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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/37664-8.txt b/37664-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6ddaa4f --- /dev/null +++ b/37664-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10071 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sins of the Children, by Cosmo Hamilton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Sins of the Children + A Novel + +Author: Cosmo Hamilton + +Illustrator: George O. Baker + +Release Date: October 7, 2011 [EBook #37664] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN + + + [Illustration: And over them both ... hung the moon and stars.] + + + + + THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN + + _A NOVEL_ + + BY + COSMO HAMILTON + + + WITH FRONTISPIECE BY + GEORGE O. BAKER + + [Illustration] + + BOSTON + LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY + 1916 + + + _Copyright, 1916_, + BY COSMO HAMILTON. + + _All rights reserved_ + + + Published, October, 1916 + + + THE COLONIAL PRESS + C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. S. A. + + + To + + MY WIFE + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PART ONE--YOUTH + + PART TWO--THE CITY + + PART THREE--LIFE + + + + +PART ONE + +YOUTH + + +THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN + + +I + +When Peter Guthrie laughed the rooks stirred on the old trees behind the +Bodleian and the bored cab-drivers who lolled in uncomfortable attitudes +on their cabs in St. Giles perked up their heads. + +He threw open his door one morning and leaving one of these laughs of +his rolling round the quad of St. John's College found the recumbent +form of Nicholas Kenyon all among his cushions as usual, and as usual +smoking his cigarettes and reading his magazines. The words "as usual" +seemed to be stamped on his forehead. + +"What d'you think?" cried Peter, filling the room like a thirty-mile +gale. + +"You ought to know that I don't think. It's a form of exercise that I +never indulge in." Kenyon lit a fresh cigarette from the one which he +had half-smoked and with peculiar expertness flicked the end out of the +window into St. Giles Street, which ran past the great gates of the +college. He hoped that it might have fallen on somebody's head, but he +didn't get up to see. + +"Well," said Peter, "I was coming down the High just now and an awful +pretty girl passed with a Univ. man. She looked at me--thereby very +nearly laying me flat on my face--and I heard her ask, 'Who's that?' It +was the man's answer that makes me laugh. He said: 'Oh, he's only a +Rhodes scholar!'" And off he went again. + +Nicholas Kenyon raised his immaculate person a few inches and looked +round at his friend. The Harvard man, with his six-foot-one of excellent +muscles and sinews, his square shoulders and deep chest, and his fine, +honest, alert and healthy face, made most people ask who he was. "If I'd +been you," said Kenyon, "I should have made a mental note of that Univ. +blighter in order to land him one the next time you saw him, that he +wouldn't easily forget." + +"Why? I liked it, from a man of his type. I've been 'only a damned +Rhodes scholar' to all the little pussy purr-purrs ever since I first +walked the High in my American-made clothes. I owe that fellow no +grudge; and if I meet that girl again--which I shall make a point of +doing--I bet you anything you like that his scoffing remark will lend a +touch of romance to me which will be worth a lot." + +"Was she something out of the ordinary?" + +"Quite," said Peter. + +He hung his straw hat on the electric bulb, threw off his coat, rolled +up his sleeves and started to tidy up his rooms with more energy and +deftness than is possessed by the average housemaid. He flicked the +little pile of cigarette ash, which Kenyon had dropped on the floor, +into a corner. He gathered the weekly illustrated papers which Kenyon +had flung aside and put them on a back shelf, and then he picked up the +man Kenyon in his arms, deposited him in a wide arm-chair in front of +the fireplace and started punching all the cushions. + +Kenyon looked ineffably bored. "Good God!" he said. "What's all this +energy? You shatter my nervous system." + +"My dear chap," said Peter, "you seem to forget that this is Commem. and +that my people have come three thousand miles to see their little Peter +in his little rooms. I'm therefore polishing up the knocker of the big +front door. My mother has a tidy mind and I want my father to gain the +impression that I'm methodical and responsible. He has a quick eye. They +wired me from London last night to say that they'll be here at five +o'clock to tea. I dashed round to the Randolph early this morning to +book rooms for them. Gee, it's a big party, too! I can't make out why +they want so many rooms. It'll be like my sister to have brought over +one of her school friends. I guess I shall be darned glad to see them, +anyway." + +There was a touch of excitement in the boy's voice, and his sun-tanned, +excellent face showed the delight that he felt. He had not seen his +mother, brother and sister for two years, having spent his vacations in +England. + +Nicholas Kenyon got up slowly. He did everything slowly. "Well," he +said, "I thank God that my people don't bother me on these festive +occasions. To my way of thinking the influx of fathers and mothers into +Oxford makes the whole place provincial. However, I can understand your +childish glee. You are pretty badly dipped, I understand, and with the +true psychology of the rasping undergraduate you are first going to +throw the glamour of the city of spires over your untravelled parent and +then touch him for a fairly considerable cheque." + +Peter gave a sort of laugh. "Touch my father!" he said. "Not much. I +shall put my case up to my mother. She's the one who does these little +things." + +Kenyon was faintly interested. Being perennially impecunious himself and +unable to raise money even from the loan sharks, he looked to the advent +of Peter's parents to bring him at least fifty pounds. He always +borrowed from Peter. + +"Oh, I see," he said. "It's the old lady who carries the money-bags, is +it?" + +"No, it isn't," said Peter; "but as a matter of fact I never have gone +to my father for anything and I don't think I ever shall. I don't know +why it is, but none of us have ever been able to screw up courage to say +more than 'Good-morning' and 'Good-night' to the Governor, although of +course we all think he is a very wonderful person." + +Kenyon yawned. "I see," he said. "Bad luck. I should hate to have such a +disagreeable devil for a father--one of the martinet type, who says +_don't_ all the time when he ought to say _do_, and makes home a sort of +pocket-hell for everybody." + +Peter twisted round and spoke quickly and rather warmly. "So should I," +he said, "but luckily I haven't. I didn't want to suggest that my father +was that type of man. He's one of the very best--one of the men who +count for something in my country. He's worked like a dog to give us a +chance in life and his generosity makes me personally sometimes feel +almost indecent. I mean that I feel that I have taken advantage of +him,--but--but, somehow or other,--oh, I don't know,--we don't seem to +know each other--that's all. He hasn't the knack of winning our +confidence--or something. So it comes to this: when we want anything we +ask mother and she gets it for us. That's all there's to it. And look +here, Nick, I want you to be frightfully nice to the Governor. Get out +of your ice-box and warm up to the old man. I can't, you see; but as he +has come all this way to look me up I want somebody to show some +appreciation." + +With his eyes to the small relief which the visit of Dr. Hunter Guthrie, +of New York City, might bring him, Nicholas Kenyon nodded. "Rely on me," +he said. "Butter shan't melt in my mouth; and before your father leaves +Oxford I'll make him feel that he's been created a Baronet and appointed +Physician in Ordinary to His Majesty the King. Well, so long, Peter! I'm +lunching with Lascelles at the House this morning. I'll drop in to tea +and hand cakes round to your beloved family." + +"Right-o," said Peter. "That'll be great!" And when the door closed and +he found himself alone he arranged a certain number of silver cups which +he had won in athletics all along his mantel-piece, for his father to +see, gazed at them for a moment with a half-smile of rather +self-conscious pride, finished tidying his room, gazed affectionately +for a few moments at the familiar sight of Pusey House through the +leaf-crowded trees that lined the sunny street, and then sat down to his +piano and played a rag-time with all that perfect excellence and sense +of rhythm which had opened the most insular doors to him during his +first days as a fresher. + + +II + +This fine big fellow, Peter Murray Guthrie, who had done immensely well +at Harvard in athletics and was by no means a fool intellectually, could +afford to be amused at the fact that he had been scoffingly referred to +as "only a Rhodes scholar." He had been born under a lucky star and he +had that wonderful gymnastic faculty of always falling on his feet. If +with all his suspicions aroused he had gone up to Oxford in the same +rather timid, self-conscious, on-the-defensive manner of the average +Rhodes scholar who expected to be treated as a creature quite different +from the English undergraduate, he would have found his way to the +American Club and stayed there more or less permanently, taking very +little part in the glorious multitudinous life of the freshmen of his +college, and remained a sort of pariah of his own making. Freshmen +themselves, the Lord knows, are forlorn enough. Everything is strange to +them, too,--society, rules, customs, unwritten laws and faces. They are +solitary creatures in the midst of a bustling crowd. If they do not come +from one of the great public schools and meet again the men they knew +there their chance of making friends is small and for many dull +disappointing weeks they must mope and look-on and envy and find their +feet alone, suffering, poor devils, from a hideous sheepishness and +wondering, with a sort of morbid self-consciousness, what others are +thinking of them. But Peter was unafraid. He stalked into Oxford +prepared to find it the finest place on earth--with his imagination +stirred at the sight of those old colleges whose quadrangles echoed with +the feet of the great dead and rang with those of the younger generation +to whom life was a great adventure and who might spring from those old +stones into everlasting fame. He strode through the gate of St. John's +with his chin high, prepared to serve her with all his strength and all +the best of his youth and leave her finally unsullied by his name. He +didn't give a single whoop for all this talk about the snobbishness and +insularity of English undergraduates. He didn't believe that he would +find a college divided and sub-divided into sets; and if the statement +proved to be true--well, he intended to break all the barriers down. + +Therefore, with such a spirit added to his fine frank, manly +personality, irresistible laugh, great big friendly hand and the rumours +that came with him of his bull-like rushes on the football field, he +became at once a marked man. Second-year and even third-year men nudged +each other when he passed. "By Jove!" they said. "That's a useful +looking cove! We must get him down to the river." Or, "I wonder if that +American can be taught to play cricket?" As for the freshers--all as +frightened as a lot of rabbits far away from their warren--they gazed +with shy admiration and respect at Peter, who, expecting no rebuffs, +received none. + +Finding that he could not live in college until he was a second-year +man, Peter had looked about him among the freshers for a likely person +with whom to share rooms. He had come up in the train with Nicholas +Kenyon, whose shell he had insisted upon opening. He, too, was entered +at St. John's and was very ready--being impecunious--to share lodgings +with the American whose allowance he might share and whose personality +was distinctly unusual. These two then gravitated to Beaumont Street, +captured a large sitting-room and two bed-rooms on the ground floor, and +from the first evening of their arrival were perfectly at home. Peter at +once hired a piano from a music shop in the High which he quickly +discovered, bought several bottles of whiskey and a thousand cigarettes, +besides several pounds of pipe tobacco, threw open his window, and as +soon as dinner was over started playing rag-times. + +Kenyon had been interested and amused. He had not expected to find +himself "herding," as he put it, with a damned Rhodes scholar. He took +it for granted that these "foreigners" would live apart from the +ordinary undergraduate, as uncouth people should. He had been quick to +notice, however,--psychology being his principal stock in trade,--that +Peter had made an instant impression; and as he sat on the window-sill +listening with what he had to confess to himself was keen pleasure to +Peter's masterly manipulation of the piano and saw all the windows +within near range of their house open and heads poke out to listen, he +was able--without any propheticism--to say that Peter would quickly be +the centre of a set. He would certainly not be sulking in the American +Club. + +Very quickly P. M. Guthrie, of St. John's, became "Peter" to the whole +college--and stroke in the freshers' boat. The other Rhodes scholars +owed everything that was good to him. He stood by them loyally, made his +rooms their headquarters, and all who wanted to know him were obliged to +know them. He introduced swipes at the first freshers' concert in the +Hall, with enormous success, selecting Forbes Nicholl, of Brasenose; +Watson Frick, of Wadham; Baldwin Colgate, of Worcester; and Madison +Smith, of Merton, all good Americans, for the purpose. Even Dons stayed +to listen on that epoch-making occasion and the fame of their curious +and delightful method of singing spread all over the university. It was +easy. There was nothing else like it. + +Quite unconsciously Peter was for a little while the whole topic of +conversation at Dons' dinners. These hide-bound professors were really +quite surprised at the remarkable way in which, at one fell swoop, this +man Peter Guthrie had managed to weld together the English and American +undergraduates for the first time in their knowledge. Some of them put +it all down to his piano playing--and were very nearly right. Others +conceived his great laugh to be mainly responsible--and were not far +short of the mark. But it was Nicholas Kenyon, the psychologist, who put +his finger on the whole truth of this swift and unbelievable success. He +said that it was Peter's humanity which had conquered Oxford, and in so +doing proved--impecunious only son of an absolutely broke peer as he +was--that he would be able to make a very fair living in the future on +his wits. It may be said that he never intended to work. + +It was part of Peter's honesty and simplicity to remain American. He +made no effort to ape the Oxford manner of speech. He would see himself +shot before he got into the rather effeminate clothes affected by the +Oxford man. He continued to be natural, to remain himself, and not to +take on the colors chameleon-wise of those about him. His Stetson hat +was the standing joke of St. John's. Nevertheless, there was not one man +in the college who would not have hit hard if any derogatory remarks had +been thrown at the head inside it. His padded shoulders, upholstered +ties and narrow belt were all frequently caricatured, but the sound of +Peter's laugh gathered men together like the music of the Pied Piper of +Hamelin. It was just that this man Peter Guthrie was a _man_ that made +him not only accepted in a place seething with quaint and foolish +habits, out-of-date shibboleths and curious unwritten laws, but loved +and respected. Here was one to whom merely to live was a joy. To the +despondent he came therefore as a tonic. He exuded breeziness filled +with ozone. His continuous high spirits infected even those foolish +boys who were encrusted with affectation and stuccoed with the petty +side and insolence of Eton. He worked hard and played hard and slept +like a dog, ate hearty and drank like a thirsty plant. Also he smoked +like a factory chimney. He had no crankish views--no tolerance for +"isms," and was not ashamed to stride into chapel and say his prayers +like a simple boy. In short, "unashamed" was his watchword, and he had +been endowed with the rare gift of saying "No," and sticking to it. And +to Nicholas Kenyon, who frequented the rooms of the so-called +intellectuals--those "little dreadful clever people" who parroted and +perverted other men's thoughts and possessed no originality of their +own--it was a stroke of genius on Peter's part to have nothing but the +photographs of his family all over his rooms. He must be a big man, +Nicholas said to himself, who could afford, among the very young, to +dispense with the female form divine in his frames--the nudes so +generally placed in them--in order to convey the impression of being +devilish wise and bad. Also it showed, according to this human merchant, +a peculiar strength of character on Peter's part to bolt his door +regularly one evening a week so that he might sit down uninterrupted and +write a tremendous screed to his mother. However, that was Peter the +man-boy--Peter the Rhodes scholar--Peter the Oxford man--who always +wound up his musical evenings with the "Star Spangled Banner." And there +was just one other side to this big, simple fellow's character which +puzzled and annoyed the bloodless, clever parasite who lived with him +and upon him,--women. + +Now, Nicholas Kenyon--the Honourable Nicholas Augustus Fitzhugh +Kenyon--was a patron of the drama. That is to say, he had the right +somehow to enter the stage door of the Theatre Royal at all times, and +did so whenever the theatre was visited by a musical comedy company. He +was known to innumerable chorus girls as "Boy-dear," and made a point of +entertaining them at luncheon and supper during their visits to the +university town. He brought choice specimens of this breed to Beaumont +Street for tea and tittle-tattle and introduced them to Peter, who liked +them very much and would have staked his life upon their being angels. +But when it came to driving out to small unnoticeable inns, Peter +squared his shoulders and stayed at home. + +"The devil take it!" said Nicholas one night, with frightful frankness +which was devoid of any intentional insolence. "What's this cursed +provincialism that hangs to you? I suppose it comes from the fact that +you were born in a shack to the tinkle of the trolley-car!" + +Peter's howl of laughter made the piano play an immaculate tune. +"Wrong," he said. "Gee! but you're absolutely wrong. The whole thing +comes to this, Nick: One of these fine days I'm going to be married. The +girl I marry is going to be clean. I believe in fairness. _I'm_ going to +be clean. That's all there is to it." + +So that, one way and another, Dr. Hunter G. Guthrie, of New York, as +well as St. John's College, Oxford, had several reasons to be rather +proud of this man Peter. + + +III + +One o'clock that afternoon found Peter still hammering on his piano, not +only to the intense delight of three snub-nosed tradesmen's boys who +delayed delivery of mutton-chops and soles, which were only plaice, but +also of five people who had come quietly into the room. They stood +together watching and listening and waiting for him suddenly to discover +that he was not alone. One was a tall, rather angular, clean-shaven, +noticeably intellectual man whose thin hair was grey and who wore very +large glasses with tortoise-shell frames, through which he looked with +pale, short-sighted eyes. He held a grey hat in his thin hand and stood +watching the boy--who made his piano do the work of a full band--with a +smile of infinite pride on his lips. Another was a little lady, all soft +and sweet, with a bird-like face and a curious bird-like appearance. All +about her there was a sort of perennial youthfulness, and the goodness +of her kind heart gleamed so openly in her eyes that they asked beggars +and cripples, itinerant musicians, ragamuffins, street dogs and all +humbugs to come and be helped. At that moment they were full of tears, +although little lines of laughter were all about them. Another was a +slight, exceedingly good-looking young man whose hair went into a series +of small waves and was brushed away from his forehead. He was grinning +like a Cheshire cat and showing two rows of teeth which would make a +dentist both envious and annoyed. There was a slight air of precocity +about his clothes. Two girls made up the rest of the party. Both were +young and slim and of average height. Both were unmistakably American in +their fearless independence and cleanness of cut. One was dark, with +almost black eyebrows which just failed to meet in the middle. Her eyes +were amazing and as full of danger as a maxim,--large and blue--the most +astonishing blueness. They were framed with long, thick, black lashes. +Her lips were rather full and red, and her skin white. She might have +been an Italian or a Spaniard. The other girl was blonde and slim, with +large grey eyes set widely apart, a small patrician nose and a lovely +little mouth turning up at the corners. + +How long all these people would have stayed watching and listening no +man can say. Suddenly, in the middle of a bar, Peter sprang up and +turned round. His cry of joy and the way in which he plunged forward and +picked up the little bird-like woman in his arms was very good to see. + +"Mother!" he cried. "Mother! Oh, Gee! This is great!" and he kissed her +cheeks and her hands, and then her cheeks again, all the while making +strange, small, fond noises like a little boy who comes back home after +the holidays. + +"Oh, dear, dear Peter!" said the little woman, between tears and +laughter. "How splendidly rough you are! You shake me to pieces! Where +_shall_ I be able to tidy my hair?" + +Then, with a rather constrained air and a touch of nervous cordiality, +Peter turned to his father and took his hand. "How are you, father?" he +asked. "You look fine." + +Dr. Hunter Guthrie swallowed something and gave a murmur which remained +incoherent. Before he could pull himself together, Peter was hugging his +sister, who squealed like a pig from the tightness of this man's mighty +grasp. And then the brother came in for it and winced with pain and +pleasure as his hand was taken in a vise-like grip. + +"Hello, Graham!" + +"Hello, Peter!" + +And then everybody except Peter burst out laughing. He stood in front of +the fair girl, with his mouth wide open, and held out his hand and said: +"I was going to hunt the whole place for you,--I beg your pardon." It +was when he drew back, with his face and neck the color of a beet root, +that the laughter reached its climax. + +Belle Guthrie was the first to find her voice. "Well, Peter," she said, +"that's going some. Is an introduction superfluous in Oxford? Where did +you meet Betty Townsend?" + +"I haven't met her," said Peter. "I saw her this morning in the High for +a second--" He ran his finger round his collar and moved from one foot +to the other and shifted his great shoulders. No man on this earth had +ever looked so uncomfortable. + +And then, with consummate coolness, Betty Townsend came to the rescue. +"Just after we arrived this morning," she said, "and you were all buying +picture post-cards, I passed Mr. Guthrie when I was walking along the +High Street with Graham's friend. I recognized him from the photographs +that you have at home, and I think he must have heard me ask, 'Who's +that?' I naturally gave him a friendly look. That's all." + +"I didn't catch the friendly look," said Peter. But he did catch the +friendly tone and stored it up among his treasures. Then he suddenly +stirred himself, being host, picked up his mother and placed her on his +elaborate sofa; gave his best arm-chair to his father; waved his sister +into the window-seat with her friend, and tilted Graham into a deck +chair. + +Standing in the middle of the room, beaming with pride, he said: "How in +thunder did you get here so soon? Your wire said that you were coming to +tea, and I was going to meet the train leaving Paddington at +three-thirty. Gee! This is the best thing that ever happened! Will you +lunch here?" + +"Oh, no, dear!" said Mrs. Guthrie. "So many of us will worry your +landlady." + +Then out came one of Peter's huge laughs. "Worry my landlady? One look +at Mrs. Brownstack would show you that she got over being worried before +the great wind. Why she's kept lodgings for undergraduates for twenty +years. It's the same thing as saying that she's spent the greater part +of her life sitting on the top of Vesuvius. I can give you beer, beef, +pickles, biscuits, cake, swipes they call coffee, some corking Nougat +and three brands of cigarettes." + +"I think," said Dr. Guthrie, with a suggestion of haste, "it might be +better if you lunched with us at the hotel." Like all doctors, his first +thoughts were of digestion. + +"Right-o!" said Peter, and he dived into his bedroom for a more +respectable coat. His brother followed him in and the two stood facing +each other for a moment, eye to eye. They had not met for two years. +Instinctively they grasped hands again and the minds of both were filled +with most affectionate things--a very flood of words--but one said "Old +man!" and the other "Peter!" And while Graham brushed his kinky hair +with a temporary suggestion of throatiness, Peter hauled out his best +coat and whistled to show how utterly unmoved he was. + +They returned to the sitting-room together. Dr. Guthrie was examining +the conglomeration of books that loaded the shelves. The plays of +Bernard Shaw rubbed shoulders with "Masterton on Land Taxes." +Stevenson's "Treasure Island" leaned up against Webster's Dictionary. +"Tono-Bungay" had for a companion a slushy novel by Garvice--and on them +all was dust. + +The little mother, all a-flutter like a thrush, was at the window +looking through the trees at the warm old buildings opposite. The two +girls were peering into a cupboard as into the "Blue Room," where they +found nothing but a few whiskey bottles, several packs of cards, a box +of chess-men, a couple of mortar-boards with all their corners gone, +and a large collection of white shoes in all grades of dilapidation. + +"Are you all ready?" asked Dr. Guthrie, with a curious gayety. Among all +this youth even he felt young. + +"Rather," said Peter. "I could eat an ox." + +He opened the door, touched his mother's soft cheek with his finger as +she passed, tweaked his sister's hair, refrained from catching Betty +Townsend's eyes, winked at his brother and drew back for his father. + +Once in the quad Mrs. Guthrie whispered to Graham and went quickly out +into St. Giles, beckoning to the two girls to follow. She was very +anxious that Peter should walk with his father, and this--rather pleased +with himself--Peter did. He would have taken his father's arm if he had +dared, he was so mighty glad to see him. Several times the Doctor seemed +about to do the same thing, but his hand hesitated and dropped. And so +these two fell in step and walked silently along towards the Randolph +Hotel, passed by men in twos or threes, many of whom, to the Doctor's +inward delight, cried out, "Hullo, Peter!" with tremendous cordiality. +It was not until they turned the corner that the Doctor spoke. + +"It gives me real pleasure to see you again, Peter," he said, with a +quick self-conscious glance at the young giant at his elbow. + +"Thank you, father," said Peter, looking straight ahead and getting as +red as a peony. + + +IV + +Nicholas Kenyon more than lived up to his promise. In clothes into which +he seemed to have been poured in liquid form, he handed hot toast and +cakes to Peter's family at tea-time with that air of deferential +impertinence which was his peculiar property. He had the same effect on +the Doctor and Mrs. Guthrie and the two girls as he had on Peter when he +first saw him on the train. His complete self-control, his indolent +assurance, his greyhound look of thoroughbredness and the decorative way +in which he phrased his sentences all charmed and amused them. For +Peter's sake he came right out of his shell at once and behaved like a +man who had been a favorite in that family circle for years. In the most +subtle manner he implied to the Doctor that his fame as a bacteriologist +had spread all over Oxford, and even England. He refused to believe that +Mrs. Guthrie was the mother of her children and not her own eldest +daughter. He asked Graham almost at once to do him the favor of giving +him the name of his tailor, and told Betty that he had shot with her +father, Lord Townsend, many times, well-knowing that he was a portrait +painter in New York. With consummate ease and tact he put everybody on +the best of terms with one another and themselves, thereby winning still +more of Peter's admiration and liking. With great pleasure he accepted +the Doctor's invitation to dine at the Randolph Hotel, and in return +invited all present to be his guests at the Open Air Performance of +"Twelfth Night," later in the week, by the O.U.D.S., in the beautiful +gardens of Worcester. In a word, he played with these people as a cat +plays with a mouse and as he had always played with Peter. He used all +his brain not only to win their confidence and friendship but to make an +impression which might afterwards be of use to himself. + +Nicholas Kenyon was one of those men who are born and not made. He +opened his eyes to find himself in an atmosphere of aristocratic +roguery. The beautiful old house in which his father lived was mortgaged +to the very tops of the chimneys. It was maintained on money borrowed +from the loan sharks at an exorbitant interest. It was filled with men +and women who, like his own parents, were clever and intellectual enough +to work for their livelihood, but who preferred to live on their wits +and cling to society by the skin of their teeth. In this +atmosphere of expert parasites--an atmosphere as false as it was +light-hearted--Nicholas was brought up. He was a complete man of the +world at fourteen. Even at that age he gambled, raced and borrowed +money; and in order to provide himself with the necessities of life he +ran a roulette table in secret at Eton and made a book for the racing +bets of the little boys of his own kidney. Highly gifted and endowed +with a most likable personality, with the art of eluding punishment for +misdeeds brought to a masterly completeness, he could have been shaped, +under different circumstances, into a man whose name would stand high in +his country. With the proper training and discipline and the right +sense of duty which is given to those lucky lads whose parents are +responsible and honorable he had it in his power to become a famous +diplomat. As it was, he entered Oxford as a parasite and would leave the +university for the world in the same capacity. He was entirely +unscrupulous. He had no code of honor. He quietly used the men about him +to provide him with amusement, money, hospitality, and to insure him +against having to work. He turned his personality into a sort of +business asset--a kind of limited liability company--which brought him +in regular dividends. His breeding and good form, his well-known name +and his inherent ability to slide comfortably into any set or society, +made him wholly irresistible. No one suspected him, because his +frankness disarmed suspicion. His knowledge of human nature told him +that the paradox of his being poor lent him a sort of romance, and he +always began by telling new acquaintances that he was broke to the wide. +In this way he struck the honest note of the men who disdain to convey +false impressions. He was poor, but proud, and made himself so +attractive and companionable that men were delighted to be put to great +expense in order to entertain him,--and he wanted everything of the very +best. His clothes were immaculate. His cigarettes were freshly rolled. +When he drove a car it had to be of the best known make. He was a most +fastidious reader and had once read a paper on modern poetry which had +startled the Dons of his college. He contributed short satirical +articles to the Isis from time to time which tickled the intellect of +the more discriminating; and as a fresher had given a performance of +Puck in one of the productions of the O.U.D.S., over which undergraduate +critics went raving mad. Even in his dealings with his friends, the +chorus girls, there was a certain touch of humour which made it +impossible even for the most straightlaced to say hard things of him. + +In a word, Nicholas Kenyon was a very dangerous man. His influence was +as subtly bad and pernicious as a beautifully made cigarette heavily +charged with dope; and he would at any time if necessary have stolen his +mother's toilet set in order to provide himself with caviar, plover's +eggs and a small bottle of champagne. + +And this was the man who had shared rooms with Peter Guthrie during his +terms at Oxford, and of whom the Doctor spoke that first night of his +stay at the Randolph Hotel as an unusually charming person whom it was a +pleasure to meet. + +In fact, he was the sole topic of conversation in all the bedrooms of +Peter's family party before the lights were turned out. Mrs. Guthrie +said, as she sat in front of the dressing-table combing her hair: "How +lucky it is, dear, that Peter has found such a wonderful friend here! He +is so English and so refined--in every sense of the word a gentleman." +The Doctor thoroughly agreed with her and made a mental note to invite +Kenyon to his house in New York in the autumn. + +Belle Guthrie took her brushes into Betty's room, which was next to her +own, and looking extremely attractive in a pale pink kimono, with her +dark hair all about her shoulders and her naked feet in pink, heel-less +slippers, gave a ripple of excited laughter and confided to her friend +that she was going to have a more bully time even than she had hoped. "I +love St. John's College," she said, "and these wonderful old streets and +all the church bells which strike so frequently--but I'm perfectly crazy +about Nicholas Kenyon. He is so,--so different--so witty--says such +perfectly wonderful things--and oh, my dear! _did_ you see the way he +looked at me when he said 'good-night'?" + +Betty shook her head--her little golden head--her rather wise little +head. "I didn't look," she said. "The light was shining on Peter's face, +and that was good enough for me." + +What Graham thought of Kenyon came out in Peter's rooms, to which he had +gone back with his brother when the family were left at the hotel after +their return from a jaunt on the river in the moonlight after +dinner,--the quiet, soothing, narrow stream on which they had floated in +punts all among cushions and listened with keen appreciation to the +throbbing song of the nightingale and the deep voice of an undergraduate +singing "Annie Laurie" in the back water to the thrumming accompaniment +of a mandolin. + +Kenyon himself had gone round to the rooms of some friends of his to +play bridge, so the two brothers were able to talk undisturbed. The +night was deliciously warm and Peter's old windows, with their numerous +leaded panes, were wide open. It was eleven o'clock and the life of the +town had almost ceased, although from time to time little parties of +undergraduates passed along St. Giles and their high-spirited laughter +drifted up. + +After having put cigarettes in front of his brother, Peter flung himself +full stretch upon his sofa, with a pipe between his teeth. "Now for your +news, old man!" he said. "I'm glad you like Nick. He certainly is one of +the best. What seems perfectly amazing to me is that while I'm still a +sort of schoolboy, rowing and reading, you're a full-blown man earning +your living. I'd give something to see you buzzing about Wall Street +with your head full of stocks and shares and the rise and fall of +prices. How do you do it?" + +Graham ran his hand rather nervously over his mouth. "It's great!" he +said excitedly. "That's what I call life. Gee! You've no idea how +fascinating it is to gamble on the tape and get a thrill every time you +hear it tick. It's like living among earthquakes. I love it!" + +"Gamble!" Peter echoed the word with a touch of fright. "Good Lord; but +you don't gamble surely? I thought you were a broker and looked after +other people's concerns!" + +Graham shot out a short laugh. "Other people's concerns? Why, yes; but +we're not in Wall Street for other people. I've had the luck of the +devil lately though,--everything I've touched has gone wrong. However, +don't let's talk about that. I'm here for a holiday and a rest, and I +need 'em. I believe I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown before I +came away. When I get back I shall have to straighten things out. At the +present moment I'm out about twenty thousand dollars." + +It was his young brother who said these things--the boy who two years +ago was only just out of Harvard. Peter sat up--in two senses. "You? +Twenty thousand dollars! Have you told father?" + +"My God, no!" said Graham. "I shall get it all back of course; +otherwise,--Phut! As to telling father,--well--well, do you ever tell +father anything? I'd rather face electrocution than go into father's +room with such a tale. Once before--about six months ago--when I had to +meet a bill for five thousand dollars, I had a little talk with mother, +and after she had a fit she gave me a handful of her jewels to pawn. She +was afraid of father, too. Within two months I got them out again. Steel +did me very well that time; and mother,--bless her dear heart!--called +me a very clever boy, and said: 'What a brain you have, darling, but +please don't do it again!' Oh, my God, Peter! You don't know what Wall +Street means. It's hell! It's marvellous! It's life! One of these days +when a real good chance comes I'll go some plunge, and then you'll see +me living quietly in the country breeding ponies or dogs or chickens or +something, and I'll marry and settle down." + +Peter got up, re-loaded his pipe, and said: "Just think of it! You're +two years younger than I am. I've not begun to live and you're in the +whirl of money and risk. In the meantime there's father so busy +experimenting with microbes that he hasn't one idea of what his boys +are doing, or are likely to do--absolutely content to let them find +their feet unaided! Well, I suppose he knows what he's doing,--but what +you've just told me makes me wonder whether it wouldn't be wise for him +to experiment a little bit with us for a change. What d'you think?" + +Graham shrugged his shoulders. With the light on his face he looked +older than his brother, and there was something in his eyes which showed +that he had already gazed at life very much more closely than the big +healthy fellow who was his host. "Oh, well," he said--pouring himself +out a rather stiff whiskey--"we've never known quite what it was to have +a father,--I mean except as a sort of aloof institution, a vague person +who educated us and placed us out. I should resent his butting in now. +There's someone coming up your stairs, isn't there?" + +There was. It was Kenyon, who rattled money in his trousers pocket with +a little smile at the corners of his sophisticated mouth. + + +V + +Peter put in the time of his life during the next few days, and like the +great big simple fellow that he was, revelled in being the little hero +of his family. + +From morning until night he kept them on the move, taking them to all +his favorite haunts in the town and out in the country, introducing to +them whole flocks of his friends, with whom they had tea and lunch; +guiding them into the strange quiet chapels that were filled with the +aroma of dead years like a bowl of dry rose-leaves; going with them into +the sweet, quiet, sacred, stately seclusion of New College Garden and +into the echoing cloisters of Magdalen. They were good days, memorable +days, giving them all mental pictures that even time would not blur nor +age rub out. To Peter the best of all the afternoons was the one when he +looked up at the St. John's barge as he paddled out into the river in +the College Eight and caught the eager and excited eyes of all the +people who meant so much to him, and especially those of Betty. He rowed +that afternoon as he had never rowed before, carrying with him all along +the stream the raucous shouts of the members of his college who tore +along the tow-path almost demented with enthusiasm, firing pistols, +turning rattles and screaming "St. John's! St. John's! Give her ten! +Give her ten! Up! Up!" And finally, when he staggered out of the boat +almost sick from exertion, his knees shaking under him, the thought that +came to him as he heard the incessant cries of "Good old Peter!" was +"Thank God for this! The Governor will get something back for all he has +done for me." He just waved his hand to his people, felt his way into +the barge, laid himself flat on the floor and underwent the soothing +process of being rubbed and sponged down--and all the while he smiled +and was very happy. + +He didn't catch the look of maternal agony in his mother's eyes nor her +remarks--which was perhaps just as well. Seeing her great big boy +crumpled up over his oar before he was assisted out of the boat, seeing +him stand rocking like a drunken man with his great chest heaving and +his face the color of a green apple, she leaned over the rail and cried +out: "Oh, my dear, what _have_ they done to you? Oh, Hunter, you must +_not_ let him do these things, he'll kill himself! Oh, Peter, Peter!" + +As a matter of fact, no one heard her. There was too much good solid +roar going on. Every lusty-throated St. John's man was shouting at the +full capacity of his lungs. Oh, but it was a good scene! And for the +quiet, studious Doctor who had sat day after day for the greater part of +his life watching bacteriological experiments, with the most intense +interest, it was one that caused his blood to move almost dangerously +through his veins and make him shout for the first time in his life. + +It had a different effect upon temperamental Belle, who danced with +excitement and kept on saying, in a sort of refrain, "Oh, I'm crazy +about all this--simply crazy!" As for Graham, even the thrill of Wall +Street seemed poor to him in comparison with this stirring scene,--the +wild rush of men, the rhythmetic plunge of oars, the glorious muscular +effort and the frenzied outburst. + +Betty merely smiled, clasped her hands together and held her breath. It +seemed to her that in Peter all the heroes of her youth,--Brian de Bois +Guilbert, Ivanhoe and the rest,--were epitomized in the form, the +splendid young giant form of her fellow-countryman. Above all things in +the world she wanted to lean over and put a wreath of laurels on the man +who stroked the St. John's boat to victory. As it was, she cried a +little, quietly and simply, not caring who saw her tears; and in her +heart, for a reason which she herself found unexplainable, she sang "My +Country 'tis of Thee." She had never in her life been so deeply stirred, +and who can wonder at that? There is indeed something full of +inspiration about these undergraduates' struggles on the water and the +fervent partisanship of the colleges. It is unique and splendid and +sends young men out into the world with good and beautiful memories and +with the love and loyalty for their alma mater which makes them better +able to serve the women who need them and the country to which they +belong. + +And when, having changed his shorts and got once more into his flannels, +Peter went up to the roof of the barge, stinging with health and glowing +with very natural pride and satisfaction, it was the Doctor whose hand +he first took, and the Doctor who said: "My son, my dear son!" It was an +extraordinary moment for Peter, who had never in his life before felt +the indescribable barrier which existed between his father and himself +so near to crumbling. + +That night, while his father and mother and Graham were taken to the +theatre by three of his fellow Rhodes scholars, to see a performance of +one of Gilbert and Sullivan's plays, Peter and Nicholas Kenyon took +Betty and Belle to the Worcester Ball, the two girls being under the +wing of the wife of one of the Dons. + +It was one of those warm, clear, silver nights which the fickle climate +of England sometimes produces apparently to show what it can do when it +likes. The moon was full and the sky was bespattered with stars. The +trees on the smooth lawn round the old college flung their shadows as +though in sunlight and it was to a seat under one of these that Peter +led Betty just before midnight, having very nearly danced her off her +feet. They sat down panting a little, and laughing for no reason, and +listened for a moment to the strains of the band which drifted through +the open windows of the hall. + +It was not in Peter to do anything by halves. He worked and played like +a Trojan and put his back into everything that he took up. He knew by +this time, short as it was, that he was wholly and completely in love +with the little girl, the first sight of whom had made him catch his +breath. With a peculiar kind of grimness he had made up his mind that +she was for him if he could win her, and all the previous night he had +dreamed of her as his future wife, as the girl who would stand by his +side, helpmate and everlasting lover, and for whom he would work well +and live well and carry her with him rung by rung to the top of the +ladder. He told himself when he awoke that he was a presumptuous ass +even to dream that she would care for him. What was there in him for +such a girl to care about? All the same, he set his teeth and from that +moment laid all his future plans and his hopes and ambitions and all the +best of his nature, at her little feet--and knew perfectly well that if +Betty could not love him eventually he would walk alone through life. + +Odd, romantic or foolish as it may seem, when youth falls in and out of +love so easily, this was true. Peter had, with a sort of unrealized +solemnity, kept his heart free and pure. He was no trifler--he had never +philandered. Like the boy who, perhaps unduly imaginative, believes that +he will find the place where the rainbow ends, Peter said to himself: +"One day I shall find my girl. I want to go to her heart-whole and +complete." + +There was nothing of sentimentality about this. It was simply the +outcome of the effect of the mother-influence upon the boy which had +become a very concrete thing. Somehow, ever since he was old enough to +remember and to think, he had looked upon his mother as his sweetheart, +and when she bent over his cot at night and asked God to bless him and +left the touch of her soft lips upon his forehead she had impressed upon +him the unconscious ambition to make another such woman the centre of +his own home. The numerous tender services, the exquisite maternal +thoughtfulness of this little mother-woman, had been built up by him +into a protection and a lode-star. Betty came--a girl in whom he +recognized at once another mother--and she just touched his heart with +her finger and walked straight in, fitting into the place which had been +kept for her like a diamond into its setting. + +Poor dear old Peter! No one would have thought, who looked at him +sitting there in his big awkwardness and incoherence, that he was a man +in love, although a psychologist or even an ordinarily observant girl +could very easily have told how Betty felt. + +"Topping, isn't it?" he said. + +"Simply wonderful," she replied. + +"Tired?" + +"Not a bit." + +"Pretty good floor, eh?" + +"Perfectly splendid." + +"Gee! I shall miss this place." + +"Why, of course you will." + +"All the same, I shall be mighty keen to get at things,--and begin." + +"Yes, of course you will." + +"How do you know?" + +"Oh, that's easy." + +"Is it? How?" + +"Well, don't I know you?" + +"Do you? I wish you did." + +Up in the branches something stirred. It may have been Cupid--probably +it was. + +But silence followed this conversational effort--a silence broken by a +great heaving sigh, mostly of excitement, and the strains of the band +which drifted out of the windows of the College Hall. + +And over them both, as over all other men and women, young and old, at +the beginning and at the end, hung the moon and the stars. + +How good it is to be young and in love! + + +VI + +Unnoticed by Mrs. Guthrie and her two boys, there was something more +than a little pathetic in the Doctor's eager, wistful attitude toward +the rather thoughtless, high-spirited, seething youth in the middle of +which he found himself for the first time. + +This man had never been young. The atmosphere of the farm on which he +had been born killed youth as foul air kills a caged bird. Poverty, +sordidness and the grim, constant struggle to live made his childhood +and early days utterly devoid of the good sweet things. His mother, worn +out and dispirited, died in giving him birth, and his father, bitter, +lonely and filled with the irony that comes from a long and unprofitable +hand-to-hand fight with mother-earth, let him bring himself up. He was +turned out to work at a time when most lads are sent to school. He had +to trudge daily into the straggling, one-eyed town, at an early hour, to +report at the chemist's store where he obtained employment as an errand +boy. Most of the small wages he earned were required by his father. From +almost the very beginning life was to him a sort of whirling stream into +which he had been flung before having been taught to swim. Mere +self-preservation demanded that he should keep himself afloat. He picked +up education as a stray dog picks up an occasional bone. There was, +however, great grit in this boy and deep down in his soul an ambition to +become something better than his father, whose daily wrestle with +nature--the most relentless of task-mistresses--had warped his character +and stultified his soul. Young Hunter shuddered at the thought of living +always on the farm, of grubbing in the earth, of planting and hoeing and +reaping, of facing the almost inevitable tragedy of spoiled crops and +ruined hopes, and the yearly set-backs of advancing freights and higher +wages. He looked with growing horror and detestation at the farm +implements among which his father spent his life; and while he ran his +errands, carrying medicines and soda syphons, he nursed a dream in his +little cold heart, which grew out of the smell of medicines and the talk +of illness that was all about him in the chemist store. It was to become +a doctor and tend the needs of humanity and, if it was in his power, to +save to other children the mothers who brought them into being. + +No wonder Dr. Hunter Guthrie wore strong glasses over his short-sighted +eyes. At all times, with a sort of greed and an almost terrible +eagerness, he read every medical book on which he could lay his +hands,--in bed by the light of one candle, in the cubby-hole at the back +of the store under the glare of the unshaded electric bulb, in +trolley-cars and trains, and on the stoop of the shabby farmhouse so +long as the light lasted. Later, after his day's work, he attended night +classes, and even as he walked from the farm to the town he read. +Spending sleepless nights and living laborious days he followed the +example of many other brave and determined boys whose names gleam like +beacons in the history of their country. He worked his way through the +necessary stages until finally, after a struggle so relentless that it +nearly broke his health, he became a qualified doctor. In order to earn +the money for his courses he was at different times bell-boy in a +country hotel, an advertisement writer in a manufacturer's office, a +clerk for a real-estate man and a traveling salesman for safety razors. +His vacations were more arduous than his terms, and during these he +earned the money with which to pay his college expenses. Every step up +the ladder of innumerable rungs--which sometimes seemed to him +impossible to climb--was painful and difficult. So much concentration +was needed from the very beginning--so much condensed determination and +energy required--that at the age of twenty-five he seemed to have lived +twice that number of years. No wonder then that the all-conquering +youthfulness of all the undergraduates amongst whom he found himself at +Oxford awoke a sort of envy in his heart and startled him who had never +been young. There was no meanness, jealousy or sense of martyrism in his +feelings as he watched the kaleidoscopic picture of university +life--only a sort of wonder and amazement that there were men in the +world so lucky--so indescribably fortunate as to be able to carry +boyhood and all its joys forward to an age when he had forgotten that +such a period existed. Many times during those interesting and stirring +days he stopped suddenly and thanked his God that he had been able to do +for his own boys those things which no one had ever done for him, and +give them such a chance in life as he had never had. Actually to see +Peter, his eldest boy, proving his muscular strength and his mental +ability and moving among his fellows with such splendid popularity, +filled him with pride and gladness. Here indeed was a very concrete +evidence of his reward for that long, arduous struggle. + +Like most men who have concentrated upon one thing, Dr. Guthrie was a +child when it came to others. Athleticism, of which he knew nothing, +filled him with admiration. The knack of conversation amazed him. Even +to his wife he found it difficult to talk. To force himself to confide +was almost impossible--it was like blasting a rock. One afternoon +however he got nearer to an intimate expression of his feelings than +ever before--perhaps because he was still under the influence of the +intoxication of the youthfulness all about him. + +Kenyon had driven them out after tea to Shotover Hill. All the young +people had gone on to Cuddesden, leaving the doctor and his wife to sit +and look down into the valley far below in which nestled the town and +all its colleges and spires. It had been a golden day and the sun was +setting with all the dignity and pomp of early summer, making the thin +line of the Thames shine like a winding silver ribbon. There was +something of exultation over the earth that evening and of +untranslatable beauty, and the evening song of the birds was like that +of choristers in a great cathedral. + +Unusual words seethed in the doctor's head. He was moved and thrilled. +The rest and the relief of leaving his work, all the bustle and stir of +the new life in which he was a temporary figure, seemed to take him +back to his own early days when, with the little woman who sat by his +side, he had stood with her in their first house, newly married. + +He took his hat off, put his arm round the shoulders of that faithful +woman and kissed her cheek with a touch of passion and gratitude. "My +darling," he said, "I wish I could say properly some of the things that +I feel about you and my children and the goodness of God. There are +tears in my heart, and strange feelings. I feel oddly young and strong. +I want to laugh and cry. I'd like to pick wild flowers and make a little +crown for your head. Don't laugh at me--please don't laugh." + +The little woman took his thin hand and pressed it to her cheek. "I +laugh because that is how I feel, too," she said,--"young and glad and +very happy to see my big Peter doing such wonderful things, and still a +boy. Dear old man, we have much to be thankful for! I know how you've +worked and striven,--and how fine it is to see some of the results of +it. I was a little afraid before we came here that we might find Peter +different--altered--perhaps older--but he's just the same. He's exactly +like you." + +The Doctor shook his head and a sudden pain twisted his thin, studious +face. "Oh no, no," he said, "I was never like that. I wish to God I had +been. But it was to make Peter what he is that I've worked night and +day. He's my idea of a man. He's doing all the things that I'd like to +have done. He's me as I might have been if I'd had any luck--any sort +of a chance. Do I regret it? Am I jealous? No; because if I hadn't +lived such an opposite life I mightn't have desired to give my boy all +this." He waved his hand towards the spires that rose in all their +significance out of the town away below. And then, with intense +eagerness and a ring of wistfulness in his voice that brought tears to +his wife's eyes, he bent towards her. "Do you think he realizes this, +Mary? Does Graham ever stop to think how hard I've worked to put him in +Wall Street? Does Belle ever wonder what it's cost me in youth and +health to give her so much more than she needs? I'm--I'm a queer, +wordless, foolishly shy man. Old since the time they all three began to +think and use their eyes,--necessarily concentrated and aloof away in +that laboratory of mine, and--and sometimes I wonder whether my children +know me and understand and make allowances. Do they, Mary, my dear one? +Do they?" + +"Yes, my man, my brave and splendid man," she replied, "they do, they +do!" And in saying this she deliberately lied,--out of her great and +steadfast love for this man of hers she lied. + +No one knew so well as she did that the father of her children might +almost as well be a mere distant relation who lived in their home for +reasons of convenience and allotted money to their requirements at the +proper time. No one knew so well as she did that Hunter Guthrie's tragic +lack of childhood had dried out of his nature the power of understanding +children. Never having been a child in any sense of the word--never +having known the inexpressible joy of a mother's love--remembering +nothing but a father who was either working hard or tired out--he was +unable to conceive what his own children needed in addition to all that +they got hourly from his wife and from his own work. It had always +seemed to him that in the possession of a mother they had everything +good that God could give them. It seemed to him that his own part was +performed by providing for their needs. No man desired to be the father +of sons and daughters more than he did. No man was prouder in the +possession of them than he was and had always been. To hear the patter +of their little feet about his house sent him to his work with that +sense of religion of which Carlyle wrote. To watch them shaping from +childhood into youth was the most satisfactory and beautiful thing in +his life. To be able, year after year, to do better and still better for +them was his best and biggest reward--far greater and more glorious than +the distinction he earned for himself and the international reputation +that increased with each of his discoveries. And when, six months after +Peter had left home to go to Oxford with a Rhodes scholarship, he found +himself unexpectedly endowed to the extent of over three million dollars +under the will of a late wealthy patient, so that he might, in the old +man's own words, "devote himself, without the fret and fever of earning +a livelihood as a practitioner, to the noble and limitless work of a +bacteriologist for the benefit of suffering humanity all over the +world," it was for the sake of his children that he offered up thanks. +With what immense pride he notified the authorities at Harvard that his +son was independent of the scholarship, which was free to send another +man to Oxford. With what keen pleasure he was able to buy Graham a seat +on the Stock Exchange, bring Belle out as a débutante and send his +little Ethel to the best possible school. These things he could do, and +did, but he could not and had never been able to do for them a better +thing than all these,--win their confidence, their deep affection and +their friendship. That gift had been killed in him. It could not be +acquired, taught or purchased, and he had always been as much out of +touch with his boys and girls as though he were divided from them by a +great stone wall. It had always been with them, "Look out! Here's +father!" instead of "Hello! Here's Dad!" His entrance into their +playroom was the signal for silence. The sight of his studious face and +short-sighted eyes and distrait, shy manner chilled them and reduced +them to quietude and self-consciousness and suspicion. If he had treated +them always as human beings, played with them, sat on the floor and +built houses with their bricks, thrown open the door of his study to +them, if only for half an hour every day, so that there might be no +possibility of its becoming a Blue Room; if he had, as they grew into +the habit of thinking and observing and remembering, told them about +himself and his own boyhood and in this way inculcated a mutual +interest, a desire to respond and open out; if, before the two boys had +gone to college he had had the courage to act on the earnest advice of a +friend and speak to them on the vital question of sex, give them the +truth as he so well knew it and warn them bravely and rightly of the +inevitable pitfalls that lined their youthful path, no brick wall would +have existed and he would have been their pal as well as their +father,--a combination altogether irresistible. + +As it was Hunter Guthrie's wife, who loved him deeply and devotedly and +recognized in him a great man as well as a most unselfish father, was +obliged to lie in reply to his questions. She would rather have died, +then and there, than hurt him and bring down his house about his ears. +The sad and tragic part of it all was that she knew utterly that no +good, no change could be brought about by telling the truth. It was too +late. + + +VII + +Belle had told Betty that she was "crazy" about Nicholas Kenyon. There +is usually a wildness of exaggeration about this expression which +renders it almost harmless. The exuberant type of girl who uses it +applies it with equal thoughtlessness to a new hat, a new play or a new +set of furs. She will be crazy about a tenor and a pomeranian, a +so-called joke in a comic paper and the sermon of a fashionable +preacher. In regard to Kenyon, however, Belle was really and truly crazy +in its most accurate dictionary sense. After the Worcester Ball, during +which she gave him nearly every dance,--to the flustered concern of the +Don's wife who was her chaperon,--she went to no trouble to conceal from +Kenyon the fact that she found him vastly attractive. Kenyon was not +surprised. Already he was a complete expert in the art of making himself +loved by women. He knew exactly what they liked him to say and he said +it with a touch of insolence which took their breath away and a +following touch of deference which gave them back their self-respect. +Belle was very much to his liking. Her rather Latin beauty, which was +rendered unexplainable by the sight of her parents--her incessant high +spirits and love of life--her naïve assumption that she was the mistress +of all the secrets of this world, amused, interested and tickled his +fancy. Her beauty, freshness and youth pleased him as an epicure, and he +went out of his way to be with her as much as he could. He had no +intention whatever of falling in love with her,--first of all because it +was all against his creed to fall in love with anyone but himself; +secondly, because his way of living demanded that he should have no +partner in his business,--all that he could win by his wits he would +need. Nevertheless, he was quite as ready as usual to take everything +that was given to him, and give nothing in return except flattery, +well-rounded sentences and a good deal of his personal attention. + +During the week that passed so quickly he had only been able to see +Belle with her people, and when he found that this bored her as much as +it bored him, he set his brain to work to devise some plan by which he +could escape with her from the party for a few hours. Needless to say he +succeeded. + +On the night before the party were to leave Oxford he arranged another +evening trip on the river, maneuvered Peter into one punt with his +father and mother, Graham and Betty, and got into another with Belle. +For some little time he poled along closely behind them, but as the +river was full of similar parties he found it easy to drop behind and +dodge deftly into a back water. Here he tied up to a branch, set himself +down on the cushions at Belle's side and lit a cigarette. + +"How's that?" he asked. + +Belle laughed a little excitedly. "Very clever," she said. "I wondered +how you were going to do it." + +He didn't find it necessary to tell her that he had performed a similar +trick a hundred times. "Under the right sort of inspiration," he said, +"even I can develop genius. Tell me something about New York, and what +you find to do there." + +"I should have to talk from now until to-morrow morning even to begin to +tell you," she said. "I only came out last winter, but the history of it +would fill a book. New York is some town and I guess a girl has a better +time there than anywhere else in the world. Why don't you come and see +something of it for yourself?" + +Kenyon leaned lightly against the girl's soft shoulder. "That's +precisely what I'm going to do," he said. "Your father has given me a +cordial invitation to stay at his house, and I shall go over with Peter +in October." + +"Oh, isn't that fine!" cried Belle. "You'll love the place--it's so +different." + +"I'm not worrying about the place," said Kenyon. "I'm simply going for +the chance of dancing with you to the band which really does know how to +play rag-time. It'll be worth crossing three thousand miles of +unnecessary water to achieve that alone." + +"I don't believe you," said Belle; but all her teeth gleamed in the +moonlight and her heart pumped a little. How wonderful it would be to +become the wife of the Honourable Nicholas Kenyon, who seemed to her to +be everything that was desirable. + +Kenyon picked up her hand and just touched it with his lips. "You don't +believe it? Well, we'll see." He knew very well that if he had chosen to +do so he could have kissed her lips, but his policy was to go slow. His +epicurianism was so complete that he liked to take his enjoyment in sips +and not empty his glass at a gulp. This girl whose imagined worldliness +was so childlike was well worth all his attention. He looked forward +with absolute certainty to the hour when he should place her on his +little list of achievements; but like all collectors and connoisseurs he +added to his pleasure by winning his point gradually, step by step, with +a sort of cold-blooded passion. + +Belle was accustomed to men who were a little crude in their naturalness +and who immediately voiced their admiration and their liking with boyish +spontaneity. She had strings of beaux of all ages who immediately sent +her flowers and presents and dogged her heels from dance to dance and +rang her up constantly on the telephone and generally showed their +eagerness with that lack of control which was characteristic of a +nation which had deliberately placed women in the position of queens. + +Perhaps it was because this man's methods were so different that she +found him so attractive. He fed her vanity and piqued it at the same +time. He said more by saying nothing than any man had ever ventured to +do, and he retired so quickly after an amazing advance that he left her +assuming more than if he had never advanced at all. It was perfectly +natural, although she had already dipped into the fastest New York set, +that she should believe that at the end of every man's intention there +was a marriage and a sort of throne in his house. She little knew +Nicholas Kenyon. She had had the good fortune to meet men in New York, +and not collectors. + +"What are your father's plans when he leaves Oxford?" asked Kenyon, +leaning a little more closely against the girl's soft shoulder. + +"Why, we're going to Shakespeare's country, to the English lakes and +then to Scotland, where father's ancestors lived; and then in August we +shall go to London for a week, and go home on the _Olympic_. Why don't +you go over with us?" + +"I should like nothing better," said Kenyon, "but as a matter of fact I +shall wait until Peter has got through his various engagements. He rows +at Henley in July, you know,--the boat is entered for the Lady's +Plate,--and then he comes home with me. He wants to shoot my father's +birds in August and see a little of English country life before he +settles down to his law work in America." + +Belle was silent for a few moments. She wished that this wonderful week +could be extended over the whole of her holidays. She knew, and was +really a little frightened at knowing, that when she left Oxford the +next day she would leave behind her a heart that had hitherto been quite +untouched. She was amazed and even a little annoyed to find that a mere +week had brought about such a revolution in all her feelings and in her +whole outlook on life. She had meant to have a perfectly wonderful time +before falling in love. + +"I suppose," she said, "that we shan't hear anything of you until we see +you again, unless,--unless you write sometimes to mother and tell her +how you are and what Peter is doing." + +Kenyon didn't even smile. "Peter will write to your mother once a week, +as usual--he's very consistent--and I'll get him to put in a postscript +about me, if you like. I shall have some difficulty in preventing myself +from writing to you from time to time, although I'm a child in the art +of letter-writing." + +"Why should you prevent it? I should simply love to have your letters." + +"But isn't your mother a little old-fashioned?" + +"Maybe," said Belle, "but does that matter? You've not met any American +girls before--that's easy to see. We do just what we like, and if our +mothers don't agree they don't dare to say so. Shall I tell you why? +Because it wouldn't make any difference if they did." + +"Then I shall write," said Kenyon, "and give you brief but eloquent +descriptions of English weather, English politics and the condition of +my liver,--that is to say, the three inevitable topics of this country." + +Belle laughed. "Then it will be perfectly safe for me to leave your +letters about," she said. + +"Perfectly,--always supposing that you censor the postscripts." + +"I'm crazy about you!" said Belle; and this time her laugh awoke the +echoes of the river and filled a nightingale near by with a pathetic +ambition to emulate its music. + +And then they heard Peter's great voice shouting, "N-i-c-k!" Whereupon +Kenyon gathered himself together, not unpleased at being disturbed, +stood up gracefully and pulled back into the main stream. "The call of +duty," he said--"such is life." It was consistent with his policy to +conduct this most pleasant affair by instalments. + +When he saw the other punt he asked Peter, with a touch of beautiful +petulance, why he had deliberately lost them, and turned a deaf ear to +Graham's idiotic chuckle. + +The landing stage was in the shadow, which was just as well. When Kenyon +gave his hand to Belle to help her out of the punt, he drew her close +against him and with a touch of passion as unexpected as the sudden +flash of a searchlight across a dark sky left a kiss on her lips that +took her breath away. + +All the way back to the hotel she hung on Peter's arm and dared not +trust herself to speak. For the first time in her young life she had +caught a glimpse of its meaning. It left her strangely moved and +thrilled. + +Little Mrs. Guthrie walked back with Kenyon, very proud of the fact that +he was Peter's friend. + +Poor little mother! + + +VIII + +On the steps of the Randolph Hotel, Mrs. Guthrie turned to Kenyon and +asked him, with one of her most motherly smiles, to have some supper +with them. Telegraphing quickly to Peter and Graham that they were not +to accept the invitation, Kenyon said: "Nothing would give me greater +pleasure--absolutely nothing. Unfortunately Peter and I have already +accepted an invitation from two of our Dons and we cannot possibly get +out of this dull but profitable hour." + +"How very disappointing!" said Mrs. Guthrie. + +"How silly!" said Belle. + +Betty merely said, "Oh!" but the rest of her sentence was condensed into +one quick look at Peter. + +Peter, utterly without guile, turned round to Nicholas Kenyon in blank +amazement. "It's the first I've heard of it," he said. "What on earth do +you mean? Two of the Dons? Who are they?" + +But Kenyon was an artist and a strategist, and therefore a liar. "My +dear old boy! What would you do without me? I'm your diary, your +secretary, your guide, philosopher and friend. If you've forgotten the +engagement I certainly haven't." And he shot at Peter a swift and +subtle wink, in which he included Graham. + +Scenting adventure and gathering that the two Dons were in all +probability coming from the chorus of "The Pirates of Penzance," Graham +joined in quickly. "I suppose I can't come and listen humbly to the +learned conversation of these two professors?" + +"But why not?" said Kenyon. "No doubt you can tell them more about Wall +Street in five minutes than they would ever learn in their lives. +Therefore, dear Mrs. Guthrie, I'm afraid we must all say 'good-night.' +We'll rejoin you in the morning for breakfast as arranged, and wind up +what's been the pleasantest week of my life, by driving out to Woodstock +for lunch." + +It was all done in the most masterly manner, and when the three men left +the hotel arm in arm they were not guided by Kenyon toward St. Giles, +but to the theatre, where the curtain was just about to fall with the +last act. + +"What's all this?" asked Peter, impatiently. "Mother had set her heart +upon having us to supper." + +"Mother has had us all day," replied Kenyon. "Bear in mind the fact that +there are other women in the world to whom we owe a little gallantry. +You and Graham are going to eat Welsh Rabbit at the somewhat humble +rooms of my little friends, Lottie Lawrence and Billy Seymour." + +"I'll see you damned first!" said Peter. "I've no use for these people. +Come on, Graham, let's go back." + +Kenyon's face was wreathed in smiles. "It can't be done, dear lad," he +said. "Your mother would be the last person on earth to permit you to be +discourteous to our two distinguished Dons, and by this time in all +human probability Betty will be preparing for bed." + +Peter had been building all his hopes on another hour with Betty. She +was leaving Oxford with his people the next afternoon and he wanted +above all things, however incoherently, to let her know something of the +state of his feelings. He had never been so angry with Kenyon before. +"Curse you!" he said. "You've spoiled everything. If you must play about +with these chorus girls why can't you do it alone? Why drag me in?" + +Kenyon's eyes narrowed. "Only the angels die young, Peter, my friend," +he said. "As I've been obliged to tell you before, you stand a pretty +good chance of an early demise. Have you ever heard the word 'priggish'? +For a whole week I've played the game by you and devoted myself, lock, +stock and barrel, to your family. Mere sportsmanship demands that you +make some slight return to me by joining my little party to-night. Don't +you agree with me, Graham?" + +Graham's vanity was vastly appealed to by the fact that this perfect man +of the world had taken him into his intimacy. Hitherto he hadn't met +English chorus girls. He rather liked the idea. "Why," he said, "I can't +see why we shouldn't go. I'm with you, anyway. Come on, Peter. Be a +sport." + +But Peter held his ground. He had all the more reason for so doing +because he had met Betty. "All right!" he said. "You two can do what you +jolly well like. Cut me out of it. I shall turn in. If that's being +priggish--fine. Good-night!" + +He wheeled round and marched off, and as he passed beneath the windows +of the Randolph Hotel he drew up short for a moment and with a touch of +knightliness which was quite unself-conscious he bared his head beneath +the window of the room in which he believed that Betty was to sleep, but +which, as a matter of fact, harboured a short, fat, wheezy Anglo-Indian +with a head as bald as a billiard ball. + +Kenyon disguised his annoyance under an air of characteristic +imperturbability. "Well, that's our Peter to the life," he said, taking +Graham's eager arm. "He's a sort of Don Quixote--a very pure and perfect +person. One of these days he's likely to come an unholy cropper, and +that's to my way of thinking what he most needs. I don't agree with a +man's being a total abstainer in anything. It narrows him and makes him +provincial. Then, too, a man who fancies himself as better than his +fellows is apt to wear a halo under his hat, and that disgusting trick +ruins friendship and leads to a hasty and ill-considered marriage with +the first good actress who catches him on the hop and makes use of his +lamentable ignorance. Come along, brother, we'll see life together." + +"Fine!" said Graham. "Me for life all the time." + +So these two,--the one curiously old and the other dangerously +young,--made their way to the stage door of the Theatre Royal and +waited among the little crowd of undergraduates for the moment when the +ladies of the chorus should have retouched their make-up and be ready +for further theatricalisms. + +Lottie Lawrence and Billy Seymour were the first out. The latter's +greeting was exuberant. "What-ho, Nick! Where's the blooming giant you +said you were going to bring?" + +"Otherwise engaged, dear Billy; but permit me to introduce to you a +financial magnate from the golden city of New York." + +Billy was young and slim and so tight-skirted that her walk was almost +like that of a Chinese Princess. Even under the modest light of the +stage door-keeper's box her lips gleamed crimsonly and her long +eyelashes stuck out separately in black surprise. Her small round face +was plastered thickly with powder. She was very alluring to the very +young. Her friend had come from an exactly similar mould and might have +been a twin but for her manner, which was that of the violet--the modest +violet--on a river's brim. + +Kenyon hailed a cab, gave the man the address in Wellington Square and +sat himself between the two girls, with an arm round each. + +Billy Seymour had taken in Graham with one expert glance of minute +examination. "Graham Guthrie, eh?" she said. "It smacks of Caledonia, +bag-pipes and the braes and banks o' bonnie Doon. I take it your +ancestors went over on the S. S. Mayflower, of the White Star Line--that +gigantic vessel which followed the beckoning finger of Columbus--and +started the race which invented sky-scrapers and the cuspidors." + +Graham let out a howl of laughter and told himself that he was in for a +good evening, especially as the ladies' knees were very friendly. + +Lottie Lawrence placed her head on Kenyon's shoulder, sighed a little +and said: "Oh, I'm so tired and so hungry; and I've a thirst I wouldn't +sell for a tenner." + +Kenyon tightened his hold. "All those things shall be remedied, little +one," he said. "Have no fear." + +The first things which met their eyes when they entered the sitting-room +of the sordid little house in which a series of theatricals had lodged +from time immemorial, were a half-dozen bottles of champagne--sent in by +Nick's order. The two girls showed their appreciation for his +tactfulness in different ways. Billy fell upon one of the bottles as +though it were her long-lost sister, pressed it to her bosom and placed +a passionate kiss upon its label; while Lottie, with an eloquent +gesture, immediately handed Graham a rather battered corkscrew. "Help me +to the bubbly, boy," she said. "My throat is like a limekiln." + + * * * * * + +All the clocks of the City of Spires were striking three as Kenyon and +Graham supported each other out into the quiet and deserted street. +There was much powder on Graham's coat and a patch of crimson on +Kenyon's left cheek. + +"Life with a big L, Graham, my boy," said Kenyon a little thickly. + +"A hell of a big L," said Graham, with a very much too loud laugh at his +feeble joke. "You certainly do know your way about." + +"And most of the short cuts," said Kenyon dryly. "Presently I shall +scale the wall of St. John's, climb through the window of one of our +fellows who's about to take holy orders, and wind up the night in the +hospitable arms of Morpheus." This eventually Graham watched him do, +with infinite delight, and was still wearing a smile of +self-congratulation as he passed the door of his mother's bedroom in the +hotel and entered his own. + +His father heard the heavy footsteps as they went along the passage, but +imagined that they were those of the night watchman on his rounds. + +Fate is the master of irony. + + +IX + +The following morning at eight o'clock Peter, as fit as a fiddle, +stalked into Kenyon's bedroom and flung up the blind. The sun poured in +through the open window. Innumerable sparrows twittered among the trees +in the gardens and scouts were moving energetically about the quad. From +the other windows the sounds of renewed life were coming. The great +beehive of a college was about to begin a new and strenuous day. + +Kenyon was sleeping heavily with a blanket drawn about his ears. His +clothes were all over the floor and a tumbler one-fourth filled with +whiskey stood on the dressing-table among a large collection of +ivory-backed brushes, links, studs, tie-pins and other paraphernalia +which belong to men of Kenyon's type,--the bloods of Oxford. With a +chuckle, Peter dipped a large sponge in the water of the hip-bath which +had been placed ready on the floor, and throwing back the blanket +squeezed its contents all over Kenyon's well-cut face. + +The effect was instantaneous. The sleeper awoke, and cursed. Peter's +howl of laughter at the sight of this pale blinking man with his +delicate blue silk pajamas all wet round the neck advertised the fact to +the whole college that he was up and about. + +Kenyon got slowly out of bed. "There are fools--damned fools--and Peter +Guthrie," he said quietly. "What's the time?" + +"Time for you to get up, shave and bathe, if you want to breakfast at +the Randolph. How late were you last night?" + +"Haven't a notion," said Kenyon. "The first faint touch of dawn was +coming over the horizon, so far as I remember, when your little brother +watched me climb through the window of the man Rivers, upon whose +'tummie' I planted my foot. For a man who's about to enter the Church he +has an astounding vocabulary of gutter English. You look abominably fit, +old boy--the simple life, eh? Heigh-ho!--Manipulate this machine for me +while I'm doing my hair." He picked up the small black case of his +safety-razor and threw it at Peter, who caught it. Then he got into a +very beautiful silk dressing-gown, stuck his feet into a pair of +heelless red morocco slippers, and with infinite pains and accuracy made +a centre parting in his fair hair, in which there was a slight natural +curl. + +From his comfortable position on the foot of the bed Peter watched his +friend shave,--a performance through which he went with characteristic +neatness. It was a very different performance from the one through which +Peter was in the habit of going. Soap flew all round this untidy man, +giving the scout much extra work in his cleaning-up process. + +Kenyon didn't intend to enter into any details as to the orgy of the +night before. He knew from previous experience that Peter's sympathy was +not with him. For many reasons he desired to stand well with his friend, +especially looking to the fact that he needed an immediate loan. One or +two of his numerous creditors were pressing for part payment. So he let +the matter drop and took the opportunity to talk like a father to Peter +on another point which had grown out of the visit of his people. "Tell +me," he said, "what is precisely the state of your feelings in regard to +your sister's friend? It seems to me that you're getting a bit sloppy in +that direction. Am I right?" + +"No," said Peter, "'sloppy' isn't the word." + +"Oh! Well, then, what is the word? I may be able to advise you." + +"I don't want your advice," said Peter. "My mind is made up." + +Kenyon turned round. "Is that so? Quick work." + +Peter nodded. "It's always quick when it's inevitable." + +"Oho! What have we here--romance?" + +"Yes; I think so," said Peter quietly. + +"Who'd have thought it? Our friend Peter has met his soul-mate! Out of +the great crowd he has chosen the mother of his children. It is to +laugh!" + +"Think so?" said Peter. "I don't." + +Kenyon put down his razor and stood in front of the man with whom he had +lived for several years and who had now apparently come up against a big +moment in his life. It didn't suit him that Peter should be seriously in +love yet. He looked to his friend to provide him with a certain amount +of leisure in the future. His plans would all go wrong if he had to +share him with someone else. He had imagined that his friend was only +temporarily gone on this little girl whose brief entry into Oxford had +helped to make Eight's week very pleasant. It was his duty to find out +exactly how Peter stood. + +"Do you mean to tell me," he asked, "that you've proposed to Betty +Townsend?" + +"Not yet," said Peter, "but I'm going to this morning--that is if I have +the pluck." + +"My dear fellow," said Kenyon, with a genuine earnestness, "don't do it. +I've no doubt she'll jump at you, being under the influence of this +place and seeing you as a small hero here; but take the advice of a man +who knows and bring caution to your rescue. What'll happen if you tie +yourself up to this girl? After all, you can't possibly be in love with +her--that's silly. You're under the influence of a few silver nights, +and that most dangerous of all things--propinquity. Dally with her of +course, kiss her and write her letters in which you quote the soft stuff +of the poets. That'll provide you with much quiet amusement and assist +you in the acquisition of a literary style; but, for God's sake, don't +be serious. You're too young. You've not sown your wild oats. What's the +use of taking a load of responsibility on your shoulders before you're +obliged to do so? I'm talking to you like a father, old man, and I've +the right." + +"Oh yes," said Peter, "you've the right--no man better--but you and I +look at things differently. I want the responsibility of this girl. I +want someone to work for,--an impetus--an ultimate end. It may seem +idiotic to you that I know the right girl directly I see her, but all +the same it's a fact. You see my undergraduate days are almost over. +When I go home in the fall I shall start earning my living. What am I +going to work for? A home, of course, and a wife and all that that +means. If that's what you call romance, thank you, it's exactly what I +want. Do you get me?" + +Kenyon shrugged his shoulders. "Then I don't see that there's anything +more to be said. Does all this mean that you're going to chuck me? +Supposing Betty accepts you? Are you going to dog her footsteps for the +rest of the summer and leave me in the cart?" + +"Oh Lord, no!" said Peter. + +"Thank God for small mercies! And now if you'll give me a little +elbow-room I'll have my bath." + +"Right-o!" said Peter. "Buck up! Breakfast at nine o'clock." + +He went out, not singing as usual but with a curious quietness and a +strange light dancing in his eyes. + +Kenyon was left the sole master of that little bedroom. As he finished +dressing he marshalled his thoughts and into them entered the figure of +a certain very beautiful person who lived in a cottage on the borders of +his father's estate. Before now she had twisted young men, quite as +romantic as Peter, out of their engagements to simple little girls. He +would see that she worked her wiles on Peter. He didn't intend that his +friend should devote himself to any person except Nicholas Kenyon so +long as he could prevent it. + + +X + +It was a rather curious meal,--this final breakfast at the Randolph +Hotel. There were several under-currents of feeling which seemed to +disturb the atmosphere like cross winds. The Doctor and Mrs. Guthrie +were genuinely sorry that the week had come to an end. It was one which +would be filled with memories. Graham would very willingly have remained +at Oxford as long as Kenyon did. He had fallen a complete victim to the +attractions of this master of psychology. He regarded him as the very +last word in expert worldliness. He paid him the highest tribute that he +considered it was possible for one man to pay another, by calling him "a +good sport," and he looked forward with enormous pleasure to the time +when he would be able to show Kenyon the night side of New York, with +which he had himself begun to be well acquainted. + +As to the two girls, wonderful things had happened to both of them +during that emotional, stirring, picturesque and altogether "different" +week. It seemed almost incredible to them they had been in that old town +for so short a time, during which, however, their little plans--their +girlish point of view--had undergone absolute revolution. The +high-spirited Belle, who had hitherto gone through life with a +consistent exuberance and rather thoughtless joy, was rendered +uncharacteristically serious at the knowledge that she would not see +Nicholas Kenyon again for some months. Not for a moment did she regret +the fact that she had fallen badly in love with him. It was a new +sensation for her, and young as she was, it was the new thing that +counted. Her mind was filled with dreams. In imagination she walked from +one series of pictures into another and all were touched with +excitement, exhilaration and a sense of having won something, the +possession of which all her friends would envy her. + +In going over in her mind all that Kenyon had said to her, she could +not put her finger on any actual declaration on his part; but his subtle +assumption of possession, the way in which he touched her hand and +looked at her over other people's heads with eyes which seemed to +embrace her, seemed to her to be far more satisfactory than any +conventional set of words ordinary under such circumstances. Then, too, +there was that wonderful and sudden kiss on the landing stage in the +shadow. Why, there was no doubt about it. She had, like Cæsar, come and +seen and conquered. She was to be the Hon. Mrs. Nicholas Kenyon, +daughter-in-law of Lord Shropshire, of Thrapstone-Wynyates. What a +delightful surprise for father and mother, and how proud they would be +of her! + +Betty knew that Peter intended to make her his wife. She knew it and was +happy. His very incoherence had been more eloquent to her than the +well-rounded sentences of all the heroes of her favorite novels, and if +he never said another word before she left, she would be satisfied. In +her heart there was the sensation of one who had come to the end of a +long road and now stood in a great wide open space on which the sun fell +warmly and with great beauty. + +Not much was said by anyone, and the question of the afternoon train +which was to leave at four-thirty was consistently avoided by them all. + +Breakfast over, the whole party followed Kenyon into the street, where +two cars were waiting for the trip to Woodstock. They were to lunch at +the old inn which stood beneath the gnarled branches of the oaks that +had sheltered the Round Heads and Royalists. The first car was Kenyon's +roadster, in which he placed Mrs. Guthrie, the Doctor and Graham. He had +intended that Betty should sit by his side as he drove, and that Peter +should take Belle in his two-seater. But Master Peter was too quick for +him this time. He had touched Betty on the arm and said: "You're coming +with me." And before Kenyon could frame a sentence to break up this +arrangement these two were off together with the complete disregard for +speed limits which was peculiar to the Oxford undergraduate. Kenyon had +the honesty to say about this to himself that it was well done, but all +the same he was immensely annoyed. As he drove off with Belle on the +front seat he was not, for at least a mile, a very talkative companion. +Belle put his silence down to the fact that she was going away that +afternoon. + +Along St. Giles, past the burial ground, the Roman Catholic Church, +Somerville, and into the Woodstock road as far as the Radcliffe +Infirmary, Peter kept the lead, and then the big car overtook him and +left him behind. Graham waved his hand and shouted something which Peter +didn't catch. It was probably facetious. As far as Wolvercote Peter kept +in touch with the car in front, when he began to fall gradually behind. +He had a plan in the back of his head. + +The morning seemed to suit all that he had to say, if he found himself +able to say it. The earth was warm with the sun. The hedges and trees +were still in the first fresh vigor of early summer. Everywhere birds +sang and were busy with their young. + +Peter pulled up short at the edge of a spinney. "Let's get out of +here," he said, "I want to show you a corking little bit of country." +And Betty obeyed without a word. She rather liked being ordered about by +this big square-shouldered person. + +They didn't go far,--hardly, in fact, fifty yards from the car,--and +when they came to a small opening among the beeches where bracken grew +and "bread and cheese" covered the soft turf with their little yellow +heads, Peter said: "Sit down; I want to speak to you." + +And again Betty obeyed without a word. It was coming--she knew that it +was coming--and the only thing she was afraid about was that Peter would +hear the quick beat of her heart. + +He laid himself full stretch at her feet, threw off his cap and ran his +fingers through his hair. "You know this place," he said. + +"I? No, I've never been here before." + +"Yes, you have. You've been here with your friends. They come out every +night from the first of May until the first of October. Can't you see +the marks their feet have made as they danced here in the ring? It's +awfully queer. This is the first place I came to after I got to +Oxford--all the leaves were red--and I sat here one afternoon alone and +wondered how long it would be before I should look up and see you. I've +often come here since, winter and summer, and listened for sticks to +crackle as you came along through the trees to find me. Why don't you +laugh?" + +"Why should I?" + +"I knew you wouldn't. If you had it wouldn't have been you." + +He turned himself round on to his elbows and looked up at her, and +remained looking and looking. And Betty looked back. Her heart was +beating so loudly that it seemed to her that someone was whacking a +carpet somewhere with a stick. She wondered whether she would be able to +hear Peter when he spoke again,--if ever he did. + +And Peter said: "I'm going to begin to be a man exactly five months from +to-day. That is to say, I'm going into a law office in New York to make +a beginning. I'm going to work like the dickens. Do you know why?" + +Betty shook her head and then nodded. He was a long time coming to the +point. If he wasn't quick she'd simply have to scream. Her heart was up +in her throat--it was most uncomfortable. + +Peter went on. Somehow words came easy to him. The earth was so friendly +and so motherly and so very kind, and after all this was his spot and +she was there at last. "I forget the number of the house," he said, "but +up on the eighth floor of it, facing south, there's a most corking +apartment. The rooms are large and can be filled with big furniture and +enormous book-cases. I'm going to work to get that. I don't know how +long it'll take, but I'm going to ask you to help me to get it. Will +you?" + +Betty nodded again. Someone was beating the carpet in a most violent +manner. + +Peter, without another word, sprang up, put two large strong hands +under Betty's elbows and set her on her feet. She came up to the top +button of his coat and he held her there tight and it hurt her cheek. +But oh, how fine and broad the chest was behind it and how good it was +to nestle there. She heard him say much that she forgot then, but +remembered afterwards--simple boyish things expressed with deep +sincerity and a sort of throb--outpourings of pent-up feelings--not in +the very least incoherent, but all definite and very good. And there +they stayed for what appeared to be a long time. The man with the carpet +had gone away, but without looking up Betty knew that there were +hundreds of little people dancing around them in the ring and the little +clearing full of the yellow heads of wild flowers seemed to have become +that great open space and out of it, between an avenue of old trees, +stretched the wide road which led to,--the word was the only one in the +song that filled her brain,--motherhood! Motherhood! + +A rabbit ran past them frightened, and Betty sprang away. "Peter! What +will the others say?" + +Peter shook himself and his great laugh awoke the echoes of the woods. +"I don't care what anybody says," he answered. "Do you?" + +"Yes. Let's go. We shall be late for lunch." + +And Peter picked her up, carried her to the car, kissed her, put her in, +and drove away. + + +XI + +Peter and Kenyon left the station arm in arm. They had watched the train +round the corner and disappear. Many hands had waved to the crowd of +undergraduates who had come to see their people and friends off. Peter +had stood bareheaded with his hand still tingling with the touch of +Betty's. + +They walked slowly back to college, each busy with his thoughts. +Exultation filled Peter's mind. Kenyon was wondering how much he could +touch Peter for. In the procession of returning undergraduates they made +their way under the railway bridge and along the sun-bathed but rather +slummy cobblestone road over which the tram-cars ran. They passed the +row of little red brick houses--most of which were shops--and the +factory, stammering smoke, and turned into the back way which led by a +short cut to Worcester. + +Oxford had resumed her normal atmosphere. Fathers and mothers, uncles, +guardians, brothers, sisters and cousins, who had all descended upon the +town, had departed. No longer were the old winding streets set alight by +the many colored frocks of pretty girls, nor were they any longer +stirred into a temporary bustle by the great influx of motor-cars. +Undergraduates held possession once more and with their peculiar +adaptability were making hasty preparations for the long vacation. + +Peter led the way to his sitter, loaded his inevitable pipe, and sat in +the sun on the sill of the open window. With fastidious care Kenyon +stuck a cigarette into a long meerschaum holder and laid himself down on +the settee. He had worked very hard during the week and had very much +more than carried out his promise to Peter to make himself pleasant. The +moment had come when he might certainly lead the way up to his reward. + +Peter took the words out of his friend's mouth. "What d'you think?" he +said. "When I was saying good-bye to the Governor on the platform he +took me aside and gave me a cheque. He did it in his curious apologetic +way which always makes me feel that he's someone else's father, and +said: 'I think this will see you through for a month or two.' Gee! It's +some cheque, Nick! I don't think I shall have to touch the old man down +for another bob until I have to book my passage. His generosity leaves +me wordless. I wish to God I'd been able to say something nice. As it +was, I had to tell mother to thank him for me." He went over to his +desk, fished out a cheque-book, sat down and made one out in his large +round boyish handwriting. + +Kenyon watched him intently. He hoped that it might be for himself and +for fifty sovereigns. That amount, carefully split up, would keep some +of his more pressing tradesmen quiet for a short time. + +"Is this any good to you, old man?" said Peter. He dropped the cheque on +to Kenyon's immaculate waistcoat. It was for a hundred pounds. + +The master parasite was taken by surprise almost for the first time in +his life and he was sincerely touched by this generosity. "My dear old +Peter! This is really devilish kind of you! I'm exceedingly grateful. My +exit from Oxford can now be made with a certain amount of dignity. I'll +add this amount to your other advances, and you must trust in God and my +luck at cards to get it back." + +"Oh, that's all right," said Peter. "You'd have done the same for me. +What's the good of friendship anyway if a man can't share his bonuses +with a pal? Well, well! There goes another Commem:--the last of them for +us. Everything seems awfully flat here without,--without my people. What +d'you think of the Governor?" + +Kenyon folded the cheque neatly and slipped it into a small leather case +upon which his crest was embossed in gold. It was one of the numerous +nice things for which he owed. "Your father," he said, "is a very +considerable man. I made a careful study of him and I've come to the +conclusion that all he needs from you and Graham is human treatment. If +he were my father I should buy a metaphorical chisel and an easily +manipulated hammer and chip off all his shyness bit by bit as though it +were concrete. Properly managed there's enough in Dr. Guthrie to keep +you in comfort for the rest of your life without doing a stroke of work. +What age is he--somewhere about fifty-three I suppose? In all human +probability he is good--barring accidents--for another fifteen years or +so. Then, duly mourned, and, I take it, considerably paragraphed in your +newspapers, he will go to his long rest and you will come into your +own. With even quite ordinary diplomacy you can use those fifteen years +to considerable advantage to yourself,--dallying gently with life and +adding considerably to your experience, making your headquarters at his +house. You can do the semblance of work in order to satisfy his rather +puritanical notion,--but I can't see that there'll be any need for you +to sweat. For instance, become a poet--that's easy. There are stacks of +sonneteers whom you could imitate. Or you could call yourself a literary +man and do nothing more than establish a sanctum-sanctorum in which to +keep a neat pile of well-bound manuscript books and acquire a library. +If I were you I should adopt the latter course--it sounds well. It'll +satisfy the old man and all the while you're not writing the great book +he'll pat himself on the back and congratulate himself on having had you +properly educated. During all this time you can draw from him a very +nice yearly income, and then make your splash when nature has laid her +relentless hand upon the old man's shoulder." + +There was a moment's pause, during which Peter looked very curiously at +the graceful indolent man who lay upon his settee. "If I didn't know +that you were talking for effect," he said, "I should take you by the +scruff of your neck and the seat of your breeches and hurl you +down-stairs. I know you better than to believe that you are the +cold-blooded brute that you make yourself out to be. Anyhow, we'll not +discuss the matter. The one useful thing you have said--and on which I +shall try to act--is that Graham and I must try to be more human with +the Governor. He deserves it. What's the program?" + +"For me," said Kenyon, "dinner with Lascelles and bridge to the early +hours. With good cards and a fairly good partner I shall hope to make a +bit. What are you going to do?" + +"I shall dine in Hall," said Peter, "and then go out for a walk." + +"I see." Kenyon got up, filled his cigarette case from Peter's box and +stood with his back to the mantel-piece. "You proposed to Betty to-day, +didn't you?" + +"How the deuce did you know that?" + +Kenyon laughed. "My dear fellow," he said, "everybody knows that. You +exuded romance when you arrived late at the Inn. The very waiter guessed +it, and was so stirred, being Swiss, that he very nearly poured the soup +down your mother's neck. And when your mother looked at you I saw +something come into her eyes which showed me that she knew she had lost +you. I wouldn't be a mother if you paid me!" And then he held out his +hand with that charm of which he was past-master. "'Friend that sticketh +closer than a brother,' three years; dashed bit of a slip of a girl, one +week,--and where's your friend? Well, good luck, Peter! She's a nice +little thing. Dream your dreams, old boy, but don't altogether forget +the man who's been through Oxford with you." + +Peter grasped the hand warmly. "Don't be an ass!" he said. "Go and brush +your back hair. It's all sticking up." + +And when he was alone, except for a golden patch of evening sun which +had found its way through his window and had spilt itself on his carpet, +Peter pulled out a little white glove from his pocket and kissed it. + +"O God!" he said. "Help me to become a man." + + +XII + +No one knew, because no one was told, of the many hours of grief which +little Mrs. Guthrie endured after she left Oxford. There were two +reasons for this grief. One, the inevitable realization that the time +had come for some other woman to take her place with her son. She +remained his mother, but she was no longer first. The other, that Peter +had not told her about Betty at once and had left it for her to find +out, as the others did. And this hurt badly. He had always been in the +habit of telling her everything,--first at her knee, then as he stood on +a level with her, and finally when he looked down upon her from his +great height. Every one of his numerous letters written while he was so +far away from home contained the outpourings of his soul--his troubles, +difficulties, triumphs, wonderings and short incoherent cries for help. +As Kenyon said, she had only to look at him once when he marched into +the Old Inn at Woodstock with Betty to know that she had lost him. She +waited for him that afternoon to tell her,--but he never spoke. Even as +he put her into the train she hoped that he would remember, but he +didn't. That wasn't like her Peter, she told herself again and again. +What was she to think but that it only needed one short week and a very +pretty face to make him forget all the long years of her love and +tenderness. It was very, very hard. + +It is true that for the remainder of their holiday, during which, with +her husband, Graham, Belle, and Betty, Mrs. Guthrie went from one +charming place to another, seeing shrines and looking down from famous +heights on garden-like valleys of English country, Peter's letters came +as regularly as usual. They were no shorter and no less intimate; and in +the first one that she received, the day after leaving Oxford, he told +her his great news,--but he hadn't spoken of it--he hadn't come to her +at once, and she felt with a great shock of pain that she was deposed. +Also she was well aware of the fact that the same posts which brought +her letters brought letters to Betty--and she was jealous. + +Uttering no word of complaint, even to the Doctor, little Mrs. Guthrie +nursed her sorrow and went out of her way to be very nice to Betty. Her +mother-instinct told her that she must win this girl; otherwise there +was a chance that she might in the future see very little of Peter. In +all this she had one small triumph, of which she made the most. Her +letters from Peter contained more news than those written to Betty, and +thus she was able to score a little over the girl. With an air of great +superiority, very natural under the circumstances, she told Betty and +the others the manner in which Peter had gone down from Oxford; of the +dinner that was given to him by the American Club,--a great evening, +during which he was presented with a silver cigarette box covered with +signatures,--of the farewell luncheon with his professors and the +delightful things that they said to him there; of his strenuous doings +at Henley, the stern training, the race itself in which his boat was +beaten; of the wild night on the Vanderbilt barge; of the few cheery +days spent in London with a bunch of the Rhodesmen; and finally his +preparations for his visit to Thrapstone-Wynyates, in Shropshire, the +famous old Tudor House of Kenyon's father. + +Three times during these pleasant weeks Peter ran down to see,--not her, +but Betty, and went out with her with his face alight and then hurried +back to his engagements, having given her, his mother, who loved him so, +several hugs and a few incoherent words. It was the way of life, youth +to youth, but it was very hard. + +On the afternoon of the fifth of August, when the party crossed the +gangplank at Southampton to go aboard the _Olympic_, little Mrs. Guthrie +told herself that in a few minutes she would see Peter's great form +elbowing through the crowd, although he had not said that he would be +there to say good-bye. She almost hoped that something might prevent him +from being in time, because she knew that he would not come solely to +hold her in his arms, but for another reason. Nothing, however, did +prevent him. He followed them almost instantly on board; and although he +never left her side, he surreptitiously held Betty's hand all the time. + +A smile of unusual bitterness crept all about the little woman's heart. +It was very hard. He was her boy--her son--her first-born and the apple +of her eye. She had come up for the first time to one of the rudest +awakenings that a mother can ever know. And presently when the cry, "All +ashore that's going ashore!" went up and Peter put both his big arms +about her and said, "Good-bye, mummie, darling, I shall come home soon," +she broke into such a fit of weeping and kissed him with a passion so +great that the boy was startled and a little frightened. There was no +time to think or ask questions. There was his father's hand to shake, +and Graham's, and Belle to kiss. There was also Betty, and she was +suddenly hugged before them all. + +As the big liner sent out its raucous note of departure and moved away +from the dock the little mother was unable to see the bare head of her +boy above the heads of the great crowd. Her eyes were blinded. "He +doesn't understand," she said to herself. "He doesn't understand." + +Poor little mother! It was very hard. + + +XIII + +The cottage on the borders of Lord Shropshire's park was just as pretty +and just as small as the little lady who lived there. It was +appropriately called "The Nest," although there was no male bird in it +and it was devoid of young ones; but Mrs. Randolph Lennox was so like a +bird, with her trilly soprano voice, her quick dartings here and there +and the peculiar way she had of getting all a-flutter when people +called, that the name of her charming little place--first given by +Kenyon--stuck, and was generally used. + +It was perched up on high ground overlooking the gardens of the old +Tudor House,--those wonderful Italian gardens in which Charles II had +dallied with his mistresses on his return from his long, heart-breaking +and hungry exile. It was tree-surrounded and creepers grew up its old +walls to its thickly thatched roof. For many years it had been occupied +by the agent of the estate, until--so it was said--it was won by Mrs. +Lennox from the present Lord Shropshire as the result of a bet. + +No one had ever seen Randolph Lennox and many people didn't believe that +he was anything more than a myth; but the little woman gave herself out +as the widow of this man and was accepted as such. Her income was small, +but not so small as to preclude her from playing bridge for fairly large +stakes, dressing exquisitely, riding to the hounds and keeping an +extremely efficient menage, consisting of two maid servants and an +elderly gardener. It enabled her also to spend May and June in London +yearly at a little hotel in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly, from which +utterly correct little house she was taken nightly to dinner and to the +theatre by one or other of the numerous young men who formed her +entourage. Never taken actually into the heart of London society, she +managed with quiet skill to attach herself to its rather long limbs, +and her name was frequently to be found in the columns of society papers +as having been seen in a creation by Paquin or Macinka at Ranalagh or +Hurlingham, the opera, or lunching at the Ritz. + +At one time the tongue of rumor had been very busy about Mrs. Randolph +Lennox,--"Baby" Lennox as she was commonly called. It was said that she +had been lifted out of the chorus of the Gaiety at the age of nineteen +by His Serene Highness, the Prince of Booch-Kehah; that she had passed +under the control of Captain Harry Waterloo, and eventually, before +disappearing for a time, figured in the Divorce Court as a +correspondent. The tongue of rumor is, however, in the mouth of Ananias, +and as Baby Lennox never spoke of herself except, a little sadly, as a +woman whose brief married life was an unfortunate memory, her past +remained a mystery and people were obliged to accept her for her present +and her future. She was so small--so golden-haired--so large eyed--so +fresh and young and dainty--so consistently charming and birdlike--that +she was the Mecca of very young men. With the beautiful trustfulness of +the male young they believed in her, and over and over again she could +have changed her name to others which were equally euphonious and which, +unlike her own, could be discovered in the Red Book. But as there was no +money attached to them she continued to remain a young and interesting +widow and to live in the little cottage on the hill and to pop in and +out of the Shropshire house as the most popular member of its +kaleidoscopic parties. + +Whether there was any truth in the story that the present Lord +Shropshire was related to her in a fatherly way no one will ever know, +except perhaps Nicholas Kenyon, who in his treatment of her was +uncharacteristically brotherly. These two, at any rate, had no secrets +from each other and both regarded life from the same peculiar angle. As +parasites they had everything in common and they assisted each other and +played into each other's hands with a loyalty that was praiseworthy even +under these circumstances. + +Nicholas Kenyon's mother--a very large, handsome woman with brilliant +teeth and amazing good-nature, who, even when in the best of health, +never finished dressing till four o'clock in the afternoon and then +never put much on--was undergoing a rest-cure in the west wing of +Thrapstone-Wynyates when the boys arrived for the shooting. For nearly a +year she had been playing auction every night until the very small hours +and had, while in a nervous condition, stumbled across an emotional +pamphlet written by a Welsh revivalist, which sent her straight to bed. +She was really greatly shaken by it and perhaps a little bit frightened. +It did not mince words about the future of women of her type, and she +was shocked. Heaven seemed to her to be a place into which she had the +same inherited right to walk as the Royal Enclosure at Ascot; but this +vehement little book put a widely different point of view before her. +Therefore it happened that the first woman to whom Peter was introduced +was the little widow, "Baby" Lennox, who was acting as hostess. + +Two evenings before she met Peter she had received a letter from Kenyon, +which ran as follows: + + Carlton Hotel, + Dear Old Girl: + I shall turn up at home on Thursday in time for tea. I hear + that mother is enjoying herself in the throes of some very + pleasant imaginary complaint of sorts and has retired to the + solitude of the west wing. After a busy season she no doubt + wishes to read Wells' new novel of socialism and seduction and + the latest Masefield poems, which always remind me of the + ramblings of rum-soaked sailors in a Portsmouth pub. I, for + one, shall miss her florid and inaccurate presence and the + deliciously flagrant way in which she cheats at Bridge; but if + father has gathered round him an August house-party on his + usual lines, I look forward to a cheery time,--dog eating dog, + if I may put it like that. I am bringing with me the man with + whom I have shared rooms at Oxford,--Peter Guthrie. He's the + American of whom I have spoken to you before. I am especially + anxious for him to meet you, because, while under the hypnotic + influence of Oxford in all the beauty of late spring, he has + been fool enough to get himself engaged. Now, not only is + Guthrie very useful to me, having a wealthy father and being + himself a generous soul, but I am going to New York with him in + October to see if that city can be made to render up some of + its unlimited dollars, and I don't want him to be hanging, + booby-eyed, at the heels of a girl until such time as I have + found my feet. You have a wonderful way with the very young and + unsophisticated and I shall really be enormously obliged if you + will work your never-failing wiles on my most useful friend and + draw his at present infatuated mind away from the nice, + harmless little girl who has just sailed. Fasten on him, my + dear, and make him attach himself to you for the remainder of + our holiday. Go as far as you dare or care,--the farther the + better for my sake and eventually for his own. He is one of + those admirable, simple, big, virgin men to whom women are a + wonderful mystery. At present he has refused even to look + through a glass, darkly, at that pleasant and compensating side + of life, and he needs to be brought down from his self-made + pedestal. It will do him good and me a service. Honestly, I + find it more than a little trying to be in such close + association with an Archangel. Turn your innocent blue eyes on + him, Baby dear, and teach him things and, above all, get him + out of this silly, sentimental tangle of his. Incidentally, he + has money and can procure more and I feel sure that you will + not find him a waste of your good efforts. He is a splendid + specimen of what my particular Don was wont to call 'young + manhood,' and when he plays ragtime he puts the Savoy, or, for + the matter of that, any other English orchestra into a little + round hole. + Yours ever, + N. K. + +Quite unconscious of this scheme, Peter fell into the light-heartedness +of this beautiful old house with his usual gusto. To his unsuspicious +eyes Baby Lennox was quite the most charming woman he had ever met. + +He was delighted, a little surprised and even a little jealous at the +relations which existed between Kenyon and his father. He was quick to +notice that they treated each other more like pals or brothers, than +father and son, were entirely open and frank with each other, walked +about arm in arm, played tennis and billiards together and often spent +hours in each other's society, laughing and talking. He noticed, too, +that Kenyon always called his father "Tops," a name which had grown into +daily use from the time when, as a tiny lad just able to talk, the +things that most caught his fancy were Lord Shropshire's riding-boots, +in which he seemed to live, being mostly on horseback. "Nicko" was what +his father called Kenyon,--that and old man or old boy. He wished most +deeply that he and his own father were on such good terms. + +If Peter had heard the sort of things these two talked about and +confided to each other, his surprise would have elaborated into +amazement. The elder man took infinite pleasure in telling the one who +was so complete a chip off the same block the most minute details of his +love affairs during the time that he was at Sandhurst for his army +training, while he was in a crack Cavalry regiment and while he knocked +about London and Paris and Vienna before and after his marriage. Also he +revelled in relating his racing and gambling experiences, describing the +more shady episodes with witty phrases and a touch of satire that was +highly entertaining to the younger man. They both agreed, with a +paradoxical sort of honesty, deliberately and inherently, that they were +not straight and accepted each other as such, and the father used +frequently to speculate from which of his dull, responsible and worthy +ancestors he acquired the tendency. It was certainly not from the late +Lord Shropshire, whose brilliant work as a Cabinet Minister in several +Governments and as one of the most valued advisers of Queen Victoria +had placed his name permanently in the annals of his country. "We get it +from one of the women of the family, I suspect, Nicko," he had a way of +saying, after a more than usually excellent dinner. "A dear, pretty +creature who lived a double life with delightful finesse--the great lady +and the human woman by turns. What d'you think, old boy? At any rate, +you and I make no pretences and, 'pon my soul! I don't know which of us +is the better exponent in the delicate and difficult art of sleight of +hand. I wish I were going to America with you. I fancy that we should +make in double harness enough to enable us to retire from the game and +live like little gentlemen. As it is, you'll do very well, I've no +doubt. From what I hear, the country reeks with wealthy young men +waiting to be touched by an expert such as you are. Do some good work, +old fellow, and when you come back you shall lend me a portion of your +earnings, eh?" + +They were a strange couple, these two, capable, outwardly charming and +cut out for a very different way of life but for the regrettable +possession of a kink which caused them to become harpies and turn the +weaknesses of unsuspicion of human nature to their own advantage. Some +psychologists might have gone out of their way to find excuses for these +men and endeavor to prove that they would both have run straight but for +the fact that they were always pushed for money. They would, however, +have been wrong. Just as some men are born orators, some with mechanical +and creative genius and some with the gift of leadership, these two men +were born crooked, and under no conditions, even the most favorable, +could they have played any game according to the rules. + +The men of the party were all excellent sportsmen and good fellows, and +the women more than usually delightful representatives of English +society. As a matter of fact, the men were all,--like Kenyon's +father,--living on their wits and just avoiding criminal prosecution by +the eighth of an inch. They called themselves racing men, which, +translated into cold English, means that they were people of no +ostensible means of livelihood, who attended every race meeting and +backed horses on credit, taking their winnings and owing their losses +until chased by crook solicitors. They all bore names well known in +English history. They had all passed through the best schools and either +Oxford, Cambridge or Sandhurst. One or two of them were still in the +army. One had been requested to resign from the navy, the King having no +further use for his services, and one was a Member of Parliament, having +previously been hammered in the other house,--that is to say the Stock +Exchange. The women of the party were either wives of these men or not, +as the case may be. At any rate they were good to look at, amusing to +talk to, and apparently without a care in the world. And if Lord +Shropshire, in welcoming Peter to his famous house, had said, like the +spider to the fly, "Come into my parlor so that whatever you have about +you may be sucked dry by us," he would have been strictly truthful. +Several other such men as Peter had gone into that web sound and whole, +but they had come out again with many things to regret and forget. + +Who could say whether Peter would escape? + + +XIV + +Peter had, as he duly reported to his mother and to Betty, a corking +time at Thrapstone-Wynyates. + +Although an open-air man, an athlete, whose reading had always been +confined to those books only that were necessary to his work,--dry law +books for the most part,--Peter was far from being insensible to the +mellow beauty of the house, and his imagination, uncultivated so far as +any training in art or architecture went, was subconsciously stirred by +the knowledge that its floors and stone walks and galleries were worn by +the feet of a long line of men and women whose loves and passions and +hatreds had been worked out there and whose ghostly forms in all the +picturesque trappings of several centuries haunted its echoing Hall and +looked down from its walls, from their places in gold frames, upon its +present occupants. + +The atmosphere of Oxford, and especially of his own college, had often +spun his thoughts from rowing and other strenuous, splendid, vital +things, to the great silent army of dead men whose shouts had rung +through the quad and whose rushing feet had gone under the old gate. But +this house, standing bravely and with an indescribable sense of +responsibility as one of the few rear-guards of those great days of +chivalry and gallant fighting for heroic causes, moved him differently. +Here women had been and their perfume seemed to hang to the tapestries, +and the influence of their hands that could no longer touch was +everywhere apparent. Often Peter drew up short, on his way up the wide +staircase, to listen for the click of high heels, the tinkle of a spinet +and the rattle of dice. Everywhere he went he had a queer but not +unpleasant sense of never being alone, just as most men have who walk +along the cloisters of a cathedral whose vast array of empty prie-dieus +have felt the knees of many generations and in whose lofty roof there is +collected the voices of an unnumberable choir. + +Up early enough to find the dew still wet on flowers and turf he enjoyed +a swim every morning in the Italian bathing pool beneath the Cedar trees +with Baby Lennox. Then he either went for a gallop, before breakfast, on +one of Lord Shropshire's ponies--again with Baby Lennox--or had a round +of golf with her on the workmanlike nine-hole course which had been laid +out in the park. She played a neat game, driving straight, approaching +deftly and putting like a book,--frequently beating him. + +The picture of this very pretty little person as she stood on the edge +of the bathing pool that first morning was, as she intended it to be, +indescribably attractive. She came from her room in a white kimono +worked with the beautiful designs which only the Chinese can achieve. +Her golden hair was closely covered by a tight-fitting bathing cap of +geranium red, most becoming to her white skin. "Mr. Peter!" she called +out. "I can't swim a bit, so you must look after me like--like a +brother." And then, as though to show how silly that word was, she flung +off the wrap and stood, all slim and sweet, in blue silk tights cut low +at the neck and high above her little round white knees. Peter thought, +with a kind of boyish gasp, that she looked like a most alluring drawing +on the cover of a magazine. With an irresistible simplicity and utter +lack of self-consciousness she stood, balanced on the edge of the pool, +with the sun embracing her, in a diving attitude, in no hurry to take +her dip. And when Peter, suddenly seized with the notion that he might +be looking at her too intently, dived in, she gave a little cry of joy +and dismay and jumped in after him. "You must hold me, you must hold me, +or I shall go under!" she cried, and he swam with her to the steps. In +reality she swam like a frog, but her beautiful assumption of inability +and her pluck in jumping into deep water again and again to be taken +possession of by him, filled him with admiration at her courage. With +her tights wet and clinging and the water glistening on her white flesh +she assured herself that she deserved admiration, having carefully +calculated her effect. Practice makes perfect, and the very young are +always alike. + +The first morning on which she appeared in riding kit she again made a +charming picture. She always rode astride, but few women would have +ventured to wear such thin and such close-fitting white breeches. Her +coat, cut like a man's, was of white drill. Her stock was white and her +hat, with a wide flat brim was of white straw, but her boots were as +black and shiny as the back of a crow. "Your hand, Mr. Peter," she said, +raising her little foot for the spring,--it was "Mr. Peter" +still,--"what a gorgeous morning for a gallop." And for a moment she +leaned warmly against his shoulder. Yes, she was quite pleased with the +effect. Peter's face was flushed as they started off together. + +When they golfed she had a delightful way of making her conversation +from green to green into a sort of serial. With her head hatless, her +short Irish homespun skirt displaying much blue stocking which exactly +matched her silk sweater and her large befringed eyes, she made a +fascinating opponent and companion. "No wonder you loved Oxford and all +that it gave you. Quite a little tee, please. Thanks. To a man with any +imagination--" A settle, a swing, a nice straight ball and silence while +Peter beat his ball pressing for all he was worth; the picking up of the +two bags and on side by side. "A man with any imagination must feel the +beauty and underlying meaning of that inspiring atmosphere,--as of +course you did. You, I can see, are highly susceptible to everything +that is beautiful. You, I think, of all men, you who have managed to +remain,--I'm sure I don't know how!