that diet ought to be good enough for any one. + +The days, that might be so precious, slid by, one like another, and +there were not so very many days left to her, when vivid personal life +might be possible. Where was she to find it, where, where? She was so +_tired_ of stagnation. + +She was reduced to envying the exciting life of the women of the +demi-monde of whom she was aware here as never before in her life, of +whom everybody was conscious. It was indeed precisely to avoid +resembling their bright colors and gaiety that all the appallingly +respectable women wore such ill-fitting dark clothes and heavy shoes on +the street, never broke their solemn silence in a public place, and +never laughed freely anywhere except safely behind walls. The women they +were so determined not to resemble seemed from a distance to Flora Allen +the only people in France who openly enjoyed life as she thought people +in Europe did, the only ones who bore the slightest relationship to the +vivacious, animated picture of European existence as she had imagined it +in Belton. Except, of course, such dusty, vulgar excursion-train crowds +of common people as you saw at Lourdes. Flora hated vulgar people. + +And yet--ugh!--life couldn't be all gaiety and brightness for the women +of the "half-world." That evening last year, when she had tried to +lighten the deadly dullness by a little, playful flirtation with M. +Fortier, such as any American would have answered by half-sentimental +banter--she had never forgotten how frightened she had been by his +instant misunderstanding--the horrible spring he had made at her in the +dusk of the carriage; his brutal hands on her shoulders, his flabby, old +face suddenly inflamed; the terrifying weight of his obese body against +her hands as she pushed him furiously away! For months afterwards she +had been afraid to smile at any man, as she said "good-evening"; and she +read in their eyes, in all their eyes, what they would think of her if +she but looked squarely and frankly at them. + +But wasn't there _ever_ to be anything for her, between the deadly flat +propriety of things like those awful progressive-euchre parties in +Belton and _that_ sort of thing? + + * * * * * + +Isabelle came into the room now, floor-brush and cleaning cloths in +hand. She was surprised to find her mistress still before her +dressing-table at half-past ten in the morning. To herself she made the +comment, not by any means for the first time, "Well, the good God +certainly never created a lazier good-for-nothing." Aloud she said +respectfully, "I beg Madame's pardon for not knocking. I thought the +room was empty. Do I disturb Madame by coming to clean?" + +Madame got up hastily, murmured a "no, oh no," and disappeared down the +hall. Isabelle opened the windows, fell on her knees and set to work +with energy, suppressing (lest her mistress still be within earshot) the +lively dance-air which came to her lips, as she rattled the brush +against the furniture and base-boards. She would be nineteen at her next +birthday. What a lovely spring day, how sweet the air was, Jeanne had +promised to let her walk out beyond the city-walls next Sunday afternoon +with Pierre, and she had a new pair of shoes, real leather shoes, to +show off there. Perhaps Pierre would take her to a confiserie and buy +her some candied chestnuts! Her pulse beat strong and full, the +dance-tune jigged merrily inside her head, she reached far under the bed +with her brush, and enjoyed so heartily the elastic stretch and recoil +of the muscles in her stout shoulders, that she reached again and again, +although there was no need for it. "Jig! Jig! Pr-r-rt!" went the dance +tune in her head ... new shoes ... sunshine ... candied chestnuts ... +Pierre ... kisses. + +Her mistress, detesting the sight of Isabelle's broad, vacuous face had +walked aimlessly away, anywhere to escape the slatternly flap of her +heelless sandals, and the knock of her brush as she went through the +never-varying routine of the morning cleaning. Around and around, every +slow dawn brought exactly the same sequence of tiresome, insignificant +events. Only stolid, vegetable natures like Isabelle's could endure it. +Flora's small, thin, white hands fluttered piteously out into the air as +though trying physically to lay hold on something else. There _must_ be +something else. The tears stood for a moment in her blue eyes, not so +blue now as they had been--oh, she knew how they were fading! + +She went through the corridor into the salon, and pulling the curtains +aside, stepped into the alcove where her writing desk stood. But she had +no intention of writing a letter. To whom? If she wrote what she really +felt, there was nobody to understand her. She did not now, as had been +her habit in the first days, go to the window and amuse an idle hour by +looking down on the crowd below, the ox-drivers, the fish-women, the +soldiers, the Spanish peddlers, all the bright-colored, foreign throng +that had seemed to her like a page out of a book. Not for nothing had +she lived four years in Bayonne! That first simple candor of hers was +darkly dyed with new knowledge. She knew now that people talked about a +woman still young enough to be desirable, who showed herself at an open +window. She knew they talked, and she knew what they said. That hearsay +knowledge had been sharpened by her gradual perception of the way +certain men among the passers-by had looked up at her; and it had been +driven deeply home one day, by one of those men. As she leaned out, her +fair hair bright in the sun, a passer-by, a well-dressed man with a +walking-stick in his hand, had stared hard at her, caught her eye, +hesitated and looked again. Flora had not avoided his eye. Why should +she? It was early in her life in the half-Spanish town. She did not fear +men's eyes. When he saw this he turned and mounted the stairs to ring at +the bell. Isabelle had let him in, not knowing him from any other +caller. He stepped quietly to the salon, where the lady of the house, +not dreaming that any one had entered, still stood before the window. +When she turned in answer to a discreet little cough on his part, she +had seen him standing there, hat in hand, waiting, with a singular +little smile on his lips, a smile she never forgot. + +Oh, he had been perfectly polite, indeed quite desolated at having made +a mistake, and had speedily bowed himself out of the place, apologizing +gracefully to the moment of door-closing. But that very day, Flora Allen +had the swathing lace-curtains put back in their original position, +covering every inch of the glass; and when dusk fell, she was always the +first to think of drawing the heavy damask curtains over them, so that +there seemed to be no windows at all in the room. + +That seemed to her to express her life--no windows except these opening +on what was physically sickening and coarse; no doors save those leading +back and forth between the deadly familiarity of the imprisoning rooms. + +What was it she had not done which other women did to let them into the +center of life, while she was exiled to the outer fringes? How was it +that while other women's arms seemed to close about warm, living +substances, hers grasped at shadows. Or did other women only pretend to +be satisfied, for fear of facing the emptiness which echoed in her ears +more and more loudly? + +Did they really and honestly find the absorbing joy in their children, +which was the sentimental tradition? And if they did, how did they +manage it? She loved Marise, nobody had a nicer little girl, nor a +prettier. But the plain facts were that a little girl and a grown woman +were very different beings, with very different needs and interests. +There was nothing she would not do for Marise, she often told herself, +if Marise needed it. But Marise apparently did not need a single thing +her mother could do for her, any more than any healthy little girl +absorbed in her school and play. There was no sense in doing +uninteresting things for people when they were just as well off without +them. She often looked at Marise across the dinner-table, fresh and +well-groomed by Jeanne's competent hands, and wondered with a sincere +bewilderment how any one could expect her to make an occupation out of +loving a very busy, self-centered, much-occupied little girl, who left +the house before her mother was out of bed, was gone all day, spent +most of her few free hours with her music teacher, and in the nature of +things went to bed just at the beginning of the evening. + +From time to time, when they had first come to Bayonne, she had made +various attempts to connect her life with Marise's, annoyed by the +affection Marise showed to Jeanne and to that singularly unattractive +Mlle. Hasparren. Breaking through the tyrannical regularity of the +child's hard-working life, she had carried her off, now for a day on the +beach at Guethary, now for a day in the shops at Biarritz, once for a +week-end at Saint Sauveur. But she had come home after such attempts, +mortally weary and depressed. What was the use of trying to pretend that +the things which delighted and amused a child were not inconceivably +tiresome to a grown-up? Those endless hours while she sat in the sun on +the sand (which got into her Shoes), and watched Marise inanely prance +in the surf, or dig for clams which she did not care to keep after she +had caught them! How could she see anything but very visible +repulsiveness and dirt, and quite probably diseases in the lank stray +dogs and cats which always turned up when Marise went along a street, +and which Marise always felt an inexplicable and perverse desire to +fondle? And those cheap bazaars, where Marise loved to linger, gazing +with dazzled eyes at the trumpery, papier-mache gimcracks and +playthings...! Of course, as Marise had grown less childish, walks had +been free of hoop-rolling with its inevitable encounters with irascible +old gentlemen's legs, but she had developed other tastes quite as +bothersome. Flora's pretty, slender feet ached with fatigue at the +recollection of the long hours she had stood beside Marise, who, sucking +hard on a barley-sugar stick, and hooking her elbows over the parapet of +the bridge over the Adour, gazed endlessly down on dirty, smelly ships +being unloaded by dirty, smelly workmen. + +Flora had come to the conviction that the European custom of sending a +servant around with children was based on a realistic recognition of +facts. It was better for both sides; for she knew that, although she +tried to be patient, Marise felt her lack in interest in chatter about +whether the stone would hit the tree _this_ time, or how long Marise +could walk over flagged sidewalks without once stepping on a crack. Good +Heavens! What difference did it make! It was inevitable that a servant's +vacant mind should be naturally more nearly on the childish level. + +And yet, once in a while, when Marise came into the salon to kiss her +mother good-night, Flora's arms caught her fast, wistfully, feeling an +aggrieved, helpless resentment at somehow being cheated out of what +seemed to mean so much more to other mothers. Marise always felt +instantly this special mood in her mother and always flashed up in an +ardent return, straining her mother to her in a great silent hug. It was +a good moment for them both, but so quickly gone. + +She looked now at her watch and remembered an engagement at her +dressmaker's to try on a new house-dress. It suddenly made her sick to +think of bothering with it. What was the use of a new house-dress? Who +would see it except Horace, who never saw anything, or perhaps some one +like Madame Fortier or Madame Garnier, who would think it unbecoming for +a married woman to wear pretty, frilly things, or to think of anything +but how to shove their husbands and sons and daughters ruthlessly ahead +of other women's. Heavens above! How tiresome they were about their +families! They never saw another thing in the world! Except scandalous +suppositions about other people's actions. + +She discovered that she did not feel at all well, not nearly well enough +to go to have the dress tried on. She was always tired. The enervating +climate certainly did not agree with her. The doctor paid no real +attention to her case, and the sulphur baths at Saint Sauveur had done +her no good, for all they cost so much. How she had hated the dreary +little village, full of sick women, perched on the narrow ledge, from +which the sanitarium and the bathing establishment looked dizzily down +into the frightful gorge where the gave of Gavarnie boiled among its +rocks. It had given her materials for many a nightmare, that long black +cleft in the earth, so full of the wild haste of the waters that the ear +was never for an instant, asleep or awake, freed from their plunging +roar. It had given her nightmare; and the sulphur baths had not helped +her worn feeling of prostrated weakness in the least. And now she feared +there was something else--her heart was certainly not quite normal. +There were times as now (she put her fingers to her wrist) when sitting +perfectly still, she felt her pulse drop almost to nothing. A muffled, +listless beat, like a clock that is running down.... + +"Running down?"--the chance phrase caught her attention. Was she running +down to middle-age, without once having...? She started up, stung by the +thought, frightened, angry--a way out into life--a way to escape from +the stagnant pools where Fate always cast her--a way to find some +vibrant stirring aim--if it were only for an hour--something to care +about intensely! Other people did--women in books. + + * * * * * + +Jeanne, passing the door on her way out saw her mistress standing in the +alcove, and paused to ask a question. "... if Madame wished Mademoiselle +Marise to wear a white ribbon in her hair that afternoon? Because if so, +a fresh one was needed." Her old voice thrilled as she pronounced the +child's name. + +Madame brought her thoughts back from their wanderings with an effort. +"A white ribbon?" she said vaguely. + +Jeanne reminded her, "The annual competition for the prize in music at +Mademoiselle's school. The young ladies are to dress in white." Madame +remembered, "Oh, yes, yes, yes." A pause, while she seemed to begin to +drift away again, and then, with a perception that Jeanne still stood +before her, waiting, "Why, yes, of course, buy a white ribbon if she +needs it." + +Jeanne took her tall, black-clad body off into the hall and thence into +the street, her mistress instantly gone from her mind. She had no time +or strength that momentous day for anything beyond her passionate +absorption in her dear girl's ordeal, Marise's first step into the +battle of life. Her little Marise almost a young lady, her fifteenth +birthday so near, contending with rival young ladies! Jeanne ground her +strong yellow teeth and prayed furiously that the other competitors +might all have cramps in their fingers, that a fog might come before +their eyes, that they might have blinding headaches or at least that +their petticoats might hang below their skirts and disgrace them as they +walked across on the platform. + +She went to the best shop in town for the ribbon, the only detail +lacking in the spotless costume which had been ready for days, pressed +by Isabelle and pressed over again by herself. Jeanne had all the +possible shades brought down; dead white--ivory white--pearl +white--cream, she took them to the door to see how they looked in full +daylight, and withdrawing herself by a swoop of her will power, from the +clattering confusion of the street, she held up the rolls of ribbon one +by one, imagining, as though Marise were there before her, each one +against the gleaming dark head. Not the dead white--no, that looked like +nun's stuff, and there was nothing of the nun in Marise, thank God! Not +the pearl white--that bluish tinge--oh, no! that was only fit for a +corpse--The cream? No, the white organdie of the dress would make it +look dirty. The ivory--yes, the ivory. + +She carried the others back and looked hard at the ivory on both sides, +making a deft fold or two with her stiff old fingers, to see how it +would tie into a bow. She held it out at arm's length, her +tightly-coifed, gargoyle-head on one side. She drew a long breath, +having been so absorbed in the ribbon that she had forgotten to breathe +for some time. "Well, give me a metre and a half," she said finally to +the clerk, adding scornfully, "if that's the best you have!" +Cloth-of-gold embroidered with pearls would not have satisfied her. + +As she came out, she turned her head sideways to estimate the height of +the sun, having a low opinion of the accuracy of clocks, and was +startled to find it so late. If she were to get across to the river, to +the Holy Ghost Church, to set a candle burning before Our Lady for +Marise's success, she would need to hurry, and of late Jeanne had found +hurrying not so easy a process as it had been. If Marise was older, so +was she, seventy-six her last birthday. It was harder for her to stretch +her long legs to the old stride. Something happened to her breathing, +all the blood seemed to go to her head and a blackness came before her +eyes, so that once or twice she had been obliged like any weakling +Parisian to lean against a wall or table till the roaring in her ears +stopped and the dull heavy fullness in her head subsided. But Jeanne +despised people who gave way to little notions like that, and had no +intention of putting on any such airs. Certainly not now, when Marise's +welfare was at stake. + +Of course she must make her prayer for her darling's success, and set a +candle burning before Our Lady. The easy way to do this was to step up +the street to the Cathedral but Jeanne did not care for the Cathedral, +where all the heretic tourists from Biarritz went to stare, and which +was as big and bare as the waiting-room of a railway station. How could +Our Lady notice one little candle or one old woman there! No, Jeanne was +set on lighting her candle in her own half-ruined, dark Church of the +Holy Ghost, where the Basques go on pilgrimages to pray before the holy +"Flight into Egypt." Our Lady of the Saint-Esprit had already performed +many miracles for good Basques.... Oh, for a miracle now! + +She began to pray as swiftly and violently as she walked, "Blessed +Mother of God, be with her this afternoon! Holy Infant Jesus! Help her! +Blessed little Saint Theresa, help my darling!" + +She cast herself so vehemently into her supplications that she felt her +heart blazing like a torch. She soared high out of her body. She was +swinging along through space among the clouds, wrestling with the +Saints, clinging to their knees, dominating them by the fury of her +prayers.... No, they would not _dare_ refuse her.... She would not give +them an instant's peace...! + +"Blessed St. Cecilia, stand at her side! Oh, most Holy Mother of God, +guide her fingers...!" + + * * * * * + +"... a way out into life? How could she find it? Other people did ... +women in books...." Flora Allen's eyes moving slowly about the room fell +on a photograph of the South Portal of the Bayonne Cathedral. It was +framed in dark wood with a little Gothic arch at the top. It made her +sick to look at it. How much trouble she had taken to get that +photograph and to find the frame that would suit it. How eagerly she had +hung it on the wall; and then had turned round to find it had made no +difference in her life, or in any one's life. She looked at it now, her +pretty lips set bitterly. What an idiot she had been! What difference +_could_ it have made? What had she ever thought it could do for her, she +and the other women of Belton, everlastingly studying something or +other, going after culture with such eagerness, bringing it home, +hanging it on the wall, and turning round to find it had changed +nothing, nothing. How silly they were! Nobody over here cared anything +for "culture" or art, or sculptures--except badly-dressed, queer people +with socialistic ideas, like Marise's music-teacher. + +And they were right not to care. What was there in it for any one? What +could she ever have thought there was? What earthly difference did the +sculptures on the South Portal make to her, Flora Allen, driven along +through life, without getting out of it a single one of the things women +really wanted? What good did it do any one to go and gape at the +paintings in the Museum, most of them ugly, and all of them as dead as +dead? When what you wanted was to be alive! To have gaiety and sparkle +and cheerfulness in your life, not to vegetate and mold like the +primitive lower forms of life around you, like Isabelle; not to dry and +harden and become a mere block of wood like old Jeanne! + +There was nothing unreasonable in not wanting to shrivel and stagnate. +It was _right_ to want to have an ardent life, full and deep, that +carried you out of yourself. + +But in her life, as by a fatality, there were never any occasions for +emotion, for fresh, living sensations. Nothing ever happened to her that +_could_ stir her to anything but petulance and boredom--nothing! +nothing! If anything seemed to promise to--why, Fate always cut it +short. Those wonderful afternoons when Sister Ste. Lucie had taken her +to the convent to talk to Father Elie! From the first of her Bayonne +life she had felt it very romantic to know real Catholics, who used +holy-water and believed in saints, and she had loved to go round with +Sister Ste. Lucie in her long black gown and frilled white coif, just +like a picture out of a book. But this was different. When the dark, +gaunt, hollow-eyed, old missionary-priest had given her one somber look +and made the sign of the cross over her, she had felt her heart begin to +beat faster. And as he talked to her afterwards, in the bare, +white-washed parlor of the convent, with the light filtering in through +the closed shutters, he had made her tremble with excitement, as he +himself had trembled throughout all his thin powerful old body. His +deep-set eyes had burned into her, as he talked, his emaciated fingers, +scorched brown by tropical suns, shook as he touched the Crucifix. How +he had yearned over her as he told her that, never, never would she know +what it really was to live, till she cast out her stubborn unbelief and +threw herself into the living arms of her true Mother, the Church of +God. Flora had not known that she had any belief in particular to cast +out ... she had never thought anything special about religion at all, +one way or the other. She only wanted him to go on making her tremble +and feel half-faint, while Sister Ste. Lucie clasped her rosary beads +and prayed silently, the tears on her cheeks! And then the very next day +the Father Superior of his Order had sent him off to Africa. Would he +ever come back? + +Perhaps she _could_ become a Catholic. Why not? If it moved you like +this just to be in contact with the Church--what must it bring you to be +intimately of it? She remembered that in a book Sister Ste. Lucie had +given her, stories were told of women who lost consciousness from sheer +emotion, when they felt the consecrated wafer of Communion on their +tongues; others who were caught up among the saints for hours, hearing +heavenly music and when they came to themselves, the room was all +scented richly with invisible roses.... + +Also, without a word spoken she thought she had understood that the +Marquise de Charmieres and all that old aristocratic set would not be so +stand-offish if she were converted. + +But as this last idea slid into her mind from behind something else, +there came with it as frighteningly as if she had seen the walls of her +stone corridor closing in on her, a doubt that cast a stale sallow +reflection on all her thoughts;--suppose she were really taken up by the +Marquise and all the old aristocratic set, _would things be any +different then_? Mightn't that, too, be just something else she had gone +out after and brought home and hung on the wall, only to find that it +changed nothing? She turned away from this idea, cold and frightened at +all it implied ... that life was not deep at all, anywhere, but a +shallow mud-hole, and that she had sunk far enough down to touch the +bottom. + + * * * * * + +She heard now the uneven clattering jangle of the bell, heard Isabelle +come out of the bed-room and go down the tile-paved corridor. Her +sandals dragged at the heel as they always did in the morning before she +put on her street shoes. That slatternly flap and drag of Isabelle's +sandals made her mistress sick. She had spoken about them a thousand +times. She had come to have a nervous hatred of the sound, had actually +flown into rages over it, stamping and shrieking at Isabelle as she +despised French housekeepers for doing. But how much impression had she +made? For one morning, perhaps two, Isabelle laced up her early morning +foot-gear, and after that she always forgot, slid back, flop, scuff, +flop. That was the sort of sandals all the chambermaids in Bayonne wore +for the first cleaning of the morning; that was the kind they always had +worn; the American mistress might as well make up her mind to the fact +that that was the kind they always would wear. There was about this +trivial matter of the sandals, the same nightmare quality of passive, +inert resistance to the idea of any change, which sagged smotheringly +down on Flora Allen everywhere she turned in her French life. They +called it stability. She and her friends in Belton had called it a +"background of tradition." + +And yet she knew herself now incapable of going back to live in Belton +where she would not be able always to depend on an Isabelle, where at +times she would have to sweep her own rooms, and scour her own greasy +pots herself. It made her sick to think of living that way again--nobody +to bring her breakfast in the morning! To get up in a cold house with +all the responsibility for everything on her shoulders. She felt weak +at the thought of it. + +Isabelle scuffed in, the mail in one rough, strong, red hand, and +flapped back to her cleaning. This time her mistress made no comment on +her laceless sandals. + +What might there be in the mail? Nothing interesting, that she knew +beforehand. She turned the letters over, recognizing from their very +aspect the flatness of their contents. A letter from America? Oh, yes, +only from Horace's old Cousin Hetty, for Marise. How she did keep up +that correspondence! Did she suppose for a minute that any child could +go on remembering some one she hadn't seen for four years, especially a +child like Marise, so self-centered and absorbed in her own life, caring +really about nothing but her music. + +A bill for Marise's school for the last quarter--to be put with Horace's +mail; a circular from that something-or-other society Mlle. Hasparren +was always fussing over, trying to raise money to keep some quartet +running in Bayonne; a bill from the dressmaker; another circular--oh, as +bad as Mlle. Hasparren's, that association with the long name, that took +care of foundling babies--they were always wanting money too! A notice +from the school, another bill? No, the announcement of the music-contest +that afternoon. Heavens! Never again for her! Once was enough, to sit +silently all a long afternoon on a teetering folding chair in the midst +of stodgy, dowdy mothers, whose boring eyes saw right through the fabric +of your dress to the safety-pin with which you had replaced a missing +petticoat button, and who had no more interest in the music banged out +by the schoolgirls than you had, except to wish ill to every child not +their own. + +There was one letter, addressed to her in the pointed, fine convent +handwriting of Soeur Ste. Lucie. She opened this with more interest. Ah, +Father Elie was coming back. And wished to see her to-morrow afternoon. +She felt a little stir of her pulse, the first in so long. What dress +would she wear to the convent? Her black voile--and the little +close-fitting hat? + +Still thinking of this she turned from the letters to the printed +matter. There were a couple of battered, out-of-date New York +newspapers, weary with their long traveling, and the deadly little +Bayonne paper, with its high-flown, pious articles, and its nasty hints +at scandals. She stood leaning against the table, looking down +scornfully at it, till her eye caught a name, and her face changed. + +Mme. Garnier's son back from his two year stay in New York, where he had +been studying American business methods.... + +Flora Allen looked up quickly at her pretty blonde smiling reflection in +the mirror, turning her head to get the three-quarter view which was her +favorite. So he was back, was he? So he was back. His dear mama must +have decided that he was now old enough to protect himself from +golden-haired American ladies. So he was coming back to perch on the +front edge of his chair and look volumes out of those great soft eyes of +his that were so shy and yet could be so expressive. He was coming back +to be so nervous and moved that his shaking fingers could not hold his +tea-cup, and yet so persistent that he came week after week whenever she +was at home to visitors; so timid that he hadn't a word to say for +himself but so bold that he often spent the entire evening, romantically +sitting on the bench across the way, staring up at her windows. + +He was coming back after his exile in America, was he? And two years +older. Well, we would see what we would see. And in the meantime Father +Elie could wait. + +She had a singular little smile on her lips, as she turned from this +item to a card from Horace, saying that business would keep him longer +in Bordeaux than he had thought and he would not be back till a week +from Saturday. She tossed this card with the letters on the table, and +began to turn over the canary-colored books scattered on her desk. No, +the volume was not there. She must have put it back long ago in the +book-case. She ran her finger along the titles on a shelf near her, +found it, pulled it out. With it in her hand she sank down on the +chaise-longue. But before she began to read, she sat for a moment, her +lips curved, remembering what was in it, and remembering how more than +two years ago she had looked up from it to see Jean-Pierre Garnier for +the first time. Yes.... + +She opened the book, fluttered the pages, read a little here and there; +and then, as if slowly drawn by an undertow, sank into the book, with a +long breath. + +After a time Jeanne let herself in, stood for an instant in the door, +despising her mistress, and passed on to Marise's room. But the +novel-reader heard nothing, drowned deep in the book, reading very +slowly, her eyes dwelling long on every word. "... I wakened, thinking I +heard my name called, slipped out of bed and went to the window. The +moon poured liquid silver upon the garden, and there in the midst of it +stood Urbain, slim and young as a lady's page, his soft eyes glittering +like jewels. With a bound he leaped up towards me, and found a foot-hold +on the rough stones of the old wall, so that he stood beside me with +only the low window-sill between us. He took my hand in his. He was +trembling like a leaf. He looked at me imploringly." + +"'Go! Go! Urbain!' I whispered, trying to steel my heart against his +youth and ardor, 'Go, I am like an old woman to thee, a mere child.' His +answer was to put one trembling arm around my bare shoulders and gently +lay his velvet cheek upon my breast. I felt myself melting, melting in a +delicious languor. After all, why not? Where would the dear boy find a +more devoted and delicate initiation into life.... Think into whose +hands he might fall if I repulsed him! + +"He raised his face adoringly to mine, drew me down to his lips ... his +young, firm lips ... sweet as the petals of a rose ... perfumed with +youth. I closed my eyes...." + +The only break in the intense immobility of the reader was that +occasionally she moistened her lips with her tongue, and once in a while +she drew a long, sighing breath. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +"There!" said Madame Garnier, scanning the chair-filled assembly-room +from the back, "up there in the second row there are three seats. We can +take two and hold one and perhaps after Danielle has played, she can +come and sit by us." + +They were in plenty of time, long before the contest began, so that she +gave herself the pleasure of walking slowly down the aisle, stopping +wherever she saw a familiar face to exchange greetings and to say +proudly, "Yes, Jean-Pierre is returned from America. Looking very well, +isn't he? Yes, that's the style in America, neither beard nor mustache. +But I think after a while he'll let his mustache grow again. I tell him +he looks like a priest." + +But she did not think that he looked in the least like a priest. She +thought him the most beautiful young man in the world, and she was so +ecstatically happy to have him back again after the rending anguish of +the two years' separation, that she forgave him all the anxiety he had +caused them by that foolish infatuation of his. That was in the past +now, she hoped. Perhaps he had outgrown his foolish idea, as they had +hoped he might when they had sent him away. He had certainly said +nothing about it in any of his letters. But even if he hadn't forgotten, +if he but knew it, she was more than ready to yield the point to him, to +yield anything that would end his alienation from her, that would bring +him back to live in Bayonne. She had grown old during those two endless +years. They had broken her resolution. He was too precious. She could +deny him nothing. If he still wanted it, why, let him _have_ his little +American girl, as soon as she was old enough to marry. She might be made +over into a passable wife for Jean-Pierre. There was no doubt she was +pretty and fine, with nice hands and feet; and she seemed gentle and +quiet. Once get her away from those impossible parents, into a decent +home...! + +Her heart was rippling full with joy to feel Jean-Pierre there beside +her. At times it overflowed, and she all but opened her lips to tell him +she would sacrifice anything for him, that she would put no obstacle in +his way. But for the moment a prudent thought restrained her. She would +wait and see whether perhaps Jean-Pierre had not forgotten that curious +infatuation with a mere child. There was no use putting the idea back in +his head, if his exile and two years' time had blotted it out. + +They sat in a decorous silence, waiting for the beginning of the +program. Madame Garnier moved nearer to Jean-Pierre, for the pleasure of +feeling his arm, a man's arm now, inside a very well-cut masculine +coat-sleeve. She remembered what it had been, the rosy translucent flesh +of her first baby, then the little thin, white arm of his long ailing +boyhood--how she had fought with ill-health to keep him--all those +years, never an instant's relaxation of her care, her prayers, her +piercing anxiety! Oh, well, it was all over now. There he sat, a +splendid young man, still a little delicate, but sound and well. Her +reward had come. How goldenly the years stretched out before her! +Perhaps it was just as well to have him marry young, to have his wife +come to him intact in the first bloom of her early girlhood. He himself +was so unworldly, he would never be able to manage an older woman. A +fleeting picture came to her of a rosy baby's face--Jean-Pierre's first +child. The thought flooded over her, rich with pride and joy. + +She continued to gaze at a certain spot in the curtain, her face framed +in her heavy velvet hat, composed in decorous vacancy. + + * * * * * + +Beside her Jean-Pierre also fixed his eyes on a certain spot in the +curtain, and composed his face to quiet. But he was afraid of the +silence. He wished his mother had gone on chatting, or that they had sat +down near acquaintances with whom he would have been forced to talk. +Then he would not have been so conscious of the dryness of his mouth, of +the roaring of his pulse in his ears. He stared hard at the curtain, +trying to interest his eyes in the design of the tapestry. But they +could see nothing but what they had seen for two years, liquid dark eyes +looking straight into his heart, his poor heart that he could not hide +from them; dark eyes that seemed to be looking wistfully for something +they did not find, something that he knew he could give, something that +he longed to give with such an abandon of desire that he felt now, as so +many times before, the sweat start out on his forehead. + +He shifted his position, folded his arms, looked away from the curtain +and down at the floor. Come, come, this was becoming nothing more than a +fixed idea, a mania! It was idiocy to let it master him so! Good God, +what had she been but a little girl! What was she now but a little girl! +A girl of fifteen was no more than a child. His heart sprang up at him +with a tiger's leap--"only three more years to wait--perhaps only two +more--." He frowned, cleared his throat, and taking his handkerchief out +of his pocket, passed it across his lips. + +And then she might be totally changed by this time; girls often did +change. Suppose she had grown very stout--or were gawkily thin like his +sister Danielle, or bold and forward, or dull. He rolled himself in the +hair-shirt of all the possible changes for the worse, and felt his +passion burn hotter. Well, he would see. In a few moments he would see. +He looked at his watch. + +"It must soon begin," said his mother anxiously, leaning towards him, +evidently fearing that the delay might bore him. + +He smiled at her reassuringly, and put his watch back. Dear Maman! How +she did spoil him! How he had missed her, missed his home, those two +years in America. He thought of the boarding-house on 59th Street with a +qualm. How good it was to get back to a real home. + +But there were fine things in America, too, even if they did not know +how to create real homes, even if the men did not know how to love their +mothers, or cherish their wives. He had learned a great deal there, a +great deal even beyond the revelation of new business methods. What he +had learned commercially was enormous! He faced his future here in +France, sure of success. + +But he had taken in other things too--he was thankful that he had been +to Marise's native country and had learned something about the attitude +towards women there--not that he would ever, ever treat Marise as +American wives were treated, with that rough-and-ready, cowboy lack of +ceremony, nor would he ever neglect her, leave her out of his life, as +American husbands did. He would know how to combine the American honesty +and sincerity with what no American ever felt or showed, with what no +American woman ever experienced--tenderness, cherishing tenderness. He +would be tender for Marise as no other human being could be; he would +find the most exquisite ways to surround her with tenderness, to protect +that sweet mouth of hers from bitterness or sorrow, or knowledge of the +world's evil. + +He looked down steadily at the floor, a knot in his throat, his heart +aching, and swallowed hard. + + * * * * * + +Three wooden thumps sounded from the platform, and the curtain drew +itself aside, showing the stage decorated with a stand, two potted +palms, an armchair, and a sprawling black grand piano with two +cane-bottomed chairs before it. + +From the wings trudged in a red-cheeked young girl, with a large bust, +and brawny rough arms, hanging down over her starched white dress. +Behind her trotted a short withered elderly woman, a black silk waist +crossed over her flat chest, her scanty gray hair smoothed down in thin +bandeaux over her ears. They sat down before the piano, opened the +music, carried by the older woman, waited till she had adjusted drooping +eye-glasses on her high thin nose, and had peeringly found her place. +Then the young girl began to pound out the Raindrop Prelude while the +other turned over the pages. + +The audience preserved a respectful silence, bestowing a minute +attention on the hang of the player's skirt, the fit of her bodice, the +crimped waves of her light brown hair, her over-plump hands, and the +bulging patent-leather shoes, which she pressed nervously up and down on +the pedals. + +Something seemed to break and clear away in Jean-Pierre's head, like +fumes drifting away from a shattered retort. So this was a school-girl, +this solid, unformed lump of human flesh, neither child nor woman, who +had lost a child's poetry and had not yet come to woman's seductiveness. +He looked coolly at the girl (his mother whispered her name, the younger +sister of a lycee friend of his), dissecting her with his eyes, +immeasurably relieved. Was it for an amorphous creature like this, too +old to kiss on the cheek, too young to kiss on the mouth, that he had +suffered? Why, it was nothing; a mere morbid whim of his ignorant +boyhood. How right Maman had been in making Papa send him away from it! +He had grown to be a man without realizing it, a man of the world, in no +danger of losing his head over chits. + +The Prelude was finished. The player got to her feet, and bowed +self-consciously to the muted thuddings of gloved palms on gloved palms +which greeted the cessation of her activities. She got herself off the +stage, walking heavily in her too-tight slippers. Jean-Pierre, who sat +at one side could see a little behind the scenes and observed that as +soon as she thought she was out of sight of the audience, she gave way +to childish relief that the ordeal was over, and skipped forward, +running. He suppressed a supercilious smile of aesthetic scorn. Her body, +as large and heavy as a woman's, no longer expressed the impulses of the +child she still was. She skipped clumsily, with an inelastic energy of +gesture like a cow capering in a spring-time pasture. Jean-Pierre felt +the keenest pleasure in his ruthless perception of her lack of grace. +This was emancipation! + +"She plays very nicely," murmured his mother, on the general chance that +some member of her family might be sitting within earshot. + +"Yes, very agreeably," he concurred. + +Neither of them had heard a note of the music. + +They continued to sit in decorous silence, looking with vacant faces +straight before them, till the next performer appeared. This was Elise +Fortier, whom they were both prepared to detest because of her father +and mother and brother. They did detest her, everything about her from +her thin, dry hair, frizzed out to imitate abundance, to her shifty eyes +exactly like her mother's, from her stooping shoulders, to her long bony +hands, which clattered out loudly the Schubert Marche Militaire. When +she had finished, "Really quite a talent," observed Mme. Garnier taking +pains to be audible; and, "Remarkable for her age," agreed Jean-Pierre. + +He was relaxing morally, in an inexpressible ease at finding his head +clear, his heart at rest. To own yourself, to look at life from behind a +stout wall of critical cynicism--it was to be in safety at last! He +barely glanced at the next player, a nondescript, precocious child, who +murdered a Moment Musical, her short thin legs dangling from the stool. +And the next, the one who played the Liebestraum, a tall young lady with +the self-admiring graces and manners of an opera singer on the concert +platform. He looked at his watch again and wondered how long it would be +before the stupid school performance would be over, and he could get +away for an aperitif at the Cafe du Grand Bouleau on the Place d'Armes +and an evening with---- + +He saw that another player was coming forward, a slim tall girl with +thick shining dark hair held back by a white ribbon like the others. She +stood for an instant to bow to the audience before sitting down at the +piano, and he could look up full into her unconscious face, gazing out +over his head impersonally with shy, liquid, dark eyes. She was +breathing a little rapidly, her young breast rising and falling under +the filmy white of her dress. A timid propitiatory smile curved her +sensitive mouth and arched her long, finely-drawn eyebrows. + +Not a muscle of Jean-Pierre's face changed; every line of his careless, +confident attitude froze taut as it was. And underneath this motionless +exterior, he felt his heart hotly, joyfully weeping in a passion of +thanksgiving, like a frightened lost child who has come into the right +way. He lost all sense of connection with his body and yearning, +worshipping, clamoring, imperiously calling, humbly beseeching, he gazed +out from the bars of his immobile, well-dressed external self at the +girl sitting before the piano. Two years, two long years of exile, how +could life ever make up to him for those two lost years? How he had +starved! His famished eyes fed ravenously on what they saw, the supple, +elastic slimness of the young body, the fine, thin ankle and shapely +foot, the creamy forearm, the agile, strong, white fingers, so bravely +flinging out harmonies beyond the comprehension of the smooth broad +brow, inviolate, intact, innocent, ignorant, which bent its full child's +curve over the keys. + +Jean-Pierre looked and looked, prostrating himself in awe before the +revelation of divine, stainless youth. Never till that moment, he told +himself, had he understood the meaning of the holy word, virgin. + +And he had thought, those two long years, that he had always held her +before his eyes! He had remembered nothing, nothing of what she was. +Yet, how could he have divined what she was becoming--that mouth, her +pure girl's mouth, cleanly drawn in scarlet against the flower-like +flesh perfumed with youth. Would he--would he know the first cool touch +of those young lips ... he found that he could see her no more, for a +mist before his eyes, and yet he continued to strain his eyes through +the mist towards where she sat. + +Some one touched him on the arm. It was Maman--Maman who looked at him +in tender sympathy. As their glance met, she smiled at him, and nodded +her head once, reassuringly. She looked as she had when he was a little +boy, and she had yielded at last to some desperately held whim of his. +Dearest Maman! It was a promise she gave him silently, a promise to help +him towards his happiness. She too had succumbed to Marise. Who would +not? He pressed her hand gently, and smiled in return. A calm peace came +upon him. + + * * * * * + +Madame Garnier knew very well beforehand when the little American girl +was to come on the program, and after that ill-bred, over-dressed Yvonne +Bredier had wriggled and grinned her way off the stage, she felt an +anxious, nervous expectation. Jean-Pierre had no idea what was coming. +She could feel that. Although she dared not change her position to look +at him, she was acutely aware of the relaxed careless pose of his body, +and of the nonchalant turn of his head as he glanced at the girl who now +came forward on the stage. + +And then she felt with that sixth sense of her passion for Jean-Pierre +that he had been struck, had been pierced, as though a knife had thrust +him through and through. Although he had not moved--because he had not +moved, had not changed a line of his careless attitude, she divined that +he had been stricken into immobility. What was it? Was it the shock of +disillusion, of disappointment at prosaic reality after a long, romantic +dream? Or did he still find in the girl whatever strange sorcery had so +bewitched his boyish fancy? + +She herself sat as stiffly motionless as he, suffering so exquisite a +torture of suspense that she dared not bring herself to end it by a look +at his face. + +Some one back of her coughed, and the sound broke the spell. She drew a +long breath and resolutely turned her head towards her son. + +"Oh, my Jean-Pierre, oh, my little boy! is it so you feel? Oh, my +darling, do you want her, do you want anything in the world like that? +My little boy, a man! To think that it is my little boy, thus burning +with a man's desire! Oh, yes, Jean-Pierre, you shall have her ... what +is your mother for but to help you have what you want? Oh, poor boy, +poor boy, to look at any woman so.... Oh, Jean-Pierre, if you knew +women, how they only live to fool men ... no woman on earth is +worth...." + +She saw now that his flaming young eyes were veiled with tears. She +touched his arm, she smiled at him, closer to him than since his early +childhood. And he took her hand, he smiled back, he looked at her as he +had not once since his infatuation began--like her son, her only son +once more letting her into his heart. She held tightly to his hand, now +happy and at peace. + +Thus together, hand in hand, they were looking up at the stage when the +girl struck the final chord, and rising, turned once more towards the +front to make her bow in acknowledgment of the applause. The excitement, +the effort, had brought a shell-like color into her subtly modeled +cheeks. Once more she looked out into the audience impersonally and +then, as she turned to go, unconsciously drawn by the intense gaze of +the couple in the second row, her dark eyes dropped to them for an +instant's glance of friendly recognition. Madame Garnier felt her son +draw a sudden, gasping breath through half-open lips and tighten his +hold on her hand. + +During the rest of the program her thoughts and plans rose in a busy +circling swarm. After all, there were advantages. It might be much +worse! Impressionable, sensitive, inexperienced as Jean-Pierre was, it +might very well have been some mature married woman in search of a new +sensation who had thus caught his first young passion. Or even not his +passion at all. Even if he himself had felt nothing, any woman could +have victimized him by working on that foolish sensibility of his. If +she could make him think--and his mother always had a scared sense of +how easy that would be--that she was in love with him, he would never +know how to retreat, as more brutal men knew so well how to do. She had +always been afraid of some such entanglement as that, in which +Jean-Pierre's weakness (in her heart she called it plainly that, and not +chivalry or sensibility) would make him a helpless victim of a woman +either an old fool herself or a calculating sensualist. Heavens! How +many dangers there were in the world for one's son! And sons could not +be guarded like daughters, by keeping them under your thumb. There were +also, for such a romantic, unworldly boy as Jean-Pierre, all the +variations on the Camille theme. How easily some shrewd woman of the +demi-monde could have pulled the wool over his eyes! Madame Garnier had +no doubts that Jean-Pierre knew such women. Her son was a man like all +other men, for all his poetic, high-strung ideas, and had certainly had +his part of an ordinary man's life, especially those last two years away +from home, irresponsible and alone. Oh, yes, the more she thought +shudderingly of the dangers he had escaped, the more harmless appeared +this fancy for a school girl. And if his fancy was to light on a young +girl, in some ways it was more convenient to have her a foreigner with +no family, so to speak, rather than a girl of Bayonne society, whose +family would expect to have much to say about all the arrangements of +Jean-Pierre's life. Heavens! suppose it had been Elise Fortier--think of +Jean-Pierre saddled with Madame Fortier as a mother-in-law! Not that +that worthless idle American mother-in-law was much better; except that +those people _must_ go back to America some time! Everybody did go back +to his native country ultimately. And too, she was a weak, foolish thing +who would never have the force to make trouble. Look at the way she let +herself be run by her servants. Also, until now, she had paid precious +little attention to her daughter; there was no reason to think she would +develop any more interest in her later on. And the child herself seemed +malleable material. There was no doubt she would be a pretty woman, and +marrying very young, she would certainly assimilate the standards of the +Garnier family. + +When the concert was over, she said to Jean-Pierre, "If you like, we +will wait till the girls come out, and walk home with Danielle and her +classmates." As she spoke she nodded to old Jeanne Amigorena, the cook +in the American family, who stood there, also waiting, her young +mistress' cloak and hat on her arm. It occurred to her that one of the +first things to do would be to eliminate that servant. She probably knew +altogether too much about Marise's family. It would not be prudent to +have her around a young menage; and anyhow, old servants were an +intolerable nuisance with their airs of belonging to the family. + + * * * * * + +Behind the scenes where the girls were waiting for the concert to begin, +there had been a deal of giggling and whispering and rustling. +Mademoiselle Vivier, chosen to turn the pages for the players because +she was so severe it was thought she could keep them in order, was +"gend'arming around" as the girls called it, pouncing on one group for +laughing too loud, and on another for making too much noise as they +executed grotesque caricatures of the way they intended to make their +entries on the stage. The moment her back was turned, they whispered +and giggled and pranced more wildly than ever, turning deep bows into +pirouettes, shaking out their full skirts and whirling about like +dervishes. Everybody took care to lose her music and get it all mixed up +with everybody's else, just to see Mlle. Vivier go into the air. + +"Here's that missing sheet from your Schubert, Marguerite! Oh, no, it's +Gabrielle's Chopin!" + +"Oh, all the scherzo pages have gone from my Delibes!" + +"Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle, I feel so faint, I don't believe I _can_ +play." + +"Oh, Mademoiselle, I forgot to bring my--oh, yes, here it is, right +under Danielle! Get up, Danielle! Get up! _Mademoiselle!_ Danielle +Garnier won't get off my music! Oh, Mademoiselle, can't I play my +Nocturne instead of the Autumn Leaves! I _feel_ like a nocturne; just +ready to go to sleep." + +Poor Mademoiselle Vivier, single-handed as she was, grew more and more +frantic, rushing about, a dark red flush on her thin face, crying, "Sh, +_sh_!" much more loudly than the girls were whispering, exhorting them +angrily to have some manners, not to behave like so many barbarians, and +to realize the seriousness of the occasion, the Gambert music prize at +stake! + +But one of those flint-like school traditions originating God only knows +how, and utterly impervious to exhortations from any faculty, decreed in +that school that the Gambert music prize was a joke, a scream of a joke. +The girls would kill themselves with work and worry to win any other +prize, for dramatic recitation, for dancing, even for French +composition, much as they hated that, but care who won the music prize +they would not; although, of course, it was exciting to have no classes +that afternoon, to wear your best white dress and parade out on the +stage. They had handed down from one school generation to another the +fixed idea that M. Gambert had been short, red-faced and ridiculously +fat, and they enraged their teachers by drawing on the margins of their +music, impudent sketches of a paunchy, bald little man ceremoniously +bestowing a huge wreath on a knock-kneed, scrawny girl. Whereas, as a +matter of historic fact, M. Gambert had been a very good-looking +bourgeois, who in his youth had been a dashing lieutenant under Napoleon +I. Also the Gambert prize was not a wreath at all but an album of piano +music, beautifully bound in bright red leather, which, because the +Mother Superior feared arousing the vanity of the winner, was privately +bestowed behind the scenes. But historic facts have no bearing on a +cherished school joke of long standing. For the girls, the Gambert prize +continued always to be one gigantic lark, one of those perennial farces, +the indestructible quality of which so endears them to fourteen and +fifteen year olds. + +This year they had a new variation on their usual fooleries. Elise +Fortier told them that her grown-up young lady cousin had discovered +something as good as the rouge which was so strictly forbidden to them +by the Sisters, that its very name was not allowed to be pronounced in +school. If you bent over double and hung your head upside down, way +over, thus, till it was on the same level with your knees, and held it +there till you felt as though you'd burst, you'd have the loveliest +color in your cheeks, just like an actress. + +Of course they all wanted to look like actresses. What could be more +delightful than to look like an actress! + +In an instant the horrified Mademoiselle Vivier was treated to an +appalling spectacle. All of her charges utterly forgetting their manners +or even decency, were stooping double, their full starched skirts +sticking out at acute angles behind, and to the tune of muffled shrieks +of laughter were dangling and shaking their heads, like so many +lunatics, their carefully dressed hair sweeping the floor. She rushed at +the nearest one, Marise Allen, and forced her back to an upright +position. But this did not improve things. When Marise caught a glimpse +of the others, like great white mushrooms, stooping and shaking, she +burst out into anything but a muffled shout of laughter, which brought +them all up, one after another, to gaze and scream, and lean, convulsed +and hysterical, against the walls. + +It was a critical moment. The curtain was due to go up, and the girls +were really out of hand. Mademoiselle Vivier could do nothing with them. +They had lost control of themselves; her experienced eye knew the +signs. In a moment more, one of the more high-strung ones would begin to +cry and then.... Good God! what a mess! What diabolically infernal +creatures girls were to handle! How sick she was of their imbecility! + +She ran hastily around to the side door and beckoning in the Mother +Superior told her what was happening. The nun nodded understandingly, +meditated for an instant, casting about in her mind, and then, her aged +face taking on an expression of majestic calm, she swept back to the +little room behind the stage. The girls were startled to see her and +alarmed by the intense gravity of her face. + +"My children," she said quietly in the clear, gentle, masterful voice +which had kept the Community in whole-hearted subservience to her for +thirty years, "my children." She bent her wasted old face on them, +raising one thin white hand, peremptorily. Her long flowing black sleeve +gave a commanding amplitude to this gesture. "My little children, lift +up your hearts...." She waited an instant, till she held every eye, and +then she said reverently, "My children, at every important moment of our +lives we must turn to Our Very Holy Mother, to bless us. Before you go +on the stage to-day, to represent your school in public, and to do honor +to music, which God has blessed as an instrument of good, let us pray +Our Mother to be with you, and guide you." + +She bowed her head. Hypnotically, all the young heads bowed with hers. +She began in a low murmur, "Ave Maria, sancta tu in mulieribus...." All +the young voices murmured with her, discharging in the reverenced words, +the nervous tension of their excitement and frolic. When they finished, +they were all quiet, with serious faces. The Mother Superior raised her +hand over them, murmuring a short, inaudible prayer of her own. There +was an instant's silence. + +"Go tell Mathurin to raise the curtain," said the Reverend Mother +hurriedly in a low tone to Mademoiselle Vivier; a command which +Mademoiselle Vivier lost no time in executing. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Marise had noticed as she left the stage, that Madame Garnier was there +with her son,--oh, yes, Danielle _had_ said her brother was back from +America. Now he'd be tagging around everywhere, tied to his mother's +apron-strings, as Papa said all young Frenchmen were. Yes, they were +holding hands this minute. How Papa would laugh to see that, as much as +he did when Frenchmen with beards kissed each other. And now he'd be +everlastingly coming in with his tiresome mother on Maman's days at +home, to fidget and stammer and drop his teaspoon. Oh, well, she thought +with a superior condescension, he had been hardly more than a boy, just +out of the lycee, only twenty-one. He might be better now. Perhaps he +had got rid of a little of his shyness in New York; although +twenty-three, for a _man_, was of course no age at all. + +The fashion at school just then, was to look down on boys and young men +as green and insipid. The ideal of all the girls was an _old_ man of +forty, with white hair, and black eyebrows, a little pointed gray beard, +and such sad, sad eyes! Every girl was waiting for such a chance to +devote herself to healing the wounds made by other women, faithless, +heartless creatures who had ravaged his youth and destroyed his faith. +To prove to him what a woman's fidelity and love could be, and then die +in his remorseful arms, of slow consumption brought on by his +neglect...! Or, as the pious ones had it, to bring him back to the +Church, and have him become a monk after your death. Or, perhaps, as +some of the more dramatic ones imagined the matter, to find a plot +against his life, and to sacrifice yourself to defeat it, throwing back +at the last moment the hood of your long dark cloak, and showing a +beautiful white satin gown, stained with your heart's blood, as you +gasped out, "For you, for you, adored Rene." + +The books from which the girls got these ideas, and many others not so +harmless, were kept in a hole hidden behind a big loose stone in the end +wall of the school garden. Though they were religiously wrapped in +oil-cloth, the damp did more or less penetrate. But spots of green mold +and limp damp pages which tore unless you held your breath as you turned +them, only added to their charm as you read them, two or three heads +bent over the page, while a friend kept guard at the turn of the path by +the magnolia tree. + +Marise had read them with the others, and although neither Father nor +Maman paid the slightest attention to what she read, and there were lots +of places in Maman's novels ever so much worse than these, she naturally +felt an agreeable thrill at the thought of what an explosion there would +be if they were ever discovered, reading love-stories at school. It was +the fashion with the girls to do it. So she did, and as dramatically as +any of the others. But far down, deep under all this, was a hermetically +sealed chamber where she kept a secret disgust for the whole subject of +falling in love, a secret distaste for men, old or young, and a +furiously held determination never to have anything to do with them. It +was all very well to carry on against the rules and to play-act with the +girls about something in a book, but the faintest approach of the same +thing in reality, froze her stiff with indignation and repugnance. When, +walking on the street with Jeanne, some well-dressed young man cast a +glance of admiration at her, or some half-tipsy workman called out a +rough compliment she shrank away from them, hating them and herself; a +feeling which old Jeanne zealously fostered. + +She did not often think about the gray cat now, but she had never +forgotten it, and she had picked up a great deal more information than +she had had, about what made people like Isabelle snigger and grin, when +there was talk of getting a husband. She intensely loathed all that she +had seen and learned, whether it were the shocked, nauseated expression +on the face of one of the older nuns at school, when she forbade any +talk among the girls over the gossip that one of the kitchen-girls had +let a young man into the kitchen at midnight; or a passage in one of +Maman's novels, which she had found lying open on the salon table, and +read before she could stop herself. Every such experience was like a +blow on a bruised spot, deep under the surface of her life, which was so +sore now that it ached at the slightest touch, ached and made her sick. +She had learned that she must protect it at all costs, and she fought +off blindly whatever seemed to threaten it, fought it off with +indignation, with brusqueness, with stiffness, with silence, using any +weapon she could snatch up. At school, if she found a group of older +girls with their heads together, and a certain expression on their +faces, the weapon was often simply to run away into another part of the +playground. "I can run away faster than they can run after me!" she told +herself, fleeing away to where the little girls were playing hop-scotch +and "chat-perche." + +There were times of course when you couldn't run away literally, but +Marise had other methods of running away, the best one being a sudden +change of subject--"Oh, Isabelle, your chignon is coming untied!" or +"Gabrielle, isn't Sister Ste. Marie coming down the hall?" "Jeanne, +you're pulling my hair!" + +And she had found, too, that to head people off from beginning on the +sort of thing you had to run away from, there was no better device than +lively spirits. If you kept joking and laughing and carrying on, the +girls didn't have time to lower their voices, look over their shoulders +and begin to talk with their faces close to yours. + +She was still flushed from laughing and talking and carrying on, when +she emerged from the side-stairs into the half empty assembly-room, +looking for her wraps, and saw beside Jeanne, Mme. Garnier and her son +evidently waiting for Danielle, for Mme. Garnier had Danielle's hat and +cloak on her arm. "Oh, zut! What a bore!" She'd have to speak to them; +the young man would fidget and make her nervous, and she did think Mme. +Garnier the tiresomest of all the frumps who came to call on Maman. She +was an old snake-in-the-grass, too,--to use one of Papa's expressions. +She pretended to say such sweet things to Maman, and really they were +all different ways to slight poor Maman, who didn't understand half the +time. But Marise did, and resented it for her. Poor Maman! + +"Good morning, Madame Garnier," she said with a little bow, coming up to +them, and, "Good morning, Monsieur Jean." + +She remembered to drop her eyes, following the precepts of the teacher +of deportment, and profited by the gesture to despise Mme. Garnier's +shoes, stuffed lumpily full, like badly made sausages. + +When Mme. Garnier finished a long speech, she didn't mean a word of, +about how nicely Marise had played, "Oh, thank you very much, Madame +Garnier," she answered, looking up for a moment. + +Jeanne put her hat and coat on now, as Danielle romped in, talking at +the top of her voice. Madame Garnier, with the perfunctory air of one +attending to a familiar duty, savagely reproached her for +boisterousness, and general heathenishness of manners. Danielle took +this as it was meant, and paying not the slightest attention to the +rebuke, went on talking at the top of her voice, telling her mother and +brother all about the foolishness back of the scenes. "It was simply +_killing_!" she shouted, laughing so that no one but Marise had any idea +what she was talking about, "I thought I'd die, didn't you, Marise? You +never saw anything in your life so funny! All of us wrong side up, with +our heads ... oh, ha! ha! ha!" + +She and Marise went off into peals of laughter which they immediately +suppressed to giggles and then to smothered muffled gasps, as they saw +the Reverend Mother's dignified black draperies moving down the +side-aisle. They'd hear from it at school if Reverend Mother caught them +in such a breach of manners as _laughing in a public place_! + +"Who won the prize, my darling?" whispered Jeanne, in Marise's ear, as +she smoothed down the collar of her coat. + +"Oh, I did," Marise whispered back casually. She had left the big red +album of Morceaux de Salon with Mlle. Vivier, because she knew if she +tried to carry it home and passed by a school-mate she would be greeted +with howls of jeering laughter. She would bring some paper to-morrow, to +wrap it up. + +"We may as well walk along together," said Mme. Garnier now. "Our road +lies your way." + +Jeanne dropped respectfully behind, Mme. Garnier walked with Marise, +Danielle with her brother. Marise shot one sideways glance at Mme. +Garnier as they started along the sidewalks. "Sapristi," as Jeanne said, +"what an ugly hat! How could anybody not just drop dead to be seen with +such a horror on!" "Yes, Madame," she answered politely, at random, not +paying any attention to Mme. Garnier's drone. How vulgar it was to let +your dress wrinkle across the back where the top of your corset came. +And it was worse to let it cave in in front, at the same place. When she +was grown up, she would never let _her_ dress do that! Marise reflected +with the utmost satisfaction on the excellent cut and hang of her own +dress. There hadn't been a better one there, and she had silk stockings +while most of the girls had clumsy cotton ones, or at best lisle thread. +Jeanne certainly did know how to buy clothes, and Papa never said a word +against paying the bills. Well, she could wear them too! She had style. +She cast a pleased sideways glance at her slim straight silhouette, +reflected in the large window of a shop, saw in the same mirror Mme. +Garnier's uninteresting middle-aged figure, and then surprisingly she +also caught a glimpse of Jeanne, behind the others, her handkerchief at +her eyes as if she were crying. Marise stopped short, and turned sharply +to look back. For mercy's sake, what could be the matter with Jeanne? +Why, yes, she was, she was actually crying, the big tears rolling down +her leathery cheeks. With an unceremonious excuse to Mme. Garnier, +Marise left her planted there on the sidewalk, and darted back to +Jeanne, asking anxiously what had happened. + +Jeanne looked at her fondly, her wrinkled old face bright with love, "I +am thanking Our Holy Mother and all the Saints for your triumph, my +darling!" she said, her voice trembling. "All this day I have been +praying for you, all this day." + +Marise's first impulse was to inquire stupidly, "What triumph?" and her +next was to burst into laughter as she realized that Jeanne had worked +herself up so about that old Gambert music prize, of all things! But +these gusts had come and gone before the expression of her face had had +time to change; and when they had gone, all she could see was the +affection shining in the old woman's eyes. Dear, _darling_ old Jeanne! +_Let_ her think it was a triumph! She should never know anything else +about it, bless her! + +Marise remembered Danielle, the mocking, and glanced uneasily towards +where the Garniers stood, waiting for her to go on with them. No, +Danielle had not heard. Jeanne was safe. + +Marise had grown so that she no longer needed to reach up to put her +arms around the neck of the tall old woman, and kiss her hard on both +tear-wet cheeks. "I owe my victory to thee, dear Jeanne, to thy +prayers," she whispered fervently. "And I shall never, never forget it." + +All this was a lie, of course, but lies were easy to tell, and what harm +were they, if you made somebody more comfortable by telling them? + +She pirouetted about on her toes, and ran back to take her place with +Mme. Garnier. "Jeanne had bad news from one of her family," she murmured +pensively in answer to Mme. Garnier's look of inquiry. "Oh, bah!" she +thought carelessly. "What was one more lie to head off an old cat like +that?" Besides, it was amusing to see how easy it was to lie, how with +one little phrase, this way or that, you could change facts. + +After she had come in, and gone to her room to change to her usual dark +woolen school-dress, with the long-sleeved linen apron over it, Marise +happened to glance out through the lace curtain over her window and saw +that Mme. Garnier's son was sitting on the bench across the street in +front of the Chateau Vieux. "Well, that was queer, why hadn't he gone on +with his mother and Danielle?" She looked again, to make sure, herself +hidden at one side behind the heavy tapestry curtain, as Jeanne had +taught her, lest she be seen by men on the street. "Yes, it was +Danielle's brother, sure enough. Well, what could he be doing there?" + +She turned back to her greenish mirror to take off the white ribbon from +her hair, and found that she had a dim recollection that before he went +away to America, he used to sit on that bench in the late afternoon and +evening. There was something unpleasant connected with that vague +memory, and after a time that came to her also. She had heard Anna +Etchergary, the concierge, and Jeanne laughing about it, and had +overheard them conjecture that the young man was no such innocent +mother's boy as he seemed, and then they had seen that Marise was there, +and stopped abruptly, looking at her with the expression that she hated. + +Before she went in to dinner, she looked out once more to see if he were +still there. Yes, there he was leaning forward, the light from the +street-lamp full on his face. Marise could see that he was pale, but +there was a smile on his lips as if his thoughts were very pleasant. + +When she stepped into the salon, she did not for a moment see that Maman +was already there, because she stood at one side of the window, half +hidden in the thick tapestry curtain, looking out through the lace over +the glass. By the expression of her back, Marise knew that she, too, was +looking at Mme. Garnier's son on the bench. For an instant, as though +Marise's fingers had dropped on white-hot metal, the wild idea came to +her that it was at Maman that Jean-Pierre was smiling, that it was for +Maman that he sat there. She jerked herself away angrily and +instantaneously from this thought, ashamed of herself. She was getting +like Jeanne, like the girls at school. + +Maman had heard her move, and now turned sharply around from the window, +with the startled look of some one into whose bed-room you've walked +without knocking at the door. But Marise never knocked at the salon door +before going in. Why should she have thought of it to-day? Maman drew +the heavy curtain over the window with a sweep of her bare white arm. +For Maman was in grande tenue with her mauve satin low-necked evening +dress on, and a camellia in her hair. Marise's first thought was that +she was to have another solitary dinner. "Oh, Maman, are you going out?" + +"Certainly not, what makes you think I am?" asked Maman quickly. She +added because it was perfectly evident what made Marise think it, "The +belt on this dress has been changed and I tried it on to see if it was +right. And then I saw it was dinner time." + +Marise was about to say something about the flower in her hair, but her +antennae-like sensitiveness to what other people were feeling, made her +shut her lips. She looked hard at her mother, who made herself opaque, +looking back at Marise, her face and eyes and mouth firmly closed over +what was in her mind. Being able to see only the surface, Marise took +that in with a fresh impression of not having looked at Maman for some +time. How pretty she was, with her hair like gold threads, catching the +light, and how different from her crinkly hair like a golden mist around +her head, were the thick, thick petals of the camellia, with their +dense, close, fine-grained surface. + +Jeanne came to the door. "Madame is served," she said in a correct tone, +standing aside as they came out. She did not look at Marise at all, but +Marise knew perfectly well that she too was wondering about the evening +dress and the flower. Marise began to try to invent some plausible +explanation for it which she could let drop in talk to-morrow as they +walked to school. + + * * * * * + +Marise had lessons to get that evening, lots of them, and hard ones, as +usual. After dinner, she went back to her room, opened her history and +began. It was very still in the apartment. No sound at all from Maman in +the salon. Of course, Jeanne and Isabelle were both across the landing +in the other kitchen, doing the work as they always were unless Maman +expected callers. + +Marise leaned over her table and concentrated with all her might on the +role played by Colbert in the economic organization of the seventeenth +century. She was trying to memorize the outline of his introduction of +sounder account-keeping in government administration, when all at once, +there in her mind, instead of Louis XIV and his court, was the picture +of Maman standing beside the window, looking out. If Marise were now to +step quickly into the salon, would she again find Maman...? + +Marise tossed her head angrily at the possibility of her doing such a +sneaky thing as to go to see.... Like some nasty idea of Jeanne's that +was! She drew her history closer to her, changed her position and went +on studying. "Colbert a souvent repete que c'est par le commerce qu'un +pays s'enrichit...." + +Although she had not meant to, she started up and went to the window, +opening the heavy curtains a tiny crack, to look out. + +Yes, he was still there, two hours after they had left him. He had not +even gone home for dinner. But old Madeleine, the flower seller must +have passed by on her way home, after shutting up her flower-stand, for +now he had a white rose bud in his hands, looking down at it fixedly, +turning it about between his fingers, once in a while touching a petal +delicately, or holding it up to draw in its fragrance. + +Marise pulled the curtain shut, and hurried back to the improvement of +the French army from 1680 on. She felt very miserable, as though she'd +eaten something she ought not to ... was it a headache? She had heard +ladies talk so much about headaches, and had never had one. Yes, it must +be a headache. That was it, her first headache. By thinking about it she +felt it very distinctly now in the back of her head--like a great weight +there drawing her head back. She tried to think of Colbert; she looked +hard at the familiar picture of Colbert rubbing his hands in glee over +all the work piled up on his desk, but what she saw was Maman standing +at one side of the window looking out. Was that Maman she heard moving +about in the salon? + +What time was it? Wasn't it time for her to go to bed? The soapy dark +green clock on her mantel piece showed only half past eight. Too early. +She started at a sudden sound, her hand beginning to tremble. The +door-bell rang. Jeanne and Isabelle were both on the other side of the +landing and would not hear. She listened, her hands and feet cold, heard +Maman go to the door herself and Jean-Pierre Garnier's voice asking if +Monsieur and Madame and Mademoiselle Allen were at home. Maman laughed +and said that Monsieur was away on business and Mademoiselle was, of +course, busy with her lessons, but Madame was there! + +Marise heard Mme. Garnier's son also laugh nervously and say that he +would come in for a moment to pay his respects to Madame. They both +spoke English, which Jean-Pierre had learned so well in New York. Well, +why not? In America anybody might happen to make an evening call at half +past eight. And Mme. Garnier's son had just been in America. Heavens! +How her head ached! She would go to bed anyway, whether it was time or +not. She undressed rapidly and getting into bed pulled the covers over +her head. It seemed to her that she lay thus for ages, her eyes pinched +shut in the smothering air under the blankets. Then she pulled them down +to breathe and found that she had forgotten to put out her candle, which +was guttering low and showing by the clock that her "ages" had been less +than an hour. It was twenty minutes past nine. + +She blew out her candle, and decided that Jeanne or no Jeanne, she must +have more air. She was suffocating. She drew the curtains aside and +secure in the darkness of the room, opened both sides of the window +wide. The fresh air came in like waking up from a nightmare. + +But she had not waked up, for there on the bench across the street was +Mme. Garnier's son again. Had she dreamed that he had come to the door? +How strangely he sat now, flung down sideways, his face hidden on his +arm. As Marise stared, understanding nothing of what she saw, he started +up spasmodically as though some one had struck him from behind. Then he +collapsed again, his face buried on his out-flung arm. After this he was +perfectly motionless, like everything around him, the somber wall of the +Chateau Vieux, the sickly light of the street-lamp, the bench, the rough +paving-stones, the vacant, gray shutters of the department store further +along the street. + +As Marise stood there, shivering in her night-gown, staring, she heard +Maman's quick light step at the other end of the corridor, and the sound +of Maman's voice, humming a little trilling song. She turned her head, +and saw the cheerful yellow flicker of a candle coming nearer her open +door. Maman was going down to her dressing-room to get ready for bed. +She thought of course that Marise was in bed and asleep by this time +and when she came by, looking down at the lighted candle in the pretty +little gilt candle-stick she did not even glance into the dark room +where the child stood bewildered. For the instant she was framed in the +square of the open door, she was brilliantly painted on the darkness, +all the bright colors of her fair hair, her shining eyes, her red lips, +softly gleaming in the warm, golden light of the little flame. The +picture was printed indelibly on the child's wide eyes sensitized by the +darkness; and long after the sound of the gay little song had died away, +long years after the sound of the light footstep was silent, Marise +could see, hung on the blackness around her bed at night, the shining +picture, golden-bright in the quivering, living flame of the candle, the +dense waxy petals of the camellia against the vaporous blonde hair, the +smiling curved lips, the velvet white of the slender bare neck and arms, +the rich sheen of the mauve satin flowing about the quick, light feet. + +She got into bed warmed, comforted. Nothing could be the matter if Maman +was smiling so cheerfully. She fell asleep at once, desperately tired, +giving up as an unanswerable and no longer very interesting riddle, the +question of what was the trouble with Mme. Garnier's son. + +But in the night, without knowing how, she found herself once more by +the open window--she had been dreaming, she had got up to see about +something in her dream--something about ... why, there he was still on +the bench, all huddled and stooped together now, his face hidden in both +arms crossed on his knees. Perhaps he had dropped asleep there. +Br-r-r-r! he would be cold when he woke up. How chilly it still was at +night! Well, yes, it was evident that she had dreamed it about his +ringing at the door. She plunged back under the covers, she heard the +long sonorous hoot of a steamer going out to sea, and was asleep before +it died away. + +She overslept in the morning, so that Jeanne, when she came with the +tray, ran to shake her and said she must hurry to dress or she would be +late to school. Marise sprang up, thinking of nothing but the reprimand +she risked, and flung on her clothes, stopping to bite off big +mouthfuls of the buttered croissants and drink big swallows of the +cafe-au-lait. Jeanne buttoned her behind while she brushed furiously at +her hair. "Where are my books? Oh, never mind that last hook, it'll +never show. Oh, just _once_ without my gloves! No I don't _need_ my +coat, the sun is so warm." She ran out to the corridor, snatched her +hat, and, her teeth set in the last morsel of her bread, darted down the +hall, Jeanne galloping stiffly behind her, as anxious as she over the +possibility of being late. + +But at the outer door, she paused, one hand on the knob, something +imperatively urging her to return. What had she seen as she passed the +open door of the salon? Just the every morning scene, Isabelle with her +head tied up in a cloth, a brush-broom in her hand, all the windows wide +open, the rugs hanging over the sills, the sun streaming in with the +particular clean fresh brilliance it always seemed to have early in the +morning, while the room was still empty of life. How could there have +been anything threatening about that familiar sight? It was Isabelle's +face. She had been standing perfectly still, the long handle of her +brush-broom held under one arm, looking down with a puzzled expression +at something she held in her hand. + +Marise had wheeled so instantly in answer to the vague warning of +danger, that she was back at the door of the salon, before Isabelle's +position had changed. She still stood there, looking down at a wilted, +white rose-bud. And now her face was suspicious as well as puzzled. +Glancing up she said meaningly to Jeanne, over Marise's shoulder, "Now, +_where_ do you suppose _this_ came from? I found it on the floor by the +sofa! There were no roses brought into the house by any one _we_ saw +yesterday!" + +Jeanne thrust her long stringy neck forward, and passed her head over +Marise's shoulder to verify the fact. Marise could see the glitter in +her eye. Marise cried out instantly, "Oh, my poor rose! _That's_ where +it was! I looked for it everywhere last night to put it in water." + +Jeanne and Isabelle turned their eyes on her penetratingly. She held +them energetically at bay, hardening her gaze, defying them. + +"I didn't see you have any rose yesterday," said Jeanne. But Marise knew +by the tone of her voice that she was not sure. + +"Well, I did," she repeated, "Gabrielle Meunier gave it to me out of her +bouquet. Oh, I'm so sorry it's spoiled." + +"I believe you, that it's spoiled," said Isabelle carelessly, dropping +it into the dustpan. "Somebody must have stepped on it to crush it like +that." + +Her interest in it was gone. She began to hum her favorite dance-tune, +"jig-jig, pr-r-rt!" and to shake out a rug. + +Marise fled down the slippery waxed stairway, three steps at a time, and +dashed out on the street, Jeanne, purple-faced and panting, close at her +heels. How she hurried, how breathlessly she hurried that morning; but a +thought inside her head doggedly kept pace with her hurry. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +I + +Now that she was in an advanced class, she stayed all day in the school +and convent, taking her lunch with the "internats" in the refectory. So +that it was always six o'clock before Jeanne came for her, with the +first, thin twilight beginning to fall bluely in the narrow, dark +streets, and sunset colors glimmering from the oily surface of the +Adour. That evening when Jeanne came for her, she said that Maman had +decided to go back for a day or two to Saint Sauveur for the sake of the +change of air and to try the baths again. Jeanne never permitted herself +the slightest overt criticism of her mistress in talking to Marise, but +she had a whole gamut of intonations and inflections which Marise +understood perfectly and hated--hated especially because there was +nothing there to quarrel with Jeanne about. Jeanne had told her the news +in the most correct and colorless words, but what she had really said +was, "Just another of her idle notions, gadding off for more sulphur +baths. Nothing in the world the matter with her. And it's much too early +for the Saint Sauveur season." + +Marise could resent such intimations, although Jeanne was too adroit to +give her grounds for open reproach. She had her own gamut of expression +and attitudes, with which to punish the old woman. She immediately +stopped chattering, looked coldly offended, and walked beside Jeanne, +her face averted from her, out towards the street, now crowded with +two-wheeled ox-wagons, and donkeys, and men with push-carts starting +back into the country after market day. She could feel that she was +making Jeanne suffer and she was glad of it. + +As she kept her eyes steadily turned through the tangle of traffic +across to the sidewalk on the other side, not more than ten feet away, +so narrow was the street, she caught sight of Mme. Garnier's son. He had +a small valise in his hand, and was idling along as though he were +waiting for something. As she looked, their eyes met. He looked at her +hard, and crossed the street towards her. He came swiftly now, as if, +all of a sudden, he were in a great hurry. How oddly he was staring at +her! Not as though he recognized her, as though he took her for somebody +else. Oh, perhaps he wasn't looking at her at all! Perhaps there was +somebody behind them, at whom he was staring so hard. The tall +school-girl jerked her head around for a quick glance over her shoulder. +But there was nobody else on the sidewalk! + +The young man had come up to them now, had taken off his hat and stood +there, bowing. How white that bluish light made people look! Marise and +Jeanne slackened their pace for an instant, thinking that he wished to +speak to them, but all that he brought out was, "Good evening, +Mademoiselle," in a low voice. + +They stood for an instant, Marise feeling very awkward, as though she +had misunderstood something. Then he put his hat back on, and stooping +forward as though he were tired and his valise heavy, hurried on. Marise +looked over her shoulder again and saw that he was almost running. But +he had plenty of time to catch that train to Lourdes, which was the only +one due to leave Bayonne that evening. + +Jeanne's turn had come, in the little guerilla skirmish between Marise +and herself. "_Don't_ turn around in the street that way!" she cried in +a shocked tone. "Haven't you any sense of what is proper? Don't you know +if you turn around like that, just after a young man has passed you, he +is likely to think that you are _looking after him_!" She had no idea +that Marise was really guilty of such a heinous misdemeanor, and had +only snatched the phrase up as a weapon. + + +II + +That night Jeanne rolled the little fold-up cot-bed in across the +landing and setting it up in Marise's room, slept there beside her. +This was what they had done before, when Maman was at Saint Sauveur, on +the nights when Father had to be away too. Isabelle hadn't the slightest +intention of sleeping over on the other side by herself, and she always +came too, bringing her own sheets to put on Maman's bed. She remarked +that she couldn't afford to have it said of her that she had spent the +night in the apartment without another woman with her. Marise did not +see in the least why any one should object to having this said of her, +but the tone of Isabelle's voice as she spoke, and the fact that it had +something to do with passing the night warned her off from asking any +explanation. She had already gleaned from many sources, in and out of +books, that there was something about accounting for where you were at +night, about which she didn't want to have Jeanne and Isabelle talk. So +she began to sing a new satirical verse to the air of "Maman, les petits +bateaux" which one of the girls had made up that day. + +Everything went exactly as usual the next morning, the absence of the +mistress of the house not making the faintest difference. Jeanne and +Isabelle went through their usual domestic ritual in exactly the same +order, whether Madame told them or not. Indeed, whatever she might tell +them, they changed no slightest tittle of what they did, as she had long +ago found out. Jeanne brought in the breakfast tray, and did Marise's +hair as usual, and although not a soul had stepped into the salon since +the day before, Isabelle was skating back and forth on the waxed floor, +woolen cloths on her feet, when Marise passed the door. Outside it was a +breathless still day, with a hazy sun, very hot for so early in the +spring. + +As they crossed the Adour, Marise caught the first whiff of its summer +smell, compounded of decaying sea-weed, tar and stale fish. She and +Jeanne said little, although they had wordlessly made up their tiff the +evening before, and had gone to sleep after exchanging their usual +hearty good-night kisses. Their quarrels although frequent never lasted +long. + +Everybody at school was dull, too, from the first heat. The hours seemed +very long, with little in them. Marise felt listless and rather cross, +and dreaded the exertion of taking her music lesson, although she +usually looked forward eagerly to those hours with Mlle. Hasparren, the +best and happiest of her days. + +At four o'clock the music-teacher called to take her home. She also was +hot and tired and fearfully nervous, she said, after a terribly trying +day in her class-room, with her forty-five squirming little Basques. As +a rule she and Marise had a good deal to say to each other, because +Mlle. Hasparren was the only person Marise knew who had any interest in +America. The rest never spoke of it, or if by chance they did, they only +asked about buffaloes and Indians, and evidently didn't believe her when +she said she'd never seen either. But Mlle. Hasparren knew better, and +loved to talk about it, and actually knew the difference between the +Civil War and the Revolution, and had heard of Abraham Lincoln and +thought he was a greater man than _Napoleon_! Marise, who was reading a +great deal of Victor Hugo, hardly knew whether to agree with this +startling idea or not, but she felt when she was with Mlle. Hasparren, +that it was safe to open many doors which she usually kept locked, and +to talk with her about things she never dreamed of mentioning to anybody +else. Which did not, of course, at all prevent her from wishing to +goodness Mlle. Hasparren didn't wear such fearful hats, and that her +skirts would hang better. + +But this hot day of early spring, she thought neither of America or of +hats, as she plodded silently beside the equally weary school-teacher, +through the dusty stone streets. The depression which had hung over her +all day deepened till she felt ready to cry. Wherever she looked she saw +Maman standing in that stealthy attitude, looking out of the window. +Mlle. Hasparren's worn, swarthy face, under her home-made hat, was +plainer than usual. + +Isabelle let them in to the empty salon, with her usual air of being +cheered up to have something happen, and bustlingly arranged two seats +before the piano. Mlle. Hasparren took off her hat and pushed her +fingers through her graying hair. Marise fumbled among the music on the +piano and pulled out what they were working on, the Toccata in D minor. +She flattened it out with both hands on the music-rack above the keys, +and sat down. She raised her fingers, made sure of the notes of the +first twiddle, and began to play. + +She had not wished to take this music-lesson. She had been hot and +listless and tired; with a secret heartache and a dread like a black +shadow on her heart. She had sat down before a great black varnished +wooden box and,--detached, indifferent, pre-occupied, had set her +fingers to pushing first one and then another bit of wood covered with +white bone. + +And what happened? + +Out of the black, varnished box, like the mighty genii of the Arabian +Nights, soared something beautiful and strong, something that filled the +dreary, empty salon and her heavy heart with sonorous life, something +which like the genii put its greatness at the service of the being who +knew the charm to free it from imprisonment. + +"Stronger there, as you come up from the bass," said Mlle. Hasparren, +and Marise knew from her voice that she too was soaring up. And yet, +although she sounded no longer dull and weary, but strong and joyful, +she abated nothing of her exacting rigor. "No, don't blur it because you +make it louder. Don't lean on the pedal. Clean power of stroke, that's +the thing for Bach. Now try again. Roll it up from that lowest note, +like a mid-ocean wave." + +She listened, all her personality concentrated on her hearing, her head +turned sideways, her eyes fixed on a point in the very far distance. +With all her intelligence she listened, and when the immature +intelligence of the pupil faltered or failed, she came swiftly to the +rescue. "No, take care! you're losing yourself in that passage. You're +playing each note correctly but you haven't the sense of the whole +thing. There's a rhythmic progression there that starts four measures +back, and doesn't end till you swing into those chords. Don't lose your +way in what is only a little ornamentation of the line. See, to +here--all that is half of the rhythmic figure, and here it is repeated +in the bass. Now again! Read it so the meaning comes out." + +The nimble flexible young fingers went flying at the passage again, +guided and informed by the ripe soundness of the older mind, and from a +passage which Marise had physically mastered as mechanically as she +would an exercise, she heard the master-voice speak out again. + +Her teacher leaned forward beside her, working as hard as Marise, +although she did not touch the keys. Four years of incessant work +together had made them almost like one mind. From time to time, they +wiped the perspiration away from their foreheads with a hasty pass of +their handkerchiefs, Mlle. Hasparren's gesture as hurried as Marise's. + +"Pearly in the treble--clear, clear--try that bar of triplets again. +Again! Again! Once more! There, now start at the double bar--like +running water. No, not so much shading, ugh! _no_, that's not classic, +let it speak for itself! You don't need to use those theatrical swells +and die-aways here. You're not playing Gounod. Start that movement over +again. Every note's a pearl, remember, string them together in a +necklace. Don't jumble them in a heap." + +They were still at it, laboring like slaves, putting their backs into it +like ditch-diggers, exalted as young-eyed cherubim, when Jeanne came +discreetly to the door to look in on them. This was her decorous method +of intimating that she was about to put Marise's dinner on the table. + +"Oh, la! la!" cried Mlle. Hasparren, "is it as late as that? And my +sister told me to be sure to start early enough to buy some salad for +our supper." She slammed on her hat, took her bag, and darted away. + +Marise got up, feeling numb, flung her arms high over her head, and +stretched herself like a cat, although she knew that like any other +vigorous and forthright bodily gesture this would call down a reproof +from Jeanne as not being "convenable." But she did not care what Jeanne +said to her. She did not care about anything in the world but the +deep-rolling waves of rhythm, and the clear tinkling rain of pearls +which went on and on in her head as she ate her solitary dinner, and +studied her lessons in her solitary room afterwards. + +When Jeanne came to set up her bed for the night, she remarked "What a +horrid sticky hot day it has been!" + +"Has it?" asked Marise, in genuine forgetfulness of the weather. Also, +caught up into another world as she was, she forgot for an hour or two +all about the white rose-bud. + + +III + +But she was reminded of it as she opened her eyes the next morning. It +was her fifteenth birthday and to celebrate it, Jeanne had already been +out to the market and brought home a great bouquet of white rose-buds. +She was loitering around, pretending to pick up the room, but really +waiting to hear what Marise would say, so of course Marise must conquer +the nausea that white rose-buds gave her and exclaim that they were +lovely, and kiss Jeanne and thank her and lean over them and smell them +rapturously. What a lot of this sort of thing there was to do, Marise +thought, if you didn't want to hurt people's feelings, or let them +suspect things you didn't want them to know. + +Jeanne tried to restrain herself to decorum, but her overwhelming +jealousy of any one else who touched Marise's life was too much for her, +"They're nicer than that one wilted old thing Gabrielle Meunier gave +you, hein?" Marise understood then why Jeanne had chosen white +rose-buds. Down below the surface where she kept her real feelings she +heard a sick sort of laugh. What she said was, with fervor, "Oh, yes, +Jeanne, a thousand times better!" (You might as well make it a thousand +times while you were about it.) + +"Well, I should hope so!" said Jeanne, satisfied at last. + +That morning when Marise stepped into the courtyard at school a group of +older girls had their heads together over a newspaper, and when they saw +her, they all started. Elise Fortier rolled the paper up rapidly and put +it in her leather portfolio with her school-books. They looked at her +very oddly. Four years ago, Marise would have run up to them, demanding, +"What's the matter? What makes you look so funny? What is it in the +paper?" That was before she became aware of any mire in the world, +invisible, wide-spreading, into which almost any casual inquiry seemed +likely to plunge you. Marise knew what it was to have some of that +indelibly staining mire splashed upon her, from a look, an intonation or +a phrase that meaningly expressed much more than it said. She walked +with a desperate wariness now, trying to pick her way dry-shod, in the +dark. So that morning she was only afraid that the girls _would_ tell +her what it was they had found in the paper that made them look so. She +pretended that she had seen nothing, ran up to them with a funny story +to tell, and went at once to hang up her wraps in the hall outside the +class-room door. Sister Ste. Julie passed her and said, "Good-morning, +my child." It seemed to Marise that she too looked queerly at her. She +reached her hand over her shoulder to make sure her dress was hooked, +and felt of the ribbon in her hair. No mirrors were allowed inside the +school and convent walls, or she would have stepped to look in one to +see what was wrong. + +At eleven o'clock while the class in advanced geography was reciting, +the street bell rang. Sister Ste. Marie went to answer, and came back to +say that Mlle. Allen was wanted. Her maman was ill, and the bonne had +come for her. All the girls turned instantly and looked at her without +surprise, as though they had been expecting this. Marise started up, +suddenly very pale, put on her wraps in a great hurry and ran to where +Jeanne was waiting for her. Jeanne looked just as usual, although +everything else seemed to have changed in an instant and to look +threateningly upon Marise. + +"Your maman is home from the baths," said Jeanne, as though she were +saying something she had made up to say beforehand, "and she doesn't +feel very well. Since Monsieur is not here, I thought we would better +come and get you." + +Marise seized Jeanne's arm and dug her fingers deep into it, "Jeanne ... +Jeanne ... nothing's happened ... Maman's not...." + +Jeanne said with the very accent of truth, "No, no, no. Madame is not +dead--never fear, my darling. She is only very ... nervous." She said it +with the very accent of truth, but Marise knew perfectly well that +Jeanne could say anything she pleased with that accent. She never +believed a thing Jeanne said unless she knew it already. + +But in spite of herself she was relieved from her first wild panic. +Nothing so very bad could have happened, with Jeanne standing there, +carved out of brown wood, just as usual. They began to hurry up the +narrow short-cut by the market, and Jeanne told her a little more. Maman +had come back by the first train. She must have taken the afternoon +train down from Saint Sauveur to Lourdes, and have waited hours in the +station at Lourdes, till the west-bound train from Toulouse came along. +And she had come in, perfectly worn out, staggering, and pushed right by +Isabelle to go to her room. And she had locked the door, and wouldn't +answer when they knocked, and wouldn't open when they brought a tray +with some food, only called out to them in a queer hoarse voice to go +get Soeur Ste. Lucie. And they could hear her crying and sobbing, so +they had sent Anna Etchergary to get the nun, and she, Jeanne, had come +of her own idea to get Marise. + +Marise read into this Jeanne's dislike of the nun and her usual +suspicious idea about poor Maman that it was all just some new notion of +hers. But she also felt that the old woman had had a real fright and she +walked faster and faster. + +The door on the landing was ajar, and inside the hall they saw a tall +old monk, his bare feet in sandals, his bald head bowed over his clasped +hands, his lips moving in prayer. When he saw the girl and the old +servant, he made way for them to pass, and without interrupting his +prayers, motioned them to enter. His gesture was so imperious that +without a word they tip-toed in past him. Isabelle, her eyes wide, and +not as red-faced as usual, was standing uncertainly in the door of the +salon, her apron up to her lips, looking scared, "Soeur Ste. Lucie has +gone in to Madame," she said to Jeanne in a whisper. "She said you and +Mademoiselle were to go to Mademoiselle's room and wait until she came." + +Jeanne inquired wildly with a silent jerk of the head who in the world +was the monk who stood praying before Madame's closed door; and Isabelle +answered with a desperate rolling of her eyes that she had no more idea +of that than Jeanne. + +They all went down the corridor on tip-toes, to Marise's room, where +automatically Marise took off her hat and coat. She saw to her amazement +that Jeanne had dropped down on the crimson quilt on the bed. Nothing +that had happened had startled Marise so much as to see this. + +Almost at once Soeur Ste. Lucie entered, and coming up to Marise put her +arms around her and kissed her very tenderly. Then she turned and +motioned the two servants out of the room, "I must speak to Mlle. Marise +alone," she said. Isabelle was only too glad to go, but Jeanne looked +furious and stood for a moment with darkened face, lowering down on the +nun, as if she were on the point of defying her. But she finally thought +better of it, and followed Isabelle out. + +Soeur Ste. Lucie stood in the open door till they were both well down +the corridor. Then she shut it carefully and came back to Marise whose +heart was beating wildly and whose knees were shaking under her. Soeur +Ste. Lucie sat down, and made Marise sit down, holding both the child's +cold hands in her soft, kind, old fingers. "Dear child, there are times +in every life when we must ask God for courage. Your mother is not sick +or hurt, but she needs all your prayers. She has had a terrible shock, a +dreadful tragedy that took place before her eyes, and she will need all +the help our Holy Mother can give her, to recover her calm. It seems +that----" Soeur Ste. Lucie stopped an instant, as if to consider how to +put what she had to say, and changed the form, "Your dear mother was in +Saint Sauveur, and by chance a person from Bayonne passed through, whom +your dear mother knew. And it seems they went out to walk together, as +any one might, and descended the paths and steps, that lead visitors +down the face of the Gavarnie Gorge, towards the place arranged so that +tourists can look up at the arch of the great bridge. And then--nobody +knows just what happened--the water was very high and violent, the other +person must have slipped and fallen in, and was instantly killed by +being flung by the current against a great rock. Your dear mother saw +it, and sensitive and high-strung as she is, it ... it slightly unhinged +her. She said a great many wild things...." Soeur Ste. Lucie stopped, +drew a long breath and began again. Nothing that she had said had made +the slightest impression on Marise. It sounded far off, as though Soeur +Ste. Lucie were reading something out of a book. Marise could not seem +to put her mind on it, and when she did, she could not understand it. + +Soeur Ste. Lucie went on, "But by the mercy of God, I had just written +her that the holy Father Elie was once more here; and after they had got +the body out of the water and carried it to the hotel they--your mother +remembered about Father Elie and turning in her trouble to the only +source of strength, she--your mother wishes to make a retreat for a few +days at our convent, and I am sure that it is much the best thing for +her to do. It is a shelter for her--Father Elie is with her now, I have +sent for a carriage...." + +"Oh, but can't I see her? Can't I kiss her good-by? How long will she be +away?" cried Marise wildly, starting from the fascinated immobility in +which she had gazed at the nun's face. + +Soeur Ste. Lucie laid a quieting hand on her shoulder, her kind old face +yearning over the child. "Dear little Marise, I think it will be better +for your mother not to see you, or any one just now. She needs quiet, +perfect quiet." + +Marise looked at her hard. She had no idea whether she was being told +the truth, or only some kind invention which they thought suitable for +her to hear. "Can't I go to see her at the Convent?" she asked in a +whisper, giving up the first point. + +"Oh, yes, yes, my darling, _any_ time ... only a little later, when your +mother is calmer." Soeur Ste. Lucie's face shone suddenly, radiantly, +"God uses all means to His great ends," she said fervently. "This may be +the means of giving your dear mother in the end, the holy peace of +faith." + +She looked so serenely trusting and hopeful that Marise felt comforted, +"I'll do just as you say, dear Soeur," she said in a trembling voice. + +Soeur Ste. Lucie drew a long breath, as though she had been steering a +difficult course. She kissed Marise again, told her to stay in her room +for the time being, to say her prayers, not to worry, her Maman would +soon be all right, and probably happier than she had ever been in her +life. All this might open the door to salvation for her. + +She left Marise standing in the middle of the floor, and closed the door +carefully behind her. But not so carefully that Marise could not, a +moment later, hear Maman crying and crying and crying as she went down +the hall and out of the door. Marise began to tremble and cry at the +sound. She ran to her window, and saw down below, Maman, her hands over +her face, with Soeur Ste. Lucie's arm around her, the tall old monk on +the other side, cross the sidewalk and get into the carriage. + +As the carriage rolled away the weeping child at the window remembered +that Soeur Ste. Lucie had not mentioned who the person from Bayonne was +who had been killed. Well, what did Marise care who it was! + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +It occurred to Marise, and the idea of a responsibility dried her tears +with a start, that she ought to get word somehow to Papa. Her heart +sprang up to think that perhaps if he knew Maman was so upset he would +come back at once. She did _want_ somebody so much, beside Jeanne and +Isabelle. + +But she never knew Papa's address when he was away on business. Perhaps +there was something on Maman's writing-desk. She went quickly into the +salon, drew aside the curtains which shut off the writing-desk's alcove +from the salon, and began rather helplessly to fumble among Maman's +papers and novels. There were very few letters of any sort. Maman didn't +keep up her correspondence with America very much. Jeanne had heard +Marise moving and through the alcove curtains Marise saw her now come +into the salon with a basin of water in her hand, pretending that she +needed to water a plant. Marise remembered that she must as usual +arrange something to present to Jeanne that would not reflect on Maman's +fancifulness. But perhaps Soeur Ste. Lucie had told her something. She +inquired cautiously but Jeanne said stiffly, still outraged at having +been shut out of the room, that she knew nothing. Everything about her +except her words, said forcibly that she cared less, and that all this +foolishness was a part of the usual nonsense. + +"Oh, Jeanne, a terrible thing has happened to poor Maman--she saw +somebody swept away in the Gavarnie and killed right before her eyes, +and it's upset her fearfully." + +Jeanne's sulkiness vanished in the delight of her kind at having any +inside information about a violent death or a scandal. Marise remembered +how absorbed and excited Jeanne had been when somebody in the apartment +overhead had taken an over-dose of morphine and how proud she had been +to have everybody in the market stop to ask her details. + +"Killed?" said Jeanne with a greedy eagerness, her eyes shining, "how +killed? Drowned? or knocked against the rocks? Man? or woman? Have they +got the body out?" + +Marise did not, as a rule, enjoy Jeanne's interest in murders and deaths +and kidnappings, but this time she welcomed it and passed on to the old +woman all she could remember of what Soeur Ste. Lucie had told her. +Jeanne was much disappointed that Marise had not heard the name of the +dead person, but Marise promised to tell her as soon as the paper was +out, the next morning, since it would probably be printed. And with the +mention, there came back to her, with one of those sickening lurches, +the recollection of the girls putting their heads together over the +newspaper at school, and then looking at her so oddly and hiding it +away. "It was probably in this morning's paper," she said to Jeanne. "If +you'll get it, I'll read it to you." + +But Jeanne came back in a moment with an astonished face, saying that +Isabelle reported that, of all queer things, Mlle. Hasparren, the +music-teacher had stopped in that morning and asked to borrow the paper. +Jeanne's astonishment never on any occasion remained more than an +instant untinged with suspicion, and Marise, who knew the old face so +well, saw the suspicious expression begin slowly to color the surprise. +"What in the name of God did the Hasparren want with our newspaper?" she +asked herself aloud, obviously snuffing around a new scent. Marise hated +Jeanne's face when it looked like that,--crafty and zestful, as though +she were licking her chops over a nasty smell. + +They were still standing in the alcove, beside the writing-desk when the +door-bell rang. Jeanne turned to go, heard Isabelle open, and standing +between the half-open curtains turned her head to listen. Marise heard +nothing but a man's voice, and Isabelle answering, "Oui Monsieur, oui +Monsieur, oui Monsieur." But Jeanne started, stiffened, and darting on +tip-toe to the door, looked around the corner. The door shut, steps were +heard at the other end of the long hallway. Isabelle was evidently +bringing the visitor to the salon. Jeanne looked around wildly at +Marise, her face suddenly the color of lead, her eyes panic-struck. The +steps were nearer, there seemed to be more than one man. Jeanne ran +back, pushed Marise into the chair in the corner of the alcove, +motioning her violently but without a sound, to keep perfect silence, +and noiselessly drew the curtains together before the alcove. Marise +heard her step quickly back to the stand where the plant stood and the +click of her tin basin against the earthen-ware of the pot. And then she +heard her say in exactly her usual voice, only with a little surprise, +"Good-day, Messieurs, what can I do for you?" + +"We have been sent," said a man's deep voice and not a "monsieur" but a +common sort of man, Marise could tell by his accent and intonation, "to +see and question Madame Allen." Jeanne evidently went through some +pantomime of astonishment for he explained, "a part of the inquest over +the death of M. Jean-Pierre Garnier, but the maid tells me she is +already not here." + +Jeanne answered, and if she caught her breath or flinched, there was not +the smallest external sign of it, "No, M. l'Inspecteur, our poor lady +was so terribly upset over seeing such an awful thing, that the doctor +has just sent her for a few quiet days' retreat at the Holy Ghost +Convent. What a terrible thing, to be sure, M. l'Inspecteur." + +The man answered wearily, "Eh bien, we shall have to see her, retreat or +no retreat. We have the blanks to fill out by all witnesses, and she is +the only witness. This is the inspecteur from St. Sauveur." + +"Oh, the poor lady is in no state to be questioned," said Jeanne with an +affectionate warmth in her voice. "She is as tender-hearted as a child, +and besides had been a great invalid. She took the whole course of baths +at Saint Sauveur last season, and was starting in again." + +"Oh," said the man as if surprised, "she had been at Saint Sauveur +before? For the baths?" and then as if speaking to some one else, "it +would be harder then, to establish that she was there to meet the young +Garnier." + +Jeanne seemed so astounded at this idea, that she could scarcely get her +breath to protest. "Oh, M. l'Inspecteur, oh! Who ever heard of anything +so wild! Is _that_ what people are saying? Oh, why!" she laughed out in +her amazement, "she hardly knew him by sight." + +"Why," said the man evidently not speaking to Jeanne, "didn't you say +that she ran down along the bank of the river, screaming that he had +killed himself for her sake?" + +"Yes, I said that," answered another man's voice, astonished and on the +defense, "and she _did_ too! and when the body was pulled out she flung +herself down on it, and shrieked that she wanted to die with him." + +Jeanne broke in now, at the top of her voice, calling Heaven and earth +and all the saints to witness that she never heard of anything so +preposterous in her life, and that anybody in Bayonne could tell them +so, and what crazy stories would people be making up next out of whole +cloth? "Some one is trying to play a joke on M. l'Inspecteur from Saint +Sauveur. Nobody _could_ have heard our Madame say such things, because +she couldn't possibly have said them, any more than she could about a +clerk who sold her a yard of cloth over the counter. For she didn't know +any more about the young man than that! Why, she _never_ knew him except +as the son of one of her friends. He never came to the house, and more +than that she hadn't even laid eyes on him for more than two years. He +had been in America and is only just returned, day before yesterday. +_Any_body you ask here can tell you that." + +"Nom de Dieu!" said the first man's voice in extreme surprise. "Hadn't +seen him for two years!" + +"No, he hasn't even been in France since he was a little young boy!" The +first man laughed as though the joke were on his comrade. + +The second man's voice said, still defending himself, but now +uncertainly, "Very queer his following her right up there, if he +scarcely knew her--what was _he_ doing in Saint Sauveur at this season, +I'd like to know, if not...." + +"Oh, as to that," said Jeanne carelessly, "I happen to know why he was +there. I saw the young monsieur day before yesterday, just as he was +about to take the seven o'clock train, valise in hand, and I had a talk +with him, our young mademoiselle and I." + +"Why, I thought you hardly knew him by sight in this house and he never +came here," broke in the second policeman suspiciously. + +"I didn't say it was here we saw him," said Jeanne, "and I said it was +Madame who hardly knew him. But he is the brother of a little girl +classmate of our mademoiselle. They are all children together. Well, +every evening at six, except the days when Mademoiselle takes her music +lesson, I go to the school to fetch her home, and that afternoon, as we +were coming up the rue Port Neuf, we met the young man going towards the +station, and when he saw our mademoiselle, he stopped for a moment for a +chat, as young folks will. He was in high good spirits and said he was +off for a fine business trip to the mountains and expected to have a +good time as well as do business, and would be in Cauterets the next +morning. Well, you know Cauterets is just over a ridge of the Pyrenees +from Saint Sauveur and Mlle. Marise said, 'Why, is not that queer, my +maman is at Saint Sauveur just now! Why don't you take the other train +at Pierrefitte-Nestalos and run up to Saint Sauveur for half a day and +take Maman a message from me, something I forgot to ask her before she +left,' and the young man said he had been half planning to go to Saint +Sauveur on business anyhow, and to tell him the message and if he saw +her maman, he'd repeat it. Only he said, 'I don't believe your maman +knows me,' and Mlle. Marise said, 'Well, you tell her you are Danielle's +big brother, and she'll know. She knows all about my school-mates,' and +the young man asked which sanitarium it was in Luz and Mlle. Marise +reminded him, 'No, it's at Saint Sauveur where Maman is,' and told him +the name of the sanitarium, and then he said he hoped he'd get a little +fishing in the Gavarnie, and I said the water would be too high, and he +said he'd go and have a look at it anyway. And then he went along with +his valise. Mlle. Marise is at school or you could ask her all about +this too." + +"Eh _bien_, my friend from Saint Sauveur!" said the first man's voice, +in a rallying tone of jocularity. "This sounds as though some of you +country-people must have lost your heads a bit. Come now. Did you +yourself _hear_ her, saying all that?" + +"No, of course I didn't," said the other man stiffly, "I was in the +office at Luz. How could I know anything was happening? But the men who +got the body out said she was awful to hear." + +"Oh, I don't doubt," agreed Jeanne, "that she was. Any woman would have +been driven half crazy by such an awful thing, the only son of a friend, +killed before your eyes. And she is terribly nervous into the bargain, +the least little thing sends her off into hysteria. Some nights I have +to rub her back until eleven o'clock to quiet her. And the doctor has +warned her against the least excitement. Why, two days ago there was an +important prize-contest at our mademoiselle's school and the poor woman, +although she would have given anything to go, was forbidden by the +doctor. He said the excitement would be too much for her, and she would +feel it so if her daughter were defeated. You can ask any one whether +she was there! And that evening, although Mlle. Marise had won the +prize, she was so worked up, I had to give her a sleeping draught to get +her a little rest, poor thing...." + +"Were they _sure_ of what she said?" asked the first man of the other. +"Would they swear to it?" + +"I don't see how anybody could hear anything!" put in Jeanne. "In +ordinary weather the gave of Gavarnie makes such a noise down there in +that gorge, you can't hear your own voice even if you yell. I remember +last summer when Madame was taking the cure, when we went to see her ... +and now in flood...." + +"They'd certainly swear to her being in a terrible state of agitation," +said the other in a rather nettled tone. He went on, "You saw for +yourself what was put in the paper about it this morning, how they had +met there by design and spent the night together at the hotel and all." + +"You won't get far in an inquest, my young friend, if you take what a +newspaper says. Newspapers are always wrong," said the first man +pityingly, in a tone of experienced scepticism. "If this happened at ten +in the morning, they can't have been together more than an hour. If he +was seen here in Bayonne at six o'clock the evening before, he couldn't +possibly have reached Saint Sauveur before nine the next morning. You +know you wait three or four hours for the connection at Lourdes. To my +mind there's nothing in it. I will take you to the convent to see her, +if you insist, but I have no liking for scenes with hysteric women." + +"Oh, messieurs!" said Jeanne shocked at the idea, "you couldn't possibly +expect to see her _now_! Not for a week, at least, the doctor said." + +"A _week_!" cried the second voice, dismayed, "sacrebleu, I can't kick +my heels for a week, waiting." + +"Well, suppose we go through the usual routine?" suggested the other. +"Go to see the family of the young man, and if they confirm all this ... +there's no use going further. There is plenty of time for you to get all +the facts you need for your report, and catch the one o'clock train back +to Saint Sauveur." + +Jeanne said now jocularly, with a change of manner to the intimate +knowing tone of a servant-girl speaking to a policeman, "If you're not +in a hurry, you must stay to have a glass in honor of the house. We have +an excellent white wine, and the patron never counts the bottles." + +Marise heard her lead them down the hall and across the landing to the +dining-room, and then in an instant heard her come back and run on +tip-toe up the hall. She thrust her head through the curtains, showing a +haggard gray face, glistening with sweat, and whispered, "Don't move, +don't speak to a soul till I get back. I must see the Garniers before +they do." + +Even without this, Marise would have been incapable of moving hand or +foot. Half an hour later, she was sitting in exactly the same position +frozen and deathly sick, when Jeanne let herself in cautiously. From the +gust of sounds that came in from across the landing, as the door was +opened, the two policemen seemed to be greatly enjoying both Isabelle +and the white wine. + +Then Jeanne shut the door on the loud voices and laughter; and in their +place Marise heard the sound of dreadful hoarse gasps as Jeanne tried to +get her breath after running. It did not sound like the breathing of a +human being, but like that of some large animal, like a horse or cow, +exhausted and panting. + +Jeanne came up the hall, fighting thus for her breath, and dragging her +feet. She shuffled heavily into the salon, and across to the closed +curtains, where locked in her nightmare, the child waited for some one +to come to the rescue. + +The old woman drew the curtain a little aside. Marise caught one glimpse +of her face, now swollen and darkly congested. She saw that Jeanne was +nodding reassuringly at her; she heard Jeanne say in a whisper, "They +understood, it's all right, they...." Then, without the slightest +warning, she turned to one side and fell headlong inside the curtains. + +For an instant she lay as if dead, her ghastly face at Marise's feet. +But almost at once she opened her eyes and tried to smile and to speak. +Only a guttural sound came from her lips. A look of terrible anxiety +came into her face. She motioned with one hand passionately, that the +curtain should be drawn shut to conceal her. + +Marise, frightened out of her palsy, was kneeling by her sobbing, +"Jeanne, Jeanne." + +She thought of what Jeanne had done for her mother, and flinging her +arms around her as she lay, she kissed her furiously, the tears coming +in a flood and pouring down on the dreadful face, now strangely twisted +to one side. Jeanne put one arm around her, and tried again to say +something. But her tongue moved senselessly in her distorted mouth; the +sweat stood out on her forehead as she struggled to speak. + +Finally she gave up her desperate attempt, and put her finger to her +lips, exhorting Marise to silence. Such a wildness of apprehension was +in her eyes, that the girl muffled her sobs, hiding her face on the +inert breast, clinging with all her might to the half-dead body. + +She thought that Jeanne was dying. She thought that she herself was +dying. She longed to die, there, that instant, and escape the shame and +sorrow and misery that buried her so deep, so much deeper even than +Jeanne knew. + +The sound of laughter and voices chimed out merrily again. Isabelle had +opened the other door. Marise held her breath, her face buried on +Jeanne's breast. The old woman tightened the clasp of her arm. They +strained their ears. + +Then they heard the men's feet clatter down the stairs. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +I + +It was Mlle. Hasparren who found them so, Mlle. Hasparren with her +shabby coat buttoned crookedly, who ran up the stairs as the sergents de +ville went down, who came in without a word of explanation to take +charge of things. + +She expressed no surprise at finding Marise where she was, nor at +Jeanne's condition. She acted as if nothing she found could have +surprised her. She lifted Marise up with strong loving arms, led her +into her own room and made her lie down with a handkerchief soaked in +smelling salts under her nose, and a cold bandage across her forehead, +while Isabelle stayed with Jeanne. She did not pet Marise or kiss her, +but from all her quiet presence breathed an assurance that she was there +to take care of her, and when she said, "I'll stay right here, dear, +till your father comes," Marise fell into a fit of quiet thankful +weeping that washed away the nervous trembling of her hands and lips. +She lay, turned on her side, sobbing, the tears running fast from her +eyes, and thought of nothing, except the steady look on Mlle. +Hasparren's face. "Now I must leave you here, dear child. I will send +Isabelle for the doctor, and I will stay with Jeanne." + +Presently Mlle. Hasparren came back and sat down again by the bed. She +looked perfectly self-possessed and exactly as usual, which gave Marise +the most inexpressible comfort. She said that the doctor was there, had +seen Jeanne and that she was not dying at all, not likely to, but had +simply had a partial stroke of paralysis, such as often happened to +people of her age--nothing in the least unusual about it. Jeanne was so +old, that any little thing might bring on a stroke of this sort and she +had worked so valiantly all her life, she was really older than her age. +She and Isabelle and the doctor had got Jeanne undressed and in her own +bed, and now she would be all right, only she had made them understand +that she wanted to see Marise. The doctor had told her that she mustn't +see any one, but she had become so agitated that he thought it best to +humor her. "Only, of course, poor thing, she can't say a word that any +one can understand. It's just an old woman's whim." Marise thought to +herself that it might be more than an old woman's whim, and getting up +at once went with Mlle. Hasparren into the room where Jeanne lay on the +bed. The doctor was on one side; on the other was Isabelle, half +frightened and half delighted with the excitement; a visit from gallant +sergents de ville, and from the doctor all in one day! + +Jeanne motioned them all out with her one arm, and only when the door +had closed after them, did she beckon Marise to her. She did not try to +speak now. She only looked at the girl, with a terrible concentration, +and put her finger to her lips. + +"Do you mean, Jeanne?" whispered Marise, her lips trembling, "that I am +not to tell any one?" + +Jeanne closed her eyes rapidly in assent. + +"Oh, no, no, _no_," cried the poor child. "Of course not, never, never, +never!" + +But the old woman was not satisfied. She reached out for Marise's hand +and drew her close, her eyes burning in her disfigured face. She struck +her lips repeatedly with her fingers, as though, try as she might, she +could not express the urgency of her command. + +"No one--no one at all?" asked Marise, and then with a gasp, "Not even +Papa?" + +At this Jeanne's eyes leaped up to a hotter flame of intensity. + +"No! no! no!" they cried to Marise. "No!" + +Marise thought she understood, and hanging her head she said in a low +shamed voice, "Oh, no, of course, I see." + +With the words and the acceptance of their meaning which Jeanne's +passionate eyes thrust upon her, Marise sank for many years into another +plane of feeling and saw all the world in another perspective, very ugly +and grim. That was the way Jeanne saw things. With all her immature +personality, with the pitiably insufficient weapons of a little girl, +Marise had fought not to accept Jeanne's way of seeing things. That had +been the real cause of their quarrels. But now the weapons were struck +from her hands. Jeanne had been right all the time it seemed. That was +the way things really were. Now she knew. With a long breath she +admitted her defeat. + +"No, _specially_ not Papa," she whispered. + + +II + +It was four o'clock that afternoon. They had had something to eat, +talking quietly about indifferent things, and they had found Papa's +address in Bordeaux and sent a telegram to him, before Marise thought to +ask, "But, Mademoiselle, how is it you can be out of your class-room +to-day?" She had often known the teacher to drag herself to work when +she was scarcely able to stand, and knew how the stern discipline of her +profession frowned on an absence from duty. + +"Oh, I arranged this morning to have a substitute come. I heard--I heard +your maman was not well, and I knew your papa was not here, and I wasn't +sure that any of your maman's friends might be able to come to look out +for you." + +As a matter of fact, Marise never saw one of her mother's callers again. + +That evening, Anna brought up a blue telegram from Papa, which since it +had been sent in English, as Papa always insisted on doing, was +perfectly unintelligible, reading: + + "Com inga nmorninjtrain ta kigo adca rof Maman." + + Papa. + +Marise who had with Maman puzzled over many other similar telegrams from +Papa, made out "morning-train" and that was enough. + +The doctor had sent in a nursing sister to take care of Jeanne during +the night, and Isabelle had gone off to a tenement near the Porte +d'Espagne where some relations of hers lived and had brought back an old +cousin to help her with the work and marketing and to sleep with her in +the other apartment. + +Mlle. Hasparren slept in the folding-bed beside Marise's so that every +time Marise, with a great scared start, realized anew that what had +happened was not a bad dream, she felt the other's hand reaching for +hers in the dark, and holding firm. She said very little and Marise was +glad of that, but the clasp of her muscular musician's hand pulled +Marise out of the black pit many times that night. + +Later on Marise fell into a real sleep, deep and unbroken, and when she +woke up, much later than usual, to find Mlle. Hasparren all dressed, the +folding-bed put away, the window open and the sunshine coming in, she +found that she seemed to have grown stronger since yesterday, that the +black pit was not so fathomless. She felt infinitely older and as though +she would never laugh again. She lay in bed, looking up at the ceiling, +thinking fixedly about what had happened, and found that she could +endure it now without crying out or bursting into tears as she had done +yesterday. She could stand up under her burden, because there was no +other way. But she felt her shoulders bowed and aching with the weight. + +Mlle. Hasparren heard her stir in bed, and sensed the awakened quality +of the movement. She came to look anxiously down at her. Marise looked +back and remembering that, so far as she knew, Mlle. Hasparren knew +nothing beyond the surface of the happenings of yesterday and so might +expect her to be able to smile, she produced a faint smile. + +"I overslept," she said, in order to say something. "Has somebody +brought your breakfast?" + +"No, I waited for you," answered Mlle. Hasparren. "I'll ring for +Isabelle now." + +When Isabelle came, very self-important at taking Jeanne's place, she +reported that the Sister said Jeanne had passed a very good night and +was perfectly comfortable, with no complications. "She says Jeanne may +get all over it and be as good as ever. All old people have these +seizures, she says," chattered Isabelle, setting down the tray and +pouring out Marise's cafe-au-lait. She was full of her new dignity, and +bustled off to give orders to her assistant, leaving Marise and Mlle. +Hasparren to eat their breakfast. Mlle. Hasparren did not seem to feel +like talking much, and neither did Marise. She was trying to think what +it was she was to tell Papa. She must remember now just what it was that +everybody was to be told. + +An hour later, as they went down the hall, on their way to the station +to meet the morning train, they saw the salon as usual at that hour, the +chairs pushed about, the rugs hanging over the window-sills, the fresh, +clean, new morning sun streaming in through the wide-open windows on the +familiar spectacle of Isabelle on her knees, a brush-broom in her hand +reaching under the piano for dust. The alcove curtains were drawn back, +the cheerful sunshine poured in, glittering on the dark polished wood of +the desk, on the yellow-covered books, on the pretty little inlaid chair +which stood beside the desk. + +Was it only yesterday that Jeanne had flung her into that chair? She +stood in the door, as she put on her hat, looking steadily at the +alcove. No, that had been somebody else ... a little girl, a lucky, +lucky little girl, who had no idea what things were like. + +"Come, dear," said Mlle. Hasparren, looking at her watch. + +It had been agreed since there were so few trains in and out of Bayonne +and since as yet no news had been sent to Jeanne's family, that if +Marise's father did come on the train from the north, Mlle. Hasparren +would board it as he left it, and go on down to Midassoa to tell the +Amigorenas about their mother's illness. "But do tell them, +Mademoiselle," Marise said over and over, anxiously, "that we will take +care of Jeanne, that we will do everything for her that anybody could, +that they needn't worry. I know Papa will see that she's taken care of. +I _know_ he will, if I ask him." But really she was not as sure as she +said. She did not know Papa so very well, after all. She had very little +idea what he would feel or say about anything. And then everything +depended on the way things turned out...! + +They stood there in the smoky dusk of the station, a long ray of +sunshine thick with golden motes striking the ground at their feet. +They still said very little, Marise not daring to talk for fear of +making a mistake, for fear that she would not remember just what and how +much Mlle. Hasparren knew. The music-teacher held the girl's slim +fingers close. Marise answered their pressure with a nervous fervor, +inexpressibly grateful to the other, loving everything about her from +her steady face and kind, shadowed eyes, to her heavy, badly-cut shoes, +dusty now, which would be dustier later after they had trudged along the +hot white road at Midassoa. Never, so long as she lived, was she able to +forget how Mlle. Hasparren had looked to her, when she came quietly into +the salon and lifted her up from Jeanne and said in a plain +matter-of-fact way as though nothing were the matter but Jeanne's +sickness, that they must get a doctor and probably Jeanne wasn't as sick +as she looked. She had just taken Marise by the hand and showed her how +to go on living ... when it seemed to Marise that she had come to the +end. + +They heard the train whistle shriekingly in the distance, and the +somnolent porters roused themselves. Marise tightened her hold on the +strong fingers which held hers. Her heart ached with longing, with +confusion. Suppose Papa did not come ... what _would_ she do? But +suppose he did ... wouldn't it be impossible not to make mistakes, not +to forget what you were to say and what you weren't? + +But when the train came in, and Marise saw at the other end of the long +platform her father's massive bulk heavily descending from a +compartment, and saw his eyes begin to search the crowd for her face, +all her confusion melted away in a great burst of relief.... Papa was +there, something of her very own in the midst of all those strangers! +Her heart almost broke with its release from tension. + +And yet before she ran to meet him, she put her arms around the +music-teacher and kissed her hard on both swarthy cheeks. + + +III + +Then she ran with all the speed of her long legs, and flung herself upon +Papa's broad chest and tried to put her arms around him, as she had +around Mile. Hasparren, and began to cry on Papa's great shoulder. How +good it was to feel him, to feel him so entirely as Papa always felt! It +would not have seemed like Papa if there were not more of him than she +could get her arms around. + +Her tears, her agitation gave Papa such a turn that he set his satchels +down hastily and looking alarmed, shook her a little, and asked what had +happened to Maman. + +In the hurry and noise and bustle of the crowd it was easier than Marise +had feared to get over that first moment when Papa must be told. It all +came out straight, just what she had planned to tell him, that nothing +had really happened to Maman, she wasn't sick or anything only she had +had a terrible nervous shock, had seen somebody killed right before her +eyes, and it had pretty nearly driven her wild. + +"Oh!" said Papa, evidently relieved, and caring as little as Marise had +about the person who had been killed. He picked up his satchels again +(by this time the porters at the Bayonne station were resigned to his +strange mania for carrying his own hand-baggage), and said, "Well, yes, +that's too bad! I remember I saw a brakeman killed once, and it made me +pretty sick, too." + +They walked out of the station together. Not two minutes had passed +since his arrival, and already Marise's joy that he had come, had faded +to a frightened sense that he had not come at all, that he was still +very far away, that he would never really come, as he used to. + +And yet Jeanne had been right of course; whatever else she did, she must +not tell Papa. + +"When did it happen?" asked Papa now, as they turned the corner and were +finally escaped from the last of the clamorous cab-drivers, who had not +yet accepted, as the porters had, the eccentricities of the American +gentleman. + +As they crossed the bridge, Marise told him the version she had +prepared, the version Jeanne had presented. She had had a good deal of +practice in saying something different from what she thought, and she +got through this without any hesitation or mistake. But every word of it +set her further away from Papa, raised a wall between them, the wall of +things she knew and Papa must never know. + +"Well, to be sure," said Papa, when she finished, "you certainly have +had goings-on, for sure." + +"Oh, Papa," went on Marise earnestly, "you _will_ have Jeanne taken care +of! It was when she was working for us, she got her paralysis. _Don't_ +you feel we ought to--for always, for always? It was for us...." + +"Oh, as to that," said Papa, "anybody of Jeanne's age, who rustles +around as Jeanne does, is apt to get a stroke, whether she was working +for us or not. It might have happened just as easily in her own home." + +Marise's heart went down. + +Papa added, with a change of tone, "I don't like her lying very well, +but the old woman has been awfully good to you, Molly, awfully good, +more like your grandmother than the cook, and I guess we'll see that +she's taken care of, all right." + +Marise squeezed his arm hard, and said nothing. After all, wall or no +wall, Papa was there, good old Papa, so broad and solid, her very own +Papa; somebody who, even if he didn't understand much of what went on, +would look out for them all, Maman, Jeanne, herself. + + +IV + +Papa went in at once to see Jeanne and told her through Marise--for +Jeanne had never learned to understand his brand of French--that he +would see that she was well taken care of till she recovered. Jeanne +contrived with her one living hand and her eyes, to convey her +respectful thanks, and to conceal everything else which Marise knew she +must be thinking. + +Then Papa wanted to go at once to the convent, and bring Maman home. +What had he come back for, if not for that? As a matter of fact, Marise +was not very sure why he had come back, or why she had felt it so +necessary to get word to him at once. Now that she had had time to think +about it, she realized that she dreaded very much having Maman see Papa +just now, right after ... after all that. It would have been better for +her to have had a little time to get over it, and like Marise, to think +what to say. + +But, of course, this was one of the things she could not speak to Papa +about. All she could do was to find out that lunch was nearly ready and +they would better eat that before they went to the convent. + +Isabelle, her head turned with the sudden removal of Jeanne's +heavy-handed authority, had prepared a gala luncheon with the best +silver and linen, and "What a pretty bunch of flowers," remarked Papa. + +Marise looked silently at the white rose-buds, now opening into roses. +Was it only yesterday morning that Jeanne had given her those? Was it +only two days before, that she had been walking along with the Garniers, +with nothing in her head but mockery of Madame Garnier's shoes and hat? +No, that must have been somebody else, some one she had distantly known, +that girl who had laughed with the others so, over their foolishness +behind the scenes. + +"Let me see," remarked Papa, "you must be almost fifteen, aren't you, +Molly?" + +"Yesterday was my birthday." + +"Funny kind of celebration." + +Marise looked at him across an immense chasm, and said nothing. She +couldn't ever remember having a meal at a table alone with Papa before. + +"Don't you want to go with me?" he asked later, as the dessert was +served. "I don't know how to find my way around a convent--of all +places! Whatever possessed your Mama to go there anyhow?" + +"She and Soeur Ste. Lucie are such good friends," explained Marise. She +decided not to say anything about the old monk, because she didn't know +whether Papa knew about Maman's going to see him before; but after +thinking for an instant she decided that it would do no harm to add, +"Soeur Ste. Lucie wants Mama to be a Catholic, you know." + +Papa said quickly, "What's that?" + +Marise was surprised at his tone. Perhaps that _was_ one of the things +she oughtn't to tell about. "Why, would you mind if she did?" she asked. + +Papa thought for a moment, and dropped back into his usual slow casual +comment, "Oh, no, I guess not, if she wants to." There was a silence +broken by Papa's saying something else, in an earnest tone as though +this time he really wanted Marise to listen to him. "All I _ever_ want, +Molly, is for Mama to have things the way she wants them." + +Marise's heart was nervously sensitive that day, in a sick +responsiveness to the faintest indication of what was in other people's +hearts. + +She could not put another morsel of food to her lips. She sat looking +down at her plate, trying to master or at least understand the surge of +feeling within her. "_All I ever want is for Mama to have things the way +she wants them._" There was so much to think of in that, that she was +still lost in thinking, when Papa pushed back his chair and got up, +pulling down his vest, with his usual after-dinner gesture. + +"I'll have a look at the mail while you get your things on," he +suggested. Evidently he was still set on going at once to see Maman. +Perhaps more than he admitted, he really didn't like her being in a +convent. + +Marise went to get her hat, and with it in her hand, went to join her +father, standing by her mother's writing-desk in the alcove. He had an +American newspaper in his hand, his fore-finger inserted in the wrapper. + +He tore it open and stood looking at the headlines, while Marise put on +her broad-brimmed sailor-hat and, tilting her head forward, slipped the +rubber under her hair behind. + +"All ready?" said Papa, and they set out. + +How much less _exciting_ everything was, now that Papa was home. But +would it be--if he--but he never would! Who would tell him? Not Maman +certainly, although Marise wished that poor Maman could have had a few +days more without seeing Papa, to get over being excited so she could be +surer of what she was saying. Not Jeanne. Not herself. Nobody else knew +him well enough to tell him anything. If Maman could only get through +to-day all right.... + + +V + +At the convent they waited in the usual bare, white-washed convent +parlor with the shutters drawn, with the usual little rush-bottomed +chairs, so light that the one Papa sat down on, groaned and creaked +under his great weight. The usual black-walnut book-case displayed the +usual Lives of the Saints. Through an open door they could look down a +long, long, gray stone corridor, very empty, till they saw Soeur Ste. +Lucie hurrying noiselessly down it towards them. + +As she came near, Marise saw that her sweet face looked anxious and +worried. She told them at once that Madame Allen had been taken very +ill, that they had been up all night with her and had sent for the +doctor early that morning. + +Papa was startled by this unexpected news, and apparently never dreamed +of what occurred to Marise at once, that this was just something they +had made up to prevent anybody's talking to her. Marise thought it a +good idea. She had hoped something like that could be arranged ... in +case those horrible sergents de ville came back again. She was not +alarmed by Soeur Ste. Lucie's worried face, because this was by no means +the first time that she had observed how easy it was for people's faces +to look anything they wished to have them. + +Papa was asking rather sharply, "What is the matter? What did the doctor +say? Is it the effect of nervous shock?" + +All the same, it was too bad, thought Marise to have Papa worried for +nothing. + +Soeur Ste. Lucie shook her head hurriedly, "Oh, no, something much more +acute than that, a terrible, terrible chill which has gone to her lungs. +The poor lady must have been in soaking wet clothes, for nobody knows +how long. Monsieur has been told of the...." She hesitated and paused. + +"Yes, yes, I know she was with some one who fell into a river somewhere +and was drowned. But did she fall in, too? How did she get wet? Why +_weren't_ her clothes changed?" His voice rose as he asked the +questions. + +Soeur Ste. Lucie explained in a low, hurried, agitated voice. "Nobody +knows of course just what happened. Perhaps she tried to save the poor +fellow. Perhaps she slipped as he did. In any case she was too +distraught to think of herself or to realize the danger of going so long +in wet clothes. And every one there was so absorbed in the tragedy...! +She was all alone among strangers, the poor lady. She must have sat in +her dripping garments in the cold train all the way to Lourdes, and then +half the night in the unheated station there, waiting for the train. It +was terrible. The doctor said it was terrible to think of--weakened with +the shock, as she was, and no food!" + +Papa now said ungently and impatiently, yet as though he were +restraining himself, "Well, we must get her home at once, where we can +take care of her!" Marise could see that he believed every word that +Soeur Ste. Lucie said. + +But of course Soeur Ste. Lucie hadn't the least intention of letting +Papa take Maman away. "I'm afraid that is impossible," she said, "the +doctor came back this afternoon, is here now in fact, and says"--her +voice broke--"he says she is much too ill to be moved." + +At this Papa burst out angrily, his face very red, "Why under the +heavens didn't you send word of this to her own home? Here I have been +there, ever since the morning train, eating my lunch ... with no _idea_ +that...." + +The nun defended herself reasonably, sadly, showing no resentment at his +anger, "No one knew you were come back, Monsieur, and I was just +starting to fetch our dear little Marie." + +Marise saw over the nun's shoulder a gentleman with a bald head, a great +brown beard and very white hands coming down the corridor, "Here is the +doctor, now," said Soeur Ste. Lucie, drawing in her breath quickly. +Taking Papa and motioning Marise to stay where she was, she stepped down +the corridor. Marise watched them, her eyes on the doctor's serious, +spectacled eyes. Something about the way he looked at Papa made Marise +for the first time wonder if Maman really were a little sick after all. + +They all came back to where Marise stood. Papa's face was no longer red. +He said to Marise in a queer voice, "The doctor says that Maman must not +be disturbed, but we may go in to see her for a moment if we will be +quiet and not talk." + +They turned, all of them, and started down the long, gray stone +corridor. Marise tip-toed along beside her father. She was a little +frightened in spite of herself, at a loss to know what to think or feel +or believe. The emptiness of the corridor echoed around them. Marise's +ears rang with the emptiness of it! And how long it was. It took them +forever to walk through it. Marise looked up at the small windows set +high in the wall, and wondered when they would ever come to a door that +opened out. + +But the only door was at the very end, and that opened into the +white-washed room where Maman lay in a narrow bed. + + * * * * * + +As soon as she saw her mother, Marise was sure again that she was not +really sick because she looked even better than usual, with a deep +shell-pink in her cheeks. She did seem a little tired and sleepy, +however, for her eyelids looked heavy and kept dropping down over her +eyes. They stood there for a moment, looking at her, till she should +open them again. + +When she did, and saw Papa there, she flung out her arms towards him. As +he stooped over her she clung to him with all her might just as Marise +had at the station. + +She did not look at Marise at all, only at Papa. He patted her shoulder, +and smiled at her, and Marise saw the tears run out of Maman's eyes in a +gush. + +Papa sat down on the little chair by the bed which creaked under his +weight, and leaned forward, his arms around Maman, his cheek against +hers. She said to him in a hurried, frightened whisper, "Horace, I want +to go home. I want to go home." + +He answered steadily, "It's all right, Flora ... we'll have you home in +a few days." + +She closed her eyes again, all the expression dropping out of her face. +The doctor stepped to the other side of the bed, and his fingers on her +wrist, his eyes on his watch, motioned them silently to leave, with a +sideways jerk of his head. + +They tip-toed out and down the long, gray, empty corridor. + + * * * * * + +Marise's mother died that night, without seeing them again. + + + + +_AN EDUCATION IN THE HUMANITIES AND THE LIBERAL ARTS_ + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +September, 1900. + +The first weeks of Freshman year were like a return to the formless +impersonality of little boyhood. Just as Neale had felt himself an +amoeba-like cell among the finished, many-membered adults of his +parents' circle, so he was now again only one more wriggle in the mass +of Freshmen. Nobody could tell him apart from any other Freshman. He +could scarcely tell himself apart from the other Freshmen. + +This did not afflict him as it might a more sensitive, self-conscious +boy. Indeed he rather enjoyed the anonymity of his condition, the space +and vacuum about him which it created, where he floated free from any +threat of the handling or pawing-over which was his especial fear when +he entered into relations with other people. There was so much that was +new to him in college life that it was occupation enough to look on +without taking any part. He enjoyed the variety of his experiences, from +the Greek-and-Roman feeling that came with walking up the Library steps, +to the fairy-cave enchantment of floating on the shimmering water of the +electric-lighted, marble-lined swimming pool. And he enjoyed most of all +his aloof spectator's scorn of footless classes like Rhetoric A, or +class-meetings where a few loud-mouthed blow-hards ran the show, while +the real scouts like himself preserved a cautious, sardonic silence. He +discovered the perilous secret, always a temptation to natures like his, +that if you attempt nothing, share in no effort, you are automatically +freed from any blame for the inevitable foolishness and blunders; you +can stand on your safe little hillock and scorn the poor fools who try +to do things and fail. The lone-wolf motive sang seductively in his +seventeen-year-old ears. Nothing in any of his classes, nothing in the +Library or in any of the books in it gave the seventeen-year-old a hint +of any valid, compelling reason for his assuming the heavy, distasteful +burden of responsibility. + +Then one day, word was passed around that the Flag Rush would be held +that afternoon; the Flag Rush unanimously deplored by the directing +forces of the University; the Flag Rush, that out-burst of meaningless +brutality so shocking to all the European members of the Faculty, +secretly contemptuous of the prosperous, illiterate, childish country +where they taught. + +Neale never dreamed of staying out of the Flag Rush. There was a row on, +and his class needed his muscles and his head. He went to the Gym. at +the appointed hour, where all the Freshmen were assembled. Gathering +confidence at being all together for once, they marched in a body over +to South Field. There they found the Sophs. gathered about a tree, from +a branch of which fluttered a 1903 flag. Juniors took charge of the +affair, coaching and urging on the Freshmen. Still buoyed up by their +mass, by being together, they advanced to the charge. They were +uncertain, and for the most part, amiable big little boys, who really +cared nothing about that flag, who really cared only about doing what +was expected of them. As they advanced, they began to hurry, to rush +forward nervously. Several detached Sophs. dived in at the leaders' feet +and broke up the formation, but there was mass impetus enough to carry +the rush forward. The Freshmen crashed into the defenders of the flag, +pushed them back, circled them round ... at the first physical contact +with the enemy they were no longer big little boys doing what was +expected of them, they were young Berserk fighters, blind and furious +with the delight of battle. A roar went up, a roar from their very +hearts, like the yell which had burst up from their little-boy +game-centers. Except for a few rare and artistic natures, who were +suffering horribly from shock, every one of them was twice what he had +been two minutes before. A Freshman somehow shot up through the crowd, +hoisted on his classmates' shoulders, and laid his hands on the sacred +branch; but defenders spouted up around him, grabbed his legs and +pulled him down. With this, all semblance of organized purpose left the +rush. It broke up into a disorganized melee, rolling and tumbling, +panting and struggling in a hundred separate encounters. + +Neale rolled and tumbled, panted and struggled with the rest, far, far +from any cool Olympian detachment. He was one of the biggest and +strongest of the Freshmen and felt his responsibility. He did what he +could. But that was not much. The Freshmen did not know one another, and +had no plan. Sometimes Neale collared his own classmates by mistake; +sometimes a couple of Sophs. tackled him together, ran him back and +dropped him on the grass. + +A half-hour later the flag was still in the tree, and the furious +boiling over of insensate young life had cooled to a simmer. The Juniors +called the rush off, the Freshmen began to stream back to the Gym. Neale +was surprised to find one sleeve to his jersey missing and innumerable +rips and tears all over his other garments. He was bruised from head to +foot and spat blood from a cut lip. Calmed, appeased, exhausted, he made +limping for the gate. + +As he passed through it, he passed through another and invisible gate, +opening into quite a different path from the solitary, self-satisfied +way of aloofness which he had been following. He did not, as a matter of +fact, pass through the invisible gate. He was shoved through by a +vigorous hand that slapped him on the shoulder. Turning, Neale looked +into the masterful face of the Varsity Coach. "Report for football +practice to-morrow!" was the order. "I'm Andrews!" + +The information was unnecessary. Neale would not at this date have +recognized President Low or Dean Van Amringe, but he knew the football +coach. The next twenty hours were beatific. His mind refused to grasp +facts. It wandered off into gorgeous day-dreams. He was on the +Varsity ... no, he was a sub, called in at the last minute ... a long +run! ... better, a recovered fumble ... then down the field, shaking +off one tackler after another. + +He would wake up to real life, blushing, swearing at himself for a +condemned fool. And yet a few minutes later, in fancy he was the last +defender between the goal line and a rushing Yale back...! + +Not the faintest hint of any of this appeared on the surface. At home he +preserved his normal appetite which was his mother's gauge for his +health and spirits, and although he told them, not unwillingly, about +the Flag Rush, he preserved the sacred secret of his summons from +Andrews, as though it had been his first sentimental rendezvous. The +next day dragged endlessly, filled with the paper-like silhouettes of +talking professors. But three o'clock was finally there, and he was at +the Gym., silent, his face composed, his heart given to sudden swelling +bulges, which made it hard for him to hear what was being said. + +They gave him a suit. He trotted with the squad, _with the Squad_ over +to South Field! + +"Ever played?" asked the scrub quarter. + +"Yes," said Neale. He did not feel obliged to tell how little. + +"What position?" + +"Half-back," he lied brazenly, having made up his mind that he hadn't +the weight to aspire to the Varsity line. + +They ran through signals. Then a scrimmage started but Neale was not in +the line-up. A scrub back had his wind knocked out and didn't get up +quickly enough for the coach. "Put in that Freshman bean-pole. Jump in, +what's your name?" + +Neale jumped and floundered for five minutes, then the peppery scrub +quarter consigned him profanely to the side-lines. For two days after +that he moped without a job, although still in a suit, out in the field. +Then he had another trial. + +Gradually he made sure of his place as right-half on the scrub--not that +he was any good, as they told him plainly: but because in those days the +whole squad, including hopeless dubs, seldom numbered over thirty men, +and thanks to the work in the mill at West Adams, Neale was physically +fit. + +With this place, minor though it was, came the great privilege of +dinner, after practice, at the football house. There he picked up a +little of the theory of the game from the blackboard talks; there after +the Pennsylvania's guards-back had battered through for thirty points, +he heard the coach, white and shaking with emotion, pour out his biting +post-mortem. "You, Jackson," shaking his fore-finger at the left-guard, +"did you shoot your body in low and spill them in their own territory? +No, you STOOD UP!" + +Neale's flesh crept, he was almost glad that he had escaped the fearful +responsibility of being on the Varsity. It was terrible, such a weight +on your shoulders. He shrank from it, and with all his being, aspired to +it. + +He made no impression on the football world, but his own interior world +was transformed. He was no longer an isolated, formless Freshman, dumped +down into the midst of the most callously laissez-faire of Universities, +he was no more a forgotten molecule with no share in, or responsibility +for the ultimate reaction. He had a shelter for his personality against +the vast, daunting indifference of the universe. He was on the football +squad. + +He had feared he might have some trouble in explaining his absence from +the supper-table at home, but that proved unexpectedly easy. The second +evening after he began to play on the scrub, he found Father in the +library at home, reading the sporting sheet of the Evening Telegram. + +"Any other Crittendens in college, Neale?" he asked. + +"Not that I know about." + +"That's you on the football team, then?" + +"Only on the scrub, yes, I'm trying. We have dinner together after +practice. You don't mind, do you?" + +"Me? Of course not," said Father. + +Mother heard all this, apparently had known it before, and did not ask +him to take care of himself and not get hurt. Neale looked over at her +gratefully. Mother was all right. + +The football season slid along, the Varsity improving every week. Neale +glowed with caste-loyalty as Saturday after Saturday he watched the +prowess of his big brothers. Every day he felt himself stretching up, +broadening out, nearer to their stature, though nobody else gave him a +thought. Life was full of big and generous and absorbing matter. + +Then came Thanksgiving Day, the climax ... and oh, after that, what a +vacuum! Nothing in life but classes! Holy smoke! It was fierce! What did +the fellows do who hadn't had anything but classes! How could they stand +it? But of course, it wasn't such a come-down for them. + +Going home as Neale did every afternoon, he had none of the scanty, +ill-organized college social life. Sliding into college as he had, with +no introduction from the right kind of Prep. school, and with a +noticeably colorless personality, he was not thought of as a possibility +for any fraternity. Time hung heavy on his hands. Lectures took up but +three hours a day, on the busiest days. To fill in the rest of the time +there was the swimming pool, the Gymnasium and the Library. He swam, +practised the overhand racing stroke, dived; in the Gym. he fooled +awkwardly on the parallel bars and side-horse; he tossed medicine balls +with any pick-up acquaintance; what he really enjoyed was the line of +traveling rings which hung in front of the visitors' gallery--but one +day he heard an upper classman refer to these as "Freshmen's Delight," +and thereafter he avoided them. + +The Library, the first one to which he had had access, wasn't so bad. +Neale went there first to look up a reference for Comp. Lit. A. Of +course you ran the risk of being thought a grind if you spent too much +time there, but you could kill the hours very pleasantly with the bound +volumes of the magazines in the shelves about the general reading-room. +Neale and most of his friends wasted an unconscionable number of hours +on those magazines: but little by little the library habit began to form +itself, by slow, infinitesimal accretions. He found it a good place to +study, wrote English A. themes there, finally even got into the way of +running through the card catalogue, and drawing books with titles that +sounded good. + +Christmas came. Father, recognizing manhood achieved, gave him a box of +a hundred Milo cigarettes. Mother--poor, dear, ignorant Mother!--gave +him a white sweater decorated with a light blue C! Even more than by +smoking Father's cigarettes, Neale proved that he had begun to outgrow +the cruel egotism of adolescence, by kissing Mother and thanking her, +without telling her that almost any fool finally gets his diploma, but +only the chosen few--and these as Juniors or Seniors--win the right to +adorn themselves with the proud insignia of their Varsity letter. + +After Christmas came the mid-year exams. Neale went into them +confidently enough--and to his astonishment emerged with passing marks, +but with no great credit. D in German was the worst, and he'd studied +German since he was a little boy! Greek, English and Latin marked him as +mediocre with a C. Comparative Literature alone rated him B--and every +one knew that Comp. Lit. was a snap course. Neale had never thought of +himself as a grind, but he had been used to high marks at school, and +the low grades nettled him. He began to see that there was more to this +college work than he had understood. The studies themselves were not +unlike those of high school; indeed they were easier than the science +and mathematics that had been hammered into him at Hadley. But the point +of view was different, and that had fooled him. There was a "take it or +leave it" attitude about everything at college; the professors did not, +as at Hadley, hold their jobs only because they were able to drive the +bright, the dull, the scatter-brained, the sluggish, all through passing +grades for the next year's work. No, these college professors and +instructors gave themselves no such trouble. They set out their wares. +If the students helped themselves, so much the better: if they didn't, +so much the worse--for the students. Neale mis-called the professors for +lazy time-servers: but he wasn't going to let them put it over on him +that way another time. He would read everything they suggested and more! +They would be astonished by the brilliance of his finals. But just then +baseball practice started in the cage and Neale forgot all about his +vendetta against the professors. + +At baseball he expected to shine. This he had really played before +coming to college. April saw the Freshman baseball squad practising on +South Field. It was a terrible jolt to Neale to find himself in the +discard. His vacant-lot, light-of-nature game had not compared favorably +with the play of graduates of well-coached Prep. schools. He was thrown +back on the Library. Perhaps it was just as well, he told himself with +sour-grape philosophy. After all he was there, among other things, to +get an education. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +The event of that summer, the only one that counted for him, was a long, +timber-cruising trip which he took, as chain-boy and camp-helper, up +into the mountains of southern Vermont. Grandfather's whole life had +been spent in handling timber in one way and another and all his old +friends and associates were in that world. Every one had the greatest +respect for old Mr. Crittenden's "timber-sense" even now when he was so +old that he could do no more cruising, engage in no more active +speculation. Sitting around on the lumber-piles at the mill, or on the +porch of the Crittenden house, Grandfather somehow had a finger in many +a timber deal. People came to consult him, and to get him to go halves +on buys bigger than they had capital for. From the time he had been a +little boy, Neale had been the unconsidered witness of innumerable such +interviews, and had laughed inwardly with considerable family pride to +see how completely Grandfather in his baggy old country clothes held his +own and better against the smartly-dressed younger men who came to talk +business with him. + +The summer after Neale's Freshman year, the proposition was a big buy of +wild land from which Grandfather himself had skimmed the cream thirty +years ago and sold for nothing afterwards, but which old Mr. Crittenden +opined, cocking a shrewd old eye in reflection, must have again come to +some exploitable value. Three men were to go up unobtrusively, and +timber-cruise through it, back and forth, zig-zag, till they could make +a fair report on what was there. The plans were being made, one evening, +out on the porch where they all sat in the long, clear summer twilight. +Grandfather had not seemed to notice Neale's half-wistful interest in +the talk of camp outfits and compasses and packs, but suddenly, looking +down to where the boy stretched his long, gaunt body on the +porch-floor, he said, "What say, Neale? How'd you like to go along? You +could carry chain when they had to run a line, and I guess you're smart +enough to keep a fire going and help make camp, ain't you?" + + * * * * * + +That had been a great month; full of discomfort and hardship and fatigue +and deep, deep satisfaction. Neale was the only boy with three men, +hardened, wiry woodsmen, who had spent their lives in forests, not at +all in the loafing irregular manner of sportsmen, with occasional spurts +of nervous effort, and with long periods, in unfavorable weather, of +idling around a camp-fire. Neale's three companions had always worked in +the woods as regularly as his father worked in his office. Rain and heat +and cold and insect-plagues were nothing to them. The main business of +every day was work: and camp-life was organized sketchily (without much +regard for comfort), not to interfere with work. Neale found that his +gymnasium-practice, athletic-sports, college-life had left him as soft +as dough beside these lean, iron-like men. He doggedly sweated himself +into a hardness that made it possible for him to keep pace with them. At +first when they turned in under their blankets at night as soon as dark +came, Neale had been too exhausted to sleep and had lain awake aching, +every one of his big bones bruised by the roughness of the hastily-made +balsam-bough bed. But inside a week, he was able, as his companions did, +to stretch out with one long, deep breath, and to know nothing more till +morning came, and the light woke him to roll over and open his eyes to +the unimaginable freshness of dawn, filtering through the thick-leaved +branches over his head. He drew in a chest-full of the sweet, new air, a +heart-full of immaculate beauty, and fell heavily asleep again, till +half-an-hour later one of his companions kicked him awake to take his +share of getting breakfast and packing up for the day's tramp. + +The three timber-cruisers talked very little of anything, most of their +prodigious capacity for effort going into their work, and they never +talked at all of the beauty which was the background of their lives; but +they occasionally paid a silent, offish tribute to that beauty by going +a little out of their way to some "look-out" evidently, from their talk, +familiar to them since boyhood. This was generally the top of a cliff or +rocky slide, where there were no trees to obscure the view. Arrived +there, they never did anything but sit and swing their feet over +emptiness, pitch stones into the void below them, and quarrel with each +other about the identification of different peaks and hollows in the +vast wooded expanse of mountains before them. But they were always more +than usually silent after such a glimpse of the spaciousness of the +world and, for one, Neale found a greatness in his heart to match the +greatness which had filled his eyes. + +Once as they sat thus on a crag, throwing stones and smoking, the head +timber-cruiser, old Martin Hoardman, remarked to Neale, of whom they +usually took little notice, "See that high range ... and then that other +beyond it, the one with the three-peaked mountain in the middle?" + +Neale nodded. + +"Wa'l, you'd never guess it, but there's a valley down in between them +two, with a sight of folks in it, and farms and everything." + +Another man said, "Why, old man Crittenden's got a brother lives there. +Ain't that the Ashley valley? He runs an old-fashioned water-power mill +there." + +Martin observed, "Yep, I've drawed many a load of logs to the old man's +mill." + +Neale remembered the sharp-spoken old man who had visited Grandfather's +mill one day when he was a little boy. He had said then, he would go up +to Ashley some day and make Uncle Burton a visit. Well, if he were a +crow or a hawk, he could do it now, in about half an hour. He sat +dreaming, his eyes fixed on the two hazy blue lines of mountains which +stood up so high and so close to each other that they entirely hid the +valley between. It must be a quiet, sheltered spot, that valley. + +"Time to be movin' on," said old Martin, getting to his feet, and +striding off into the woods, with his strong, unelastic, never-tiring +gait. + +At the end of five weeks they were plodding back up the road to the +Crittenden house, Neale not to be distinguished from the other men. The +road seemed hard and narrow and foolish to them, the house and barn like +toys, the world about them on so small a scale that their widened eyes +could scarcely distinguish one thing from another. Neale had the +distinct impression, when he stepped into the kitchen that if he stood +up straight, he would put his head through the ceiling. And what a +comical, trifling thing a chair was! He felt afraid to let his whole +weight come down on it and expected it to go to pieces in his hand, it +felt so flimsy. + +But his bed was good--oh, very good. He slept till noon the next day and +was wakened by Grandfather coming up to see what the matter was. He +scrambled up, half-awake, rubbing his eyes and staring, his pyjamas open +upon his broad chest, his long arms bare. Grandfather stood looking at +him for a moment before he went back downstairs. He did not say a word +except, "You're going to eat breakfast and dinner together, I guess," +but Neale knew that Grandfather was very well pleased with what he saw. +Grandfather was a pretty good old scout, anyhow, he thought, as he +washed gingerly in the white earthen-ware basin, which seemed +appallingly breakable to him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +And then it was time to go back to college. Sophomore year was _entirely +different_. What a change from his cat-in-a-strange-garret sensation of +a year ago! Now he was blatantly sure of every step in the elaborate and +illogical ritual that makes up undergraduate life. He stood between +College Hall and the Library all one happy afternoon, wringing the hands +of Sophomores, as uplifted with their status as he. There Griswold the +Assistant Manager hailed him and carried him off to the football house +on 117th Street. He found the office on the first floor crowded with all +the leaders and hangers-on of the football organization. + +Andrews shook hands with him and actually remembered his name instead of +calling him "Freshman Bean-pole"--it was great to be a Soph.! "Report in +the Gym. at three," said Andrews, "you'd better live at the house this +season; fix him up with a room, Charley." He turned and went on talking +with McClurg, something about officials for the Fordham game. + +Bixby reached over and picked up a paper from the welter on his desk, +"Top-floor, Crittenden, you'll find a lot of cots in the front room; +take any one that's loose." + +"I haven't any clothes with me," explained Neale. It had never occurred +to him that he would be accepted into the very center of things this +way. + +"Never mind, bring 'em to-morrow; but you'd better beat it up and stake +out your claim to a cot now...." The telephone rang and Bixby snatched +it up, "Columbia football house, yes, this is Bixby speaking. No, that +_won't_ do! Those shoes were promised for this afternoon. Yes, yes, you +can make it if you send them right away. See here, there are lots of +sporting-goods firms who want our trade...." + +Neale went upstairs and found a room, with six cots made up. Four of +them had suit-cases or books on them to show occupancy. Over by the +window he saw Billings, last year's full-back, sitting at a table with a +thin, slight upper classman. Neale thought he recognized him,--Grant his +name was--one of the college leaders, debating team, Spec. Managing +Board, Phi Beta Kappa; that sort of chap. Billings' big body was hunched +miserably forward over a book, his forehead wrinkled. As Neale looked at +them, Grant reached forward, shut up the book and pulled it towards him. + +"No use, Billings. It'd only ball you up to keep on with that math. Not +a chance! Don't try the exam. Anyway they can't keep you off the team +with only one condition. But, God, how _did_ you manage to flunk Comp. +Lit.? Any child of three ought to pass Comp. Lit. But don't you worry! +We'll get you through. Have you learned those pieces I gave you?" + +Billings straightened up and recited in a stumbling sing-song, "As +Shelley beautifully says, 'I could lie down like a sick child and +weep ... and weep ... and weep!...'" + +"'Away this life of woe,'" prompted Grant. "And it's like a 'tired +child.'