--so unspoiled, will always remember +and feel the influence of your college. A cleek, I think, don't you? No? +A brassie? Just as you say." And so she would continue chatting merrily +away all round, but always keen on her game and doing her best to do it +credit, letting out nice little bits of flattery with so naïve an air +and with such frankly appreciative glances, that poor old Peter's +vanity, hitherto absolutely dormant, began to bud, like new leaves in +April. + +It must be remembered that Peter was a rowing man. Always, except when +out with the guns, he was with Baby Lennox. They were inseparable from +the first day of his visit. Even in the evening they hunted in couples, +because she was sick of Bridge, she said, and he gave out that he knew +nothing at all about any card games and had no desire to learn. After +being frequently pressed to cut in by Courthope, Pulsford, Fountain and +the other men who could not bear to see him with an unscathed +cheque-book, and tempted again and again by their well-groomed and +delightfully friendly wives to try a hand, Peter was left alone. They +were annoyed and irritated but they found that when Peter said "No" he +didn't mean "Yes," like so many of the other young men whose weakness +formed the greater part of these people's income; and so they very +quickly gave him up to Baby Lennox, were obliged to be satisfied with +his jovial piano-playing and make up for lost time with the inevitable +members of the _nouveau riches_ who lived near by and were only too glad +to pay for the privilege of dining at Thrapstone-Wynyates in the odour +of titles. + +The nights being warm and windless, Peter sat out on the moon-bathed +terrace with Baby Lennox listening to her girlish prattle and thinking +how particularly charming she looked with the soft light on her golden +hair and white arms and dainty foot. Sometimes, suddenly, her merry +words would give place to sad ones, and Peter's simple, honest heart +would be touched by her artistic and mythical glimpses of the unhappy +side of her life. + +"Oh, Peter, Peter!" she said one night, unconsciously showing almost a +yard of leg in a black lace stocking patterned with butterflies. "I +wish, oh, how I wish that I'd been born like you, under a lucky star! +I've always been in a smart and rather careless set and I've never +really had time to see visions and walk in the garden of my soul." She +spoke in capital letters. "If I'd met you when I was a little young +thing you might have become my gardener to pluck the weeds out of my +paths, and train the flowers of my mind. You might have planted seeds so +sweet that in my best and most devout hours their blooms would have +filled my thoughts with scent. Oh dear me, the might have beens,--how +sad they are! But, in one thing at least I can take joy,--I'm all the +better for knowing you, dear big Peter." + +But these graver interludes never lasted long. Mrs. Lennox was far too +clever for that. She would break the monotony of conversation by walking +with her little hand on the boy's strong arm, or by dancing with him to +the music of a gramophone placed in the open window of the morning room. +How close she clung to him then and how sweet she was to hold! + +And then, she would say, with a wonderful throb in her voice. "Oh, +Peter, Peter! Isn't life wonderful--isn't it just the most wonderful and +thrilling thing that is given to us? Listen to the stars--there's love +in their song! Listen to the nightingale--love, all love! Listen to the +whisper of the breeze! Can't you hear it tell us to love and touch and +taste all the sweets that are given us to enjoy? Oh, Peter, Peter! +Listen, listen,--and live!" + +In her picturesque and slangy way she announced to Kenyon, as soon as +three days after the commencement of the house-party, that she "had got +Peter well hooked." It was not, however, an accurate statement. It is +true that Peter's vanity had been appealed to. Whose wouldn't have been? +This attractive young thing was hostess. She was far and away prettier, +younger, more alluring and more complex than any other woman in the +party. And yet she had made a favorite of Peter at once and showed a +frank pleasure in being with him at all possible times. He had hardly +spoken for longer than an hour with her before she had said, in the +middle of his description of the Henley week, "I _must_ call you Mr. +Peter, I _must_. May I?" She sent him little notes, too, charming, +spontaneous little notes, to say "Good-night," and how greatly she had +enjoyed the evening, or the swim, or the round of golf, beginning "Dear +Big Man" and ending,--at first without a signature, and eventually with +"Baby." At the beginning they were brought in by the man, or placed on +the dressing-table against a bowl of flowers. Then they were thrust +under his door by her after he had gone up to his room, or thrown +through his open window from the narrow balcony that ran round the +house. Her room was next to his. She had seen to that. In a hundred +unexpected and appealing ways she had set out to prove to him that they +were indeed, as she had said they were, "very, very close friends." + +Now, Peter had never been a woman's man. To him women and their ways +were new and wonderful. He suspected nothing. Why should he? He accepted +Mrs. Randolph Lennox on her face value, which was priceless, as so many +other excellent and unsophisticated young men had done. He believed in +her and her stories and was very sorry that she had been unhappy. He +believed that she was sincere and good and clean and that she liked him +and was his friend. + +Kenyon, who watched all this, called Peter an easy mark. He was. What +else could he be in the expert and cunning hands of such a woman? + +As for Mrs. Lennox, her performance,--it was rather in the nature of a +performance,--was all the more brilliant and effective because Peter +appealed to her more than any man she had ever met. His height and +strength and squareness, his fearless honesty, his unself-conscious +pride and boyish love of life,--she liked them all. She liked his +clean-cut healthy face and thick hair and amazing laugh. But, above +everything, she liked him for being untilled soil, virgin earth. It was +this that piqued her seriously and set alight in her a desire which grew +and grew, to test her charms upon him, to taste him, to stir him into a +first great passion. And this was the real reason that she gave him so +much of her time and company. The gratification of this desire was the +thing for which she was working, upon which she had set her mind. Hers +was not a record of failures. Peter stood a very poor chance of getting +out whole. + + +XV + +Nicholas Kenyon has promised himself that, one of these days, when +abject poverty forces him to work, he will write a whole book about +Peter and Baby Lennox, and call it "Another Temptation of St. Anthony." + +Not only did Kenyon watch this, to him, rather extraordinary incident, +with keen interest, but so also did the members of his father's +house-party, who came to regard Peter as a kind of freak. They all +knew,--because they were all psychologists,--that Mrs. Lennox was badly +smitten, as they put it, on this young American. They all knew,--because +one of the women made it her business to spy,--that their temporary +hostess was going through all the tricks of her trade to seduce this +unconscious boy. + +The incident provided Lord Shropshire and his friends with endless +amusement, and bets were made as to how long Peter would hold out. Every +morning something new was reported to them by the lady who had appointed +herself to watch. One day it was that Baby had taken Peter to see her +cottage after dinner and had had a little fainting fit in her bedroom +while showing him the view from the window. Another that she had twisted +her ankle on the eighth hole and had been obliged to ask to be carried +back to the house. There was, however, no evidence, not even of a +circumstantial nature, to prove that Baby had succeeded. It was +presently agreed that either Peter was a fool or an angel. + +There was one incident, however, which escaped unnoticed,--one of which +even Kenyon knew nothing. It took place three nights before the party +broke up. + +After a gorgeous day of hard exercise and splendid fresh air, an hour at +the piano after dinner and his usual talk to Baby under the moon, Peter +went up to bed at eleven o'clock. He was very sleepy and meant to be up +earlier than ever in the morning. He didn't say good-night to Kenyon or +his satirical father. They were, like the others, very seriously at work +making what money they could. There had been a fairly large dinner-party +drawn from the surrounding houses, and there were eight bridge tables +occupied in the large drawing-room. He left Mrs. Lennox in the hall +looking more delicious than ever and went up to his room to smoke a +final pipe and look over an illustrated paper before turning in. + +His room was large and square and wainscotted, with dull grilled +ceiling, and an oak floor so old that here and there it slanted badly. +His bed was a four-poster, deeply carved at the back with the Kenyon +arms, the motto underneath rather sarcastically being "For God and +Honour." In front of the fireplace, with its sprawling iron dogs and oak +setting, there was a long, narrow sofa filled with cushions, and at its +side a small writing-table on which stood two tall silver candlesticks. +These gave the room its only light and added to the Rembrandtesque +atmosphere of it. It was a room which reeked with history and episodes +of historical romance, love and sudden death. The windows which led to +the balcony were open and the warm air of a wonderful night puffed in, +causing the candle flames to move with a gentle rhythmic dignity to and +fro. + +Peter read and smoked for half an hour in his dressing-gown, while +Quixotic moths flung themselves passionately into the candle-light one +after another to die for some unexplainable ideal. From the drawing-room +below a woman's throbbing voice drifted up, singing an Indian love song, +and when it ceased the whole night was set a quiver by a nightingale's +outburst of appeal. These things, and the silver wonder of the moon and +stars, the touch of Mrs. Lennox's soft hand on his lips and the feeling +and almost psychic undercurrent of strange emotion in that room in which +so much had taken place, all stirred and thrilled the boy and sent his +blood racing in his veins. + +He stayed up longer than he intended, listening and wondering and +wishing, for the first time in his life, that he had read poetry, so +that he could fit some immortal lines to his mood and his surroundings. +It was this, to him, curious thought which set him laughing and broke +some of the spell. "Gee!" he said to himself, "can you see me spouting +Shakespeare or mouthing Byron?" He shied his dressing-gown into the +sofa, put both flames out with one huge blow and leaped into bed. + +Almost instantly he heard his name urgently called. He sat up. Was he +dreaming? Who should call at that time of night? Could it be Baby? He +heard the call again. It was nearer. A little shadow fell suddenly upon +the floor of his room. And then, in the window, with the shaft of +moonlight all about her, stood Mrs. Lennox. + +Peter caught his breath and clambered out of his bed. "What is it?" he +asked. "What's the matter?" + +The woman ran in with a glad cry. "Oh, Peter! I thought you had gone out +of your room," she whispered, "and I didn't know what to do. I saw a +hideous figure walk through my wall just after I had put out my light, +and when it came towards me with long, bony fingers, I rushed out and +came to you. Oh, hold me, Peter, hold me! I'm terrified and as cold as a +frog!" + +She slipped into his arms, all young and sweet and incoherent, trembling +like a little bird in a thunder-storm. It was a most calculated piece of +perfect acting. + +Peter's heart seemed to jump into his mouth. The flowing hair of the +little head that lay on his chest was full of the most intoxicating +scent. + +"I'll--I'll go and see what it is," he said abruptly. + +"No, no! Don't go. I can't let you go, Peter. Stay with me!" + +"But, if there's a man in your room----" + +"It wasn't a man. It was the ghost that belongs to the family. It always +comes before some dreadful accident. Oh, darling, stay with me! Take +care of me! I'm terrified!" + +She clung to him in a very ecstasy of fright and the closeness and +warmth of her body sent Peter's brain whirling. He tried to speak, to +think of something to say, but all his thoughts were in the swirl of a +mill-stream, and he held her tighter and put his face against her hair, +while his heart pumped and every preconceived idea, every +hard-fought-for ideal went crash. + +"I love you. I love you, Peter. My Peter!" she whispered. "Who but you +should shelter me and hold me and keep me in your arms! Keep me with you +always, night and day. Look into my eyes and see how much you mean to +me, my man." + +She raised her head and stood on tiptoe. The jealous moon had laid its +light upon her face and her eyes were shining and her lips were parted, +and the slight silk covering had fallen from her shoulder. The whiteness +of it dazzled. + +"Oh, my God!" said Peter, but as he bent to kiss her mouth, momentarily +drunk with the touch and scent of her, someone shouted his name and +thumped on his door, and Mrs. Lennox tore herself away and ran through +the window like a moon-woman. + +The door was flung open. Fountain came in, his voice a little thick. "I +say, Guthrie, are you getting up early in the morning? 'Cause, if so, +I'll take you on for nine holes before breakfast. What d'yer say? Goin' +to get healthy, d'yer see? What?" + +Peter found his voice. "All right!" he said. + +"Will you? Good man. Give me a call at six, will you? We'll bathe in the +pool before coming in. So long then." And out he went again, lurching a +little and banging the door behind him. + +For several queer minutes Peter stood swaying, with his breath nearly +gone as though he had been rowing, and one big hand on his throbbing +head. And as he stood there the posts of the bed seemed to turn into +trees and its cover into soft grass all alive with the yellow heads of +"bread and cheese," and among them sat Betty, with her eyes full of +love, confidence and implicit faith,--Betty, for whom he had saved +himself. + +And then he started walking about the room. Up and down he went--up and +down--cursing himself and his weakness which had nearly smashed his +dream and put his loyalty into the dust. + +And when,--she also had cursed,--Mrs. Lennox stole back, as sweet and +alluring as ever, and even more determined, she found that Peter had +re-lit his candles, got into his dressing-gown again and was sitting at +the table writing. + +"Peter! Peter!" she called. + +But he didn't hear. + +"Peter!" she whispered, and went nearer and nearer until her body rested +against his shoulder. + +"Oh, I beg your pardon," he said, rising. "Is it all right now? That's +fine. It's just a touch cold. Don't you think you'd better be in bed?" + +Baby Lennox had seen the beginning of the letter, "My own Betty." She +nodded, drew back her upper lip in a queer smile and turned and went. +She was clever enough to know that she had lost. + +And then Peter bent again over his letter, and in writing to the little +girl whom he adored with all his heart, he was safe. + + + + +PART TWO + +THE CITY + + +I + +"Mother took the car to Lord & Taylor's," said Belle, looking herself +over in the long glass with a scrutiny that was eventually entirely +favorable. "I guess it'll do us good to walk." + +"I'd simply love to," said Betty. "But I must just run in and tell +father I'm going to have dinner with you. I won't be a minute." + +"All right, my dear. Time's cheap. Don't hurry on my account." + +Belle went over to the dressing-table. She had only recently powdered +her nose from the elaborate apparatus from which she rarely permitted +herself to be separated, but a little more would do no harm. She burst +into involuntary song as she performed a trick which she might so well +have afforded to leave to those ladies of doubtful summers to whose Anno +Domini complexions the thick disguise of powder may perhaps be useful. +Tucked into her blouse there was a letter from Kenyon which had come a +week ago. It was only a matter of days before she was to see him again. + +And Betty ran out of her bedroom and along a passage which led to the +studio. A stretch of cloudless sky could be seen through a recess +window, and the far-below flat roofs of the old buildings on the corner +of Gramercy Park. She knocked and waited. There was a grunt, and she +went in. + +Into the large lofty room--a cross between a barn and an attic--a hard +north light was falling with cruel accuracy. It showed up stacks of +unframed canvasses with their faces turned to the dark wall and the +imperfections of several massive pieces of oak, the worn appearance of +the stained floor, the age of the Persian rugs and of a florid woman who +sat with studied grace and an anxious expression of pleasant thought on +the dais, with one indecently beringed hand resting with strained +nonchalance on the arm of her chair and the other about an ineffably +bored Pekingese. + +Ranken Townsend, the successful portrait painter, had backed away from +his almost life-size canvas, and with his fine untidy head on one side +and irritation in his red-grey beard was glaring at it with savage +antagonism. + +The lady on the dais had crow's-feet round her made-up eyes, and a chin +that could not be made anything but double however high she held it. +Also--as the north light seemed to take a hideous delight in +proving--her figure was irreclaimably dumpy and plump. The lady on the +canvas, however,--such is Art that runs an expensive studio, good wines +and well-preserved Coronas,--was slight and lovely and patrician, and +should she stand up, at least six feet tall. No wonder Townsend grunted +and glared at the commercial fraud in front of him, at which, in his +good, idealistic, hungry Paris days he would have slung wet brushes and +the honest curses of the Place Pigalle. He was selling his gift once +more for five thousand dollars. His wife dressed at Bendels. + +Anger and irritation went out of the painter's eyes when he saw the +sweet face that peeked in. "Hello, sweetheart!" he sang out. "Come in +and bring a touch of sun. Mrs. Vandervelde, I'd like you to meet my +little girl." + +Without turning her head or breaking a pose that she considered to have +become, after many serious attempts, extremely effective, the +much-paragraphed lady, whose lizard-covered mansion in Fifth Avenue was +always one of the objects touched upon by the megaphone men in +rubber-neck wagons, murmured a few words. "How d'you do, child? How well +you look." + +Betty smothered a laugh. Mrs. Vandervelde had acquired the habit of +looking through her ears. "I'm going home with Belle, father, and I +shall stay to dinner. But I'll be back before ten." + +"Will you? All right." He tilted up her face and kissed it. "I'm dining +at the National Arts Club to-night, and I guess I shall be late." He +pointed his brush at the canvas and made the grimace of a man who's +obliged to swallow a big dose of evil-smelling physic. So Betty, who +understood and was sorry, put his hand to her lips, bowed to the +indifferent lady and slipped away. The room was perceptibly colder when +she left. The picture was already four thousand two hundred dollars +toward completion, and Betty was just as much relieved as her father, +who returned angrily to work to paint in the diamonds. He was sick of +that smile. + +While waiting for the elevator, Belle gave a rather self-conscious +laugh and lifted her tight skirt quickly. "Seen the latest, Betty?" She +showed a tiny square watch edged with diamonds worn as a garter. +"Cunning, isn't it?" + +"Why, I should just think it was! Where did you buy it?" + +"Buy it? My dear, can you see me paying three hundred dollars for +something that doesn't show? Harry Spearman gave it to me last night, +and put it on in his car on the way to the Pierrot Club." + +"Put it on?" + +Belle threw back her beautiful head and burst out laughing. "You said +that just like the Quaker girl in the play at the Hudson. Why shouldn't +he put it on? It amused him and didn't hurt me. He's a sculptor, and +like the bus-conductor, 'legs is no treat to him,' anyway." + +They entered the elevator, dropped nine floors to the wide foyer of the +palatial apartment house, and went out into the street. It was a typical +New York October afternoon--the sky blue and clear, the sun warm and the +air alive with that pinch of ozone of which no other city in the world +can boast. The girls instinctively made their way towards Fifth Avenue, +warily dodging the amazing traffic, the struggling wagons and plunging +horses going in and out of buildings in course of ear-splitting +construction, and coal-chutes in the middle of the sidewalks. + +"But you were not at the opening of the Pierrot Club last night," said +Betty. "I heard you tell Mrs. Guthrie that you were dining with the +Delanos and going to their theatre party." + +"I know. But Harry Spearman sent round a note in the afternoon asking me +to have dinner with him at Delmonico's and go on to the Club to dance. I +had such a severe headache that I rang up Mrs. Delano and reluctantly +begged to be excused. To quote Nicholas, theatre parties with elderly +people bore me stiff. As it was, I had a perfectly corking time till one +o'clock and danced every dance." + +"Did you tell Mrs. Guthrie?" + +"For Heaven's sake, Betty, what _do_ you take me for? Mother isn't my +school-teacher and I don't have to ask her for permission to live. I +have my latch-key and dear little mother is perfectly happy. As she +never knows what I do she never has to worry about me; and, as she +always says, I can only be young once." A curious little smile played +round her very red lips. "It's true that Harry Spearman is rather +unmanageable when he gets one alone in a car after several hours of +champagne and ragtime, but--oh, well, I guess I can take care of myself. +Do you know, I don't think the Pierrot Club's going to be as good this +winter. It's a year old, you see. Everybody's going to the new room at +the Plaza--that is, everybody back from the country. It's rather a pity, +I think. I like the Club, but the motto of New York is 'Follow the +Crowd' and so the Plaza's for me." + +Betty's admiration for her school-fellow and closest friend was +invincible and her loyalty very true. It made her therefore a little +uneasy to notice about her a growing artificiality which was neither +attractive nor characteristic. She knew better than anyone that Belle +was a remarkable girl. She had a kind heart. She possessed that rarest +of gifts, a sense of gratitude, and if her talent for writing had been +properly developed she might eventually have made her mark. She had a +quick perception--sympathy and imagination not often found in so young a +girl--an uncanny ear for the right word--and if she chose to exercise +it, quite an unusual power of concentration. It seemed to Betty to be +such a pity that, just at the moment when Belle left school with her +mind filled with ideals and the ambition to make something of herself +and do things, the Doctor found himself a rich man. The incentive to +work which the constant need for economy had awakened in her went out +like a snuffed candle. From having before been in the habit of saying, +with eager enthusiasm, "I'm _going_ to do such and such a thing, +whatever the odds," she immediately began to say: "Oh, my dear, what's +the use?" Everything for which she had intended to work became now hers +for the asking. Her father gave her a free hand in the matter of +entertaining her young friends. She could order what books she wished to +read from Brentano's, and she had a generous allowance on which to +dress. Like a chameleon she quickly changed the rather dull colors of +her former surroundings for those bright ones which the sudden accession +to wealth made it easy to acquire. Her outlook was no longer that of the +daughter of an overworked general practitioner whose income had to be +carefully managed in order to live not too far up-town and educate a +family of four, but of a débutante whose parents entertained +distinguished men and women in a fashionable street and whose friends +were equally well off. Her inherited and cultivated energy was, of +course, obliged to find vent in some direction, since it was not +employed in the development of her talent; and it was now burnt up in a +restless search of enjoyment, a constant series of engagements to lunch +and dine, and do the theatre and dance,--especially dance. The ordinary +healthy, high-spirited young man, who had not much to say for himself, +quickly bored her. Her wits required to be kept sharp, her latent +intelligence needed something on which to feed. It was therefore natural +that she should throw her smiles at men much older and far more +experienced than herself and who, from the fact that they did not intend +to give anything for nothing, exercised her ingenuity and native wit to +keep them in order. In a word, she found that playing with fire and +avoiding being burned kept that side of her in good condition which, in +her old circumstances, would have been devoted to work. And so with a +sort of conscious superficiality she had allowed herself to flit from +one unmeaning incident to another and entered into a series of +artificial flirtations with men who had no scruples and one passion +simply in order to kill time. Her carelessness led her into episodes, +the merest hint of which would have thrown dear little Mrs. Guthrie into +a panic, and her coolness permitted her to escape from them with perhaps +more ingenuity than dignity. Even upon her return from England with her +heart full of Nicholas Kenyon, and with a desire to see him again that +kept her awake at night, she frittered away her superfluous energy with +this Harry Spearman, whom no woman with any respect for her daughter +would willingly allow within a mile of her, even if properly chaperoned. + +Betty, being one of those girls who had never been suspected of any +talent, but who nevertheless had it in her to perform a far more womanly +and beautiful thing than to write books or plays--to be in fact a good +wife to the man she loved and a good mother to his children--looked at +Belle's way of living with growing anxiety. She was not a prude or a +prig. She had not been allowed out in the world with eyes all curious to +see the truth of things through a veil of false modesty. Her father, a +wise and humane man, had seen to that. She delighted in enjoyment, went +to the theatre whenever she had the opportunity and danced herself out +of shoes. But, not being ambitious to shine, she was content to apply +her energy to the ordinary work that came to her to do,--the practical, +everyday, undramatic, domestic things that cropped up hourly in the +strange house where the father was an artist and the mother suffered +from individualism and was a leader of new movements. Leaving school to +find a home in a constant state of chaos, her father rarely out of his +studio, her mother always in the throes of committee meetings and +speech-making,--she knuckled down to set it in order, to clear out an +extravagant cook with an appetite for hysterics, and a sloppy Irish +waitress whose hairpins fell everywhere and whose loose hand dropped +things of value almost before it touched them. This done she found +others and appointed herself housekeeper, and the duties of this +position kept her both busy and happy,--the one being hyphenated to the +other. But even if her father had been, like Dr. Guthrie, a rich man +instead of one who lived up to every penny that he earned and generally +several thousand dollars beyond, she had nothing in her character that, +however little she was occupied, would have allowed her to look at life +from the modern standpoint of Belle and her other friends. She was--and +rejoiced in the fact--old-fashioned. Most of her ideas were what is now +scoffingly called "early Victorian," because they were not loose and +careless, and the many things that Belle and others found "fearfully +amusing" were, to her, impossible. She didn't, for instance, leave her +petticoat in the cloak-room when she went to dances, so that her +partners might find her better fun. She didn't go to tea alone with mere +acquaintances in bachelor apartments, or for taxi rides with her partner +between dances. She never made herself cheap, and went out of her way to +avoid men whose eyes ran calculatingly over her figure. These things and +many others merely appealed to her as the perquisite of those girls who +did not place a very high value upon self-respect. + +The Guthries lived at 55 East Fifty-second Street. It was the house +which the man whom Dr. Guthrie called his benefactor had built for +himself and left to the doctor whom he was proud to endow. The architect +who had been employed had been given a free hand. He had not been +required to mix his styles or perform extraordinary architectural +gymnastics of any kind. The result of his efforts was good. It was a +house such as one sees in one of the numerous old London squares within +sound of the mellow clock of St. James's Palace. Addison might have +lived in it, or Walpole or Pepys. Its face was scrupulously plain and +its doorway was modelled on those of the Adams period. Standing between +two very florid examples of modern architecture it made one think of the +portrait of a charming early Victorian gentle-woman between the +photographs of two present-day chorus ladies in hoopskirts and a cloud +of chiffon. The rooms were large and lofty and were all furnished with +great simplicity and taste. There was nothing in them except old +furniture which had been collected in England by its late owner, piece +by piece, and its oak chests, armoires and secretaries, china closets, +corner pieces and Chippendale chairs were very good to look at and live +with. So also were the pictures,--Cattermoles, Bartalozzi engravings, +colored prints and a half-dozen priceless oil paintings by old +masters,--which made the small, cunning, unscrupulous, eager mouths of +the numerous art collectors of New York water with desire. The library, +too, out of which led the Doctor's laboratory, was almost unique, and +contained first editions and specimens of rare and beautiful +book-binding which filled the Doctor's heart with constant pleasure and +delight. It was nearly a year before the man who had struggled so hard +to lift himself out of his father's small farm could believe that he +wasn't walking in his sleep when he passed through these beautiful +rooms, and often he was obliged to pinch himself to make sure that he +was not dreaming. + +There was however one room in this house which would have given its late +owner many shudders to enter. This was the little mother's own +particular room, the windows of which looked out upon that row of small, +red, bandbox-like houses opposite which had managed to remain standing +in spite of the rapacious hands of reconstruction companies which are +never so happy as when destroying old landmarks and tearing down old +buildings. Into this room Mrs. Guthrie had placed all the furniture of +her first sitting-room,--cheap, late Victorian stuff of which she had +been so inordinately and properly proud when she started housekeeping +with the young doctor. From these things Mrs. Guthrie could not be +parted. They were all redolent with good and tender memories and were to +her mind far more valuable and more beautiful than all the priceless old +oak pieces put together. + +Curiously enough--or perhaps not curiously at all--this was Peter's +favorite room, too, and he never entered it without renewing his vows to +climb to the top of his own tree, as his father had done. Belle, Graham +and Ethel all laughed at the little mother for clinging to this +"rubbish," as they called it, which was so out of keeping with the rest +of the house. But Peter sympathized with her and never failed while +sitting there in the evening, in close and intimate conversation with +the dear little woman who meant so much to him, to get from it a new +desire to emulate his father and make his own way in the same brave +spirit. + +When Belle and Betty arrived at East Fifty-second Street--a little tired +after their walk--they found Graham in the hall. "Oh, hello!" said he. +"Been shopping?" + +"No," answered Belle, "nothing tempted us. We've walked all the way home +from Gramercy Park,--some walk! Everything I've got on is sticking to +me. Aren't you home early, Graham?" + +Graham nodded. "Nothing doing," he said. "Besides, I'm dining early." He +turned to Belle with a rather curious smile. "I thought you were to be +with the Delanos last night." + +Belle tilted her chin. "I was. I dined there, went to the Winter Garden +and then danced at Bustanoby's." + +"I caught sight of you in Spearman's car somewhere about one o'clock in +the morning. Did he drive you home?" + +"I guess he did, dear boy," said Belle, blandly, "and by the way, we saw +you, going in to supper somewhere with a girl with a Vogue face and an +open-air back!" + +Graham laughed. "That's different," he said. "Spearman isn't the sort of +man I care to see my sister going about with alone. I advise you to be a +little more fastidious." + +"Thank you, Graham darling," said Belle, quite un-moved, "but I'm old +enough to choose my own friends without your butting in. Just for fun, +would you tell me what _you_ know about the word fastidious?" + +"That's different," said Graham again. And he went up-stairs to his own +room with rather heavy feet. + +Belle looked at Betty and a little smile curled up the corners of her +beautiful red mouth. "I don't see anything wrong with Harry Spearman, +and he's an old friend of the Delanos. My word, but isn't Graham a good +sport?" + +Presently when they went into the drawing-room they found little Mrs. +Guthrie sitting in front of the table with a more than usually happy +smile, and Ethel lying on the sofa looking the very epitome of an +interesting invalid. With a slightly critical frown on her pretty face +she was reading Wells's latest novel,--a full-blooded effort well +calculated to improve the condition of a girl of fifteen who had not +gone back to school on account of anæmia. + +With quick intuition, and one glance at her mother's face, Belle knew +she had heard from Peter. "Any news?" she asked eagerly. + +"Yes, darling,--the very best of news. A Marconi from my boy," said Mrs. +Guthrie. + +"What does he say?" + +"Oh, what does he say?" asked Betty. But the question was asked +mentally, because little Mrs. Guthrie was happy and must not be made +jealous. + +Putting on her glasses with great deliberation, Mrs. Guthrie picked up a +book, and with a smile of pride and excitement hunted through its pages +and eventually produced the cable form, which she had used as a marker. + +"_Do_ hurry, mother, _dear_!" cried Belle. News from Peter meant news +from Nicholas. + +"Now please don't fluster me, Belle. Of course I would unfold it the +wrong side up, wouldn't I? Well, this is what he says: 'Expect to dock +day after to-morrow, dearest Mum. All my love.'" + +"Is that all he says? Is there nothing about his--his friend?" + +Ethel gave a quiet chuckle, of which Belle coldly took no notice. + +"There are a few more words," replied Mrs. Guthrie, "and I expect they +were very expensive." + +"Oh, mother, darling; _do_ go on!" + +"Let me see, now. Oh, yes. 'And to Betty.'" + +"Oh, thank you," said Betty. "Oh, Peter, my Peter!" she cried in her +heart. + +This time Ethel laughed. But no one noticed it. It was rather +disappointing. + +"At last I shall see Nicholas again," thought Belle,--"at last!" + +And the little mother folded up the cable very carefully and slipped it +back into the book. Peter had sent it to her,--to her. + +And then Belle turned her attention to her little sister, who not only +looked most interesting, but knew that she did. "I think you +condescended to be amused, Grandmamma," she said, in the most +good-natured spirit of chaff. Like everybody else in the family she was +really rather proud of this very finished production of an ultra-modern +and fashionable school. + +"I seem to have missed a lot of fun by not going to Europe," replied +Ethel. "It would have been very entertaining to watch you and Betty fall +in love." + +"I guess so," said Belle. "The only thing is that you would have been +very much odd man out. They draw the line at little school-girls at +Oxford." + +"Now don't begin to quarrel, girls," said Mrs. Guthrie. "I'm very sorry +Ethel wasn't with us. The trip would have widened her view and given her +much to think about. But never mind. She shall go with us next time." + +Ethel stifled a yawn. "Thank you, mamma, dear. But when I go to England +I may elect to stay there. I think it's very probable that I shall marry +an Englishman and settle down to country life, doing London in the +season." + +Belle's laugh rang out. "That's the sort of thing we have to put up +with, Betty," she said. "You're going to marry a Duke, aren't you, Baby, +and be a Lady in Waiting at Court, with a full-page photograph every +week in the _Tatler_? When Peter comes home he'll find you a constant +source of joy. My descriptions of the way in which you've come on while +he's been away always made him laugh." + +Ethel rose languidly from the sofa, at the side of which a little +nourishment had been served. Mrs. Guthrie, who had been busily at work +knitting a scarf for Graham--a thing that he would certainly never +wear--went quickly to give her a hand. "Are you going to your room now, +darling?" she asked. + +Ethel caught Belle's rather sceptical eye and, with exquisite coolness, +entirely ignored its suggestion that she was shamming. "Yes, mamma, +dear. I shall go to bed almost at once. There's nothing like sleep for +anæmia. Of course I shall have to read for a little while, because +insomnia goes with my complaint, but I shall fall off as soon as I can. +Please don't come in to-night, in case you disturb me. I'll tell Ellen +to put my hot milk in a thermos." + +Belle burst into another laugh. "You beat the band," she said. "Any one +would think that your school was for the daughters of royalty. I know +exactly what Nicholas Kenyon will call you." + +Ethel turned towards her sister with raised eyebrows. With her rather +retroussé nose, fine, wide-apart eyes and soft round chin she looked +very pretty and amazingly self-composed. Her poise was that of a woman +who had been a leader of society for years. "Yes? And what will that +be?" + +"The queen of the Flappers," said Belle. + +Ethel picked up her book, carefully placing the marker. "Oxford slang +leaves me cold," she said, loftily. + +"I certainly hope that he'll call her nothing of the sort," said Mrs. +Guthrie. "'Flapper.' What a terrible word! What does it mean?" + +"It means girls under seventeen who have discovered all the secrets of +life, the value of a pair of pretty ankles and exactly how to get +everybody else to do things for them. It's the best word I heard in +England." + +"Nicholas Kenyon sounds to me rather a precocious boy," said Ethel. + +"Boy! Nicholas Kenyon a boy--! Well!" Belle acknowledged herself beaten. +She could find no other words. + +The little mother put her arm, with great affection, around the +shoulders of her youngest child, of whom she was extremely proud and a +little frightened. "Never mind, darling," she said. "Belle doesn't mean +anything. It's only her fun." + +"Oh, that's all right, mamma. I make full allowance for Belle. She's a +little crude yet, but she'll improve in time." + +Belle gave a scream of joy. Her sense of the ridiculous, always +extremely keen, made her delight in her little sister and the perfectly +placid way in which she sailed through existence with the lofty +superiority of her type--a type that is the peculiar result of +supercivilization and the deferential treatment of fashionable +schoolmistresses who bow to wealth as before a god. + +"Run in and say good-night to father. He won't mind being disturbed for +a moment by you." + +"I don't think I will," said Ethel. "The sight of his laboratory may +give me a nightmare. I really must be careful about myself just now. +Good night, mamma dear. Don't sit up too late. Good night, Belle. I +should advise you to go to bed at once. Your complexion is beginning to +show the effects of late hours already." + +"Oh, you funny little thing," said Belle. "You give me a pain. Trot off +to bed; and instead of reading Wells, Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw, try +a course of Louisa Alcott and a dose of Swiss Family Robinson. That'll +do you much more good and make you a little more human." + +But even this plain sisterly speaking had no apparent effect. Ethel gave +Betty, who had been watching and listening to the little bout with the +surprise of an only child, a small peck on the cheek. "Good night, dear +Betty," she said. "I'm glad that you're going to be my sister-in-law. +Unless Peter has changed very much since he's been away he'll make a +good husband." + +And then, with quiet grace, she left the room. No one, not even Belle, +whose high spirits and love of life had led her into many perfectly +harmless adventures when she was the same age, suspected that Ethel was +up to anything. They were wrong. The self-constituted invalid had +invented anæmia for two very good reasons. First, because she was not +going to be deprived of welcoming her big brother when he returned home +for good, school or no school, and second because she had struck up a +surreptitious acquaintance with the good-looking boy next door. At +present it had gone no further than the daily exchange of letters and +telephone calls. The adventure was in the course, however, of speedy +development. The boy was going to pay her a visit that evening, by way +of the roof. No wonder Ethel didn't want to be disturbed. + +With an unwonted burst of extravagance Betty took a taxi home as soon +after dinner as she could get away. "Is there a letter for me? Is there +a letter for me?" she asked the moon and all the stars in the clear sky +as her rackety cab bowled swiftly downtown. + +She let herself in and the first thing that caught her eyes was the +welcome sight of a thick envelope addressed in Peter's big round, +honest, unaffected hand. + +"Peter, oh, my Peter!" she whispered, pressing the letter to her lips. + +Within five minutes she was sitting on her bed, in the seclusion of her +own room, and what Peter had to say for himself was this: + + Carlton Hotel, London, + September 28, 1913. + + My dearest Betty: + Gee! but I was mighty glad to find a letter from you this + afternoon when I got in, so glad that I dashed out of this + Hotel, went across the street to the White Star offices and + asked them to exchange my bookings to a boat sailing a week + earlier, because I just can't stand being away from you any + longer. I don't know what Nick will say, and don't much care. + He's at Newmarket staying with a man who trains horses. I've + just sent him a telegram to say what I've done, and as he's + very keen to see New York and is only killing time, I don't + think he'll kick up a row. I would have sailed on the + _Olympic_, which left the day after I said good-bye to + Thrapstone-Wynyates, if I hadn't promised father to go up to + Scotland and see the place where his ancestors lived. I + couldn't back out of that, especially as goodness only knows + when I shall come to Europe again,--perhaps not until I bring + you over on a honeymoon, my baby, and we go back to Oxford + together to see how the fairy ring is getting on. We must do + that some day. You don't know how I love that little open space + where the trees haven't grown so that the moon may spill itself + in a big patch for all our friends to dance in on fine nights. + I've read your letter a dozen times and know it by heart, like + all the others you've written to me. You write the most + wonderful letters, darling. I wish I knew how to send you + something worth reading, though I'm quite sure you don't mind + my clumsy way of putting things down, because you know how much + I love you and because everything I say comes straight out of + my heart. + + My last letter was written in Scotland, Cupar Fife. I shall + always remember that quiet little place where the red-headed + Guthries,--they must have been red-headed from eating so much + porridge,--tilled the earth and brought up sheep in the way + they should go. The village seems as much cut off from the rest + of the world as though it were surrounded by sea, and every + small thing that happens excites it. The man who kept the Inn + that I stayed in (feeling frightfully lonely, though really + very much interested) had words with his good woman one night + and the rights and wrongs of the perfectly private matter have + since divided all the inhabitants. Best friends don't speak and + the minister is going to preach about the affair next Sunday. I + saw the house the old Guthries lived in and was taken all over + it by a kind old soul to whom father gave more money than + she thought existed when he was there. Gee! but my + great-grandfather must have had precious little ambition to + live his whole life in a little hole like that. In most of the + rooms the beds were in small alcoves and needed climbing up to + like bunks. Mrs. McAlister, who lives there now with her + married daughter and her seven children, sleeps in one of these + fug-holes in the kitchen. Think of it! And she said that the + floor swarms with beetles--she can hear them crackling about in + the night. All the same, by Jove! this primitive living makes + men. I can see from whom father got his grit and determination. + + I was glad to find myself in London. I've only been here for a + night or two at various times and it's a wilderness to me. I + lose myself every time I go out and have to ask Bobbies how to + get back. Topping chaps, these Bobbies. They mostly look like + gentlemen and are awfully glad to get a laugh. To hear them + talk about the 'Aymarket, Piccadilly Surcuss, Wart'loo Plaice + and Westminister Habbey first of all puzzles one and then fills + one with joy. As to the Abbey,--oh, Gee! but isn't it away + beyond words! I spent a whole day wandering about among the + graves of its mighty dead, and finally when I got to the end of + the cloister and came upon that small, square, open space where + the grass grows so green and sparrows play about, I was glad + there was nobody to see me except the maid-servant of one of + the minor Canons who was taking in the milk for afternoon tea. + There are one or two vacant niches among the shrines of men who + have done things and moved things on, in which I should like to + stand (not looking a bit like myself in stone) when I have done + my job, and if I were an Englishman I should work for it. As it + is, I shall work for you and all you mean to me, my baby, and + that's even a higher privilege. + + I went to a theatre last night,--Wyndham's. I thought the play + was corking, but the leading actor--an ugly good-looking + fellow--wasn't trying a yard, and let it away down every time + he was on. Also he spent his time making jokes under his breath + to the other people to dry them up. No wonder the theatres are + in a bad way in London. There's no snap and ginger about the + shows except the ones of the variety theatres, where they + really do take off their coats for business. It's fine to hear + rag-times at these places, although they're as stale on our + side as if they had been played away back before the great + wind. By the way, I'm a bit anxious about Graham. His letters + have a queer undercurrent in them. + + I'm going to the National Gallery, the British Museum and South + Kensington to-morrow, and in the evening I'm dining at the + Trocadero with eight men who were up at St. John's with me. + They're all working in London and hate it, after Oxford. It + seems odd to me not to be there myself and I miss it mighty + badly sometimes. All the same it's great to feel that one's a + man at last, with real work to do and that apartment waiting + for us to win. This is the last mail that I can catch before + sailing and so I just have to tell you once again, in case you + forget it, that I adore you and that if I don't see you on the + landing in little old New York among the crowd I shall sink + away like an India-rubber balloon with a pin in it. So long, my + dearest girl. All, all my love, now and forever. + PETER. + + P. S. Do you think your father can be brought to like me + somehow or other? + + Kiss this exact spot. + + +II + +A good sport! Oh, yes, Graham answered admirably to that +description,--according to its present-day use. Graham, like Belle, was +suffering from the fact that everything was too easy. His father's +so-called benefactor had taken all the sting of life for that boy. +Fundamentally he had inherited a considerable amount of his father's +grit. He needed the impetus of struggle to use up that sense of +adventure which was deep-rooted in his nature. He was a throw-back. He +had all the stuff in him that was in his ancestors,--those early +pioneers who were momentarily up against the grim facts of life. He was +not cut out for civilization. He needed action, the physical strain and +stress of hunting for his food among primeval surroundings and the +constant exercise of his strength in dangerous positions. He would have +made a fine sailor, a reckless soldier or an excellent flying man. He +was as much out of his element in Wall Street as a sporting dog which is +doomed to pass away its life sitting beside a chauffeur in an elaborate +motor-car. The daring recklessness which would have been an asset to him +as a hunter of big game or a man who attached himself to dangerous +expeditions, found vent, in the heart of civilization, in gambling and +running wild. It was a pity to see such a lad so utterly misplaced and +going to the devil with an alacrity that alarmed even some of his very +loose friends. If his father had continued to be a hard-working doctor +whose income was barely large enough to cover his yearly expenses, +Graham could have used up his superabundant energies in climbing, rung +by rung, any ladder at the bottom of which he had been placed. As it +was, he found himself, through his father's sudden accession to wealth, +beginning where most men leave off, with nothing to fight for--nothing +to put his teeth into--nothing for which to take off his coat. It was +all wrong. He made money and lost it with equal ease--although he lost +more than he won. He was surrounded with luxuries when he should have +been faced daily with the splendid difficulties which go to form +character and mental strength. Somehow or other his innate desire for +adventure had to be used up. With no one to exercise any discipline over +him, with no steady hand to guide him and control, he flung himself +headlong into the vortex of the night life of the great city and was an +easy prey for its rastaquores. At the age of twenty-four he already knew +what it was to be haunted by money-lenders. Already he was up to the +innumerable dodges of the men who borrow from Peter to pay Paul. He was +a well-known figure in gambling clubs and the houses in the red-light +district, and he numbered among his friends men and women who made a +specialty of dealing with boys of his type and who laid their nets with +consummate knowledge of humanity and with the most dastardly +callousness. He was indeed, in the usual inaccurate conception of the +word, a good "sport," and stood every chance of paying for the privilege +with his health, his self-respect and the whole of his future life. + +To have seen the nervous way in which he dressed for dinner the next +evening, throwing tie after tie away with irritable cursing, would have +convinced the most casual observer of the fact that he stood in need of +a strong hand. His very appearance,--the dark lines round his eyes, the +unsteadiness of his hand,--denoted plainly enough the sort of life that +he was leading, but the short-sighted eyes of the Doctor in whose house +he lived missed all this, and there was no one except the little mother +to cry "halt" to this poor lad and, in her experience, of what avail was +she? + +He drove--after having dined with three other Wall Street men at +Sherry's--to an apartment house on West Fortieth Street, little +imagining that fate had determined to put him to the test. Kenyon had +recommended him to try it. He had heard of it from Captain Fountain's +brother, who had called it "very hot stuff" in one of his letters,--the +headquarters of a so-called "Bohemian" set in which Art and gambling +were combined. It was run by a woman whose name was Russian, whose +instincts were cosmopolitan, and who had been shifted out of most of the +great European cities by the police. "The Papowsky," as she was called, +spoke several languages equally fluently. She was something of a judge +of art. She had an uncanny way of being able to predict success or +failure to new plays. She knew musicians when she saw them and only had +to smell a book to know whether it had excellence or not. Her short, +thin body and yellow skin, her black hair cut in a fringe over her eyes +and short all round like that of a Shakesperian page, her long, dark, +Oriental eyes and her long artistic hands were in themselves far from +attractive. It was her wit and sarcasm however and the brilliant way in +which she summed up people and things which made her the leader of those +odd people--to be found in every great city--who delight in being +unconventional and find excitement in a game of chance. + +The apartment in which she held her "receptions" and entertainments was +unique. The principal room was a large and lofty studio, arranged like a +grotto with rocks and curious lights and secluded places where there +were divans. Here there was a dais, at the back of which there was an +organ, and a grand piano stood upon it in a French frame all over +cupids, and it was here that the most extraordinary exhibitions of +dancing were given by the Papowsky hand-maidens and others. + +The other people who lived in this apartment house had already begun to +talk about it in whispers, and its reputation had gone out into the +city. One or two feeble complaints had been made to the police, but +without any avail. At the moment when Graham had first entered it, it +was in its second year and was flourishing like the proverbial Bay Tree. +The magnets which drew him to this house of Arabian Nights were the +roulette table in a secluded room at the end of the passage, and one of +the hand-maidens of the Papowsky, whose large, gazelle-like eyes and +soft caressing hands drew him from other haunts, and followed him into +his dreams. + + +III + +Graham's hat and coat were taken by a Japanese servant, whose little +eyes twinkled a welcome. + +The long, brilliantly lighted passage which led to the studio was hung +with nudes, some of them painted in oils with a sure touch, some highly +finished in black-and-white, and the rest dashed off in chalks,--rough +impressionist things which might have been drawn by art students under +the influence of drink. Between them in narrow black frames there was a +collection of diabolically clever caricatures of well-known singers, +actors, authors, painters and politicians, each one bringing out the +weaknesses of the victims with peculiar impishness and insight. The +floor of the passage was covered with a thick black pile carpet, which +smothered all noise. + +As Graham entered the studio several strange minor chords were struck on +the piano and a woman's deep contralto voice filled the large studio +like winter wind moaning through an old chimney. + +The Papowsky, who was giving an evening for young artists, and was +half-covered in a more than usually grotesque garment, slid out of the +shadow and gave Graham her left hand, murmuring a welcome. Exuding a +curious pungent aroma, she placed a long finger on her red, thin lips +and slipped away again. For some minutes Graham remained where she left +him, trying to accustom his eyes to the dim--though far from +religious--light. He made out men in dress clothes sitting here and +there and the glint of nymph-like forms passing from place to place, +springily. The scent of cigarette smoke mixed with that of some queer +intoxicating perfume. The sound of water plashing from a fountain came +to his ears. + +On his way to find a seat, Graham's arm was suddenly seized, he was +pulled into a corner and found himself, gladly enough, alone with the +girl who called herself Ita Strabosck. There was one blue light in this +alcove and by it he could see that the girl was dressed like an Apache +in black suit with trousers which belled out over her little ankles and +fitted her tightly everywhere else. She retained her close grip and +began to whisper eagerly to him. Her foreign accent was more marked than +usual, owing to the emotion under which she obviously labored. Her heart +hammered against his arm. + +"You have come to zee me?" + +Graham whispered back. "Don't I always come to see you?" + +"You like me?" + +Graham bent forward and kissed her mouth. + +"You love me?" + +The boy laughed. + +"S-s-s-h! Eef you love me, eef you really and truly love me, I vill +to-night ask you to prove eet." + +"I've been waiting," said Graham, with a sudden touch of passion. + +"Zen take me avay from this 'ell. I 'ave a soul. Eet ees killing me. I +'ave a longing for God's air. Take me back to eet. The Papowsky ees a +vile woman. She lure me 'ere and I am a prisoner. You do not know the +'orrors of zis place. I am young. I am almost a child. I was good and I +can be good again. At once, when you come 'ere, I saw in you one who +might rescue me from zis. I love you. You say you love me. I beseech you +to take me away." + +Graham was stirred by this emotional appeal whispered in his ear, by the +young arms that were flung round his neck, and by the little body that +was all soft against him. His sense of chivalry and his innate desire +for adventure were instantly set ablaze. At the same time, what could he +do with this strange little girl? Where could he put her? + +He began to whisper back something of his inability to help, but a hand +was quickly placed over his mouth. + +"Eef you believe in God, take me away. I do not care what you do with +me. I do not care eef you make me work for my bread. You are not like ze +rest. You too are young and you are a man, and I love you. I will be +your servant--your slave. I will kiss your feet. I will give you myself. +I will wait on you 'and and foot. Give me a little room near ze sky and +see me once a day, but take me out of this evil place--I am being +poisoned. Vill you do zis? Vill you?" She slipped down on her knees and +clasped her hands together. + +In the faint blue light Graham could see the large eyes of the girl +looking up at him through tears, as though to a saviour. Her whole +attitude was one of great appeal. Her young, slim body trembled and the +throbbing of her voice with its curious foreign accent moved him to an +overwhelming pity. Here then was something that he could do--was a way +in which he could exercise his bottled up sense of adventure which had +hitherto only been kept in some sort of control by gambling and running +risks. + +"Do you mean that you're forced to remain here,--that you can't get out +if you want to?" + +"Yes, yes, yes! I tell you I was caught like a wild bird and zis ees my +cage. Ze door ees guarded." + +A great excitement seized the boy. He lifted Ita up and put his mouth to +her ear. "You've come to the right man. I'll get you out of this. I +always loathed to see you here,--but how's it to be done? She has eyes +in the back of her head, and those damned Japanese servants are +everywhere." + +"Eeet ees for you to sink," said the girl. "You are a man." + +"I see," said Graham. "Right. Leave it to me." + +He liked being made responsible. He liked the utter trust which this +girl placed in him. He liked the feeling of danger. The whole episode +and its uncanny romance caught hold of him. It was not every day that in +the middle of civilization the chance came to do something which smacked +of mediævalism--which had in it something of the high adventure of +Ivanhoe. + +He said: "Get away quick and put your clothes on. Don't pack +anything--just dress. There won't be any one in the roulette room until +after twelve. Go in there and hide behind the curtains and wait for me. +Quick, now!" + +Once more the girl flung her arms about him and put her lips to his +mouth. + +For several minutes Graham remained alone in the alcove, with his blood +running swiftly through his veins--his brain hard at work. The woman on +the dais was still singing. In the vague, uncertain light he could see +the Papowsky curled up on a divan near by, smoking a cigarette. Other +people had come in and made groups among the foolish rockery. Then he +got up quietly, went out into the passage and looked about. He had never +before explored the place, he only knew the studio and the roulette +room. It dawned upon him that this apartment was just beneath the roof +of the building. Somewhere or other there was likely to be an outlet to +the fire-escape. That was the idea. He had it. The girl had said that it +would be impossible to take her away by the main door. Those Japanese +servants were evidently watch-dogs. Even as he stood there, wondering, +he saw that he was eyed by a small, square-shouldered Japanese whose +head seemed to be too large for his body and whose oily deferential grin +was not to be trusted. He lit a cigarette, and putting on what he +considered to be an air of extreme nonchalance, strolled along until he +came to the roulette room. No one was there. The candelabra were only +partially alight. He darted quickly to the window and flung it up. The +iron steps of the fire-escape ran past it to the roof. "Fine!" he said +to himself. "Now I know what to do." + +He shut the window quickly and turned round just as the man who had been +watching him came in. "Say!" he said. "Just go and get me a high-ball. +Bring it here." He followed the man to the door and into the passage and +watched him waddle away. He had not been there more than a moment when +the door opposite opened bit by bit, and the girl's face, with large +frightened eyes, peeped round the corner. In a little black hat and a +plain frock with a very tight skirt she looked younger and prettier and +more in need of help than ever. Without a word, Graham caught hold of +her hand, drew her into the passage, shut her door, ran her into the +roulette room and placed her behind the curtains, making sure that her +feet were hidden. Whistling softly to himself he sat down and waited. +The man seemed to have been gone half an hour. It was really only a few +minutes before he waddled back on his heels. Graham took the drink. "How +soon do you think they'll begin to play to-night?" he asked, keeping his +voice steady with a huge effort. + +The Japanese shrugged his shoulders. "As usual, sir," he said, smiling +from ear to ear and rubbing his hands together as though he were washing +them. "Any time after twelve, sir--any time, sir." + +"All right!" said Graham. "I shall wait here." + +He kept up the air of boredom until he imagined that the small, +black-haired, olive-tinted man had had time to get well away. Then he +sprang to the door, saw that the passage was empty, darted back into +the room and over to the window. + +"Come on!" he said. "Quick's the word!" and climbed out, giving the girl +his hand. For a moment they stood together on the ledge of the +fire-escape, the stairs of which seemed to run endlessly down. With a +chuckle of triumph Graham shut the window, as the girl gave a little cry +of dismay. + +She had called that place hell, but from the height on which they stood +it seemed as though they were climbing down from the sky. + + +IV + +"Uptown," said Graham to the taxi driver. "I'll tell you where when I +know myself." + +A knowing and sympathetic grin covered the big Irish face and a raucous +yell came from the hard-used engine, and the taxi went forward with a +huge jerk. + +The little girl turned her large eyes on Graham. "You do not know vhere +you take me?" she asked. + +"No, by thunder, I don't. I can't drive you like this to a hotel, you've +got no baggage. Most of my friends live in bachelor apartments, and the +women I know,--well, I would like to see their faces if I turned up with +you--and _this_ story." + +The girl's foreign gesture was eloquent of despair. She heaved a deep +sigh and drew into the corner of the cab. The passing lights shone +intermittently on her little white face. How small and pitiful and +helpless she looked. + +The sight of her set Graham's brain working again. In getting her out of +the Papowsky's poisonous place and leading her step by step down the +winding fire-escape and, when it ceased abruptly in mid-air, into the +window of a restaurant, he had been brought to the end of one line of +thought,--that of getting the girl safely out of her prison. He now +started on another, while the cab rocked along the trolley lines beneath +the elevated railway, sometimes swerving dangerously out and round the +iron supports. + +Suddenly Graham was seized with an idea. He put his head out of the cab +window and shouted to the driver: "Fifty-five East Fifty-second Street." + +The girl turned to him hopefully. "What ees zat?" she asked. + +"My home." + +"Your 'ome? You take me to your 'ome?" + +"Why no, not exactly. I'm going in to get a bag for you. It won't have +much in it except a brush and comb and a pair of my pajamas, but with +them we can drive to any quiet hotel and I'll get a room for you. In the +morning I'll find a little furnished apartment and you can go out and +buy some clothes and the other things that you need. How's that?" + +Ita caught up his hand and held it against her heart. "But you are not +going to leave me?" + +"Yes, I must," said Graham. "I shall have to register you as my sister. +You've just come off the train and I've met you at the station. Oh, +don't cry! It's the best I can do. It's only just for one night. I'll +fix things to-morrow and you'll be very happy in a little apartment of +your own, won't you? I'll see you every day there." + +With a sudden and almost painfully touching abandon of gratitude the +girl flung herself on the floor of the cab and put her head on Graham's +knees, calling on God to bless him. Something came into the boy's +throat. + +The taxi crossed Fifth Avenue behind a motor-car that was also going +towards Madison Avenue. It looked very familiar to Graham. Supposing it +was his father returning from one of his medical meetings! He put his +head out again, sharply: "Stop at the first house on East Fifty-second +Street!" he shouted. Almost before the cab had stopped he leaped out. +"Wait for me here," he added. + +"Sure an' I will." The driver threw a glance at his taxi-meter. Not for +him to care how long he waited. + +Graham darted along the street and up the steps of Number fifty-five, +and just as he had the key in the door he heard his father's voice. + +"No, no. Let my car take you home. Yes, a wonderful evening. Most +inspiring. Good night! Let's meet again soon!" + +Graham made up his mind what to do. He held the door open for the Doctor +and stood waiting for him, with the bored look of one who has had a +rather dull evening. "Oh, thank you, Graham," said Dr. Guthrie. "Have +you just got back?" + +"Yes; I thought I'd get to bed early to-night." + +"You look as though you needed sleep," said the Doctor. "But--but don't +go up at once. Please come and have a cigarette in my room. I've--I've +been speaking at the Academy of Medicine,--explaining a new discovery. A +great triumph, Graham, a great triumph. I would like to tell one of my +sons about it. Won't you come?" + +There was an unwonted look of excitement on his father's thin face and a +ring in his voice which made it almost youthful. It was the first time +that Graham had ever received such an invitation. He was surprised, and +if he had not been so desperately anxious to slip up-stairs, lay quick +hands on the bag and get away again he would have accepted it gladly. +For a reason that he could not explain he felt at that instant an almost +unbearable desire to find his father, to get in touch with him, to give +something and receive something that he seemed to yearn for and need +more urgently than at any other moment in his life. As it was, he was +obliged to back out. "I'm frightfully tired to-night," he said, yawning. + +"Oh, are you? I'm sorry," said the Doctor apologetically. "Some other +night perhaps--some other night." + +The two men stood facing each other uncomfortably. Exhilaration had for +a moment broken down the Doctor's shyness. It all came back to him when +he found his son's eyes upon him like those of a stranger. He took off +his coat and hat, said "Good-night" nervously and went quickly across +the hall and into his library. + +He was deeply hurt. He stood among those priceless books with a curious +pain running through his veins. "What's the matter with me?" he asked +himself. "Why do I chill my children and make them draw back?" + +Graham shut the door, and then as quickly as an eel ran up-stairs to his +bedroom, turned on the light, opened the door of the closet and pulled +out a large suit-case. Then he began to hunt among the drawers of his +wardrobe for some pajamas. He threw these in. From his bathroom he +caught up a brush and comb and some bedroom slippers. These followed the +pajamas. Then he shut the case, picked it up, crept quietly down-stairs, +across the hall and out into the street, shutting the door softly behind +him. He gave the taxi-driver the name of a small hotel frequented by +actors, and jumped into the cab. + +Ita Strabosck welcomed him as though he had been gone a week. "'Ow good +you are to me!" she cried. "Eef you never do anysing else een your life, +zis that you 'ave done for me vill be written down by zee angels een +your book." + +Graham laughed. "The angels--I wonder." + +All the same he was a little proud of himself. Not many men would have +perfected the rescue of this little girl so neatly from a house in which +her body and soul were in jeopardy. It had been an episode in his +sophisticated life which was all to his credit. He felt that,--with +pleasure liked the idea of being responsible for this poor little soul, +of having some one dependent entirely upon his generosity and who +presently would wait for his step with a fluttering heart and run to +meet him when he came in tired. He liked also the thought that this girl +would be a little secret of his own,--some one personal to himself, to +whom he could take his worries--and he had many--and get sympathy and +even advice. + +The cab drew up. Graham released himself from the girl's arms and led +her into the small and rather fuggy foyer of the hotel, which was a +stone's throw from Broadway. A colored porter pounced upon the bag and +an alert clerk looked up from the mail that he was sorting. + +"I want a room for my sister," said Graham, "with bath. Got one?" + +"Fifth floor," said the clerk, after gazing fixedly for a moment at +something at the back of the screen. He then pushed the book towards +Graham. + +Without a moment's hesitation, Graham wrote "Miss Nancy Robertson, +Buffalo," and took the key that was extended to him. "Come on, Nancy," +he said, and led the way to the elevator, in which was waiting a tall, +florid woman carrying a small bulldog in her arms. She had obviously not +taken very great pains to remove the make-up from her face which had +been necessary to her small part. Graham recognized her as an actress +whom he had seen some nights before in an English play at the +Thirty-ninth Street Theatre, and he thought how queer life was and what +odd tricks it played. Not a foot away from each other stood two women, +the one just back from a place in which she had been aping a human being +in a piece utterly artificial and untrue, the other who had played a +part in a tragedy of grim and horrible reality, out of which she had +been carried before the inevitable climax. + +The colored boy, with a hospitable grin on his face, led the way along a +narrow, shabby passage whose wall-paper was much the worse for wear, and +finally opened the door of a small bedroom, switching on the light. + +"I'll undo the case," said Graham quickly. + +The boy drew back. "Sure." + +"And say! If you'll see that my sister gets what she rings for I'll give +you five dollars." + +"You bet your life, sah." There was a dazzling glint of white teeth. + +"Thanks." + +"You welcome." + +The cry of joy and relief which made the whole room quiver, as soon as +the porter had gone, went straight to Graham's heart. "I guess it's not +much of a room," he said, a little huskily, "but we'll change all this +to-morrow." + +The girl ran her hand over the pillow and the bed-cover. "Oh, but eet +ees zo sweet and clean," she said, between tears and laughter, "and no +one can come. Eet ees mine. You are zo, _zo_ good to me." + +Graham undid the case and spilt the meagre contents on the bed. Then he +put his hands on Ita's shoulders and kissed her. "Good-night, you poor +little thing," he said. "Sleep well, order anything that you want, and +don't leave this room until I come and fetch you. Your troubles are +over." + +She clung to him. "But you vill stay a leetle--just a leetle?" + +"No, I'm going now." + +There was nowhere in Graham's mind the remotest desire to stay. A new +and strange chivalry had taken the place of the passion that had swept +over him earlier in the evening when the blue light had fallen on her +slim body. + +She looked into his face, nodded and put her lips to his cheek. "Good +night, zen," she said. "You 'ave taken me out of hell. You are very +good." + +And as Graham walked home under the gleaming moon and the +star-bespattered sky, there was a little queer song in his rather lonely +heart. + +Poor, simple, sophisticated lad! How easy it had been for that cunning +little creature whose one ambition was to be the mistress of an +apartment in business for herself, to take advantage of his unfed sense +of adventure. She, and fate, had certainly played him a very impish +trick. + + +V + +The _Oceanic_ had been timed to dock at four-thirty, but the thick mist +at the mouth of the Hudson had caused some delay and her mail had been +heavy. The consequence was that she was edged in to her dock +considerably more than an hour late, to be welcomed by an outburst of +long-expectant handkerchiefs. + +During the period of waiting--by no means unpleasant, because the sun +fell warmly upon the wonderful river--several brief, emotional +conversations took place between the people who had come to greet Peter. +The Guthries were there in a body,--even Ethel had pulled herself +together and had come to be among the first to greet her favorite +brother. Graham wouldn't have missed the occasion for anything on earth. +His love for Peter was deep and true. And it was good to see the +excitement of them all and of the little mother, who was in a state of +verging between tears and laughter all the time. Her big boy was coming +home again and once more she would have the ineffable joy of tucking him +up at night sometimes, and asking God to bless him before she drew the +clothes about his ears as she had done so often. Even the Doctor found +it necessary to take off his glasses several times and rub them clear of +the moisture that prevented him from seeing the approaching vessel which +seemed to have given herself up to the bullying of the small but +energetic tugs whose blunt noses butted into her. + +Betty brought her father; and these two, with a delicacy of feeling +characteristic of them, placed themselves among the crowd away from the +Guthrie family. Intuitively, Betty knew that much as Mrs. Guthrie liked +her, she would rather resent her presence there at such a moment. +Belle's quick eyes very soon discovered them, however, and presently +they permitted themselves to be drawn into the family group. + +It was a curious moment for Ranken Townsend and his feelings were not +unlike those of little Mrs. Guthrie. "My God!" he said to himself as he +stood looking out at the wide river, its marvellous and strenuous life +and the amazing sky-line of the buildings on the opposite bank; "has the +time arrived already for me to lose my little girl? Am I so old that I +have a young thing ripe enough for marriage and to bring into the world +young things of her own?" + +The artist had only met the elder Guthries once before, although Belle +was a particular friend of his, having been frequently brought to his +studio by Betty. He knew Peter only from having seen him in the +treasured snapshots which his little daughter brought home with her from +Oxford. He had to confess to himself--although his natural jealousy made +him unwilling to do so--that Peter looked just the sort of man whom he +would like his daughter to marry when her time came. And so he singled +out Mrs. Guthrie almost at once and drew her aside. The breeze blew +through his Viking beard, and a fellow-feeling brought into his eyes an +expression of sympathy which immediately warmed Mrs. Guthrie's heart +towards him. "I didn't want to come this afternoon, Mrs. Guthrie," he +said. "Shall I explain why?" + +"No," said the little mother. "I quite understand." + +"Your boy and my girl are following the inevitable laws of nature, and +it's rather hard luck for us both, isn't it?" + +Mrs. Guthrie put her handkerchief up to her mouth and nodded. + +"Betty's a good girl and I've only to look at you to know that the man +to whom she's given her heart is a fine fellow. Well, it brings us up to +another milestone, doesn't it?--one that I wish was still some years +ahead. However, let's face it with pluck and with unselfishness, and be +friends. Shall we?" + +"Please," said the little mother, giving him her hand. + +Ranken Townsend bared his head. + +And then Dr. Guthrie came up and peered at the man who was talking to +his wife. He vaguely remembered the artist's picturesque appearance and +fine open face, but he had forgotten his name. + +Mrs. Guthrie hurried to the rescue. "You remember Mr. Townsend, of +course, Hunter," she said. "Betty's father, you know." + +"I beg your pardon," said the Doctor. "Of course I remember you, and I'm +very delighted to see you again. You have friends coming on the +_Oceanic_ too, then?" + +Townsend laughed. "No, I don't know anybody on her--not a soul. All the +same I've come to meet your son." + +"Indeed! It's very kind of you, I'm sure." And then the Doctor suddenly +remembered that sooner or later he'd be obliged to share Peter with the +man who stood before him, and just for a moment he--like his wife and +like the other father--felt the inevitable stab of jealousy. He covered +it with a cordial smile. "What am I thinking about? Betty brought you, +naturally. We must meet more often now, Mr. Townsend." + +"I should like nothing better. I don't know your boy yet except through +his photographs and my having met his mother, but I'm very proud to know +that my little girl is to bear a name that will always be honoured in +this country." + +Dr. Guthrie blushed and bowed, and put his hand up to his tie nervously. + +It was a curious little meeting, this. All three parents were +self-conscious and uncomfortable. They would have been antagonistic but +for the very true human note that each recognized. They were all +reminded of the unpleasant fact that they were in sight of a new and +wide cross-road in their lives, along which they were presently to see +two of their young people walking away together hand in hand. Parenthood +has in it everything that is beautiful, but much that is disappointing +and inevitable--much that brings pain and a sudden sense of loneliness. + +There was a very different ring in the conversation of Betty and Belle, +who stood a few yards away surrounded by people of all the strange +conglomerate nationalities which go to make up the population of the +United States. Good-tempered, affectionate and excitable Hebrews were +already shouting welcomes to their friends on the _Oceanic_, as the +vessel drew slowly nearer. Temperamental Irish were alternately waving +handkerchiefs and daubing their eyes with them, and others--of French, +German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian and English extraction--were +trying to discern the faces of those who were near and dear to them +among the passengers who were leaning over the rails of the vessel. It +was an animated and moving scene, very much more cheery than the ones +which take place on the same spot when the great trans-Atlantic Liners +slip out into the river. + +"Look!" cried Belle. "There's Nicholas. Isn't he absolutely and +wonderfully English?" + +"And there's Peter!" said Betty, with a catch in her voice. "And isn't +he splendidly American?" + +"Oh, I'm so excited I can hardly stand still. I've dreamed of this every +night ever since we came home." + +"So have I. But this is better than dreams. Look! Peter has seen us. +He's waving his hat. Even his hair seems to be sunburnt." + +Belle laughed, though her eyes were full of tears. "I can almost smell +the violet stuff that Nicholas puts on his." + +Then there was the usual rush as the liner slid into her berth, and as +Mrs. Guthrie was swept away with it, holding tight to Graham's arm, she +said to herself: "He waved to Betty first. O God, make me brave!" + +All the same, it was the little mother to whom Peter went first as he +came ashore, and he held her very tight, so that she could hardly +breathe, and said: "Darling mum! How good to see you!" and there was +something in that. + +The Doctor took his boy's big hand with less self-consciousness than +usual. He wished that he might have had the pluck to kiss him on both +cheeks and thus follow the excellent example of a little fat Frenchman +who had nearly thrown him off his balance in his eagerness to welcome a +thin, dark boy. + +"Hello, Belle! Hello, Graham! Hello, Ethel!" And then Peter stood in +front of Betty, to whom he said nothing, but the kiss that he gave her +meant more than the whole of a dictionary. "Oh, my Peter!" she +whispered. + +Nicholas Kenyon followed with his most winning smile, and was cordially +welcomed. He had charming things to say to everyone, especially to +Belle. After close scrutiny, Ethel's inward criticism of him was that he +had "escaped being Oxford." + +And then Ranken Townsend held out his hand. "But for me, Peter Guthrie," +he said, "you wouldn't have had a sweetheart. Shake!" + +A wave of color spread all over Peter's brown face. He grasped the +outstretched hand. "I'm awfully glad to see you," he said. + +"And I'm awfully glad to see you." The artist measured the boy up. Yes, +he was well satisfied. Here stood a man in whose clean eyes he +recognized the spirit of a boy. Betty had chosen well. "Do you smoke a +pipe?" + +"Well, rather." + +"I thought so. Bring it along to my studio as soon as your mother can +spare you and we'll talk about life and love and the great hereafter. Is +that a bet?" + +"That's a bet," said Peter. And he added, putting his mouth close to +Betty's ear: "Darling, he's a corker! He likes me. Gee, that's fine!" +Then he turned to his mother, ran his arm round her shoulder, walked her +over to the place in the great echoing, bustling shed over which a huge +"G" hung, and sat down with her on somebody else's trunk which had just +been flung there, to wait with unapproving patience for that blessed +time when one of the officialdom's chewing gods, having forced a prying +hand among his shirts and underclothing, should mark his baggage with a +magic cross and so permit him to reconnect himself with life. + +Nicholas Kenyon, as immaculate as though he had just emerged from a +bandbox, slipped his hand surreptitiously into Belle's. "Are you glad to +see me?" he asked, under his breath. + +Belle said nothing in reply, but the look that she gave him instead set +that expert's blood racing through his veins and gave him something to +look forward to that alone made it worth crossing a waste of unnecessary +water. + + +VI + +"A very pleasant domestic evening," said Kenyon, standing with his back +to the fireplace of the library. "The bosom of this family is certainly +very warm. Peter, my dear old boy, I had no idea that you were going to +bring me to a house in which a Prime Minister or the President of the +Royal Academy might be very proud to dwell. Also, may I congratulate +you upon your little sister? She's a humorist. I found myself +furbishing up all my epigrams when I spoke to her. By Jove, she's like a +Baliol blood with his hair in a braid." + +A quiet chuckle came from Graham, who was sitting on the arm of a big +deep chair, looking up at Kenyon with the sort of admiration that is +paid by a student to his master. "I don't know anything about Baliol +bloods," he said, "but Ethel takes a lot of beating. When she quoted +Bernard Shaw, at dinner, father nearly swallowed his fork." + +Peter was sitting on the table, swinging his legs. + +"Oh, she'll be all right when she gets away from her school. She'll grow +younger every day then. What awful places they are--these American girl +schools. They seem to inject into their victims a sort of liquid +artificiality. It takes a lot of living down. Upon my soul, I hardly +knew the kid! Two years have made a most tremendous difference in her. I +thought I should throw a fit when she looked at me just now in the +drawing-room and said: 'The childish influence of Oxford has left you +almost unspoiled, Peter, dear.'" + +Kenyon laughed. "Excellent!" he said. "I know the English flapper pretty +well. It'll give me extreme delight to play Columbus among the American +variety of the species." He looked round the beautiful room with an +approving eye. "That must have been a very civilized old gentleman who +made this collection. I wonder if he bought some of the books from +Thrapstone-Wynyates! My father was forced to sell some of them shortly +after he succeeded to the title. As the long arm of coincidence +frequently stretches across the Atlantic, I should like to think that +some of the first editions in which my grandfather took so high a pride +have found their way into an atmosphere so entirely pleasant as this. +One of these fine days, Peter, they may raise a little necessary bullion +for you." + +"I hope not," said Peter. + +Graham got up. "It's only eleven o'clock. Suppose we get out and see +something. Everybody's gone to bed, we shan't be missed." + +"A very brainy notion," said Kenyon, "but what's there to do?" + +"Oodles of things," said Graham. + +"Well, lead the way. I'm with you. The dull monotony of life aboard a +liner has given me a thirst for twinkling ankles, the clash of cymbals +and the glare of the lime-light. You with us, Peter?" + +"Yes, unless--one second." He went over to the telephone that stood on a +small table in a far corner of the room, looked up a number in the book, +asked for it and hung on. + +Kenyon shot a wink at Graham. "Get your hat, old boy," he said. "Peter +would a-wooing go. He's the most desperately thorough person." And he +added inwardly: "Hang that girl." + +"Can I speak to Mr. Townsend? Oh, is that you, Mr. Townsend? Peter +Guthrie, yes. May I come round and have a jaw--? Thanks, awfully! I'll +get a taxi right away." He turned back to the other two men. "Great +work," he said. "You two will have to go alone to-night. However, we've +a thousand years in front of us. See you at breakfast. So long!" + +"Wait a second," said Graham. "I'll ring up a taxi and we'll all ride +down together." + +"Right-o!" said Peter. "I'll rush up to my room and get a pipe." + +When he came down again he found Kenyon and Graham waiting at the open +door. A taxicab was chugging on the curbstone. Kenyon got in first, with +his long cigarette holder between his teeth and a rakish-looking opera +hat balanced over his left eye. He carried a thin black overcoat. All +about him there was the very essence of Piccadilly. Peter sat beside him +and Graham opposite. The cab turned round, crossed Madison into Fifth +Avenue and went quickly downtown. The great wide street, as shiny as +that of the Champs Élysée, was comparatively clear of traffic. Peter +looked at the passing houses with the intense and affectionate interest +of the man who comes home again. At the corner of West Forty-second +Street Graham stopped the cab. "It's only a short walk to the best of +the cabarets," he said; "we'll let Peter go straight on. Come on, +Nicholas, bundle out." + +"Where are we going?" asked Kenyon, making a graceful exit. + +"Louis Martin's, old boy," said Graham. + +"Pretty hot stuff, I hope. Au revoir, Peter. Do your best to make the +bearded paint merchant like you. You'll have some difficulty." And with +that parting shot, contradicted by one of the winning smiles which he +had inherited from his delightful but unscrupulous father, Nicholas +Kenyon took Graham's arm and these two walked away in high spirits. + +When the cab stopped at the high building on the corner of Gramercy +Park, its door was opened by Ranken Townsend. "I timed you to arrive +about now, my lad," he said cordially. "I took the opportunity of +getting some air. It's mighty good to-night. Come right up." He +continued to talk in the elevator, which had a long way to go. "Betty +has gone to a party. You may meet her mother, I'm not sure. She's out at +one of her meetings--she spends her life at meetings--and if she comes +in tired, as she generally does, she probably won't come into the +studio. However, that need only be a pleasure deferred. Do you speak? If +so, she'll nail you for one of her platforms." + +"I,--speak?" said Peter, with a shudder. "I'd rather be shot." + +Townsend laughed, led the way into his apartment and into the studio. In +the dim light of one reading lamp which stood on a small table at the +side of a low divan, the room looked larger than it was. It reeked with +the good ripe smell of pipe tobacco and seemed to be pervaded with the +personality of the man who spent most of his life in it. One of the top +windows was open and through it came the refreshing air that blew up +from the Hudson. Peter caught a glimpse of the sky, which was alive with +stars. It was a good place. He liked it. Work was done there. It +inspired him. + +The artist took Peter's hat and coat and hung them in the alcove. Then +he went across the room and turned up the light that hung over a canvas. +"How d'you like it?" he asked. + +Peter gave an involuntary cry. There sat Betty with her hands folded in +her lap. To Peter she seemed to have been caught at the very moment when +from his place at her feet he looked up at her just before he held her +in his arms for the first time. Her face was alight and her eyes full of +tenderness. It was an exquisite piece of work. + +Townsend turned out the light. He was well pleased with its effect. +Peter's face was far better than several columns of printed eulogy. "Now +come and sit down," he said. "Try this mixture. It took me five years to +discover it, but since then I've used no other." He threw himself on the +settee and settled his untidy head among the cushions. + +The light shone on Peter's strong profile, and when Townsend looked at +it he saw there all that he hoped to see, and something else. There was +a little smile round the boy's mouth and a look in his eyes that showed +all the warmth of his heart. + +"And so you love my little girl as much as that? Well, she deserves it, +but please don't take her away from me yet. I can't spare her. She and +my work are all I've got, and I'm not lying when I say that she comes +first. Generally when a man reaches my age he has lived down his +dependence on other people for happiness and his work has become his +mistress, his wife and his children. In my case that isn't so, and my +little girl is the best I have. She keeps me young, Peter. She renders +my disappointments almost null and void, and she encourages me not +wholly to sacrifice myself to the filthy dollar--an easy temptation I +can assure you. So don't be in too great a hurry to take my little bird +away and build a nest for her in another tree. Does that sound very +selfish to you?" + +"No," said Peter; "I understand. Besides--good Lord!--I've got to work +before I can make a place good enough for her. I've come back to begin." + +"I see! Fine! I thought perhaps that Oxford might have taken some of the +good American grit out of you. It just occurred to me that you might be +going to let your father keep you while you continue to remain an +undergraduate out here in life. A good many of our young men with +wealthy fathers play that game, believe me." + +"Yes, I know," said Peter, "but there's something in my blood,--I think +it's porridge,--that urges me to do things for myself. Besides, I +believe that there's a feeling of gratitude somewhere about me that +makes me want to pay back my father for all that he's done. I'm most +awfully keen to do that, Mr. Townsend! His money has come by accident. +I'm not going to take advantage of it. I'm going to start in just as if +he were the same hard-working doctor that he used to be when he sent me +to Harvard, skinning himself to do so. I think he'll like that. Anyway, +that's my plan. And as to Oxford,--well, I should have to be a pretty +rotten sort of a dog if I didn't gain something there--that wonderful +place out of which men have gone, for centuries, all the better for +having rushed over its quads and churned up the water of its little old +river and stood humbly in its chapels. Don't you think so?" + +"I do indeed, my dear lad; but somehow or other the younger generation +doesn't seem to take advantage of those things, and the sight of the +young men of the present day and their callous acceptance of their +fathers' efforts make me thank God that I never had a boy. I should be +afraid. Think of that! What are you going to do, Peter? What is your +line of work?" + +"The law." + +"The law? Well, I guess that's a queer sort of maze to put yourself +into. An honest man in the law is like a rabbit in a dog kennel. Is that +your definite decision?" + +"Absolutely," said Peter. "I chose the law for that reason. I think that +honesty is badly needed in it. I've got a dream that one of these days I +shall be a judge and make things a bit easier for all the poor devils +who have made mistakes." + +"God help you!" + +"I shall ask him to," said Peter. + +The artist looked up quickly. In his further keen and rather wistful +scrutiny of the great big square-shouldered man with the strong, clean +jaw-line and the firm mouth there was a little astonishment. "Do you +mean to tell me that in the middle of these queer undisciplined, +individualistic times you believe in God?" + +The room remained in silence for a moment, until Peter leaned forward +and knocked out his pipe. "If I didn't believe in God," he replied +quietly, "would you be quite so ready to trust Betty to me?" + +At that moment the door was swung open and a tall, stout, hard-bosomed +woman with a mass of white hair and the carriage of a battleship sailed +in. Her evening clothes glistened with sequins and many large beads +rattled as she came forward. She wore a string of pearls and several +diamond rings. Unable to fight any longer against advancing years and +preserve what had evidently been quite remarkable good looks, she had +cultivated a presence and developed distinction. In any meeting of women +she was inevitably voted to the chair, and in the natural order of +things became president of all the Societies to which she attached +herself, except one. In this isolated case the woman who supplanted her, +for the time being, was even taller, stouter and harder of bosom,--in +fact, a born president. + +The two men rose. + +"Ah, Ranken, still up, then! I half-expected to find the studio in +darkness. You'll be glad to hear that we passed a unanimous resolution +to-night condemning this country as a republic and asking that it shall +become a monarchy forthwith." + +Townsend refrained from looking at Peter. "Indeed!" he said gravely. "An +evening well spent. But I want you to know Peter Guthrie, Dr. Hunter +Guthrie's eldest son, just home from Oxford." + +Mrs. Townsend extended a large well-formed hand. "Let me see! What do I +know about you? You're the young man who--Oh, now I remember. You're +engaged to Betty. But before I forget it, and as you are just out of +Oxford, I'll put you down to speak at the annual meeting next Tuesday at +the Waldorf, of the Society for the Reconstruction of University +Systems. Your subject will be 'Oxford as a Menace to the Younger +Generation.' There will be no fee--I beg your pardon?" + +Peter's face was a study in conflicting emotions. He looked like a +lonely man being run away with in a car that he was wholly unable to +drive. Townsend turned a burst of laughter into a rasping cough. "You're +awfully kind," said Peter, almost stammering. "But I believe in Oxford." + +"Ah! Then you shall say so to the Society for the Encouragement of +Universities, on Thursday at eight sharp, at the St. Mary's Public +School Building, Brooklyn." + +"As a matter of fact, I don't speak," said Peter. "I--I never speak." + +"Why, then, you shall be one of the chief thinkers at the bi-monthly +meeting of the Californian Cogitators. I'm not going to let you off, so +make up your mind to that. And now I'm going to bed. I'm as tired as a +dog. Good-bye, Paul,--I mean Peter. Expect me to call you up one day +soon. There's so much to do with this world chaos that we must all put +our hands to the wheel." And with a wave of her hand, Mrs. Townsend +sailed majestically away. + +Peter gasped for breath and the artist subsided into the divan and gave +way to an attack--a very spasm--of laughter, which left him limp and +weak. + +"Never allow Betty to get bitten by the meeting-bug, son," he said, when +he had recovered. "It isn't any fun to be married to a bunch of +pamphlets. What! Are you off now?" + +"I'm afraid I've kept you up, as it is, Mr. Townsend. I--I want to thank +you for your immense kindness to me. I shall always remember it. Good +night!" + +Rankin Townsend got up, stood in front of Peter for a moment and looked +straight at him. He was serious again. "Good night, my dear lad," he +said. "I feel that I can trust Betty to you and that takes a load off my +mind. Come often and stay later." + +Peter walked all the way home along Madison Avenue. That part, at any +rate, of the great sleepless city was resting and quiet, and the boy's +quick footsteps echoed through the empty street. He was glad to be back +again in New York--glad and thankful. Somewhere, in one of her big +buildings, was his love-girl--the woman who was to be his wife--the +reason of his having been born into the world. No wonder he believed in +God. + + +VII + +The following afternoon Peter was to call at the apartment-house on +Gramercy Park at half-past-four. He had arranged to take Betty for a +walk,--a good long tramp. There were heaps of things that he wanted to +tell her and hear, and several points on which he wanted to ask her +advice. He was not merely punctual, as becomes a man who is head over +heels in love--he was ten minutes before his time. All the same, he +found Betty waiting for him in the hall, talking to a big burly Irishman +who condescended to act as hall-porter and who looked not unlike a +brigadier-general in his rather over-smart uniform. This man had known +Betty for many years and watched her grow up; had received many +kindnesses from her and had seen her bend by the hour over the cot of +his own little girl when she was ill. His face was a study when he saw +Peter bound into the place, catch sight of Betty and take her in his +arms, and without a single touch of self-consciousness pour out a burst +of incoherent joy at being with her once more. + +Catching his expression, in which surprise, resentment and a sort of +jealousy were all mixed, Betty said, when she got a chance: "Peter, this +is a friend of mine, Mr. O'Grady." + +Peter turned and held out his hand. "How are you? All Miss Townsend's +friends have got to be my friends now." + +The Irishman's vanity was greatly appealed to by the simple manliness +of Peter's greeting, his cheery smile and his utter lack of side. He +smiled back and, having given the hand a warm grip, drew himself up and +saluted. At one time he had served in the British Army, and he wanted +Peter to know it. He would have told him the story of his life then and +there with, very likely, a few picturesque additions, but before he +could arrange his opening sentence the two young people were out in the +street. He watched them go off together, the one so broad and big, the +other so slight and sweet, and said to himself, rolling a new quid of +tobacco between his fingers: "Ah, thin; it's love's young dream once +more! And it's a man he is. God bless both of them!" + +"Are you feeling strong to-day, darling?" asked Peter. + +"Strong as a lion," said Betty. "Why?" + +"Because I'm going to walk you up the Avenue and into the Park and about +six times round the reservoir. Can you stand it?" + +Betty laughed. "Try me, and if I faint from exhaustion you can carry me +into the street and call a taxicab. I'm not afraid of anything with +you." + +"That's fine! This is the first time we've been really alone since I +came back. It'll take from now until the middle of next week to tell you +even half the things I've got to say. First of all, I love you." + +"_Darling_ Peter." + +"I love you more than I ever did, much more--a hundred times more--and I +don't care who hears me say so." That was true. He made this statement, +not in a whisper, but in his natural voice, and it was overheard by +several passers-by who turned their heads,--and being women, smiled +sympathetically and went on their way with the deep thrill of the young +giant's voice ringing in their ears like music. + +They stood for a moment on the curbstone trying to find an opportunity +to cross the street. Betty gave herself up to the masterly person at her +side without a qualm. She adored being led by the arm through traffic +which she wouldn't have dared to dodge had she been alone. It gave her a +new and splendid sense of security and dependence. + +The rain had begun to fall softly. It gathered strength as they turned +into Fifth Avenue, and came down smartly. Betty didn't intend to say a +word about the fact that she was wearing a new hat. It had escaped +Peter's notice. Her face was all he saw. He wasn't even aware that it +was raining until he took her arm and found her sleeve was wet. + +"Good Lord!" he said. "This won't do. Dash this rain, it's going to +spoil our walk. Where can we go? I know." A line of taxis was standing +on a stand. He opened the door of the first one. "Pop in, baby," he +said. "We'll drive to the Ritz and have tea. I can't have you getting +wet." + +Betty popped in, not really so profoundly sorry to escape that strenuous +walk as Peter was. + +Being a wise man he took full advantage of the taxicab, and for all the +fact that it was broad daylight and that anybody who chose could watch +him, he gave Betty a series of kisses which did something to make up +for lost time and a long separation. The new hat suffered rather in the +process, but what did that matter? This was love. Hats could be +replaced--such a love as his, never. + +"Your father is a great chap," said Peter. "We had a good yarn last +night. By Jove! I wish my father had something of his friendly way. I +felt that there was nothing I couldn't tell him--nothing that he +wouldn't understand. Well, well; there it is. Graham and I will have to +worry along as best we may. Everything'll come out all right, I hope." + +"How did you like mother?" asked Betty. + +"Well," said Peter, considering his answer with the greatest care, +"she's undoubtedly a wonderful woman, but she scares me to death. The +very first thing she did was to ask me to speak at one of her meetings." + +Betty burst out laughing. "What--? Already? When are you speaking? What +are you going to say?" + +"Good Lord! What can I say? I can recite the Jabberwocky or the alphabet +in English, French and American, but that finishes my repertory. Can you +see me standing on a platform as white as a sheet trying to stammer out +a few idiotic sentences to a room full of women? Look here! You've got +to get it out of her head that I can be of the slightest use to her. +Tell her I stutter, or that I've got no roof to my mouth--anything you +like--but, for goodness sake, have my name taken off her list. Will you +promise that? Already I wake up in the middle of the night in an +absolute panic." + +"Don't worry," said Betty, "Mother's a very strong-minded woman, but +she's awfully easy to manage. And now I want you to promise me +something." + +"Anything in the world," said Peter. + +"Well, then, don't mistake the Ritz for that dear little open place +where the fairies dance, and suddenly kiss me in front of the band and +all the people having tea." + +"Hard luck," said Peter. "I'll do the best I can. But you're such an +angel and you look so frightfully nice that I shall have all I can do to +keep sane." + +The cab drew up and they got out, went through the silly swinging doors +which separate a man from his girl for a precious moment and into the +Palm Court where the band was playing. Peter gave his hat and stick to a +disgruntled waiter, who would have told him to check them outside but +for his height and width. + +The place was extraordinarily full for the time of year. Everywhere +there were women, and every one of them was wearing some sort of erect +feather in her hat. It gave the place the appearance of a large chicken +run after a prolonged fracas. The band was playing the emotional music +of _La Bohème_. It was in its best form. The waiter led them to a little +table under a mimic window-sill which was crowded with plants. Many +heads turned after them as they adventured between the chattering +groups. It was so easy to see that their impending marriage had been +arranged in Heaven. + +"What sort of tea do you like?" asked Peter. "Anything hot and wet, or +have you a choice? Really, I don't know the difference between one and +another." + +But Betty did. Hadn't she kept house for her father? "Orange Pekoe tea," +she said, "and buttered toast." + +Peter made it so, and in sitting down nearly knocked over the table. He +was too big for such places and his legs got in the way of everything. +At the other end of the room Kenyon was sitting with Belle. Betty had +seen them at once, but she held her peace. For the first time in her +life she appreciated the fact that two is company. Both men were too +occupied to recognize anybody. + +Peter was very happy and full of enthusiasm about everything, and Betty +was an eager listener as he talked about her and himself and the future, +while she poured out the tea. It was all very delightful and domestic +and new and exhilarating, and it didn't require much imagination on the +part of either of them to believe that they were sitting in their own +house, far away from people, and that Peter had just come home after a +long day's work, and that the band was their new Victrola performing in +the corner. Only one thing made Betty aware of the fact that they were +in the Ritz Hotel, and that was the pattern of the teacups. She never +would have chosen such things, and if they had been given to her as a +wedding present she would have packed them away in some far-off +cupboard. She had already made up her mind that their first tea service +was going to be blue-and-white, because it would go with her +drawing-room,--the drawing-room which she had furnished in her dreams. + +"I don't think you'd better do that, Peter," whispered Betty suddenly. + +"Do what, darling?" Butter wouldn't have melted in his mouth. + +"Why, hold my hand. Everybody can see." + +"Not if you put it behind this end of the tablecloth. Besides, what if +they can? I'm not ashamed of being in love. Are you?" + +"No; I glory in it. But----" + +"But what?" He held it tighter. + +"I think you'd better give it back to me. There's an old lady frowning." + +"Oh, she's only a poor benighted spinster. And anyhow she's not +frowning. She put her eyebrows on in the dark." + +"Very well, Peter. I suppose you know best." And Betty made no further +attempts to rescue her hand. + +She had two good reasons for leaving it there,--the first, that she +liked it, and the second that she couldn't take it away. But she made +sure that it was hidden by the tablecloth. + +"Won't you smoke, Peter?" + +"Oh, thanks. May I?" + +"All the other men are." + +Peter took out his case and his cigarette holder. It was very easy to +take out a cigarette with one hand, but for the life of him he couldn't +manoeuvre it into the tube. Was he so keen to smoke that he would let +her hand go? + +He gave it up and broke into a smile that almost made Betty bend forward +and plant a resounding kiss on his square chin. "Well, I'm dashed," he +said. "I believe you asked me to smoke on purpose to get free." + +"I did," she said. "Peter, you're--you're just a darling." + +And that was why he upset the glass of water. + +Presently he said, when peace was restored: "What d'you think I've done +to-day? I've fixed up a seat in the law office of two friends of mine. +They were at Harvard with me--corkers both. I intend to start work next +week. Isn't that fine? We're going to mop up all the work in the city. +Darling, that apartment of ours is getting nearer and nearer. I shall be +a tired business man soon and shall want a home to go to, with a little +wife waiting for me." + +And Betty said: "How soon do you think that'll be?" + +Before Peter could answer, Belle's ringing voice broke in. She and +Kenyon had come up unnoticed. "The turtle doves," she said. "Isn't it +beautiful, Nick?" + +"Well, rather!" + +And the spell was broken. They little knew, these two who were so happy, +that in the fertile brain of the man who stood smiling at them was the +germ of a plan which would break their engagement and bring a black +cloud over the scene. + + +VIII + +The family dined early that evening. Graham had taken a box at the +Maxine Elliott Theatre. He and Kenyon and Peter were to take Belle and +Betty there to see a play by Edward Sheldon, about which everybody was +talking. Little Mrs. Guthrie, who was to have been one of the party, had +decided to stay at home, because the Doctor was not feeling very well, +and so she was going to sit with him in the library and see that he went +to bed early, and give him a dose of one of those old-fashioned cures in +which she was a great believer. + +Naturally enough, although he was not an ardent play-goer, Peter was +looking forward with keen pleasure to the evening because he would be +able to sit close to Betty and from time to time whisper in her ear. +During dinner, however, which was a very merry meal, with Kenyon keeping +everyone in fits of laughter, Peter caught something in his mother's +eyes which made him revolutionize his plans. The little mother laughed +as frequently as the rest of them,--to the casual observer she was merry +and bright, with nothing on her mind except the slight indisposition of +the Doctor. But Peter, who possessed an intuitive eye which had a knack +of seeing underneath the surface of things and whose keen sympathy for +those he loved was very easily stirred, became aware of the fact that +his mother was only simulating light-heartedness and stood in need of +something from him. + +He threw his mind back quickly, and in a moment knew what was wrong. +During the short time that he had been back in the city he had forgotten +to give his little mother anything of himself. That was wrong and +ungrateful and extremely selfish, and must be remedied at once. + +Without a moment's hesitation he decided to cut two acts of the play and +do everything that he could to prove to the little mother who meant so +much to him that, although he was engaged to be married, she still +retained her place in his heart. + +Dinner over, he went quickly to the door and opened it, and as his +mother passed out he put his arm round her shoulders and whispered, +"Mummie, dear, slip up to your room and wait there for me. I want to +talk to you." The look of gratitude that he received from the dear +little woman was an immense reward for his unselfishness. Then he went +up to Graham and said: "Look here, old boy, I find I shan't be able to +go along with you now, but I'll join you for the last act." + +"Oh, rot!" said Graham. "What's up? Betty'll be awfully upset." + +"No, she won't," said Peter. "I'm going to send her a note." And while +the others were getting ready, he dashed off a few lines to the girl +who, like himself, understood the family feeling. It contained only a +few lines, but they were characteristically Peterish and were calculated +to make Betty add one more brick to the beautiful construction of her +love for him, because they showed that he understood women and their +sensitiveness and realized their urgent need of tenderness and +appreciation. + +As soon as the party had driven away, Peter collected a pipe and a tin +of tobacco and went quickly up the wide staircase. He rushed into his +mother's own particular room with all his old impetuosity and found her +sitting at a table by the side of a great work-basket in which he saw a +large collection of the socks that he had brought home with him and +which stood badly in need of motherly attention. No man in this world +made so many or such quick holes in the toes of his socks as Peter did, +and he knew that she had ransacked the drawers to find them. He drew up +a chair, thrust his long legs out in front of him and made himself +completely comfortable. + +This little room was unlike any other in the house. In it his mother had +placed all the pet pieces of inexpensive furniture which had been in the +sitting-room of the little house in which she and the Doctor had settled +down when they were first married. It was unpretentious stuff, bought in +a cheap store in a small town,--what is called "Mission" +furniture,--curious, uncomfortable-looking chairs which creaked with +every movement, odd little sideboards, which would have brought a grin +either of pain or amusement to the face of the former owner of the +beautifully furnished house which had been left to the Doctor. The +walls were covered with photographs of the family in all stages,--Peter +as a chubby baby with a great curl on top of his head--Belle in a +perambulator smiling widely at a colored nurse--Graham in his first +sailor-suit--Ethel bravely arrayed in a party frock, "Thinking of +Mother"--and over the mantel-piece one--an enlargement--of the Doctor +taken when he was a young man, with an unlined face and thick, straight +hair, his jaws set with that grim determination which had carried him +over so many obstacles. It was a room at which Graham, Belle and Ethel +frequently laughed. But Peter liked it and respected it. He felt more at +home there than anywhere else in the house. It reminded him of the early +struggles of his father and mother and touched every responsive note in +his nature. + +"I'm sorry you're not going to the theatre, dear," said Mrs. Guthrie. + +"No, you're not," said Peter. + +"Oh, indeed I am. I like you to enjoy yourself with the others, and +Betty'll be there. Only stay a few minutes; and, as the curtain always +goes up late, you'll be in time to see the whole of the play." + +"Blow the play!" said Peter. "I'm going to talk to you just as long as I +like. I can go to the theatre any night of the week." + +Mrs. Guthrie dropped her work, bent forward and put her cheek against +Peter's. "You're a dear, dear boy," she said. "You're my very own Peter, +and even if I were a poet I couldn't find words to tell you how happy +you make me; but I did my best not to let you see that I was just a wee +bit hurt because you haven't had time to spare me a few moments since +you came home. After all, I'm only a little old mother now, and I must +try to remember that." + +"Oh, don't," said Peter. "I'm awfully sorry I've been such a thoughtless +brute. But, no one--no, no one--can ever take your place, and you know +it." He went down on his knees at her side and wrapped his strong arms +round her and put his head upon her breast as he used to do when he was +a little chap, and remained there for a while perfectly happy. + +He couldn't see the Madonna look which came into the eyes of the little +mother, whose pillow had frequently been wet with tears at the thought +that she had lost her boy. Nor did he see the expression of extreme +gratitude which spread rather pathetically over her face. But he felt +these things and held her tightly just to show how well he understood, +and to eliminate from her heart that feeling of pain which he knew had +crept into it because he had found that other little mother who was to +be his wife and have sons of her own. + +Presently he returned to his chair and to his pipe, and began to talk. +"By gad!" he said, "it's good to be home again. I find myself looking at +everything differently now--quite time, too. I should have been at work +years ago. Universities are great places and I shall never regret +Oxford, but they take a long time to prepare a fellow to become a man." +Then he laughed one of his great and big laughs, and his chair creaked +and one or two of the old pieces of furniture seemed to rattle. "I hid +those socks, but I knew you'd find them. What a mother you are, mother! +I'll make a bet with you." + +"I never bet," said Mrs. Guthrie, who was all smiles. + +"I'll bet you a hundred dollars you never mend Graham's socks. Now then +tell the truth." + +"Well, no, I don't. He doesn't like socks that have been mended; and, +anyway, he isn't my first-born. You see that makes a lot of difference." + +"There you are," said Peter. "Pay up and smile. Oh, say; I'm sorry +father's seedy. He sticks too closely to those microbes of his. I shall +try to screw up courage and take him on a bust now and then. It'll do +him good. Think he'll go?" + +Mrs. Guthrie looked up eagerly. "Try," she said. "Please do try. Now +that you've come home for good I want you to do everything you can to +get closer to your father. He's a splendid man and he's always thinking +about you and the others, but I know that he'll never make the first +move. He doesn't seem to understand how to do it. But he deserves +everything you can give him. If only you could break down his shyness +and diffidence,--because that's what it is,--you'd make him very happy." + +"Yes, that's what I think," said Peter. "I've been thinking it over, +especially since I saw the way in which Kenyon's father treats him. I +shall pluck up courage one of these nights, beard him in his den and +have it out, and put things straight. I want him much more than he wants +me; and, d'you know, I think that Graham wants him too." + +"I'm sure he does," said Mrs. Guthrie. "Graham's a good boy, but he's +very reckless and thinks that he's older than he is. He comes to me +sometimes with his troubles, but how can I help him? I wish, Peter, I do +wish that he'd go sometimes to his father!" + +"Well, I'm going to try to alter all that," said Peter. "It's got to be +done somehow. Father's always been afraid of us, and we've always been +afraid of father. It's silly. What d'you think of Nicholas? Isn't he a +corker?" + +Mrs. Guthrie smiled. "He improves on acquaintance," she said. "He's +certainly one of the most charming men I've ever met. Do you think"--she +lowered her voice a little--"do you think there's anything between him +and Belle?" + +"Good Lord!" said Peter. "I never thought of that. Is there?" + +"Well," said Mrs. Guthrie, "I've noticed one or two little things. He's +been writing to her, you know." + +"Has he? By Jove! Well, then, there must be something in it. He's a lazy +beggar and I don't believe I've ever seen him write a letter in his +life. Gee, I shall be awfully glad to have him for a brother-in-law! +That topping place in Shropshire! Belle would make an absolutely perfect +mistress of it, although there's plenty of life in the old man yet. By +Jove, it was good to see the relationship between Nick and his father. +It staggered me. Why, they were as good as friends. They go about arm in +arm and tell each other everything. It used to make me feel quite sick +sometimes. Think of my going about arm in arm with father!" + +"Think of Belle becoming the Countess of Shropshire! I should like that. +It would be another feather in your father's cap,--your father who used +to carry siphons in a basket." + +"More power to his elbow," said Peter. "It might have been better for me +if I'd carried siphons in a basket. After all, I'm inclined to believe +that there's no university in the world like the streets. Think of all +the men who've graduated from windy corners and muddy gutters--It'd be a +fine thing for Ethel, too, if Belle marries Nick. Isn't she an +extraordinary kid? Upon my word, she takes my breath away. She's older +at sixteen than most women are at thirty. By the way, what's the matter +with her? What's anæmia, anyhow? She looks as fit as a fiddle." + +"Oh, she'll soon get over that," said Mrs. Guthrie. "I think they bend +too much over books at her school. You know the modern girl isn't like +the girls of my generation. I didn't have to learn geometry or piano +playing. I didn't think it was necessary to know Euclid or a smattering +of the classics. We learned how to make bread and cook a good steak and +iron clothes. You know husbands don't come home to hear Mozart on a Baby +Grand and enter into discussions about writers with crack-jaw names." + +"I know,--Ibsen, Schopenhauer, Hauptmann and Tolstoy. No; they don't +fill a hungry tummie, do they?" + +"No, indeed they don't," said Mrs. Guthrie. "And that reminds me that I +must go and give your father his little dose. When a doctor isn't well +he never knows how to look after himself." She got up and put down her +work, and then bent over Peter. "Thank you for coming up to-night, my +dearest boy. I've had a queer little pain in my heart for a long time, +but you've taken it all away. Now run along and see your Betty, and +don't worry about your little mother any longer." + +Peter got up and put his hands on his mother's shoulders. "Listen!" he +said. "I love you. I shall always love you. No woman shall ever come +between me and you." And he caught her in his arms and kissed her. + +And then she bustled down-stairs to the library, where the Doctor was +taking it easy for once and dipping into one of the numerous books that +surrounded him. There was a smile on Mrs. Guthrie's face which was like +the sun on an autumn morning. + +On the way to his bedroom Peter passed the door of Ethel's room, and +drew up short. He had heard her say she was going to bed early. He +hadn't had many words with her since he got back. So he decided to go in +and wipe off that debt, too. When he tried to open the door he found +that it was locked. He started a devil's tattoo with his knuckles. "Are +you there, Kid?" he shouted out. + +The answer was "Yes." + +"Well, then, open the door. I want to come in." + +After a moment the door was opened and Ethel stood there in a very +becoming peignoir. She looked extremely disconcerted and did her best +to block the way into the room. + +But that wouldn't do for Peter. "What's all this?" he asked. "We lock +our door now, do we?" + +"Yes, sometimes," said Ethel. "Why aren't you at the theatre?" She shot +a surreptitious glance towards the window, which was open. + +"I've been having a talk with mother," said Peter. "Hello! I see you've +been trigging up your room. Frightfully swagger now, isn't it. New art, +eh? You're coming on, my dear, there's no mistake about that. I'm afraid +you find us all appallingly provincial, don't you?" + +The broad grin on Peter's face was no new thing to Ethel. He had always +pulled her leg and treated her as though she were a sort of freak. All +the same, she liked his coming in and was flattered to know that he +thought it worth while to bother about her. But she began to edge him to +the door. He had come at a most unpropitious moment. + +"Oh ho!" said Peter. "So this's what higher education does for you? A +nice mixture--cigarettes and candies--I must say. Now I know why you +locked your door. With a marshmallow in one hand and an Egyptian Beauty +in the other you lie on your sofa in the latest thing in peignoirs and +see life through the pages of,--what?" He picked up a book from the +table. "Good Lord!" he added; "you don't mean to say you stuff this +piffle into you?" It was a collection of plays by Strindberg. + +"Oh, go to the theatre!" said Ethel. "You're being horridly Oxford now +and I hate it." + +"You'll get a lot more of it before I've done with you," said Peter. +"All the same, you look very nice, my dear. I'm very proud of you, and I +hope you will do me the honour to be seen about with me sometimes. But +how about taking some of that powder off your nose? If you begin trying +to hide it at sixteen it'll be lost altogether at twenty." He made a +sudden pounce at her and holding both her hands so that she could not +scratch, rubbed all the powder away from her little proud nose and made +for the door, just missing the cushion which came flying after him, and +took himself and his big laugh along the passage. + +Immensely relieved at being left alone, Ethel locked the door again and +went over to her dressing-table, where she repaired damage with quick, +deft fingers. With another glance at the window,--a glance in which +there was some impatience,--she arranged herself on the settee to wait. + + +IX + +No wonder Peter had made remarks about this room. It was deliciously +characteristic of its owner. Large and airy; all its furniture was white +and its hangings were of creamy cretonne covered with little rosebuds. +The narrow bed was tucked away in a corner so that the writing-desk, the +sofa and the revolving book-stand--on which stood a bowl of mammoth +chrysanthemums--might dominate the room. Several mezzotints of Watts' +pictures hung on the walls and a collection of framed illustrations of +the Arabian Nights, by Dulac. The whole effect was one of naïve +sophistication. + +Through the open window the various sounds of the city's activity +floated rather pleasantly. There was even a note of cheerfulness in the +insistent bells of the trolley-cars on Madison Avenue and the chugging +of a taxicab on the other side of the street. Before many minutes had +gone by a rope ladder dangled outside the window, and this was followed +immediately afterwards by the lithe and wiry figure of a boy. Wearing a +rather sheepish expression he remained sitting on the sill, swinging his +legs. "Hello!" said he. "How are you feeling?" + +"There's some improvement to-night," said Ethel. "Won't you come in? +Were you waiting for a signal?" + +"You bet!" + +He was a nice boy, with a frank, honest face, a blunt nose and a +laughing mouth. His hair was dark and thick, and his shoulders square. +He was eighteen and he looked every day of it. He lived next door and +was the son of a man who owned a line of steamships and a French mother, +who was not on speaking terms with Mrs. Guthrie, owing to the fact that +the Doctor had been obliged to remonstrate about her parrot. This +expensive prodigy gave the most lifelike and frequent imitations of +cats, trolley-cars, newsboys, sirens and other superfluous and +distressing disturbances on the window-sill of the room which was next +to his laboratory. So this boy and girl--unconsciously playing all over +again the story of the Montagues and Capulets--met surreptitiously night +after night, the boy coming over the roof and using the rope +ladder--which had played its part in all the great romances. Was there +any harm in him? Well, he was eighteen. + +"What'll you have first?" asked Ethel, in her best hostess +manner--"candies or cigarettes?" + +"Both," said the boy; and with a lump in his cheek and an expression of +admiration in both eyes he started a cigarette. He was about to sit on +the settee at Ethel's feet, but she pointed to a chair and into this he +subsided, crossing one leg over the other and hitching his trousers +rather high so that he might display to full advantage a pair of very +smart socks, newly purchased. + +"I hope you locked your bedroom door," said Ethel, "and please don't +forget to whisper. There's no chance of our being caught, but we may as +well be careful." + +The boy nodded and made a little face. "If father found out about this," +he said; "oh, Gee! What did you do with Ellen after she bounced in last +night?" + +"Oh, I gave her one of my hats. I told her that if she kept quiet there +was a frock waiting for her. She's safe. Now, amuse me!" + +For some minutes the boy remained silent, worrying his brain as to how +to comply with the girl's rather difficult and peremptory request. He +knew that she was not easy to amuse. He was a little frightened at the +books she read and looked up to her with a certain amount of awe. He +liked her best when she said nothing and was content to sit quite quiet +and look pretty. After deep and steady thought he took a chance. "Do you +know this one?" he asked, and started whistling a new ragtime through +his teeth. + +It was new to Ethel. She liked it. Its rhythm set her feet moving. "Oh, +that's fine," she said. "What are the words?" + +The boy was a gentleman. He shook his head, thereby stimulating her +curiosity a hundred-fold. + +"Oh don't be silly. I shall know them sooner or later, whatever they +are--besides, I'm not a child." + +The boy lied chivalrously. "Well, honestly, I don't know +them,--something about 'Row, row, row'--I don't know the rest." + +She knew that he did know. She liked him for not telling her the truth, +but she made a mental note to order the song the following morning. + +And so, for about an hour, these two young things who imagined that this +was life carried on a desultory conversation, while the boy gradually +filled the room with cigarette smoke, and remained reluctantly a whole +yard away from the sofa. It was all very childish and simple, but to +them it was romance with a very big R. They were making believe that +they had thrown the world back about a hundred years or so. He was a +knight and she a lady in an enemy's castle; and, although their mothers +didn't speak, they liked to ignore the fact that Mrs. Guthrie would have +had no objection to his coming to tea as often as he desired and taking +Ethel for walks in broad daylight whenever he wished for a little mild +exercise. But,--he was eighteen, and so presently, repulsed by her +tongue but enticed by her eyes, he left his chair and found himself +sitting on the settee at Ethel's feet, holding her hand, which thrilled +him very much. She was kinder than usual that night, sweeter and more +girlish. Her stockings were awfully pretty, too, and her hair went into +more than usually delicious ripples round her face. + +"You're a darling," he said suddenly. "I love to come here like this. I +hope you'll be ill for a month." And he slid forward with gymnastic +clumsiness and put his arm round her shoulder. He was just going to kiss +her and so satisfy an overwhelming craving when there was a soft knock +on the door and Dr. Guthrie's voice followed it. "Are you awake, Ethel?" + +The boy sprang to his feet, stood for a moment with a look of peculiar +shame on his face, turned on his heels, made for the window, went +through it like a rabbit and up the troubadour ladder, which disappeared +after him. + +Ethel held her breath and remained transfixed. Again the knock came and +the question was repeated. But she made no answer, and presently, when +the sound of footsteps died away, she got up--a little peevish and more +than a little irritable--kicked a small pile of cigarette ash which the +boy had dropped upon her carpet, and said to herself: "_Just_ as he was +going to kiss me! Goodness, how _annoying_ father is!" + + +X + +The following morning Belle took Nicholas Kenyon for a walk. Dressed in +a suit of blue flannel with white bone buttons, with a pair of white +spats gleaming over patent leather shoes and a grey hat stuck at an +angle of forty-five, Kenyon looked as fresh and as dapper as though he +had been to bed the night before at ten o'clock. He had, as a matter of +fact, come home with the milk; but he was one of those men who possess +the enviable gift of looking healthy and untired after the sort of +nights which make the ordinary man turn to chemistry and vibro-massage. + +Belle had sported a new hat for the occasion. + +This fact Kenyon realized with that queer touch of intuition which was +characteristic of him. "By Jove!" he said. "That's something like a hat, +Belle. Hearty congratulations. You suit it to perfection." + +Belle beamed upon him. "But you would say that anyhow, wouldn't you?" + +"Perfectly true; but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred I shouldn't +mean it." + +They turned into Madison Avenue. It was an exquisite morning. The whole +city was bathed in sun, but the refreshing tang of late autumn was in +the air. Most of the large houses were still closed, their owners +lingering in the country or abroad. All the same there was the +inevitable amount of traffic in the streets and apparently the usual +number of passers-by. The city can be--according to the strange little +creatures who write society news--"utterly deserted" and yet contain +all its teeming millions. + +"And what may that be?" asked Kenyon, pointing to the heavy white +buttresses of a church which backed on the street. + +"Oh, that's the Roman Catholic Cathedral." + +"Roman Catholic, eh? I noticed churches everywhere as we drove up from +the docks,--more churches than pubs apparently, and yet I suppose it +would be quite absurd to imagine that New Yorkers imbibe their alcohol +entirely in the form of religion." + +"Quite," said Belle, dryly. "Although we have a hundred religions and +only five cocktails." + +"I see you also go in for antique furniture." + +Belle laughed. "You have a quick eye," she said. "There's so much +genuine Old English stuff in this city that if it were sent to England +there wouldn't be room for it on shore. Tell me; what are your plans?" + +"Well," said Kenyon, "I'm going to accept your father's perfectly +charming hospitality for a fortnight and then take rooms in a bachelor +apartment-house, of which Graham has told me, for the winter." + +"You're going to settle down here?" cried Belle. + +"Rather,--for six months. I'm here to study the conditions, make myself +familiar with the characteristics and draw from both what I hope will be +the foundations of much usefulness." Kenyon considered that he had +enveloped his true mission--which was to lighten the pockets of all +unwary young men--with a satirical verbiage that did him credit. + +"I thought that perhaps you'd come for some other reason," said Belle, +whose whole face showed her disappointment. + +Kenyon shot a quick glance at her. How naïve she was--how very much too +easy--but, nevertheless, how very young and desirable. "That goes +without saying, you delicious thing," he replied, closing his hand +warmly round her arm for a moment and so bringing the light back to her +eyes. "By the way," he continued, "what's the matter with Graham?" + +"I don't know that anything's the matter with Graham." + +"I think so. I notice a worried look about him that he didn't have at +Oxford; that he seems to be always on the verge of telling me something, +and drawing back at the last minute. I must make a point of finding out +what his trouble is. Peter and I were discussing it this morning after +breakfast. We're both a bit anxious about him. Do you know if your +father has noticed it?" + +"Father? Oh, he doesn't notice anything. He believes that Graham is +working very hard and doing well. He knows less about what goes on in +our house than the people who live next door." + +"That's rather a pity. I'm all for complete confidence between father +and son. However, I shall play father to Graham for a bit and see what +can be done for him. He puzzles me. There's a mystery somewhere." + +Something of this mystery was disclosed to Kenyon and Peter that night. +After dining them both at the Harvard Club--a place which filled Kenyon +with admiration and surprise--Graham suddenly suggested, with a queer +touch of excitement, that they should go with him to his apartment. + +"Your apartment?" said Peter. "What on earth do you mean?" + +"Well, come and see," said Graham. + +The two elder men looked at each other in amazement. Kenyon's quick mind +ran ahead, but Peter, the unsophisticated, was quite unable to +understand what in the world Graham wanted an apartment for when he +lived at home. They all three left West Forty-fourth Street in silence +and walked arm in arm down Fifth Avenue as far as Twenty-eighth Street. +Here they turned westward and followed Graham, who was wearing an air of +rather sheepish pride, up the steps of an old brown stone house with +rather a shabby portico. + +"Dismal looking hole," said Peter. + +"Wait!" said Graham, and he put his finger on a bell. The door opened +automatically and he led the way into a scantily furnished hall and up +three flights of stairs, whose red carpet was in the autumn of its days. +Drawing up in front of a door on the left of the passage he rang again, +and after a lengthy pause was admitted to a small apartment by a colored +maid, who gave a wide grin of recognition. + +"Come right in," said Graham. "Lily, take our hats and coats. Don't +leave them about in the hall. Hang them up and then go and get some +drinks." + +Kenyon looked about him curiously. He could see that the place was +newly furnished and that everything had been chosen by a man. He glanced +into the dining-room. The pictures were sporting and the furniture +mission. He detected no sign of a woman's hand anywhere. He began to be +puzzled. He had expected to find something quite different. But when +Graham opened the door of the sitting-room and said: "Well, here we are, +Ita!" and he saw a small, dark, olive-skinned girl rise up from a settee +and run forward to Graham with a little cry of welcome, he knew that his +deduction of the situation had been a right one. So this was the +mystery. + +Still with the same air of sheepish pride, Graham said: "Peter, this is +Miss Ita Strabosck. My brother, Ita. And this is Nicholas Kenyon, who's +a great friend of mine. They've just come over from England, and so of +course I've brought them to see you." + +The little girl held out a very shy hand, and said: "I am so glad. Eet +ees very good of you to come." + +In a curiously plain tight frock of some soft black material, cut square +across her tiny breasts, and leaving her arms bare almost to the +shoulders, she stood, with one knee bent, looking from one man to the +other with a sort of wistful eagerness to be treated kindly. She held a +tiny black Teddy bear with red eyes against her cheek, like a child. + +Peter, for a reason which he was unable to explain to himself, felt a +wave of sympathy go over him. He not only accepted the girl on her face +value, but somehow or other believed her to be younger and more +romantic than she looked. She seemed to him to have stepped out of the +pages of some Arabian book--to be a little exotic whom Graham must have +discovered far away from her native hot-house. He liked the way in which +her thick hair was arranged round her face, and he would have sworn that +she was without guile. + +Not so Kenyon. "Great Scott!" he said to himself. "Here's a little devil +for you. Our young friend Graham has had his leg pulled. I've seen +mosquitoes before, but the poison of this one will take all the +ingenuity of an expert to counteract." + +He sat down and watched the girl, who threw one quick antagonistic +glance at him and attached herself to Peter, to whom she talked in +monosyllables. She might only very recently have left a Convent School, +except that her dog-like worship of Graham seemed to prove that she owed +him a deep debt of gratitude for some great service. + +Graham watched her, too, and his expression showed Kenyon that even if +he didn't love her he believed in her and was proud of himself. + + +XI + +By a sort of mutual consent the three men left the apartment in +Twenty-eighth Street early. They did not desire to finish the evening at +any cabaret or club. They called the first passing taxicab and drove +home. By mutual consent also they never once referred to Ita Strabosck, +but discussed everything else under the sun. Kenyon had never been so +useful. With consummate tact--but all the while with the picture in his +mind of the cunning little actress whom they had just left--he led the +conversation from dancing to baseball and from country clubs to women's +clothes. Whenever the cab passed a strong light Graham made a quick, +examining glance at Peter's face. He knew old Peter as well as Peter +knew his piano, and he was quite well aware of the fact that although +his brother laughed a good deal at Kenyon's quaint turn of phrase he was +upset at what he had seen. + +It was just after eleven o'clock when they went into the smoking-room of +the house in Fifty-second Street. Mrs. Guthrie and Ethel had gone to +bed. Belle had not returned from a theatre party. The Doctor was at work +in his laboratory. He heard the boys come in. The sound of their voices +made him raise his head eagerly. He even half-rose from his chair in a +desire to join them and hear them talk, and laugh with them and get from +them some of that sense of youth which they exuded so pleasantly, but +his terrible shyness got the better of him once more and he returned to +his experiments. How ironical it was that with complete unconsciousness +he was leaving it to such a man as Nicholas Kenyon to play father to his +second son, who had never in his short life needed a real father so +badly. + +For some little time--smoking a good cigar with complete +appreciation--Kenyon continued to give forth his impressions of New +York so far as he knew it. He was especially amusing in his description +of the effect upon him of the first sight of the Great White Way. Then, +all of a sudden, there came one of those strange pauses. It was Peter +who broke the silence. "Graham, old boy," he said, "tell us about it. +What does it all mean? Good Lord! you're only twenty-four. Are you +married?" + +Before Graham could reply, Kenyon sent out a scoffing laugh. "Married! +Is he married?" he cried. "My good old grandfather's ghost, Peter! But +how indescribably green you are. Hang me if you're not like a sort of +Peter Pan! You've passed through Harvard and Oxford with a skin over +your eyes. It's all very beautiful, very commendable--and what Belle +would call 'very dear' of you--and all that sort of thing, but somehow +you make me feel that I've got to go through life with you in the +capacity of the sort of guide one hires in Paris--the human Baedeker." + +"But if Graham hasn't married that poor girl," said Peter, bluntly, +"what's he doing with her?" + +Graham sprang to his feet and began to walk about the room. All about +his tall, slight, well-built figure there was a curious nervousness and +excitement. Even in the carefully subdued light of the room it was plain +to see that his face was rather haggard and drawn. The boy looked years +older than Peter. "I'll start off," he said, "by giving you fellows my +word of honor that what I'm going to tell you is the truth. I have to +begin like this because if either of you were to tell me this story I +don't think I should be able to believe it. Some time ago I was taken--I +forget by whom--to a pestilential but rather amusing place in Fortieth +Street. It's a huge studio run by a woman who calls herself Papowsky. +It's what you, Nick, would call the last word in supereffeteness. Ita +Strabosck was one of the girls. I liked her at once. I didn't fall in +love with her, but she appealed to me and it was simply to see her that +I went there several times. I knew the place was pretty rotten and I +didn't cotton on to the people who were there or the things they did. I +even knew that the police had their eyes on it, but I liked it all the +more because of that. It gave it a sort of zest, like absinthe in +whiskey." + +"Quite!" said Kenyon. "Fire away!" + +"The last time I went there, Ita took me into a corner, told me that she +was never allowed out of the place and was a sort of White Slave, and +begged me to take her away. I don't think I shall ever forget the sight +of that poor little wretch trembling and shaking. It was pretty bad. +Well, I took her away. I got her out by a fire-escape when nobody was +watching us. Dodged through a window of a restaurant on the first floor, +and so out into the street. It was very tricky work. The day after I +took the apartment that you came to to-night, furnished it, and there +Ita has been ever since. I go there nearly every night until the small +hours. She's happy now and safe and I don't regret it. She hated the +place and the things she had been forced to do and nothing will make me +believe that she was bad. She was just a victim--that's all. And if I +have to go without things I don't care so long as she has all she needs. +That's the story. What d'you think of it?" + +Peter got up, went over to his brother and held out his hand silently. +With a rather pathetic expression of gratitude in his eyes, Graham took +it and held it tight. "That's like you, Peter," he said, a little +huskily. + +Kenyon made no movement. He looked with a pitying smile at the two boys +as they stood eye to eye. The whole thing sounded to him like a fairy +tale and for a moment he wondered whether Graham was not endeavoring to +obtain their sympathy under false pretences. Then he made up his mind +that Graham--like the man with whom he had lived at Oxford--was green +also, for all that he had knocked about in New York for two years. Not +from any kindness of heart, but simply because he wanted to use Graham +as a means of introducing him to the young male wealthy set of the city, +he determined to get him out somehow or other of this disastrous +entanglement. He would however go to work tactfully without allowing +Graham to think that he had made a complete fool of himself. He knew +that if he wounded this boy's vanity and brought him down from his +heroic pedestal he would set his teeth, put his back to the wall and +refuse to be assisted. With keen insight he could see that this incident +was likely to injure the usefulness of his visit to America. + +"Um!" he said. "It's a pitiful story, Graham. You behaved devilish well, +old boy. Not many men would have acted so quickly and so unselfishly. +Now, sit down and tell me a few things." + +Gladly enough Graham did so, heaving a great sigh. He was glad that he +had made a clear breast of all this. He was too young to keep it a +secret. He wanted sympathy urgently and a little human help. Peter +loaded and lit a pipe and drew his chair into the group. + +"This girl Ita What's-her-name loves you, of course?" + +Graham nodded. + +"Anyone could see that," said Peter. + +"But she'd been in that studio some time before you came along, I take +it,--I mean she'd been anybody's property for the asking?" + +Graham shuddered. "I hate to think so," he said. + +Peter kicked the leg of the nearest chair. + +"How d'you feel?" asked Kenyon. + +"Awfully sorry for her," said Graham. + +"Yes, of course. What I mean is, are you all right?" + +Graham looked puzzled. "I find it rather difficult to pay for +everything," he said, "especially as I've been damned unlucky lately." + +The man of the world involuntarily raised his eyebrows. "Good Lord!" he +said to himself. "And this boy is the son of a specialist. +Blind--blind!" Then he spoke aloud, passing on to another point. "How +long do you think it is incumbent upon you to make yourself the guardian +of this girl?" + +Graham shrugged his shoulders. "She comes from Poland. Her father and +mother are dead and she has no one to look after her." + +"I'll help you," said Peter. + +That was exactly what Kenyon didn't want. He got up, went over to the +table and mixed a drink. "Potter off to bed, Graham, old boy," he said. +"Get a good night's rest. You need it. We'll go further into the matter +in a day or two. It requires serious consideration. Anyway, I +congratulate you. You're a bit of a knight, and you've my complete +admiration." He led the boy to the door, patted him on the shoulder and +got rid of him. Then he returned to Peter, whose face showed that he was +laboring under many conflicting emotions. + +"Nick," he said, "he's only twenty-four--just making a beginning. He did +the only thing he could do under the circumstances, but,--but what would +father say?" + +"I don't think it's a question as to what your father would say," said +Kenyon. "If I know anything, the way to put it is what can your father +do? Of all men in the city he's the one who could be most useful in this +peculiar mess-up--Peter, you and I have got to get that boy out of this, +otherwise----" + +"Otherwise what?" + +"Otherwise--quite shortly--the police are likely to fish out of the +river the dead body of a promising lad of twenty-four, and there'll be +great grief in this house." + +"What d'you mean?" + +"Exactly what I say. That girl's a liar, a cheat and a fraud." + +"I don't believe you." + +"I don't care whether you believe me or not. She's rotten from head to +foot. She's as easy to read as an advertisement. She's taking advantage +of a fellow who's as unsuspicious as you are. You're both green,--green, +I tell you,--as green as grass." + +"I'd rather be green," cried Peter, hotly, "than go through life with +your rotten skepticism." + +"Would you? You talk like an infant. Graham will want to marry some +day,--and then what? Good Heavens! Hasn't anybody taken the trouble to +tell you two any of the facts of life? You are neither of you fit to be +allowed out in the streets without a nurse. It's appalling. Skeptical, +you call me. You're blind, I tell you. Blind! So's the old man in the +next room. There's an ugly shadow over this house, Peter, as sure as +you're alive. Don't stand there glaring at me. I'm talking facts. If +you've got any regard for your brother and his health and his future; if +you want to save your mother from unutterable suffering and your father +from a hideous awakening, don't talk any further drivel to me, but make +up your mind that the girl, Ita Strasbosck, has it in her power to turn +Graham into a suicide. She's a liar--a liar and a trickster and a +menace--and I'll make it my business to prove it to you and Graham." + +"You can't." + +"Can't I? We'll see about that. And you've got to help me. We've got to +make Graham see that he must shake her off at once,--at once, I tell +you. The alternative you know." + +Peter got up and strode about the room. He was worried and anxious. He +didn't, unfortunately, fully appreciate the gravity of this affair, +because, as Kenyon had said so tauntingly, he was a child in such +matters. But what he did appreciate was that his only brother had done +something, however sympathetic the motive, which might have far-reaching +consequences and which did away with the possibility of his going, as it +was Peter's determination to go, clean and straight to a good girl. + +He turned to Kenyon, who had made himself comfortable. "I'll help you +for all I'm worth, Nick," he said. + +"Right," said Kenyon. "I'll think out a line of action and let you know +to-morrow. There's no time to be lost." + + +XII + +Kenyon got rid of Peter, too. + +Apart from the fact that he was going to wait up for Belle, he wanted to +be alone. He was angry. It was just like his bad luck to come all the +way to America and find that the two men who had it in their power to be +of substantial use to him were both fully occupied,--one being +hopelessly in love, the other in money trouble and in what he recognized +as a difficult and even dangerous position. With characteristic +selfishness he resented these things. They made it necessary for him to +exercise his brain,--not for himself--which was his idea of the whole +art of living--but for others. There were other things that he resented +also. One was the fact that Peter was what he called a damned child. He +had no admiration whatever for his friend's absolute determination to +look only at the clean things of life. A thousand times since they had +shared the same rooms he had cursed Peter because of his sweeping +refusal to discuss a question which he knew to be of vital and +far-reaching importance. At these times Peter had always said something +like this: "My dear Nick, I'm not going to be a doctor, a woman-hunter, +or a sloppy man about town. I don't want to know any details whatever of +the things which stir up other men's curiosity. I've no room in my brain +for them. They don't amuse me or interest me. I'm jolly well going to +remain a damned child, whether you like it or not, so you may chuck +trying to drag me into these midnight discussions of yours with the men +who hang nudes all over their walls and gloat over filthy little French +books." + +And then there was Graham. He, like untold hundreds of his type, had a +certain amount of precocity, but no knowledge. He had merely peeked at +the truth of things through a chink. He had looked at life with the +salacious eyes of a Peeping Tom. And what was the result? Worse than +total ignorance. Deep down in whatever soul he had, Nicholas Kenyon +honestly and truly believed in friendship between father and son. He +knew--none better--because it was his business to observe, that a young +man was frightfully and terribly handicapped who went out into the world +unwarned, unadvised and uninitiated. He had often come across men like +Peter and Graham whose lives had been absolutely ruined at the very +outset for the reason that their fathers had either been too cowardly or +too indifferent to give them the benefit of their own experience and +early troubles. In fact, most of the men he knew--and he knew a great +many--had been left to discover the essential truths and facts for +themselves. The inevitable end of it was that they made their +discoveries too late. + +Fate certainly must have had a very grim amusement in watching Nicholas +Kenyon as he walked up and down the library of Dr. Hunter Guthrie's +house that night, blazing at the delinquencies of fathers. Nevertheless, +Kenyon had the right to be indignant, whether his reasons for being so +sprang out of his selfishness or not. His own father was an +unscrupulous, unserious man, that was true, but at any rate he had given +his son a human chance. He could take it or leave it as he liked. And +when Kenyon, piecing together all that he had heard of Dr. Guthrie from +Peter, from Graham and from Belle, added all that to the very obvious +fact that these two boys were out in the world with blind eyes, he burst +into a scoffing laugh. In his mind's eye he could see the excellent and +distinguished Doctor rounding his back over experiments for the benefit +of humanity, while he utterly neglected to give two of the human beings +for whom he was responsible the few words of advice which would render +it unnecessary for them to become his patients. + +If Kenyon had been a more generous man--if in his nature there had been +one small grain of unselfishness--he would have gone at that very +moment, then and there, to the door of the Doctor's laboratory--into +that wonderful room--sat down opposite the man who spent his life in it +with such noble concentration and begged him to desert his microbes and +turn his attention to his sons. As it was he neglected to take an +opportunity which would have enabled the recording angel to make one +very good entry on the blank credit side of his account, and +concentrated upon a way in which he could use Peter and Graham for his +own material ends. He was immediately faced therefore with two "jobs," +as he called them,--one to queer Peter's engagement with Betty, in order +that he might achieve his friend's whole attention, the other to lift +Graham out of his ghastly entanglement, for the same purpose. Bringing +himself up to that point and relying upon his ingenuity with complete +confidence, Kenyon mixed himself another high-ball and listened with a +certain amount of eagerness for Belle's light step. + +He hadn't long to wait. He had just gone into the dimly lighted hall +with the intention of getting some air on the front doorstep, when the +door opened and Belle let herself in. + +"You keep nice hours," he said. + +Belle had been dancing. Her cheeks were glowing and her eyes bright. She +had never looked so all-conqueringly youthful or so imbued with the joy +of life. She came across to him like a young goddess of the forest, with +the wild beauty and that suggestion of unrestraint which always made +Kenyon's blood run quickly. + +"Have you waited for me?" she asked. "How perfectly adorable of you." + +"What have you been doing?" + +"Oh, the usual things--dinner, theatre, dancing." + +Kenyon went nearer and put his hands on her arms, hotly. "Curse those +men!" he said. + +"What men?" + +"The men who've been holding you to-night. Why have I come over? Can't +you scratch these engagements and wait for me? I'm not going to share +you with every Tom, Dick and Harry in this place." + +A feeling of triumph came to Belle--a new feeling--because hitherto this +man's attitude had been that of master. "You're jealous!" she cried. + +Kenyon turned away sharply. For once he was not playing with this girl +for the sport of the thing, just to see what she would say and do in +order to pass away the time. The whole evening had tended to upset his +calculations and plans. He had found himself thrown suddenly into a +position of responsibility,--a state that he avoided with rare and +consummate agility. And now came Belle, radiant and high-spirited, from +an evening spent with other men,--more beautiful and desirable than he +had ever seen her look. + +Belle turned him back. "You _are_ jealous, you _are_." + +"Oh, good Lord, no," said Kenyon, with his most bored drawl. "Why should +I be? After all it isn't for me to care what you do, is it? It's a large +world and there's plenty of room for both of us--what?" + +He walked away. + +Triumph blazed in Belle's heart. She saw in Kenyon's eyes that he was +saying the very opposite of the thoughts that were in his mind. She +almost shouted with joy. She had longed to see into the heart of this +man who was under such complete and aggravating self-control,--even to +hurt him to obtain a big, spontaneous outburst of emotion from him. She +loved him desperately, indiscreetly--far too well for her peace of +mind--and she urgently needed some answering sparks of fire. + +She didn't move. She stood with her cloak thrown back, her chin held +high and the light falling on her dark hair and white flesh. This was +her moment. She would seize it. + +"Yes, there _is_ plenty of room for us both," she said, "and the fact +that I shall go on dancing with other men needn't inconvenience you in +the least. I don't suppose that we shall even see each other in the +crowd. There are many men who'll give their ears to dance with me,--I +mean men who can dance, not bored Englishmen." + +She drew blood. Kenyon went across to her quickly. "How dare you talk to +me like that! Curse these men and their ears. Who's brought me to this +country? You know I came for you,--you know it. I _am_ jealous--as +jealous as the devil. And if ever you let another man put his arms round +you I'll smash his face." He put out his hot hands to catch her. + +But, with a little teasing laugh, Belle dodged and flitted into the +library. The spirit of coquettishness was awake in her. _She_ had the +upper hand now and a small account to render for missed mails, and an +appearance of being too sure. She threw off her cloak and stood with her +back to the fireplace, looking like one of Romney's pictures of Lady +Hamilton come to life. + +Kenyon strode in after her, all stirred by her beauty. "In future," he +said, "you dance with me. You understand?" + +Belle raised her eyebrows and then bowed profoundly. "As you say, O my +master!" And then she held out her arms with a sudden delicious abandon. +"Take me, then. Let's dance all the way through life." + +Kenyon caught her, and all about the room these two went, moving +together in perfect unison, cheek to cheek, until almost breathless +Belle broke into a little laugh, stopped singing, and said: "The band's +tired." But Kenyon held her tighter and closer and kissed her lips again +and again and again. + +With a little touch of warning in its tone the clock on the mantel-piece +presently struck two, and Belle freed herself and straightened her hair +with a rather uncertain hand. "I must go now," she said breathlessly. +"Father may be working late. Supposing he came through this room?" + +"Serve him right," said Kenyon. + +They went upstairs together on tip-toe, and halted for a moment on the +threshold of Belle's bed-room. Through the half-open door Kenyon saw the +glow of yellow light on the dressing-table, and the corner of a virginal +bed. Once more he kissed her and then, breathing hard, went to his own +room, stood in the darkness for a moment, and thanked his lucky star for +the gift of Belle. + + +XIII + +The following afternoon, Peter, Kenyon and Belle went to see Ranken +Townsend's pictures and to have tea with Betty. The little party was a +great success. Peter and the artist got on splendidly together, which +filled Betty with joy and gladness, and Kenyon had added to the general +smoothness and pleasantness by offering extremely intelligent and +enthusiastic criticism of the canvasses that were shown to him, drawing +subtle comparisons between them and those of Reynolds and Gainsborough. +Like all true artists, Townsend was a humble man and unsuspicious. He +believed, in the manner of all good workers, that he had yet to find +himself, although he had met with uncommon success. He was, therefore, +much heartened and warmed by the remarks of one who, although young, +evidently knew of what he was talking and proved himself to be something +of a judge. When Kenyon received a cordial invitation to come again to +the studio he solidified the good impression that he had made by saying +that he would be honoured and delighted. + +There had been a sharp shower during tea, but the sky had cleared when +they left Gramercy Park, taking Betty with them, and so they started out +to walk home. + +Belle and Betty went on in front, arm in arm, and the two friends +followed. This suited Kenyon exactly. He had laid his plan and had +something to say to Peter. + +Belle was very happy, and she showed it. She looked round at Betty with +her eyes dancing. "I can see that you're dying to ask me something," she +said. "But don't. You and I don't have to ask each other questions. +We've always told each other everything, and we always will." + +"Belle, you're en-ga----" + +"S-s-s-h! Don't mention the word." + +"Why?" + +"Well, we've been talking this afternoon and Nicholas says, and I think +he's right--though I wish he weren't--that he doesn't want to go to +father until he's been here longer and has made up his mind what he's +going to do. You see, he's not well off. He's got to work,--although I +can't fancy Nicholas working,--and so we're not going to be really +engaged for a few months. Meantime, he's going to look round and find +something to do. That'll be easy. You don't know how clever he is,--not +merely clever--a monkey can be clever, or a conjurer--the word I meant +to use was 'able.' Aren't you glad? Isn't it splendid?" + +"Oh, my dear," said Betty, "wouldn't it be perfectly wonderful if we +could be married on the same day? Of course I've seen it coming----" + +Belle laughed. "I knew you'd say that. Personally I didn't see it +coming. After we'd left Oxford I began to think that Nicholas had only +been flirting with me. He wrote such curious, aloof little letters and +very few of them. They might have been written by an epigramist to his +maiden aunt; but last night,--well, last night made everything +different, and this afternoon we've had a long talk. Of course I wish we +were going to be openly and properly engaged, but I'm very happy and so +I don't grumble." + +"As the future Countess of Shropshire, I wonder whether you will ever +give a little back room in your beautiful English place to the young +American lawyer and his wife!" + +"Betty, I swear to you that I don't care a dime about all that now,--I +mean the title and the place. It's just Nicholas that I want--Nicholas, +and no one else. I wouldn't care if he were what he calls a 'bounder' or +a 'townee.' My dear, I'm mad about him--just mad." + +"Isn't everything as right as Truth?" said Betty. "The more I see Peter +the more I love him. He's,--well, he's a man, and he's mine. He's mine +for another reason, and that's because he's always going to be a boy, +and I'm here to look after him. He'll need me. And I must have him need +me, too, because I need to be needed. Do you understand?" + +Belle nodded. "You're the born mother, my dear," she said, "whereas, +I'm,--well, not. I want love--just love. I'll give everything I've got +in the world for that--everything. Love and excitement and movement,--to +go from place to place meeting new people, hearing new languages, seeing +new types, living bigly and broadly, being consulted by a man who's +brilliant and far-seeing,--_that's_ what I need. That's _my_ idea of +life. Ah-h!" She shot out a deep breath and threw her chin up as though +to challenge argument. + +Betty watched her with admiration. She had never looked so unusual, so +exhilarated, so fine. All about her there was the very essence of youth +and courage and health. There was a glow in her white skin that was the +mere reflection of the fire that was alight in her heart. Given +happiness this girl would burst into the most fragrant blossoming and +gleam among her sisters like a rose in a pansy bed. Given pain and +disillusion she had it in her to fling rules, observances, caution, +common sense and even self-respect to the four winds and go with all +possible speed to the devil. + +"What would have happened to us both if we hadn't gone to Oxford?" asked +Betty, with an almost comical touch of gravity. "Think! I should be +doomed to be a little old maid, with nothing but an even smaller dog to +keep in order, and as for you----" + +"I? Don't let's talk about it. I should have gone top-pace through +several years and then, with thirty looming ahead, married a nice safe +man with oodles of money who would spend his life following me round. +Thank Heaven, I shall never be the centre of that ghastly picture!" + +And so they went on, these two young things, opening up their hearts to +each other as they walked home and flying off at all manner of feminine +tangents. + +Kenyon, perfectly satisfied with his talk to Belle, whom he had secured +without binding himself to anything definite, was wearing white spats, +and so he picked his way across the wet streets like a cat on hot +bricks. For several blocks he permitted Peter to talk about Betty. His +affectation of interest and sympathy was not so well done as usual. He +had determined, with a sort of professional jealousy, not to allow Ita +Strabosck to trade on Graham's credulity any longer. All his thoughts +were concentrated on his plan to smash up that burlesque arrangement, as +he inwardly called it. If anyone were to make use of Graham he intended +to be that one. The girl, at present a humble member of the great army +of parasites in which he held a commission, must be cleared out. She was +inconveniently in the way. + +When Peter was obliged to stop for breath, Kenyon jumped in. "Look +here!" he said. "You're coming with me to the shrine of the pernicious +Papowsky to-night." + +"You mean on Graham's business?" asked Peter. "Is it absolutely +necessary to go to that place?" + +"Absolutely. You'll see why, if everything works as I think it will, +when we get there." + +"Right. And how about Graham?" + +"You and Graham are going to have dinner with me at Sherry's. I shall +have to see that he has half a bottle too much champagne. That'll make +him careless and put a bit of devil into him, and when I suggest that he +shall take us to Papowsky's, he will jump at the notion, He's awful keen +to show us what a blood he is. Once he gets us inside the rest will +follow." + +"I see. By Jove, I shall be thundering glad when Graham's plucked out of +this wretched mess. The only thing is I'm booked to dine with Mr. +Townsend at his club to-night." + +"It can't be done," said Kenyon. "Directly you get home you must +telephone. Say that an urgent matter has just cropped up and beg to be +excused. Call it business--call it anything you like--but get out of +it." + +"All right!" said Peter. "I'm heart and soul with you, old boy. I'm very +grateful for all the trouble you're taking. You always were a good +chap." + +"My dear Peter, add to my possession of the ordinary number of senses +one that is almost as rare as the Dodo,--the sense of gratitude. Hello! +Here's some of the family in the car!" + +They had halted on the steps of the Doctor's house as Mrs. Guthrie and +Ethel were driven up. Kenyon sprang forward, opened the door and handed +the ladies out with an air that Raleigh himself would have found +commendable. + +"Blood tells," said Belle, who watched from the top step, with a proud +smile. + +"Yes," said Betty, "but I prefer muscle. Look!" + +The pavement was uneven in front of the house and the rain had made a +little pool. So Peter picked his mother up, as though she were as light +as a bunch of feathers, and carried her into the house. + +"My dearest big boy!" she said. + +"Darling little Mum!" said Peter. + + +XIV + +Kenyon, turned out as excellently as usual, led the way into the +dining-room at Sherry's. It was a quarter to eight. Every other table +was occupied. The large room was too warm and was filled with the +conglomerate aromas of food. Peter sat on the right of his host and +Graham on the left. Both men were quiet and distrait,--Peter because he +was anxious, Graham for the reason that he had not been able to leave +behind him the carking worries that now fell daily to his lot. Kenyon, +on the contrary, was in his best form, and even a little excited. Apart +from the fact that he rather liked having something to do that would +prove his knowledge of life and the accuracy of his powers of +psychology, he was looking forward to be amused with what went on in the +studio-apartment of the Papowsky. + +"By Jove!" he said, looking around and arranging his tie over the +points of his collar with expert fingers,--a thing which Graham +immediately proceeded to do also,--"this place has a quite distinct +atmosphere. Don't you think so, Peter?" + +"Has it?" + +"One would, I see, choose it for a trying and dull-bright dinner with a +prospective mother-in-law or with some dear thing, safely married, with +whom one had once rashly imagined one's self to be in love. Waiter, the +wine list!" + +Graham laughed. + +Kenyon, scoring his first point, continued airily. "For my part, I shall +make a point of dining here one night with an alluring young thing fresh +from the romantic quietude of a Convent School. I feel that these +discreet lights and reserved colours will give a certain amount of +weight and even solemnity to my careful flattery--A large bottle of +Perrier Jouet '02, and be sparing with the ice. Peter, I think you'll +find that this caviare gives many points to the tired stuff that used to +be palmed off on us at Buol's and other undergraduate places of puerile +riotousness." + +The dinner, which Kenyon had ordered with becoming care, would have +satisfied the epicureanism of a Russian aristocrat. During all its +courses the host kept up a running fire of anecdote which quickly made +the table a merry one. He also saw to it that Graham's glass was never +empty. They sat laughing, smoking and drinking Crême Yvette until they +were the last people in the room except for an old bloated man and a +very young Hebrew girl. The band, which had mixed ragtime +indiscriminately with Italian opera and Austrian waltzes, and played +them all equally well, went off to acquire the second wind and the +relaxed muscles necessary for a later performance, and the waiters had +long since rearranged the table for supper before Kenyon suggested +adjourning to a club for a game of billiards which would amuse them +until it was time to begin the business of the evening. So they walked +round to the Harvard Club, and here Peter--the only one of the party who +was completely his own master--became host. + +They played until a little short of twelve o'clock. By this time, having +been additionally primed up with one or two Scotch whiskeys, Graham was +ready for anything, and it was then that Kenyon suggested that he should +take them to the famous studio. Graham jumped at the idea, falling, as +Kenyon knew that he would, into the little trap set for him. "We're +children in your hands, Graham," he said, with a subtle touch of +flattery. "Lead us into the vortex of art with the lid off. I'm most +frightfully keen to see this place and it'll be great fun for you, duly +protected, to find out whether the Papowsky has discovered whether you +were the Knight Errant who rescued one of her victims. Romance, old +boy--romance with a big R." And so Graham, more than a little unsteady +and with uproarious laughter, led the way. + +When they arrived at the studio-apartment in Fortieth Street they found +the hall filled with people. It happened that Papowsky was giving an +Egyptian night and nearly all of the habitués were in appropriate +costumes. With the cunning of her species this woman knew very well that +few things appeal so strongly to a certain type of men and women as +dressing up,--which generally means undressing. The Japanese servant who +took their hats and coats welcomed Graham with oily and deferential +cordiality. "We are having a big night, sir," he said, with the peculiar +sibilation of his kind and with his broad, flat hands clasped together. +"It is Madame's birthday, sir. Yes, sir. You and the gentlemen will +enjoy it very much." + +Peter and Kenyon followed Graham into the studio. Their curiosity, +already stirred by the sight of the men and women in the hall, was added +to by the Rembrandt effect of the high, wide room, whose darkness was +only touched here and there by curious faint lights. The buzz of voices +everywhere and little bursts of laughter proved that there were many +people present. As they went in, a powerful lime-light was suddenly +focused on the centre of the room and into this slid a string of young, +small-breasted, round-limbed girls. Led by one who contorted herself in +what was supposedly the Egyptian manner, they moved to and fro with bent +knees and angular gestures, and rigid profiles. Music came out of the +darkness,--the music of a string band with cymbals. + +"Good Lord!" said Kenyon. "What an amazing mixture of exotic stinks!" + +"Look out for your money," said Peter, with a touch of blunt +materialism. + +Graham made for an unoccupied alcove, in which there was a flabby +divan. On this they all three sat down and began to peer about. A few +yards away from them they presently made out an astonishing group of +young men dressed as Egyptians. They were sitting in affectionate +closeness, simpering and tittering together. On the other side they +gradually discerned an overwhelmingly fat, elderly woman holding a kind +of Court. She was almost enveloped in pearls. Otherwise she was scantily +hidden. Her feet were in sandals. Several mere boys had arranged +themselves in picturesque attitudes about her and half a dozen maidens +were grouped round her chair. One was fanning her with a large yellow +leaf. The blue light under which Graham had sat listening to the +whispered appeal of Ita Strabosck fell softly and erotically upon them. + +"Circe come to life," said Kenyon. + +"Ugh! I don't quite know how I'm going to prevent myself from being +sick," said Peter. + +"Ah! but wait a bit," said Graham. "The show hasn't begun yet." + +It made a fairly good beginning as he spoke. The girls in the circle of +light brought their attitudinizing to an end and their places were +instantly taken by two painted men in coloured loin-cloths. To a +screaming outburst of wild and incoherent music they gave what seemed to +Kenyon to be a perfect imitation of civet-cats at play. They crawled +along on all-fours, sprang high into the air, crouched, bounded, whirled +round each other and finally, amid a roar of applause, rolled out of +view wrapped in each other's arms. + +"Um!" said Kenyon. "After just such an exhibition as that Rome burst +into flames." + +There was insistent demand for an encore. The performance was repeated +with the same gusto and relish. The three men saw nothing of it. Just as +the band burst forth again, Kenyon made a long arm, caught the skimpy +covering of a girl who was passing and drew her into the alcove. + +"Come and cheer us up, Minutia," he said. "We feel like lost souls +here." + +The girl was willing enough. It was her business to cheer. She stood in +front of them for a moment so that the blue light should show her +charms. She looked very young and tiny. Fair hair was twisted round her +head. She wore nothing but a thin, loose Egyptian smock, but her small +snub nose and impudent mouth placed her, whatever might be her costume, +on Broadway. "Say! Why are you muts dressed like men?" she asked with +eager interest. + +"Oh, well," said Kenyon, "we happen to be men; but I swear that we won't +advertise the fact." + +The girl greatly enjoyed the remark, but her scream of laughter was +drowned by the band. Then she caught sight of Graham. "Oh, hello, Kid! +So you've come back." + +Graham made room for her. He rather liked being recognized. Kenyon would +see that he knew his way about. "Yes, here I am again. It's difficult to +get the Papowsky dope out of the system." + +"Don't see why you should try. It's pretty good dope, I guess." She +snuggled herself in between Graham and Kenyon, putting an arm round +each. She bent across Kenyon to examine Peter and gave an exaggeratedly +dramatic cry of surprise and admiration. "My God! It's a giant! Say, +dearie, you'd be the King of all the pussies, in a skin. All them dinky +little love-birds would hop round your feet and chirp. Oh, gosh, you'd +make some hit among the artists, sure!" + +"Think so?" said Peter. He would have given a great deal for a pipe at +that moment, so that he could puff out great clouds of smoke as a +disinfectant. + +"A gala night," said Graham. + +"Sure. If the police were to make a raid to-night,--gee, there'd be a +fine list of names in to-morrer's papers!" + +"Think they will?" asked Kenyon. "By Jove! I wish they would. Think of +seeing these people scuffling like frightened rabbits. It would be +epoch-making." + +The girl turned a keenly interested eye on Kenyon and looked him over +with unabashable deliberation. "You've got a funny kind of accent," she +said. "What is it? English?" + +It was the first time that Kenyon had ever been accused of speaking with +an accent. He was delighted. It appealed to his alert sense of humour. +He laughed and nodded. + +"The giant ain't English, is he? Are you, dearie?" + +"No," said Peter. + +"That's fine. I guess I don't like the English much. They always strike +me as being like Americans, trying hard to be different." + +"You don't dislike me, I hope? That would be a very bitter blow," said +Kenyon, tweeking her ear. + +"Oh, you're a comic," she said. "You're all right. Is this your first +visit?" + +"Yes. Have you been here long?" Kenyon asked the question carelessly, as +though to keep the ball moving. It was, as a matter of fact, the +beginning of his plan to disillusion Graham. + +"Oh, I've been in the business ever since it started. Ask the kid, he +knows. Don't you, kid?" + +"Rather," said Graham. + +"I used to be in the chorus, but this is ther life." + +"I suppose so," said Kenyon. "Variety, gaiety, art,--what more can any +girl desire?" + +"Dollars," she said dryly. "And I make more here, by a long way." + +"That's good. But,--but don't you get a little fed up? I mean it must be +hopelessly monotonous to be shut up in one place all the time." + +"Don't know whatcher mean. Translate that, won't you?" + +"He means never getting out," said Graham. + +"Never getting out! I don't get you, Steve. Me and my sister get away +after the show, same as any other." + +"What!" Graham was incredulous. It struck him that the girl was lying +for reasons of loyalty to her employer. He knew better. + +"Oh, I see!" said Kenyon, leading her on carefully. "You don't live +here, then?" + +"Live here? Of course I don't. I come about ten o'clock every night and +leave anywhere between three and four in the morning. Earlier if there's +nothing doing." + +"Oh, I thought that the girls here are,--well, held up, kept here all +the time,--prisoners, so to speak." + +A shrill amused laugh rang out. "Oh, cut it out! What's all this dope? +Say! you've been reading White Slave books. You're bug-house--dippy. +Why, this is a respectable place, this is. This is the house of Art. +We're models, that's what we are. We're only here for local colour. If +we choose to make a bit extra on our own, we can." She laughed again. It +was a good joke. The best that she had heard for years. + +Kenyon threw a quick glance at Graham's face. He could just see it in +the dim light. The boy was listening intently--incredulously. So also +was Peter, who had drawn himself into a corner and was hunched up +uncomfortably. + +Kenyon began to feel excited. Everything was going almost unbelievably +well. The girl was so frank, so open and obviously spontaneous. It was +excellent. "Of course you tell us these things," he said, voicing what +he knew was going silently through Graham's mind. "But we know better. +We know that you, like that poor little girl, Ita Strabosck, are watched +and not allowed to get away under any circumstances. Now, why not tell +us the truth? We may be able to help you escape, too." + +Again she laughed. "Oh, say!" she said. "What are you anyway? Reporters +on the trail of a story? I'm telling you the truth. Why not? As for +Ita,--Oh, ho! She put it all over a boob, she did. She's ambitious, she +is. She was out to find a mut who'd keep her, that was her game. She +told us so from the first. We used to watch her trying one after another +of the soft ones. But they were wise, they were. But at last some little +feller fell for her foreign accent and little sobs. She had a fine tale +all ready. Oh, she's clever. She ought to be on the stage playing parts. +Most of us go round to her place in the daytime and have a good time +with some of her men friends. I've not been yet. But from what my sister +says, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if she gets her man to marry her. +From what she says, he's a sentimental Alick, and, O Gosh! won't she +lead him some dance!" + +At last Graham broke forth, his face white, his eyes blazing and his +whole body shaking as though he had ague. "You're lying!" he shouted. +"Every word you've said's a lie!" + +The girl, entirely unoffended at this involuntary outburst, bent forward +and looked at Graham with a new gleam of intelligence, amusement and +curiosity. "My word, I believe you're Mr. Strabosck. I believe you're +the boob. Oh, say! come into the light. I guess I must have a look at +you." + +Graham got up, stood swaying for a moment as though he had received a +blow between the eyes, and staggered across the room and out into the +passage. + +"Now he knows," said Kenyon. "Come on, Peter. We shall have our work cut +to hold him in. There was blood in his eyes." Utterly ignoring the girl, +Kenyon made for the door, forced his way through new arrivals and found +Graham utterly sober, but with his mouth set dangerously, standing in +front of the Japanese. "My hat and coat, quick!" he was saying, "or I'll +break the place up." + +"Steady, steady," said Kenyon. "We don't want a scene here." + +"Scene be damned. I tell you something's got to break." + +The Japanese ducked into the coat-room. + +"Where's Peter?" Graham looked back expecting to see his brother's head +and shoulders above the crowd. There was no sign of him. + +By accident the lime-light which had been suddenly turned on for a new +performance fell on Peter as he was marching towards the door of the +studio. Instantly he found himself surrounded by half a dozen +good-natured men who had all taken a little too much to drink. They, +like the other people present, were in Egyptian clothes and obviously +glad to see in Peter a healthy normal specimen of humanity. + +"Oh, hello, brother, where are you off to?" asked one. + +"Out!" said Peter shortly. + +"I'll be darned if you are. Come and have a drink!" + +"No, thanks, I've other things to do." + +"Oh, rot! Be a sport and stay and help us to stir things up. Come on, +now!" + +Peter tried to push his way through. "Please get out of the way," he +said. + +But a jovial red-headed fellow got into it. "You're staying, if I have +to make you." + +Something snapped in Peter's brain. Before he could control himself he +bent down and picked up the man by the scruff of his neck and the cloth +that was wound round his middle and heaved him over the heads of the +crowd into a divan, and then hitting out right and left cleared a path +to the door, leaving chaos and bleeding noses behind him. Without +waiting to get his hat and coat he made a dash for the elevator, caught +it just as it was about to descend and went down to the main floor +dishevelled and panting. + +Out in the street he saw Kenyon trying to put Graham into a taxicab. +Kenyon saw him and called out. "Come on, or Papowsky will make it hot +for us." + +On his way home from a late evening at one of his clubs, Ranken Townsend +caught the name Papowsky, whose evil reputation had come to his ears. He +threw a quick glance at the men who were leaving her place and saw that +one of them was Peter. He drew up and stood in front of the man in whom +he thought he had recognized cleanness and excellence and told himself +that he was utterly mistaken. + +"So this was your precious business engagement," he said, with icy +contempt. "Well, I don't give my daughter to a man who shares her with +women like Papowsky, so you may consider yourself free. Good night." + +And the smile that turned up the corners of Kenyon's mouth had in it the +epitome of triumph. All along the line he had won. All along the line. + +Peter watched the tall disappearing figure. He felt as though he had +been kicked in the mouth. + + + + +PART THREE + +LIFE + + +I + +That night was one of the most extraordinary that Peter ever spent. +Although he was smarting under the terrible injustice of Ranken +Townsend's few, but very definite words, and felt like a man who had +suddenly come up to an abyss, he took Graham in hand and devoted +himself, with all the tenderness of a woman, to this poor boy. + +All the way home in the cab Graham had been more or less held down by +Kenyon and his brother. His brain was in a wild chaos. The realization +that he had been tricked and made a fool of hit him hard. In his first +great flush of anger he was filled with an overwhelming desire to go to +the apartment in which he had placed Ita Strabosck and smash it up. He +wanted to have the satisfaction of breaking and ripping apart every +piece of furniture that he had bought to make her comfortable and happy, +and make an absolute shambles of the place. He wanted also to order that +girl out into the street. At that moment he no longer cared what +happened to her or where she went. His vanity had received its first +rude shock. All the way home he shouted at the top of his voice and +struggled to get away from the men who were looking after him. It took +all Peter's strength to hold him tight. It was by no means a good sight +to see this young man, who only half an hour before had been +exhilarated by champagne and the feeling that he was really of some +account as a man of the world, reduced to a condition of utter weariness +by his violent outbursts. At first he absolutely refused to enter the +house and insisted upon walking up and down the street. Finally, by +making an appeal to his brother's affection, Peter persuaded him to go +in quietly and up to his own room. There, pale and exhausted and +entirely out of spirits, Graham turned quickly on his brother. "Keep +Kenyon out," he said. "For God's sake, keep Kenyon out! I want _you_." + +Kenyon heard these words and smiled to himself, nodded to Peter, and +went downstairs again to make himself comfortable in the library and +have a final cigarette before going to bed. He had every reason for +self-congratulation. Graham was free,--there was no doubt about +that,--and it looked as though Peter also would now be able to be made +useful again. Luck certainly had been on his side that night. + +It was not much after one o'clock when Peter shut the door of Graham's +bed-room. From then onwards he turned himself into a sort of nurse, +doing his best to concentrate all his thoughts on his brother's trouble +and keep his own until such time as he could deal with it; and, while +Graham poured out his heart--going over his story of the Ita Strabosck +rescue again and again--Peter quietly undressed him, bit by bit. "Yes, +old man," he kept saying, "I quite understand; but what you've got to do +now is to get to bed and to sleep. Let me take off your coat. That's +right. Now sit down for a second. Now let me undo your shoes. It's a +jolly good thing I came home. You bet your life I'll stand by you and +see you through--you bet your life I will!" + +"And you swear you'll not say anything about this to mother or Belle, +and especially father--even if I'm ill,--in fact to any one? You swear +it?" + +"Of course," said Peter. + +There was something comical as well as pathetic in the sight of this big +fellow playing the woman to this distraught boy,--undoing his tie, +taking off his collar and gradually getting him ready for bed. It was a +long and difficult process and needed consummate tact, tender firmness +and quiet determination. A hundred times Graham would spring to his feet +and--with one shoe on and one shoe off, minus coat and waistcoat, tie +and collar--pace the room from end to end, gesticulating wildly, sending +out a torrent of words in a hoarse whisper--sometimes almost on the +verge of tears. He was only twenty-four--not much more than a boy. It +was very hard luck that he should be up against so sordid a slice of +life at a time when he stood at the beginning of everything. + +But Peter knew intuitively that it was absolutely necessary for Graham +to rid his system of this Strabosck poison and empty out his heart and +soul before he could be put to sleep, like a tired child. And so, with +the utmost patience, he subjected himself to play the part of a mental +as well as a physical nurse. Better than that, he mothered his brother, +smoothed him down, sympathized with him, assured him again and again +that he had done the only possible thing; and finally as the first touch +of dawn crept into the room had the infinite satisfaction of putting the +clothes about his brother's shoulders and seeing his dark head buried in +his pillow. Even then he was not wholly satisfied. Creeping upon tip-toe +about the room he laid hands on Graham's razors and put them in his +pocket. He was possessed with a sort of terror that the boy might wake +up and, acting under a strong revulsion of feeling, cut his throat. It +must be remembered that he had watched a human being under the strain +and stress of a very strong and terrible emotion and he was naturally +afraid. He knew his brother's excitable temperament. He had heard him +confess that the girl had exercised over him something more than mere +physical attraction, and although he was no psychologist it was easy for +him to see that, for a time at any rate, Graham was just as ready to +hurt himself as to hurt the girl. Some one had to be paid out for his +suffering and it was Peter's business to see that his brother, at any +rate, escaped punishment. Not content with having got Graham to bed and +to sleep and secured the razors which might be used in a moment of +impetuousness, Peter stayed on, sat down near the bed and listened to +one after another of the sounds of the great city's awakening. It was +then that he permitted himself to think back. He didn't remember the +fracas in the studio apartment or the unpleasantness of the place with +the unhealthy, unpleasant creatures who had been there. He repeated to +himself over and over again the words--the cold, cruel words of Ranken +Townsend,--"So this was your precious business engagement. Well, I don't +give my daughter to a man who shares her with women like Papowsky, so +you may consider yourself free." In his mind's eye he could see the tall +artist march away. He felt again as though he had been kicked in the +mouth. + + +II + +Ranken Townsend had arranged a sitting with Madame Mascheri, the famous +opera singer, at eleven o'clock. He entered his studio at ten, and the +first thing he did was to ring up one of his best friends and get into a +quarrel with him. He had already so surprised his old servant at +breakfast that she had retired to the kitchen in tears. He was angry and +sore and there was likely to be a nice clash in the studio when he said +sharp things to the spoiled lady who considered that all men were in +their proper places only when they were at her feet. + +Ranken Townsend was more than angry. He was disappointed--mentally +sick--completely out of gear. He had seen Peter Guthrie--and there was +no argument about the fact--come out of a notorious house, dishevelled +and apparently drunk. It was a sad blow to him. A bad shock. The effects +of it had kept him awake nearly all night. Betty was the apple of his +eye. He was going to protect her at all costs, and he knew that in doing +so he must bring great unhappiness into her life. He had believed in +Peter Guthrie. He had seemed to him to be a big, strong, clean, honest, +simple, true fellow who had gone straight and who meant to continue to +go straight. It meant a tremendous amount, an altogether incalculable +amount to him as a father to have found that his estimate was wrong. He +realized perfectly well that his words had been harsh the night before. +He detested to have been obliged to say them; but, for the sake of his +little girl, he was not going back on them. The evidence was too strong. + +The telephone bell rang. He stalked across to it. "Well?" he said. +"What's that? Who did you say? Send him up at once." And then, with his +jaw set and his hands thrust deep into his pockets, he took up a stand +in the middle of the studio and waited. + +It was Peter. He came in quietly and looked very tired. "Good morning, +Mr. Townsend," he said. + +The answer was sharp and antagonistic. "I don't agree with you." + +Peter put down his hat and stick, went up to the artist and stood in +front of him squarely and without fear. "You're going to withdraw what +you said last night." + +"You think so?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +"Because it was unjust and no man is hanged in these times before he's +given a chance to defend himself." + +"No one is going to hang you, Peter Guthrie. You've hanged yourself." + +"No, no," said Peter, "that won't do. It isn't like you to adopt this +attitude and I must ask you to treat me properly." + +Townsend shot out a short laugh. "There's no need for you to ask me to +do that. My treatment of you is going to be so proper that this is going +to be the last time you'll come into this studio. I've done with you. So +far as I'm concerned you're over. Betty isn't going to see you or hear +from you again. I consider that it was a mighty good accident that took +me into Fortieth Street last night. That's all I have to say." + +Peter didn't budge. He just squared his shoulders and tilted his chin a +little more. "I don't think that's all you've got to say," he said. "I +quite understand that you had a bad shock when you saw me coming out of +that place last night. If I were in your shoes I should say just what +you're saying now." + +"It's something to win your approval," said Townsend, sarcastically, +"and I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you for coming down town to give +me your praise." + +"Oh, don't talk like that," said Peter. "It doesn't do any good and it +doesn't help to clear things up." + +"You can't clear things up. Neither of us can. You began by lying to me +when you said you had a business engagement, and you wound up by coming +out drunk of the rottenest house in this city. And, see here! I don't +like your tone. I'm not standing here to be reproved by you for my +attitude in this matter. I might be more inclined to give you a chance +if you made a clean breast of it." + +"I wish I could," said Peter, "but I can't. All I can tell you is that I +had to go to that place last night for a very good reason. I'd never +been there before and I shall never go there again. I hadn't even heard +of the place until a few days ago. You've got to accept my word of +honour that I went there with a friend of mine to get a man who means a +very great deal to me out of bad trouble." + +"It's taken you sometime to think that out," said Townsend, brutally. + +Peter winced as if he had been struck. He had gone to the studio under +the belief that everything would be quite easy. He was honest. His +conscience was clear. He was not a liar. Surely his word would be +accepted. Whatever happened he wasn't going to be disloyal to his +brother. Apart from the fact that he had sworn not to give Graham away, +he wasn't the kind that blabbed. He tried again, still keeping himself +well under control, although he was unable to hide the fact that Ranken +Townsend's utter disbelief in him hurt deeply. + +"Mr. Townsend," he said, "I don't want to do anything to make you more +angry than you are. It's perfectly simple for you to say that you won't +have me marry Betty. But remember this: I've only got to go to Betty and +ask her to marry me, with or without your consent, and she will. If you +don't believe me, you don't know Betty." + +"Ah! but that's exactly where you make your mistake," said Townsend. "I +_do_ know Betty. And let me tell you this, Peter Guthrie: My girl has +been brought up. She hasn't been dragged up or allowed to bring herself +up. The consequence is that she's not among the army of present-day +girls who look upon their fathers and mothers as any old trash to be +swept aside and over-ridden whenever it suits them to do so. I'm the man +to whom she owes all the happiness and comfort that she's known. I'm the +man who's proud to be responsible for her, to whom she belongs and who +knows a wide stretch more of life and its troubles than she does,--and, +not being an empty-headed, individualistic, precocious little fool, she +knows it too. She belongs to a past decade--to an old-fashioned family. +Therefore, what I say goes; and if I tell her that, for a very good +reason, I don't want her to have anything to do with you, she will be +desperately unhappy, but she'll not question my authority or my right to +say so. These are facts, however absurd and strange they may appear to +you. I think it would be a damned good thing if other fathers took the +trouble to get on the same footing with their daughters. There'd be less +unhappiness and fewer grave mistakes if they did." He was almost on the +verge of adding, "Look at your sister Belle if you don't believe me." + +Peter had nothing to say. + +The two men stood facing one another, gravely, in silence. They were +both moved and stirred. And then Peter nodded. "I'm glad you're Betty's +father," he said at last. "She owes you more than she can ever pay +back. I give you my word that I shan't attempt to dispute your +authority. I respect you, Mr. Townsend, and when I marry Betty I want to +have your consent and approval. I also give you my word that it was +absolutely necessary for me to go to Papowsky's last night, without any +explanation whatever. Are you going to take it?" + +"No," said Townsend; "I'm not. Even if I'd known you for years what you +ask is too much for me to swallow. Good Lord, man! can't you see that +I'm protecting my daughter--the one person I love in this world--the one +person whose happiness means more to me than anything on earth? Why +should I believe that you're different from other young men,--the +average young man whom I see every day, who no more cares about going +clean to the woman he is going to marry than he does for running +straight afterwards? I don't know you and hitherto I've accepted you on +your face value. When it comes to the question of a man's trusting his +daughter to the first person who comes and asks him for her, he's got to +be pretty sure of what he's doing. In any case, I don't hold with the +old saying that 'young men will be young men.' You may sow your wild +oats if you like, but they're not going to blossom in the garden of a +little girl who belongs to me. In that respect I'm as narrow-minded as a +Quaker. And let me tell you this finally: I know the sort of place that +Papowsky's is. I know what goes on there and the sort of people who +frequent it. To my mind any man who's seen coming out of it does for +himself as the future husband of any good girl. If you have, as you say, +a good reason for going there, tell it to me. If not, get out." + +The artist had said these things with intense feeling. Hard as they +were, Peter had to acknowledge that they were right. Just for one +instant he wavered. He was on the point of giving the whole story away. +Then his loyalty to his brother came back to him. He would rather be +shot than go back on the man who had trusted him and with whom he had +grown up with such deep affection. "Very well," he said, "that settles +it. I've nothing more to say. But one of these days I'll prove that my +word of honor was worth taking. In the meantime, you can't stop me from +loving Betty and you'll never be able to stop Betty from loving me." + +He turned on his heel, took up his hat and stick and went out. + + +III + +Graham was sitting up in bed when Peter returned to his room. He was +looking about him with an expression of queer surprise,--puzzled +apparently to find himself in his room. + +"Oh, hello, old man!" said Peter. "How d'you feel?" + +Graham put his hand up to his head. "I don't know yet. Have I been +asleep? I thought I'd been in a railway accident. I was looking about +for the broken girders and the ghastly signs of a smash." + +He got slowly out of bed, put on his slippers and walked up and down for +a few minutes with a heavy frown on his face. The emotion of the night +before had left its marks. He stopped in front of a chair on the back of +which his evening clothes were hanging neatly. He remembered that he had +thrown them off. He noticed--at first with irritation--that the things +on his dressing-table had been re-arranged--tampered with. It didn't +look as he liked it to look. Something had been taken away. It dawned on +him that all his razors had been removed. "Removed,"--the word sent a +sort of electric shock through his brain as it passed through. He went +over to the window and looked out into the street. The sun glorified +everything with its wonderful touch. Good God! To think that he might be +standing at that very moment on the other side of the great veil. + +"I don't know--I don't know what to say to you for all this, Peter," he +said. + +Peter sat down, thrust his hands into his pockets and his long legs out +in front of him. Reaction had set in. He felt depressed and wretched. +"One of these days," he said, "I may ask you to do the same thing for +me." + +Something in his tone made Graham turn round sharply. "What's wrong?" + +"Everything's wrong," said Peter. "But I'll tell you some other time. +Your affair has got to be settled first." + +"No; tell me now," said Graham. He dreaded to feel that he was the cause +somehow or other of bringing trouble upon his brother. Never before in +all his life had he seen Peter looking like that. + +"Mr. Townsend happened to be passing Papowsky's last night and saw me +coming out. I'd had a scrap up in the studio with a bunch of men who +were half drunk. I must have looked like it. He told me that he wouldn't +have me marry Betty, and he repeated it this morning. I've just come +away from his place. That's what's the matter with me." + +"Oh, curse me!" cried Graham. "Curse me for a fool!" + +Peter sprang to his feet. "Don't start worrying about me. And look here; +don't let's waste time in trying to scrape up spilt milk. I'm going to +marry Betty, that's a dead certainty, and sooner or later Mr. Townsend +will withdraw the brutal things he said to me. And you're going to wipe +your slate clean, right away. So buck up and get busy, old man. Have +your bath and get dressed as soon as you can. I'm going to help you to +fix your affair as soon as you're ready." + +"How?" asked Graham. + +"I don't know quite. I think I'll ask Kenyon." + +"No, don't. Let's do it together. I don't want Kenyon to see,--I mean +I'd rather Kenyon was out of it. I'd rather that you were the only one +to look on at the remainder of my humiliation,--that's the word. He +knows quite enough as it is." + +"All right!" said Peter. "Hurry up, then. We'll go round to the +apartment and see Ita Strabosck. I cashed a cheque on the way back from +Mr. Townsend's. We can't let her go out into the street with nothing in +her pocket,--that's impossible." + +Graham nodded. He couldn't find words to say what he felt about it all. +There was a look of acute pain on his pale face as he went into the +bath-room. + +And then Peter sat down at his brother's table and wrote a little note +to Betty: + + My own dearest Baby: + + Something has happened and your father--who's a fine fellow and + well worthy of you--believes that I'm such a rotter that he's + told me to consider myself scratched. I'm going to play the + game by him for your sake as well as his. Don't worry about it. + Leave everything to me. I won't ask you to go on loving me and + believing in me, because that you must do, just as I shall go + on loving you and believing in you. _It has to be._ I've got to + think things over to see what can be done. + + In the meantime, and as long as I live, + Your PETER. + +He addressed the letter and put the envelope in his pocket. Then he went +to the bath-room and called out: "Old man, shall I have some breakfast +sent up for you?" The answer was, "No; the sight of food would make me +sick." + +Graham dressed quickly and nothing more was said by either of the +brothers until they went out into the street together. + +"We'll get a cab," said Peter. + +"No; I'm too broke. Let's walk." + +And so they walked hard, arm in arm. It seemed rather an insult to +Graham that the day was so fine, the sky so blue and equable and that +all the passers-by seemed to be going on their way untroubled. He'd have +been better pleased if the day had been dark and ugly and if everybody +had been hurrying through rain and sleet. His own mind was disturbed by +a storm of the most unpleasant thoughts. The girl whom they were on +their way to see had exercised a strong physical fascination over him. +He had believed in her absolutely. She had meant a great deal to him. +Her deceit and cunning selfishness brought pessimism into his soul. It +was a bad feeling. + +As they came up to the house with its shabby door, a man well-past +middle age,--a flabby, vulgar person, with thick awkward legs,--left it +rather quickly and walked in the opposite direction. The two boys went +in and Peter led the way up the dark staircase. The door was open and +Lily, the colored maid, was holding a shrill argument with a man with a +basket full of empty siphons on his arm. Her face broke into an odd and +knowing smile when she saw Graham. They passed her without a word and +went along the passage into the sitting-room. It was empty, but in a +hideous state of disorder. There was about it all that last night look +which is so unpleasant and insalubrious. The windows had not been opened +and the room reeked with stale tobacco smoke and beer. Cigar stumps lay +like dead snails on the carpet. Empty bottles were everywhere and dirty +glasses. Through the half-open door which led into the bed-room they +heard a flutey, uncertain soprano voice singing a curious foreign song. + +After a moment of weakness and indecision, Graham pulled himself +together and called out: "Ita! Ita!" sharply. + +The song ceased abruptly. There was a cry of well-simulated joy and the +girl, with her hair frowzled and a thin dressing-gown over her +night-dress, ran into the room with naked feet. She drew up short when +she saw the expression on Graham's face and Peter's square shoulders +behind him. "Somesing ees ze matter," she said. "Oh, tell me!" Second +nature and constant practice made the girl begin to act. This was +obviously an opportunity for being dramatic. + +With a huge effort Graham controlled himself. "I'm giving up this +apartment to-day," he said. + +"You are giving up----?" + +"I said so." + +"And what ees to become of me? You take me somewhere else?" + +"No. I hope I shall never see you again--never!" + +The girl burst forth. How well he knew that piteous gesture--that +pleading voice--the tears that came into those large almond eyes,--all +those tricks which had made him what he had been called the night before +at Papowsky's--"a boob". "What 'ave I done? Do you not love me any more? +I love you. I will die for you. You are everysing to me. Do not leave me +to ze mercy of ze world. Graham! Graham! My saviour! I love you zo!" + +Graham shook her off. "Please don't," he said. "Just pack your things +and dress yourself. All I've got to say to you is that I've found you +out. Perhaps you'd better go back to Papowsky's. You're very +clever,--they all say so there. Find another damned young fool--that'll +be easy." + +The girl suddenly threw back her head and broke into an amazing laugh. +The sound of it,--so merry--so full of a sort of elfin amusement,--was +as startling to the two boys as though a bomb had been dropped into the +room. "I could not find such a damned fool as you," she said loudly and +coarsely, "eef I 'unted the earth. Eef you 'ad waited to come until +to-night you would 'ave found zis little nest empty and ze bird flown. +There ees a better boob zan you. Perhaps you met 'im going out. 'E +marries me to-morrow. I vas to keep zat for a leetle surprise. Oh, yes, +I am clever, and eet kills me with laughing to zee you stand there like +a school teacher. You turn over a new leaf now, eh? Zat ees good. Zo do +I. To-morrow I am a wife. I marry a man. My time with babies ees over." + +She picked up a glass that was half-full of beer and with a gesture of +supreme contempt jerked it into Graham's face. Then, with the quickness +of an eel, she returned to her bedroom and slammed the door. They heard +her laughing uncontrollably. + +Graham wiped his face with his handkerchief, and dropped it on the floor +with a shiver. "I shan't want to borrow any money from you, Peter," he +said in a low voice. "Let's go." + +And they went out into the street together--into the sun, and took a +long breath of relief--a long, clean breath, untainted by stale tobacco +smoke and beer and the pungent scent of Ita Strabosck. + +Peter made no attempt to put into words his intense sympathy, but he +took his brother's arm and held it tight, and Graham was very grateful. +Right out of the very bottom of his heart two tears welled up into his +eyes as he walked away. + +After all, he was only twenty-four. + + +IV + +On her way up to her room that night, Ethel drew up short outside +Graham's bedroom door. She knew that he was in, which was in itself +unusual. She thought there must be something the matter, because she had +seen Graham leave the house in the morning long after his usual time. +She had also watched his face at dinner and had seen in it something +that frightened her. It was true that Peter was her favorite brother, +but she was very fond of and had great admiration for Graham. Also she, +herself, was in trouble. Trouble seemed to be an epidemic in that +family. Her Knight Errant next door, in spite of her signalling and the +fact that she had laid out as usual the cigarettes and the candies, had +deserted her. In order to receive his visits and feed herself on the +excitement with which they provided her, she was still maintaining her +pretence of invalidism, and the worst of it was she now knew that she +had grown to be very fond of the boy, who at first had only been a +source of amusement. + +So, with a fellow-feeling for Graham, she listened outside his door. She +wanted very badly to slip in and give her sympathy to her brother and +receive some of it from him. She didn't feel quite as individualistic as +usual. The artificiality of the flapper left her for the time being and +she felt as young as she really was and rather helpless, and awfully +lonely. + +Hearing nothing, she tapped gently on the door, opened it and went in. +Graham was sitting in an arm-chair with his elbows on his knees and his +head between his hands. He made a picture of wretchedness which would +have melted the heart of a sphinx. Ethel went over to him and put her +hand on his shoulder. "Is anything the matter, Hammie?" she asked, using +the nickname that she had given him as a child. + +Graham didn't look up. "Oh, Lord, no!" he said, with a touch of +impatience. "What should be the matter?" But he was very glad to feel +that touch of friendliness on his shoulders. + +"Can I do anything for you?" + +"Oh, no. I'm all right--as right as rain." + +Ethel knew better. She knew also that she would have said those very +things to Belle if she had been caught in a similar state of depression. +So she sat down on the arm of Graham's chair and put her hand against +his cheek. "I've got about a hundred and seventy-five dollars, if that's +any good to you," she said. + +Graham gave a scoffing laugh, but all the same he was very grateful for +the offer. "My dear kid," he said, "a hundred and seventy-five +dollars--that's no better than a dry bone to a hungry man." + +"Is it as bad as all that, Hammie?" + +"Yes, and then some." + +Ethel thought deeply for a few minutes. Her characteristic selfishness, +which had been almost tenderly encouraged at school, had given way +temporarily before her own disappointment. "Well," she said finally, +"I've got four brooches and five rings, a watch and a dressing-case. You +can sell them all if you like." + +Then Graham turned round, gave his little sister one short, affectionate +look and put his head down on her shoulder. "Don't say anything, +please," he said. "Just let me stay here for a minute. It does me good." + +And he stayed there for many minutes, and the two sat silently and +quietly, getting from each other in their mutual trouble the necessary +help which both needed so much. A strange, new feeling of motherliness +stole over the girl. It surprised her. It was almost like being in +church on Christmas Eve, or listening to the most beautiful melody. + +It was a long time since these two had taken the trouble to meet each +other half-way. The thoughts of both went back to those good hours when +Graham had put his little sister on a sled in front of him and pushed +her, laughing merrily, over the hard snow in the park. He had never even +dreamed in those days of money and the fever that it brings, or women +and the pain they make. + +And then Graham got up, just a little ashamed of himself,--after all, he +was now a man of the world,--and saw that Ethel's cheeks were wet with +tears. It was his turn to try and help. "Good Lord!" he said. "You don't +mean to say that you're worried about anything. What is it?" + +She shook her head and turned her face away. "Oh, nothing--nothing at +all." + +All the same she felt much, ever so much better for the kiss that he +gave her, and went along to her own room half-determined to be honest +with herself and go back to school the next day. She was rather startled +to find the smell of cigarette smoke in her bedroom, which was in +darkness. She turned up the nearest light and almost gave a cry of joy +when she found the boy from next door sitting on the window-sill. + +"Jack!" she cried. "I thought you were--I thought you had----" + +Jack threw his cigarette out of the window and got up awkwardly. "I got +your note just now," he said, "and so I've come." + +Ethel went to the door and locked it. All the clouds had rolled away. +She was very happy. She had evidently made a mistake. He must have been +prevented from coming. She wished he'd given her time to powder her nose +and arrange the curls about her ears. As it was, she opened the box of +cigarettes and held out the candies to him. + +"No, thanks," said Jack. "I'm off chocolates and I've knocked off +smoking to a great extent." + +With a womanly touch which she and all women have inherited from Eve, +who never forgot to stand with her back to the sun and took care, if +possible, to remain in the woods until after breakfast, Ethel turned on +a shaded light and switched off the strong overhead glare which made her +look every day of her fifteen years. Then she sat down with the light +over her left shoulder. She was quite herself again. All was well with +the world. + +"Where have you been?" she asked, a little imperiously. + +"Nowhere," said Jack. + +"Then why haven't you been to see me? I have signalled every night. I +can't understand it." + +"I know you can't. That's why I've stayed away." + +Ethel was puzzled at the boy's solemn tone. "Of course, if you don't +want to come, please don't. I wouldn't drag you here against your will +for anything." + +"Yes, but I _do_ want to come. I stay away for your sake, and I'm not +coming again after this evening." + +That was exactly what Ethel wanted to hear. She'd been afraid that Jack +had found some one else. Now she knew differently. "Don't be silly," she +said. "Have a cigarette. Come and sit on the sofa and don't let's waste +time." + +But Jack didn't move. He had gone back to the window-sill and remained +hunched up on the narrow ledge, holding on with both hands. "I'm off in +a minute," he said. "I'm just going to tell you one or two things +before I go. Would you like to hear them?" + +"If they're pleasant," she said. + +"Well, they're not pleasant." + +"Well, then, tell me." + +For a moment or two Jack remained silent. Perhaps he was trying to find +careful words into which to put his thoughts. When finally he spoke it +was with a suppressed emotion that sent a quiver through the quiet room. +"I can't stand coming here," he said. "I can't stand it. I don't know +what you are--whether you're a mere baby who knows nothing, or an +absolute little rotter. You tell me I can say what I think, so I'm going +to." He got up and went a little nearer to the sofa. "What d'you think +I'm made of? Look at yourself in the glass and then see whether you're +the sort of a girl who can let a man into her bedroom night after night +for nothing. I tell you I can't stand it. I stayed away, not because I +wanted to, but because I didn't want to do you any harm. I was a fool +for coming here at all. If I didn't believe that you are simply a silly +girl I'd stay to-night and come every night as I used to do, but I'm +going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Next time you signal to a +man take care to find out what he's made of and be a bit more careful. +There, now you've got it. Good night and good-bye. I've a darned good +mind to put the note you sent me to-night in an envelope and address it +to your mother. It would save some other fellow from a good deal of +unnecessary discomfort. I'm frightfully sorry to be so brutal, but I +don't believe you know what you're doing. Perhaps this'll be a lesson to +you." + +He turned quickly, swung himself out, went up the rope ladder hand over +hand and drew it up after him. + +Ethel closed her eyes and sat rigid. The boy might have planted his fist +in her face. + + +V + +Kenyon had taken Mrs. Guthrie and Belle to the Thirty-ninth Street +Theatre that night. A quiet little romantic play, quite unpretentiously +written, had found its way to that theatre either by accident or as a +stop-gap. The manager who put it there had arranged, even before the +opening performance, to replace it at the end of the week with something +which had a punch,--a coarse, vulgar, artificial piece of mechanism such +as he had been in the habit of producing all of his managerial life. His +intention to do this was strengthened by the press notices, which all +agreed that the new piece was a very little play about nothing in +particular and which made too great a demand upon the imagination of its +audience. That last remark of the critics was worth a million dollars to +the play's author. The theatre remained almost empty until the Friday +night of its first--and if the manager had anything to do with it--only +week. The scenery for the new production was already stacked on the +stage. But to the amazement of all concerned, except the author, the +theatre did business. The house was almost full and the box office was +so busy that the young man who looked after it,--a past-master in +rudeness,--became quite querulous. On Saturday night there was a full +house and the booking was so big for the following week that the notices +of withdrawal were taken down and the play with a punch had to find +another home. The manager, greatly put out, watched this little play +sail into a big, steady success, and whenever his numerous +acquaintances--he had no friends--caught him in an unbusy moment, he +would say: "I can't make it out. It beats me. Look at the notices. I +couldn't understand a word of the thing when I read it. I only put it +into the theatre to keep it warm. My word, I don't know what the public +wants." He didn't, and he never would. But the author knew. He had made +a play which appealed to the imagination of his audience. + +Peter had watched the party go to the theatre after an early dinner; had +seen Graham go up to his room and his father drive away to a meeting at +the Academy of Medicine; and then, anxious to be alone and think things +over, he too left the house for a long, hard tramp. He went into the +park and walked round and round the reservoir. The night was fine and +clear, and up in the sky, which was pitted with stars, a young moon lay +on her back. From all sides the music of traffic came to his ears in a +never-ceasing refrain, and high up he could see the numerous electric +signs which came and went with steady precision and monotony. Every now +and then he caught sight of the Plaza, whose windows all seemed to be +alight. It gave a peculiar touch of fantasy to that side of the Park. + +Peter found himself thinking of some of the things which Ranken Townsend +had said to him. Without bitterness, and certainly without anger, he +began to see something in the artist's bluntness which gradually made +him long, with a sort of boyish anguish, to go in to his own father. The +more he thought about this the more it seemed to him right and necessary +and urgent to beard the Doctor in his den and break down the curious +barrier which shyness had erected between him and his children. He +realized at that moment that he stood desperately in need of a father's +help and advice. It was quite obvious to him also that Graham needed +these things even more than he did. If only they could both go to that +wise and good man who stood aloof and get something more from him than +the mere money with which he was so generous. He knew--no one +better--that he always received from his mother the most tender +sympathy, but how could he discuss with her some of the things with +which he was faced since the Ita Strabosck episode had come into his +life? Kenyon had done much to make it plain to him that it was not good +to continue to walk in blank ignorance of the vital facts with which his +father dealt daily. He was a man and he had to live in the world. His +boyish days among boys were over. They belonged to the past. + +It was borne in upon him as he went round and round the wide stretch of +placid water in which was reflected the moon and stars, that his father +should know all about Graham. Certain things that Kenyon had said stuck +to his mind like burrs. If he could persuade Graham to make a clean +breast of it to the Doctor, the brother who meant so much to him might +be saved from a disaster which would not merely affect himself, but +others,--a wife and children perhaps. Kenyon had hinted at this and the +hint was growing in Peter's mind like an abscess. It was time that he +and his brother faced facts and knew them. Who could initiate them +better than the distinguished doctor whose life had been devoted to such +serious questions? + +Having brought himself up to this point and being also tremendously +anxious to tell his father of the position in which he stood with Mr. +Townsend, Peter determined to strike while the iron was hot--to go home +and see his father at once. He left the park quickly, and when finally +he let himself into the house was astonished to see how late it was. The +servant told him that his mother and sister had come back from the +theatre and had gone to bed. "Mr. Kenyon," he added, "came back, but +went out again at once. Mr. Graham went to bed early and the Doctor has +not returned yet." + +"Good!" thought Peter. "Then I'll wait for him." He gave up his hat and +stick, went through the quiet, dimly lit library, and after a moment's +hesitation opened the door of the Blue Room,--that room in which he had +been so seldom, hitherto only under protest. He had opened the door +quietly and was astonished to see Graham sitting at his father's desk +with the light from a reading lamp shining on his dark head. "By Jove, +Graham!" he said. "You must have been thinking my thoughts. This is +extraordinary." + +Graham looked up with a start and thrust something under the +blotting-pad. His face went as white as a sheet and he stammered a few +incoherent words. + +Quite unconscious of his brother's curious embarrassment, Peter sat on +the corner of the desk. "I've had it out with myself to-night," he said, +going, as he always did, straight to the point. "I've made up my mind to +make father into a father from now onwards. I can't stand this detached +business any longer. Let's both wait for him and have it out." + +"What d'you mean?" asked Graham. "I don't get you." He put his hand out +surreptitiously and scrunched up one of the sheets of note paper on +which he had been writing. + +"Listen!" said Peter, with intense earnestness. "I've got to know +things. So have you. I've got to have advice. I've got to be treated as +a human being. What's the good of our having a father at all if we don't +get something from him? I don't mean money and a roof, clothes and +things to eat. I mean help. I'm in a hole about Betty. I want to talk +about my work--about my future. Graham, let's give father a chance. Many +times he seems to me to have fumbled and been on the point of asking us +to meet him half-way. Well, I'm going to do so. Stay here and let's both +see it through. Have the pluck to tell him about your trouble and throw +the whole responsibility on him. It's his and he ought to have it. Wait +a second. Listen! If Ranken Townsend had been your father you never +would have gone near Papowsky. You wouldn't have come within a thousand +miles of Ita Strabosck--that's a certainty." + +Graham got up quickly, but kept his hand heavily on the blotting-pad. +"No," he said almost hysterically. "Count me out. I'm not in this. It's +no good our trying to alter father at this time of day--it's too late. +He's microbe mad. He knows nothing whatever about sons and daughters. I +could no more tell him about the mess I'm in than fly over the moon. +He'd turn and curse me--that's all he'd do. He'd get up and preach, or +something. He doesn't understand anything about life. I'd a jolly sight +rather go to mother, only I know it would hurt her so, and anyway my +story isn't fit for her ears. No; cut me out, I tell you. I'm not in +this." + +Peter got up and put his hands strongly on his brother's shoulders. He +didn't notice then how near he was to a breakdown. "Graham, old man, +you've _got_ to be--you've just _got_ to be. What Kenyon said is true. +You and I are blind and are damned children wandering about--stumbling +about. We need--we absolutely need a father more than ever we did in our +lives. So do Belle and Ethel. We all think that we can go alone, and we +can't. I know I'm right--I just know it--so you've got to stay." + +A puff of wind came through the open window. Several pieces of paper +fluttered off the desk and fell softly on the floor. Peter stooped and +picked them up. On them the words "Hunter G. Guthrie" had been written +over and over again. + +He laughed as he looked at them. "What on earth has father been writing +his name all over these sheets for? How funny! What a strange old chap +he seems to be. It's a sort of undergraduate trick, this,--practising a +signature before writing a first cheque." + +"Give 'em to me!" said Graham sharply, and he tried to snatch them away. +His voice was hoarse and his hand shook. + +Peter looked at him in great surprise. It was impossible for him not to +be aware of the fact that something was dreadfully wrong. As he stood +and looked into his brother's guilty face the fact which stood out most +clearly was that Graham had himself been writing his father's signature +all over those sheets of paper. Why? A man did a thing of that sort for +one reason only. + +He seized Graham's hand which was pressed on the blotting-pad, jerked it +up, pushed the blotting-pad aside and picked up the cheque-book that +laid beneath it. + +"Don't touch that," cried Graham, "for God's sake! Let me have it! I'll +tear out the cheque. I think I was mad. Oh, God! I'm so worried I didn't +know what I was doing!" + +There was a struggle, quick and sharp, and in an instant Graham found +himself staggering across the room backwards. + +With his heart standing still, Peter opened the thin, narrow, +brown-covered book. A cheque for three thousand dollars had been made +out to Graham Guthrie. The signature had been forged. + +"You've done this," he said. "You've actually--" + +Graham was up on his feet. His lips were trembling. He put out a shaking +hand. "My God!" he whispered. "Father's in the library." + +The sound of the Doctor's thin, clear voice came through the half-open +door. Frozen with fear, Graham seemed to be unable to move. His very +lips had lost their colour. + +With an overwhelming anxiety to hide his brother's frightful fall from +honesty and sanity, Peter pounced on the little book, thrust it into +Graham's pocket, snatched up the give-away slips of paper, tore them +into small pieces and threw them in the basket. + +"Don't give me away. Don't let him know. If you do, I swear to God +you'll never see me again!" + +There was still something to be done, and Peter did it. He took his +brother up in his arms, realizing that he was, in a way, paralyzed, +carried him to a chair that was out of the ring of light and sat him +down. "Get yourself in hand, quick," he whispered. "Quick, now!" + +And Graham, strengthened by his brother's vitality, forced himself into +some sort of control. + +Striding to the fireplace, Peter stood there waiting for his father, +with a strange pain going through his body. He felt just as though he +had been told that Graham, his best pal and dear brother, had had an +appalling accident and might not live. + +The Doctor's voice, as he gave directions to a servant, came nearer and +nearer. + + +VI + +With his hand on the handle of the door, the Doctor paused. "I want you +to call me to-morrow at half-past-seven, Alfred. Don't forget. I have a +busy day. Good-night." + +The two boys watched him come into the room. His head was high and there +was a little smile round his usually straight mouth. He walked with a +sort of sprightliness, as though moving to music. He looked +extraordinarily young and exhilarated. + +He saw what was to him a most unusual sight in that quiet, lonely +work-room. He was surprised into an exclamation of great pleasure, and +he quickened his pace until he stood between his sons. Graham got up and +put on a nervous, polite smile. "This's what I most wanted," said the +Doctor,--"my two boys waiting for me here in this room. I can't tell +you--I can't tell you, Peter, and Graham, how often, how strongly, how +eagerly I've wished to see you where you are now. I can't tell you how +I've longed to have you here after my meetings, to tell you how I'm +getting on, moving things forward, and to ask you share in my successes. +My dear Peter--my dear Graham." + +It was pitiful. The strange, almost incoherent outbreak of the shy man +nearly made Peter burst into tears. He would almost rather his father +had treated them coldly and with raised eyebrows. His present +attitude--his unhidden joy--his eager, and even wistful welcome, had in +it something of tragedy, because it showed all the waste of years during +which the sympathy and the complete, necessary and beautiful +understanding of these three might have been welded into one great, +insurmountable rock. + +The Doctor, with an obvious desire to play host,--an intuition which +again touched Peter deeply,--went quickly to a little chest which stood +in a corner of the room. "What will you have?" he asked anxiously. "I've +got a very good cigar here, or cigarettes if you would like them better. +Let me see! What do you smoke, Peter?" + +"He doesn't even know what I smoke," thought Peter. "A pipe," he said. + +"Oh, yes, yes! Well, this is generally said to be a very good mixture. +Try some." He gave a jar of tobacco to Peter. "These are nice, though +perhaps they are a little too dry." And he extended a box of cigars to +Graham. + +The boy helped himself, trying to keep his hand steady. "Thank you," he +said. + +"And now," said the Doctor, "let's sit down and have a long yarn. Shall +we? I would like to tell you about to-night. The meeting was of vital +interest and importance." He drew his chair forward so that it might be +between those of the two boys. He looked from Peter's face to Graham's +as though afraid that he was asking too great a favour. "You--you'll +forgive my talking about myself, I'm sure--at least I hope you will. I +so seldom have the opportunity,--with those I love, I mean--with those +for whom I'm working. To see you here like this, at last, makes me very +happy." He slipped his large glasses off and wiped them openly without +attempting to hide the fact that they had become suddenly useless to +him. + +A short silence followed--a silence in which the emotion with which the +room was charged could almost be heard. Peter threw a quick glance round +it, almost as though he expected to see the curious experimental tubes +turn and point accusingly at his brother. The laboratory was filled with +such tubes and other curious instruments,--all of them silent witnesses +of Graham's act of madness. + +The Doctor re-lit his cigar, put his glasses on again and clasped his +long, capable hands over one thin knee. "I wish I could even suggest to +you," he said--more naturally and with keen enthusiasm--"the intense +excitement that we bacteriologists are all beginning to feel. For years +and years we've been experimenting, and little by little our work is +coming to a definite head. Every time we meet we find that we've moved a +step further on the road to discoveries. It makes me laugh to think that +my early theories, which, only a few years ago, were scoffed at and +looked upon as dreams, are taking shape. It's been a long, uphill fight. +Science is beginning to win. It's all very wonderful." He noticed that +Graham's cigar had gone out. With extreme politeness, such as a man +would use to very welcome guests, he held out a box of matches. + +The boy took it. "I don't feel like smoking," he said, with a catch in +his voice. + +Something in his tone made the Doctor peer closely at him. "You look +pale, my dear lad," he said, "pale and tired. Aren't you well?" + +"Oh, yes; he's perfectly all right," said Peter hurriedly, trying to +steer his father to another subject. + +Graham threw his cigar away. "I'm not!" he cried, with a sudden, +uncontrollable outburst. "I feel as rotten as I am. I can't sit here and +listen to you, father. Don't be kind to me, I can't stand it." He put +his head down between his hands and burst out crying like a boy. + +The Doctor was startled. He got up quickly and stood hesitatingly. He +wanted to put his hands on the boy's shoulders, but the sudden breakdown +brought back his shyness. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Peter, do you +know?" + +Peter nodded. He then made up his mind to let things take their course. +"Let him tell you," he said. "This may be the turning point for all +three of us." + +Graham drew the cheque-book out of his pocket, opened it and threw it on +the desk under the reading lamp. "Look!" he said. "That's what I've come +to." + +For some moments the Doctor saw nothing but a cheque drawn by himself in +favor of his second son for three thousand dollars. The fact that he +didn't remember having made it out, and the fact that it was for so +large a sum made at first no impression upon him. He was so puzzled and +so taken back at the sudden outburst of emotion which had broken up what +he hoped was going to be a charming reunion that the sight of this +cheque conveyed nothing to him. Both his sons watched him closely, not +knowing what he would say or do. He was such a stranger to them--his +feelings and characteristics were so unknown to them that they found +themselves speculating as to the manner in which he would take this +dreadful piece of dishonesty. A great surprise was in store for them. + +When the Doctor realized what had been done,--that the signature on the +cheque was not his own, although it was very cleverly copied,--they saw +him wince and shut his eyes. After a moment of peculiar hesitation he +drew his chair up to the desk and sat down. Holding his breath, Peter +watched him tear the cheque out and quietly make out another for +precisely the same amount. Then the Doctor got up and stood in front of +Graham with the new cheque in his hand. All the sprightliness and +exhilaration with which he had entered the room had left him. He looked +old and thin and humble. His shoulders stooped a little and the cheque +trembled in his hand. + +"Am I such an ogre that my children are afraid to bring their troubles +to me?" he said, in a broken voice. "What have I ever done to deserve +this, Graham? You'd only to come to me and say that you needed money and +I'd have given it to you. Who am I working for? For whom have I always +worked?" He held out the cheque. "Take it, and if that isn't enough ask +me for more. I'd like to know why it is that you need it, if you'll be +good enough to tell me; but, for God's sake, don't hurt me like this +again." + +Without a word--without, indeed, being able to find a word,--infinitely +more crushed by this kindness than he would have been by an outburst of +anger and reproach,--Graham took the cheque, turned on his heel and left +the room, walking like a drunken man. + +Peter watched him go. There was a feeling of great relief in his heart. +Nothing that he could have done or said--nothing that Kenyon could have +said in his most forcible manner, with all the weight of sophistication +behind it, could have pulled Graham up and set him on a new path so well +as the unexpected generosity of his father and the few pathetic words +with which he underlined it. + +But when Peter turned round to his father with the intention of taking +him, for the first time, into his confidence and treating him as he +would have treated Ranken Townsend under the same circumstances, he saw +that the Doctor was crumpled up in his chair with his hands over his +face and his shoulders shaking with sobs, and so he held his peace; and +instead of obtaining the help that he needed so much he put his strong +arm round his father in a strange protective way, as though he were the +stronger man. + +"Oh, don't, father," he said. "Please don't." + + +VII + +There was a good reason why Kenyon didn't stay out his fortnight at Dr. +Guthrie's house. He had already begun to know several young men whose +very good feathers were waiting to be plucked. It was obviously +impossible for him to invite them to East Fifty-second Street, and it +became necessary, therefore, that he should take a bachelor-apartment in +which to set up business. There he could play cards until any hour that +suited him and settle down seriously to make his winter in New York a +success. Also, he confessed to himself, the atmosphere of the Doctor's +house was not conducive to his peace of mind or to his rigidly selfish +way of life. He hadn't come over to the United States in order to play +the fairy godmother, or even the family adviser to the young Guthries. +He had worked hard to clear the one thing out of Graham's life which had +rendered him useless, and he had had the satisfaction of seeing Peter's +engagement broken, for which admirable accident he was profoundly +grateful, because Peter also would now be free. In fact, these two +brothers could now easily be brought to concentrate upon Kenyon's +deserving case and take round to his apartment any friends of theirs who +enjoyed gambling and could pay when they lost. + +Kenyon possessed a neat and tidy brain. It was run on the same principle +as a well-organized business office. It had its metaphorical card +indexes, letter-files and such like; so that when he made up his mind +to go into his own quarters he gave the matter the closest and most +careful consideration. He paid several visits to the well-known bachelor +apartment-houses in and around West Forty-fourth Street. They would have +been very suitable but for the existence of irksome rules and +regulations as to ladies. He went further afield and, with Graham's +assistance, examined several apartments in private houses. What he +wanted was a place somewhere on the map where his breakfast would be +cooked especially for him at any hour he desired, and which would be +free of elevator boys, clerks, and the watchful eye of a manager. +Finally he discovered exactly such a place on the second floor of a +fairly large old-fashioned house in West Forty-eighth Street. In this +the elderly lady who, as Kenyon at once saw, was blessed with the +faculty of being able to look at things with a Nelsonian eye,--having, +poor soul, to earn her living,--lived in the basement with her parrot +and her Manx cat. Two young business men shared rooms on the first floor +and a retired professor--who spent the greater part of his time in the +country--rented the third floor. The servants slept in the attic. + +Into this house Kenyon moved,--much against the wishes of all the +Guthries, especially Belle,--the day after Peter's attempt to get in +touch with his father came to such an utter failure. He was very well +pleased with his quarters. They gave him elbow-room and freedom from the +responsibility of looking after another man's sons. The sitting-room, +arched in the middle, ran from the front to the back of the house and +it was well and discreetly furnished. There was a particularly nice old +Colonial mirror over the mantel-piece, and what prints there were +hanging on the walls were very pleasant. The bedroom across the passage +would have been equally large had it not been broken up to provide a +bath-room and a slip-room for baggage. + +Fate, however, with its characteristic impishness, interfered with +Kenyon's well-laid scheme. At the very hour when he was arranging his +personal photographs a cable addressed to him was delivered at Dr. +Guthrie's house. It so happened that Peter was in the hall when the +servant took it in, and he started off at once to take it round to his +friend. He was glad enough to seize any excuse to see Kenyon again. He +felt horribly at a loose end. Graham's affairs had completely upset him +and disarranged his plans. He was longing to see Betty, but was not +going back on his agreement with Ranken Townsend until such time as he +could make the artist eat his words; and, as to his father and his +endeavor to break down that apparently insurmountable barrier, he was +utterly disheartened and depressed. He was shown into Kenyon's rooms at +the moment when he was standing in front of a very charming photograph +of Baby Lennox which he had placed on the sideboard. It showed her in a +little simple frock, with a wide-brimmed garden hat, standing among her +roses with a smile on her face. She looked very young, pretty and +flower-like. + +"Hello, Peter!" + +"I've brought this cable round. Otherwise I wouldn't have rushed in on +you quite so soon." + +"My dear old boy," said Kenyon, "you know very well that you have the +complete run of whatever place I may be living in, at all hours of the +day and night. A cable for me, eh? What the devil--? I was jolly careful +to give my address here to very few people in England. Too many are +anxious to serve me with summonses. Baby Lennox is going to be married, +perhaps, and sends me the glad tidings. By Jove, I wonder who she's +nabbed!" He shot out a laugh and tore open the envelope. "Oh, my God!" + +"What is it?" asked Peter, anxiously. + +Kenyon held out the cablegram and remained standing rigid, with his +mouth open and his eyes shut, and his face as white as a stone. + +It was from Baby Lennox. "Your father died last night. A heart attack. +Come home at once." + +"Oh, my dear Nick!" said Peter. "My dear old boy! I can't tell you +how----" + +"No," said Kenyon; "don't say anything. Just sit down and wait for me. +Whatever you do, don't go." And he went out of the room and across the +passage to his bedroom, and shut himself in. + +Peter waited. The few cold, definite and even brutal words contained in +the cablegram would have hit him much harder and rendered his sympathy +for his friend very much more real if he could have felt what it would +have been to him to hear of the death of his own father. While he +waited, mechanically holding that slip of paper between his fingers, his +respect for his friend's grief widened into an odd and powerful feeling +of envy. The man who was dead had been infinitely more than a father. He +had been a friend and a brother as well. It made him sick and cold to +feel that the receipt of such a cablegram bringing to him the news of +the death of his own father would have moved him only to extreme +sympathy for his mother. He was ashamed and humiliated to realize that +no actual grief would touch him, because his father was nothing more +than a sort of kind but illusive guardian or a good-natured +step-father--altogether unused to children--who effaced himself as much +as he could and threw all responsibility upon his wife. + +It was an hour before Kenyon reappeared, and during that time--which +seemed to Peter no more than a few minutes--he went over again in his +mind the scene which had taken place in the Doctor's laboratory, out of +which he had gone stultified and thrown back upon himself. He was as +grateful as Graham had been for the Doctor's generosity, but appalled at +the thought that he had utterly failed to realize not only the gravity +of Graham's act, but the long years of parental neglect which made such +an act possible. It seemed to him that the way in which his father had +taken that deplorable incident was all wrong. He should not have written +another cheque. He should have had Graham up in front of him, strongly +and firmly, and tried him as a judge would have tried him if his act had +been discovered and dealt with by law. He should have gone into all the +circumstances which led up to the forgery and thereby have cleared the +way for a new understanding. As it was, his acceptance of it was so +weak that it gave Peter and Graham a feeling almost of contempt for that +too kind man to whom children were obviously without significance, and +the unmistakable knowledge that he was unable to understand his grave +responsibility and the fact that he, alone among men, must take the +blame for all their misdeeds and mistakes, because they had been allowed +to enter life unwarned, unguided and unhelped. The outcome to Peter of +this hour's bitter thought was finally this: That if news were brought +to him at that moment of his father's death the only sorrow that he +could feel would be at the fact that he felt no sorrow. + +When Kenyon came back into the room it was with his usual +imperturbability. He might merely have left it to answer the telephone +or interview the man who had come to collect his clothes to be ironed. +But his eyes were red. In his own peculiar way he had loved his father +and admired him. It was the first time that he had wept since he had +been a child. + +"Thanks, so much, for waiting, old boy," he said. "I hope you've been +smoking, or something." + +"No," said Peter; "I have things to think about too." + +Kenyon looked about, with a queer little smile. "I was just settling +down," he said. "Very decent room, this, isn't it? Well, well, there it +is. You never know your luck, eh?" + +"When will you sail, Nick?" + +"The first possible boat. Do you know anything about the sailings? Ah, +this paper will have it. I detest the sea and its everlasting monotony +and blandness, and the dull-bright propinquity that it forces upon one." +He opened the paper and searched among its endless columns for the +Shipping News. "Here we are. 