... No, don't change it! It'll look less as if you were copying a +crib if you don't get it quite right. All right for that. Now, let's +have the other ones." + +At this point, Billings said violently in very forcible language, that +poems were all such damn silly rot he couldn't learn them. And Grant, +unsurprised and peremptory, answered that it didn't make a damned bit of +difference how silly and rotten they were, they could be learned. +"You've got brains enough to get a racing-dope sheet by heart, you can +memorize poetry too. Now, your time's up. Beat it over to the Library +where you can't talk and learn all _three_ pieces! Remember you're to +work 'em in, no matter what he asks. And if you have a chance, praise +Shelley and knock Matthew Arnold. That's his line." + +He turned to Neale, "You're Greenway, aren't you, with two years' +conditions in French B?" + +"No," said Neale, "I'm Crittenden." + +"Oh, are you? Not on my list. You ought to have reported before. I +can't do everything at the last minute. No matter, I'll give you till +Greenway shows up. He's only a sub-end anyway, and we're lousy with +ends. What did _you_ flunk?" + +"I didn't flunk anything," Neale admitted, half-ashamed that he might be +considered a grind. + +Grant jumped up. "What, _nothing_! And on the football squad, too." He +stared hard at Neale as at a strange animal, and conjectured aloud, +"Well, you must be a dub, of course. Never knew a Varsity man whose +brain-cavity wasn't stuffed with cabbage-leaves." + +Neale apparently showed some of the alarm this caused him, for the +upper-classman added, "Oh, you'll get your chance just the same. Judging +by the number of boobs Alpine and I are coaching, any dub who is +eligible will have a smell at the Varsity, at least for the early games, +till we can shove the regular Varsity men through their conditions." + +"EVERYBODY OVER TO THE GYM.," roared a voice from the lower hallway. + +Neale tossed his derby on one of the unpreempted cots and ran +downstairs. As he bounded down flight after flight he could hear Grant +leaning over the top banister yelling to the Manager to have Greenway +found and delivered to him at once. + +It was great to breathe the sweaty air of the dressing-room again, to +strip and pull on your rough jersey and feel it rubbing the skin of your +shoulders, great to hail the men you knew and have them slap you on the +back. + +"ALL OVER.... On the jump!" The squad clattered out, their cleats +scraping and slipping on the marble steps. + +Practice that afternoon was what the coaches called light--that is, no +bones were broken: they fell on the ball, and it gladdened Neale's heart +to see the new men hop into the air and bang down on one hip, just as he +used to last season. They tackled the dummy, they went down under punts +that sultry September afternoon--all of them, even the line men, time +after time, till the sweat soaked even through their elbow-pads. Neale +was dog-tired as he hobbled back to the dressing-room and pulled off +his dripping jersey. What luxury to slip under the shower, hot first +till the dirt was all off, then turn the handle, cool, cool, cooler, +cold--to lean forward and feel it patter on your back, lean backward and +feel the cold hard drops sting your face and chest. As he lay in +Pompeian ease on the rubbing table, Josh went so far as to tell him that +his muscles were in pretty fair shape compared to some of them. That was +the timber-cruising trip. And how he tore into the roast-beef that +night! It was good to be alive--to be a Soph.--to be on the football +squad! + +Grant's prophecy turned out correct. Four of the regular Varsity men +were debarred by the faculty committee and the eligible subs made the +most of their opportunity. One of the vacant places was left half-back +and Neale, who that summer had grown some flesh and muscle on his lanky +limbs and now weighed a hundred and sixty-three stripped, put his whole +soul into the quest and nosed out Biffy McFadden for the job. McFadden +knew more than Neale (the coach made no secret of Neale's lack of +sophistication) but he weighed less and was only a little faster. + +So Neale was given, although grudgingly, his chance and took it as +though it had been his one chance to save his soul alive. He played +against Rutgers, proud, half-scared, yet reassured at lining up by the +side of big Tod McAlpine, and was fairly translated when he went over +the line (just as easily as if it had been in practice) for one of +Columbia's five touchdowns. Against Williams a week later, he played +again and did nothing either very good or very bad. Just before the +Harvard game, Garland was squeezed through a special examination in +Latin and after that Neale had no chance for the Varsity. But he _was_ +considered about neck and neck with Biffy as first sub for the +back-field, and he and Biffy grew together in a loyal comradeship, as +brothers-in-arms. + +Like a young tree which suddenly puts out a long new shoot in a new +direction, Neale learned a lot of things that autumn, different from +anything he had learned before. In the first place, living in the +constant unrepressed society of thirty other young men, he acquired a +good deal of social ease of a rough-and-tumble sort, learned much +profanity, many foul and a few funny stories by the aid of which he was +able to piece together the isolated facts he had already picked up about +sex, and appear to his brothers a great deal more sophisticated than he +was. + +He also learned much technical football: to pick openings in a broken +field, to jump from a crouching start the instant the ball began to +move, to find his stride and be going at top speed in three paces, +instinctively to hurdle when the defense was on the ground, to bull over +it with churning knees when it was waist high, to lower his head and ram +through when it was standing up, and always to kick, crawl, squirm the +ball forward even if it was only a half an inch. + +He learned a great deal more than that. All that autumn he played +football, thought football, dreamed football, lived football. The savage +Spartan football code was his code: to do anything, everything for a +team-mate, for the team; to fight as hard in midfield with the score +hopelessly against him as half a yard from the enemy's goal-line; to +endure the agony of being tackled on muscle-bruised thighs, to get up +and drive back as hard as ever into the line to the same certain +torment; to go to any length to put an opponent out of the game--any +length except being caught and having his team penalized by the +officials; and no matter to what outbreaks of emotion his exhausted body +and over-strained nerves might give way in the dressing-room, to walk +out of it with his jaw set, his face impassive and never let an enemy +rooter see a tear in his eye. It was by no means the education in the +humanities and liberal arts with which the University was supposed to be +providing him, but an education of a kind, it certainly was. Above all, +at a period when his raw new personality was all one huge void, +clamoring for something to fill it, football filled his life full to the +brim. There was no vacuum left to be filled either by culture or +deviltry. + +All through the rest of that in-and-out season he played regularly at +left half-back on the scrub, relishing to the full those afternoons when +the scrub, with all the best of the decisions, scored on a crippled +Varsity; rejoicing even more (for it meant power to the team) when the +Varsity struck its gait and pounded rough-shod over the bleeding and +prostrate scrub. + +After the season Neale found himself entitled to wear the "Varsity +stripe" and monogram. This gave him a certain position in his class. He +was somebody. Two fraternities made discreet overtures to him. Neale +considered, encouraged Lamma Kappa Pi, which seemed to have more +athletic men than the other, was duly pledged and initiated. + +And now came a change in his manner of living. The chapter needed +roomers to help pay the rent for the Frat. house. Couldn't Brother +Crittenden move into a top-floor bedroom? Neale broached the subject to +his father and mother, pointing out how much more time he would have for +study if he lived near the University. They surprised him by treating +the matter with unexpected solemnity and delaying decision for several +days; but in the end they gave their consent. + +It did not occur to Neale as he slung his clothes into a trunk that he +was saying good-by to his home-life; and if it occurred to his mother, +silently helping him pack, she kept her thoughts to herself. An event +that seemed of much more importance to Neale was a move that Father made +on his own initiative. After a long homily on responsibility and +learning the value of money, he proposed to grant Neale an allowance of +fifty dollars a month to be paid on the first of the month in advance. +Out of this Neale was to buy food, shelter and incidentals. Father was +to go on paying college fees. + +So Brother Crittenden installed himself in the top-floor hall bedroom, +and according to fraternity practice, decorated it with pennants, foils +and masks (although he did not fence), and sword bayonets, because they +looked impressive and were cheap at Bannerman's. To make a real college +room, he knew by comparing it with others, it should have a dozen girls' +photographs, but Neale knew no girl well enough to beg photographs from +her. He excused this lack by telling himself that he had no use for +women, he was at college for the stern man's business of making the +football team. Nothing that might interfere with the pink of physical +condition or the singleness of mental resolution should have a place in +his life. + +And indeed for the six weeks which separated the end of the season from +mid-year examinations, he stuck to a monastic schedule. The mandate had +gone forth that football men must somehow manage to pass a majority of +their subjects, and Neale's fraternity brothers never tried to coax him +away from the table where he sat wrestling with Cicero's Letters or the +Carolingian Empire, not even to play poker, or go night-hawking around +little Coney Island. + +But after mid-years it was different. Nobody could possibly start +worrying about the finals for three months yet. The basket-ball season +began and with it the informal Gym. dances after each game. "Nunc est +bibendum, nunc pede libero" was in the air, not only in Latin classes. +Neale went to the first games in the cap and sweater he wore about the +campus, and when the dance began, sneaked out, dodging behind pillars to +avoid compromising those of his chapter, resplendent in evening clothes +with girl partners more resplendent still. But such seclusion was not to +last. Other fellows, the "fussers" of his chapter were caught with extra +girls on their hands, sisters or cousins, or ex-girls, and Neale in +spite of his avowed principle of dancing only when he couldn't run away +fast enough to escape, was hauled in to be the necessary extra man for +the more or less anonymous out-of-town girl to be provided for. + +Logically enough, other advances followed. Finding that they had landed +not only a promising athlete in Brother Crittenden, but a passable +social member, the rest of the chapter hastened to count him in. He +learned to play poker; to drink more beer than he wanted; to keep a pipe +going without burning his mouth; he learned where to go for chop suey; +to sniff at a cigar, and look wise before he bought it; to pretend to +like his cocktails dry, although as a matter of fact, he did not like +them at all; he learned to rattle off a line of bright, slangy +compliments at college dances or Frat. teas, and to take a flashier line +with chippies at the dance halls; he added to his store of oaths and +smutty stories ... the chapter thought well of him and he thought even +better of himself. + +By the time spring came Neale felt happily sure that he was seeing life +without making a fool of himself, which was, according to his latest +philosophy (borrowed from Horace) the right thing to do. He would be +nineteen in a few months now, time to attain a calm, mature, unsurprised +acceptance of the world. No half-baked enthusiasms about anything. +Except football, of course. That was far above all philosophies of life. +In the spring of his Sophomore year Neale was consuming pipefuls of +tobacco and meditating on what he called his "past life," censuring or +approving his actions by the newly acquired yard-stick of the "golden +mean." What a youthful idiot he had been about Don Roberts! That was so +long ago that he could smile cynically at both his enthusiasm and his +disillusion, each equally far from balance. Balance. Poise. That was the +right dope for a man of the world. + +And yet, spring was in the air, and it was hard, even for the ripe +maturity of nineteen to be perfectly balanced. Neale had no girl at +hand, and was betrayed into working off the excitement of spring days by +writing an English theme on the tulips in Union Square. So much early +May, both of style and personality seeped into this, that the jaded, +discouraged young professor of English felt his heart leap up with +incredulous hope and pleasure. To encourage the writer he read parts of +it aloud to the class, while Neale's very soul scorched with shame. One +of his non-athletic classmates, a brilliant, precocious, foreign-born +fellow, with literary aspirations, came up to him afterwards and +congratulated him enviously on his success. It was a terrible experience +all around. Neale vowed furiously to himself that never again would he +let any real feeling slip into a college theme. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +West Adams and Grandfather's house looked queer and countrified and +old-fashioned. It was a long, long way from a Frat. house on 113th +Street to that plain bedroom so full of his little-boy and prep-school +personality that Neale felt ill at ease and restless there. How could +you live up to your ideal of Horatian calm and sophisticated tolerance +towards human life in the presence of people who had known you when you +were in short trousers, who only a few years before had been giving you +hot lemonade for a cold and tucking you up in bed? No, West Adams was +impossible! He looked inside the Emerson one day, remembering what an +impression it had made on him, and found it like West Adams, very dull. +"The man is so terribly in earnest!" he told himself and was enchanted +at the superior, Oscar Wilde tone of his dictum. + +The next day he thought of Billy Peters and knew that he was saved. +Billy was the most amusing of his Frat. brothers, the one now nearest to +him, for he remembered that Billy spent the summers in the Berkshires. +He wrote to Billy asking him to come up for a couple of weeks and go +camping with him, somewhere up the Deerfield. Neale would meet him at +whatever station Billy could make and they would start at once. He +didn't invite Billy to Grandfather's, not because he was ashamed of +Grandfather's--not at all--he just didn't think it would interest Billy +there. In due time Billy's answer came, asking Neale to cut out the +wilderness project and come down to make him a visit in the Berkshires. +Neale considered, he liked Billy; and West Adams was deadly dull. Why +not? There was no good reason why not; he packed his suit-case and went. + +Billy met him and drove him to the Peters' cottage, a remodeled +farm-house several miles from town. Mrs. Peters was cordially polite, +Billy's little high-school kid sister turned blue, admiring eyes on her +big brother's friend, who was presented as a most prodigious athlete. +After supper, at Billy's suggestion they walked over to the hotel, two +remodeled farm-houses with shingled sides joined by mission-furnitured +piazzas. Billy introduced him to the "finest little girl ever" and Neale +was only half-surprised (knowing Billy fairly well) to find she wasn't +the same as the "finest little girl" of the winter before. But that was +nothing to Neale; there were plenty of other girls, all delighted to +buzz around him, to have him dance or play ping-pong, to make fudge, or +walk in the moonlight. Some were pretty and some were not, some were +bright and some just boisterous. And it was all the same to Neale. The +Horatian pose was a great success. He was delighted with himself. + +At the end of a week he prepared to leave. But Billy couldn't see it +that way. It was true that Polly was going to have a couple of girl +friends at the house next week, and would want Neale's room, but then +they'd want Bill's room too. If Billy was to be exiled to a tent, why +couldn't Crit keep him company? They'd move the tent up into the Glen, +and really camp out, cook their own grub and everything. Crit had said +he wanted to camp out! Why not? After all there wasn't any real reason +why he should go...! Next week there was the coaching parade, and all +sorts of fun, decorating the hotel three-seater, with ferns and daisies. +Then there was a boating excursion to Long Pond where Sarah Davis fell +overboard and Neale pulled her out. + +Then there was a fateful straw-ride in the August full moon, very near +to Neale's nineteenth birthday, and there he met Miss Austin, a new +arrival at the hotel. She was almost as tall as Neale, which was very +tall indeed for a girl, and she looked to Neale as though she might have +stepped right out of a Gibson illustration. This utterly superlative +impression of beauty and good form was not lessened even in broad +daylight the next morning, when he saw her again on the tennis-court, +where she said good-morning with a special look for him in her very fine +gray eyes. She did not play tennis, she sat on a bench at the side, +under a purple silk parasol, her long, full, white skirts frilling out +in a plaited cone, her pretty, fluffy, brown hair arranged in a high +pompadour, which stayed impeccable as the tennis-playing girls grew hot +and red, their hair straggling in straight wisps across their shining +wet foreheads. + +Had Neale ever thought he scorned girls who sat cool and dressed-up on a +bench while others played tennis? As soon as the set was over, he went +to sit beside her. She glanced at him out of her gray eyes and looked +away again. Neale's pulse beat more quickly and he looked hard at the +curve of her cheek. Then they began to talk. Before she went in to +lunch, she had told him with a wistful note in her voice, that she was +glad she'd met him, because most of the people at the hotel bored her +so. Neale answered (the truth striking him for the first time), that +_most_ of the people bored him too. + +If other people were what bored them, they certainly must have been free +from ennui for the next few days, for they saw little of any one but +each other. Neale's days and evenings were good or bad, according to the +extent of his success in monopolizing Miss Austin. On the whole the +evenings were the best, the evenings when they sat in a far corner of +the hotel piazza and compared notes about their views on life and +literature. Miss Austin paid Neale the compliment he most appreciated. +She affected to consider him as well-read as she was--what did he think +of Meredith, and Ibsen? She discussed Bernard Shaw and "The Second Mrs. +Tanqueray." Neale had to trust to copious bluffing: to confide heavily +in his taciturnity, letting her run on, till she expressed opinions +tangible enough for him to agree with her. + +The climax of the season was the fancy dress dance at the Prospect +House. Everybody went; Billy in a blanket, woodchuck skins and turkey +feathers considered himself a passable Uncas. Neale who had caught the +early morning train up to West Adams and the milk train back, wore his +football suit, with his white sweater like a cloak, the arms tied under +his chin--hot but very becoming. + +With Billy he started conscientiously to dance in rotation with all the +girls from their hotel. His second dance was with Miss Austin. She was +in black with a black lace mantilla, and pinned in her hair was one of +the roses Neale had ransacked Pittsfield to buy--he forgot the +others--forgot everything but the rhythm of their steps together--they +danced, sat out on the verandah--danced again. + +It was pointed, shameless--the chaperon, whose daughter was sitting a +disconsolate wall-flower, glared at them--and they danced on. Had this +red-blooded young blade, giving himself up wholly to the glamor of the +moment, had he ever taken the cold, dry, heartless doctrine of Horace as +a guide to life? He danced on--had he said he only danced when he was +caught and had to?--he danced on, thrilling to the rhythm, like the +swinging beat of hearts in young bodies. At last, the piano, violin and +cornet (the "orchestra" imported from the city of North Adams), broke +into "Home, Sweet Home," and the last waltz began; slow, languorous, the +climax of the wonderful evening for Neale. + +Then Miss Austin staged her dramatic effect. As the party broke up, she +said, putting out one hand to Neale and resting the other on her +mother's arm, "Good-night, Mr. Crittenden, and ..." she looked down at +the roses he had given her, "and good-by. Mother and I are leaving on +the morning train. I only waited to have that last dance." She waited an +instant to let this have its effect, and added in a lower tone, "Thank +you--thank you for--for making my stay here so pleasant." + +Now there was, under Neale's skin, neither a calm Horatian philosopher +nor a dashing red-blooded young blade. There was only a shy, awkward boy +of nineteen, taken entirely unawares, struck dumb by the surge of +emotion within him. Helpless and inarticulate, except for a muttered +"good-by" he shook Miss Austin's hand and walked away with apparent +steadiness. + +But afterwards...! When Billy was snoring inside the tent, Neale sat on +the platform outside, and wrestled with Destiny. What a stiff, frozen +lump he had been, not to have been able to speak out what was in his +heart. She was _going_! And he had no photograph of her...! What an +idiot never to have thought to ask for one! Not a keepsake! Not even a +kiss! It was too hideous. No man with any virility would let Destiny +ride rough-shod over him like that. He would be masterful. He would take +the same train with her in the morning, he would be reckless, follow her +up.... Great Caesar's ghost! But it was cold out there! The night +dampness pierced through even his thick sweater. He staggered to his +cot, rolled up in the blankets and fell instantly asleep. + + * * * * * + +He half-wakened once at dawn with the first rays of sunlight, rolled +over, looked out into the breathless, pure beauty of the new day +dropping slowly in a rain of golden light through the great trees, +thought hazily that he was timber-cruising in the Green Mountains again, +and fell asleep more profoundly than ever. He was really very tired and +his old faculty for prodigious sleeping reasserted itself. + +When he finally awoke, the day was ripe, and the light had a late look. +Sure enough, his watch said a quarter past eleven. He sat up and +stretched, and rubbed his hands back and forth through his frowsy hair. +Billy had eaten his breakfast and gone. But he must have brought up the +mail and left it for Neale to find; for a letter now fell off Neale's +cot to the floor. + +The letter was typed, brief and direct like the writer. + + "Dear Crittenden: + + "We have a hard schedule ahead of us this season. I want all last + year's squad to report at the football house for practice on + September 1st. I can count on you not to be late. + + "R. McAlpine, Capt." + +Neale read it over and over, stupidly at first and then with growing +excitement. Alone in the tent, he allowed a broad, childish, +unrestrained smile of pure pleasure and pride to shine all over his +face. + +Then the date struck his eye. He was to report on September first and +this was August twenty-fourth. Gosh! Less than a week to get into +condition! Not a single minute to lose. His chance might depend on his +being in condition. + +_His chance...!_ He tossed the blankets off and sprang up, making plans +rapidly. The coffee-pot left by Billy was still warm in the banked +ashes, but Neale put it aside. No coffee! After his breakfast of oatmeal +and toast, he looked longingly at his pipe, but did not light it. No +tobacco! He remembered that this was about the time for Miss Austin's +train, but he did not change his clothes to go down to see her off. No +girls! + +Still in his football togs, just as he had danced the last waltz, he set +off for the first of his training, a two-mile jog-trot over the hills. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +September, 1902. + +After the first day's practice Neale and Biffy McFadden were jogging +back to the dressing-room together. + +"Great, isn't it?" grunted Biffy, rubbing his jersey sleeve over his +sweaty forehead. "Looks like a job for either you or me." + +"I'll have to step lively, if I get the job. Just you wait till I get +some of the fat off me. I'm soft yet." He thought bitterly of time +wasted on the hotel piazza. + +"Soft? Hell!" cried Biffy. "All I'll say is I hope you never tackle me +when you're hard--thought you'd slapped me with a piece of lead pipe +just after I caught that punt." + +McAlpine and Andrews were standing outside the Gym. door. Neale stopped +to shake hands with his Captain whom he had not seen before practice. +McAlpine punched him appraisingly in the abdomen. + +"Not so bad. Some fat but there's muscle behind it." + +Neale made way for Atkins of the '99 team, an alumnus always hanging +around the squad every season. He was supposed to be devoting his +heart's blood to bond-brokerage, down on Wall Street, but, a wistful +exile from the world to which he had given the passion of his youth, he +always came uptown in the fall to watch football practice. Also, which +was of much more importance, he spent his summer vacation looking up +available football material, "out in the bushes" as he expressed it. He +now stopped in front of the Captain with a grin of pride, and jerking +his head towards an approaching player, he inquired, "Well, how about +him?" + +McAlpine replied with enthusiasm, "Built like a piano, isn't he? Where'd +you raise him?" + +Neale followed their eyes and saw a squat, swarthy, +two-hundred-and-fifty-pound linesman rolling past them towards the Gym. +door. + +"Where'd I raise him? Stole him from the U. of P. Father's something or +other up in the coal-fields--oodles of money. Son was all set up to go +to Pennsy, but we got him down here and led him up and down the Great +White Way a couple of nights. Nobody could coax him away now--unless +there's a University at Paris." + +McAlpine stared after the powerful back and shoulders filling the +doorway. "God, what a brute! Baby hippo walking on his hind legs. What's +his breed anyway?" + +"Some sort of hunky. I'm not up on their stud book, but I'd say off-hand +he's a cross between a Slovak cart-horse and a Ruthenian wild boar--lots +of space in his garret, but you can't hurt him with a pick-ax." + +"But, how in merry hell, are we going to keep him eligible? What courses +did you get him entered for?" + +"Oh, assorted snap courses--English Lit. mostly. And he has a tame tutor +that lives with him and does the studying. How'd you suppose he ever got +through High School?" + +Neale left them talking and stepped into the Gym., admiring enviously +the massive bone-structure of the new student of English Literature. + + * * * * * + +There were horribly emotional ups and downs in the Junior football +season for Neale, ups and downs that ploughed and harrowed his young +soul, planted many seeds in his heart, and left him at the end of the +season with so much new knowledge of himself and others to digest, with +experiences so rich and varied, dark and brilliant, to look back on, +that he needed the entire rest of the year to grow up to them. The other +students, those who did not play football, seemed to him like little +boys, fooling around with marbles and kites, so little did they know of +the black depths of depression and despair, and the hard-won heights of +exultation which crammed his own personal life full, and gave him a +premature maturity of experience, like that of a boy who has been +through a war. + +The day after his third game on the Varsity, Father called him on the +telephone and asked if he couldn't come home and have dinner with them +to celebrate his success--would that be breaking training? Oh, no, Neale +answered, not if he got back to the house at nine. So he went home to a +specially good dinner, just the kind he remembered as a little boy, when +there was company. They talked football mostly: that meant he and Father +talked and Mother saw to it that the plates of her two men were filled. +After dinner they went into the library, the library where he had first +plunged into the world of books, and there he and Mother sat on the +sofa, while Father sat in his own chair, and they visited some more. +Neale found it surprisingly easy to talk to his parents now, almost as +easy as if they were strangers. During the last year he had lived away +from them except for week-ends and short visits. In that time he had +acquired a little perspective; and the new shell to his personality had +set hard enough so that he no longer felt an irritable, shame-faced +distaste of being looked at by people who had known him as a little boy. +Great Scott! Had he _ever_ been a little boy? The college Junior looked +around on the walls, books and furniture that had not changed a hair and +remembered with difficulty that he had once been a care-free child in +these surroundings. + +When he went away, he shook hands with his father, as he always did, and +stooped from his great height to kiss his mother as he always did. Why +not? It did not occur to him that he might not kiss his mother. + + * * * * * + +But apparently it had occurred to her, for when she felt on her lips the +cool, fresh, boyish, matter-of-fact pressure of his lips, she gave a sob +and flung her arms around him, holding him close and crying a little on +his shoulder. + + * * * * * + +Why, dear old Mother! What was the matter with her? Neale put both arms +around her and gave her a great hug, as he used to when he came home +from West Adams. + +It had done him good to see his folks, he thought, as he strode off down +the familiar, but not much-loved city street. He thought affectionately +about his father and mother for quite a time thereafter, as far as the +ferry-house indeed, when the build of a deck-hand reminded him of the +new Swede on the team. After that he thought football intensively, a +strong color of Junior cock-sureness tinging all his thoughts. He was +making the team! He wasn't so worse! How green, how incredibly green the +thumb-fingered Freshies were who came out to try for the squad. And he +had beaten Biffy to it, although Biffy had almost killed himself with +trying. + +The weak opponents of the preliminary season were easily swamped. +McAlpine, Rogers, Neale, with one of the tackles back, the big Swede, +Gus Larsen, or Atkins' coal miner (whose name, Vaclav Blahoslav, stumped +the squad till it was shortened to "Mike") tore over Rutgers, Fordham, +Hamilton and the other small fry. True, the battering-ram machine broke +tragically down before Princeton's even stronger attack, but none of the +blame for that attached to Neale. He was kept out of that game by a +wrenched ankle, and Biffy's rotten luck let him into the line-up for the +first defeat of the season. Neale really had luck on his side, he +thought with some complacency. By next Saturday his ankle was all right +again and he trotted out on Franklin Field supremely confident, trotted +out to fall straight into the black depths of the bottomless pit. + +For after that swelling supreme self-confidence came a queer slowness of +mind. He found it hard to keep his thoughts on his work as they ran +through signals. His eyes kept straying to the rioting, flag-waving +grand-stands. The whistle blew, the kick-off came straight to Neale. For +the first time since Freshman year he felt a sinking dread that he might +fumble. The ball hit him on the chest and bounded off. Tod McAlpine fell +on it and the rushing game began. + +For the first half it was anybody's game. Either team when it got the +ball could gain but could not score. Something was the matter with +Neale. He wasn't all there. He knew he was playing mechanically, but +couldn't seem to summon the energy to do better. + +He sat listless, almost sullen while Andrews harangued the team between +the halves. He was hardened by this time to the Neapolitan frenzy of +emphasis which marked exhortations to play your best football or die. +He'd do his best, he told himself, looking down at his feet. Nobody +could do any more. + +The second half began with an exchange of punts. Playing behind the +cyclopean Mike, Neale hadn't much work to do on the defensive, but once +Mike was boxed out on a straight buck, Neale shot his body in to plug +the hole and turning, caught a bony knee in the back, right over the +kidneys. As he lay on the ground gasping for breath, he could see that +he hadn't even stopped the play. It had gone over him for two yards. Oh, +Hell! What was the use? How his back ached! The Penn. quarter seemed to +know he was feeling wobbly. All the plays were coming at him and Mike, +and most of them got by. Where _was_ the ball? Sometimes it came +straight through and the next minute on the same formation swung +outside--and Neale uselessly buried under the interference. He'd have to +stop it somehow--soon. He glanced back out of the corner of his eye, and +saw the goal posts less than five yards behind. The Penn. formation was +on his side again. Mike charged like a buffalo. Neale rushed in behind +him, but blindly. Then all at once he picked out the man with the +ball--too late. His sideways drive for a tackle missed and as he fell, +his arms empty, he saw the red-and-blue jersey go over the line. + +He got up shaken, feeling very sick of himself, not meeting anybody's +eye. While Penn. was kicking the goal, Neale saw Biffy come bounding out +from the side-lines, "I'm to take Crittenden's place," he reported. + +It was like a blow in the face. And he had earned it. Neale walked to +the bench, took a blanket, looking carefully away from the sub who held +it out to him, wrapped himself up, forced his face into its usual +expression of impassivity and watched the game. It was not much to +watch: Columbia badly up in the air, Pennsy getting stronger every +minute. + +He dreaded the post-mortem at the football house, and took as deserved +Andrews' verdict. "Crittenden, you were a total loss. I knew you weren't +much of a defensive back, but I didn't suppose a whale like you would +let a skinny little runt of a Penn. sub ride you back five yards and +dump you on your tail." + +Day after day went by, with Neale in exile, playing once more on the +scrub. The night before the Brown game, when the line-up was announced, +he got together a show of good-will as he shook hands with Biffy and +wished him luck. But he lay awake in the dark that night, heartbroken, +sternly motionless and rigid on his cot, his great hands clenched hard. +It was his virgin sorrow, the first real suffering he had ever known. +The first real sorrow of most lives is usually tempered to the softness +of immature hearts by the self-preserving instinct to lay the blame on +something or somebody else, by merciful self-pity. But for Neale there +was no Fate, nor chance, nor enemy, nor fickleness of woman on whom to +lay the blame. There was no one to blame but himself, and before his +time, he felt the pure rigor of this knowledge cut deep like a clean +steel blade. It cut out a part of his boyishness forever. It was the +first scar of the initiation into manhood. Neale stood up to it like a +man, although so young a man. "No squealing!" he commanded himself +savagely. + +The next day he sat all through the game on the edge of the subs' bench, +his big muscles quivering with readiness to respond to an order to jump +into the game, his heart sick, sick within him because the order did not +come. Nobody so much as looked his way. There he sat, a big, useless +lump. + +"What's the matter with me?" he cried out behind his Iroquois mask of +insensibility, "I've got the strength. I've got the speed. _Am I a +quitter?_" The sweat stood out on him at the idea, and at first, +helpless before the dramatic quality of young imagination, he felt that +must be the answer. Yes, he was a quitter. As well die, and be done with +it. + +Then the nucleus of what was to become Neale hardened itself against +this easy, inverted sentimentalism, and small as the nucleus was, it set +itself to consider the matter in judicial, objective judgment. Neale +went over his football for the last week as though it had been that of +another player. "I did quit in the Penn. game. But other fellows have +had a slump and pulled out of it. And since then, by God, I've played +myself out in every practice. I've given all there was to give and then +some!" + +He held up his head at this. And yet, if he wasn't a quitter, what _was_ +the matter with him? "Biffy isn't any world-beater. Yet he must be +better than I am, or Andrews wouldn't give him my place. _Andrews is +square._" He said that with the accent of the mystic who affirms that +God is good; and it was very much the same sort of corner-stone in the +house he was building to live in. + + * * * * * + +Along in the second half, Atkins (the grad. who had discovered Mike), +stopped his caged-tiger prowl up and down the side lines and dropped +into an empty space beside Neale. "Look at that!" he cried suddenly, +"Did you see that?" + +Neale had noticed nothing in particular--just a general tangle of brown +and blue jerseys. "I don't think they gained," he said. + +"Great Scott, no! Haven't you any eyes? They lost about half-a-yard. The +Brown left-half tripped over Mike's legs, but if he'd been a foot +further out, he'd be going yet. McFadden was suckered." + +Neale took his eyes for a moment from the field to look around +wonderingly at Atkins. He had never thought of him before except with +pity as an old exile, who couldn't play any more. Could he really see +all that in a play, see just what every man had done? Atkins went on +now, stiffening with his concentration like a pointer dog. "There it +goes again--see, he's charging right on top of Mike. Just luck if he +gets the man--missed him! It was Tod who stopped the play. Next time +they hit the left side of our line, watch the way Rogers handles it." +Atkins bit savagely on a mouthful of gum, "There!" He dug his finger +nails into Neale's wrist. Neale could see Rogers rock a second, +undecided, on tip-toe; side-step an interferer; and then shoot his body +like a projectile into the play. "Spilled 'em for a yard-and-a-half +loss: that's the stuff!" + +He looked around sharply at Neale. "If _you_ could use your head like +that, you'd be worth something to the team." + +Neale stared at him, his young face candid with the astonishment of +feeling a brand-new idea inserting itself into his mind. Maybe _that_ +was what was the matter with his game. + +He reached up, as he would have said, to the upper story, and turned +back to watch the game with new eyes, eyes sharpened by intelligence. He +concentrated on the back-field defense and began for the first time to +understand the inwardness of it. He couldn't attain Atkins' hawk-like +vision of the play and what every man in the back field had done; but he +made out a great deal more than he ever had before. + + * * * * * + +Next Monday at practice Atkins came and stood behind Neale (the +bond-selling business never seemed to exist for Atkins during football +season). To Neale, as he played on the scrub, Atkins poured out his +accumulated tactical lore, the wisdom that choked and strangled him +because he was no longer allowed to put it into action. Seizing on +Neale, whom he did not know personally at all, he forced his way into +Neale's attention and held it fiercely on the business of playing +football intelligently. + +"Have a look! Have a look! Secondary defense finds the play before it +stirs out of its tracks! No, you shouldn't have tried a tackle that +time," he yanked Neale to his feet, "they were too bunched. I made just +that break in the Princeton game in '99 and I've never forgiven myself. +If you'd spilled the interference, your end would have got the runner. +Watch the ball! don't run in till you _know_ where it is--and then _go +to it_! Sometimes you can tell by the back's eyes, give themselves away +by looking where they're going to go, but an old hand will cross you on +purpose. The knees are safer, mostly they lean a little just before the +ball goes back. Got to use old head! Bill Morley himself couldn't stop a +play if he didn't know where it was. Ah! _that's_ the stuff! That was +just right--not too soon or too late--and see how easy it was!" + +Day after day the Wall Street bond-broker wrestled with Neale's latent +acuteness and forced it into action. With shame, with praise, with +reproach and enthusiasm, he drew out of Neale more than Neale had +dreamed could be there. If one--even one--of the teachers of English or +Greek or chemistry or economics had taught Neale as this +semi-illiterate, wealthy young barbarian taught him...! If Neale had +given even a tenth as much attention to any of his courses...! + +Neale clambered up over himself, raging with hope; up over his first +realization that there was infinitely more to this problem than he had +ever supposed; over his next, that he did not know even the rudiments of +the game he had thought he knew so well; over his occasional glimmers of +understanding, why he failed sometimes and succeeded at other times; +over an increasing percentage of successes, and finally stood, a little +giddy with the new height, on the peak towards which Atkins had urged +him, where he waited clear-headed, strong, confident, behind the tackle, +hoping the next play would come his way. + +The play did come his way. The Varsity tried out against the scrub its +new delayed pass from close formation. To the left it worked very well. +But when they tried it to the right, Neale dropped Rogers for a loss, +three times in succession. The look on Atkins' face was glory. + +The next afternoon Neale was back on the Varsity and Biffy on the scrub. + +There was a pang in his beatitude, a painful moment of generous distress +when Biffy came up to congratulate him. The two hard-faced, +frowsy-headed, gum-chewing young savages gripped each other's hands in +an inexpressive silence; and each saw deep into the other's big heart as +he was rarely, in all his life thereafter, to look into any other human +being's inner chamber. + +Biffy carried it off splendidly, Neale thought, but he couldn't fool a +man who had just been there himself. He felt sorry for Biffy. He +remembered to be sorry for Biffy till the whistle blew for the Annapolis +game. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +After the Thanksgiving game, a great peace, a lying-fallow time, a +period of unconscious adjustment and assimilation of all that mass of +experience. + +Neale moved back to the Frat. house, rooming with Harry Gregg, a +classmate of his and a fine fellow, thought Neale, even though not +athletic. He and Gregg had chanced to take much the same courses and +were in the same class-rooms in several subjects. After a preliminary +stagger or two, like a man coming indoors after living in the open, who +cannot walk across the room without tripping over the furniture, Neale's +mind settled down to his studies. He found them rather more interesting +than he had expected. A course in general European history especially +held him, and he gave much more time to the outside reading prescribed +than he would have confessed to any member of his Frat. except Gregg, +who took it as a matter of course. He encountered some personalities +there who held him and about whom he often thought, big figures who +dwarfed the life around him when they stood up beside his study table. +Cromwell was one and Garibaldi another. But they were not all soldiers. +Wise old scouts like Sully, Oxenstierna and Plombal who did the real +work and let the cloth-of-gold opera-tenor kings and potentates prance +around in the lime-light, they took Neale's fancy too. They were the +boys for him! He used to sit back and laugh to himself to think how much +more they must have enjoyed the real exercise of their own strength than +the silly sovereigns could have enjoyed their silly lime-light. As for +Henry IV and _his_ lady-loves, he reminded Neale so forcibly of Mike and +his lady-loves that he could never take that white-plumed monarch +seriously. Henry of Navarre made him laugh at Mike and Mike made him +laugh at Henry of Navarre, and over both those hilarities Neale drew +the decent veil of his calm, pipe-smoking stolidity. + +One day browsing around in the Library, he saw the title of one of the +books Miss Austin had spoken of the summer before, one of the books +Neale had pretended to know and had never heard of. He drew it out (it +was "Richard Feveral"), and read it, entranced, until early the next +morning. After that he looked up, one by one, all the books she had +mentioned, and read them, some with delight, some with blank +incomprehensiveness, some with scorn. + +He killed a lot of time discussing things in general with Gregg, reading +Gregg's books. He fell especially hard for a worn volume of Poems and +Ballads. For six weeks he was convinced that Swinburne had said the last +word, a blighting word, on ethical values. Then one day he noticed that +his favorite credo, "From too much love of living, from hope and fear +set free" could be sung to the tune of the well-known, extremely coarse +and very unpoetical song called, "Some die of drinking whiskey, some die +of drinking beer," and it occurred to him suddenly that when you thought +about it, both expressed the same philosophy. It was disgusting! It +wasn't argument--but just the same it somehow put a crimp in Swinburne! +He went back to his history and economics. But you couldn't stew over +your books all day long; he drifted more or less with Billy Peters' +innocuous, evening-dress, dancing-fussing set. + +Outwardly he passed as a good fellow, a passable mixer though rather +silent. Inwardly he had given up his pose of Horatian calm. It didn't +work--not for him. He found himself very much alone and friendless. The +other men on the football squad--well, they had been his blood-brothers +during the season, but after the season they were mostly illiterate +young rakes without a single mental spark even when they were drunk. As +for Pete Hilliard's crowd and their small-town, back-alley ways of +amusing themselves--hell! Neale felt for them the amused scorn of the +native-born great-city dweller for the uneasy provincial who thinks he +can hide his provincialism best by assuming a boisterous nastiness. + +For the first time Neale began to wonder about himself, to wonder what +sort of a human being he was anyway, that he didn't seem to fit in +really, with any crowd. There was always so much of himself left over, +shut out from companionship, left in the dark, alone and silent, while +with a little corner of himself he danced and talked to girls, and drank +and played poker, and talked to Gregg; for there was an immense lot of +which he never spoke even to Gregg. For instance they never talked about +girls, and Neale was thinking a good deal about girls. When he read +love-poems his breath came and went fast, he felt tingling all over. He +longed to put out his hand and open the door into the wonders and +marvels that lay beyond it. He drew back from the fear of failure, of +making a fool of himself at an unfamiliar game. But he never feared that +there was nothing beyond the door. + +At dances, sometimes he stood aloof, trying to look Byronic to save +himself from looking wistful, sometimes he danced steadily, always with +a calm exterior, beneath which weltered a confused mass of bewildered +uncertainties and longings that rose choking to his very throat: and yet +not a word of it could he ever get out. + +What was it he was missing? Moody, out of humor with the bright, warm +May sunshine, he put the question to himself as he sauntered aimlessly +down the Library steps. Why, he was missing everything that made life +worth while! Was he always to live alone with most of him hidden and +silent? Would he never find his crowd, or at least one other person, to +meet whom he could go forth, all of him, light and free, without the +ball and chain of his endless reticences? Other fellows seemed to find +something satisfying in life. Why not he? Was it his fault, or life's, +that he walked in inner blackness? He was framing a sweeping indictment +of life as he passed the gate to South Field. + +Somebody ran out and grabbed him by the neck, a tall Senior. "King's +Crown playing the Deutscher Verein," he explained. "Speed up and get in, +Crit. Get your coat off. Never mind your togs. You've got to catch next +inning. Purdy can't hold the ball if I put a hop on it, and the +Dutchies are swatting my slow curve. There you go, that's the third +out. Get busy. Give me one finger for a fast one; two for an out; and +the closed fist for the drop." + +The pessimistic philosopher, exiled to eternal solitude, shed coat and +collar, put on mask and mitt. A ball, a strike, a high foul. As he +sprinted behind the back-stop to get under it, Neale sloughed off the +parched skin of introspection. From that time on, he forgot everything +but the game. He rattled off encouragement to the pitcher, "Keep +workin', old man _that_-a-boy, make him hit it! Got him swinging wild!" +He improvised wild flights of kidding to get the goat of one batter +after another. + +After the game when he and his pitcher were shaking hands and grinning +at each other, he became aware of Berkley and Berkley's girl. What was +her name? He'd met her at the Junior Ball--oh, yes, Miss Wentworth. They +stopped to congratulate him. Neale was conscious, wretchedly, +unphilosophically conscious of a very dirty face, a more than dirty +shirt--and torn trousers. But Miss Wentworth didn't seem to notice. +Perhaps she was a good sport. It was conceivable that a girl might be. +She made a sensible comment on the double play which had saved the game +in the eighth. Why, she was intelligent as well as good-looking. Neale +fell into step, forgetting his disheveled looks, and walked along to the +drug-store at 120th Street, where they all had sodas. + +He met her again that spring, in the waiting-room of the 125th Street +station, of all prosaic places! He had stopped in for a time-table to +see about getting up to West Adams and she was evidently waiting for a +train. He touched his cap. She smiled. He stopped to pass the time of +day, "Vacation's almost here," he said. + +"What are you going to do with it?" she inquired. + +He hesitated. She wouldn't understand. But he was never very good on +quick bluffs, and so said briefly, "I've got to learn to kick this +summer--to kick a football, I mean. I--I play football a little." + +She threw back her head and laughed, "Oh, you needn't explain. I know +you play. I'm a regular fan. I haven't missed a home game in three +years, and I read the athletic news. McAlpine graduates, so does +Johnstone. There's nobody left at Columbia who can punt. So you're to +learn! More power to you. I'll come and root for you next autumn." + +He took, with him to West Adams a mental picture of a strong, capable +body in a shirt-waist and golf-skirt, fluffy yellow hair, smiling lips, +laughing, honest, blue eyes. + +He carried also what was more tangible and important in his summer +plans, a worn brown football, the center of many an afternoon's battle +between scrub and Varsity. As soon as he was installed at West Adams he +went to work. The spare, thin grass on the upper meadow had been cut. +There, a good mile Neale jogged every day, and there, all the morning, +he practised punting: booting the ball high and far, racing down, trying +to get to it while it was still bounding; then kicking it back again, +experimenting with different ways of holding it. He always kicked at +some target. "I'll drop that on the stone pile," he would say to +himself, and before he kicked again, he would try to analyze success and +failures. He no longer needed an Atkins to spur him to use his brains. +By eleven o'clock, pretty well fagged-out, he would jog down again, take +a plunge in the inlet above the mill pond, where no one could see him +for the thick growth of alders, and come in to luncheon at noon, cool +and ravenous. + +In the afternoon he worked at the mill, or lay round and read. He had +brought a lot of books up from college in his trunk, but nothing seemed +to fit his present serious regime as well as Emerson. After much running +after false prophets the clear, brutal sanity of the Essays was as +refreshing and tonic as the plunge into the icy, clear water of the +inlet. He found in them too, what had escaped him at the first reading, +an austere sonority in the best passages. "Let those fear who will. The +soul is in her native realm, and it is wider than space, older than +time, wide as hope, rich as love. Pusillanimity and fear she refuses +with a beautiful scorn. They are not for her who putteth on her +coronation robe and goeth out through universal love to universal +power." He rolled it under his tongue. It beat about his ears like the +low, dignified threat of distant thunder. + +One Saturday in August, a little before his twentieth birthday, +something happened which cast a long ray of light back on Neale's life. +It began by the great surprise of seeing Father and Mother drive up to +the house in a buggy from the village livery-stable. + +It was perfectly evident from the moment they set foot in the house that +there was something in the air, but being a Crittenden, Neale's father +was in no haste to say what it was, and waited to explode his bomb-shell +till dessert time, as they were eating the peaches and fruit-cake which +Grandmother served to honor their arrival. Then it came out. + +"We've been doing a pretty big business in cabinet woods lately," Father +began, looking at no one in particular. "Cocobolo, rosewood, lignum +vitae, mahogany. The selling end is all right but it's a job to get the +stuff delivered. The firm has made up its mind that it will pay to send +a man through the West Indies and Central America to look the production +end over, get options, sign contracts for regular yearly delivery. +There's a big territory to cover, the field goes as far south as +Brazil--it'll take a couple of years at least, maybe three or four. I'm +telling you all this because they've offered the job to me, and Mother +and I have about decided to accept." + +Mother looked hard at Neale as Father announced this, and they both +waited to see what he would say. Neale was so astonished at the idea of +his stationary father and mother being anywhere but in the house on +Union Hill, that he found nothing to say for a moment, staring at them. +Then he said (it was the first thing that came into his head), "But what +will you do with the house? All those things?" + +Mother said eagerly, "Oh, we could rent it furnished. We already have a +good offer for it." + +"Well, what do you think about that!" exclaimed Neale in a stupid +astonishment at the idea that somebody else could live in their house. + +He went on eating his peaches and thinking about it in silence since he +saw no reason why his opinion on the subject was of any interest to +anybody. It did not dawn on him till afterwards, when he and Father took +a stroll along the mill-brook that Father and Mother wanted to _know_ +how he felt about it, and would not do it if he very much disliked the +idea of having no home nearby. This astonishing fact became apparent to +him along with another matter even more astonishing, that apparently the +Union Hill house had been arranged largely for his benefit, so that he +could have the stability of a home atmosphere. + +"We always wanted to roam, rather," explained his father casually, "we +were pretty young when we married. Your mother was only twenty and I was +twenty-four. We had talked a good deal of cutting loose and seeing the +world. But--well, you were born the first year afterwards, and we +thought probably there would be other children. It seemed better to put +it off, settle down till we had raised our family--though you turned out +to be the only one." + +In the twilight of the maples, Neale was doing some thinking. Mother had +been _married_ when she was his age; with all her life before her, and +she'd never had a bit of it till now; only Union Hill and more Union +Hill. And Father, too.... He murmured something muffled and +inarticulate, which made no particular sense to the ear, but which +Father understood, and answered with some vehemence, "No, Great Scott, +_no_, Neale! Don't think that! Heavens, no! I didn't mean we'd +sacrificed anything for you--we just got into a rut, the way people do, +and stayed there so long we began to think we couldn't get out and now +when this opportunity comes, your mother wanted to make _sure_ it's all +right with you, that's all! Your mother and I, you've been a great +comfort to us. We don't want...." + +He was almost as muffled and inarticulate as Neale, but Neale understood +him, and reaching for his hand, gave it a hard grip. He did not try to +say anything now. The two men, silent under the old maples that had +sheltered their childhood, exchanged a quick glance of understanding and +affection, nearer to each other now, at the moment of parting than ever +before. + +Then they went back to the house, silent as Iroquois, and Neale went in +to where his mother was playing dreamily on the old piano, to tell her +bluntly that he would not in the least mind their leaving Union Hill, +since he could be at home very little in any case during his Senior +year. + +She turned around on the piano stool to listen to his sober statement, +and to look at the great fellow, towering up over her. + +"Yes, you're grown up now, Neale, aren't you?" she said faintly, putting +a hand out towards him and he knew he had hurt her by his bluntness. And +yet it was the truth he told her, and also what she wanted to hear. He +could not take it back. But he did stoop to her and take her in his big +arms for a little-boy hug. + +Father came in then and they lighted the lamp and tried to talk a little +about what Neale was going to do to earn his living when he graduated. +They had often tried to talk of that. But they never got very far, and +no farther this time than any other. Neale had no ideas on the subject, +and being Neale, he would not imaginatively play up to what was expected +of him, and say he had. No, he did not feel that he would like to be a +doctor. No, certainly not a lawyer! He wouldn't mind engineering, but +the old grads in his Frat. who were engineers seemed to have a way of +turning up, out of a job every once in so often. He didn't think much of +a profession where you were so entirely at the mercy of people with +money. It was too much like being a turtle that had to wait for somebody +to turn it over before it could go on its way. Father looked at him +rather queerly and remarked that he'd find it difficult to get any work +in the modern world, where he wouldn't be at the mercy of people with +money. + +Neale said, he thought very pertinently, "Grandfather never has been." + +Father looked as though he considered this mere arguing for the sake of +arguing, and said something drily, looking around at the plain, old +countrified room, about Neale's not being willing to live as his +grandfather had, two generations ago. + +The upshot of the talk was, as it always was, that they agreed once +more to let things run on and perhaps something would turn up. + +The next morning Father and Mother went back to New York, to finish the +preparations for their adventure. Mother cried a little when she kissed +Neale good-by, but Grandmother kissed her son without a quiver, though +she clung to Grandfather's arm. She and Grandfather and Neale and old Si +and Jennie stood in the front yard looking after the carriage. It was +almost like seeing a newly married pair go off after the wedding. +Neale's mother kept turning to look back at them, her April face like a +bride's, colored through tears by excitement and anticipation. Neale +stood up, taller than his tall old grandfather now, broad, massive, his +tanned face like a man's. But, to his amazement, there awoke in his +heart for the last time, a little boy, a little boy who was frightened +and grieved at being left alone. + +Half-way down the hill, the carriage stopped and they saw Neale's mother +spring out and run back up the hill, beckoning to Neale. + +"Forgot something," conjectured Grandfather. + +Neale bounded down towards her. They met half-way between the carriage +and the house. Mother's face was still wet with her tears but she was +not crying now. A glory was on her tremulous face. Neale never forgot +how she looked at that moment. + +There was something she was trying to tell him and although all she +could bring out, as she took his big hands in hers was, "Neale, dear, +dear Neale," she knew by the look on his face that she had told him. + +The little boy in Neale's heart, appeased, consoled, comforted, melted +away forever, without bitterness, without regrets. The over-grown young +man looked down at his mother, with an absolute trust in her love, and a +robust confidence in himself. "I'll be all right, Mother dear," he told +her heartily, meaning a great deal more than he said. + +Then she went back to her husband, and Neale went back to his punting. + +As he ran furiously after the ball, reeking with sweat under the brazen +August sun, it came to him suddenly, so that he stopped short for an +instant to think of it, wonderingly, that he had never seen his father +and mother look at each other, except with affection. And besides this +old, old knowledge which had hung there so long he had never seen it +before, there was a new picture ... the animation and excitement on +their faces, as they talked of their setting off together for distant +travels, the gaiety of Mother's laugh, as they told of the fun they were +having to make ready for the unknown, to get the right clothes, to learn +Spanish.... "I've been on the point of buying a mantilla," she had said. +"Don't you think I would look well in a mantilla, Neale?" + +Mother had never seemed half as young to Neale as now. She must have +been an awfully nice girl, he thought, going soberly to recover his +ball. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +Although he had of late seen very little of home, and had occasionally +felt irked to know that his parents expected him to make a semi-regular +appearance there, Neale found New York rather queer and empty at first +with no background whatever but the football house. + +He encountered something of the same queer, gone feeling as he lined up +in the first game of the season, with all of the trusted Old Guard +disappeared, with no Tod McAlpine beside him, on whom to leave the +responsibility for the outcome of events. Of all the old supermen in +whom he had put his trust, only Marshall the Captain was still there, at +right guard. Things looked black to Neale. Such raw beginners could +never hold together against any seasoned team. + +And yet they did. Week after week of the early season, they registered +victory after victory; never with sensational scores, but with steady +defense that kept their goal line uncrossed, with drive enough to punch +out a touch-down of their own. It came to Neale slowly that this was no +kid team after all. It had about the usual proportion of seasoned +players and recruits; only now he was one of the old timers. It came to +him also that Bunny Edwards the Soph quarter was obviously trusting in +him as he used to trust in Tod McAlpine. At first it was horrifying to +Neale to have some one depending on _him_! He had all he could do to +stand up under his own responsibility, heavy on his own shoulders for +the first time. Presently he realized that possibly Tod McAlpine had had +his own secret misgivings too, in the days when Neale depended on him. +It was by no means wholly physical and muscular, the hardening and +maturing that went on in Neale, those first weeks of his last football +season. + +This deepening of his sense of responsibility deepened his capacity for +emotion along with the rest of his personality. The other Seniors, even +good old Gregg theorizing and spinning talk about things he'd read in +books, seemed off in another world to Neale, a light, bright, boyish, +somewhat foolishly unreal, although very care-free world. But although +he sometimes groaned at the fierce, stark suffering which was the +inevitable penalty of caring so fiercely and starkly about anything as +he cared about football, he did not envy Gregg and the other outsiders. +Envy them? Heavens, no! They were playing at life; he was living! + +Yes, he was living and at a higher emotional pitch than he had ever +known. He did not think of himself as an individual. He was flesh of one +flesh, bone of one bone with his teammates. Once in the Amherst game a +smash into the line had piled up without gain. The heaped mass of legs +and bodies squirmed itself apart, friends and enemies crawled to their +position. All but one, and that was the big Slav tackle, who lay limp +and white as if dead. + +"Time out!" + +Neale flung himself against Fate. He fell on his knees beside the +prostrate man, and took the bullet head into his arms. "Mike," he +pleaded. "Not now! _We need you, Mike!_" Like a mother with a baby lying +between life and death, he hung over that coarse, bruised face. All the +love he had ever felt for any one seemed shallow compared to his +yearning over this debauched, foul-mouthed, hairy boozer. + +He could have kissed the ugly blue mug as the eyelids flickered, the +color came back, and the giant rolled to his feet and lumbered back into +the line. + + * * * * * + +The season rolled along. The luck seemed finally to have changed. They +were almost through, with the best record in years. Then two days before +the final game, Marshall the Captain broke a bone in his foot. The faces +of the team were grave (all but that of Dodd, the sub thus let into the +Varsity) as they gathered in the dressing-room before the game. The +coach looked them over, casting about for the right note, and had the +inspiration to lay by his usual impassioned, florid appeal. + +"Nicholson will play center," he began, his plain, heavy words like +iron; "Burke and Dodd guards; Mike and Larsen tackles; Greenway and +Huggins, ends; Edwards quarter. Crittenden and Wallace halves; Bascomb +full-back. Crittenden will act as Captain." He looked full at +Crittenden, "It's the last time you'll wear the blue and white, Neale +Crittenden!" + +Neale throbbed like a great brazen bell, struck by the hammer. + +Andrews turned his eyes on the team and made the rest of his speech +short and hard. + +"Boys, it's easy to lose and it's hard to win. Don't be fooled by the +rooters saying you made a game fight. What _would_ you do? Run away? +Take it from me, there's a time in every game when either team can win. +It's the team that has the sand, that's got the guts to put in an extra +pound _right then_, that wins! I'm not telling you this Cornell team is +easy. They're damned hard. But you've got weight enough, you've got +speed enough, you know football enough. Now you go out there on the +field, and show me you've got guts enough to win!" + +With set jaws and grim, resolute hearts, the team, Neale at their head, +trotted out on the gridiron. "It's the last time you'll wear the blue +and white, Neale Crittenden!" He was clanging to that note. + +They were lucky to get through the first half with a clean slate. +Cornell came fast and hard, but time after time they held them and +punted out of danger. The ten minutes' intermission seemed to last +barely ten seconds and they were at it again, dead-locked, swaying from +one forty-yard line to another. "Looks like a tie-game, barring a +fluke," thought Neale, and then with an angry throb of alarm, "By God, I +believe we're letting up! Here's where we put in that extra pound!" + +"Six, n-int-e-e-n-f-o-r-t-y-f-i-v-e!" the quarter was droning. "No!" +cried Neale, "Change that! Four-seven-two-eight!" It was his own +straight buck, and he went into the line with a headlong hurdle. "I'll +give the signals for a play or two, Bunny," he called to the quarter as +they lined up again, "Seven-fourteen-thirty-three," he barked and took +the ball on a cross buck, rolling and plunging for four yards, +"Three-seven-nine-four." Again he started on the cross buck, bluffed at +receiving the ball, hit the defense head down, yelling, "Help me!" and +just as he fell saw Wallace skirting outside of tackle with the delayed +pass, stiff-arming the end, shaking off the defensive quarter and on for +a good ten yards. As he got up, Neale grabbed Edwards round the neck and +whispered, with lips close to his ear, "We've got 'em started, Bunny! +You run the plays now. Get the idea? Shoot 'em outside, till they open +up, then plug Billy and Mike through the guards. Keep mixing 'em up, and +speed, _speed_!" + +Bunny got the idea. He snapped out his signals, and shot his offense +like a boxer hammering a groggy opponent. With Mike back, he ran Neale +and Wallace outside, inside, across, on the weak side: then suddenly +dropped back to straight battering-ram football, and sent Mike at the +apex of a straining, stamping tandem, straight through and over the +defense to the fifteen yard line. The team was crazy with +success--prancing like stallions. "Come on, boys!" Neale went a yard on +a straight buck, dug his toe-cleats in as he fell, plunged and squirmed +for another yard and a half. Wallace shot through a quick opening for +three. With Larsen back and first down, Billy sheered off inside for a +couple of yards, the Swede got another two straight ahead, Mike running +from position made only a bare yard, but enough! + +"First down, to the line to go!" said the referee. Neale heard his +signal. "Damn the torpedoes, go ahead!" he thought. He flew at the line, +bone and muscle transfigured by flaming will--a hard body dove against +his knees--he staggered, leaned forward, churned his knees up and down a +tenth of a second that seemed to drag for an hour, forward he staggered, +strained forward, then fell. When the mass got off him he found he had +got to the two-yard line. "Give it to me again!" he whispered, passing +Bunny. + +Larsen stuck his blonde head close up to theirs, "For Christ's sake, let +_me_ take it! It's my last game. I won't play no more after to-day!" + +"Neither will I," thought Neale, but he nodded and they lined up with +Larsen back. + +"Look out for a funny one," cried the Cornell quarter, as the signals +began. "Cap and quarter had a consultation--" + +As the center's fingers contracted for the snap-back, Neale shot out of +his tracks, and crashed into the defensive half. "Got him flat-footed," +he thought, remembering as they both went down to swing his feet wide in +the hope of getting the defensive quarter as well. He rolled clear at +once, and looked back to see if he could be of any help. It wasn't +necessary. Practically all the two teams were heaped in a human +haystack, from the base of which emerged a grinning blonde face. Under +the face were two huge hands some six inches over the line, clutching +the ball, on which emotional Swedish eyes were weeping beatific tears. + +Neale kicked a fairly easy goal. The trainer let him suck a little water +from a sponge, whispering out of the corner of his motionless mouth, +"Andy says minute and a half to play. Hold the ball and line up slow!" + +But the team had tasted too much blood to stall. They went down on the +kick-off like a pack of wolf-hounds. They smashed two plays for a loss, +and after a punt, they punched the ball to midfield before the whistle +blew and the game was over. + +Nicholson tossed the ball to Neale. "Here's your ball, Cap!" + +Neale saw Mike Blahoslav kissing Bunny Edwards. He himself was hugging +Gus Larsen, when the pandemonium from the grand-stand struck them. He +was lifted on a platform of shoulders and carried to the gate surrounded +by a cheering, singing, crazy mob of rooters. + +"That's so," he thought, "there _was_ a crowd looking on!" He had not +thought of the bleachers, or heard a cheer since the second half began. + +They packed into the 'bus, Varsity inside, scrub on top. The 'bus went +off at a gallop. For a few blocks the rooters ran along, throwing +cigarettes and cigars through the windows. Neale leaned back and +luxuriously lit a cigar. He had been thinking about that first cigar for +the last month. Oh, faugh! It tasted hot and dry and burned his mouth. +No matter! He threw it away and leaned back in a golden reverie. + +Would he ever again know such blessed unalloyed content? + +Probably not. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +The end of the football season was a door slammed in Neale's face +forever. He had given four years of his life to football, flung them +joyfully and proudly to feed the sacred flame. Now for the rest of his +life, he was to be shut out from the temple of the only religion which +had as yet been offered him. For the rest of his life--he was no +post-mortem Atkins to hang enviously and piteously about watching other +men doing the real thing. + +Neale did not find this realization tragic, because it seemed to him +that it was the common lot, and he had a poor opinion of those who cry +out melodramatically against the common lot. The thing to do was to +accept the common lot without undignified comment. So he did not give a +Latin groan, nor cry out a Russian curse on Destiny, when he woke to the +knowledge that the aim of his life had been taken away, that he had +lived the last of his Homer. He set his jaw and began to try to adjust +himself to the life without any goal which he was henceforth to share +with the rest of the under-graduates. + +But the days seemed very long and empty, none the less, in spite of his +grim refusal to complain. + +Into the middle of one of these empty days dropped a note from Miss +Wentworth: "Dear Mr. Crittenden: Now that you can stoop to earthly +affairs, won't you go Palisading with a party of us next Saturday? +_Please say yes._ We take the 9 o'clock boat from 125th St." + +The first thing he noted next Saturday was that Berkley was not of the +party. He still thought of Miss Wentworth as "Berkley's girl," and he +was annoyed at the pleasure he felt in finding her unpre-empted. The +second thing was that she never did anything to block his manoeuvering +to break up group formation and string out the party two by two--Neale +and Miss Wentworth being the important two. But that might very well be +only because she wanted to talk football. She had seen all the home +games, knew the players' names, and for a girl, remembered an +astonishing number of the more spectacular plays. The morning passed +quickly. At noon they huddled around their camp-fire on the edge of the +cliffs, ate broiled bacon sandwiches and drank coffee. Then they started +back. On the last stretch of the road when the other girls began to +tire, Miss Wentworth still swung along unflagging, and Neale saw to it +that he was by her side. They ran out of athletic reminiscences. She +ventured hesitatingly on books and her uncertain face cleared when Neale +chimed in enthusiastically. + +"She's surprised to find a football man who's got beyond Munsey's," +thought Neale. No, he hadn't read "The Egoist," but "Richard Feverel" +was _great_! And wasn't "Harry Richmond" a racy, crazy sort of tale? Did +she know "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray?" He grinned internally with an +amused cynicism, remembering for whom he had crammed up on this line. +But he felt a difference. When she spoke about Henry James, he admitted +frankly that he'd never heard of him. There was an honest quality about +Miss Wentworth that made it seem underhanded and unnecessary to bluff. + +Silent they stopped where the road pitches steeply down to the river. +Speech seemed impertinent when the Hudson lay below, vast and mystic in +the early-falling December dusk. + +Then the rest of the party came up, shrieking out, "Oh, didn't he +_r-a-m-ble_!" Neale saw Miss Wentworth home to the door of her apartment +house, 114th Street, just off the Drive. He noted the number of the +apartment. And found it again a good many times in the months to come. + +There were other things which helped fill the void left by football. One +of these, quaintly enough, was class-work! Many electives were open to +Seniors. Neale had chosen rather at random; Philosophy, Ethics, +Anthropology, English Lit. and Modern History. There was really nothing +whatever to do now with his time except study, and to his surprise, +those courses which had been but names printed in the catalogue, turned +out very much alive once Neale began to put his mind on them. + +Another interest was what he called with pretended scorn, "Gregg's +gab-fests." It amused Neale to poke fun at Gregg's pretensions to being +an intellectual, but he liked and admired his room-mate none the less. +Their room came to be the favorite loafing-place of all the +speculatively minded of their acquaintance, and Neale was surprised to +find how many there were of them, who liked, as much as he and Gregg to +discuss "things in general." + +Every Friday evening, unless there was a dance or an athletic contest, +from ten to two A.M. some of the Gang would haunt the Den, lolling in +the shabby, easy chairs and on the beds, smoking pipes, drinking beer +and spouting out all they knew of modern thought. In theory the meeting +was open to all shades of opinion, but the boys were without exception +filled with the painless misanthropy of youth, afraid of nothing except +appearing priggish (by which they, like many other people, meant +reasonably clean-mouthed), carelessly ready to agree to any sweeping +indictment of mankind; this, although their youth and gloriously perfect +digestions made them serenely confident that their own little rafts +would eventually drift to a smiling harbor in the country of easy money +and orange blossoms. + +They took their pessimism, as they did their beer, in great +undiscriminating gulps, which affected their healthy organisms no more +than the blowing of the wind. With it they drugged their bodies, +swigging away heartily at both narcotics till at last they dropped to +insensibility, only to crawl out from under the table the next morning, +their young eyes invincibly bright, their breaths sweet, their stomachs +indomitably craving good food, finding the honest winter sunshine +flooding in at the windows, in no way incompatible with the flat, stale +beer and stinking cigar-butts left from the night before. An adult might +have drunk of the bitter waters of disillusion with more caution, have +carried his load of pessimism with less outward unsteadiness, but later +on, what dead pussy-cat fur upon his tongue, what a sick loathing for +wholesome fare! But these gilded youth swilled down each his kegful of +Nietzsche and turned with equal zest to handfuls of gum-drops like "The +Cardinal's Snuff-box." + +As for Neale, he joined in the discussions as briskly as any, but with +reservations. He never quoted or mentioned Emerson, although he thought +of him a great deal. He never discussed anything or any one he really +cared a snap about. In occasional moments of insight (which came to him +because he talked less babblingly than the others and listened more) he +suspected that all the other slashing young radicals and iconoclasts +might also be holding back secret articles of faith from defilement. + +One element in his life that he never mentioned to the Gang, was the +amount of time he was spending with Miss Wentworth. He had called on her +one evening shortly after the Palisading trip, alleging as an excuse +that he owed her a dinner call for the picnic lunch she had provided. He +had called several times since then, with no excuse at all. He had been +one of her box-party at "Candida" and somewhat over-paid his debt by +taking her to "Out of the Wilderness," and Barnum and Bailey's circus. +He had dined several times at the Wentworth apartment, discussed the +Republican Party with her quiet, widowed, impressive father, and had +learned to leave him in peace with his Evening Post after dinner. Miss +Wentworth kept up on her college athletics, and Neale took her to the +Basket-ball games, the Dual Gym. Meet with Yale, the Hockey games, the +Indoor Track Meet at the 69th Regiment Armory. She had a great passion +for walking, so they walked in the afternoons along Riverside Drive, in +Central Park, along the driveway by Fort Washington Point. By the time +the ice had broken up in the spring, Neale had discovered two things: +first that Miss Wentworth was not like any other girl he knew, she +didn't flirt, wasn't piqued if he was silent, he felt no impulse to +bluff or play-act before her, she was more like another fellow than a +girl--only a very much more attractive fellow than he had ever met. The +secondary discovery, which alarmed as well as thrilled him, was that if +three days passed without his seeing her, he found himself missing her +very much indeed. + +Meanwhile the mid-years were long past, spring almost at hand, the +tongues of the Gang, after all the winter's practice, wagged more freely +than ever. The first Friday in April, Elliott came in, pulling from the +deep pocket of his rain-coat, a bag of limes and a bottle of gin, and +announcing something better than beer for that evening. + +"It's up to you, kid," Neale ordered Robertson, the Soph., whom they +tolerated because his self-important airs amused them, "you're the +youngest. Beat it to the drug-store and bring back as many siphons as +you can carry." + +After the rickeys were mixed, the cheese cut, the cracker-tin set out, +the tongues began to clack, and the resounding generalities to unroll +themselves before the fresh gaze of those young eyes, dazzled by the +brilliance of their explorations into the nature of things. Elliott was +saying wisely, "Laws? Everybody knows that laws are a conspiracy among +mediocrities to keep the strong from taking too much property." He let +this soak in and went on, "And moral systems are similar conspiracies to +prevent monopolies of less tangible things." Elliott delighted in +polysyllables, which he did not as yet always handle with entire +accuracy. Gregg, who did not like either polysyllables or Elliott, +commented on this, "What book did you get that out of? And what's the +moral?" + +"The moral is, that morals are a sham. Man obeys the law only because he +is afraid of the herd-majority. But a free spirit doesn't mind the +criticism of mediocrities, he glories in it." + +"So he feels all right, does he?" asked Gregg, "when he clears out to +Canada with the contents of the safe, or his best friend's wife. As a +matter of fact, he feels like a dirty dog." + +"Oh, but that is just force of habit, race-superstition, cowardice +before convention." + +"Shucks! You fellows are on the wrong track," broke in Brown, "all man +really cares about is his three meals a day. That's what makes the world +go round! When the cave-man's wife was stolen, he went on the warpath +for the same reason a cowboy lynches a horse-thief, because he can't +afford to lose valuable property. Now the modern woman is no longer an +asset, but a liability...." He paused, so filled with admiration for his +own metaphor struck out in the heat of discussion, that he could not go +on. Great Caesar's ghost! That wasn't so bad! He'd have to remember that +in the next theme he wrote. + +Gregg was disposing of him sardonically, "Oh, yes, we know Brown's +soaking up the economic interpretation of history like a sponge. Have a +mind of your own, Brown. You don't have to believe all your Prof. tells +you. What do _you_ think, Crit?" + +Neale sailed cautiously a little nearer his real thought than he usually +ventured, with the casual comment, "Well, there do seem to be some +things a man can't bring himself to do, no matter how much he wants to. +I wonder if maybe it isn't just inherited race-experience warning us off +from what's bad for man in the long run." + +Brown came back for revenge, "Oh, yes, we know the rest, what's that but +the anthropology course? Have a mind of your own!" + +"As a matter of fact, pleasure's the only motive," Elliott laid down the +final dictum. "Every time you do something you do it because you'd +rather. If you didn't, you'd do something else." + +Some one brought out another profundity deep enough to match this, +affirming, "Oh, of course, everything's relative!" + +And this was still so new an aphorism to them, that they let it alone, +the party breaking up over a last round of weak rickeys squeezed from +the bottle. + +Neale waited till he saw Gregg deep in "Venice Preserved"; then he +opened a small volume, and shielding it from any random glances of his +room-mate, began reading, "The Last Ride Together." + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +The two had passed a long evening together. Miss Wentworth's father was +attending the annual banquet of the American Philological Association +and the young people, left to themselves, had dined downtown at the +Lafayette. It was their first meal alone together, all the more +intimately alone because of the shifting crowd of strangers about them. +How natural it had seemed to look across the table and see Miss +Wentworth there! As natural as though he could look forward to an +endless succession of days together; yet so tinged with romance that +even the banalities of their small-talk had vibrated with emotional +significance. + +When dessert and coffee and Neale's cigar could be dragged out no +longer, they had strolled side by side up deserted lower Fifth Avenue. + +Now they were standing silent, watching the periodical rise and fall of +the gushing fountain in Madison Square. At first the pool lay quiet; +then the surface was troubled; then swelling, mounting, the jet of water +burst through and shot upward, to sink again, leaving only waning +ripples behind it. It made the young man think of a great many things, +which were none the less moving and poignant to him because they have +moved every thoughtful human being since the beginning of time. As he +looked gravely down on the pulsations of the gleaming water, it +symbolized to him the rhythm of the universe; the recurrent rhythm of +the generations--human life with its one little spurt of youth and glory +sinking so soon, so fatally soon to the sterile, routine movements of +age. But when he spoke, his voice was as casually off-hand as ever. + +"There's a fountain in Rome," he said, "where, if you throw a coin in, +you're sure to come back to it. I wonder if it would work with this +one!" + +"I didn't know you'd ever been in Rome." + +"I haven't. I got that out of Crawford's 'Ave Roma.'" + +"What makes you so anxious to come back to Madison Square?" + +"I'm not. I'd rather find a fountain that would send me round the world. +But there isn't much chance of that, and I thought if you'd throw one in +too--both at the same time, you know--it might fix things so that we'd +come back together." + +She gave him a steady, thoughtful look, took a penny out of her purse. +"All ready, go!" + +The two coins splashed into the pool. "I hope there will be as lovely a +moon then as there is to-night," she said. + +"I wonder," thought Neale, "just how much she meant by that." + +When Neale got back to his room, the Gang was not there in full force, +only Robertson, the knowing little Soph. and Gregg, drinking beer and +smoking their pipes. Neale kept back a grimace of distaste at seeing +Robertson, his broad boy's face set in its usual expression of solemn, +self-conscious wiseness in the ways of the world. The rest of the Gang +found Robertson comic and enjoyed having him around to laugh at, as many +people enjoy a visit to the monkey-house in a zoo, and see nothing but +the comic in the humanness of simian antics. But he disquieted Neale to +his very soul, as another set of people are disquieted and troubled by a +visit to the monkey-house and see nothing to laugh at in simian antics. + +One evening of little Robertson and his loud-proclaimed disillusion with +the world and the human race moved the rest of the Gang to delighted +howls of laughter for days afterwards; but though Neale laughed with the +rest (nobody could help laughing at Robertson, he was such an owl!), it +rather took the shine off Schopenhauer and pessimism, and that was a +real privation for a Senior. + +As he came in, Gregg was quoting, + + "But sweet as the rind was, the core is; + We are fain of thee still, we are fain, + O sanguine and subtle Dolores, + Our Lady of Pain." + +Neale lifted a stein from its hook, poured it full from the pitcher and +took a long drink. + +"Go ahead, Johnny," he said, "sounds lovely--like any other fairy tale." + +"Fairy tale!" cried little Robertson. "Fairy tale, you blue-nosed +Puritan! That's all _you_ know. You've been neglecting your +opportunities." + +Neale answered sharply, "Puritan be damned! I'm no Earl Hall Christer! I +know Swinburne enough sight better than you do." + +At the sight of Robertson's round eyes goggling at him under his bulging +forehead, he was amused at his own annoyance, and taking another drink +went on indifferently, "All I'm saying is, maybe prostitution was a +dainty art in Ancient Greece, or maybe Swinburne knew some high class +practitioners, but here in New York, on the Heights--maybe the thought +of Becky Blumenthal without her shimmy gives you an aesthetic thrill, but +if it does, you've got a stronger stomach than I have. Take it from me, +kid, if you want any poetry out of all that, you'd better stick to +Swinburne." + +"Yep," agreed Gregg, "I'm with you, Crit. I don't like the +professionals. They're a mercenary crew. They're 'out for the stuff, and +if you ain't got enough, biff, kerslap, out you go!' Why doesn't some +gay little lady just looking for a good time give us the high sign, the +way they do in books. Does she? She does not!" + +The subject of the discussion pleased Robertson immensely, of course, +but he was outraged at the middle-class narrowness of his elders' views. +He got up languidly, put on his cap, and standing by the door, +pronounced judgment. + +"All women," said little Robertson the Soph., "belong to the Trade, more +or less, in one way or the other. I won't go so far as to say that every +woman has her price, only _I_ have never met one who hadn't!" + +Neale and Gregg gazed at him spell-bound. He turned away, calling airily +over his shoulder, "Well, ta! ta! A May night's no time for debates. I'm +going out for a stroll on Morningside to prove my theory." + +After they had had their laugh out, Gregg said, "Doesn't he think he's a +heller?" + +"Wants _us_ to think so," grunted Neale. "Where's all the Gang?" + +"Oh, some of them are boning for the exams, and some are chasing +chippies, and Billy Peters is off on some of his usual footless fussing. +Been calling on a girl all winter and I don't believe he's even had his +arm around her yet, except at dances. The kid!" + +Neale filled his pipe, held the match over it and puffed gently until +the tobacco glowed an even red all over the top. What would Gregg say, +he wondered, to his attitude towards Miss Wentworth? And Gregg himself! +Neale knew perfectly well Gregg wrote long, weekly letters to that +innocent-faced up-state girl whose picture stood on the dresser over +there. He also knew perfectly well that Gregg was a regular Sir Galahad +when it came to her. Oh, Lord! How like that blatant idiot Robertson, +they were! It made him feel like a fool kid himself, the bluff they +always kept up. Weren't they getting grown-up enough to drop this +inside-out hypocrisy? + +He kept all this to himself, smoking in thoughtful silence. When the +pipe was finished, he yawned and stretched, "Guess I'll turn in. Going +to read all night?" + +Gregg looked up from his book, "I'll put the shade over the light so you +can get to sleep. I want to finish this Philosophy A stuff, Plato's +Republic. Have you read the last book yet? It's great dope!" + + * * * * * + +The next day Neale and Miss Wentworth were sitting by their little gipsy +fire in a nook among the Palisades, overlooking the river. Luncheon had +long been finished, the dishes packed away, and they continued to sit +still, Miss Wentworth looking at the view, Neale looking at her and +turning over in his mind the problem, "How can a man with no money, and +no prospects of ever earning any, ask a girl to marry him? He can't. But +suppose there's a chance that the girl ... well, no matter what she may +be thinking, wouldn't it be the decent thing to let her know how he +feels? Of course he ought to! What's the answer, then? There isn't any +answer." + +"A penny for your thoughts, Mr. Crittenden." + +"I was wondering," Neale lied glibly, "whether you didn't know me well +enough to stop calling me Mr. Crittenden." + +She met his eyes squarely, "All right, I'll call you Neale, if you'll +call me Martha. I hate formality between friends." + +He weighed her intonation carefully. Had she accented the word, +"friends"? Did she mean it as a warning? Well, whether or not she meant +it, that was the only line he could decently take. + +As they started on the five-mile walk back to the ferry, their talk +dodged personalities. They talked about the trees and rocks and +wild-flowers and books and music--the music to which Martha had been +introducing Neale that winter, the music which, little by little, was +beginning to speak to his heart more powerfully, more directly even than +poetry. Then, gradually, with a deep sense of tranquil comradeship, they +stopped dodging personalities, no longer felt any need to talk, strode +forward side by side, silent, each sure of the other. Neale felt quiet +and happy and at the same time miserable and uncertain. Could he find +words to tell her? Must he in honor wait till he had a place in the +world to offer? + +At the end of their long march, they came to the edge of the cliff and +stood for a long time staring down at the great river, shimmering and +iridescent far below them in the spring haze. Only a few miles further +south along these cliffs and only a few years ago, the little Neale had +sat alone and swung his feet and dreamed. How simple life had been for +him then! + +Still without a word, they went down the zig-zag path to the ferry +landing, and stood waiting for the boat. It was very still, except for +the water splashing on the stony beach. Without thought, without +planning it, the fullness of Neale's heart unsealed his lips. He began +to speak in a low tone, his voice rough and uneven with emotion. + + "Listen! you hear the grating roar + Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, + At their return, up the high strand." + +He was aware that the girl was very still, listening with bent head. + + "Sophocles long ago + Heard it on the AEgean, and it brought + Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow + Of human misery; we...." + +his breath failed him and he was silent. Over there beyond that wide +expanse of lapping water lay the world with its houses and railways, its +business, its spider-web of human relations. Here in the shadow they +were alone together. + + "But now I only hear + Its melancholy, long withdrawing roar, + Retreating to the breath + Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear + And naked shingles of the world." + +He stopped. Now that he had come to what he wished to say, he dared not. + +"Don't you know the rest?" asked the girl softly. + +"Yes," said Neale huskily, "I know it." + +She waited for him to go on, and when he did not, she said, "Well, no +matter. I know it too." + +She stood beside him in the blue twilight, her fair head raised, her +eyes looking far over the water. Neale was certain that she too was +silently repeating, + + "Ah, love, let us be true + To one another! for the world, which seems + To lie before us like a land of dreams, + So various, so beautiful, so new, + Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, + Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; + And we are here as on a darkling plain + Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, + Where ignorant armies clash by night." + +The great day was over. The Yew Tree had been planted and orated over. +The scared Valedictorian had stumbled through as much of his speech as +he could remember. Neale, with a hundred other Seniors had stood up and +received the degree of Bachelor of Arts, which the President, +"By-the-authority-in-him-vested" scattered broadcast over them. Neale +was through with college. College was through with Neale. + +Father and Mother were there, come up specially from the other side of +the Equator, though Father tried to pretend that business had brought +him north. They strolled about the campus, went downtown and had +luncheon together, all three outwardly calm in the traditional +Crittenden manner, in spite of the emotion boiling under the surface of +their little family party. + +What boiled hardest under Neale's surface was a great haste to find his +place in the business-world, to begin to make money, to have something +to offer Martha. Before he had met Martha he had had dreams of asking to +go back to college for a Master's Degree--in anything, just to go on +with the studies he had found so interesting, to play football again, to +sit, care-free, smoking his pipe and talking philosophy with Gregg. But +even in his dreams he had felt that all that was only a little boy's +scheme to dodge real life. And now he felt no sympathy with dreams. He +wanted to get out and tackle real life with all his strength. He smarted +under the feeling that he had no right to speak to Martha. + +So when Mother went up to her room to rest from the strain of throttling +her feelings down to her men-folks' standard of outward calm, and he and +Father went into the lobby to light cigars, he said at once, "Father, I +want to start in to-morrow to hustle for a job." + +Father looked pleased. It even occurred to Neale that Father looked +relieved. "Anything special in sight?" he asked. + +"No, I'm just going to knock at all the office doors till I find one +where they don't throw me out." + +Father puffed awhile. "Naturally I'd like to have you with me, but I +couldn't offer you anything but a clerkship. And I'm convinced that the +opportunities to rise are greater here at the center of things. Now I've +worked a good many years for the firm and I believe Gates would give you +a job on my recommendation. Want to try it?" + +"I'll try anything that'll give me a start." + +"To-morrow too soon, if I can make an appointment for you?" + +"I'll be there." + +"Of course you won't draw much of a salary at first; I think I'd better +keep your allowance going for a few months at least." + +"Nothing doing, Dad! It's white of you to suggest it, but I'm on my own +now. If you get me a job, that's more than plenty. If I can't live on my +wages, I'll black boots after office hours." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +May, 1905. + +Neale had never, so to speak, received any letters in his life until his +parents had gone off to Rio; but since then letters had filled what +personal life he had found time for. It was surprising how much more +freely people spoke out in the written word than in talk. The weekly +bulletins from Mother, and Father's occasional letters gave him more of +a feeling of intercourse with his parents than he had ever known when +they lived under the same roof. And he was sure that in no other way +could he ever have come to look into the clear integrity of Martha's +heart as he had in the letters which had come to him from all over +Europe, where she had been wandering with her father during his +sabbatical year of freedom. + +In the April after his graduation, Martha had written from England that +she was hurrying the end of her travel-year so that she could be home to +take a Palisading walk with him on May sixteenth. May sixteenth was the +date of their last walk together on the Palisades, the walk which had +ended in the sweet, wordless understanding between them. Her frank +recognition of it as an anniversary to be remembered showed how far +along the year of separation and frequent letter-writing had brought +them. + +He was thinking of Martha, the wonderful Martha her letters had +revealed, as he waited for her on May sixteenth in the parlor of her +father's apartment. He found it almost impossible to listen to what +Professor Wentworth was saying, and tried in vain to answer the +traveler's questions about Columbia news. The Wentworths had been in +Norway and Spain and England and Greece, while Neale had not been out of +New York; but he knew no more of Columbia than they. With the bestowal +of the impersonally broadcasted degree, Columbia had dropped him as +unceremoniously as it had failed to welcome him when he arrived--"and +quite right, too," thought Neale. He detested the florid sentimentality +of some other universities, the maudlin old grads singing of bright +college years! + +So he knew nothing whatever about Columbia to report. Besides, Professor +Wentworth naturally enough was inquiring about what had been happening +to the faculty during his absence, and Neale had never had the faintest +guess that any of his professors led a three-dimensional life. But most +of all, his year in business, in an office surrounded by men who had +never been near a university had set him immeasurably far from the +academic world. In an attempt to satisfy Martha's father he now made a +great effort to look back at college life, but he was looking back at it +from the wrong end of a telescope. It was inconceivably small and far +away. He had not realized till now how much the year in business had +changed him, how rapidly he had left behind him the horizon of his +college years. Well, that was as it should be--to live hard in the +present without brooding over the past or dreaming of the future.... + +Then Martha came in, and he forgot college altogether, forgot Professor +Wentworth, he even forgot the business world as he looked half-shyly, +half-confidently into her blue eyes--the same, but, oh, how startlingly +more real and alive than the dream-like memory picture he had been +treasuring all those months. + + * * * * * + +They crossed the ferry, they stepped off briskly up the zig-zag path, +then when the last house was hidden behind the rocks, they stopped. +Martha lifted her smiling face to his. As their lips touched, Neale was +thrilled by a wave of emotion,--exaltation rather than passion. "How +dear, how sweet, how incredibly pure and good she was!" + +The moment passed; as they walked on from time to time their eyes met +frankly. "Oh, but I'm glad to be walking with you again, Neale," said +Martha at last. "It's as if we hadn't been separated at all--yes, you +do look older--ever so much older--and yet about the same." + +"Oh, I'm just the same, Martha," he told her briefly with a weighty, +significant accent. + +It was the only reference made by either of them to what was in their +hearts. But it was enough for both of them. What a _fine_ girl, Neale +thought, not to want, any more than he did, a lot of goings-on to +express feelings! As they tramped along energetically, Martha was +talking of what the year had been to her. She spoke of picture-galleries +and Gothic cathedrals, and palaces and ruins; but what she said, and +what Neale heard was that nowhere had she met any one whom she liked +better than Neale. Neale felt himself relax in an ineffable content, and +knew by contrast how anxious he had been. + +Then they made their fire and cooked their bacon, ate their lunch, and +Neale lighted his pipe peaceably and happily. They sat in a sunny, +sheltered corner of the rocks, overlooking the river, their hearts +sheltered and sunny, and in the intervals of their talk they looked at +each other in quiet satisfaction. How good it was to be together again! + +Neale's report of his year took longer than Martha's because they both +felt that hers had the irrelevant passing interest of a vacation-time, +while his was to have enduring importance for them both. It was, he told +her, the same phase in the business world as a freshman year in college, +and although he had not made a brilliant outer success as yet, he felt, +on the whole, satisfied with the way he had got his feet under him and +had begun to know his way about. He gave a droll little color to the +account of his job in the office, the one they had evidently given him +as an experiment, to be tried out in cheap materials first--he +representing the cheap materials! The business had grown and grown; at +first, a generation ago, the product of Mr. Gates' business ability; +later on, too large even for what the "old man" could keep under his +remarkably capacious hat. Then twenty years ago, other people--Mr. +Gates' son, Neale's father, the clever and forceful manager of the +Chicago office, a branch-manager in Ottawa,--had begun to keep it under +their respective hats. Important matters were decided orally in a +personal talk between the different department heads, who, having the +required information at their finger-tips, needed no figuring or +statistics to help their decisions. This had lasted all the while Neale +was growing up, but by the time he graduated, some of the younger +members of the organization had begun to feel that perhaps the stock of +information vital to the conduct of the business ought to be copied off +from the several brains which possessed it, and set down in some more +accessible form. Mr. Belden, the Ottawa manager, knew all about the +lumber market in eastern Canada, the average quality of mill-run spruce +in each section and what the chances were of getting it on time for a +given order; Mr. Gilman, at the Chicago office, could snap back over the +long-distance wire any question you cared to put about Wisconsin or +Northern Michigan lumber regions. But they were neither of them so young +as they had been nor was Mr. Crittenden, whose specialty was the +selling-end of Eastern and foreign lumber markets. Even the "young Mr. +Gates" was now over fifty. They were all mortal, the health of the +"young Mr. Gates" was far from good; and furthermore the business kept +steadily growing so that it was very inconvenient to have to wait to +consult men widely separated. + +"Do you get it?" asked Neale, lying in the sun on the Palisades, +smoking, looking up at a sweet, well-beloved face and delighting in her +eager, intelligent interest in his story. "Do you get it? Half the bunch +thought a card-catalogue the foolishest, new-fangled waste of time; half +of them didn't know whether it was or not; all of them wanted some sort +of tabulation of inside information, and none of them knew how to go +about it any more than if they'd been asked to bake a batch of bread or +write a theme on the Crusades. The half that wanted to stick to the old +ways and keep it all safe under different people's hats were dead set +against spending any money on any fool system of collecting and +classifying information. And the other half weren't by any means so sure +of their ground that they wanted to spend a lot of cash to get an +expert. And, anyhow, where could you find an expert? If you let one of +those 'business-system' people inside the office he'd be trying to run +the whole works. Maybe the idea was all right, but you couldn't get it +executed. Well, while the whole proposition was up in the air, and +everybody chewing the rag about it, somebody knocks at the door, and who +is it? Why, Crittenden's son, just out of college, wanting a job. All +nonsense, college, and yet what _would_ it have taught a boy if not how +to straighten out and classify information? Anyhow you could get him for +next to nothing: boys out of college never expect to be paid anything to +speak of, and a good reason why; because they aren't worth anything. +Give him a year's try at it! Crittenden's son ought to have a _little_ +natural sense. It won't cost much; he can't do any harm; maybe he might +work out a system that would be useful. + +"So they offered the job at slightly more than office-boy wages to the +college graduate. And what did _he_ think about it? How had he been +trained for such work? _You_ know, Martha, how he'd been trained. What +he knew about orderly arrangement of information was about what would go +on the head of a pin! He'd been learning a _few_ scattered items about +English Literature and Greek Philosophy, and the latest inaccuracy about +atoms; and a whole lot about how to get a football over a given line +under given conditions. But incidentally and on the side, he'd had a +pretty thorough course in poker, and a poker-face was the necessary +equipment for _that_ situation!" + +He and Martha laughed, a light-hearted young laugh, that did them good +and made them feel closer than ever to each other in the conspiracy of +two against the world. + +The rest of the year had been, Neale told her, a slow, dogged struggle +to find out what after all it was nobody's business to tell him; to +invent a system of recording what he found out that would not only be +fool-proof but stenographer-proof; to collect exact statistics as to the +cost of production and transportation; and to bring together items of +account-keeping that had never before had even a speaking acquaintance +with each other. + +"I've traced a plank from the tree to tide-water, inch by inch, my +note-book in my hand, setting down every sixteenth of a cent per board +foot that it cost till we sold it to the retail dealer, watching it as +if it were the prince-royal of a reigning house and I the secret-service +man set to keep track of him! I've covered reams of paper figuring out +the cost of the office-work of getting that plank sold--extra +office-work, you know, not ordinary overhead;--and, by heck, I don't see +how they've ever managed to run their old business a minute, the +haphazard way they've been going at it! Nobody knew anything, not _all_ +of anything! I seem to have been marking time, but just you wait till I +get out of the office and into the real game. I know more about some +things than any of the buyers, even the old-timers." + +"Well, there must be a big profit in business or they wouldn't be able +to conduct it that loose way," said Martha. + +"Oh, the profits are big, all right," Neale concurred. "Old man Gates +has more cash than he knows what to do with. And not one of his +grandchildren amounts to a whoop. When his son, the one who's our +General Manager now, retires, there won't be a Gates left in the Gates +Lumber Company." + +"They won't mind," said Martha. + +"You bet your life they won't _mind_," said Neale. "Far from it! Most +likely they've hardly heard the name of it. They're all living in Europe +now, buying villas and things out of the money the Company makes. Our +Mr. Gates never sees any of his family except when he takes a vacation +and goes to Florence or England. All _they_ want out of the lumber +business is a fat wad of easy money." + +"That's not right," said Martha suddenly. "That's not right." + +"It's not right if getting something for nothing is wrong," Neale agreed +casually. "But what are you going to do about it? There you are. That's +the way things go." + +Martha made no answer. There was a little silence. Then she said: "All +that account-keeping, that detail work--it doesn't seem so terribly +interesting to me, Neale. Haven't you found it awfully dull sometimes?" + +Neale rolled over and sat up with an effect of entering again into +active and energetic life. "Well, I might have," he said finally. "But +you know, Martha, that I have a special reason for wanting to get on +quick in business, and I've been mighty glad enough to grab hold of any +end that was handy." He smiled at her confidently. "All a fellow needs +in the business world is a crack in the wall to get his toes into for a +start. I've got my crack. Now you just watch me climb!" + +It was perfectly understood between them what he was climbing to reach. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +Father had written from Caracas that Mother was taking the next boat +back to New York because she needed a lot of dental work done and hadn't +any confidence in Venezuelan dentists, but when Neale met Mother at the +dock she told him at once, laughingly, that the dental work was only an +excuse, and that she had come to have a visit with her son. She had +added with a whimsical defiance that, such being the fact, she had no +intention of putting up the usual Crittenden bluff of something +different. + +"I'm not a Crittenden," she told Neale gaily in the cab on the way to +the hotel, "though I married into the family so young! And now that I've +worn a mantilla, with a rose in my hair, I'm not going to try any longer +to pretend that I am." + +Neale looked at her, admiring her now quite distinguished appearance, +but feeling a little alarm at her tone. She sounded almost disturbingly +electric. + +"I've come up to have a real New York spree with my big son and his nice +girl, now that he has condescended to let us know he has a nice girl," +she told him, her smiling eyes at once tender and a little mocking. "You +can afford it, can't you, since your last raise?" + +"Oh, I can afford anything in reason." + +"Your father says they tell him you're getting on splendidly." + +"They never let on as much to me," said Neale drily, "though they are +treating me very white as to pay." + +They were at the hotel door now, where Mother made arrangements for a +stay of a month. + +"Dental work takes so long," she told Neale gravely in the elevator, +making him laugh outright. She looked very well pleased at this, and +after they were inside her room, stood up on tip-toes and gave him +another kiss. + +He had never entirely recovered from his father's chance remark that +Mother had been only twenty when she married. She must have been about +as old as he was now when he first began to remember her. Just a +girl,--and she had seemed older to him then than now. + +He told her this as he unstrapped her valise. "You seem younger to me +every time I see you--lots younger now than when I was six or seven +years old." + +She laughed out. "I was a child myself when you were six or seven." She +turned grave for a moment. "If I had you to bring up, now that I am a +really grown person with a personality of my own and some experience of +the world, I'd do it very differently. I'd make a better job of it." + +"You made a good enough job," he protested mildly. "How can you look at +me and think you could have done any better?" + +She stopped her unpacking to laugh. "It just spoils a person for other +forms of joking to live with one of you dry Crittendens. Other people's +humor seems so flamboyant. I _like_ the Crittendens," she pronounced +judicially, "though I did waste about twenty years of my young life +trying to make myself into one. I'm glad you're one. But if you try to +make Martha into one--" + +"Martha's one already," he told her triumphantly. "We're exactly +alike--the way we think and do things. That's why we get on so well +together." At this Neale's mother looked at him so hard that he felt a +little annoyed, and turned the talk back to its earlier channel. + +"How else would you have brought me up, I'd like to know?" + +"I'd have taken dynamite to you," she informed him briskly. + +"Dynamite?" + +"Oh, you don't understand. And I daresay it would have been too early +anyhow. You'll probably get your share of dynamite when your turn +comes." She changed the subject: "How's business? Seriously!" + +Seriously he told her of the results of his promotion six months before +from the "intelligence bureau," as he called it, to the real business of +life, to buying and selling. "The only real money is in that," he told +her, warming as he spoke. "All those other jobs, office jobs, don't lead +you anywhere. Buying and selling, especially selling, that's where you +get ahead. I'm earning twice what I did, and by this time next year I'll +be doing twice what I'm doing now. I may soon be able to do a little on +the side, on my own hook, pick up something good and dispose of it well. +Grandfather is sure I can. He may have some tips for me later on. +Grandfather is a wise old scout." + +Mother laid some underwear away in a drawer. As she shut it, she asked +casually: "Do you read any Emerson nowadays, Neale?" + +How in the world did Mother know he had ever read Emerson? "No, I +don't," he said. + +She noted the shortness of his tone with raised eyebrows, and began to +hang up her dresses in the closet. + +Neale looked at her back with some uneasiness. He felt his privacy +threatened, and, stiffening, put up the bars. And apparently Mother +sensed the change, for she at once dropped her intimate tone and began +making gay plans for "having some fun" during her stay, plans in which +dental engagements played a conspicuously small part. It turned out to +be a very light-hearted month, Mother's month in the dentist's chair. +Neale and Martha were quite shaken up out of the quiet, jog-trot routine +of their peaceful days and long evenings of serious reading together. +Mother took them to the theater and to dinner at out-of-the-way +restaurants of which, like most sober resident New Yorkers, they had +never heard the names. In the daytime, she and Martha, of whom she had +grown very fond, went around a good deal together, looking at the +innumerable expensive and occasionally beautiful objects on view in the +shops of a big city; or visiting museums, or going to matinees. They +heard a good deal of music, all three of them. Mother had chosen a hotel +near Carnegie Hall, so that frequently, when they had nothing else to +do, they strolled up on foot and listened to whatever was being played. +They had an occasional dinner with Professor Wentworth and Martha in +their apartment on 122d Street, and Mother went off by herself to look +up the old friends of Union Hill days, the few who were not scattered. + +Once in a while Neale talked over his business prospects with Mother +when she asked him about them and he couldn't get out of it, and they +agreed that he would be able to marry in another year. And having agreed +in this opinion, Mother was apt to fall very silent for a time. But this +suited Neale, who found intimate personal talk disconcerting. It always +made him uneasy when another human being rattled the handle of the door +to his inner secret garden. One of the things he most loved in Martha +was that she took so much for granted without talking about it. They +understood each other instinctively, he felt, without need of +explanation. He suspected that Martha had her own inner garden, and +prided himself on respecting her right to it. _He_ was no one to go +rattling handles of doors that were none of his. He found Martha +especially restful and satisfying after one of these talks with Mother, +lightly and passingly as Mother glanced over those sensitive places. He +constantly felt that Mother was trying to open a door he wished to keep +shut, that she was trying to say something that he had no desire to +hear. He and Martha were all right. What business had Mother to look at +them that way? + +She did nothing after all, beyond looking, and went away at the end of +her month, having committed no greater crime than to whisper brokenly to +Neale as she kissed him good-by, "Neale, it's not enough to--Neale, you +must _love_ Martha. You must _love_ her--not just--" + +At this Neale had quickly assumed the cold look of distaste which she +knew so well, and she had ventured no further. + +After her departure, Neale fell with relief back into his old routine of +quiet, comfortable life-in-common with Martha, with none of the +prickling electric uncertainties he had felt in Mother. Odd how much +better he knew Martha than he did Mother; how sure he was beforehand of +what Martha would think and say, whereas he had been uncomfortably +unsure of Mother. He felt he knew Martha as he knew himself, through and +through. + +This conviction was a great satisfaction to him. He often thought of it +with pride, and with a secret pity and scorn for people who found life +and human relationships so complicated and mysterious. That sort of +thing was just a novel-writer's rubber-stamp convention. What was there +so darned mysterious about your own nature, about a sensible woman's +nature? Nothing. If you were a sane, normal man, you found your mate in +the world just as normally as you found your place in the business +world. With a healthy, honest, fine girl like Martha, there would be +none of those double-and-twisted emotional complications you read about +in books. + +He was away from New York a good deal at this time, taking, as one of +the younger salesmen, the more difficult and less remunerative +territories, and when he came back to the city it was like coming home, +to ring the bell of the Wentworths' apartment and have Martha herself +come to open the door for him, her eyes as clear and honest as sunlit +water. + +They always had a good deal to tell each other after these separations. +Martha about her work at the Speyer School, where she had begun to help +a little in visiting the families of the poorer children, Neale about +his business, which he was finding more and more absorbingly +interesting, for which he was feeling much of the zestful passion he had +felt for football. He talked a great deal to Martha about the +resemblance of football to business. One of the many things he loved +about Martha was her knowledge of football. Of course, strictly +speaking, like all other outsiders, she knew nothing whatever about +football; but she knew as much as any spectator could, and, brought up +from birth as she had been in one or another college community, she had +a second-nature familiarity with the psychology of the game, with the +fierce, driving concentration, the eager, devout willingness to devote +every throb of your pulse, every thought in your brain to winning the +game; and it seemed perfectly natural to her, as it did to Neale, to +step into another world where all the mature energies were focussed in +the same way. + +"It's just like football," Neale often told her, his eyes gleaming. +"Having played football gives you as great an advantage as though you +were in training and the other fellows soft. I often feel as if I ought +to go and look up old Atkins and thank him. He was teaching me enough +sight more than how to play back-field defense! That everlasting +pounding of his on the idea of knowing where the ball is before you go +for it--Gee whiz, you'd never guess how many fool mistakes that's kept +me from. I see the other fellows wasting money on buying drinks and +tickets to shows and champagne suppers for hard-shelled old buyers who +haven't an interest left in life beyond screwing the price down an +eighth of a cent--wallowing in any-old-how just to get going,--the way I +used to; and I think of old Atkins, lie low, keep my mouth shut, and +size up the enemy's formation till I see their weak place, _and then_!" +The brilliance of his eye, the grimness of his set jaw, the impact of +one great fist in the palm of the other hand showed what happened then. +He went on. "One game's just like the other, and the thing that wins in +both is _wanting to win_ more than the other fellow does." He turned +serious, almost exalted, and said: "Sometimes I used almost to think it +was the way religion must be for people who believe in it--it puts you +in touch with some big force--I've felt it in football--I guess +everybody always feels it who really gets going enough to care about +anything with all that is in him--if you give every bit of +yourself--don't keep anything back--want to win more than anything else +in the world--why, all of a sudden some outside source of power that's +hundreds of volts higher than normal begins to flow through you--and you +_move_ things. It's wonderful, but you can't have it cheap. It costs you +all you've got." + +One evening as they sat thus, Martha perched on the arm of Neale's +chair, the quiet air about them crackling and tingling with the +high-tension current, Martha caught and grasped a comparison which had +long been floating elusive in the back of her mind. She jumped up and +ran to the piano. "Listen, it's like this," she told him, and played +with one hand, clear and defiant and compelling, the call of the young +Siegfried. "That was how it was in football. And now--" She sat down +before the piano, and, stretching out both hands over the keys, she +filled the room with the rich clamor of the same theme reinforced by all +the sumptuous strength of harmony. + +Neale sprang to his feet. "You know what Siegfried went through fire to +find," he cried, stooping to put his lips on Martha's cheek. "All he +wanted was to get to Brunhilda. And that's all I want, my Brunhilda! All +I want in the world!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + + +1907. + +He had called her "his Brunhilda" with honest sincerity; with all his +heart he thought he meant it. Of _course_ he was fighting for success to +put in Martha's hands. His honor was pledged to win for Martha's sake. +His deep affection for Martha underlay his delight in learning to play +the game. All this went without saying, and he said it even to himself +with less and less frequency during the next year. + +He had, as a matter of fact, less and less time and strength to give to +anything outside his business. This focussing of energies began to have +its usual result. He felt the eyes of the older men in the organization +turned on him with curiosity, with approval, and with a little jealous +alarm which gave him the utmost pleasure. He saw in the younger men's +eyes the appraising, combative, watchful look with which one tackle +surveys his opponent. All his life-long mystic intensity of conviction +of the worthwhileness of winning games, flared and blazed hot and lusty +in his heart as he recognized that he was now head over ears in the +turmoil of the biggest game he had yet encountered. + +Of course the real purpose of the game was to take care of Martha--that +was axiomatic! + +The middle of his third year in business was marked by a considerable +raise in salary and an enlargement of territory with corresponding +increase from sales commissions, which proved conclusively that he was +now accepted as one of the live-wires of the organization. And when +barely a week later, Professor Wentworth was notified of his appointment +as exchange professor for the next academic year to one of the German +universities, the moral of the two events was clear. It was time for a +rather long engagement to end; time for Martha to set a definite date +for the wedding before her father's departure for Berlin. + +With the setting of the date the relations of the three took on another +aspect--like a change of lighting at the theater. Everything was as it +had been, and yet everything was different. Professor Wentworth +considered himself already eliminated by the younger generation, and +although they invited him to share the new home on his return from the +year in Germany, he assured them that he would under no conditions +cumber up the background in any such fashion, and began to make plans +for joining forces with another widowed professor whose children were +now all married. His resigned, philosophic acceptance of his soon-to-be +exit from their stage set them further from him and closer to each +other, as if he had already stepped out from their lives and closed the +door behind him. They occasionally felt a little self-conscious +awareness of being alone with each other which was new to them. As +Martha quaintly phrased it, she now began to feel not only that she was +engaged but that she was going to be married. The feeling was a new one, +gave a new color to her thoughts and sometimes made her feel a little +queer. + +Neale told her that he understood this and felt with her that he was +stepping forward into a new phase of their relation; and he did feel +this at intervals. But while this was the only change that had occurred +in Martha's life, it was overshadowed in Neale's by his intuition that +he had now come to a crucial moment in his business career. He +recognized perfectly the feel of the moment in the game when one side or +the other wins, although half the time may yet remain to be played +through. In football it lasted but an instant, that well-remembered +poise on the very crest of the will-to-win. In business it would +last--he had no idea how long--but he felt that he had been well coached +by life, that his training had left him with the endurance to stick it +out--years if necessary. His pride as a fighter hardened and set. He +felt again the single-hearted passion to win out at any cost to himself +or others which had been the meat and marrow of his football days. In +short he began to be considered by all the experienced eyes about him +as a remarkably promising young American business-man. + +But now for the first time he did not pass on to Martha the excited +exuberant sense of triumphant force, the salty tang of pushing a weaker +man where he had not wished to go. Nowadays when he stepped into +Professor Wentworth's apartment he found Martha with excitements and +interests of her own--of her own and his too. After the first slightly +startled recognition that he had opened the door upon a quite unexpected +scene, he always focussed his eyes to the other distances, and discussed +as animatedly as Martha the relative advantages of suburban and +upper-west-side locations, and looked over with her the list of +apartments to let. But when he left her, he had scarcely reached the +bottom of the stairs before he was again in his own world, crouching +warily with tense muscles, alert to catch his opponents off their +balance. He occasionally cast a mental glance back at the scene he had +left, but it was already out of focus. As a matter of plain fact he did +not care a picayune whether they lived in a suburb or on 145th Street, +or in what kind of book-case they kept their books, nor whether they had +twin beds of mahogany or white enamel. He told himself that what he did +care about was that Martha should be suited in those details about which +she seemed to care so much. + +One evening he found even as he was with her, his attention wavered, +dimmed, and fixed itself on a deal he was planning with his grandfather, +a small affair which he hoped to put through on the side, but from +which, as he was to handle it by himself, he expected quite a brilliant +percentage of profit. He answered Martha at random, came back to her +world with a guilty start, excusing his lapse by explaining to himself +that he was eager for that profit only because it would considerably add +to the sum he was laying by for the equipment of the new home. As he sat +listening to Martha and agreeing with her, and at the same time +speculating about the age and condition of the oak on the tract he hoped +to buy, and how much of it was big enough to make quarter-sawing +profitable, he thought whimsically that he was as good as married +already, that he was doing just what was done by all the husbands he +knew. + +Martha stopped suddenly, as if he had spoken aloud, or as if she had +been struck by a new thought, "Neale, do you realize it! We're really +going to be married--just like anybody else. I don't believe I ever +thought we really would!" + +"Didn't you?" he said. "I always had a sort of notion we would." But +although this was not the first time she had expressed this feeling, +something about her accent, or aspect, crystallized into tangible form +anticipations which had been as vague in his case as in hers. + +About this time he began to notice that instead of misty, +in-the-distant-future glances at what marriage was to mean, came +concrete, definite, recurring pictures of one scene after another in the +life before them. His imagination, never very quickly aroused or very +flexible by nature, began to be prodded by circumstances into an +unwonted activity on the subject of Martha and this marriage. He saw her +in his mind's eye across the breakfast table, on the other side of the +hearth, or even sitting on the arm of his chair with his arm around her, +as she often sat now while they talked over their plans. But (it was one +of the first intimations he had of the storm before him) he encountered +some curious dumb resistance deep in his heart when he tried to think of +her more intimately with the veils of girlhood gone, as his wife. +Something within flashed up with chivalric swiftness to shut out such +thoughts. He amazed himself once or twice by feeling his face hot, as +though with shame at the idea of making Martha, Martha whom he loved so +much, his wife. What sort of morbid prudery was this? As soon as it was +passed he found it incredible; and felt it again. "Perhaps it wasn't so +incredible after all. Maybe that was the price you paid for knowing +something about life." It was inevitable--what must be felt by every man +who had not been brought up in a vacuum. And it was really all right and +nothing to be squeamish over. Human nature is what it is, and there's no +use dressing it up in high-sounding names! + +If that had been all he had to worry him! But there were other things. +More than once he had felt a new exasperation rise in him when Martha +would go on discussing the color of wall-paper and window-curtains. Hang +it all, he was ready to agree with her whatever way she wanted +it--wasn't that enough without dragging him into a discussion of details +he didn't understand or care about? Nothing of any great importance, +such passing moments of impatience, and yet he had gloried in his +certainty that Martha and he agreed on everything! More troubling +still--he remembered so distinctly the first time--bending together over +a book, a strand of Martha's hair had touched his cheek. He could still +feel the shiver with which he had drawn away--true, he had not realized +what was taking place--had felt subconsciously as if a spider were +walking across his face--but just the same, three years ago though he +might have recoiled, his next impulse would have been to snatch that +tress of hair and kiss it. Why didn't he kiss it now? Why, here it was +again, just as if they were married already: that was the way so many +husbands he knew acted with their wives! Of course all this was to be +expected, too: you get used to things; you can't go on being thrilled by +familiar sensations. In the nature of things marriage could not be as +transcendent as people pretended, when men and women are so far from +being transcendent! + +And yet little by little whenever in the pauses of his business he gave +a thought to his personal future he felt it all there again, heavier and +heavier, weighing down leadenly every thought which he tried to send +ahead into the life he meant to make so happy for Martha. + +At this, for a short time, he fell into an inner panic, lost his head, +thought himself abnormal, incapable of ordinary human life. He was +afraid to see Martha, and was in his heart immeasurably relieved when +she was called off by a wedding in her Aunt's family to a somewhat +lengthy visit in Ohio. He wanted to have it all out with himself while +she was gone--make an end of all this nonsense. But what he did was to +think of it as little as possible. + +With Martha gone he was able to occupy his mind entirely with business +problems, and the release from tormenting personal worries was grateful +to him. He had been intensely ill-at-ease. He was relieved that his +discomfort was passed, quite passed. + +He opened Martha's first letter with pleasure. Letters were all right: +they didn't harry you with emotional over-tones. He read her +entertaining account of the prostrate condition of both families over +the elaborate wedding ceremony impending. Everybody it seemed was +frantic with nerves--except the bride-to-be and her young man, of +course, who paid no attention to anybody or anything but themselves. +Neale thought he felt a note of good-natured satire in this, and smiled +appreciatively. That was exactly what _he_ felt about fussy weddings. +Martha always felt as he did. + +With the thought an inner door clanged open, and sickeningly there was +the whole thing to begin again! What if Martha _had_ been feeling as he +had? What did a decent girl feel before her marriage anyhow? Did she +dread it perhaps--or on the other hand, had she too lost the +thrill--were they already like some of the married couples he knew who +kissed with listless lips, looked at one another with stolid glassy +eyes? No, Martha was all right! Martha wouldn't change! But didn't that +make it worse? What did she expect to find in marriage? Could he give +Martha what she expected to find in marriage? He had never once before +thought of that, absorbed as he had been by his own disquiet. He was +overwhelmed by this new complication, and for many days would not allow +himself even to glance at it. He hated the idea of thinking about it. He +hated the whole idiotic tangle he kept getting into. Why, damn it, +getting married was no such complicated affair! Look at all the +imbeciles who sailed into it, a vacuous smile on their lips and nothing +whatever in their heads, and made a success of it! A man wasn't a woman, +thank God! and couldn't be expected to divine what a woman wanted out of +marriage. People who did not expect too much of it, or of anything, were +the only ones with intelligence. + +Just at this time he got his first chance at a big order. An industrial +suburb was projected to house the operatives of a new machine-tool +manufacturing plant in the Connecticut valley. The contractors had never +been Gates customers and no one in the office thought that young +Crittenden had the ghost of a show of landing the order--no one, that +is, but young Crittenden himself. The contract would run up into the +millions of board feet: forgetting Martha, marriage, every personal +element in life, Neale started after it. + +He studied the buyer, the situation, the sort of lumber needed. He sat +up nights going over the architect's specifications; made up alternative +schedules for spruce, oak, yellow pine interior trim; clear or "grade A" +shingles. Then, delving deep in the information he himself had +collected, he rechecked his figures, shaving the margin of safety down +till he was sure his bid would be lower than any other firm's, and yet +safe--no danger of leaving the firm in the hole. The Gates Lumber Co. +could count on its usual percentage of profit and Neale Crittenden on +his biggest commission yet, to add to the sum he was laying aside for +the new home. + +When his bid was finally in the contractor's hands, and routine office +and road work threatened to leave him with time to think, Neale turned +hastily back to his private deal with Grandfather. Grandfather's +intimate knowledge of all the possible timber-tracts in his region was a +gold mine. There were always wood-lots in the back valleys being sold +for taxes, or for very little because, all the older generation dying +off, the western heirs did not care enough about the little old family +land-holdings to come east and investigate them. And even if they had, +knowing nothing of the eastern or indeed of any lumber market, they had +no notion of the potential value of their inheritance. Neale resolved to +take part of his little savings for the use of the new household, to buy +up a few such wood-lots, and turn them over at a big profit. He felt +sure of himself now, sure he could swing such an operation, and taking +advantage of the Labor Day vacation, he went up to West Adams to spend +the week-end and talk it over with Grandfather. + +Nothing ever changed in Grandfather's home. Grandfather and Grandmother +did not look so very much older to Neale at twenty-four than they had +to the eight-year-old, having always looked as old as possible. Jennie, +the hired girl, had aged more than the old folks, he noted, as she went +with him up the steep stairs to the little slant-ceilinged room now +incredibly low and tiny. + +He sat down on his little-boy bed, a thousand forgotten memories +standing thick about him. He saw his mother leading in the sleepy little +Neale, and now he saw that she was young, young as Martha, so young +herself ... as young as Martha! He was the strong, purposeful, +determined young man, sitting on the bed and looking at that long-past +scene, and yet he was also the sleepy little boy, feeling on his lips +his young mother's kiss. "Good-night, Neale." "Good-night, Mother." + +"Oh, damn it!" he cried impatiently, dismayed to feel that with the +memory of his mother, he was aware as though of a palpable presence in +the room there, of women ... of women as different from men, emotionally +exacting, wanting something different from men, with some fine-spun +impossible ideal of what could be had out of human nature, troubling, +hampering the real business of life ... and yet all the time an +inevitable part of things! For an instant he felt brutally angry with +them, with their superfine weakening notions, and had for the first time +the exasperated feeling that they were an element in life +which you could neither do anything with, nor do without. The +ewig-weibliche,--good heavens! All it did was to snarl things up! Neale +got up from the bed and went over to the wash-stand, amazed at himself, +his fit of fury passed, unable to conceive what had started him off on +such an explosion. What under the sun possessed him, veering around like +a crazy weather-cock from one high-strung mood to another, more shifts +of feeling in a day than he had ever used to know in a year! He would +put it all out of his mind, all! He simply would not allow himself to +think of it again, to think of all that, he would not! + +He went hastily down the stairs and fell to talking business with +Grandfather, talking to very good purpose, too. To-day their projects +went far beyond the little tract of second-growth oak they had first +thought of. Grandfather, wily old spider, at the center of a wide-flung +web, knew many tips which he was more than willing to pass on to his +favorite, Neale,--Neale who had the other half of the combination and +could sell at top prices what Grandfather could buy at rock-bottom. He +was in fact delighted with Neale's ideas and the energy with which Neale +laid his plans. "Why, you're worth two of your father!" he cried +exultantly, as they sat again, the next morning on the porch and went +into details. "I never could see why Dan'l didn't get on better! He +never seemed to care enough about it, and by thunder, you got to care if +you're going to get anywhere." The old man paused, took breath, and +brought out, with an attempt to sound casual, "I've thought sometimes +'twas your mother made him that way. She's a nice girl, your mother is, +Neale, but I never thought she _pushed_ your father the way she ought +to." + +He glanced at Neale a little apprehensively, but the young man said +nothing. He was following out a thought, not entirely new, a guess which +he had subconsciously made before, that there was a long hostility +between his mother and his grandfather. The idea stirred a great deal in +his own head, which he felt no desire to examine. + +"I tell you what, Neale," said the old man, observing the other's +silence and emboldened by it. "I tell you what, Neale," the old man took +his pipe out of his mouth and spoke more loudly, "don't you get to +thinking women are too darned _important_. That's what your father did. +He was going good ... but that softened him right up." + +Neale still said nothing, a succession of well-remembered scenes from +his early home-life evoked by his grandfather's words. + +The old man cried out now, in a burst of long-contained resentment, +"Your father ought to have gone enough sight further than he did! Yes, +he had ought to!" He looked keenly into the hard, strong face of his +grandson and said proudly, "But _you_ will!" + +Neale felt so queer a disquiet at all this, that he got up abruptly and +clapped on his hat. All kinds of different pieces were fitting together +before his eyes into some sort of a pattern. He wanted to get away by +himself and look at it to see what pattern it was. + +"I'm going up to the far wood-lot," he said. "I can remember when the +pines were just coming in there. I want to see how much they grow in +fifteen or twenty years." But he had no interest in the young pines, and +he was not at all thinking of them as he strode hurriedly up the stony +sunken wood-road. He was thinking of Martha. Out of nowhere there had +come to him the recollection of saying good-by to her at the station. He +had kissed her good-by, and as clearly as though he had just now stooped +to her, he could remember that the very instant their lips met he had +been wondering if he would have time to get down to the office before +Mr. Gilman came in from Chicago. He wanted Gilman's support for his +scheme to follow the shifting center of supply with a branch office in +the Gulf States. Were the figures he wanted filed under L for Louisiana +or Y for Yellow pine? + +He laughed rather grimly to himself, marching rapidly up through the +second-growth birch on which with one corner of his eye he was +automatically setting a possible value. If Grandfather only knew, he +wouldn't think he needed any exhortation to avoid uxoriousness. He was +not very proud of that remembered moment at the station. It was all very +well not to be uxorious but ... + +When a clear tiny brook crossed the road, he stopped to draw breath, +for, without knowing it, he had been hurrying as if not to miss an +appointment up on the mountain. He saw his father stooping to say +good-by to his mother at the train as the yearly summer vacation began. +He had seen that good-by every June of his little boyhood, but he had +never looked at it, till, a man grown, he now stood stock-still on the +mountain and stared back through the years into his father's face. What +he saw there was startling and troubling to him. He stood frowning +sternly down at the brook. He was very, very unhappy and he resented his +unhappiness. But his unhappiness was nothing to the remorse which now +shook him. If that was what marriage could mean to a man and a woman, +what right had he to ask Martha to accept what he had to give? Martha +was so fine, so true--dear, dear Martha! To his amazement, almost to his +fright, he saw the brook waver and flicker and knew that the tears were +in his eyes. For God's sake, what was the matter with him? + +He sat down on a fallen log, looking back down towards the valley and +found that far beneath him lay the sunburned, flat, upper pasture where +in his junior year he had practised so fiercely to learn how to punt. He +cast a glance of heart-sick envy back at the sweating, anxious boy who +could conceive of nothing worse in life than to have a kick blocked. How +lucky kids were, only they didn't know it, never for a moment to dream +of such a heavy burden of obscure misery as that which now sickened his +heart. + +What was the trouble? What _was_ the trouble? He had everything in the +world a man could work for. Why then, did he stand there leaden-hearted, +as wretched as a man who cannot pay his debts? + +The feeling of oppression, of weight was intolerable, like a physical +constriction. He stretched his great arms and shook himself and drew a +long breath, trying to throw it off physically. In the back of his mind +stood his father, looking down at his mother, but now he would not look +him in the face, for if he did he would see that he was not in love with +Martha, deep and tender as was his affection for her. + +With this sudden involuntary formulation of what he had been fighting +not to formulate, the trouble and restlessness and disquiet dropped +away, and left Neale, sitting, his face gray and grim, looking steadily +at what he ought to have seen long ago, at what he had known for a long +time. + +That was what the trouble was: he _was_ a man who could not pay his +debt, and he owed it to the person he loved best. + +Well, it was better, infinitely better now that he knew what there was +to face. He could face anything, anything, if he could see it. His +native energy rose up, that energy which had been so carefully and +steadily trained to aggressive strength. He wouldn't take anything lying +down! He would stand up to this! + +The young man with the hard strong face sat as silent and motionless as +though he did not breathe. The bright sun wheeled slowly across the sky. +The shadows stretched longer. + + * * * * * + +When he finally rose to his feet, stiff and lame with his long +immobility, he had constructed a new little world in which to live, +different from what he had foreseen but tolerable, probably all that +could be expected by any one who had an honest mind. At least it was +constructed on things exactly as they were. + +These were the foundations and boundaries of his new world: a profound +doubt as to whether any one outside of books is ever in love as men and +women are traditionally supposed to be; a certainty that with his deep +affection for Martha, his respect for her, his liking for all her ways, +he could make her happy ... happy enough ...; and be happy with her ... +as happy as any one in this world was likely to be; the probability that +a normal healthy man married to a young and comely woman would fall in +love with her sufficiently at least to satisfy any conception she would +be likely to have of love, sufficiently to satisfy what any honest +open-eyed man had a right to expect from love; a guess that in the long +run such a marriage would be more to his taste (possibly also to +Martha's) than a more absorbing, exciting union. It would certainly be +all right for Martha if they had children. The point was that he could +do infinitely more for her, advance and succeed and triumph, unclogged +by too much personal life. He did not, he decided, looking back over his +life, seem to be the sort of man who really cared much for personal +life. He never had. His few tentative steps towards it had always made +him miserable, a fish out of water. What he really did care for, what he +had always liked when he got it, was a chance to use his strength and +wits in competition with other men. Wasn't that after all the real +business of life? Wasn't that after all what women wanted of men? That +was at the bottom of the marriages he saw about him, in the homes of the +older men where he occasionally was asked to dinner. He could give +Martha all they gave to their apparently quite-satisfied wives ... and +more, much more! ... because Martha was such a dear, dear girl. + +And that was enough! Enough for any one! He did not feel very +light-hearted, it is true. But life evidently was not a very +light-hearted business. And he was no grimacing, God's-in-His-Heaven, +professional optimist. You took what was coming to you. And what was +coming to him was plenty good enough for anybody! + +The thought of Father and Mother knocked at the door, but he turned the +key in the lock, and started down the mountain to his grandfather, the +most promising young business man who had ever entered the employ of the +Gates Lumber Company. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +Martha came into the room with a little rush as though she had been +waiting impatiently to see Neale, and yet when she saw him she gave a +little quavering "oh!" as of fright, and stood stock-still near the +door. + +Neale, conscious of nothing but his own heavy heart, was so startled +that he had for an instant the fantastic notion that his mountain +colloquy with himself was perhaps written on his face, and that Martha +had read it at a glance. But before he could move, she had moved herself +and come towards him as swiftly as she had first entered the room. She +spoke swiftly too, as though she were afraid of losing her breath before +she could say what she had to say; and yet she had already lost her +breath, and was panting. + +"Neale, dear, dear Neale ..." her voice was quavering and very low, "I +must tell you quickly. Neale, I'm afraid I've done you a great wrong. +Neale, I love you better than any one I ever saw, but," her voice sank +so low Neale could scarcely hear her, "I don't want to marry you." + +Her lips began to tremble. She hung her head, and Neale could see the +dark red flooding up to the roots of her hair. + +He was for a moment literally incapable of speech. She went on +falteringly, "Out in Cleveland, at Margaret's wedding you know, +everybody talking about getting married, and Margaret ... she's like my +sister ... we're so near each other ... and we talked. She was just +going to be married, and she thought I was, too. And I thought so. +Truly, Neale, I'd never dreamed of anything else. And she talked to me +as one woman about to be married talks to another--not girls' talk." + +She began to cry a little now, though she made a great effort to control +herself, drawing long, long breaths, and halting between her words, +trying to bring them out quietly, "Neale, I'm afraid you won't +understand. I don't know how to tell you, I don't know how to tell you! +You see I never knew my mother and I never liked to talk intimately with +other girls about ... about ... but Margaret is so fine and----" She +cried out what she had to say in one burst, in a loud voice of pain, +"Oh, Neale, when I saw Margaret with her lover I knew, I knew, I'd never +loved you at all. I knew I'd hate you if we were married." + +She turned away and leaned against the wall, sobbing, her face hidden in +the crook of her arm. "What's the matter with me!" she cried +desperately, brokenly. "Why don't I? Am I different from other women? I +can't bear to hurt you so! I want to love you! What can I do with myself +if I don't?" + +The two stood there, the broken pieces of their life lying in a heap +between them. + +Over the heap, Neale took one long step and put his arms around Martha, +so tenderly, so quietly, that she did not start or shrink away. She +stopped sobbing, she stood still in his arms, breathlessly still as +though she were listening intently, as though she were taking in some +knowledge from a source not articulate. + +She turned her face to his, and said abruptly, "Neale, it's just come to +me.... I hadn't thought of that ... perhaps you don't really love me +either, not in _that_ way ... perhaps you never did. Perhaps I've just +found all of it out in time." + +Neale was startled, frightened, unutterably desolate but he made no +pretense of being taken by surprise. "I can't bear to give you up, +Martha," he said looking down at her. "Perhaps what we have is all we +could ever have. We may lose this and have nothing. Perhaps there really +is nothing else. What we have is ... is ... very good to have." His face +contracted in a pain that really did surprise him by its keenness. He +was horrified at the idea of losing Martha altogether. + +Martha gazed steadily into his face as if trying to understand what he +said, their old habit of sharing things, of talking things over, strong +on her. He noted how pale and drawn her face was, with dark rings under +her eyes. She had been suffering, she too had had broken nights. And as +he looked he saw from her eyes that she was no longer seeing him, but +some inner vision. + +She shivered and drew away from him. "Yes, there is something else ... +something we haven't ... and it's what makes it all right," she said. +"I'd rather have nothing at all ... nothing ... _ever_! than something +that would make part of me shrink away from you. I couldn't stand that! +I couldn't stand that!" + +She had said the last words wildly, and she was back by the door now, as +if ready for flight. + +Neale sat down heavily in a chair, and hid his face in his hands. "All +that this means," he said to himself as much as to Martha, "all that +this means, any of it, is that I have not been man enough to make you +love me." + +At this she came flying back to him, incarnate tenderness, "No, no, +Neale, I _do_ love you. I know in my heart that even if I should ever +marry any one else, I'll never feel for anybody the affection, the +trust ... I couldn't ... it's not that. Loving you as I do only makes it +more impossible, more utterly impossible. You mustn't think this is just +the nervous reaction from any sudden shock of knowledge. I knew ... I +knew well enough what marriage is! But I hadn't felt it." + +She moaned aloud in her bewilderment, "How can I tell you? How can I +make you understand? I don't understand, myself. Why can't I give you +what Margaret has to give?" + +She was bending over him and now snatched his hand and caught it up to +her breast, "Neale, I'd give anything to want to marry you! Anything! +I've tried and tried. It's like a mountain between us.... I can't reach +you through it. Neale, perhaps we're too much alike. Perhaps that is +what brought us together, but that is what keeps us apart! We can't +unite! I thought of so many things! We're like two chemicals that can't +combine. They can't! That's the way they're made!" + +Neale found himself resisting her certainty, although it had been his +own. He sat up, suddenly astounded at all that was being said, and cried +roughly, "Martha, do you know what this means? You are sending me away. +What can I do without you?" He caught at her hand. "Martha, why hunt +for rainbows when we have the pot of gold in our hands?" + +She shook her head. "It wouldn't be the pot of gold," she said sadly. +"It would be a mess of pottage, and you mustn't sell your heritage for +it, any more than I." + +He looked at her hard, and saw that he had no hold on her. + +"Oh, it's finished for me!" he cried bitterly, out of all patience. "If +you send me away for some romantic notion, you need have no idea that I +will marry any one else. I shall never have anything to do with a woman +again." + +She said steadfastly though her lips were trembling, "I think when it's +a question of what's the finest in us, that nothing at all is better +than a halting compromise." + +"I don't know what you're talking about," he said angrily and for the +moment truthfully. "You're ruining our two lives for some hair-spun +fancy." + +She grew paler, and said in a deep voice, "Neale, I have told you that I +would hate you if you were my husband." + +He turned away to the door. "Good-by," he said coldly. + +She did not answer. + +He went out of the door, and down the stairs. At the bottom he turned +and came up again. He found her standing where he had left her. He said +gently, "You're right, Martha." + +She held out her arms to him. They kissed, sadly, wistfully, like +brother and sister parting for a long separation. + +Neale went away silently in a confusion so great that from time to time +he stopped on the sidewalk till the street straightened itself out +before him, and he could see where to take the next step. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +Neale had set the wheels of his business life whirring at such speed and +there were so many of them that they continued to turn clatteringly +around and around after Martha had gone away, not only from him but from +America; for she had sailed at once with her father for Berlin. Neale +watched them whirring for weeks before he perceived that they were +running down, and for weeks after that before he perceived that he felt +no impulse to keep them moving. There didn't seem to be much point to +things, any more. Martha had done what in his heart he wanted done. And +yet he was far from satisfied. He missed her outrageously, missed having +her there, didn't know what to do with himself. And yet he had not been +overjoyed at what he had been on the point of doing with himself. He +must be hard to suit, he thought, fretting to feel himself still +confused and uncertain, with no zest in things. Damn it, what _did_ he +want? + +A week after Martha's departure he had a letter from Grandfather, +written on blue-lined paper, reading, "Dear Neale: Wharton just came in +to say he wants the Melwin spruce and heard you had bought them. He +wanted 'em for twelve hundred (couldn't find out what you'd paid for +them I guess). I said fifteen hundred and stuck to it. He squirmed some. +But I knew through Ed that he wanted them for a New York order he's got +for big stuff. And there aren't any others around here that'll come up +to his specifications. So I made him toe the mark. He left a check for +$300 (which I enclose) and will pay spot cash for the rest before +beginning to cut." + +Neale sat at his desk, looking hard at the piece of cheap paper which +brought him the news that in a short time he would have eight hundred +dollars more in the bank than he had had before. And without turning his +hand over. All he had done was to know that the Melwin spruce were +worth a lot more than was thought by the Iowa cousin who had inherited +that distant wood-lot. Easy money! Somebody had paid him high for that +piece of knowledge,--who? Wharton, of course, would certainly get it out +of somebody's else hide, or he would never have gone in for the deal. + +He sat dreaming, remembering his timber-cruising trip, remembering the +choppers and woodmen he had known around Grandfather's. Men like that +would work all a year around in all weathers, all their days, to get as +much as he would have for doing nothing. + +He drew a long breath and turned to enter the check in his check-book. A +queer sort of a world. And after all, he stood in much the same relation +to the Gates family as the lumbermen did to him, working enough sight +harder for enough sight less money. That seemed to be the way things +were. But it didn't seem quite square. + +A hasty mental calculation showed him that with this money he would have +over two thousand dollars. Clear. Not so bad! He considered the matter, +wondering why he felt no more elation, and decided that it was because +he could not for a moment think of anything he specially wanted to do +with two thousand dollars. Always before this he had thought he was +making money to give to Martha. Was it possible that he had been using +Martha as an excuse? No, no, he explained hastily to himself, the point +was that Martha had, all women had, some definite use to make of money. +It bought things they wanted and thought important, suburban houses and +mahogany twin beds and what not. Martha could easily have spent that sum +to buy things that pleased her. The only use he could think of for it +was to use it over again to make more money. And then what? It didn't +seem much of a life to do that over and over. + +He looked around him at the busy outer office, filled with haste and a +sense of the importance of its processes. There was more to it than +making money. That was the foolish, reforming-professor's idea of +"sordid business." You were in it, not because you wanted the money but +because it was the biggest game in the world, and it was fun to win +out. All right then. He _would_ win out. + +But no matter how much time he put into his efforts to win out, there +was a lot of time left over. Neale did not succeed in filling that +leisure to his satisfaction. He went out more than he had ever before, +accepted invitations to dinner from all the married men in the office +and lunched with all the unmarried, and had them out for meals with him. +But still there was time left over. He went to the theater, to loud +hearty farces that made him laugh, at first; but they very soon seemed +all cut by the same pattern and he found himself sitting them out as +grimly and smilelessly as Americans read their comic supplements. + +It was not that he was lonely because he was alone. Never in his life +had he found the slightest alleviation to loneliness in merely having +some one, any one, with him. The truth was that when he was alone he +fell to thinking. And he did not know what to make of his thoughts. They +mostly consisted of an answerless question, so answerless in the nature +of things, that it was foolish to formulate it--the same old question +you always ran into when you stopped to think, "what are you doing all +this _for_, anyhow?" + +In football days that question had been silenced by the instant fierce, +all-sufficient answer, "For the team!" What was the present equivalent +of the team now? It looked remarkably like Neale Crittenden, all by +himself--not such a very big inspiring goal when you stopped to think of +it. The best thing evidently was not to do much stopping to think. + +One evening unwarily he allowed something alarming to happen to him, +something worse than stopping to think. After a solitary dinner at +Reisenweber's he strolled along 59th Street, and, as it seemed too early +to go back to his room and he had nothing else to do that evening, +stepped into a concert at Carnegie Hall. He stepped in to get rid of a +few hours of his restless uneasiness and he came out so devoured by +restless uneasiness that he could not think of going to bed, but walked +up and down the streets for hours trying to forget the shouts of the +brass, the long sweet cries of the violins. They seemed to call his name +over and over ... to summon him out, up, to some glory ... little by +little they died away, leaving him in the same flat, inner silence as +before, hearing nothing but the banging clatter of the elevated and the +clang of the surface-car bells. A little before dawn he went back to +bed, exhausted. What sort of a life was this, anyhow? + +He was less away from the city than usual, now, spent more time at his +desk, which was usually in those days heaped with work that had formerly +been done by other men. The office was shifting its routine, rearranging +the work to meet the strain of the Manager's failing health. It was +whispered that Mr. Gates--the "young Mr. Gates"--though only +fifty-three, might have to pull out altogether. That would mean +promotion all around. Neale knew by the character of the work on his +desk that when promotion was served out, he would get his share. + +Flittingly once or twice, it occurred to him that all the managers of +departments were but mortal, and that in time all their private offices +would be filled by the men now working at desks in the outer rooms. How +would he like in the end to move into Mr. Gates' office, he wondered? +This thought, casual and fantastic though it was, moved him to inquire +whatever was the matter with Mr. Gates' health anyhow? He was told that +the older man was "threatened with a complete nervous breakdown due to +overwork." Neale like all other American business-men had heard that +phrase all his life. The very wording of it was as familiar to him as +the name of a standard make of soap or collar. But he found he did not +after all really know what it meant. What happened to anybody who had a +complete nervous breakdown? Mr. Gates came and went about as usual +although not so regularly, looking about the same--spare, dry, hard, +well dressed, well shaved, attentive, silent. Neale looked at him with +some curiosity, wondering how a threatened nervous breakdown showed +itself, and deciding skeptically that there was probably the same amount +of nervousness about it as about everything--less in it than people made +out--money for specialists mostly. + +One day he was consulting a letter-file near the door to the manager's +office, which stood ajar. Over the file, Neale could see the familiar +scene: Mr. Gates' private secretary standing to the right of his +employer in a respectful attitude, a bunch of letters in his hand. Mr. +Gates adjusted his eye-glasses, their fine gold chain gleaming yellow +against the hard gray of his thin cheeks. He took a letter off the pile +and held it up before him. To Neale's astonishment the paper shook as +though a high wind were blowing through the room. A look of anxious +effort came into the older man's face. He leaned his elbows on the table +and tried to take the letter in both hands, but it fell out of his +trembling fingers upon the desk and slid to the floor. Mr. Gates +stooped, secured it with difficulty and lifted his head to recover his +position. As he did this, with rather a jerk to get his balance, the +drooping loop of his eye-glass chain caught on the key of the drawer and +tore his glasses off. They fell on the desk with a little tinkling +clatter, broken; and instantly Mr. Gates flung the letter from him, put +both hands over his face and burst into tears. Neale heard the sound of +his sobbing. His secretary, looking concerned, but not surprised, sprang +to the heavy door and slammed it shut. + +Neale stood frozen with one hand on a letter in the file, frightened for +the first time in his life, so frightened that it made him sick. When he +recovered presence of mind enough to move, he tip-toed away to his own +desk and sat down before it, shaken. So that was a nervous breakdown! +Good God! + +He wasn't so sure he wanted to move up ultimately into that office. + +For a long time after this he was haunted by the recollection of that +scene, and especially by the sound of those strange, shocking sobs. +Sometimes they woke him up at night, as though it were a sound in the +room. They recurred to him at the most inopportune moments, in a train, +at table, as he undressed for the night in a bedroom of a country hotel. + +He would have given anything not to have heard them. He tried everything +to drown them out. + +He turned again at this time to books, and took down from the shelves, +volumes he had not looked at since college, books of speculation, +abstract thought, history. He found Gregg's marks in one or two and +wondered how Gregg was liking it being a professor out in California. +That was far away, and so was Gregg. And so were the books. They looked +different in his hand; remembered pages had not the same message. He +could not seem to put his mind on them as he had. It wandered to other +things. A long time since he had tried to use his mind in that way. He +had had mighty little time for reading abstract stuff. + +Once, starting off on a trip sure to be tiresome, with a long wait in +the late evening at Hoosick Junction, he chanced to put into his valise +a volume of Emerson. He read the newspaper on the train up, the news, +the financial page, and what was going on in the world of sports. But he +left the paper in the train, and as he settled himself for the dreary +wait in the dreary, dusty, empty station he opened the Emerson. What +were some of those places he used to think so fine?... "Society is a +joint-stock company in which the members agree, for the better securing +of the bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture +of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is +its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and +customs. Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.... + +"The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a +reverence for our past act or word.... But why should you keep your head +over your shoulder? Why drag about this corpse of your memory, lest you +contradict somewhat you have stated in this or that public place? +Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then? It seems to be a rule +of wisdom ... to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed +present, and live ever in a new day. Leave your theory as Joseph his +coat in the hand of the harlot, and flee!" + +He slammed the book shut again. It made him feel as that confounded +music had, stirred up, restless, unhappy, ashamed. It was a voice from +another sort of world, a voice that he would rather not hear, because +there was nothing to be made of what it said. What could you _do_ about +it? Neale detested stirring up ideas about which there was nothing to be +done. And he knew a great deal more now than he once had about the many, +many things that could not be done. + +But shutting the book, even slamming it shut, did not silence the voice. +He sat alone under the one smoky kerosene lamp, staring into the dusty, +dreary, empty waiting-room and heard it clear and calm and summoning, +"Leave your theory as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and +flee!" He looked about him desperately, but there was not a soul in the +station save himself, nor a house near the tracks. There was not a sound +to drown out the deep humanity of that summoning, challenging voice. + +He made an impatient rebellious gesture. Summoning? That was all very +well. But to what? To something better than he had, more worth while +than he was? Well, what was there? Where could it be found? Those vague +high-sounding phrases were easy enough to write, but what could you _do_ +about it in real life? What was the matter with what he had? + +The matter with it was that it was bare and dingy and empty, like the +room in which he sat. But what was not? Everything was like that, if you +didn't believe the nonsense written about it, if you looked at it and +saw it. It wasn't to be supposed that he, Neale Crittenden, would go and +be a missionary, was it, or any of those pious priggish make-shift +devices to pretend that you were doing something worth while? Or join +the Salvation Army and beat a drum? He was an American business-man. +What in hell did Emerson think you _could_ do? + +He got up and walked restlessly around the dreadful little room, +helpless before its bareness. Nothing to read in the place, not even a +time-table. Nothing but the Emerson. He went over to where it lay on the +bench, opened his valise, put the book back in, down among his shirts, +and snapped the valise shut on it. A whistle sounded down the track. He +looked at his watch. No, his train was not due for half an hour yet. He +went to the door and watched a through freight roll past, noting the +names on the cars as they flashed into the light from the +station-agent's window,--N. Y. Central, Pere Marquette, Wabash, Erie, +Boston and Maine,--shoes and groceries and hardware, structural-steel, +cement--all the thousand things needed every day to keep the wheels of +daily material life moving, all made, bought and sold, shipped and +handled by men like him. All necessary honest goods, all necessary +honest work ... but that couldn't be _all_ of life! The train pounded +off, the silence of the night closed in on him, and in that silence he +heard the echo of those appalling sobs, and the slam of the door. Queer +thing, human life was, wasn't it? Think of poor Mr. Gates paying that +price, and very likely for something he didn't care so much about when +he got it. It wasn't the price you paid, that bothered Neale. If it were +something worth your while, you were willing to pay all you had. But to +pay so much, just to make money for Neale Crittenden ... he couldn't see +it that way. He'd have a smoke on it anyhow. + +As he filled his pipe it came to him that once before he had felt the +same aching restlessness, so intense that it was pain. That was the time +when he had gone stale. He'd been put out of the game, and had sat on +the side-lines eating his heart out. He was there again, gone stale, out +of the game. He had the strength, he had the speed, now as then. Why was +it he stood outside the game? Other men were giving their souls to it. +Maybe he _was_ a quitter, after all. There had certainly been quitting +or _something_ the matter in his relations with Martha ... how empty +life was without Martha.... But he was mighty glad he wasn't going to +marry her. + +He was a fine specimen anyhow! + +"Well now, well now," he shook himself together, "let's consider all +this. What's the best thing to do when you go stale and have a slump?" +Atkins had showed him what to do that other time. He had actually +profited by it in the end, profited immensely by being temporarily out +of the game, so that he could consider and understand the real +inwardness of what it was all about. + +Why, perhaps that was what he needed to do now, pull out for a while, +get away from the whole thing, look at it from a distance, get a line on +what it was all about. + +He sucked on his pipe, cocking his head sidewise to look at the ceiling, +his hands deep in his pockets. There was nothing to hinder his taking a +year off. He had money enough. And not a tie on earth to prevent his +doing as he pleased. He'd lose his job, of course. But he didn't seem to +be just madly in love with his job anyhow. And there were other jobs. + +"Well, by George, why not?" + +Where should he go? Anywhere that wasn't the lumber business. There was +the whole world, the round globe hurtling through the infinite. What in +God's name was he doing in Hoosick Junction? + +There was England; and France; and Italy; and after that, why, anywhere +again! Wherever he pleased ... the East, China, and where there were +Malays and jungles. When his money gave out, if he still wanted to stay +on he could earn his living as well there as here. "There!" That meant +anywhere else. Anywhere else must be less dusty and frowsy and empty +than here. + +Why under the sun had he not thought of this before? Their damned old +labels do stick after all. But he would soak them off! + +His heart unfolded from its painful tight compression. The way out? Why +had he been so long in seeing it? The way out was to put on your hat and +go. + + + + +_BIRTHDAYS IN SEVERAL LANGUAGES_ + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + + +I + +Ashley, Vermont, May, 1904. + +Horace Allen's cousin was astonished to the limit of astonishment by the +news, and cried out accusingly, "Why, I thought the other time it was +only because Flora wanted to go. I thought you thought it would put you +on the shelf altogether. I thought you hated it." + +Horace considered this, sitting heavily on a bench while cousin Hetty +pruned a nearby rose-bush, rigorously. Although she did not break in on +his silence with a, "Well?" or, "Did you hear what I said?" she made him +quite aware that she was relentlessly waiting for his answer. + +"Well, I did," he admitted finally, "and I do yet. And it did put me on +the shelf. That's all I'm good for now. It's because of my experience in +Bayonne they want me to take charge of the Paris office." + +"You don't have to go if they do," she pointed out; and this as she +expected, brought out the real reason. + +"Those four years in France have spoiled me for living here," he said +and awaited doggedly her inevitable cry of amazement. + +"_You!