'Trans-Atlantic Sailings.' I have a wide +choice, I see. There's a White Star and a Cunarder leaving to-morrow at +twelve-thirty. The _Olympic_, I see! That's good enough,--if she's not +full up. I'll see to it this afternoon. There's sure to be a cabin +somewhere at this time of year." + +"I shall miss you badly," said Peter. + +"Thanks, old man. I know you will. And I shall hate going. Well, well!" + +Peter picked up a book and put it down again; opened and shut a box of +cigarettes and pushed a bowl of flowers nearer the middle of the table. +"Do you want any--I mean, can I----?" + +Kenyon laid his hand on his friend's square shoulder. "Not this time, +Peter, old son. Thanks, awfully. I've had one or two good nights and my +pockets are full of dollars. They'll see me home with perfect comfort. +Well, here ends my visit to the United States. To-morrow night I shall +have left the hospitable Statue of Liberty behind me. But she'll see me +again. I'll dash round in the morning and thank your people for their +extreme kindness to me. You'll see me off, won't you?" + +"Yes," said Peter; "of course." + +"Of course. We won't dine to-night. I--I don't feel like it." + +"I understand, old man," said Peter. + +"So long, then." + +"So long," said Peter. + +"The Earl is dead!" said Kenyon, with a sudden break in his voice. "Long +live the Earl!" And he raised his hand above his head. + + +VIII + +Not for the first time in his comparatively short life, Nicholas Kenyon +was able to put to the test his often boasted power of self-control. It +was his creed to accept everything that might happen to him, whether +good or bad, with equanimity. It was part of his training to allow +nothing to interfere with the routine of his day and the particular +scheme that he had worked out for himself. He was, however, utterly +unprepared for his father's death. Only the day before he had received a +very cheerful and amusing letter from the Earl of Shropshire which had +provided him with many quiet chuckles. When the blow came in that sudden +fashion it knocked him down and for an hour reduced him to the level of +an ordinary human being--of a man who had not specialized in +individualism and who did not set the earth revolving round himself as +its hub. Shut up in his bedroom he gave way to his real and best +emotions, the genuineness of which surprised him. He was a master +egotist--a superindividualist--the very acme of selfishness. Therefore, +odd as it may seem, he was somewhat ashamed of his deep feeling, because +it proved to him that one of the links of his carefully forged chain of +philosophy was weak. He defined the word philosopher as one who is +profoundly versed in the science of looking after himself. + +As soon as Peter had left Kenyon's rooms, the new Earl of Shropshire +took himself in hand and "carried on" as they do in the Navy after +casualties, accidents and the issue of new orders. He continued to +arrange his photographs round the room. He considered that he might as +well make himself completely comfortable until the time came for him to +pack up again and leave the country. He called up Belle on the telephone +and had a little talk with her. He told her of his father's death and of +the fact that he would have to sail within the next twenty-four hours. +He listened with satisfaction to her cry of anguish, and arranged with +her to come to see him that evening. It appeared that she was engaged to +dine with some friends and go with them to hear Alfred Noyes read his +poems at the Æolian Hall. He insisted upon her keeping her engagement +and begged that she would come round to his rooms alone at eleven +o'clock. + +He didn't intend to leave the United States, even under such +circumstances, without adding Belle to his little list of conquests. The +cold-bloodedness of such an intention was peculiarly characteristic of +the man. "No weakness," he said to himself--"no weakness. No matter what +happens, what had happened, is happening or may happen, you must carry +on. You've built up a creed, stick to it." And then, very +quietly--having changed his tie to a black one--he went forth to +discover the offices of the White Star Steamship Company,--having +obtained the proper directions from his landlady. He took the subway to +the Battery, interviewed a clerk of Number One Broadway, had the good +fortune to find that there was a state-room vacant on the boat deck of +the _Olympic_; wrote his cheque for it; pocketed a bundle of labels; +paid Graham a brief visit in his office on Wall Street and walked all +the way home again, endeavoring to count the German names all along the +most amazing street in the world, and giving up his temporary hobby in +despair. On the way home he sent off a cable to Baby Lennox, giving her +the name of the ship on which he was to sail. By this time he was tired +and a little dazed at the amazing stir and bustle of Broadway, with its +never-ceasing lines of cable-cars and its whir and rush of human +traffic. He was glad of a cup of tea, and presently arranged himself for +a quiet nap on the sofa in his sitting-room. + +Later, with his mind concentrated solely on Belle's impending visit and +what he intended to achieve, he dined alone at the Ritz, dropped in to +see a turn or two at the Palace, and strolled back to Forty-eighth +Street at half-past-ten. As he went into the house he heard the landlady +talking to the two young business men who lived on the first floor. She +was asking them to be good enough not to play the piano that evening, as +the Professor had come back from the country and was very unwell. She +had sent for the doctor, and he would be more comfortable if the house +were as silent as it could be made. + +Knowing that Belle would be punctual that night, of all nights, he went +down just before eleven o'clock and waited for her at the front door. It +was his intention to get her into the house unobserved, more for his own +sake than for hers. The night was clear, but half a gale was blowing, +carrying before it all the dust of the city and sending odd pieces of +paper swirling into the air and making the hanging signs outside shops +and small restaurants creak and groan. In its strong, vibrating song +there was a note of wild passion that fitted exquisitely into Kenyon's +frame of mind. + +Belle drove up in a taxicab a few minutes after eleven. "Not a word +until we get upstairs," said Kenyon, as he helped her out. And then when +she stood in his sitting-room, with all her emotions in a state of +upheaval, nothing was said for many minutes. He took her in his arms and +kissed her, delighting in her young beauty and freshness with all the +appreciation of a connoisseur. + +There seemed to Belle to be no indiscretion in this visit. Was she not +engaged to be married to this man? + +As a matter of fact, she was not. Kenyon had been playing with her; and +now that he had succeeded to his father's title he had even less +intention of dealing seriously by her than ever before. Marriage was not +in his thoughts or plans. The title was his and the old house that went +with it, but he was no better off than he had been as Nicholas Kenyon, +the Oxford undergraduate. On the contrary he now had responsibilities of +which he had hitherto been free and he must look out for some one who +could buy his name for a substantial sum. If Belle had read into his +vague and indefinite remarks a proposal of marriage it only showed that +she possessed a very lively imagination. He was not going at that point +to undeceive her. He was merely going to take from her everything that +she was gracious enough to give. His trip to New York had provided him +with very little in actual substance. He was determined that it should +not be altogether empty, and that Belle should furnish him with a +charming memento. + +He broke into Belle's preliminary remarks of conventional condolence by +saying, "Thank you; but please don't say a word about my father. Let's +talk about ourselves. We're alive. The next few hours are our property. +Let's make them memorable. Let's give each other something that we can +never forget." And he took her cloak and led her to a chair as though +she were a queen, and stood looking at her with very greedy eyes. + +But Belle's temperament was Latin. Ever since Kenyon had spoken to her +over the telephone she had been unable to control her feelings. She +loved this man overwhelmingly. She had given him all her heart, which +had never been touched before. To her it seemed amazingly cruel that +fate had come along with its usual lack of sympathy and circumspection +and put a sudden end to all the delightful hours to which she had been +looking forward. The death of a man whom she didn't know meant very +little to her. She was young, and to the young what is death but a vague +mystery, an inconvenient accident which seems to affect every one but +themselves? Indeed, she rather resented the fact that Kenyon's father, +in dying, was to take so suddenly out of her life the one human being +about whom her entire happiness revolved. + +"Oh, Nicholas, Nicholas! Must you go? Must you leave me? Let me go with +you. I have the right. I shall be miserable and unhappy without you." +And she clung to him with all the unreasonableness of a child. + +Kenyon was not in the least touched by this appeal--only extremely +pleased, because it showed him that Belle was in the right mood to be +won. He put his hand on her round, white shoulder. "You must be brave," +he said. "I know how you feel, but you must help me. Don't make things +more difficult than they are. I may be able to come back quite +soon,--who can tell?" + +"I believe you're glad to go!" cried Belle. + +Kenyon drew back. He wanted to make her feel that she had hurt him. He +succeeded. + +In an instant, full of self-reproach, Belle was on her feet and in his +arms again. "What am I going to do without you? I almost wish you'd +never come into my life. I've been looking forward to your being here +the whole winter. How am I going to get through the days alone?" + +A motor-car drew up at the house. Neither of them heard Dr. Guthrie's +voice giving a quick order to the chauffeur or recognized his step as he +passed upstairs on the way to see his friend, the Professor, on the +floor above, to whom he had been called by the landlady. + +Presently, having turned out all the lights except a shaded lamp on the +table, Kenyon began to let himself go. He threw aside his characteristic +calmness and became the lover--the passionate, adoring man who was about +to be separated, under tragic circumstances, from the girl who was +equally in love. He threw aside his first intention of finessing Belle +into his bedroom on the plea of asking her to help him to pack. He +remembered that the old man above was ill and that the landlady and +others would be passing to and fro. This was distinctly annoying. He +was, however, a past-master in the art that he was at present pursuing +and set the whole of his mind on his opportunity. Belle was, naturally +enough, as putty in his hands and her despair at losing him made her +weak and pliable. + +He sat down on the sofa and held Belle in his arms and kissed her again +and again. "I love you! I love you! I don't know--I can't think what I +shall be like without you," he said, bringing all his elaborate cunning +to play upon her feelings. "More like a man who's lost his arms than +anything; and we were to have come nearer and nearer this winter, +finding out all the best of each other and all the joy that it is to +love wholly and completely." + +"Oh, don't go, don't go!" cried Belle, making a pathetic and almost +child-like refrain of the words, "I love you so! I love you so!" + +Kenyon bent down with her until her head was pillowed on the cushions, +and kissed her lips and eyes. "You must love me, sweetheart, you must. +It's the only thing that I can turn to and count on now. Go on loving +me every minute that I'm away. I shall need it,--and before I go let me +have the precious proof of your love to store up in my heart. Give me +the priceless gift that is the only thing to keep me living till I come +back." + +"Nicholas, Nicholas!" she whispered, with her young breasts heaving +against him. "I love you so! I love you so!" + +The moment of his triumph had almost been reached when the Doctor, on +his way down, saw something glistening in the passage outside Kenyon's +sitting-room. He stooped and picked it up. He was puzzled to see that it +was a little brooch that he had given to Belle on one of her birthdays. +Her initials had been worked on it in diamonds. For several moments he +held it in his hand, wondering how it could have been dropped in that +place. He was utterly unaware of the fact that Kenyon lived in the house +which he knew to be given up to bachelors. Then the blood rushed into +his head. Almost for the first time in his life the Doctor acted on the +spur of the moment. He was filled with a sudden sense of fear before +which his inherent shyness and hesitancy were swept completely away. He +tried to open the door. It was locked. He hammered upon it, shouting: +"Let me in! Let me in!" + +Kenyon, cursing inwardly, sprang up from the sofa. "It's your father," +he said. "Go and sit by the table, quick, and pretend to be arranging +these photographs." He could have ignored that knocking, but the result +would be that the Doctor would go down to the landlady and there would +be a scandal. How in the name of thunder did he know that Belle was in +the room? He dashed over to the mantel-piece, collected a handful of his +pictures and threw them on the table in front of Belle, who, with a +touch of panic, tried to smooth her hair. Then he went to the door and +opened it. + +"Good evening, Doctor," he said quietly. "This is very kind of you. +Belle is here helping me to pack, and Peter should have been here, but I +expect something has detained him. Do come in." He saw the brooch in the +Doctor's hand and cursed Belle's carelessness. + +As Dr. Guthrie entered the room the blood slowly left his head. A +feeling of intense relief pervaded him. He saw Belle sitting at the +table with the utmost composure putting one photograph on top of +another. At his side stood the man who had recently been his honored +guest and who was the best friend of his eldest son,--the man of whose +sad loss he had heard that afternoon from his wife. He thanked God that +everything was well and hastened to accept Kenyon's suggestion that he +had come there for the purpose of saying good-bye to him. It saved him +from the appearance of having lost his head and made a fool of himself. +"I--I'm indeed grieved to hear of your father's death, my dear Mr. +Kenyon," he said, stammering a little. "I was called to see an old +friend of mine who lives in this house, who isn't at all well, and I +thought I'd take the opportunity on my way down----" + +"I'm deeply obliged to you," said Kenyon, giving the weak, nervous man +before him the credit of having seized the hint so quickly. "It helps me +very much to have so many good friends. I sail to-morrow at two-thirty. +This is a good opportunity for me to thank you very much for your +delightful hospitality. Will you wait for Peter?" + +"No; I think not, thanks," said the Doctor. "It's getting late and, as +you say, Peter has in all probability been detained. Belle, dear, I +think you'd better come with me, now." + +Kenyon was still quite placid and courteous and undaunted. "Oh, but +mayn't she stay until Peter turns up?" + +"I think not," replied the Doctor, astonished at his own firmness. "It's +very late." + +"Curse it! Curse it!" cried Kenyon, inwardly. But with a little smile he +went over to Belle and gave her his hand. "You've helped me a lot," he +said. "I can easily finish packing now. Good night and good-bye." + +Choking back her sobs and full of resentment at her father's clumsiness +and interference, Belle rose and allowed Kenyon to help her into her +cloak. + +By a strange accident she, like Graham, had been saved from a disaster +which might have followed her into the future. God's hand must have been +stretched out to help that man, who, by his unconscious neglect, had +made it possible for these two children of his to stand on the brink of +irreparable misfortune. + +Kenyon, keeping up a quiet flow of conventional remarks, followed them +down-stairs and out into the street. He could have drawn Belle back into +the hall while the Doctor went out to the car, and kissed her once +again. But,--it was over, what was the use. He watched her fling herself +into the motor-car and sit all hunched up with her hands over her face, +and then he took the Doctor's hand and shook it warmly. All the angels +in Heaven must have shuddered as he did so, and cried, "Judas! Judas!" + +"Good-bye again, then," said the Doctor. "I'm deeply sorry for the +reason that takes you away from us. I hope we may see you again soon." + +"I hope so, too," said Kenyon. + +Standing in that quiet street he watched the automobile drive away, and +cursed. His mind was filled with impotent rage. He felt as he did when +he was a child and some one had hurt him. He wanted to find the thing +which that some one treasured most and break it all to pieces, and stamp +on it. Then he returned to his rooms, switched on all the lights, and +with a gesture almost animalish in its baffled passion, swept all the +photographs from the table. + +He was kicking them savagely, one after another, when he heard the +whistle which he and Peter had used at Oxford to attract each other's +attention. He ran to the window and opened it. There stood Peter with a +glint of moonlight on his great square shoulders. + +"Come up!" said Kenyon. "By God, my luck's come back! Now I can make +that old fool pay for ruining my evening!" + + +IX + +With a fiendish scheme in the back of his head and with a most +unpleasant smile on his face, Kenyon went over to the sideboard. He +brought out two glasses. In one he mixed a whiskey high-ball and in the +other he poured a concoction of neat whiskey and brandy, adding +everything else that his bottles contained,--a mixture calculated to +dull the senses even of the most hardened drinker. Then he waited--still +with this unpleasant smile upon his face. + +When Peter came in he looked tired and pale. His boots were covered with +dust and there were beads of perspiration on his forehead. "I saw that +you were up," he said, "so I whistled. If you hadn't called out I should +have gone home. Hope you don't mind." + +"Mind!" cried Kenyon. "I never was so glad to see anybody in my life. +You look like a tramp. Where've you been?" + +Peter threw his hat on the sofa and sat down heavily. "I wasn't in the +mood to go home to dinner. I've been walking hard ever since I saw you. +God knows where I've been. At one time I stood under the apartment-house +in Gramercy Park. It's a wonder I didn't go up and have it out again +with Ranken Townsend. But it wouldn't have been any use." + +"Not the smallest," said Kenyon. "You'd only have given him the +satisfaction of standing on his hind-legs and preaching to you. Will you +have something to eat?" + +Peter shook his head. + +"Well, then, have a drink." And he put the poison in front of Peter. "I +was going to drink to myself,--a rather dull proceeding alone. Now you +can join me. On your feet, Peter, old man, and with no heel-taps, I give +you 'the new Peer! The most decorative member of England's +aristocracy,--Nicholas Augustus Fitzhugh Kenyon, Eighth Earl of +Shropshire, master of Thrapstone-Wynyates--the man without a shilling!' +Let it go!" + +Peter stood up, clinked his friend's glass with his own, emptied it and +set it down. "Good Lord!" he said, with a frightful grimace. "What in +thunder was that?" + +Kenyon burst into a derisive laugh. "'Some drink,' as you say over here. +Away goes your water-wagon, Master Peter. Off you come from your self +made pedestal. Drunk and incapable will be the words that will presently +be very fitly applied to you, my immaculate friend." And he laughed +again, as though it were a great joke. It would do him good to see Peter +"human," as he called it, for once, to satisfy his sense of revenge--to +pay out Dr. Guthrie for his cursed interference. + +Peter was glad to get back to his chair. "I don't care what happens to +me," he said. "What does it matter? I've got nothing to live for--a +father who doesn't care a damn what becomes of me, and a girl who's +given me up without a struggle." + +He had had nothing to eat since the middle of the day. He was mentally +and physically weary. Although he was unaware of the fact, he had +caught a severe chill. It was not surprising that the horrible +concoction which Kenyon had deliberately mixed went straight to his +head. + +Everything vile lying at the bottom of Kenyon's nature had been stirred +up. At that moment he cared nothing for his friend's repeated +generosity, his consistent loyalty and his golden friendship. With a +sort of diabolical desire to amuse himself and see humiliated in front +of him the man who had stuck to his principles so grimly, he filled his +glass again, to make certainty doubly certain. "This time," he cried, +"I'll give you another toast. Come on, now. On your feet again, and +drink to 'that most charming family, the Guthries, and in particular to +the eldest son--to the dear, good boy who has run straight and never +been drunk, and has treated women with such noble chivalry. In a word, +to Peter, the virgin man.'" He raised his glass, and so did Peter. This +time the stuff almost choked him and he set his glass down only half +empty. But he put on a brave front and sat up straight, laughing a +little. "Nice rooms, these," he said. "Large and airy. Bit nicer than +our first rooms at Oxford, eh?" How different this hideous poison made +him look. Already he was like a fine building blurred by mist. + +"It's extraordinary what you dry heroes can do when you try," said +Kenyon. "All I hope is that you'll come face to face with your fond +parent presently when you fumble your way into your beautiful home." He +bent down and picked up his photographs and went on talking as though to +himself. "Yes, there's some satisfaction in making others pay. I've +tried it before, and know. I remember that plebeian little hunx at +Oxford who was going into the Church. His name was Jones,--or something +of the sort. I think he was a damned Welshman. He once called me a 'card +sharp.' I didn't forget it. The first night he turned up in his Parson's +clothes I doped him and he woke up next morning in the gutter. I loved +it. Now, then, Peter, give me a hand with these things and bring them +across the passage to my bedroom." He pointed to some books and left the +room with his photographs. + +Peter got up unsteadily and rocked to and fro. He picked up the books as +he was directed and staggered after his friend. He lurched into the +bedroom and stood in the doorway, supporting himself. "I'm--I'm drunk," +he said, thickly. "Hopelessly drunk. Wha--what the devil have you done +to me?" + +Kenyon burst out laughing. Many times he had threatened to do this for +his friend, whose attitude of consistent healthiness and simplicity had +always irritated him. He delighted at that moment in seeing Peter all +befogged and helpless and as wholly unable to look after himself as +though he were a baby. + +"Now you'd better go," he said sharply. He was tired with the episode. +"I'm sick of the Guthries! Go home and cling to your bed while it chases +round the room. I'll have mercy on you however to this extent. I'll put +you in a taxi. There's sure to be one outside the hotel down the street. +Come on, you hulking ex-Oxford man. Lean on me. Rather a paradox, isn't +it? Hitherto I've always leaned on you." He got his visitor's hat and +jammed it on his head, all cock-eyed. And then, still talking and +jibeing and sneering, he led the uncertain Peter down-stairs. + +There were two taxicabs drawn up outside the hotel to which Kenyon had +referred. He shouted and waved his hand. A chauffeur mounted his box, +manoeuvred the car around and drove up, glad to get a fare. + +As he did so, a night butterfly flitted past, on her way home. She had +had apparently an unsuccessful evening, for she stopped at the sight of +these two men. Her rather pretty, thin, painted face wore an eager, +anxious look. "Hello, dearie!" she said, and touched Kenyon on the arm. + +"By Jove!" said Kenyon to himself. "By Jove!" + +He was struck with a new inspiration. He had made his friend drunk. +Good! Now he would send him off with a woman of the streets. That would +complete his evening's work in the most artistic fashion, and render +Peter human at last. And who could tell? It might hit the Doctor fair +and square,--"the tactless, witless, provincial fool." + +"Wait a second," he said to the girl, and with the able assistance of +the driver put the almost inanimate and poisoned Peter into the cab. +Then he turned. The night bird was eyeing him with a curious +wistfulness. She was too smartly dressed and the white tops of her high +boots gleamed sarcastically. "Well, dearie?" + +"There's a customer for you," said Kenyon, jerking his finger towards +the cab. "Take him home. He has money in his pocket. Help yourself." + +The girl gave the driver her address--which was somewhere in the +Sixties--and then, with a little chuckle, jumped in and drew the door to +behind her with a bang that echoed through the sleeping street. + +The cab drove away, and Kenyon's laugh went after it. + +He was revenged. + + +X + +But for the chauffeur, a burly and obliging Irishman, Nellie Pope's +unwilling and unconscious customer would never have reached her rooms. +They were on the top floor of a brown-stone house which had no elevator. +The struggle to earn his own daily bread made the chauffeur sympathetic. +So he got Peter over his shoulder, as though he were a huge sack, and +carried him step by step up the narrow, ill-lit, echoing staircase. On +the top landing he waited, breathing hard, while the girl opened the +door with her latch-key. + +"Where'll I put him?" + +"Bring 'im into the bedroom," said the girl. "I'm sure I'm obliged to +you for the trouble you've taken, mister. You'll 'ave a glass of beer +before you go down, won't you?" + +"Sure!" + +He lumped Peter on to the bed with an exclamation of relief. It groaned +beneath his dead weight. Mopping his brow and running his fingers +through a shock of thick, dry hair, the Irishman looked down at the +great body of his own customer's evening catch. "I guess I've seen a +good many drunks before," he said, "but this feller's fairly paralyzed. +It's a barrel he must have had, or perhaps he's shot himself with one of +them needle things. Anyway, he's a fine-looking chap." + +Nellie Pope, who had heard these remarks as she was pouring out a bottle +of beer,--it was one of those apartments in which every sound carries +from room to room and in which when you are seated in the kitchen it is +possible to hear a person cleaning his teeth in the bathroom,--went in +and stood at the elbow of the chauffeur. Switching on a light over the +bed she peered into Peter's face. Her own lost most of its prettiness +under the glare. There were hollows and sharpnesses here and there, the +roots of the hair round her temples were darker than the too-bright gold +of the rest of it. There was, however, something kind, and even a little +sweet about her English cockney face and shrewd eyes. "Yes 'e's a fine +looking chap, isn't 'e,--a bit of a giant, too, and looks like a +gentleman. Poor boy, I wonder what that feller did to 'im!" She put her +hand on Peter's head and drew it back quickly. "'E's got a fever, I +should think. It looks as if I should 'ave to play nurse to-night. Oh, I +beg pardon, mister, 'ere's your beer." + +The Irishman took the glass, held it up against the light, made a +curious Kaffir-like click with his tongue and threw back his head. "I +guess that went down fine," said he. "One dollar and ten cents from +you, Miss, and I'll make no charge for extras." He held out a great +horny hand. + +Nellie Pope opened her imitation gold bag. "Bin out o' luck lately," she +said. "Don't know whether I've got--No, I 'aven't. Oh, I know!" With a +little laugh she bent over Peter again and hunted him over for some +money. Finding a small leather case she opened it. It contained a wad of +bills. With a rather comical air of haughty unconcern she handed the +chauffeur two dollars. "Keep the change," she said. + +He laughed, pocketed the money, handed back the glass and went off, +shutting the door behind him. + +Miss Pope, who had a tidy mind as well as an economical nature, took the +glass into the kitchen and finished the bottle herself. And then, +without removing her hat and gloves she sat down and counted the money +that was contained in the case. "One hundred and twenty-five dollars," +she said. "Some little hevening!" + +She put the case into her bag, where it lay among a handkerchief, +steeped in a too-pungent scent, a small, round box of powder, a stick of +lip salve, and a few promiscuous dimes. Then she took off her hat--a +curious net-like thing round which was wound two bright feathers--her +coat and her gloves. The latter she blew out tenderly, almost with +deference. They were white kid. All these she put very carefully on a +scrupulously clean dresser. Singing a little song she arranged a meal +for herself on the table,--having first laid a cloth. Bread, butter and +sardines made their appearance, with the remains of a chocolate cake +which had been greatly to the taste of her last night's customer, who +had not been, however, a very generous person. Extremely hungry, she sat +down and, with the knowledge that her purse was full, laid on the butter +with a more careless hand than usual. While she ate she enjoyed the +bright dialogue of Robert Chambers in a magazine which, having first +broken its back in order to keep it open, she propped up against a bowl. +Half way through the meal, she jumped up suddenly. "'Ere!" she said. +"You can't leave that poor boy like that, you careless cat, and 'im +lying with a fever!" She went swiftly into the bedroom, and once more +stood looking down at the inert form of poor old Peter. Then she laughed +at the difficulty of taking off his clothes, and with a shrug of her +shoulders started pluckily at his boots. She hung the coat and waistcoat +over the back of one of the chairs,--there were only two,--and having +folded the trousers with great care, returned to her supper. It was +after two o'clock when finally she crept quietly into bed. + + +XI + +A little over twenty-four years before, Nellie Pope had been born to two +honest, hard-working country folk. They lived in a village of about two +dozen cottages a stone's throw from the great cross cut by the Romans on +the chalky side of Chiltern Hills, in England. Her parents' quiver had +already been a full one and there was indeed very little room in it for +the new arrival. Eight other boys and girls had preceded her with a +rapidity which must have surprised nature herself, bounteous as she is. +The father, a deep-chested, brown-bearded, very ignorant, but +good-natured man, worked all the year round on a farm. His wages were +fourteen shillings a week. The wife, who had been a domestic servant, +added to the family pot by taking in washing and, if able, helping at +the big house when guests were there. Neither of them had ever been +farther away from their native village than the town which lay in the +saucer of the valley, the steeple of whose church could be seen glinting +in the sun away below. + +Little Nellai, as she was called, was thrown on her own resources from +the moment that she could crawl out of the narrow kitchen door into the +patch of garden where potatoes grew and eager chickens played the +scavenger for odd morsels of food. Her eldest sister was her real +mother, and it was she who daily led her little brood of dirty-faced +children out into the beech forest which stood in strange silence behind +the cottage. The monotonous years slipped by one after another, +enlivened only by a death or a birth or a fight, or a very occasional +jaunt to the town in one of the farm wagons, perched up on a load of hay +or wedged in between sacks of potatoes. Little Nellai's pretty face and +fair hair very soon made her a pet of the lady at the big house, and it +was from this kind, but mistaken person, from whom she obtained the +seeds of discontent which at the early age of sixteen sent her into the +town as a "help" in the kitchen of a man who kept a garage. It was from +this place, on the main road to London, that Nellie Pope saw life for +the first time and became aware of the fact that the world was a larger +place than the little village perched up so near the sky, and caught the +fever of discovery from the white dust that was left behind by the cars +which sped to London one way, and to Oxford the other. + +During this first year among shops and country louts, Nellie became +aware of the fact that her pretty face and fair hair were very valuable +assets. They procured her candies and many other little presents. They +enabled her to make a choice among the young men with whom to walk out. +They won smiles and pleasant words not only from the chauffeurs of the +cars which came into her master's garage to be attended to, but also +from their owners. Eventually it was one of these--more unscrupulous +than most--who, staying for a few days at the "Red Lion," carried Nellie +away with him to London, after several surreptitious meetings in the +shady lane at the back of the churchyard. There it was that she saw life +with very naked eyes, passed quickly from one so-called protector to +another, was taken to the United States by one of a troupe of gymnasts, +and then deserted. For two years she had been numbered among the night +birds who flit out after dark--a member of the oldest profession in the +world. There were, however, no moments in her life--hard, terrible and +sordid as it was--when she looked back with anything like regret at +those heavily thatched cottages which stood among their little gardens +on the side of the hills. She could put up with the fatigue, brutality +and uncertainty, the gross actuality of her present life, with courage, +cheerfulness and even optimism, but the mere thought of the deadly +monotony of that peaceful village, where summer followed winter with +inexorable routine, made her shudder. The first pretty frock which had +been given her by the lady of the big house had begun the work. The +candies and the little presents from the country louts had completed it; +and here she was, still very young, with a heart still kind and with a +nature not yet warped and brutalized,--a danger to any community in +which she lived, the deliberate spreader of something so frightful that +science and civilization stood abashed in her presence. + +Vanity has much to answer for, and out of nature spring many plants +whose tempting berries are filled with poison. + +It was in the bed of this wretched little woman that the unconscious +Peter slept that night. + +It was ten o'clock in the morning when the weary girl faced another day. +She didn't grumble at the fact that she had been frequently disturbed +and had watched many of the hours go by while she attended to Peter with +something of the spirit of a Magdalen. She kept repeating to herself: +"Poor boy! Poor boy! I wonder what his mother would say if she saw him +like this." + +She bathed his head, listened with astonishment to his babbling, and +tried to piece together his incoherent pleading with Ranken Townsend and +his declarations to Betty of his everlasting love. She listened with +acute interest to the broken sentences which showed her that this great +big man-boy was endeavoring to stir up his father to do something which +seemed to him to be urgent and vital, and she wondered who Graham was, +and Nicholas. + +The first thing that she did when she was dressed and had put the kettle +on her gas stove to boil, was to hunt through Peter's pockets to find +out who he was. It was obvious to her that he was not so much a customer +as a patient. She was a little afraid of accepting the whole +responsibility of his case. The only letter she found was one signed +"Graham," headed with the address of an office in Wall Street. In the +corner of it was printed a telephone number. Graham, it was plain to +her, was a Christian name. She could find no suggestion of the surname +of the writer or of the man who lay so heavily in the next room. + +"I dunno," she said to herself. "Something has got to be done. That +boy's in a bad way. 'E's as 'ot as a pancake and I shouldn't think 'e's +used to drink by the way 'e takes it. Suppose hanything should 'appen to +'im 'ere. I should look funny. What 'ad I better do?" + +What she did was to have breakfast. During this hasty meal she thought +things over--all her hard-won practicality at work in her brain. Then +she put on her befeathered hat and her white gloves, a second-best pair +of shoes, and went out and along the street, and into the nearest drug +store. Here she entered the telephone booth and asked for the number +that was printed on Graham's note. By that time it was just after nine +o'clock. Having complied with the sharp request to slip the necessary +nickel into the slot, an impatient voice recited the name of the firm. +"I want to speak to Mr. Graham," she said. "No such name--? Well, keep +your 'air on, Mister. I may be a client--a millionaire's wife--for all +you know. I'm asking for Mr. Graham and as 'e's a friend of mine, and +probably your boss, I'm not bothering about his surname. You know that +as well as I do--Do I mean Mr. Graham Guthrie? Well, yes. Who else +should I mean?" She gave a chuckle of triumph. "All right! I'll 'old +on." + +In a moment or two there was another voice on the telephone. "How d'you +do?" she said. "I'm holding a letter signed by you, to 'Dear +Peter,'--Ah! I thought that would make you jump--It doesn't matter what +my name is. What's that--? Yes, I _do_ know where he is. I've been +looking after 'im all night. Come up to my place right away and I'll be +there to meet you. Dear Peter is far from well." She gave her address, +and feeling immensely relieved left the box. But before she left the +store she treated herself to a large box of talcum powder and a +medium-sized bottle of her favorite scent, paying the bill with Peter's +money. She considered herself to be fully justified. + +On the way home she dropped into a delicatessen shop and bought some +sausages, a bottle of pickles, a queer German salad of raw herring +chopped up with carrots and onions, and carried these away with her. On +her way up-stairs--the bald, hard stairs--she was greeted by a +half-dressed person whose hair was in curl-papers and who had opened her +door to pick up a daily paper which lay outside. "Hello, Miss Pope! +Anything doing?" "Yes," said Nellie Pope, "the market's improving," and +she laughed and went on. + +Peter was still lying inert when she bent over him once more. She felt +his head again, put the covers about his shoulders, pulled the blind +more closely over the window, and after having put the food away +returned to make up her face. She wasn't going to be caught looking what +she called "second-rate" by this Mr. Graham Guthrie when he came. + +There being no need to practice rigid economy at that moment, she gave +herself a glass of beer and sat down to pass the time with her magazine, +in which life was regarded through very rosy spectacles. + +When finally she opened the door, in response to a loud and insistent +ring, her answer to Graham's abrupt question: "Is my brother _here_?" +was "Yes; why shouldn't he be?" She didn't like the tone. The word +"here" was underlined in an unnecessarily unpleasant manner. + + +XII + +"What's my brother doing here?" asked Graham. + +"What d'you s'pose? Better go and ask 'im yourself." + +"Where is he?" + +"In bed, if you must know." The girl answered sharply. She found her +caller supercilious. She followed him into the bedroom, telling herself +that this was a nice way to be treated for all the trouble that she had +taken. + +Graham bent over the bed. "Good God!" he said. "What's the matter with +him?" + +"Drink!" said the girl drily. + +"Drink! He never drinks." + +"Then 'e must 'ave fallen off the water-wagon into a barrel of alcohol +and opened 'is mouth too wide. Also 'e's got a fever." + +Graham turned on the girl. "How did he get here?" + +"In a cab. You don't s'pose I carried 'im, d'you?" + +"Where'd you find him?" + +"I didn't find 'im. Some one gave 'im to me as a present--a nice +present, I must say." + +"Don't lie to me!" cried Graham. "And don't be impudent." + +"Impudent!" cried Nellie Pope, shrilly. "Here, you'd better watch what +you're saying. I don't stand any cheek, I don't, neither from you nor +anybody else, and I'm not in the habit of lying. I tell you I was made a +present of 'im. I was told to take 'im 'ome by a young fellow on +Forty-eighth Street, who 'ad called up a cab." + +"Forty-eighth Street,--are you sure?" + +"Well, if I don't know the streets, who does? The young fellow was a +gent. He didn't talk, he gave orders. He was tall and slight and he 'ad +kinky hair. Quite a nut. English, he was, any one could tell that." + +"Good God!" thought Graham--"Kenyon." He sat down on the bed as though +he had received a blow in the middle of his back. Only an hour before he +had telephoned to Kenyon to say good-bye and wish him a pleasant +crossing, and all that he said about Peter was that they had seen each +other the night before. "No doubt he's all right," he had said, in +answer to Graham's anxious question. What did it all mean? What foul +thing had Kenyon done? + +Graham had been up all night waiting for his brother. He had good news +for him. He had pulled himself together and gone to see Ranken Townsend +during the time that Peter had been walking the streets. To the artist +he had made a clean breast of everything, so that he might, once for +all, set Peter right in the eyes of his future father-in-law. That was +the least that he could do. He had carried away from the studio in his +pocket a short, generous and impulsive letter from the artist, asking +Peter's forgiveness for not having accepted his word of honor. Armed +with this, Graham had waited while hour after hour slipped by, growing +more and more anxious as Peter did not appear. At breakfast he told his +mother--in case she should discover that Peter had not returned--that he +had stayed the night in Kenyon's rooms, as they had much to talk about +and one or two things to arrange. He had been in the house when Kenyon +had rung up, apologizing for being unable to come round, and thanking +Mrs. Guthrie for her kindness and hospitality. + +And there lay Peter inanimate and stupefied. In the name of all that was +horrible, what had happened? Graham got up and faced the girl again. +"You mustn't mind my being abrupt and rude," he said. "I'm awfully +sorry. But this is my brother, my best pal, and I've been terribly +anxious about him, and you don't know--nobody knows--what it means to me +to see him like this." + +"Ah! Now you're talking," said Nellie Pope. "Treat me nicely and there's +nothing I won't do for you. If you ask me--and if I don't know a bit +more about life than you do I ought to--I have a shrewd idea that your +brother was made drunk,--that is, _doped_. 'E was quite gone when 'e was +put into the cab, and from the way that kinky-headed chap laughed as we +drove off together,--I mean me and your brother,--I should think that 'e +'ad it in for him, but of course I don't know hanything about that. +Perhaps you do." + +Graham shook his head. "No," he said; "I don't know anything about it +either. But what are we going to do with him, that's the point? He's +ill, that's obvious, and a doctor ought to see him at once." + +"That's what I think," said the girl, "and I don't think 'e ought to be +moved, 'e's so frightfully 'ot. 'E might catch pneumonia, or something. +What I think you'd better do is to call up a doctor at once, get him to +give your brother a dose and give me directions as to what to do. 'E +can stay 'ere until 'e's all right again, and I'll nurse 'im." + +"Yes, but why should you----?" + +"Oh, bless you, that's all right. I'm glad to have something to do. Time +hangs heavy. Besides, the poor boy is just like a baby. I like 'im and +you needn't be afraid that I shall try to get anything out of 'im, +because I shan't." + +Graham snatched eagerly at the proffered assistance. He was intensely +grateful. "Have you a telephone here?" he asked. + +Nellie Pope laughed. "What d'you take me for?" she said. "I'm not a +chorus lady. When I want to use the 'phone I pop round to the drug store +and have a nickel's worth. That's how I got on to you." + +Graham caught up his hat and left the apartment quickly. One of his +college friends was a doctor and had just started to practice. He would +ask him to come and see Peter. He agreed with the girl that it would be +running a great risk to move Peter, and he was all against taking him +home in his present condition. It would only lead to more lies and would +certainly throw his mother into a dreadful state of anxiety. + +While he was gone, Nellie Pope set to work to tidy up the bedroom. She +put her boots away in a closet, got out a clean bedspread, rubbed the +powder off her mirror and arranged her dressing-table. This doctor, +whoever he was, should find her apartment as tidy as she could make it. +It was a matter of pride with her. She still had some of that left. One +thing, however, she was determined about. The doctor must not be +allowed to look too closely at her. + + +XIII + +Graham came out of the telephone box in the drug store. Dr. Harding was +unable, he said, to leave his office for an hour and a half, when he +would drive to Nellie Pope's address and meet Graham in her apartment. + +But as he was hurrying back to Peter's bedside, Graham drew up suddenly. +The rage that had entered into his soul when he had gathered that Kenyon +was responsible for his brother's condition broke into a blaze. Almost +before he knew what he was doing or what he was going to do when he got +there, he hailed a passing taxi and told the man to drive to Kenyon's +apartment. He remembered that the liner was not due to leave until +two-thirty. Kenyon would therefore be at home for some time yet. He told +himself that he _must_ see him--he must. He owed it to Peter first, and +then to himself as Peter's brother and pal, to make Kenyon answer for +this dirty and disloyal trick. Yes, that was it, he told himself as the +cab bowled quickly to its destination. Kenyon must be made to answer, +or, at any rate, to offer some extenuating explanation if he could. It +would be something that would make him wake up in the middle of the +night and curse himself if he let the opportunity slip out of his hands +to face Kenyon up before he went immaculately, unquestioned and perhaps +unpunished out of their lives. How could he face Peter when he was well +again? How could he look at his own reflection in the looking-glass if, +for reasons of his personal admiration of Kenyon and disinclination to +force things to an issue, he let him escape without finding out the +truth? + +The cab stopped. Graham sprang out, paid the man, ran up the flight of +stone steps and rang the bell. None too quickly it was answered by a +girl with a mass of black hair and a pair of Irish eyes which had been +put in with a dirty finger. + +"Is Mr. Kenyon in?" + +"Yes." + +The hall was filled with baggage. A very distinct "K" was on all the +baggage tabs. + +"All right!" said Graham. "I know my way up." + +Rather sharply Kenyon called out "Come in!" when Graham knocked on the +door of the sitting-room. + +In a much-waisted suit of brown clothes, a brown tie and a pair of brown +shoes which were so highly polished as to look almost hot, Kenyon was +standing with the telephone receiver to his ear. He was saying +"Good-bye" to one of the men to whom Graham had been proud to introduce +him and whose pockets he had already lightened by a fairly considerable +sum. He finished speaking before turning to see who had entered, and +hung up the receiver. + +"Oh, hello, my dear fellow!" he said. "I didn't expect to see you. How +extremely and peculiarly pleasant!" + +Graham wondered if he would think so by the time that he had done with +him. But, with a strong effort of will, he kept his self-control. He +intended to let Kenyon give himself away. That seemed to be the best +plan. + +Kenyon gave him no chance to speak. "Not satisfied with wishing me 'bon +voyage' over the wire, eh? By Jove, this is most friendly of you. You'll +help kill the boring time before I drive off to the docks with all my +duly and laboriously labelled luggage. Make yourself at home, old boy, +and give me your news." + +He took his hat and stick and yellow gloves out of the one comfortable +chair and waved his hand toward it. + +Graham remained standing. Having seen Peter lying in such a bed, inert +and humiliated,--Peter, of all men,--he resented Kenyon's suave +cordiality and glib complacency. "I've just come from Peter," he said. + +Kenyon burst out laughing. "Oh, do tell me! How does he look? Is his +head as big as the dome of St. Paul's this morning? It ought to be. I +gave him the sort of mixture that would blow most men skyhigh. It's +never been known to fail." + +"It hasn't?" said Graham. "So you _did_ give it to him!" he added +inwardly. "Good! You'll pay for _that_." + +"I was amazed to see the thirsty way our abstemious Peter lapped it +down. I've a sneaking notion that he liked it. It was on an empty +stomach, too. He seems to have been in an emotional mood +yesterday--tramping the streets. Ye gods, how these sentimentalists go +to pieces under the influence of a bit of a girl! He came up here fairly +late, just after Belle--I mean, just after----" + +"Belle? Was Belle here last night, then?" Graham's voice rang out +sharply. + +"Yes," said Kenyon, with a curious smile. After all, what did it matter +now who knew? He was on the verge of sailing and he hoped that he might +never see this family of Guthries again. "Yes, Belle was here." + +There was a look in the corners of Kenyon's eyes that sent a spasm of +fear all through Graham's body. What was this man not capable of doing +since he had deliberately turned Peter, his friend, over to a +street-walker, having first rendered him senseless? "Then I'm here for +Belle, as well," he said to himself, "and whatever you did you'll pay +for that too." + +There was an empty cardboard collar-box on the floor. Kenyon gave it a +spiteful kick. "Yes, Belle and I had,--what shall I call it?--a rather +tender parting scene here last night,--quite tender, in fact. All very +amusing in the sum total of things, eh? I was peculiarly ready for Peter +when he dropped in. And, by the way, how on earth did you find out where +he spent the night, learning, I trust, to shake off some of his Quaker +notions?" + +"She rang me up," said Graham, whose fists were clenched so tightly +that every finger contained a pulse. He was almost ready to hit--almost. +He was only waiting for one other proof of this dirty dog's treachery. + +"Oh, did she? Found your name and address in Peter's pocket, I suppose. +Well, she came along last night at the exact psychological moment. The +alacrity with which she took dear old drunken Peter off my hands at the +merest hint had a certain amount of pathos about it. _He's_ off his +immaculate perch now, eh? _He's_ left his tuppenny halo on a pretty +sordid hat-peg, at last, eh? He'll thank me for having done it for him +one of these days, I'll be bound." + +Graham went slowly over to him. "Not one of these days," he said with +extreme distinctness. "Through me, thank God, to-day--now." + +Kenyon darted a quick look at the man who had always caused him a +considerable amount of inward laughter, whom he had labelled as a +precocious provincial. He saw that his face had gone as white as a +stone--that his nostrils were all distended and that his eyes seemed to +have become bloodshot. No coward, Kenyon had an inherent detestation of +a fracas, especially when he was dressed for the street. He decided to +avert a row with a touch of autocratic authority. It had worked before. + +"Let there be no vulgar display of pugilism here," he said, sharply. "If +you don't like my methods, get out!" + +Everything in Graham's nature seemed to have become concentrated in one +big ball of desire to hit and hit, and hit again--to hear the heavy +thud of his blows on that man's body--to see him lying squirming and +broken on the carpet with a receipt in full upon his face for all that +he had done. + +"Put up your fist," he said, "or I shall have to hit you cold." + +"Curse you, get out!" cried Kenyon, catching Graham one on the mouth +before he was ready. + +Graham laughed. He needed that. By jove, he needed that. He let out his +left. "That's for Peter," he said. + +Kenyon staggered. His left eye seemed to fill. With a yell of pain he +jumped in and hit wildly. + +Graham waited a second chance and got it. "And that's for Belle," he +said. And his knuckles bled with the contact of teeth. + +Kenyon went in again. Chairs fell over and the table was pushed aside. +And all the time that he failed to reach Graham's face he screamed like +a horse whose stable is in flames. + +But Graham, cold, icy cold, and cooler than he had ever been in his +life, played with him. He had never been so much a man in his life. He +warded and guarded and waited hoping that he might once more feel the +sting of pain that would make his last blow unforgettable--epoch-making. + +He got it,--but with Kenyon's foot. + +And again Graham laughed,--for joy--for very joy. Now he could hit, and +hit honestly. + +"You little gentleman!" he said. "You perfect little gentleman--I've +paid you for Peter, and for Belle. Here's my debt, with a hundred per +cent, interest and then some." + +The blow, hard and firm from the full shoulder, caught Kenyon on the +point of the jaw, lifted him off his feet and laid him out full stretch +on the broad of his back. + +For several moments, breathing hard, Graham stood over him, looking down +at the dishevelled, unconscious dandy, with his bad blood all over his +face and clothes. His collar had sprung, his beautiful brown tie had +gone round under his ear, his shirt cuffs were dabbled with red, one eye +was bunged up and his mouth was all swollen. + +Then Graham rang the bell, and while waiting tidied himself up in front +of the glass in which he now felt that he could look. + +The girl came in and gave a shrill cry. + +"Just see to that man, please. Cold water at once will be the best +thing." + +He caught up his hat, went out, shut the door, ran down-stairs, let +himself into the street and was out of sight and into a taxicab before +the girl had recovered herself. + +"Paid in full," he said breathlessly to himself, as he bound up his +knuckles--"in full." + + +XIV + +With wide-eyed anxiety, Graham, having driven straight back, waited for +the doctor's verdict. The two young men stood alone in the little +sitting-room. With a touch of delicacy, which they were quick to notice, +Nellie Pope made no attempt to follow them in. + +"Um!" said Dr. Harding. "A very close shave from pneumonia. He can't be +moved yet, unless, of course, you'd like me to send for an ambulance. +That's up to you." + +Graham shook his head. "No," he said. "I don't want that. I think he'd +better be--I mean I don't want my father--Oh, well, I dare say you +understand." + +"Yes," said Dr. Harding, "I'm afraid I do. God knows what the percentage +of disaster is from men having soused themselves like that. It seems to +me that your brother, who had obviously caught a severe chill, must have +set out deliberately to make himself drunk, and mixed everything in +sight." + +Graham held his peace. But his blood tingled at the knowledge that he +had given Kenyon something that he would never forget and which would +make it necessary for him to remain in the seclusion of his state-room +for some days at least. + +The young doctor sat down and wrote a prescription and went on quickly +to tell Graham what to do. Finally he rose. "I'll look in again this +evening," he said. "You'll be here, won't you? Of course we shall get +him all right in a couple of days or so,--that is, right enough to go +home,--but----" + +"But what?" asked Graham. + +"Well," said Dr. Harding, "I may have to leave the rest of the treatment +to your father." He shook his head several times on his way to the +door. He had taken one or two close, examining looks of Nellie Pope. + +"Mr. Guthrie, you're wanted." + +Graham turned sharply. Nellie Pope, waiting until the doctor had gone, +put her head in at the door. "Come on in," she said. "Come on in!" + +Graham followed her into the bedroom and bent over Peter. Opening his +eyes with some difficulty, as though they hurt him, Peter looked about. +The room was strange. The face of the girl was strange. The whole thing +seemed to belong to a dream. Then he recognized his brother. "You got +away, then," he said. + +"Got away?" + +"Yes. By Jove, what a blaze! The last time I saw you, you were carrying +mother along the passage. I could hardly see you for smoke. I got Betty +out into the street and dived back into the house. Father was the only +one left. Good God, what awful flames! The library was red hot. I got +into the middle of it, choking and yelling for father, when something +fell on my head. Is he--dead?" + +"No," said Graham. "He's all right." + +A little smile broke out on Peter's face and he sighed and turned over +and went to sleep again. + +Nellie Pope made a comical grimace. "I don't wonder that 'e's been +dreaming about a fire," she whispered. She arranged the covers over +Peter's shoulder with a deft and sympathetic hand, and then took +Graham's arm and led him out into the passage. "You've got your work. +Push off. I'll see to the medicine when it comes. Don't you worry. Get +back as soon as you can, and while you're away I'll look after 'im like +a sister. I like 'im, poor boy! My goodness! why don't somebody put the +lid on all the distilleries? Half the troubles in the world 'ud be +prevented that way!" + +Very reluctantly Graham acted on the girl's suggestion that he should +return to his office. He was in the middle of very important work. He +held out his hand. "You're a damned good little sort," he said, "and I'm +intensely grateful." + +Nellie Pope's eyes filled with tears. It had been a long time since she +had been treated so humanly or had her hand so warmly clasped. But she +screwed out a laugh and waved her hand to Graham as he let himself out. + +She spent the rest of the day in and out of the bedroom. With her eyes +continually on her clock, she devoted herself untiringly and with the +utmost efficiency to looking after her patient. To the very instant she +gave him his medicine and said cheery, pleasant things to him every time +she had to wake him up to administer it. It was an odd and wonderful day +for her, as well as for Peter,--filled with many touches of curious +comedy, the comedy of life--and many moments of queer pathos. Once she +had to listen to a little outburst of incoherent love, when Peter +insisted on telling her what an angel Betty was. Once she was obliged to +hear what Peter had to say about his father, from which she gathered +that this man was responsible for the burning house from which this boy +had only just been able to escape alive, having saved his family. The +obsession of fire remained with Peter until the evening, when he woke up +with a clear brain, and having taken his medicine, looked at her with +new eyes. + +"What's all this?" he asked quietly. "Where am I, and who are you?" + +"Oh, that's all right," said Nellie Pope. + +"Is it? Are you a nurse?" + +"Yes," she said. + +"Is this a hospital?" + +"Yes,--that is, a nursing home," she said. + +"Oh!" said Peter. "Where's Kenyon?" + +"I don't know, dearie." + +"What on earth was that filth that he gave me to drink? I carried the +books into his room, and then I'm hanged if I can remember--I've got a +most frightful headache. Every time I move my head seems to split in +half. How long have I been here? Was I poisoned, or what?" + +"Now don't you talk or you'll get me into trouble. You go off to sleep +like a good boy. You'll be all right in the morning." + +"Shall I? That's good." And he heaved a big sigh and obeyed. It was +extraordinary how sleep came to his rescue. + +He was still asleep when Graham came back at six o'clock. Nellie Pope +opened the door to him. "'E's getting on fine," she said. "You can take +that line out of your forehead. 'E's been talking quite sensibly to me. +What I don't know about your father and your family isn't worth +knowing." + +Graham tiptoed into the bedroom, drew a chair up to the side of the bed +and sat down. And while he waited for the time to arrive for Peter's +next dose many strange things ran through his brain,--his own +precocity--his own desire to be smart and become a man of the world--his +own evening in the little shabby theatrical lodgings in Oxford with +Kenyon--his dealings with Ita Strabosck--the night he had spent in his +bed-room when Peter took his razors away--that awful hour when he +sneaked into his father's laboratory and under the pressure of great +trouble forged his name. The only thing that gave him any sense of +pleasure out of all this was the fact that he carried in his pocket a +warm and spontaneous letter from Ranken Townsend, which he knew would be +better to Peter than pints of medicine. + +And while he sat watching, Nellie Pope ate her sausage in the kitchen +and finished the instalment of the love story in her magazine. + +What a world, O my masters! + + +XV + +It was late when Graham let himself into his father's house that night. +He had done many things that day. He had also been through much anxiety. +He felt that he deserved the right to turn in at once and sleep the +sleep of the just. But Kenyon had said that Belle had been alone in his +rooms the night before and the queer expression that had come into his +eyes as he made the remark lived most uneasily in Graham's memory. He +now knew Nicholas Kenyon to be a skunk--an unscrupulous individualist +devoid of loyalty, incapable of feeling true friendship and in every way +unfit to have any dealings, unwatched, with a girl unless she was in his +own set or belonged to the same class as the two chorus girls for whom +he had waited outside the stage door of the Oxford Theatre. + +He was well aware of the fact that Belle had been something more than +merely attracted by Kenyon. He had even hoped that she might be engaged +to be married to him, being very proud to believe that some day soon she +might become the wife of the man under whose spell he, like all the rest +of the family, had fallen. Now, however, in the light of Kenyon's +hideous treatment of Peter, he saw his one-time hero with eyes from +which all the glamour of his appearance had disappeared and he was +filled with an overwhelming desire to see Belle at once and make it +clear to her, bluntly and finally, that she must clear Kenyon out of her +mind as a house is rid of vermin. Belle was, as he well knew, a +high-spirited, amazingly imperious, independent girl, with strong +emotions. She was not one who would be turned lightly, or even driven, +out of a line of thought. She was, on the contrary, as difficult to +treat as an unbroken filly and could only be managed with the lightest +of hands. If she really and truly loved Kenyon and still believed in +him, he knew that he could not say anything that would prejudice him in +her estimation, even by telling her what he had done to Peter. She would +be able to produce reasons, however far-fetched, to make that incident +seem less ugly. There was, however, the chance--just the chance--that +she would be open to conviction. After much inward argument and +hesitation he decided to go up to Belle's room, and if she were not +asleep, to have a little talk with her and find out how the land lay, +and if he could see any possibility of adding to his punishment of +Kenyon to do so by putting him in his true colour before Belle. + +It took him some time to come to this decision and screw up his courage +to face Belle. For nearly an hour he paced up and down the quiet +library, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Belle was likely to tell him +to go and hang himself if she considered that he was butting into her +private affairs. He knew this,--no one better. He had often done so +before. He decided, however, to run this risk and, in the hope that she +might still be up, went upstairs and stood for a moment listening +outside her door. He could hear no sound in her room, no movement, no +creak of a drawer being opened or shut. He knocked softly and +waited,--was just going to knock again when the door was opened. + +With her beautiful black hair done for the night and a pink kimono over +her night-dress, Belle stood in the doorway with an expression of +surprised inquiry in her eyes. These two had not taken the trouble to be +very good friends for some years. + +"Oh, it's you, Graham," she said, but made no move. + +"It's awfully late, I know; but, if you're not too tired, may I come +in?" Graham hated himself for being self-conscious. It seemed absurd +with his own sister. He wished then that he had not been quite so +selfish and self-contained since he had considered himself to be a man, +and had gone out of his way to keep up his old boyish relations with +Belle. + +He was a little surprised when she said, "Come in, dear," and made way +for him. He noticed quickly as soon as she stood under the light that +her eyes were red and swollen, and that there was a most unusual air +about her of gentleness and dejection. He noticed, too, with immense +relief, that a large photograph of Kenyon in hunting-kit which he had +seen standing on her dressing-table had been taken away. A good sign! + +The room was very different from Ethel's. It had nothing of that rather +anæmic ultra-modern air so carefully cultivated by the younger girl. On +the contrary, everything in it was characteristic of Belle. It was full +of ripe colours and solid comfort. A mass of silver things jostled each +other untidily on the dressing-table. A collection of monthly fashion +papers with vivid decorative covers lay on a heap on a chair, and a +novel, open in the middle, had been flung, face down, on the sofa. There +was no attempt at carefully shaded lights. They were all turned on and +were reflected from the long glasses in a large mahogany wardrobe. The +carpet all round the dressing-table was bespattered with white powder. + +"I was reading when I heard your knock," she said,--"at least I was +pretending to read. Sleep was miles away." + +Graham sat down, hanging a pair of stockings over the arm of the chair. +"Why?" he asked. + +"Oh, I don't know, I've been thinking,--for a change. It's such a new +thing for me that it knocked sleep out of my head. Not nice thoughts, +either." + +She seemed glad to talk, Graham thought. "Anything the matter, Bee?" he +asked. + +"I guess it's nearly a century since you called me Bee," she said with a +queer little laugh. "Would you say that anything was the matter if you +had just picked yourself out of the ruins of a house that had fallen +about your ears?" + +Graham got up suddenly, sat on the sofa at Belle's side and put his arms +round her shoulder. "Don't dodge behind phrases, old girl," he said. +"Just tell me in plain English. Let me help you if I can." + +But Belle shook him off,--not angry with him so much as with herself. +She detested weakness. This unexpected kindness on Graham's part made +her feel like crying again. In her heart she longed for some one to whom +she could pour out her soul, and Graham's affection almost caught her +before she could stop herself. Not to him, she told herself, nor to any +member of her family, was she going to confess the sort of thoughts that +had choked her brain ever since that hour alone with Kenyon. Not even to +Betty, to whom she told most things, was she going to lay bare the fact +that, in the cold light of day, she found herself deeply hurt and +deeply humiliated at Kenyon's treatment of her. In fact, she had herself +only that night begun to realize the state of her feelings and was still +suffering under the discovery. + +Graham, whose nature and character were as much like those of Belle as +though they were twins, caught her mental attitude as she stood +struggling between pride and a desire to tell the truth. It was as plain +to him as though she had already confessed that Kenyon had done +something which had shaken her belief in him. His photograph, which had +dominated her room, had been put away. Her eyes were red and swollen. +All his sympathy was stirred. At the same time he rejoiced in the eager +thought that he had it in his power to clear Kenyon finally out of her +mind. + +He set to work quietly. "I'm going to tell you about Peter," he said. + +She turned quickly. "Peter? There's nothing wrong with Peter, is there?" + +"God knows how much wrong there is. I'm going to tell you all I know. +We're all in this,--through Kenyon, and because we've been thoughtless +fools running amuck through life." + +The idea of there being anything wrong with Peter brought Belle quickly +out of self-analysis and the self-indulgence of her own pain. "Don't +beat about the bush," she said. "Please tell me. You told mother this +morning that he had stayed with Nicholas last night." + +"That was a lie. This is what happened. After a rotten day worrying +about an upset with Betty, he went to see Kenyon late last night. He'd +had nothing to eat. I believe because Kenyon had been disappointed about +something earlier in the evening,--but I only make a guess at that from +the way he looked when I saw him to-day,--he deliberately took it out on +Peter." + +"On Peter? How?" Belle understood this disappointment only too well. + +"He made him drunk." + +"Drunk!--Peter!" + +"Dead drunk,--by doping him with a fearful mixture of all the drinks he +had. He had always threatened to do it, and this time he caught Peter +napping. That was a foul enough thing to do anyway, but it didn't +satisfy him. He got him into the street and instead of putting him into +a cab and sending him home he called a passing woman----" + +"Oh, no!" cried Belle. + +"Yes,--and gave Peter over to her and there he's been, in her bed, in a +little hole of an apartment, ill and poisoned, ever since." + +"Oh, my God!" cried Belle. + +"The woman rang me up early this morning and I got Ralph Harding to go +and see what he could do. I've been there most of the day,--except for +ten minutes with Kenyon--the best ten minutes I ever put in--ever." + +He got up and stood looking at Belle with a gleam of such intense +satisfaction in his eyes that she guessed what he had done. + +"That's our admirable friend Kenyon," he added. "That's the man who +shared rooms with Peter--whose charm of manner got us all at Oxford, and +who was made one of the family by father and mother when he came to this +country. I hit him for Peter, for you and for myself in that glorious +ten minutes to-day. I left him lying on the floor in his rooms all over +his own black blood, and if ever I meet him again, in any part of the +world, at any time of my life, I'll give him another dose of the same +sort--for Peter, for you and for me--That's what I came to tell you, +Bee." + +He bent forward and kissed her, turned round and left the room. + +That was Kenyon, Graham had said. + +Standing where he had left her, with this story of utter and incredible +treachery in her ears, Belle added another count to Graham's +indictment,--that of trying to seduce her without even the promise of +marriage, when her grief at parting with him made her weak. + +For a moment she stood chilled and stunned. That was Kenyon--All along +she had been fooled--all along he had been playing with her as though +she amounted merely to a light creature with whom men passed the time. +It was due to her father,--of all men, her father,--that she stood there +that night, humiliated but unharmed, with her pride all slashed and +bleeding, her self-respect at a discount, but with nothing on her +conscience that would make her face the passing days with fear and +horror. + +She suddenly flamed into action. "Yes; that's Kenyon!" she thought, and +making a sort of blazing pounce on the middle drawer of her +dressing-table she pulled it open, took out the large photograph of a +man in hunting-kit, and with queer, choking cries of rage and scorn, +tore it into shreds and stamped upon the pieces. + + +XVI + +Belle got very little sleep that night. Having finally decided, on top +of her talk with Graham, that Kenyon had intended to treat her much in +the same way as he had treated Peter, she endeavored to look back +honestly and squarely at the whole time during which that +super-individualist had occupied her thoughts. She saw herself as a very +foolish, naïve girl, without balance, without reserve and without the +necessary caution in her treatment of men which should come from proper +training and proper advice. + +She laid no blame upon her mother,--that excellent little woman whose +God-sent optimism made her believe that all her children were without +flaw and that the world was full of people with good hearts and good +intentions. She blamed only herself, and saw plainly enough that she had +allowed her head to be turned by her father's sudden acquisition of +wealth which made it unnecessary for her to be anything more than a sort +of butterfly skimming lightly through life without any duties to +perform--without any work to occupy her attention--without any hobbies +to fill her mind and give her ambition. She felt like some one who had +just escaped from being run over in the streets, or who, by some divine +accident, had been turned back from the very edge of an abyss. It was +indeed a night that she could never forget in all her life. She lay in +bed in the dark room with her eyes wide open, hearing all the hours +strike one by one, watching herself with a sort of terror and amazement +passing through Oxford. All the incidents that had been crowded into +that short and what had appeared to be glorious week, came up in front +of her again, especially the incident in the back-water with Kenyon and +the night of the ball at Wadham College. These were followed in her mind +by the scene in the library in her father's house, and finally that +dangerous hour in Kenyon's rooms when, but for the intervention of that +man who seemed of so little account, she might have been placed among +those unfortunate girls of whom the world talks very harshly and who pay +a terrible price for their foolishness and ignorance. And when finally +she got up, tired-eyed but saner than she had been since those good, +strenuous days of hers at her college when she had intended to make art +her mission in life, she told herself with a characteristic touch of +humour that the reformed criminal was a very good hand at preaching, and +made up her mind to go along to Ethel and improve the occasion. It was +very obvious to her that if she did not do this nobody would, and she +was eager to give a sort of proof of the fact that she was grateful for +her own escape by giving her young sister the benefit of her suffering. +And so she put on her dressing-gown and went to her sister's room--the +little sister of whom she was so fond and proud. + +Ethel was sitting at her dressing-table doing her hair. There was a +petulant and discontented expression on her face. Still shamming +illness, she had not yet recovered from the smart of what she called +Jack's impertinence. There was a surprise in store for her,--she who +believed that she had managed so successfully to play the ostrich. + +"Why, Belle!" she said. "What's the matter? You look as though you had +been in a railway accident." + +Belle sat down, not quite sure how she would begin or of the sort of +reception that she would receive. She always felt rather uncouth in the +presence of this calm, self-assured, highly finished little sister of +hers. "Well," she said, "I have been through a sort of railway accident +and a good many of my bones seem to have been broken,--that's why I'm +here. I want to stop you, if I can, from going into the same train." + +"I don't think I quite understand you." + +"I don't suppose you do, my dear, but you shall--believe me." And then, +in the plainest English she gave Ethel the story of her relations with +Kenyon, without in any way sparing herself. And when she came to the +parting scene in Kenyon's rooms she painted a picture that was so strong +and vivid--so appalling in its proof of foolishness, that she made even +Ethel forget her complacency and sit with large, frightened eyes. + +Then she got up and began to walk about. "I'm not a fool," she said, +"and this thing is going to teach me something. Also, I'm not a coward +and I've told you all this for a reason. You think that you're a very +wise little person, kiddie, but in reality you're no better than I am, +and just as sentimental and every bit as unwatched and as resentful of +guidance. Why are you here instead of being at school? You think no one +knows that. Well, I do. You're playing ducks and drakes with mother and +father and your education in order to have what we call a 'good time.' +You have shammed sickness so that you could have an adventure with the +boy next door." + +"How d'you know that?" cried Ethel. + +"Easily enough, my dear. I was told by the girl who used to bring your +thermos up to this room and who had caught you with the boy. Two days +ago she left to be married, but before she went she blurted out the +whole story. It wasn't for me to interfere then. I didn't much care, to +tell the truth,--in fact, I thought it was rather a good joke. I rather +admired you for the cunning way in which you had arranged everything. I +thought you were a good sport. I don't know how far it has gone, but I +hope to Heaven that you've not been quite so insane as I was. I'm not +going to tell mother or do the elder sister stunt, or anything of that +sort. I'm just going to ask you to chuck it all and go back to school +and play the game for a change, and to try to bear in mind that you owe +father and mother something,--a thing we all seem to have +forgotten,--and when you do go back, just remember--and always +remember--what I've told you about myself. We're very much alone, you +and I,--like two girls who are staying in a house with somebody else's +father and mother,--and so let's help each other and get a little +honesty and self-respect and see things straight. What d'you say, dear +little sister?" + +Ethel got up, and with a complete breakdown of all the artificiality so +carefully instilled into her by her fashionable school, slipped into her +sister's arms and burst out crying. + + +XVII + +It was not until the next afternoon that Peter was allowed to get up. +His superb constitution had stood, rock-like, against the chill which +the doctor's medicine had helped to throw off. He had done full justice +to a broiled chicken which Nellie Pope had cooked for him; but when, +having put on his clothes, he stood in front of the looking-glass, he +felt as though he had been under a steam-roller and flattened out. + +"Good Lord!" he said, when he saw his pale, unshaven face. "Good Lord!" +But he was very happy. He had read and re-read Ranken Townsend's +generous apology. Betty was waiting for him--thank God for that. + +And then he began to look round. Was this a nursing home? The +dressing-table, with its tins of powder and a large dilapidated puff, +its red stuff for lips, its shabby little brushes and a comb with +several of its teeth gone, looked as though it belonged to a +woman,--poor and struggling. The door of the closet, which gaped a +little, showed dresses hanging and a pair of very high-heeled boots with +white uppers. He opened a drawer in the dressing-table. It was full of +soiled white gloves, several veils neatly rolled up, and a collection of +small handkerchiefs. A strong, pungent scent rose up from them. + +An ugly suspicion crept slowly into his mind. He looked at the bed with +its frilled pillows, at the flower papered bare walls, at the rather +worn blue carpet, at the flimsy wrap hanging limply on a peg on the door +of the bath-room, at the little bed-room slippers tucked away beneath +one of the white, painted chairs---- + +He turned and called out: "Nurse! Nurse!" + +Something in his tone brought Nellie Pope in quickly. + +He was standing with his hand on the big brass knob of the bed. "You +told me that this was a nursing home," he said. + +The girl laughed. How should she know what Peter had done with his +life--of the ideal that he kept so steadily in front of him? She only +knew the other kind of men. "So it is," she said. "It's _my_ home and +I've had to be your nurse. Pretty well put, I think. Don't you? 'Ow +d'you feel, dearie? A bit groggy on your pins?" + +The girl's cockney accent, her made-up face, her cheap, smart clothes +were noticed by him for the first time. Her insinuating, cheerful manner +and that sort of hail-fellow-well-met intimacy that was all about her, +came to him with a new and appalling meaning. He had been spoken to by +just such women in London after dark, and on Broadway and its side +streets as he passed. They belonged to the night life of all great +cities. They were the moths who came out attracted by the glare of +electric light. Good God! What was he doing in that place? + +The keen remembrance of this woman's inestimable kindness, the supreme +lack of selfishness which had inspired her to bend so frequently over +his bed, the charity of her treatment of him as he lay ill and helpless, +made him anxious above everything else not to hurt her feelings. But +there were things that he must know at once,--urgent, vital things which +might affect all the rest of his life. There was Betty his +love-girl--the girl who was to be his wife--who was waiting for him with +the most exquisite and whole-hearted trust---- + +"I want you to tell me how I came here," he said. + +Nellie Pope went over to the dressing-table. "That's easy," she replied +lightly, adding a new coat of color to her lips. "The night before last, +not having 'ad any luck, I was 'aving a last look round and 'appened to +be in Forty-eighth Street just as you staggered out of a 'ouse on the +arm of a young gent. I reckoned 'e didn't 'ave any use for me, being +outside 'is own place, but I passed 'im the usual greetin' from force of +'abit, just as 'e 'ad called up a taxi. With a funny look on 'is +face,--a curly smile I called it to meself,--'e suddenly gave me orders, +lumped you into the cab, blind to the wide, and told me to get in and +take you 'ome, and 'elp meself to any money you 'ad on you. Well, I did, +and the next instalment of the serial you know as well as I do. Feeling +weak, old dear?" + +Peter sat heavily on the foot of the bed. + +Nellie Pope went on,--simply and naturally, like one who is glad to +talk, glad to hear her own voice, indescribably, pathetically glad to be +in the company of a man who asked for nothing, who was not a guest, but +a friend--a fellow-creature down on his luck. "Me and Graham," she +said,--"and, I say, what a good-looking boy that is, and fairly devoted +to you, dearie,--well, 'im and me think that you must 'ave done +something to get the goat of this young feller. 'E doped you, that's +certain, and then passed you off on me. Enjoyed the joke, as it were, +too, according to what I noticed. Is that likely?" + +Peter didn't answer. The joke--? Back into his mind came the many things +that Kenyon had said to him at Oxford: "You need humanizing, old boy. +You want to be hauled off that self-made pedestal of yours. One of these +days you'll come to an unholy crash--" Back into his mind also came +Kenyon's taunts made to him as he stood with his back to the fireplace +in the library the night after they had returned from having seen Ita +Strabosck: "You're blind! Blind! I tell you, and in that room sits a man +whose patients you may become." + +Utterly ignorant of the feeling of revenge which had surged through +Kenyon's brain after Belle had been saved by the Doctor, it was borne +in on Peter, as he sat on the bed of this poor little night-bird, that +Kenyon had set out on purpose--with calculated deliberation--to make him +human, as he called it, before he returned to England. He had made him +drunk in order to carry out the joke. He had given him something to +render him insensible, well knowing that in no other way could this +fiendish desire be fulfilled. + +"What time is my brother coming?" he asked. + +Nellie Pope was busy daubing powder on her face. "Not until about nine +o'clock," she said. "'E and me talked it over this morning. The idea is +that you're coming in on the train that arrives at the Grand Central at +eight-forty-five. Now don't forget this. You stayed the night in your +friend's apartment, but you couldn't see 'im off the next morning +because you'd taken on a bit of business for 'im which meant going out +of town. Your brother is going to meet you at the station. That's the +story. And you're going 'ome together. 'E went back to get one of your +bags. 'E will sneak it out of the 'ouse and bring it round here. Oh, I +think we're pretty good stage managers, 'im and me. You see, the notion +is that Ma mustn't be upset. Poor little Ma!" + +"What's to-day?" asked Peter, whose whole body seemed suddenly to have +been frozen. + +"Sunday, dearie." + +"Then I've been here two nights?" + +"That's so," said the girl. + +Peter was consumed with a desire to explore the apartment. He wanted to +discover whether there was another bedroom. "Are you comfortable here?" +he asked, a little clumsily. + +Nellie Pope was rather flattered at his interest and so genuinely +delighted to see this great big man-boy on his feet again that she could +have broken into a dance. "Come and 'ave a look at my suite," she said, +laughing at the word she chose. "You know the bedroom,--I don't think +you'll forget that in a 'urry. On the right I 'ave the sitting-room +which I only use for my customers, preferring to sit in the kitchen, +which we now come to." She led him into it, with her hand on his +arm--she was apeing the manner and the phraseology of the guide. "In +this bright little apartment, beautifully furnished with a gas stove and +dresser--not exactly Jacobean--a plain, but serviceable Deal table and a +nice piece of linoleum which 'as worn very well, the sometimes popular +Miss Nellie Pope passes most of 'er leisure. 'Ere she cooks her own +meals and washes up after 'erself,--she's a very neat little thing,--and +before going out on the long trail in all weathers, reads about life +with a big L in the magazines, in which 'eroes with curly 'air, who +stand about six-feet-six, make 'onest love to blondes with 'eads like +birds' nests, who are nearly always about six-feet-one, and never fail +to wear silk stockings,--and there you 'ave it. A charming suite for a +single lady who earns 'er own living. The only drawback to it is that +the rent 'as to be paid monthly in advance, and the blighter who +collects it gives no grace. This is the sort of thing: 'Say! Got that +rent?' 'Well--' 'Come on now, ain't got no time to waste here. Pay up +or get out--' I tell you what it is, dearie, there's a little Florida in +Hell for them men who let out apartments to us girls, and the heat there +is something intense." She laughed, but there was a curious quiver to +it. + +Behind all her badinage and cheery pluck Peter could see a vein of +terror which touched his sympathies. Poor little painted, unfortunate +thing! Was there no other way in which she could live and keep her head +above water? He sat down and leaned on the table with his elbows. "Will +you tell me," he said, "what brought you to this?" + +"Brought me to it?" Nellie Pope shot out a laugh. "You dear, funny old +thing!" she said. "Nothing brought me it. I chose it." + +"Chose it! Chose _this_?" + +"Yes, this! A great many of us choose it. It's the easiest way. That +shocks yer, doesn't it,--you who come from a comfortable home and whose +sisters 'ave everything they want. But, you listen to this and don't be +too fast to pass judgment. I was one of a big brood of unnecessary kids. +My father earned fourteen shillings a week by grubbing in the earth from +daybreak till sundown and my mother took in washing. We lived perched up +on a 'ill among a dozen dirty little cottages. What was the outlook for +me? Being dragged up with meat once a week and as a maid-of-all-work +down in the town, being ordered about by a drab of a tradesman's wife, +with not enough wages to buy a new 'at and a little bit of finery for +Sundays, and then be married to a lout who got drunk regularly every +Saturday night and made me what mother was,--a dragged, anæmic, dull +animal woman, working up to the time I 'ad a baby and working directly +afterwards,--no colour, no lights, no rush and bustle, no decent clothes +to put on, no independence. Yes, I chose it, and if I 'ad my time over +again I should choose it again. See! It's the easiest way. Oh, yes, we +die young and nobody knows where we're buried, but we've 'ad our day, +and it's the day that every woman fights for, the same as every man. Oh, +by the way, 'ere's your purse!" She pushed it over to Peter. + +"My purse?" he said. + +"Yes; don't you recognize it? It hasn't got so much in it as it 'ad, +because I was told to 'elp meself, and I did. I 'ave jotted down what I +'ave taken; 'ere's the account." She held out a piece of paper on which +Peter could see a list of spendings, which included a taxicab fare and a +nickel for telephoning. At the end of it there was an item entitled +"Fee, thirty dollars." + +Peter shuddered. He pushed the remainder of the money back to her across +the table. "Please keep it," he said. + +Nellie Pope laughed again. She was full of laughter. "I hoped you'd say +that," she said. "It'll come in mighty useful." + +Peter felt in his pocket and took out his cheque-book. He looked about +and saw a bottle of ink and a pen on the dresser, with a piece of +dilapidated blue blotting-paper. Watched with peculiar interest and +excitement by Nellie Pope, he got up, went over to the dresser and +wrote a cheque. "Will you accept this?" he asked. "I wish I could make +it larger. But if it was ten times the amount it couldn't possibly cover +my gratitude to you. You've been awfully kind to me. Thank you, Nellie." +He held it out. + +The girl took it and gave a little cry. "Five hundred dollars! Oh, Gawd! +I didn't know that there was so much money in the world." She burst into +tears, but went on talking. "Mostly I can't afford to cry, because it +washes the paint off my face, and it's very expensive. But what do I +care, with this blooming cheque in my 'and? I shall be able to take a +little 'oliday from business and, my word, that's a treat. God makes one +or two gentlemen from time to time, 'pon my soul he does. Put it there, +Peter." She held out her hand with immense cordiality and gratitude, and +Peter took it warmly. + +But he had discovered what he wanted to know. There was only one bed in +that apartment, and back into his mind came Kenyon's words. "Blind! +Blind!--both of you--and in that room sits a man whose patients you may +become." + + +XVIII + +Graham was before his time. He hurried in, as anxious to get Peter out +of that apartment as Peter was to go. He found his brother sitting on +one side of the kitchen table and Nellie Pope on the other. Both had +magazines. The girl tore herself out of the marble house of the +heroine's father with reluctance. Peter had been holding his magazine +upside down for an hour. He had been looking right through it and into +his father's laboratory. There was not even the remote suggestion of a +smile on his pale face when Graham threw open the door. + +"Come on, old man," urged Graham. "The taxi's waiting." + +Peter got up. "Well, good-bye, Nellie," he said. "I'll come and see you +soon." + +The girl darted a quick look at him. She saw that she was mistaken. "Oh, +yes, that'll be very kind of you. I 'aven't got any friends." + +"Yes you have," said Graham,--"two." + +Nellie Pope led the way into the narrow passage, stood on tiptoe, made a +long arm and got Peter's hat off the peg. Then she stood in front of him +and her lips trembled, although her well-practised smile curled up the +corners of her mouth. "Not good-bye, but orevoy, eh? Well, good luck and +God bless you. I shall miss you both most awfully. It's been a fair +treat to 'ave you 'ere." + +Peter waved his hand and went down the bare stairs. His knees felt weak +and shaky and his eyes seemed to be at the back of his head. He drew +back to let a woman pass. She cocked her golden head at him with an +enquiring eye and a flash of teeth and pushed open the half-closed door +of an apartment. Her high-pitched metallic voice rang out. "Say, Kid, +there goes Nellie Pope's boarder. By Gosh, don't yer think some one +oughter stop her?" + +The two boys drove home in silence. They had both caught the meaning of +those significant words. + +Graham, the self-imagined man of the world, who had picked up a large +collection of half-facts--as all the precocious do--but who, for all +that, or in spite of that, had walked into the trap set by Ita Strabosck +without the faintest perception of his danger, threw those words aside. +Everything would be right, he told himself, and if _he_ had been coming +out of Nellie Pope's apartment in the ordinary way and had overheard her +rival's loud comment, he would simply have shrugged his shoulders, like +the rest of the young men of his type and spirit, and knowing only the +tail end of the truth, told himself that all men take "chances" and that +the odds were largely in his favor. And what would this attitude of +puerile bravado have proved? That he and all the men like him were just +as much a menace to society from knowing the half-facts which did +nothing more for them than allow them to take "chances," as the men who +were wholly ignorant and so blundered blindly into tragedy. + +To Peter, the words of the painted woman came as a finishing blow. In +his crass and culpable ignorance, into which Kenyon had flung one most +terrific fact, he came away from Nellie Pope not knowing whether he was +immune--not able to assure himself that he was safe. Think of it! Big +and strong as he was, he remained a mere child in the matter of plain, +necessary and urgent truths, and if ever a man knew himself for a fool +he was Peter Guthrie, as he drove home. + +No less grateful to God than ever for having been assisted to go +through Harvard and Oxford clean and straight, he cursed himself for not +having sought out the facts of life,--not from grinning and salacious +arguments of half-informed young men, but from a proper source,--since +his father had not conceived it to be his duty to give them to him early +in his life. If Kenyon had not opened out a new and awful vista of +thought the night that he talked about Graham and Ita Strabosck, Peter's +ignorance, so jealously and mistakenly preserved, would have remained so +colossal that he would have gone home humiliated, but unworried. As it +was, this one thing at any rate--this one most awful thing--had sunk +into his mind, making him dangerously less ignorant but without proper +knowledge. He arrived home a prey, therefore, to the most hideous fear. + +Luckily there were people dining with his father and mother. Belle had +gone out of town for several days, suffering from the shock of finding +out the truth about Kenyon, and Ethel had returned to school. Peter was +able to go up to his own room unnoticed. + +Graham, whose loyalty and concern had been good to see, went up with him +and threw the suit-case into a corner. + +"Gee!" he said, with a touch of emotion that he made no attempt to hide, +"but I'm glad you're home, Petey." It was many years since he had called +Peter by the name that he had gone by in the nursery. He seemed to have +come so close to his big brother during those recent hours. + +Peter did a surprising thing. He turned quickly, strode over to Graham, +put his arm round his shoulder and kissed his cheek. For just those few +moments both men had gone back through the years and were little boys +again. + +Two things happened to Graham. He blushed to the roots of his hair, and +swallowed something that threatened to choke him. + +"You said you had something on, didn't you,--supper, or something?" said +Peter. + +"Yes; but I'll cut it out if you want me to." + +"No, don't. Why should you? I feel pretty rotten and I shall turn in +right away. Don't bother about me any more, old man." + +"I'd rather stay with you." + +"Yes, I know you would, old boy, but you push off and have a good time. +As a matter of fact, I rather want to--to be alone for a bit. D'you +see?" + +"All right, then." And to show that he had become a man again and his +own master, Graham went off whistling the latest tango. + +And by letting his brother go at that moment, Peter did a very unwise +thing. He was still weak and ill. His brain, which had not recovered +itself from the effects of Kenyon's poisonous mixture, was in no +condition to be tortured by solitary thought. He needed to be kept away +from self-analysis--to be set to work on the ordinary commonplaces of +everyday life. Most of all, his thoughts required to be put to rest by +sleep. + +Left to himself, Peter sat down, almost in the dark, with his arms +folded, his legs stuck out and his chin buried in his chest, and +thrashed the tired machinery of his brain into action. All that had +happened in the last forty-eight hours coming on top of the suffering +that he had undergone through having been separated from Betty and +having failed to bring about the new relationship with his father, upon +which he had set his heart, gradually became distorted. He began to look +at everything through an enormous magnifying glass and to see himself, +not as one whose loyal, simple and unsuspicious nature had been taken +advantage of by Kenyon, but as a common drunken creature who had had to +be lifted into a cab and who had spent two nights in the apartment of a +woman of the street. He began to look at himself with so deep a +humiliation and disgust that the mere thought of his ever again holding +Betty in his arms seemed outrageous. And having by stages, made +conceivable by the condition of his health and the strain that had been +put upon him by all the things that had happened since his return from +England, come up to this morbid and hyperconscientious point in his +self-condemnation, he stood up suddenly, obsessed by a new and appalling +thought. He said to himself: "I'm not only unworthy of Betty, I'm +unclean, and so unfit to live." And having seized at that with the +avidity and even triumph that comes with a sudden disorder of the +understanding, he began to dramatize his death--to ask himself how to +make it most effective. And then his father entered his thoughts. "Ah!" +he cried inwardly. "Father--it's _father_ who is responsible--it's +_father_ who must be made to pay! I'm his eldest son. He's very proud of +me. He shall come into the room to-night in which he spends all his +time for the benefit of other men's sons and find the one he neglected +lying dead on the floor. That's it! Now I've got it! There's a hideous +irony about this that'll sink even into his curious mind. I'd like to be +able to see his face when he finds me. There'd be just a little +satisfaction in that." + +If only Graham could have come back at that moment, or the little mother +to put her arms round that poor, big, over-sensitive, uninitiated lad +and bring him out of his mental dejection with her love and warmth! + +There was a revolver somewhere among his things. He had bought it when +he went camping during one of his vacations from Harvard. He hadn't seen +it for several years. With feverish haste he instituted a search, going +through one drawer after another, flinging his collars and socks and all +his personal things aside, talking in a half-whisper to himself, until, +with a little cry of glee, he found it with a box of cartridges. And +then, with the most scrupulous care he loaded it, slipped it into his +pocket and crept out of the room and downstairs. The door of the +drawing-room was ajar. He heard laughter and the intermingling of +voices, heard some one say "Good-bye." He dodged quickly past, through +the library and into the room in which he had last stood with his hand +on the shaking shoulders of his father. _He_ would give him something to +weep about this time,--yes, by jove, he would! _He_ would make him wake +up at last to the fact that his sons were human beings and needed to be +treated as such! + +He welcomed the fact that away in the distance a storm had broken with +the deep artillery of thunder, and that already heavy rain was swishing +down on the city. It fitted into his half-maddened mood. + +He shut the door. He walked quickly about the room, speculating as to +the most effective place to be found outstretched. He had a decision and +then, so that there might be no loop-hole for his father, sat down to +write a final indictment. + +Time fled away. He covered page after page of note paper, pouring out +all his soul, making a great appeal for the right treatment of Graham +and his sisters, and finally signed his name, having scrawled in his +large round writing, "This is my protest." + +The storm had come nearer. Outbursts of thunder rolled over the house +followed by stabs of lightning. + +He then deliberately placed himself on the chosen spot, cocked the +trigger and put the cold barrel of the revolver to his temple. + +There was a sort of scream. + +Peter swung round, with his nerves jangling like a wire struck suddenly +with a stick. + +There stood his father, unable to form a sentence, his face grey, his +eyes distended and his arms thrown out in front of him. + + +XIX + +Peter was angry, like a child disturbed just at the moment when he was +planning a surprise. + +"Why couldn't you have come in five minutes later?" he cried out, with +queer petulance. + +The Doctor tottered forward and peered into his son's face. "Why were +you going to do that? Tell me, tell me!" + +"You'd have found it all there," said Peter, pointing to the pages which +he had left on the desk. "Not very nice reading, I can assure you. But +if you want me to tell you instead, I will. And then you can see how a +man dies, instead of finding him dead. Perhaps this is the best way, +after all." + +He went to the door and locked it, still holding the revolver. The sight +of his father did not stir any pity or sympathy in his heart. On the +contrary, it added to the fever that had attacked his brain and acted as +an irritant. He went back and stood in front of the grey man. There was +an expression of contempt on his altered face. The pattering of heavy +rain against the windows seemed to please him. Nature, like himself, +seemed to have burst into open protest. + +"Sit down," he said. + +The Doctor obeyed. The blaze in his son's eyes contradicted his +unnatural calmness. He had to deal with temporary madness. He could see +that, and he was chilled with a sense of impending danger in which the +most poignant solicitude was mixed. + +"Now," said Peter, weighing his words with odd deliberation, "you're +going to hear something that'll shake you out of your smug +self-complacency and your pitiful belief that everything is all right in +this house--You're a good man, a better man than the average father. +There's nothing in your life that isn't to your credit. Even since you +had children you've worked like a dog to give them a better education +than you had, and you've gone without things to provide us with money +and make things easy. We all know that and we're grateful. We all know +that we ought to be proud of you as a doctor--as a man who has made +discoveries and added to the scientific knowledge of your profession. +Well, we _are_ proud of you. But in the last words that you'll hear me +speak I'm going to tell you what you've failed to do and why, in spite +of all your kindness and unselfishness, not one of your children +respects you or loves you, and why I, your eldest son, have got to put +an end to myself because of your neglect." + +Dr. Guthrie sprang to his feet. The calculated cruelty of this +indictment was more than he could endure. "What does this mean? If you +don't respect and love me, the others do. In what way have I neglected +you?" He stood up to Peter like a man, whipped into sudden anger. + +Peter liked that. It meant that he could hit out and put facts into +naked words without feeling that he was ill-treating a weakling. "That's +what I'm going to tell you," he said. "But there's lots of time and I'm +not going to leave anything out. What makes you think the others respect +and love you? Do they ever tell you so? Do they ever tell you anything? +Do they ever go out of their way to come in here for a little talk? And +if they did come in would you get out of your shell far enough for them +to see that you're a human being? Would you meet them half-way in their +desire to get something besides your money from you? Have you ever once +in your life been sufficiently inspired with a sense of your +responsibility as to make you get up and leave your work and come among +us to play with our toys and get known? Have you ever once in all the +years that we've been growing up been courageous or wise enough to take +Graham or me for a walk and tell us _any one_ thing that we ought to +know? In what way have you ever neglected us? In the most vital way of +all. We could have done without your money and the education that you've +been so delighted to give us. We could have done without comfort and +servants and good food and easy times. They mean nothing in the sum +total of things that count. Most men never have them at the beginning. +They make them. What you've never given us is _yourself_. And we +_needed_ you. What you've never given us is common sense. You've been a +good father in every inessential way, but no father at all in all that +goes to make us men. You've lived in a fool's paradise. You've let us +find our own way. You've not given us one human talk--one simple +fact--one word of warning. You've utterly neglected us because you're a +coward and you've hoped and trusted that others might tell us what +you've been afraid to say. Afraid,--to your own flesh and blood,--think +of it!" The Doctor cried out again. He realized much of the truth of all +this. He had confessed himself to be painfully shy to his wife many +times and had spent God knew how many anxious hours wondering how he +could get to know his boys. But it was too much to stand and be whipped +by his son. + +"There are thousands of fathers who hold my views and act as I have +acted," he said. + +"And there are so many thousands of sons who have to pay for those views +that you and men like you spend your lives in trying to save them." + +The Doctor drew in his breath. "Wh--what d'you mean?" he stammered. + +"Ah! that gets you, doesn't it? Now you're beginning to see what I'm +driving at, don't you? Put your mind back to the night you found Graham +here with me. You saved him from forging your name, and that was good. +But what led him up to that? Did you ask yourself? Did you go to Graham +and gain his confidence? Did you wonder whether there was a woman behind +it all who would never have come into his life if you had dealt by him +like a man and a father,--the sort of woman who has made necessary these +things round your laboratory and caused you to bend over your +experiments for years and years?" + +"Good God! What do you mean?" + +Peter raised his voice. "Why should your sons be immune? What have _you_ +ever done to render them so? Why am I now standing here with this +revolver in my hand? Look at me! A few hours ago I had health and +everything in the world that makes life worth living, except a father. +At this moment, because I've never had a father, I'm so terrified that I +should be a criminal if I married the girl I love that I'm going to kill +myself." + +"Why? What have you done?" + +"I've been two nights in the bed of the sort of woman whose work you are +trying to undo." + +The Doctor staggered, and then rose up in his wrath. "_You_ have? You, +_my_ son,--with such a mother--with such home influence! You mean to +tell me that you've descended to such depths of immorality that you've +gone back on everything that your education has made of you? It's +unthinkable--unbelievable. You must be a mere animal to have done such a +thing." + +What else he would have said in his emotion and horror no one can say. + +A cry of pain and rage rang out. The injustice of his father's narrow, +inhuman point of view, his inability to show him, even by his impending +death, that he must wake up to his duty and stand by Graham and his +sisters, sent the blood into Peter's fevered brain. + +"My God!" he cried. "You dare to talk like that to me? You dare to kick +me in the face after I've told you that I'm ignorant--without listening +to my explanation as to how I got into that woman's apartment. All +right, then, I'm not going to be the only one to pay. You shall take +your share of it. The sins of the children are brought about by the +neglect of the fathers, and we'll go and stand together before the Judge +to-night for a verdict on that count." + +He raised the revolver, aimed it at his father's head, put his finger on +the trigger---- + +There was a blinding flash of lightning. A yellow quivering flame +seemed to cut the room in half between the two angry men---- + +An instant later the Doctor saw Peter standing with both hands over his +face. The unfired revolver lay on the table in all its ugliness. And +presently, when he had realized what had happened, he went nearer. "God +didn't intend that you should do that," he said. And then his voice +broke and he went forward to put his arms round Peter's shoulders. "Give +me another chance, my dearest boy!" he cried. "Give me another chance!" + +But before he could reach his son the great big hurt boy crumpled and +fell in a heap at his feet. + + +XX + +For three weeks Peter's bedroom was the one room in the house to which +the eyes of all the family were wholly turned. There, in the dark, he +lay a victim to an attack of brain fever. Never in a condition of great +danger, poor old Peter was ill and the Doctor, who, better than the +rest, knew that death has many doors through which life goes out, eyed +the specialist who had been called in with pathetic eagerness. + +The little mother and Belle were joined at once by Betty, and the three +women sat very close together, speaking and even thinking in whispers +during the first two days. To the one whose first child he was and the +one who waited to be his wife, Peter meant everything good that life had +for them, and in their terror that he might be taken away their +imaginations ran ahead, as they always do in moments of such poignant +anxiety, and they were afraid to look out of the window in case they +should see Death, the black camel, kneeling at the gate. + +While the shadow seemed to rest on his house, Dr. Guthrie did many +things. First of all he went over all the terrible words that Peter had +said to him that bad and unforgettable night. With great humbleness and +deep emotion he accepted them as the truth. He sat for hours at his desk +with his hands over his face and tears leaking through his fingers. +Metaphorically he placed his old hard-working, concentrated self in the +criminal stand and his new startled, humbled and ashamed self in the +Judge's seat and summed up his life as a father. It was very plain that +he had failed in his duty to his boys. He had made no great effort to +conquer that queer shyness which had affected him from the beginning. He +had allowed his children to grow up to regard him as Bluebeard. He had +thrown upon his wife's slight shoulders all the onus of the +responsibility for the human development of their characters, and +because she had succeeded while they were young he had, like a coward, +neglected to step in and take upon himself his obvious duty when they +had grown old enough to need more--much more--than the soft guiding hand +of a mother. He had allowed them to make an early start,--the girls, as +well as the boys,--without understanding the vital necessity of duty and +discipline which he alone could inspire in them, because no man or woman +in all the country, in any school or college, gave a single thought to +either. He had hidden behind a hundred weak and foolish excuses in order +to avoid the so-called difficulties of speaking manfully to these two +embryo men. He had permitted them to grow out of boyhood without giving +them the benefit of his own uninitiated struggles, or the simple +warnings and facts which take the glamour away from temptation and make +straight ways easy. He "took chances," and hoped that some one else +might by accident give them the facts of sex or that they would find +them out themselves, as other young men were obliged to do,--never mind +how. + +Remorse and regret made Hell for this man in those honest hours,--this +good, exemplary, distinguished, self-made man whose name would live by +his professional efforts and scientific discoveries and who had +succeeded in everything except as a father. + +And then he called Graham into his room, and sitting knee to knee with +his second son, was brave enough to tell him wherein he now knew that he +had failed and asked of him, as he had asked of Peter, for another +chance. It was a pathetic and emotional talk that these two had, during +which both told the truth, hiding nothing, reserving nothing. The +outcome of it was good for them both, as well as for Peter. They went +together to see Nellie Pope and heard from her lips, to the Doctor's +unspeakable thankfulness, that Peter was in no danger from her. From +that time onwards that little, kind, wretched girl became one of the +Doctor's patients in the proper hospital, eventually to be placed by +him at work which rendered the need for her following her chosen +profession unnecessary. + +And finally the day came when Peter was able to receive visitors, and a +very good day it was. The little mother went in first--she had the +right. Peter was sitting in his dressing-gown by the window. To his +intense relief he had just passed through the hands of a barber, whom he +had asked to make him look a little less like a poet. He turned his head +quickly towards the door as his mother went in. His old high spirits had +returned. The sun was shining and life looked very good. His imagination +made him as well aware of the fact that his mother had been through some +of the most anxious hours of her life as though he had seen her sitting +in her room below with a drawn white face and her hands clasped +together. He got up and went to meet her. He took her in his arms and +held her very tight. What they said to each other was far too sacred to +put into cold print. They spoke in undertone, because the trained nurse +kept a jealous eye upon her patient and moved in and out of the +dressing-room adjoining. The interview was not allowed to be a long one. +The last thing that Peter said to his mother made her very happy. "I +think that the Governor and I are pals," he said. "I think we've found +each other at last. Isn't that just about the best thing you ever +heard?" + +In the afternoon Belle was allowed in. To his great relief she told him +in her characteristic, concise way, how she felt about Kenyon. He caught +her young, she said--marvellously young, "and if he should ever come +back to New York all he'll get from me will be two fingers. I've quite +recovered. So you may take that line out of your forehead, old boy. One +of these days when you're out and about again we'll walk about four +times round the reservoir and I'll tell you something of what's been +going through my mind while you've been ill. In fact, we'll have a very +substantial pow-wow about Nicholas Kenyon, and I don't think we shall +leave him quite as immaculate as he usually is by the time we've +finished, do you?" + +"No," said Peter, "I don't. All the same, I'm grateful to him for one +thing. He has brought father out of his shell,--that's about the best +thing he ever did in his life." + +There was something amusing as well as touching in the way in which the +two brothers met again. It was the next morning early. Peter was still +in bed, with his hair all frowzled and the remains of sleep still in the +corners of his eyes. Graham had ten minutes before he was obliged to +leave the house to go downtown. + +"Hello, old sport!" said Graham. + +"Hello, sonnie! Rather a hot thing in ties, that, eh?" + +Graham cleared his throat and put his hand rather self-consciously to +the black-and-white effect newly designed by his pet firm of +haberdashers. "I think it'll make the senior partner blink all right," +he said. "How d'you feel this morning?" + +Peter showed his teeth. "I'm sitting up and taking nourishment. Probably +before the end of the week you'll see me in shorts and a zephyr +sprinting round the park before breakfast." + +"I'd like to," said Graham, and he held out his hand. + +Peter took it and gave it a scrunch which had in it nothing of the +invalid. "Give my love to the subway," he said, "and my kind regards to +Wall Street." + +Graham grinned, waved his hand and left the room. He found it necessary +to blow his nose rather hard on his way down-stairs. "Oh, Gee!" he said +to himself. "Oh, Gee! Only think if Peter had--" He didn't allow himself +to finish the thought. + +And then came Betty, and the way in which she and Peter came +together--the way in which they stood only a step or two from the door, +inarticulate in their love and thankfulness, was too much even for the +trained nurse, to whom love and death and the great hereafter were mere +commonplaces. She withdrew to the dressing-room and stayed there for a +whole solid quarter-of-an-hour, eliminating herself with a tactfulness +for which Peter blessed her and Betty became her friend for all time. + +"My baby!" said Peter. "We shall have to begin all over again. We're +almost strangers." + +But Betty shook her head. "No," she said. "No. There hasn't been one +moment during all this time that I haven't been with you." + +And Peter nodded. "That's dead true," he said. + +And then they sat down very close together and the things they said to +each other are lost to the world, because we joined the nurse in the +next room and shut the door. + + +XXI + +It happened that the anniversary of Doctor and Mrs. Guthrie's wedding +day,--they had been married twenty-eight years,--fell on a Sunday that +year. + +The night before, at dinner, the little mother, thankful and happy at +having Peter back again at the table, asked a favour. In having to ask +it, instead of simply saying that she desired her children to go with +her to church the next morning, she proved her knowledge of the fact +that she had joined the ranks of mothers whose children have outgrown +them. + +Mrs. Guthrie was, however, one of those rather rare women who had grown +old gracefully. The hand of time, whose natural treatment she had made +no sort of endeavor to combat, had added to her beauty. Optimism, a +steady faith in God and His goodness, and the usual gift of accepting +whatever came to her without kicking against the pricks, had mellowed +her. It was without any of the spirit of martyrdom that cakes the nature +of those women who have not been able to acquire the best sort of +philosophy that she frankly made this very natural and easily fulfilled +desire a favour. Peter was well again and she wanted to kneel before the +altar of the Great Father and give thanks, surrounded by her children, +on the anniversary of the day that made her a wife. + +The family had grown out of the habit of going to church,--Belle was +tired, as a rule, after a late Saturday night, Graham was an inveterate +week-ender, Ethel was a modernist, and Peter played golf,--and so, when +they all agreed without any argument the little mother was almost as +surprised as she was delighted. + +The conspiracy of silence which the family had tacitly agreed upon +during their recent trouble, in order to spare her from unhappiness, +left Mrs. Guthrie wholly without any knowledge of the fact that they +were all glad of an excuse to join her in church, because they all felt +a curious eagerness to listen to the simple, beautiful service with +which they had grown up and to kneel once more--more humbly and +sincerely than ever before--in the house of the God who had been +instrumental in their various escapes. + +It would have been better if Mrs. Guthrie had not been so carefully +shielded--if she had been made to share with the Doctor the blame,--at +any rate for the mistakes which the two girls had made,--from the fact +that she had let go the reins of duty and discipline with which she had +held them in their early years and given them their heads--if she had +been strong enough and wise enough to maintain over Belle and Ethel, +without autocratically putting a stop to their having "a good time," the +authority of respect, won by love and the exercise of sympathy and +common sense--if, in short, she had not been content to slip into a +position that allowed these high-spirited girls to say to themselves +quite so early in their lives, "Oh, poor, dear little mother doesn't +understand. She doesn't know anything that modern girls have to go +through." She was shielded because it was understood that she was a sort +of sleeping partner--not an active member of the firm. She was regarded +as being so sweet and soft and old-fashioned that she couldn't possibly +appreciate the conditions of the times in which the girls lived. Their +early positions had become reversed. It was the girls who mothered their +mother. + +It was a strangely silent party that returned home that Sunday morning, +headed by the Doctor and the little mother. Betty had been invited by +Mrs. Guthrie to join them and was to stay to lunch. It was while they +were in the hall, and just as Betty had gone upstairs with Mrs. Guthrie, +that the Doctor turned quickly. "I want you all to come to my room," he +said. "I won't keep you more than a few moments," and led the way. + +Wondering what was going to happen, but taking trouble to avoid catching +each other's eyes, Peter, Graham, Belle and Ethel followed their father +across the library into the room which, for the two boys, had +associations that they were never likely to forget, and for the two +girls had hitherto been a place to avoid. + +As soon as they were in the room the Doctor shut the door and, from +force of habit, went over to his desk. With one thin hand on it, and +with a shaft of winter sun on a face that was very lined and pale he +stood there for a moment in silence. His lips trembled a little, but +there was a look in his eyes behind those strong glasses that his +children had never seen before. + +"Peter, Graham, Belle and my little Ethel," he said brokenly, "I'm going +to ask you all, on a day that means a great deal to your mother and to +me, and so to you, to forgive me for not having been all that I ought to +have been to you I know that I've failed in my duty as a father. You +have always been my most precious possessions and it is for you that +I've worked so hard and so closely, but because of all that I went +through as a child and because I never struggled as I ought to have done +to overcome a foolish shyness that has made me self-conscious, you and I +have never been friends--have never understood each other. I take all +the blame for whatever you have done that has made you suffer and of +which you are ashamed. Very humbly, I stand before you now and ask you, +as I asked Peter, here, in this room, to give me another chance. Let's +make a new beginning from to-day, with the knowledge that I love you +better than anything in the world. I want you all to meet me half-way in +future, to look upon me no longer as the shy, unsympathetic, +unapproachable man who, by accident, is your father, but as your closest +and most intimate friend whose best and dearest wish is to help you and +listen to your worries and give you all the advice in his power. I want +this room to be the place to which you'll always come with the certain +knowledge that you'll be welcomed by me with the greatest eagerness and +delight. Don't let there be anything from to-day onwards that you can't +tell me. Promise me that. I--I've told myself two or three times that +it's too late for me to be of any use to you--that having failed I could +never repair my mistake or ever hope to win your confidence and +friendship." + +His voice broke so badly that he was unable to speak, and the +painfulness of this strange little scene was almost more than those +young people could bear. It hurt them enough to stand facing a man who +opened his soul for them to gaze into, especially when that man was +their father. It was dreadful to see him blinded by tears in the middle +of an appeal which they all realized called for such extreme courage and +strength of character to make. + +They all wanted to do something to help him and force him out of a +humbleness that made them horribly self-conscious. It was Peter who did +it. With two strides he stood at the Doctor's side and put his arms +round his shoulder. + +The Doctor looked up into the face of the great big, tender fellow, +whose eyes were eloquent, and smiled. Then he found his voice again and +forced himself to the bitter end of what he had determined to say. +"Something in the way you've all treated me since Peter has been ill," +he said, "has given me hope. That's why I put myself in your hands, my +dears. Shall we make a new beginning? Will you take me into your +friendship? Will you all give me another chance?" + +With a little cry from her heart Belle went forward and put her arms +round her father's neck, and Ethel, with hot tears running down her +face, crept up to him and put one of his hands to her lips. Graham bent +over the other, which he held tight, and Peter, who had longed for this +moment through all his illness, didn't give a curse who heard his voice +break, patted the Doctor on the back, and said: "Dear old man, my dear +old father!" over and over again. + + THE END + + +_Books by_ Cosmo Hamilton + + +The Blindness of Virtue + + "A plea to mothers to tell their daughters frankly all the laws + of nature before they arrive at years of possible indiscretion + through innocence. Its characters are uncommonly well drawn and + might have stepped out of life."--_New York Evening Sun._ + + "A beautiful piece of work dealing with a stupendously difficult + subject with the most dexterous blending of delicacy, dramatic + strength and wholesome candor."--_London Daily Chronicle._ + +307 Pages. _$1.35 net._ + + +The Miracle of Love + + "One of the most notable novels of the year, well worth reading + by those who are seeking more than a pleasant hour, but wholly + delightful merely as a story."--_New Haven Register._ + + "It is a fine, well told and purposeful tale, with brilliant and + quotable passages."--_Detroit Free Press._ + +325 Pages. _$1.35 net._ + + +The Door That Has No Key + + "A work of genuine power; it is impossible to read it + unmoved."--_Providence Journal._ + + "A novel to re-read and preserve. A wonderful piece of work, + alive with emotion."--_London World._ + + "Discusses marriage and divorce. With its brilliant + characteristics it is a notable novel."--_New York Evening Sun._ + +324 Pages. $_1.35 net._ + + +The Blindness of Virtue + +A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS + + In this drama of two girls' careers Mr. Hamilton shows + powerfully just how far innocence, that is only ignorance, is a + protection. He levels the finger of accusation against parents + whose cowardice of silence, masquerading as refinement, + threatens ruin in their children's lives. + + "It is the biggest sermon on the subject that has ever been + preached."--_Dorothy Dix._ + +126 Pages. $1.00 _net_. + + +A Plea for the Younger Generation + + "It is a little bomb which any one at all interested in + children--parent, teacher, eugenist--would do well to read and + consider. It is written with the glow of conviction and there is + merit in it from cover to cover."--_Chicago Tribune._ + + "It is a very small book, but into its compass the author + contrives to say nearly all that is worth while on 'the tragedy + of half truths' on sex matters when they are told to + children."--_San Francisco Chronicle._ + +16mo. 75 cents _net_. + + +LITTLE, BROWN & CO., _Publishers_, BOSTON + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Sins of the Children, by Cosmo Hamilton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN *** + +***** This file should be named 37664-8.txt or 37664-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/6/6/37664/ + +Produced by Roger Frank, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://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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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Sins of the Children + A Novel + +Author: Cosmo Hamilton + +Illustrator: George O. Baker + +Release Date: October 7, 2011 [EBook #37664] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p class="h1">THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="380" height="598" alt="frontispiece" /> +</div> + +<p class="caption">And over them both ... hung the moon and stars. +<br /> +Frontispiece. See page <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<h1 class="booktitle">THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN</h1> + +<p class="h3"><i>A NOVEL</i><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +BY<br /> +COSMO HAMILTON<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +WITH FRONTISPIECE BY<br /> +GEORGE O. BAKER</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/diagram.jpg" width="86" height="118" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="h3">BOSTON<br /> +LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY<br /> +1916</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h4"><i>Copyright, 1916</i>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">By Cosmo Hamilton</span>.</p> + +<hr class="thin" /> + +<p class="h4"><i>All rights reserved</i><br /> +<br /> +Published, October, 1916</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h4">THE COLONIAL PRESS<br /> +C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. S. A.</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h3">To<br /> +MY WIFE</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h3">CONTENTS</p> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="left"> </td><td class="tdrfirst">PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">PART ONE</td><td align="left"><a href="#YOUTH">Youth</a></td><td class="tdr">1</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">PART TWO</td><td align="left"><a href="#THE_CITY">The City</a></td><td class="tdr">99</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">PART THREE</td><td align="left"><a href="#LIFE">Life</a></td><td class="tdr">221</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h2>THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN</h2> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[1]</span></p> + +<p class="h2">PART ONE</p> + +<h2><a id="YOUTH"></a>YOUTH</h2> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[3]</span></p> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>When Peter Guthrie laughed the rooks stirred on +the old trees behind the Bodleian and the bored cab-drivers +who lolled in uncomfortable attitudes on their +cabs in St. Giles perked up their heads.</p> + +<p>He threw open his door one morning and leaving +one of these laughs of his rolling round the quad of +St. John's College found the recumbent form of Nicholas +Kenyon all among his cushions as usual, and as +usual smoking his cigarettes and reading his magazines. +The words "as usual" seemed to be stamped +on his forehead.</p> + +<p>"What d'you think?" cried Peter, filling the room +like a thirty-mile gale.</p> + +<p>"You ought to know that I don't think. It's a form +of exercise that I never indulge in." Kenyon lit a +fresh cigarette from the one which he had half-smoked +and with peculiar expertness flicked the end out of the +window into St. Giles Street, which ran past the great +gates of the college. He hoped that it might have +fallen on somebody's head, but he didn't get up to see.<span class="pagenum">[4]</span></p> + +<p>"Well," said Peter, "I was coming down the High +just now and an awful pretty girl passed with a Univ. +man. She looked at me—thereby very nearly laying +me flat on my face—and I heard her ask, 'Who's +that?' It was the man's answer that makes me laugh. +He said: 'Oh, he's only a Rhodes scholar!'" And +off he went again.</p> + +<p>Nicholas Kenyon raised his immaculate person a few +inches and looked round at his friend. The Harvard +man, with his six-foot-one of excellent muscles and +sinews, his square shoulders and deep chest, and his +fine, honest, alert and healthy face, made most people +ask who he was. "If I'd been you," said Kenyon, +"I should have made a mental note of that Univ. +blighter in order to land him one the next time you +saw him, that he wouldn't easily forget."</p> + +<p>"Why? I liked it, from a man of his type. I've +been 'only a damned Rhodes scholar' to all the little +pussy purr-purrs ever since I first walked the High in +my American-made clothes. I owe that fellow no +grudge; and if I meet that girl again—which I shall +make a point of doing—I bet you anything you like +that his scoffing remark will lend a touch of romance +to me which will be worth a lot."</p> + +<p>"Was she something out of the ordinary?"</p> + +<p>"Quite," said Peter.</p> + +<p>He hung his straw hat on the electric bulb, threw off +his coat, rolled up his sleeves and started to tidy up his +rooms with more energy and deftness than is possessed +by the average housemaid. He flicked the little pile +of cigarette ash, which Kenyon had dropped on the<span class="pagenum">[5]</span> +floor, into a corner. He gathered the weekly illustrated +papers which Kenyon had flung aside and put +them on a back shelf, and then he picked up the man +Kenyon in his arms, deposited him in a wide arm-chair +in front of the fireplace and started punching all +the cushions.</p> + +<p>Kenyon looked ineffably bored. "Good God!" he +said. "What's all this energy? You shatter my +nervous system."</p> + +<p>"My dear chap," said Peter, "you seem to forget +that this is Commem. and that my people have come +three thousand miles to see their little Peter in his little +rooms. I'm therefore polishing up the knocker of the +big front door. My mother has a tidy mind and I +want my father to gain the impression that I'm methodical +and responsible. He has a quick eye. They +wired me from London last night to say that they'll be +here at five o'clock to tea. I dashed round to the Randolph +early this morning to book rooms for them. +Gee, it's a big party, too! I can't make out why they +want so many rooms. It'll be like my sister to have +brought over one of her school friends. I guess I +shall be darned glad to see them, anyway."</p> + +<p>There was a touch of excitement in the boy's voice, +and his sun-tanned, excellent face showed the delight +that he felt. He had not seen his mother, brother and +sister for two years, having spent his vacations in +England.</p> + +<p>Nicholas Kenyon got up slowly. He did everything +slowly. "Well," he said, "I thank God that +my people don't bother me on these festive occasions.<span class="pagenum">[6]</span> +To my way of thinking the influx of fathers and +mothers into Oxford makes the whole place provincial. +However, I can understand your childish glee. You +are pretty badly dipped, I understand, and with the +true psychology of the rasping undergraduate you are +first going to throw the glamour of the city of spires +over your untravelled parent and then touch him for +a fairly considerable cheque."</p> + +<p>Peter gave a sort of laugh. "Touch my father!" +he said. "Not much. I shall put my case up to my +mother. She's the one who does these little things."</p> + +<p>Kenyon was faintly interested. Being perennially +impecunious himself and unable to raise money even +from the loan sharks, he looked to the advent of Peter's +parents to bring him at least fifty pounds. He always +borrowed from Peter.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see," he said. "It's the old lady who carries +the money-bags, is it?"</p> + +<p>"No, it isn't," said Peter; "but as a matter of fact +I never have gone to my father for anything and I +don't think I ever shall. I don't know why it is, but +none of us have ever been able to screw up courage to +say more than 'Good-morning' and 'Good-night' to +the Governor, although of course we all think he is a +very wonderful person."</p> + +<p>Kenyon yawned. "I see," he said. "Bad luck. +I should hate to have such a disagreeable devil for a +father—one of the martinet type, who says <i>don't</i> all +the time when he ought to say <i>do</i>, and makes home a +sort of pocket-hell for everybody."</p> + +<p>Peter twisted round and spoke quickly and rather<span class="pagenum">[7]</span> +warmly. "So should I," he said, "but luckily I +haven't. I didn't want to suggest that my father was +that type of man. He's one of the very best—one of +the men who count for something in my country. +He's worked like a dog to give us a chance in life and +his generosity makes me personally sometimes feel almost +indecent. I mean that I feel that I have taken +advantage of him,—but—but, somehow or other,—oh, +I don't know,—we don't seem to know each other—that's +all. He hasn't the knack of winning our +confidence—or something. So it comes to this: when +we want anything we ask mother and she gets it for us. +That's all there's to it. And look here, Nick, I want +you to be frightfully nice to the Governor. Get out +of your ice-box and warm up to the old man. I can't, +you see; but as he has come all this way to look me up +I want somebody to show some appreciation."</p> + +<p>With his eyes to the small relief which the visit of +Dr. Hunter Guthrie, of New York City, might bring +him, Nicholas Kenyon nodded. "Rely on me," he +said. "Butter shan't melt in my mouth; and before +your father leaves Oxford I'll make him feel that he's +been created a Baronet and appointed Physician in +Ordinary to His Majesty the King. Well, so long, +Peter! I'm lunching with Lascelles at the House this +morning. I'll drop in to tea and hand cakes round to +your beloved family."</p> + +<p>"Right-o," said Peter. "That'll be great!" And +when the door closed and he found himself alone he +arranged a certain number of silver cups which he had +won in athletics all along his mantel-piece, for his<span class="pagenum">[8]</span> +father to see, gazed at them for a moment with a half-smile +of rather self-conscious pride, finished tidying +his room, gazed affectionately for a few moments at +the familiar sight of Pusey House through the leaf-crowded +trees that lined the sunny street, and then sat +down to his piano and played a rag-time with all that +perfect excellence and sense of rhythm which had +opened the most insular doors to him during his first +days as a fresher.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>This fine big fellow, Peter Murray Guthrie, who +had done immensely well at Harvard in athletics and +was by no means a fool intellectually, could afford to +be amused at the fact that he had been scoffingly referred +to as "only a Rhodes scholar." He had been +born under a lucky star and he had that wonderful +gymnastic faculty of always falling on his feet. If +with all his suspicions aroused he had gone up to Oxford +in the same rather timid, self-conscious, on-the-defensive +manner of the average Rhodes scholar who +expected to be treated as a creature quite different +from the English undergraduate, he would have found +his way to the American Club and stayed there more +or less permanently, taking very little part in the glorious +multitudinous life of the freshmen of his college, +and remained a sort of pariah of his own making. +Freshmen themselves, the Lord knows, are forlorn +enough. Everything is strange to them, too,—society, +rules, customs, unwritten laws and faces.<span class="pagenum">[9]</span> +They are solitary creatures in the midst of a bustling +crowd. If they do not come from one of the great +public schools and meet again the men they knew there +their chance of making friends is small and for many +dull disappointing weeks they must mope and look-on +and envy and find their feet alone, suffering, poor +devils, from a hideous sheepishness and wondering, +with a sort of morbid self-consciousness, what others +are thinking of them. But Peter was unafraid. He +stalked into Oxford prepared to find it the finest place +on earth—with his imagination stirred at the sight +of those old colleges whose quadrangles echoed with +the feet of the great dead and rang with those of the +younger generation to whom life was a great adventure +and who might spring from those old stones into +everlasting fame. He strode through the gate of St. +John's with his chin high, prepared to serve her with +all his strength and all the best of his youth and leave +her finally unsullied by his name. He didn't give a +single whoop for all this talk about the snobbishness +and insularity of English undergraduates. He didn't +believe that he would find a college divided and sub-divided +into sets; and if the statement proved to be +true—well, he intended to break all the barriers down.</p> + +<p>Therefore, with such a spirit added to his fine frank, +manly personality, irresistible laugh, great big friendly +hand and the rumours that came with him of his bull-like +rushes on the football field, he became at once a +marked man. Second-year and even third-year men +nudged each other when he passed. "By Jove!" they +said. "That's a useful looking cove! We must get<span class="pagenum">[10]</span> +him down to the river." Or, "I wonder if that +American can be taught to play cricket?" As for the +freshers—all as frightened as a lot of rabbits far +away from their warren—they gazed with shy admiration +and respect at Peter, who, expecting no rebuffs, +received none.</p> + +<p>Finding that he could not live in college until he was +a second-year man, Peter had looked about him among +the freshers for a likely person with whom to share +rooms. He had come up in the train with Nicholas +Kenyon, whose shell he had insisted upon opening. +He, too, was entered at St. John's and was very ready—being +impecunious—to share lodgings with the +American whose allowance he might share and whose +personality was distinctly unusual. These two then +gravitated to Beaumont Street, captured a large sitting-room +and two bed-rooms on the ground floor, and +from the first evening of their arrival were perfectly +at home. Peter at once hired a piano from a music +shop in the High which he quickly discovered, bought +several bottles of whiskey and a thousand cigarettes, +besides several pounds of pipe tobacco, threw open his +window, and as soon as dinner was over started playing +rag-times.</p> + +<p>Kenyon had been interested and amused. He had +not expected to find himself "herding," as he put it, +with a damned Rhodes scholar. He took it for +granted that these "foreigners" would live apart from +the ordinary undergraduate, as uncouth people should. +He had been quick to notice, however,—psychology +being his principal stock in trade,—that Peter had<span class="pagenum">[11]</span> +made an instant impression; and as he sat on the window-sill +listening with what he had to confess to himself +was keen pleasure to Peter's masterly manipulation +of the piano and saw all the windows within near +range of their house open and heads poke out to listen, +he was able—without any propheticism—to say that +Peter would quickly be the centre of a set. He would +certainly not be sulking in the American Club.</p> + +<p>Very quickly P. M. Guthrie, of St. John's, became +"Peter" to the whole college—and stroke in the +freshers' boat. The other Rhodes scholars owed +everything that was good to him. He stood by them +loyally, made his rooms their headquarters, and all +who wanted to know him were obliged to know them. +He introduced swipes at the first freshers' concert in +the Hall, with enormous success, selecting Forbes +Nicholl, of Brasenose; Watson Frick, of Wadham; +Baldwin Colgate, of Worcester; and Madison Smith, +of Merton, all good Americans, for the purpose. +Even Dons stayed to listen on that epoch-making occasion +and the fame of their curious and delightful +method of singing spread all over the university. It +was easy. There was nothing else like it.</p> + +<p>Quite unconsciously Peter was for a little while the +whole topic of conversation at Dons' dinners. These +hide-bound professors were really quite surprised at +the remarkable way in which, at one fell swoop, this +man Peter Guthrie had managed to weld together the +English and American undergraduates for the first +time in their knowledge. Some of them put it all +down to his piano playing—and were very nearly<span class="pagenum">[12]</span> +right. Others conceived his great laugh to be mainly +responsible—and were not far short of the mark. +But it was Nicholas Kenyon, the psychologist, who +put his finger on the whole truth of this swift and unbelievable +success. He said that it was Peter's humanity +which had conquered Oxford, and in so doing +proved—impecunious only son of an absolutely broke +peer as he was—that he would be able to make a very +fair living in the future on his wits. It may be said +that he never intended to work.</p> + +<p>It was part of Peter's honesty and simplicity to remain +American. He made no effort to ape the Oxford +manner of speech. He would see himself shot +before he got into the rather effeminate clothes affected +by the Oxford man. He continued to be natural, +to remain himself, and not to take on the colors +chameleon-wise of those about him. His Stetson hat +was the standing joke of St. John's. Nevertheless, +there was not one man in the college who would not +have hit hard if any derogatory remarks had been +thrown at the head inside it. His padded shoulders, +upholstered ties and narrow belt were all frequently +caricatured, but the sound of Peter's laugh gathered +men together like the music of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. +It was just that this man Peter Guthrie was a +<i>man</i> that made him not only accepted in a place seething +with quaint and foolish habits, out-of-date shibboleths +and curious unwritten laws, but loved and respected. +Here was one to whom merely to live was +a joy. To the despondent he came therefore as a +tonic. He exuded breeziness filled with ozone. His<span class="pagenum">[13]</span> +continuous high spirits infected even those foolish boys +who were encrusted with affectation and stuccoed with +the petty side and insolence of Eton. He worked +hard and played hard and slept like a dog, ate hearty +and drank like a thirsty plant. Also he smoked like +a factory chimney. He had no crankish views—no +tolerance for "isms," and was not ashamed to stride +into chapel and say his prayers like a simple boy. In +short, "unashamed" was his watchword, and he had +been endowed with the rare gift of saying "No," and +sticking to it. And to Nicholas Kenyon, who frequented +the rooms of the so-called intellectuals—those +"little dreadful clever people" who parroted and perverted +other men's thoughts and possessed no originality +of their own—it was a stroke of genius on +Peter's part to have nothing but the photographs of his +family all over his rooms. He must be a big man, +Nicholas said to himself, who could afford, among the +very young, to dispense with the female form divine +in his frames—the nudes so generally placed in +them—in order to convey the impression of being +devilish wise and bad. Also it showed, according to +this human merchant, a peculiar strength of character +on Peter's part to bolt his door regularly one evening +a week so that he might sit down uninterrupted and +write a tremendous screed to his mother. However, +that was Peter the man-boy—Peter the Rhodes +scholar—Peter the Oxford man—who always +wound up his musical evenings with the "Star Spangled +Banner." And there was just one other side to +this big, simple fellow's character which puzzled and<span class="pagenum">[14]</span> +annoyed the bloodless, clever parasite who lived with +him and upon him,—women.</p> + +<p>Now, Nicholas Kenyon—the Honourable Nicholas +Augustus Fitzhugh Kenyon—was a patron of the +drama. That is to say, he had the right somehow to +enter the stage door of the Theatre Royal at all times, +and did so whenever the theatre was visited by a musical +comedy company. He was known to innumerable +chorus girls as "Boy-dear," and made a point of entertaining +them at luncheon and supper during their +visits to the university town. He brought choice +specimens of this breed to Beaumont Street for tea +and tittle-tattle and introduced them to Peter, who +liked them very much and would have staked his life +upon their being angels. But when it came to driving +out to small unnoticeable inns, Peter squared his shoulders +and stayed at home.</p> + +<p>"The devil take it!" said Nicholas one night, with +frightful frankness which was devoid of any intentional +insolence. "What's this cursed provincialism +that hangs to you? I suppose it comes from the fact +that you were born in a shack to the tinkle of the trolley-car!"</p> + +<p>Peter's howl of laughter made the piano play an +immaculate tune. "Wrong," he said. "Gee! but +you're absolutely wrong. The whole thing comes to +this, Nick: One of these fine days I'm going to be +married. The girl I marry is going to be clean. I +believe in fairness. <i>I'm</i> going to be clean. That's all +there is to it."</p> + +<p>So that, one way and another, Dr. Hunter G. Guthrie,<span class="pagenum">[15]</span> +of New York, as well as St. John's College, Oxford, +had several reasons to be rather proud of this +man Peter.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>One o'clock that afternoon found Peter still hammering +on his piano, not only to the intense delight of +three snub-nosed tradesmen's boys who delayed delivery +of mutton-chops and soles, which were only +plaice, but also of five people who had come quietly +into the room. They stood together watching and listening +and waiting for him suddenly to discover that +he was not alone. One was a tall, rather angular, +clean-shaven, noticeably intellectual man whose thin +hair was grey and who wore very large glasses with +tortoise-shell frames, through which he looked with +pale, short-sighted eyes. He held a grey hat in his +thin hand and stood watching the boy—who made his +piano do the work of a full band—with a smile of +infinite pride on his lips. Another was a little lady, +all soft and sweet, with a bird-like face and a curious +bird-like appearance. All about her there was a sort +of perennial youthfulness, and the goodness of her +kind heart gleamed so openly in her eyes that they +asked beggars and cripples, itinerant musicians, ragamuffins, +street dogs and all humbugs to come and be +helped. At that moment they were full of tears, although +little lines of laughter were all about them. +Another was a slight, exceedingly good-looking young +man whose hair went into a series of small waves and<span class="pagenum">[16]</span> +was brushed away from his forehead. He was grinning +like a Cheshire cat and showing two rows of teeth +which would make a dentist both envious and annoyed. +There was a slight air of precocity about his clothes. +Two girls made up the rest of the party. Both were +young and slim and of average height. Both were +unmistakably American in their fearless independence +and cleanness of cut. One was dark, with almost +black eyebrows which just failed to meet in the middle. +Her eyes were amazing and as full of danger as +a maxim,—large and blue—the most astonishing +blueness. They were framed with long, thick, black +lashes. Her lips were rather full and red, and her +skin white. She might have been an Italian or a +Spaniard. The other girl was blonde and slim, +with large grey eyes set widely apart, a small patrician +nose and a lovely little mouth turning up at the +corners.</p> + +<p>How long all these people would have stayed watching +and listening no man can say. Suddenly, in the +middle of a bar, Peter sprang up and turned round. +His cry of joy and the way in which he plunged forward +and picked up the little bird-like woman in his +arms was very good to see.</p> + +<p>"Mother!" he cried. "Mother! Oh, Gee! This +is great!" and he kissed her cheeks and her hands, and +then her cheeks again, all the while making strange, +small, fond noises like a little boy who comes back +home after the holidays.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, dear Peter!" said the little woman, between +tears and laughter. "How splendidly rough<span class="pagenum">[17]</span> +you are! You shake me to pieces! Where <i>shall</i> I be +able to tidy my hair?"</p> + +<p>Then, with a rather constrained air and a touch of +nervous cordiality, Peter turned to his father and took +his hand. "How are you, father?" he asked. +"You look fine."</p> + +<p>Dr. Hunter Guthrie swallowed something and gave +a murmur which remained incoherent. Before he +could pull himself together, Peter was hugging his sister, +who squealed like a pig from the tightness of this +man's mighty grasp. And then the brother came in +for it and winced with pain and pleasure as his hand +was taken in a vise-like grip.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Graham!"</p> + +<p>"Hello, Peter!"</p> + +<p>And then everybody except Peter burst out laughing. +He stood in front of the fair girl, with his mouth +wide open, and held out his hand and said: "I was +going to hunt the whole place for you,—I beg your +pardon." It was when he drew back, with his face +and neck the color of a beet root, that the laughter +reached its climax.</p> + +<p>Belle Guthrie was the first to find her voice. +"Well, Peter," she said, "that's going some. Is an +introduction superfluous in Oxford? Where did you +meet Betty Townsend?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't met her," said Peter. "I saw her this +morning in the High for a second—" He ran his +finger round his collar and moved from one foot to the +other and shifted his great shoulders. No man on +this earth had ever looked so uncomfortable.<span class="pagenum">[18]</span></p> + +<p>And then, with consummate coolness, Betty Townsend +came to the rescue. "Just after we arrived this +morning," she said, "and you were all buying picture +post-cards, I passed Mr. Guthrie when I was walking +along the High Street with Graham's friend. I recognized +him from the photographs that you have at +home, and I think he must have heard me ask, 'Who's +that?' I naturally gave him a friendly look. That's +all."</p> + +<p>"I didn't catch the friendly look," said Peter. But +he did catch the friendly tone and stored it up among +his treasures. Then he suddenly stirred himself, being +host, picked up his mother and placed her on his elaborate +sofa; gave his best arm-chair to his father; waved +his sister into the window-seat with her friend, and +tilted Graham into a deck chair.</p> + +<p>Standing in the middle of the room, beaming with +pride, he said: "How in thunder did you get here +so soon? Your wire said that you were coming to +tea, and I was going to meet the train leaving Paddington +at three-thirty. Gee! This is the best thing +that ever happened! Will you lunch here?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, dear!" said Mrs. Guthrie. "So many of +us will worry your landlady."</p> + +<p>Then out came one of Peter's huge laughs. +"Worry my landlady? One look at Mrs. Brownstack +would show you that she got over being worried before +the great wind. Why she's kept lodgings for undergraduates +for twenty years. It's the same thing as +saying that she's spent the greater part of her life sitting +on the top of Vesuvius. I can give you beer, beef,<span class="pagenum">[19]</span> +pickles, biscuits, cake, swipes they call coffee, some +corking Nougat and three brands of cigarettes."</p> + +<p>"I think," said Dr. Guthrie, with a suggestion of +haste, "it might be better if you lunched with us at +the hotel." Like all doctors, his first thoughts were +of digestion.</p> + +<p>"Right-o!" said Peter, and he dived into his bedroom +for a more respectable coat. His brother followed +him in and the two stood facing each other for a +moment, eye to eye. They had not met for two years. +Instinctively they grasped hands again and the minds +of both were filled with most affectionate things—a +very flood of words—but one said "Old man!" and +the other "Peter!" And while Graham brushed his +kinky hair with a temporary suggestion of throatiness, +Peter hauled out his best coat and whistled to +show how utterly unmoved he was.</p> + +<p>They returned to the sitting-room together. Dr. +Guthrie was examining the conglomeration of books +that loaded the shelves. The plays of Bernard Shaw +rubbed shoulders with "Masterton on Land Taxes." +Stevenson's "Treasure Island" leaned up against +Webster's Dictionary. "Tono-Bungay" had for a +companion a slushy novel by Garvice—and on them +all was dust.</p> + +<p>The little mother, all a-flutter like a thrush, was at +the window looking through the trees at the warm old +buildings opposite. The two girls were peering into +a cupboard as into the "Blue Room," where they +found nothing but a few whiskey bottles, several packs +of cards, a box of chess-men, a couple of mortar-boards<span class="pagenum">[20]</span> +with all their corners gone, and a large collection +of white shoes in all grades of dilapidation.</p> + +<p>"Are you all ready?" asked Dr. Guthrie, with a +curious gayety. Among all this youth even he felt +young.</p> + +<p>"Rather," said Peter. "I could eat an ox."</p> + +<p>He opened the door, touched his mother's soft cheek +with his finger as she passed, tweaked his sister's hair, +refrained from catching Betty Townsend's eyes, +winked at his brother and drew back for his father.</p> + +<p>Once in the quad Mrs. Guthrie whispered to Graham +and went quickly out into St. Giles, beckoning to +the two girls to follow. She was very anxious that +Peter should walk with his father, and this—rather +pleased with himself—Peter did. He would have +taken his father's arm if he had dared, he was so +mighty glad to see him. Several times the Doctor +seemed about to do the same thing, but his hand hesitated +and dropped. And so these two fell in step and +walked silently along towards the Randolph Hotel, +passed by men in twos or threes, many of whom, to +the Doctor's inward delight, cried out, "Hullo, +Peter!" with tremendous cordiality. It was not until +they turned the corner that the Doctor spoke.</p> + +<p>"It gives me real pleasure to see you again, Peter," +he said, with a quick self-conscious glance at the young +giant at his elbow.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, father," said Peter, looking straight +ahead and getting as red as a peony.<span class="pagenum">[21]</span></p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Nicholas Kenyon more than lived up to his promise. +In clothes into which he seemed to have been +poured in liquid form, he handed hot toast and cakes to +Peter's family at tea-time with that air of deferential +impertinence which was his peculiar property. He +had the same effect on the Doctor and Mrs. Guthrie +and the two girls as he had on Peter when he first saw +him on the train. His complete self-control, his indolent +assurance, his greyhound look of thoroughbredness +and the decorative way in which he phrased his +sentences all charmed and amused them. For Peter's +sake he came right out of his shell at once and behaved +like a man who had been a favorite in that family circle +for years. In the most subtle manner he implied +to the Doctor that his fame as a bacteriologist had +spread all over Oxford, and even England. He refused +to believe that Mrs. Guthrie was the mother of +her children and not her own eldest daughter. He +asked Graham almost at once to do him the favor of +giving him the name of his tailor, and told Betty that +he had shot with her father, Lord Townsend, many +times, well-knowing that he was a portrait painter in +New York. With consummate ease and tact he put +everybody on the best of terms with one another and +themselves, thereby winning still more of Peter's admiration +and liking. With great pleasure he accepted +the Doctor's invitation to dine at the Randolph Hotel, +and in return invited all present to be his guests at the<span class="pagenum">[22]</span> +Open Air Performance of "Twelfth Night," later in +the week, by the O.U.D.S., in the beautiful gardens +of Worcester. In a word, he played with these people +as a cat plays with a mouse and as he had always played +with Peter. He used all his brain not only to win their +confidence and friendship but to make an impression +which might afterwards be of use to himself.</p> + +<p>Nicholas Kenyon was one of those men who are +born and not made. He opened his eyes to find +himself in an atmosphere of aristocratic roguery. +The beautiful old house in which his father lived was +mortgaged to the very tops of the chimneys. It was +maintained on money borrowed from the loan sharks at +an exorbitant interest. It was filled with men and +women who, like his own parents, were clever and +intellectual enough to work for their livelihood, but +who preferred to live on their wits and cling to society +by the skin of their teeth. In this atmosphere of +expert parasites—an atmosphere as false as it was +light-hearted—Nicholas was brought up. He was a +complete man of the world at fourteen. Even at that +age he gambled, raced and borrowed money; and in +order to provide himself with the necessities of life +he ran a roulette table in secret at Eton and made a +book for the racing bets of the little boys of his own +kidney. Highly gifted and endowed with a most +likable personality, with the art of eluding punishment +for misdeeds brought to a masterly completeness, he +could have been shaped, under different circumstances, +into a man whose name would stand high in his country. +With the proper training and discipline and the<span class="pagenum">[23]</span> +right sense of duty which is given to those lucky lads +whose parents are responsible and honorable he had +it in his power to become a famous diplomat. As it +was, he entered Oxford as a parasite and would leave +the university for the world in the same capacity. He +was entirely unscrupulous. He had no code of honor. +He quietly used the men about him to provide him with +amusement, money, hospitality, and to insure him +against having to work. He turned his personality +into a sort of business asset—a kind of limited liability +company—which brought him in regular dividends. +His breeding and good form, his well-known +name and his inherent ability to slide comfortably into +any set or society, made him wholly irresistible. No +one suspected him, because his frankness disarmed suspicion. +His knowledge of human nature told him that +the paradox of his being poor lent him a sort of romance, +and he always began by telling new acquaintances +that he was broke to the wide. In this way he +struck the honest note of the men who disdain to convey +false impressions. He was poor, but proud, and +made himself so attractive and companionable that +men were delighted to be put to great expense in order +to entertain him,—and he wanted everything of the +very best. His clothes were immaculate. His cigarettes +were freshly rolled. When he drove a car it had +to be of the best known make. He was a most fastidious +reader and had once read a paper on modern +poetry which had startled the Dons of his college. +He contributed short satirical articles to the Isis from +time to time which tickled the intellect of the more discriminating;<span class="pagenum">[24]</span> +and as a fresher had given a performance +of Puck in one of the productions of the O.U.D.S., +over which undergraduate critics went raving mad. +Even in his dealings with his friends, the chorus girls, +there was a certain touch of humour which made it +impossible even for the most straightlaced to say hard +things of him.</p> + +<p>In a word, Nicholas Kenyon was a very dangerous +man. His influence was as subtly bad and pernicious +as a beautifully made cigarette heavily charged with +dope; and he would at any time if necessary have +stolen his mother's toilet set in order to provide himself +with caviar, plover's eggs and a small bottle of +champagne.</p> + +<p>And this was the man who had shared rooms with +Peter Guthrie during his terms at Oxford, and of +whom the Doctor spoke that first night of his stay at +the Randolph Hotel as an unusually charming person +whom it was a pleasure to meet.</p> + +<p>In fact, he was the sole topic of conversation in all +the bedrooms of Peter's family party before the lights +were turned out. Mrs. Guthrie said, as she sat in +front of the dressing-table combing her hair: "How +lucky it is, dear, that Peter has found such a wonderful +friend here! He is so English and so refined—in +every sense of the word a gentleman." The Doctor +thoroughly agreed with her and made a mental note to +invite Kenyon to his house in New York in the autumn.</p> + +<p>Belle Guthrie took her brushes into Betty's room, +which was next to her own, and looking extremely +attractive in a pale pink kimono, with her dark<span class="pagenum">[25]</span> +hair all about her shoulders and her naked feet in pink, +heel-less slippers, gave a ripple of excited laughter and +confided to her friend that she was going to have a +more bully time even than she had hoped. "I love +St. John's College," she said, "and these wonderful +old streets and all the church bells which strike so frequently—but +I'm perfectly crazy about Nicholas +Kenyon. He is so,—so different—so witty—says +such perfectly wonderful things—and oh, my dear! +<i>did</i> you see the way he looked at me when he said +'good-night'?"</p> + +<p>Betty shook her head—her little golden head—her +rather wise little head. "I didn't look," she said. +"The light was shining on Peter's face, and that was +good enough for me."</p> + +<p>What Graham thought of Kenyon came out in +Peter's rooms, to which he had gone back with his +brother when the family were left at the hotel after +their return from a jaunt on the river in the moonlight +after dinner,—the quiet, soothing, narrow +stream on which they had floated in punts all among +cushions and listened with keen appreciation to the +throbbing song of the nightingale and the deep voice +of an undergraduate singing "Annie Laurie" in the +back water to the thrumming accompaniment of a +mandolin.</p> + +<p>Kenyon himself had gone round to the rooms of +some friends of his to play bridge, so the two brothers +were able to talk undisturbed. The night was deliciously +warm and Peter's old windows, with their +numerous leaded panes, were wide open. It was<span class="pagenum">[26]</span> +eleven o'clock and the life of the town had almost +ceased, although from time to time little parties of +undergraduates passed along St. Giles and their high-spirited +laughter drifted up.</p> + +<p>After having put cigarettes in front of his brother, +Peter flung himself full stretch upon his sofa, with a +pipe between his teeth. "Now for your news, old +man!" he said. "I'm glad you like Nick. He certainly +is one of the best. What seems perfectly amazing +to me is that while I'm still a sort of schoolboy, +rowing and reading, you're a full-blown man earning +your living. I'd give something to see you buzzing +about Wall Street with your head full of stocks and +shares and the rise and fall of prices. How do you +do it?"</p> + +<p>Graham ran his hand rather nervously over his +mouth. "It's great!" he said excitedly. "That's +what I call life. Gee! You've no idea how fascinating +it is to gamble on the tape and get a thrill every +time you hear it tick. It's like living among earthquakes. +I love it!"</p> + +<p>"Gamble!" Peter echoed the word with a touch +of fright. "Good Lord; but you don't gamble +surely? I thought you were a broker and looked after +other people's concerns!"</p> + +<p>Graham shot out a short laugh. "Other people's +concerns? Why, yes; but we're not in Wall Street +for other people. I've had the luck of the devil lately +though,—everything I've touched has gone wrong. +However, don't let's talk about that. I'm here for a +holiday and a rest, and I need 'em. I believe I was<span class="pagenum">[27]</span> +on the verge of a nervous breakdown before I came +away. When I get back I shall have to straighten +things out. At the present moment I'm out about +twenty thousand dollars."</p> + +<p>It was his young brother who said these things—the +boy who two years ago was only just out of +Harvard. Peter sat up—in two senses. "You? +Twenty thousand dollars! Have you told father?"</p> + +<p>"My God, no!" said Graham. "I shall get it all +back of course; otherwise,—Phut! As to telling +father,—well—well, do you ever tell father anything? +I'd rather face electrocution than go into father's +room with such a tale. Once before—about +six months ago—when I had to meet a bill for five +thousand dollars, I had a little talk with mother, and +after she had a fit she gave me a handful of her jewels +to pawn. She was afraid of father, too. Within +two months I got them out again. Steel did me very +well that time; and mother,—bless her dear heart!—called +me a very clever boy, and said: 'What a brain +you have, darling, but please don't do it again!' Oh, +my God, Peter! You don't know what Wall Street +means. It's hell! It's marvellous! It's life! One +of these days when a real good chance comes I'll go +some plunge, and then you'll see me living quietly in +the country breeding ponies or dogs or chickens or +something, and I'll marry and settle down."</p> + +<p>Peter got up, re-loaded his pipe, and said: "Just +think of it! You're two years younger than I am. +I've not begun to live and you're in the whirl of money +and risk. In the meantime there's father so busy experimenting<span class="pagenum">[28]</span> +with microbes that he hasn't one idea of +what his boys are doing, or are likely to do—absolutely +content to let them find their feet unaided! +Well, I suppose he knows what he's doing,—but what +you've just told me makes me wonder whether it +wouldn't be wise for him to experiment a little bit with +us for a change. What d'you think?"</p> + +<p>Graham shrugged his shoulders. With the light on +his face he looked older than his brother, and there +was something in his eyes which showed that he had +already gazed at life very much more closely than the +big healthy fellow who was his host. "Oh, well," he +said—pouring himself out a rather stiff whiskey—"we've +never known quite what it was to have a father,—I +mean except as a sort of aloof institution, a vague +person who educated us and placed us out. I should +resent his butting in now. There's someone coming +up your stairs, isn't there?"</p> + +<p>There was. It was Kenyon, who rattled money in +his trousers pocket with a little smile at the corners +of his sophisticated mouth.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>Peter put in the time of his life during the next +few days, and like the great big simple fellow that he +was, revelled in being the little hero of his family.</p> + +<p>From morning until night he kept them on the move, +taking them to all his favorite haunts in the town and +out in the country, introducing to them whole flocks of<span class="pagenum">[29]</span> +his friends, with whom they had tea and lunch; guiding +them into the strange quiet chapels that were filled +with the aroma of dead years like a bowl of dry rose-leaves; +going with them into the sweet, quiet, sacred, +stately seclusion of New College Garden and into the +echoing cloisters of Magdalen. They were good days, +memorable days, giving them all mental pictures that +even time would not blur nor age rub out. To Peter +the best of all the afternoons was the one when he +looked up at the St. John's barge as he paddled out +into the river in the College Eight and caught the +eager and excited eyes of all the people who meant so +much to him, and especially those of Betty. He rowed +that afternoon as he had never rowed before, carrying +with him all along the stream the raucous shouts of the +members of his college who tore along the tow-path +almost demented with enthusiasm, firing pistols, turning +rattles and screaming "St. John's! St. John's! +Give her ten! Give her ten! Up! Up!" And +finally, when he staggered out of the boat almost sick +from exertion, his knees shaking under him, the +thought that came to him as he heard the incessant +cries of "Good old Peter!" was "Thank God for +this! The Governor will get something back for all +he has done for me." He just waved his hand to his +people, felt his way into the barge, laid himself flat +on the floor and underwent the soothing process of being +rubbed and sponged down—and all the while he +smiled and was very happy.</p> + +<p>He didn't catch the look of maternal agony in his +mother's eyes nor her remarks—which was perhaps<span class="pagenum">[30]</span> +just as well. Seeing her great big boy crumpled up +over his oar before he was assisted out of the boat, +seeing him stand rocking like a drunken man with his +great chest heaving and his face the color of a green +apple, she leaned over the rail and cried out: "Oh, +my dear, what <i>have</i> they done to you? Oh, Hunter, +you must <i>not</i> let him do these things, he'll kill himself! +Oh, Peter, Peter!"</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, no one heard her. There was +too much good solid roar going on. Every lusty-throated +St. John's man was shouting at the full capacity +of his lungs. Oh, but it was a good scene! And +for the quiet, studious Doctor who had sat day after +day for the greater part of his life watching bacteriological +experiments, with the most intense interest, +it was one that caused his blood to move almost dangerously +through his veins and make him shout for +the first time in his life.</p> + +<p>It had a different effect upon temperamental Belle, +who danced with excitement and kept on saying, in a +sort of refrain, "Oh, I'm crazy about all this—simply +crazy!" As for Graham, even the thrill of Wall Street +seemed poor to him in comparison with this stirring +scene,—the wild rush of men, the rhythmetic plunge +of oars, the glorious muscular effort and the frenzied +outburst.</p> + +<p>Betty merely smiled, clasped her hands together and +held her breath. It seemed to her that in Peter all the +heroes of her youth,—Brian de Bois Guilbert, Ivanhoe +and the rest,—were epitomized in the form, the +splendid young giant form of her fellow-countryman.<span class="pagenum">[31]</span> +Above all things in the world she wanted to lean over +and put a wreath of laurels on the man who stroked +the St. John's boat to victory. As it was, she cried a +little, quietly and simply, not caring who saw her tears; +and in her heart, for a reason which she herself found +unexplainable, she sang "My Country 'tis of Thee." +She had never in her life been so deeply stirred, and +who can wonder at that? There is indeed something +full of inspiration about these undergraduates' struggles +on the water and the fervent partisanship of the +colleges. It is unique and splendid and sends young +men out into the world with good and beautiful memories +and with the love and loyalty for their alma +mater which makes them better able to serve the women +who need them and the country to which they belong.</p> + +<p>And when, having changed his shorts and got once +more into his flannels, Peter went up to the roof of the +barge, stinging with health and glowing with very +natural pride and satisfaction, it was the Doctor +whose hand he first took, and the Doctor who said: +"My son, my dear son!" It was an extraordinary +moment for Peter, who had never in his life before +felt the indescribable barrier which existed between +his father and himself so near to crumbling.</p> + +<p>That night, while his father and mother and Graham +were taken to the theatre by three of his fellow Rhodes +scholars, to see a performance of one of Gilbert and +Sullivan's plays, Peter and Nicholas Kenyon took +Betty and Belle to the Worcester Ball, the two girls +being under the wing of the wife of one of the Dons.<span class="pagenum">[32]</span></p> + +<p>It was one of those warm, clear, silver nights which +the fickle climate of England sometimes produces apparently +to show what it can do when it likes. The +moon was full and the sky was bespattered with stars. +The trees on the smooth lawn round the old college +flung their shadows as though in sunlight and it was +to a seat under one of these that Peter led Betty just +before midnight, having very nearly danced her off her +feet. They sat down panting a little, and laughing for +no reason, and listened for a moment to the strains of +the band which drifted through the open windows of +the hall.</p> + +<p>It was not in Peter to do anything by halves. He +worked and played like a Trojan and put his back into +everything that he took up. He knew by this time, +short as it was, that he was wholly and completely in +love with the little girl, the first sight of whom had +made him catch his breath. With a peculiar kind of +grimness he had made up his mind that she was for him +if he could win her, and all the previous night he +had dreamed of her as his future wife, as the girl who +would stand by his side, helpmate and everlasting +lover, and for whom he would work well and live +well and carry her with him rung by rung to the top +of the ladder. He told himself when he awoke that +he was a presumptuous ass even to dream that she +would care for him. What was there in him for such +a girl to care about? All the same, he set his teeth +and from that moment laid all his future plans and his +hopes and ambitions and all the best of his nature, at +her little feet—and knew perfectly well that if Betty<span class="pagenum">[33]</span> +could not love him eventually he would walk alone +through life.</p> + +<p>Odd, romantic or foolish as it may seem, when +youth falls in and out of love so easily, this was true. +Peter had, with a sort of unrealized solemnity, kept +his heart free and pure. He was no trifler—he had +never philandered. Like the boy who, perhaps unduly +imaginative, believes that he will find the place +where the rainbow ends, Peter said to himself: "One +day I shall find my girl. I want to go to her heart-whole +and complete."</p> + +<p>There was nothing of sentimentality about this. It +was simply the outcome of the effect of the mother-influence +upon the boy which had become a very concrete +thing. Somehow, ever since he was old enough +to remember and to think, he had looked upon his +mother as his sweetheart, and when she bent over his +cot at night and asked God to bless him and left the +touch of her soft lips upon his forehead she had impressed +upon him the unconscious ambition to make +another such woman the centre of his own home. +The numerous tender services, the exquisite maternal +thoughtfulness of this little mother-woman, had been +built up by him into a protection and a lode-star. +Betty came—a girl in whom he recognized at once +another mother—and she just touched his heart with +her finger and walked straight in, fitting into the place +which had been kept for her like a diamond into its +setting.</p> + +<p>Poor dear old Peter! No one would have thought, +who looked at him sitting there in his big awkwardness<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> +and incoherence, that he was a man in love, although +a psychologist or even an ordinarily observant girl +could very easily have told how Betty felt.</p> + +<p>"Topping, isn't it?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Simply wonderful," she replied.</p> + +<p>"Tired?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit."</p> + +<p>"Pretty good floor, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly splendid."</p> + +<p>"Gee! I shall miss this place."</p> + +<p>"Why, of course you will."</p> + +<p>"All the same, I shall be mighty keen to get at +things,—and begin."</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course you will."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's easy."</p> + +<p>"Is it? How?"</p> + +<p>"Well, don't I know you?"</p> + +<p>"Do you? I wish you did."</p> + +<p>Up in the branches something stirred. It may have +been Cupid—probably it was.</p> + +<p>But silence followed this conversational effort—a +silence broken by a great heaving sigh, mostly of excitement, +and the strains of the band which drifted out +of the windows of the College Hall.</p> + +<p>And over them both, as over all other men and +women, young and old, at the beginning and at the +end, hung the moon and the stars.</p> + +<p>How good it is to be young and in love!<span class="pagenum">[35]</span></p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>Unnoticed by Mrs. Guthrie and her two boys, +there was something more than a little pathetic in the +Doctor's eager, wistful attitude toward the rather +thoughtless, high-spirited, seething youth in the middle +of which he found himself for the first time.</p> + +<p>This man had never been young. The atmosphere +of the farm on which he had been born killed youth +as foul air kills a caged bird. Poverty, sordidness and +the grim, constant struggle to live made his childhood +and early days utterly devoid of the good sweet things. +His mother, worn out and dispirited, died in giving +him birth, and his father, bitter, lonely and filled with +the irony that comes from a long and unprofitable +hand-to-hand fight with mother-earth, let him bring +himself up. He was turned out to work at a time +when most lads are sent to school. He had to trudge +daily into the straggling, one-eyed town, at an early +hour, to report at the chemist's store where he obtained +employment as an errand boy. Most of the small +wages he earned were required by his father. From +almost the very beginning life was to him a sort of +whirling stream into which he had been flung before +having been taught to swim. Mere self-preservation +demanded that he should keep himself afloat. He +picked up education as a stray dog picks up an occasional +bone. There was, however, great grit in this +boy and deep down in his soul an ambition to become +something better than his father, whose daily wrestle<span class="pagenum">[36]</span> +with nature—the most relentless of task-mistresses—had +warped his character and stultified his soul. +Young Hunter shuddered at the thought of living always +on the farm, of grubbing in the earth, of planting +and hoeing and reaping, of facing the almost inevitable +tragedy of spoiled crops and ruined hopes, and +the yearly set-backs of advancing freights and higher +wages. He looked with growing horror and detestation +at the farm implements among which his father +spent his life; and while he ran his errands, carrying +medicines and soda syphons, he nursed a dream in his +little cold heart, which grew out of the smell of medicines +and the talk of illness that was all about him in +the chemist store. It was to become a doctor and tend +the needs of humanity and, if it was in his power, to +save to other children the mothers who brought them +into being.</p> + +<p>No wonder Dr. Hunter Guthrie wore strong glasses +over his short-sighted eyes. At all times, with a sort +of greed and an almost terrible eagerness, he read +every medical book on which he could lay his hands,—in +bed by the light of one candle, in the cubby-hole at +the back of the store under the glare of the unshaded +electric bulb, in trolley-cars and trains, and on the +stoop of the shabby farmhouse so long as the light +lasted. Later, after his day's work, he attended night +classes, and even as he walked from the farm to the +town he read. Spending sleepless nights and living +laborious days he followed the example of many other +brave and determined boys whose names gleam like +beacons in the history of their country. He worked<span class="pagenum">[37]</span> +his way through the necessary stages until finally, after +a struggle so relentless that it nearly broke his +health, he became a qualified doctor. In order to earn +the money for his courses he was at different times +bell-boy in a country hotel, an advertisement writer in +a manufacturer's office, a clerk for a real-estate man +and a traveling salesman for safety razors. His vacations +were more arduous than his terms, and during +these he earned the money with which to pay his college +expenses. Every step up the ladder of innumerable +rungs—which sometimes seemed to him impossible +to climb—was painful and difficult. So much +concentration was needed from the very beginning—so +much condensed determination and energy required—that +at the age of twenty-five he seemed to have +lived twice that number of years. No wonder then +that the all-conquering youthfulness of all the undergraduates +amongst whom he found himself at Oxford +awoke a sort of envy in his heart and startled him who +had never been young. There was no meanness, +jealousy or sense of martyrism in his feelings as he +watched the kaleidoscopic picture of university life—only +a sort of wonder and amazement that there were +men in the world so lucky—so indescribably fortunate +as to be able to carry boyhood and all its joys forward +to an age when he had forgotten that such a period +existed. Many times during those interesting and +stirring days he stopped suddenly and thanked his God +that he had been able to do for his own boys those +things which no one had ever done for him, and give +them such a chance in life as he had never had. Actually<span class="pagenum">[38]</span> +to see Peter, his eldest boy, proving his muscular +strength and his mental ability and moving among his +fellows with such splendid popularity, filled him with +pride and gladness. Here indeed was a very concrete +evidence of his reward for that long, arduous struggle.</p> + +<p>Like most men who have concentrated upon one +thing, Dr. Guthrie was a child when it came to others. +Athleticism, of which he knew nothing, filled him +with admiration. The knack of conversation amazed +him. Even to his wife he found it difficult to talk. +To force himself to confide was almost impossible—it +was like blasting a rock. One afternoon however +he got nearer to an intimate expression of his feelings +than ever before—perhaps because he was still under +the influence of the intoxication of the youthfulness +all about him.</p> + +<p>Kenyon had driven them out after tea to Shotover +Hill. All the young people had gone on to Cuddesden, +leaving the doctor and his wife to sit and look +down into the valley far below in which nestled the +town and all its colleges and spires. It had been a +golden day and the sun was setting with all the dignity +and pomp of early summer, making the thin line +of the Thames shine like a winding silver ribbon. +There was something of exultation over the earth that +evening and of untranslatable beauty, and the evening +song of the birds was like that of choristers in a great +cathedral.</p> + +<p>Unusual words seethed in the doctor's head. He +was moved and thrilled. The rest and the relief of +leaving his work, all the bustle and stir of the new life<span class="pagenum">[39]</span> +in which he was a temporary figure, seemed to take +him back to his own early days when, with the little +woman who sat by his side, he had stood with her in +their first house, newly married.</p> + +<p>He took his hat off, put his arm round the shoulders +of that faithful woman and kissed her cheek with a +touch of passion and gratitude. "My darling," he +said, "I wish I could say properly some of the things +that I feel about you and my children and the goodness +of God. There are tears in my heart, and strange +feelings. I feel oddly young and strong. I want to +laugh and cry. I'd like to pick wild flowers and +make a little crown for your head. Don't laugh at +me—please don't laugh."</p> + +<p>The little woman took his thin hand and pressed +it to her cheek. "I laugh because that is how I feel, +too," she said,—"young and glad and very happy to +see my big Peter doing such wonderful things, and +still a boy. Dear old man, we have much to be thankful +for! I know how you've worked and striven,—and +how fine it is to see some of the results of it. I +was a little afraid before we came here that we might +find Peter different—altered—perhaps older—but +he's just the same. He's exactly like you."</p> + +<p>The Doctor shook his head and a sudden pain +twisted his thin, studious face. "Oh no, no," he said, +"I was never like that. I wish to God I had been. +But it was to make Peter what he is that I've worked +night and day. He's my idea of a man. He's doing +all the things that I'd like to have done. He's me as +I might have been if I'd had any luck—any sort of<span class="pagenum">[40]</span> +a chance. Do I regret it? Am I jealous? No; because +if I hadn't lived such an opposite life I mightn't +have desired to give my boy all this." He waved his +hand towards the spires that rose in all their significance +out of the town away below. And then, with +intense eagerness and a ring of wistfulness in his voice +that brought tears to his wife's eyes, he bent towards +her. "Do you think he realizes this, Mary? Does +Graham ever stop to think how hard I've worked to +put him in Wall Street? Does Belle ever wonder +what it's cost me in youth and health to give her so +much more than she needs? I'm—I'm a queer, +wordless, foolishly shy man. Old since the time they +all three began to think and use their eyes,—necessarily +concentrated and aloof away in that laboratory +of mine, and—and sometimes I wonder whether my +children know me and understand and make allowances. +Do they, Mary, my dear one? Do they?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my man, my brave and splendid man," she +replied, "they do, they do!" And in saying this she +deliberately lied,—out of her great and steadfast love +for this man of hers she lied.</p> + +<p>No one knew so well as she did that the father of +her children might almost as well be a mere distant +relation who lived in their home for reasons of convenience +and allotted money to their requirements at +the proper time. No one knew so well as she did that +Hunter Guthrie's tragic lack of childhood had dried +out of his nature the power of understanding children. +Never having been a child in any sense of the word—never +having known the inexpressible joy of a mother's<span class="pagenum">[41]</span> +love—remembering nothing but a father who +was either working hard or tired out—he was unable +to conceive what his own children needed in addition +to all that they got hourly from his wife and from his +own work. It had always seemed to him that in the +possession of a mother they had everything good that +God could give them. It seemed to him that his own +part was performed by providing for their needs. No +man desired to be the father of sons and daughters +more than he did. No man was prouder in the possession +of them than he was and had always been. +To hear the patter of their little feet about his house +sent him to his work with that sense of religion of +which Carlyle wrote. To watch them shaping from +childhood into youth was the most satisfactory and +beautiful thing in his life. To be able, year after +year, to do better and still better for them was his +best and biggest reward—far greater and more glorious +than the distinction he earned for himself and +the international reputation that increased with each +of his discoveries. And when, six months after Peter +had left home to go to Oxford with a Rhodes scholarship, +he found himself unexpectedly endowed to the +extent of over three million dollars under the will of +a late wealthy patient, so that he might, in the old +man's own words, "devote himself, without the fret +and fever of earning a livelihood as a practitioner, to +the noble and limitless work of a bacteriologist for +the benefit of suffering humanity all over the world," +it was for the sake of his children that he offered up +thanks. With what immense pride he notified the<span class="pagenum">[42]</span> +authorities at Harvard that his son was independent +of the scholarship, which was free to send another +man to Oxford. With what keen pleasure he was +able to buy Graham a seat on the Stock Exchange, +bring Belle out as a débutante and send his little Ethel +to the best possible school. These things he could do, +and did, but he could not and had never been able to +do for them a better thing than all these,—win their +confidence, their deep affection and their friendship. +That gift had been killed in him. It could not be +acquired, taught or purchased, and he had always been +as much out of touch with his boys and girls as though +he were divided from them by a great stone wall. It +had always been with them, "Look out! Here's +father!" instead of "Hello! Here's Dad!" His +entrance into their playroom was the signal for silence. +The sight of his studious face and short-sighted eyes +and distrait, shy manner chilled them and reduced them +to quietude and self-consciousness and suspicion. If +he had treated them always as human beings, played +with them, sat on the floor and built houses with their +bricks, thrown open the door of his study to them, if +only for half an hour every day, so that there might +be no possibility of its becoming a Blue Room; if he +had, as they grew into the habit of thinking and observing +and remembering, told them about himself +and his own boyhood and in this way inculcated a +mutual interest, a desire to respond and open out; if, +before the two boys had gone to college he had had +the courage to act on the earnest advice of a friend +and speak to them on the vital question of sex, give<span class="pagenum">[43]</span> +them the truth as he so well knew it and warn them +bravely and rightly of the inevitable pitfalls that lined +their youthful path, no brick wall would have existed +and he would have been their pal as well as their +father,—a combination altogether irresistible.</p> + +<p>As it was Hunter Guthrie's wife, who loved him +deeply and devotedly and recognized in him a great +man as well as a most unselfish father, was obliged to +lie in reply to his questions. She would rather have +died, then and there, than hurt him and bring down +his house about his ears. The sad and tragic part of +it all was that she knew utterly that no good, no +change could be brought about by telling the truth. +It was too late.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p>Belle had told Betty that she was "crazy" about +Nicholas Kenyon. There is usually a wildness of exaggeration +about this expression which renders it almost +harmless. The exuberant type of girl who uses +it applies it with equal thoughtlessness to a new hat, a +new play or a new set of furs. She will be crazy +about a tenor and a pomeranian, a so-called joke in a +comic paper and the sermon of a fashionable preacher. +In regard to Kenyon, however, Belle was really and +truly crazy in its most accurate dictionary sense. After +the Worcester Ball, during which she gave him +nearly every dance,—to the flustered concern of the +Don's wife who was her chaperon,—she went to no +trouble to conceal from Kenyon the fact that she found<span class="pagenum">[44]</span> +him vastly attractive. Kenyon was not surprised. +Already he was a complete expert in the art of making +himself loved by women. He knew exactly what they +liked him to say and he said it with a touch of insolence +which took their breath away and a following +touch of deference which gave them back their self-respect. +Belle was very much to his liking. Her +rather Latin beauty, which was rendered unexplainable +by the sight of her parents—her incessant high spirits +and love of life—her naïve assumption that she was +the mistress of all the secrets of this world, amused, +interested and tickled his fancy. Her beauty, freshness +and youth pleased him as an epicure, and he went +out of his way to be with her as much as he could. He +had no intention whatever of falling in love with her,—first +of all because it was all against his creed to +fall in love with anyone but himself; secondly, because +his way of living demanded that he should have no +partner in his business,—all that he could win by his +wits he would need. Nevertheless, he was quite as +ready as usual to take everything that was given to +him, and give nothing in return except flattery, well-rounded +sentences and a good deal of his personal attention.</p> + +<p>During the week that passed so quickly he had only +been able to see Belle with her people, and when he +found that this bored her as much as it bored him, he +set his brain to work to devise some plan by which he +could escape with her from the party for a few hours. +Needless to say he succeeded.</p> + +<p>On the night before the party were to leave Oxford<span class="pagenum">[45]</span> +he arranged another evening trip on the river, maneuvered +Peter into one punt with his father and mother, +Graham and Betty, and got into another with Belle. +For some little time he poled along closely behind +them, but as the river was full of similar parties he +found it easy to drop behind and dodge deftly into a +back water. Here he tied up to a branch, set himself +down on the cushions at Belle's side and lit a cigarette.</p> + +<p>"How's that?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Belle laughed a little excitedly. "Very clever," +she said. "I wondered how you were going to do +it."</p> + +<p>He didn't find it necessary to tell her that he had +performed a similar trick a hundred times. "Under +the right sort of inspiration," he said, "even I can +develop genius. Tell me something about New York, +and what you find to do there."</p> + +<p>"I should have to talk from now until to-morrow +morning even to begin to tell you," she said. "I only +came out last winter, but the history of it would fill +a book. New York is some town and I guess a girl +has a better time there than anywhere else in the +world. Why don't you come and see something of it +for yourself?"</p> + +<p>Kenyon leaned lightly against the girl's soft +shoulder. "That's precisely what I'm going to do," +he said. "Your father has given me a cordial invitation +to stay at his house, and I shall go over with +Peter in October."</p> + +<p>"Oh, isn't that fine!" cried Belle. "You'll love +the place—it's so different."<span class="pagenum">[46]</span></p> + +<p>"I'm not worrying about the place," said Kenyon. +"I'm simply going for the chance of dancing with +you to the band which really does know how to play +rag-time. It'll be worth crossing three thousand miles +of unnecessary water to achieve that alone."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you," said Belle; but all her teeth +gleamed in the moonlight and her heart pumped a +little. How wonderful it would be to become the wife +of the Honourable Nicholas Kenyon, who seemed to +her to be everything that was desirable.</p> + +<p>Kenyon picked up her hand and just touched it +with his lips. "You don't believe it? Well, we'll +see." He knew very well that if he had chosen to do +so he could have kissed her lips, but his policy was to +go slow. His epicurianism was so complete that he +liked to take his enjoyment in sips and not empty his +glass at a gulp. This girl whose imagined worldliness +was so childlike was well worth all his attention. He +looked forward with absolute certainty to the hour +when he should place her on his little list of achievements; +but like all collectors and connoisseurs he added +to his pleasure by winning his point gradually, step +by step, with a sort of cold-blooded passion.</p> + +<p>Belle was accustomed to men who were a little crude +in their naturalness and who immediately voiced their +admiration and their liking with boyish spontaneity. +She had strings of beaux of all ages who immediately +sent her flowers and presents and dogged her heels +from dance to dance and rang her up constantly on the +telephone and generally showed their eagerness with +that lack of control which was characteristic of a nation<span class="pagenum">[47]</span> +which had deliberately placed women in the position +of queens.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was because this man's methods were so +different that she found him so attractive. He fed +her vanity and piqued it at the same time. He said +more by saying nothing than any man had ever ventured +to do, and he retired so quickly after an amazing +advance that he left her assuming more than if he +had never advanced at all. It was perfectly natural, +although she had already dipped into the fastest New +York set, that she should believe that at the end of +every man's intention there was a marriage and a +sort of throne in his house. She little knew Nicholas +Kenyon. She had had the good fortune to meet men +in New York, and not collectors.</p> + +<p>"What are your father's plans when he leaves Oxford?" +asked Kenyon, leaning a little more closely +against the girl's soft shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Why, we're going to Shakespeare's country, to the +English lakes and then to Scotland, where father's +ancestors lived; and then in August we shall go to +London for a week, and go home on the <i>Olympic</i>. +Why don't you go over with us?"</p> + +<p>"I should like nothing better," said Kenyon, "but +as a matter of fact I shall wait until Peter has got +through his various engagements. He rows at Henley +in July, you know,—the boat is entered for the +Lady's Plate,—and then he comes home with me. He +wants to shoot my father's birds in August and see +a little of English country life before he settles down +to his law work in America."<span class="pagenum">[48]</span></p> + +<p>Belle was silent for a few moments. She wished +that this wonderful week could be extended over the +whole of her holidays. She knew, and was really a +little frightened at knowing, that when she left Oxford +the next day she would leave behind her a heart +that had hitherto been quite untouched. She was +amazed and even a little annoyed to find that a mere +week had brought about such a revolution in all her +feelings and in her whole outlook on life. She had +meant to have a perfectly wonderful time before falling +in love.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," she said, "that we shan't hear anything +of you until we see you again, unless,—unless +you write sometimes to mother and tell her how you +are and what Peter is doing."</p> + +<p>Kenyon didn't even smile. "Peter will write to +your mother once a week, as usual—he's very consistent—and +I'll get him to put in a postscript about +me, if you like. I shall have some difficulty in preventing +myself from writing to you from time to +time, although I'm a child in the art of letter-writing."</p> + +<p>"Why should you prevent it? I should simply love +to have your letters."</p> + +<p>"But isn't your mother a little old-fashioned?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe," said Belle, "but does that matter? +You've not met any American girls before—that's +easy to see. We do just what we like, and if our +mothers don't agree they don't dare to say so. Shall +I tell you why? Because it wouldn't make any difference +if they did."</p> + +<p>"Then I shall write," said Kenyon, "and give you<span class="pagenum">[49]</span> +brief but eloquent descriptions of English weather, +English politics and the condition of my liver,—that +is to say, the three inevitable topics of this country."</p> + +<p>Belle laughed. "Then it will be perfectly safe for +me to leave your letters about," she said.</p> + +<p>"Perfectly,—always supposing that you censor the +postscripts."</p> + +<p>"I'm crazy about you!" said Belle; and this time +her laugh awoke the echoes of the river and filled a +nightingale near by with a pathetic ambition to emulate +its music.</p> + +<p>And then they heard Peter's great voice shouting, +"N-i-c-k!" Whereupon Kenyon gathered himself together, +not unpleased at being disturbed, stood up +gracefully and pulled back into the main stream. +"The call of duty," he said—"such is life." It was +consistent with his policy to conduct this most pleasant +affair by instalments.</p> + +<p>When he saw the other punt he asked Peter, with a +touch of beautiful petulance, why he had deliberately +lost them, and turned a deaf ear to Graham's idiotic +chuckle.</p> + +<p>The landing stage was in the shadow, which was +just as well. When Kenyon gave his hand to Belle +to help her out of the punt, he drew her close against +him and with a touch of passion as unexpected as the +sudden flash of a searchlight across a dark sky left a +kiss on her lips that took her breath away.</p> + +<p>All the way back to the hotel she hung on Peter's +arm and dared not trust herself to speak. For the +first time in her young life she had caught a glimpse<span class="pagenum">[50]</span> +of its meaning. It left her strangely moved and +thrilled.</p> + +<p>Little Mrs. Guthrie walked back with Kenyon, very +proud of the fact that he was Peter's friend.</p> + +<p>Poor little mother!</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>VIII</h3> + +<p>On the steps of the Randolph Hotel, Mrs. Guthrie +turned to Kenyon and asked him, with one of her most +motherly smiles, to have some supper with them. Telegraphing +quickly to Peter and Graham that they were +not to accept the invitation, Kenyon said: "Nothing +would give me greater pleasure—absolutely nothing. +Unfortunately Peter and I have already accepted an +invitation from two of our Dons and we cannot +possibly get out of this dull but profitable hour."</p> + +<p>"How very disappointing!" said Mrs. Guthrie.</p> + +<p>"How silly!" said Belle.</p> + +<p>Betty merely said, "Oh!" but the rest of her sentence +was condensed into one quick look at Peter.</p> + +<p>Peter, utterly without guile, turned round to Nicholas +Kenyon in blank amazement. "It's the first I've +heard of it," he said. "What on earth do you mean? +Two of the Dons? Who are they?"</p> + +<p>But Kenyon was an artist and a strategist, and +therefore a liar. "My dear old boy! What would +you do without me? I'm your diary, your secretary, +your guide, philosopher and friend. If you've forgotten +the engagement I certainly haven't." And he<span class="pagenum">[51]</span> +shot at Peter a swift and subtle wink, in which he included +Graham.</p> + +<p>Scenting adventure and gathering that the two Dons +were in all probability coming from the chorus of +"The Pirates of Penzance," Graham joined in quickly. +"I suppose I can't come and listen humbly to the +learned conversation of these two professors?"</p> + +<p>"But why not?" said Kenyon. "No doubt you +can tell them more about Wall Street in five minutes +than they would ever learn in their lives. Therefore, +dear Mrs. Guthrie, I'm afraid we must all say 'good-night.' +We'll rejoin you in the morning for breakfast +as arranged, and wind up what's been the pleasantest +week of my life, by driving out to Woodstock for +lunch."</p> + +<p>It was all done in the most masterly manner, and +when the three men left the hotel arm in arm they +were not guided by Kenyon toward St. Giles, but to +the theatre, where the curtain was just about to fall +with the last act.</p> + +<p>"What's all this?" asked Peter, impatiently. +"Mother had set her heart upon having us to supper."</p> + +<p>"Mother has had us all day," replied Kenyon. +"Bear in mind the fact that there are other women in +the world to whom we owe a little gallantry. You and +Graham are going to eat Welsh Rabbit at the somewhat +humble rooms of my little friends, Lottie Lawrence +and Billy Seymour."</p> + +<p>"I'll see you damned first!" said Peter. "I've no +use for these people. Come on, Graham, let's go back."</p> + +<p>Kenyon's face was wreathed in smiles. "It can't<span class="pagenum">[52]</span> +be done, dear lad," he said. "Your mother would be +the last person on earth to permit you to be discourteous +to our two distinguished Dons, and by this time +in all human probability Betty will be preparing for +bed."</p> + +<p>Peter had been building all his hopes on another +hour with Betty. She was leaving Oxford with his +people the next afternoon and he wanted above all +things, however incoherently, to let her know something +of the state of his feelings. He had never been +so angry with Kenyon before. "Curse you!" he +said. "You've spoiled everything. If you must play +about with these chorus girls why can't you do it +alone? Why drag me in?"</p> + +<p>Kenyon's eyes narrowed. "Only the angels die +young, Peter, my friend," he said. "As I've been +obliged to tell you before, you stand a pretty good +chance of an early demise. Have you ever heard the +word 'priggish'? For a whole week I've played the +game by you and devoted myself, lock, stock and barrel, +to your family. Mere sportsmanship demands +that you make some slight return to me by joining my +little party to-night. Don't you agree with me, +Graham?"</p> + +<p>Graham's vanity was vastly appealed to by the +fact that this perfect man of the world had taken +him into his intimacy. Hitherto he hadn't met English +chorus girls. He rather liked the idea. "Why," +he said, "I can't see why we shouldn't go. I'm with +you, anyway. Come on, Peter. Be a sport."</p> + +<p>But Peter held his ground. He had all the more<span class="pagenum">[53]</span> +reason for so doing because he had met Betty. "All +right!" he said. "You two can do what you jolly +well like. Cut me out of it. I shall turn in. If +that's being priggish—fine. Good-night!"</p> + +<p>He wheeled round and marched off, and as he passed +beneath the windows of the Randolph Hotel he drew +up short for a moment and with a touch of knightliness +which was quite unself-conscious he bared his +head beneath the window of the room in which he +believed that Betty was to sleep, but which, as a matter +of fact, harboured a short, fat, wheezy Anglo-Indian +with a head as bald as a billiard ball.</p> + +<p>Kenyon disguised his annoyance under an air of +characteristic imperturbability. "Well, that's our +Peter to the life," he said, taking Graham's eager arm. +"He's a sort of Don Quixote—a very pure and perfect +person. One of these days he's likely to come +an unholy cropper, and that's to my way of thinking +what he most needs. I don't agree with a man's being +a total abstainer in anything. It narrows him and +makes him provincial. Then, too, a man who fancies +himself as better than his fellows is apt to wear a halo +under his hat, and that disgusting trick ruins friendship +and leads to a hasty and ill-considered marriage +with the first good actress who catches him on the hop +and makes use of his lamentable ignorance. Come +along, brother, we'll see life together."</p> + +<p>"Fine!" said Graham. "Me for life all the +time."</p> + +<p>So these two,—the one curiously old and the other +dangerously young,—made their way to the stage door<span class="pagenum">[54]</span> +of the Theatre Royal and waited among the little +crowd of undergraduates for the moment when the +ladies of the chorus should have retouched their make-up +and be ready for further theatricalisms.</p> + +<p>Lottie Lawrence and Billy Seymour were the first +out. The latter's greeting was exuberant. "What-ho, +Nick! Where's the blooming giant you said you +were going to bring?"</p> + +<p>"Otherwise engaged, dear Billy; but permit me to +introduce to you a financial magnate from the golden +city of New York."</p> + +<p>Billy was young and slim and so tight-skirted that +her walk was almost like that of a Chinese Princess. +Even under the modest light of the stage door-keeper's +box her lips gleamed crimsonly and her long eyelashes +stuck out separately in black surprise. Her +small round face was plastered thickly with powder. +She was very alluring to the very young. Her friend +had come from an exactly similar mould and might +have been a twin but for her manner, which was that +of the violet—the modest violet—on a river's brim.</p> + +<p>Kenyon hailed a cab, gave the man the address in +Wellington Square and sat himself between the two +girls, with an arm round each.</p> + +<p>Billy Seymour had taken in Graham with one expert +glance of minute examination. "Graham Guthrie, +eh?" she said. "It smacks of Caledonia, bag-pipes +and the braes and banks o' bonnie Doon. I take it +your ancestors went over on the S. S. Mayflower, of +the White Star Line—that gigantic vessel which followed +the beckoning finger of Columbus—and started<span class="pagenum">[55]</span> +the race which invented sky-scrapers and the cuspidors."</p> + +<p>Graham let out a howl of laughter and told himself +that he was in for a good evening, especially as the +ladies' knees were very friendly.</p> + +<p>Lottie Lawrence placed her head on Kenyon's +shoulder, sighed a little and said: "Oh, I'm so tired +and so hungry; and I've a thirst I wouldn't sell for a +tenner."</p> + +<p>Kenyon tightened his hold. "All those things shall +be remedied, little one," he said. "Have no fear."</p> + +<p>The first things which met their eyes when they entered +the sitting-room of the sordid little house in +which a series of theatricals had lodged from time +immemorial, were a half-dozen bottles of champagne—sent +in by Nick's order. The two girls showed +their appreciation for his tactfulness in different ways. +Billy fell upon one of the bottles as though it were +her long-lost sister, pressed it to her bosom and placed +a passionate kiss upon its label; while Lottie, with an +eloquent gesture, immediately handed Graham a rather +battered corkscrew. "Help me to the bubbly, boy," +she said. "My throat is like a limekiln."</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>All the clocks of the City of Spires were striking +three as Kenyon and Graham supported each other out +into the quiet and deserted street. There was much +powder on Graham's coat and a patch of crimson on +Kenyon's left cheek.</p> + +<p>"Life with a big L, Graham, my boy," said Kenyon +a little thickly.<span class="pagenum">[56]</span></p> + +<p>"A hell of a big L," said Graham, with a very much +too loud laugh at his feeble joke. "You certainly do +know your way about."</p> + +<p>"And most of the short cuts," said Kenyon dryly. +"Presently I shall scale the wall of St. John's, climb +through the window of one of our fellows who's about +to take holy orders, and wind up the night in the hospitable +arms of Morpheus." This eventually Graham +watched him do, with infinite delight, and was still +wearing a smile of self-congratulation as he passed +the door of his mother's bedroom in the hotel and +entered his own.</p> + +<p>His father heard the heavy footsteps as they went +along the passage, but imagined that they were those +of the night watchman on his rounds.</p> + +<p>Fate is the master of irony.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>IX</h3> + +<p>The following morning at eight o'clock Peter, as +fit as a fiddle, stalked into Kenyon's bedroom and +flung up the blind. The sun poured in through +the open window. Innumerable sparrows twittered +among the trees in the gardens and scouts were moving +energetically about the quad. From the other +windows the sounds of renewed life were coming. +The great beehive of a college was about to begin a +new and strenuous day.</p> + +<p>Kenyon was sleeping heavily with a blanket drawn +about his ears. His clothes were all over the floor<span class="pagenum">[57]</span> +and a tumbler one-fourth filled with whiskey stood +on the dressing-table among a large collection of ivory-backed +brushes, links, studs, tie-pins and other paraphernalia +which belong to men of Kenyon's type,—the +bloods of Oxford. With a chuckle, Peter dipped +a large sponge in the water of the hip-bath which had +been placed ready on the floor, and throwing back the +blanket squeezed its contents all over Kenyon's well-cut +face.</p> + +<p>The effect was instantaneous. The sleeper awoke, +and cursed. Peter's howl of laughter at the sight of +this pale blinking man with his delicate blue silk +pajamas all wet round the neck advertised the fact to +the whole college that he was up and about.</p> + +<p>Kenyon got slowly out of bed. "There are fools—damned fools—and +Peter Guthrie," he said +quietly. "What's the time?"</p> + +<p>"Time for you to get up, shave and bathe, if you +want to breakfast at the Randolph. How late were +you last night?"</p> + +<p>"Haven't a notion," said Kenyon. "The first +faint touch of dawn was coming over the horizon, so +far as I remember, when your little brother watched +me climb through the window of the man Rivers, upon +whose 'tummie' I planted my foot. For a man +who's about to enter the Church he has an astounding +vocabulary of gutter English. You look abominably +fit, old boy—the simple life, eh? Heigh-ho!—Manipulate +this machine for me while I'm doing my +hair." He picked up the small black case of his +safety-razor and threw it at Peter, who caught it.<span class="pagenum">[58]</span> +Then he got into a very beautiful silk dressing-gown, +stuck his feet into a pair of heelless red morocco slippers, +and with infinite pains and accuracy made a centre +parting in his fair hair, in which there was a slight +natural curl.</p> + +<p>From his comfortable position on the foot of the +bed Peter watched his friend shave,—a performance +through which he went with characteristic neatness. +It was a very different performance from the one +through which Peter was in the habit of going. Soap +flew all round this untidy man, giving the scout much +extra work in his cleaning-up process.</p> + +<p>Kenyon didn't intend to enter into any details as +to the orgy of the night before. He knew from previous +experience that Peter's sympathy was not with +him. For many reasons he desired to stand well with +his friend, especially looking to the fact that he needed +an immediate loan. One or two of his numerous +creditors were pressing for part payment. So he let +the matter drop and took the opportunity to talk like +a father to Peter on another point which had grown +out of the visit of his people. "Tell me," he said, +"what is precisely the state of your feelings in regard +to your sister's friend? It seems to me that +you're getting a bit sloppy in that direction. Am I +right?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Peter, "'sloppy' isn't the word."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Well, then, what is the word? I may be +able to advise you."</p> + +<p>"I don't want your advice," said Peter. "My +mind is made up."<span class="pagenum">[59]</span></p> + +<p>Kenyon turned round. "Is that so? Quick +work."</p> + +<p>Peter nodded. "It's always quick when it's inevitable."</p> + +<p>"Oho! What have we here—romance?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I think so," said Peter quietly.</p> + +<p>"Who'd have thought it? Our friend Peter has +met his soul-mate! Out of the great crowd he +has chosen the mother of his children. It is to +laugh!"</p> + +<p>"Think so?" said Peter. "I don't."</p> + +<p>Kenyon put down his razor and stood in front of +the man with whom he had lived for several years +and who had now apparently come up against a big +moment in his life. It didn't suit him that Peter +should be seriously in love yet. He looked to his +friend to provide him with a certain amount of leisure +in the future. His plans would all go wrong if he +had to share him with someone else. He had imagined +that his friend was only temporarily gone on this little +girl whose brief entry into Oxford had helped to make +Eight's week very pleasant. It was his duty to find +out exactly how Peter stood.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to tell me," he asked, "that you've +proposed to Betty Townsend?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet," said Peter, "but I'm going to this morning—that +is if I have the pluck."</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow," said Kenyon, with a genuine +earnestness, "don't do it. I've no doubt she'll jump +at you, being under the influence of this place and +seeing you as a small hero here; but take the advice<span class="pagenum">[60]</span> +of a man who knows and bring caution to your rescue. +What'll happen if you tie yourself up to this girl? +After all, you can't possibly be in love with her—that's +silly. You're under the influence of a few silver +nights, and that most dangerous of all things—propinquity. +Dally with her of course, kiss her and +write her letters in which you quote the soft stuff of +the poets. That'll provide you with much quiet +amusement and assist you in the acquisition of a literary +style; but, for God's sake, don't be serious. +You're too young. You've not sown your wild oats. +What's the use of taking a load of responsibility on +your shoulders before you're obliged to do so? I'm +talking to you like a father, old man, and I've the +right."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," said Peter, "you've the right—no man +better—but you and I look at things differently. I +want the responsibility of this girl. I want someone +to work for,—an impetus—an ultimate end. It may +seem idiotic to you that I know the right girl directly +I see her, but all the same it's a fact. You see my +undergraduate days are almost over. When I go +home in the fall I shall start earning my living. What +am I going to work for? A home, of course, and a +wife and all that that means. If that's what you call +romance, thank you, it's exactly what I want. Do you +get me?"</p> + +<p>Kenyon shrugged his shoulders. "Then I don't see +that there's anything more to be said. Does all this +mean that you're going to chuck me? Supposing +Betty accepts you? Are you going to dog her foot<span class="pagenum">[61]</span>steps +for the rest of the summer and leave me in the +cart?"</p> + +<p>"Oh Lord, no!" said Peter.</p> + +<p>"Thank God for small mercies! And now if you'll +give me a little elbow-room I'll have my bath."</p> + +<p>"Right-o!" said Peter. "Buck up! Breakfast +at nine o'clock."</p> + +<p>He went out, not singing as usual but with a curious +quietness and a strange light dancing in his +eyes.</p> + +<p>Kenyon was left the sole master of that little bedroom. +As he finished dressing he marshalled his +thoughts and into them entered the figure of a certain +very beautiful person who lived in a cottage on the +borders of his father's estate. Before now she had +twisted young men, quite as romantic as Peter, out of +their engagements to simple little girls. He would +see that she worked her wiles on Peter. He didn't +intend that his friend should devote himself to any +person except Nicholas Kenyon so long as he could +prevent it.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>X</h3> + +<p>It was a rather curious meal,—this final breakfast +at the Randolph Hotel. There were several under-currents +of feeling which seemed to disturb the atmosphere +like cross winds. The Doctor and Mrs. Guthrie +were genuinely sorry that the week had come to an +end. It was one which would be filled with memories. +Graham would very willingly have remained at<span class="pagenum">[62]</span> +Oxford as long as Kenyon did. He had fallen a +complete victim to the attractions of this master of +psychology. He regarded him as the very last word +in expert worldliness. He paid him the highest tribute +that he considered it was possible for one man to pay +another, by calling him "a good sport," and he looked +forward with enormous pleasure to the time when he +would be able to show Kenyon the night side of New +York, with which he had himself begun to be well +acquainted.</p> + +<p>As to the two girls, wonderful things had happened +to both of them during that emotional, stirring, picturesque +and altogether "different" week. It seemed +almost incredible to them they had been in that old +town for so short a time, during which, however, their +little plans—their girlish point of view—had undergone +absolute revolution. The high-spirited Belle, +who had hitherto gone through life with a consistent +exuberance and rather thoughtless joy, was rendered +uncharacteristically serious at the knowledge that she +would not see Nicholas Kenyon again for some +months. Not for a moment did she regret the fact +that she had fallen badly in love with him. It was a +new sensation for her, and young as she was, it was +the new thing that counted. Her mind was filled with +dreams. In imagination she walked from one series +of pictures into another and all were touched with +excitement, exhilaration and a sense of having won +something, the possession of which all her friends +would envy her.</p> + +<p>In going over in her mind all that Kenyon had said<span class="pagenum">[63]</span> +to her, she could not put her finger on any actual +declaration on his part; but his subtle assumption of +possession, the way in which he touched her hand and +looked at her over other people's heads with eyes which +seemed to embrace her, seemed to her to be far more +satisfactory than any conventional set of words ordinary +under such circumstances. Then, too, there was +that wonderful and sudden kiss on the landing stage +in the shadow. Why, there was no doubt about it. +She had, like Cæsar, come and seen and conquered. +She was to be the Hon. Mrs. Nicholas Kenyon, +daughter-in-law of Lord Shropshire, of Thrapstone-Wynyates. +What a delightful surprise for father and +mother, and how proud they would be of her!</p> + +<p>Betty knew that Peter intended to make her his +wife. She knew it and was happy. His very incoherence +had been more eloquent to her than the well-rounded +sentences of all the heroes of her favorite +novels, and if he never said another word before she +left, she would be satisfied. In her heart there was +the sensation of one who had come to the end of a long +road and now stood in a great wide open space on +which the sun fell warmly and with great beauty.</p> + +<p>Not much was said by anyone, and the question of +the afternoon train which was to leave at four-thirty +was consistently avoided by them all.</p> + +<p>Breakfast over, the whole party followed Kenyon +into the street, where two cars were waiting for the +trip to Woodstock. They were to lunch at the old inn +which stood beneath the gnarled branches of the oaks +that had sheltered the Round Heads and Royalists.<span class="pagenum">[64]</span> +The first car was Kenyon's roadster, in which he +placed Mrs. Guthrie, the Doctor and Graham. He had +intended that Betty should sit by his side as he drove, +and that Peter should take Belle in his two-seater. +But Master Peter was too quick for him this time. +He had touched Betty on the arm and said: "You're +coming with me." And before Kenyon could frame a +sentence to break up this arrangement these two were +off together with the complete disregard for speed +limits which was peculiar to the Oxford undergraduate. +Kenyon had the honesty to say about this to +himself that it was well done, but all the same he was +immensely annoyed. As he drove off with Belle on +the front seat he was not, for at least a mile, a very +talkative companion. Belle put his silence down to +the fact that she was going away that afternoon.</p> + +<p>Along St. Giles, past the burial ground, the Roman +Catholic Church, Somerville, and into the Woodstock +road as far as the Radcliffe Infirmary, Peter kept the +lead, and then the big car overtook him and left him +behind. Graham waved his hand and shouted something +which Peter didn't catch. It was probably +facetious. As far as Wolvercote Peter kept in touch +with the car in front, when he began to fall gradually +behind. He had a plan in the back of his head.</p> + +<p>The morning seemed to suit all that he had to say, +if he found himself able to say it. The earth was +warm with the sun. The hedges and trees were still +in the first fresh vigor of early summer. Everywhere +birds sang and were busy with their young.</p> + +<p>Peter pulled up short at the edge of a spinney.<span class="pagenum">[65]</span> +"Let's get out of here," he said, "I want to show you +a corking little bit of country." And Betty obeyed +without a word. She rather liked being ordered about +by this big square-shouldered person.</p> + +<p>They didn't go far,—hardly, in fact, fifty yards +from the car,—and when they came to a small opening +among the beeches where bracken grew and "bread +and cheese" covered the soft turf with their little +yellow heads, Peter said: "Sit down; I want to +speak to you."</p> + +<p>And again Betty obeyed without a word. It was +coming—she knew that it was coming—and the +only thing she was afraid about was that Peter would +hear the quick beat of her heart.</p> + +<p>He laid himself full stretch at her feet, threw off his +cap and ran his fingers through his hair. "You know +this place," he said.</p> + +<p>"I? No, I've never been here before."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you have. You've been here with your +friends. They come out every night from the first +of May until the first of October. Can't you see the +marks their feet have made as they danced here in the +ring? It's awfully queer. This is the first place I +came to after I got to Oxford—all the leaves were +red—and I sat here one afternoon alone and wondered +how long it would be before I should look up +and see you. I've often come here since, winter and +summer, and listened for sticks to crackle as you came +along through the trees to find me. Why don't you +laugh?"</p> + +<p>"Why should I?"<span class="pagenum">[66]</span></p> + +<p>"I knew you wouldn't. If you had it wouldn't +have been you."</p> + +<p>He turned himself round on to his elbows and +looked up at her, and remained looking and looking. +And Betty looked back. Her heart was beating so +loudly that it seemed to her that someone was whacking +a carpet somewhere with a stick. She wondered +whether she would be able to hear Peter when he spoke +again,—if ever he did.</p> + +<p>And Peter said: "I'm going to begin to be a man +exactly five months from to-day. That is to say, I'm +going into a law office in New York to make a beginning. +I'm going to work like the dickens. Do you +know why?"</p> + +<p>Betty shook her head and then nodded. He was a +long time coming to the point. If he wasn't quick +she'd simply have to scream. Her heart was up in her +throat—it was most uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>Peter went on. Somehow words came easy to him. +The earth was so friendly and so motherly and so very +kind, and after all this was his spot and she was there +at last. "I forget the number of the house," he said, +"but up on the eighth floor of it, facing south, there's +a most corking apartment. The rooms are large and +can be filled with big furniture and enormous book-cases. +I'm going to work to get that. I don't know +how long it'll take, but I'm going to ask you to help +me to get it. Will you?"</p> + +<p>Betty nodded again. Someone was beating the carpet +in a most violent manner.</p> + +<p>Peter, without another word, sprang up, put two<span class="pagenum">[67]</span> +large strong hands under Betty's elbows and set her +on her feet. She came up to the top button of his coat +and he held her there tight and it hurt her cheek. But +oh, how fine and broad the chest was behind it and how +good it was to nestle there. She heard him say much +that she forgot then, but remembered afterwards—simple +boyish things expressed with deep sincerity and +a sort of throb—outpourings of pent-up feelings—not +in the very least incoherent, but all definite and +very good. And there they stayed for what appeared +to be a long time. The man with the carpet had gone +away, but without looking up Betty knew that there +were hundreds of little people dancing around them in +the ring and the little clearing full of the yellow heads +of wild flowers seemed to have become that great open +space and out of it, between an avenue of old trees, +stretched the wide road which led to,—the word was +the only one in the song that filled her brain,—motherhood! +Motherhood!</p> + +<p>A rabbit ran past them frightened, and Betty sprang +away. "Peter! What will the others say?"</p> + +<p>Peter shook himself and his great laugh awoke the +echoes of the woods. "I don't care what anybody +says," he answered. "Do you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Let's go. We shall be late for lunch."</p> + +<p>And Peter picked her up, carried her to the car, +kissed her, put her in, and drove away.<span class="pagenum">[68]</span></p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XI</h3> + +<p>Peter and Kenyon left the station arm in arm. +They had watched the train round the corner and disappear. +Many hands had waved to the crowd of undergraduates +who had come to see their people and +friends off. Peter had stood bareheaded with his hand +still tingling with the touch of Betty's.</p> + +<p>They walked slowly back to college, each busy with +his thoughts. Exultation filled Peter's mind. Kenyon +was wondering how much he could touch Peter +for. In the procession of returning undergraduates +they made their way under the railway bridge and +along the sun-bathed but rather slummy cobblestone +road over which the tram-cars ran. They passed the +row of little red brick houses—most of which were +shops—and the factory, stammering smoke, and +turned into the back way which led by a short cut to +Worcester.</p> + +<p>Oxford had resumed her normal atmosphere. Fathers +and mothers, uncles, guardians, brothers, sisters +and cousins, who had all descended upon the town, had +departed. No longer were the old winding streets set +alight by the many colored frocks of pretty girls, nor +were they any longer stirred into a temporary bustle +by the great influx of motor-cars. Undergraduates +held possession once more and with their peculiar +adaptability were making hasty preparations for the +long vacation.</p> + +<p>Peter led the way to his sitter, loaded his inevitable<span class="pagenum">[69]</span> +pipe, and sat in the sun on the sill of the open window. +With fastidious care Kenyon stuck a cigarette into a +long meerschaum holder and laid himself down on the +settee. He had worked very hard during the week +and had very much more than carried out his promise +to Peter to make himself pleasant. The moment had +come when he might certainly lead the way up to his +reward.</p> + +<p>Peter took the words out of his friend's mouth. +"What d'you think?" he said. "When I was saying +good-bye to the Governor on the platform he took me +aside and gave me a cheque. He did it in his curious +apologetic way which always makes me feel that he's +someone else's father, and said: 'I think this will see +you through for a month or two.' Gee! It's some +cheque, Nick! I don't think I shall have to touch the +old man down for another bob until I have to book my +passage. His generosity leaves me wordless. I wish +to God I'd been able to say something nice. As it was, +I had to tell mother to thank him for me." He went +over to his desk, fished out a cheque-book, sat down +and made one out in his large round boyish handwriting.</p> + +<p>Kenyon watched him intently. He hoped that it +might be for himself and for fifty sovereigns. That +amount, carefully split up, would keep some of his +more pressing tradesmen quiet for a short time.</p> + +<p>"Is this any good to you, old man?" said Peter. +He dropped the cheque on to Kenyon's immaculate +waistcoat. It was for a hundred pounds.</p> + +<p>The master parasite was taken by surprise almost<span class="pagenum">[70]</span> +for the first time in his life and he was sincerely +touched by this generosity. "My dear old Peter! +This is really devilish kind of you! I'm exceedingly +grateful. My exit from Oxford can now be made +with a certain amount of dignity. I'll add this amount +to your other advances, and you must trust in God and +my luck at cards to get it back."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right," said Peter. "You'd have +done the same for me. What's the good of friendship +anyway if a man can't share his bonuses with a +pal? Well, well! There goes another Commem:—the +last of them for us. Everything seems awfully +flat here without,—without my people. What d'you +think of the Governor?"</p> + +<p>Kenyon folded the cheque neatly and slipped it into +a small leather case upon which his crest was embossed +in gold. It was one of the numerous nice +things for which he owed. "Your father," he said, +"is a very considerable man. I made a careful study +of him and I've come to the conclusion that all he +needs from you and Graham is human treatment. If +he were my father I should buy a metaphorical chisel +and an easily manipulated hammer and chip off all his +shyness bit by bit as though it were concrete. Properly +managed there's enough in Dr. Guthrie to keep +you in comfort for the rest of your life without doing +a stroke of work. What age is he—somewhere +about fifty-three I suppose? In all human probability +he is good—barring accidents—for another fifteen +years or so. Then, duly mourned, and, I take it, considerably +paragraphed in your newspapers, he will go<span class="pagenum">[71]</span> +to his long rest and you will come into your own. +With even quite ordinary diplomacy you can use those +fifteen years to considerable advantage to yourself,—dallying +gently with life and adding considerably to +your experience, making your headquarters at his +house. You can do the semblance of work in order +to satisfy his rather puritanical notion,—but I can't +see that there'll be any need for you to sweat. For +instance, become a poet—that's easy. There are +stacks of sonneteers whom you could imitate. Or you +could call yourself a literary man and do nothing more +than establish a sanctum-sanctorum in which to keep +a neat pile of well-bound manuscript books and acquire +a library. If I were you I should adopt the latter +course—it sounds well. It'll satisfy the old man +and all the while you're not writing the great book +he'll pat himself on the back and congratulate himself +on having had you properly educated. During all this +time you can draw from him a very nice yearly income, +and then make your splash when nature has laid +her relentless hand upon the old man's shoulder."</p> + +<p>There was a moment's pause, during which Peter +looked very curiously at the graceful indolent man who +lay upon his settee. "If I didn't know that you were +talking for effect," he said, "I should take you by the +scruff of your neck and the seat of your breeches and +hurl you down-stairs. I know you better than to +believe that you are the cold-blooded brute that you +make yourself out to be. Anyhow, we'll not discuss +the matter. The one useful thing you have said—and +on which I shall try to act—is that Graham and<span class="pagenum">[72]</span> +I must try to be more human with the Governor. He +deserves it. What's the program?"</p> + +<p>"For me," said Kenyon, "dinner with Lascelles and +bridge to the early hours. With good cards and a +fairly good partner I shall hope to make a bit. What +are you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"I shall dine in Hall," said Peter, "and then go out +for a walk."</p> + +<p>"I see." Kenyon got up, filled his cigarette case +from Peter's box and stood with his back to the mantel-piece. +"You proposed to Betty to-day, didn't +you?"</p> + +<p>"How the deuce did you know that?"</p> + +<p>Kenyon laughed. "My dear fellow," he said, +"everybody knows that. You exuded romance when +you arrived late at the Inn. The very waiter guessed +it, and was so stirred, being Swiss, that he very nearly +poured the soup down your mother's neck. And when +your mother looked at you I saw something come into +her eyes which showed me that she knew she had lost +you. I wouldn't be a mother if you paid me!" And +then he held out his hand with that charm of which he +was past-master. "'Friend that sticketh closer than +a brother,' three years; dashed bit of a slip of a girl, +one week,—and where's your friend? Well, good +luck, Peter! She's a nice little thing. Dream your +dreams, old boy, but don't altogether forget the man +who's been through Oxford with you."</p> + +<p>Peter grasped the hand warmly. "Don't be an +ass!" he said. "Go and brush your back hair. It's +all sticking up."<span class="pagenum">[73]</span></p> + +<p>And when he was alone, except for a golden patch +of evening sun which had found its way through his +window and had spilt itself on his carpet, Peter pulled +out a little white glove from his pocket and kissed it.</p> + +<p>"O God!" he said. "Help me to become a man."</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XII</h3> + +<p>No one knew, because no one was told, of the many +hours of grief which little Mrs. Guthrie endured after +she left Oxford. There were two reasons for this +grief. One, the inevitable realization that the time +had come for some other woman to take her place with +her son. She remained his mother, but she was no +longer first. The other, that Peter had not told her +about Betty at once and had left it for her to find out, +as the others did. And this hurt badly. He had always +been in the habit of telling her everything,—first +at her knee, then as he stood on a level with her, +and finally when he looked down upon her from his +great height. Every one of his numerous letters written +while he was so far away from home contained the +outpourings of his soul—his troubles, difficulties, triumphs, +wonderings and short incoherent cries for +help. As Kenyon said, she had only to look at him +once when he marched into the Old Inn at Woodstock +with Betty to know that she had lost him. She waited +for him that afternoon to tell her,—but he never +spoke. Even as he put her into the train she hoped +that he would remember, but he didn't. That wasn't<span class="pagenum">[74]</span> +like her Peter, she told herself again and again. What +was she to think but that it only needed one short week +and a very pretty face to make him forget all the long +years of her love and tenderness. It was very, very +hard.</p> + +<p>It is true that for the remainder of their holiday, +during which, with her husband, Graham, Belle, and +Betty, Mrs. Guthrie went from one charming place to +another, seeing shrines and looking down from famous +heights on garden-like valleys of English country, +Peter's letters came as regularly as usual. They +were no shorter and no less intimate; and in the first +one that she received, the day after leaving Oxford, +he told her his great news,—but he hadn't spoken of +it—he hadn't come to her at once, and she felt with +a great shock of pain that she was deposed. Also she +was well aware of the fact that the same posts which +brought her letters brought letters to Betty—and she +was jealous.</p> + +<p>Uttering no word of complaint, even to the Doctor, +little Mrs. Guthrie nursed her sorrow and went out of +her way to be very nice to Betty. Her mother-instinct +told her that she must win this girl; otherwise +there was a chance that she might in the future see very +little of Peter. In all this she had one small triumph, +of which she made the most. Her letters from Peter +contained more news than those written to Betty, and +thus she was able to score a little over the girl. With +an air of great superiority, very natural under the circumstances, +she told Betty and the others the manner +in which Peter had gone down from Oxford; of the<span class="pagenum">[75]</span> +dinner that was given to him by the American Club,—a +great evening, during which he was presented with a +silver cigarette box covered with signatures,—of the +farewell luncheon with his professors and the delightful +things that they said to him there; of his strenuous +doings at Henley, the stern training, the race itself in +which his boat was beaten; of the wild night on the +Vanderbilt barge; of the few cheery days spent in +London with a bunch of the Rhodesmen; and finally +his preparations for his visit to Thrapstone-Wynyates, +in Shropshire, the famous old Tudor House of Kenyon's +father.</p> + +<p>Three times during these pleasant weeks Peter ran +down to see,—not her, but Betty, and went out with +her with his face alight and then hurried back to his +engagements, having given her, his mother, who loved +him so, several hugs and a few incoherent words. It +was the way of life, youth to youth, but it was very +hard.</p> + +<p>On the afternoon of the fifth of August, when the +party crossed the gangplank at Southampton to go +aboard the <i>Olympic</i>, little Mrs. Guthrie told herself +that in a few minutes she would see Peter's great form +elbowing through the crowd, although he had not said +that he would be there to say good-bye. She almost +hoped that something might prevent him from being +in time, because she knew that he would not come solely +to hold her in his arms, but for another reason. Nothing, +however, did prevent him. He followed them almost +instantly on board; and although he never left her +side, he surreptitiously held Betty's hand all the time.<span class="pagenum">[76]</span></p> + +<p>A smile of unusual bitterness crept all about the +little woman's heart. It was very hard. He was her +boy—her son—her first-born and the apple of her +eye. She had come up for the first time to one of the +rudest awakenings that a mother can ever know. And +presently when the cry, "All ashore that's going +ashore!" went up and Peter put both his big arms +about her and said, "Good-bye, mummie, darling, I +shall come home soon," she broke into such a fit of +weeping and kissed him with a passion so great that +the boy was startled and a little frightened. There +was no time to think or ask questions. There was +his father's hand to shake, and Graham's, and Belle +to kiss. There was also Betty, and she was suddenly +hugged before them all.</p> + +<p>As the big liner sent out its raucous note of departure +and moved away from the dock the little +mother was unable to see the bare head of her boy +above the heads of the great crowd. Her eyes were +blinded. "He doesn't understand," she said to herself. +"He doesn't understand."</p> + +<p>Poor little mother! It was very hard.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XIII</h3> + +<p>The cottage on the borders of Lord Shropshire's +park was just as pretty and just as small as the little +lady who lived there. It was appropriately called +"The Nest," although there was no male bird in it +and it was devoid of young ones; but Mrs. Randolph<span class="pagenum">[77]</span> +Lennox was so like a bird, with her trilly soprano +voice, her quick dartings here and there and the peculiar +way she had of getting all a-flutter when people +called, that the name of her charming little place—first +given by Kenyon—stuck, and was generally used.</p> + +<p>It was perched up on high ground overlooking the +gardens of the old Tudor House,—those wonderful +Italian gardens in which Charles II had dallied with +his mistresses on his return from his long, heart-breaking +and hungry exile. It was tree-surrounded and +creepers grew up its old walls to its thickly thatched +roof. For many years it had been occupied by the +agent of the estate, until—so it was said—it was +won by Mrs. Lennox from the present Lord Shropshire +as the result of a bet.</p> + +<p>No one had ever seen Randolph Lennox and many +people didn't believe that he was anything more than +a myth; but the little woman gave herself out as the +widow of this man and was accepted as such. Her +income was small, but not so small as to preclude her +from playing bridge for fairly large stakes, dressing +exquisitely, riding to the hounds and keeping an extremely +efficient menage, consisting of two maid servants +and an elderly gardener. It enabled her also to +spend May and June in London yearly at a little hotel +in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly, from which utterly +correct little house she was taken nightly to dinner +and to the theatre by one or other of the numerous +young men who formed her entourage. Never taken +actually into the heart of London society, she managed +with quiet skill to attach herself to its rather<span class="pagenum">[78]</span> +long limbs, and her name was frequently to be found +in the columns of society papers as having been seen +in a creation by Paquin or Macinka at Ranalagh or +Hurlingham, the opera, or lunching at the Ritz.</p> + +<p>At one time the tongue of rumor had been very +busy about Mrs. Randolph Lennox,—"Baby" Lennox +as she was commonly called. It was said that she +had been lifted out of the chorus of the Gaiety at the +age of nineteen by His Serene Highness, the Prince +of Booch-Kehah; that she had passed under the control +of Captain Harry Waterloo, and eventually, before +disappearing for a time, figured in the Divorce +Court as a correspondent. The tongue of rumor is, +however, in the mouth of Ananias, and as Baby Lennox +never spoke of herself except, a little sadly, as a +woman whose brief married life was an unfortunate +memory, her past remained a mystery and people were +obliged to accept her for her present and her future. +She was so small—so golden-haired—so large eyed—so +fresh and young and dainty—so consistently +charming and birdlike—that she was the Mecca of +very young men. With the beautiful trustfulness of +the male young they believed in her, and over and over +again she could have changed her name to others which +were equally euphonious and which, unlike her own, +could be discovered in the Red Book. But as there +was no money attached to them she continued to remain +a young and interesting widow and to live in the +little cottage on the hill and to pop in and out of the +Shropshire house as the most popular member of its +kaleidoscopic parties.<span class="pagenum">[79]</span></p> + +<p>Whether there was any truth in the story that the +present Lord Shropshire was related to her in a fatherly +way no one will ever know, except perhaps +Nicholas Kenyon, who in his treatment of her was +uncharacteristically brotherly. These two, at any +rate, had no secrets from each other and both regarded +life from the same peculiar angle. As parasites they +had everything in common and they assisted each other +and played into each other's hands with a loyalty that +was praiseworthy even under these circumstances.</p> + +<p>Nicholas Kenyon's mother—a very large, handsome +woman with brilliant teeth and amazing good-nature, +who, even when in the best of health, never +finished dressing till four o'clock in the afternoon and +then never put much on—was undergoing a rest-cure +in the west wing of Thrapstone-Wynyates when the +boys arrived for the shooting. For nearly a year she +had been playing auction every night until the very +small hours and had, while in a nervous condition, +stumbled across an emotional pamphlet written by a +Welsh revivalist, which sent her straight to bed. She +was really greatly shaken by it and perhaps a little bit +frightened. It did not mince words about the future +of women of her type, and she was shocked. Heaven +seemed to her to be a place into which she had the +same inherited right to walk as the Royal Enclosure +at Ascot; but this vehement little book put a widely +different point of view before her. Therefore it happened +that the first woman to whom Peter was introduced +was the little widow, "Baby" Lennox, who was +acting as hostess.<span class="pagenum">[80]</span></p> + +<p>Two evenings before she met Peter she had received +a letter from Kenyon, which ran as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="author1">Carlton Hotel,</p> + +<p>Dear Old Girl:</p> + +<p>I shall turn up at home on Thursday in time for tea. +I hear that mother is enjoying herself in the throes of +some very pleasant imaginary complaint of sorts and has +retired to the solitude of the west wing. After a busy +season she no doubt wishes to read Wells' new novel of +socialism and seduction and the latest Masefield poems, +which always remind me of the ramblings of rum-soaked +sailors in a Portsmouth pub. I, for one, shall miss her +florid and inaccurate presence and the deliciously flagrant +way in which she cheats at Bridge; but if father has gathered +round him an August house-party on his usual lines, +I look forward to a cheery time,—dog eating dog, if I +may put it like that. I am bringing with me the man +with whom I have shared rooms at Oxford,—Peter +Guthrie. He's the American of whom I have spoken to +you before. I am especially anxious for him to meet +you, because, while under the hypnotic influence of Oxford +in all the beauty of late spring, he has been fool +enough to get himself engaged. Now, not only is Guthrie +very useful to me, having a wealthy father and being +himself a generous soul, but I am going to New York +with him in October to see if that city can be made to render +up some of its unlimited dollars, and I don't want him +to be hanging, booby-eyed, at the heels of a girl until such +time as I have found my feet. You have a wonderful +way with the very young and unsophisticated and I shall +really be enormously obliged if you will work your never-failing +wiles on my most useful friend and draw his at +present infatuated mind away from the nice, harmless +<span class="pagenum">[81]</span>little girl who has just sailed. Fasten on him, my dear, +and make him attach himself to you for the remainder of +our holiday. Go as far as you dare or care,—the farther +the better for my sake and eventually for his own. He is +one of those admirable, simple, big, virgin men to whom +women are a wonderful mystery. At present he has refused +even to look through a glass, darkly, at that pleasant +and compensating side of life, and he needs to be brought +down from his self-made pedestal. It will do him good +and me a service. Honestly, I find it more than a little +trying to be in such close association with an Archangel. +Turn your innocent blue eyes on him, Baby dear, and +teach him things and, above all, get him out of this silly, +sentimental tangle of his. Incidentally, he has money +and can procure more and I feel sure that you will not +find him a waste of your good efforts. He is a splendid +specimen of what my particular Don was wont to call +'young manhood,' and when he plays ragtime he puts +the Savoy, or, for the matter of that, any other English +orchestra into a little round hole.</p> + +<p class="author1">Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="author">N. K.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Quite unconscious of this scheme, Peter fell into the +light-heartedness of this beautiful old house with his +usual gusto. To his unsuspicious eyes Baby Lennox +was quite the most charming woman he had ever met.</p> + +<p>He was delighted, a little surprised and even a little +jealous at the relations which existed between Kenyon +and his father. He was quick to notice that they +treated each other more like pals or brothers, than +father and son, were entirely open and frank with +each other, walked about arm in arm, played tennis<span class="pagenum">[82]</span> +and billiards together and often spent hours in each +other's society, laughing and talking. He noticed, too, +that Kenyon always called his father "Tops," a name +which had grown into daily use from the time when, +as a tiny lad just able to talk, the things that most +caught his fancy were Lord Shropshire's riding-boots, +in which he seemed to live, being mostly on horseback. +"Nicko" was what his father called Kenyon,—that +and old man or old boy. He wished most deeply that +he and his own father were on such good terms.</p> + +<p>If Peter had heard the sort of things these two +talked about and confided to each other, his surprise +would have elaborated into amazement. The elder +man took infinite pleasure in telling the one who was +so complete a chip off the same block the most minute +details of his love affairs during the time that he was +at Sandhurst for his army training, while he was in a +crack Cavalry regiment and while he knocked about +London and Paris and Vienna before and after his +marriage. Also he revelled in relating his racing and +gambling experiences, describing the more shady episodes +with witty phrases and a touch of satire that was +highly entertaining to the younger man. They both +agreed, with a paradoxical sort of honesty, deliberately +and inherently, that they were not straight and accepted +each other as such, and the father used frequently +to speculate from which of his dull, responsible +and worthy ancestors he acquired the tendency. It +was certainly not from the late Lord Shropshire, +whose brilliant work as a Cabinet Minister in several +Governments and as one of the most valued advisers<span class="pagenum">[83]</span> +of Queen Victoria had placed his name permanently +in the annals of his country. "We get it from one of +the women of the family, I suspect, Nicko," he had a +way of saying, after a more than usually excellent dinner. +"A dear, pretty creature who lived a double life +with delightful finesse—the great lady and the human +woman by turns. What d'you think, old boy? +At any rate, you and I make no pretences and, 'pon +my soul! I don't know which of us is the better exponent +in the delicate and difficult art of sleight of +hand. I wish I were going to America with you. I +fancy that we should make in double harness enough +to enable us to retire from the game and live like little +gentlemen. As it is, you'll do very well, I've no doubt. +From what I hear, the country reeks with wealthy +young men waiting to be touched by an expert such as +you are. Do some good work, old fellow, and when +you come back you shall lend me a portion of your +earnings, eh?"</p> + +<p>They were a strange couple, these two, capable, outwardly +charming and cut out for a very different way +of life but for the regrettable possession of a kink +which caused them to become harpies and turn the +weaknesses of unsuspicion of human nature to their +own advantage. Some psychologists might have gone +out of their way to find excuses for these men and +endeavor to prove that they would both have run +straight but for the fact that they were always pushed +for money. They would, however, have been wrong. +Just as some men are born orators, some with mechanical +and creative genius and some with the gift of<span class="pagenum">[84]</span> +leadership, these two men were born crooked, and under +no conditions, even the most favorable, could they +have played any game according to the rules.</p> + +<p>The men of the party were all excellent sportsmen +and good fellows, and the women more than usually +delightful representatives of English society. As a +matter of fact, the men were all,—like Kenyon's father,—living +on their wits and just avoiding criminal +prosecution by the eighth of an inch. They called +themselves racing men, which, translated into cold +English, means that they were people of no ostensible +means of livelihood, who attended every race meeting +and backed horses on credit, taking their winnings and +owing their losses until chased by crook solicitors. +They all bore names well known in English history. +They had all passed through the best schools and either +Oxford, Cambridge or Sandhurst. One or two of +them were still in the army. One had been requested +to resign from the navy, the King having no further +use for his services, and one was a Member of Parliament, +having previously been hammered in the other +house,—that is to say the Stock Exchange. The +women of the party were either wives of these men +or not, as the case may be. At any rate they were +good to look at, amusing to talk to, and apparently +without a care in the world. And if Lord Shropshire, +in welcoming Peter to his famous house, had +said, like the spider to the fly, "Come into my parlor +so that whatever you have about you may be sucked +dry by us," he would have been strictly truthful. Several +other such men as Peter had gone into that web<span class="pagenum">[85]</span> +sound and whole, but they had come out again with +many things to regret and forget.</p> + +<p>Who could say whether Peter would escape?</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XIV</h3> + +<p>Peter had, as he duly reported to his mother and to +Betty, a corking time at Thrapstone-Wynyates.</p> + +<p>Although an open-air man, an athlete, whose reading +had always been confined to those books only that +were necessary to his work,—dry law books for the +most part,—Peter was far from being insensible to the +mellow beauty of the house, and his imagination, uncultivated +so far as any training in art or architecture +went, was subconsciously stirred by the knowledge +that its floors and stone walks and galleries were worn +by the feet of a long line of men and women whose +loves and passions and hatreds had been worked out +there and whose ghostly forms in all the picturesque +trappings of several centuries haunted its echoing Hall +and looked down from its walls, from their places in +gold frames, upon its present occupants.</p> + +<p>The atmosphere of Oxford, and especially of his +own college, had often spun his thoughts from rowing +and other strenuous, splendid, vital things, to the great +silent army of dead men whose shouts had rung +through the quad and whose rushing feet had gone +under the old gate. But this house, standing bravely +and with an indescribable sense of responsibility as +one of the few rear-guards of those great days of<span class="pagenum">[86]</span> +chivalry and gallant fighting for heroic causes, moved +him differently. Here women had been and their perfume +seemed to hang to the tapestries, and the influence +of their hands that could no longer touch was +everywhere apparent. Often Peter drew up short, on +his way up the wide staircase, to listen for the click +of high heels, the tinkle of a spinet and the rattle of +dice. Everywhere he went he had a queer but not +unpleasant sense of never being alone, just as most +men have who walk along the cloisters of a cathedral +whose vast array of empty prie-dieus have felt the +knees of many generations and in whose lofty roof +there is collected the voices of an unnumberable choir.</p> + +<p>Up early enough to find the dew still wet on flowers +and turf he enjoyed a swim every morning in the +Italian bathing pool beneath the Cedar trees with Baby +Lennox. Then he either went for a gallop, before +breakfast, on one of Lord Shropshire's ponies—again +with Baby Lennox—or had a round of golf with her +on the workmanlike nine-hole course which had been +laid out in the park. She played a neat game, driving +straight, approaching deftly and putting like a book,—frequently +beating him.</p> + +<p>The picture of this very pretty little person as she +stood on the edge of the bathing pool that first morning +was, as she intended it to be, indescribably attractive. +She came from her room in a white kimono +worked with the beautiful designs which only the +Chinese can achieve. Her golden hair was closely +covered by a tight-fitting bathing cap of geranium red, +most becoming to her white skin. "Mr. Peter!" she<span class="pagenum">[87]</span> +called out. "I can't swim a bit, so you must look +after me like—like a brother." And then, as though +to show how silly that word was, she flung off the +wrap and stood, all slim and sweet, in blue silk tights +cut low at the neck and high above her little round +white knees. Peter thought, with a kind of boyish +gasp, that she looked like a most alluring drawing on +the cover of a magazine. With an irresistible simplicity +and utter lack of self-consciousness she stood, balanced +on the edge of the pool, with the sun embracing +her, in a diving attitude, in no hurry to take her dip. +And when Peter, suddenly seized with the notion that +he might be looking at her too intently, dived in, she +gave a little cry of joy and dismay and jumped in after +him. "You must hold me, you must hold me, or I +shall go under!" she cried, and he swam with her to +the steps. In reality she swam like a frog, but her +beautiful assumption of inability and her pluck in +jumping into deep water again and again to be taken +possession of by him, filled him with admiration at her +courage. With her tights wet and clinging and the +water glistening on her white flesh she assured herself +that she deserved admiration, having carefully calculated +her effect. Practice makes perfect, and the very +young are always alike.</p> + +<p>The first morning on which she appeared in riding +kit she again made a charming picture. She always +rode astride, but few women would have ventured to +wear such thin and such close-fitting white breeches. +Her coat, cut like a man's, was of white drill. Her +stock was white and her hat, with a wide flat brim was<span class="pagenum">[88]</span> +of white straw, but her boots were as black and shiny +as the back of a crow. "Your hand, Mr. Peter," she +said, raising her little foot for the spring,—it was +"Mr. Peter" still,—"what a gorgeous morning for +a gallop." And for a moment she leaned warmly +against his shoulder. Yes, she was quite pleased with +the effect. Peter's face was flushed as they started +off together.</p> + +<p>When they golfed she had a delightful way of making +her conversation from green to green into a sort +of serial. With her head hatless, her short Irish +homespun skirt displaying much blue stocking which +exactly matched her silk sweater and her large befringed +eyes, she made a fascinating opponent and +companion. "No wonder you loved Oxford and all +that it gave you. Quite a little tee, please. Thanks. +To a man with any imagination—" A settle, a swing, +a nice straight ball and silence while Peter beat his +ball pressing for all he was worth; the picking up of +the two bags and on side by side. "A man with any +imagination must feel the beauty and underlying meaning +of that inspiring atmosphere,—as of course you +did. You, I can see, are highly susceptible to everything +that is beautiful. You, I think, of all men, you +who have managed to remain,—I'm sure I don't know +how!—so unspoiled, will always remember and feel +the influence of your college. A cleek, I think, don't +you? No? A brassie? Just as you say." And so +she would continue chatting merrily away all round, +but always keen on her game and doing her best to do +it credit, letting out nice little bits of flattery with so<span class="pagenum">[89]</span> +naïve an air and with such frankly appreciative glances, +that poor old Peter's vanity, hitherto absolutely dormant, +began to bud, like new leaves in April.</p> + +<p>It must be remembered that Peter was a rowing +man. Always, except when out with the guns, he was +with Baby Lennox. They were inseparable from the +first day of his visit. Even in the evening they hunted +in couples, because she was sick of Bridge, she said, +and he gave out that he knew nothing at all about any +card games and had no desire to learn. After being +frequently pressed to cut in by Courthope, Pulsford, +Fountain and the other men who could not bear to +see him with an unscathed cheque-book, and tempted +again and again by their well-groomed and delightfully +friendly wives to try a hand, Peter was left alone. +They were annoyed and irritated but they found that +when Peter said "No" he didn't mean "Yes," like +so many of the other young men whose weakness +formed the greater part of these people's income; and +so they very quickly gave him up to Baby Lennox, +were obliged to be satisfied with his jovial piano-playing +and make up for lost time with the inevitable members +of the <i>nouveau riches</i> who lived near by and were +only too glad to pay for the privilege of dining at +Thrapstone-Wynyates in the odour of titles.</p> + +<p>The nights being warm and windless, Peter sat out +on the moon-bathed terrace with Baby Lennox listening +to her girlish prattle and thinking how particularly +charming she looked with the soft light on her golden +hair and white arms and dainty foot. Sometimes, +suddenly, her merry words would give place to sad<span class="pagenum">[90]</span> +ones, and Peter's simple, honest heart would be touched +by her artistic and mythical glimpses of the unhappy +side of her life.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Peter, Peter!" she said one night, unconsciously +showing almost a yard of leg in a black lace +stocking patterned with butterflies. "I wish, oh, how +I wish that I'd been born like you, under a lucky star! +I've always been in a smart and rather careless set and +I've never really had time to see visions and walk in +the garden of my soul." She spoke in capital letters. +"If I'd met you when I was a little young thing you +might have become my gardener to pluck the weeds +out of my paths, and train the flowers of my mind. +You might have planted seeds so sweet that in my best +and most devout hours their blooms would have filled +my thoughts with scent. Oh dear me, the might have +beens,—how sad they are! But, in one thing at least +I can take joy,—I'm all the better for knowing you, +dear big Peter."</p> + +<p>But these graver interludes never lasted long. +Mrs. Lennox was far too clever for that. She would +break the monotony of conversation by walking with +her little hand on the boy's strong arm, or by dancing +with him to the music of a gramophone placed in the +open window of the morning room. How close she +clung to him then and how sweet she was to hold!</p> + +<p>And then, she would say, with a wonderful throb +in her voice. "Oh, Peter, Peter! Isn't life wonderful—isn't +it just the most wonderful and thrilling +thing that is given to us? Listen to the stars—there's +love in their song! Listen to the nightingale—love,<span class="pagenum">[91]</span> +all love! Listen to the whisper of the breeze! Can't +you hear it tell us to love and touch and taste all the +sweets that are given us to enjoy? Oh, Peter, Peter! +Listen, listen,—and live!"</p> + +<p>In her picturesque and slangy way she announced +to Kenyon, as soon as three days after the commencement +of the house-party, that she "had got Peter well +hooked." It was not, however, an accurate statement. +It is true that Peter's vanity had been appealed to. +Whose wouldn't have been? This attractive young +thing was hostess. She was far and away prettier, +younger, more alluring and more complex than any +other woman in the party. And yet she had made a +favorite of Peter at once and showed a frank pleasure +in being with him at all possible times. He had hardly +spoken for longer than an hour with her before she had +said, in the middle of his description of the Henley +week, "I <i>must</i> call you Mr. Peter, I <i>must</i>. May I?" +She sent him little notes, too, charming, spontaneous +little notes, to say "Good-night," and how greatly she +had enjoyed the evening, or the swim, or the round of +golf, beginning "Dear Big Man" and ending,—at +first without a signature, and eventually with "Baby." +At the beginning they were brought in by the man, or +placed on the dressing-table against a bowl of flowers. +Then they were thrust under his door by her after he +had gone up to his room, or thrown through his open +window from the narrow balcony that ran round the +house. Her room was next to his. She had seen to +that. In a hundred unexpected and appealing ways +she had set out to prove to him that they were indeed,<span class="pagenum">[92]</span> +as she had said they were, "very, very close friends."