_" She stood up from her shorn rose-bush, her huge shears in one +clumsily-gloved hand, a large thorned spray in the other, "Well for +goodness' sake, _how_?" + +He was in no haste to answer this either, meditating silently, the +spring sun pouring an incongruous flood of golden young light on the +sagging heaviness of his middle-aged face. Cousin Hetty let him alone +again, and went on with the ruthless snip! clash! of her great shears. + +When he rose again to the surface, it was with a two-fold explanation. + +"Everybody that's worth anything over there has learned how to do his +job. No slap-dash business. And there's plenty of cheap slave-labor. +You're waited on! You're made comfortable. You've heard people talk of +the charm of European life. What they mean is cheap labor. There's +nothing more charming for the employer." + +"Well!" commented Cousin Hetty. After a time she remarked, resolutely +gathering up the villainously prickly shoots she had been cutting off, +"I should think you'd be sort of ashamed of the slave-labor part of it. +An American!" + +She was not one to hesitate, either to handle thorns herself, or to +thrust them upon others. + +"Oh, I am," admitted Marise's father casually, and then as though it +gave him a faint amusement to shock her, "I forgot to mention their +cooking and good wines." + +She scorned to take any notice of this, going on, "And I _should_ +think," she stayed her steps for a moment, as she turned away to carry +the pruned-off trash to the spot where the spring bon-fire with its +exquisite coils of blue smoke faintly dimmed the exquisite clarity of +the mountain air, "I should think that if you found good workmanship +such a fine thing, you might try to do something towards getting more of +it in your own country, instead of just going off where it grows +already." + +"Oh, heavens! you don't see me trying to 'make the world a better place +to live in,' do you? What sort of Harold-the-Uplifter do you take me +for?" he protested, with a yawn. + +Cousin Hetty stepped off to the smoldering bon-fire, threw her armful of +rejected life on the flames, and came back, her wasted elderly face +looking stern. + +"How about Marise? Will it be the best thing for her?" + +"Oh, the best thing...." her father disavowed any pretentious claims to +ideas on that subject. + +"Horace, don't pretend you don't know what I mean. Right in the middle +of her college course!" + +"Shucks for her college course!" he said. "How much good does anybody's +college course amount to? Her music is worth forty times that to her. +Besides she can keep on going to school in Paris, can't she? What's to +hinder?" + +The reference to music seemed to give her a new idea as to his plans, an +idea which she challenged with suspicion, "What do you expect she's +going to do with her music, anyhow? What do you _want_ her to do?" + +"What do I expect her to do with her music? Oh, what does anybody do +with music? Use it to get what she wants. I expect her to succeed on the +concert platform. And get a lot of applause. And marry one foreign +monkey after another. And hate every other musically gifted woman, like +poison. And get so dependent on flattery that she can't live twenty-four +hours without a big swig of it from no matter whose flask. And die of +wounded vanity because a younger woman is beginning to be applauded. +That's what I expect, of course. What else is there to expect?" + +At the end of this prophecy which he had brought out slowly and coldly, +with long pauses between the sentences, he closed his eyes and relapsed +into silence as though it were all a matter of no consequence. + +His cousin made no comment but waited patiently for what he had not +said. He turned his bulky body sideways on the bench, his shoulder to +her, like a sulky boy, to indicate that he had no intention of adding +anything. + +But presently her persistent, silent demand for what was really in his +mind brought out, "Marise's music-teacher in Bayonne was pretty near the +only human being in the whole damn town that didn't make me tired. She +was pretty nearly the only human being I ever saw anywhere who had +enough sense to come in out of the rain. She was an old-maid +school-teacher, ugly enough to stop a clock. But she was all right. She +didn't want anything for herself. She was safe. Her music had put her +where nothing could touch her." + +Cousin Hetty was struck by the quality of this statement. She looked at +him softly. + +"That is what you want for Marise," she said, and continued to stand +before him, looking down at him. + +He was as much annoyed as though she had cried out emotionally, "Oh, you +_do_ love her! You _do_ think of how to be a good father to her!" and he +cut short her sickly, sentimental display of feeling by affirming +stolidly, "Well, I won't get it." + +"But you don't see any other chance for her." + +He felt that she was taking an unfair advantage of a chance lapse on his +part and, dismayed and disgusted by the pious color of their talk, was +pointedly silent, conveying the impression that he was trying to command +his patience till she should consent to stop talking foolishly. + +"Marise isn't a bit old," she pointed out, half to herself, half to him. +"She's just seventeen to-day. And she's not plain, either." + +"You bet your life she's not. That's why I know what her music is going +to do to _her_." + +"Well, for goodness' sakes, why take her out of college to go on with +it?" + +He evidently felt that he had more than explained this, for he made no +answer. She said then, a very plain, human anxiety wrinkling her old +face, "Do you honestly think, Horace, that you are the right person to +bring up a pretty, seventeen-year-old girl?" + +"As good as anybody else," he said drily, averring the complete +incompetence of all the world for that task. + +"But she is getting on so well at college--she stands so high--and the +youngest in her class. She is so bright." + +"Oh, that hasn't anything to do with her being bright. That comes from +the schooling she's had in France. She learned to keep at whatever she +was doing till she got it right.--Lord--the sloshy work in an American +college--as easy as sliding down hill for her. She may or she may not +have a good mind. She's learned to work, that's all." + +"That's what you're going back for, because of good work," stated Cousin +Hetty. + +"Oh, I'm not expecting to do any of it myself," he enjoyed his usual +satisfaction in making no pretense to virtue, "but I like being able to +hire other folks for a nickel or two, to work like that. And I like +being able to hire other folks to make it their business to keep me +comfortable. And don't forget the cooking. And the wine. And the beds. +There's not a decent bed in America." + +She made him feel by a lift of the eyebrows that she considered this a +rather self-conscious, sophomoric continuance of the pose of knowing +sophistication. At this he looked nettled and cross. + +A little later, as she stopped in front of him, with an armful of +pruned-off shoots, on her way to the bon-fire, she asked, "But will +Marise have a good time over there? Young folks here do have such good +times." + +In his turn he showed her by a lift of the eyebrows that he considered +this too unimportant to answer. She stood looking down at her shears, +cruel, steel-bright and keen, "Oh, well ... I don't suppose I let my +roses have such a good time," she said to herself. + + +II + +After supper they went out on the bench while he smoked his cigar. +Cousin Hetty did not mind tobacco smoke inside the house, but her +elderly hired girl did. They were both still under the impression of the +tepid warmth of the afternoon sunshine, and were surprised to find the +evening air so cold. + +"Feels as though there were still snow on the mountains," he remarked, +recognizing the peculiar, raw, penetrating chill. + +"There is," she told him, drawing her shawl about her. + +By his tone he had intimated that he had passed out of the prickly +irritation of his afternoon mood. By hers, she had told him that she +would, as usual, meet him half-way, in any mood he chose to feel. + +They sat down together on the wooden bench; he began silently to smoke, +and she to think. + +"My visit's over. I must take the noon train to-morrow," he said, "and +I've half a notion to ask your advice about something." + +She refrained from any expression of the astonishment and skepticism she +felt and said briefly with a friendly accent, "All right." + +"About Marise," he said. + +"Oh, yes, of course. What is it?" she asked in an altered tone of +quickened interest. + +But for a time he said nothing more. He waited, drawing on his cigar. He +drew so hard that it began to gleam redly through the dusk. At this, he +took it from his lips and held it down, his fingers out-curved at his +side, where he did not see the raging coal at its tip. He had never +thought consciously about this gesture, but it was an invariable one +with him. There was something distasteful to him about the naked, raw +hotness of a newly-lighted cigar-tip. He preferred it later on when all +you could see was the ghost-form of the burned-out tobacco, the long, +fine ash held together by nothing at all, ready to be shattered at a +breath into floating particles of nothingness. + +"About Flora, Flora's death," he added presently, knowing although she +had given no sign, that she was listening intently, "I never told you. +It wasn't just pneumonia...." + +He was silent as if he did not know just how to get on with what he +wanted to say, and finally said, irritably, "There's nothing to +it--nothing! But I can't ask you what I want to, unless you know +something about it." + +She divined that he would not have told her if they had not come out +where it was dark, where he could not see her. + +She made herself small, cowering under her shawl, and listened +forebodingly, as he went on, his intense distaste for every word +coloring his rough, abrupt statements. + +"I was up in Bordeaux on business and one morning didn't I see Flora's +name in the headlines of the nasty little local paper from Bayonne! An +accident at Saint Sauveur--that's a kind of Hot Springs where Flora went +sometimes for sulphur-baths. A young man had fallen into the river, or +had jumped in. It was in flood, with melting snow. And he was drowned. +And because Flora happened to know him and be there, the reporter who'd +written up the accident jumped to the conclusion that he and Flora ... +to the conclusion they always jump to about everybody." + +Cousin Hetty did not stir, allowed herself no inward comment lest she +color the impersonal attention she was giving, which, she understood +well enough was, with the darkness, the only condition on which he could +go on speaking. + +"Hell, wasn't it?" he said briefly before continuing. "I didn't know +anything about French inquests, but I could make a guess they would take +care to make this one as uncomfortable for Flora as they could. Sounded +like a good chance for blackmail too. So I telegraphed back to the house +that I'd be back on the next train. I found out afterwards that Marise +had wired me, but I never got her telegram. Then before the train +started, I beat it to the office of a French lawyer in Bordeaux, and +found out all I wanted to about French inquests. I found out then, that +there wasn't any real danger, that they couldn't do a thing except talk +about it. But, Heavens! their talk was apt to be a-plenty. It was up to +me to get back and look out for Flora. Poor Flora! You know she had no +more harm in her than a kitten." + +Cousin Hetty felt a long, rigorous tremor run through her, partly the +cold of the mountain evening, partly an inner chill. + +"Poor _Flora_!" she said now in a trembling voice. It was the only word +she spoke, the only comment she made on what he had told her, on what he +was to tell her. + +"Well, when my train pulled into Bayonne the next morning, there was +Marise to meet me, and great Scott! she almost scared the life out of +me, crying and hanging on to me. I didn't know what _had_ happened, +besides what was in the paper, what she had heard! But in a minute, she +got over that enough to tell me what _she_ thought the matter was ... +her mother all shaken up from the nervous shock of seeing somebody +killed, all upset, gone to a convent for a rest-cure. Lots of folks do +that in France, instead of going to a hospital or sanitarium, as they do +here. I didn't think from the way she spoke she even knew who it was who +had been killed. You'd better believe _I_ didn't say anything about who +it was, either! I wanted to go easy and find out how things were. I kept +my ears and eyes open: but I didn't get anything that would give me a +lead from Marise, except that I found that her music-teacher had piled +right in and stayed by her till I got there. And I was pretty sure she +wouldn't have told Marise anything, and would have kept anybody's else +mouth shut. It came out casually, for one thing, that she had +sequestered that newspaper I saw, before Marise had a chance to look at +it. Well, it looked as though the first thing was to get Flora home +where I could stand guard over her, till the thing blew over." He burst +out savagely, "Good God! How was I to dream that she was so sick!" He +made some violent gesture which his old kinswoman felt, but could not +see in the darkness. + +"But she was. When we went to see her that afternoon, the doctor was +there with her, and told me there wasn't a chance in a thousand for her. +Double pneumonia. We saw her for a moment that afternoon, and the minute +Marise went to bed that evening, I went back. But I was too late. Hetty, +you never saw anything like how young she looked ... like a little girl, +as if she'd died without having lived. The nice old Sister who had taken +care of her had put flowers around her, white roses. And she was crying. +She was about the only friend Flora had, the only one of them who didn't +want something out of her." + +Cousin Hetty's face was wet with tears, but she let them fall silently, +not stirring a hand to wipe them away. + +Her cousin stirred a great deal, moving restlessly on the bench, folding +and refolding his arms impatiently. + +"The next three days--I never went through such a crazy +performance--enough to drive a man out of his mind. The music-teacher I +told you about took Marise off with her, up to the mountains somewhere +where her old home was, until the day of the funeral. I don't know how I +could have managed without that. I _couldn't_ have had Marise around, +while I was trying to hush up the coroner's men, or whoever they were. + +"As soon as I got in touch with the dead boy's family, I found out where +a lot of the trouble came from. The police had come down from Saint +Sauveur, just as a matter of routine, to go through the motions of an +investigation and had gone to where we lived, because they thought Flora +was there. But she'd gone to the convent, so they saw our old cook and +asked her a lot of questions. And Jeanne, instead of telling the truth, +which was that she didn't know a thing about it, saw a chance for some +tall and fancy lying such as she made a specialty of. She got off a long +story about how she'd met the boy on his way to the train, and he'd told +her he was going on business, and Marise had asked him to take a message +to her mother, and he'd said her mother didn't know him by sight--oh, +God knows what! I take it she thought she was safe-guarding the family +honor, by making out that Flora didn't know the young man, but she +certainly got everything tied up into knots. She'd beat it off to tell +the dead boy's family what she'd told the police, so their lies would be +of the same color as hers. Oh, it was the damnedest mix-up! Of course +they were all set to do their share of lying. They wanted as much as I +did to keep the police out of it. Jeanne had beat them to it, and so +they repeated her version rather than start something new. But +naturally, rattled as they were with the suddenness of it, they didn't +get it exactly straight, and that started the police off on an idea they +hadn't had before, that maybe there was something more in it than met +the eye. They asked some other questions around in Bayonne, and then it +was all up. + +"Of course Jeanne's story couldn't hold water for a minute. They found +out first that he hadn't any business that could possibly have taken him +up to the mountains. And the old hag that kept a flower-stand on our +street said he had sat all the evening before Flora went away, on the +bench across the street from our house, that she'd sold him some flowers +at eight when she shut her stall, and when she came back at six the next +morning he was there again. And our concierge said--oh, hell, you don't +need to know all the details. Everybody was lying and everybody sure +that everybody else was, and those fool police inspectors were sure +they'd unearth something if they only kept on. Inside twenty-four hours, +I saw there was no sort of chance of getting anything straightened out +by getting down to the facts, which didn't amount to a whoop anyhow. So +we did what you always do in France when you want to get anything done. +We used a pull. Garnier, this boy's father, was a business acquaintance +of mine, and quite a level-headed man. We got together, away from his +wife. She was just crazy over her son's death. From one day to the next +she looked twenty years older. And the way she cursed us all for ever +coming to Bayonne--not that I cared. She was out of her mind, anyhow. +All the same, the things she said ... and poor Flora in her coffin...." + +He drew a long breath, and cast his dead cigar from him with a vivid +gesture of disgust. + +"The upshot was, that Garnier got busy the right way. He furnished the +political pull, and I furnished the money. We stopped fooling with the +police and went straight to the Prefet, and they passed the order down +quick from one office to another, to have that inquest settled at once, +with no more noise. When that hit the police who'd been bothering us, +they curled up and dropped off. I bribed a reporter and the editor of +the local newspaper, and when the music-teacher brought Marise back to +the funeral, the whole mess was buried." + +In the momentary silence which followed, as he drew breath again, Cousin +Hetty's self-control gave way. He could feel that she was shaking +uncontrollably and hear that her teeth were chattering. + +He was startled, having forgotten that she was there, forgotten that +this was anything but one of the sick, silent evocations which blackened +so many hours for him. + +"Great Scott! Hetty, you're freezing to death," he cried, helping her +roughly to her feet. "Why under the sun didn't you _say_ you were +getting cold?" + +She did not intimate that she was shaken by anything but a physical +chill. Stiff and bent, clinging to his great arm, unable to stop the +nervous chattering of her teeth, she hobbled back to the house beside +him. + +The light from the fire on the hearth set them miles apart, as she had +known it would. His face closed shut. He would never mention all this to +her again. He was irritated that he had spoken. He blamed her because +he had spoken. But she cared less than nothing whether she were blamed +or not. As soon as she was able to control the nervous trembling of her +hands and lips and head, she asked, "How much does Marise know?" + +He said impatiently, "I don't know. I haven't any idea. I thought +perhaps _you_ might have. Why _else_ do you suppose I told you about +it?" + +"What do you think?" she persisted. + +"Well, I don't see how she could. That music-teacher had gone directly +to be with her, and stayed with her practically every minute I wasn't, +and I know she'd never tell her anything, nor let anybody else. But you +never know. You never know. There are a million underground ways--in +France especially. You find out everything you ever know through the +back of your head somehow, or by putting two and two together that +nobody meant you to. Servants--gossip--though, thank God, Jeanne had a +stroke of paralysis just then, that kept her from saying a word till +after we had left Bayonne. If Jeanne had been able to talk, I'd have +been _sure_ that Marise had heard forty times more than there was to +know. Damn Jeanne! and yet she'd have died to get Marise a new dress or +something good to eat, any day! I don't see how Marise _could_ have +heard anything. And of course, if she didn't--least said, soonest +mended. But if she did, it's a dead sure thing she got it all twisted, +and I suppose she ought to have it straightened out." + +His old cousin broke in with a rush, "Well, I think you'd better tell +her," and felt instantly that this was not at all the answer he had +wished for. "You don't want to do it," she said. + +"Oh, I never want to do anything," he admitted. "It's always the easiest +way." + +"The easiest way lands you in some pretty hard places," she observed. + +He made no comment on this, but his silence did not save him from her +further going on, "Look where it landed you with Flora." + +He was stirred to a moment of heat, "What are you talking about, Hetty? +By God, I never refused Flora anything she wanted. If you call _that_ +the easiest way!" + +She flared up in a momentary impatience at his denseness, but wasted no +words on an issue no longer vital. + +"Well, I think you'd better tell Marise," she repeated stubbornly. + +He set this on one side for a moment as irrelevant, and said, "All I +want to know from you is whether you've ever seen a sign in her to make +you think she had heard anything. Did you ever notice when she speaks of +her mother ... or whether she doesn't speak?" + +She scorned, as he knew she would, coloring the truth to win a point, +"No, I never did," she stated honestly. + +"Well then, that's all I wanted to know. I know you'd have seen it, if +it were there, she's been so much with you." + +"But I think you ought to tell her," she persisted. + +"Why, under the Heavens, _why_?" he asked. "Why put ideas in her head, +if she's perfectly all right?" + +"I think everybody ought to know about everything," she answered +sweepingly, "and they're not perfectly all right unless they do. At +least, if she _has_ heard anything, she ought to know that you don't +blame Flora, that you don't think there was anything but talk. You could +talk it over with her, get it out into the light." + +"It would be poisoning her mind against her mother to mention it." + +"I don't believe," Cousin Hetty held to her point steadily, pale, very +much in earnest, "I don't believe that the truth can poison anybody's +mind." + +"Well, I believe in using ordinary horse-sense about everything," he +said conclusively, with a peremptory accent. + +Cousin Hetty fell back from this brute assertion of his authority. + +"You'd made up your mind what to do before you ever spoke to me," she +told him, not without bitterness. + +"That isn't fair, I didn't know enough to make up my mind. You told me +what I needed to know," he answered. + +"I wish I _could_ tell you what you need to know," she flamed out at +him. + +But she evidently found it useless to try any longer, and sank again +huddled in her low chair. He got up carelessly and shook himself to +start the blood through his great frame, numbed by immobility. His eye +was caught by the expression of the old woman's face as she looked up at +him. He stood still, considering her, "You're going to miss Marise," he +said. + +She turned back hastily towards the fire, to hide the sudden trembling +of her lips, and presently said in a dry voice, "All I want is for her +to have what is best for her." + +He agreed to this with relief, "Sure! So do I. Poor kid. _She_ never +asked to be born." + +Later, as he started up the stairs, his glass kerosene lamp in his hand, +he said, "You know, Hetty, as well as I do that it doesn't make any +difference what we do, or don't do for her. She's got to take what's +coming to her just like everybody else." + +His cousin looked down at the steady, commonplace little flame of her +own lamp, "I don't suppose I'll ever see her again," she said in a low +tone of profound sadness. But she added stoically, as she began to climb +the stairs after him, "Not that that makes any difference to anybody but +me." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +Paris, May, 1905. + +"Hola ... p-s-st! Allen!" called Marthe Tollet, as Marise passed through +the glass-covered verandah, on her way to the street door. In her haste +to stop Marise, she used the abrupt surname hail which the girls thought +so very chic and truly English, which the older teachers forbade as rude +and barbarous, a typical manifestation of the crumbling down of +civilized French ways under the onslaught of modern Anglo-Saxon +roughness. + +"Eh bien, the little Tollet, what is it?" asked Marise in the same +vernacular, pausing in front of the concierge's door. Marthe left the +Swedish ladder, where she was twisting her flexible young body in and +out of the rungs, and coming up to Marise remarked casually, "Oh, I just +thought maybe you'd like to go to the dormitory and see that little +compatriot of yours. She's crying like everything, la pauvre, and nobody +can do a thing with her." + +"The pretty little girl with blonde hair?" asked Marise, somewhat vague +as to the younger girls in the lower classes. "What's the matter with +her?" + +"A perfectly horrible attack of homesickness, they say. The English +teacher is up there--she's the only one who can talk to her; but you +know how likely the MacMurray will be to put balm on a sore heart, eh? +And you could make a wooden man split his sides laughing, once you get +started. _You_ could cheer her up." + +Marise hesitated, looked in at the clock in the concierge's loge, and +nodded. She started towards the door of the dormitory building, stopped +and called back, "O la, the little Tollet, what's her name? + +"Eugenie," said the other, "Eugenie Mille." + +As she climbed the dark, winding, well-waxed stairs, Marise reflected +that that didn't sound like an American name, and made a guess that, as +had happened to her before, she would find that the "American girl" was +from Martinque, or Peru or Sao Paulo. + +But it was English, sure enough, that Miss MacMurray was talking, as she +bent over the sobbing blue-serge heap, on the narrow iron bed. She was +saying helplessly, "There now, it's verra har-rd, I know, I'm far from +home, mysel'," patting the heaving shoulders with one hand, and +anxiously looking at her watch. She was due at a private lesson in ten +minutes, and a private lesson meant five irreplaceable francs. + +She welcomed the tall American girl with relief, "Ah, that's right, +that's right, you'll know how to get her quieted down," and fled before +Marise could protest that she did not even know the homesick child. + +Rather at a loss, and very unenthusiastically, Marise stood looking down +on the crumpled, untidy bed, and the mass of disordered golden hair, +noting the fineness of the tailored blue serge, and the excellently made +small shoes. They were unmistakably North American in their shapeliness. +Nothing Peruvian or Brazilian about them! + +What could you do for somebody who was homesick? She certainly did not +know from experience. Nobody had ever done anything for her. She sat +down on the edge of the bed, laid her arm over the narrow shoulders, and +said cheerfully, "Hallo there, what's the matter? You'll run out of +tears, if you aren't careful!" + +At the sound of her voice the sobbing stopped abruptly. The girl on the +bed started, dashed the floating brilliant hair from her face, and +turned on Marise, blue eyes dimmed with tears. She looked exhausted by +her passion of sobbing. + +"Why, you poor kid!" said Marise compassionately. She hadn't thought it +was as serious as all _that_! + +The other with a rough, scrambling sprawl, got herself to her knees and +sat up, rubbing the tears away from her eyes with the backs of her +hands, and drawing long, quivering breaths. Her lips were swollen, her +cheeks fiery and glazed. + +Marise was touched, and putting out her arms drew the other into them. +"Here, you must let me help you get used to things. _I've_ been +homesick, too." + +The girl tried to speak, was on the point of bursting into tears again, +struggled wildly to get the better of her excitement and emotion, and +finally brought out in a strangled voice, "I'm not _homesick_! I _hate_ +my home! I wouldn't go back theah for _any_thing!" + +The words in themselves were sufficiently astonishing to Marise, and the +raging accent with which they were cast out made them even more +disconcerting. She felt that the little quivering body in her arms was +clinging desperately to her, and sat silent, holding the unhappy child +close, because she did not know what else to do with her. + +Presently, however, she ventured to ask, "Where is your home?" + +"It _was_ in Arkansas," said the other, in a muffled, defiant tone. "It +isn't anywheah now. It's heah." + +Marise not being very intimately acquainted with the shades and phases +of certain American prejudices, saw nothing peculiar in having one's +home in Arkansas. Why not? + +Apparently some hint of this reached the other, for after a moment of +silent, expectant tension, she lifted her face from Marise's shoulder +and looked up searchingly into her face. How pretty she must be, thought +Marise, when she hadn't been crying. She must look like a pink lily in +the midst of the dark-skinned, dark-haired, city-sallow little girls of +her class. + +"Have you any of your family here in Paris with you?" she asked now. + +"I haven't any family left, only some lawyers and guardians and things," +said the other. She spoke as though she were glad of it, Marise thought, +so that she suppressed the "_oh!_" of sympathy which she was on the +point of uttering. What a strange little thing! + +The strange little thing now looked up at her. "Do you know what I was +crying for just now?" she said. Marise could not understand why she +asked this in an accusing tone of blame. + +"No!" said Marise, as utterly at a loss as ever in her life. "How could +I?" + +"Because I hate myself so, because I hate my looks and my clothes and +_every_thing!" the other burst out passionately, "I feel like po' white +trash. They had plenty of money! Why didn't they send me here befoah?" + +"_Before!_" cried Marise. "Why, you're only a child now." + +"I'm almost as old as you are," said the other. "I'm seventeen and +you're eighteen." + +She flung it out like a grievance. + +"Eh _bien_!" cried Marise in great astonishment. She had not thought the +other girl over fourteen. + +She said now, sitting up straight and looking wistfully at Marise, +"_Will_ you be friends? You came of your own accord to be nice to me. +Tell me about things. _Everything!_ I want so like sin to know! I'll do +anything to learn." + +"Know what?" asked Marise, bewildered, looking about her, as if she +might catch a glimpse of the things the other wanted to know. + +"What they all know oveh heah ... everything _you_ know." + +Marise drew back with an abrupt gesture, "No, _indeed_!" she cried, her +face darkening, the words leaping out before she could stop them. + +"Oh, I don't mean your secrets. I don't care about that. And I don't +mean the way you play the piano, although I know some of the girls are +envious of that. And I'd despise to have to study as hard as you-all in +the upper classes do. I mean the right way to sit down and hold your +hands and speak and weah clothes." + +Marise began to laugh, "_I_ don't know how to wear clothes. What do you +want anyhow? You're prettier than any girl in the school, and you are +wearing a dress that cost more than anybody's else, and finer shoes than +you could buy in all Paris." + +"But they're not right," the girl said petulantly, "or else I don't +_weah_ them right, or something! I hate them! I have lots of money, but +I don't know how to buy what I want." She flung herself again on +Marise, holding her closely, "Help me!" she begged, "help me buy what I +want." + +Marise was touched by the loneliness which underlay the other girl's +appeal. She knew what it was to be lonely! It was the first time that +any one had broken through into her loneliness as this quivering, +passionate, unhappy little thing had done; the first time anybody had +asked her for help. From the very first word of their talk, the light +chaffing manner which was her usual shield had been torn into shreds by +the other girl's driving directness. She looked deep into the other's +eyes, fixed breathlessly on her, and said seriously, "Yes, Eugenie, I'll +help you ... all I can." + +"There!" said the other, "that's a specimen. My name's not Eugenie. It's +Eugenia. Isn't that turrible?" + +Marise did not follow this at all. "It's just the same thing, only in +English, isn't it?" + +"Yes, but it's horrid and common in English, and it's lovely in French. +Why can't I _have_ it Eugenie?" She looked up keenly and searchingly +into Marise's face, and at what she caught there, she contradicted +herself hastily, before Marise could open her lips. + +"No, no, I see. It would be silly to change it--to pretend. I'd better +make the best of it. There! There's one fool mistake you kept me from +making, you see!" + +Marise felt that the talk was on a plane different from hers, so that +she did not get its meaning, although the words were clear enough. What +was all that about Eugenia and Eugenie? She hadn't caught the point of +that, at all. + +Being only eighteen, she found her bewilderment rather comic, and began +to laugh. "I still don't see that Eugenia isn't just as good as +Eugenie!" she said, "I honestly don't know what you're talking about, +Eugenia, but if _you_ do, it's all right." + +"Oh, _I_ do," said the other with conviction. + +Marise was relieved to see that her small, pretty face, although still +flushed from her fit of tears no longer looked distraught. + +"How strange!" thought Marise. They had never spoken a word to each +other ten minutes before, and now they were sitting side by side, hand +in hand, like sisters. + +"I'm awfully glad I came in," she said. + +"So am I," said Eugenia, "I'd been just crazy to talk to you, but you're +so many classes higher than me. Oh, how I _hate_ my class--to be put +back with all those young ones! And study such _turribly_ stupid things! +And the teacher! Such an old frump. And I'm not having _any_thing of +what I want. I'm not getting on a bit. What do I care what France did in +India before the English got there? I didn't come to France to learn +those sort of things! Marise--please can I call you Marise? Do you +suppose I'll _ever, ever_ speak French as you do?" + +"Why, of course," Marise answered her reasonably, "everybody does, who +lives here. Why shouldn't you?" The echo of the famished, burning accent +of the other struck now oddly on her ear. She repeated, "Of course you +will, if you care to," and went on, "but why should you bother to care +so much? What difference does it make? They don't bother themselves to +learn English." + +Eugenia flashed a look of quick astonishment at her. Apparently this was +an entirely new idea to her. After an instant's silent consideration of +it, she flung it away with the aggrieved cry, "Oh, but you _do_! You +_do_!" as though, thought Marise, that incapacitated her from having a +valid opinion about it. But this too, like the Eugenie-Eugenia +discussion had somehow taken place in another dimension than the one she +knew. She was not allowed to ponder the question, however, receiving at +this point another impassioned embrace from Eugenia, who cried, "You +don't _know_ how glad I am you came! Now it'll be all right. And I've +been so miserable. Let's talk! Let's talk!" + +"I must soon be going to a music-lesson," said Marise, glancing at the +little jewel-crusted watch, which hung on a black ribbon around the +other girl's neck. + +Eugenia caught at her despairingly. "Oh, don't go away. I haven't +_begun_ yet! I haven't said a _word_!" Then struck by another +possibility, "Can't I go with you? We could talk in the cab, and I +wouldn't say a word at your lesson. Yes, _do_ let me." + +"I wasn't going to take a cab," protested Marise, "I don't go round in +cabs except when I'm dressed up in the evenings. It would be pretty +expensive, ma foi! to take a cab everywhere I went in the daytime. +Mostly I walk." + +"Oh, I hate to walk, let _me_ take the cab," the other girl begged, +beginning hastily to arrange her hair. "I've got plenty of money. It's +the only thing I have got." She paused, the brush in her hand. "Haven't +you?" she asked, addressing herself to Marise's reflection in the glass. + +Marise was passably astonished at the unceremonious question, but +answered it simply, "I haven't any of my own. I live with my father. And +he hasn't any either, but he makes a good deal, gets a good salary, I +mean. He lets me have all I need." + +Eugenia's comment on this was to say bitterly, "Think of not knowing +more than to ask such a question! I told you I don't know anything. But +I can learn. I can learn in a minute if only I get the chance. I learned +then ... from the way you looked. I'll never make _that_ fool mistake +again." + +She pinned on a very pretty, costly hat, and Marise saw that she really +did not look like a child, after all. She ran her arm under Marise's +now, and gave it an ecstatic squeeze. "Oh, I'm so happy!" she cried, "I +wish I could buy you a diamond necklace!" + +The talk in the cab as they clattered over the big paving-stones of the +quiet, half-deserted left-bank streets turned on the school, and very +soon Marise was led to say, "But, see here, I don't believe, Eugenia, +you've got into the right school at _all_. It's not a bit chic, you +know, to go to a girl's lycee, and ours is one of the plainest of them +all. The teachers are terrible grinds, the girls are fearfully +serious-minded. They don't care a thing about their looks. All they want +is to pass the competitive exams for the Ecole Normale at Sevres, and +get in there for four more years of grind, lots and lots worse than at +the lycee. You'd better believe there's nothing _but_ what France did +in India before the English got there, et ainsi de suite." + +Eugenia made a gesture of despair. "_There!_" she lamented, "that's it! +Not even to know enough to pick out the right school!" + +And then a curious expression of suspicion coming into her eyes, she +said skeptically, "but _you_ go to that school! If it's good enough for +you...!" + +Here again was something in that baffling other dimension, and this time +though she understood it as little as ever, Marise did not like it at +all. She said stiffly, "I'm going because you can get serious +instruction in some things I need to enter the classes at the Sorbonne +next year." + +Eugenia sprang at her, remorsefully crying, "I won't again. I don't know +what made me." She kissed her once more, rubbing her cheek against the +other's shoulder. + +Her bewildering alternations of mood, the reckless way in which she +threw herself on Marise to embrace her; and the way, very startling to a +girl brought up in France, in which Eugenia kissed her on the mouth like +a lover, were very exciting to Marise. Not since Jeanne's big double +kisses had she been so fondled and caressed, and never had she been +kissed on the lips before. That was something closely associated in her +mind with secrecy and passion. It made her feel very queer; partly +stand-offish and startled, partly moved and responsive--altogether +shaken up, more alive, but apprehensively uncertain of what was coming +next. + +"And what _is_ the Sorbonne?" + +"It's the University," Marise explained, "I was half-way through a +woman's college in America, when we came abroad again. So I wanted to go +on and study some more here although I have to work so many hours a day +on my music that I can't ever hope to have a degree." + +"College? University?" Eugenia was horrified. "Mercy! What makes you +want to do that? And music lessons, too. I should think you'd be working +every minute." + +"I do," said Marise. + +"Just study, study, study, and practise, practise, practise?" asked the +other, astonished. + +"Mostly," said Marise. + +"Why, that's _turrible_!" cried Eugenia, beginning to look alarmed. + +"That's the way everybody does over here," said Marise. + +"They _do_!" cried Eugenia, aghast and astounded. "Why, I thought +they...." + +Marise corrected herself, "Oh, of course not. What am I talking about? I +mean the kind of folks I know. There are millions of others, I suppose, +yes, of course, all the rue de la Paix clientele, who don't work at +all." + +Eugenia was relieved at this, and relapsed for a moment into silence, +which she finally broke by asking, "Well, wheah _would_ you go to +school, if you were me?" + +Marise had been thinking of this, and was ready, "There's a very grand +private school, I've heard about out at Auteuil, in what was somebody's +country estate, when Auteuil was the country, with a chateau and a park. +It's fearfully expensive and so it must be very chic. The girls never go +out by themselves, always have a maid, or a teacher with them; the old +ideas, aristocratic, you know, that ordinary French people don't hold to +any more. Mrs. Marbury could tell you all about it." + +"Who?... Mrs. Mahbury?" + +"Oh, she's an American, who's always lived over here, in the American +colony. Her husband and my father are in the same sort of business. We +know her. She'd be _sure_ to know what was chic." + +"Well, I'll go to that school," announced Eugenia. "I just _knew_ +there'd be a place like that, if I could only find out wheah. I bet you +I won't have to study French history _theah_." + +Marise laughed, "You'll probably have to work like a dog, for the +teacher who teaches _la tenue_." + +"What's that?" + +"Oh, all I know about it is what the dancing teacher used to make us do +in the convent-school I went to in Bayonne; walk into a room, pretend +to greet somebody, step into a make-believe carriage and out of it, sit +down with him for a talk; and first he'd pretend to be a girl like you, +and then he'd pretend to be an older woman, and then he'd pretend to be +a man (only of course he really was that), and you'd have to have the +right manner for each one.... All that kind of foolishness, you know." + +"No, I don't know!" cried Eugenia angrily. + +The cab drew up and stopped. "I suppose we're theah," said Eugenia, "you +tell him to wait till we come out." + +She was cautiously silent during the introduction to Mme. de la Cueva, +and during the hour of the lesson. But if she gave her tongue little +employment, she kept her eyes busy, absorbing every detail of the long, +bare room, with its four long windows opening on a balcony overlooking +the little, dank, unkempt Jardin de Cluny. After the lesson, Mme. de la +Cueva stepped into another room to get some music, and Marise, rather +pale with fatigue, walked wearily out on the balcony for a breath of +fresh air. Eugenia sprang to follow her, as if she had been wishing to +do this, and had not known if it were allowable. But before she looked +down on the medieval building below them she said in a whisper to +Marise, "You're dog-tired. Why, I wouldn't work that hard for _any_body! +And for that fat old dowd!" + +Marise looked down at her astonished. "I'm not working for _her_!" she +exclaimed. But this was, evidently, from the look of Eugenia's face a +fourth dimensional remark for her, for she made no answer, turning +instead to look at the gray-black old mass of Cluny. + +"What is it?" Eugenia asked. + +Marise had not yet wholly emerged from a struggle with an exercise which +she had not been able to execute with the inhuman, neat-fingered +velocity demanded by Mme. de la Cueva. The hour in that other world to +which music always transported her had broken the continuity of her +impressions of her new friend. She stared rather blankly at Eugenia's +question, and looked from her to the well-known medieval pile below +them. It did not for the instant occur to her, that the other girl did +not recognize what the building was. The turn of her phrase suggested an +inquiry about the architecture, and though she had never thought about +Cluny before, the look of it stirred recollections of a certain fierce +history teacher, whose specialty had been the transitions of the reign +of Louis XII. She looked down on the stone lacework opposite, and said +doubtfully, "What is it? Domestic Gothic, shouldn't you think? But some +of it pretty late. Those square dormer-windows are Louis Douze, aren't +they?" + +She looked away from the Cluny and down at Eugenia as she finished, and +had once more a shock of astonishment. The other's eyes were flaming. +"Theah, that's it," she said fiercely, showing her white teeth as she +spoke, but not in a smile. "That's it. That's _just_ it! _Wheah did you +learn that?_" + +She dashed the question in Marise's face as though it had been her fist. + +Marise positively drew back from her. Too startled to be anything but +literal, she answered, "Why, why, I don't know where I did. Oh, yes, in +my French history class, I suppose. They make you learn everything so +hard, you know. You yourself were saying what a grind it is." + +Eugenia breathed hard and said, "History again, darn it! But I didn't +dream you'd learn _that_ sort of thing in it." She added defiantly, and +for Marise quite cryptically, "Well, _I'm_ going to learn it without!" + +Mme. de la Cueva came back with the music in her hand. "Voila, mon +enfant," she said, shaking Marise's hand heartily. She reached for +Eugenia's hand too, which was hanging at her side, till Eugenia, seeing +the meaning of the other's gesture, brought it up with an awkward haste, +a painful red burning in her cheeks. + +Some one came in as they went out, another student evidently, for he had +a roll of music in his hand. He stopped and stood aside with a deep bow +to let the two girls pass. + +"Good-day, Mlle. Allen," he said, looking at her intently. + +"Good-day, M. Boudoin," she answered. Neither girl spoke as they went +down the endless, winding stairs and passed out to the street. + +As they turned into the Boulevard, and jogged past the Jardin de Cluny, +Eugenia asked tensely, "What are those queer-looking broken-down walls?" + +Marise answered circumspectly, fearing another out-burst, "I think +they're Roman ruins ... what's left of the baths the Romans had here." + +Eugenia made no answer, but looked at them hard. + +Marise went on, "Awfully interesting, isn't it, to see Roman ruins right +in Paris, across the street from a cafe. But I suppose they'd look like +small potatoes to anybody who's seen Rome. Mme. Vallery says they look +comically small, after Rome." + +Eugenia put her arm around her neck, and kissed her once more, +fervently, disturbingly, on the lips, "Would you like to go to Rome? +I'll _take_ you to Rome. I'll hire a private car for the two of us." + +And before Marise could answer, before she could even bring out the +laugh which rose to her lips, Eugenia said with another of her abrupt +leaps, "That young man is in love with you. The one who came in +afterwards. He's awfully good-looking, too." She looked into Marise's +face with her avid, penetrating gaze, and said, "But you don't like +him!" + +"I never thought about him in my life," cried Marise, exasperated. She +was beginning to feel desperately tired of the mental gymnastics of such +talk. + +"But there was something you didn't like as I spoke about him. Don't you +_like_ men? Don't you like men to be in love with you? I do, I love it." +She made another flying leap, and asked, "Are many French women like +your music-teacher--so fat--no style?" + +"She's not French, Madame de la Cueva." + +"What, then?" + +"A Levantine." + +"A what? What's a Levantine?" + +Marise considered, "What _is_ a Levantine, anyhow? A little of +everything, I should say, and all more or less oriental and southern. +She's part Spanish, part Jewish from Asia Minor, brought up in Cairo and +Paris." + +Eugenia sheered off on another tack, "And who is Madame Va... Va... +something?" + +"Madame Vallery? She's a ... she's a sort of friend of mine. Yes, she's +a friend. My old music-teacher, when I was a little girl, got us +together. She's the wife of a Deputy, you know, like our Congressmen." + +"Is she chic, too," asked Eugenia, "like Mrs. Marbury? Is she young? Is +she pretty?" + +Marise laughed, "No, she's not pretty or young. She must be fifty years +old." + +Eugenia was shocked. "And a friend of _youah's_!" + +Marise explained, "She has more brains than you and I and forty other +girls rolled into one. And I've met more interesting people at her house +than...." + +"Will you take me sometime--will you take me?" asked Eugenia. + +"Yes, if you like," said Marise. + +Eugenia looked around her wildly, as if to find some way of saying her +thanks. Something in the street caught her eye. They were passing a +florist's shop. She slammed the door open, curved her flexible little +body around the frame, and caught at the driver's coat-tails. "Stop a +minute!" she cried to him and dashed into the shop. When she came out +she had a huge bunch of mauve-colored orchids in her arms. + +"For you, for you," she cried, elated at her idea, thrusting them into +Marise's hands, and kissing her again. And then, suddenly downcast, "Oh, +it oughtn't to have been orchids! What? Roses? Lilies? Violets?... Yes, +violets." + +This time Marise protested energetically against this assumption of +meanings in her face. + +"I don't know what makes you _say_ such things," she cried out +helplessly, half-angrily. "Orchids are lovely--_beautiful_. How could +anything be better? I never had any before in my life." + +But the other was not to be comforted. "Yes, it ought to have been +violets," she murmured, and then squaring her jaw, "And it _will_ be +violets, the next time. You just see!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + + +May, 1906. + +As Marise started up the front stairway she saw Biron emerging on the +run from the foot of the servants' stairway, his apron half-off, a net +marketing-bag in his hand. His broad, red face looked cross and anxious. +Something must have gone wrong. She turned back, meeting him in front of +the concierge's door. + +"Oh, Mademoiselle, God be praised you're back in time. Desolation and +ruin! The sole has turned--it has been so hot to-day. I swear on my soul +as a Christian it was fresh when I got it--unless that blackguard Gagnan +changed...." + +When Biron turned his torrent of objurgation on the tradespeople who +sold him eatables there was no stopping him. Marise cut in now. + +"Were you going out for another? Do you want me to go?" + +"Yes, yes--only not for a sole--there wouldn't be one left--and the +dinner was _planned_ for sole!" + +He ground his teeth, white and sound as a wolf's, "I could send Melanie +if she had the intelligence of an angle-worm--and yet to leave her with +my sauce till I get back--I was right in the midst of a _sauce piquante_ +for the...." + +He turned as if to rush back upstairs, distractedly, and turned again as +if to rush distractedly out into the street. + +Marise put out her hand for the market-bag and spoke with the peremptory +decision that was always necessary to unloosen Biron from his +temperamental tangles. + +"Go right back to your sauce, Biron. I'll have the fish here in five +minutes. And have plenty of onion in that sauce. My father thought the +last not well-balanced, too much vinegar. He likes his sauces suave." + +"But not a sole, Mademoiselle, not a sole! Any sole that is left on the +market at six of the evening is left because nobody would buy it. But +the dinner was _planned_ for sole!" He stamped his huge, felt-slippered +feet in exasperation. + +"A mackerel," suggested Marise, "they're good at this time of the year." + +He flung his arms over his head. "A _mackerel_! A gross, fat, dark +monster like a mackerel to replace a _sole_!" + +"Oh, no, of course not." Marise saw his point. "I didn't think. Nor +salmon, of course." + +He shuddered away from the idea of salmon. + +They stood staring at each other, thinking hard, the cook's big, +parboiled fist clenched on his mouth, his brows knit together, like +those of the _Penseur_. + +"Some merlans?" suggested Marise. "You can cook them _au gratin_ just +_like_ a sole." + +"But will I have time!" he groaned. "Who knows whether the oven is hot +enough?" + +"Well, hurry back and brighten the fire, while I rush out and get the +fish." + +He fled back up the stairs, his slippers flapping. She left her roll of +music in the concierge's care and darted out into the street, market-bag +in hand. Twenty minutes later the fish were being disposed with a +religious care on a bed of chopped parsley, shallots, mushrooms and +butter. Biron shoved the baking-pan tenderly into the oven, wiped the +sweat from his face, and stopped storming at his wife. + +"You were not to blame, after all, Melanie," he told her magnanimously, +and with a long breath, "But it was a close call, by God, a close call." + +In the salon Marise was pouring an aperitif for her father, brightly +dishing up the news of the day with the sauce of lively comment, and +saying nothing about culinary close calls. Her father listened to her, +sipping his Dubonnet with an air of intense satisfaction. He took plenty +of time for it, allowing each mouthful to deliver all its complicated +burden of tang and bitterness and heat before he took another one into +his mouth. + +"Excellent stuff, Dubonnet," he said appreciatively. + +"I'm glad you like it," said Marise. She envied her father his +enjoyments. They were, comparatively speaking, so easy to get. + +Looking at her seemed to remind him of something. He reached into a vest +pocket (with some difficulty, for his vests were more and more tightly +packed with each year of good living), and took out a little jeweller's +box. + +"It's your birthday to-day," he remarked, taking another careful sip of +his aperitif. + +Marise looked at the present, a little wrist-watch, from a very good +house. + +"Oh, that's awfully good of you, Father," she said, trying it on. + +"You can have one if that funny little friend of yours can," he +advanced. + +"Oh, if you start giving me everything Eugenia has...!" protested +Marise. + +"Somebody ought to make _her_ a present of a little ordinary sense," he +commented, with no great interest in the subject. "I've seen her kind +before. They tear things loose till they get what they want, and then +they don't like it." + +"Eugenia just loves it, every bit of it," Marise objected. + +"Well, let her," he dismissed her from consideration with his usual +nonchalance, and taking the last of the Dubonnet, he rose to go into his +room. + +In a moment Marise heard an indignant roar, "_Melanie has forgotten my +hot water again!_" Her father came to the door of his room, vast and +bulging in his shirt and trousers, outraged by the oversight. + +"Oh, yes," said Marise, in annoyance. "You might have known she would. +Biron has been in another tantrum and taking her head off. It gets her +so rattled she forgets her own work." + +"I don't see what that has to do with _my hot water_," cried the master +of the house aggrieved. + +"It hasn't! It hasn't!" cried Marise hastily, running to tell Melanie of +her crime. + +Not till the hot water was safely delivered, and her father's comments +on bad service diminished to a distant solitary mutter, did Marise go +into her own room to dress. She had no hot water, either, but she washed +in cold, scorning with all her heart the childishness of men, and +laughing childishly at the picture her father had made, shouting and +indignant, billowing in his shirt and trousers. He and Biron! One had +always to be smoothing them down and wrapping them up in the little +things they wanted. It must be truly lovely to be married to one, as +poor Melanie was! But, after all, Father did his best to be good to her, +when everything about the house was all right and he could think of it. +She hoped the dinner would be all right. It was too bad about that sole. +Sole was so expensive too. Not that Father ever objected to anything the +table cost. Oh, _flute_! she had forgotten to see if Biron had exchanged +that Benedictine for Chartreuse. Father would raise the roof if they +served him Benedictine again. She put on her dress hurriedly, and +hooking it up as she went, she stepped hastily down the hall to the +kitchen. She never had any help from Melanie in dressing, not even +costumes that hooked up on the shoulders and under the arms, because it +was important not to disturb the small quantity of gray matter Melanie +had, at the hour of serving a meal. It was all needed for the matter in +hand. + + * * * * * + +Dinner was over, and had been acceptable. Her father had partaken of +everything with his careful appraising attention, and had found no +adverse comment to make. Coffee had been served, and the +Chartreuse--Biron had not forgotten. + +Out in the kitchen Biron (first, taught by much experience, loosening +the sash which bound his mighty paunch), was sitting with his wife at +table, eating and drinking like a page out of Rabelais. The dinner had +pleased his exacting and irritable master (Biron immensely respected him +for being exacting and irritable), and it also had pleased Biron. There +was plenty of it left and this was a house where the cook was never +subjected to the indignity of having inquiries made about _les restes_. +He leaned back in his chair, undid the button at his throat, and smiled +at his wife, over his glass of excellent Burgundy. + +"Life is good, hein, old lady?" he said. + +She nodded in agreement, keeping her thoughts to herself in the usual +stealthy, secretive, feminine fashion. + +Over the coffee and Chartreuse, facing another well-satisfied man sat +another secretive woman, talking in one key, feeling in another, and +finding the process far from enlivening. Down below the surface of the +sparkling, chatting Marise, drooped a listless, dispirited Marise for +whom a birthday was a most depressing occasion. + +"You're nineteen, aren't you, Marise?" asked her father over his cigar. + +Marise nodded. + +"Well, that's another one gone! Congratulations on every one you get +over with," he commented, sipping the stinging green fire of his liqueur +with satisfaction. + +Marise thought of nothing amusing to say and was silent. + +Her father stirred his big body, with the air of some one arousing +himself to an effort. The effort seemed to be to say, "Is there anything +you want I can get for you?" + +His daughter was at a loss before the comprehensiveness of this blanket +question. "What kind of a thing?" she inquired. + +He professed himself more at a loss than she. "If I had any idea what, I +wouldn't need to ask you, would I?" + +But he managed, all the same, at least to eliminate some of the things +he didn't mean, "Oh, not dresses or hats," and in a moment, after +another sip at the liqueur, to give a little more definite idea of what +he did, "Something going on, social life; what girls of nineteen are +supposed to want." + +"Oh, you needn't bother. I get enough of that," she answered, "between +Mrs. Marbury and Eugenia and Madame Vallery." She was surprised at her +father's interest. They seldom talked together, except of what they were +to eat, had eaten, or were eating, or of the interminable games of chess +which occupied any leisure moments of his and hers which chanced to +coincide. He seemed to have something on his mind now. And he always +hated the effort of bringing out what was in his mind. He stopped +beating about the bush now and said heavily, "You're no fool, Marise. I +don't know any of the roundabout ways to say it to you, that a woman +would have, but you won't mind that. What I mean is, I suppose--I +imagine that's what's at the bottom of all of it--is this. Are you +getting a chance to meet the right sort of young man, the kind you'd +want to marry? For you will be marrying before long, I suppose." + +Marise waited a long time before she spoke, so that she would not flame +out as she felt. That would not be speaking in her father's vernacular, +and if there was one thing which every instinct of Marise's taught her, +it was to speak to every one in his own language. Nothing in the world +would have induced her to expose her own to other people's casual +comments, her own, in which she spoke to herself, bitterly, caustically, +skeptically, tragically, as no one had ever heard her speak aloud. When +she could command herself to select the right phrase out of her father's +vocabulary, she remarked, pushing her tiny coffee-cup away with a +gesture of finality, "I don't believe I'm very much of a marrying sort." + +Her father's comment on this was to say stolidly, "Oh, every girl thinks +that." But if he thought he could get a rise out of Marise with this +provocation, he was mistaken. She now turned away from the little table +and began with an indifferent air to arrange the coal-fire in the grate. +They were sitting in the salon. + +"Don't you like men?" he asked presently. + +She laughed a little, "To dance with." + +He looked at her more keenly than he had and asked, "Don't you trust +men?" + +She turned this off by riposting lightly, "How much is it safe to trust +anybody?" + +It was as though a chance stroke had cut through the dyke and let out in +a rush, waters that had lain sleeping. + +"Never trust anybody but yourself," he told her urgently, the words +heavy with the intensity of his conviction. + +A moment later he added, more deliberately, his manner tinged with his +habitual saturnine humor, "And it's not safe to trust yourself very +far." + +It wasn't at all what he had meant to say to her. But it was such an +undertaking to say anything. And what was there to say anyhow? He +decided to let it go at that, drank the last of his liqueur, fell back +in his armchair and reached for the chess-board. + +"I hope you got a good supply of that Chartreuse," he said, beginning to +set up the men. "It's very much better than what we've been having. Not +so syrupy. I do loathe syrupy things." + +After the game was over, he took up his Paris Herald and Marise, freed +from the necessity to make talk, went to the piano. She began to play, +not Chopin as she would have liked, but a dance from the Arlesienne +Suite. Father detested melancholy music. + +After she had finished, she sat still, sunk together on the piano stool, +staring at the music but not seeing it. She heard her father rustle his +newspaper as if he had lowered it to look at her. But for once she made +no attempt to arouse herself. She continued to present to him a silent, +dejected back. + +He must have considered this for some minutes when he finally remarked, +"I suppose there are people who _like_ birthdays!" Then with a yawn, +"But for me, they always make me think of all the ones I have still to +get through with, year after year, one by one." + +Marise's shoulders bowed under the weight of his words and his accent. +She still said nothing. + +He took up the newspaper again, but before he began to read he exhorted +her, "Oh, well, stick it out! Stick it out, Molly, as best you can. It +doesn't last so very long." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + + +Paris, May, 1907. + +"Wouldn't you _think_," asked Eugenia, looking about her, "that anybody +who could get up such a room as this, such a perfect room, would know +how to get herself up better?" + +"You don't suppose for a minute that she doesn't know how to!" Marise +rejoined. She added after a moment, to tease Eugenia, "Perhaps she +thinks it ordinary to be chic. Perhaps she thinks it is more +distinguished to have her very own genre." + +Eugenia said with a nettled accent, "Well, wouldn't you think if she +were going in for a genre of her own, she'd pick out one that was a +little more ornamental than her flat-chested, old-maid, provincial +school-teacher variety?" + +Marise laughed. It always gave her a little malicious amusement to make +Eugenia uneasy. To make her still more so, she added, "Yet you know well +enough, Eugenia, in any room full of people, let Mme. Vallery come in +with that mild, oh-I'm-nobody, don't-mind-me sort of air of hers, and +everybody else looks like a dressmaker's mannequin." + +Eugenia, alarmed for her standards, annoyed and aroused, disputed the +point with warmth, "That's only because you know who she is. If you +didn't, you'd take her for the concierge's country cousin." + +Marise shook her head exasperatingly, "No you wouldn't. She has +_cachet_. You can see it a mile away." + +Eugenia suddenly conceded the point with grudging wonder, "How does she +_do_ it?" she marveled, unreconciled. + +"Personality," diagnosed Marise, and then seeing that Eugenia's face +looked really clouded, she stopped her teasing abruptly, ashamed of the +unkind impulse which drove her to it, and of the malicious pleasure she +took in it. What was the inner irritation with everything that kept her +so aware of other people's weak points and so easily led into playing +ill-naturedly on them. Now, here and now, let her resolve she would +never tease Eugenia again. + +But she knew she would. + +She did, however, resist an easy opening, given her by the next remark +of Eugenia's, as she looked across the beautiful room, "What _makes_ it +all so just right? I'm going to start in at that corner, and look at +every single thing, and find out _what_ makes it right." + +Marise restrained the mocking words on the tip of her tongue, and turned +away to the half-open window, near which she stood. Across the empty +street in the pale gold of the spring sunshine, the vaporous young green +of the Luxembourg showed like a mist through the tall iron palings. The +light blue sky above was veiled with hazy white clouds, stirred by a +young little spring breeze, which blew languorously on the girl's cheek. + +It came over her, all of it, with a soft rush, the invitation to life, +the lovely, treacherous, ever-renewed invitation to live. And she drew +back from it, with her ever-renewed determination not to be taken in by +it. It was always too horribly lovely in May. It made her ache, it made +her want to cry, it made her horribly unhappy. How detestable to have it +so lovely, looking so seductive as though this were only the promise of +something lovelier ... when there wasn't anything to redeem the promise, +when it was all just a part of the general scheme to fool you. + +Behind her Eugenia's voice said enviously, "Where did she get all these +terribly quaint Louis XVI things?" + +How thoroughly Eugenia's English diction teacher had rooted out that +"turribly" of Eugenia's, thought Marise. + +Aloud she answered, "She began collecting years ago, before anybody else +thought of it." + +"I shouldn't think a teacher would have much money to collect." + +"Oh, she picked them up for nothing, in corners of whatever province +she happened to be in, out of barns and chicken-houses and attics." + +Eugenia said complainingly, "It seems to me she always has been able to +pick up something for nothing. Look at her husband." + +Marise said over her shoulder, "Oh, she didn't get much, when she got +him. He never would have been anything except his good looks, if she +hadn't taken him up. And she didn't get him for nothing--not much! Mlle. +Hasparren says--every one who knows them says--that she made him. She +writes his speeches now. I've seen her. And never bothers him by being +jealous." + +"I should hope _not_," commented Eugenia. "She's ages older than he. And +he's such a ripping good-looker." + +Marise found Eugenia's fervent accent rather distasteful. Not that she +minded her latest fad of finding married men so much more interesting +subjects than the others. Eugenia's affairs never lasted more than a +minute anyhow. But she wished Eugenia would pick out somebody with more +brains than Mme. Vallery's husband, somebody not so well satisfied with +himself. + +"He's an awful imbecile," she said. + +"What did Mme. Vallery marry him for, if she's so terribly intelligent?" +challenged Eugenia. She delighted in using the words she had formerly +mis-pronounced, and giving them the purest, most colorless intonation. +There was not a trace now, in her speech, of the sweet, thick, +unstrained honey of her original southern accent. + +"She has brains for two," said Marise shortly, displeased by the +direction of the talk. As a matter of fact, Mme. Vallery had once +informed her why she had married her handsome, unintelligent husband. +She had said warningly one day, when Marise had drawn back from a match +Mme. Vallery had proposed for her, "Don't carry that too far, dear +child. You will have to give in to the flesh sooner or later. You might +as well do it young, before the growth of your intelligence spoils your +enjoyment of it, as wait till you're driven to it, as I was. It's not +amusing in the least, to have to take it all mixed with the contempt of +your brains. You'll find you have to take your share, one way or +another." + +Marise looked out frowningly at a great beech tree bursting into life in +the garden across the street. It held its huge, flowering crest proudly +into the spring air. To look at it was like hearing a flourish of +trumpets, triumphal, exulting. + +That was all very well for trees, thought Marise, that stupid, yearly +emergence into a life that promised so much and brought futility. + +Along the gravel-walk, inside the Luxembourg, under the hedge of lilacs, +under the new splendor of the great beech, a young man and a girl in a +pale gray dress were strolling. They looked at each other, and smiled. + +"That's the way my father and mother probably walked together," thought +Marise, wincing. "That" was one of the clumsiest, most obvious parts of +the general conspiracy to fool you. But when you had the key to the +code, as Marise had, there was little danger that you would be taken in. + +"I think I hear them coming," said Eugenia, "I do hope Monsieur is with +her! Not that he ever condescends to pay the slightest attention to me!" +She assumed carefully a pose of unconscious ease on her small, +spindle-legged chair. Marise turned around from the window and looked at +her with appreciation. Was it only two years ago, that Eugenia had +scrambled up from the crumpled bed on which she had lain a-sprawl? + +"Nobody can say _your_ genre is not decorative, Eugenia," she remarked +with the sincere intention of pleasing the other girl, "that's a +perfectly glorious toilette, just right. And oh, how divinely that +broadcloth is tailored." + +Eugenia looked at her resentfully, with a flash of her old suspicion +that she was not being treated as an equal. + +"I haven't any _cachet_, and you know it," she said, "if Mme. Vallery +can have _cachet_ do you suppose I'm going to be satisfied with just +chic?" + +Marise felt one of her claps of laughter rising within her, but kept it +back, as the beautifully proportioned paneled door opened to admit their +hostess. A tall, spare, stooped, gray-haired woman, dressed plainly in +fine black, with a shrewd, wrinkled, fresh-colored face, well-washed and +guiltless of the smallest trace of powder. She looked like an elderly +Jesuit, one who wields a great deal more power than he likes to show. + +"Good-day, my children," she greeted the girls in a clear voice, with +the utmost simplicity and directness of intonation. "Have we kept you +waiting long? I told Auguste that we were a little late." + +Auguste, magnificently tall and magnificently bearded, having now +followed her in, the four sacramental hand-shakes were accomplished, +Eugenia's this time the promptest of all. + +After the equally sacramental exchange of salutations and questions and +answers had been achieved, questions as to health and general news, +which did not in the least denote any interest in these matters, answers +which were pronounced with perfunctory indifference and received in the +same way, the necessary civilized preliminaries were considered disposed +of, and the first moves of the game could be taken. M. Vallery's gambit +was to say, looking admiringly at Eugenia, "Such a piece of the month of +May oughtn't to be within four walls. Come over to the balcony a moment, +and let me show you your sister, the Luxembourg, in flower." + +Mme. Vallery's move was to sit in the winged, brocaded, deep-cushioned +_bergere_, and motion Marise to sit beside her. + +"Let's get our business done and off our hands first of all," she said, +smiling up at the tall girl in an admiration as frank as her husband's +for Eugenia, and for Marise, vastly more valuable. + +The others, in a little chiming burst of chatter and high spirits, moved +off towards the balcony. Mme. Vallery glanced after them with an +inscrutable expression and then at Marise with a brisk, business-like +manner. + +The matter at issue just then, the occasion of the girls' call, was a +fete de charite at the lycee, over which Mme. Vallery's sister was +Directrice, shoved up to that position, so the lycee teachers said, by +the political pull of Madame Vallery herself. But even they could not +deny that the connection was highly advantageous for the lycee. There +was not another one in Paris, which felt itself more "protege" in high +places, more sure of its standing with the Ministry of Education. And +its annual charity fete, from being the usual small-bourgeois bazar with +home-made aprons and pin-cushions on sale, and perhaps an inexpensive +conjuror pulling rabbits out of silk hats in the assembly-room to amuse +the children, had become one of the most elaborate and unique annual +events of the city. A good part of Tout-Paris lent its highly ornamental +presence to these affairs, and helpless before Mme. Vallery's energy and +acumen, always left much more of the contents of its purse than it had +the slightest intention of leaving in the amusingly decorated stalls +where pretty, well-trained amateur salesgirls sold the goods furnished +at cost (under pressure from Mme. Vallery), by the most fashionable +shops in Paris. + +This year Marise had been asked to play, along with two other de la +Cueva pupils, in the afternoon concert which was the _clou_ of the three +days' fete. Mme. Vallery had written her to ask her to come to talk over +the choice of music, and to Eugenia's surprise and extreme pleasure had +mentioned casually that she would be glad to see her pretty friend, Miss +Mills, also. Marise had instantly wondered what she wanted to get out of +Eugenia, and now behind her fresh, open, unlined young face she was +hiding a determination to find out what, and to keep Eugenia from being +unduly exploited. She might tease Eugenia herself, but she had an +elder-sister feeling of protective care towards her. Eugenia was so +awfully defenseless, in spite of her money, and so naive still in spite +of the sophisticated lore and manners which she had so energetically +acquired. She had not learned that thorough-going suspicion of +everything, which is the only valid protection against life. + +But Mme. Vallery said nothing whatever about Eugenia, other than to +comment in passing on how excessively pretty she was, a real +late-Regence type, such as one seldom sees nowadays. Marise found +herself, as usual, quite helpless before the Vatican antechamber suavity +of the older woman, and reflected, not without some resentment, that she +probably seemed as naive to Mme. Vallery, as Eugenia did to her. + +After some desultory talk about other features of the fete, they got out +a pile of music, went together to the piano, where Marise tried the +effects of various combinations, and finally decided on a desirable one. + +All this time M. Vallery and Eugenia spent on the balcony, leaning over +the railing, the sound of their voices and occasional laughter coming in +pleasantly through the open windows. They came in together, when Mme. +Vallery summoned them to share the Muscat and hard sweet biscuits which +it was part of her genre to serve at four o'clock instead of the newly +introduced tea. + +"Business is over," she announced, settling herself in the chair back of +the little stand, where the tray stood. "Now for some talk." She put her +hand to the crystal carafe and held it there for a moment. Another of +the ecclesiastical details of her appearance was the beauty of her +hands, white and shapely. + +M. Vallery seated the girls and then himself, smiling into his +beautiful, glistening brown beard. Eugenia too was smiling, with a +dazzled look of pleasure. Mme. Vallery looked down at the wine she was +pouring. Marise suppressed a qualm of distaste for M. Vallery, and +started the talk by laughing outright as at a sudden recollection of +something comic. She explained that she had just had a letter from +America, from an old cousin of her father, who always kept her au +courant of the quaint and humorous goings-on of the country-side. + +"Her letters are as good as a comic paper," said Marise, sipping her +wine. + +"Translatable?" asked M. Vallery, "most of the comic things that happen +in the French country-side aren't. But they're very funny for all of +that." He laughed reminiscently and stroked his beard. + +Memories of Jeanne and Isabelle, and what they considered comic stories +rose blackly to Marise's mind. She turned a gay, laughing face to M. +Vallery and translated for his benefit Aunt Hetty's latest story about +what happened when a skunk got into the hen-house, and she and Agnes +went to the rescue at midnight in their night-gowns and night-caps. It +was as much to drown out what was going on inside her own mind, as to +amuse the others that she did her liveliest best by the story, telling +it with the gusto and brio which made her a favorite with people who +liked youthful high spirits. It was broad farce, nothing else, and she +did not draw back from the farcical color it needed to carry it off. It +was a story, she told herself, that either made people laugh _aux +eclats_, or it was a failure. Her audience was certainly laughing _aux +eclats_ when she finished the account of the homeric night-battle, +laughing and wiping their eyes. + +"That reminds me," said M. Vallery, his eyes glistening with mirth, "of +a story about a love-sick dog that my uncle used to have." + +"You're not going to tell that story here," announced his wife, with the +calm accent of mastery, which once in a while slipped from her in an +unguarded moment. He went through the form of protesting, claiming that +it was nothing--nowadays people were not prudish--but his wife settled +the matter by taking the floor herself, turning to the girls, and saying +laughingly, "That uncle of my husband's--he was one of the old +school--out of a Balzac novel of the provinces. There aren't any more +like him. It was through a to-the-death quarrel with him that Auguste +and I met each other." + +This slid her easily along into talk of early days, a quarter of a +century before, when she was in one of the first lycees, at the time +when lay-school teachers were an abomination and a hissing to the decent +church-going bourgeois. + +Dryly, with the inimitable terse picturesqueness of phrase which made +her famous as a talker with people who demanded a great deal more than +youthful high spirits, she took them back with her, twenty years, into +the remote provincial city where she had encountered every narrowness +possible to bigotry and reaction, and had wound it all around her little +finger. Through her highly amusing recital of how she had played on the +prejudices of those provincials, how adroitly she had employed against +them their very vices, their jealousy and suspicion of each other, their +grasping avarice, their utter dumb-beast ignorance of what modern +education meant, through all this played, like a little sulphurous +flame, her acrid scorn and contempt for them, her vitriolic satisfaction +in having cheated and beaten them, in having turned them inside out and +made fools of them, without their ever once suspecting it. Her husband's +admiration of her powers was boundless. + +"That is now one of the most prosperous and successful lycees in eastern +France," he told the girls, "and every year they have a big dinner with +my wife as guest of honor, with speeches and things, and somebody lays a +wreath on her as though she were a statue. Quite a joke, hein?" + +"Well, that must be an enjoyable occasion indeed," thought Marise, +seeing the scene as though she had been there; the simple-minded +provincials, trying simple-mindedly to honor the founder of their lycee; +Mme. Vallery sitting at the right hand of their Mayor, with her mild air +of deprecating the too-great honor done her--and her little sulphurous +flame of vitriolic contempt playing over the convolutions of her brain. +"Yes, it is a very pretty world we live in," thought Marise, laughing +heartily at Mme. Vallery's satirical imitation of one of the clumsy +speeches made in her honor on the last occasion. + + * * * * * + +She thought it still a prettier world, when in the cab as she was +accompanying Eugenia back to Auteuil, Eugenia said, radiating +satisfaction, "I'm to have my part in the fete-de-charite, too!" + +"You _are_!" said Marise, "what are you going to do?" + +"I'm going to give the money to pay for the appearance of a Russian +dancer ... the very newest thing. It will be the _clou_ of the entire +fete. And my name is going on the program!" + +"Eh bien!" cried Marise in the liveliest surprise, "why, I didn't hear a +word about all this." + +"No, it was in talking with M. Vallery that the plan was made. He hadn't +dreamed of their being able to afford such a thing. It was my own idea. +He was quite carried away by it, couldn't see how I came to think of +it." + +Marise was silent, meditating profoundly on the prettiness of the world +in which we are called upon to live. The more she meditated, the hotter +grew her resentment. It was all very well to be cynical, and it was +foolish and raw to be surprised at cynicism, but this was a little ... +really a _little_ excessive! She flushed angrily as she went over in her +mind the oiled exactitude with which each cog had slipped into the next, +the casual invitation to Eugenia, M. Vallery's admiration of her beauty, +the talk on the balcony ... oh, poor Eugenia! what a fool she must have +seemed, with her naive impression that it was her own idea! And how that +fatuous barber's model must have laughed with his wife after they had +left! The shameless team-work with which they had turned the talk to +something far-away, and kept it there ... and, she flinched, her vanity +cut to the quick, her own naive blindness to the little game they were +putting up on her. Well, she would know better next time. She had +unpeeled one more layer from this pretty, pretty world of ours. + +Speaking on impulse, she now said rather abruptly, to Eugenia, "I +wouldn't have much to do with the Vallerys, if I were you. He's really +an awful cad." + +Eugenia looked at her with a knowing smile, "You're jealous," she said +laughing, "he didn't take _you_ off to show you the Luxembourg in +spring!" + +Marise was for an instant stricken so speechless by this idea that she +could only stare. And by the time she could have spoken, she perceived +that there was nothing to say, no comment on the prettiness of the world +and the people who live in it, that began to be adequate. + +At the great gates of the school-parc, Eugenia and her maid descended. +Eugenia kissed Marise good-by, the correct kiss on each cheek this time. +Nothing annoyed Eugenia more than any reference, intended or imaginary, +to the time when she had gone about kissing her school-mates on the +mouth. + +After the other two had rung the clanging bell and been admitted, Marise +stood for a moment, hesitating. Then she decided to walk home, although +home was a long, long way from Auteuil. It would do her good, she +thought, setting out at the powerful, swinging gait she had for the long +walks which for her, as for the more energetic of her classmates, had +been the only form of outdoor sport accessible. + +She had decided to walk so that she could cool off, and think over the +Vallerys' manoeuver, and as she walked she had it out with herself, +going deep. By the end of the first mile she knew it was foolish and +futile to resent the afternoon's comedy. That was the sort of thing +everybody tried to do, only few people were as successful as Mme. +Vallery. She knew well enough what she would get, if she pelted right in +on them now, as they sat laughing over their little triumph. They would +never dream of denying it, any more than she or her father would deny +being the author of a far-laid plan in chess, which led to an opponent's +defeat. + +It was all a part of the game, and she might as well make up her mind to +it, and renew her determination to keep out of the game as far as she +personally was concerned. They were no worse than other people, only +more intelligent and more interesting. She could tell, to the very turn +of the phrase, what Mme. Vallery would say to her if she should have the +crassness to go in and make a scene. + +"My dear child, no power on earth can protect naivete! It is a lamb +whose wool belongs to the best shearer. Let her sharpen her wits, your +young friend. She'll need to, sooner or later. It ought to have been the +best of practice for her, a little skirmish like the one we just +furnished her. She would do well to practise before she gets into a +serious skirmish with somebody who _really_ wants something out of her. +What is this fete-de-charite for? To please me? Not at all. To make some +money for poor people, mothers and anaemic babies. Show me another woman +in our circle who puts herself out as much as I do for the poor! Your +pretty friend has more money than is good for her. I'm only securing a +little of it for the needy." + +That was true, too, thought Marise. Mme. Vallery really did a lot of +good, and very unostentatiously. If people were only far enough beneath +her in intelligence and social position and money, she would do anything +for them, very simply, in the nicest sort of way. And if she took a +rather horrid delight in making fools of people more pretentious, what +had Marise to reproach her with--she who could not refrain from +malicious teasing! It was part of the same thing. Everything was part of +the same thing. And the same thing always turned out to be very much the +same. Also, Mme. Vallery had really always been very kind to Marise, +seemed really fond of her, had given her innumerable opportunities which +otherwise she would never.... + +"What does she want to get out of _me_?" Marise suddenly asked herself, +struck by a sudden suspicion and wondering why she had never thought of +this before. + +Pondering this, unpeeling another layer, an acrid odor in her nostrils, +she struck out into a longer, swifter gait, at her old futile trick of +trying to hurry away from what was inside her heart. + + * * * * * + +The tall, slim, lithe girl, walking swiftly through the sweet spring +twilight looked like the personification of spring-time with her fresh +young face, her dewy dark eyes, her sensitive mobile young mouth, red as +a dark red rose. She looked like Youth itself, welcoming in the new +season. Several people glanced after her, and smiled with sympathy for +her freshness and bloom and untouched virginal candor. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + +I + +Paris, May, 1908. + +Eugenia had been complaining that her new teacher in advanced French +diction was very ill-natured and exacting, and had asked Marise to go +with her to a lesson to back her up in a protest against his +unreasonable demands. + +The two girls drove up to the Francais in Eugenia's inevitable cab, and +leaving her inevitable maid to wait in it, passed through the dingy +little side-door into an ill-lighted corridor and felt their way +toilsomely up a stairway not lighted at all. A dingy, stone-colored +corridor with painted and numbered doors on each side, like a needy +old-man's home or ill-kept reformatory. A knock at one of these, opened +by a bald, pale, elderly man, with a knobby nose and several chins. A +tiny, cluttered, stuffy room, with a lumpy sofa, two chairs, an easel +and a window. + +After her presentation to M. Vaudoyer, Marise sat down on one of the +hard chairs to await developments. The actor was in a long, +paint-stained blouse, and excused himself by saying that his pupil was a +little ahead of time, "A real American," he said, smiling at both of +them. He had been painting, he explained, waving a wrinkled old hand +towards a canvas on an easel. + +"Oh, you are twice an artist," remarked Marise, doing as she had been +taught to do, automatically turning a pretty speech. As a matter of +fact, she thought the sketch anything but artistic. + +The old man's face clouded. "To be a painter, that was all I ever +wanted," he said, looking with affection at the very mediocre landscape, +and adding sadly, "All my life ... all my life." + +"But to have been--to be such an artist as you are on the stage--surely +that ought to be enough," said Marise. This time she spoke sincerely, +out of a very genuine admiration for his acting. + +"One does what one can, what one can," said the old man, resignedly, +unbuttoning his blouse and dragging it off, revealing snuffy and +crumpled black garments. He looked, thought Marise, like the parish +priest of a very poor and neglected parish. And he had been for +years--why, for a life-time, one of the most solidly esteemed and +admired actors in the finest theatrical company in the world. "What more +does any man want?" Marise asked herself, wondering why his face in +repose was so bitter and melancholy. + +Before beginning his lesson, he gave a last look at his painting, "What +do you think of it? What do you think of it?" he asked suddenly, turning +on Marise, the question like a loaded revolver at her temple. + +Much practice had steadied Marise's nerves against any sort of hold-up +that could be practised in social relations. She said instantly, "I +think it shows one of the most charming landscapes I ever saw. Where in +the world is there such a delightful composition?" + +She was dealing with some one infinitely more practised than she, who +was not in the least taken in by her evasion. Sighing, he turned the +canvas with its face to the easel, and told her over his shoulder, "It's +in my own country, where I ought to have stayed and been a dumb-beast, +and happy. Nowhere you ever heard of, a far corner of the Pyrenees. +Saint-Sauveur is the name." And as if, in spite of himself, to pronounce +the name moved him, he broke out, "It's the most beautiful place--a +little heaven on earth--why should any one leave it to spend his life in +this boulevard hell of malignity? Such noble lines in its mountains, +such grand pacifying harmony in the valleys--enough to reconcile a man +to being alive! Such details as it has too! There is a gorge there where +the _gave de_ Gavarnie rushes down. Always on the hottest, dustiest, +most blinding summer day, it is cool there, the air green like Chartres +stained-glass, and alive with the thunder of the water." + +He frowned, shook his head, put his hand to a book on the table, and +said, dismissing his evocation with a shrug, "Eh bien ... eh bien...!" + + * * * * * + +The lesson began but Marise heard not a word of it, not a word. She sat +straight on the hard chair, her face a blank, and walked up the street +with Jeanne, seeing in the blue twilight, the pale face of Jean-Pierre +Garnier approaching them. The alcove curtains hung close before her, and +Jeanne's voice was on the other side. And then, the burst of men's +laughter from across the landing, cut short by Jeanne's closing the +door; and then the heavy, dragging step in the corridor, the loud, harsh +breathing. She waited, tense with fright, to see the curtains twitch +open, and Jeanne's dreadful face appear ... some one was speaking to +her, urgently, insistently, by name.... + + * * * * * + +"Marise, Marise...." It was Eugenia speaking to her, "Help me explain to +M. Vaudoyer that I haven't the least desire to become an actress, or to +know every word of Moliere by heart! That I simply want lessons in how +to pronounce French correctly, the kind of lessons my English-diction +teacher gives me." She spoke with an impatient accent, and Marise coming +to herself saw the two facing each other with angry looks. + +M. Vaudoyer said indignantly, "It's not worth my while to give +instruction to a student who will not do the necessary work." + +"I will do any _necessary_ work," Eugenia answered hotly, "but what has +reading a lot of deadly dull old books to do with pronouncing French +correctly? And if I'm not going to be an actress or a singer, what _is_ +the use of all those idiotic ah! ah! oh! oh! fee! fee! exercises?" + +M. Vaudoyer sat down abruptly, and reaching for a large red-and-white +checked handkerchief, mopped his bald head and perspiring face with it. +He was evidently containing himself with difficulty and waiting till he +could be sure of speaking with moderation before he opened his lips. + +Eugenia explained to Marise with dignity, glad of the opportunity to +state her case, "I come to M. Vaudoyer for lessons in diction. I don't +come to study singing or seventeenth-century history. I hate history and +all those dull studies. I don't see why everybody should always be +trying to force me into them. M. Vaudoyer gets very angry because I will +not practise singing lessons and because I cannot find the time to spend +hours in the Bibliotheque Nationale reading all about everything that +happened in Moliere's time. What do I care what happened in Moliere's +time? What I want, what I am paying for, is a very simple thing. +Instruction in French diction. I don't see that I am getting it." + +Her accent showed that she considered her case unassailably good and +reasonable. + +M. Vaudoyer listened with attention, looking at her very hard, and when +she had finished he nodded, "You are right, Miss Mills. I am not the +teacher for you. I am a poor, old, impractical Frenchman, incapable of +satisfying a practical American girl, who knows what she wants and has +the money to buy it. You are the race of the future, you Americans, I of +the past. There is no common ground between us." He spoke mildly. +Eugenia stared. Marise winced. + +"What do you mean, M. Vaudoyer?" asked Eugenia. "Are you sending me +away?" + +He said with a little smile, "You have sent me away, Miss Mills, far +away. And as to what I mean, if you like, I will try to tell you. But +you will not understand. I cannot talk the American language. I can only +speak the French language." He paused, wiping his perspiring forehead +again with his checked handkerchief. "There are two parts to every art. +One is the thorough command of your medium; the other is the personality +you express through your medium. Neither has the slightest value without +the other. Neither is to be had without paying the price of all you +have ... _all_, all! + +"You must have perfect command of your medium, just in itself, as a +tool. Listen," he stood up, his heavily jowled face grim and stern, drew +a long breath, as if he were about to speak, and then as at a sudden +thought, paused, the expression of his face changing with comical +suddenness to a broad smile, and began to laugh. The girls stared at him +in amazement, wondering if he had taken leave of his senses. Apparently +something very funny had popped into his mind, just as he was about to +go on with his statement to them. It must have been really _very_ funny +indeed, for he could not stop his laughter, try as he might. It was too +much for him. Both hands on his hips, throwing back his head, he pealed +out an irresistible, "Ha! Ha!" as though he would burst if he did not +laugh. Seeing their astonished faces, he tried to stop to tell them the +joke, choked himself down to rich chuckles, opened his mouth to speak, +and, the joke striking him afresh, went off again in a huge roar of +mirth that made them both smile and then laugh outright in sympathy. + +At this, his face instantly resumed its sad, stern expression, and he +was looking at them severely as before, breathing quickly, it is true, +as though he had been running, but without a trace of any feeling. + +"There you see," he said drily. "That is an example of what I mean by +command of a medium. To be master of _my_ tool I must not only be able +to laugh, when I feel like it, but whenever I need to laugh, whether I +feel like it or not. And I assure you, young ladies, I do not feel in +the least like laughing now, having had this glimpse of the future as it +will be, shaped to the American mold, by the people of the future." + +The girls were stricken silent by all this, their lips, frozen in +astonishment, still curving in the set smile that was all that was left +of their foolish, induced mirth. Marise was nettled and angry. He had no +business playing tricks like that on them. She had been made to appear +foolish, horribly foolish, and she resented it. + +"Well, Miss Mills," he went on, addressing Eugenia, "you cannot get such +a control of your medium, you cannot learn to speak any language +beautifully, without long, long dull hours of the oh! oh! ah! ah! +practice that you scorn. You cannot buy such a command of your medium, +not for millions of your great round dollars. No, not the wealthiest, +sharpest American who ever lived can possess European culture, by buying +little pieces of it here and there, and hanging it up on his wall. By +changing the very fibre of your being, that is the only way to become +anything that is worth becoming. And you cannot change the fibre of your +being without dying a thousand deaths and knowing a thousand births." + +He puffed out a scornful breath and went on, "And for the other half, +Miss Mills. You want to learn diction by reading to me. But what you +read has sense. It is not just consonants and vowels. And to read it +well, you must understand it. And to understand it, you must know +something--do you understand me? You must _know_ something. I soon found +that you could not understand Moliere, because you know no history, no +literature, nor anything else you should have been learning. You cannot +read with any over-tones in your voice, unless you understand the +over-tones of what you are reading. You cannot read Moliere, or anybody +else, as if you were reading, + +"'_Barbara; celarent; darii; ferio; baralipton._' + +"Or at least--" His carefully repressed indignation burst for a moment +from his control; he said in a roar, "At least you cannot in _my_ +loge--not, not even an American, not even a representative of the people +of the future!" + +He had risen to his feet, trembling with his anger, a high-priest +rebuking a blasphemy. The girls shrank back, startled. + +At once he extinguished the flame, went for a moment to the window, and +when he turned back, said quietly, "You must excuse an old man's bad +temper, Miss Mills, and you must look for a politer, more practical +teacher. I can give you the address of one who will suit you. I can, in +fact," he said smoothly, "give you the addresses of several hundred who +will suit you perfectly. I will send the addresses of several to you. +Good-day, Miss Mills. Good-by, Miss...." He was vague as to Marise's +name, but murmured something with an absent courtesy. He stepped to the +door, opened it with an urbane inclination of the head. + +Eugenia held in her hand the sealed envelope which contained the usual +fee for a lesson, and now looked down at it, uncertain whether she dared +offer it. He saw her glance at it, and relieved her of her uncertainty, +"No, no fee to-day, Miss Mills. I have given you no lesson." As they +passed before him, he added under his breath, "No lesson, that is, that +will be of any value to you." + +Marise glancing over her shoulder, saw him turn at once to the easel and +reach for his palette and brushes. He had dropped them from his mind. It +was the airy, finishing touch to their humiliation. She burned with +anger and shame. + +They groped their way down the darkened stairs in silence, neither +trusting herself to speak, lest she burst into tears. + +At the bottom Marise said neutrally, "I have a music lesson now. Would +you like to come along?" + +Eugenia said in a loud, quavering voice, "I should think not! I have had +enough of their hatefulness for _one_ day!" She went on, her voice +shaken by suppressed sobs which did not at all fit what she was saying, +"And I h-have an appointment w-with the hairdresser anyhow." She fumbled +with a desperate haste in her little gold-beaded hand-bag, jerked out a +lacy handkerchief and wiped her eyes angrily. But more tears came, a +flood of nervous, excited tears, which ran down in big drops. She flung +her arms around Marise's neck and hiding her face on her shoulder, cried +out pitifully, "Oh, Marise, don't you ever just want to go back _home_?" + +Marise's heart was very full of compassion, very barren of consolation. +"I haven't any home to go back to, any more than you," she said in a +whisper. + +Eugenia reached up, pulled her head down and kissed her, still sobbing. +Marise kept her cheek pressed against the other's tear-wet face, aching +with her helplessness, burning to find some word of comfort, finding +nothing but loving silence to express her tenderness and pity. + +A door opened upstairs, laughing voices sounded on the landing above. +The two girls drew apart and moved towards the door hand in hand. + + +II + +Mme. de la Cueva had been crying and Marise guessed that she was getting +ready to have a new husband. She seemed to have had bad luck in +husbands. The one who had just been put to the door was the second +Marise had known in the four years of her study with the pianist, and +there had been at least two before that. It was a terrible grief to her +always to find out that she no longer cared for the one she had; but she +faced the facts with courage, allowing herself no dissembling, no +bourgeoise timidity. The old one disappeared, and in a few months a new +one was there. + +"Good-day, my child," said the pianist affectionately, pulling Marise +down to kiss her on both cheeks. "No lesson to-day nor to-morrow," she +spoke solemnly, the tears in her eyes. + +She began to cry openly. + +Marise sat down by her, startled out of her own mood of resentment. +"Why, dear Madame de la Cueva, why?" she asked, "What has happened?" + +"I am going to America," said the older woman. "Georges Noel and I are +booked for a concert tour of the world. We will be married in +Australia." + +The inevitable first thought of the magnificent egotism of youth was for +itself, "Why, what shall _I_ do?" cried Marise aggrieved. + +Mme. de la Cueva did not resent this. She never resented anything which +she recognized as natural. And this seemed to her pre-eminently natural +and proper. She took Marise's hand in hers tenderly, maternally. + +"It is for your good, my dear child, the change, though I know how you +will miss me. You need some one else. A year with the old Visconti will +be the making of you." + +"The old Visconti!" cried Marise, "but he lives in Rome!" + +"But it is perfectly possible for other people to live in Rome too! My +dear child, a year in Rome at your age ... it will be the making of you! +You will always bless your poor old de la Cueva who secured it for you. +Youth, talent, beauty, Rome!" she drew the picture with envious +admiration of its possibilities. + +There was no use trying to reason with her, as one would with any one +else, Marise knew that from experience--no use trying to show the +material, practical obstacles in the way. What would her father say? How +could she go alone to Rome to live? Not that Mme. de la Cueva would have +hesitated at any age to go anywhere alone to live--but she would not +long have remained alone! How like Mme. de la Cueva to dispose of her so +calmly! Even as Marise said all this to herself she was aware by a +sudden warm gush of pleasure and excitement in her heart that she was +delighted beyond measure with the plan, that she had been longing for +some change in her life, that she had been growing deathly stale in the +same old round, the absurdly life-and-death consultations with Biron in +the kitchen, the same old professors at the Sorbonne with the same old +glass of sugar-and-water and the same high-keyed nasal delivery of the +same old lectures, even Mme. de la Cueva with her same old cliches about +mass and bulk in the bass. She felt no guilt about this last, for if +there were one person in the world who understood entirely the fatigue +at the recurrence of the same old things, it was Mme. de la Cueva! The +pianist looking at her young disciple with discerning and experienced +eyes, saw something of this and smiled sympathetically. + +"You have been working, working, working, and now it is time to run a +little free, my Marisette," she said, patting her hand, "you are ... how +old?" + +"Twenty-one to-day," said Marise. + +"Exactly! As though Fate had timed it. Very likely Fate did." She had a +great faith in Fate provided one did not hang back before the doors Fate +set open before one. Personally she had never hesitated to step through +every one that had been even ajar. + +"A year in Rome with the old Visconti, who has the most wonderful sense +of rhythm of any man alive--the real, the living rhythm--the life, the +personality of music! Make yourself a docile little pair of ears and +nothing else when he talks to you of rhythm! And pay _no_ attention, +none, do you hear, to his fingering! It is _infecte_, _ignoble_! Then +after a year, I shall be here again to see what else you need before I +launch you--good old Maman de la Cueva will be thinking of you all the +time...." + +"But I am not in the least sure I can manage a year in Rome," protested +Marise, breaking in with a hurried protest against this +taking-for-granted of everything, "I never dreamed of going to Rome! My +father...." + +"Oh, you can manage it," Madame de la Cueva assured her carelessly, "one +can always manage whatever one really wants to do. Especially if it +depends on a man." + +She crossed the room now to pull at a bell-cord and to order tea of the +stout, elderly maid who came. Such a cosmopolitan as Madame de la Cueva +would of course have tea. + +"We shall have tea together, my dear, to celebrate your birthday and my +new plans, and to have a last talk together, the last talk before you +grow up." + +Her tears were forgotten. They had been shed, and that was the end of +them. It was thus that one should live, she believed, crying heartily +when one felt like it, and having it over with. She detested what she +called the "brain-sickening Anglo-Saxon mania of bottling up emotion +till it grows so intense you get no enjoyment out of it," and she was +much given to cautioning against this mania those few of her pupils whom +she took seriously and for whom she labored her valiant best, pouring +out for them all her wisdom, musical and otherwise. + +She came back now, and sat before the piano, her amplitude overflowing +the stool as a mighty inflooding wave overflows a rock. + +"While Giuseppina is making our tea, I'll play to you," she announced. +She put her beautiful hands on the keys like a millionaire plunging his +hands into a coffer of jewels and offering a choice between pearls and +rubies, "What will you have? What do you feel like?" + +Marise felt more like an earthquake in full activity than anything else, +and chose accordingly, "If I'm going to Rome for a year, I feel like +fireworks," she said with a rather breathless laugh, "something +Hungarian ... Liszt, perhaps." + +Madame de la Cueva settled herself and was off, Marise's heart galloping +beside her in the wild rush over the plain. The little lean, wiry, +ewe-necked horse under her tore along, sure-footed, as carried away by +the stampede as his rider. There was a lance in her hand, a lance with a +little blood-red, ragged flag, fluttering loudly against the wind of +their forward rush like a bird struggling to escape and fly. Marise +heard its throbbing struggle above the rhythmic thunder of the hoofs and +felt her heart fluttering like a caught bird in sympathy. And now, with +a long, rending slide from bass to treble, it tore itself loose, the +wind caught it and whirled it up high over their heads as they plunged +along. There it rode among the clouds, like a scarlet storm-bird, +sinking and falling and advancing to a longer, nobler, more ample rhythm +than that of their many-hoofed clattering. Marise's heart soared up with +it, soared out of the noisy clattering, up to the clouds, to the noble, +long curves of the wind's soundless advance ... soundless ... the piano +was silent. Madame de la Cueva had played the last half-heard, velvet +note that was prolonged, prolonged by the sweep of that noble line. She +and Marise floated with it for a moment, and then as it swept on and +left them, they slowly eddied down to the ground like dry leaves. + +Giuseppina came in with the tea. Madame de la Cueva turned round on the +piano-stool, a fat, elderly woman with three chins. + +"Not so bad for the old lady, hein?" she said, well-pleased with herself +and with Marise's dazzled look. + +Marise attempted no thanks, no comment. Silently, like a person +hypnotized she took the proffered cup, nodding her desire for two lumps +and lemon; and silently, like a person hypnotized she listened to Madame +de la Cueva's monologue. The music like a rich wine had unloosed the +musician's tongue. In a mood like this she "turned the faucet and it +ran." + +"My little one," she said fondly to Marise, "my little one, so here you +are on the beach ready to take the plunge--twenty-one to-day! And your +poor old de la Cueva will not be here to advise you. Oh well, there's +only one mistake that is worse than giving advice, and that is taking +it. Never take anybody's advice, my darling, nobody's at all." + +She drank the half of her cup of tea, not by any means noiselessly, +wiped her mustache with the tiny, beautifully fine, embroidered +tea-napkin, and hanging lovingly over the plate of patisseries, chose +the fluffiest with a sigh of satisfaction. + +"The only thing not to do, the only mistake possible to make, is to +stand shivering on the beach, not to plunge in and breast the waves. +Breast the waves!" she showed by a wide gesture of her powerful arm what +she meant. + +"And you can't swim with anything or anybody hanging around your neck. +The moment they begin to weigh on you ... p-f-f-t! off with them! +Nothing you can do will help people who can't swim themselves. They'll +only drag you down with them. + +"My dear child, remember this, that if there is an element in life +hateful to the free human soul it is what is called permanence. The only +permanent thing any human being should recognize is his tomb. From +everything else he must climb out and go on, go on. + +"Above all, beware of permanence in love. It is a paradox ever to speak +of love and permanence in the same breath. Life and death! They cannot +exist together. Women as a rule, all women who are not artists, make +their mistakes in that way. You are a woman now, and an artist, it is +the duty of an older woman and an artist to warn you against it. The +only way not to be a life-long victim of men is to take love as they +it ... for the pleasure. Men wish nothing from love but their pleasure. +It is a vain and foolish striving to try and give them more, or to try +and get more from them." + +She took another eclair and said on a softer note, "I don't deny that +women are more naturally given to the folly of seeking permanence in +love than men. I myself have a weakness in that direction." Marise +looked down into her cup to hide an involuntary smile at this. "Each +time I love, the illusion is that it is now for eternity. Each time the +wrench costs me tears.... You saw my tears, my dear! + +"No, the only thing to do is to use it, as men do, to feed one's art. +You heard how superbly I played that Liszt! That is Georges, that is the +new flame leaping up from a lamp that was burning out!" + +She poured another cup, and seasoned it with care. Marise ventured to +say mildly, "I'm afraid I'm rather cold. I don't ... I haven't ever +cared much for men." + +Madame de la Cueva shook her head, "Every unawakened girl thinks that. +And once in a while there is a monster born, sometimes a man, more often +a woman, who is born really cold--like a born half-wit or a two-headed +cat. But any one of experience can feel them in the room, as you feel a +snake. _You_ are not cold, my darling. No one who can play The Tragica +as you do, is cold. You are only a child. You Anglo-Saxons take so long +to ripen. But all the better for your technique--that quaint +prolongation of infancy. But _now_," she put down her cup and looked at +Marise deeply and masterfully, "now your infancy has lasted long enough. +In with you! Dive from the nearest rock! Head over heels! I shall hear +the splash from across the world and rejoice." + +Marise laughed a little nervously, partly because she was amused and +partly because she was excited. That great mass of personality, +radiating magnetism, would excite a statue on a tomb, she thought to +herself, even though you didn't at all share her tastes, or like the +things she did. + +"And when I say, 'in with you,' I don't mean any of the sentimental +slip-noose business of becoming a house-mother with children--oh, +whatever else, my dear, no children. The only artists who can afford to +have children are men, because men never really love their children and +can abandon them at any time they need to. No woman can do that. Even +_I_ could never have done that! + +"You see, carissima mea, in love a man always keeps most of himself for +himself, as in everything else. You must do the same if you are not to +be cheated in every bargain that life offers you. It is a hard lesson to +learn. It will cost you many tears. But tears are valuable. You cannot +live and be an artist, without tears. Shed them freely and you will see +how you will grow." + +She looked at her watch, "I expect Georges at five," she explained, and +swept on to her peroration, "Remember, think of all I tell you when your +wise old friend who knows life is far away. Remember! None of your +Anglo-Saxon nonsense about trying to get along without sex-life. Take +it, take all you need of it, but keep it separate from your real life as +a man does, and it will never poison or embitter you." She laughed a +little, triumphantly, "You will _do_ all the embittering instead of +enduring it. You have beauty. You can buy anything you want with it, if +you learn how to use it. You have what will advance you more than any +talent for music! You have a nice talent, but you will go ten times as +far as a woman with a big nose and poor hair. Make your brain a little +mint, my darling, coin your good looks into legal tender, and buy +success." + +She kissed the girl and dismissed her, with another look at her watch +and then into the mirror. + +Marise stumbled down the stairs, a little dizzied by the sudden removal +of that pressing, urgent, magnetic personality. To step out suddenly +from under it, was like stepping into a vacuum. Her ears rang. + +At the street-door she paused, waiting for the mist to clear from before +her eyes. She peered out into the quiet street, as if she were looking +into life itself, the life that Madame de la Cueva had so magisterially +set before her. And she loathed in anticipation everything that was +waiting for her there. + +There lay the world, grown-up life, Rome, her career, before her, and +apparently there was nothing in it which she would not detest. Love ... +the love that Madame de la Cueva had shown her how to get ... she shrank +away from it with a proud, cold scorn, her nostrils quivering. Music ... +there was no music in that program, only an exploitation of music to buy +personal success for her. And she loved music ... fiercely she clung to +that, as the one thing that would not betray her, the one thing she +dared love with all her heart. + +She stood on the threshold of the street-door, dreading to take even one +step forward into it all, till the concierge looked at her hard, with a +disagreeable smile, suspecting a rendezvous with a lover. Marise saw the +look, knew what it meant, felt it push her forward, knew in anticipation +how that sort of look and what lay back of it would be always pushing +her forward into what she hated. + +With a long breath she stepped into the street, into the road that +stretched before her. She held her head high, with an angry pride. The +concierge-soul of the world must never know what was inside her life. +The thing to do, the only thing she saw that was tolerable to do, was to +take care that she was not being fooled. Well, she thought with a grave, +still bitterness, she certainly ought to know something about that. + + + + +_THE END OF ALL ROADS_ + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + +1909 + +Neale sat idly in front of the black-and-white facade of the Orvieto +Cathedral, trying idly to make up his mind on a matter of no importance +whatever and not getting on very fast. In his pocket was his ticket back +to New York and his ship sailed in a week. But, of course, it did not +sail from Orvieto. Should he go south to Naples where most of the +passengers took ship? If he did, he could stop over four or five days in +Rome. It might be interesting to revisit Rome. Or should he go north to +Genoa, where the ship was due to stop the day after leaving Naples? He +had not seen Genoa at all and he might be missing something worth while. +It ought to stir any American's imagination to hang about the docks +where a certain visionary, middle-aged sailor-man had gone up and down +trying to raise the funds for a mad attempt to prove the world +absolutely different from what everybody else had thought. + +He sat there looking up at the Cathedral, deciding now for Genoa and now +for Rome, and in between times forgetting all about the matter, so +evenly balanced were the advantages, so unimportant was the whole +business. When he finally stood up to go back to his inn, he remembered +that he had still not settled which train to take. + +He took a coin out of his pocket. He'd toss up. Heads for Naples, tails +for Genoa. + +The coin flashed up in the sun, and fell on the stone steps. In the +intense, somnolent silence of the little provincial square its tinkle +sounded loud and clear. All the loungers turned their heads quickly at +the sound. Neale stooped over it. + +Heads, Naples. All right. He'd inquire when he got to Rome if they +didn't perhaps run a boat-train down, just before sailing time. + + * * * * * + +As he was unstrapping his suit-case that night in his room in the Roman +pension, it did not greatly surprise him to have Livingstone knock at +the door and step in. Livingstone had been at that pension before, +during Neale's first leisurely sauntering visit to Rome; Livingstone had +turned up at the pension in Florence before Neale left; he had run +across Livingstone in a Paris cafe sitting alone at a table, looking as +much like an attache of the Embassy as he could manage. Livingstone was +no tourist but one of the professional inhabitants of Europe; an +American, that much he admitted, though neither hints nor direct British +questioning had ever extracted from him his birthplace in the States. He +was the sort of man who had learned how to cross his long thin legs +elegantly so that the toe of one slim foot pointed downward. As at the +same time he was wont to fold his arms over his hollowed chest, stoop +his shoulders and droop his neck, and as he wore gray gaiters and +carried a walking stick he had good reason to flatter himself that he +had altogether the distinguished, pinched, sickly, aristocratic look of +the traditional promising young-old diplomat. Neale was not surprised to +see him in Rome. He would not have been surprised to see him +anywhere--except perhaps at work. It was Neale's guess that three or +four years from now he would have screwed up his courage to wearing a +monocle. + +"Hello, Crittenden," he said, "it _is_ you, is it? When Michele told me +you had turned up again, I was sure he must be mistaken. I understood +you were on the high seas, on your way back to the land of the free and +the home of bad cooking." + +Without being invited, he sank down in a chair to watch Neale unpack and +wash, asking, "You were going back to New York, weren't you?" + +"Yes, I still am. I'm only in Rome for five days. But I won't be long in +the States. I'll be on my way to China and the East." + +Livingstone was mildly interested. "You don't say so! Well, you might +really get there by starting off to New York. But I admit I don't see +the connection. Why don't you take a P. and O. for India?" + +"A little business to attend to first. A small inheritance to cash in +on." + +"Inheritance!" cried Livingstone, sitting up straight. "The very word +makes my mouth water. Why doesn't that ever happen to me?" The +expression on his face was like that of the loungers in front of the +Cathedral when they heard the coin drop. + +Through the lather of soap-suds on his face, Neale laughed, "A very +two-for-a-cent inheritance. An old great-uncle I hardly knew--never saw +him but once or twice, years ago when I was a kid, left me his home and +his little old-fashioned saw-mill and wood-working plant, back up at the +end of nowhere in Vermont." + +"_No money!_" sympathized Livingstone. "But then of course you can sell +all that for _some_thing. But no real money at all?" + +"There's what he had in the savings bank--about four thousand dollars, +the executor writes. Just enough to do nothing at all with." + +Livingstone made a mental calculation. "I wouldn't wonder if you might +get fifty dollars a month out of the whole thing. And that's enough. Ma +foi! That's enough if you cut corners a little. _I_ only have +eighty-five. And then you can always give an occasional English lesson +to piece out. You won't need ever to do a lick of work or ever live in +the States. Mes felicitations! That's the life! You'll be knowing Europe +as well as I do, next. How soon will you be back?" + +"I'm not coming back," said Neale, buttoning on a clean collar. "When +I've cashed in and got what I can out of my uncle's business I'm going +overland to San Francisco, and from there to the East." + +Livingstone considered this, "Well, they do say that Chinese cooking is +super-excellent once you get used to it." + +"I'm not going for the cooking." + +"No? What _are_ you going for?" + +"Oh, I don't know," said Neale rather sharply. "Because I feel like it. +Why shouldn't I?" + +Livingstone perceived that he had run on a hidden reef and backed off. +"Don't you want to come on into the salon and let me present you to the +crowd?" he asked standing up and moving towards the door. "Since you +were here some awfully nice people have come over from the Pension +Alfierenti. Poor old Alfierenti died suddenly and his place is shut up +for the present." + +"No, thanks," said Neale. "I'm going up on the roof for a smoke before I +go to bed." + +"Oh, yes," Livingstone remembered, "you always did prefer the terrazza +and your solitary pipe to the society of the ladies. Well, there is a +nice view from up there; but between a view and a pretty girl who could +hesitate?" + +"Who, indeed?" said Neale dryly, going off up the stairs. + + * * * * * + +The plaster floor and low walls of the terrazza gleamed white and empty. +As Neale had hoped there was not a soul there. Below him spread the +roofs and domes and streets of Rome, richly-colored even in the white +light of the moon, hanging like a great lamp over the city. + +He took the corner that had been his favorite before, in the black +shadow cast by a thick-leaved grapevine, and perching on the edge of the +wall, looked down meditatively on the city as he filled his pipe. + +Well, so here he was in Rome--just as if something had pushed him here, +where least of all places he had expected to find himself again. Odd +that his year of travel should end with a second visit to the first +European city that had stirred his imagination, that had given him a +hint of what it was he had come to Europe to see. It was during his +first stay in Rome that he stopped being a dumb, Baedecker-driven +tourist, that he first got the idea of what Europe might teach him +better than America could. It was here that he first thought of trying +to get from Europe some idea of what men during a good many centuries +had found worth doing. + +For, unlike America, Europe was crammed full of objects little and big +that men alone or in groups had devoted their lives to create. America +had tried a number of experiments--once; but Europe had tried them all, +so many times, at such different periods, in so many, so various +centers of civilization! Such a crowded graveyard of human endeavor +might perhaps suggest a satisfactory motive (if one existed) for going +on living. + +For a long time he had made no headway, had discovered no general +underlying motive--indeed much of what he saw filled him with utter +astonishment at the things men had cared for, even to the point of +giving their lives to win them. + +He still remembered that morning during his first stay, when he had +stared with stupefaction at the rows of portrait-busts in the Capitoline +Museum. So many men, most of them apparently intelligent had schemed and +plotted through long years--and what for? To be the conventional head of +an unworkable Empire, top-heavy with administration; to endure the +hideous tedium of ceremony and pompous ritual which the office had +imposed; to be forced to work through sycophants and grafters, to be +exiled from healthy human life into a region where in the nature of +things you could never hope to see one spontaneous sincere expression on +any human face; where your life, your work, your reputation hung on the +whim of the Praetorian Guard or the disgruntled legions on a distant +frontier--why, if you lay awake nights you couldn't think of a more +thankless job than being a Roman Emperor! And yet for centuries men had +sacrificed their friends, their honor, their very lives to hold the +office. Those old Romans, for all they looked so like ordinary everyday +men you meet in the street, must have had a queer notion of what was +worth-while in life! + +Then he had left Rome and gone away without plan, anywhere the train +would take him; and wherever he had gone he had walked about, silently +attentive to what men had done with their lives. That was what he had +been looking for as he walked around on battle-fields, or gazed up at +Cathedrals or looked seriously at the statues thick-sown as the sands of +the sea all over European cities; that was what he had been looking for +as he sat alone in a pension bed-room reading a history or a biography +that helped him fit together into some sort of a system all the diverse +objects he had been considering. + +Wherever he went, wherever he looked, he was like an archaeologist raking +over an inexhaustible kitchen-midden--he was surrounded by relics of +innumerable generations crowding the long centuries during which men had +lived and died on this old continent. Perhaps if he looked hard enough +at what they had left behind them he might find out what men really +wanted to do with their lives--perhaps he might get some hint of what he +could do with his own life. + +That was a subject he had never stopped to consider in America. Nothing +in American life had suggested that you might have any choice except +between different ways of earning your living. And yet he reflected it +was rather an important question--at least as important as which +baseball league you were going to root for. + +It was so absolutely new to Neale to consider that question--any +abstract question indeed--that for some months after he had shut down +his desk in the office of the Gates Lumber Company, he felt his head +whirl at the notion of trying to find an answer--an answer to any +question, let alone so compendious a one as what it was that men wanted +to do with their lives. The cogs and wheels of disinterested impersonal +thought which had started to work in college, were stiff with disuse and +refused to turn. All he had been able to do was to wonder, and stare, +and read memoirs and histories, feeling like a strange cat in a very +much cluttered garret. Was there anything in Europe that would really +mean anything to him, to an American who was not esthetic, who refused +to pretend, who frankly thought the average picture-gallery a dreary +desert? + +And then, very slowly, he had begun to make a guess that there was an +arrangement in what looked so wildly hit-or-miss; as on the day when +happening upon the little triumphal arch in Rheims he had at last got +under his skin the idea of the Roman Empire, far-reaching, permeating +with its law, customs, speech, the tiniest crevices of the provinces. To +think of Romans living and governing and doing business in a little, +one-horse, Gallic town like this! Maybe it hadn't been such a crazy +aspiration to want to be Emperor--sort of like being President of the +Standard Oil Company to-day. You knew in your heart that the job was too +big for any man, but it was warming to your imagination even to pretend +you were running a machine that covered the whole known world. And +probably all of them had an illogical hunch that _they_ would get away +with it--and, by Jupiter, a lot of them had, and died peacefully in +their beds. After all, so far as ordinary horse-sense went, wasn't +devoting yourself to gathering together a great deal more money than you +could possibly use, at least as odd a way of spending a human life as +trying to hang on to the tail of the Roman Empire? And yet there were +countless thousands of men all over Europe as well as in the United +States who were hoping with all their souls that Fate would allow them +to do just that. And a few did get away with it--just as some of the +Emperors had. But it killed a great many--the Manager of the Gates +Lumber Company, for instance. Every man knew that it might be the death +of him, just as in the first century an Emperor knew he'd be lucky if he +were killed quick. But nobody hung back for that in either century. +Nobody really believed it would get _him_! Why, a year ago, Neale +Crittenden himself had been tearing along towards it as hard as he could +pelt. + +Well, good God, you had to do _some_thing with yourself. You couldn't +float along, your boneless tentacles rising and falling with the tides, +like that jelly-fish of a Livingstone! + +What was there for a man to do with himself? At all times evidently, +some men had been satisfied in producing art of some kind or +another--that wasn't any good for Neale. He hadn't an ounce of artistic +feeling, wasn't even a craftsman, let alone an artist. And many men in +every epoch had cared about fighting. That was more his sort--if you +were sure you could find something worth fighting for! And many men had +wanted to run things--not only for the feeling of personal power, but to +straighten out the hopeless muddles humanity was always getting itself +into.... He had lost the frail thread of his thought in a maze of +speculations, comparisons, half-formulated ambitions. + +But he had always come back to his problem. He did not hurry. He had +left the Gates Lumber Company so that he would not need to hurry! +Sometimes he had caught a glimpse of the thread, lost it, felt it +between his closing fingers, let it slip again. And whenever it escaped +him and he found himself staring again at a jumbled confusion with no +clue to its pattern, he had lit his pipe and smoked reflectively, his +eyes fixed on whatever detail of European life chanced to be before +them, a stained-glass window at Chartres, a crowded noisy cafe in Milan, +the hydraulic cranes unloading cargoes from the Congo under the tower of +Antwerp Cathedral. What men had left behind them looked from the outside +like a heaped-up pile of heterogeneous junk, some good and some bad, and +no way of guessing how any of it came to be. But Neale hung fast to that +guess of his that there might be some meaning for him in it all, if he +could only be patient enough and clear-headed enough to pick it out. He +had never been an impatient temperament but he certainly had not of late +years been especially clear-headed. During this reflective pause in his +life, he felt his mind re-acquiring its capacity to do some abstract +thinking. Released temporarily as he was from the necessity for +immediate activity his head slowly cleared itself from the cloudy fumes +given off by energy automatically rushing into action, blindly, +planlessly. He began to perceive that he had been carried off his feet +by the conviction of his time that activity, any activity at all, is +all-sufficient, provided it is taken with speed, energy and decision. +Neale had acquired speed, energy and decision in activity, but he'd be +damned, he told himself once in a while, if he'd run his legs off any +longer without seeing which way he was going. + +As he sat now alone on the roof, overlooking the many, many monuments +left as token of what men had wanted to do with their lives, he brought +up and considered the few conclusions--the guesses at truth--the year +had brought him. They didn't seem to amount to much, they were +ridiculously slight as the sum-total of a year's earnest thought, but +all this sort of thinking was so new and hard for him! At least such as +they were, they were his own thoughts--he hadn't taken them on anybody +else's say-so; and simple and inadequate as they seemed from the +outside, they might be the first step towards understanding the +truth--the truth for _him_. + +To begin with, he hadn't in the least found out what men wanted or why +they wanted it--all his classification had been like pressing +wild-flowers and sticking them in a herbarium with the right Latin name +tacked on--it cleared up some of the clutter, perhaps, but it left you +mighty far from understanding life. All that he had learned from his +classification was that men wanted a lot of contradictory things, and +what one man would sell his soul to get, would break another one's heart +to have. Well, wasn't that perhaps a clue? Wasn't it just that innate +diversity which was at the root of a great many tragedies? Wasn't the +trouble that men wouldn't let themselves act as individuals? Men were so +hopelessly tied to the fashion of their century. Yes, men +were fashion-ridden: they had no call to laugh at women's +continuous-performance-vaudeville of big-sleeves, tight-lacing, +hobble-skirts! Women cared about clothes, and every woman except a few +dowds was out to look like every other woman, and just a little more so; +men cared about the business of the world, and every man except a few +freaks felt that he ought to outdo every one else at whatever all the +men of his time were doing. And nobody wanted to be a freak. But the +truth was that there were all sorts of men in the world all the +time--who ought normally to do all sorts of different things. But did +they? No, they didn't. No matter what you really wanted to do with your +life, no matter what your particular life was best suited for, human +tradition was always inflexibly insisting that you try to cut your life +by the pattern considered fashionable at the time and in the place where +you lived--try to be an Emperor in Imperial Rome, try to be a +millionaire in twentieth century New York. People didn't seem able to +consider even for a moment that there must be lots of men so made that +they would prefer anything to the process of becoming an Emperor or a +millionaire. + +There rose before Neale now the restless, unhappy face of the young +Frenchman he had come to know in Bourges, who one evening as they sat in +the park near the Cathedral, poured out to him in a bitter flood his +horrified sense of the closing in on him of bonds which he hated, which +were being forged around him by the irresistible forces of social +tradition and family affection. Fighting helplessly against overwhelming +odds, he was slowly being shoved into becoming a _petit fonctionnaire_ +in Bourges for all his life.... "_Here_, in this _hole_!" he had cried +looking around him with wild young eyes, like a rat in a trap. But there +was his dear Maman's certainty that this feeling was mere youth, that he +would soon settle down, and be contented in his office, and always, +always be quite close to her; there was the relief of the family far and +wide, now that he was _safe_, safe for life in a good little position +with a nice little pension at the end! "Safe! How I loathe being safe!" +he had cried. "Why wasn't I born three hundred years ago, so that I +could have gone out with Champlain! Or later with Du Chaillou?" + +In spite of all his sympathy for the poor kid, Neale hadn't seen then +nor could he see now why anybody need wait for a Champlain or a Du +Chaillou to come along. It looked as though the boy's grievance was +because what he was meant to do didn't happen to be in fashion when he +lived. Neale couldn't see what prevented him from getting right up on +his feet from off the bench where he agonized, and marching off to the +nearest port to work his way to Senegal, if that was where he thought +he'd have the chance to use that latent stifled something in him which +could never live in Bourges. Of course, it would give his mother a jolt, +but if she was any kind of a mother, she'd want her son to have what was +best for him. That was sure, if anything was. And as for the cousins and +the aunts and uncles butting in ... to hell with them! What business was +it of theirs? + +Neale had a suspicion that very likely the boy would be horrified by +Senegal, not get on a bit better than in Bourges, and be mighty glad to +come back to the safeness and comfort that irked him so now. If he had +had pep enough to get on in Senegal, or anywhere else on his own, +wouldn't he have had pep enough to cut loose from his leading-strings +before this? Now was the time to do it, now or never, before he had +acquired any personal responsibilities of his own choosing, that would +_really_ be an insuperable barrier to change. Neale felt nothing but the +profoundest sympathy for people who found out they were in the wrong +pigeon-hole after they had tied themselves up so they couldn't move. +That was so awful a fate, that it did seem as though all grown-ups ought +to league together in an impassioned effort to give youth as free a +choice as possible. Instead of which--look what they'd done to this poor +kid! Neale knew by the look of him how nervously sensitive he was. +They'd trained nervous sensibility into him, instead of energy and +combativeness. And then they brought to bear on him the +thousand-pound-to-the-square-inch pressure of public opinion which +provincial and family life in a small French town exerts on youth, to +prevent its ever guessing at its essential freedom to seek out its own. + +What sheep men were! ... making long detours through open country to get +around fences that had long since blown down. + +In all the centuries of Roman Emperors had there been a single one of +the misfits with good enough sense to see that he had got into the wrong +job, and energy enough to pull out? Galba had declined the nomination a +term or two, but in the end he'd accepted office--and got his throat cut +inside a year. Even a high-class mind like Marcus Aurelius could think +of no solution except, after office-hours, to write a book sympathizing +with himself, like a fine-haired Corporation President solacing his soul +by collecting cloisonne. + +Of course the fashion of the country and the century was sure to fit +some men. Old man Gates now: he _had_ wanted to succeed in business, to +be a millionaire, as much as Vespasian had wanted to be Emperor, and he +had furiously enjoyed every hard-hitting moment of the life-and-death +struggle which had carried him up from owning a small saw-mill in +Connecticut to being the head of a rich and powerful company. He had +died at eighty, as lusty and hard and sound an old condottiere as any +other professional fighter who bestrode a bronze horse in an Italian +piazza. But how about his son? What perhaps would the "young Mr. Gates" +have liked to do with _his_ life, if it had ever been suggested to him +that he might do something else than go on making money by selling +lumber for as much as possible above the price that had been paid for +it? + +What life-long mal-adjustment had resulted in that dreadful, twisted, +weeping, elderly face which even now Neale could not forget? + +Neale puffed a while silently, staring over at the Janiculum Hill, black +with its dense trees beyond the moonlit city, until the distressing +memory became less acute and he could go back calmly to his own problem. +He was that much to the good anyhow. At least he'd found out what he did +not want to do. He did not want to give his life to doing something +simply because a lot of other men thought it was the only thing to do. +At least he was sure that failure was certain along that road. And he +was convinced that happiness--satisfaction, at least--was possible in +human life. All his stored-up and accumulated health and strength and +vitality made him sure that a sort of happiness was probable, even +inevitable, if you had the good sense to get hold of the job you were +intended to do. But what did he, Neale Crittenden, want to do? What was +he intended for? He had asked himself that question a great many times +and never had answered it yet. He looked again over at the Janiculum +from which the beacon was flashing its message of red--white--green +across Imperial Rome, across the Vatican. Over there stood the Garibaldi +monument. There was a man who had known what to do with his life. He had +created something. Oh, he was a product of his time, no doubt, and the +busy little frock-coated Cavour had played a necessary part, but +admitting all that, where would the Risorgimento have been without +Garibaldi? In the fire and passion of his great heart, he had forged the +sword of Italian Unity. Out of chaos he had created something with an +ordered unity of its own. That was real creation. Was there any of it +left to do--some little corner that an ordinary man could tackle? + +Alone on the roof he pondered this, his hands clasped across his knees, +his head tipped back, looking across the ancient city at the man who had +kindled a fire in those old ashes. + +And then, little by little, as the silence and beauty of the night +spread out before his eyes in widening silver circles, he ceased +pondering, ceased thinking even vaguely of himself, his life, other +men's lives. He sat dreaming, his eyes as wide as a child's, his lips +relaxed, his face absent and unconscious of self as that of one who +listens absorbed and entranced to distant music. Moonlight--Italy! + +Aware that he was no longer alone, he turned his head slowly and saw +that a tall girl in white had come silently up the winding iron steps +and was standing at the top looking at the sky. The moon shone full and +soft upon her, from head to foot. He saw her as clearly as though it had +been noon, and yet she looked as unearthly and mysterious as the night. +She evidently thought herself alone. She stood perfectly motionless, her +dark eyes fixed on a palely distant star. Neale thought he had never in +his life seen anything more touching than the profound sadness of her +young face. + +He had not moved, had scarcely had time to draw breath; but she had felt +him there. She turned her face toward where he sat, her head a little +bent, searching the darkness of the corner from under long, finely-drawn +brows. She saw him, looked straight into his eyes, her own shining deep +and soft upon him. He was still too lost in his own enchanted dream to +be able to move, to look away. He gazed at her as though she were part +of the night, of the beauty. + +Without a sound she turned back and sank like a dream from his sight. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + +The next morning very early when he stepped out of his room, he saw at +the end of the hall a little group of three people, the half-grown burly +boy who carried water-pitchers and blacked shoes, the tall, aproned, +black-moustached house-servant who swept the rooms and waited on the +table, and the girl he had seen on the roof the night before. He knew +her at once although she was in a street-dress now, and he saw only her +back and the gleaming coils of her hair. He found that he had no +intention of doing anything in the world but of going to speak to her, +somehow; and turning down the tiled corridor he walked towards the +three. They had their backs towards him and were all talking Italian +with extreme rapidity. "Oh!" it came to Neale with a shock, "she was an +Italian!" Of course, with those dark eyes and hair. It had not once +occurred to him, during the night, that she might be an Italian. He felt +hot with vexation. Damn it! He spoke so little Italian! + +He stopped short in the passage-way irresolute, suffering that most +wretched and miserable of human embarrassments, the one that began with +the Tower of Babel. He wasn't going to make an idiot of himself trying +to talk to her in that horrible broken tourist-Italian of his. His +disappointment was so acute that he could not for an instant collect +himself enough to turn away, and stood glowering at the three backs. + +They were talking far too rapidly for him to understand what they said, +but by their pantomime it was plain that the girl was moved by something +which left the two men quite unaffected, that she was making a low-toned +agitated appeal to them, which they received with the shrugged shoulders +and uplifted eyebrows of reasonable men before an unreasonable idea. She +was pointing out, leaning forward, shrinking back, she was saying, "Oh! +oh! _oh!_" her low voice rising to a little wail of distress that went +to Neale's heart. He looked over their backs out of the window following +the direction of the girl's hand, and saw at first only the beautiful, +early-morning, myriad-winged swoop of the Roman swallows filling the +bright air with their rhythmic wheelings. He had watched them for hours +on his former visit, had thought them one of the most purely lovely +elements of the city's charm. + +"Oh!" cried the girl again, and covered her face with her hands. + +Neale saw at last what she saw, a lean yellow cat crouching in ambush in +a corner between a dormer window and a sky-light. As he looked the cat +sprang up suddenly, a streak of murdering speed high into the air, and +seized an incautious swallow swooping too low. + +The two men at the window looked at the girl, shrugged their shoulders +again and went back coolly to their work. The comedy was finished. What +could any one do about it? Most evidently nothing. The man lifted his +broom to sweep. The boy stooped to take up his water-pitcher. The girl +took her hands from her face, and turned away from the window. Neale had +expected to see her look agitated and excited; but her pale face was set +in an expression of unsurprised endurance. It was evident that she too +perceived that there was nothing to do about it. + +"Well, there _was_ something to do about it!" thought Neale wildly, +feeling a fury of resentment at the two men. He'd show them! + +He sprang past the girl with a great bound to the window and saw that, +as he thought, a slope of tiled roof lay below it, the slope so gentle, +the tiles so rough that it would be quite easy to keep his footing on +it, although the drop to the court below would be dizzying if he stopped +to look at it. But he did not stop to look at that, or anything but the +cat, slinking slowly off across the roof beyond, the swallow in her +mouth. + +He took one long step out over the low window-sill and stood on the +tiles. He heard the girl behind him give a cry, and it sped him forward. +He ran along the narrow slope of tiles, one hand on the wall to steady +himself till he could, with a leap, reach the roof where the cat was +making off towards the ridge-pole with her prey. Here it was easier, a +wide stretch of tiles over which he could really run. + +The cat heard him, saw him, paused an instant, dazed by the suddenness +of his appearance, turned her head and flattened herself for a leap +forward. But his leap was quicker than hers. He reached her, and pounced +on her with a swoop that was part of the forward rhythm of his running, +pounced, seized her firmly, and forced open her jaws. The swallow +dropped out on the tiles, wet and ruffled, its eyes closed, its poor, +slim, gleaming head bent limply to one side as if its neck were broken. + +Neale stooped and picked it up, stroking it pityingly and smoothing its +pretty, rumpled plumes. He had been too late after all. But as it lay in +his hand it seemed to him he felt its delicate body stir. Perhaps it was +only half dead with fright. Did it move a little or had he imagined it? +As he stood astride the ridge-pole of the roof, the level rays of the +early sun shone straight into his eyes so that he could not see whether +the bird's eyes had opened or not. He turned his back to the sun and +held his hand, with the bird in it, closer to his face. Why, yes, the +eyes were open, soft dark eyes that looked wildly and despairingly into +his. The intensity of that sudden look gave him a start. He opened his +fingers and the bird burst out of his hand with a loud beating flutter +and soared up into the air. Neale threw back his head to watch it, moved +almost to a shout of exultation as the twittering flock swooped past his +head. + +Then he saw that the cat was calmly making her way back to her ambush +corner. "Hey, there!" he shouted gaily at her, and, sprinting along, +snatched her up. "You're going back down cellar to catch rats, kitty +mio," he told her aloud, laughing. He was astonished at his own high +spirits. High up on the richly colored old roof, close to that glorious +sun with the swallows dashing, twittering about his head, the rescued +one among them, he could have flung his arms about and danced for sheer +lightness of heart. + +What he did was to tuck the protesting cat under his arm and make his +way back with considerably more caution than he had gone up. The passage +along the narrow slope of tile below the window was worse than he had +thought, made him a little sick to face. A damn-fool performance anyhow, +he reflected, picking his steps, looking carefully away from the sheer +black drop to the stone-paved courtyard below him. A very damn-fool +performance for a serious-minded man of twenty-six to go careering over +roofs like that. + +With a short, quickly-taken breath of relief, he stepped over the +window-sill back into the corridor. The men and the girl who had been +leaning tensely out, watching him, stepped back respectfully to give him +room. + +Before he could turn to the girl, the servant had snatched the cat from +under his arm, and with a fine air of virtuous indignation was cuffing +her savagely over the head, pouring out on her a loud, highly-articulate +flood of vituperation. The boy lifted his hand to join in the game, +crying out, "Bestia del diavolo," "animaluzzo dannato!" and the like. + +"Oh, good Lord!" thought Neale impatiently. "Isn't that just _like_ +them! Hey, _stop_ that!" he cried aloud, and as the man paid no +attention to this he seized him somewhat roughly by the shoulder in a +grip that paralyzed the arm. He caught the cat as she fell and held her +up over his head. He was so tall, so long-armed, that she now dangled +high in the air, quite out of reach, yowling at the top of her voice, a +ridiculous scene altogether! + +He tried sternly to explain his feelings and issue his commands, but +as was to be expected his Italian gave way under the strain: "Troppo +in ritardo punire il gatto ... it's too late to jump on the cat _now_, +you poor chump; she wouldn't have any idea what it's for. Gatto non +capisce ... it's not her fault anyhow. She doesn't know any better. +Take her down cellar, dans la cave; she's all right catching rats. +That's what she's for! And look here," he stopped his pitiful attempt at +Italian and ended fiercely, trusting to a grim eye and a set jaw to make +his meaning plain, "Don't you try any funny business on the cat when I'm +not around, or I'll knock your heads together till you can't see." + +He heard the girl speak to the men in an Italian that was so rapid it +made him dizzy and at the end caught the phrase, "do you understand?" +The men nodded, by no means pleased at the rebuff, the boy motioned +Neale to give him the cat, and carried her off carefully down the +corridor. + +"That was the very most splendid thing for you to do," the girl said to +him, with a soft energy of accent. + +He whirled about towards her, the immensity of his relief flooding his +face. "Oh, you _do_ speak English! You're _not_ Italian!" he cried, the +intonation of his phrase seeming to indicate that she had lifted from +his mind an apprehension of infinitely long standing. + +"Oh, yes," she said, smiling and looking directly at him, "of course I +speak English. I'm an American girl. My name is Marise Allen." + +Neale was so affected by the sweetness of her smile on him, by the +softness of her shining dark eyes, that he felt himself blushing and +stammering like a little boy. "M-mine is Neale Crittenden," he +answered. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + + +The dream-like Arabian Night unexpectedness which had descended on Neale +the evening before, on the roof, continued shimmeringly to wrap +everything in improbability. Instead of receiving his unfamiliar name +with the vague, conventional smile of a new acquaintance, the girl +raised her eyebrows high in a long, delicate arch and cried out, "You +are! Really! The one who has inherited Crittenden's?" Seeing Neale's +look of almost appalled amazement, she broke into a sudden laugh. Neale +had never heard any one laugh like that, almost like some one singing, +so clear and purely produced was its little trill. And yet it had been +as sudden and spontaneous as a gush of water from a spring. + +"I don't wonder you look astonished," she told him. "But you see when I +was a little girl I used often to play in and out of old Mr. +Crittenden's house and mill. I've never seen anything since in all my +life that seemed as wonderful and mighty to me as the way the saw used +to gnash its teeth at the great logs and slowly, shriekingly tear them +apart into boards. Didn't you use to love the moss on the old +water-wheel, too?" + +"I never saw the mill or the house," he told her. "I never saw my +great-uncle but once or twice in my life." He was too amazed to do +anything but answer her literally and baldly. + +"Why, how in the world...?" she began to ask, and then as a bell from +one of the innumerable church belfries outside began clangorously to +strike the hour, she glanced at her wrist-watch, and shook her head. +"It's breakfast-time," she said. She nodded, smiled and turned away, +stepping down the corridor with a light, supple gait. Neale had never +seen any one walk like that, as though every step were in time to music. + +He went back to his room to wash his hands and brush his clothes, which +showed signs of contact with dusty Roman walls and roofs. When, ten +minutes later, he went into the dining-room, five or six people were +already at table, Livingstone among them. Miss Oldham, the head of the +pension, introduced the newcomer to the others, mentioning names on both +sides. To Neale's surprise, Miss Allen did not explain (as he had opened +his mouth to do) that she had already seen and talked to Mr. Crittenden +that morning. Instead, she now gave him the conventional smile he had +expected ten minutes before, accepted the introduction as though she had +never seen his face and went on drinking her cafe-au-lait. + +More Arabian Nights. What did _this_ mean? Neale swallowed the reference +he had begun to their earlier meeting. Miss Oldham said to him with the +wearily playful accent of the conscientious pension-keeper, fostering +cheerful talk around her table, "I understand, Mr. Crittenden, that you +and Miss Allen are in a way related, as I might say." + +Livingstone joined in with his usual sprightliness: "Yes, Crittenden, +why didn't you tell me you had a fellow-townswoman in Rome? Last evening +when I went back into the salon and told the assembled company about you +and your inheritance there was Mademoiselle Allaine, who had often, in +her remote childhood, climbed on the respected knees of Monsieur your +Great-uncle." + +Miss Allen smiled quietly over her cup, remarked that it would have +taken a bolder child than she had ever been to climb on the knees of old +Mr. Crittenden, and, looking at her watch, rose to go. "Music, divine +music?" inquired Livingstone. + +"Yes, divine music," she answered lightly. "We are getting ready to play +at a soiree at Donna Antonia Pierleoni's. I'm due there at half past +nine to try out the piano in a new position in the room." + +"Clear out there by half-past nine!" cried Livingstone, as if exhausted +by the idea. + +She did not seem to consider that this required any answer, made a +graceful inclination of the head to the company at table and went off. + +Neale was repeating to himself, in mortal terror of forgetting it, +"Pierleoni. Pierleoni." He drank his coffee and ate his roll as though +he had a train to catch, and, rushing back to his room, seized his hat +and made off to the nearest cafe to consult the directory. With a sigh +of relief he found that there was only one Pierleoni, and that the +address was indeed as Livingstone had said, far away in the rich, new, +fashionable quarter. He set off on foot, but before he had walked five +minutes he was overcome with panic lest he be late, and hailed a rickety +cab. Thinking of nothing but the precious address which he had committed +to memory, he shouted it out to the cabman. Half-way there, he suddenly +remembered that he had no possible business at that address. He had a +horrid vision of driving up to the door, having the _portiere_ ask him +his errand, perhaps of having Miss Allen look out of the window and see +the scene. + +This threw him into such a fright that for an instant he could think of +no escape and sat passive, borne along to his fate by the unconscious +cabman. Then his wits came back to him, he called out to the cabman to +drive to number seventy-five and not a hundred and twenty; and having +thus snatched himself from destruction, perceived that they were even +then turning into the street. At number seventy-five he descended, +hastily paid the driver a good deal more than was due him, stepped into +the house, inquired if a gentleman by the name of Robinson lived there, +professed surprise and regret on hearing that he did not and walked on, +settling his necktie nervously. + +He told himself that he was acting like an imbecile, but he could not +seem to consider that important fact seriously. Having started in to do +anything, naturally he liked to put it through. Everybody did. And he +really would like to know how under the sun a dark-eyed girl in Rome +happened to know anything about his Great-uncle Burton. Any one would +feel a natural human curiosity on that score. And he had only five days +in Rome. + +The idea that he had only five days in Rome fell on him like a +thunderbolt, as though he had had no idea of it till that moment. Had +he said he had only five days in Rome? + +He walked along, looking up at the green waves of feathery foliage which +foamed down over the fawn-colored walls from the verdure of the gardens +inside. What a beautiful spot Rome was! He had not begun to appreciate +it on his last visit. It was wonderful! Such light! He had never seen +such sunlight anywhere. + +Ah, here was number a hundred and twenty, a fine great doorway in the +wall, with a gleaming brass plate, marked Pierleoni, at which Neale +looked with pleasure. He walked on some distance, as far as he could go +and keep the house in view, and, crossing over, walked slowly back. He +was not now in the least ashamed of his conduct. By this time it seemed +quite natural and suitable to him, just what any one would have done in +his place. Of course he wanted to know about his great-uncle. Who would +not? + +He had made the trip to the end of the street and back perhaps a dozen +times, his pulse beating more and more quickly, when from a distance he +saw a little door beside the great one open, and a tall girl in a +familiar light gray street-dress step out. But she was not alone. Beside +her walked a man, a tall, stooped old man with a black coat and a +wide-brimmed black felt hat. The girl's hand was on his arm. Neale felt +as astonished and grieved as though he had caught his best friend +cheating him at cards. It had never occurred to him that she might not +be alone! And yet he now remembered that she had said "we." + +He walked along behind them at a considerable distance, feeling for the +first time rather foolish, a sensation which instantly took wings as he +saw them, after turning into another street, stop at a door in the wall +and ring. Perhaps she was going to leave him there. Neale gave a great +start forward. + +But perhaps she was going in with him? He halted where he stood, feeling +very sick of himself and angrily resolving to turn his back on them and +go off about his business. He had never played the born fool so in his +life! + +But he did not turn his back on them. He stood observing them, while +they went through a leave-taking which seemed to him very formal and +long-drawn-out; and when the old man went in and the infernal gate +actually shut behind him, Neale started forward with a bound. + +But he reflected at once that it was too absurd to meet her here, in a +quarter of Rome where no business of his could possibly have brought him +at that hour. The cautious, adroit thing to do was to walk along behind +her at a distance, till she had turned into a thoroughfare with shops, +where he might conceivably be strolling. While he was making this +sagacious plan, his feet bore him rapidly up beside her, where he took +off his hat and said, "Good morning, Miss Allen," with a wide smile of +satisfaction which he knew must look nothing less than imbecile. + +Well, he had done what he had set out to do. + +She gave him a "good morning, Mr. Crittenden," that showed no surprise, +and with great tact began the talk on the only basis which gave him a +reasonable claim on her time. "You want to hear how somebody in Rome +knows about your great-uncle Burton, don't you? I'm afraid it's like so +many other things that sound mysterious and interesting. It will only be +quite flat and commonplace when you really know. It is no more than +this. When I was a little girl in America, and then later when I was in +college for a couple of years, I was sent to spend my summers in Ashley, +visiting an old cousin of my father's." She looked at him from under her +broad-brimmed blue hat, with a mock-regretful air, one eyebrow raised +whimsically, and made a little apologetic gesture with her shoulders. +"That's all," she said, smiling and shaking her head. + +"Oh, _no_, it's not all!" Neale cried to himself with intense +conviction. + +Aloud he said, "But I want to hear more about what kind of a place it +is. You see, to tell the truth, I'd forgotten that I had any Great-uncle +Burton. And I never was in Ashley. Think of being in Florence and +getting a letter saying that a saw-mill in Vermont has suddenly become +yours!" + +"I should call it a most nice sort of surprise," remarked the girl with +a quaintly un-English turn of phrase which he had already noticed and +thought the most delightful thing in the world. + +"And I'm on my way back to America now to see about it." + +"What does that mean--to 'see about it'?" she inquired. + +"Oh, sell it, of course." + +She was horrified. "_Sell_ it? To whom?" + +"Oh, to anybody who'll buy it." + +"Sell that darling old house, and those glorious elms. Sell that +beautiful leaded-glass door, with the cool white marble steps leading up +to it, and the big peony-bushes, and the syringas and that cold pure +spring-water that runs all day and all night in the wooden trough. Sell +that home! And to anybody!" She paused where she was, looking at him out +of wide, shocked eyes. Neale was profoundly thankful for anything that +would make her look straight at him like that. + +"But, you see," he told her, "I hadn't the least idea about that darling +old house, or the elms or the spring-water or anything. I never heard a +word about it till this minute. I think the only thing is for you to +start in and tell me everything." + +As she hesitated, professing with an outward opening of her palms that +she really didn't know exactly where to begin, he prompted her. + +"Well, begin at the beginning. How in the world do you get there?" + +"Oh, if you want to know from the beginning," she told him, "I must tell +you at once that you change cars at Hoosick Junction. Always, always, no +matter from which direction you approach, you must change cars at +Hoosick Junction, and wait an hour or so there." Seeing on his face a +rather strange expression, she feared that he had lost the point of her +little pleasantry, and inquired, "But perhaps it is that you do not know +Hoosick Junction." + +"Oh, yes, I know Hoosick Junction all right." He said it with a long +breath of wonder. "_I_ changed cars at Hoosick Junction to get here!" + +"Eh bien, and then a train finally takes you from Hoosick Junction. You +sit pressing your little nose against the window, waiting to see the +mountains, and when the first one heaves up softly, all blue against the +horizon, you feel a happy ache in your throat, and you look harder than +ever. And by and by some one calls out 'Shley!' (you know he means +Ashley) and you take your little satchel and stumble down the aisle, and +the conductor lifts you down the steps and there is dear old Cousin +Hetty with her wrinkled face shining on you. She only gives you a dry +little peck on your lips, quick and hard, and says, 'Well, Marise, you +got here, I see,' but you feel all over you, _warm_, how glad she is to +see you. And you hug her a great deal till she says, 'there! there!' but +you know she likes it very much." + +She was talking as she walked, as if her words were set to music, her +voice all little ripples, and bright upward and downward swoops like +swallows flying, her hands and arms and shoulders and eyebrows acting a +delicate pantomime of illustration, the pale, pure olive of her face +flushed slightly with her animation. Every time she flashed a quick look +up at him to make sure he was not bored, Neale caught his breath. He +felt as though he were drinking the strongest kind of wine, he had the +half-scared, half-enchanted feeling of a man who knows he is going to +get very drunk, and has little idea of what will happen when he does. + +"Yes, and then, and then?" he prompted her, eagerly. + +"Well, and then you get into a phaeton. Oh, I don't suppose you have +ever seen a phaeton!" + +"Yes, I have," he contradicted her. "I've driven my grandfather miles in +one when I was a little boy." + +"Oh, you _know_, then, about this sort of--you have perhaps lived in a +place like Ashley?" She was as eager as though it had been a question of +finding that they were of the same family. + +"I spent all my summers in West Adams, not so very far from Vermont." + +"Ah then, you can understand what I tell you!" she said with +satisfaction. "And in the phaeton you jog through the village, past the +church, under the elms, with the white houses each under its thick +green trees, and such green, green grass everywhere--not like Italy, all +brown and parched; and then down the road till the turn-off for +Crittenden's. For, you see, I also go to Crittenden's. My Cousin Hetty's +home is one of the three or four houses that stand around your +great-uncle's house and mill. And so up the road to Crittenden's between +the mountains closer and higher, up into the quiet valley." Her voice +deepened on the last words, and so did her eyes. She was silent a +moment, looking out unseeingly on the tropical palms and bright, huge +flowers of the Pincian Gardens through which they were now walking. + +"Eh bien, since it's you who are going home, you drive on a little +farther than my Cousin Hetty's house, until up before you slopes a +lovely meadow, smooth, bright, shining green, like the enamel green +field in the Limbo where Dante puts Electra and Hector and Caesar. At the +top of the slope, a long line of splendid, splendid elms, like this, you +know ..." with her two hands and a free, upward gesture of her arms, she +showed the airy opening-out of the wineglass elms, "and back of them a +long old house, ever so long, because everything is fastened along +together, house, porch, woodshed, hay-barn, carriage-shed, horse-barn." +She laughed at the recollection, turning to him. "You've seen those long +New England farm-homes? I remember a city man said once that you could +see the head of the lady of the house leaning from one window and the +head of a cow from another. He thought that the most crushing thing that +could be said, but _I_ think those homes perfectly delightful, homely, +with a _cachet_ of their own, not copied from houses in other countries. +And really, you know," she turned serious, thinking suddenly that +perhaps he needed reassurance, "really, it's just as _clean_ as any +other way of living. You're just as far away from the animals as with +any other barn, because you have so much woodshed and hay-barn and +things between you." + +To see her face with that quite new, housekeeping, matter-of-fact, +practical look gave him the most absurd and illogical amusement. He +laughed outright. "Oh, don't think for a moment that I would object," he +cried gaily. "I'm not a bit fastidious. I wouldn't care _how_ near the +cows were--if they were nice cows!" + +She thought for an instant he might be laughing at her, and peered +keenly into his face, a more openly observing look than she had as yet +given him. What she saw evidently reassured her, for she went on with a +lighter tone, "Truly it has its own sort of architectural beauty. It +doesn't have a bit of the packing-box, brought-in-and-dumped-down look +that most dwelling-houses have, no matter how they're planned. It seems +to have grown that way. The long, low old farm-house, weathered so +beautifully, it looks like an outcrop of the very earth itself, like a +ridge or rock or a fold in a field." + +It was about at this time that Neale began to lose the capacity of +listening to what she was saying. With the best will in the world he +could not keep his mind on it. He found that he felt a giddy, dazzled +uncertainty of where he was putting his feet and tried to pull himself +together. He must really notice a little more what he was about. Her +quick, rising and falling, articulate speech, her quick, flashing +changes of expression, the play of her flexible hands and shoulders--no, +how could he listen to what she was saying? + +But she was asking him a question now. She was saying, "You're not +really going to _sell_ all that, to just _any_body?" + +"But really," he answered, helplessly honest, "it sounds wonderful as +you tell it, but what could _I_ do with it? I couldn't very well go to +_live_ in Ashley, Vermont, could I?" + +"Why not?" she asked. "A good many people have." + +"Well! But ..." he began, incapable of forming any answer, incapable of +thinking of anything but the dark softness of her gaze on him. What was +it they were talking about? Oh, yes, about selling out at Ashley. "Oh, +but I have other plans. I am just about to go to China." + +"_China!_ Why to China?" + +Neale lost his head entirely ... "notice more what he was about?" He had +not the least idea what he was about. He said to her rather wildly, "I +hardly know myself why I am going to China. I'd like, if you will let +me--I'd like ever so much to tell you--about it. And see what you +think. You know about Ashley, don't you see?" He was aware that the +last of what he had said had no shadow of connection with the first, but +that seemed of no importance whatever to him. + +They were standing now near a low wall, under some thick dark ilex +trees, a fountain dripping musically before them. Mechanically they sat +down, looking earnestly at each other. "You see," began Neale, "I'm +trying to find my way. I was in business in the States, and getting +along all right ... 'getting on,' I mean, as they say. And then I got to +wondering. It seemed as though, as though ... I wasn't sure it was what +I wanted to do with my life, just to buy low and sell high, all my life +long. Perhaps there was more to it than I could make out. It certainly +seemed to suit a lot of folks, fine. But I couldn't seem to see it. I +was all right. Nothing the matter. Only I couldn't ... why, I tell you, +I felt like a perfectly good torch that wouldn't catch on fire. I +couldn't seem to _care_ enough about it to make it worth while to really +tear in and do it. And I thought maybe if I got off a little way from +it ... sometimes you do see the sense of things better that way. So I +went away. I took a year off. I'd saved a little money, enough for that. +And I've been trying to figure something out. Of course I've been +enjoying the traveling around, too. Perhaps that's the real reason why I +want to go to China, just to keep going, see new things, get away, keep +free. But I think about the other a good deal ... what can I do with my +life ... that's sort of _worth while_, you know, if only in a very small +way. I'm a very ordinary man, no gifts, no talents, but I have lots of +energy and health. It seems as though there ought to be _some_thing ... +doesn't it?" + +He had stumbled on, breathlessly, involuntarily, hardly aware that he +was speaking at all, aware only that she was listening. With her head +bent, her eyes fixed on the ground, the pure pale olive of her face like +a pearl in the shadow of her hat, she was listening intently. He knew, +as he had never known anything else, that she was listening to what he +really meant, not to what he was saying in those poor, plain, broken +words. + +And yet, how could he go on? + +The sudden plunge he had made, deep into an element new to him, the +utter strangeness of his having thus spoken out what he had before but +shyly glanced at, the awfulness of having opened his heart to the day, +his shut, shut heart.... Good God, what was he doing? + +At his silence, she raised her face towards him. To his amazement her +eyes were shining wet with tears. And yet there was no sadness in her +face. She was smiling at him, a wavering, misty smile. + +She stood up, made a little, flexible, eloquent gesture with her hands +and arms and shoulders, as if to explain to him that she could not trust +herself to speak, and, still smiling at him, the tears still in her +eyes, walked rapidly away. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + + +After dinner that evening Miss Allen came up to where Mr. Livingstone +and Mr. Crittenden stood together near the window and said to them, +"Would it interest you at all to go to the soiree at Donna Antonia's +to-morrow? She has been kind enough to offer me some cards of +invitation, and it occurred to me--if you haven't anything better to do +that evening--?" + +Livingstone carried one hand to his heart, the other to his brow, and +professed inability to recover from the shock. "My dear young lady, it's +inhuman to shatter my nerves with a bomb-shell like that without a word +of warning! You know well enough I'd gladly give one of my ears for an +invitation to Donna Antonia's. Why then the false modesty, as who should +say, 'If you've nothing more interesting on hand just step up and let me +make you a Duke, do!'" + +Miss Allen acknowledged the facetious intention of this with a suitable +laugh and looked at Neale. He said, "Oh, of course I shall be glad to +go." + +"That's good then. I shall hope to see both of you." + +When she had turned away to another group in the salon Livingstone put +his head on one side and smiled down at his cigarette. "That's what +comes of a little judicious attention bestowed in the right direction," +he informed Neale. "I've been getting up at the unearthly hour that girl +takes her breakfast for a fortnight now. Quite a charmer, isn't +she?--though nothing to her friend Miss Mills. It's Miss Mills I'm +interested in. Just wait till you see _that_ joint production of +American cash and European civilization! M-m-m! Hair like gold thread, +and scads of money in her own right." He added seriously, "Miss Allen +hasn't, you know--money, I mean, too bad, isn't it? Her father is only a +salaried man--something or other for Paris for the something or other +sewing-machine company. Oh, no, I believe it's mowing machines,--or +maybe twist drills--anyhow one of those missionaries from our own little +home-paradise of cogs and gears. But of course the fair Allaine may make +a lot herself if she really does get on the concert stage. Still you +never can tell. There's an awful lot of interior wire-pulling to be +done, managers and musical critics and so on, before anybody really is +allowed to get to the bacon in the concert business, and is she really +anywhere near professional skill, who knows? However, a pretty girl +always stands enough sight better show than a plain one; or than a man. +If she uses those dark eyes of hers to good account I should think 'most +any manager or music critic would fall for her. _She_ has a good skin, +too; quite pleasant, that clear olive, though of course it's awfully +common here in Italy. Just the same, a dark woman never has the _eclat_ +of a blonde. Wait till you see Miss Mills." + +Neale broke in on his flow to remark in a suffocated voice that he had +letters to write, and disappeared. + + * * * * * + +The soiree was horrible to Neale, a nightmare, a glittering wall through +which he could by no means break to reach her, over which he could +scarcely see at an immense distance her slim figure, dressed in yellow, +a thin gold fillet binding her smooth dark head. She was talking, +smiling, animated, at ease; and after she had played, much acclaimed. +There was nothing surprising about _that_, thought Neale, applauding +with all his might. Heavens, how beautifully she made music, how +beautifully, how intelligently, with such a clear, sure certainty of her +own powers! Of course everybody there admired her, paid court to her, +made her the center of one group after another--always except the group +where he stood! He felt heart-sick to be so cut off from her. As a +matter of fact he was not in the least literally cut off from her. She +kept relentlessly introducing him to one person after another whom he +did not wish to meet. She kept coming up to him every time he had +succeeded in shaking off a tiresome companion and was standing alone at +last in a corner, looking everywhere over the curled, powdered, bobbing, +restless, grinning crowd to catch a glimpse of her. There she would be +at his elbow, gliding up from nowhere. He restrained an impulse to +snatch at her and hold her there, because each time she melted away +after she had said, "Won't you let me take you to Donna Antonia +Pierleoni," or "to Miss Mills," or "to Signor Ambrogi," or to somebody +or other with whom it was necessary to talk and on whom it was necessary +to try to keep those wandering, seeking eyes of his. He took them in +with the top-layer of his consciousness, one after another of the people +with whom he was forced to talk. Donna Antonia Pierleoni, a haughty, +elderly Roman lady who was, as Neale said to himself, feeding her +haughty Roman face as though she scorned and despised lemon ice but +_would_ eat it since it seemed to be her duty. It amused him greatly to +observe that after finishing one she took another at once. + +Miss Mills--oh, yes, this must be the girl Livingstone had been yarning +about. Of course after praise from Livingstone it was to be expected +that she'd look like a very high-priced wax image in a hair-dresser's +window; and yet Neale's attention was caught for a moment by her +pronunciation of a French phrase. Her inflection reminded him of Marise +Allen's, and he hung about her for some time in the hope of hearing it +again. Every time she repeated it, which she often did, he smiled down +broadly on her. She was a pretty little thing. Livingstone was right. +She was really quite an object of art, if that was what you called them. + +Signor Ambrogi turned out to be in politics, an assistant Minister of +Commerce or Industry or something. Why, he looked for all the world like +a New York business man--might be old man Gates as he had been at +forty-five. As they tried to talk to each other in French that was not +very fluent on either side, Neale was reflecting that the Roman +governing type had changed very little. This strongly-marked, +clean-shaven, heavy-jowled head with its thick, hooked nose, bold eyes, +hard mouth and wrinkled forehead, could be put without change in among +the portraits of Roman Emperors. + +They talked in their halting "lingua Franca" of business, of railroads, +of the use of commercial fertilizers on Italian fields, of the +conversion of water-power into electrical energy, and, finding Neale a +good listener, the Italian told him about a power-plant in a volcanic +region of Italy that ran its machinery by the steam escaping from the +thin crust of earth over internal volcanic goings-on. For an instant +Neale was quite stirred by this conception. It seemed a very neat idea, +and it tickled him to have Italians turn such a traditionally American +trick. + +"Pretty good, pretty good!" he said applaudingly. "That's beating us at +our own game." + +"Pas si bete, en effet," said the other, well pleased by Neale's +comment. + +But this interlude was the only time when, even for a moment, Neale was +delivered from his desolation at seeing her so far from his world, from +any world he could possibly hope ever to make his own. That brilliant +musician--how wonderful to be able to play the piano like that!