</p> + +<p>Now, Peter had never been a woman's man. To him +women and their ways were new and wonderful. He +suspected nothing. Why should he? He accepted +Mrs. Randolph Lennox on her face value, which was +priceless, as so many other excellent and unsophisticated +young men had done. He believed in her and +her stories and was very sorry that she had been unhappy. +He believed that she was sincere and good +and clean and that she liked him and was his friend.</p> + +<p>Kenyon, who watched all this, called Peter an easy +mark. He was. What else could he be in the expert +and cunning hands of such a woman?</p> + +<p>As for Mrs. Lennox, her performance,—it was +rather in the nature of a performance,—was all the +more brilliant and effective because Peter appealed to +her more than any man she had ever met. His height +and strength and squareness, his fearless honesty, his +unself-conscious pride and boyish love of life,—she +liked them all. She liked his clean-cut healthy face +and thick hair and amazing laugh. But, above everything, +she liked him for being untilled soil, virgin +earth. It was this that piqued her seriously and set +alight in her a desire which grew and grew, to test her +charms upon him, to taste him, to stir him into a first +great passion. And this was the real reason that she +gave him so much of her time and company. The +gratification of this desire was the thing for which she +was working, upon which she had set her mind. Hers +was not a record of failures. Peter stood a very poor +chance of getting out whole.<span class="pagenum">[93]</span></p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XV</h3> + +<p>Nicholas Kenyon has promised himself that, one +of these days, when abject poverty forces him to work, +he will write a whole book about Peter and Baby Lennox, +and call it "Another Temptation of St. Anthony."</p> + +<p>Not only did Kenyon watch this, to him, rather +extraordinary incident, with keen interest, but so also +did the members of his father's house-party, who came +to regard Peter as a kind of freak. They all knew,—because +they were all psychologists,—that Mrs. Lennox +was badly smitten, as they put it, on this young +American. They all knew,—because one of the +women made it her business to spy,—that their temporary +hostess was going through all the tricks of her +trade to seduce this unconscious boy.</p> + +<p>The incident provided Lord Shropshire and his +friends with endless amusement, and bets were made +as to how long Peter would hold out. Every morning +something new was reported to them by the lady +who had appointed herself to watch. One day it was +that Baby had taken Peter to see her cottage after +dinner and had had a little fainting fit in her bedroom +while showing him the view from the window. Another +that she had twisted her ankle on the eighth hole +and had been obliged to ask to be carried back to the +house. There was, however, no evidence, not even of +a circumstantial nature, to prove that Baby had succeeded. +It was presently agreed that either Peter was +a fool or an angel.<span class="pagenum">[94]</span></p> + +<p>There was one incident, however, which escaped unnoticed,—one +of which even Kenyon knew nothing. +It took place three nights before the party broke up.</p> + +<p>After a gorgeous day of hard exercise and splendid +fresh air, an hour at the piano after dinner and his +usual talk to Baby under the moon, Peter went up to +bed at eleven o'clock. He was very sleepy and meant +to be up earlier than ever in the morning. He didn't +say good-night to Kenyon or his satirical father. +They were, like the others, very seriously at work +making what money they could. There had been a +fairly large dinner-party drawn from the surrounding +houses, and there were eight bridge tables occupied +in the large drawing-room. He left Mrs. Lennox in +the hall looking more delicious than ever and went up +to his room to smoke a final pipe and look over an +illustrated paper before turning in.</p> + +<p>His room was large and square and wainscotted, +with dull grilled ceiling, and an oak floor so old that +here and there it slanted badly. His bed was a four-poster, +deeply carved at the back with the Kenyon +arms, the motto underneath rather sarcastically being +"For God and Honour." In front of the fireplace, +with its sprawling iron dogs and oak setting, there was +a long, narrow sofa filled with cushions, and at its side +a small writing-table on which stood two tall silver +candlesticks. These gave the room its only light and +added to the Rembrandtesque atmosphere of it. It +was a room which reeked with history and episodes of +historical romance, love and sudden death. The windows +which led to the balcony were open and the warm<span class="pagenum">[95]</span> +air of a wonderful night puffed in, causing the candle +flames to move with a gentle rhythmic dignity to and +fro.</p> + +<p>Peter read and smoked for half an hour in his dressing-gown, +while Quixotic moths flung themselves passionately +into the candle-light one after another to die +for some unexplainable ideal. From the drawing-room +below a woman's throbbing voice drifted up, +singing an Indian love song, and when it ceased the +whole night was set a quiver by a nightingale's outburst +of appeal. These things, and the silver wonder +of the moon and stars, the touch of Mrs. Lennox's +soft hand on his lips and the feeling and almost psychic +undercurrent of strange emotion in that room in which +so much had taken place, all stirred and thrilled the +boy and sent his blood racing in his veins.</p> + +<p>He stayed up longer than he intended, listening and +wondering and wishing, for the first time in his life, +that he had read poetry, so that he could fit some immortal +lines to his mood and his surroundings. It was +this, to him, curious thought which set him laughing +and broke some of the spell. "Gee!" he said to himself, +"can you see me spouting Shakespeare or mouthing +Byron?" He shied his dressing-gown into the +sofa, put both flames out with one huge blow and +leaped into bed.</p> + +<p>Almost instantly he heard his name urgently called. +He sat up. Was he dreaming? Who should call at +that time of night? Could it be Baby? He heard the +call again. It was nearer. A little shadow fell suddenly +upon the floor of his room. And then, in the<span class="pagenum">[96]</span> +window, with the shaft of moonlight all about her, +stood Mrs. Lennox.</p> + +<p>Peter caught his breath and clambered out of his +bed. "What is it?" he asked. "What's the matter?"</p> + +<p>The woman ran in with a glad cry. "Oh, Peter! +I thought you had gone out of your room," she whispered, +"and I didn't know what to do. I saw a hideous +figure walk through my wall just after I had put +out my light, and when it came towards me with long, +bony fingers, I rushed out and came to you. Oh, hold +me, Peter, hold me! I'm terrified and as cold as a +frog!"</p> + +<p>She slipped into his arms, all young and sweet and +incoherent, trembling like a little bird in a thunder-storm. +It was a most calculated piece of perfect acting.</p> + +<p>Peter's heart seemed to jump into his mouth. The +flowing hair of the little head that lay on his chest was +full of the most intoxicating scent.</p> + +<p>"I'll—I'll go and see what it is," he said abruptly.</p> + +<p>"No, no! Don't go. I can't let you go, Peter. +Stay with me!"</p> + +<p>"But, if there's a man in your room——"</p> + +<p>"It wasn't a man. It was the ghost that belongs to +the family. It always comes before some dreadful +accident. Oh, darling, stay with me! Take care of +me! I'm terrified!"</p> + +<p>She clung to him in a very ecstasy of fright and +the closeness and warmth of her body sent Peter's +brain whirling. He tried to speak, to think of something<span class="pagenum">[97]</span> +to say, but all his thoughts were in the swirl of +a mill-stream, and he held her tighter and put his face +against her hair, while his heart pumped and every +preconceived idea, every hard-fought-for ideal went +crash.</p> + +<p>"I love you. I love you, Peter. My Peter!" she +whispered. "Who but you should shelter me and +hold me and keep me in your arms! Keep me with +you always, night and day. Look into my eyes and +see how much you mean to me, my man."</p> + +<p>She raised her head and stood on tiptoe. The jealous +moon had laid its light upon her face and her eyes +were shining and her lips were parted, and the slight +silk covering had fallen from her shoulder. The +whiteness of it dazzled.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my God!" said Peter, but as he bent to kiss +her mouth, momentarily drunk with the touch and +scent of her, someone shouted his name and thumped +on his door, and Mrs. Lennox tore herself away and +ran through the window like a moon-woman.</p> + +<p>The door was flung open. Fountain came in, his +voice a little thick. "I say, Guthrie, are you getting +up early in the morning? 'Cause, if so, I'll take you +on for nine holes before breakfast. What d'yer say? +Goin' to get healthy, d'yer see? What?"</p> + +<p>Peter found his voice. "All right!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Will you? Good man. Give me a call at six, +will you? We'll bathe in the pool before coming in. +So long then." And out he went again, lurching a +little and banging the door behind him.</p> + +<p>For several queer minutes Peter stood swaying, with<span class="pagenum">[98]</span> +his breath nearly gone as though he had been rowing, +and one big hand on his throbbing head. And as he +stood there the posts of the bed seemed to turn into +trees and its cover into soft grass all alive with the +yellow heads of "bread and cheese," and among them +sat Betty, with her eyes full of love, confidence and +implicit faith,—Betty, for whom he had saved himself.</p> + +<p>And then he started walking about the room. Up +and down he went—up and down—cursing himself +and his weakness which had nearly smashed his dream +and put his loyalty into the dust.</p> + +<p>And when,—she also had cursed,—Mrs. Lennox +stole back, as sweet and alluring as ever, and even +more determined, she found that Peter had re-lit his +candles, got into his dressing-gown again and was sitting +at the table writing.</p> + +<p>"Peter! Peter!" she called.</p> + +<p>But he didn't hear.</p> + +<p>"Peter!" she whispered, and went nearer and +nearer until her body rested against his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I beg your pardon," he said, rising. "Is it +all right now? That's fine. It's just a touch cold. +Don't you think you'd better be in bed?"</p> + +<p>Baby Lennox had seen the beginning of the letter, +"My own Betty." She nodded, drew back her upper +lip in a queer smile and turned and went. She was +clever enough to know that she had lost.</p> + +<p>And then Peter bent again over his letter, and in +writing to the little girl whom he adored with all his +heart, he was safe.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[99]</span></p> + +<p class="h2">PART TWO</p> + +<h2><a id="THE_CITY"></a>THE CITY</h2> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[101]</span></p> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>"Mother took the car to Lord & Taylor's," said +Belle, looking herself over in the long glass with a +scrutiny that was eventually entirely favorable. "I +guess it'll do us good to walk."</p> + +<p>"I'd simply love to," said Betty. "But I must just +run in and tell father I'm going to have dinner with +you. I won't be a minute."</p> + +<p>"All right, my dear. Time's cheap. Don't hurry +on my account."</p> + +<p>Belle went over to the dressing-table. She had only +recently powdered her nose from the elaborate apparatus +from which she rarely permitted herself to be +separated, but a little more would do no harm. She +burst into involuntary song as she performed a trick +which she might so well have afforded to leave to those +ladies of doubtful summers to whose Anno Domini +complexions the thick disguise of powder may perhaps +be useful. Tucked into her blouse there was a letter +from Kenyon which had come a week ago. It was +only a matter of days before she was to see him again.</p> + +<p>And Betty ran out of her bedroom and along a +passage which led to the studio. A stretch of cloudless +sky could be seen through a recess window, and +the far-below flat roofs of the old buildings on the +corner of Gramercy Park. She knocked and waited. +There was a grunt, and she went in.<span class="pagenum">[102]</span></p> + +<p>Into the large lofty room—a cross between a barn +and an attic—a hard north light was falling with +cruel accuracy. It showed up stacks of unframed +canvasses with their faces turned to the dark wall and +the imperfections of several massive pieces of oak, the +worn appearance of the stained floor, the age of the +Persian rugs and of a florid woman who sat with +studied grace and an anxious expression of pleasant +thought on the dais, with one indecently beringed hand +resting with strained nonchalance on the arm of her +chair and the other about an ineffably bored Pekingese.</p> + +<p>Ranken Townsend, the successful portrait painter, +had backed away from his almost life-size canvas, +and with his fine untidy head on one side and irritation +in his red-grey beard was glaring at it with savage +antagonism.</p> + +<p>The lady on the dais had crow's-feet round her +made-up eyes, and a chin that could not be made anything +but double however high she held it. Also—as +the north light seemed to take a hideous delight in +proving—her figure was irreclaimably dumpy and +plump. The lady on the canvas, however,—such is +Art that runs an expensive studio, good wines and +well-preserved Coronas,—was slight and lovely and +patrician, and should she stand up, at least six feet +tall. No wonder Townsend grunted and glared at the +commercial fraud in front of him, at which, in his +good, idealistic, hungry Paris days he would have slung +wet brushes and the honest curses of the Place Pigalle. +He was selling his gift once more for five thousand +dollars. His wife dressed at Bendels.<span class="pagenum">[103]</span></p> + +<p>Anger and irritation went out of the painter's eyes +when he saw the sweet face that peeked in. "Hello, +sweetheart!" he sang out. "Come in and bring a +touch of sun. Mrs. Vandervelde, I'd like you to meet +my little girl."</p> + +<p>Without turning her head or breaking a pose that +she considered to have become, after many serious attempts, +extremely effective, the much-paragraphed +lady, whose lizard-covered mansion in Fifth Avenue +was always one of the objects touched upon by the +megaphone men in rubber-neck wagons, murmured a +few words. "How d'you do, child? How well you +look."</p> + +<p>Betty smothered a laugh. Mrs. Vandervelde had +acquired the habit of looking through her ears. "I'm +going home with Belle, father, and I shall stay to dinner. +But I'll be back before ten."</p> + +<p>"Will you? All right." He tilted up her face and +kissed it. "I'm dining at the National Arts Club to-night, +and I guess I shall be late." He pointed his +brush at the canvas and made the grimace of a man +who's obliged to swallow a big dose of evil-smelling +physic. So Betty, who understood and was sorry, +put his hand to her lips, bowed to the indifferent lady +and slipped away. The room was perceptibly colder +when she left. The picture was already four thousand +two hundred dollars toward completion, and Betty was +just as much relieved as her father, who returned angrily +to work to paint in the diamonds. He was sick +of that smile.</p> + +<p>While waiting for the elevator, Belle gave a rather<span class="pagenum">[104]</span> +self-conscious laugh and lifted her tight skirt quickly. +"Seen the latest, Betty?" She showed a tiny square +watch edged with diamonds worn as a garter. "Cunning, +isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I should just think it was! Where did you +buy it?"</p> + +<p>"Buy it? My dear, can you see me paying +three hundred dollars for something that doesn't +show? Harry Spearman gave it to me last night, +and put it on in his car on the way to the Pierrot +Club."</p> + +<p>"Put it on?"</p> + +<p>Belle threw back her beautiful head and burst out +laughing. "You said that just like the Quaker girl +in the play at the Hudson. Why shouldn't he put it +on? It amused him and didn't hurt me. He's a +sculptor, and like the bus-conductor, 'legs is no treat +to him,' anyway."</p> + +<p>They entered the elevator, dropped nine floors to +the wide foyer of the palatial apartment house, and +went out into the street. It was a typical New York +October afternoon—the sky blue and clear, the sun +warm and the air alive with that pinch of ozone of +which no other city in the world can boast. The girls +instinctively made their way towards Fifth Avenue, +warily dodging the amazing traffic, the struggling +wagons and plunging horses going in and out of buildings +in course of ear-splitting construction, and coal-chutes +in the middle of the sidewalks.</p> + +<p>"But you were not at the opening of the Pierrot +Club last night," said Betty. "I heard you tell Mrs.<span class="pagenum">[105]</span> +Guthrie that you were dining with the Delanos and +going to their theatre party."</p> + +<p>"I know. But Harry Spearman sent round a note +in the afternoon asking me to have dinner with him +at Delmonico's and go on to the Club to dance. I had +such a severe headache that I rang up Mrs. Delano +and reluctantly begged to be excused. To quote +Nicholas, theatre parties with elderly people bore me +stiff. As it was, I had a perfectly corking time till +one o'clock and danced every dance."</p> + +<p>"Did you tell Mrs. Guthrie?"</p> + +<p>"For Heaven's sake, Betty, what <i>do</i> you take me +for? Mother isn't my school-teacher and I don't have +to ask her for permission to live. I have my latch-key +and dear little mother is perfectly happy. As she +never knows what I do she never has to worry about +me; and, as she always says, I can only be young once." +A curious little smile played round her very red lips. +"It's true that Harry Spearman is rather unmanageable +when he gets one alone in a car after several hours +of champagne and ragtime, but—oh, well, I guess I +can take care of myself. Do you know, I don't think +the Pierrot Club's going to be as good this winter. +It's a year old, you see. Everybody's going to the new +room at the Plaza—that is, everybody back from the +country. It's rather a pity, I think. I like the Club, +but the motto of New York is 'Follow the Crowd' +and so the Plaza's for me."</p> + +<p>Betty's admiration for her school-fellow and closest +friend was invincible and her loyalty very true. It +made her therefore a little uneasy to notice about her<span class="pagenum">[106]</span> +a growing artificiality which was neither attractive nor +characteristic. She knew better than anyone that +Belle was a remarkable girl. She had a kind heart. +She possessed that rarest of gifts, a sense of gratitude, +and if her talent for writing had been properly developed +she might eventually have made her mark. +She had a quick perception—sympathy and imagination +not often found in so young a girl—an uncanny +ear for the right word—and if she chose to exercise +it, quite an unusual power of concentration. It seemed +to Betty to be such a pity that, just at the moment when +Belle left school with her mind filled with ideals and +the ambition to make something of herself and do +things, the Doctor found himself a rich man. The incentive +to work which the constant need for economy +had awakened in her went out like a snuffed candle. +From having before been in the habit of saying, with +eager enthusiasm, "I'm <i>going</i> to do such and such a +thing, whatever the odds," she immediately began to +say: "Oh, my dear, what's the use?" Everything +for which she had intended to work became now hers +for the asking. Her father gave her a free hand in +the matter of entertaining her young friends. She +could order what books she wished to read from Brentano's, +and she had a generous allowance on which to +dress. Like a chameleon she quickly changed the +rather dull colors of her former surroundings for +those bright ones which the sudden accession to wealth +made it easy to acquire. Her outlook was no longer +that of the daughter of an overworked general practitioner +whose income had to be carefully managed in<span class="pagenum">[107]</span> +order to live not too far up-town and educate a family +of four, but of a débutante whose parents entertained +distinguished men and women in a fashionable street +and whose friends were equally well off. Her inherited +and cultivated energy was, of course, obliged +to find vent in some direction, since it was not employed +in the development of her talent; and it was +now burnt up in a restless search of enjoyment, a constant +series of engagements to lunch and dine, and do +the theatre and dance,—especially dance. The ordinary +healthy, high-spirited young man, who had not +much to say for himself, quickly bored her. Her wits +required to be kept sharp, her latent intelligence needed +something on which to feed. It was therefore natural +that she should throw her smiles at men much older +and far more experienced than herself and who, from +the fact that they did not intend to give anything for +nothing, exercised her ingenuity and native wit to keep +them in order. In a word, she found that playing +with fire and avoiding being burned kept that side of +her in good condition which, in her old circumstances, +would have been devoted to work. And so with a +sort of conscious superficiality she had allowed herself +to flit from one unmeaning incident to another and entered +into a series of artificial flirtations with men +who had no scruples and one passion simply in order +to kill time. Her carelessness led her into episodes, +the merest hint of which would have thrown dear little +Mrs. Guthrie into a panic, and her coolness permitted +her to escape from them with perhaps more ingenuity +than dignity. Even upon her return from<span class="pagenum">[108]</span> +England with her heart full of Nicholas Kenyon, and +with a desire to see him again that kept her awake +at night, she frittered away her superfluous energy +with this Harry Spearman, whom no woman with any +respect for her daughter would willingly allow within +a mile of her, even if properly chaperoned.</p> + +<p>Betty, being one of those girls who had never been +suspected of any talent, but who nevertheless had it +in her to perform a far more womanly and beautiful +thing than to write books or plays—to be in fact a +good wife to the man she loved and a good mother to +his children—looked at Belle's way of living with +growing anxiety. She was not a prude or a prig. +She had not been allowed out in the world with eyes +all curious to see the truth of things through a veil of +false modesty. Her father, a wise and humane man, +had seen to that. She delighted in enjoyment, went +to the theatre whenever she had the opportunity and +danced herself out of shoes. But, not being ambitious +to shine, she was content to apply her energy to the +ordinary work that came to her to do,—the practical, +everyday, undramatic, domestic things that cropped +up hourly in the strange house where the father was +an artist and the mother suffered from individualism +and was a leader of new movements. Leaving school +to find a home in a constant state of chaos, her father +rarely out of his studio, her mother always in the +throes of committee meetings and speech-making,—she +knuckled down to set it in order, to clear out +an extravagant cook with an appetite for hysterics, +and a sloppy Irish waitress whose hairpins fell everywhere<span class="pagenum">[109]</span> +and whose loose hand dropped things of value +almost before it touched them. This done she found +others and appointed herself housekeeper, and the duties +of this position kept her both busy and happy,—the +one being hyphenated to the other. But even if +her father had been, like Dr. Guthrie, a rich man instead +of one who lived up to every penny that he +earned and generally several thousand dollars beyond, +she had nothing in her character that, however little +she was occupied, would have allowed her to look at +life from the modern standpoint of Belle and her other +friends. She was—and rejoiced in the fact—old-fashioned. +Most of her ideas were what is now scoffingly +called "early Victorian," because they were not +loose and careless, and the many things that Belle and +others found "fearfully amusing" were, to her, impossible. +She didn't, for instance, leave her petticoat +in the cloak-room when she went to dances, so that +her partners might find her better fun. She didn't +go to tea alone with mere acquaintances in bachelor +apartments, or for taxi rides with her partner between +dances. She never made herself cheap, and went out +of her way to avoid men whose eyes ran calculatingly +over her figure. These things and many others +merely appealed to her as the perquisite of those girls +who did not place a very high value upon self-respect.</p> + +<p>The Guthries lived at 55 East Fifty-second Street. +It was the house which the man whom Dr. Guthrie +called his benefactor had built for himself and left to +the doctor whom he was proud to endow. The +architect who had been employed had been given a<span class="pagenum">[110]</span> +free hand. He had not been required to mix his styles +or perform extraordinary architectural gymnastics of +any kind. The result of his efforts was good. It +was a house such as one sees in one of the numerous +old London squares within sound of the mellow clock +of St. James's Palace. Addison might have lived in +it, or Walpole or Pepys. Its face was scrupulously +plain and its doorway was modelled on those of the +Adams period. Standing between two very florid +examples of modern architecture it made one think +of the portrait of a charming early Victorian gentle-woman +between the photographs of two present-day +chorus ladies in hoopskirts and a cloud of chiffon. +The rooms were large and lofty and were all furnished +with great simplicity and taste. There was nothing +in them except old furniture which had been collected +in England by its late owner, piece by piece, and its +oak chests, armoires and secretaries, china closets, +corner pieces and Chippendale chairs were very good +to look at and live with. So also were the pictures,—Cattermoles, +Bartalozzi engravings, colored prints +and a half-dozen priceless oil paintings by old masters,—which +made the small, cunning, unscrupulous, eager +mouths of the numerous art collectors of New York +water with desire. The library, too, out of which led +the Doctor's laboratory, was almost unique, and contained +first editions and specimens of rare and beautiful +book-binding which filled the Doctor's heart with +constant pleasure and delight. It was nearly a year +before the man who had struggled so hard to lift +himself out of his father's small farm could believe<span class="pagenum">[111]</span> +that he wasn't walking in his sleep when he passed +through these beautiful rooms, and often he was +obliged to pinch himself to make sure that he was not +dreaming.</p> + +<p>There was however one room in this house which +would have given its late owner many shudders to +enter. This was the little mother's own particular +room, the windows of which looked out upon that +row of small, red, bandbox-like houses opposite which +had managed to remain standing in spite of the +rapacious hands of reconstruction companies which +are never so happy as when destroying old landmarks +and tearing down old buildings. Into this room Mrs. +Guthrie had placed all the furniture of her first sitting-room,—cheap, +late Victorian stuff of which she had +been so inordinately and properly proud when she +started housekeeping with the young doctor. From +these things Mrs. Guthrie could not be parted. They +were all redolent with good and tender memories and +were to her mind far more valuable and more beautiful +than all the priceless old oak pieces put together.</p> + +<p>Curiously enough—or perhaps not curiously at all—this +was Peter's favorite room, too, and he never +entered it without renewing his vows to climb to the +top of his own tree, as his father had done. Belle, +Graham and Ethel all laughed at the little mother for +clinging to this "rubbish," as they called it, which +was so out of keeping with the rest of the house. +But Peter sympathized with her and never failed while +sitting there in the evening, in close and intimate conversation<span class="pagenum">[112]</span> +with the dear little woman who meant so +much to him, to get from it a new desire to emulate +his father and make his own way in the same brave +spirit.</p> + +<p>When Belle and Betty arrived at East Fifty-second +Street—a little tired after their walk—they found +Graham in the hall. "Oh, hello!" said he. "Been +shopping?"</p> + +<p>"No," answered Belle, "nothing tempted us. +We've walked all the way home from Gramercy Park,—some +walk! Everything I've got on is sticking +to me. Aren't you home early, Graham?"</p> + +<p>Graham nodded. "Nothing doing," he said. +"Besides, I'm dining early." He turned to Belle with +a rather curious smile. "I thought you were to be +with the Delanos last night."</p> + +<p>Belle tilted her chin. "I was. I dined there, went +to the Winter Garden and then danced at Bustanoby's."</p> + +<p>"I caught sight of you in Spearman's car somewhere +about one o'clock in the morning. Did he drive +you home?"</p> + +<p>"I guess he did, dear boy," said Belle, blandly, "and +by the way, we saw you, going in to supper somewhere +with a girl with a Vogue face and an open-air back!"</p> + +<p>Graham laughed. "That's different," he said. +"Spearman isn't the sort of man I care to see my sister +going about with alone. I advise you to be a little +more fastidious."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Graham darling," said Belle, quite un-moved, +"but I'm old enough to choose my own friends<span class="pagenum">[113]</span> +without your butting in. Just for fun, would you tell +me what <i>you</i> know about the word fastidious?"</p> + +<p>"That's different," said Graham again. And he +went up-stairs to his own room with rather heavy +feet.</p> + +<p>Belle looked at Betty and a little smile curled up +the corners of her beautiful red mouth. "I don't see +anything wrong with Harry Spearman, and he's an +old friend of the Delanos. My word, but isn't +Graham a good sport?"</p> + +<p>Presently when they went into the drawing-room +they found little Mrs. Guthrie sitting in front of the +table with a more than usually happy smile, and Ethel +lying on the sofa looking the very epitome of an interesting +invalid. With a slightly critical frown on her +pretty face she was reading Wells's latest novel,—a +full-blooded effort well calculated to improve the condition +of a girl of fifteen who had not gone back to +school on account of anæmia.</p> + +<p>With quick intuition, and one glance at her mother's +face, Belle knew she had heard from Peter. "Any +news?" she asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, darling,—the very best of news. A Marconi +from my boy," said Mrs. Guthrie.</p> + +<p>"What does he say?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, what does he say?" asked Betty. But the +question was asked mentally, because little Mrs. +Guthrie was happy and must not be made jealous.</p> + +<p>Putting on her glasses with great deliberation, Mrs. +Guthrie picked up a book, and with a smile of pride +and excitement hunted through its pages and eventually<span class="pagenum">[114]</span> +produced the cable form, which she had used +as a marker.</p> + +<p>"<i>Do</i> hurry, mother, <i>dear</i>!" cried Belle. News +from Peter meant news from Nicholas.</p> + +<p>"Now please don't fluster me, Belle. Of course +I would unfold it the wrong side up, wouldn't I? +Well, this is what he says: 'Expect to dock day after +to-morrow, dearest Mum. All my love.'"</p> + +<p>"Is that all he says? Is there nothing about his—his +friend?"</p> + +<p>Ethel gave a quiet chuckle, of which Belle coldly +took no notice.</p> + +<p>"There are a few more words," replied Mrs. +Guthrie, "and I expect they were very expensive."</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother, darling; <i>do</i> go on!"</p> + +<p>"Let me see, now. Oh, yes. 'And to Betty.'"</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you," said Betty. "Oh, Peter, my +Peter!" she cried in her heart.</p> + +<p>This time Ethel laughed. But no one noticed it. +It was rather disappointing.</p> + +<p>"At last I shall see Nicholas again," thought Belle,—"at +last!"</p> + +<p>And the little mother folded up the cable very carefully +and slipped it back into the book. Peter had +sent it to her,—to her.</p> + +<p>And then Belle turned her attention to her little +sister, who not only looked most interesting, but knew +that she did. "I think you condescended to be +amused, Grandmamma," she said, in the most good-natured +spirit of chaff. Like everybody else in the<span class="pagenum">[115]</span> +family she was really rather proud of this very finished +production of an ultra-modern and fashionable +school.</p> + +<p>"I seem to have missed a lot of fun by not going +to Europe," replied Ethel. "It would have been +very entertaining to watch you and Betty fall in +love."</p> + +<p>"I guess so," said Belle. "The only thing is that +you would have been very much odd man out. They +draw the line at little school-girls at Oxford."</p> + +<p>"Now don't begin to quarrel, girls," said Mrs. +Guthrie. "I'm very sorry Ethel wasn't with us. +The trip would have widened her view and given her +much to think about. But never mind. She shall go +with us next time."</p> + +<p>Ethel stifled a yawn. "Thank you, mamma, dear. +But when I go to England I may elect to stay there. +I think it's very probable that I shall marry an Englishman +and settle down to country life, doing London +in the season."</p> + +<p>Belle's laugh rang out. "That's the sort of thing +we have to put up with, Betty," she said. "You're +going to marry a Duke, aren't you, Baby, and be a +Lady in Waiting at Court, with a full-page photograph +every week in the <i>Tatler</i>? When Peter comes +home he'll find you a constant source of joy. My +descriptions of the way in which you've come on while +he's been away always made him laugh."</p> + +<p>Ethel rose languidly from the sofa, at the side of +which a little nourishment had been served. Mrs. +Guthrie, who had been busily at work knitting a scarf<span class="pagenum">[116]</span> +for Graham—a thing that he would certainly never +wear—went quickly to give her a hand. "Are you +going to your room now, darling?" she asked.</p> + +<p>Ethel caught Belle's rather sceptical eye and, with +exquisite coolness, entirely ignored its suggestion that +she was shamming. "Yes, mamma, dear. I shall +go to bed almost at once. There's nothing like sleep +for anæmia. Of course I shall have to read for a +little while, because insomnia goes with my complaint, +but I shall fall off as soon as I can. Please don't +come in to-night, in case you disturb me. I'll tell +Ellen to put my hot milk in a thermos."</p> + +<p>Belle burst into another laugh. "You beat the +band," she said. "Any one would think that your +school was for the daughters of royalty. I know +exactly what Nicholas Kenyon will call you."</p> + +<p>Ethel turned towards her sister with raised eyebrows. +With her rather retroussé nose, fine, wide-apart +eyes and soft round chin she looked very pretty +and amazingly self-composed. Her poise was that of +a woman who had been a leader of society for years. +"Yes? And what will that be?"</p> + +<p>"The queen of the Flappers," said Belle.</p> + +<p>Ethel picked up her book, carefully placing the +marker. "Oxford slang leaves me cold," she said, +loftily.</p> + +<p>"I certainly hope that he'll call her nothing of the +sort," said Mrs. Guthrie. "'Flapper.' What a terrible +word! What does it mean?"</p> + +<p>"It means girls under seventeen who have discovered +all the secrets of life, the value of a pair of pretty<span class="pagenum">[117]</span> +ankles and exactly how to get everybody else to do +things for them. It's the best word I heard in England."</p> + +<p>"Nicholas Kenyon sounds to me rather a precocious +boy," said Ethel.</p> + +<p>"Boy! Nicholas Kenyon a boy—! Well!" +Belle acknowledged herself beaten. She could find +no other words.</p> + +<p>The little mother put her arm, with great affection, +around the shoulders of her youngest child, of whom +she was extremely proud and a little frightened. +"Never mind, darling," she said. "Belle doesn't +mean anything. It's only her fun."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right, mamma. I make full allowance +for Belle. She's a little crude yet, but she'll +improve in time."</p> + +<p>Belle gave a scream of joy. Her sense of the +ridiculous, always extremely keen, made her delight +in her little sister and the perfectly placid way in which +she sailed through existence with the lofty superiority +of her type—a type that is the peculiar result of +supercivilization and the deferential treatment of fashionable +schoolmistresses who bow to wealth as before +a god.</p> + +<p>"Run in and say good-night to father. He won't +mind being disturbed for a moment by you."</p> + +<p>"I don't think I will," said Ethel. "The sight of +his laboratory may give me a nightmare. I really +must be careful about myself just now. Good night, +mamma dear. Don't sit up too late. Good night, +Belle. I should advise you to go to bed at once.<span class="pagenum">[118]</span> +Your complexion is beginning to show the effects of +late hours already."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you funny little thing," said Belle. "You +give me a pain. Trot off to bed; and instead of reading +Wells, Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw, try a +course of Louisa Alcott and a dose of Swiss Family +Robinson. That'll do you much more good and make +you a little more human."</p> + +<p>But even this plain sisterly speaking had no apparent +effect. Ethel gave Betty, who had been watching +and listening to the little bout with the surprise +of an only child, a small peck on the cheek. "Good +night, dear Betty," she said. "I'm glad that you're +going to be my sister-in-law. Unless Peter has +changed very much since he's been away he'll make a +good husband."</p> + +<p>And then, with quiet grace, she left the room. No +one, not even Belle, whose high spirits and love of +life had led her into many perfectly harmless adventures +when she was the same age, suspected that Ethel +was up to anything. They were wrong. The self-constituted +invalid had invented anæmia for two very +good reasons. First, because she was not going to +be deprived of welcoming her big brother when he +returned home for good, school or no school, and +second because she had struck up a surreptitious acquaintance +with the good-looking boy next door. At +present it had gone no further than the daily exchange +of letters and telephone calls. The adventure was in +the course, however, of speedy development. The +boy was going to pay her a visit that evening, by way<span class="pagenum">[119]</span> +of the roof. No wonder Ethel didn't want to be +disturbed.</p> + +<p>With an unwonted burst of extravagance Betty took +a taxi home as soon after dinner as she could get away. +"Is there a letter for me? Is there a letter for me?" +she asked the moon and all the stars in the clear sky +as her rackety cab bowled swiftly downtown.</p> + +<p>She let herself in and the first thing that caught her +eyes was the welcome sight of a thick envelope addressed +in Peter's big round, honest, unaffected hand.</p> + +<p>"Peter, oh, my Peter!" she whispered, pressing +the letter to her lips.</p> + +<p>Within five minutes she was sitting on her bed, in +the seclusion of her own room, and what Peter had +to say for himself was this:</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="author1"> +Carlton Hotel, London,<br /> +September 28, 1913.</p> + +<p>My dearest Betty:</p> + +<p>Gee! but I was mighty glad to find a letter from you +this afternoon when I got in, so glad that I dashed out of +this Hotel, went across the street to the White Star offices +and asked them to exchange my bookings to a boat sailing +a week earlier, because I just can't stand being away +from you any longer. I don't know what Nick will say, +and don't much care. He's at Newmarket staying with a +man who trains horses. I've just sent him a telegram to +say what I've done, and as he's very keen to see New York +and is only killing time, I don't think he'll kick up a row. +I would have sailed on the <i>Olympic</i>, which left the day +after I said good-bye to Thrapstone-Wynyates, if I hadn't +promised father to go up to Scotland and see the place +where his ancestors lived. I couldn't back out of that,<span class="pagenum">[120]</span> +especially as goodness only knows when I shall come to +Europe again,—perhaps not until I bring you over on a +honeymoon, my baby, and we go back to Oxford together +to see how the fairy ring is getting on. We must do that +some day. You don't know how I love that little open +space where the trees haven't grown so that the moon +may spill itself in a big patch for all our friends to dance +in on fine nights. I've read your letter a dozen times and +know it by heart, like all the others you've written to me. +You write the most wonderful letters, darling. I wish +I knew how to send you something worth reading, though +I'm quite sure you don't mind my clumsy way of putting +things down, because you know how much I love you +and because everything I say comes straight out of my +heart.</p> + +<p>My last letter was written in Scotland, Cupar Fife. +I shall always remember that quiet little place where the +red-headed Guthries,—they must have been red-headed +from eating so much porridge,—tilled the earth and +brought up sheep in the way they should go. The village +seems as much cut off from the rest of the world +as though it were surrounded by sea, and every small +thing that happens excites it. The man who kept the Inn +that I stayed in (feeling frightfully lonely, though really +very much interested) had words with his good woman +one night and the rights and wrongs of the perfectly +private matter have since divided all the inhabitants. +Best friends don't speak and the minister is going to +preach about the affair next Sunday. I saw the house +the old Guthries lived in and was taken all over it by a +kind old soul to whom father gave more money than she +thought existed when he was there. Gee! but my great-grandfather +must have had precious little ambition to live +his whole life in a little hole like that. In most of the<span class="pagenum">[121]</span> +rooms the beds were in small alcoves and needed climbing +up to like bunks. Mrs. McAlister, who lives there now +with her married daughter and her seven children, sleeps +in one of these fug-holes in the kitchen. Think of it! +And she said that the floor swarms with beetles—she can +hear them crackling about in the night. All the same, by +Jove! this primitive living makes men. I can see from +whom father got his grit and determination.</p> + +<p>I was glad to find myself in London. I've only been +here for a night or two at various times and it's a wilderness +to me. I lose myself every time I go out and have +to ask Bobbies how to get back. Topping chaps, these +Bobbies. They mostly look like gentlemen and are awfully +glad to get a laugh. To hear them talk about the +'Aymarket, Piccadilly Surcuss, Wart'loo Plaice and Westminister +Habbey first of all puzzles one and then fills +one with joy. As to the Abbey,—oh, Gee! but isn't it +away beyond words! I spent a whole day wandering +about among the graves of its mighty dead, and finally +when I got to the end of the cloister and came upon that +small, square, open space where the grass grows so green +and sparrows play about, I was glad there was nobody to +see me except the maid-servant of one of the minor +Canons who was taking in the milk for afternoon tea. +There are one or two vacant niches among the shrines +of men who have done things and moved things on, in +which I should like to stand (not looking a bit like myself +in stone) when I have done my job, and if I were +an Englishman I should work for it. As it is, I shall +work for you and all you mean to me, my baby, and +that's even a higher privilege.</p> + +<p>I went to a theatre last night,—Wyndham's. I +thought the play was corking, but the leading actor—an +ugly good-looking fellow—wasn't trying a yard, and let<span class="pagenum">[122]</span> +it away down every time he was on. Also he spent his +time making jokes under his breath to the other people to +dry them up. No wonder the theatres are in a bad way +in London. There's no snap and ginger about the shows +except the ones of the variety theatres, where they really +do take off their coats for business. It's fine to hear rag-times +at these places, although they're as stale on our side +as if they had been played away back before the great +wind. By the way, I'm a bit anxious about Graham. +His letters have a queer undercurrent in them.</p> + +<p>I'm going to the National Gallery, the British Museum +and South Kensington to-morrow, and in the evening +I'm dining at the Trocadero with eight men who +were up at St. John's with me. They're all working in +London and hate it, after Oxford. It seems odd to me +not to be there myself and I miss it mighty badly sometimes. +All the same it's great to feel that one's a man at +last, with real work to do and that apartment waiting for +us to win. This is the last mail that I can catch before +sailing and so I just have to tell you once again, in case +you forget it, that I adore you and that if I don't see you +on the landing in little old New York among the crowd +I shall sink away like an India-rubber balloon with a pin +in it. So long, my dearest girl. All, all my love, now +and forever.</p> + +<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Peter.</span></p> + +<p>P. S. Do you think your father can be brought to +like me somehow or other?</p> + +<p>Kiss this exact spot.</p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>A good sport! Oh, yes, Graham answered admirably +to that description,—according to its present-day<span class="pagenum">[123]</span> +use. Graham, like Belle, was suffering from the fact +that everything was too easy. His father's so-called +benefactor had taken all the sting of life for that boy. +Fundamentally he had inherited a considerable amount +of his father's grit. He needed the impetus of struggle +to use up that sense of adventure which was deep-rooted +in his nature. He was a throw-back. He had +all the stuff in him that was in his ancestors,—those +early pioneers who were momentarily up against the +grim facts of life. He was not cut out for civilization. +He needed action, the physical strain and stress +of hunting for his food among primeval surroundings +and the constant exercise of his strength in dangerous +positions. He would have made a fine sailor, a reckless +soldier or an excellent flying man. He was as +much out of his element in Wall Street as a sporting +dog which is doomed to pass away its life sitting beside +a chauffeur in an elaborate motor-car. The +daring recklessness which would have been an asset +to him as a hunter of big game or a man who attached +himself to dangerous expeditions, found vent, in the +heart of civilization, in gambling and running wild. +It was a pity to see such a lad so utterly misplaced and +going to the devil with an alacrity that alarmed even +some of his very loose friends. If his father had continued +to be a hard-working doctor whose income was +barely large enough to cover his yearly expenses, +Graham could have used up his superabundant energies +in climbing, rung by rung, any ladder at the +bottom of which he had been placed. As it was, he +found himself, through his father's sudden accession<span class="pagenum">[124]</span> +to wealth, beginning where most men leave off, with +nothing to fight for—nothing to put his teeth into—nothing +for which to take off his coat. It was +all wrong. He made money and lost it with equal +ease—although he lost more than he won. He was +surrounded with luxuries when he should have been +faced daily with the splendid difficulties which go to +form character and mental strength. Somehow or +other his innate desire for adventure had to be used +up. With no one to exercise any discipline over him, +with no steady hand to guide him and control, he flung +himself headlong into the vortex of the night life of +the great city and was an easy prey for its rastaquores. +At the age of twenty-four he already knew what it +was to be haunted by money-lenders. Already he was +up to the innumerable dodges of the men who borrow +from Peter to pay Paul. He was a well-known figure +in gambling clubs and the houses in the red-light district, +and he numbered among his friends men and +women who made a specialty of dealing with boys of +his type and who laid their nets with consummate +knowledge of humanity and with the most dastardly +callousness. He was indeed, in the usual inaccurate +conception of the word, a good "sport," and stood +every chance of paying for the privilege with his +health, his self-respect and the whole of his future +life.</p> + +<p>To have seen the nervous way in which he dressed +for dinner the next evening, throwing tie after tie +away with irritable cursing, would have convinced the +most casual observer of the fact that he stood in need<span class="pagenum">[125]</span> +of a strong hand. His very appearance,—the dark +lines round his eyes, the unsteadiness of his hand,—denoted +plainly enough the sort of life that he was +leading, but the short-sighted eyes of the Doctor in +whose house he lived missed all this, and there was +no one except the little mother to cry "halt" to this +poor lad and, in her experience, of what avail was +she?</p> + +<p>He drove—after having dined with three other +Wall Street men at Sherry's—to an apartment house +on West Fortieth Street, little imagining that fate had +determined to put him to the test. Kenyon had recommended +him to try it. He had heard of it from +Captain Fountain's brother, who had called it "very +hot stuff" in one of his letters,—the headquarters +of a so-called "Bohemian" set in which Art and +gambling were combined. It was run by a woman +whose name was Russian, whose instincts were cosmopolitan, +and who had been shifted out of most of +the great European cities by the police. "The Papowsky," +as she was called, spoke several languages +equally fluently. She was something of a judge of +art. She had an uncanny way of being able to predict +success or failure to new plays. She knew +musicians when she saw them and only had to smell a +book to know whether it had excellence or not. Her +short, thin body and yellow skin, her black hair cut +in a fringe over her eyes and short all round like that +of a Shakesperian page, her long, dark, Oriental eyes +and her long artistic hands were in themselves far +from attractive. It was her wit and sarcasm however<span class="pagenum">[126]</span> +and the brilliant way in which she summed up +people and things which made her the leader of those +odd people—to be found in every great city—who +delight in being unconventional and find excitement in +a game of chance.</p> + +<p>The apartment in which she held her "receptions" +and entertainments was unique. The principal room +was a large and lofty studio, arranged like a grotto +with rocks and curious lights and secluded places +where there were divans. Here there was a dais, at +the back of which there was an organ, and a grand +piano stood upon it in a French frame all over cupids, +and it was here that the most extraordinary exhibitions +of dancing were given by the Papowsky hand-maidens +and others.</p> + +<p>The other people who lived in this apartment house +had already begun to talk about it in whispers, and +its reputation had gone out into the city. One or two +feeble complaints had been made to the police, but +without any avail. At the moment when Graham had +first entered it, it was in its second year and was flourishing +like the proverbial Bay Tree. The magnets +which drew him to this house of Arabian Nights were +the roulette table in a secluded room at the end of the +passage, and one of the hand-maidens of the Papowsky, +whose large, gazelle-like eyes and soft caressing +hands drew him from other haunts, and followed him +into his dreams.<span class="pagenum">[127]</span></p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Graham's hat and coat were taken by a Japanese +servant, whose little eyes twinkled a welcome.</p> + +<p>The long, brilliantly lighted passage which led to +the studio was hung with nudes, some of them painted +in oils with a sure touch, some highly finished in black-and-white, +and the rest dashed off in chalks,—rough +impressionist things which might have been drawn by +art students under the influence of drink. Between +them in narrow black frames there was a collection of +diabolically clever caricatures of well-known singers, +actors, authors, painters and politicians, each one +bringing out the weaknesses of the victims with +peculiar impishness and insight. The floor of the passage +was covered with a thick black pile carpet, which +smothered all noise.</p> + +<p>As Graham entered the studio several strange minor +chords were struck on the piano and a woman's deep +contralto voice filled the large studio like winter wind +moaning through an old chimney.</p> + +<p>The Papowsky, who was giving an evening for +young artists, and was half-covered in a more than +usually grotesque garment, slid out of the shadow and +gave Graham her left hand, murmuring a welcome. +Exuding a curious pungent aroma, she placed a long +finger on her red, thin lips and slipped away again. +For some minutes Graham remained where she left +him, trying to accustom his eyes to the dim—though +far from religious—light. He made out men in<span class="pagenum">[128]</span> +dress clothes sitting here and there and the glint of +nymph-like forms passing from place to place, springily. +The scent of cigarette smoke mixed with that of +some queer intoxicating perfume. The sound of +water plashing from a fountain came to his ears.</p> + +<p>On his way to find a seat, Graham's arm was suddenly +seized, he was pulled into a corner and found +himself, gladly enough, alone with the girl who called +herself Ita Strabosck. There was one blue light in +this alcove and by it he could see that the girl was +dressed like an Apache in black suit with trousers +which belled out over her little ankles and fitted her +tightly everywhere else. She retained her close grip +and began to whisper eagerly to him. Her foreign accent +was more marked than usual, owing to the emotion +under which she obviously labored. Her heart +hammered against his arm.</p> + +<p>"You have come to zee me?"</p> + +<p>Graham whispered back. "Don't I always come +to see you?"</p> + +<p>"You like me?"</p> + +<p>Graham bent forward and kissed her mouth.</p> + +<p>"You love me?"</p> + +<p>The boy laughed.</p> + +<p>"S-s-s-h! Eef you love me, eef you really and +truly love me, I vill to-night ask you to prove +eet."</p> + +<p>"I've been waiting," said Graham, with a sudden +touch of passion.</p> + +<p>"Zen take me avay from this 'ell. I 'ave a soul. +Eet ees killing me. I 'ave a longing for God's air.<span class="pagenum">[129]</span> +Take me back to eet. The Papowsky ees a vile +woman. She lure me 'ere and I am a prisoner. You +do not know the 'orrors of zis place. I am young. +I am almost a child. I was good and I can be good +again. At once, when you come 'ere, I saw in you +one who might rescue me from zis. I love you. You +say you love me. I beseech you to take me away."</p> + +<p>Graham was stirred by this emotional appeal whispered +in his ear, by the young arms that were flung +round his neck, and by the little body that was all soft +against him. His sense of chivalry and his innate +desire for adventure were instantly set ablaze. At the +same time, what could he do with this strange little +girl? Where could he put her?</p> + +<p>He began to whisper back something of his inability +to help, but a hand was quickly placed over his +mouth.</p> + +<p>"Eef you believe in God, take me away. I do not +care what you do with me. I do not care eef you +make me work for my bread. You are not like ze +rest. You too are young and you are a man, and I +love you. I will be your servant—your slave. I +will kiss your feet. I will give you myself. I will +wait on you 'and and foot. Give me a little room near +ze sky and see me once a day, but take me out of this +evil place—I am being poisoned. Vill you do zis? +Vill you?" She slipped down on her knees and +clasped her hands together.</p> + +<p>In the faint blue light Graham could see the large +eyes of the girl looking up at him through tears, as +though to a saviour. Her whole attitude was one of<span class="pagenum">[130]</span> +great appeal. Her young, slim body trembled and the +throbbing of her voice with its curious foreign accent +moved him to an overwhelming pity. Here then was +something that he could do—was a way in which he +could exercise his bottled up sense of adventure which +had hitherto only been kept in some sort of control +by gambling and running risks.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that you're forced to remain here,—that +you can't get out if you want to?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, yes! I tell you I was caught like a +wild bird and zis ees my cage. Ze door ees guarded."</p> + +<p>A great excitement seized the boy. He lifted Ita +up and put his mouth to her ear. "You've come to +the right man. I'll get you out of this. I always +loathed to see you here,—but how's it to be done? +She has eyes in the back of her head, and those +damned Japanese servants are everywhere."</p> + +<p>"Eeet ees for you to sink," said the girl. "You +are a man."</p> + +<p>"I see," said Graham. "Right. Leave it to +me."</p> + +<p>He liked being made responsible. He liked the +utter trust which this girl placed in him. He liked +the feeling of danger. The whole episode and its +uncanny romance caught hold of him. It was not +every day that in the middle of civilization the chance +came to do something which smacked of mediævalism—which +had in it something of the high adventure +of Ivanhoe.</p> + +<p>He said: "Get away quick and put your clothes +on. Don't pack anything—just dress. There won't<span class="pagenum">[131]</span> +be any one in the roulette room until after twelve. +Go in there and hide behind the curtains and wait for +me. Quick, now!"</p> + +<p>Once more the girl flung her arms about him and +put her lips to his mouth.</p> + +<p>For several minutes Graham remained alone in the +alcove, with his blood running swiftly through his +veins—his brain hard at work. The woman on the +dais was still singing. In the vague, uncertain light +he could see the Papowsky curled up on a divan near +by, smoking a cigarette. Other people had come in +and made groups among the foolish rockery. Then +he got up quietly, went out into the passage and looked +about. He had never before explored the place, he +only knew the studio and the roulette room. It +dawned upon him that this apartment was just beneath +the roof of the building. Somewhere or other +there was likely to be an outlet to the fire-escape. +That was the idea. He had it. The girl had said +that it would be impossible to take her away by the +main door. Those Japanese servants were evidently +watch-dogs. Even as he stood there, wondering, he +saw that he was eyed by a small, square-shouldered +Japanese whose head seemed to be too large for his +body and whose oily deferential grin was not to be +trusted. He lit a cigarette, and putting on what he +considered to be an air of extreme nonchalance, +strolled along until he came to the roulette room. No +one was there. The candelabra were only partially +alight. He darted quickly to the window and flung +it up. The iron steps of the fire-escape ran past it<span class="pagenum">[132]</span> +to the roof. "Fine!" he said to himself. "Now I +know what to do."</p> + +<p>He shut the window quickly and turned round just +as the man who had been watching him came in. +"Say!" he said. "Just go and get me a high-ball. +Bring it here." He followed the man to the door and +into the passage and watched him waddle away. He +had not been there more than a moment when the door +opposite opened bit by bit, and the girl's face, with +large frightened eyes, peeped round the corner. In +a little black hat and a plain frock with a very tight +skirt she looked younger and prettier and more in need +of help than ever. Without a word, Graham caught +hold of her hand, drew her into the passage, shut her +door, ran her into the roulette room and placed her +behind the curtains, making sure that her feet were +hidden. Whistling softly to himself he sat down and +waited. The man seemed to have been gone half an +hour. It was really only a few minutes before he +waddled back on his heels. Graham took the drink. +"How soon do you think they'll begin to play to-night?" +he asked, keeping his voice steady with a +huge effort.</p> + +<p>The Japanese shrugged his shoulders. "As usual, +sir," he said, smiling from ear to ear and rubbing his +hands together as though he were washing them. +"Any time after twelve, sir—any time, sir."</p> + +<p>"All right!" said Graham. "I shall wait here."</p> + +<p>He kept up the air of boredom until he imagined +that the small, black-haired, olive-tinted man had had +time to get well away. Then he sprang to the door,<span class="pagenum">[133]</span> +saw that the passage was empty, darted back into the +room and over to the window.</p> + +<p>"Come on!" he said. "Quick's the word!" and +climbed out, giving the girl his hand. For a moment +they stood together on the ledge of the fire-escape, the +stairs of which seemed to run endlessly down. With +a chuckle of triumph Graham shut the window, as +the girl gave a little cry of dismay.</p> + +<p>She had called that place hell, but from the height +on which they stood it seemed as though they were +climbing down from the sky.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>"Uptown," said Graham to the taxi driver. "I'll +tell you where when I know myself."</p> + +<p>A knowing and sympathetic grin covered the big +Irish face and a raucous yell came from the hard-used +engine, and the taxi went forward with a huge +jerk.</p> + +<p>The little girl turned her large eyes on Graham. +"You do not know vhere you take me?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>"No, by thunder, I don't. I can't drive you like +this to a hotel, you've got no baggage. Most of my +friends live in bachelor apartments, and the women I +know,—well, I would like to see their faces if I turned +up with you—and <i>this</i> story."</p> + +<p>The girl's foreign gesture was eloquent of despair. +She heaved a deep sigh and drew into the corner of<span class="pagenum">[134]</span> +the cab. The passing lights shone intermittently on +her little white face. How small and pitiful and helpless +she looked.</p> + +<p>The sight of her set Graham's brain working again. +In getting her out of the Papowsky's poisonous place +and leading her step by step down the winding fire-escape +and, when it ceased abruptly in mid-air, into +the window of a restaurant, he had been brought to +the end of one line of thought,—that of getting the +girl safely out of her prison. He now started on +another, while the cab rocked along the trolley lines +beneath the elevated railway, sometimes swerving +dangerously out and round the iron supports.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Graham was seized with an idea. He put +his head out of the cab window and shouted to the +driver: "Fifty-five East Fifty-second Street."</p> + +<p>The girl turned to him hopefully. "What ees +zat?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"My home."</p> + +<p>"Your 'ome? You take me to your 'ome?"</p> + +<p>"Why no, not exactly. I'm going in to get a bag +for you. It won't have much in it except a brush and +comb and a pair of my pajamas, but with them we +can drive to any quiet hotel and I'll get a room for +you. In the morning I'll find a little furnished apartment +and you can go out and buy some clothes and +the other things that you need. How's that?"</p> + +<p>Ita caught up his hand and held it against her heart. +"But you are not going to leave me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I must," said Graham. "I shall have to +register you as my sister. You've just come off the<span class="pagenum">[135]</span> +train and I've met you at the station. Oh, don't cry! +It's the best I can do. It's only just for one night. +I'll fix things to-morrow and you'll be very happy in +a little apartment of your own, won't you? I'll see +you every day there."</p> + +<p>With a sudden and almost painfully touching abandon +of gratitude the girl flung herself on the floor of +the cab and put her head on Graham's knees, calling +on God to bless him. Something came into the boy's +throat.</p> + +<p>The taxi crossed Fifth Avenue behind a motor-car +that was also going towards Madison Avenue. It +looked very familiar to Graham. Supposing it was +his father returning from one of his medical meetings! +He put his head out again, sharply: "Stop at the first +house on East Fifty-second Street!" he shouted. +Almost before the cab had stopped he leaped out. +"Wait for me here," he added.</p> + +<p>"Sure an' I will." The driver threw a glance at +his taxi-meter. Not for him to care how long he +waited.</p> + +<p>Graham darted along the street and up the steps +of Number fifty-five, and just as he had the key in the +door he heard his father's voice.</p> + +<p>"No, no. Let my car take you home. Yes, a +wonderful evening. Most inspiring. Good night! +Let's meet again soon!"</p> + +<p>Graham made up his mind what to do. He held +the door open for the Doctor and stood waiting for +him, with the bored look of one who has had a rather +dull evening.<span class="pagenum">[136]</span> +"Oh, thank you, Graham," said Dr. Guthrie. +"Have you just got back?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I thought I'd get to bed early to-night."</p> + +<p>"You look as though you needed sleep," said the +Doctor. "But—but don't go up at once. Please +come and have a cigarette in my room. I've—I've +been speaking at the Academy of Medicine,—explaining +a new discovery. A great triumph, Graham, a +great triumph. I would like to tell one of my sons +about it. Won't you come?"</p> + +<p>There was an unwonted look of excitement on his +father's thin face and a ring in his voice which made +it almost youthful. It was the first time that Graham +had ever received such an invitation. He was surprised, +and if he had not been so desperately anxious +to slip up-stairs, lay quick hands on the bag and get +away again he would have accepted it gladly. For +a reason that he could not explain he felt at that +instant an almost unbearable desire to find his father, +to get in touch with him, to give something and receive +something that he seemed to yearn for and need +more urgently than at any other moment in his life. +As it was, he was obliged to back out. "I'm frightfully +tired to-night," he said, yawning.</p> + +<p>"Oh, are you? I'm sorry," said the Doctor +apologetically. "Some other night perhaps—some +other night."</p> + +<p>The two men stood facing each other uncomfortably. +Exhilaration had for a moment broken down +the Doctor's shyness. It all came back to him when +he found his son's eyes upon him like those of a<span class="pagenum">[137]</span> +stranger. He took off his coat and hat, said "Good-night" +nervously and went quickly across the hall and +into his library.</p> + +<p>He was deeply hurt. He stood among those priceless +books with a curious pain running through his +veins. "What's the matter with me?" he asked himself. +"Why do I chill my children and make them +draw back?"</p> + +<p>Graham shut the door, and then as quickly as an +eel ran up-stairs to his bedroom, turned on the light, +opened the door of the closet and pulled out a large +suit-case. Then he began to hunt among the drawers +of his wardrobe for some pajamas. He threw these +in. From his bathroom he caught up a brush and +comb and some bedroom slippers. These followed +the pajamas. Then he shut the case, picked it up, +crept quietly down-stairs, across the hall and out into +the street, shutting the door softly behind him. He +gave the taxi-driver the name of a small hotel frequented +by actors, and jumped into the cab.</p> + +<p>Ita Strabosck welcomed him as though he had been +gone a week. "'Ow good you are to me!" she cried. +"Eef you never do anysing else een your life, zis that +you 'ave done for me vill be written down by zee +angels een your book."</p> + +<p>Graham laughed. "The angels—I wonder."</p> + +<p>All the same he was a little proud of himself. Not +many men would have perfected the rescue of this +little girl so neatly from a house in which her body +and soul were in jeopardy. It had been an episode +in his sophisticated life which was all to his credit.<span class="pagenum">[138]</span> +He felt that,—with pleasure liked the idea of being +responsible for this poor little soul, of having some +one dependent entirely upon his generosity and who +presently would wait for his step with a fluttering +heart and run to meet him when he came in tired. He +liked also the thought that this girl would be a little +secret of his own,—some one personal to himself, to +whom he could take his worries—and he had many—and +get sympathy and even advice.</p> + +<p>The cab drew up. Graham released himself from +the girl's arms and led her into the small and rather +fuggy foyer of the hotel, which was a stone's throw +from Broadway. A colored porter pounced upon the +bag and an alert clerk looked up from the mail that +he was sorting.</p> + +<p>"I want a room for my sister," said Graham, "with +bath. Got one?"</p> + +<p>"Fifth floor," said the clerk, after gazing fixedly +for a moment at something at the back of the screen. +He then pushed the book towards Graham.</p> + +<p>Without a moment's hesitation, Graham wrote +"Miss Nancy Robertson, Buffalo," and took the key +that was extended to him. "Come on, Nancy," he +said, and led the way to the elevator, in which was +waiting a tall, florid woman carrying a small bulldog +in her arms. She had obviously not taken very great +pains to remove the make-up from her face which had +been necessary to her small part. Graham recognized +her as an actress whom he had seen some nights +before in an English play at the Thirty-ninth Street +Theatre, and he thought how queer life was and what<span class="pagenum">[139]</span> +odd tricks it played. Not a foot away from each +other stood two women, the one just back from a place +in which she had been aping a human being in a piece +utterly artificial and untrue, the other who had played +a part in a tragedy of grim and horrible reality, out +of which she had been carried before the inevitable +climax.</p> + +<p>The colored boy, with a hospitable grin on his face, +led the way along a narrow, shabby passage whose +wall-paper was much the worse for wear, and finally +opened the door of a small bedroom, switching on the +light.</p> + +<p>"I'll undo the case," said Graham quickly.</p> + +<p>The boy drew back. "Sure."</p> + +<p>"And say! If you'll see that my sister gets what +she rings for I'll give you five dollars."</p> + +<p>"You bet your life, sah." There was a dazzling +glint of white teeth.</p> + +<p>"Thanks."</p> + +<p>"You welcome."</p> + +<p>The cry of joy and relief which made the whole +room quiver, as soon as the porter had gone, went +straight to Graham's heart. "I guess it's not much +of a room," he said, a little huskily, "but we'll change +all this to-morrow."</p> + +<p>The girl ran her hand over the pillow and the bed-cover. +"Oh, but eet ees zo sweet and clean," she +said, between tears and laughter, "and no one can +come. Eet ees mine. You are zo, <i>zo</i> good to me."</p> + +<p>Graham undid the case and spilt the meagre contents +on the bed. Then he put his hands on Ita's<span class="pagenum">[140]</span> +shoulders and kissed her. "Good-night, you poor +little thing," he said. "Sleep well, order anything +that you want, and don't leave this room until I come +and fetch you. Your troubles are over."</p> + +<p>She clung to him. "But you vill stay a leetle—just +a leetle?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm going now."</p> + +<p>There was nowhere in Graham's mind the remotest +desire to stay. A new and strange chivalry had taken +the place of the passion that had swept over him earlier +in the evening when the blue light had fallen on her +slim body.</p> + +<p>She looked into his face, nodded and put her lips +to his cheek. "Good night, zen," she said. "You +'ave taken me out of hell. You are very good."</p> + +<p>And as Graham walked home under the gleaming +moon and the star-bespattered sky, there was a little +queer song in his rather lonely heart.</p> + +<p>Poor, simple, sophisticated lad! How easy it had +been for that cunning little creature whose one ambition +was to be the mistress of an apartment in business +for herself, to take advantage of his unfed sense of +adventure. She, and fate, had certainly played him +a very impish trick.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>The <i>Oceanic</i> had been timed to dock at four-thirty, +but the thick mist at the mouth of the Hudson had +caused some delay and her mail had been heavy. The +consequence was that she was edged in to her dock<span class="pagenum">[141]</span> +considerably more than an hour late, to be welcomed +by an outburst of long-expectant handkerchiefs.</p> + +<p>During the period of waiting—by no means unpleasant, +because the sun fell warmly upon the wonderful +river—several brief, emotional conversations +took place between the people who had come to greet +Peter. The Guthries were there in a body,—even +Ethel had pulled herself together and had come to be +among the first to greet her favorite brother. Graham +wouldn't have missed the occasion for anything on +earth. His love for Peter was deep and true. And +it was good to see the excitement of them all and of +the little mother, who was in a state of verging between +tears and laughter all the time. Her big boy +was coming home again and once more she would +have the ineffable joy of tucking him up at night sometimes, +and asking God to bless him before she drew +the clothes about his ears as she had done so often. +Even the Doctor found it necessary to take off his +glasses several times and rub them clear of the moisture +that prevented him from seeing the approaching +vessel which seemed to have given herself up to the +bullying of the small but energetic tugs whose blunt +noses butted into her.</p> + +<p>Betty brought her father; and these two, with a +delicacy of feeling characteristic of them, placed themselves +among the crowd away from the Guthrie family. +Intuitively, Betty knew that much as Mrs. +Guthrie liked her, she would rather resent her presence +there at such a moment. Belle's quick eyes very +soon discovered them, however, and presently they<span class="pagenum">[142]</span> +permitted themselves to be drawn into the family +group.</p> + +<p>It was a curious moment for Ranken Townsend and +his feelings were not unlike those of little Mrs. +Guthrie. "My God!" he said to himself as he stood +looking out at the wide river, its marvellous and +strenuous life and the amazing sky-line of the buildings +on the opposite bank; "has the time arrived +already for me to lose my little girl? Am I so old +that I have a young thing ripe enough for marriage +and to bring into the world young things of her +own?"</p> + +<p>The artist had only met the elder Guthries once before, +although Belle was a particular friend of his, +having been frequently brought to his studio by Betty. +He knew Peter only from having seen him in the treasured +snapshots which his little daughter brought home +with her from Oxford. He had to confess to himself—although +his natural jealousy made him unwilling +to do so—that Peter looked just the sort of man +whom he would like his daughter to marry when her +time came. And so he singled out Mrs. Guthrie +almost at once and drew her aside. The breeze blew +through his Viking beard, and a fellow-feeling +brought into his eyes an expression of sympathy which +immediately warmed Mrs. Guthrie's heart towards +him. "I didn't want to come this afternoon, Mrs. +Guthrie," he said. "Shall I explain why?"</p> + +<p>"No," said the little mother. "I quite understand."</p> + +<p>"Your boy and my girl are following the inevitable<span class="pagenum">[143]</span> +laws of nature, and it's rather hard luck for us both, +isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Guthrie put her handkerchief up to her mouth +and nodded.</p> + +<p>"Betty's a good girl and I've only to look at you to +know that the man to whom she's given her heart is +a fine fellow. Well, it brings us up to another milestone, +doesn't it?—one that I wish was still some +years ahead. However, let's face it with pluck and +with unselfishness, and be friends. Shall we?"</p> + +<p>"Please," said the little mother, giving him her +hand.</p> + +<p>Ranken Townsend bared his head.</p> + +<p>And then Dr. Guthrie came up and peered at the +man who was talking to his wife. He vaguely remembered +the artist's picturesque appearance and fine +open face, but he had forgotten his name.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Guthrie hurried to the rescue. "You remember +Mr. Townsend, of course, Hunter," she said. +"Betty's father, you know."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," said the Doctor. "Of +course I remember you, and I'm very delighted to see +you again. You have friends coming on the <i>Oceanic</i> +too, then?"</p> + +<p>Townsend laughed. "No, I don't know anybody +on her—not a soul. All the same I've come to meet +your son."</p> + +<p>"Indeed! It's very kind of you, I'm sure." And +then the Doctor suddenly remembered that sooner or +later he'd be obliged to share Peter with the man who +stood before him, and just for a moment he—like<span class="pagenum">[144]</span> +his wife and like the other father—felt the inevitable +stab of jealousy. He covered it with a cordial smile. +"What am I thinking about? Betty brought you, +naturally. We must meet more often now, Mr. +Townsend."</p> + +<p>"I should like nothing better. I don't know your +boy yet except through his photographs and my having +met his mother, but I'm very proud to know that +my little girl is to bear a name that will always be +honoured in this country."</p> + +<p>Dr. Guthrie blushed and bowed, and put his hand +up to his tie nervously.</p> + +<p>It was a curious little meeting, this. All three +parents were self-conscious and uncomfortable. They +would have been antagonistic but for the very true +human note that each recognized. They were all +reminded of the unpleasant fact that they were in +sight of a new and wide cross-road in their lives, +along which they were presently to see two of their +young people walking away together hand in hand. +Parenthood has in it everything that is beautiful, but +much that is disappointing and inevitable—much that +brings pain and a sudden sense of loneliness.</p> + +<p>There was a very different ring in the conversation +of Betty and Belle, who stood a few yards away surrounded +by people of all the strange conglomerate +nationalities which go to make up the population of +the United States. Good-tempered, affectionate and +excitable Hebrews were already shouting welcomes to +their friends on the <i>Oceanic</i>, as the vessel drew slowly +nearer. Temperamental Irish were alternately waving<span class="pagenum">[145]</span> +handkerchiefs and daubing their eyes with them, +and others—of French, German, Dutch, Swedish, +Norwegian, Russian and English extraction—were +trying to discern the faces of those who were near +and dear to them among the passengers who were +leaning over the rails of the vessel. It was an animated +and moving scene, very much more cheery than +the ones which take place on the same spot when the +great trans-Atlantic Liners slip out into the river.</p> + +<p>"Look!" cried Belle. "There's Nicholas. Isn't +he absolutely and wonderfully English?"</p> + +<p>"And there's Peter!" said Betty, with a catch in +her voice. "And isn't he splendidly American?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so excited I can hardly stand still. I've +dreamed of this every night ever since we came home."</p> + +<p>"So have I. But this is better than dreams. +Look! Peter has seen us. He's waving his hat. +Even his hair seems to be sunburnt."</p> + +<p>Belle laughed, though her eyes were full of tears. +"I can almost smell the violet stuff that Nicholas puts +on his."</p> + +<p>Then there was the usual rush as the liner slid into +her berth, and as Mrs. Guthrie was swept away with +it, holding tight to Graham's arm, she said to herself: +"He waved to Betty first. O God, make me brave!"</p> + +<p>All the same, it was the little mother to whom Peter +went first as he came ashore, and he held her very +tight, so that she could hardly breathe, and said: +"Darling mum! How good to see you!" and there +was something in that.</p> + +<p>The Doctor took his boy's big hand with less self-consciousness<span class="pagenum">[146]</span> +than usual. He wished that he might +have had the pluck to kiss him on both cheeks and thus +follow the excellent example of a little fat Frenchman +who had nearly thrown him off his balance in his +eagerness to welcome a thin, dark boy.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Belle! Hello, Graham! Hello, Ethel!" +And then Peter stood in front of Betty, to whom he +said nothing, but the kiss that he gave her meant more +than the whole of a dictionary. "Oh, my Peter!" +she whispered.</p> + +<p>Nicholas Kenyon followed with his most winning +smile, and was cordially welcomed. He had charming +things to say to everyone, especially to Belle. After +close scrutiny, Ethel's inward criticism of him was +that he had "escaped being Oxford."</p> + +<p>And then Ranken Townsend held out his hand. +"But for me, Peter Guthrie," he said, "you wouldn't +have had a sweetheart. Shake!"</p> + +<p>A wave of color spread all over Peter's brown face. +He grasped the outstretched hand. "I'm awfully +glad to see you," he said.</p> + +<p>"And I'm awfully glad to see you." The artist +measured the boy up. Yes, he was well satisfied. +Here stood a man in whose clean eyes he recognized +the spirit of a boy. Betty had chosen well. "Do +you smoke a pipe?"</p> + +<p>"Well, rather."</p> + +<p>"I thought so. Bring it along to my studio as soon +as your mother can spare you and we'll talk about +life and love and the great hereafter. Is that a bet?"</p> + +<p>"That's a bet," said Peter. And he added, putting<span class="pagenum">[147]</span> +his mouth close to Betty's ear: "Darling, he's a +corker! He likes me. Gee, that's fine!" Then he +turned to his mother, ran his arm round her shoulder, +walked her over to the place in the great echoing, bustling +shed over which a huge "G" hung, and sat down +with her on somebody else's trunk which had just +been flung there, to wait with unapproving patience +for that blessed time when one of the officialdom's +chewing gods, having forced a prying hand among his +shirts and underclothing, should mark his baggage +with a magic cross and so permit him to reconnect +himself with life.</p> + +<p>Nicholas Kenyon, as immaculate as though he had +just emerged from a bandbox, slipped his hand surreptitiously +into Belle's. "Are you glad to see me?" +he asked, under his breath.</p> + +<p>Belle said nothing in reply, but the look that she +gave him instead set that expert's blood racing through +his veins and gave him something to look forward to +that alone made it worth crossing a waste of unnecessary +water.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>"A very pleasant domestic evening," said Kenyon, +standing with his back to the fireplace of the library. +"The bosom of this family is certainly very warm. +Peter, my dear old boy, I had no idea that you were +going to bring me to a house in which a Prime Minister +or the President of the Royal Academy might +be very proud to dwell. Also, may I congratulate you<span class="pagenum">[148]</span> +upon your little sister? She's a humorist. I found +myself furbishing up all my epigrams when I spoke +to her. By Jove, she's like a Baliol blood with his +hair in a braid."</p> + +<p>A quiet chuckle came from Graham, who was sitting +on the arm of a big deep chair, looking up at Kenyon +with the sort of admiration that is paid by a +student to his master. "I don't know anything about +Baliol bloods," he said, "but Ethel takes a lot of beating. +When she quoted Bernard Shaw, at dinner, +father nearly swallowed his fork."</p> + +<p>Peter was sitting on the table, swinging his legs.</p> + +<p>"Oh, she'll be all right when she gets away from +her school. She'll grow younger every day then. +What awful places they are—these American girl +schools. They seem to inject into their victims a sort +of liquid artificiality. It takes a lot of living down. +Upon my soul, I hardly knew the kid! Two years +have made a most tremendous difference in her. I +thought I should throw a fit when she looked at me +just now in the drawing-room and said: 'The childish +influence of Oxford has left you almost unspoiled, +Peter, dear.'"</p> + +<p>Kenyon laughed. "Excellent!" he said. "I +know the English flapper pretty well. It'll give me +extreme delight to play Columbus among the American +variety of the species." He looked round the +beautiful room with an approving eye. "That must +have been a very civilized old gentleman who made +this collection. I wonder if he bought some of the +books from Thrapstone-Wynyates! My father was<span class="pagenum">[149]</span> +forced to sell some of them shortly after he succeeded +to the title. As the long arm of coincidence frequently +stretches across the Atlantic, I should like to +think that some of the first editions in which my +grandfather took so high a pride have found their +way into an atmosphere so entirely pleasant as this. +One of these fine days, Peter, they may raise a little +necessary bullion for you."</p> + +<p>"I hope not," said Peter.</p> + +<p>Graham got up. "It's only eleven o'clock. Suppose +we get out and see something. Everybody's +gone to bed, we shan't be missed."</p> + +<p>"A very brainy notion," said Kenyon, "but what's +there to do?"</p> + +<p>"Oodles of things," said Graham.</p> + +<p>"Well, lead the way. I'm with you. The dull +monotony of life aboard a liner has given me a thirst +for twinkling ankles, the clash of cymbals and the +glare of the lime-light. You with us, Peter?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, unless—one second." He went over to the +telephone that stood on a small table in a far corner +of the room, looked up a number in the book, asked +for it and hung on.</p> + +<p>Kenyon shot a wink at Graham. "Get your hat, +old boy," he said. "Peter would a-wooing go. He's +the most desperately thorough person." And he +added inwardly: "Hang that girl."</p> + +<p>"Can I speak to Mr. Townsend? Oh, is that you, +Mr. Townsend? Peter Guthrie, yes. May I come +round and have a jaw—? Thanks, awfully! I'll +get a taxi right away." He turned back to the other<span class="pagenum">[150]</span> +two men. "Great work," he said. "You two will +have to go alone to-night. However, we've a thousand +years in front of us. See you at breakfast. So +long!"</p> + +<p>"Wait a second," said Graham. "I'll ring up a +taxi and we'll all ride down together."</p> + +<p>"Right-o!" said Peter. "I'll rush up to my room +and get a pipe."</p> + +<p>When he came down again he found Kenyon and +Graham waiting at the open door. A taxicab was +chugging on the curbstone. Kenyon got in first, with +his long cigarette holder between his teeth and a +rakish-looking opera hat balanced over his left eye. +He carried a thin black overcoat. All about him there +was the very essence of Piccadilly. Peter sat beside +him and Graham opposite. The cab turned round, +crossed Madison into Fifth Avenue and went quickly +downtown. The great wide street, as shiny as that +of the Champs Élysée, was comparatively clear of +traffic. Peter looked at the passing houses with the +intense and affectionate interest of the man who comes +home again. At the corner of West Forty-second +Street Graham stopped the cab. "It's only a short +walk to the best of the cabarets," he said; "we'll let +Peter go straight on. Come on, Nicholas, bundle +out."</p> + +<p>"Where are we going?" asked Kenyon, making a +graceful exit.</p> + +<p>"Louis Martin's, old boy," said Graham.</p> + +<p>"Pretty hot stuff, I hope. Au revoir, Peter. Do +your best to make the bearded paint merchant like you.<span class="pagenum">[151]</span> +You'll have some difficulty." And with that parting +shot, contradicted by one of the winning smiles which +he had inherited from his delightful but unscrupulous +father, Nicholas Kenyon took Graham's arm and these +two walked away in high spirits.</p> + +<p>When the cab stopped at the high building on the +corner of Gramercy Park, its door was opened by +Ranken Townsend. "I timed you to arrive about +now, my lad," he said cordially. "I took the opportunity +of getting some air. It's mighty good to-night. +Come right up." He continued to talk in the elevator, +which had a long way to go. "Betty has gone +to a party. You may meet her mother, I'm not sure. +She's out at one of her meetings—she spends her +life at meetings—and if she comes in tired, as she +generally does, she probably won't come into the +studio. However, that need only be a pleasure deferred. +Do you speak? If so, she'll nail you for one +of her platforms."</p> + +<p>"I,—speak?" said Peter, with a shudder. "I'd +rather be shot."</p> + +<p>Townsend laughed, led the way into his apartment +and into the studio. In the dim light of one reading +lamp which stood on a small table at the side of a low +divan, the room looked larger than it was. It reeked +with the good ripe smell of pipe tobacco and seemed +to be pervaded with the personality of the man who +spent most of his life in it. One of the top windows +was open and through it came the refreshing air that +blew up from the Hudson. Peter caught a glimpse +of the sky, which was alive with stars. It was a good<span class="pagenum">[152]</span> +place. He liked it. Work was done there. It +inspired him.</p> + +<p>The artist took Peter's hat and coat and hung them +in the alcove. Then he went across the room and +turned up the light that hung over a canvas. "How +d'you like it?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Peter gave an involuntary cry. There sat Betty +with her hands folded in her lap. To Peter she +seemed to have been caught at the very moment when +from his place at her feet he looked up at her just +before he held her in his arms for the first time. Her +face was alight and her eyes full of tenderness. It +was an exquisite piece of work.</p> + +<p>Townsend turned out the light. He was well +pleased with its effect. Peter's face was far better +than several columns of printed eulogy. "Now come +and sit down," he said. "Try this mixture. It took +me five years to discover it, but since then I've used +no other." He threw himself on the settee and settled +his untidy head among the cushions.</p> + +<p>The light shone on Peter's strong profile, and when +Townsend looked at it he saw there all that he hoped +to see, and something else. There was a little smile +round the boy's mouth and a look in his eyes that +showed all the warmth of his heart.</p> + +<p>"And so you love my little girl as much as that? +Well, she deserves it, but please don't take her away +from me yet. I can't spare her. She and my work +are all I've got, and I'm not lying when I say that she +comes first. Generally when a man reaches my age +he has lived down his dependence on other people for<span class="pagenum">[153]</span> +happiness and his work has become his mistress, his +wife and his children. In my case that isn't so, and +my little girl is the best I have. She keeps me young, +Peter. She renders my disappointments almost null +and void, and she encourages me not wholly to sacrifice +myself to the filthy dollar—an easy temptation I can +assure you. So don't be in too great a hurry to take +my little bird away and build a nest for her in another +tree. Does that sound very selfish to you?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Peter; "I understand. Besides—good +Lord!—I've got to work before I can make +a place good enough for her. I've come back to +begin."</p> + +<p>"I see! Fine! I thought perhaps that Oxford +might have taken some of the good American grit out +of you. It just occurred to me that you might be going +to let your father keep you while you continue to +remain an undergraduate out here in life. A good +many of our young men with wealthy fathers play that +game, believe me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," said Peter, "but there's something +in my blood,—I think it's porridge,—that urges me +to do things for myself. Besides, I believe that there's +a feeling of gratitude somewhere about me that makes +me want to pay back my father for all that he's done. +I'm most awfully keen to do that, Mr. Townsend! +His money has come by accident. I'm not going to +take advantage of it. I'm going to start in just as if +he were the same hard-working doctor that he used +to be when he sent me to Harvard, skinning himself +to do so. I think he'll like that. Anyway, that's my<span class="pagenum">[154]</span> +plan. And as to Oxford,—well, I should have to be +a pretty rotten sort of a dog if I didn't gain something +there—that wonderful place out of which men have +gone, for centuries, all the better for having rushed +over its quads and churned up the water of its little +old river and stood humbly in its chapels. Don't you +think so?"</p> + +<p>"I do indeed, my dear lad; but somehow or other +the younger generation doesn't seem to take advantage +of those things, and the sight of the young men of +the present day and their callous acceptance of their +fathers' efforts make me thank God that I never had a +boy. I should be afraid. Think of that! What are +you going to do, Peter? What is your line of +work?"</p> + +<p>"The law."</p> + +<p>"The law? Well, I guess that's a queer sort of +maze to put yourself into. An honest man in the law +is like a rabbit in a dog kennel. Is that your definite +decision?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely," said Peter. "I chose the law for +that reason. I think that honesty is badly needed in +it. I've got a dream that one of these days I shall be +a judge and make things a bit easier for all the poor +devils who have made mistakes."</p> + +<p>"God help you!"</p> + +<p>"I shall ask him to," said Peter.</p> + +<p>The artist looked up quickly. In his further keen +and rather wistful scrutiny of the great big square-shouldered +man with the strong, clean jaw-line and +the firm mouth there was a little astonishment. "Do<span class="pagenum">[155]</span> +you mean to tell me that in the middle of these queer +undisciplined, individualistic times you believe in +God?"</p> + +<p>The room remained in silence for a moment, until +Peter leaned forward and knocked out his pipe. "If +I didn't believe in God," he replied quietly, "would +you be quite so ready to trust Betty to me?"</p> + +<p>At that moment the door was swung open and a +tall, stout, hard-bosomed woman with a mass of white +hair and the carriage of a battleship sailed in. Her +evening clothes glistened with sequins and many large +beads rattled as she came forward. She wore a string +of pearls and several diamond rings. Unable to fight +any longer against advancing years and preserve what +had evidently been quite remarkable good looks, she +had cultivated a presence and developed distinction. +In any meeting of women she was inevitably voted to +the chair, and in the natural order of things became +president of all the Societies to which she attached herself, +except one. In this isolated case the woman who +supplanted her, for the time being, was even taller, +stouter and harder of bosom,—in fact, a born president.</p> + +<p>The two men rose.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Ranken, still up, then! I half-expected to +find the studio in darkness. You'll be glad to hear +that we passed a unanimous resolution to-night condemning +this country as a republic and asking that it +shall become a monarchy forthwith."</p> + +<p>Townsend refrained from looking at Peter. "Indeed!" +he said gravely. "An evening well spent.<span class="pagenum">[156]</span> +But I want you to know Peter Guthrie, Dr. Hunter +Guthrie's eldest son, just home from Oxford."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Townsend extended a large well-formed hand. +"Let me see! What do I know about you? You're +the young man who—Oh, now I remember. +You're engaged to Betty. But before I forget it, and +as you are just out of Oxford, I'll put you down to +speak at the annual meeting next Tuesday at the Waldorf, +of the Society for the Reconstruction of University +Systems. Your subject will be 'Oxford as a +Menace to the Younger Generation.' There will be +no fee—I beg your pardon?"</p> + +<p>Peter's face was a study in conflicting emotions. +He looked like a lonely man being run away with in +a car that he was wholly unable to drive. Townsend +turned a burst of laughter into a rasping cough. +"You're awfully kind," said Peter, almost stammering. +"But I believe in Oxford."</p> + +<p>"Ah! Then you shall say so to the Society for the +Encouragement of Universities, on Thursday at eight +sharp, at the St. Mary's Public School Building, Brooklyn."</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact, I don't speak," said Peter. +"I—I never speak."</p> + +<p>"Why, then, you shall be one of the chief thinkers +at the bi-monthly meeting of the Californian Cogitators. +I'm not going to let you off, so make up your +mind to that. And now I'm going to bed. I'm as +tired as a dog. Good-bye, Paul,—I mean Peter. Expect +me to call you up one day soon. There's so much +to do with this world chaos that we must all put our<span class="pagenum">[157]</span> +hands to the wheel." And with a wave of her hand, +Mrs. Townsend sailed majestically away.</p> + +<p>Peter gasped for breath and the artist subsided into +the divan and gave way to an attack—a very spasm—of +laughter, which left him limp and weak.</p> + +<p>"Never allow Betty to get bitten by the meeting-bug, +son," he said, when he had recovered. "It isn't +any fun to be married to a bunch of pamphlets. +What! Are you off now?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I've kept you up, as it is, Mr. Townsend. +I—I want to thank you for your immense kindness +to me. I shall always remember it. Good +night!"</p> + +<p>Rankin Townsend got up, stood in front of Peter +for a moment and looked straight at him. He was +serious again. "Good night, my dear lad," he said. +"I feel that I can trust Betty to you and that takes a +load off my mind. Come often and stay later."</p> + +<p>Peter walked all the way home along Madison Avenue. +That part, at any rate, of the great sleepless +city was resting and quiet, and the boy's quick footsteps +echoed through the empty street. He was glad +to be back again in New York—glad and thankful. +Somewhere, in one of her big buildings, was his love-girl—the +woman who was to be his wife—the reason +of his having been born into the world. No wonder +he believed in God.<span class="pagenum">[158]</span></p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p>The following afternoon Peter was to call at the +apartment-house on Gramercy Park at half-past-four. +He had arranged to take Betty for a walk,—a good +long tramp. There were heaps of things that he +wanted to tell her and hear, and several points on which +he wanted to ask her advice. He was not merely +punctual, as becomes a man who is head over heels +in love—he was ten minutes before his time. All the +same, he found Betty waiting for him in the hall, +talking to a big burly Irishman who condescended to +act as hall-porter and who looked not unlike a brigadier-general +in his rather over-smart uniform. This +man had known Betty for many years and watched her +grow up; had received many kindnesses from her and +had seen her bend by the hour over the cot of his own +little girl when she was ill. His face was a study +when he saw Peter bound into the place, catch sight +of Betty and take her in his arms, and without a single +touch of self-consciousness pour out a burst of incoherent +joy at being with her once more.</p> + +<p>Catching his expression, in which surprise, resentment +and a sort of jealousy were all mixed, Betty said, +when she got a chance: "Peter, this is a friend of +mine, Mr. O'Grady."</p> + +<p>Peter turned and held out his hand. "How are +you? All Miss Townsend's friends have got to be +my friends now."</p> + +<p>The Irishman's vanity was greatly appealed to by<span class="pagenum">[159]</span> +the simple manliness of Peter's greeting, his cheery +smile and his utter lack of side. He smiled back and, +having given the hand a warm grip, drew himself up +and saluted. At one time he had served in the British +Army, and he wanted Peter to know it. He would +have told him the story of his life then and there with, +very likely, a few picturesque additions, but before +he could arrange his opening sentence the two young +people were out in the street. He watched them go +off together, the one so broad and big, the other so +slight and sweet, and said to himself, rolling a new +quid of tobacco between his fingers: "Ah, thin; it's +love's young dream once more! And it's a man he is. +God bless both of them!"</p> + +<p>"Are you feeling strong to-day, darling?" asked +Peter.</p> + +<p>"Strong as a lion," said Betty. "Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because I'm going to walk you up the Avenue and +into the Park and about six times round the reservoir. +Can you stand it?"</p> + +<p>Betty laughed. "Try me, and if I faint from exhaustion +you can carry me into the street and call a +taxicab. I'm not afraid of anything with you."</p> + +<p>"That's fine! This is the first time we've been +really alone since I came back. It'll take from now +until the middle of next week to tell you even half +the things I've got to say. First of all, I love +you."</p> + +<p>"<i>Darling</i> Peter."</p> + +<p>"I love you more than I ever did, much more—a +hundred times more—and I don't care who hears me<span class="pagenum">[160]</span> +say so." That was true. He made this statement, +not in a whisper, but in his natural voice, and it was +overheard by several passers-by who turned their +heads,—and being women, smiled sympathetically and +went on their way with the deep thrill of the young +giant's voice ringing in their ears like music.</p> + +<p>They stood for a moment on the curbstone trying +to find an opportunity to cross the street. Betty gave +herself up to the masterly person at her side without +a qualm. She adored being led by the arm through +traffic which she wouldn't have dared to dodge had +she been alone. It gave her a new and splendid sense +of security and dependence.</p> + +<p>The rain had begun to fall softly. It gathered +strength as they turned into Fifth Avenue, and came +down smartly. Betty didn't intend to say a word about +the fact that she was wearing a new hat. It had escaped +Peter's notice. Her face was all he saw. He +wasn't even aware that it was raining until he took +her arm and found her sleeve was wet.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" he said. "This won't do. Dash +this rain, it's going to spoil our walk. Where can we +go? I know." A line of taxis was standing on a +stand. He opened the door of the first one. "Pop +in, baby," he said. "We'll drive to the Ritz and have +tea. I can't have you getting wet."</p> + +<p>Betty popped in, not really so profoundly sorry to +escape that strenuous walk as Peter was.</p> + +<p>Being a wise man he took full advantage of the taxicab, +and for all the fact that it was broad daylight +and that anybody who chose could watch him, he gave<span class="pagenum">[161]</span> +Betty a series of kisses which did something to make +up for lost time and a long separation. The new hat +suffered rather in the process, but what did that matter? +This was love. Hats could be replaced—such +a love as his, never.</p> + +<p>"Your father is a great chap," said Peter. "We +had a good yarn last night. By Jove! I wish my +father had something of his friendly way. I felt +that there was nothing I couldn't tell him—nothing +that he wouldn't understand. Well, well; there it is. +Graham and I will have to worry along as best we may. +Everything'll come out all right, I hope."</p> + +<p>"How did you like mother?" asked Betty.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Peter, considering his answer with +the greatest care, "she's undoubtedly a wonderful +woman, but she scares me to death. The very first +thing she did was to ask me to speak at one of her +meetings."</p> + +<p>Betty burst out laughing. "What—? Already? +When are you speaking? What are you going to +say?"</p> + +<p>"Good Lord! What can I say? I can recite the +Jabberwocky or the alphabet in English, French and +American, but that finishes my repertory. Can you +see me standing on a platform as white as a sheet trying +to stammer out a few idiotic sentences to a room +full of women? Look here! You've got to get it out +of her head that I can be of the slightest use to her. +Tell her I stutter, or that I've got no roof to my mouth—anything +you like—but, for goodness sake, have +my name taken off her list. Will you promise that?<span class="pagenum">[162]</span> +Already I wake up in the middle of the night in an +absolute panic."</p> + +<p>"Don't worry," said Betty, "Mother's a very +strong-minded woman, but she's awfully easy to +manage. And now I want you to promise me something."</p> + +<p>"Anything in the world," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, don't mistake the Ritz for that dear +little open place where the fairies dance, and suddenly +kiss me in front of the band and all the people having +tea."</p> + +<p>"Hard luck," said Peter. "I'll do the best I can. +But you're such an angel and you look so frightfully +nice that I shall have all I can do to keep sane."</p> + +<p>The cab drew up and they got out, went through the +silly swinging doors which separate a man from his +girl for a precious moment and into the Palm Court +where the band was playing. Peter gave his hat and +stick to a disgruntled waiter, who would have told +him to check them outside but for his height and +width.</p> + +<p>The place was extraordinarily full for the time of +year. Everywhere there were women, and every one +of them was wearing some sort of erect feather in her +hat. It gave the place the appearance of a large +chicken run after a prolonged fracas. The band was +playing the emotional music of <i>La Bohème</i>. It was +in its best form. The waiter led them to a little table +under a mimic window-sill which was crowded with +plants. Many heads turned after them as they adventured +between the chattering groups. It was so<span class="pagenum">[163]</span> +easy to see that their impending marriage had been arranged +in Heaven.</p> + +<p>"What sort of tea do you like?" asked Peter. +"Anything hot and wet, or have you a choice? +Really, I don't know the difference between one and +another."</p> + +<p>But Betty did. Hadn't she kept house for her +father? "Orange Pekoe tea," she said, "and buttered +toast."</p> + +<p>Peter made it so, and in sitting down nearly knocked +over the table. He was too big for such places and +his legs got in the way of everything. At the other +end of the room Kenyon was sitting with Belle. Betty +had seen them at once, but she held her peace. For +the first time in her life she appreciated the fact that +two is company. Both men were too occupied to +recognize anybody.</p> + +<p>Peter was very happy and full of enthusiasm about +everything, and Betty was an eager listener as he talked +about her and himself and the future, while she poured +out the tea. It was all very delightful and domestic +and new and exhilarating, and it didn't require much +imagination on the part of either of them to believe +that they were sitting in their own house, far away +from people, and that Peter had just come home after +a long day's work, and that the band was their new +Victrola performing in the corner. Only one thing +made Betty aware of the fact that they were in the +Ritz Hotel, and that was the pattern of the teacups. +She never would have chosen such things, and if they +had been given to her as a wedding present she would<span class="pagenum">[164]</span> +have packed them away in some far-off cupboard. She +had already made up her mind that their first tea service +was going to be blue-and-white, because it would +go with her drawing-room,—the drawing-room which +she had furnished in her dreams.</p> + +<p>"I don't think you'd better do that, Peter," whispered +Betty suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Do what, darling?" Butter wouldn't have melted +in his mouth.</p> + +<p>"Why, hold my hand. Everybody can see."</p> + +<p>"Not if you put it behind this end of the tablecloth. +Besides, what if they can? I'm not ashamed +of being in love. Are you?"</p> + +<p>"No; I glory in it. But——"</p> + +<p>"But what?" He held it tighter.</p> + +<p>"I think you'd better give it back to me. There's +an old lady frowning."</p> + +<p>"Oh, she's only a poor benighted spinster. And +anyhow she's not frowning. She put her eyebrows +on in the dark."</p> + +<p>"Very well, Peter. I suppose you know best." +And Betty made no further attempts to rescue her +hand.</p> + +<p>She had two good reasons for leaving it there,—the +first, that she liked it, and the second that she couldn't +take it away. But she made sure that it was hidden +by the tablecloth.</p> + +<p>"Won't you smoke, Peter?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, thanks. May I?"</p> + +<p>"All the other men are."</p> + +<p>Peter took out his case and his cigarette holder.<span class="pagenum">[165]</span> +It was very easy to take out a cigarette with one +hand, but for the life of him he couldn't manœuvre +it into the tube. Was he so keen to smoke that he +would let her hand go?</p> + +<p>He gave it up and broke into a smile that almost +made Betty bend forward and plant a resounding kiss +on his square chin. "Well, I'm dashed," he said. +"I believe you asked me to smoke on purpose to get +free."</p> + +<p>"I did," she said. "Peter, you're—you're just a +darling."</p> + +<p>And that was why he upset the glass of water.</p> + +<p>Presently he said, when peace was restored: +"What d'you think I've done to-day? I've fixed up +a seat in the law office of two friends of mine. They +were at Harvard with me—corkers both. I intend +to start work next week. Isn't that fine? We're +going to mop up all the work in the city. Darling, +that apartment of ours is getting nearer and nearer. +I shall be a tired business man soon and shall +want a home to go to, with a little wife waiting +for me."</p> + +<p>And Betty said: "How soon do you think that'll +be?"</p> + +<p>Before Peter could answer, Belle's ringing voice +broke in. She and Kenyon had come up unnoticed. +"The turtle doves," she said. "Isn't it beautiful, +Nick?"</p> + +<p>"Well, rather!"</p> + +<p>And the spell was broken. They little knew, these +two who were so happy, that in the fertile brain of the<span class="pagenum">[166]</span> +man who stood smiling at them was the germ of a +plan which would break their engagement and bring +a black cloud over the scene.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>VIII</h3> + +<p>The family dined early that evening. Graham had +taken a box at the Maxine Elliott Theatre. He and +Kenyon and Peter were to take Belle and Betty there +to see a play by Edward Sheldon, about which everybody +was talking. Little Mrs. Guthrie, who was to +have been one of the party, had decided to stay at +home, because the Doctor was not feeling very well, +and so she was going to sit with him in the library +and see that he went to bed early, and give him a dose +of one of those old-fashioned cures in which she was +a great believer.</p> + +<p>Naturally enough, although he was not an ardent +play-goer, Peter was looking forward with keen pleasure +to the evening because he would be able to sit close +to Betty and from time to time whisper in her ear. +During dinner, however, which was a very merry +meal, with Kenyon keeping everyone in fits of laughter, +Peter caught something in his mother's eyes which +made him revolutionize his plans. The little mother +laughed as frequently as the rest of them,—to the +casual observer she was merry and bright, with nothing +on her mind except the slight indisposition of the +Doctor. But Peter, who possessed an intuitive eye +which had a knack of seeing underneath the surface<span class="pagenum">[167]</span> +of things and whose keen sympathy for those he loved +was very easily stirred, became aware of the fact that +his mother was only simulating light-heartedness and +stood in need of something from him.</p> + +<p>He threw his mind back quickly, and in a moment +knew what was wrong. During the short time that +he had been back in the city he had forgotten to give +his little mother anything of himself. That was wrong +and ungrateful and extremely selfish, and must be +remedied at once.</p> + +<p>Without a moment's hesitation he decided to cut +two acts of the play and do everything that he could +to prove to the little mother who meant so much to +him that, although he was engaged to be married, she +still retained her place in his heart.</p> + +<p>Dinner over, he went quickly to the door and opened +it, and as his mother passed out he put his arm round +her shoulders and whispered, "Mummie, dear, slip +up to your room and wait there for me. I want to +talk to you." The look of gratitude that he received +from the dear little woman was an immense reward +for his unselfishness. Then he went up to Graham +and said: "Look here, old boy, I find I shan't be able +to go along with you now, but I'll join you for the +last act."</p> + +<p>"Oh, rot!" said Graham. "What's up? Betty'll +be awfully upset."</p> + +<p>"No, she won't," said Peter. "I'm going to send +her a note." And while the others were getting ready, +he dashed off a few lines to the girl who, like himself, +understood the family feeling. It contained only a<span class="pagenum">[168]</span> +few lines, but they were characteristically Peterish +and were calculated to make Betty add one more brick +to the beautiful construction of her love for him, because +they showed that he understood women and +their sensitiveness and realized their urgent need of +tenderness and appreciation.</p> + +<p>As soon as the party had driven away, Peter collected +a pipe and a tin of tobacco and went quickly +up the wide staircase. He rushed into his mother's +own particular room with all his old impetuosity and +found her sitting at a table by the side of a great work-basket +in which he saw a large collection of the socks +that he had brought home with him and which stood +badly in need of motherly attention. No man in this +world made so many or such quick holes in the toes +of his socks as Peter did, and he knew that she had +ransacked the drawers to find them. He drew up a +chair, thrust his long legs out in front of him and made +himself completely comfortable.</p> + +<p>This little room was unlike any other in the house. +In it his mother had placed all the pet pieces of inexpensive +furniture which had been in the sitting-room +of the little house in which she and the Doctor had +settled down when they were first married. It was +unpretentious stuff, bought in a cheap store in a small +town,—what is called "Mission" furniture,—curious, +uncomfortable-looking chairs which creaked with +every movement, odd little sideboards, which would +have brought a grin either of pain or amusement to +the face of the former owner of the beautifully furnished +house which had been left to the Doctor. The<span class="pagenum">[169]</span> +walls were covered with photographs of the family in +all stages,—Peter as a chubby baby with a great curl +on top of his head—Belle in a perambulator smiling +widely at a colored nurse—Graham in his first sailor-suit—Ethel +bravely arrayed in a party frock, +"Thinking of Mother"—and over the mantel-piece +one—an enlargement—of the Doctor taken when he +was a young man, with an unlined face and thick, +straight hair, his jaws set with that grim determination +which had carried him over so many obstacles. +It was a room at which Graham, Belle and Ethel frequently +laughed. But Peter liked it and respected it. +He felt more at home there than anywhere else in the +house. It reminded him of the early struggles of his +father and mother and touched every responsive note +in his nature.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry you're not going to the theatre, dear," +said Mrs. Guthrie.</p> + +<p>"No, you're not," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"Oh, indeed I am. I like you to enjoy yourself +with the others, and Betty'll be there. Only stay a +few minutes; and, as the curtain always goes up late, +you'll be in time to see the whole of the play."</p> + +<p>"Blow the play!" said Peter. "I'm going to talk +to you just as long as I like. I can go to the theatre +any night of the week."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Guthrie dropped her work, bent forward and +put her cheek against Peter's. "You're a dear, dear +boy," she said. "You're my very own Peter, and +even if I were a poet I couldn't find words to tell you +how happy you make me; but I did my best not to let<span class="pagenum">[170]</span> +you see that I was just a wee bit hurt because you +haven't had time to spare me a few moments since you +came home. After all, I'm only a little old mother +now, and I must try to remember that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't," said Peter. "I'm awfully sorry I've +been such a thoughtless brute. But, no one—no, +no one—can ever take your place, and you know it." +He went down on his knees at her side and wrapped his +strong arms round her and put his head upon her +breast as he used to do when he was a little chap, and +remained there for a while perfectly happy.</p> + +<p>He couldn't see the Madonna look which came into +the eyes of the little mother, whose pillow had frequently +been wet with tears at the thought that she +had lost her boy. Nor did he see the expression of +extreme gratitude which spread rather pathetically over +her face. But he felt these things and held her tightly +just to show how well he understood, and to eliminate +from her heart that feeling of pain which he knew +had crept into it because he had found that other little +mother who was to be his wife and have sons of her +own.</p> + +<p>Presently he returned to his chair and to his pipe, +and began to talk. "By gad!" he said, "it's good to +be home again. I find myself looking at everything +differently now—quite time, too. I should have been +at work years ago. Universities are great places and +I shall never regret Oxford, but they take a long time +to prepare a fellow to become a man." Then he +laughed one of his great and big laughs, and his chair +creaked and one or two of the old pieces of furniture<span class="pagenum">[171]</span> +seemed to rattle. "I hid those socks, but I knew you'd +find them. What a mother you are, mother! I'll +make a bet with you."</p> + +<p>"I never bet," said Mrs. Guthrie, who was all smiles.</p> + +<p>"I'll bet you a hundred dollars you never mend +Graham's socks. Now then tell the truth."</p> + +<p>"Well, no, I don't. He doesn't like socks that have +been mended; and, anyway, he isn't my first-born. +You see that makes a lot of difference."</p> + +<p>"There you are," said Peter. "Pay up and smile. +Oh, say; I'm sorry father's seedy. He sticks too closely +to those microbes of his. I shall try to screw up courage +and take him on a bust now and then. It'll do +him good. Think he'll go?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Guthrie looked up eagerly. "Try," she said. +"Please do try. Now that you've come home for +good I want you to do everything you can to get closer +to your father. He's a splendid man and he's always +thinking about you and the others, but I know that +he'll never make the first move. He doesn't seem to +understand how to do it. But he deserves everything +you can give him. If only you could break down his +shyness and diffidence,—because that's what it is,—you'd +make him very happy."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's what I think," said Peter. "I've been +thinking it over, especially since I saw the way in +which Kenyon's father treats him. I shall pluck up +courage one of these nights, beard him in his den and +have it out, and put things straight. I want him much +more than he wants me; and, d'you know, I think that +Graham wants him too."<span class="pagenum">[172]</span></p> + +<p>"I'm sure he does," said Mrs. Guthrie. "Graham's +a good boy, but he's very reckless and thinks that +he's older than he is. He comes to me sometimes with +his troubles, but how can I help him? I wish, Peter, +I do wish that he'd go sometimes to his father!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm going to try to alter all that," said Peter. +"It's got to be done somehow. Father's always been +afraid of us, and we've always been afraid of father. +It's silly. What d'you think of Nicholas? Isn't he +a corker?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Guthrie smiled. "He improves on acquaintance," +she said. "He's certainly one of the most +charming men I've ever met. Do you think"—she +lowered her voice a little—"do you think there's anything +between him and Belle?"</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" said Peter. "I never thought of +that. Is there?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mrs. Guthrie, "I've noticed one or +two little things. He's been writing to her, you +know."</p> + +<p>"Has he? By Jove! Well, then, there must be +something in it. He's a lazy beggar and I don't believe +I've ever seen him write a letter in his life. Gee, +I shall be awfully glad to have him for a brother-in-law! +That topping place in Shropshire! Belle would +make an absolutely perfect mistress of it, although +there's plenty of life in the old man yet. By Jove, +it was good to see the relationship between Nick and +his father. It staggered me. Why, they were as +good as friends. They go about arm in arm and tell +each other everything. It used to make me feel quite<span class="pagenum">[173]</span> +sick sometimes. Think of my going about arm in +arm with father!"</p> + +<p>"Think of Belle becoming the Countess of Shropshire! +I should like that. It would be another +feather in your father's cap,—your father who used +to carry siphons in a basket."</p> + +<p>"More power to his elbow," said Peter. "It might +have been better for me if I'd carried siphons in a +basket. After all, I'm inclined to believe that there's +no university in the world like the streets. Think of +all the men who've graduated from windy corners and +muddy gutters—It'd be a fine thing for Ethel, too, +if Belle marries Nick. Isn't she an extraordinary +kid? Upon my word, she takes my breath away. +She's older at sixteen than most women are at thirty. +By the way, what's the matter with her? What's +anæmia, anyhow? She looks as fit as a fiddle."</p> + +<p>"Oh, she'll soon get over that," said Mrs. Guthrie. +"I think they bend too much over books at her school. +You know the modern girl isn't like the girls of my +generation. I didn't have to learn geometry or piano +playing. I didn't think it was necessary to know Euclid +or a smattering of the classics. We learned how +to make bread and cook a good steak and iron clothes. +You know husbands don't come home to hear Mozart +on a Baby Grand and enter into discussions about +writers with crack-jaw names."</p> + +<p>"I know,—Ibsen, Schopenhauer, Hauptmann and +Tolstoy. No; they don't fill a hungry tummie, do +they?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed they don't," said Mrs. Guthrie. "And<span class="pagenum">[174]</span> +that reminds me that I must go and give your father +his little dose. When a doctor isn't well he never knows +how to look after himself." She got up and put down +her work, and then bent over Peter. "Thank you for +coming up to-night, my dearest boy. I've had a queer +little pain in my heart for a long time, but you've taken +it all away. Now run along and see your Betty, and +don't worry about your little mother any longer."</p> + +<p>Peter got up and put his hands on his mother's shoulders. +"Listen!" he said. "I love you. I shall always +love you. No woman shall ever come between +me and you." And he caught her in his arms and +kissed her.</p> + +<p>And then she bustled down-stairs to the library, +where the Doctor was taking it easy for once and +dipping into one of the numerous books that surrounded +him. There was a smile on Mrs. Guthrie's +face which was like the sun on an autumn morning.</p> + +<p>On the way to his bedroom Peter passed the door of +Ethel's room, and drew up short. He had heard her +say she was going to bed early. He hadn't had many +words with her since he got back. So he decided to +go in and wipe off that debt, too. When he tried to +open the door he found that it was locked. He started +a devil's tattoo with his knuckles. "Are you there, +Kid?" he shouted out.</p> + +<p>The answer was "Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, open the door. I want to come +in."</p> + +<p>After a moment the door was opened and Ethel +stood there in a very becoming peignoir. She looked<span class="pagenum">[175]</span> +extremely disconcerted and did her best to block the +way into the room.</p> + +<p>But that wouldn't do for Peter. "What's all +this?" he asked. "We lock our door now, do +we?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sometimes," said Ethel. "Why aren't you +at the theatre?" She shot a surreptitious glance towards +the window, which was open.</p> + +<p>"I've been having a talk with mother," said Peter. +"Hello! I see you've been trigging up your room. +Frightfully swagger now, isn't it. New art, eh? +You're coming on, my dear, there's no mistake about +that. I'm afraid you find us all appallingly provincial, +don't you?"</p> + +<p>The broad grin on Peter's face was no new thing to +Ethel. He had always pulled her leg and treated her +as though she were a sort of freak. All the same, she +liked his coming in and was flattered to know that he +thought it worth while to bother about her. But she +began to edge him to the door. He had come at a +most unpropitious moment.</p> + +<p>"Oh ho!" said Peter. "So this's what higher education +does for you? A nice mixture—cigarettes and +candies—I must say. Now I know why you locked +your door. With a marshmallow in one hand and an +Egyptian Beauty in the other you lie on your sofa in +the latest thing in peignoirs and see life through the +pages of,—what?" He picked up a book from the +table. "Good Lord!" he added; "you don't mean +to say you stuff this piffle into you?" It was a collection +of plays by Strindberg<span class="pagenum">[176]</span>.</p> + +<p>"Oh, go to the theatre!" said Ethel. "You're being +horridly Oxford now and I hate it."</p> + +<p>"You'll get a lot more of it before I've done with +you," said Peter. "All the same, you look very nice, +my dear. I'm very proud of you, and I hope you will +do me the honour to be seen about with me sometimes. +But how about taking some of that powder off your +nose? If you begin trying to hide it at sixteen it'll +be lost altogether at twenty." He made a sudden +pounce at her and holding both her hands so that she +could not scratch, rubbed all the powder away from her +little proud nose and made for the door, just missing +the cushion which came flying after him, and took +himself and his big laugh along the passage.</p> + +<p>Immensely relieved at being left alone, Ethel locked +the door again and went over to her dressing-table, +where she repaired damage with quick, deft fingers. +With another glance at the window,—a glance in +which there was some impatience,—she arranged herself +on the settee to wait.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>IX</h3> + +<p>No wonder Peter had made remarks about this +room. It was deliciously characteristic of its owner. +Large and airy; all its furniture was white and its +hangings were of creamy cretonne covered with little +rosebuds. The narrow bed was tucked away in a corner +so that the writing-desk, the sofa and the revolving +book-stand—on which stood a bowl of mammoth<span class="pagenum">[177]</span> +chrysanthemums—might dominate the room. Several +mezzotints of Watts' pictures hung on the walls +and a collection of framed illustrations of the Arabian +Nights, by Dulac. The whole effect was one of naïve +sophistication.</p> + +<p>Through the open window the various sounds of the +city's activity floated rather pleasantly. There was +even a note of cheerfulness in the insistent bells of the +trolley-cars on Madison Avenue and the chugging of +a taxicab on the other side of the street. Before +many minutes had gone by a rope ladder dangled outside +the window, and this was followed immediately +afterwards by the lithe and wiry figure of a boy. Wearing +a rather sheepish expression he remained sitting +on the sill, swinging his legs. "Hello!" said he. +"How are you feeling?"</p> + +<p>"There's some improvement to-night," said Ethel. +"Won't you come in? Were you waiting for a signal?"</p> + +<p>"You bet!"</p> + +<p>He was a nice boy, with a frank, honest face, a blunt +nose and a laughing mouth. His hair was dark and +thick, and his shoulders square. He was eighteen and +he looked every day of it. He lived next door and +was the son of a man who owned a line of steamships +and a French mother, who was not on speaking terms +with Mrs. Guthrie, owing to the fact that the Doctor +had been obliged to remonstrate about her parrot. +This expensive prodigy gave the most lifelike and +frequent imitations of cats, trolley-cars, newsboys, +sirens and other superfluous and distressing disturbances<span class="pagenum">[178]</span> +on the window-sill of the room which was next +to his laboratory. So this boy and girl—unconsciously +playing all over again the story of the Montagues +and Capulets—met surreptitiously night after +night, the boy coming over the roof and using the rope +ladder—which had played its part in all the great +romances. Was there any harm in him? Well, he +was eighteen.</p> + +<p>"What'll you have first?" asked Ethel, in her best +hostess manner—"candies or cigarettes?"</p> + +<p>"Both," said the boy; and with a lump in his cheek +and an expression of admiration in both eyes he +started a cigarette. He was about to sit on the settee +at Ethel's feet, but she pointed to a chair and into this +he subsided, crossing one leg over the other and hitching +his trousers rather high so that he might display +to full advantage a pair of very smart socks, newly +purchased.</p> + +<p>"I hope you locked your bedroom door," said +Ethel, "and please don't forget to whisper. There's +no chance of our being caught, but we may as well be +careful."</p> + +<p>The boy nodded and made a little face. "If father +found out about this," he said; "oh, Gee! What +did you do with Ellen after she bounced in last night?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I gave her one of my hats. I told her that if +she kept quiet there was a frock waiting for her. She's +safe. Now, amuse me!"</p> + +<p>For some minutes the boy remained silent, worrying +his brain as to how to comply with the girl's rather +difficult and peremptory request. He knew that she<span class="pagenum">[179]</span> +was not easy to amuse. He was a little frightened +at the books she read and looked up to her with a +certain amount of awe. He liked her best when she +said nothing and was content to sit quite quiet and +look pretty. After deep and steady thought he took +a chance. "Do you know this one?" he asked, and +started whistling a new ragtime through his teeth.</p> + +<p>It was new to Ethel. She liked it. Its rhythm set +her feet moving. "Oh, that's fine," she said. +"What are the words?"</p> + +<p>The boy was a gentleman. He shook his head, +thereby stimulating her curiosity a hundred-fold.</p> + +<p>"Oh don't be silly. I shall know them sooner or +later, whatever they are—besides, I'm not a child."</p> + +<p>The boy lied chivalrously. "Well, honestly, I don't +know them,—something about 'Row, row, row'—I +don't know the rest."</p> + +<p>She knew that he did know. She liked him for not +telling her the truth, but she made a mental note to order +the song the following morning.</p> + +<p>And so, for about an hour, these two young things +who imagined that this was life carried on a desultory +conversation, while the boy gradually filled the room +with cigarette smoke, and remained reluctantly a whole +yard away from the sofa. It was all very childish and +simple, but to them it was romance with a very big R. +They were making believe that they had thrown the +world back about a hundred years or so. He was a +knight and she a lady in an enemy's castle; and, although +their mothers didn't speak, they liked to ignore +the fact that Mrs. Guthrie would have had no objection<span class="pagenum">[180]</span> +to his coming to tea as often as he desired and +taking Ethel for walks in broad daylight whenever he +wished for a little mild exercise. But,—he was +eighteen, and so presently, repulsed by her tongue but +enticed by her eyes, he left his chair and found himself +sitting on the settee at Ethel's feet, holding her hand, +which thrilled him very much. She was kinder than +usual that night, sweeter and more girlish. Her +stockings were awfully pretty, too, and her hair went +into more than usually delicious ripples round her +face.</p> + +<p>"You're a darling," he said suddenly. "I love to +come here like this. I hope you'll be ill for a month." +And he slid forward with gymnastic clumsiness and +put his arm round her shoulder. He was just going to +kiss her and so satisfy an overwhelming craving when +there was a soft knock on the door and Dr. Guthrie's +voice followed it. "Are you awake, Ethel?"</p> + +<p>The boy sprang to his feet, stood for a moment with +a look of peculiar shame on his face, turned on his +heels, made for the window, went through it like a +rabbit and up the troubadour ladder, which disappeared +after him.</p> + +<p>Ethel held her breath and remained transfixed. +Again the knock came and the question was repeated. +But she made no answer, and presently, when the sound +of footsteps died away, she got up—a little peevish +and more than a little irritable—kicked a small pile +of cigarette ash which the boy had dropped upon her +carpet, and said to herself: "<i>Just</i> as he was going to +kiss me! Goodness, how <i>annoying</i> father is!"<span class="pagenum">[181]</span></p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>X</h3> + +<p>The following morning Belle took Nicholas Kenyon +for a walk. Dressed in a suit of blue flannel with +white bone buttons, with a pair of white spats gleaming +over patent leather shoes and a grey hat stuck at +an angle of forty-five, Kenyon looked as fresh and as +dapper as though he had been to bed the night before +at ten o'clock. He had, as a matter of fact, come home +with the milk; but he was one of those men who possess +the enviable gift of looking healthy and untired +after the sort of nights which make the ordinary man +turn to chemistry and vibro-massage.</p> + +<p>Belle had sported a new hat for the occasion.</p> + +<p>This fact Kenyon realized with that queer touch of +intuition which was characteristic of him. "By +Jove!" he said. "That's something like a hat, Belle. +Hearty congratulations. You suit it to perfection."</p> + +<p>Belle beamed upon him. "But you would say that +anyhow, wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly true; but in ninety-nine cases out of a +hundred I shouldn't mean it."</p> + +<p>They turned into Madison Avenue. It was an exquisite +morning. The whole city was bathed in sun, +but the refreshing tang of late autumn was in the air. +Most of the large houses were still closed, their owners +lingering in the country or abroad. All the same +there was the inevitable amount of traffic in the streets +and apparently the usual number of passers-by. The +city can be—according to the strange little creatures<span class="pagenum">[182]</span> +who write society news—"utterly deserted" and yet +contain all its teeming millions.</p> + +<p>"And what may that be?" asked Kenyon, pointing +to the heavy white buttresses of a church which backed +on the street.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's the Roman Catholic Cathedral."</p> + +<p>"Roman Catholic, eh? I noticed churches everywhere +as we drove up from the docks,—more churches +than pubs apparently, and yet I suppose it would be +quite absurd to imagine that New Yorkers imbibe +their alcohol entirely in the form of religion."</p> + +<p>"Quite," said Belle, dryly. "Although we have a +hundred religions and only five cocktails."</p> + +<p>"I see you also go in for antique furniture."</p> + +<p>Belle laughed. "You have a quick eye," she said. +"There's so much genuine Old English stuff in this +city that if it were sent to England there wouldn't +be room for it on shore. Tell me; what are your +plans?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Kenyon, "I'm going to accept your +father's perfectly charming hospitality for a fortnight +and then take rooms in a bachelor apartment-house, of +which Graham has told me, for the winter."</p> + +<p>"You're going to settle down here?" cried Belle.</p> + +<p>"Rather,—for six months. I'm here to study the +conditions, make myself familiar with the characteristics +and draw from both what I hope will be the +foundations of much usefulness." Kenyon considered +that he had enveloped his true mission—which +was to lighten the pockets of all unwary young men—with +a satirical verbiage that did him credit.<span class="pagenum">[183]</span></p> + +<p>"I thought that perhaps you'd come for some other +reason," said Belle, whose whole face showed her disappointment.</p> + +<p>Kenyon shot a quick glance at her. How naïve +she was—how very much too easy—but, nevertheless, +how very young and desirable. "That goes without +saying, you delicious thing," he replied, closing +his hand warmly round her arm for a moment and so +bringing the light back to her eyes. "By the way," +he continued, "what's the matter with Graham?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that anything's the matter with Graham."</p> + +<p>"I think so. I notice a worried look about him +that he didn't have at Oxford; that he seems to be +always on the verge of telling me something, and drawing +back at the last minute. I must make a point of +finding out what his trouble is. Peter and I were discussing +it this morning after breakfast. We're both +a bit anxious about him. Do you know if your father +has noticed it?"</p> + +<p>"Father? Oh, he doesn't notice anything. He believes +that Graham is working very hard and doing +well. He knows less about what goes on in our house +than the people who live next door."</p> + +<p>"That's rather a pity. I'm all for complete confidence +between father and son. However, I shall +play father to Graham for a bit and see what can be +done for him. He puzzles me. There's a mystery +somewhere."</p> + +<p>Something of this mystery was disclosed to Kenyon +and Peter that night. After dining them both<span class="pagenum">[184]</span> +at the Harvard Club—a place which filled Kenyon +with admiration and surprise—Graham suddenly suggested, +with a queer touch of excitement, that they +should go with him to his apartment.</p> + +<p>"Your apartment?" said Peter. "What on earth +do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Well, come and see," said Graham.</p> + +<p>The two elder men looked at each other in amazement. +Kenyon's quick mind ran ahead, but Peter, the +unsophisticated, was quite unable to understand what +in the world Graham wanted an apartment for when +he lived at home. They all three left West Forty-fourth +Street in silence and walked arm in arm down +Fifth Avenue as far as Twenty-eighth Street. Here +they turned westward and followed Graham, who was +wearing an air of rather sheepish pride, up the steps +of an old brown stone house with rather a shabby +portico.</p> + +<p>"Dismal looking hole," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"Wait!" said Graham, and he put his finger on a +bell. The door opened automatically and he led the +way into a scantily furnished hall and up three flights +of stairs, whose red carpet was in the autumn of its +days. Drawing up in front of a door on the left of +the passage he rang again, and after a lengthy pause +was admitted to a small apartment by a colored maid, +who gave a wide grin of recognition.</p> + +<p>"Come right in," said Graham. "Lily, take our +hats and coats. Don't leave them about in the hall. +Hang them up and then go and get some drinks."</p> + +<p>Kenyon looked about him curiously. He could see<span class="pagenum">[185]</span> +that the place was newly furnished and that everything +had been chosen by a man. He glanced into the dining-room. +The pictures were sporting and the furniture +mission. He detected no sign of a woman's hand +anywhere. He began to be puzzled. He had expected +to find something quite different. But when +Graham opened the door of the sitting-room and +said: "Well, here we are, Ita!" and he saw a small, +dark, olive-skinned girl rise up from a settee and run +forward to Graham with a little cry of welcome, he +knew that his deduction of the situation had been a +right one. So this was the mystery.</p> + +<p>Still with the same air of sheepish pride, Graham +said: "Peter, this is Miss Ita Strabosck. My +brother, Ita. And this is Nicholas Kenyon, who's a +great friend of mine. They've just come over from +England, and so of course I've brought them to see +you."</p> + +<p>The little girl held out a very shy hand, and +said: "I am so glad. Eet ees very good of you to +come."</p> + +<p>In a curiously plain tight frock of some soft black +material, cut square across her tiny breasts, and leaving +her arms bare almost to the shoulders, she stood, +with one knee bent, looking from one man to the other +with a sort of wistful eagerness to be treated kindly. +She held a tiny black Teddy bear with red eyes against +her cheek, like a child.</p> + +<p>Peter, for a reason which he was unable to explain +to himself, felt a wave of sympathy go over him. He +not only accepted the girl on her face value, but somehow<span class="pagenum">[186]</span> +or other believed her to be younger and more romantic +than she looked. She seemed to him to have +stepped out of the pages of some Arabian book—to +be a little exotic whom Graham must have discovered +far away from her native hot-house. He liked the +way in which her thick hair was arranged round her +face, and he would have sworn that she was without +guile.</p> + +<p>Not so Kenyon. "Great Scott!" he said to himself. +"Here's a little devil for you. Our young +friend Graham has had his leg pulled. I've seen mosquitoes +before, but the poison of this one will take all +the ingenuity of an expert to counteract."</p> + +<p>He sat down and watched the girl, who threw one +quick antagonistic glance at him and attached herself +to Peter, to whom she talked in monosyllables. She +might only very recently have left a Convent School, +except that her dog-like worship of Graham seemed to +prove that she owed him a deep debt of gratitude for +some great service.</p> + +<p>Graham watched her, too, and his expression showed +Kenyon that even if he didn't love her he believed in +her and was proud of himself.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XI</h3> + +<p>By a sort of mutual consent the three men left the +apartment in Twenty-eighth Street early. They did +not desire to finish the evening at any cabaret or club. +They called the first passing taxicab and drove home.<span class="pagenum">[187]</span> +By mutual consent also they never once referred to Ita +Strabosck, but discussed everything else under the sun. +Kenyon had never been so useful. With consummate +tact—but all the while with the picture in his mind of +the cunning little actress whom they had just left—he +led the conversation from dancing to baseball and +from country clubs to women's clothes. Whenever +the cab passed a strong light Graham made a quick, +examining glance at Peter's face. He knew old Peter +as well as Peter knew his piano, and he was quite well +aware of the fact that although his brother laughed a +good deal at Kenyon's quaint turn of phrase he was +upset at what he had seen.</p> + +<p>It was just after eleven o'clock when they went into +the smoking-room of the house in Fifty-second Street. +Mrs. Guthrie and Ethel had gone to bed. Belle had +not returned from a theatre party. The Doctor was +at work in his laboratory. He heard the boys come +in. The sound of their voices made him raise his head +eagerly. He even half-rose from his chair in a desire +to join them and hear them talk, and laugh with them +and get from them some of that sense of youth which +they exuded so pleasantly, but his terrible shyness got +the better of him once more and he returned to his experiments. +How ironical it was that with complete +unconsciousness he was leaving it to such a man as +Nicholas Kenyon to play father to his second son, who +had never in his short life needed a real father so +badly.</p> + +<p>For some little time—smoking a good cigar with +complete appreciation—Kenyon continued to give<span class="pagenum">[188]</span> +forth his impressions of New York so far as he knew +it. He was especially amusing in his description of +the effect upon him of the first sight of the Great +White Way. Then, all of a sudden, there came one of +those strange pauses. It was Peter who broke the +silence. "Graham, old boy," he said, "tell us about +it. What does it all mean? Good Lord! you're only +twenty-four. Are you married?"</p> + +<p>Before Graham could reply, Kenyon sent out a scoffing +laugh. "Married! Is he married?" he cried. +"My good old grandfather's ghost, Peter! But how +indescribably green you are. Hang me if you're +not like a sort of Peter Pan! You've passed through +Harvard and Oxford with a skin over your eyes. +It's all very beautiful, very commendable—and what +Belle would call 'very dear' of you—and all that +sort of thing, but somehow you make me feel that +I've got to go through life with you in the capacity +of the sort of guide one hires in Paris—the human +Baedeker."</p> + +<p>"But if Graham hasn't married that poor girl," said +Peter, bluntly, "what's he doing with her?"</p> + +<p>Graham sprang to his feet and began to walk about +the room. All about his tall, slight, well-built figure +there was a curious nervousness and excitement. Even +in the carefully subdued light of the room it was plain +to see that his face was rather haggard and drawn. +The boy looked years older than Peter. "I'll start +off," he said, "by giving you fellows my word of +honor that what I'm going to tell you is the truth. I +have to begin like this because if either of you were<span class="pagenum">[189]</span> +to tell me this story I don't think I should be able to +believe it. Some time ago I was taken—I forget by +whom—to a pestilential but rather amusing place in +Fortieth Street. It's a huge studio run by a woman +who calls herself Papowsky. It's what you, Nick, +would call the last word in supereffeteness. Ita Strabosck +was one of the girls. I liked her at once. I +didn't fall in love with her, but she appealed to me and +it was simply to see her that I went there several times. +I knew the place was pretty rotten and I didn't cotton +on to the people who were there or the things they did. +I even knew that the police had their eyes on it, but +I liked it all the more because of that. It gave it a +sort of zest, like absinthe in whiskey."</p> + +<p>"Quite!" said Kenyon. "Fire away!"</p> + +<p>"The last time I went there, Ita took me into a corner, +told me that she was never allowed out of the +place and was a sort of White Slave, and begged me +to take her away. I don't think I shall ever forget the +sight of that poor little wretch trembling and shaking. +It was pretty bad. Well, I took her away. I got her +out by a fire-escape when nobody was watching us. +Dodged through a window of a restaurant on the first +floor, and so out into the street. It was very tricky +work. The day after I took the apartment that you +came to to-night, furnished it, and there Ita has been +ever since. I go there nearly every night until the +small hours. She's happy now and safe and I don't +regret it. She hated the place and the things she had +been forced to do and nothing will make me believe +that she was bad. She was just a victim—that's all.<span class="pagenum">[190]</span> +And if I have to go without things I don't care so long +as she has all she needs. That's the story. What +d'you think of it?"</p> + +<p>Peter got up, went over to his brother and held out +his hand silently. With a rather pathetic expression +of gratitude in his eyes, Graham took it and held it +tight. "That's like you, Peter," he said, a little +huskily.</p> + +<p>Kenyon made no movement. He looked with a +pitying smile at the two boys as they stood eye to eye. +The whole thing sounded to him like a fairy tale and +for a moment he wondered whether Graham was not +endeavoring to obtain their sympathy under false pretences. +Then he made up his mind that Graham—like +the man with whom he had lived at Oxford—was +green also, for all that he had knocked about in +New York for two years. Not from any kindness of +heart, but simply because he wanted to use Graham +as a means of introducing him to the young male +wealthy set of the city, he determined to get him out +somehow or other of this disastrous entanglement. +He would however go to work tactfully without allowing +Graham to think that he had made a complete +fool of himself. He knew that if he wounded this boy's +vanity and brought him down from his heroic pedestal +he would set his teeth, put his back to the wall and refuse +to be assisted. With keen insight he could see +that this incident was likely to injure the usefulness of +his visit to America.</p> + +<p>"Um!" he said. "It's a pitiful story, Graham. +You behaved devilish well, old boy. Not many men<span class="pagenum">[191]</span> +would have acted so quickly and so unselfishly. Now, +sit down and tell me a few things."</p> + +<p>Gladly enough Graham did so, heaving a great sigh. +He was glad that he had made a clear breast of all +this. He was too young to keep it a secret. He +wanted sympathy urgently and a little human help. +Peter loaded and lit a pipe and drew his chair into the +group.</p> + +<p>"This girl Ita What's-her-name loves you, of +course?"</p> + +<p>Graham nodded.</p> + +<p>"Anyone could see that," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"But she'd been in that studio some time before +you came along, I take it,—I mean she'd been anybody's +property for the asking?"</p> + +<p>Graham shuddered. "I hate to think so," he +said.</p> + +<p>Peter kicked the leg of the nearest chair.</p> + +<p>"How d'you feel?" asked Kenyon.</p> + +<p>"Awfully sorry for her," said Graham.</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course. What I mean is, are you all +right?"</p> + +<p>Graham looked puzzled. "I find it rather difficult +to pay for everything," he said, "especially as I've +been damned unlucky lately."</p> + +<p>The man of the world involuntarily raised his eyebrows. +"Good Lord!" he said to himself. "And +this boy is the son of a specialist. Blind—blind!" +Then he spoke aloud, passing on to another point. +"How long do you think it is incumbent upon you to +make yourself the guardian of this girl?"<span class="pagenum">[192]</span></p> + +<p>Graham shrugged his shoulders. "She comes from +Poland. Her father and mother are dead and she has +no one to look after her."</p> + +<p>"I'll help you," said Peter.</p> + +<p>That was exactly what Kenyon didn't want. He +got up, went over to the table and mixed a drink. +"Potter off to bed, Graham, old boy," he said. "Get +a good night's rest. You need it. We'll go further +into the matter in a day or two. It requires serious +consideration. Anyway, I congratulate you. You're +a bit of a knight, and you've my complete admiration." +He led the boy to the door, patted him on the shoulder +and got rid of him. Then he returned to Peter, whose +face showed that he was laboring under many conflicting +emotions.</p> + +<p>"Nick," he said, "he's only twenty-four—just +making a beginning. He did the only thing he could +do under the circumstances, but,—but what would +father say?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think it's a question as to what your father +would say," said Kenyon. "If I know anything, the +way to put it is what can your father do? Of all men +in the city he's the one who could be most useful in +this peculiar mess-up—Peter, you and I have got +to get that boy out of this, otherwise——"</p> + +<p>"Otherwise what?"</p> + +<p>"Otherwise—quite shortly—the police are likely +to fish out of the river the dead body of a promising +lad of twenty-four, and there'll be great grief in this +house."</p> + +<p>"What d'you mean?"<span class="pagenum">[193]</span></p> + +<p>"Exactly what I say. That girl's a liar, a cheat +and a fraud."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you."</p> + +<p>"I don't care whether you believe me or not. She's +rotten from head to foot. She's as easy to read as an +advertisement. She's taking advantage of a fellow +who's as unsuspicious as you are. You're both green,—green, +I tell you,—as green as grass."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather be green," cried Peter, hotly, "than go +through life with your rotten skepticism."</p> + +<p>"Would you? You talk like an infant. Graham +will want to marry some day,—and then what? Good +Heavens! Hasn't anybody taken the trouble to tell +you two any of the facts of life? You are neither of +you fit to be allowed out in the streets without a nurse. +It's appalling. Skeptical, you call me. You're blind, +I tell you. Blind! So's the old man in the next room. +There's an ugly shadow over this house, Peter, as +sure as you're alive. Don't stand there glaring at me. +I'm talking facts. If you've got any regard for your +brother and his health and his future; if you want to +save your mother from unutterable suffering and your +father from a hideous awakening, don't talk any further +drivel to me, but make up your mind that the +girl, Ita Strasbosck, has it in her power to turn Graham +into a suicide. She's a liar—a liar and a trickster and +a menace—and I'll make it my business to prove it to +you and Graham."</p> + +<p>"You can't."</p> + +<p>"Can't I? We'll see about that. And you've got +to help me. We've got to make Graham see that he<span class="pagenum">[194]</span> +must shake her off at once,—at once, I tell you. The +alternative you know."</p> + +<p>Peter got up and strode about the room. He was +worried and anxious. He didn't, unfortunately, fully +appreciate the gravity of this affair, because, as Kenyon +had said so tauntingly, he was a child in such matters. +But what he did appreciate was that his only +brother had done something, however sympathetic the +motive, which might have far-reaching consequences +and which did away with the possibility of his going, +as it was Peter's determination to go, clean and +straight to a good girl.</p> + +<p>He turned to Kenyon, who had made himself comfortable. +"I'll help you for all I'm worth, Nick," he +said.</p> + +<p>"Right," said Kenyon. "I'll think out a line of action +and let you know to-morrow. There's no time to +be lost."</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XII</h3> + +<p>Kenyon got rid of Peter, too.</p> + +<p>Apart from the fact that he was going to wait up +for Belle, he wanted to be alone. He was angry. It +was just like his bad luck to come all the way to +America and find that the two men who had it in their +power to be of substantial use to him were both fully +occupied,—one being hopelessly in love, the other in +money trouble and in what he recognized as a difficult +and even dangerous position. With characteristic +selfishness he resented these things. They made it<span class="pagenum">[195]</span> +necessary for him to exercise his brain,—not for himself—which +was his idea of the whole art of living—but +for others. There were other things that he +resented also. One was the fact that Peter was what +he called a damned child. He had no admiration whatever +for his friend's absolute determination to look +only at the clean things of life. A thousand times +since they had shared the same rooms he had cursed +Peter because of his sweeping refusal to discuss a +question which he knew to be of vital and far-reaching +importance. At these times Peter had always said +something like this: "My dear Nick, I'm not going +to be a doctor, a woman-hunter, or a sloppy man about +town. I don't want to know any details whatever of +the things which stir up other men's curiosity. I've +no room in my brain for them. They don't amuse me +or interest me. I'm jolly well going to remain a +damned child, whether you like it or not, so you may +chuck trying to drag me into these midnight discussions +of yours with the men who hang nudes all over +their walls and gloat over filthy little French +books."</p> + +<p>And then there was Graham. He, like untold hundreds +of his type, had a certain amount of precocity, +but no knowledge. He had merely peeked at the truth +of things through a chink. He had looked at life with +the salacious eyes of a Peeping Tom. And what was +the result? Worse than total ignorance. Deep down +in whatever soul he had, Nicholas Kenyon honestly +and truly believed in friendship between father and +son. He knew—none better—because it was his<span class="pagenum">[196]</span> +business to observe, that a young man was frightfully +and terribly handicapped who went out into the world +unwarned, unadvised and uninitiated. He had often +come across men like Peter and Graham whose lives +had been absolutely ruined at the very outset for the +reason that their fathers had either been too cowardly +or too indifferent to give them the benefit of their own +experience and early troubles. In fact, most of the +men he knew—and he knew a great many—had +been left to discover the essential truths and facts for +themselves. The inevitable end of it was that they +made their discoveries too late.</p> + +<p>Fate certainly must have had a very grim amusement +in watching Nicholas Kenyon as he walked up +and down the library of Dr. Hunter Guthrie's house +that night, blazing at the delinquencies of fathers. +Nevertheless, Kenyon had the right to be indignant, +whether his reasons for being so sprang out of his +selfishness or not. His own father was an unscrupulous, +unserious man, that was true, but at any rate he +had given his son a human chance. He could take it +or leave it as he liked. And when Kenyon, piecing +together all that he had heard of Dr. Guthrie from +Peter, from Graham and from Belle, added all that +to the very obvious fact that these two boys were out +in the world with blind eyes, he burst into a scoffing +laugh. In his mind's eye he could see the excellent +and distinguished Doctor rounding his back over experiments +for the benefit of humanity, while he utterly +neglected to give two of the human beings for whom +he was responsible the few words of advice which<span class="pagenum">[197]</span> +would render it unnecessary for them to become his +patients.</p> + +<p>If Kenyon had been a more generous man—if in +his nature there had been one small grain of unselfishness—he +would have gone at that very moment, +then and there, to the door of the Doctor's laboratory—into +that wonderful room—sat down opposite the +man who spent his life in it with such noble concentration +and begged him to desert his microbes and turn +his attention to his sons. As it was he neglected to +take an opportunity which would have enabled the recording +angel to make one very good entry on the +blank credit side of his account, and concentrated upon +a way in which he could use Peter and Graham for his +own material ends. He was immediately faced therefore +with two "jobs," as he called them,—one to +queer Peter's engagement with Betty, in order that he +might achieve his friend's whole attention, the other +to lift Graham out of his ghastly entanglement, for +the same purpose. Bringing himself up to that point +and relying upon his ingenuity with complete confidence, +Kenyon mixed himself another high-ball and +listened with a certain amount of eagerness for Belle's +light step.</p> + +<p>He hadn't long to wait. He had just gone into the +dimly lighted hall with the intention of getting some +air on the front doorstep, when the door opened and +Belle let herself in.</p> + +<p>"You keep nice hours," he said.</p> + +<p>Belle had been dancing. Her cheeks were glowing +and her eyes bright. She had never looked so all-conqueringly<span class="pagenum">[198]</span> +youthful or so imbued with the joy of +life. She came across to him like a young goddess of +the forest, with the wild beauty and that suggestion of +unrestraint which always made Kenyon's blood run +quickly.</p> + +<p>"Have you waited for me?" she asked. "How +perfectly adorable of you."</p> + +<p>"What have you been doing?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, the usual things—dinner, theatre, dancing."</p> + +<p>Kenyon went nearer and put his hands on her arms, +hotly. "Curse those men!" he said.</p> + +<p>"What men?"</p> + +<p>"The men who've been holding you to-night. +Why have I come over? Can't you scratch these +engagements and wait for me? I'm not going to +share you with every Tom, Dick and Harry in this +place."</p> + +<p>A feeling of triumph came to Belle—a new feeling—because +hitherto this man's attitude had been +that of master. "You're jealous!" she cried.</p> + +<p>Kenyon turned away sharply. For once he was not +playing with this girl for the sport of the thing, just +to see what she would say and do in order to pass away +the time. The whole evening had tended to upset his +calculations and plans. He had found himself thrown +suddenly into a position of responsibility,—a state +that he avoided with rare and consummate agility. +And now came Belle, radiant and high-spirited, from +an evening spent with other men,—more beautiful and +desirable than he had ever seen her look.<span class="pagenum">[199]</span></p> + +<p>Belle turned him back. "You <i>are</i> jealous, you +<i>are</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh, good Lord, no," said Kenyon, with his most +bored drawl. "Why should I be? After all it isn't +for me to care what you do, is it? It's a large world +and there's plenty of room for both of us—what?"</p> + +<p>He walked away.</p> + +<p>Triumph blazed in Belle's heart. She saw in Kenyon's +eyes that he was saying the very opposite of the +thoughts that were in his mind. She almost shouted +with joy. She had longed to see into the heart of this +man who was under such complete and aggravating +self-control,—even to hurt him to obtain a big, spontaneous +outburst of emotion from him. She loved +him desperately, indiscreetly—far too well for her +peace of mind—and she urgently needed some +answering sparks of fire.</p> + +<p>She didn't move. She stood with her cloak thrown +back, her chin held high and the light falling on her +dark hair and white flesh. This was her moment. +She would seize it.</p> + +<p>"Yes, there <i>is</i> plenty of room for us both," she +said, "and the fact that I shall go on dancing with +other men needn't inconvenience you in the least. I +don't suppose that we shall even see each other in the +crowd. There are many men who'll give their ears +to dance with me,—I mean men who can dance, not +bored Englishmen."</p> + +<p>She drew blood. Kenyon went across to her +quickly. "How dare you talk to me like that! +Curse these men and their ears. Who's brought me<span class="pagenum">[200]</span> +to this country? You know I came for you,—you +know it. I <i>am</i> jealous—as jealous as the devil. +And if ever you let another man put his arms round +you I'll smash his face." He put out his hot hands to +catch her.</p> + +<p>But, with a little teasing laugh, Belle dodged and +flitted into the library. The spirit of coquettishness +was awake in her. <i>She</i> had the upper hand now and +a small account to render for missed mails, and an +appearance of being too sure. She threw off her cloak +and stood with her back to the fireplace, looking like +one of Romney's pictures of Lady Hamilton come +to life.</p> + +<p>Kenyon strode in after her, all stirred by her beauty. +"In future," he said, "you dance with me. You +understand?"</p> + +<p>Belle raised her eyebrows and then bowed profoundly. +"As you say, O my master!" And then +she held out her arms with a sudden delicious abandon. +"Take me, then. Let's dance all the way through +life."</p> + +<p>Kenyon caught her, and all about the room these +two went, moving together in perfect unison, cheek +to cheek, until almost breathless Belle broke into a +little laugh, stopped singing, and said: "The band's +tired." But Kenyon held her tighter and closer and +kissed her lips again and again and again.</p> + +<p>With a little touch of warning in its tone the clock +on the mantel-piece presently struck two, and Belle +freed herself and straightened her hair with a rather +uncertain hand. "I must go now," she said breathlessly.<span class="pagenum">[201]</span> +"Father may be working late. Supposing he +came through this room?"</p> + +<p>"Serve him right," said Kenyon.</p> + +<p>They went upstairs together on tip-toe, and halted +for a moment on the threshold of Belle's bed-room. +Through the half-open door Kenyon saw the glow of +yellow light on the dressing-table, and the corner of +a virginal bed. Once more he kissed her and then, +breathing hard, went to his own room, stood in the +darkness for a moment, and thanked his lucky star +for the gift of Belle.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XIII</h3> + +<p>The following afternoon, Peter, Kenyon and Belle +went to see Ranken Townsend's pictures and to have +tea with Betty. The little party was a great success. +Peter and the artist got on splendidly together, which +filled Betty with joy and gladness, and Kenyon had +added to the general smoothness and pleasantness by +offering extremely intelligent and enthusiastic criticism +of the canvasses that were shown to him, drawing +subtle comparisons between them and those of Reynolds +and Gainsborough. Like all true artists, Townsend +was a humble man and unsuspicious. He believed, +in the manner of all good workers, that he had +yet to find himself, although he had met with uncommon +success. He was, therefore, much heartened and +warmed by the remarks of one who, although young, +evidently knew of what he was talking and proved +himself to be something of a judge. When Kenyon<span class="pagenum">[202]</span> +received a cordial invitation to come again to the +studio he solidified the good impression that he had +made by saying that he would be honoured and delighted.</p> + +<p>There had been a sharp shower during tea, but the +sky had cleared when they left Gramercy Park, taking +Betty with them, and so they started out to walk +home.</p> + +<p>Belle and Betty went on in front, arm in arm, and +the two friends followed. This suited Kenyon exactly. +He had laid his plan and had something to say +to Peter.</p> + +<p>Belle was very happy, and she showed it. She +looked round at Betty with her eyes dancing. "I can +see that you're dying to ask me something," she said. +"But don't. You and I don't have to ask each other +questions. We've always told each other everything, +and we always will."</p> + +<p>"Belle, you're en-ga——"</p> + +<p>"S-s-s-h! Don't mention the word."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Well, we've been talking this afternoon and Nicholas +says, and I think he's right—though I wish he +weren't—that he doesn't want to go to father until +he's been here longer and has made up his mind what +he's going to do. You see, he's not well off. He's +got to work,—although I can't fancy Nicholas working,—and +so we're not going to be really engaged +for a few months. Meantime, he's going to look +round and find something to do. That'll be easy. +You don't know how clever he is,—not merely clever<span class="pagenum">[203]</span>—a +monkey can be clever, or a conjurer—the word +I meant to use was 'able.' Aren't you glad? Isn't +it splendid?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear," said Betty, "wouldn't it be perfectly +wonderful if we could be married on the same +day? Of course I've seen it coming——"</p> + +<p>Belle laughed. "I knew you'd say that. Personally +I didn't see it coming. After we'd left Oxford +I began to think that Nicholas had only been flirting +with me. He wrote such curious, aloof little letters +and very few of them. They might have been written +by an epigramist to his maiden aunt; but last night,—well, +last night made everything different, and this +afternoon we've had a long talk. Of course I wish +we were going to be openly and properly engaged, but +I'm very happy and so I don't grumble."</p> + +<p>"As the future Countess of Shropshire, I wonder +whether you will ever give a little back room in your +beautiful English place to the young American lawyer +and his wife!"</p> + +<p>"Betty, I swear to you that I don't care a dime +about all that now,—I mean the title and the place. +It's just Nicholas that I want—Nicholas, and no one +else. I wouldn't care if he were what he calls a +'bounder' or a 'townee.' My dear, I'm mad about +him—just mad."</p> + +<p>"Isn't everything as right as Truth?" said Betty. +"The more I see Peter the more I love him. He's,—well, +he's a man, and he's mine. He's mine for another +reason, and that's because he's always going to +be a boy, and I'm here to look after him. He'll need<span class="pagenum">[204]</span> +me. And I must have him need me, too, because I +need to be needed. Do you understand?"</p> + +<p>Belle nodded. "You're the born mother, my dear," +she said, "whereas, I'm,—well, not. I want love—just +love. I'll give everything I've got in the world +for that—everything. Love and excitement and +movement,—to go from place to place meeting new +people, hearing new languages, seeing new types, living +bigly and broadly, being consulted by a man who's +brilliant and far-seeing,—<i>that's</i> what I need. That's +<i>my</i> idea of life. Ah-h!" She shot out a deep breath +and threw her chin up as though to challenge argument.</p> + +<p>Betty watched her with admiration. She had never +looked so unusual, so exhilarated, so fine. All about +her there was the very essence of youth and courage +and health. There was a glow in her white skin that +was the mere reflection of the fire that was alight in +her heart. Given happiness this girl would burst into +the most fragrant blossoming and gleam among her +sisters like a rose in a pansy bed. Given pain and disillusion +she had it in her to fling rules, observances, +caution, common sense and even self-respect to the +four winds and go with all possible speed to the +devil.</p> + +<p>"What would have happened to us both if we +hadn't gone to Oxford?" asked Betty, with an almost +comical touch of gravity. "Think! I should be +doomed to be a little old maid, with nothing but an +even smaller dog to keep in order, and as for +you——"<span class="pagenum">[205]</span></p> + +<p>"I? Don't let's talk about it. I should have gone +top-pace through several years and then, with thirty +looming ahead, married a nice safe man with oodles +of money who would spend his life following me +round. Thank Heaven, I shall never be the centre +of that ghastly picture!"</p> + +<p>And so they went on, these two young things, opening +up their hearts to each other as they walked home +and flying off at all manner of feminine tangents.</p> + +<p>Kenyon, perfectly satisfied with his talk to Belle, +whom he had secured without binding himself to anything +definite, was wearing white spats, and so he +picked his way across the wet streets like a cat on +hot bricks. For several blocks he permitted Peter to +talk about Betty. His affectation of interest and sympathy +was not so well done as usual. He had determined, +with a sort of professional jealousy, not to +allow Ita Strabosck to trade on Graham's credulity +any longer. All his thoughts were concentrated on +his plan to smash up that burlesque arrangement, as he +inwardly called it. If anyone were to make use +of Graham he intended to be that one. The girl, at +present a humble member of the great army of parasites +in which he held a commission, must be cleared +out. She was inconveniently in the way.</p> + +<p>When Peter was obliged to stop for breath, Kenyon +jumped in. "Look here!" he said. "You're +coming with me to the shrine of the pernicious Papowsky +to-night."</p> + +<p>"You mean on Graham's business?" asked Peter. +"Is it absolutely necessary to go to that place?"<span class="pagenum">[206]</span></p> + +<p>"Absolutely. You'll see why, if everything works +as I think it will, when we get there."</p> + +<p>"Right. And how about Graham?"</p> + +<p>"You and Graham are going to have dinner with +me at Sherry's. I shall have to see that he has half +a bottle too much champagne. That'll make him careless +and put a bit of devil into him, and when I suggest +that he shall take us to Papowsky's, he will jump +at the notion, He's awful keen to show us what a +blood he is. Once he gets us inside the rest will +follow."</p> + +<p>"I see. By Jove, I shall be thundering glad when +Graham's plucked out of this wretched mess. The +only thing is I'm booked to dine with Mr. Townsend +at his club to-night."</p> + +<p>"It can't be done," said Kenyon. "Directly you get +home you must telephone. Say that an urgent matter +has just cropped up and beg to be excused. Call +it business—call it anything you like—but get out +of it."</p> + +<p>"All right!" said Peter. "I'm heart and soul +with you, old boy. I'm very grateful for all the +trouble you're taking. You always were a good +chap."</p> + +<p>"My dear Peter, add to my possession of the ordinary +number of senses one that is almost as rare as +the Dodo,—the sense of gratitude. Hello! Here's +some of the family in the car!"</p> + +<p>They had halted on the steps of the Doctor's house +as Mrs. Guthrie and Ethel were driven up. Kenyon +sprang forward, opened the door and handed the<span class="pagenum">[207]</span> +ladies out with an air that Raleigh himself would have +found commendable.</p> + +<p>"Blood tells," said Belle, who watched from the top +step, with a proud smile.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Betty, "but I prefer muscle. Look!"</p> + +<p>The pavement was uneven in front of the house +and the rain had made a little pool. So Peter picked +his mother up, as though she were as light as a bunch +of feathers, and carried her into the house.</p> + +<p>"My dearest big boy!" she said.</p> + +<p>"Darling little Mum!" said Peter.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XIV</h3> + +<p>Kenyon, turned out as excellently as usual, led the +way into the dining-room at Sherry's. It was a quarter +to eight. Every other table was occupied. The +large room was too warm and was filled with the conglomerate +aromas of food. Peter sat on the right of +his host and Graham on the left. Both men were +quiet and distrait,—Peter because he was anxious, +Graham for the reason that he had not been able to +leave behind him the carking worries that now fell +daily to his lot. Kenyon, on the contrary, was in his +best form, and even a little excited. Apart from the +fact that he rather liked having something to do that +would prove his knowledge of life and the accuracy +of his powers of psychology, he was looking forward +to be amused with what went on in the studio-apartment +of the Papowsky.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he said, looking around and arranging<span class="pagenum">[208]</span> +his tie over the points of his collar with expert +fingers,—a thing which Graham immediately proceeded +to do also,—"this place has a quite distinct +atmosphere. Don't you think so, Peter?"</p> + +<p>"Has it?"</p> + +<p>"One would, I see, choose it for a trying and dull-bright +dinner with a prospective mother-in-law or with +some dear thing, safely married, with whom one had +once rashly imagined one's self to be in love. Waiter, +the wine list!"</p> + +<p>Graham laughed.</p> + +<p>Kenyon, scoring his first point, continued airily. +"For my part, I shall make a point of dining here one +night with an alluring young thing fresh from the +romantic quietude of a Convent School. I feel that +these discreet lights and reserved colours will give a +certain amount of weight and even solemnity to my +careful flattery—A large bottle of Perrier Jouet +'02, and be sparing with the ice. Peter, I think you'll +find that this caviare gives many points to the tired +stuff that used to be palmed off on us at Buol's and +other undergraduate places of puerile riotousness."</p> + +<p>The dinner, which Kenyon had ordered with becoming +care, would have satisfied the epicureanism of a +Russian aristocrat. During all its courses the host +kept up a running fire of anecdote which quickly made +the table a merry one. He also saw to it that Graham's +glass was never empty. They sat laughing, smoking +and drinking Crême Yvette until they were the last +people in the room except for an old bloated man and +a very young Hebrew girl. The band, which had<span class="pagenum">[209]</span> +mixed ragtime indiscriminately with Italian opera and +Austrian waltzes, and played them all equally well, +went off to acquire the second wind and the relaxed +muscles necessary for a later performance, and the +waiters had long since rearranged the table for supper +before Kenyon suggested adjourning to a club for +a game of billiards which would amuse them until it +was time to begin the business of the evening. So +they walked round to the Harvard Club, and here +Peter—the only one of the party who was completely +his own master—became host.</p> + +<p>They played until a little short of twelve o'clock. +By this time, having been additionally primed up with +one or two Scotch whiskeys, Graham was ready for +anything, and it was then that Kenyon suggested that +he should take them to the famous studio. Graham +jumped at the idea, falling, as Kenyon knew that he +would, into the little trap set for him. "We're children +in your hands, Graham," he said, with a subtle +touch of flattery. "Lead us into the vortex of art +with the lid off. I'm most frightfully keen to see this +place and it'll be great fun for you, duly protected, to +find out whether the Papowsky has discovered whether +you were the Knight Errant who rescued one of her +victims. Romance, old boy—romance with a big R." +And so Graham, more than a little unsteady and with +uproarious laughter, led the way.</p> + +<p>When they arrived at the studio-apartment in Fortieth +Street they found the hall filled with people. +It happened that Papowsky was giving an Egyptian +night and nearly all of the habitués were in appropriate<span class="pagenum">[210]</span> +costumes. With the cunning of her species this +woman knew very well that few things appeal so +strongly to a certain type of men and women as dressing +up,—which generally means undressing. The +Japanese servant who took their hats and coats welcomed +Graham with oily and deferential cordiality. +"We are having a big night, sir," he said, with the +peculiar sibilation of his kind and with his broad, flat +hands clasped together. "It is Madame's birthday, +sir. Yes, sir. You and the gentlemen will enjoy it +very much."</p> + +<p>Peter and Kenyon followed Graham into the studio. +Their curiosity, already stirred by the sight of the men +and women in the hall, was added to by the Rembrandt +effect of the high, wide room, whose darkness was +only touched here and there by curious faint lights. +The buzz of voices everywhere and little bursts of +laughter proved that there were many people present. +As they went in, a powerful lime-light was suddenly +focused on the centre of the room and into this slid +a string of young, small-breasted, round-limbed girls. +Led by one who contorted herself in what was supposedly +the Egyptian manner, they moved to and fro +with bent knees and angular gestures, and rigid profiles. +Music came out of the darkness,—the music +of a string band with cymbals.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" said Kenyon. "What an amazing +mixture of exotic stinks!"</p> + +<p>"Look out for your money," said Peter, with a +touch of blunt materialism.</p> + +<p>Graham made for an unoccupied alcove, in which<span class="pagenum">[211]</span> +there was a flabby divan. On this they all three sat +down and began to peer about. A few yards away +from them they presently made out an astonishing +group of young men dressed as Egyptians. They +were sitting in affectionate closeness, simpering and +tittering together. On the other side they gradually +discerned an overwhelmingly fat, elderly woman holding +a kind of Court. She was almost enveloped in +pearls. Otherwise she was scantily hidden. Her feet +were in sandals. Several mere boys had arranged +themselves in picturesque attitudes about her and half +a dozen maidens were grouped round her chair. One +was fanning her with a large yellow leaf. The blue +light under which Graham had sat listening to the +whispered appeal of Ita Strabosck fell softly and +erotically upon them.</p> + +<p>"Circe come to life," said Kenyon.</p> + +<p>"Ugh! I don't quite know how I'm going to prevent +myself from being sick," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"Ah! but wait a bit," said Graham. "The show +hasn't begun yet."</p> + +<p>It made a fairly good beginning as he spoke. The +girls in the circle of light brought their attitudinizing +to an end and their places were instantly taken by two +painted men in coloured loin-cloths. To a screaming +outburst of wild and incoherent music they gave what +seemed to Kenyon to be a perfect imitation of civet-cats +at play. They crawled along on all-fours, sprang +high into the air, crouched, bounded, whirled round +each other and finally, amid a roar of applause, rolled +out of view wrapped in each other's arms.<span class="pagenum">[212]</span></p> + +<p>"Um!" said Kenyon. "After just such an exhibition +as that Rome burst into flames."</p> + +<p>There was insistent demand for an encore. The +performance was repeated with the same gusto and +relish. The three men saw nothing of it. Just as the +band burst forth again, Kenyon made a long arm, +caught the skimpy covering of a girl who was passing +and drew her into the alcove.</p> + +<p>"Come and cheer us up, Minutia," he said. "We +feel like lost souls here."</p> + +<p>The girl was willing enough. It was her business +to cheer. She stood in front of them for a moment +so that the blue light should show her charms. She +looked very young and tiny. Fair hair was twisted +round her head. She wore nothing but a thin, loose +Egyptian smock, but her small snub nose and impudent +mouth placed her, whatever might be her costume, +on Broadway. "Say! Why are you muts +dressed like men?" she asked with eager interest.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," said Kenyon, "we happen to be men; +but I swear that we won't advertise the fact."</p> + +<p>The girl greatly enjoyed the remark, but her scream +of laughter was drowned by the band. Then she +caught sight of Graham. "Oh, hello, Kid! So +you've come back."</p> + +<p>Graham made room for her. He rather liked being +recognized. Kenyon would see that he knew his way +about. "Yes, here I am again. It's difficult to get +the Papowsky dope out of the system."</p> + +<p>"Don't see why you should try. It's pretty good +dope, I guess." She snuggled herself in between<span class="pagenum">[213]</span> +Graham and Kenyon, putting an arm round each. +She bent across Kenyon to examine Peter and gave an +exaggeratedly dramatic cry of surprise and admiration. +"My God! It's a giant! Say, dearie, you'd +be the King of all the pussies, in a skin. All them +dinky little love-birds would hop round your feet and +chirp. Oh, gosh, you'd make some hit among the +artists, sure!"</p> + +<p>"Think so?" said Peter. He would have given +a great deal for a pipe at that moment, so that he +could puff out great clouds of smoke as a disinfectant.</p> + +<p>"A gala night," said Graham.</p> + +<p>"Sure. If the police were to make a raid to-night,—gee, +there'd be a fine list of names in to-morrer's +papers!"</p> + +<p>"Think they will?" asked Kenyon. "By Jove! +I wish they would. Think of seeing these people +scuffling like frightened rabbits. It would be epoch-making."</p> + +<p>The girl turned a keenly interested eye on Kenyon +and looked him over with unabashable deliberation. +"You've got a funny kind of accent," she said. +"What is it? English?"</p> + +<p>It was the first time that Kenyon had ever been +accused of speaking with an accent. He was delighted. +It appealed to his alert sense of humour. +He laughed and nodded.</p> + +<p>"The giant ain't English, is he? Are you, +dearie?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Peter.<span class="pagenum">[214]</span></p> + +<p>"That's fine. I guess I don't like the English +much. They always strike me as being like Americans, +trying hard to be different."</p> + +<p>"You don't dislike me, I hope? That would be a +very bitter blow," said Kenyon, tweeking her ear.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're a comic," she said. "You're all right. +Is this your first visit?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Have you been here long?" Kenyon +asked the question carelessly, as though to keep the +ball moving. It was, as a matter of fact, the beginning +of his plan to disillusion Graham.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I've been in the business ever since it started. +Ask the kid, he knows. Don't you, kid?"</p> + +<p>"Rather," said Graham.</p> + +<p>"I used to be in the chorus, but this is ther life."</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," said Kenyon. "Variety, gaiety, +art,—what more can any girl desire?"</p> + +<p>"Dollars," she said dryly. "And I make more +here, by a long way."</p> + +<p>"That's good. But,—but don't you get a little fed +up? I mean it must be hopelessly monotonous to be +shut up in one place all the time."</p> + +<p>"Don't know whatcher mean. Translate that, +won't you?"</p> + +<p>"He means never getting out," said Graham.</p> + +<p>"Never getting out! I don't get you, Steve. Me +and my sister get away after the show, same as any +other."</p> + +<p>"What!" Graham was incredulous. It struck +him that the girl was lying for reasons of loyalty to +her employer. He knew better.<span class="pagenum">[215]</span></p> + +<p>"Oh, I see!" said Kenyon, leading her on carefully. +"You don't live here, then?"</p> + +<p>"Live here? Of course I don't. I come about ten +o'clock every night and leave anywhere between three +and four in the morning. Earlier if there's nothing +doing."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I thought that the girls here are,—well, +held up, kept here all the time,—prisoners, so to +speak."</p> + +<p>A shrill amused laugh rang out. "Oh, cut it out! +What's all this dope? Say! you've been reading +White Slave books. You're bug-house—dippy. +Why, this is a respectable place, this is. This is the +house of Art. We're models, that's what we are. +We're only here for local colour. If we choose to +make a bit extra on our own, we can." She laughed +again. It was a good joke. The best that she had +heard for years.</p> + +<p>Kenyon threw a quick glance at Graham's face. +He could just see it in the dim light. The boy was +listening intently—incredulously. So also was +Peter, who had drawn himself into a corner and was +hunched up uncomfortably.</p> + +<p>Kenyon began to feel excited. Everything was +going almost unbelievably well. The girl was so +frank, so open and obviously spontaneous. It was +excellent. "Of course you tell us these things," he +said, voicing what he knew was going silently through +Graham's mind. "But we know better. We know +that you, like that poor little girl, Ita Strabosck, are +watched and not allowed to get away under any circumstances.<span class="pagenum">[216]</span> +Now, why not tell us the truth? We +may be able to help you escape, too."</p> + +<p>Again she laughed. "Oh, say!" she said. "What +are you anyway? Reporters on the trail of a story? +I'm telling you the truth. Why not? As for Ita,—Oh, +ho! She put it all over a boob, she did. She's +ambitious, she is. She was out to find a mut who'd +keep her, that was her game. She told us so from +the first. We used to watch her trying one after another +of the soft ones. But they were wise, they +were. But at last some little feller fell for her foreign +accent and little sobs. She had a fine tale all ready. +Oh, she's clever. She ought to be on the stage playing +parts. Most of us go round to her place in the +daytime and have a good time with some of her men +friends. I've not been yet. But from what my sister +says, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if she gets her +man to marry her. From what she says, he's a sentimental +Alick, and, O Gosh! won't she lead him some +dance!"</p> + +<p>At last Graham broke forth, his face white, his eyes +blazing and his whole body shaking as though he had +ague. "You're lying!" he shouted. "Every word +you've said's a lie!"</p> + +<p>The girl, entirely unoffended at this involuntary outburst, +bent forward and looked at Graham with a new +gleam of intelligence, amusement and curiosity. +"My word, I believe you're Mr. Strabosck. I believe +you're the boob. Oh, say! come into the light. I +guess I must have a look at you."</p> + +<p>Graham got up, stood swaying for a moment as<span class="pagenum">[217]</span> +though he had received a blow between the eyes, and +staggered across the room and out into the passage.</p> + +<p>"Now he knows," said Kenyon. "Come on, +Peter. We shall have our work cut to hold him in. +There was blood in his eyes." Utterly ignoring the +girl, Kenyon made for the door, forced his way +through new arrivals and found Graham utterly sober, +but with his mouth set dangerously, standing in front +of the Japanese. "My hat and coat, quick!" he was +saying, "or I'll break the place up."</p> + +<p>"Steady, steady," said Kenyon. "We don't want +a scene here."</p> + +<p>"Scene be damned. I tell you something's got to +break."</p> + +<p>The Japanese ducked into the coat-room.</p> + +<p>"Where's Peter?" Graham looked back expecting +to see his brother's head and shoulders above the +crowd. There was no sign of him.</p> + +<p>By accident the lime-light which had been suddenly +turned on for a new performance fell on Peter as he +was marching towards the door of the studio. Instantly +he found himself surrounded by half a dozen +good-natured men who had all taken a little too much +to drink. They, like the other people present, were in +Egyptian clothes and obviously glad to see in Peter +a healthy normal specimen of humanity.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hello, brother, where are you off to?" asked +one.</p> + +<p>"Out!" said Peter shortly.</p> + +<p>"I'll be darned if you are. Come and have a +drink!"<span class="pagenum">[218]</span></p> + +<p>"No, thanks, I've other things to do."</p> + +<p>"Oh, rot! Be a sport and stay and help us to stir +things up. Come on, now!"</p> + +<p>Peter tried to push his way through. "Please get +out of the way," he said.</p> + +<p>But a jovial red-headed fellow got into it. +"You're staying, if I have to make you."</p> + +<p>Something snapped in Peter's brain. Before he +could control himself he bent down and picked up the +man by the scruff of his neck and the cloth that was +wound round his middle and heaved him over the heads +of the crowd into a divan, and then hitting out right +and left cleared a path to the door, leaving chaos and +bleeding noses behind him. Without waiting to get +his hat and coat he made a dash for the elevator, +caught it just as it was about to descend and went +down to the main floor dishevelled and panting.</p> + +<p>Out in the street he saw Kenyon trying to put +Graham into a taxicab. Kenyon saw him and called +out. "Come on, or Papowsky will make it hot for +us."</p> + +<p>On his way home from a late evening at one of his +clubs, Ranken Townsend caught the name Papowsky, +whose evil reputation had come to his ears. He +threw a quick glance at the men who were leaving her +place and saw that one of them was Peter. He drew +up and stood in front of the man in whom he thought +he had recognized cleanness and excellence and told +himself that he was utterly mistaken.</p> + +<p>"So this was your precious business engagement," +he said, with icy contempt. "Well, I don't give my<span class="pagenum">[219]</span> +daughter to a man who shares her with women like +Papowsky, so you may consider yourself free. Good +night."</p> + +<p>And the smile that turned up the corners of Kenyon's +mouth had in it the epitome of triumph. All +along the line he had won. All along the line.</p> + +<p>Peter watched the tall disappearing figure. He felt +as though he had been kicked in the mouth.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[221]</span></p> + +<p class="h2">PART THREE</p> + +<h2><a id="LIFE"></a>LIFE</h2> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[223]</span></p> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>That night was one of the most extraordinary that +Peter ever spent. Although he was smarting under +the terrible injustice of Ranken Townsend's few, but +very definite words, and felt like a man who had suddenly +come up to an abyss, he took Graham in hand +and devoted himself, with all the tenderness of a +woman, to this poor boy.</p> + +<p>All the way home in the cab Graham had been more +or less held down by Kenyon and his brother. His +brain was in a wild chaos. The realization that he +had been tricked and made a fool of hit him hard. In +his first great flush of anger he was filled with an overwhelming +desire to go to the apartment in which he +had placed Ita Strabosck and smash it up. He wanted +to have the satisfaction of breaking and ripping apart +every piece of furniture that he had bought to make +her comfortable and happy, and make an absolute +shambles of the place. He wanted also to order that +girl out into the street. At that moment he no longer +cared what happened to her or where she went. His +vanity had received its first rude shock. All the way +home he shouted at the top of his voice and struggled +to get away from the men who were looking after +him. It took all Peter's strength to hold him tight. +It was by no means a good sight to see this young<span class="pagenum">[224]</span> +man, who only half an hour before had been exhilarated +by champagne and the feeling that he was really +of some account as a man of the world, reduced to a +condition of utter weariness by his violent outbursts. +At first he absolutely refused to enter the house and +insisted upon walking up and down the street. Finally, +by making an appeal to his brother's affection, +Peter persuaded him to go in quietly and up to his +own room. There, pale and exhausted and entirely +out of spirits, Graham turned quickly on his brother. +"Keep Kenyon out," he said. "For God's sake, keep +Kenyon out! I want <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>Kenyon heard these words and smiled to himself, +nodded to Peter, and went downstairs again to make +himself comfortable in the library and have a final +cigarette before going to bed. He had every reason +for self-congratulation. Graham was free,—there +was no doubt about that,—and it looked as though +Peter also would now be able to be made useful again. +Luck certainly had been on his side that night.</p> + +<p>It was not much after one o'clock when Peter shut +the door of Graham's bed-room. From then onwards +he turned himself into a sort of nurse, doing +his best to concentrate all his thoughts on his brother's +trouble and keep his own until such time as he +could deal with it; and, while Graham poured out his +heart—going over his story of the Ita Strabosck +rescue again and again—Peter quietly undressed him, +bit by bit. "Yes, old man," he kept saying, "I quite +understand; but what you've got to do now is to get +to bed and to sleep. Let me take off your coat.<span class="pagenum">[225]</span> +That's right. Now sit down for a second. Now let +me undo your shoes. It's a jolly good thing I came +home. You bet your life I'll stand by you and see +you through—you bet your life I will!"</p> + +<p>"And you swear you'll not say anything about this +to mother or Belle, and especially father—even if +I'm ill,—in fact to any one? You swear it?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Peter.</p> + +<p>There was something comical as well as pathetic in +the sight of this big fellow playing the woman to this +distraught boy,—undoing his tie, taking off his collar +and gradually getting him ready for bed. It was a +long and difficult process and needed consummate tact, +tender firmness and quiet determination. A hundred +times Graham would spring to his feet and—with +one shoe on and one shoe off, minus coat and waistcoat, +tie and collar—pace the room from end to end, +gesticulating wildly, sending out a torrent of words in +a hoarse whisper—sometimes almost on the verge +of tears. He was only twenty-four—not much more +than a boy. It was very hard luck that he should be +up against so sordid a slice of life at a time when he +stood at the beginning of everything.</p> + +<p>But Peter knew intuitively that it was absolutely +necessary for Graham to rid his system of this Strabosck +poison and empty out his heart and soul before +he could be put to sleep, like a tired child. And so, +with the utmost patience, he subjected himself to play +the part of a mental as well as a physical nurse. Better +than that, he mothered his brother, smoothed him +down, sympathized with him, assured him again and<span class="pagenum">[226]</span> +again that he had done the only possible thing; and +finally as the first touch of dawn crept into the room +had the infinite satisfaction of putting the clothes +about his brother's shoulders and seeing his dark head +buried in his pillow. Even then he was not wholly +satisfied. Creeping upon tip-toe about the room he +laid hands on Graham's razors and put them in his +pocket. He was possessed with a sort of terror that +the boy might wake up and, acting under a strong +revulsion of feeling, cut his throat. It must be +remembered that he had watched a human being under +the strain and stress of a very strong and terrible emotion +and he was naturally afraid. He knew his brother's +excitable temperament. He had heard him +confess that the girl had exercised over him something +more than mere physical attraction, and although he +was no psychologist it was easy for him to see that, +for a time at any rate, Graham was just as ready to +hurt himself as to hurt the girl. Some one had to be +paid out for his suffering and it was Peter's business +to see that his brother, at any rate, escaped punishment. +Not content with having got Graham to bed +and to sleep and secured the razors which might be +used in a moment of impetuousness, Peter stayed on, +sat down near the bed and listened to one after another +of the sounds of the great city's awakening. It +was then that he permitted himself to think back. He +didn't remember the fracas in the studio apartment or +the unpleasantness of the place with the unhealthy, unpleasant +creatures who had been there. He repeated +to himself over and over again the words—the cold,<span class="pagenum">[227]</span> +cruel words of Ranken Townsend,—"So this was +your precious business engagement. Well, I don't +give my daughter to a man who shares her with +women like Papowsky, so you may consider yourself +free." In his mind's eye he could see the tall +artist march away. He felt again as though he had +been kicked in the mouth.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Ranken Townsend had arranged a sitting with +Madame Mascheri, the famous opera singer, at eleven +o'clock. He entered his studio at ten, and the first +thing he did was to ring up one of his best friends and +get into a quarrel with him. He had already so surprised +his old servant at breakfast that she had retired +to the kitchen in tears. He was angry and sore and +there was likely to be a nice clash in the studio when +he said sharp things to the spoiled lady who considered +that all men were in their proper places only when +they were at her feet.</p> + +<p>Ranken Townsend was more than angry. He was +disappointed—mentally sick—completely out of gear. +He had seen Peter Guthrie—and there was no argument +about the fact—come out of a notorious house, +dishevelled and apparently drunk. It was a sad blow +to him. A bad shock. The effects of it had kept him +awake nearly all night. Betty was the apple of his +eye. He was going to protect her at all costs, and he +knew that in doing so he must bring great unhappiness<span class="pagenum">[228]</span> +into her life. He had believed in Peter Guthrie. +He had seemed to him to be a big, strong, clean, honest, +simple, true fellow who had gone straight and who +meant to continue to go straight. It meant a tremendous +amount, an altogether incalculable amount +to him as a father to have found that his estimate was +wrong. He realized perfectly well that his words had +been harsh the night before. He detested to have +been obliged to say them; but, for the sake of his little +girl, he was not going back on them. The evidence +was too strong.</p> + +<p>The telephone bell rang. He stalked across to it. +"Well?" he said. "What's that? Who did you +say? Send him up at once." And then, with his +jaw set and his hands thrust deep into his pockets, +he took up a stand in the middle of the studio and +waited.</p> + +<p>It was Peter. He came in quietly and looked very +tired. "Good morning, Mr. Townsend," he said.</p> + +<p>The answer was sharp and antagonistic. "I don't +agree with you."</p> + +<p>Peter put down his hat and stick, went up to the +artist and stood in front of him squarely and without +fear. "You're going to withdraw what you said last +night."</p> + +<p>"You think so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because it was unjust and no man is hanged in +these times before he's given a chance to defend himself."<span class="pagenum">[229]</span></p> + +<p>"No one is going to hang you, Peter Guthrie. +You've hanged yourself."</p> + +<p>"No, no," said Peter, "that won't do. It isn't like +you to adopt this attitude and I must ask you to treat +me properly."</p> + +<p>Townsend shot out a short laugh. "There's no +need for you to ask me to do that. My treatment of +you is going to be so proper that this is going to be +the last time you'll come into this studio. I've done +with you. So far as I'm concerned you're over. +Betty isn't going to see you or hear from you again. +I consider that it was a mighty good accident that took +me into Fortieth Street last night. That's all I have +to say."</p> + +<p>Peter didn't budge. He just squared his shoulders +and tilted his chin a little more. "I don't think that's +all you've got to say," he said. "I quite understand +that you had a bad shock when you saw me coming +out of that place last night. If I were in your shoes +I should say just what you're saying now."</p> + +<p>"It's something to win your approval," said Townsend, +sarcastically, "and I'm sure I'm very much +obliged to you for coming down town to give me your +praise."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't talk like that," said Peter. "It doesn't +do any good and it doesn't help to clear things up."</p> + +<p>"You can't clear things up. Neither of us can. +You began by lying to me when you said you had a +business engagement, and you wound up by coming +out drunk of the rottenest house in this city. And, +see here! I don't like your tone. I'm not standing<span class="pagenum">[230]</span> +here to be reproved by you for my attitude in this matter. +I might be more inclined to give you a chance if +you made a clean breast of it."</p> + +<p>"I wish I could," said Peter, "but I can't. All I +can tell you is that I had to go to that place last night +for a very good reason. I'd never been there before +and I shall never go there again. I hadn't even heard +of the place until a few days ago. You've got to +accept my word of honour that I went there with a +friend of mine to get a man who means a very great +deal to me out of bad trouble."</p> + +<p>"It's taken you sometime to think that out," said +Townsend, brutally.</p> + +<p>Peter winced as if he had been struck. He had +gone to the studio under the belief that everything +would be quite easy. He was honest. His conscience +was clear. He was not a liar. Surely his word +would be accepted. Whatever happened he wasn't +going to be disloyal to his brother. Apart from the +fact that he had sworn not to give Graham away, he +wasn't the kind that blabbed. He tried again, still +keeping himself well under control, although he was +unable to hide the fact that Ranken Townsend's utter +disbelief in him hurt deeply.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Townsend," he said, "I don't want to do anything +to make you more angry than you are. It's perfectly +simple for you to say that you won't have me +marry Betty. But remember this: I've only got to +go to Betty and ask her to marry me, with or without +your consent, and she will. If you don't believe me, +you don't know Betty."<span class="pagenum">[231]</span></p> + +<p>"Ah! but that's exactly where you make your mistake," +said Townsend. "I <i>do</i> know Betty. And let +me tell you this, Peter Guthrie: My girl has been +brought up. She hasn't been dragged up or allowed +to bring herself up. The consequence is that she's +not among the army of present-day girls who look +upon their fathers and mothers as any old trash to +be swept aside and over-ridden whenever it suits them +to do so. I'm the man to whom she owes all the happiness +and comfort that she's known. I'm the man +who's proud to be responsible for her, to whom she +belongs and who knows a wide stretch more of life +and its troubles than she does,—and, not being an +empty-headed, individualistic, precocious little fool, +she knows it too. She belongs to a past decade—to +an old-fashioned family. Therefore, what I say goes; +and if I tell her that, for a very good reason, I don't +want her to have anything to do with you, she will +be desperately unhappy, but she'll not question my +authority or my right to say so. These are facts, however +absurd and strange they may appear to you. I +think it would be a damned good thing if other fathers +took the trouble to get on the same footing with their +daughters. There'd be less unhappiness and fewer +grave mistakes if they did." He was almost on the +verge of adding, "Look at your sister Belle if you +don't believe me."</p> + +<p>Peter had nothing to say.</p> + +<p>The two men stood facing one another, gravely, in +silence. They were both moved and stirred. And +then Peter nodded. "I'm glad you're Betty's father,"<span class="pagenum">[232]</span> +he said at last. "She owes you more than she can +ever pay back. I give you my word that I shan't +attempt to dispute your authority. I respect you, Mr. +Townsend, and when I marry Betty I want to have +your consent and approval. I also give you my word +that it was absolutely necessary for me to go to Papowsky's +last night, without any explanation whatever. +Are you going to take it?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Townsend; "I'm not. Even if I'd +known you for years what you ask is too much for me +to swallow. Good Lord, man! can't you see that I'm +protecting my daughter—the one person I love in this +world—the one person whose happiness means more +to me than anything on earth? Why should I believe +that you're different from other young men,—the +average young man whom I see every day, who no +more cares about going clean to the woman he is going +to marry than he does for running straight afterwards? +I don't know you and hitherto I've accepted you on +your face value. When it comes to the question of +a man's trusting his daughter to the first person who +comes and asks him for her, he's got to be pretty sure +of what he's doing. In any case, I don't hold with +the old saying that 'young men will be young men.' +You may sow your wild oats if you like, but they're +not going to blossom in the garden of a little girl who +belongs to me. In that respect I'm as narrow-minded +as a Quaker. And let me tell you this finally: I +know the sort of place that Papowsky's is. I know +what goes on there and the sort of people who frequent +it. To my mind any man who's seen coming<span class="pagenum">[233]</span> +out of it does for himself as the future husband of +any good girl. If you have, as you say, a good reason +for going there, tell it to me. If not, get out."</p> + +<p>The artist had said these things with intense feeling. +Hard as they were, Peter had to acknowledge +that they were right. Just for one instant he wavered. +He was on the point of giving the whole story +away. Then his loyalty to his brother came back to +him. He would rather be shot than go back on the +man who had trusted him and with whom he had +grown up with such deep affection. "Very well," he +said, "that settles it. I've nothing more to say. But +one of these days I'll prove that my word of honor +was worth taking. In the meantime, you can't stop +me from loving Betty and you'll never be able to stop +Betty from loving me."</p> + +<p>He turned on his heel, took up his hat and stick +and went out.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Graham was sitting up in bed when Peter returned +to his room. He was looking about him with an expression +of queer surprise,—puzzled apparently to +find himself in his room.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hello, old man!" said Peter. "How d'you +feel?"</p> + +<p>Graham put his hand up to his head. "I don't +know yet. Have I been asleep? I thought I'd been +in a railway accident. I was looking about for the +broken girders and the ghastly signs of a smash."<span class="pagenum">[234]</span></p> + +<p>He got slowly out of bed, put on his slippers and +walked up and down for a few minutes with a heavy +frown on his face. The emotion of the night before +had left its marks. He stopped in front of a chair +on the back of which his evening clothes were hanging +neatly. He remembered that he had thrown them +off. He noticed—at first with irritation—that the +things on his dressing-table had been re-arranged—tampered +with. It didn't look as he liked it to look. +Something had been taken away. It dawned on him +that all his razors had been removed. "Removed,"—the +word sent a sort of electric shock through his +brain as it passed through. He went over to the window +and looked out into the street. The sun glorified +everything with its wonderful touch. Good God! +To think that he might be standing at that very moment +on the other side of the great veil.</p> + +<p>"I don't know—I don't know what to say to you +for all this, Peter," he said.</p> + +<p>Peter sat down, thrust his hands into his pockets +and his long legs out in front of him. Reaction had +set in. He felt depressed and wretched. "One of +these days," he said, "I may ask you to do the same +thing for me."</p> + +<p>Something in his tone made Graham turn round +sharply. "What's wrong?"</p> + +<p>"Everything's wrong," said Peter. "But I'll tell +you some other time. Your affair has got to be settled +first."</p> + +<p>"No; tell me now," said Graham. He dreaded to +feel that he was the cause somehow or other of bringing<span class="pagenum">[235]</span> +trouble upon his brother. Never before in all his +life had he seen Peter looking like that.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Townsend happened to be passing Papowsky's +last night and saw me coming out. I'd had a scrap +up in the studio with a bunch of men who were half +drunk. I must have looked like it. He told me that +he wouldn't have me marry Betty, and he repeated it +this morning. I've just come away from his place. +That's what's the matter with me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, curse me!" cried Graham. "Curse me for +a fool!"</p> + +<p>Peter sprang to his feet. "Don't start worrying +about me. And look here; don't let's waste time in +trying to scrape up spilt milk. I'm going to marry +Betty, that's a dead certainty, and sooner or later Mr. +Townsend will withdraw the brutal things he said to +me. And you're going to wipe your slate clean, right +away. So buck up and get busy, old man. Have +your bath and get dressed as soon as you can. I'm +going to help you to fix your affair as soon as you're +ready."</p> + +<p>"How?" asked Graham.</p> + +<p>"I don't know quite. I think I'll ask Kenyon."</p> + +<p>"No, don't. Let's do it together. I don't want +Kenyon to see,—I mean I'd rather Kenyon was out +of it. I'd rather that you were the only one to look +on at the remainder of my humiliation,—that's the +word. He knows quite enough as it is."</p> + +<p>"All right!" said Peter. "Hurry up, then. +We'll go round to the apartment and see Ita Strabosck. +I cashed a cheque on the way back from Mr.<span class="pagenum">[236]</span> +Townsend's. We can't let her go out into the street +with nothing in her pocket,—that's impossible."</p> + +<p>Graham nodded. He couldn't find words to say +what he felt about it all. There was a look of acute +pain on his pale face as he went into the bath-room.</p> + +<p>And then Peter sat down at his brother's table and +wrote a little note to Betty:</p> + +<blockquote><p>My own dearest Baby:</p> + +<p>Something has happened and your father—who's a +fine fellow and well worthy of you—believes that I'm +such a rotter that he's told me to consider myself +scratched. I'm going to play the game by him for your +sake as well as his. Don't worry about it. Leave everything +to me. I won't ask you to go on loving me and believing +in me, because that you must do, just as I shall go +on loving you and believing in you. <i>It has to be.</i> I've +got to think things over to see what can be done.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, and as long as I live,</p> + +<p>Your <span class="smcap">Peter</span>.</p></blockquote> + +<p>He addressed the letter and put the envelope in his +pocket. Then he went to the bath-room and called +out: "Old man, shall I have some breakfast sent up +for you?" The answer was, "No; the sight of food +would make me sick."</p> + +<p>Graham dressed quickly and nothing more was said +by either of the brothers until they went out into the +street together.</p> + +<p>"We'll get a cab," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"No; I'm too broke. Let's walk."</p> + +<p>And so they walked hard, arm in arm. It seemed +rather an insult to Graham that the day was so fine,<span class="pagenum">[237]</span> +the sky so blue and equable and that all the passers-by +seemed to be going on their way untroubled. He'd +have been better pleased if the day had been dark and +ugly and if everybody had been hurrying through rain +and sleet. His own mind was disturbed by a storm +of the most unpleasant thoughts. The girl whom +they were on their way to see had exercised a strong +physical fascination over him. He had believed in +her absolutely. She had meant a great deal to him. +Her deceit and cunning selfishness brought pessimism +into his soul. It was a bad feeling.</p> + +<p>As they came up to the house with its shabby door, +a man well-past middle age,—a flabby, vulgar person, +with thick awkward legs,—left it rather quickly and +walked in the opposite direction. The two boys went +in and Peter led the way up the dark staircase. The +door was open and Lily, the colored maid, was holding +a shrill argument with a man with a basket full of +empty siphons on his arm. Her face broke into an +odd and knowing smile when she saw Graham. They +passed her without a word and went along the passage +into the sitting-room. It was empty, but in a hideous +state of disorder. There was about it all that last +night look which is so unpleasant and insalubrious. +The windows had not been opened and the room +reeked with stale tobacco smoke and beer. Cigar +stumps lay like dead snails on the carpet. Empty +bottles were everywhere and dirty glasses. Through +the half-open door which led into the bed-room they +heard a flutey, uncertain soprano voice singing a curious +foreign song.<span class="pagenum">[238]</span></p> + +<p>After a moment of weakness and indecision, +Graham pulled himself together and called out: "Ita! +Ita!" sharply.</p> + +<p>The song ceased abruptly. There was a cry of well-simulated +joy and the girl, with her hair frowzled and +a thin dressing-gown over her night-dress, ran into +the room with naked feet. She drew up short when +she saw the expression on Graham's face and Peter's +square shoulders behind him. "Somesing ees ze matter," +she said. "Oh, tell me!" Second nature and +constant practice made the girl begin to act. This was +obviously an opportunity for being dramatic.</p> + +<p>With a huge effort Graham controlled himself. +"I'm giving up this apartment to-day," he said.</p> + +<p>"You are giving up——?"</p> + +<p>"I said so."</p> + +<p>"And what ees to become of me? You take me +somewhere else?"</p> + +<p>"No. I hope I shall never see you again—never!"</p> + +<p>The girl burst forth. How well he knew that +piteous gesture—that pleading voice—the tears that +came into those large almond eyes,—all those tricks +which had made him what he had been called the night +before at Papowsky's—"a boob". "What 'ave I +done? Do you not love me any more? I love you. +I will die for you. You are everysing to me. Do not +leave me to ze mercy of ze world. Graham! +Graham! My saviour! I love you zo!"</p> + +<p>Graham shook her off. "Please don't," he said. +"Just pack your things and dress yourself. All I've<span class="pagenum">[239]</span> +got to say to you is that I've found you out. Perhaps +you'd better go back to Papowsky's. You're very +clever,—they all say so there. Find another damned +young fool—that'll be easy."</p> + +<p>The girl suddenly threw back her head and broke +into an amazing laugh. The sound of it,—so merry—so +full of a sort of elfin amusement,—was as startling +to the two boys as though a bomb had been +dropped into the room. "I could not find such a +damned fool as you," she said loudly and coarsely, +"eef I 'unted the earth. Eef you 'ad waited to come +until to-night you would 'ave found zis little nest +empty and ze bird flown. There ees a better boob zan +you. Perhaps you met 'im going out. 'E marries +me to-morrow. I vas to keep zat for a leetle surprise. +Oh, yes, I am clever, and eet kills me with laughing +to zee you stand there like a school teacher. You +turn over a new leaf now, eh? Zat ees good. Zo do +I. To-morrow I am a wife. I marry a man. My +time with babies ees over."</p> + +<p>She picked up a glass that was half-full of beer and +with a gesture of supreme contempt jerked it into +Graham's face. Then, with the quickness of an eel, +she returned to her bedroom and slammed the door. +They heard her laughing uncontrollably.</p> + +<p>Graham wiped his face with his handkerchief, and +dropped it on the floor with a shiver. "I shan't want +to borrow any money from you, Peter," he said in a +low voice. "Let's go."</p> + +<p>And they went out into the street together—into +the sun, and took a long breath of relief—a long,<span class="pagenum">[240]</span> +clean breath, untainted by stale tobacco smoke and +beer and the pungent scent of Ita Strabosck.</p> + +<p>Peter made no attempt to put into words his intense +sympathy, but he took his brother's arm and held it +tight, and Graham was very grateful. Right out of +the very bottom of his heart two tears welled up into +his eyes as he walked away.</p> + +<p>After all, he was only twenty-four.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>On her way up to her room that night, Ethel drew +up short outside Graham's bedroom door. She knew +that he was in, which was in itself unusual. She +thought there must be something the matter, because +she had seen Graham leave the house in the morning +long after his usual time. She had also watched his +face at dinner and had seen in it something that frightened +her. It was true that Peter was her favorite +brother, but she was very fond of and had great admiration +for Graham. Also she, herself, was in trouble. +Trouble seemed to be an epidemic in that family. Her +Knight Errant next door, in spite of her signalling and +the fact that she had laid out as usual the cigarettes +and the candies, had deserted her. In order to receive +his visits and feed herself on the excitement with which +they provided her, she was still maintaining her pretence +of invalidism, and the worst of it was she now +knew that she had grown to be very fond of the boy, +who at first had only been a source of amusement.<span class="pagenum">[241]</span></p> + +<p>So, with a fellow-feeling for Graham, she listened +outside his door. She wanted very badly to slip in +and give her sympathy to her brother and receive some +of it from him. She didn't feel quite as individualistic +as usual. The artificiality of the flapper left her +for the time being and she felt as young as she really +was and rather helpless, and awfully lonely.</p> + +<p>Hearing nothing, she tapped gently on the door, +opened it and went in. Graham was sitting in an arm-chair +with his elbows on his knees and his head between +his hands. He made a picture of wretchedness +which would have melted the heart of a sphinx. +Ethel went over to him and put her hand on his +shoulder. "Is anything the matter, Hammie?" she +asked, using the nickname that she had given him as +a child.</p> + +<p>Graham didn't look up. "Oh, Lord, no!" he said, +with a touch of impatience. "What should be the +matter?" But he was very glad to feel that touch of +friendliness on his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Can I do anything for you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. I'm all right—as right as rain."</p> + +<p>Ethel knew better. She knew also that she would +have said those very things to Belle if she had been +caught in a similar state of depression. So she sat +down on the arm of Graham's chair and put her hand +against his cheek. "I've got about a hundred and +seventy-five dollars, if that's any good to you," she +said.</p> + +<p>Graham gave a scoffing laugh, but all the same he +was very grateful for the offer. "My dear kid," he<span class="pagenum">[242]</span> +said, "a hundred and seventy-five dollars—that's no +better than a dry bone to a hungry man."</p> + +<p>"Is it as bad as all that, Hammie?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and then some."</p> + +<p>Ethel thought deeply for a few minutes. Her characteristic +selfishness, which had been almost tenderly +encouraged at school, had given way temporarily before +her own disappointment. "Well," she said +finally, "I've got four brooches and five rings, a watch +and a dressing-case. You can sell them all if you +like."</p> + +<p>Then Graham turned round, gave his little sister +one short, affectionate look and put his head down on +her shoulder. "Don't say anything, please," he said. +"Just let me stay here for a minute. It does me +good."</p> + +<p>And he stayed there for many minutes, and the two +sat silently and quietly, getting from each other in their +mutual trouble the necessary help which both needed +so much. A strange, new feeling of motherliness stole +over the girl. It surprised her. It was almost like +being in church on Christmas Eve, or listening to the +most beautiful melody.</p> + +<p>It was a long time since these two had taken the +trouble to meet each other half-way. The thoughts of +both went back to those good hours when Graham had +put his little sister on a sled in front of him and pushed +her, laughing merrily, over the hard snow in the park. +He had never even dreamed in those days of money +and the fever that it brings, or women and the pain +they make.<span class="pagenum">[243]</span></p> + +<p>And then Graham got up, just a little ashamed of +himself,—after all, he was now a man of the world,—and +saw that Ethel's cheeks were wet with tears. It +was his turn to try and help. "Good Lord!" he said. +"You don't mean to say that you're worried about +anything. What is it?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head and turned her face away. +"Oh, nothing—nothing at all."</p> + +<p>All the same she felt much, ever so much better for +the kiss that he gave her, and went along to her own +room half-determined to be honest with herself and +go back to school the next day. She was rather +startled to find the smell of cigarette smoke in her +bedroom, which was in darkness. She turned up the +nearest light and almost gave a cry of joy when she +found the boy from next door sitting on the window-sill.</p> + +<p>"Jack!" she cried. "I thought you were—I +thought you had——"</p> + +<p>Jack threw his cigarette out of the window and got +up awkwardly. "I got your note just now," he said, +"and so I've come."</p> + +<p>Ethel went to the door and locked it. All the clouds +had rolled away. She was very happy. She had evidently +made a mistake. He must have been prevented +from coming. She wished he'd given her time to +powder her nose and arrange the curls about her ears. +As it was, she opened the box of cigarettes and held +out the candies to him.</p> + +<p>"No, thanks," said Jack. "I'm off chocolates and +I've knocked off smoking to a great extent."<span class="pagenum">[244]</span></p> + +<p>With a womanly touch which she and all women +have inherited from Eve, who never forgot to stand +with her back to the sun and took care, if possible, +to remain in the woods until after breakfast, Ethel +turned on a shaded light and switched off the strong +overhead glare which made her look every day of her +fifteen years. Then she sat down with the light over +her left shoulder. She was quite herself again. All +was well with the world.</p> + +<p>"Where have you been?" she asked, a little imperiously.</p> + +<p>"Nowhere," said Jack.</p> + +<p>"Then why haven't you been to see me? I have +signalled every night. I can't understand it."</p> + +<p>"I know you can't. That's why I've stayed away."</p> + +<p>Ethel was puzzled at the boy's solemn tone. "Of +course, if you don't want to come, please don't. I +wouldn't drag you here against your will for anything."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I <i>do</i> want to come. I stay away for +your sake, and I'm not coming again after this evening."</p> + +<p>That was exactly what Ethel wanted to hear. She'd +been afraid that Jack had found some one else. Now +she knew differently. "Don't be silly," she said. +"Have a cigarette. Come and sit on the sofa and +don't let's waste time."</p> + +<p>But Jack didn't move. He had gone back to the +window-sill and remained hunched up on the narrow +ledge, holding on with both hands. "I'm off in a +minute," he said. "I'm just going to tell you one or<span class="pagenum">[245]</span> +two things before I go. Would you like to hear +them?"</p> + +<p>"If they're pleasant," she said.</p> + +<p>"Well, they're not pleasant."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, tell me."</p> + +<p>For a moment or two Jack remained silent. Perhaps +he was trying to find careful words into which to +put his thoughts. When finally he spoke it was with +a suppressed emotion that sent a quiver through the +quiet room. "I can't stand coming here," he said. +"I can't stand it. I don't know what you are—whether +you're a mere baby who knows nothing, or +an absolute little rotter. You tell me I can say what +I think, so I'm going to." He got up and went a little +nearer to the sofa. "What d'you think I'm made +of? Look at yourself in the glass and then see +whether you're the sort of a girl who can let a man +into her bedroom night after night for nothing. I +tell you I can't stand it. I stayed away, not because +I wanted to, but because I didn't want to do you any +harm. I was a fool for coming here at all. If I +didn't believe that you are simply a silly girl I'd stay +to-night and come every night as I used to do, but +I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Next +time you signal to a man take care to find out what +he's made of and be a bit more careful. There, now +you've got it. Good night and good-bye. I've a +darned good mind to put the note you sent me to-night +in an envelope and address it to your mother. It +would save some other fellow from a good deal of +unnecessary discomfort. I'm frightfully sorry to be<span class="pagenum">[246]</span> +so brutal, but I don't believe you know what you're +doing. Perhaps this'll be a lesson to you."</p> + +<p>He turned quickly, swung himself out, went up the +rope ladder hand over hand and drew it up after him.</p> + +<p>Ethel closed her eyes and sat rigid. The boy might +have planted his fist in her face.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>Kenyon had taken Mrs. Guthrie and Belle to the +Thirty-ninth Street Theatre that night. A quiet little +romantic play, quite unpretentiously written, had +found its way to that theatre either by accident or as +a stop-gap. The manager who put it there had arranged, +even before the opening performance, to replace +it at the end of the week with something which +had a punch,—a coarse, vulgar, artificial piece of +mechanism such as he had been in the habit of producing +all of his managerial life. His intention to +do this was strengthened by the press notices, which +all agreed that the new piece was a very little play +about nothing in particular and which made too great +a demand upon the imagination of its audience. That +last remark of the critics was worth a million dollars +to the play's author. The theatre remained almost +empty until the Friday night of its first—and if the +manager had anything to do with it—only week. The +scenery for the new production was already stacked +on the stage. But to the amazement of all concerned, +except the author, the theatre did business. The house<span class="pagenum">[247]</span> +was almost full and the box office was so busy that +the young man who looked after it,—a past-master +in rudeness,—became quite querulous. On Saturday +night there was a full house and the booking was so +big for the following week that the notices of withdrawal +were taken down and the play with a punch +had to find another home. The manager, greatly put +out, watched this little play sail into a big, steady success, +and whenever his numerous acquaintances—he +had no friends—caught him in an unbusy moment, +he would say: "I can't make it out. It beats me. +Look at the notices. I couldn't understand a word of +the thing when I read it. I only put it into the theatre +to keep it warm. My word, I don't know what the +public wants." He didn't, and he never would. But +the author knew. He had made a play which appealed +to the imagination of his audience.</p> + +<p>Peter had watched the party go to the theatre after +an early dinner; had seen Graham go up to his room +and his father drive away to a meeting at the Academy +of Medicine; and then, anxious to be alone and think +things over, he too left the house for a long, hard +tramp. He went into the park and walked round and +round the reservoir. The night was fine and clear, +and up in the sky, which was pitted with stars, a young +moon lay on her back. From all sides the music of +traffic came to his ears in a never-ceasing refrain, and +high up he could see the numerous electric signs which +came and went with steady precision and monotony. +Every now and then he caught sight of the Plaza, +whose windows all seemed to be alight. It gave a<span class="pagenum">[248]</span> +peculiar touch of fantasy to that side of the +Park.</p> + +<p>Peter found himself thinking of some of the things +which Ranken Townsend had said to him. Without +bitterness, and certainly without anger, he began to +see something in the artist's bluntness which gradually +made him long, with a sort of boyish anguish, to go +in to his own father. The more he thought about +this the more it seemed to him right and necessary and +urgent to beard the Doctor in his den and break down +the curious barrier which shyness had erected between +him and his children. He realized at that moment +that he stood desperately in need of a father's help +and advice. It was quite obvious to him also that +Graham needed these things even more than he did. +If only they could both go to that wise and good man +who stood aloof and get something more from him +than the mere money with which he was so generous. +He knew—no one better—that he always received +from his mother the most tender sympathy, but how +could he discuss with her some of the things with +which he was faced since the Ita Strabosck episode +had come into his life? Kenyon had done much to +make it plain to him that it was not good to continue +to walk in blank ignorance of the vital facts with which +his father dealt daily. He was a man and he had to +live in the world. His boyish days among boys were +over. They belonged to the past.</p> + +<p>It was borne in upon him as he went round and +round the wide stretch of placid water in which was +reflected the moon and stars, that his father should<span class="pagenum">[249]</span> +know all about Graham. Certain things that Kenyon +had said stuck to his mind like burrs. If he could +persuade Graham to make a clean breast of it to the +Doctor, the brother who meant so much to him might +be saved from a disaster which would not merely affect +himself, but others,—a wife and children perhaps. +Kenyon had hinted at this and the hint was +growing in Peter's mind like an abscess. It was time +that he and his brother faced facts and knew them. +Who could initiate them better than the distinguished +doctor whose life had been devoted to such serious +questions?</p> + +<p>Having brought himself up to this point and being +also tremendously anxious to tell his father of the +position in which he stood with Mr. Townsend, Peter +determined to strike while the iron was hot—to go +home and see his father at once. He left the park +quickly, and when finally he let himself into the house +was astonished to see how late it was. The servant +told him that his mother and sister had come back +from the theatre and had gone to bed. "Mr. Kenyon," +he added, "came back, but went out again at +once. Mr. Graham went to bed early and the Doctor +has not returned yet."</p> + +<p>"Good!" thought Peter. "Then I'll wait for +him." He gave up his hat and stick, went through +the quiet, dimly lit library, and after a moment's hesitation +opened the door of the Blue Room,—that room +in which he had been so seldom, hitherto only under +protest. He had opened the door quietly and was +astonished to see Graham sitting at his father's desk<span class="pagenum">[250]</span> +with the light from a reading lamp shining on his dark +head. "By Jove, Graham!" he said. "You must +have been thinking my thoughts. This is extraordinary."</p> + +<p>Graham looked up with a start and thrust something +under the blotting-pad. His face went as white +as a sheet and he stammered a few incoherent words.</p> + +<p>Quite unconscious of his brother's curious embarrassment, +Peter sat on the corner of the desk. "I've +had it out with myself to-night," he said, going, as +he always did, straight to the point. "I've made up +my mind to make father into a father from now onwards. +I can't stand this detached business any +longer. Let's both wait for him and have it out."</p> + +<p>"What d'you mean?" asked Graham. "I don't +get you." He put his hand out surreptitiously and +scrunched up one of the sheets of note paper on which +he had been writing.</p> + +<p>"Listen!" said Peter, with intense earnestness. +"I've got to know things. So have you. I've got +to have advice. I've got to be treated as a human being. +What's the good of our having a father at all +if we don't get something from him? I don't mean +money and a roof, clothes and things to eat. I mean +help. I'm in a hole about Betty. I want to talk +about my work—about my future. Graham, let's +give father a chance. Many times he seems to me to +have fumbled and been on the point of asking us to +meet him half-way. Well, I'm going to do so. Stay +here and let's both see it through. Have the pluck +to tell him about your trouble and throw the whole<span class="pagenum">[251]</span> +responsibility on him. It's his and he ought to have +it. Wait a second. Listen! If Ranken Townsend +had been your father you never would have gone near +Papowsky. You wouldn't have come within a thousand +miles of Ita Strabosck—that's a certainty."</p> + +<p>Graham got up quickly, but kept his hand heavily +on the blotting-pad. "No," he said almost hysterically. +"Count me out. I'm not in this. It's no good +our trying to alter father at this time of day—it's too +late. He's microbe mad. He knows nothing whatever +about sons and daughters. I could no more tell +him about the mess I'm in than fly over the moon. +He'd turn and curse me—that's all he'd do. He'd +get up and preach, or something. He doesn't understand +anything about life. I'd a jolly sight rather +go to mother, only I know it would hurt her so, and +anyway my story isn't fit for her ears. No; cut me +out, I tell you. I'm not in this."</p> + +<p>Peter got up and put his hands strongly on his +brother's shoulders. He didn't notice then how near +he was to a breakdown. "Graham, old man, you've +<i>got</i> to be—you've just <i>got</i> to be. What Kenyon +said is true. You and I are blind and are damned +children wandering about—stumbling about. We +need—we absolutely need a father more than ever we +did in our lives. So do Belle and Ethel. We all +think that we can go alone, and we can't. I know I'm +right—I just know it—so you've got to stay."</p> + +<p>A puff of wind came through the open window. +Several pieces of paper fluttered off the desk and fell +softly on the floor. Peter stooped and picked them<span class="pagenum">[252]</span> +up. On them the words "Hunter G. Guthrie" had +been written over and over again.</p> + +<p>He laughed as he looked at them. "What on earth +has father been writing his name all over these sheets +for? How funny! What a strange old chap he seems +to be. It's a sort of undergraduate trick, this,—practising +a signature before writing a first cheque."</p> + +<p>"Give 'em to me!" said Graham sharply, and he +tried to snatch them away. His voice was hoarse and +his hand shook.</p> + +<p>Peter looked at him in great surprise. It was impossible +for him not to be aware of the fact that something +was dreadfully wrong. As he stood and looked +into his brother's guilty face the fact which stood out +most clearly was that Graham had himself been writing +his father's signature all over those sheets of paper. +Why? A man did a thing of that sort for one +reason only.</p> + +<p>He seized Graham's hand which was pressed on the +blotting-pad, jerked it up, pushed the blotting-pad +aside and picked up the cheque-book that laid beneath +it.</p> + +<p>"Don't touch that," cried Graham, "for God's sake! +Let me have it! I'll tear out the cheque. I think I +was mad. Oh, God! I'm so worried I didn't know +what I was doing!"</p> + +<p>There was a struggle, quick and sharp, and in an +instant Graham found himself staggering across the +room backwards.</p> + +<p>With his heart standing still, Peter opened the thin, +narrow, brown-covered book. A cheque for three<span class="pagenum">[253]</span> +thousand dollars had been made out to Graham Guthrie. +The signature had been forged.</p> + +<p>"You've done this," he said. "You've actually—"</p> + +<p>Graham was up on his feet. His lips were trembling. +He put out a shaking hand. "My God!" +he whispered. "Father's in the library."</p> + +<p>The sound of the Doctor's thin, clear voice came +through the half-open door. Frozen with fear, Graham +seemed to be unable to move. His very lips had +lost their colour.</p> + +<p>With an overwhelming anxiety to hide his brother's +frightful fall from honesty and sanity, Peter pounced +on the little book, thrust it into Graham's pocket, +snatched up the give-away slips of paper, tore them +into small pieces and threw them in the basket.</p> + +<p>"Don't give me away. Don't let him know. If +you do, I swear to God you'll never see me again!"</p> + +<p>There was still something to be done, and Peter did +it. He took his brother up in his arms, realizing that +he was, in a way, paralyzed, carried him to a chair +that was out of the ring of light and sat him down. +"Get yourself in hand, quick," he whispered. +"Quick, now!"</p> + +<p>And Graham, strengthened by his brother's vitality, +forced himself into some sort of control.</p> + +<p>Striding to the fireplace, Peter stood there waiting +for his father, with a strange pain going through his +body. He felt just as though he had been told that +Graham, his best pal and dear brother, had had an +appalling accident and might not live.<span class="pagenum">[254]</span></p> + +<p>The Doctor's voice, as he gave directions to a servant, +came nearer and nearer.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>With his hand on the handle of the door, the Doctor +paused. "I want you to call me to-morrow at half-past-seven, +Alfred. Don't forget. I have a busy day. +Good-night."</p> + +<p>The two boys watched him come into the room. +His head was high and there was a little smile round +his usually straight mouth. He walked with a sort of +sprightliness, as though moving to music. He looked +extraordinarily young and exhilarated.</p> + +<p>He saw what was to him a most unusual sight in +that quiet, lonely work-room. He was surprised into +an exclamation of great pleasure, and he quickened +his pace until he stood between his sons. Graham got +up and put on a nervous, polite smile. "This's what +I most wanted," said the Doctor,—"my two boys +waiting for me here in this room. I can't tell you—I +can't tell you, Peter, and Graham, how often, how +strongly, how eagerly I've wished to see you where +you are now. I can't tell you how I've longed to have +you here after my meetings, to tell you how I'm getting +on, moving things forward, and to ask you share +in my successes. My dear Peter—my dear Graham."</p> + +<p>It was pitiful. The strange, almost incoherent outbreak +of the shy man nearly made Peter burst into<span class="pagenum">[255]</span> +tears. He would almost rather his father had treated +them coldly and with raised eyebrows. His present +attitude—his unhidden joy—his eager, and even +wistful welcome, had in it something of tragedy, because +it showed all the waste of years during which +the sympathy and the complete, necessary and beautiful +understanding of these three might have been +welded into one great, insurmountable rock.</p> + +<p>The Doctor, with an obvious desire to play host,—an +intuition which again touched Peter deeply,—went +quickly to a little chest which stood in a corner of the +room. "What will you have?" he asked anxiously. +"I've got a very good cigar here, or cigarettes if you +would like them better. Let me see! What do you +smoke, Peter?"</p> + +<p>"He doesn't even know what I smoke," thought +Peter. "A pipe," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, yes! Well, this is generally said to be +a very good mixture. Try some." He gave a jar +of tobacco to Peter. "These are nice, though perhaps +they are a little too dry." And he extended a +box of cigars to Graham.</p> + +<p>The boy helped himself, trying to keep his hand +steady. "Thank you," he said.</p> + +<p>"And now," said the Doctor, "let's sit down and +have a long yarn. Shall we? I would like to tell +you about to-night. The meeting was of vital interest +and importance." He drew his chair forward so that +it might be between those of the two boys. He looked +from Peter's face to Graham's as though afraid that +he was asking too great a favour. "You—you'll<span class="pagenum">[256]</span> +forgive my talking about myself, I'm sure—at least +I hope you will. I so seldom have the opportunity,—with +those I love, I mean—with those for whom I'm +working. To see you here like this, at last, makes me +very happy." He slipped his large glasses off and +wiped them openly without attempting to hide the +fact that they had become suddenly useless to +him.</p> + +<p>A short silence followed—a silence in which the +emotion with which the room was charged could almost +be heard. Peter threw a quick glance round it, +almost as though he expected to see the curious experimental +tubes turn and point accusingly at his +brother. The laboratory was filled with such tubes +and other curious instruments,—all of them silent witnesses +of Graham's act of madness.</p> + +<p>The Doctor re-lit his cigar, put his glasses on again +and clasped his long, capable hands over one thin knee. +"I wish I could even suggest to you," he said—more +naturally and with keen enthusiasm—"the intense excitement +that we bacteriologists are all beginning to +feel. For years and years we've been experimenting, +and little by little our work is coming to a definite +head. Every time we meet we find that we've moved +a step further on the road to discoveries. It makes +me laugh to think that my early theories, which, only +a few years ago, were scoffed at and looked upon as +dreams, are taking shape. It's been a long, uphill +fight. Science is beginning to win. It's all very wonderful." +He noticed that Graham's cigar had gone +out. With extreme politeness, such as a man would<span class="pagenum">[257]</span> +use to very welcome guests, he held out a box of +matches.</p> + +<p>The boy took it. "I don't feel like smoking," he +said, with a catch in his voice.</p> + +<p>Something in his tone made the Doctor peer closely +at him. "You look pale, my dear lad," he said, "pale +and tired. Aren't you well?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; he's perfectly all right," said Peter hurriedly, +trying to steer his father to another subject.</p> + +<p>Graham threw his cigar away. "I'm not!" he +cried, with a sudden, uncontrollable outburst. "I feel +as rotten as I am. I can't sit here and listen to you, +father. Don't be kind to me, I can't stand it." He +put his head down between his hands and burst out +crying like a boy.</p> + +<p>The Doctor was startled. He got up quickly and +stood hesitatingly. He wanted to put his hands on +the boy's shoulders, but the sudden breakdown brought +back his shyness. "What's the matter?" he asked. +"Peter, do you know?"</p> + +<p>Peter nodded. He then made up his mind to let +things take their course. "Let him tell you," he said. +"This may be the turning point for all three of us."</p> + +<p>Graham drew the cheque-book out of his pocket, +opened it and threw it on the desk under the reading +lamp. "Look!" he said. "That's what I've come +to."</p> + +<p>For some moments the Doctor saw nothing but a +cheque drawn by himself in favor of his second son +for three thousand dollars. The fact that he didn't remember +having made it out, and the fact that it was<span class="pagenum">[258]</span> +for so large a sum made at first no impression upon +him. He was so puzzled and so taken back at the +sudden outburst of emotion which had broken up what +he hoped was going to be a charming reunion that the +sight of this cheque conveyed nothing to him. Both +his sons watched him closely, not knowing what he +would say or do. He was such a stranger to them—his +feelings and characteristics were so unknown to +them that they found themselves speculating as to the +manner in which he would take this dreadful piece of +dishonesty. A great surprise was in store for them.</p> + +<p>When the Doctor realized what had been done,—that +the signature on the cheque was not his own, although +it was very cleverly copied,—they saw him +wince and shut his eyes. After a moment of peculiar +hesitation he drew his chair up to the desk and sat +down. Holding his breath, Peter watched him tear +the cheque out and quietly make out another for precisely +the same amount. Then the Doctor got up and +stood in front of Graham with the new cheque in his +hand. All the sprightliness and exhilaration with +which he had entered the room had left him. He +looked old and thin and humble. His shoulders +stooped a little and the cheque trembled in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Am I such an ogre that my children are afraid to +bring their troubles to me?" he said, in a broken voice. +"What have I ever done to deserve this, Graham? +You'd only to come to me and say that you needed +money and I'd have given it to you. Who am I working +for? For whom have I always worked?" He +held out the cheque. "Take it, and if that isn't<span class="pagenum">[259]</span> +enough ask me for more. I'd like to know why it is +that you need it, if you'll be good enough to tell me; +but, for God's sake, don't hurt me like this again."</p> + +<p>Without a word—without, indeed, being able to +find a word,—infinitely more crushed by this kindness +than he would have been by an outburst of anger and +reproach,—Graham took the cheque, turned on his +heel and left the room, walking like a drunken man.</p> + +<p>Peter watched him go. There was a feeling of +great relief in his heart. Nothing that he could have +done or said—nothing that Kenyon could have said +in his most forcible manner, with all the weight of +sophistication behind it, could have pulled Graham up +and set him on a new path so well as the unexpected +generosity of his father and the few pathetic words +with which he underlined it.</p> + +<p>But when Peter turned round to his father with the +intention of taking him, for the first time, into his confidence +and treating him as he would have treated +Ranken Townsend under the same circumstances, he +saw that the Doctor was crumpled up in his chair with +his hands over his face and his shoulders shaking with +sobs, and so he held his peace; and instead of obtaining +the help that he needed so much he put his strong +arm round his father in a strange protective way, as +though he were the stronger man.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't, father," he said. "Please don't."<span class="pagenum">[260]</span></p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p>There was a good reason why Kenyon didn't stay +out his fortnight at Dr. Guthrie's house. He had already +begun to know several young men whose very +good feathers were waiting to be plucked. It was +obviously impossible for him to invite them to East +Fifty-second Street, and it became necessary, therefore, +that he should take a bachelor-apartment in +which to set up business. There he could play cards +until any hour that suited him and settle down seriously +to make his winter in New York a success. +Also, he confessed to himself, the atmosphere of the +Doctor's house was not conducive to his peace of mind +or to his rigidly selfish way of life. He hadn't come +over to the United States in order to play the fairy +godmother, or even the family adviser to the young +Guthries. He had worked hard to clear the one thing +out of Graham's life which had rendered him useless, +and he had had the satisfaction of seeing Peter's engagement +broken, for which admirable accident he +was profoundly grateful, because Peter also would +now be free. In fact, these two brothers could now +easily be brought to concentrate upon Kenyon's deserving +case and take round to his apartment any +friends of theirs who enjoyed gambling and could pay +when they lost.</p> + +<p>Kenyon possessed a neat and tidy brain. It was +run on the same principle as a well-organized business +office. It had its metaphorical card indexes, letter-files<span class="pagenum">[261]</span> +and such like; so that when he made up his mind +to go into his own quarters he gave the matter the +closest and most careful consideration. He paid several +visits to the well-known bachelor apartment-houses +in and around West Forty-fourth Street. +They would have been very suitable but for the existence +of irksome rules and regulations as to ladies. He +went further afield and, with Graham's assistance, examined +several apartments in private houses. What +he wanted was a place somewhere on the map where +his breakfast would be cooked especially for him at +any hour he desired, and which would be free of elevator +boys, clerks, and the watchful eye of a manager. +Finally he discovered exactly such a place on the second +floor of a fairly large old-fashioned house in West +Forty-eighth Street. In this the elderly lady who, as +Kenyon at once saw, was blessed with the faculty of +being able to look at things with a Nelsonian eye,—having, +poor soul, to earn her living,—lived in the +basement with her parrot and her Manx cat. Two +young business men shared rooms on the first floor +and a retired professor—who spent the greater part +of his time in the country—rented the third floor. +The servants slept in the attic.</p> + +<p>Into this house Kenyon moved,—much against the +wishes of all the Guthries, especially Belle,—the day +after Peter's attempt to get in touch with his father +came to such an utter failure. He was very well +pleased with his quarters. They gave him elbow-room +and freedom from the responsibility of looking after +another man's sons. The sitting-room, arched in the<span class="pagenum">[262]</span> +middle, ran from the front to the back of the house +and it was well and discreetly furnished. There was +a particularly nice old Colonial mirror over the mantel-piece, +and what prints there were hanging on the +walls were very pleasant. The bedroom across the +passage would have been equally large had it not been +broken up to provide a bath-room and a slip-room for +baggage.</p> + +<p>Fate, however, with its characteristic impishness, +interfered with Kenyon's well-laid scheme. At the +very hour when he was arranging his personal photographs +a cable addressed to him was delivered at Dr. +Guthrie's house. It so happened that Peter was in the +hall when the servant took it in, and he started off at +once to take it round to his friend. He was glad +enough to seize any excuse to see Kenyon again. He +felt horribly at a loose end. Graham's affairs had +completely upset him and disarranged his plans. He +was longing to see Betty, but was not going back on +his agreement with Ranken Townsend until such time +as he could make the artist eat his words; and, as to +his father and his endeavor to break down that apparently +insurmountable barrier, he was utterly disheartened +and depressed. He was shown into Kenyon's +rooms at the moment when he was standing in front +of a very charming photograph of Baby Lennox which +he had placed on the sideboard. It showed her in a +little simple frock, with a wide-brimmed garden hat, +standing among her roses with a smile on her face. +She looked very young, pretty and flower-like.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Peter!"<span class="pagenum">[263]</span></p> + +<p>"I've brought this cable round. Otherwise I +wouldn't have rushed in on you quite so soon."</p> + +<p>"My dear old boy," said Kenyon, "you know very +well that you have the complete run of whatever place +I may be living in, at all hours of the day and night. +A cable for me, eh? What the devil—? I was jolly +careful to give my address here to very few people in +England. Too many are anxious to serve me with +summonses. Baby Lennox is going to be married, +perhaps, and sends me the glad tidings. By Jove, I +wonder who she's nabbed!" He shot out a laugh and +tore open the envelope. "Oh, my God!"</p> + +<p>"What is it?" asked Peter, anxiously.</p> + +<p>Kenyon held out the cablegram and remained standing +rigid, with his mouth open and his eyes shut, and +his face as white as a stone.</p> + +<p>It was from Baby Lennox. "Your father died last +night. A heart attack. Come home at once."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear Nick!" said Peter. "My dear old +boy! I can't tell you how——"</p> + +<p>"No," said Kenyon; "don't say anything. Just sit +down and wait for me. Whatever you do, don't go." +And he went out of the room and across the passage +to his bedroom, and shut himself in.</p> + +<p>Peter waited. The few cold, definite and even +brutal words contained in the cablegram would have +hit him much harder and rendered his sympathy for +his friend very much more real if he could have felt +what it would have been to him to hear of the death +of his own father. While he waited, mechanically +holding that slip of paper between his fingers, his respect<span class="pagenum">[264]</span> +for his friend's grief widened into an odd and +powerful feeling of envy. The man who was dead +had been infinitely more than a father. He had been +a friend and a brother as well. It made him sick and +cold to feel that the receipt of such a cablegram bringing +to him the news of the death of his own father +would have moved him only to extreme sympathy for +his mother. He was ashamed and humiliated to realize +that no actual grief would touch him, because his +father was nothing more than a sort of kind but illusive +guardian or a good-natured step-father—altogether +unused to children—who effaced himself as much as +he could and threw all responsibility upon his wife.</p> + +<p>It was an hour before Kenyon reappeared, and during +that time—which seemed to Peter no more than +a few minutes—he went over again in his mind the +scene which had taken place in the Doctor's laboratory, +out of which he had gone stultified and thrown back +upon himself. He was as grateful as Graham had +been for the Doctor's generosity, but appalled at the +thought that he had utterly failed to realize not only +the gravity of Graham's act, but the long years of +parental neglect which made such an act possible. It +seemed to him that the way in which his father had +taken that deplorable incident was all wrong. He +should not have written another cheque. He should +have had Graham up in front of him, strongly and +firmly, and tried him as a judge would have tried him +if his act had been discovered and dealt with by law. +He should have gone into all the circumstances which +led up to the forgery and thereby have cleared the way<span class="pagenum">[265]</span> +for a new understanding. As it was, his acceptance +of it was so weak that it gave Peter and Graham a +feeling almost of contempt for that too kind man to +whom children were obviously without significance, +and the unmistakable knowledge that he was unable to +understand his grave responsibility and the fact that +he, alone among men, must take the blame for all their +misdeeds and mistakes, because they had been allowed +to enter life unwarned, unguided and unhelped. The +outcome to Peter of this hour's bitter thought was +finally this: That if news were brought to him at that +moment of his father's death the only sorrow that he +could feel would be at the fact that he felt no sorrow.