--that +beautiful young woman of the world, the center of this brilliant +cosmopolitan crowd, friend of titled Roman ladies, and ministers--was it +she whom he had followed in the street like any pushing, thick-skinned +bumpkin, to whom he had poured out what he had never before breathed to +any living being? What on earth could she think of him? For what kind of +a flamboyant idiot did she take him? Well, the best thing to do--Great +Scott, the _only_ thing to do was to shut up and back out. As he walked +home with Livingstone at midnight he had made up his mind to take the +first train to Naples the next morning. + +But he made no move whatever to do this, when the morning came. Dumb and +stupid as a sheep, he made his way doggedly to the dining-room at the +earliest hour, to see Miss Allen take her cafe-au-lait. As he went in at +the door, he realized that his calculations were all wrong, that she had +been up late the night before and would certainly sleep late that +morning. But Livingstone had already seen him and hailed him. It was too +late to go back and wait. He sat down, gloomily stirred the sugar into +his coffee and listened to Livingstone fizz all over the place about the +evening's entertainment which had uplifted him to exaltation. "You +don't _realize_, Crittenden, what an opportunity that was to see +exclusive Roman society, the kind that foreigners like us never meet, +not the flashy, big-hotel, off-color crowd. Why, I was introduced to +name after name that sounded like a page out of Roman history." + +Neale thought with a passing grim irony that Livingstone's phrase was +accurately turned--"introduced to names"--yea, verily. Well, names were +what Livingstone was after. + +"Oh, you up already, Miss Allen," said Livingstone, springing to seat +her with an agility for which Neale hated him. He himself sat like a +lump, incapable because of the sudden rush of blood to his head, of +anything but nodding a silent answer to her greeting. + +Livingstone needed no help in keeping up the conversation. He flowed on, +delightedly passing in review every detail of the evening of which he +had not missed a single one, apparently, from the way Donna Antonia's +maid did her hair to the dandruff on the coat-collar of the old +Visconti. "Of course I know he's a great musician and all that, but +really if you will let your hair grow so long, you ought to have a +pocket clothes-brush and _use_ it, oughtn't you? Why don't you do it for +him, Miss Allen? Every one says he is absolutely gone on you, that you +could do anything with him!" He passed from this without transition to +Miss Mills' toilette which had been, so it seemed, a veritable triumph. + +"Yes, yes, wasn't it beautiful! Eugenia's clothes are simply wonderful." +Miss Allen broke in to say enthusiastically, "She has the most +never-failing taste." + +"A never-failing pocket-book," corrected Livingstone. "You don't get far +with mere taste _dans ce bas monde_." + +Miss Allen finished her coffee, and, setting down her cup, remarked, +"You two Americans seem to have made a most agreeable impression last +evening. Donna Antonia called me back to say that Signor Ambrogi would +be glad to see more of you. She wished me to ask you both if you +couldn't come to have tea with her and with Signor Ambrogi this +afternoon at five." + +Livingstone fell back in his chair, dramatically. "The long struggle is +over, Crittenden. Our fortunes are made!" he cried with his usual +facetiousness, but by the expression on his face he was really moved and +dazzled. "Kindly convey to Donna Antonia Pierleoni the assurance of our +condescending regards and say that if we can spare the time from the +press of other more important duties...." + +Neale said plainly and bluntly, "I'm afraid I'd better excuse myself. I +have a previous engagement." + +The other two turned on him with faces of astonishment. "You're not +_going_?" cried Livingstone, appalled. + +"Why should I break an engagement?" said Neale. + +"Why _should_ you?" Livingstone gaped at him. "Only the trifling, +insignificant reason that Donna Antonia is one of the greatest _grandes +dames_ in Rome, and Ambrogi one of _the_ coming men in the government." + +"Has that anything to do with me?" Neale asked with the sincerest +incapacity to imagine any reason why it should. He was stricken with +anticipatory boredom at the idea of having to make talk again with that +disagreeable old woman. + +Livingstone wondered if Crittenden had really understood from whom the +invitation came. "Don't you remember meeting her? The one with the +wonderfully high-bred type?" + +"Oh, I remember her all right, the old lady with the predatory sharpness +of beak and claw that's called aristocratic," said Neale, trying to get +a rise out of Livingstone. That was usually easy enough, but he was now +too genuinely concerned to defend his standards. "Now, Crittenden," he +said, laying down his napkin and speaking from his heart, "to seem not +to wish to continue the acquaintance of a lady who makes a civil +advance--it simply _isn't done_!" + +"Oh, go on!" said Neale, laughing at the idea. "Much she'd care what an +impecunious American in a pension does or doesn't do!" + +Livingstone had recovered himself enough to reflect that Neale's refusal +would not at all hinder his own acceptance--in fact, on the +contrary--"Well, well, no matter," he said with a change of manner, +"perhaps you're right. Without a knowledge of the language, +conversation in a small group _is_ rather--Five o'clock, did you say, +Miss Allen?" + +"Yes, five," she answered. She went on, with a manner suddenly gay, +"Perceive the difference in human fate. At five you will be taking tea +with personages, and I shall be scurrying to take a belated music +lesson." + +"Why at _that_ hour?" inquired Livingstone. + +"I've put it off to help Eugenia get settled here. For she's coming +over, bag and baggage, Josephine and Mlle. Tollet, to live with us for a +while. Isn't that jolly?" + +Livingstone was visibly affected. He flushed a little, and cleared his +throat before he asked with a careful reassumption of his usual airy +manner, "Might I perhaps, if it is not indiscreet to ask, be permitted +to breathe out upon the air a request to be informed what possible +reason any one can have for leaving the golden bath-tubs (if I may so +express myself) of the Grand Hotel, and sojourning at the respectable +but hardly luxurious Pensione Oldham?" + +"That's what I asked her last night when she told me. But it seems she's +just tired of gilded bath-tubs (if I may borrow the expression) and +wants a change." + +"I might say without exaggeration that she would be reasonably sure of +getting it," surmised Livingstone, looking around him. + +Neale could think of nothing to add to the conversation. You never could +get a word in edgeways when Livingstone was in the room, anyhow. His +mind was full of something else too. "A music lesson at five." The name +Visconti was as apt to be in the directory as Pierleoni had been. + + * * * * * + +At five he saw her go into the little gate in the wall from which during +the next hour he did not take his eyes. He stood in the doorway of an +apartment house across the street, and when the _portiere_ came out +responsibly to ask whom he wished to see, Neale told him in English, +seriously with a long breath, "The girl I've lost my head over." As he +accompanied this unintelligible information with a large tip, as his +clothes were respectable, as he was evidently a foreigner, and had +moreover a rather strange spark of excitement in his eyes, the +_portiere_ pocketed the tip, looked with respect at Neale's powerful +proportions, and went discreetly back to his own affairs. + +When she came out at six Neale was struck speechless. He had spent the +entire hour thinking how she looked, remembering every detail of her +beauty. And yet it was as though he saw for the first time that noble +carriage of her head and shoulders, that heart-taking curve of her long +fine brows, the smooth pale oval of her face, the touching wistfulness, +the _seeking_ look in her dark eyes. That was before she saw him. When +he came up to her she broke at once into a laugh, her face sparkling and +merry, a delicate malice in the mobile lines of her red lips. + +"Oh, Mr. Crittenden, I've been wanting to see you! To share a joke with +you! Such a joke! That invitation to tea, you know. You see, _you_ were +really the one Signor Ambrogi wants to see, you were the only one Donna +Antonia spoke of. But I knew it would hurt Mr. Livingstone so, if he +were left out. I made her understand that. So she said, 'Oh, well, if +you insist, he can come too.' It's rather--don't you think it +is?--rather a joke?" She began to laugh again. "Don't you see it, the +scene when he walks in alone--the good Livingstone in his best clothes, +so happy and so important, with his best brand of European conversation +in the show-window--a comparison most likely of Caravaggio's theory of +treating wall spaces with Correggio's. And what Ambrogi wants to discuss +is American railroad terminal facilities! Ambrogi is a man of the +people. He's made his own way up from the bottom. He has probably never +heard of Correggio in his life. And doesn't see why he should," she +finished with a peal of laughter. + +Neale laughed, but he did not find it as comic as she. "I'd no idea of +all that," he said uncomfortably. "Perhaps I ought to have gone. It +rather looks like putting poor old Livingstone in a hole." + +"Oh, no; oh, _no_," she reassured him. "They'll be good to him. They may +look at each other once or twice. But nothing more. He'll never know. +He _doesn't_, Mr. Livingstone--often he doesn't know." + +"Not much, that's a fact," agreed Neale, reflecting that he did not seem +to either. + +She asked him suddenly, "But really why _didn't_ you accept?" + +"Do you want to know?" he asked warningly. + +"Yes, I really wonder." + +"Simplest reason in the world. I didn't like Donna Antonia Pierleoni +very well. She seemed to me like a bad-tempered, stupid old lady, +mightily full of her own importance. Why under the sun _should_ I go and +have tea with such a person?" + +"Eh bien...!" she breathed out a long, soft ejaculation of surprise, +looking at him very queerly. + +"You're thinking I'm very rude to say such a thing about a friend of +yours," he said, hanging his head. + +"I'm thinking no such thing at all," she contradicted him. "I don't +believe you could _imagine_ what I'm thinking." + +"You never said a truer thing," Neale admitted ruefully. + +"Well, I'll tell you," she said, "though it couldn't be interesting to +anybody but me. I was thinking that I had never heard anybody before who +spoke the truth right out about somebody who had wealth and position." + +"You mustn't blame me for it!" Neale excused himself. "I'm a regular +outsider on all that sort of thing--you remember the Sioux Indian in the +eighteenth century who was taken to see the court at Versailles? How he +strolled around in his blanket and couldn't make out what all the bowing +and scraping was about? Well, he and I are about on a level of blank +ignorance of social distinctions." + +"But you don't _wish_ to know," the girl divined, "you don't care if you +_are_ an outsider. Why, I believe," she said with a little burst of +astonishment, "I believe you'd rather be an outsider." + +He looked apologetic. "That's part of my dumbness, don't you see? I just +can't conceive why anybody should bother his head about it. _I_ tell +you," he hit on the right phrase of explanation, "I just don't know any +better." + +"Would you learn?" she pressed him more closely. + +"Not if I could run faster than the person who was trying to teach me!" +he confessed helplessly. + +The girl broke into another laugh. There never was anybody who laughed +like that, with her lips, and her gleaming, dancing eyes, and her +eyebrows--even her hands had a droll little gesture of delightedly +giving him up. What in the world had ever made him imagine that her +expression was pensive or her eyes wistful? + +"Do you mind?" he asked, rather uncertain what she was laughing at, and +hoping it was not at him. + +"Oh, I _like_ it!" she told him, heartily. "But it's the very first time +I ever ran into it. It makes me laugh, it's so unexpected." + +"Well, it has its disadvantages," he broke in, seeing an opening to say +something that had been on his conscience for two days. "It makes you do +all sorts of unusual and unconventional things without meaning to at +all. Like my talking to you yesterday morning, for instance, in the +corridor of the pension, when I hadn't been introduced to you." + +She stopped laughing, her face all blank with surprise. "Why, that was +not unconventional! People at the same pension never wait for +introductions. And anyhow I'm not a _jeune fille du monde_. I'm just a +music-student. If you only knew how _some_ people try to take advantage +of that! Why, what in the world made you think it was not all right?" + +"Well, when you didn't say anything about it at the breakfast table, +when Miss Oldham introduced us, the way you looked as though you'd never +seen me before. I thought you--I thought I--well, why _didn't_ you +mention we'd just been talking?" + +"Oh--" She remembered the incident. "Why didn't I? Why _should_ I? You +always hide what you don't have to tell, don't you?" + +Neale pondered this negligent axiom for a time, and then said +hesitatingly, "But if the servants happened to mention it?" + +"Oh," she explained quickly, as if mentioning something that went +without saying, "oh, of course I told the servants not to speak of it." + +"You did!" He felt that he was looking through what he had always +thought was the opaque surface of things, and seeing a great deal more +going on there than he had dreamed. "But can you count on them?" + +She continued to be as surprised at his surprise as he at the whole +manoeuver. "Oh, of course you can never count on servants unless there's +something in it for them. I gave them a little tip apiece." + +"You _did_!" He could only stupidly repeat his exclamation. "What did +they say?" + +"Why, they found it perfectly natural. They won't mention it--not of +course unless somebody else tips them more, and I don't see why anybody +should, do you?" + +Neale stood looking at her, a little consternation mingling with his +astonishment. This was what it was to have been brought up in what +people called a civilized way, this smooth mastery of concealment ... +how easy it had been for her, at the breakfast table yesterday, not to +give the faintest hint she had just been talking animatedly with him; +and this morning not the faintest hint to Livingstone that she was +laughing at his expense. Why, that lovely face was just like a mask. You +hadn't the least idea what was going on behind it. + +There was a silence. She was looking up at him with a new expression, +almost timidly. "You don't like my hiding things?" she asked him, coming +to a stop. They were near the pension now, standing in the twilight on a +deserted street. + +He aroused himself to shrug his shoulders and answer evasively, "Oh, +it's not in the least any business of mine." + +"But you don't like it?" she insisted, looking straight at him with the +deadly soft gaze that always made him lose his head entirely. "It's of +no consequence--none," he murmured. But she still looked at him. He +tried to think of some other evasive answer, but in the confusion of his +mind he could not think at all. And he must say _something_. With alarm, +with horror, he heard himself saying baldly, as he would to a man, to an +intimate, the literal truth, "Well, no, not so very well, if you really +want to know." + +It was as though he had seen himself swinging an ax at an angle that +would bring the edge deep into his own flesh. He felt it cut deep and +bleed. He dared not look at her. He wished to God he had gone on +straight to Naples. + +Somehow he _was_ looking at her. Her face was deeply flushed. She looked +as though he had struck her in the face. Well, now it was certainly all +over. He might as well turn around and walk away and never look at her +again. + +He said blunderingly, in a trembling voice, "I'm _so_ sorry! I didn't +mean to say that. It's no business of mine. I'm awfully ashamed of +myself. _Please_ forget it. What do _you_ care what I think? I'm nobody, +nobody at all." + +"Why did you say that?" she asked him in a low voice, with a driving +intensity of accent, as though more than anything else she must have an +answer from him. + +"Well, you asked me," he said in abject misery, aware of the hideous, +flat futility of such an answer. If only he were an expansive Italian +now, he could think of some way openly to abase himself, instead of +standing there callously and dully. "Oh, please don't think of it +again," he implored her, wishing he could get down on his knees to beg +her pardon. + +She drew a long breath and put her hand to her heart. "It's the first +time anybody ever told the truth to me, you see," she said faintly, with +a strange accent. "I ... I'll like it ... I think ... when I can get my +breath." + +To his amazement he saw that she was trying bravely to smile at him. + +To his greater amazement he snatched up both her hands and carried them +roughly and passionately to his lips. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + + +During the interminable process of hanging the skirt of that yellow +dress for Donna Antonia's soiree, Marise kept thinking of the Pantheon. +The dressmaker's lodging was near there. If they could only be done with +those draperies she would have time to step into the place which she +loved best in Rome. She cast a look at herself in the cracked mirror +which was all the inexpensive little dressmaker could afford. "I'm +afraid it's higher on the right hip," she said, and settled with a sigh +to endure more pinnings and unpinnings. "Strange, how important it is +for the correct playing of Beethoven," she thought ironically, "that the +drapery on one hip shall not be higher than on the other." She caught a +glimpse of herself as she thought this, and frowned to see her lip +curled in a cold, ugly line of distaste. Her thoughts were showing more +and more on her face. She knew well enough what Mme. Vallery would say. +She would say, "Don't pretend, dear child, that you don't know perfectly +well that the kind of dress you wear has a great deal to do with +everything that anybody cares about, and that the kind of people you +must depend on to make your music profitable are the kind who care +nothing about music and altogether about looks." + +That was true, of course, but all the same it did make Marise sick to +have people call a "soiree musicale" what really was a "sartorial +evening." Of course it was understood that people were hypocritical +about everything. She granted that they never called anything by its +right name. But she did wish they would leave music alone! She _cared_ +about that! + +"That's right now," she said aloud, looking intently from one hip to the +other. "Perhaps a _little_ more--no, it will do as it is." + + * * * * * + +She would have time for the Pantheon after all--ten minutes at least. +Ten minutes for the Pantheon! She had been three-quarters of an hour +with the dressmaker! That was her life! She walked in through the gray +old portico, and, still fretting, her mouth still in the cold, ugly +line, she stepped through the huge bronze doorway and stood under the +vault ... "_ah!_" + +She always forgot how it affected her or she would come in every day as +other people said their prayers. It was as though it had been made for +her and had waited till she came, sore-hearted, to look at it and find a +passing peace. + +She lifted her face to the huge open circle at the center of the dome +high over her head. Quiet strength came into her heart from those great +gray stones. Century after century they had enclosed that lovely circle +of open sky and sunlit cloud and swallow-flights. Every other ancient +roof in Rome had gone down to heaps of rubbish, save only this, +steadfast, enduring, letting in the innocent clear light of every day +down to the heart of the old temple. + +Daylight--that was what made the Pantheon a place apart for her--honest +daylight. How cheap beside it was the theatrical yellow of the windows +back of the altar in St. Peter's! + +She looked about her for a place to sit, and, seeing no chair, took a +prie-dieu and sank to her knees on it as though she were praying. She +was praying in her way. She continued to look up at the heaped golden +clouds, at the infinite depth of the blue, blue sky, at the ineffable +clarity of the light, pouring in through the great round opening. It +seemed to smile at her, an honest, loving, reassuring smile that flooded +her vexed, somber heart as it flooded the somber, ancient building. What +strength, what strength in those gray stones, to hold together where +everything else had been broken and dispersed! How beautiful primitive +things were! How consoling and healing--the hardness and strength of +stones, the clarity of light, the transparency of the sky! If you could +only somehow make your life up of such things--strength, sunshine, +simplicity--and music! + +She continued to gaze up, her hands clasped. Yes, she was praying, she +was praying for a little share of all that. + + * * * * * + +What was that absurd Mr. Livingstone saying? Marise glanced up sharply +from her book and listened. Why, he was talking about Crittenden's--old +Mr. Crittenden dead and had left that lovely old mountain home to some +indifferent nephew? To make sure, she put her book down and asked a +question or two. How strange that she should be talking about _Ashley_ +to people here in a Roman _pension_! Ashley! Crittenden's! Cousin Hetty! + +She seemed to have gone again back to her book, but she was not reading. +She was looking at a sunlit green valley, a white road winding through +it, a glass-clear little river chanting under willows, low, friendly +homes under tall elms, ugly old people with plain speech and honest, +quiet eyes, smiling down lovingly on a skipping, frisking little girl. + + "... I see them shining plain, + The happy highways where I went + And may not go again." + +After a time she closed her book and went up on the roof for a quiet +moment alone, to go back to Ashley, to look at those blue, remembered +hills. + +But there was some one else on the terrazza. She made out a man's figure +under the grapevine. Being a girl, she thought impatiently, she was +obliged to turn back and shut herself up in her stuffy room. It +continued to be exactly as it had been in Bayonne. The world was one +great Jeanne, with a nose twitching for scandal. Ashley was far away! + + * * * * * + +She had watched the horrid little tragedy of the swallow with such +intensity that when the catastrophe came she almost felt those curved +claws sink into her own flesh ... _bon Dieu!_ What was that man doing +climbing out of the window--a madman! No, _he_ had seen the cat, too! +What a leap! And now how he ran--like a _prestissimo alla forte_ +passage! _Ah!_ He had caught that wretched cat. But the swallow was +dead. He was too late! How gently he picked it up. Did _men_ ever feel +compassion for things hurt? + +Oh! _oh!_ the swallow had flown out of his hands! How it soared up and +up! Who would not soar, saved by a strong, kind hand from such terror! + +He had turned to come back. It was a good face--but after she had seen +the expression of the deep-set, steady eyes she could see nothing but +that. Eyes that looked kind, but not weak. In the world about Marise it +had been an understood axiom that only weak people were kind. + +And what now--eh _bien_! To defend the cat! What did he care about a +cat? + +Yet she saw it at once. What he wanted was justice. Think of any one's +wanting justice for anything--let alone a _cat_! + +No--how quaint, how amusing--one unexpected thing after another!--he +wasn't a bit conceited about what he'd done--how _funny_ that he was +embarrassed and shy! Why, no man with Latin blood could have restrained +himself by any effort of self-control from a little flourish of +self-satisfaction after such a dashing exploit. He wasn't thinking how +she must be admiring him. He wasn't thinking of himself at all. How--how +_nice_--to see him blushing and stammering like a nice, nice boy. She +could scarcely keep back the laugh of touched and pleased amusement that +came to her lips. + + * * * * * + +Eh bien, he might blush easily and be shy, but he knew as well as any +Latin how to catch at a chance indication from a woman, and how to be at +the right place at the right hour. When she and il Maestro came out of +Donna Antonia's door, she saw his tall figure at the end of the street. +Ridiculous, what a start it gave her! And as soon as Visconti had left +her there he was beside her with one long bound. Now she would really +look at him enumeratingly and see what sort of face he had. + +But when she looked at him she saw that his eyes were smiling down at +her, and she went no further than the eyes again. + +She began to tell him about Ashley, of which she had dreamed the night +before, the first time in so long. It had been a good dream, all about +going home to Cousin Hetty and playing dolls up in the attic again. And +it was good, how good, to talk to some one about it, the first +time--why, since she had left Ashley! He seemed like--like what +Americans meant when they spoke of their "own home folks." Marise had +never had any such. There was a real reason to give herself the fun of +telling about Crittenden's too, since this Crittenden was soon to be +there. She would just let herself go for once! + +But how she did run on when she let herself go! She hardly knew herself, +chattering like this, as fast as her tongue could wag. Chattering and +laughing and gesticulating--and not able to stop--the foolish way people +do who have drunk too much champagne, the foolish way a canary does when +you take the dark cloth from his cage and he sees that the sun is +shining, the way silly girls do the first time they have a conversation +with a young man. Yes, that was the way her voice sounded. Why could she +not stop chattering and laughing? What must he be thinking of her? She +would stop. She would change the subject. She would look at her watch +and say that she was late for an engagement and must take a tram-car and +leave him. + +Forming this plan, she led him rapidly through the gate into the +Borghese Gardens where there are no tram-cars, through which lay the +longest possible way home. She thought glancingly of this inconsistency, +but it did not seem very important to her, because she began to be aware +of something that startled her a little. She was now taking him all over +the old house at Crittenden's. Yes, it was as though she had taken his +hand and were leading him through those fine old rooms. She was aware of +him--like that--as though their hands really did touch, warmly and +actually touch--and she liked it! She who detested above everything else +the slightest physical contact with another human body--who hated men +for only looking at her bare arm as if they would like to touch it. + +Oh, well, oh, well, it was nothing--she brushed it aside, it was gone. +She told herself hastily in a phrase she had heard Mme. Vallery use, +that a very fine physical specimen of a man exercises a sort of +unconscious magnetism on every one near him, that has no more real human +significance than the way a pebble naturally rolls down hill and not up. +And he certainly was what any one would call a fine physical specimen, +so tall, so solidly, vigorously built, with such a long, swinging +step--she glanced at him as she talked--but it wasn't his strength that +gave him his individuality--it was his _quiet_ look. + + * * * * * + +They had come out from the Pincian now, stopped and were looking at each +other, under the ilex trees. From the way he had answered her astonished +question about China she had known that he was going to say something to +her, really something that he meant, as people never do, something from +far underneath the surface. But she had never dreamed that he would so +throw open the doors of his heart and let her look in to see something +she had never thought was in any one's heart,--the honest desire to do +something with his life beyond getting out of it all he could for +himself. It was like daylight shining down, clear, into dark shadows. + + * * * * * + +Marise dreaded Donna Antonia's musical entertainments. They were +nightmares, at least for a girl with no recognized definite rung on the +social ladder as her own, at least for a paid entertainer who was paid +not only to play a Beethoven sonata, but to look well, to add to the +social brilliancy of the evening, to make up for Donna Antonia's +prodigious inertia by rushing about, seeing that everything went +smoothly, that the servants did not sequester half the ices, that each +guest had some one to talk to. If she could only come in, play her +Beethoven and go away again!--That was really all she was paid for. No, +of course the pay for the rest of what she did was Donna Antonia's +"taking her up," her familiarity in the great house, those occasional +condescending "cards for her personal friends," all that Donna Antonia +could do for a young pianist's future. Every one told her that her +fortunes were made, now that Donna Antonia had taken a fancy to her, +every one expected her as a matter of course to make the most of her +great opportunity, to flatter Donna Antonia, to run briskly on her +errands, to accept with apparent pleasure the amused, patronizing +friendliness of a capricious great lady who on some days was caressing +and petting, like a person with a pet cat, and on others was cold and +distant, like a person who has no use for cats. She was not only to play +for Donna Antonia whenever she was asked, but sit on a cushion, let her +hair be stroked and talk intimately with Donna Antonia of things Marise +would much prefer not to know about; or on another day to be willing to +dash out in a cab to get a delayed dress from the dressmaker's because +the maid was busy with hair-dressing; or, as on this evening, act the +part of helpful daughter of the house, when her real position (which all +the guests knew perfectly well how to make her feel) was that of +temporary toy and amusement. What really underlay all that advice to +make the most of this great opportunity was a doubt whether she was +genuinely gifted enough to make her own way by her talent, was the +feeling that the best way to make up for deficiencies in her musical +equipment was by accumulating personal influences of social importance +on her side. The "great opportunity" which Visconti's other pupils so +envied her was nothing more or less than making the acquaintance of +these wealthy, important, unmusical people, and being more adroit in +making use of them than they of her. This was perfectly understood all +around--especially by the men watching to find a weak spot, who looked +at her admiringly and found graceful things to say about her playing and +her arms and her hands and her hair and everything else they dared +mention; especially by the old Ambrogi, with his brutal certainty that +as long as he was mounting in power, any woman--oh, they made her +_sick_!--Donna Antonia and Ambrogi! Such _old_ people, with bags under +their eyes and flabby necks! And they really didn't care a sou about +each other--he wanted only to make use of the position that Donna +Antonia's birth gave her, and she only wanted to have the prestige of +owning a politician; or perhaps the prestige of showing that in spite of +bags under her eyes she was still not too old for that sort of thing. + +Before she ran up to make sure that no guests were stranded in the +library without being served with ices, Marise looked cautiously into +the dark corner on the landing to make sure that Ambrogi was not there. +Horrid--an old man like that who could not keep his hands off women +thirty years younger than he! But as for that, the old Visconti himself +could not keep his off women fifty years younger than he! As she sped +swiftly along the upper hall, a crocus-colored Atalanta in her +pale-yellow dress, she was saying to herself, "Oh, well, that's the way +men are, none of them can keep their hands off women"--all except +self-conscious posing marionettes like that absurd Livingstone, or men +like her father, who took it out in caring about what they ate and +drank. How harmless that was--in comparison! How _nice_ it was in +comparison! Had she ever been impatient with Father because he cared so +much about what he ate and drank? She felt a little wave of affection +for him. She really must try to get back to Paris for a few days, and +make sure that Biron was keeping up to the mark. + +There, the last person was served. And everybody had somebody to talk +to. Oh, how tired she was, how sick of all this! This was a soiree +musicale! These were the people on whom she was to count for musical +success. She was supposed to be here to play Beethoven! She broke into a +nervous laugh at the idea. + + * * * * * + +Of course she had known that Mr. Livingstone would be enchanted at the +invitation from Donna Antonia. And of course Mr. Crittenden would be +too. Anybody would. To have made such an impression on Ambrogi--it was +remarkable! + +But he wasn't enchanted. He said he wasn't going. What under the sun did +that mean? Did he think he could get an invitation to dinner if he held +off from this one to tea? Yes, probably that was it. Well, she wasn't +sure, that was the way to work Ambrogi. Still you never could tell. +Perhaps the boldness of it might take Ambrogi's fancy. + +How funny, funny, funny, the head Ambrogi would show at the tea-table +when poor Livingstone turned up alone with that self-conscious, +naively-sophisticated manner of his, so proud of seeming a man of the +world. And Ambrogi despising men of the world for imbeciles! She would +tell Mr. Crittenden about it, when she next saw him, and make him laugh +too. + +But when she told him he did not laugh--not so very heartily. He seemed +concerned about Livingstone--of all people! Was it possible that he +_liked_ Mr. Livingstone? Could it be he was standing up for him whether +he liked him or not, as he had for the cat? + +And now what a queer question he was asking her--about why she had said +nothing at the breakfast table about having already met him. Why, how +naive that would have been! Why should you? And he kept on talking about +it as though he saw something in it she did not. He was looking at her +very queerly, not at all admiringly. How strange it seemed to have any +man look at a woman and not pretend at least to be admiring +her--strange--and rude--and uncomfortable! She must make him _say_ +something. He'd be forced then to smile and turn it off--whatever it +was, with a pretty phrase that pretended to be admiring. + +Oh--horrible! How could any one be so rude! Why, it was as though he had +struck a blow at her! Brutal! And why? Why? What harm had she done him? +Why did he want to hurt her? He was cruel! She had not known any one +could be so cruel and hard--hard as a stone (where was it she lately had +seen great hard stones?). + +What could you do when some one was rude to you? What did any one do who +was so affronted? + +Beyond the dark fury of her amazement, her resentment, her anger, her +bewilderment, a light began to break slowly like a distant dawn. As she +looked at him, stammering, remorseful, horribly unhappy, aghast at what +he had said, but never once dreaming that he might simply unsay it, she +became aware of what had really happened: + +She had asked him a question and he had told her the truth. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + + +"This is the life!" thought Livingstone many times during the next +weeks. He had not enjoyed himself so thoroughly since he came to Europe +to live. He was now provided, as he expressed it, with all the cultural +advantages of Europe and all the social atmosphere of an American +summer-resort; for Miss Mills seemed to wish to try, along with pension +life, the unchaperoned familiarity of real American girl-life. Mlle. +Vallet, her old school-teacher, companion-dragon was unceremoniously +left behind, or sent out by herself to do the conscientious sight-seeing +which took all her evenings to record in her diary. + +Miss Mills did sight-seeing too. The tacit understanding which grew up +at once was that they were all four seriously to see Rome and to make up +for the very haphazard way in which heretofore they had been profiting +by their situation. It was certainly, thought Livingstone, a most +agreeable way to do sight-seeing, in the company of two such +good-looking girls, one of them with money to burn. Of course he could +have wished, they all would have preferred, some one less lumpish than +that great, grim Crittenden to complete their quartet. But not every +American is capable, thought Livingstone, tying his necktie in the +morning and looking at himself in the glass, not every American is +_capable_ of taking on European polish. And of an American business-man +what could you expect? Livingstone admired and did his best to imitate +the exquisite good-breeding of the two young ladies, which kept them +from ever showing the slightest impatience with Crittenden. As far as +they were concerned it would have been impossible for Crittenden to +guess that he was not in the same class with the other three. An +occasional quick look of astonishment from Miss Allen when Crittenden +made one of those crude speeches of his, and a recurring expression of +quiet fatigue on Miss Mills's face when they had had a little too large +a dose of Crittenden were the only traces of their real feelings which +showed on the surface. + +That famous soiree at Donna Antonia Pierleoni's had seemed to be the +start of all this agreeable new period of sociability. Livingstone +abhorred fatuous men, but it really was rather a remarkable coincidence +that after seeing him for the first long talk they had ever had, Miss +Mills should at once have decided to come to the _pension_ where he was +staying. She had never had a real opportunity to know him before that, +Mlle. Vallet always shadowing her around, the conversation always +stiffly in French in deference to Mlle. Vallet's feelings. That, after +her first real impression of him, she should immediately have moved into +a room three doors down the corridor from his--any man might be pardoned +for considering it marked, really marked. It quite fluttered Livingstone +with the idea of the possibilities involved--although he scorned +fortune-hunters above all other men. It was not her fortune, it was her +wonderful little person that he admired, the perfection of the finish of +every detail of her body and mind. Livingstone often felt a sincere +reverence as he looked at her beautiful hair and skin and clothes and +hands and feet that had cost--oh, nobody knew how much to bring them to +that condition. And her accomplishments, her exquisite French and pure +Italian, her knowledge of art-critics, and which Luini was considered +authentic and which spurious! The harmonious way she sat down or stood +or sat at table! There was a product of European civilization at its +finest! How crude and coarse-grained the usual striding, arm-swinging +American girl would seem beside her, like a rough, splintery board +beside a finished piece of marquetry. Even Miss Allen, who was, one +might say, carelessly and indifferently European simply because she +happened to have been brought up in France, often seemed rough and +abrupt compared to her. There was nothing of the deliberate, finished +self-consciousness about Miss Allen's manners, which Livingstone had +learned to admire as the finest flower of sophistication. It was true +she really did play the piano very brilliantly. But still she had to +make her living somehow! One could be reasonably sure with her good +looks that she was counting on using the concert platform, if indeed she +got to it, as an angling station from which to fish for wealthy +eligibles. Crittenden needn't fool himself that she would ever look at +_him_, with that ridiculous little inheritance he had played up so, on +his arrival in Rome! + +Not that Crittenden seemed to be trying to make an impression! Quite the +contrary. Was there anybody who, more than that poor fellow, seemed +possessed to put his worst foot foremost? If they hadn't been pitiable, +Livingstone could have laughed at the breaks Crittenden constantly made, +at the way he was everlastingly showing himself up as entirely an +outsider to their world. + +That evening, when they fell to talking of their favorite dishes, was a +sample. As a parlor amusement they had been challenging each other to +construct imaginary meals such as would be perfection if you could only +get them together,--sole frite from the Ambassadeurs; roast duck with +the inimitable sauce of Foyot's; Asti Spumanti, the _real_; Brie +straight from the only farm in the Seine-et-Marne that made it right ... +all that sort of mouth-watering, exquisite imaginings. When Crittenden's +turn came, had he risen to the occasion? Had he made the slightest +effort to make a decent appearance? No, he had said, "Oh, count me out +on this. I have a regular hired-man's appetite, and if it begins to +fail, I go out and run a mile and then I can eat anything!" + +Livingstone tried his best to cover up such breaks with hasty, tactful +improvisations of talk, but he had noticed the amazed stare with which +Miss Allen had received this particular revelation of Crittenden's +crudity. + +Miss Mills had stared, too, or as near to it as she ever came, over in +the Capitoline, when she had asked Crittenden if he happened to know +anything about Constantius Chlorus, at whose ugly face they were just +then looking. Crittenden had answered in that coarse, would-be comic +jargon he occasionally affected, that he didn't remember reading a +thing about him, but if there was anything in physiognomy he must have +been a ward-heeler who had sandbagged his way to the head of the +machine. Miss Allen had not been able to avoid laughing at him outright +then, and Miss Mills's look had been all too eloquent. + +But the worst was the pig-headed provinciality of his attitude about +picture-galleries, his avowal of a regular commercial-traveler's +ignorance of paintings and his refusal to try to learn to appreciate +them. "There are only, so far as I can make out," he said, "about a +dozen canvases in all Europe that I really _like_ to look at. And you +don't catch me trailing around till my feet drop off, looking at all the +thousands of second-raters that give me a pain. Why should I?" + +Livingstone was so shocked and grieved by the crassness of such a +statement that he really longed to take Crittenden in hand. He knew so +well how to learn to like pictures, because (although he would not have +admitted it to any one) he had begun as crassly as Crittenden. He _knew_ +what to do; he could tell Crittenden step by step how to pull himself up +to a higher level, because he had done it himself. You read esthetic +books, lots of them, and all the descriptions of paintings you could lay +your hands on, and all the stories you could find in Vasari or any one +else about the lives of the painters (Livingstone had a whole shelf of +books of that sort that were _fascinating_ reading--as amusing as La Vie +Parisienne)--and you read what Ruskin and Symonds had thought about this +or that canvas, and what Berenson's researches had proved about its +authenticity. If you could, you took the book right along with you to +the gallery, reading about the picture as you looked at it; and you kept +at it till you _did_ see in it what people said was there. That was the +way to form your taste! Even Crittenden could get somewhere along those +lines if he tried. + +But he seemed to have no interest in anything but history and Michael +Angelo; Crittenden was perversely fond of dragging them over to the +Sistine Chapel till their heads were ready to drop off with the +neck-breaking fatigue of staring up at those sprawling figures. + +There was, however, one advantage about the expedition to the Sistine +Chapel. They were always so fearfully tired afterwards that they took a +cab back to the Piazza Venezia and had ices together at a cafe. It was +the first time since he had lived in Europe that Livingstone had been +able to walk into a cafe with a handsome woman and watch the other men +stare. That was a European manoeuver which he had not somehow been able +to accomplish, a tailor-suited, low-heeled, sailor-hatted American +girl-tourist with her Baedecker in her ungloved hand, being by no means +a figure to make other men stare. Of course it was perfectly evident +that Miss Mills and Miss Allen were only nice girls (he hoped it was not +_too_ apparent that they were only Americans), but they were handsome +and Miss Mills was always stunningly dressed. It was next best to what +Livingstone had always secretly longed to do, as, eating his frugal +demi-glace, he had watched a medaled Italian officer or monocled, +heavy-eyed man-about-town sitting opposite a conspicuous woman-de-luxe +with high-heeled slippers, a provocative gown, and a huge hat shading +her black-rimmed, roving eyes, the only movable feature of her +spectacular face, painted and powdered to a hierarchic immobility. + +That was the life! That was what Livingstone would love to do! Thus to +_afficher_ yourself with a really bad woman, how deliciously un-American +and cosmopolitan! On the other hand, those women were said to be very +expensive and hard to handle, rapacious, without the slightest scruple +as to how they emptied your pockets. Livingstone was in mortal terror of +letting one of them get any hold on him and his tiny resources. He knew +he would be no match for her. And anyhow all he wanted of one was to +sit, jeweled and painted and conspicuously non-respectable, across a +table from him at a cafe, so that other men would look at him as he now +looked at other men. He often wished he could hire one just to do that. + +However, in the meantime, it was a very pleasant pastime (and might, by +George, _lead_ to something, who knew!) to sit across the table from two +merely nice but really very good-looking and well-dressed girls and +listen to their innocent prattle. + +And although they were Americans, they had lived abroad so much that +they had many European ways which Livingstone found very fascinating and +superior. For instance, they were quite at home in Roman churches, and +whenever they went to listen to special music in some chapel the girls +had a quick, easy capacity for dropping to their knees in a quite +unself-conscious way that made them to Livingstone's eyes fit right in +with the picture. If it had not been for Crittenden, whose stiff +provincial American joints never dreamed of bending, he would have knelt +beside the girls. Not that he _believed_ in any of the religious part of +it! But it was so European to go down on your knees in public. If he +did, he was sure that people around them would think that he was a +member of one of those ultra-smart English Catholic families. + +Crittenden always was the great, hulking obstacle in the way of any +flexible and gracious Europeanizing of their lives. Livingstone had seen +the two girls recoil time and time again, shocked by his bruskness. And +it was not only to women that he was brusk. He had occasionally an +insufferable way of treating any one who approached him with a civil +question, as when Livingstone on a sudden recollection had said to him, +"Oh, but by the way, Crittenden, how about your being only five days in +Rome?" + +"_How_ about it?" Crittenden had repeated as though he'd never heard of +it before. + +"Why, you said you had to return at once--that inheritance, you +know--you said you had only five days." + +Crittenden had had the impertinence to stare at him hard and say coolly, +"Oh, you must be mistaken about that." + +Civilized people didn't have such manners! + +And that other time, the evening when he had stayed up late on the +terrazza to smoke with Crittenden, when he had asked, "But all men of +the world agree that nothing is so full of flavor as an affair with a +married woman. You, no doubt, Crittenden, have also had your +experiences, eh?" + +What sort of an answer did Crittenden consider it, to burst out with +that sudden great horse-laugh as though Livingstone had been telling him +a funny story? The man simply had no experience or understanding--a raw, +crude, bumptious provincial, that's what _he_ was! One who had not even +sense enough to know how pitifully narrow his life was. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + + +Coming to know a new acquaintance was, thought Marise, as though you +stood back of a painter, watching him stroke by stroke paint the +portrait of a sitter whom you could not see. + +Of course Mr. Neale Crittenden, like every one else, was physically +quite visible, and, like every one else, entirely hidden by this +apparent visibility. What you saw of people's surfaces and what was +really there were two very different matters--Marise had learned this +axiom if no other. What she saw of the newcomer was quite startlingly, +disturbingly attractive to her. All the more reason to draw back warily +and look carefully before she took a step forward. When on seeing him +for the first time in the morning, or coming on him unexpectedly +towering up above the crowd in some narrow, dark Roman street, she felt +the ridiculous impulse to run to meet him like a child, she told herself +impatiently that it was due to mere physical elements--his health, the +great strength which made itself felt in his quietest movements, and a +certain expression of his deep-set eyes which might very well not have +the slightest connection with his personality, which might be a mere +trick of bone-structure, the way his eyes were set in his head perhaps. +They chose the show priests for the great festivals at Lourdes for some +such casual gifts of physical magnetism. + +No, there was nothing whatever to be known from surfaces, Marise told +herself. The subject of the portrait was always really quite invisible +behind the thick, thick screen of his physical presence. All that was +safe to do was to watch the strokes by which one by one he himself +painted his own portrait. + +Marise often told herself all this as she was hurrying down the corridor +to be the first person in the breakfast room--the first, that is, after +Mr. Crittenden, who was a very early riser. + + +I + +To begin with there was the dashing outline sketch of the first two or +three days when, in a few bold lines, he had seemed to set up the figure +on the canvas; the rescue of the swallow; justice for the cat; that +first walk and homesick talk about Ashley, and at the end those +stammering words of his which had seemed to show--Oh, that had now +turned unreal to Marise! He couldn't have said that--and meant it! + +Then the soiree, the impression of force and originality he had made on +the people he had met there, her natural certainty that he must of +course have calculated that impression in order to profit by it--and +then--at this recollection, Marise always laughed silently at her own +astonishment when he had called Donna Antonia "a bad-tempered, stupid +old woman." Donna Antonia certainly was that, and every one knew it. But +nobody else would dream of saying it out loud, any more than they would +give their honest impression of the ritual of a secret society. + + +II + +And then, just when she had been so drawn towards him by his strength +and kindness--that brusk blow in the face. Marise had felt many times +before this a thin, keen blade slipped into her back by a hand that took +care to be invisible. But never before had she encountered open +roughness. It was staggering! Breath-taking! Always, as she remembered +it, her first thought was, as it had been then, a horrified wonder why +any one should wish to hurt her. Always afterward with the memory of his +dreadful, stammering distress, his remorseful kissing of her hands, his +helpless inability to unsay what he had said, she knew once more, as she +had known then, that she had encountered something new, something +altogether different from any human relationship she had ever known, a +relationship where you did not say things in order to please or +displease people, or to make this or that impression, but because you +thought they were true. That was fine--oh, yes, that was fine. But it +was like dashing yourself against hard stones--it hurt! And it made her +fear the hand that had hurt her. She watched it, and sometimes all but +put out her fingers to touch it, to see if it were really so strong and +hard as it looked. She feared it. She envied its strength. + + +III + +That had been a stroke of the portrait-painting brush which frightened +her to remember. But there were others that made her laugh, like the +time, off in a hill-village in the Roman country-side, when he stepped +into a little shop to buy a box of cigarettes, and came back with a +great paper-bag of the villainous, hay-like tobacco issued to the +Italian army, unsmokable by any but an Italian private soldier. To their +amazed laughter, he had replied sheepishly, with a boy's grin of +embarrassment that the little daughter of the shop-keeper, ambitiously +doing her best to wait on a customer, had misunderstood his order and +had weighed it out and tied it up before he realized what she was doing. +"I was afraid if I let them know she'd made a mistake her father would +jump on her. Fathers do seem to do such a tall amount of scolding +anyhow. And she was so set up over having made a sale all by herself." + +Marise had laughed with the others over that, and laughed when she +thought of it--but her laugh often ended abruptly in bewilderment--how +was it he could be so kind, so tenderly kind to an Italian child he had +never seen before, and so sternly rough with her? That rankled; and +then, when she had had time to think, she recognized it, all over again, +with the same start of astonishment, for the truth-telling she had never +encountered. + + +IV + +Mr. Livingstone had said something sentimental about man's love being +based on the instinct to cherish and protect, and woman's on the desire +to be cherished and protected. Eugenia had acquiesced; Marise, who hated +talk, sentimental or otherwise, about love, had said nothing. But Mr. +Crittenden had protested, "Oh, Livingstone, you've got that twisted. +That's the basis of love between group-ups and children. You don't +insult your equals trying to 'protect them'! Nothing would get me more +up in the air than to have somebody 'protect' me from life. Why should I +want to do it to anybody else? Protect your grandmother! A woman wants +to be let alone to take her chances in life as much as a man!" + + +V + +They were crossing the Forum, on their way to a stroll in the shady +walks of the Palatine. From the battered, shapeless ruins of what had +been the throbbing center of the world rose suffocatingly to Marise's +senses the effluvium of weariness and decay. She always felt that Rome's +antiquity breathed out upon her a cold, dusty _taedium vitae_. + +She thought of this, turning an attentive face and inattentive ear to +Mr. Livingstone, who was trying to make out from his guide-book where +the Temple of Mars had stood. + +"You're holding that map wrong end to," said Mr. Crittenden. + +"It's too hot to stand here in the sun," said Eugenia very sensibly. + +They passed on, over heaps of ancient refuse, into the ruins of the +myriad-celled palace of the Caesars, silent now, not an echo left of all +the humming, poisonous intrigues that had filled it full. + +"Here," said Mr. Livingstone, stopping in a vaulted, half-wrecked +chamber, ostensibly to comment on things, really to get his breath after +the climb, "here in such a room, only lined and paved with priceless +marbles, and hung with Asiatic silks, here you lay at ease in an +embroidered toga on a gold-mounted couch, and clapped your hands for a +slave to bring you your Falernian wine, cooled with snow from Monte +Cavo,--that was the life!" + +"I thought it was in the Arabian Nights you clapped your hands for a +slave," said Eugenia. + +"In Rome you probably cracked a whip," suggested Mr. Crittenden. "But I +bet you a nickel it didn't make any difference _what_ you did, your +slave came when he got good and ready and brought you another kind of +wine from the one you ordered--and lukewarm at that. They'd probably +used up all the Monte Cavo snow to cool the wine down in the slaves' +hall." + +"What possible basis have you for saying all _that_?" cried Mr. +Livingstone, exasperated. + +"That's the way things are! Folks that try to use slave labor always get +what's coming to them in the way of poor service." + +"Oh, but in Rome you had the right to kill him!" cried Mr. Livingstone, +jealous of his rights. + +"Sure you could kill him--and in New York you can fire your +stenographer. What good would that do you? You couldn't get intelligent +service out of the next slave either, unless you had him educated to be +intelligent, and if you did that he'd be such a rare bird that you'd +save him for something better than standing around waiting for you to +clap your hands at him. He'd be running your business for you." + +"Oh, pshaw, Crittenden, why be so heavy-handed and literal! Why +wet-blanket _every_ imaginative fancy?" + +"Oh, I didn't realize you were imaginatively fancying," said Mr. +Crittenden, laughing. "I thought you were trying imaginatively to +reconstruct the life of ancient Rome. And I was trying to do my share." + +They passed through dusky, ill-smelling passages, clambered over a pile +of rubble and stood in twilight at the foot of a long, steep, vaulted +stairway. Far up, like a bright roof to its obscurity, were green +leaves, blue sky, bright sunshine. All that sparkling, clear radiance +seemed to heighten the boyish fit of high spirits that had entered into +the usually rather silent Mr. Crittenden. He pointed up to the stairway +and cried, "From antiquity to the present! I'll meet you at the top!" +and off he went, bounding up the high, steep steps two at a time, as if +his vitality had suddenly swept him away in the need for violent +exertion. + +When the two girls emerged later, "Ladies, allow me to introduce to you +the present day," he said, calling to their attention with a sweep of +his hat the dark, sumptuous green of the cypresses and pines, the +splendor of the golden-blue sky, the fresh sprinkled smell of the earth +on the shady paths. "Not so bad for poor little old actuality, is it?" + +The girls sank breathlessly on a bench. Livingstone appeared, slowly +hoisting himself up the steps, one at a time, and puffing. Mr. +Crittenden walked around and around restlessly, as though that upward +swoop had been but an appetizer to his desire to let out the +superabundance of his strength. He looked, Marise thought, like a +race-horse fretting and pawing and stepping sideways. How could he have +that eager look in this dusty cemetery of human strength and eagerness? + +Glancing up at his face, she saw it lighted and shining with +amusement--what seemed like tender, touched amusement. He was looking at +something down the path. Marise looked with him and saw a workingman, +one of the gardeners, digging in the earth of a rose-bed. Beside him +capered and staggered a little puppy, a nondescript little brown cur +with neither good looks nor distinction, but so enchanted with life, +with itself, with the soft, good earth over which it pranced that to see +it was, thought Marise, like playing Weber's "Perpetual Motion." As she +looked it tried to run in a wavering circle around its master, tripped +over its own feet, tumbled head over heels in a soft ball, clumsily +struggled up and sat down to draw breath, a pink tongue hanging out of +its wide, laughing mouth, its soft young eyes beaming with mirth at its +own adventures. Its master glanced down and addressed some clucking, +friendly greeting to it, which threw it into an agony of joy. Wagging +its tail till its whole body wagged, it flung itself adoringly at its +master's trousers, pawing and wriggling in ecstasy. + +Mr. Crittenden caught Marise's eye, and shared with her in a silent +smile his delighted sense of the little animal's absurdity. "Perhaps if +we looked down from this height and got a bird's-eye view we could +settle that point," said Eugenia to Mr. Livingstone, who was still +concerned about the location of the Temple of Mars. "There's a fine view +from the wall at the end of this path." + +They strolled together to the wall, and Mr. Livingstone spread out on it +his plan of the Forum. + +Marise looked down dispiritedly at the mutilated pillars and broken +pieces of carved marble, and most of all at the bits of old Roman +flagged paving. Nothing gave her a more acrid sense of futility than +those old, old flag-stones over which so many thousands of human feet +had eagerly, blindly sought their journey's end. Had any of them ever +found what they sought? She murmured under her breath, "Isn't it all +horribly, horribly depressing? Doesn't it make you feel all those +endless centuries bowing your shoulders down to the earth--why not now +as well as later?" + +She had stated it as she felt it, a truism, what every one must feel. +Eugenia and Livingstone accepted it as such. "Yes, I often feel as +ancient as the stones," said Eugenia pensively. + +Mr. Crittenden put in hastily, "Not on your life, it doesn't depress me! +Why should it? You don't seem to realize, Miss Allen, what an immense +difference there is between us! I never really took it in before +myself--not until this visit to Rome. But it's immense! Enormous! Let me +tell you about it. They're dead and we are alive! Alive!" + +Marise looked up at him, thinking that in truth she had never felt any +one so alive. He bent his eyes to hers as Livingstone, with a little +gesture of giving him up, drew Eugenia to the corner of the wall and +traced lines on his map. + +Mr. Crittenden went on whimsically, "I don't believe you ever fully +considered the great importance of that point, Miss Allen. It came home +to me all over again as I was looking at that puppy. Millions of dogs +have lived and died before him; but by some amazing miracle life is just +as fresh a wonder to him as if he were the first puppy ever born into +the world! It's incredible! I never realized it till I struck all these +relics of dead-and-gone men--it's incredible how none of them, not all +the millions of them, can tarnish the newness of my own life for me! I +can go my own new path over those old paving-stones--me and the +puppy--and you--and all of us!" + +Marise laughed a little, still looking at him, listening to something he +was not saying, which played about his bold, clear face like sunlight +and shone on her as warmly. + +Now a spark of wildness came into his eyes, half laughingly reckless, +half desperately in earnest. "You saw what happened to the puppy when +its master threw it a kind word? Well, I haven't the gift of wriggling +all over so wonderfully as that, and I haven't any tail to wag, but when +you look at me like that, Miss Allen, I...." + +"We _think_ the third line of pillar-stumps is the side wall of the +Basilica Julia," said Eugenia, stepping towards them, the guide-book in +her hand. + + +VI + +They were standing under the great gray dome of the Pantheon, innocent +clear daylight flooding all the great gray building. + +"Oh, isn't it beautiful, their idea of leaving the circle open to the +sky?" Marise burst out. "Doesn't it make our dark, modern churches with +their imitation Gothic stained-glass seem cheap and affected? Every +church all over the world ought to be like this, and then we human +beings might be fit to live with." + +Livingstone put in a horrified protest, "What! Miss all that exquisite +twilight that makes a church a church? I was just thinking how fiercely, +literally bright this noonday sun is. Daylight leaves no mystery, +nothing to your imagination." + +Marise turned confidently to Mr. Crittenden as an ally. She was sure, as +sure of anything in the world, that he must be on her side. But he +hedged and said neutrally, "Oh, great Scott! It would be a horrible act +of tyranny to have every church like this. There are lots of folks +who'd hate it. They have a right to have some things their way, haven't +they?" + +"Oh, I _didn't_ think _you'd_ take that side," said Marise, feeling +betrayed and longing for a sweeping, exclusive affirmation to match her +own. He so often hedged, it seemed to her, wanted to qualify statements. +Oh--it came to her with a start--that was another form of truth-telling! +He was trying to make his statements express the truth, rather than his +feelings! + +He now said, judicially, "As far as I personally go, it depends what I'm +looking at. If I'm looking at a very fine statue or something that seems +really beautiful to me, I want as good a light as possible to see it in. +If--if I should ever have any personal happiness in my life, I'd want +daylight to see it by. But when it's a question of looking at the +interior decoration of the average modern church, why, the more mystery +and twilight the better." + +This made Marise laugh. He often made her laugh, more than she had ever +laughed before. And yet he never told funny stories. + +He now went on, "I suppose it depends on your opinion of what there is +to see. If you think your imagination can do better for you than +reality, of course you want a lot left to it, and plenty of dark corners +for it to work in. Just now, it seems to me that reality is so much +beyond anything my poor, starved imagination could have done...." + +He did not look at Marise as he spoke. His tone was perfectly matter of +fact. She wondered what the other two made out of it. She knew very well +what she made out of it. + + +VII + +They were sitting on the terrazza in the evening, with several other +people from the _pension_, having their coffee sociably around the big +round table and looking out over the roofs and domes and church-towers +of Rome. The conversation had been chit-chat, as was usual during +meal-times, and Mr. Crittenden had contributed little to it. His +massive capacity for silence when he had nothing special to say was a +constant source of wonder to Marise. Not to "make talk," even very +commonplace talk, was a betrayal of a tacitly accepted code as much as +calling Donna Antonia a "bad-tempered, stupid old woman." She had been +taught that it was one of the pretenses which must be kept up under +penalty of the ruin of all civilized intercourse. She envied and +resented his freedom from it. + +She addressed herself directly to him now to force him out of his +reflective taciturnity. "Do you agree to that, Mr. Crittenden?" + +"To what?" he asked, making no decent pretense of being abashed because +he had not been following the conversation. + +"Why, Mr. Livingstone was saying that artists are the only human beings +to be envied, the only human beings who really _live_, intensely." + +"They're the only ones who talk about it," he offered as his variation +on the dictum. "That's what an artist _is_, isn't he? Somebody who +happens to be put together so that it kills him to keep anything to +himself. He just goes up in smoke, if he can't run and tell the world +what he has seen, or tasted, or handled, or got hit by, and the way it +made him feel. I admire and revere artists. They certainly do a lot for +the rest of us. But I don't see any reason to think that they feel +things any more intensely than anybody else, and I don't see anything so +terribly enviable in their lot. There seems to be a lot of hard work +about it, if you judge by the way they carry on. I don't see why you +can't enjoy beauty and feel tragedy, even if you keep your mouth shut. +You can feel it just the same, can't you? I'm sure I've felt things +about a million times more intensely than anything that ever got into a +book. And I can't say I'm any less satisfied with my fate because I'm +not thriftily trying to use those same feelings as raw material for an +art." + +Marise was laughing outrageously by the time he had finished, partly at +what he said, partly at Mr. Livingstone's scandalized expression. She +was ashamed of the way she laughed over Mr. Crittenden's teasing of +poor unconscious Mr. Livingstone. + +"You don't understand, Crittenden, you don't get my point at all. +There's something--something--" Livingstone brought it out with a +remnant of the provincial self-consciousness before fine phrases which +he so deplored, "there's something god-like, divine, in being an artist, +_creating_ something." + +Mr. Crittenden moved from his negligent pose, tightened up a little. +"Oh, if you mean by 'artist' a class broad enough to take in everybody +who creates something, yes, of course, they're the only ones who really +live. That's what most of us are trying to get a chance to do, trying to +create a little order out of chaos. But that's pretty nearly the whole +ant-heap of the human race, isn't it? Except the leisure classes." + +Mr. Livingstone was in despair of making the Philistine understand. +"It's something we have so little of in America, it's hard for an +American to recognize its existence," he murmured to the company in +extenuation of his compatriot's denseness. + +Mr. Crittenden sat up straighter. "I used to make my living buying and +selling lumber in the New England states," he said, addressing himself +for once to the company, "and on one of my trips I met a man in a narrow +mountain valley up there who was a creator if there ever was one. He had +started life as a mechanic, left school and went to work at sixteen, in +a shop filled with soulless cogs and bolts and screws and springs. And +his creative instinct rose up and seized on those things as the +appointed raw stuff for his creation. When I saw him he was the head of +one of the biggest metal-working factories in the country, a good many +hundred men working for him, and devoted to him, turning out tools that +have simplified the tasks of mechanics the world around. I never saw a +happier man. I never saw a human life more completely fulfilled. Yes, +you're right, Livingstone. The creators are the enviable ones." + +"That wasn't in the least what I said, or meant!" protested Mr. +Livingstone warmly. + +"It happens to be fresh in my mind," said Mr. Crittenden, half +apologizing for his unusual loquacity, "because to-day, walking on the +Due Macelli, I happened to see a case of his tools, and outside, just +glued to the window, a young Italian mechanic, gazing in at them, his +face on fire with his admiration and appreciation. Quite a long way, +isn't it, for a Yankee creator to reach out a helpful and stimulating +hand? But he's a first-rater, of course, a genius. The rest of us can't +hope to do that." + + * * * * * + +Later, as they all went down the stairs together, Marise asked him, "But +there isn't anything ... is there? ... that the rest of us, not creative +geniuses, can hope to do that's creative?" + +She had not the faintest idea what he could find to answer. She herself +could conceive of no answer possible. With all the intelligent people +she had ever known, it had been axiomatic that there _was_ no answer. + +He did not speak at once. She had noticed that he often took time to +reflect seriously on what you had said before he replied. Marise had +never seen any one before who seemed to give so much more care to +understanding what you said than to concocting something that would +sound well to say in answer. There were times when, incredible as it +seemed, Mr. Crittenden seemed really to use language to express what he +meant rather than to attain his ends. She waited now, and as she waited +she was aware of the erectness and vigor of the tall body stepping +beside her. In the corridor he halted for a moment, facing her, his head +bent thoughtfully, his eyes shadowed by his broad brow, his hand, that +powerful athlete's hand of his, meditatively over his mouth as he +considered. + +He had given her question a good deal of thought, and yet when he took +his hand down to speak he said abruptly, impulsively, as though the +words had broken up through what he had been meaning to say, "Couldn't +we ... any of us ... couldn't we hope to create a beautiful human +relationship? Beautiful and enduring?" + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + + +Neale was in despair at his dumb helplessness before the inert +resistance of social relations. A man with any adroitness would not +submit passively to this sprung-up-from-nowhere tradition that he and +Livingstone and Marise Allen and Eugenia Mills formed an indissoluble +foursome, never to advance or retreat save in a solid bloc, like a +French family, with all the uncles and cousins and aunts. How had it +started? _He_ certainly had had nothing to do with it. That's what you +got for being stiff-jointed and literal as he was about personal +relations. The practised old hands ran circles around you, and had +things all their own way. + +Such at least was the color of Neale's meditations when he was alone in +his own room. When, as one of the quartet, he set off on a new +expedition, he could think of nothing but his light-headed pleasure at +being there at all, walking beside her, catching sidelong glimpses of +her when he was supposed to be looking at a statue or a fresco, talking +to her over the others' heads, trying to say something to _her_, through +the infernally "general" conversation which Livingstone kept up as +though his tongue were hung in the middle. + +And there was a certain advantage too--he was not flexible-minded enough +to label it, but he recognized and was quick to profit by it--this +parading around in a group gave the most intoxicating quality of +intimacy to the brief, snatched occasions when he did manage to see her +alone; even though a good many of these few precious moments were, as a +matter of actual fact, passed on a noisy street-corner, waiting for a +tram-car to come and carry her off, or on a narrow Roman sidewalk, +trying to keep abreast of her as she stepped quickly through the dense, +sauntering Italian crowd, stopping five deep to stare at something in a +window, or holding noisy and affectionate family reunions on the +sidewalk. None of that mattered. The noise, the clatter of tongues, the +pressing and shoving of the crowd, the ear-piercing yells of the +street-vendors--it was all essential silence to Neale because none of it +was directed at keeping him apart from Marise, as was the low-toned +urbane conversation of the sight-seeing quartet. + +He let himself go like a boy--as indeed he never had as a boy--on the +few occasions when he waylaid her in the street, without Eugenia Mills, +who seemed to have as great a passion for her society as he had. He was +really a little out of his head with suspense, after an hour of anxious +waiting about, smoking nervous cigarettes, his eyes on both ends of the +street at once, his heart leaping up when he thought he saw her tall, +nobly borne figure in the distance, dying down sickly when it turned out +to be some other dark-haired girl. When finally she was really there he +was too elated for pretense, swooping down on her, his hat in his hand, +grinning--he knew it--like an idiot. He saw people in the street turn +and look after him meaningly and smile to each other--and what did he +care how big a fool he looked to them! + +They fostered, for these queer, unprivate, intimate moments, a little +tradition of their own, a tacit understanding that they would save up +for them the things they specially wanted to talk about, the questions +they wanted to ask each other that were no business of other people. +They talked as fast as they could, sometimes Marise, sometimes Neale, as +though they could never get caught up on what they had to tell each +other. Neale was astounded to hear himself chattering, fairly +chattering. They talked a good deal about Ashley, a great deal about +their personal likes and dislikes, a good deal about what Neale was +trying to get out of Europe. This seemed to interest Marise, curiously +to interest her. She was always bringing him back to it. He was, she +told him, new in her experience of Americans-in-Europe. She had seen so +many, all her life, and thought she had them all sorted and labeled "... +the kind, like my father, who find themselves just in their element at +last in the religious seriousness of Europe about eating and drinking. +Sometimes I think they're the ones who get the most out of it. No, oh, +no, there's another sort, the ones I specially love. The middle-aged +school-teacher who saves up her money and comes just once comes at +forty-five with a ripe mind and fresh, fresh eyes, such as no European +can have. I'll never forget what I heard one of them say in Paris. I was +tearing along, trying to get to the market and back before I had to go +to a class, my mind full of nothing but the price of new potatoes and a +terribly hard set of velocity exercises I'd just begun. I came up behind +two such dear, dear American tourists, and heard one of them say, so +happily, with a long breath of satisfaction, 'I've waited all my life to +see that.' I looked around wildly to see what she was talking about. And +there stood Notre Dame! Had I seen it? No, too many picayune cares on my +mind. But I looked at it then, looked as though it were the first time +_I'd_ ever seen it. + +"And then there are the rich Americans who want to buy everything and do +buy everything, and go away empty-handed. And the kind who want to be +what they think is sophisticated, who feel it's really worth spending +your life learning how to order a meal with the right manner in the most +expensive restaurants in every city, and to know how to find the +horridest cafe-chantants that don't dare advertise in the papers, and +that the people of the country never go to see. + +"And then the other kind, who come over, the whole family of them, and +go to register at the New York Herald--you know the sort, 'Mr. +Jehoshaphat Jones, President of the J. Jones Farm Implement Company of +Broken Ridge, Indiana, together with Mrs. Jones, Miss Elizabeth Jones, +Miss Margaret Jones and Master J. Jones Jr. are stopping at the Hotel +Vouillemont. They will shortly start on a tour of the chateau Country, +and after that expect to travel in Switzerland.' You can see Mrs. Jones +cutting that notice out and sending it home to Broken Ridge. They're +_nice_, I like that kind, when they don't get too tired and begin to +snap at each other. I always feel such a deep sympathy for Jehoshaphat +when I see him dragging his sore feet around over a hard, hard museum +floor; and such a sympathy for Mrs. Jones, when he makes them all stand +around at an Alpine railway station while he delightedly figures out and +explains how the funicular works." + +There were times when she ran on, mirthful, flashing, keen, droll, +amusing herself and making him laugh as nothing had ever made him laugh +before, out of sheer, light-hearted hilarity. As he watched her, talking +animatedly in her beautiful, clearly articulated English, her plastic +face a comic mask, fooling and bantering till she had him shouting, and +yet with that core of shrewd observation and real intelligence +underlying all she said, sometimes he remembered with a start his first +sight of her up there on the roof--what was the meaning of that +unearthly sadness the moon had shown him? + +She was not, it is true, by any means always gay on these stolen talks +together. She could be stern and brief, as when he asked her +challengingly, one day, "Well, you've been in Europe all your life, +nearly. What have _you_ got out of it?" She answered, "To work hard and +not to expect much from anything--except from music." + +Her face that was sometimes as meltingly soft as a Correggio girl-saint, +looked dark and set. He had been so disconcerted by her look and accent, +that like the lump he was, he had found nothing to say before she hailed +her tram-car and left him. + +Often she made him talk, talk as he had never dreamed of talking to any +one, leading him on to flight of wordy self-expression, such as he +blushed afterwards to remember, sure that he must have bored and wearied +her. And yet there never was such a listener as she, attentive, silent, +except for just the occasional comment that launched him off on further +talk, when his self-consciousness coming warningly forward bade him stop +before he seemed a solemn ass. She made him intensely desire to share +with her everything that was in his mind. Helpless before the compelling +personal look with which she listened to him, he poured it all out +pell-mell, what he had been struggling to lay hold of, ever since he had +left Hoosick Junction. + +"One of the things that keeps coming over me, is the variousness of +folks. We don't begin to take enough account of that. Plants now, +they're various too--sure they are. An Alpine harebell is as different +from an oleander as I am from a natural-born artist. But everybody that +has any sense knows that an oleander would freeze and starve to death if +you planted it up near a glacier. You can tell that much, just by +looking at it. But you can't tell a thing, not a doggoned _thing_ about +a human being just by looking at him, can you?" + +Marise agreed with intense conviction that you can tell less than +nothing by looking at a human being. + +"And then the human race has got itself so mixed up. There isn't the +slightest chance, not one in a million, that a harebell will spring up +in a Roman garden, and be burned to a crisp by sunlight that just makes +an oleander feel good and comfortable. But that's what happens the whole +enduring time with folks." + +"Why, I wonder," cried Marise, with a startled look, "if that is what +happened to me." + +"I know it's what happened to me," said Neale. "I believe it happens to +lots more folks than have any idea of it. They blame it on the climate, +so to speak. But the climate's all right for some one else. It's not +_their_ climate, that's all. Let's start out on a hunt for our climate, +will you?" + +"I'm afraid it's very hard to make a guess at it," said Marise soberly +but making no comment on the "our." + +"It surely is. It's terribly hard. The point is that nobody but the +person himself can make any sort of a guess at it. And it's awfully hard +for _him_. Wouldn't you think, when it is so hard under the best of +circumstances, that folks would try to teach every youngster to make the +best sort of guess possible as to where he really belongs? But they +never give you any hint of that, in any of the 'education' you get in +school or out of it. They seem to be in mortal terror for fear you will +find it out yourself. They jam your beak down on the chalk-line and hope +to goodness you'll never look up long enough to see that only your own +foolishness keeps you there. Or they keep you there till you've tied +yourself up with responsibilities, so you _can't_ get out. Whatever is +the fashion of your country and of your century, that's the thing for +you to do, whether or not. + +"I believe that's what Europe has done for me, made me realize that our +present fashion isn't foreordained, nor the only one natural to men. +Think of all the centuries after the Roman bridges went down, when +people got along without bridges, because no provision was made to keep +alive the minds that happened to be born with latent constructive +powers. No, no, there must be no fooling around with godless abstract +mathematical ideas, nor fiddling with compasses. A crucifix or a sword +must be in every man's hand. Every man must be a fighter or a saint, if +he was to be allowed by public opinion to have his necessary share of +esteem and self-respect. And there are so many kinds of folks besides +fighters and saints! Century after century they died without having +lived, and we're walking around over their dust this minute. And yet +even the fighters and the saints needed bridges! And here we are in the +twentieth century, jumping the life out of anybody who isn't interested +in building bridges, and hooting at him if he feels the impulse to try +to be a saint. It's enough to make you tear your hair out by handfuls, +isn't it?" + +Another day Marise launched him off on the same theme by asking him +skeptically, "Well, suppose you could have your own way about things, +what would you do to help people find their own right group and work and +climate and surroundings? I don't see how there is the faintest +possibility of helping them." + +"I'd start in," said Neale, "by suggesting to them, all through their +youth, in every way possible, the idea that folks could and should move +freely from the life they're born to, to another one that suits their +natures. They have to do it while they're young and foot-free, don't +they? I wouldn't start in by hammering them over the head with the idea +that there are only one or two classes that anybody wants to belong to. +I'd jump with all my weight on that idiotic notion that one class is +better than another, as if any class was any good at all for you, if +it's not the one you belong to naturally! I'd grease the ways to get +from one to another, instead of building fences, especially if the +change would mean making less money. Just think of all the natural-born +carpenters and mechanics that fall by chance into professors' families, +or millionaires' homes. They never get any chance in life. Just look at +the hullaballo that was made about poor old Tolstoi's wanting the +simplicity of a working-man's life. Just look at the fiendishly +ingenious obstacles that are put in the way of any working-man's son who +wants the culture and fineness and harmonious living that got so on +Tolstoi's nerves. And look, even Tolstoi was just as bad as the rest. +Because _he_ happened to want simplicity and a hardy open life, didn't +he start on the warpath to drive everybody else to it. Good Lord, why +try to hold up one ideal as the only one for millions of men, who have a +million various capacities and ideals and tastes? They'd enrich the +world like a garden, with their lives, if public opinion only allowed +them to be lived." + +"Do you know Rabelais," asked Marise, "and his motto, '_Fay ce que +vouldras_?' Everybody in his day thought it fearfully immoral." + +"Oh, I suppose that every wise man since the beginning of the world has +found it out in his way before now. But they're not allowed to tell the +rest of us plain folks so we understand. Or maybe you don't understand +anything till you find it out for yourself. I don't believe I do. Do +you?" + +"I'm sure," said Marise with a quiet bitterness in her tone that burned +like a drop of acid in Neale's mind, "I'm sure that I personally haven't +found out anything, nor do I understand anything whatever. Nor, till +this minute did anybody ever suggest to me that there was really +something worth while to find out. Nobody--nobody but you--ever dreamed +of asking me to go on a quest to understand. That's why I--go on, go on +with it. Why do you stop?" + +But that day Neale had been too much startled by the glimpse of a somber +discontent under her keen bright intelligence, and too much moved by her +speaking of his bringing something different into her life to "go on." + +He tried desperately to think of some way to ask her about it, to offer +to help her, to implore her to open her heart as he was opening his. +But he was stricken with shyness, with a fear lest he had misunderstood, +lest he say the wrong thing. He could only look at her hopelessly. What +a clumsy, heavy-handed china-smasher he was, anyhow! + +But such glimpses of what lay beneath the surface did not come often, +though he thought about them a great deal. He wondered if there was any +connection between them and her evident habit of not talking seriously, +of bantering keenly about superficial things, rather than giving any +idea of what she was really thinking. Perhaps she did not trust people +enough to give them any idea of what she was really thinking. Perhaps +she fell into that grim mood when she thought seriously. Why should she? +And yet she was always making him talk seriously, about ideas he really +cared about. + +Once he said to her clumsily, "I must bore you to death, with all these +half-baked ideas of mine, when you're used to such brilliant talkers." + +She startled him with the energy and vivacity of her answer, "Oh, I +_hate_ what you call brilliant talkers. I'm so sick of them! You can't +imagine what it is to me, like a long drink of clear water, to hear +somebody trying to say what he really thinks." + +He asked, sincerely and naively at a loss, "Why, why does anybody talk +at all, if not to say what he thinks?" + +She answered, with a certain smile of hers which always made him uneasy, +a dry, ugly smile, "Don't you realize that the real purpose of talk is +to pull the wool over the eyes of the person you are talking to, to make +him think you are more clever than you are, and to get something out of +him for yourself that he would not let you have if he knew you were +taking it?" + +Then with one of her lightning changes to that melting look and smile +before which he always succumbed wholly, she went on, "The truth is that +I hope all the time that in your thinking over and over there may be a +hint for me, who was never taught to do the least bit of thinking for +myself. So go on, let me see it all, just as it comes. Let me pick out +for myself what will be of use to me." + +Well, if she wanted that, she should have it--or anything else he could +give her. It was part of the reeling, glamorous intoxication into which +she cast him, to hear himself going on like a stump-speaker. And she was +adroit at hitting on subjects that made him talk. One day as they were +amusing each other by describing their school-life, his as different +from hers as if they had been brought up on different planets, football +was mentioned. In no time she had him helplessly loquacious, explaining +football to her. Think of having to explain football to anybody! He +explained how you played it, and some of the rules, and how terribly you +cared about it. And suddenly found that he had explained it to himself, +that he really understood it for the first time. + +"It's a kind of education that America has worked out for herself +unconsciously, I believe, the American college idea of sports. No +American undergraduate dreams of playing to amuse himself. He'd scorn +to. _He plays to win._ That's the American idea. And it's a splendid +one. To give every ounce in you to do what you set out to do--no +lackadaisical dilettantism--your whole heart in it--and _go to it_! +That's the way for men to live." + +He was aware that Marise looked at him surprised by his fire. He was +surprised by it, himself. He guessed perhaps he was ready to go back to +work; perhaps he'd had enough of sauntering around. "That's what you +learn in college athletics--how to give yourself to some aim and not to +keep anything back for yourself. That's great, you know," he told her +imperatively. "It is! It takes the personal littleness out of a boy to +give his all to reach a goal. It makes a man out of a boy. But, oh, +Lord!" he burst out with a great swing of his arm, "When that _has_ made +you a man, why don't they let you know that you have more goals to +choose from than just different ways of making your living, most of them +just buying and selling different sorts of things? You're trained in +athletics to put your very heart and all of it, into what you do. That's +_fine_! But why don't they train you just as hard to put your whole +intelligence into being sure that what you're putting your heart into is +worth doing, and is what you're meant to do? They don't train you for +that, they won't even let you have a quiet minute to think of it +yourself. They keep you up in the air all the time, whooping it up about +your duty to 'win out!' to win the game! Sure, any man that's got blood +in his veins wants to win the game. But _which_ game? It's all very +well, turning a boy into a grown-up human being, but you've got to...." + +"I wonder," broke in Marise thoughtfully, "I wonder what might turn a +girl into a grown-up human being?" And then before Neale could open his +lips she blushed, shook her head as if at a slip on her part, and said +quickly, "Oh, there's my car, now." + +She ran out to take it. Neale stood on the corner, cursing the whole +race of tram-cars. + +When it passed him, close to him in the narrow street, he caught sight +of her face. It was bent downward as if to hide it from the other people +in the car. He saw that there was a very faint smile on her lips as if +she could not keep it back, a little sweet, secret, happy smile. Her +whole face was softly shimmering with it. + +Good heavens! why hadn't he gone on with her! He leaped forward and +sprinted after the rapidly disappearing car. + +And stopped short in the midst of the traffic. You can't make love in a +_street-car_! What an imbecile he was! + + * * * * * + +Often, after she had left him, he pelted off into the Campagna, walking +for miles "like a madman," said the leisurely Italian countrymen, slowly +stepping about their work. Neale felt himself rather mad, as though the +steady foundations of his life had been rent and shattered, as by a +blast of dynamite. + +Dynamite? What was it somebody had said to him once, about dynamite? He +tried to think, but could not remember. Perhaps it was something he had +read in a book. + +Once, after such a headlong tramp, he came in and wrote a long letter to +his mother, telling her all about Marise; a strange thing for him to do, +he thought, as he dropped the letter in the box. But everything he did +now seemed strange to him. Strange and yet irresistibly natural. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + + +If only Marise would go away, would go _away_ and give her a chance, +thought Eugenia despairingly, coming slowly into her sitting-room where +Mlle. Vallet sat writing in her journal. Josephine heard the door close +and hurried in with her quick silent step to take off her mistress' +wraps. + +"Mademoiselle looks so _tired_ after these long walks!" she said +solicitously, scrutinizing with a professional expertness the color of +the young face. "I don't think they agree with Mademoiselle at all. This +climate is too soft to walk about so. Nobody does. Mademoiselle +might--without presuming to advise--Mademoiselle might be wiser to go in +cabs." + +Eugenia held out her arms as Josephine slipped off her pretty, +fawn-colored silk coat and then let them fall at her sides. She was +thinking, "_Cabs!_ What would he say to some one who went everywhere in +cabs!" + +"Oh!" cried Josephine. "Those abominable ruins! Mademoiselle's dear +little bronze shoes! Cut to pieces! Oh, Mlle. Vallet, just look at our +poor Mademoiselle's shoes, the beautiful bronze ones. And there's no +replacing them in the shops of _this_ country!" + +Mlle. Vallet tipped her head forward to look seriously over her +steel-rimmed spectacles, agreed seriously that there was certainly very +little left of the pretty bronze shoes, and went seriously back to +writing with her sharp steel pen a detailed description of her +expedition to the Catacombs. Mlle. Vallet was a very happy woman in +those days. To be in Rome, after years of grinding drudgery in the +class-room, to be free to look and wander and observe at her leisure for +so much of the day--she often told Eugenia that she had never in her +wildest dreams supposed she would have such an opportunity! She studied +and sight-saw with conscientious and absorbed exactitude, and wrote down +voluminous accounts of every day's sights and the thoughts they aroused +in her. "It will be the treasure-book of my old age!" she said. "I shall +take it down from the shelf when I am old, and live myself back into +this wonderful experience!" + +"Her old age!" Eugenia wondered when she thought old age would begin. +She looked a thousand years old already to Eugenia. Heavens! Think of +ever being old like that, yourself. What use _could_ there be in living +if you were old and reduced for your amusement to writing down dates and +things in a journal! + +"If Mademoiselle will step into her own room," said Josephine. Eugenia +came to herself with a start. She had been standing in the middle of the +room staring at Mlle. Vallet's back. But she had been thinking about +Neale Crittenden, about those deep-set eyes of his, and how his face was +lighted up when he smiled. When he smiled at her, Eugenia felt like +moving from wherever she was and going to stand close beside him. What +made her feel so? It was like a black-art. There was that girl at school +who had been bewitched by the Breton mission-priest,--bewitched so that +she fell into a fever if she could not see him every day. + +"There! Sit there!" said Josephine, pressing her competently into an +easy chair, and beginning to undo her hooks and eyes. "I haven't much +time. Mademoiselle is so late in coming in. Just a little +cold-cream--this horrible southern sun burns so! Oh, I can feel this +awful Roman dust thick on every hair! I do wish--without seeming to +presume--I do _wish_ that Mademoiselle would consent to wear a +veil--everybody does." + +Eugenia moved her head from one side to the other wearily. How Josephine +did chatter! She never had a quiet moment, _never_, and she was so +_tired_. Feeling the supple, smooth professional fingers beginning to +put on the cold cream, she held her head still and thought. + +Very bitter thoughts and bewildered ... of a person betrayed. She _was_ +betrayed! She had done everything ... everything that she had known how +to do. She had spared neither time nor money nor effort. She had worked +(and she hated to work) she had _worked_ to learn all the things she +should know. She had beaten Marise at her own game. She talked better +French than she, so her diction teacher said; and ever so much more +distinguished English--she _never_ made those slips into Americanisms or +Gallicisms that Marise did. At least not in conversation, sometimes she +still thought in American. She knew ever so much more about dressing +than Marise, and about lace, and about manners. She had come to the +point at last of being sure of her manners, of being able to sit down, +instinctively composing herself so that she would look well from all +angles, of not having to think of how to shake hands or leave a room, +any more than she thought of the adjustment of a gown that Josephine had +put on her. Whereas Marise still fumbled at the back of her neck at +times to make sure of a hook, or had that common trick of feeling her +hair to see if it were in order. Marise had stood still in all that, and +she had gone forward to the goal. But as she reached it...! + +How could she have thought for a moment that she cared a thing about +him--he was horrible and rough and as American as--as--a typewriter! +What _made_ her care about such a man? She wouldn't have, if it had not +been for Marise. It was Marise's fault. She never would have dreamed of +looking at him if she hadn't seen that first evening at Donna Antonia +Pierleoni's soiree that Marise had lost her head over him. That made her +curious about him of course, and somehow before she knew it something +about his eyes or smile--oh, it _was_ as if she were bewitched that he +should make her feel so, make her want and want and want till she ached, +to have him look at her--and all the time he never looked away from +Marise. + +"There," said Josephine, slipping out the hairpins, and taking up a +handful of the bright hair to inspect it, "I believe--I _believe_," she +pondered the matter profoundly, her dark, sharp intelligent face +selflessly focussed on the problem, "I _wonder_ if we ought to wash it a +little oftener here than in Paris? There is more dust. But washing it +takes the oil out so. Perhaps a little more of the Meylan dressing. +That has a little fine oil in it. I know the recipe." + +Josephine knew everything there was to know about toilet-preparations, +and about how to use them. She adored her profession and adored Mlle. +Mills for being such a beautiful subject. There were times, when she had +pinned the last shining curl in place, put the last breath of invisible +powder on the rounded young white neck, fastened the last hook in the +exquisitely fitting gown, and got down on her knees to straighten the +gleaming silk of the fine silk stockings, when she wondered what she had +done to deserve such good fortune. + +She often watched Eugenia out of the door, as tenderly, impersonally +proud of her as a painter of his canvas, as a patissier of his tart; and +then feeling somewhat worn with activity and emotion, stepped back, took +off her corsets, got into the rumpled untidy wrapper which was her +personal favorite, put carpet slippers on her tired feet, and sat down +with a novel of high-life to rest. + +Eugenia occasionally thought seeing her thus, that _she_ never was +allowed to relax in unpicturesque ease. It seemed to her that Mlle. +Vallet and Josephine were the ones who were _really_ enjoying Rome! She +worked so hard, she had paid the full price--and somehow the coin was of +no value in this new country to which she was now transported, where she +had not wanted to come, from which she would give anything to get away. +She did not _like_ Mr. Crittenden--she never had liked him--oh, why +wouldn't he just once look at her and see what was there, instead of +talking over her head that queer talk of his? She put on her loveliest +toilettes, things that made Josephine almost weep for pleasure, while +Marise wore that same old gray dress day after day--she ruined her +bronze shoes for him, stumbling around on foot over those horrible old +ruins--how she loathed ruins! Why on earth did any one want to _pretend_ +to like to look at them! + +History! That was what he was always talking about--history that she had +always hated. Here it was again to plague her! How could she have +guessed that he would care about history? She sat up now till all hours +reading it, till Mlle. Vallet was afraid for her eyes, and yet he didn't +seem to notice when she said something about it. He just took it for +granted, as if she were a man. + +What did Marise _want_ of him anyhow? She couldn't possibly expect to +_marry_ him ... neither of them had a cent of money. She ought to think +of that, to think what was best for him. It was selfish, self-centered +of Marise. A man like Neale ought of course to marry money. When she +thought what _she_ could do for him! Married to her he could have +exactly the life he was meant for--travel, leisure, ease--! What was it +about Marise that he liked? She could do everything better than Marise +now, except play the piano, and it evidently wasn't _that_ he cared for +in her, because the afternoon they had all gone to the Visconti recital, +he had listened just as intently to the men students and the other girls +as to Marise. And when Marise asked him afterwards what music he liked +best he told her bluntly the Bach that Professor Visconti himself had +played, and Marise had said she did too. She hadn't seemed to realize +what an affront to her that was. _Why_ did Marise care so much about +him? Why did anybody? Eugenia couldn't understand. She couldn't +understand. Her throat had a hard aching lump in it because she couldn't +understand. + +"A loose soft coiffure for to-night," murmured Josephine dreamily to +herself, happily twisting together the beautiful golden strands, "and +the pale-blue mousseline de soie--not the evening-dress!" she was +shocked at the idea, though nobody had suggested it, "the high-necked +one with the little myosotis embroidered on the ruffles." Josephine +worshipped that dress. + +Her strong dark flexible fingers hovered around the golden head as +though she were calling down blessings on it. As a matter of fact she +was. She slipped off the silk peignoir, washed with almond-scented water +the white arms and neck, and the white tired feet. She dried them with a +fine linen towel by gentle pattings, not to coarsen the skin. She put on +the white silk stockings and white high-heeled slippers, and a white +satin underslip. She stood a moment to be sure she had thought of +everything. Then carefully, carefully she slipped on the pale blue +mousseline-de-soie. "A-ah!" it _was_ as sweet as she remembered it! + +Eugenia had submitted to all this with a forlorn patience. That was all +the good it would do. He would look at her as if she were dressed in a +meal-sack, never even notice that she had changed her dress. What _else_ +could she do, could any one do? What more did he want? She was betrayed; +somehow life had played her false, a callous heartless dishonest trick! +Why _should_ she care so much? She didn't want to care. Why did she long +to have him look kindly at her, till her heart ached? Why every day, +every day, should the disappointment _hurt_ her so? She hadn't done +anything wrong to deserve to be hurt so. If she could only stop caring. +If only Marise would go away. + +Eugenia sat very still, while Josephine set a jeweled comb at exactly +the right angle in the golden hair. One lovely little hand was at her +heart as if by pressing hard on it she could stop the ache, the other +held the fresh, scented handkerchief clutched tightly, in case this time +she could not keep back the tears. She mustn't cry. She mustn't cry, +because Josephine would have to do her face all over. + + + + +CHAPTER L + + +One night Marise woke up with a start, staring into the darkness, +feeling very cold and sick. She knew what had happened. She had come to +her senses in time. She had almost slipped into the trap, the trap set +for her by life, which she had so mortally feared. She had been playing +a foolish, reckless game of hide-and-seek with herself, pretending that +she did not know what was happening. She knew perfectly well what was +happening. Neale Crittenden was in love with her. And she was falling in +love with him. She wanted him. + +Oh, this was the way it must always happen. This was the way all women +were caught in the trap ... these dizzying moments of joy, this +causeless singing of your heart, this blind, rapturous rushing forward +with outstretched arms to clasp all life to your heart ... treacherous +deadly life that only sought to debase you. + +She had always wondered how women could go on, go on to the fatal moment +from which there was no drawing back. Now she knew. You were poisoned, +you were made mad till you longed for that moment with all your being. + +But she had come to her senses in time to draw back. She would save +herself, defend herself, since there was no one to help her, now more +than ever. First of all, she knew passionately, she must not think of +him for a moment or she would not draw back. She must not remember how +he looked or spoke or moved, not even the sound of his voice. She must +concentrate her thoughts on the one fact that she had almost been caught +in that great dreadful trap, that she, Marise, who knew so much better, +had almost fallen in love ... love! + +She drew the covers about her, as she sat bolt-upright in the dark, her +teeth chattering. Love! She sickened at the sound. The gray cat ... +Jeanne ... Isabelle ... the pictures in one of the hidden books at +school ... the passages in her mother's novels ... her mother ... +Madame Vallery ... Madame de la Cueva ... they were all of them looking +at her out of the dark, pointing at her, shaming her, exulting over +her.... "You too ... you have come to it." + +The gray cat! She was like the gray cat! She began to sob hysterically +and thrust the covers into her mouth to smother the sound. + +What could she do? What could she do? She had no strength left. She did +not know how to defend herself! She did not want to defend herself! + +She could run away. Even poor defenseless things could run away. She +stopped sobbing, and sprang out of bed, lighting her candle with +trembling fingers. Her watch showed three in the morning. There was a +railroad time-table down in the dining room. She huddled on her wrapper, +thrust her feet into slippers and, shading her candle-flame, crept +downstairs. + + * * * * * + +At five, hatted and cloaked, she was gently shaking Eugenia and saying, +"I'm so sorry to bother you, but do you happen to have some money on +hand? I've been worrying about Father for some time. It's so long since +I've been back to straighten out the household for him. I've just +decided to get off on the early morning train. I ought to go to see +Jeanne too. It's past my regular time for making her a visit. If you +could just loan me enough to buy the ticket to Paris? I've almost enough +as it is, but I must leave some for Miss Oldham and my _pension_." + +How kind Eugenia had been! How discreet and uninquisitive! She reached +under her pillow, pulled out her gold-meshed purse with the ridiculously +large sum in cash she always carried with her, and gave her a +five-hundred-lira note together with a kiss on each cheek. "When will +you be back, Marise?" + +"Oh, I don't know. I don't know. Quite a long time. I may--I shall +probably not come back at all. It won't be worth while. Mme. de la Cueva +will soon be in Paris again. Good-by, Eugenia dear. You'll be soon +coming north, too, won't you?" + +"Oh, I dare say," said Eugenia, "if it gets too hot here." + +Going down the hall, silent and empty in the dawn, Marise stopped for an +instant before his door. For an instant she was forced to think of him, +the thought like a weakening potion. She stared hard at his door, her +hands pressed tightly together, trembling from head to foot. She was +going away. She would never see him again. She turned back towards her +own room. She could not go. She ran desperately down the stairs, sick at +the idea of what love is. She had almost been caught. She heard the +steel jaws snap shut as she fled. + + + + +CHAPTER LI + + +"Yes," said Eugenia at the breakfast table, "Marise was suddenly called +back to France by family matters. She is her widowed father's +housekeeper, you know; and then too, there is an old servant somewhere +who brought her up, whom she feels it her duty to go to see every once +in a while." + +"What's her address in Paris?" asked Mr. Crittenden urgently. + +"I can give that to you, but if you're thinking of writing her a card it +wouldn't reach her, for she was to go directly on to the south, and I +haven't the least idea what _that_ address is. Some tiny village on the +sea-coast, I believe. Or is it in the Pyrenees? But she will be back +very soon, almost any day. It's hardly worth while trying to write her. +She'll be here before a card could follow her around." + +Mr. Crittenden got up, leaving his coffee untouched, and left the +breakfast-room in his unceremonious American way, without a sign of +decent civility. + +Mr. Livingstone looked at Miss Mills eloquently, with a shrug which +meant, "What can you expect?" + +Eugenia waited till every one, except herself and Mr. Livingstone had +left the room, and then said hesitatingly, "Mr. Livingstone, I +wonder...." He was on the alert in an instant, surprised at her personal +manner. "It's an outrageously big favor to ask of you, but I don't know +any one else adroit enough to manage it." She paused, reflected and drew +back shaking her head, "Oh, no; no! What am I thinking of?" + +By this time Mr. Livingstone was in the chair beside her, assuring her +warmly that if there was anything, _any_thing he could do to be of +service--"I shall consider it an honor, Miss Mills, I assure you, an +_honor_!" + +Miss Mills let her blue eyes rest on his deeply, as if sounding the +depths of his sincerity, and then, with a yielding gesture of abandon, +decided to trust him, "I've been foolish, and I'm so afraid I shall +have trouble unless you can help me. Promise me you won't tell Mlle. +Vallet. Or _any_ one." + +Impassioned protestations from Mr. Livingstone. + +She looked over her shoulder to be sure they were alone, "You know the +rule of the Italian government about taking out of Italy any valuable +antiquities. They are so afraid that tourists of means will carry off +some of the fragments of Greek and Roman sculpture. I _knew_ about it of +course, but I'd no idea it was really enforced--those things so seldom +are in Europe. And I bought a lovely little antique bas-relief to go +over a mantel-piece in my Paris apartment. I had it sent yesterday, up +by the Simplon route; it's too late to get it back and now I'm in mortal +terror of what may happen at the Italian frontier. I heard last night +the most dreadful tales of what they do to any one who tries to smuggle +out such things--not only fines, you know, but lawsuits, lawyers to +frighten you--_publicity_!" + +She looked very pale and anxious as she explained all this so that +Livingstone was deeply touched. But he wondered what she thought he +could do about it. + +"I'm really ashamed, now I've come to the point, to ask you what I +thought. But I _will_--and if you think it too preposterous--more than I +have any right to--it's this. To take a pocket full of money (I don't +care _what_ it costs) and go up to the frontier station and when it +comes along, bribe it through the inspectors. You see, Mr. Livingstone, +it's something that not everybody could manage, even with ever so much +money. But you understand the European mentality so perfectly. It would +need to be done with just the right manner.... Oh, no, _no_," she broke +off abruptly, getting up from her chair. "What a thing to dream of +asking any one to do! What claim have I on your...?" + +Livingstone, blinking joyfully, sprang up too, protesting that nothing +would amuse and interest him more than such a mission. And for _her_, +any mission would be his joy! + +"Well, think it over. Let me know to-night. I'm ashamed to have +mentioned it," she said in confusion. "I don't know how I dared. But oh +Mr. Livingstone, I am so troubled about it. And I am so alone! No one +on whom to...." She had gone, murmuring apologies, touched by his +instant response, leaving Livingstone as much moved and agitated as she. + +She went through into her own rooms and told Josephine, "Put those +manicure things away for the time being. I must go out to do a bit of +shopping. But you can have them ready at ten. I'll be back by that time. +It won't take me long." + + * * * * * + +Neale stood, frowning and looking at his watch, waiting for Eugenia to +come down from the ladies' dressing-room and have dinner. As he fidgeted +about, looking glumly at the brilliant scene about him, he was wondering +with inward oaths of exasperation what in hell could be the matter with +anybody's clothes and hair after the slight exertion of sitting +perfectly still in a cab from the door of the pension to the door of the +restaurant. It was not, God knew, that he was impatient to have her join +him. It was because he was in a steady fever of impatience to have +everything over, the evening, the day, the night--to put back of him +another of those endless, endless days--to be one day nearer to the time +when Marise would return. + +"_What?_" he said irritably to the smooth-voiced waiter who now +approached him with an intimate manner. "Oh, _I_ don't care which +table!" + +"Here, sir, is one right by the edge of the terrace, where the view is +finest," said the waiter in excellent English. "Perhaps the lady would +like a screen. There is occasionally a draught from below." + +He hastened to set a small screen, to rearrange fussily the handsome +silver and linen on the daintily-set table, to slant the single fine +rose in the vase at another angle. + +Another waiter, also impeccably polyglot, with gleaming hair, admirably +cut clothes, and an insinuating manner, now murmured in Neale's ear, +"What wine, sir?" + +Neale answered on a mounting note of irritation, "Oh, I don't _care_ +what wine!" + +"We have an excellent Frascati, sir, that is our specialty. Not found +everywhere, sir. The ladies usually like it. Or...." + +"All right, serve that," said Neale, adding to himself unreasonably, "If +you knew so well, why bother me about it?" + +The real waiter in charge of his table now arrived in all his majesty, +the first one having been but an aide. Neale saw by the earnest +expression in his eyes that he intended to make their conference a +serious one, and cut him short as he began to call over the +possibilities of the menu by a repeated, "All right, that'll do," before +he had had time to do more than mention one sort of fish or one entree, +or one variety of fowl. + +"There, _that's_ over!" he said to himself with a long breath of relief +as the pained waiter turned away to carry into execution that brutally +impromptu order. + +Eugenia arrived now, followed by a little stir all over the restaurant, +as people turned to pay tribute to her beauty and her toilette. "He +can't help noticing _that_!" she thought happily, her pride and +satisfaction showing itself only in an increase of the perfectly +unconscious naturalness with which she took her seat. + +"Oh, what a beautiful view!" she said in a low tone to Neale, looking +down over the cypresses of the Palatine to the city, like a heap of +uncut jewels, dully, deeply colored, under the light of the setting sun. +"You know how to choose a table, I see!" she added admiringly, in an +intimate tone. She wondered if perhaps he had come out in the afternoon +to reserve it. She noticed the screen now, and looked at him gratefully, +really touched. + +The waiter arrived with the soup. + +"Yes, it is a fine view," said Neale, rousing himself. "A very fine view +indeed. That's the Colosseum over there, isn't it?" + +"Yes," said Eugenia, "and that's the Arch of Titus." + +"That's the one with the awfully bad bas-reliefs, isn't it?" said Neale. + +"Oh, _no_," corrected Eugenia, "the one with the poor sculptures is the +arch of Septimius Severus. The arch of Titus is the _good_ one, you +know, with the bas-reliefs of the Hebrews." + +"Oh, yes, of course. You're right," admitted Neale. + +Eugenia thought to herself triumphantly, "Ah, it's not only Marise who +can talk history with him!" + +She was very happy, happier than she ever remembered feeling. Everything +had played into her hands. Everything was going perfectly. She had +succeeded in getting him into just the sort of restaurant where she +could show to the best advantage. + +She was eating her soup with a lively appreciation of its excellence and +found herself perfectly able to keep up an artistic and historic +conversation with Neale; but she was also acutely aware through the +pores of her skin that every woman around her was jealously scrutinizing +her costume. She expanded joyously, like a cut flower set in water. How +_well_ everything was going! Certainly Neale must be aware how he was +being envied. + +She made a remark about the style of the gigantic statues on St. John +Lateran, visible in the distance, and turned her arm slightly so that +her sleeve would hang better. + +Neale answered the remark about the statues on St. John Lateran and +continued to look in that direction as though he were thinking about +them. + +He was saying to himself, "Five days since she left! Only five days! +God! How am I going to live through any more of them. How many more +sleepless nights! Will she ever get back!" + +"Yes, isn't it warm to-night?" said Eugenia, seeing that he was wiping +his wet forehead with his handkerchief. + +"Unseasonable, very," agreed Neale. He had turned sick with his +recurrent panic lest she _never_ come back. He ought to have taken that +next train and gone right after her, as he wanted to. + +The waiter brought the fish. It was not what Neale had ordered, but a +more expensive variety. He looked somewhat apprehensively at the +gentleman as he offered it, but the gentleman did not seem to notice. On +this the waiter disappeared and brought back a bottle of wine, not the +variety Neale had bargained for. + +"Have you any news from Miss Allen?" asked Neale. + +"Oh, no," said Eugenia, slightly surprised. "When she's coming back so +soon, she probably doesn't see there's any need to write." + +She began on the fish. After the first mouthful she said to Neale with +enthusiasm, "You know how to order a dinner as well as to choose a +table, that's evident." + +"It was the first fish he proposed," said Neale. + +Eugenia thought, "How much better breeding he has, after all, than Mr. +Livingstone, always boasting of his savoir-faire." + +Neale's thoughts were jumping incoherently from one thing to another. +"Funny place Rome is, to be planning how to run a wood-working plant in +Vermont. Funny change of direction, from planning to go out to China and +the East, about-face to planning to settle down and take root. You +wouldn't think that would appeal to a man who had had the idea of +ranging the world a while longer, to tie himself...." This attempt at +reasonable consideration of things vanished in an explosion of emotion, +as if a spark had fallen into gunpowder. "Oh, if she _will_! If she +_will_! Why didn't I make a chance to see her alone before she went +away?" + +Eugenia was talking about traveling. She had noticed Neale's interest in +travels. "I'm thinking, Mr. Crittenden, of making a leisurely trip +around the world--not one of those detestable, herded, conducted tours. +And yet how else can I go about it? What would _you_ do? I'm so ignorant +of anything outside of Europe. I _wish_ I had some one intelligent and +enlightened to go with me. It's so forlorn to travel alone!" + +"Why, you'll _like_ traveling alone!" said Neale reassuringly, thinking +of his own past year. "It's great not to have to bother with some one's +else tastes and notions and foolishness and limitations." + +"Oh, but," said Eugenia, looking down at her wineglass pensively, "of +course it's better to be alone than with some one whose tastes and +interests are nothing to you. But to have with you some one you really +_care_ for...." + +Neale thought suddenly what the past year would have been if he had had +Marise with him, and cried out fervently, "Oh, of course, _that_ would +be the ideal!" + +The waiter brought the roast and the Frascati. And still the gentleman +made no objection. Well, he would bring a cordial with the coffee, +ordered or not. The gentleman didn't seem to know what he had ordered or +what he was eating. And no wonder, with such a beautiful girl across the +table. The waiter shot an experienced, appraising eye at Eugenia's +clothes. "He ought to be good for a big tip," he reflected hopefully. + +Eugenia thought best to leave a thoughtful silence after the remarks on +companionship in travel, and sipped her wine with downcast eyes. + +Neale was trying again to think things over reasonably, trying to do as +he had always done about everything, to get things clear and straight +and sure in his head. There must be no possibility of a mistake where +Marise was concerned. "How _about_ this now? I've gone stale on other +things. How do I know I won't have a slump some time later? A human +being is so full of such damn unexpected things--I must be _sure_ for +Marise's sake. How can any man be...." At this he was shaken by so +terrible a throe of desire, of longing for Marise that he was +frightened. He sat pale, breathless, helpless before it; suffering, +tortured, exalted. + +When he could breathe he wiped his forehead again. His fingers were +shaking. He would go out of his mind if she didn't come back soon. His +need for her was like a man's need for air and food and water and sleep. +Think reasonably about such essential needs as that! A man cannot live +without them. He could not live without Marise. He had not lived before +he knew her. + +"How moved he is," thought Eugenia, seeing his pale, shaken look. "But +he doesn't dare speak. He will to-morrow. Or the day afterwards." + +The waiter brought the dessert. Also coffee with the unordered cordial. + + + + +CHAPTER LII + + +Father had grown stouter. He always did. But he looked very well. And +his shirts and socks seemed to be all right. Melanie had seen to them, +although the dust was thick all over the furniture, and the windows were +semi-opaque with smoke. Father was glad to see her, said she was looking +very pretty and asked her kindly if she didn't need some more money; but +he was not in the least enthusiastic over her reforms in the +housekeeping. "Who cares about dust!" he told her. "And as for smoke on +the windows, I'm never here in the daytime anyhow except for lunch--and +I don't want to look out of the windows then." And as for getting hold +of Biron to keep him up to the mark, Marise found that it was trying to +put your finger between the tree and the bark, to get between Biron and +her father. Every evening after they had both earnestly finished the +serious business of eating dinner, Biron left Melanie to the mere brute +labor of cleaning up and washing dishes while he put on a clean apron +and came into the salon to consult with his employer about the two meals +of the morrow. Marise was astonished at the learning and acumen +displayed by both of them in the matter. However had her father learned +so intimately all the resources of Les Halles in all the seasons? He +subscribed to a newspaper which gave a complete report of the arrivals +at the market from both sea-shore and country-side, over which he and +Biron pored intently, putting on round spectacles and bending their +portly frames over the page. And there was a wine-sellers' journal too, +the news items of which were brought up for consideration once a week. + +"_When it fails, I go out and run a mile, and then I can eat anything._" + +Melanie was no longer allowed to serve the meals thus prayerfully +planned and created. It was Biron himself who brought in the _plat_, +set it down and waited anxiously till it had been tasted and the +verdict pronounced. He did not sit down opposite his master and share +the meal ... not yet! But Marise had an intuition that it would not be +long before he would. Why not? He was the only other person capable of +appreciating that meal. He and her father were bound together by a +common passion: they completed and rounded out each other's lives. Where +else could Mr. Allen find such another cook? Where else could Biron find +another such employer? They were blood-brothers, fellow-priests of a +common cult. They might be thankful that somehow they had found each +other in the world. + +When, after a few days of sharing this menage, she told her father she +thought she would go down to see Jeanne, he said, sure, that was all +right if she felt like it, and was she sure she didn't need any more +money? + + * * * * * + +Under the thick green shade of pollarded sycamores sat old Jeanne in the +wheeled-chair Marise and her father had given her. The young girl, whom +Marise and her father paid to take care of Jeanne, came running to +unlock the gate and let the visitor in. + +There was old Jeanne, her head tied up in the black coif, just as Marise +had seen her a thousand times, her face all twisted to one side just as +she had seen her that one time she could not forget. And how glad she +was to see Marise, pulling her down to kiss her on both cheeks, crying a +little for joy and wiping away the tears with her one active hand; for +although she had recovered somewhat, so that she could eat and talk a +little if she formed the words very slowly and was not excited, she had +never been able to use her paralyzed arm or leg again. + +Marise must sit beside her, and let old Jeanne look into her face +closely with her loving old eyes, and stroke her white young hand with +her gnarled fingers that had worked so hard for the child Marise. And +when her first agitation was over, and she was calm enough to try to +talk, the questions, the loving, anxious questions: Was she well, the +darling, darling girl? And was she happy? And did that Parisian slut of +a maid look out for her decently? And who did the marketing? And who did +her hair, her beautiful, beautiful hair? Jeanne's brown hand rested +lightly on the shining dark head. No one had hair like her Marise. She +must let it down so that Jeanne could see it again as in the old days. +And how about her linen? Jeanne was troubled on this point. Linen was +not what it had been and the way it was washed in Paris was a crime. A +Parisian family were staying near by, and Jeanne's daughter-in-law did +their washing. Such grimy, gray linen--it made Jeanne sick to think that +perhaps her darling was no better cared for. Marise must needs open her +valise there and then, and take out a chemise to show Jeanne, who +handled it, held it close to her one good eye, touched the tip of her +tongue to it, and gave it back, saying, with an attempt at tolerance, +"Oh, well, it's as good as a laundress can do nowadays, I dare say," and +possessed herself of Marise's hand again, holding it to her heart +fondly. + +Marise found the tears were in her eyes. How sweet it was to be loved! +She clung to the old hand as she had when she was a child and Jeanne's +had been the only hand held out to her. + +The old, crafty wrinkles came around Jeanne's eyes. She pulled Marise's +head close to her and whispered, "You've never told? Nobody at all?" + +"No, no," said Marise hastily. "No one." She felt the old sickness rise +to her throat as she said it. + +"And you're not ... no man ... you're not engaged or...." + +"No, oh, no!" said Marise, still more hastily. + +Jeanne's face quieted. She drew a long breath and stroked Marise's hand. +"That's right! That's right! They're all alike, my darling. Don't forget +that. They're all alike when it comes to women." + +Next morning Marise was amazed to have Jeanne greet her all over again, +as though she had not seen her, with fresh surprise and joy, the same +questions, the same trembling stroking of her hair. Only why was her +hair up on her head? That must be just a joke. She must be playing +being a lady. And was she sure she knew her catechism? Her white veil +was ready, finer than any other little girl's veil. How lovely she would +look in it! + +"Yes," whispered the young caretaker, in answer to Marise's look of +bewilderment, "she doesn't remember you were here yesterday. She often +imagines you are with her when she is quite alone. We hear her talking +happily to you. And now she does not know the difference between you and +her own daughter who died. No, she will never know if you just slip away +now. She will never know that you came or that you are not still here." + +When Marise went quietly out at the gate she left Jeanne dozing in her +chair under the plane-trees, dozing, and waking to talk lovingly to the +two little girls who had both died so long ago. + + * * * * * + +She had learned in the village that Mlle. Hasparren was no longer +teaching in Bayonne, had gone back to her own little hill-town in the +Pyrenees. Marise knew the way there very well, having spent many a +week-end and vacation with Mlle. Hasparren in the old days. The boy from +the farm where Jeanne was living chanced to have an errand that took him +over the pass and down into that valley. On an impulse Marise asked to +go with him. She stowed her valise away under the plank seat and +scrambled up beside the bullet-headed boy in the blue beret. How it all +took her back to her childhood! The little two-wheeled cart flew off +behind the swift small horse, rattling and jolting up hill and down, +just as when she and Mlle. Hasparren had gone off together. + +At the beginning of the long steep road up to the divide, she and the +boy got out and walked, her shoes soon powdered white with dust. How +dusty Mlle. Hasparren's shoes had been the day they stood waiting in the +station...! + +They plunged down the other side into the green, poplar-planted valley +with every home, every turn of the road as it had been. They stopped at +the tiny, white-washed cabin, with its leafy atrium of sycamores. As the +boy drove away and the sound of his rattling wheels died to silence, +Marise heard from within the first notes of the Sonata in G, the one she +had first studied with Mlle. Hasparren. + +She went in without knocking, sure that the little home contained no +servant, and there sat Mlle. Hasparren, her hair several shades whiter, +her black dress several degrees shabbier, her quiet worn face and steady +eyes bent lovingly over the keys. The music was like the very sound of +her voice. + +They sat up late that night talking--Marise must tell all about Rome and +the old Visconti, as legendary a figure to Mlle. Hasparren as Paganini; +and Mlle. Hasparren must tell how she came to leave her city-school and +go back to the little mountaineers in the rough, plain village +class-room. "I seemed to feel nearer to them," she said, not knowing +very well how to tell why she had, "and I felt a great longing for my +mountains and my own old home. And they need music here. Do you remember +Father Armandariz?" + +"Oh, yes," Marise nodded. She had never forgotten the lean young priest +who led the open-air singing of his improvised chorus in front of his +fortress-like old church. "Oh, yes, don't you remember we used to drive +over just to hear his choir sing here and in another parish too?" + +"He is doing wonderful work. We work together a great deal." + +"You! With a cure!" Marise was astounded. + +Mlle. Hasparren laughed. "Oh, yes, yes, those radical ideas of mine. Of +course I still have them. But they don't seem so important as they did. +Father Armandariz and I are good friends. We both love music. That's +enough. He puts cotton in his ears when I let fall a heresy, and I dip +my fingers in the holy-water font and cross myself when I go to play the +organ in church. Those are little things, and little things mustn't be +allowed to interfere with great ones." + +That evening Marise watched a choir rehearsal, Mlle. Hasparren at her +piano, Father Armandariz, bony, threadbare, hollow-cheeked, his eyes +gleaming with ardor, leading now the group of serious-faced Basque girls +in black mantillas, now the great-chested, burly Basque men whose +resonant basses shook the little house. One of them (Mlle. Hasparren +had said he was the village shoemaker) was given a bass solo and +practised it over several times, while the others listened. He held his +head high, drew in a great breath and sang as though it were the meaning +of his life he were singing out, "Magnificat anima mea Dominum!" And +then all the others with him, "My soul magnifies God!" Father Armandariz +stopped them. "No, the altos were too slow on coming in. Once more." And +then again, "Once more." + +They all kept their eyes on him earnestly; they began again +unfalteringly as many times as was necessary; before the evening was +over they looked tired; but it was a good fatigue, and when they finally +finished and turned to smile at each other and fold their music sheets +together, their faces wore a quiet, purified serenity which Marise +envied them. This was music. Not one of them was thinking of himself nor +how the music had made him appear to advantage nor how he could use +music as a tool to get ahead of other people, or get himself talked +about. + +The memory of Donna Antonia's soirees, of Mme. de la Cueva's good advice +came into her mind. People called that sort of thing "art-atmosphere," +didn't they? It was the cemetery of art, that's what it was, with the +egotism of the performer dancing on the grave. One evening here, such an +evening as this--there was more music in it than in months of chatter +about the clothes and hair and morals and incomes of the people who make +it on the platform. + +At the piano Mlle. Hasparren and Father Armandariz were talking together +of the next evening's rehearsal, Mlle. Hasparren occasionally +illustrating with one hand what she was saying. How deeply human was the +look of intimate confidence they bent on each other, the ugly young +priest and the ugly old school-teacher. They might well be thankful that +they had found each other in the world. + +Mlle. Hasparren turned around now and asked Marise if she would not play +for them. "I would be so proud to show my friends what an old pupil of +mine has come to be," she said fondly. + +It seemed to Marise that she had never in her life felt so like playing. +What should it be? She swerved on her way to the piano to stoop to kiss +Mlle. Hasparren's swarthy cheek, and, sitting down, with an affectionate +smile at her, began the Toccata in D minor, just as Mlle. Hasparren had +taught it to her, with all she had learned since then. She had never +played to such an audience; when she turned around Father Armandariz was +looking beatific and Mlle. Hasparren exalted with pride. She had never +played so well. She had, she felt, just begun to know what music was. + + * * * * * + +Mlle. Hasparren had set up for her a folding cot in her own room, since +there was no other bedroom in the tiny house. They slept side by side, +near enough so that they could have reached out and clasped each other's +hands as on that night so long ago when Mlle. Hasparren had pulled +Marise out of the black pit. Marise could not go to sleep. Long after +Mlle. Hasparren lay breathing deep, her dark face relaxed in a selfless +quiet that was not more selfless than her waking look, Marise lay +looking out at the stars and the mountains, thinking, trembling, +sometimes feeling hot bitter tears in her eyes, sometimes feeling her +heart swell high with strange, unearthly aspiration. + +Mlle. Hasparren was right. She had always been right. To keep clear of +all troubling, maddening, personal relations that were sure to end by +poisoning you, not to want anything for yourself, to give all for +music--how _safe_ you would be, to live like that. And how sweet it +would be to feel safe! She never had. She was so _tired_ of feeling +afraid. Why _not_ live like that? When you knew it was the only safe +way! When you knew that if you did not, you would fall headlong into +that dreadful mire that splashed up such indelible stains upon your mind +at even the few chance contacts with it which life brought to a girl. +Yes, that was the only safe way. Never to go back to Rome at all. +Somehow to devise a life all devotion to music, with the miserable +personal affections burned up in that greater ardor. Yes, that, Marise +decided, that was the only tolerable, the only endurable future she +could see. + + * * * * * + +People began to stand up, to put on their wraps and collect their +valises. The train was passing the outskirts of Rome. It would be in the +station in a few minutes. + +Marise tied on her veil over a piteous white face. She had said she +would not go back to Rome at all. She had scarcely been ten days away. +She had come back. Like any other woman she had come back to the trap. + + + + +CHAPTER LIII + + +She had not seen him yet. She had had her breakfast sent to her room +when she heard he was still at the pension. She had thought certainly he +would be gone away by this time. + +She knew he would not have gone away! + +She stood now with Eugenia at the entrance to the Pincian, up on the +hill, by the fountain, under the ilex trees looking down over the city. + +This was where their first walk together had ended. + +"I think I see Mr. Crittenden just come up the Trinita steps and turning +this way," remarked Eugenia, looking in that direction. + +If Marise could have stirred, she would have run away. She turned her +head and saw him coming. Although he was still so far away that she +could not make out his face, she knew by the sudden tautness of his +figure, by the spring forward of his step that he had seen her. + +There he came, striding strongly towards her, as he had come to seek her +out, across the world, across all time. He looked infinitely familiar to +her, and yet infinitely different from all she had been thinking of him. +She had forgotten! What had she been imagining him? + +When he drew near enough to be sure it was she, he snatched off his hat +and swung it around his head with a bright, boyish gesture of joy. The +wind ruffled his hair, the sun shone full on his bold, clear face, on +his deep eyes, on his tender, full-lipped mouth. + +He was smiling at her, all his heart in his smile. He was welcoming her +back. + +Marise felt a warm gush all over her body, as though her heart had +suddenly begun to beat again, as though he had welcomed her back into +life. Why, this was Neale! This was no monster to dread. If she had +seen him, only seen his face that morning, only had one look from his +eyes that both smiled and were steady ... she would never have run away. + +She was not hurt at all, only frightened half to death! She was not just +a woman in love, ready to give herself up to a man. She was Marise in +love with Neale. + +He had come up to them now, his breath coming fast as though he had been +running. For an instant he did not speak, taking her hand silently in +his. All that life had made of him looked out on her from his clear +eyes. + +With a beating flutter, her heart sprang up from its numb torpor of +fright and spread its wings. + + * * * * * + +"Well, we certainly have missed you!" was what he finally said. + +"I'm very glad to be back in Rome," she answered. + + + + +CHAPTER LIV + + +I + +He had stood this gregarious flocking around just all he was going to, +Neale decided that morning, up under the ilex trees, exchanging +commonplaces with the two girls, unable to say or even to look what he +felt, because Eugenia was there. And he'd had plenty of Eugenia during +the last ten days. + +What a nightmare those ten days had been to him! What a hideous +block-head he had been to let Marise slip away from him, even for a +time, before he had made a chance to see her, _really_ to see her, in a +quiet place where they could hear themselves think--with none of those +third and fourth persons hanging around. What had he been thinking of, +drifting along like a man in a dream, with no sense of time? + +But that absence of hers had waked him up. Yes, it had waked him up! He +had not had one consecutive night's sleep since she had been gone, +starting up continually from a doze with his arms empty when he had +dreamed she was lying in them. How had he ever lived through that +suspense and uncertainty without losing his mind? He was very grateful +to Eugenia for having kept him from making an awful fool of himself and +getting into a blind mess of confusion. She had kept him in Rome by +telling him that Marise would be back any day. If it hadn't been for +that--where would _he_ have been? Looking for a needle in a haystack all +over Southern France, and Marise back in Rome. + +Well, she was back and he had been too frightened not to have learned a +little sense. He'd manage a walk with her alone, just the two of them +before the day was out or--How could he? + +How did you do anything? You just went and did it. + +He went boldly to her room and knocked on the door. When Marise came to +open it, he said, "To celebrate your return, won't you let me show you +a specially lovely spot on the Campagna I've found? I've been taking +some long, solitary walks while you were away." He added firmly, "No, +not Miss Mills and Mr. Livingstone because they don't like to tramp, and +this is 'cross country." + +There! It had been no harder than that. Why in the name of heaven hadn't +he thought of the simple, obvious way to get the thing done? He went +back to his room and sat down, staring at the wall, to wait till +afternoon came and to try to plan what he would say when it came. He +hoped a great deal that she had read Browning. + + * * * * * + +But she hadn't. As they passed through the city walls and came out, just +the two of them, under the wide sky he asked her about it, timidly; for +he was horribly frightened and moved, now that he had her to himself. +And she said that she was sorry, she was very ignorant of English and +American poetry, having been so little in an English-speaking country. +Neale sighed. No luck! She went on to suggest apologetically that she +ought some time to go back to America and take a course in English +Literature, or at least gather the books about her and read. "My old +Cousin Hetty's front porch wouldn't be a bad place," she said +thoughtfully. + +"I'm going to see that front porch before so very long, you know," said +Neale, springing one of his surprises, with a rapidly beating heart and +an impassive face. + +She darted one of her swallow-swift glances at him. + +"Yes, you've persuaded me. I've persuaded myself. I'm not going to sell +the Ashley property right away, not without going up to look at it at +least. I've been thinking a great deal about what you said that first +day. I've been thinking a great deal anyway--can't--can't we sit down +somewhere?" He flung away any pretense of having a special place to show +her. She too had apparently forgotten it. They sat down on the short +grass, their backs against a low heap of stones, part of the ruins of a +very ancient aqueduct. Far in the distance a flock of sheep roamed with +a solitary shepherd leaning on his staff. + +"You know--you know what we've been talking about, trying to find one's +way, know what you were meant to do. Well, my guess about myself is that +I'm a maker by birth, not a buyer or seller. The more I think of it the +better it looks to me, like something I'd like to put my heart into +doing as well as I could--taking raw material, you know, that's of no +special value in itself and helping other men to make it worth more by +adding work and intelligence to it. You know what somebody said about +the ounce of iron that's of no use, and the hundred hair-springs the +watchmaker makes out of it. I don't see why I didn't think of it at once +when I knew Uncle Burton had left me the mill. But I'd never have +thought of it if you hadn't helped me. It takes me so _long_ to get +around to anything anyhow. And you are so quick! You see, I know a lot +about the lumber-business, and quite a bit about saw mills, and I can +get on fine with workmen. I _like_ them, and I _love_ working in the +woods. And--and--" he brought out the second of his carefully planned +points, "it would be a home too. You said it was a home. Everybody wants +a home, Marise." + +He sat silent, listening to the word as it echoed over their two +homeless heads. And then he took his courage in his two hands and turned +towards Marise. What he saw in her face so shocked and startled him that +every carefully planned word dropped from his mind. He forgot everything +except that the dark, set look was on her face and all that tragic +sadness he could not forget. + +"Marise, Marise--what is it?" he cried, frightened. What could he have +said? + +With her shoulders and eyebrows she made an ugly, dry little gesture of +dismissing the subject, and said ironically, "What makes you so sure +everybody wants a home?" + +He stared at her stupidly, not able to think of anything to say, till +she went on impatiently, irritably, "It's just sentimental to talk like +that. I never heard you say a sentimental word before. You know what +homes are like,--places where people either lie to each other or +quarrel." + +Neale was startled by the quivering, low-toned violence of her accent. +Why should she wince and shrink back as if he had struck on an +intolerably sensitive bruise--at the word, _home_? + +"Why, let me tell you about my home," he said eagerly to her, in answer +to the tragic challenge he felt in her look, her tone. "I don't believe +I ever told you about what my home was like; just the usual kind, of +course, what any child has, I suppose, but--let me _tell_ you about it." + +He began anywhere, the first thing that came into his mind, what the +house was like, and where the library was, and how he liked his own +room, and the security of it; his free play with little boys on the +street that was his great world, and how he felt back of him, as a sure +refuge from the uncertainties of that or any other great world, the +certainties of what he found when he ran up the steps every afternoon, +opened the door, his door, and stepped into his home, where he was sure +of being loved and cared for, and yet not fettered or shut in. "Father +and Mother always let me alone, let me grow." + +He told of the meal-times and his boy's raging appetite, and his +mother's delight in it. He told of the evenings when Father and Mother +sat reading together; of the free-flowing tide of trust and affection +between his parents, changing with their changes, never the same, never +different; trust and affection of which he had never been really +conscious but which had always been the background of his life. He +remembered even to his father's tone as he said, "Oh, Mary," and her +instant, "Yes, dear, what is it?" + +He had not thought of it for years, he had never before thought +consciously of it, had always taken it for granted as he took daylight, +or his own good health. But there in that foreign land it all stood up +before him, clear in its own quiet colors, visible to him for the first +time against the other worlds he had been seeing and divining. He +thought of foolish little gay things to tell her--he could not have +guessed why they came into his mind--about the house smelling "trunky" +when it was time to go to West Adams, and Mother, who could never get +the trunk packed, and Father's joking her about it. And the long trip +over to the city; Father always waiting to let him see how the +ferry-boat was tied up. And in the train how Father kissed Mother +good-by and then Neale, and then Mother again, and put his cheek for an +instant against hers. This time Neale looked back through the years +straight into his father's face, proudly, and held his head high. + +He found himself telling things that he himself had never thought of +till then--his parents' tolerant patience with his boy's fits and +starts, with his egotism and absurdities, with his periods of causeless +and violent energy, his other periods of causeless, violent indolence. + +And West Adams, he had always till this moment taken for granted the +stability of that second home of his, that had been his father's before +him, like a rock to which his tossing little boat was moored whenever he +wished. Grandfather and Grandmother, plain old people--like Marise's old +Cousin Hetty perhaps--grown as much alike as an old brother and sister, +who still went off blue-berrying on the mountain together every summer. + +And then, when he had needed his home no longer, the adventuring-forth +of his father and mother, and his guessing for the first time how they +had tamed their self-centered youth to be parents; the moment when he +and Father stood together under the old maple-tree and understood each +other so deeply, with no words, all the years of affection and trust +rising up and standing there with them; and how Father and Mother had +driven away as if for an Indian Summer honeymoon, Mother's face smiling +through her tears. He told--yes, even that--how for an instant he had +felt hurt and left out, and Mother had known it and come running back to +say a last loving good-by to the little boy he had been. + + * * * * * + +Marise had not said a word as he brought this all up for her to see, nor +did she when he had finished and was silent. But he could see that her +hands, folded together in her lap, were shaking. He waited for her to +speak. He knew there was something ominous in her silence, like +gathering thunder. His heart was heavy with it. He was afraid of what +might be coming. But he longed to have it come, to have it tear down +the barrier between them. + + * * * * * + +"So that's what you have known--what every child has, you suppose!" she +said passionately, her voice quivering and breaking. She stopped herself +abruptly. She could scarcely breathe, her agitation was so great. She +knew what she would do if she opened her lips again. But she would die +of suffocation if she did not speak. It rose within her like a devouring +flood, all that old, ever-new bitterness; and beat her down. + +She heard herself, in a desperate, stammering voice, telling him ... +_telling_ him! + +The words that passed her lips did not seem words but bleeding, living, +tortured things. She was mortally sick and faint, but she could not +stop. Once as in a flicker of lightning she knew what she was doing, and +tried to stop--but she had torn it loose from those fibers that had +grown so close and hard around it, she had wrenched it away--bloody and +raw--it was too late to stop. + +When she finished she leaned her face on her hands and was silent, +feeling as though she had died. When she finally looked up at him she +saw that the tears stood thick in his eyes. She had never dreamed that +for good or ill one human being could feel so close to another. It was +as though she could not tell whether those tears were his, or had come +healingly into her own dry eyes. + +She saw the anguish of his yearning sympathy--and yet what was it he +said? Something she had not dreamed any one could say, "Oh, the poor +little girl you were! Wasn't there _any one_ to help you to get it +straight, to understand it?" + +"Understand it!" she said harshly. "I understood it only too well." + +He looked away from her, across the plain, and kept a thoughtful +silence. Then he said, "I don't believe you understood it in the least. +Is it likely that any fourteen-year-old little girl could understand +anything like that, anything that must have begun, had its real causes +back before you were born--and why should you take the point of view of +an ignorant old woman who certainly had the ignorant old woman's +appetite for scandal? You probably didn't even get straight what really +happened then--it sounds fearfully mixed up, you know, as though there +must be more than that to it. Let alone its _real_ meaning, its human +meaning, that you couldn't possibly have understood at fourteen, if you +had known all the facts--and there certainly were lots more facts than +what you saw and what that old woman put into your head. + +"And, anyhow--oh, Marise, no matter _what_ it was, it has nothing to do +with your life _now_! Why do you let it mean so much to you? Just think +how long ago it happened! It hasn't a thing to do with _you_. How can +it?" + +She flushed a deep, shamed red, and asked in a whisper, "You don't think +that I ... that I would be like that?" + +He cried out furiously, "No, no, _no_! What an idea! It's nothing to +you--nothing, I tell you. It's been nothing to you for years. You ought +to have stopped thinking of it ever so long ago. Everybody starts all +over again. You're yourself. You don't have to keep carrying that around +with you. It doesn't belong to you. Let it fall. Leave it here!" he +commanded abruptly, springing to his feet and holding out his hand to +help her rise. "Leave it here! And walk off into your own life." + +She stood up beside him now, so giddy with a strange new lightness that +she laid her hand on his arm to steady herself. + +At her touch he flushed hot with the desire to put his arms about her +and hold her passionately close. The desire was so intense that he had +for an instant the hallucination that he had done it, that she leaned +her head against his breast. But he had been so harrowed by sympathy for +her poor bruised heart, had been so touched by the revelation of the +delicacy and fineness of fiber which had but served to deepen the +dreadful, unhealed hurt with which she had lived helplessly, he was so +moved by her white, drawn face, lifted to his own with a childlike faith +in what he said, he was so wrung with his thankfulness to see on that +pale face a sensitive reflection of his own certainty ... oh, now was no +time to burst out on her with the flame of his passion, now when she +was so weak, so defenseless. He put aside his passion with a strong +hand, resolutely. + +Looking at him, she saw his face flush darkly with his desire, and felt +herself as safe from a touch as though she looked down on him from a +high tower. Had she ever felt safe before? + +She leaned on his arm like a convalescent. She walked off beside him +quietly, into her own life. + + * * * * * + +The walk back to the city walls was as full of a comforting, silent +sense of each other's presence as though they had lived their lives +together. + +Once in a while they spoke together as simply and naturally as children, +of small, everyday things, of little changes he would need to make in +his house, an old cistern to be drained and filled in, the half-rotten +maple which darkened the living-room cut down to let the sunlight in. + + * * * * * + +In one of the quiet silences, full to the brim with their nearness to +each other, Neale remembered what he had meant to do with this +afternoon, what he had so self-consciously planned to say. The thought +made him abashed and humble. How infinitely deeper life was than you +could ever know till you began to live. He had thought he loved Marise +as much as a man could love a woman. He saw that he had only begun to +guess what love could be, that it is a tie between two struggling human +beings, as well as between a man and a woman, and that it is not to be +had without effort and growth. It was something that would take all +there was in him to live up to. + +As he walked beside her, he was dedicating all there was in him to +loving her. + + +II + +She was tired, heavenly tired, when she reached her room that late +afternoon. She had not been tired like that since she was a little girl; +relaxed, abandoned before the soft-footed advance of sleep. She could +scarcely think coherently enough to remember to send word that she would +not appear at dinner, before she was undressed and in her bed. There was +nothing in her mind but this exquisite fatigue, from which presently, +even now, as she thought of it, sleep would drift her away. She laid her +tired head on the pillow with a long breath. Some weak tears gathered in +her eyes and ran slowly down, but they were sweet tears, not bitter. And +so she fell asleep. + +It was late, when she woke, well on into the next day, and the room was +filled with the crystal clarity of daylight. As she opened her eyes, she +was thinking as though it were the continuation of a dream, that if she +ever had children she would ... she would take _care_ of them! She would +learn how always to be close to them, so that she would be there, ready +to help them when.... She wouldn't leave them helplessly to think that +the evil was in life itself and not in coarse and evil minds. She +wouldn't leave them for years to think that the poor, mean joking of +sniggering servants is all there is to life and love. She would stand up +for them, look out for them! Marise stood fiercely on her guard for them +now, up in arms against what threatened them. + +It had never before in her life, not even fleetingly, not once, occurred +to her that she might ever have children. She knew now that she wanted +them. That was the second step into her own life. + + + + +CHAPTER LV + + +Neale could not sleep. Of course he could not sleep. Sleep was for fools +with nothing to think about. But Neale had ... such things to think +about! + +She had let him in. She had let him in. He stood in the holy of holies +and knew that he was welcome. + +Now he knew the meaning of her look that first evening on the roof. Now +he knew why, up there under the ilex trees that morning, her dear eyes +had been for an instant wild as if with fright when he drew near. And +yet, even before she had let him in, her eyes had softened from fright +to quiet trust as he looked down at her, had softened to that look, +_her_ look, which thrust him through and through with love for her. + +He turned impatiently back and forth on his bed, seeing, everywhere he +looked, those liquid dark eyes, that sweet, sweet mouth, till he held +his empty arms out longingly in the dark. His desire was like a fire. He +knew such pain as he had not dreamed of, and he would not for any price +have lost an instant of that pain. Had he ever said he was an unlighted +torch? He was flaming now, to his last fiber. + +Presently he got up, lighted his candle and dressed. It was impossible +to lie still with this fire of life blazing in him. He would be beside +himself by dawn, if he had not worked some of it off. He let himself out +carefully into the corridor, and walked down to her door. There, before +it were her shoes, her little, dusty shoes which had brought her back to +him. He picked one up and held it in his hand. He stroked it like +something alive. The dust on it was dear to him. + +When he stepped out into the silent, deserted piazza a church clock +struck two, boomingly. The night air was cool on his cheek. The great, +starlit dusky sky, spacious over his head, was none too large to hold +the greatness in his heart that night. It filled all space to the last +dim, shining star. He set off at random, anywhere, not noticing where +his feet took him, up one street and down another--blindly, as he had +lived. And yet somehow he had found his goal. + +The splash of water struck on his ear. He saw in the starlight the dim +sheen and sparkle of a fountain--Trevi. He stood still to think of what +it reminded him--Madison Square and Martha. + +His heart went out to Martha as he stood there. He thought of her not +with embarrassment, as the woman he had loved before he met Marise. He +had not loved her. He thought of Martha tenderly, calmly, with deep +gratitude. He owed all this to her. She had saved him from the +second-rate, dingy life he had been so dingily ready to accept. She had +somehow divined that there must be something else. Something else! Neale +was shaken at the thought! Why, now, this instant, if some one struck +him down dead as he stood there, he would have lived more, known more of +the joy and sacredness of love than after forty years with Martha. He +wished he knew how to pray, so that he could pray that Martha too might +know it. + +And then, with a rush, Martha was gone from his mind, and Marise stood +there, Marise, looking up at him with piteous, frightened eyes that +softened to trust, to quiet trust. + +He set off swiftly, swinging his arms and talking to himself. How could +he be worthy of such a trust! He _would_ be worthy of it. By God, he +would give her a square deal. A square deal such as no other woman ever +had! The whole of his heart, his respect, his honor. He would share his +life with her loyally, as with an equal ... no hidden thoughts, no +half-way openness, no dark corners of compromise, no secret chambers +kept for himself. All the great gates flung open to welcome her into her +own home. + +He flung his arms wide, and looked up at the stars, which were beginning +faintly to grow dim against the whitening sky. + +His passion seized on him now and shook him till he was faint with it. + +When it passed for a little, he turned back towards the east, towards +the Pincian hill where he had so often walked with her, where he had +seen her that morning. The shade of the ilex trees was full of her +presence to him. He was far from there, half across the city. As if it +were a goal he had set himself, he began to hasten, to lengthen his +stride, to let out some of the strength that boiled up in him like a +geyser. + +It did him good to walk furiously fast, to tire himself a little. His +thoughts grew less wild, his heart stopped leaping and pounding. She had +looked frightened because she was afraid of love, poor darling, as she +was of life. He would show her what love could be. He would wash all +that old poison of doubt and distrust and fear out of her life with the +ocean of his love. They would live together so openly, so honestly, so +naturally, that she could forget wholly all the sick, morbid impressions +that her life had left on her, that she would come to trust and love +life and love and nature, with its serene progression of birth, growth, +death, even the decay which is only preparation for another birth. + +Why, that was something he could _do_ for her! He had something to give +her, something she needed, something to match a little the golden +treasure she poured out on him with her every glance. It was incredible +good fortune! How under the sun could a man, a poor, plain, ordinary +human being, live so that he might be worthy of such transcendent good +fortune? + +He was swinging up the long steps now, the dawn white and clear about +him. Here was where he had turned that morning and saw her standing afar +off, bright under the black shade, come back to him! Here was where he +had been near enough to see her face, her brows drawn together, the +seeking look in her eyes. He had always thought Marise's eyes seemed to +be looking for something. Here was where he had seen that they looked +frightened. And now he stood on the very spot where she had stood, and +he saw again her eyes soften into quiet trust. + +If somehow she might find in him what she was looking for! His heart +stood still in awe. + +He looked out over the sleeping city, its roofs and domes and towers +coming palely into the new day; and he saw her dark eyes soften from +fright to quiet trust. + +God! Suppose he had never lived, never known Marise! The sweat stood out +on him at the thought. + +If she could ... if she could look into his face and find that life had +put there what she sought. + +The sun rose magnificently and cast over all the world a flood of golden +light. + +Neale stood in it, praising and magnifying God, who had sent him into +life. + + + + +CHAPTER LVI + + +They were on their way to hear a Palestrina mass in a chapel at St. +Peter's, and stopped beside one of the great fountains rushing with a +leap into the brilliant air and falling in white clouds of spray. + +"I've heard," said Livingstone, "that if you get at the right angle to +the sun, you can see a million little rainbows." + +They began to walk here and there over the wet, moss-grown paving-stones +around the base of the fountain, looking up at the glittering splendor +of the upward plunging water, their ears filled with the liquid silver +plashing and dripping of its fall. "Perhaps this isn't the right +fountain, with the sun where it is," suggested Livingstone. He and +Eugenia walked off across the wide piazza towards the other fountain. +Neale turned towards Marise. She was standing on the other side of the +basin, and as he looked at her the wind flung the huge white veil of +spray over her. She stood in its midst like a novice in her white +robes ... or like a bride. Her eyes were lifted to the great plume +of the leaping water. + +He sprang toward her, crying jealously, "What do you think of when you +look like that?" He raised his voice to drown out the shouting uproar of +the water. + +The wind caught the spray and cast it away to the other side. + +She answered him, dreamily, "I was wondering how we could ever know what +we are made for?" + +The wind shifted and for an instant cast the white veil over them both. +Through it he called to her, "_I_ know! I know what I was made for! To +love you all the days of my life." + +The wind whirled away the sparkling curtain of water. They stood in the +quiet golden sunshine. His ears rang in the silence. Had he really at +last cried it out to her? Or was it only one more of the thousand times +when he had cried it soundlessly to his own heart? Eugenia and +Livingstone had come back, were beside them now, between them; carrying +them along up the endless steps to the church door. It was like walking +in a dream. Neale tried to see Marise's face, but it was hidden by the +broad-brimmed droop of her hat. Only the sweet, sweet lines of her +lips.... + +No, it could not be that he had spoken. It had been only another of +those blinding moments when his heart flung itself up, shouting, into +the sunshine of her look. + +They stepped silently into the dusky, incense-perfumed chapel. Mass had +begun. Eugenia and Marise sank to their knees, Livingstone standing on +one side, Neale on the other, the crowd pressing thick and close about +them. + +From the choir came a long, sonorous chant, and then a silence, in which +Neale's thoughts, pounding and hammering in his head, were stilled to +one great, solemn petition. + +The priest turned and passed from one side of the altar to the other. He +raised his hands over the heads of the kneeling people and chanted the +"Pax vobiscum." + +"Et cum spiritu tuo," responded the choir, on three long, sighing notes +that brought peace with them. + +Standing there, upright, looking over the heads of the densely packed +crowd, his eyes fixed on the steady yellow flame of the altar-candles, +Neale felt a touch on his hand. His heart stopped beating. He knew the +lightest touch of that hand, as he knew the lightest sound of that +voice. + +He stood motionless, not breathing ... waiting. + +He felt Marise slip her hand into his, and hold it fast in a close, +close clasp. But not so firm as his own on hers. Through the dear flesh +of that dear hand he felt her pulse beating against his own, as if he +held her in his arms. + +The yellow flames of the altar-candles flickered and blurred before his +eyes. + +A great "Hosanna!" burst from the choir. Or was it in his heart? + + + + +CHAPTER LVII + + +How suddenly it had all broken up, Livingstone thought forlornly, their +pleasant little quartet of walks and talks. He had the sensation of +being left stranded by the ebbing of a tide which had seemed to buoy him +up on great depths. With the disappearance of Miss Mills back to her +Paris apartment, the very light had gone out of everything. Miss Allen +never had had the social grace and ease of Miss Mills, and now she ate +her meals silently and vanished immediately, and Crittenden, not being a +social light on any occasion, was of less than no use in saving the +situation. + +Livingstone was reduced to solitary mornings spent in museums, with a +book of art criticism in his hand; or on Sunday mornings, when admission +was free, on a bench in the park on the Palatine. The benches were very +comfortable there, not mere backless slabs of stone, and when you felt +like sight-seeing you could get up and lean over the wall and look down +into the Forum and pick out where the different buildings had stood. + +He stood thus, his back to the long, cypress-shaded path, trying to be +archeological, his guide-book open on the wall. Which of the battered +rows of stumps of pillars had been the Temple of Vesta and which the +Fornix Fabianus? + +He heard voices back of him. To be exact he heard Miss Allen's voice +back of him. Livingstone was so paralyzed by the quality of it that, +gentleman though he tried to be to the marrow of his bones, he was for +an instant incapable of stirring and announcing his presence. _That_, +Miss Allen's voice! She sounded as though she had come into a fortune. +But what under the sun was she saying? + +"Here, exactly here, is where we stood when you said you were like the +puppy, and when you rolled the dusty weight of all those centuries off +my shoulders. And now come along. The next place in the pilgrimage is +St. John Lateran, where you said, you brutal Prussian, that nothing +would induce you to protect a woman!" + +"Come, come, this is eavesdropping. Something must be done!" said +Livingstone to himself. He shut his guide-book with a slam to give them +warning, and faced about resolutely. But they had paid no attention to +his warning. They stood with their backs to him, and, oh! hand in hand +like rustics at a country fair. But she had called him a brutal +Prussian! And a puppy! + +"Ahem!" said Mr. Livingstone, loudly, not knowing what else to say. + +They turned about, and saw him, and seemed neither surprised nor +ashamed. Miss Allen stepped quickly towards him, smiling and saying, +"Oh, Mr. Livingstone, we were meaning to tell you anyhow.... Mr. +Crittenden and I are going to be married." + +She smiled at him dazzlingly as she spoke, but Livingstone was not at +all sure from the expression of her eyes that she saw him. It crossed +his mind that she would have smiled as dazzlingly as that if a lamp-post +had stood in his place. + +"Married!" he cried, really aghast for both of them. That sensitive, +imaginative girl tied for life to that unfeeling, rough, hard fellow. +What on earth did she, even for a moment, see in him? And as for +Crittenden ... any man with a little money of his own, personable enough +to marry advantageously, throwing himself away on a girl without a penny +either now or in prospect! To what a wretched, cramped life he was +dooming himself and her ... back rooms in greasy, third-rate pensions, +never any margin for decent clothes.... + +"Yes, and we're going to live in Ashley, Vermont." + +Livingstone sank down on his bench, appalled. Worse than third-rate +pensions! Worse than the human mind could conceive! + +"Oh, no! No! No!" he cried to her as though he were clutching at her as +she sank to ruin. "No! Don't say that! You've no idea ... my dear young +lady, you haven't the faintest idea what an impossible life that would +be. You mustn't consider it for a moment. Crittenden, you mustn't let +her consider it. An American country village. Good God! You don't know +what it is, what the people are!" + +"Yes, I do, too," she told him gaily, giving the effect, though she +stood quite still, of executing a twirling pirouette of high spirits. +"I've lived there. It's really going back home for both of us." + +"Home! Why, Crittenden certainly told me he'd never been there in his +life!" + +"Oh, pshaw, Livingstone, don't be so heavy-handed and literal. Why +wet-blanket _every_ imaginative fancy?" said Crittenden, laughing loudly +as though some one had made a joke. He might, for the impression he made +on Livingstone, have joined hands with the girl to dance madly around +him in a circle. But this was no laughing matter. This was terrible! +Tragic! They had simply lost their heads, both of them, lost their heads +and had no idea what they were doing. You could tell that by the wild +glitter in their eyes. They were infatuated, that was it, infatuated. He +must try to recall them to their senses. He turned imploringly to the +girl. "But ... but ... but...." He was so agitated that he could not +bring out his words. He stopped, drew a long breath, and passed his hand +over his forehead. Then, very solemnly, "Do you know," he said to her, +warningly, "do you know that you will probably have to _do your own +work_?" + +At this, she burst into an inexplicable, foolish shout of laughter, +opening her eyes very wide at him and saying, "Appalling!" + +She looked up at Crittenden, who for his part never took his eyes an +instant from her. + +How foolishly she talked! How foolishly she laughed! Why, they were +acting as sentimentally as ... Mr. Livingstone could not think of any +comparison adequate to their foolishness. + +They were moving away now, nodding good-by to him and smiling at each +other. At the top of the dark steps leading down through the Palace of +the Caesars to the Forum they turned and cast a backward glance at him, +who stood stock-still where they had left him, staring after them, +dumfounded. Miss Allen looked at him and then came flying back, running, +her light dress fluttering. What did she want? What was she going to do, +with that shining, tremulous, mirthful face? Livingstone felt afraid of +her, as if, like a swift bolt of summer lightning, she might strike him +through and through. + +What she did was to take his face in her two hands and give him a hearty +kiss on each cheek. "_Dear_ Mr. Livingstone!" she said (or was it +"_poor_"?) + +Livingstone had the impression, from the expression of her face, that +she would have kissed a cabman with equal fervor, and that Crittenden +would have watched her do it with the same fatuous look he had now. + +They went down together into the vaulted darkness and desolation of the +ruined palace. Livingstone, leaning on the wall high above, saw them +emerge together into the Forum and step off over the ancient flagged +paving. And still hand in hand! Mr. Livingstone had by this time thought +of an adequate comparison. They were as sentimental as a couple of +Rogers statuettes! + +Looking up, they saw him leaning there. They waved their hands and +called up some laughing greeting to him. But he could not understand +what they said, because they were too far away from him. + +Hand in hand in the fierce, literal brightness of the noonday sun, they +trod their new path over the ancient stones. + + +THE END + + + * * * * * + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE + + +Obvious typographical errors have been corrected without comment. + +Minor inconsistencies in hyphenated words have been adjusted to conform +with the author's most frequent usage, except for bed-room/bedroom which +are left as in the original. + +On page 68, "Meisonnier" was changed to "Meissonier" to correspond with +the correct spelling of the 19th century painter, as found later on the +same page. + +Accent marks have been added to the following words, based on context, +and author's most frequent usage: + + aperitif: page 152 (in the phrase, "... aperitif at the cafe....") + menage: page 156 (in the phrase, "... a young menage;...") + chateau: page 452 (in the phrase, "... of the chateau Country....") + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Rough-Hewn, by Dorothy Canfield + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUGH-HEWN *** + +***** This file should be named 37451.txt or 37451.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/4/5/37451/ + +Produced by Cathy Maxam, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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