</p> + +<p>When Kenyon came back into the room it was with +his usual imperturbability. He might merely have +left it to answer the telephone or interview the man +who had come to collect his clothes to be ironed. But +his eyes were red. In his own peculiar way he had +loved his father and admired him. It was the first +time that he had wept since he had been a child.</p> + +<p>"Thanks, so much, for waiting, old boy," he said. +"I hope you've been smoking, or something."</p> + +<p>"No," said Peter; "I have things to think about +too."</p> + +<p>Kenyon looked about, with a queer little smile. "I +was just settling down," he said. "Very decent room, +this, isn't it? Well, well, there it is. You never know +your luck, eh?"</p> + +<p>"When will you sail, Nick?"</p> + +<p>"The first possible boat. Do you know anything +about the sailings? Ah, this paper will have it. I<span class="pagenum">[266]</span> +detest the sea and its everlasting monotony and blandness, +and the dull-bright propinquity that it forces +upon one." He opened the paper and searched among +its endless columns for the Shipping News. "Here +we are. 'Trans-Atlantic Sailings.' I have a wide +choice, I see. There's a White Star and a Cunarder +leaving to-morrow at twelve-thirty. The <i>Olympic</i>, I +see! That's good enough,—if she's not full up. I'll +see to it this afternoon. There's sure to be a cabin +somewhere at this time of year."</p> + +<p>"I shall miss you badly," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"Thanks, old man. I know you will. And I shall +hate going. Well, well!"</p> + +<p>Peter picked up a book and put it down again; +opened and shut a box of cigarettes and pushed a bowl +of flowers nearer the middle of the table. "Do you +want any—I mean, can I——?"</p> + +<p>Kenyon laid his hand on his friend's square shoulder. +"Not this time, Peter, old son. Thanks, awfully. +I've had one or two good nights and my pockets +are full of dollars. They'll see me home with perfect +comfort. Well, here ends my visit to the United +States. To-morrow night I shall have left the hospitable +Statue of Liberty behind me. But she'll see +me again. I'll dash round in the morning and thank +your people for their extreme kindness to me. You'll +see me off, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter; "of course."</p> + +<p>"Of course. We won't dine to-night. I—I don't +feel like it."</p> + +<p>"I understand, old man," said Peter.<span class="pagenum">[267]</span></p> + +<p>"So long, then."</p> + +<p>"So long," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"The Earl is dead!" said Kenyon, with a sudden +break in his voice. "Long live the Earl!" And he +raised his hand above his head.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>VIII</h3> + +<p>Not for the first time in his comparatively short +life, Nicholas Kenyon was able to put to the test his +often boasted power of self-control. It was his creed +to accept everything that might happen to him, whether +good or bad, with equanimity. It was part of his +training to allow nothing to interfere with the routine +of his day and the particular scheme that he had +worked out for himself. He was, however, utterly +unprepared for his father's death. Only the day before +he had received a very cheerful and amusing letter +from the Earl of Shropshire which had provided +him with many quiet chuckles. When the blow came +in that sudden fashion it knocked him down and for +an hour reduced him to the level of an ordinary human +being—of a man who had not specialized in individualism +and who did not set the earth revolving round +himself as its hub. Shut up in his bedroom he gave +way to his real and best emotions, the genuineness of +which surprised him. He was a master egotist—a +superindividualist—the very acme of selfishness. +Therefore, odd as it may seem, he was somewhat +ashamed of his deep feeling, because it proved to him +that one of the links of his carefully forged chain of<span class="pagenum">[268]</span> +philosophy was weak. He defined the word philosopher +as one who is profoundly versed in the science of +looking after himself.</p> + +<p>As soon as Peter had left Kenyon's rooms, the new +Earl of Shropshire took himself in hand and "carried +on" as they do in the Navy after casualties, accidents +and the issue of new orders. He continued to arrange +his photographs round the room. He considered +that he might as well make himself completely +comfortable until the time came for him to pack up +again and leave the country. He called up Belle on the +telephone and had a little talk with her. He told her +of his father's death and of the fact that he would have +to sail within the next twenty-four hours. He listened +with satisfaction to her cry of anguish, and arranged +with her to come to see him that evening. It +appeared that she was engaged to dine with some +friends and go with them to hear Alfred Noyes read +his poems at the Æolian Hall. He insisted upon her +keeping her engagement and begged that she would +come round to his rooms alone at eleven o'clock.</p> + +<p>He didn't intend to leave the United States, even +under such circumstances, without adding Belle to his +little list of conquests. The cold-bloodedness of such +an intention was peculiarly characteristic of the man. +"No weakness," he said to himself—"no weakness. +No matter what happens, what had happened, is happening +or may happen, you must carry on. You've +built up a creed, stick to it." And then, very quietly—having +changed his tie to a black one—he went forth +to discover the offices of the White Star Steamship<span class="pagenum">[269]</span> +Company,—having obtained the proper directions +from his landlady. He took the subway to the Battery, +interviewed a clerk of Number One Broadway, +had the good fortune to find that there was a state-room +vacant on the boat deck of the <i>Olympic</i>; +wrote his cheque for it; pocketed a bundle of labels; +paid Graham a brief visit in his office on Wall Street +and walked all the way home again, endeavoring to +count the German names all along the most amazing +street in the world, and giving up his temporary hobby +in despair. On the way home he sent off a cable to +Baby Lennox, giving her the name of the ship on +which he was to sail. By this time he was tired and a +little dazed at the amazing stir and bustle of Broadway, +with its never-ceasing lines of cable-cars and its +whir and rush of human traffic. He was glad of a +cup of tea, and presently arranged himself for a quiet +nap on the sofa in his sitting-room.</p> + +<p>Later, with his mind concentrated solely on Belle's +impending visit and what he intended to achieve, he +dined alone at the Ritz, dropped in to see a turn or +two at the Palace, and strolled back to Forty-eighth +Street at half-past-ten. As he went into the house +he heard the landlady talking to the two young business +men who lived on the first floor. She was asking +them to be good enough not to play the piano that +evening, as the Professor had come back from the +country and was very unwell. She had sent for the +doctor, and he would be more comfortable if the house +were as silent as it could be made.</p> + +<p>Knowing that Belle would be punctual that night,<span class="pagenum">[270]</span> +of all nights, he went down just before eleven o'clock +and waited for her at the front door. It was his intention +to get her into the house unobserved, more for +his own sake than for hers. The night was clear, but +half a gale was blowing, carrying before it all the dust +of the city and sending odd pieces of paper swirling +into the air and making the hanging signs outside +shops and small restaurants creak and groan. In its +strong, vibrating song there was a note of wild passion +that fitted exquisitely into Kenyon's frame of mind.</p> + +<p>Belle drove up in a taxicab a few minutes after +eleven. "Not a word until we get upstairs," said +Kenyon, as he helped her out. And then when she +stood in his sitting-room, with all her emotions in a +state of upheaval, nothing was said for many minutes. +He took her in his arms and kissed her, delighting in +her young beauty and freshness with all the appreciation +of a connoisseur.</p> + +<p>There seemed to Belle to be no indiscretion in this +visit. Was she not engaged to be married to this man?</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, she was not. Kenyon had been +playing with her; and now that he had succeeded to his +father's title he had even less intention of dealing seriously +by her than ever before. Marriage was not in +his thoughts or plans. The title was his and the old +house that went with it, but he was no better off than +he had been as Nicholas Kenyon, the Oxford undergraduate. +On the contrary he now had responsibilities +of which he had hitherto been free and he must look +out for some one who could buy his name for a substantial +sum. If Belle had read into his vague and<span class="pagenum">[271]</span> +indefinite remarks a proposal of marriage it only +showed that she possessed a very lively imagination. +He was not going at that point to undeceive her. He +was merely going to take from her everything that she +was gracious enough to give. His trip to New York +had provided him with very little in actual substance. +He was determined that it should not be altogether +empty, and that Belle should furnish him with a charming +memento.</p> + +<p>He broke into Belle's preliminary remarks of conventional +condolence by saying, "Thank you; but +please don't say a word about my father. Let's talk +about ourselves. We're alive. The next few hours +are our property. Let's make them memorable. Let's +give each other something that we can never forget." +And he took her cloak and led her to a chair as though +she were a queen, and stood looking at her with very +greedy eyes.</p> + +<p>But Belle's temperament was Latin. Ever since +Kenyon had spoken to her over the telephone she had +been unable to control her feelings. She loved this +man overwhelmingly. She had given him all her +heart, which had never been touched before. To her +it seemed amazingly cruel that fate had come along +with its usual lack of sympathy and circumspection +and put a sudden end to all the delightful hours to +which she had been looking forward. The death of a +man whom she didn't know meant very little to her. +She was young, and to the young what is death but a +vague mystery, an inconvenient accident which seems +to affect every one but themselves? Indeed, she rather<span class="pagenum">[272]</span> +resented the fact that Kenyon's father, in dying, was +to take so suddenly out of her life the one human being +about whom her entire happiness revolved.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Nicholas, Nicholas! Must you go? Must +you leave me? Let me go with you. I have the right. +I shall be miserable and unhappy without you." And +she clung to him with all the unreasonableness of a +child.</p> + +<p>Kenyon was not in the least touched by this appeal—only +extremely pleased, because it showed him that +Belle was in the right mood to be won. He put his +hand on her round, white shoulder. "You must be +brave," he said. "I know how you feel, but you must +help me. Don't make things more difficult than they +are. I may be able to come back quite soon,—who +can tell?"</p> + +<p>"I believe you're glad to go!" cried Belle.</p> + +<p>Kenyon drew back. He wanted to make her feel +that she had hurt him. He succeeded.</p> + +<p>In an instant, full of self-reproach, Belle was on her +feet and in his arms again. "What am I going to do +without you? I almost wish you'd never come into +my life. I've been looking forward to your being +here the whole winter. How am I going to get +through the days alone?"</p> + +<p>A motor-car drew up at the house. Neither of them +heard Dr. Guthrie's voice giving a quick order to the +chauffeur or recognized his step as he passed upstairs +on the way to see his friend, the Professor, on the +floor above, to whom he had been called by the landlady.<span class="pagenum">[273]</span></p> + +<p>Presently, having turned out all the lights except a +shaded lamp on the table, Kenyon began to let himself +go. He threw aside his characteristic calmness and +became the lover—the passionate, adoring man who +was about to be separated, under tragic circumstances, +from the girl who was equally in love. He threw +aside his first intention of finessing Belle into his bedroom +on the plea of asking her to help him to pack. +He remembered that the old man above was ill and that +the landlady and others would be passing to and fro. +This was distinctly annoying. He was, however, a +past-master in the art that he was at present pursuing +and set the whole of his mind on his opportunity. +Belle was, naturally enough, as putty in his hands and +her despair at losing him made her weak and pliable.</p> + +<p>He sat down on the sofa and held Belle in his arms +and kissed her again and again. "I love you! I love +you! I don't know—I can't think what I shall be +like without you," he said, bringing all his elaborate +cunning to play upon her feelings. "More like a +man who's lost his arms than anything; and we were +to have come nearer and nearer this winter, finding +out all the best of each other and all the joy that it is +to love wholly and completely."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't go, don't go!" cried Belle, making a +pathetic and almost child-like refrain of the words, "I +love you so! I love you so!"</p> + +<p>Kenyon bent down with her until her head was pillowed +on the cushions, and kissed her lips and eyes. +"You must love me, sweetheart, you must. It's the +only thing that I can turn to and count on now. Go on<span class="pagenum">[274]</span> +loving me every minute that I'm away. I shall need +it,—and before I go let me have the precious proof of +your love to store up in my heart. Give me the priceless +gift that is the only thing to keep me living till I +come back."</p> + +<p>"Nicholas, Nicholas!" she whispered, with her +young breasts heaving against him. "I love you so! +I love you so!"</p> + +<p>The moment of his triumph had almost been reached +when the Doctor, on his way down, saw something +glistening in the passage outside Kenyon's sitting-room. +He stooped and picked it up. He was puzzled +to see that it was a little brooch that he had given +to Belle on one of her birthdays. Her initials had +been worked on it in diamonds. For several moments +he held it in his hand, wondering how it could +have been dropped in that place. He was utterly +unaware of the fact that Kenyon lived in the house +which he knew to be given up to bachelors. Then +the blood rushed into his head. Almost for the first +time in his life the Doctor acted on the spur of +the moment. He was filled with a sudden sense of +fear before which his inherent shyness and hesitancy +were swept completely away. He tried to open the +door. It was locked. He hammered upon it, shouting: +"Let me in! Let me in!"</p> + +<p>Kenyon, cursing inwardly, sprang up from the sofa. +"It's your father," he said. "Go and sit by the table, +quick, and pretend to be arranging these photographs." +He could have ignored that knocking, but the result +would be that the Doctor would go down to the landlady<span class="pagenum">[275]</span> +and there would be a scandal. How in the name +of thunder did he know that Belle was in the room? +He dashed over to the mantel-piece, collected a handful +of his pictures and threw them on the table in +front of Belle, who, with a touch of panic, tried to +smooth her hair. Then he went to the door and +opened it.</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Doctor," he said quietly. "This +is very kind of you. Belle is here helping me to pack, +and Peter should have been here, but I expect something +has detained him. Do come in." He saw the +brooch in the Doctor's hand and cursed Belle's carelessness.</p> + +<p>As Dr. Guthrie entered the room the blood slowly +left his head. A feeling of intense relief pervaded +him. He saw Belle sitting at the table with the utmost +composure putting one photograph on top of +another. At his side stood the man who had recently +been his honored guest and who was the best friend +of his eldest son,—the man of whose sad loss he had +heard that afternoon from his wife. He thanked God +that everything was well and hastened to accept Kenyon's +suggestion that he had come there for the purpose +of saying good-bye to him. It saved him from +the appearance of having lost his head and made a +fool of himself. "I—I'm indeed grieved to hear of +your father's death, my dear Mr. Kenyon," he said, +stammering a little. "I was called to see an old friend +of mine who lives in this house, who isn't at all well, +and I thought I'd take the opportunity on my way +down——"<span class="pagenum">[276]</span></p> + +<p>"I'm deeply obliged to you," said Kenyon, giving +the weak, nervous man before him the credit of having +seized the hint so quickly. "It helps me very much +to have so many good friends. I sail to-morrow at +two-thirty. This is a good opportunity for me to +thank you very much for your delightful hospitality. +Will you wait for Peter?"</p> + +<p>"No; I think not, thanks," said the Doctor. "It's +getting late and, as you say, Peter has in all probability +been detained. Belle, dear, I think you'd better +come with me, now."</p> + +<p>Kenyon was still quite placid and courteous and undaunted. +"Oh, but mayn't she stay until Peter turns +up?"</p> + +<p>"I think not," replied the Doctor, astonished at his +own firmness. "It's very late."</p> + +<p>"Curse it! Curse it!" cried Kenyon, inwardly. +But with a little smile he went over to Belle and gave +her his hand. "You've helped me a lot," he said. "I +can easily finish packing now. Good night and good-bye."</p> + +<p>Choking back her sobs and full of resentment at +her father's clumsiness and interference, Belle rose and +allowed Kenyon to help her into her cloak.</p> + +<p>By a strange accident she, like Graham, had been +saved from a disaster which might have followed her +into the future. God's hand must have been stretched +out to help that man, who, by his unconscious neglect, +had made it possible for these two children of his to +stand on the brink of irreparable misfortune.</p> + +<p>Kenyon, keeping up a quiet flow of conventional<span class="pagenum">[277]</span> +remarks, followed them down-stairs and out into the +street. He could have drawn Belle back into the hall +while the Doctor went out to the car, and kissed her +once again. But,—it was over, what was the use. +He watched her fling herself into the motor-car and +sit all hunched up with her hands over her face, and +then he took the Doctor's hand and shook it warmly. +All the angels in Heaven must have shuddered as he +did so, and cried, "Judas! Judas!"</p> + +<p>"Good-bye again, then," said the Doctor. "I'm +deeply sorry for the reason that takes you away from +us. I hope we may see you again soon."</p> + +<p>"I hope so, too," said Kenyon.</p> + +<p>Standing in that quiet street he watched the automobile +drive away, and cursed. His mind was filled +with impotent rage. He felt as he did when he was a +child and some one had hurt him. He wanted to find +the thing which that some one treasured most and +break it all to pieces, and stamp on it. Then he returned +to his rooms, switched on all the lights, and with +a gesture almost animalish in its baffled passion, swept +all the photographs from the table.</p> + +<p>He was kicking them savagely, one after another, +when he heard the whistle which he and Peter had +used at Oxford to attract each other's attention. He +ran to the window and opened it. There stood +Peter with a glint of moonlight on his great square +shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Come up!" said Kenyon. "By God, my luck's +come back! Now I can make that old fool pay for +ruining my evening!"<span class="pagenum">[278]</span></p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>IX</h3> + +<p>With a fiendish scheme in the back of his head and +with a most unpleasant smile on his face, Kenyon went +over to the sideboard. He brought out two glasses. +In one he mixed a whiskey high-ball and in the other +he poured a concoction of neat whiskey and brandy, +adding everything else that his bottles contained,—a +mixture calculated to dull the senses even of the most +hardened drinker. Then he waited—still with this +unpleasant smile upon his face.</p> + +<p>When Peter came in he looked tired and pale. His +boots were covered with dust and there were beads of +perspiration on his forehead. "I saw that you were +up," he said, "so I whistled. If you hadn't called out +I should have gone home. Hope you don't mind."</p> + +<p>"Mind!" cried Kenyon. "I never was so glad to +see anybody in my life. You look like a tramp. +Where've you been?"</p> + +<p>Peter threw his hat on the sofa and sat down heavily. +"I wasn't in the mood to go home to dinner. I've +been walking hard ever since I saw you. God knows +where I've been. At one time I stood under the +apartment-house in Gramercy Park. It's a wonder I +didn't go up and have it out again with Ranken Townsend. +But it wouldn't have been any use."</p> + +<p>"Not the smallest," said Kenyon. "You'd only +have given him the satisfaction of standing on his hind-legs +and preaching to you. Will you have something +to eat?"<span class="pagenum">[279]</span></p> + +<p>Peter shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, have a drink." And he put the poison +in front of Peter. "I was going to drink to myself,—a +rather dull proceeding alone. Now you can join +me. On your feet, Peter, old man, and with no heel-taps, +I give you 'the new Peer! The most decorative +member of England's aristocracy,—Nicholas Augustus +Fitzhugh Kenyon, Eighth Earl of Shropshire, +master of Thrapstone-Wynyates—the man without +a shilling!' Let it go!"</p> + +<p>Peter stood up, clinked his friend's glass with his +own, emptied it and set it down. "Good Lord!" he +said, with a frightful grimace. "What in thunder +was that?"</p> + +<p>Kenyon burst into a derisive laugh. "'Some +drink,' as you say over here. Away goes your water-wagon, +Master Peter. Off you come from your self +made pedestal. Drunk and incapable will be the words +that will presently be very fitly applied to you, my immaculate +friend." And he laughed again, as though +it were a great joke. It would do him good to see +Peter "human," as he called it, for once, to satisfy +his sense of revenge—to pay out Dr. Guthrie for his +cursed interference.</p> + +<p>Peter was glad to get back to his chair. "I don't +care what happens to me," he said. "What does it +matter? I've got nothing to live for—a father who +doesn't care a damn what becomes of me, and a girl +who's given me up without a struggle."</p> + +<p>He had had nothing to eat since the middle of the +day. He was mentally and physically weary. Al<span class="pagenum">[280]</span>though +he was unaware of the fact, he had caught a +severe chill. It was not surprising that the horrible +concoction which Kenyon had deliberately mixed went +straight to his head.</p> + +<p>Everything vile lying at the bottom of Kenyon's +nature had been stirred up. At that moment he cared +nothing for his friend's repeated generosity, his consistent +loyalty and his golden friendship. With a sort +of diabolical desire to amuse himself and see humiliated +in front of him the man who had stuck to his principles +so grimly, he filled his glass again, to make certainty +doubly certain. "This time," he cried, "I'll give you +another toast. Come on, now. On your feet again, +and drink to 'that most charming family, the Guthries, +and in particular to the eldest son—to the dear, good +boy who has run straight and never been drunk, and +has treated women with such noble chivalry. In a +word, to Peter, the virgin man.'" He raised his glass, +and so did Peter. This time the stuff almost choked +him and he set his glass down only half empty. But +he put on a brave front and sat up straight, laughing +a little. "Nice rooms, these," he said. "Large and +airy. Bit nicer than our first rooms at Oxford, eh?" +How different this hideous poison made him look. +Already he was like a fine building blurred by mist.</p> + +<p>"It's extraordinary what you dry heroes can do +when you try," said Kenyon. "All I hope is that +you'll come face to face with your fond parent presently +when you fumble your way into your beautiful +home." He bent down and picked up his photographs +and went on talking as though to himself. "Yes,<span class="pagenum">[281]</span> +there's some satisfaction in making others pay. I've +tried it before, and know. I remember that plebeian +little hunx at Oxford who was going into the Church. +His name was Jones,—or something of the sort. I +think he was a damned Welshman. He once called +me a 'card sharp.' I didn't forget it. The first +night he turned up in his Parson's clothes I doped him +and he woke up next morning in the gutter. I loved +it. Now, then, Peter, give me a hand with these +things and bring them across the passage to my bedroom." +He pointed to some books and left the room +with his photographs.</p> + +<p>Peter got up unsteadily and rocked to and fro. He +picked up the books as he was directed and staggered +after his friend. He lurched into the bedroom and +stood in the doorway, supporting himself. "I'm—I'm +drunk," he said, thickly. "Hopelessly drunk. +Wha—what the devil have you done to me?"</p> + +<p>Kenyon burst out laughing. Many times he had +threatened to do this for his friend, whose attitude +of consistent healthiness and simplicity had always +irritated him. He delighted at that moment in seeing +Peter all befogged and helpless and as wholly unable +to look after himself as though he were a baby.</p> + +<p>"Now you'd better go," he said sharply. He was +tired with the episode. "I'm sick of the Guthries! +Go home and cling to your bed while it chases round +the room. I'll have mercy on you however to this +extent. I'll put you in a taxi. There's sure to be one +outside the hotel down the street. Come on, you hulking +ex-Oxford man. Lean on me. Rather a paradox,<span class="pagenum">[282]</span> +isn't it? Hitherto I've always leaned on you." +He got his visitor's hat and jammed it on his head, +all cock-eyed. And then, still talking and jibeing and +sneering, he led the uncertain Peter down-stairs.</p> + +<p>There were two taxicabs drawn up outside the hotel +to which Kenyon had referred. He shouted and +waved his hand. A chauffeur mounted his box, +manœuvred the car around and drove up, glad to get +a fare.</p> + +<p>As he did so, a night butterfly flitted past, on her +way home. She had had apparently an unsuccessful +evening, for she stopped at the sight of these two men. +Her rather pretty, thin, painted face wore an eager, +anxious look. "Hello, dearie!" she said, and touched +Kenyon on the arm.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" said Kenyon to himself. "By Jove!"</p> + +<p>He was struck with a new inspiration. He had +made his friend drunk. Good! Now he would send +him off with a woman of the streets. That would +complete his evening's work in the most artistic fashion, +and render Peter human at last. And who could tell? +It might hit the Doctor fair and square,—"the tactless, +witless, provincial fool."</p> + +<p>"Wait a second," he said to the girl, and with +the able assistance of the driver put the almost inanimate +and poisoned Peter into the cab. Then he +turned. The night bird was eyeing him with a curious +wistfulness. She was too smartly dressed and the +white tops of her high boots gleamed sarcastically. +"Well, dearie?"</p> + +<p>"There's a customer for you," said Kenyon, jerking<span class="pagenum">[283]</span> +his finger towards the cab. "Take him home. +He has money in his pocket. Help yourself."</p> + +<p>The girl gave the driver her address—which was +somewhere in the Sixties—and then, with a little +chuckle, jumped in and drew the door to behind her +with a bang that echoed through the sleeping street.</p> + +<p>The cab drove away, and Kenyon's laugh went +after it.</p> + +<p>He was revenged.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>X</h3> + +<p>But for the chauffeur, a burly and obliging Irishman, +Nellie Pope's unwilling and unconscious customer +would never have reached her rooms. They were on +the top floor of a brown-stone house which had no +elevator. The struggle to earn his own daily bread +made the chauffeur sympathetic. So he got Peter +over his shoulder, as though he were a huge sack, and +carried him step by step up the narrow, ill-lit, echoing +staircase. On the top landing he waited, breathing +hard, while the girl opened the door with her latch-key.</p> + +<p>"Where'll I put him?"</p> + +<p>"Bring 'im into the bedroom," said the girl. "I'm +sure I'm obliged to you for the trouble you've taken, +mister. You'll 'ave a glass of beer before you go +down, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Sure!"</p> + +<p>He lumped Peter on to the bed with an exclamation +of relief. It groaned beneath his dead weight. Mopping<span class="pagenum">[284]</span> +his brow and running his fingers through a shock +of thick, dry hair, the Irishman looked down at the +great body of his own customer's evening catch. "I +guess I've seen a good many drunks before," he said, +"but this feller's fairly paralyzed. It's a barrel he +must have had, or perhaps he's shot himself with one +of them needle things. Anyway, he's a fine-looking +chap."</p> + +<p>Nellie Pope, who had heard these remarks as she +was pouring out a bottle of beer,—it was one of +those apartments in which every sound carries from +room to room and in which when you are seated in +the kitchen it is possible to hear a person cleaning his +teeth in the bathroom,—went in and stood at the +elbow of the chauffeur. Switching on a light over +the bed she peered into Peter's face. Her own lost +most of its prettiness under the glare. There were +hollows and sharpnesses here and there, the roots of +the hair round her temples were darker than the too-bright +gold of the rest of it. There was, however, +something kind, and even a little sweet about her +English cockney face and shrewd eyes. "Yes 'e's a +fine looking chap, isn't 'e,—a bit of a giant, too, and +looks like a gentleman. Poor boy, I wonder what that +feller did to 'im!" She put her hand on Peter's head +and drew it back quickly. "'E's got a fever, I should +think. It looks as if I should 'ave to play nurse to-night. +Oh, I beg pardon, mister, 'ere's your beer."</p> + +<p>The Irishman took the glass, held it up against the +light, made a curious Kaffir-like click with his tongue +and threw back his head. "I guess that went down<span class="pagenum">[285]</span> +fine," said he. "One dollar and ten cents from you, +Miss, and I'll make no charge for extras." He held +out a great horny hand.</p> + +<p>Nellie Pope opened her imitation gold bag. "Bin +out o' luck lately," she said. "Don't know whether +I've got—No, I 'aven't. Oh, I know!" With a +little laugh she bent over Peter again and hunted him +over for some money. Finding a small leather case +she opened it. It contained a wad of bills. With a +rather comical air of haughty unconcern she handed +the chauffeur two dollars. "Keep the change," she +said.</p> + +<p>He laughed, pocketed the money, handed back the +glass and went off, shutting the door behind him.</p> + +<p>Miss Pope, who had a tidy mind as well as an +economical nature, took the glass into the kitchen and +finished the bottle herself. And then, without removing +her hat and gloves she sat down and counted the +money that was contained in the case. "One hundred +and twenty-five dollars," she said. "Some little +hevening!"</p> + +<p>She put the case into her bag, where it lay among +a handkerchief, steeped in a too-pungent scent, a small, +round box of powder, a stick of lip salve, and a few +promiscuous dimes. Then she took off her hat—a +curious net-like thing round which was wound two +bright feathers—her coat and her gloves. The latter +she blew out tenderly, almost with deference. They +were white kid. All these she put very carefully on a +scrupulously clean dresser. Singing a little song she +arranged a meal for herself on the table,—having<span class="pagenum">[286]</span> +first laid a cloth. Bread, butter and sardines made +their appearance, with the remains of a chocolate cake +which had been greatly to the taste of her last night's +customer, who had not been, however, a very generous +person. Extremely hungry, she sat down and, with +the knowledge that her purse was full, laid on the +butter with a more careless hand than usual. While +she ate she enjoyed the bright dialogue of Robert +Chambers in a magazine which, having first broken +its back in order to keep it open, she propped up +against a bowl. Half way through the meal, she +jumped up suddenly. "'Ere!" she said. "You can't +leave that poor boy like that, you careless cat, and 'im +lying with a fever!" She went swiftly into the bedroom, +and once more stood looking down at the inert +form of poor old Peter. Then she laughed at the +difficulty of taking off his clothes, and with a shrug +of her shoulders started pluckily at his boots. She +hung the coat and waistcoat over the back of one +of the chairs,—there were only two,—and having +folded the trousers with great care, returned to her +supper. It was after two o'clock when finally she +crept quietly into bed.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XI</h3> + +<p>A little over twenty-four years before, Nellie +Pope had been born to two honest, hard-working country +folk. They lived in a village of about two dozen +cottages a stone's throw from the great cross cut by +the Romans on the chalky side of Chiltern Hills, in<span class="pagenum">[287]</span> +England. Her parents' quiver had already been a full +one and there was indeed very little room in it for +the new arrival. Eight other boys and girls had preceded +her with a rapidity which must have surprised +nature herself, bounteous as she is. The father, a +deep-chested, brown-bearded, very ignorant, but good-natured +man, worked all the year round on a farm. +His wages were fourteen shillings a week. The wife, +who had been a domestic servant, added to the family +pot by taking in washing and, if able, helping at the +big house when guests were there. Neither of them +had ever been farther away from their native village +than the town which lay in the saucer of the valley, +the steeple of whose church could be seen glinting in +the sun away below.</p> + +<p>Little Nellai, as she was called, was thrown on her +own resources from the moment that she could crawl +out of the narrow kitchen door into the patch of garden +where potatoes grew and eager chickens played +the scavenger for odd morsels of food. Her eldest +sister was her real mother, and it was she who daily +led her little brood of dirty-faced children out into +the beech forest which stood in strange silence behind +the cottage. The monotonous years slipped by one +after another, enlivened only by a death or a birth or +a fight, or a very occasional jaunt to the town in one +of the farm wagons, perched up on a load of hay or +wedged in between sacks of potatoes. Little Nellai's +pretty face and fair hair very soon made her a pet +of the lady at the big house, and it was from this +kind, but mistaken person, from whom she obtained<span class="pagenum">[288]</span> +the seeds of discontent which at the early age of sixteen +sent her into the town as a "help" in the kitchen of a +man who kept a garage. It was from this place, on +the main road to London, that Nellie Pope saw life +for the first time and became aware of the fact that +the world was a larger place than the little village +perched up so near the sky, and caught the fever of +discovery from the white dust that was left behind +by the cars which sped to London one way, and to +Oxford the other.</p> + +<p>During this first year among shops and country +louts, Nellie became aware of the fact that her pretty +face and fair hair were very valuable assets. They +procured her candies and many other little presents. +They enabled her to make a choice among the young +men with whom to walk out. They won smiles and +pleasant words not only from the chauffeurs of the +cars which came into her master's garage to be attended +to, but also from their owners. Eventually it +was one of these—more unscrupulous than most—who, +staying for a few days at the "Red Lion," +carried Nellie away with him to London, after several +surreptitious meetings in the shady lane at the back +of the churchyard. There it was that she saw life +with very naked eyes, passed quickly from one so-called +protector to another, was taken to the United States +by one of a troupe of gymnasts, and then deserted. +For two years she had been numbered among the night +birds who flit out after dark—a member of the oldest +profession in the world. There were, however, no +moments in her life—hard, terrible and sordid as it<span class="pagenum">[289]</span> +was—when she looked back with anything like regret +at those heavily thatched cottages which stood among +their little gardens on the side of the hills. She +could put up with the fatigue, brutality and uncertainty, +the gross actuality of her present life, with +courage, cheerfulness and even optimism, but the mere +thought of the deadly monotony of that peaceful village, +where summer followed winter with inexorable +routine, made her shudder. The first pretty frock +which had been given her by the lady of the big house +had begun the work. The candies and the little presents +from the country louts had completed it; and here +she was, still very young, with a heart still kind and +with a nature not yet warped and brutalized,—a +danger to any community in which she lived, the deliberate +spreader of something so frightful that science +and civilization stood abashed in her presence.</p> + +<p>Vanity has much to answer for, and out of nature +spring many plants whose tempting berries are filled +with poison.</p> + +<p>It was in the bed of this wretched little woman that +the unconscious Peter slept that night.</p> + +<p>It was ten o'clock in the morning when the weary +girl faced another day. She didn't grumble at the +fact that she had been frequently disturbed and had +watched many of the hours go by while she attended +to Peter with something of the spirit of a Magdalen. +She kept repeating to herself: "Poor boy! Poor boy! +I wonder what his mother would say if she saw him +like this."</p> + +<p>She bathed his head, listened with astonishment to<span class="pagenum">[290]</span> +his babbling, and tried to piece together his incoherent +pleading with Ranken Townsend and his declarations +to Betty of his everlasting love. She listened with +acute interest to the broken sentences which showed her +that this great big man-boy was endeavoring to stir up +his father to do something which seemed to him to be +urgent and vital, and she wondered who Graham was, +and Nicholas.</p> + +<p>The first thing that she did when she was dressed +and had put the kettle on her gas stove to boil, was to +hunt through Peter's pockets to find out who he was. +It was obvious to her that he was not so much a customer +as a patient. She was a little afraid of accepting +the whole responsibility of his case. The only +letter she found was one signed "Graham," headed +with the address of an office in Wall Street. In the +corner of it was printed a telephone number. Graham, +it was plain to her, was a Christian name. She could +find no suggestion of the surname of the writer or of +the man who lay so heavily in the next room.</p> + +<p>"I dunno," she said to herself. "Something has +got to be done. That boy's in a bad way. 'E's as +'ot as a pancake and I shouldn't think 'e's used to +drink by the way 'e takes it. Suppose hanything +should 'appen to 'im 'ere. I should look funny. What +'ad I better do?"</p> + +<p>What she did was to have breakfast. During this +hasty meal she thought things over—all her hard-won +practicality at work in her brain. Then she put on +her befeathered hat and her white gloves, a second-best +pair of shoes, and went out and along the street,<span class="pagenum">[291]</span> +and into the nearest drug store. Here she entered +the telephone booth and asked for the number that was +printed on Graham's note. By that time it was just +after nine o'clock. Having complied with the sharp +request to slip the necessary nickel into the slot, an +impatient voice recited the name of the firm. "I +want to speak to Mr. Graham," she said. "No such +name—? Well, keep your 'air on, Mister. I may +be a client—a millionaire's wife—for all you know. +I'm asking for Mr. Graham and as 'e's a friend of +mine, and probably your boss, I'm not bothering about +his surname. You know that as well as I do—Do +I mean Mr. Graham Guthrie? Well, yes. Who else +should I mean?" She gave a chuckle of triumph. +"All right! I'll 'old on."</p> + +<p>In a moment or two there was another voice on the +telephone. "How d'you do?" she said. "I'm holding +a letter signed by you, to 'Dear Peter,'—Ah! +I thought that would make you jump—It doesn't +matter what my name is. What's that—? Yes, I <i>do</i> +know where he is. I've been looking after 'im all +night. Come up to my place right away and I'll +be there to meet you. Dear Peter is far from well." +She gave her address, and feeling immensely relieved +left the box. But before she left the store she treated +herself to a large box of talcum powder and a medium-sized +bottle of her favorite scent, paying the bill with +Peter's money. She considered herself to be fully +justified.</p> + +<p>On the way home she dropped into a delicatessen +shop and bought some sausages, a bottle of pickles, a<span class="pagenum">[292]</span> +queer German salad of raw herring chopped up with +carrots and onions, and carried these away with her. +On her way up-stairs—the bald, hard stairs—she +was greeted by a half-dressed person whose hair was +in curl-papers and who had opened her door to pick +up a daily paper which lay outside. "Hello, Miss +Pope! Anything doing?" "Yes," said Nellie Pope, +"the market's improving," and she laughed and went +on.</p> + +<p>Peter was still lying inert when she bent over him +once more. She felt his head again, put the covers +about his shoulders, pulled the blind more closely over +the window, and after having put the food away returned +to make up her face. She wasn't going to be +caught looking what she called "second-rate" by this +Mr. Graham Guthrie when he came.</p> + +<p>There being no need to practice rigid economy at +that moment, she gave herself a glass of beer and sat +down to pass the time with her magazine, in which +life was regarded through very rosy spectacles.</p> + +<p>When finally she opened the door, in response to a +loud and insistent ring, her answer to Graham's abrupt +question: "Is my brother <i>here</i>?" was "Yes; why +shouldn't he be?" She didn't like the tone. The +word "here" was underlined in an unnecessarily unpleasant +manner.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XII</h3> + +<p>"What's my brother doing here?" asked Graham.</p> + +<p>"What d'you s'pose? Better go and ask 'im yourself."<span class="pagenum">[293]</span></p> + +<p>"Where is he?"</p> + +<p>"In bed, if you must know." The girl answered +sharply. She found her caller supercilious. She +followed him into the bedroom, telling herself that +this was a nice way to be treated for all the trouble +that she had taken.</p> + +<p>Graham bent over the bed. "Good God!" he said. +"What's the matter with him?"</p> + +<p>"Drink!" said the girl drily.</p> + +<p>"Drink! He never drinks."</p> + +<p>"Then 'e must 'ave fallen off the water-wagon into +a barrel of alcohol and opened 'is mouth too wide. +Also 'e's got a fever."</p> + +<p>Graham turned on the girl. "How did he get +here?"</p> + +<p>"In a cab. You don't s'pose I carried 'im, +d'you?"</p> + +<p>"Where'd you find him?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't find 'im. Some one gave 'im to me as a +present—a nice present, I must say."</p> + +<p>"Don't lie to me!" cried Graham. "And don't be +impudent."</p> + +<p>"Impudent!" cried Nellie Pope, shrilly. "Here, +you'd better watch what you're saying. I don't stand +any cheek, I don't, neither from you nor anybody +else, and I'm not in the habit of lying. I tell you I was +made a present of 'im. I was told to take 'im 'ome +by a young fellow on Forty-eighth Street, who 'ad +called up a cab."</p> + +<p>"Forty-eighth Street,—are you sure?"</p> + +<p>"Well, if I don't know the streets, who does? The<span class="pagenum">[294]</span> +young fellow was a gent. He didn't talk, he gave +orders. He was tall and slight and he 'ad kinky hair. +Quite a nut. English, he was, any one could tell +that."</p> + +<p>"Good God!" thought Graham—"Kenyon." He +sat down on the bed as though he had received a blow +in the middle of his back. Only an hour before he +had telephoned to Kenyon to say good-bye and wish +him a pleasant crossing, and all that he said about +Peter was that they had seen each other the night before. +"No doubt he's all right," he had said, in +answer to Graham's anxious question. What did it +all mean? What foul thing had Kenyon done?</p> + +<p>Graham had been up all night waiting for his +brother. He had good news for him. He had pulled +himself together and gone to see Ranken Townsend +during the time that Peter had been walking the streets. +To the artist he had made a clean breast of everything, +so that he might, once for all, set Peter right in the +eyes of his future father-in-law. That was the least +that he could do. He had carried away from the +studio in his pocket a short, generous and impulsive +letter from the artist, asking Peter's forgiveness for +not having accepted his word of honor. Armed with +this, Graham had waited while hour after hour slipped +by, growing more and more anxious as Peter did not +appear. At breakfast he told his mother—in case +she should discover that Peter had not returned—that +he had stayed the night in Kenyon's rooms, as they +had much to talk about and one or two things to +arrange. He had been in the house when Kenyon<span class="pagenum">[295]</span> +had rung up, apologizing for being unable to come +round, and thanking Mrs. Guthrie for her kindness and +hospitality.</p> + +<p>And there lay Peter inanimate and stupefied. In +the name of all that was horrible, what had happened? +Graham got up and faced the girl again. "You +mustn't mind my being abrupt and rude," he said. +"I'm awfully sorry. But this is my brother, my best +pal, and I've been terribly anxious about him, and you +don't know—nobody knows—what it means to me +to see him like this."</p> + +<p>"Ah! Now you're talking," said Nellie Pope. +"Treat me nicely and there's nothing I won't do for +you. If you ask me—and if I don't know a bit +more about life than you do I ought to—I have a +shrewd idea that your brother was made drunk,—that +is, <i>doped</i>. 'E was quite gone when 'e was put into the +cab, and from the way that kinky-headed chap laughed +as we drove off together,—I mean me and your +brother,—I should think that 'e 'ad it in for him, but +of course I don't know hanything about that. Perhaps +you do."</p> + +<p>Graham shook his head. "No," he said; "I don't +know anything about it either. But what are we +going to do with him, that's the point? He's ill, that's +obvious, and a doctor ought to see him at once."</p> + +<p>"That's what I think," said the girl, "and I don't +think 'e ought to be moved, 'e's so frightfully 'ot. 'E +might catch pneumonia, or something. What I think +you'd better do is to call up a doctor at once, get him +to give your brother a dose and give me directions as<span class="pagenum">[296]</span> +to what to do. 'E can stay 'ere until 'e's all right +again, and I'll nurse 'im."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but why should you——?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, bless you, that's all right. I'm glad to have +something to do. Time hangs heavy. Besides, the +poor boy is just like a baby. I like 'im and you +needn't be afraid that I shall try to get anything out +of 'im, because I shan't."</p> + +<p>Graham snatched eagerly at the proffered assistance. +He was intensely grateful. "Have you a telephone +here?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Nellie Pope laughed. "What d'you take me for?" +she said. "I'm not a chorus lady. When I want to +use the 'phone I pop round to the drug store and have +a nickel's worth. That's how I got on to you."</p> + +<p>Graham caught up his hat and left the apartment +quickly. One of his college friends was a doctor and +had just started to practice. He would ask him to +come and see Peter. He agreed with the girl that it +would be running a great risk to move Peter, and he +was all against taking him home in his present condition. +It would only lead to more lies and would +certainly throw his mother into a dreadful state of +anxiety.</p> + +<p>While he was gone, Nellie Pope set to work to tidy +up the bedroom. She put her boots away in a closet, +got out a clean bedspread, rubbed the powder off her +mirror and arranged her dressing-table. This doctor, +whoever he was, should find her apartment as tidy as +she could make it. It was a matter of pride with her. +She still had some of that left. One thing, however,<span class="pagenum">[297]</span> +she was determined about. The doctor must not be +allowed to look too closely at her.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XIII</h3> + +<p>Graham came out of the telephone box in the drug +store. Dr. Harding was unable, he said, to leave his +office for an hour and a half, when he would drive to +Nellie Pope's address and meet Graham in her apartment.</p> + +<p>But as he was hurrying back to Peter's bedside, +Graham drew up suddenly. The rage that had entered +into his soul when he had gathered that Kenyon +was responsible for his brother's condition broke into +a blaze. Almost before he knew what he was doing +or what he was going to do when he got there, he hailed +a passing taxi and told the man to drive to Kenyon's +apartment. He remembered that the liner was not +due to leave until two-thirty. Kenyon would therefore +be at home for some time yet. He told himself +that he <i>must</i> see him—he must. He owed it to +Peter first, and then to himself as Peter's brother and +pal, to make Kenyon answer for this dirty and disloyal +trick. Yes, that was it, he told himself as the cab +bowled quickly to its destination. Kenyon must be +made to answer, or, at any rate, to offer some extenuating +explanation if he could. It would be something +that would make him wake up in the middle of +the night and curse himself if he let the opportunity +slip out of his hands to face Kenyon up before he went<span class="pagenum">[298]</span> +immaculately, unquestioned and perhaps unpunished +out of their lives. How could he face Peter when he +was well again? How could he look at his own reflection +in the looking-glass if, for reasons of his personal +admiration of Kenyon and disinclination to force +things to an issue, he let him escape without finding +out the truth?</p> + +<p>The cab stopped. Graham sprang out, paid the +man, ran up the flight of stone steps and rang the bell. +None too quickly it was answered by a girl with a mass +of black hair and a pair of Irish eyes which had been +put in with a dirty finger.</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Kenyon in?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>The hall was filled with baggage. A very distinct +"K" was on all the baggage tabs.</p> + +<p>"All right!" said Graham. "I know my way +up."</p> + +<p>Rather sharply Kenyon called out "Come in!" +when Graham knocked on the door of the sitting-room.</p> + +<p>In a much-waisted suit of brown clothes, a brown +tie and a pair of brown shoes which were so highly +polished as to look almost hot, Kenyon was standing +with the telephone receiver to his ear. He was saying +"Good-bye" to one of the men to whom Graham +had been proud to introduce him and whose pockets he +had already lightened by a fairly considerable sum. +He finished speaking before turning to see who had entered, +and hung up the receiver.</p> + +<p>"Oh, hello, my dear fellow!" he said. "I didn't<span class="pagenum">[299]</span> +expect to see you. How extremely and peculiarly +pleasant!"</p> + +<p>Graham wondered if he would think so by the time +that he had done with him. But, with a strong effort +of will, he kept his self-control. He intended to let +Kenyon give himself away. That seemed to be the +best plan.</p> + +<p>Kenyon gave him no chance to speak. "Not satisfied +with wishing me 'bon voyage' over the wire, eh? +By Jove, this is most friendly of you. You'll help +kill the boring time before I drive off to the docks +with all my duly and laboriously labelled luggage. +Make yourself at home, old boy, and give me your +news."</p> + +<p>He took his hat and stick and yellow gloves out +of the one comfortable chair and waved his hand +toward it.</p> + +<p>Graham remained standing. Having seen Peter +lying in such a bed, inert and humiliated,—Peter, of +all men,—he resented Kenyon's suave cordiality and +glib complacency. "I've just come from Peter," he +said.</p> + +<p>Kenyon burst out laughing. "Oh, do tell me! +How does he look? Is his head as big as the dome of +St. Paul's this morning? It ought to be. I gave him +the sort of mixture that would blow most men skyhigh. +It's never been known to fail."</p> + +<p>"It hasn't?" said Graham. "So you <i>did</i> give it +to him!" he added inwardly. "Good! You'll pay +for <i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>"I was amazed to see the thirsty way our abstemious<span class="pagenum">[300]</span> +Peter lapped it down. I've a sneaking notion +that he liked it. It was on an empty stomach, too. +He seems to have been in an emotional mood yesterday—tramping +the streets. Ye gods, how these +sentimentalists go to pieces under the influence of a +bit of a girl! He came up here fairly late, just after +Belle—I mean, just after——"</p> + +<p>"Belle? Was Belle here last night, then?" Graham's +voice rang out sharply.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Kenyon, with a curious smile. After +all, what did it matter now who knew? He was on +the verge of sailing and he hoped that he might never +see this family of Guthries again. "Yes, Belle was +here."</p> + +<p>There was a look in the corners of Kenyon's eyes +that sent a spasm of fear all through Graham's body. +What was this man not capable of doing since he had +deliberately turned Peter, his friend, over to a street-walker, +having first rendered him senseless? "Then +I'm here for Belle, as well," he said to himself, "and +whatever you did you'll pay for that too."</p> + +<p>There was an empty cardboard collar-box on the +floor. Kenyon gave it a spiteful kick. "Yes, Belle +and I had,—what shall I call it?—a rather tender +parting scene here last night,—quite tender, in fact. +All very amusing in the sum total of things, eh? I +was peculiarly ready for Peter when he dropped in. +And, by the way, how on earth did you find out where +he spent the night, learning, I trust, to shake off some +of his Quaker notions?"</p> + +<p>"She rang me up," said Graham, whose fists were<span class="pagenum">[301]</span> +clenched so tightly that every finger contained a pulse. +He was almost ready to hit—almost. He was only +waiting for one other proof of this dirty dog's +treachery.</p> + +<p>"Oh, did she? Found your name and address in +Peter's pocket, I suppose. Well, she came along last +night at the exact psychological moment. The alacrity +with which she took dear old drunken Peter off my +hands at the merest hint had a certain amount of +pathos about it. <i>He's</i> off his immaculate perch now, +eh? <i>He's</i> left his tuppenny halo on a pretty sordid +hat-peg, at last, eh? He'll thank me for having done +it for him one of these days, I'll be bound."</p> + +<p>Graham went slowly over to him. "Not one of +these days," he said with extreme distinctness. +"Through me, thank God, to-day—now."</p> + +<p>Kenyon darted a quick look at the man who had +always caused him a considerable amount of inward +laughter, whom he had labelled as a precocious provincial. +He saw that his face had gone as white as a +stone—that his nostrils were all distended and that +his eyes seemed to have become bloodshot. No +coward, Kenyon had an inherent detestation of a +fracas, especially when he was dressed for the street. +He decided to avert a row with a touch of autocratic +authority. It had worked before.</p> + +<p>"Let there be no vulgar display of pugilism here," +he said, sharply. "If you don't like my methods, get +out!"</p> + +<p>Everything in Graham's nature seemed to have become +concentrated in one big ball of desire to hit and<span class="pagenum">[302]</span> +hit, and hit again—to hear the heavy thud of his +blows on that man's body—to see him lying squirming +and broken on the carpet with a receipt in full upon +his face for all that he had done.</p> + +<p>"Put up your fist," he said, "or I shall have to hit +you cold."</p> + +<p>"Curse you, get out!" cried Kenyon, catching +Graham one on the mouth before he was ready.</p> + +<p>Graham laughed. He needed that. By jove, he +needed that. He let out his left. "That's for +Peter," he said.</p> + +<p>Kenyon staggered. His left eye seemed to fill. +With a yell of pain he jumped in and hit wildly.</p> + +<p>Graham waited a second chance and got it. "And +that's for Belle," he said. And his knuckles bled with +the contact of teeth.</p> + +<p>Kenyon went in again. Chairs fell over and the +table was pushed aside. And all the time that he +failed to reach Graham's face he screamed like a horse +whose stable is in flames.</p> + +<p>But Graham, cold, icy cold, and cooler than he had +ever been in his life, played with him. He had never +been so much a man in his life. He warded and +guarded and waited hoping that he might once more +feel the sting of pain that would make his last blow +unforgettable—epoch-making.</p> + +<p>He got it,—but with Kenyon's foot.</p> + +<p>And again Graham laughed,—for joy—for very +joy. Now he could hit, and hit honestly.</p> + +<p>"You little gentleman!" he said. "You perfect +little gentleman—I've paid you for Peter, and for<span class="pagenum">[303]</span> +Belle. Here's my debt, with a hundred per cent, interest +and then some."</p> + +<p>The blow, hard and firm from the full shoulder, +caught Kenyon on the point of the jaw, lifted him +off his feet and laid him out full stretch on the broad +of his back.</p> + +<p>For several moments, breathing hard, Graham stood +over him, looking down at the dishevelled, unconscious +dandy, with his bad blood all over his face and +clothes. His collar had sprung, his beautiful brown +tie had gone round under his ear, his shirt cuffs were +dabbled with red, one eye was bunged up and his mouth +was all swollen.</p> + +<p>Then Graham rang the bell, and while waiting +tidied himself up in front of the glass in which he now +felt that he could look.</p> + +<p>The girl came in and gave a shrill cry.</p> + +<p>"Just see to that man, please. Cold water at once +will be the best thing."</p> + +<p>He caught up his hat, went out, shut the door, ran +down-stairs, let himself into the street and was out of +sight and into a taxicab before the girl had recovered +herself.</p> + +<p>"Paid in full," he said breathlessly to himself, as +he bound up his knuckles—"in full."</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XIV</h3> + +<p>With wide-eyed anxiety, Graham, having driven +straight back, waited for the doctor's verdict. The<span class="pagenum">[304]</span> +two young men stood alone in the little sitting-room. +With a touch of delicacy, which they were quick to +notice, Nellie Pope made no attempt to follow them in.</p> + +<p>"Um!" said Dr. Harding. "A very close shave +from pneumonia. He can't be moved yet, unless, of +course, you'd like me to send for an ambulance. +That's up to you."</p> + +<p>Graham shook his head. "No," he said. "I don't +want that. I think he'd better be—I mean I don't +want my father—Oh, well, I dare say you understand."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Dr. Harding, "I'm afraid I do. God +knows what the percentage of disaster is from men +having soused themselves like that. It seems to me +that your brother, who had obviously caught a severe +chill, must have set out deliberately to make himself +drunk, and mixed everything in sight."</p> + +<p>Graham held his peace. But his blood tingled at +the knowledge that he had given Kenyon something +that he would never forget and which would make it +necessary for him to remain in the seclusion of his +state-room for some days at least.</p> + +<p>The young doctor sat down and wrote a prescription +and went on quickly to tell Graham what to do. +Finally he rose. "I'll look in again this evening," he +said. "You'll be here, won't you? Of course we +shall get him all right in a couple of days or so,—that +is, right enough to go home,—but——"</p> + +<p>"But what?" asked Graham.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Dr. Harding, "I may have to +leave the rest of the treatment to your father." He<span class="pagenum">[305]</span> +shook his head several times on his way to the door. +He had taken one or two close, examining looks of +Nellie Pope.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Guthrie, you're wanted."</p> + +<p>Graham turned sharply. Nellie Pope, waiting until +the doctor had gone, put her head in at the door. +"Come on in," she said. "Come on in!"</p> + +<p>Graham followed her into the bedroom and bent +over Peter. Opening his eyes with some difficulty, +as though they hurt him, Peter looked about. The +room was strange. The face of the girl was strange. +The whole thing seemed to belong to a dream. Then +he recognized his brother. "You got away, then," +he said.</p> + +<p>"Got away?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. By Jove, what a blaze! The last time I +saw you, you were carrying mother along the passage. +I could hardly see you for smoke. I got Betty out +into the street and dived back into the house. Father +was the only one left. Good God, what awful flames! +The library was red hot. I got into the middle of it, +choking and yelling for father, when something fell on +my head. Is he—dead?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Graham. "He's all right."</p> + +<p>A little smile broke out on Peter's face and he +sighed and turned over and went to sleep again.</p> + +<p>Nellie Pope made a comical grimace. "I don't +wonder that 'e's been dreaming about a fire," she +whispered. She arranged the covers over Peter's +shoulder with a deft and sympathetic hand, and then +took Graham's arm and led him out into the passage.<span class="pagenum">[306]</span> +"You've got your work. Push off. I'll see to the +medicine when it comes. Don't you worry. Get +back as soon as you can, and while you're away I'll +look after 'im like a sister. I like 'im, poor boy! My +goodness! why don't somebody put the lid on all the +distilleries? Half the troubles in the world 'ud be prevented +that way!"</p> + +<p>Very reluctantly Graham acted on the girl's suggestion +that he should return to his office. He was in +the middle of very important work. He held out his +hand. "You're a damned good little sort," he said, +"and I'm intensely grateful."</p> + +<p>Nellie Pope's eyes filled with tears. It had been a +long time since she had been treated so humanly or +had her hand so warmly clasped. But she screwed +out a laugh and waved her hand to Graham as he let +himself out.</p> + +<p>She spent the rest of the day in and out of the bedroom. +With her eyes continually on her clock, she +devoted herself untiringly and with the utmost efficiency +to looking after her patient. To the very instant +she gave him his medicine and said cheery, pleasant +things to him every time she had to wake him up +to administer it. It was an odd and wonderful day +for her, as well as for Peter,—filled with many touches +of curious comedy, the comedy of life—and many +moments of queer pathos. Once she had to listen to a +little outburst of incoherent love, when Peter insisted +on telling her what an angel Betty was. Once she was +obliged to hear what Peter had to say about his father, +from which she gathered that this man was responsible<span class="pagenum">[307]</span> +for the burning house from which this boy had only +just been able to escape alive, having saved his family. +The obsession of fire remained with Peter until the +evening, when he woke up with a clear brain, and +having taken his medicine, looked at her with new +eyes.</p> + +<p>"What's all this?" he asked quietly. "Where am +I, and who are you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right," said Nellie Pope.</p> + +<p>"Is it? Are you a nurse?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said.</p> + +<p>"Is this a hospital?"</p> + +<p>"Yes,—that is, a nursing home," she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Peter. "Where's Kenyon?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, dearie."</p> + +<p>"What on earth was that filth that he gave me to +drink? I carried the books into his room, and then +I'm hanged if I can remember—I've got a most +frightful headache. Every time I move my head +seems to split in half. How long have I been here? +Was I poisoned, or what?"</p> + +<p>"Now don't you talk or you'll get me into trouble. +You go off to sleep like a good boy. You'll be all +right in the morning."</p> + +<p>"Shall I? That's good." And he heaved a big +sigh and obeyed. It was extraordinary how sleep +came to his rescue.</p> + +<p>He was still asleep when Graham came back at six +o'clock. Nellie Pope opened the door to him. "'E's +getting on fine," she said. "You can take that line +out of your forehead. 'E's been talking quite sensibly<span class="pagenum">[308]</span> +to me. What I don't know about your father and +your family isn't worth knowing."</p> + +<p>Graham tiptoed into the bedroom, drew a chair up +to the side of the bed and sat down. And while he +waited for the time to arrive for Peter's next dose +many strange things ran through his brain,—his own +precocity—his own desire to be smart and become a +man of the world—his own evening in the little shabby +theatrical lodgings in Oxford with Kenyon—his +dealings with Ita Strabosck—the night he had spent +in his bed-room when Peter took his razors away—that +awful hour when he sneaked into his father's +laboratory and under the pressure of great trouble +forged his name. The only thing that gave him any +sense of pleasure out of all this was the fact that he +carried in his pocket a warm and spontaneous letter +from Ranken Townsend, which he knew would be +better to Peter than pints of medicine.</p> + +<p>And while he sat watching, Nellie Pope ate her +sausage in the kitchen and finished the instalment of +the love story in her magazine.</p> + +<p>What a world, O my masters!</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XV</h3> + +<p>It was late when Graham let himself into his +father's house that night. He had done many things +that day. He had also been through much anxiety. +He felt that he deserved the right to turn in at once +and sleep the sleep of the just. But Kenyon had said<span class="pagenum">[309]</span> +that Belle had been alone in his rooms the night before +and the queer expression that had come into his +eyes as he made the remark lived most uneasily in +Graham's memory. He now knew Nicholas Kenyon +to be a skunk—an unscrupulous individualist devoid +of loyalty, incapable of feeling true friendship and in +every way unfit to have any dealings, unwatched, with +a girl unless she was in his own set or belonged to +the same class as the two chorus girls for whom +he had waited outside the stage door of the Oxford +Theatre.</p> + +<p>He was well aware of the fact that Belle had been +something more than merely attracted by Kenyon. +He had even hoped that she might be engaged to be +married to him, being very proud to believe that some +day soon she might become the wife of the man under +whose spell he, like all the rest of the family, had +fallen. Now, however, in the light of Kenyon's +hideous treatment of Peter, he saw his one-time hero +with eyes from which all the glamour of his appearance +had disappeared and he was filled with an overwhelming +desire to see Belle at once and make it clear to her, +bluntly and finally, that she must clear Kenyon out +of her mind as a house is rid of vermin. Belle was, +as he well knew, a high-spirited, amazingly imperious, +independent girl, with strong emotions. She was not +one who would be turned lightly, or even driven, out +of a line of thought. She was, on the contrary, as +difficult to treat as an unbroken filly and could only +be managed with the lightest of hands. If she really +and truly loved Kenyon and still believed in him, he<span class="pagenum">[310]</span> +knew that he could not say anything that would +prejudice him in her estimation, even by telling her +what he had done to Peter. She would be able to +produce reasons, however far-fetched, to make that +incident seem less ugly. There was, however, the +chance—just the chance—that she would be open to +conviction. After much inward argument and hesitation +he decided to go up to Belle's room, and if she +were not asleep, to have a little talk with her and find +out how the land lay, and if he could see any possibility +of adding to his punishment of Kenyon to do so by +putting him in his true colour before Belle.</p> + +<p>It took him some time to come to this decision and +screw up his courage to face Belle. For nearly an +hour he paced up and down the quiet library, smoking +cigarette after cigarette. Belle was likely to tell him +to go and hang himself if she considered that he was +butting into her private affairs. He knew this,—no +one better. He had often done so before. He decided, +however, to run this risk and, in the hope that +she might still be up, went upstairs and stood for a +moment listening outside her door. He could hear +no sound in her room, no movement, no creak of a +drawer being opened or shut. He knocked softly and +waited,—was just going to knock again when the door +was opened.</p> + +<p>With her beautiful black hair done for the night +and a pink kimono over her night-dress, Belle stood in +the doorway with an expression of surprised inquiry +in her eyes. These two had not taken the trouble to +be very good friends for some years.<span class="pagenum">[311]</span></p> + +<p>"Oh, it's you, Graham," she said, but made no +move.</p> + +<p>"It's awfully late, I know; but, if you're not too +tired, may I come in?" Graham hated himself for +being self-conscious. It seemed absurd with his own +sister. He wished then that he had not been quite +so selfish and self-contained since he had considered +himself to be a man, and had gone out of his way to +keep up his old boyish relations with Belle.</p> + +<p>He was a little surprised when she said, "Come in, +dear," and made way for him. He noticed quickly as +soon as she stood under the light that her eyes were +red and swollen, and that there was a most unusual +air about her of gentleness and dejection. He noticed, +too, with immense relief, that a large photograph of +Kenyon in hunting-kit which he had seen standing on +her dressing-table had been taken away. A good sign!</p> + +<p>The room was very different from Ethel's. It had +nothing of that rather anæmic ultra-modern air so +carefully cultivated by the younger girl. On the contrary, +everything in it was characteristic of Belle. It +was full of ripe colours and solid comfort. A mass of +silver things jostled each other untidily on the dressing-table. +A collection of monthly fashion papers with +vivid decorative covers lay on a heap on a chair, and a +novel, open in the middle, had been flung, face down, +on the sofa. There was no attempt at carefully +shaded lights. They were all turned on and were reflected +from the long glasses in a large mahogany +wardrobe. The carpet all round the dressing-table +was bespattered with white powder.<span class="pagenum">[312]</span></p> + +<p>"I was reading when I heard your knock," she +said,—"at least I was pretending to read. Sleep was +miles away."</p> + +<p>Graham sat down, hanging a pair of stockings over +the arm of the chair. "Why?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know, I've been thinking,—for a +change. It's such a new thing for me that it knocked +sleep out of my head. Not nice thoughts, either."</p> + +<p>She seemed glad to talk, Graham thought. "Anything +the matter, Bee?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I guess it's nearly a century since you called me +Bee," she said with a queer little laugh. "Would you +say that anything was the matter if you had just picked +yourself out of the ruins of a house that had fallen +about your ears?"</p> + +<p>Graham got up suddenly, sat on the sofa at Belle's +side and put his arms round her shoulder. "Don't +dodge behind phrases, old girl," he said. "Just tell +me in plain English. Let me help you if I can."</p> + +<p>But Belle shook him off,—not angry with him so +much as with herself. She detested weakness. This +unexpected kindness on Graham's part made her feel +like crying again. In her heart she longed for some +one to whom she could pour out her soul, and Graham's +affection almost caught her before she could +stop herself. Not to him, she told herself, nor to any +member of her family, was she going to confess the +sort of thoughts that had choked her brain ever since +that hour alone with Kenyon. Not even to Betty, to +whom she told most things, was she going to lay bare +the fact that, in the cold light of day, she found herself<span class="pagenum">[313]</span> +deeply hurt and deeply humiliated at Kenyon's treatment +of her. In fact, she had herself only that night +begun to realize the state of her feelings and was still +suffering under the discovery.</p> + +<p>Graham, whose nature and character were as much +like those of Belle as though they were twins, caught +her mental attitude as she stood struggling between +pride and a desire to tell the truth. It was as plain +to him as though she had already confessed that Kenyon +had done something which had shaken her belief +in him. His photograph, which had dominated her +room, had been put away. Her eyes were red and +swollen. All his sympathy was stirred. At the same +time he rejoiced in the eager thought that he had it +in his power to clear Kenyon finally out of her +mind.</p> + +<p>He set to work quietly. "I'm going to tell you +about Peter," he said.</p> + +<p>She turned quickly. "Peter? There's nothing +wrong with Peter, is there?"</p> + +<p>"God knows how much wrong there is. I'm going +to tell you all I know. We're all in this,—through +Kenyon, and because we've been thoughtless fools +running amuck through life."</p> + +<p>The idea of there being anything wrong with Peter +brought Belle quickly out of self-analysis and the self-indulgence +of her own pain. "Don't beat about the +bush," she said. "Please tell me. You told mother +this morning that he had stayed with Nicholas last +night."</p> + +<p>"That was a lie. This is what happened. After<span class="pagenum">[314]</span> +a rotten day worrying about an upset with Betty, he +went to see Kenyon late last night. He'd had nothing +to eat. I believe because Kenyon had been disappointed +about something earlier in the evening,—but +I only make a guess at that from the way he looked +when I saw him to-day,—he deliberately took it out +on Peter."</p> + +<p>"On Peter? How?" Belle understood this disappointment +only too well.</p> + +<p>"He made him drunk."</p> + +<p>"Drunk!—Peter!"</p> + +<p>"Dead drunk,—by doping him with a fearful mixture +of all the drinks he had. He had always threatened +to do it, and this time he caught Peter napping. +That was a foul enough thing to do anyway, but it +didn't satisfy him. He got him into the street and instead +of putting him into a cab and sending him home +he called a passing woman——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no!" cried Belle.</p> + +<p>"Yes,—and gave Peter over to her and there he's +been, in her bed, in a little hole of an apartment, ill +and poisoned, ever since."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my God!" cried Belle.</p> + +<p>"The woman rang me up early this morning and I +got Ralph Harding to go and see what he could do. +I've been there most of the day,—except for ten minutes +with Kenyon—the best ten minutes I ever put +in—ever."</p> + +<p>He got up and stood looking at Belle with a gleam +of such intense satisfaction in his eyes that she guessed +what he had done.<span class="pagenum">[315]</span></p> + +<p>"That's our admirable friend Kenyon," he added. +"That's the man who shared rooms with Peter—whose +charm of manner got us all at Oxford, and who +was made one of the family by father and mother +when he came to this country. I hit him for Peter, +for you and for myself in that glorious ten minutes +to-day. I left him lying on the floor in his rooms +all over his own black blood, and if ever I meet him +again, in any part of the world, at any time of my life, +I'll give him another dose of the same sort—for Peter, +for you and for me—That's what I came to tell +you, Bee."</p> + +<p>He bent forward and kissed her, turned round and +left the room.</p> + +<p>That was Kenyon, Graham had said.</p> + +<p>Standing where he had left her, with this story of +utter and incredible treachery in her ears, Belle added +another count to Graham's indictment,—that of trying +to seduce her without even the promise of marriage, +when her grief at parting with him made her +weak.</p> + +<p>For a moment she stood chilled and stunned. That +was Kenyon—All along she had been fooled—all +along he had been playing with her as though she +amounted merely to a light creature with whom men +passed the time. It was due to her father,—of all +men, her father,—that she stood there that night, +humiliated but unharmed, with her pride all slashed +and bleeding, her self-respect at a discount, but with +nothing on her conscience that would make her face +the passing days with fear and horror.<span class="pagenum">[316]</span></p> + +<p>She suddenly flamed into action. "Yes; that's +Kenyon!" she thought, and making a sort of blazing +pounce on the middle drawer of her dressing-table she +pulled it open, took out the large photograph of a man +in hunting-kit, and with queer, choking cries of rage +and scorn, tore it into shreds and stamped upon the +pieces.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XVI</h3> + +<p>Belle got very little sleep that night. Having +finally decided, on top of her talk with Graham, that +Kenyon had intended to treat her much in the same +way as he had treated Peter, she endeavored to look +back honestly and squarely at the whole time during +which that super-individualist had occupied her +thoughts. She saw herself as a very foolish, naïve +girl, without balance, without reserve and without +the necessary caution in her treatment of men which +should come from proper training and proper advice.</p> + +<p>She laid no blame upon her mother,—that excellent +little woman whose God-sent optimism made her +believe that all her children were without flaw and +that the world was full of people with good hearts +and good intentions. She blamed only herself, and +saw plainly enough that she had allowed her head to +be turned by her father's sudden acquisition of wealth +which made it unnecessary for her to be anything more +than a sort of butterfly skimming lightly through life +without any duties to perform—without any work<span class="pagenum">[317]</span> +to occupy her attention—without any hobbies to fill +her mind and give her ambition. She felt like some +one who had just escaped from being run over in the +streets, or who, by some divine accident, had been +turned back from the very edge of an abyss. It was +indeed a night that she could never forget in all her +life. She lay in bed in the dark room with her eyes +wide open, hearing all the hours strike one by one, +watching herself with a sort of terror and amazement +passing through Oxford. All the incidents that had +been crowded into that short and what had appeared +to be glorious week, came up in front of her again, especially +the incident in the back-water with Kenyon and +the night of the ball at Wadham College. These were +followed in her mind by the scene in the library in her +father's house, and finally that dangerous hour in +Kenyon's rooms when, but for the intervention of that +man who seemed of so little account, she might have +been placed among those unfortunate girls of whom +the world talks very harshly and who pay a terrible +price for their foolishness and ignorance. And when +finally she got up, tired-eyed but saner than she had +been since those good, strenuous days of hers at her +college when she had intended to make art her mission +in life, she told herself with a characteristic touch +of humour that the reformed criminal was a very good +hand at preaching, and made up her mind to go along +to Ethel and improve the occasion. It was very obvious +to her that if she did not do this nobody would, +and she was eager to give a sort of proof of the fact +that she was grateful for her own escape by giving<span class="pagenum">[318]</span> +her young sister the benefit of her suffering. And +so she put on her dressing-gown and went to her sister's +room—the little sister of whom she was so fond +and proud.</p> + +<p>Ethel was sitting at her dressing-table doing her +hair. There was a petulant and discontented expression +on her face. Still shamming illness, she had not +yet recovered from the smart of what she called Jack's +impertinence. There was a surprise in store for her,—she +who believed that she had managed so successfully +to play the ostrich.</p> + +<p>"Why, Belle!" she said. "What's the matter? +You look as though you had been in a railway accident."</p> + +<p>Belle sat down, not quite sure how she would begin +or of the sort of reception that she would receive. +She always felt rather uncouth in the presence of this +calm, self-assured, highly finished little sister of hers. +"Well," she said, "I have been through a sort of +railway accident and a good many of my bones seem +to have been broken,—that's why I'm here. I want +to stop you, if I can, from going into the same +train."</p> + +<p>"I don't think I quite understand you."</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose you do, my dear, but you shall—believe +me." And then, in the plainest English she +gave Ethel the story of her relations with Kenyon, +without in any way sparing herself. And when she +came to the parting scene in Kenyon's rooms she +painted a picture that was so strong and vivid—so appalling +in its proof of foolishness, that she made even<span class="pagenum">[319]</span> +Ethel forget her complacency and sit with large, frightened +eyes.</p> + +<p>Then she got up and began to walk about. "I'm +not a fool," she said, "and this thing is going to teach +me something. Also, I'm not a coward and I've told +you all this for a reason. You think that you're a very +wise little person, kiddie, but in reality you're no better +than I am, and just as sentimental and every bit +as unwatched and as resentful of guidance. Why are +you here instead of being at school? You think no +one knows that. Well, I do. You're playing ducks +and drakes with mother and father and your education +in order to have what we call a 'good time.' +You have shammed sickness so that you could have +an adventure with the boy next door."</p> + +<p>"How d'you know that?" cried Ethel.</p> + +<p>"Easily enough, my dear. I was told by the girl +who used to bring your thermos up to this room and +who had caught you with the boy. Two days ago she +left to be married, but before she went she blurted +out the whole story. It wasn't for me to interfere +then. I didn't much care, to tell the truth,—in fact, +I thought it was rather a good joke. I rather admired +you for the cunning way in which you had arranged +everything. I thought you were a good sport. +I don't know how far it has gone, but I hope to Heaven +that you've not been quite so insane as I was. I'm +not going to tell mother or do the elder sister stunt, +or anything of that sort. I'm just going to ask you to +chuck it all and go back to school and play the game +for a change, and to try to bear in mind that you owe<span class="pagenum">[320]</span> +father and mother something,—a thing we all seem +to have forgotten,—and when you do go back, just +remember—and always remember—what I've told +you about myself. We're very much alone, you and +I,—like two girls who are staying in a house with +somebody else's father and mother,—and so let's help +each other and get a little honesty and self-respect +and see things straight. What d'you say, dear little +sister?"</p> + +<p>Ethel got up, and with a complete breakdown of all +the artificiality so carefully instilled into her by her +fashionable school, slipped into her sister's arms and +burst out crying.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XVII</h3> + +<p>It was not until the next afternoon that Peter was +allowed to get up. His superb constitution had stood, +rock-like, against the chill which the doctor's medicine +had helped to throw off. He had done full justice +to a broiled chicken which Nellie Pope had cooked +for him; but when, having put on his clothes, he stood +in front of the looking-glass, he felt as though he had +been under a steam-roller and flattened out.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" he said, when he saw his pale, unshaven +face. "Good Lord!" But he was very +happy. He had read and re-read Ranken Townsend's +generous apology. Betty was waiting for him—thank +God for that.</p> + +<p>And then he began to look round. Was this a +nursing home? The dressing-table, with its tins of<span class="pagenum">[321]</span> +powder and a large dilapidated puff, its red stuff for +lips, its shabby little brushes and a comb with several +of its teeth gone, looked as though it belonged to a +woman,—poor and struggling. The door of the +closet, which gaped a little, showed dresses hanging +and a pair of very high-heeled boots with white uppers. +He opened a drawer in the dressing-table. It +was full of soiled white gloves, several veils neatly +rolled up, and a collection of small handkerchiefs. A +strong, pungent scent rose up from them.</p> + +<p>An ugly suspicion crept slowly into his mind. He +looked at the bed with its frilled pillows, at the flower +papered bare walls, at the rather worn blue carpet, at +the flimsy wrap hanging limply on a peg on the door +of the bath-room, at the little bed-room slippers tucked +away beneath one of the white, painted chairs——</p> + +<p>He turned and called out: "Nurse! Nurse!"</p> + +<p>Something in his tone brought Nellie Pope in quickly.</p> + +<p>He was standing with his hand on the big brass +knob of the bed. "You told me that this was a nursing +home," he said.</p> + +<p>The girl laughed. How should she know what +Peter had done with his life—of the ideal that he +kept so steadily in front of him? She only knew the +other kind of men. "So it is," she said. "It's <i>my</i> +home and I've had to be your nurse. Pretty well +put, I think. Don't you? 'Ow d'you feel, dearie? +A bit groggy on your pins?"</p> + +<p>The girl's cockney accent, her made-up face, her +cheap, smart clothes were noticed by him for the first +time. Her insinuating, cheerful manner and that<span class="pagenum">[322]</span> +sort of hail-fellow-well-met intimacy that was all about +her, came to him with a new and appalling meaning. +He had been spoken to by just such women in London +after dark, and on Broadway and its side streets as +he passed. They belonged to the night life of all +great cities. They were the moths who came out +attracted by the glare of electric light. Good God! +What was he doing in that place?</p> + +<p>The keen remembrance of this woman's inestimable +kindness, the supreme lack of selfishness which had +inspired her to bend so frequently over his bed, the +charity of her treatment of him as he lay ill and helpless, +made him anxious above everything else not to +hurt her feelings. But there were things that he must +know at once,—urgent, vital things which might affect +all the rest of his life. There was Betty his love-girl—the +girl who was to be his wife—who was waiting +for him with the most exquisite and whole-hearted +trust——</p> + +<p>"I want you to tell me how I came here," he said.</p> + +<p>Nellie Pope went over to the dressing-table. +"That's easy," she replied lightly, adding a new coat +of color to her lips. "The night before last, not having +'ad any luck, I was 'aving a last look round and +'appened to be in Forty-eighth Street just as you staggered +out of a 'ouse on the arm of a young gent. I +reckoned 'e didn't 'ave any use for me, being outside +'is own place, but I passed 'im the usual greetin' from +force of 'abit, just as 'e 'ad called up a taxi. With a +funny look on 'is face,—a curly smile I called it to +meself,—'e suddenly gave me orders, lumped you into<span class="pagenum">[323]</span> +the cab, blind to the wide, and told me to get in and +take you 'ome, and 'elp meself to any money you 'ad +on you. Well, I did, and the next instalment of the +serial you know as well as I do. Feeling weak, old +dear?"</p> + +<p>Peter sat heavily on the foot of the bed.</p> + +<p>Nellie Pope went on,—simply and naturally, like +one who is glad to talk, glad to hear her own voice, +indescribably, pathetically glad to be in the company +of a man who asked for nothing, who was not a guest, +but a friend—a fellow-creature down on his luck. +"Me and Graham," she said,—"and, I say, what a +good-looking boy that is, and fairly devoted to you, +dearie,—well, 'im and me think that you must 'ave +done something to get the goat of this young feller. +'E doped you, that's certain, and then passed you off +on me. Enjoyed the joke, as it were, too, according +to what I noticed. Is that likely?"</p> + +<p>Peter didn't answer. The joke—? Back into his +mind came the many things that Kenyon had said to +him at Oxford: "You need humanizing, old boy. +You want to be hauled off that self-made pedestal of +yours. One of these days you'll come to an unholy +crash—" Back into his mind also came Kenyon's +taunts made to him as he stood with his back to the +fireplace in the library the night after they had returned +from having seen Ita Strabosck: "You're blind! +Blind! I tell you, and in that room sits a man whose +patients you may become."</p> + +<p>Utterly ignorant of the feeling of revenge which +had surged through Kenyon's brain after Belle had<span class="pagenum">[324]</span> +been saved by the Doctor, it was borne in on Peter, as +he sat on the bed of this poor little night-bird, that Kenyon +had set out on purpose—with calculated deliberation—to +make him human, as he called it, before he +returned to England. He had made him drunk in +order to carry out the joke. He had given him something +to render him insensible, well knowing that in +no other way could this fiendish desire be fulfilled.</p> + +<p>"What time is my brother coming?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Nellie Pope was busy daubing powder on her face. +"Not until about nine o'clock," she said. "'E and +me talked it over this morning. The idea is that you're +coming in on the train that arrives at the Grand Central +at eight-forty-five. Now don't forget this. You +stayed the night in your friend's apartment, but you +couldn't see 'im off the next morning because you'd +taken on a bit of business for 'im which meant going +out of town. Your brother is going to meet you at +the station. That's the story. And you're going +'ome together. 'E went back to get one of your bags. +'E will sneak it out of the 'ouse and bring it round here. +Oh, I think we're pretty good stage managers, 'im and +me. You see, the notion is that Ma mustn't be upset. +Poor little Ma!"</p> + +<p>"What's to-day?" asked Peter, whose whole body +seemed suddenly to have been frozen.</p> + +<p>"Sunday, dearie."</p> + +<p>"Then I've been here two nights?"</p> + +<p>"That's so," said the girl.</p> + +<p>Peter was consumed with a desire to explore the +apartment. He wanted to discover whether there was<span class="pagenum">[325]</span> +another bedroom. "Are you comfortable here?" he +asked, a little clumsily.</p> + +<p>Nellie Pope was rather flattered at his interest and +so genuinely delighted to see this great big man-boy +on his feet again that she could have broken into a +dance. "Come and 'ave a look at my suite," she said, +laughing at the word she chose. "You know the +bedroom,—I don't think you'll forget that in a +'urry. On the right I 'ave the sitting-room which I +only use for my customers, preferring to sit in the +kitchen, which we now come to." She led him into +it, with her hand on his arm—she was apeing the +manner and the phraseology of the guide. "In this +bright little apartment, beautifully furnished with a +gas stove and dresser—not exactly Jacobean—a +plain, but serviceable Deal table and a nice piece of +linoleum which 'as worn very well, the sometimes +popular Miss Nellie Pope passes most of 'er leisure. +'Ere she cooks her own meals and washes up after +'erself,—she's a very neat little thing,—and before +going out on the long trail in all weathers, reads about +life with a big L in the magazines, in which 'eroes +with curly 'air, who stand about six-feet-six, make +'onest love to blondes with 'eads like birds' nests, who +are nearly always about six-feet-one, and never fail +to wear silk stockings,—and there you 'ave it. A +charming suite for a single lady who earns 'er own living. +The only drawback to it is that the rent 'as to +be paid monthly in advance, and the blighter who collects +it gives no grace. This is the sort of thing: +'Say! Got that rent?' 'Well—' 'Come on now,<span class="pagenum">[326]</span> +ain't got no time to waste here. Pay up or get +out—' I tell you what it is, dearie, there's a little +Florida in Hell for them men who let out apartments +to us girls, and the heat there is something intense." +She laughed, but there was a curious quiver to it.</p> + +<p>Behind all her badinage and cheery pluck Peter could +see a vein of terror which touched his sympathies. +Poor little painted, unfortunate thing! Was there no +other way in which she could live and keep her head +above water? He sat down and leaned on the table +with his elbows. "Will you tell me," he said, "what +brought you to this?"</p> + +<p>"Brought me to it?" Nellie Pope shot out a +laugh. "You dear, funny old thing!" she said. +"Nothing brought me it. I chose it."</p> + +<p>"Chose it! Chose <i>this</i>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, this! A great many of us choose it. It's +the easiest way. That shocks yer, doesn't it,—you +who come from a comfortable home and whose sisters +'ave everything they want. But, you listen to +this and don't be too fast to pass judgment. I was +one of a big brood of unnecessary kids. My father +earned fourteen shillings a week by grubbing in the +earth from daybreak till sundown and my mother +took in washing. We lived perched up on a 'ill among +a dozen dirty little cottages. What was the outlook +for me? Being dragged up with meat once a week +and as a maid-of-all-work down in the town, being +ordered about by a drab of a tradesman's wife, with +not enough wages to buy a new 'at and a little bit of +finery for Sundays, and then be married to a lout who<span class="pagenum">[327]</span> +got drunk regularly every Saturday night and made +me what mother was,—a dragged, anæmic, dull animal +woman, working up to the time I 'ad a baby and +working directly afterwards,—no colour, no lights, +no rush and bustle, no decent clothes to put on, no independence. +Yes, I chose it, and if I 'ad my time over +again I should choose it again. See! It's the easiest +way. Oh, yes, we die young and nobody knows where +we're buried, but we've 'ad our day, and it's the day +that every woman fights for, the same as every man. +Oh, by the way, 'ere's your purse!" She pushed it +over to Peter.</p> + +<p>"My purse?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes; don't you recognize it? It hasn't got so much +in it as it 'ad, because I was told to 'elp meself, and +I did. I 'ave jotted down what I 'ave taken; 'ere's +the account." She held out a piece of paper on which +Peter could see a list of spendings, which included a +taxicab fare and a nickel for telephoning. At the end +of it there was an item entitled "Fee, thirty dollars."</p> + +<p>Peter shuddered. He pushed the remainder of the +money back to her across the table. "Please keep it," +he said.</p> + +<p>Nellie Pope laughed again. She was full of laughter. +"I hoped you'd say that," she said. "It'll come +in mighty useful."</p> + +<p>Peter felt in his pocket and took out his cheque-book. +He looked about and saw a bottle of ink and a +pen on the dresser, with a piece of dilapidated blue +blotting-paper. Watched with peculiar interest and +excitement by Nellie Pope, he got up, went over to the<span class="pagenum">[328]</span> +dresser and wrote a cheque. "Will you accept this?" +he asked. "I wish I could make it larger. But if +it was ten times the amount it couldn't possibly cover +my gratitude to you. You've been awfully kind to +me. Thank you, Nellie." He held it out.</p> + +<p>The girl took it and gave a little cry. "Five hundred +dollars! Oh, Gawd! I didn't know that there +was so much money in the world." She burst into +tears, but went on talking. "Mostly I can't afford to +cry, because it washes the paint off my face, and it's +very expensive. But what do I care, with this blooming +cheque in my 'and? I shall be able to take a little +'oliday from business and, my word, that's a treat. +God makes one or two gentlemen from time to time, +'pon my soul he does. Put it there, Peter." She held +out her hand with immense cordiality and gratitude, +and Peter took it warmly.</p> + +<p>But he had discovered what he wanted to know. +There was only one bed in that apartment, and back +into his mind came Kenyon's words. "Blind! Blind!—both +of you—and in that room sits a man whose +patients you may become."</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XVIII</h3> + +<p>Graham was before his time. He hurried in, as +anxious to get Peter out of that apartment as Peter was +to go. He found his brother sitting on one side of the +kitchen table and Nellie Pope on the other. Both +had magazines. The girl tore herself out of the marble<span class="pagenum">[329]</span> +house of the heroine's father with reluctance. +Peter had been holding his magazine upside down for +an hour. He had been looking right through it and +into his father's laboratory. There was not even the +remote suggestion of a smile on his pale face when +Graham threw open the door.</p> + +<p>"Come on, old man," urged Graham. "The taxi's +waiting."</p> + +<p>Peter got up. "Well, good-bye, Nellie," he said. +"I'll come and see you soon."</p> + +<p>The girl darted a quick look at him. She saw that +she was mistaken. "Oh, yes, that'll be very kind of +you. I 'aven't got any friends."</p> + +<p>"Yes you have," said Graham,—"two."</p> + +<p>Nellie Pope led the way into the narrow passage, +stood on tiptoe, made a long arm and got Peter's hat +off the peg. Then she stood in front of him and her +lips trembled, although her well-practised smile curled +up the corners of her mouth. "Not good-bye, but orevoy, +eh? Well, good luck and God bless you. I shall +miss you both most awfully. It's been a fair treat to +'ave you 'ere."</p> + +<p>Peter waved his hand and went down the bare stairs. +His knees felt weak and shaky and his eyes seemed +to be at the back of his head. He drew back to let a +woman pass. She cocked her golden head at him with +an enquiring eye and a flash of teeth and pushed open +the half-closed door of an apartment. Her high-pitched +metallic voice rang out. "Say, Kid, there +goes Nellie Pope's boarder. By Gosh, don't yer think +some one oughter stop her?"<span class="pagenum">[330]</span></p> + +<p>The two boys drove home in silence. They had +both caught the meaning of those significant words.</p> + +<p>Graham, the self-imagined man of the world, who +had picked up a large collection of half-facts—as all +the precocious do—but who, for all that, or in spite +of that, had walked into the trap set by Ita Strabosck +without the faintest perception of his danger, threw +those words aside. Everything would be right, he +told himself, and if <i>he</i> had been coming out of Nellie +Pope's apartment in the ordinary way and had overheard +her rival's loud comment, he would simply have +shrugged his shoulders, like the rest of the young men +of his type and spirit, and knowing only the tail end of +the truth, told himself that all men take "chances" +and that the odds were largely in his favor. And +what would this attitude of puerile bravado have +proved? That he and all the men like him were just +as much a menace to society from knowing the half-facts +which did nothing more for them than allow +them to take "chances," as the men who were wholly +ignorant and so blundered blindly into tragedy.</p> + +<p>To Peter, the words of the painted woman came as +a finishing blow. In his crass and culpable ignorance, +into which Kenyon had flung one most terrific fact, +he came away from Nellie Pope not knowing whether +he was immune—not able to assure himself that he +was safe. Think of it! Big and strong as he was, +he remained a mere child in the matter of plain, necessary +and urgent truths, and if ever a man knew himself +for a fool he was Peter Guthrie, as he drove home.</p> + +<p>No less grateful to God than ever for having been<span class="pagenum">[331]</span> +assisted to go through Harvard and Oxford clean and +straight, he cursed himself for not having sought out +the facts of life,—not from grinning and salacious +arguments of half-informed young men, but from a +proper source,—since his father had not conceived +it to be his duty to give them to him early in his life. +If Kenyon had not opened out a new and awful vista +of thought the night that he talked about Graham and +Ita Strabosck, Peter's ignorance, so jealously and mistakenly +preserved, would have remained so colossal that +he would have gone home humiliated, but unworried. +As it was, this one thing at any rate—this one most +awful thing—had sunk into his mind, making him +dangerously less ignorant but without proper knowledge. +He arrived home a prey, therefore, to the most +hideous fear.</p> + +<p>Luckily there were people dining with his father +and mother. Belle had gone out of town for several +days, suffering from the shock of finding out the truth +about Kenyon, and Ethel had returned to school. +Peter was able to go up to his own room unnoticed.</p> + +<p>Graham, whose loyalty and concern had been good to +see, went up with him and threw the suit-case into a +corner.</p> + +<p>"Gee!" he said, with a touch of emotion that he +made no attempt to hide, "but I'm glad you're home, +Petey." It was many years since he had called Peter +by the name that he had gone by in the nursery. He +seemed to have come so close to his big brother during +those recent hours.</p> + +<p>Peter did a surprising thing. He turned quickly,<span class="pagenum">[332]</span> +strode over to Graham, put his arm round his shoulder +and kissed his cheek. For just those few moments +both men had gone back through the years and were +little boys again.</p> + +<p>Two things happened to Graham. He blushed to +the roots of his hair, and swallowed something that +threatened to choke him.</p> + +<p>"You said you had something on, didn't you,—supper, +or something?" said Peter.</p> + +<p>"Yes; but I'll cut it out if you want me to."</p> + +<p>"No, don't. Why should you? I feel pretty rotten +and I shall turn in right away. Don't bother about +me any more, old man."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather stay with you."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know you would, old boy, but you push +off and have a good time. As a matter of fact, I +rather want to—to be alone for a bit. D'you see?"</p> + +<p>"All right, then." And to show that he had become +a man again and his own master, Graham went off +whistling the latest tango.</p> + +<p>And by letting his brother go at that moment, Peter +did a very unwise thing. He was still weak and ill. +His brain, which had not recovered itself from the +effects of Kenyon's poisonous mixture, was in no condition +to be tortured by solitary thought. He needed +to be kept away from self-analysis—to be set to work +on the ordinary commonplaces of everyday life. Most +of all, his thoughts required to be put to rest by sleep.</p> + +<p>Left to himself, Peter sat down, almost in the dark, +with his arms folded, his legs stuck out and his chin +buried in his chest, and thrashed the tired machinery<span class="pagenum">[333]</span> +of his brain into action. All that had happened in +the last forty-eight hours coming on top of the suffering +that he had undergone through having been +separated from Betty and having failed to bring about +the new relationship with his father, upon which he +had set his heart, gradually became distorted. He began +to look at everything through an enormous magnifying +glass and to see himself, not as one whose +loyal, simple and unsuspicious nature had been taken +advantage of by Kenyon, but as a common drunken +creature who had had to be lifted into a cab and who +had spent two nights in the apartment of a woman +of the street. He began to look at himself with so +deep a humiliation and disgust that the mere thought +of his ever again holding Betty in his arms seemed +outrageous. And having by stages, made conceivable +by the condition of his health and the strain that had +been put upon him by all the things that had happened +since his return from England, come up to this morbid +and hyperconscientious point in his self-condemnation, +he stood up suddenly, obsessed by a new and appalling +thought. He said to himself: "I'm not only +unworthy of Betty, I'm unclean, and so unfit to live." +And having seized at that with the avidity and even +triumph that comes with a sudden disorder of the understanding, +he began to dramatize his death—to ask +himself how to make it most effective. And then his +father entered his thoughts. "Ah!" he cried inwardly. +"Father—it's <i>father</i> who is responsible—it's +<i>father</i> who must be made to pay! I'm his eldest +son. He's very proud of me. He shall come into the<span class="pagenum">[334]</span> +room to-night in which he spends all his time for the +benefit of other men's sons and find the one he neglected +lying dead on the floor. That's it! Now I've got it! +There's a hideous irony about this that'll sink even +into his curious mind. I'd like to be able to see his +face when he finds me. There'd be just a little satisfaction +in that."</p> + +<p>If only Graham could have come back at that moment, +or the little mother to put her arms round that +poor, big, over-sensitive, uninitiated lad and bring him +out of his mental dejection with her love and warmth!</p> + +<p>There was a revolver somewhere among his things. +He had bought it when he went camping during one +of his vacations from Harvard. He hadn't seen it +for several years. With feverish haste he instituted +a search, going through one drawer after another, +flinging his collars and socks and all his personal things +aside, talking in a half-whisper to himself, until, with +a little cry of glee, he found it with a box of cartridges. +And then, with the most scrupulous care he loaded it, +slipped it into his pocket and crept out of the room +and downstairs. The door of the drawing-room was +ajar. He heard laughter and the intermingling of +voices, heard some one say "Good-bye." He dodged +quickly past, through the library and into the room in +which he had last stood with his hand on the shaking +shoulders of his father. <i>He</i> would give him something +to weep about this time,—yes, by jove, he would! +<i>He</i> would make him wake up at last to the fact that +his sons were human beings and needed to be treated +as such!<span class="pagenum">[335]</span></p> + +<p>He welcomed the fact that away in the distance a +storm had broken with the deep artillery of thunder, +and that already heavy rain was swishing down on the +city. It fitted into his half-maddened mood.</p> + +<p>He shut the door. He walked quickly about the +room, speculating as to the most effective place to +be found outstretched. He had a decision and then, +so that there might be no loop-hole for his father, sat +down to write a final indictment.</p> + +<p>Time fled away. He covered page after page of +note paper, pouring out all his soul, making a great +appeal for the right treatment of Graham and his sisters, +and finally signed his name, having scrawled in +his large round writing, "This is my protest."</p> + +<p>The storm had come nearer. Outbursts of thunder +rolled over the house followed by stabs of lightning.</p> + +<p>He then deliberately placed himself on the chosen +spot, cocked the trigger and put the cold barrel of the +revolver to his temple.</p> + +<p>There was a sort of scream.</p> + +<p>Peter swung round, with his nerves jangling like +a wire struck suddenly with a stick.</p> + +<p>There stood his father, unable to form a sentence, +his face grey, his eyes distended and his arms thrown +out in front of him.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XIX</h3> + +<p>Peter was angry, like a child disturbed just at the +moment when he was planning a surprise.<span class="pagenum">[336]</span></p> + +<p>"Why couldn't you have come in five minutes +later?" he cried out, with queer petulance.</p> + +<p>The Doctor tottered forward and peered into his +son's face. "Why were you going to do that? Tell +me, tell me!"</p> + +<p>"You'd have found it all there," said Peter, pointing +to the pages which he had left on the desk. "Not +very nice reading, I can assure you. But if you +want me to tell you instead, I will. And then you can +see how a man dies, instead of finding him dead. Perhaps +this is the best way, after all."</p> + +<p>He went to the door and locked it, still holding the +revolver. The sight of his father did not stir any +pity or sympathy in his heart. On the contrary, it +added to the fever that had attacked his brain and acted +as an irritant. He went back and stood in front of +the grey man. There was an expression of contempt +on his altered face. The pattering of heavy rain +against the windows seemed to please him. Nature, +like himself, seemed to have burst into open protest.</p> + +<p>"Sit down," he said.</p> + +<p>The Doctor obeyed. The blaze in his son's eyes +contradicted his unnatural calmness. He had to deal +with temporary madness. He could see that, and he +was chilled with a sense of impending danger in which +the most poignant solicitude was mixed.</p> + +<p>"Now," said Peter, weighing his words with odd +deliberation, "you're going to hear something that'll +shake you out of your smug self-complacency and your +pitiful belief that everything is all right in this house—You're +a good man, a better man than the average<span class="pagenum">[337]</span> +father. There's nothing in your life that isn't to your +credit. Even since you had children you've worked +like a dog to give them a better education than you +had, and you've gone without things to provide us with +money and make things easy. We all know that and +we're grateful. We all know that we ought to be +proud of you as a doctor—as a man who has made +discoveries and added to the scientific knowledge of +your profession. Well, we <i>are</i> proud of you. But +in the last words that you'll hear me speak I'm going +to tell you what you've failed to do and why, in spite +of all your kindness and unselfishness, not one of your +children respects you or loves you, and why I, your +eldest son, have got to put an end to myself because +of your neglect."</p> + +<p>Dr. Guthrie sprang to his feet. The calculated +cruelty of this indictment was more than he could endure. +"What does this mean? If you don't respect +and love me, the others do. In what way have I neglected +you?" He stood up to Peter like a man, +whipped into sudden anger.</p> + +<p>Peter liked that. It meant that he could hit out +and put facts into naked words without feeling that +he was ill-treating a weakling. "That's what I'm +going to tell you," he said. "But there's lots of time +and I'm not going to leave anything out. What makes +you think the others respect and love you? Do they +ever tell you so? Do they ever tell you anything? +Do they ever go out of their way to come in here for +a little talk? And if they did come in would you get +out of your shell far enough for them to see that you're<span class="pagenum">[338]</span> +a human being? Would you meet them half-way in +their desire to get something besides your money from +you? Have you ever once in your life been sufficiently +inspired with a sense of your responsibility as to make +you get up and leave your work and come among us +to play with our toys and get known? Have you ever +once in all the years that we've been growing up been +courageous or wise enough to take Graham or me for +a walk and tell us <i>any one</i> thing that we ought to +know? In what way have you ever neglected us? In +the most vital way of all. We could have done without +your money and the education that you've been +so delighted to give us. We could have done without +comfort and servants and good food and easy times. +They mean nothing in the sum total of things that +count. Most men never have them at the beginning. +They make them. What you've never given us is +<i>yourself</i>. And we <i>needed</i> you. What you've never +given us is common sense. You've been a good father +in every inessential way, but no father at all in all that +goes to make us men. You've lived in a fool's paradise. +You've let us find our own way. You've not +given us one human talk—one simple fact—one word +of warning. You've utterly neglected us because +you're a coward and you've hoped and trusted that +others might tell us what you've been afraid to say. +Afraid,—to your own flesh and blood,—think of it!" +The Doctor cried out again. He realized much of +the truth of all this. He had confessed himself to be +painfully shy to his wife many times and had spent +God knew how many anxious hours wondering how<span class="pagenum">[339]</span> +he could get to know his boys. But it was too much +to stand and be whipped by his son.</p> + +<p>"There are thousands of fathers who hold my +views and act as I have acted," he said.</p> + +<p>"And there are so many thousands of sons who have +to pay for those views that you and men like you spend +your lives in trying to save them."</p> + +<p>The Doctor drew in his breath. "Wh—what d'you +mean?" he stammered.</p> + +<p>"Ah! that gets you, doesn't it? Now you're beginning +to see what I'm driving at, don't you? Put your +mind back to the night you found Graham here with +me. You saved him from forging your name, and +that was good. But what led him up to that? Did +you ask yourself? Did you go to Graham and gain +his confidence? Did you wonder whether there was +a woman behind it all who would never have come into +his life if you had dealt by him like a man and a father,—the +sort of woman who has made necessary +these things round your laboratory and caused you +to bend over your experiments for years and years?"</p> + +<p>"Good God! What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>Peter raised his voice. "Why should your sons be +immune? What have <i>you</i> ever done to render them +so? Why am I now standing here with this revolver +in my hand? Look at me! A few hours ago I had +health and everything in the world that makes life +worth living, except a father. At this moment, because +I've never had a father, I'm so terrified that I +should be a criminal if I married the girl I love that +I'm going to kill myself."<span class="pagenum">[340]</span></p> + +<p>"Why? What have you done?"</p> + +<p>"I've been two nights in the bed of the sort of +woman whose work you are trying to undo."</p> + +<p>The Doctor staggered, and then rose up in his +wrath. "<i>You</i> have? You, <i>my</i> son,—with such a +mother—with such home influence! You mean to +tell me that you've descended to such depths of immorality +that you've gone back on everything that your +education has made of you? It's unthinkable—unbelievable. +You must be a mere animal to have done +such a thing."</p> + +<p>What else he would have said in his emotion and +horror no one can say.</p> + +<p>A cry of pain and rage rang out. The injustice of +his father's narrow, inhuman point of view, his inability +to show him, even by his impending death, that +he must wake up to his duty and stand by Graham +and his sisters, sent the blood into Peter's fevered +brain.</p> + +<p>"My God!" he cried. "You dare to talk like that +to me? You dare to kick me in the face after I've +told you that I'm ignorant—without listening to my +explanation as to how I got into that woman's apartment. +All right, then, I'm not going to be the only +one to pay. You shall take your share of it. The +sins of the children are brought about by the neglect +of the fathers, and we'll go and stand together before +the Judge to-night for a verdict on that count."</p> + +<p>He raised the revolver, aimed it at his father's head, +put his finger on the trigger——</p> + +<p>There was a blinding flash of lightning. A yellow<span class="pagenum">[341]</span> +quivering flame seemed to cut the room in half between +the two angry men——</p> + +<p>An instant later the Doctor saw Peter standing with +both hands over his face. The unfired revolver lay on +the table in all its ugliness. And presently, when he +had realized what had happened, he went nearer. +"God didn't intend that you should do that," he said. +And then his voice broke and he went forward to put +his arms round Peter's shoulders. "Give me another +chance, my dearest boy!" he cried. "Give me another +chance!"</p> + +<p>But before he could reach his son the great big hurt +boy crumpled and fell in a heap at his feet.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XX</h3> + +<p>For three weeks Peter's bedroom was the one room +in the house to which the eyes of all the family were +wholly turned. There, in the dark, he lay a victim to +an attack of brain fever. Never in a condition of +great danger, poor old Peter was ill and the Doctor, +who, better than the rest, knew that death has many +doors through which life goes out, eyed the specialist +who had been called in with pathetic eagerness.</p> + +<p>The little mother and Belle were joined at once by +Betty, and the three women sat very close together, +speaking and even thinking in whispers during the first +two days. To the one whose first child he was and +the one who waited to be his wife, Peter meant everything +good that life had for them, and in their terror<span class="pagenum">[342]</span> +that he might be taken away their imaginations ran +ahead, as they always do in moments of such poignant +anxiety, and they were afraid to look out of the window +in case they should see Death, the black camel, +kneeling at the gate.</p> + +<p>While the shadow seemed to rest on his house, Dr. +Guthrie did many things. First of all he went over all +the terrible words that Peter had said to him that +bad and unforgettable night. With great humbleness +and deep emotion he accepted them as the truth. He +sat for hours at his desk with his hands over his face +and tears leaking through his fingers. Metaphorically +he placed his old hard-working, concentrated self in +the criminal stand and his new startled, humbled and +ashamed self in the Judge's seat and summed up his +life as a father. It was very plain that he had failed +in his duty to his boys. He had made no great effort +to conquer that queer shyness which had affected him +from the beginning. He had allowed his children to +grow up to regard him as Bluebeard. He had thrown +upon his wife's slight shoulders all the onus of the +responsibility for the human development of their +characters, and because she had succeeded while they +were young he had, like a coward, neglected to step in +and take upon himself his obvious duty when they had +grown old enough to need more—much more—than +the soft guiding hand of a mother. He had allowed +them to make an early start,—the girls, as well as the +boys,—without understanding the vital necessity of +duty and discipline which he alone could inspire in +them, because no man or woman in all the country,<span class="pagenum">[343]</span> +in any school or college, gave a single thought to either. +He had hidden behind a hundred weak and foolish excuses +in order to avoid the so-called difficulties of +speaking manfully to these two embryo men. He had +permitted them to grow out of boyhood without giving +them the benefit of his own uninitiated struggles, or +the simple warnings and facts which take the glamour +away from temptation and make straight ways easy. +He "took chances," and hoped that some one else +might by accident give them the facts of sex or that +they would find them out themselves, as other young +men were obliged to do,—never mind how.</p> + +<p>Remorse and regret made Hell for this man in +those honest hours,—this good, exemplary, distinguished, +self-made man whose name would live +by his professional efforts and scientific discoveries +and who had succeeded in everything except as a +father.</p> + +<p>And then he called Graham into his room, and sitting +knee to knee with his second son, was brave enough +to tell him wherein he now knew that he had failed and +asked of him, as he had asked of Peter, for another +chance. It was a pathetic and emotional talk that +these two had, during which both told the truth, hiding +nothing, reserving nothing. The outcome of it was +good for them both, as well as for Peter. They went +together to see Nellie Pope and heard from her lips, +to the Doctor's unspeakable thankfulness, that Peter +was in no danger from her. From that time onwards +that little, kind, wretched girl became one of the Doctor's +patients in the proper hospital, eventually to be<span class="pagenum">[344]</span> +placed by him at work which rendered the need for +her following her chosen profession unnecessary.</p> + +<p>And finally the day came when Peter was able to +receive visitors, and a very good day it was. The little +mother went in first—she had the right. Peter +was sitting in his dressing-gown by the window. To +his intense relief he had just passed through the hands +of a barber, whom he had asked to make him look a +little less like a poet. He turned his head quickly towards +the door as his mother went in. His old high +spirits had returned. The sun was shining and life +looked very good. His imagination made him as well +aware of the fact that his mother had been through +some of the most anxious hours of her life as though +he had seen her sitting in her room below with a drawn +white face and her hands clasped together. He got up +and went to meet her. He took her in his arms and +held her very tight. What they said to each other was +far too sacred to put into cold print. They spoke in +undertone, because the trained nurse kept a jealous eye +upon her patient and moved in and out of the dressing-room +adjoining. The interview was not allowed to +be a long one. The last thing that Peter said to his +mother made her very happy. "I think that the Governor +and I are pals," he said. "I think we've found +each other at last. Isn't that just about the best thing +you ever heard?"</p> + +<p>In the afternoon Belle was allowed in. To his great +relief she told him in her characteristic, concise way, +how she felt about Kenyon. He caught her young, she +said—marvellously young, "and if he should ever<span class="pagenum">[345]</span> +come back to New York all he'll get from me will be +two fingers. I've quite recovered. So you may take +that line out of your forehead, old boy. One of these +days when you're out and about again we'll walk about +four times round the reservoir and I'll tell you something +of what's been going through my mind while +you've been ill. In fact, we'll have a very substantial +pow-wow about Nicholas Kenyon, and I don't think +we shall leave him quite as immaculate as he usually +is by the time we've finished, do you?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Peter, "I don't. All the same, I'm +grateful to him for one thing. He has brought father +out of his shell,—that's about the best thing he +ever did in his life."</p> + +<p>There was something amusing as well as touching +in the way in which the two brothers met again. It was +the next morning early. Peter was still in bed, with +his hair all frowzled and the remains of sleep still in +the corners of his eyes. Graham had ten minutes +before he was obliged to leave the house to go downtown.</p> + +<p>"Hello, old sport!" said Graham.</p> + +<p>"Hello, sonnie! Rather a hot thing in ties, that, +eh?"</p> + +<p>Graham cleared his throat and put his hand rather +self-consciously to the black-and-white effect newly +designed by his pet firm of haberdashers. "I think +it'll make the senior partner blink all right," he said. +"How d'you feel this morning?"</p> + +<p>Peter showed his teeth. "I'm sitting up and taking +nourishment. Probably before the end of the<span class="pagenum">[346]</span> +week you'll see me in shorts and a zephyr sprinting +round the park before breakfast."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to," said Graham, and he held out his +hand.</p> + +<p>Peter took it and gave it a scrunch which had in +it nothing of the invalid. "Give my love to the +subway," he said, "and my kind regards to Wall +Street."</p> + +<p>Graham grinned, waved his hand and left the room. +He found it necessary to blow his nose rather hard on +his way down-stairs. "Oh, Gee!" he said to himself. +"Oh, Gee! Only think if Peter had—" He didn't +allow himself to finish the thought.</p> + +<p>And then came Betty, and the way in which she +and Peter came together—the way in which they +stood only a step or two from the door, inarticulate +in their love and thankfulness, was too much even for +the trained nurse, to whom love and death and the +great hereafter were mere commonplaces. She withdrew +to the dressing-room and stayed there for a whole +solid quarter-of-an-hour, eliminating herself with a +tactfulness for which Peter blessed her and Betty became +her friend for all time.</p> + +<p>"My baby!" said Peter. "We shall have to begin +all over again. We're almost strangers."</p> + +<p>But Betty shook her head. "No," she said. "No. +There hasn't been one moment during all this time that +I haven't been with you."</p> + +<p>And Peter nodded. "That's dead true," he said.</p> + +<p>And then they sat down very close together and the +things they said to each other are lost to the world,<span class="pagenum">[347]</span> +because we joined the nurse in the next room and shut +the door.</p> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<h3>XXI</h3> + +<p>It happened that the anniversary of Doctor and Mrs. +Guthrie's wedding day,—they had been married twenty-eight +years,—fell on a Sunday that year.</p> + +<p>The night before, at dinner, the little mother, thankful +and happy at having Peter back again at the table, +asked a favour. In having to ask it, instead of simply +saying that she desired her children to go with her +to church the next morning, she proved her knowledge +of the fact that she had joined the ranks of mothers +whose children have outgrown them.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Guthrie was, however, one of those rather rare +women who had grown old gracefully. The hand of +time, whose natural treatment she had made no +sort of endeavor to combat, had added to her beauty. +Optimism, a steady faith in God and His goodness, and +the usual gift of accepting whatever came to her without +kicking against the pricks, had mellowed her. It +was without any of the spirit of martyrdom that +cakes the nature of those women who have not been +able to acquire the best sort of philosophy that she +frankly made this very natural and easily fulfilled desire +a favour. Peter was well again and she wanted to +kneel before the altar of the Great Father and give +thanks, surrounded by her children, on the anniversary +of the day that made her a wife.</p> + +<p>The family had grown out of the habit of going to<span class="pagenum">[348]</span> +church,—Belle was tired, as a rule, after a late Saturday +night, Graham was an inveterate week-ender, +Ethel was a modernist, and Peter played golf,—and +so, when they all agreed without any argument the little +mother was almost as surprised as she was delighted.</p> + +<p>The conspiracy of silence which the family had +tacitly agreed upon during their recent trouble, in order +to spare her from unhappiness, left Mrs. Guthrie +wholly without any knowledge of the fact that they +were all glad of an excuse to join her in church, because +they all felt a curious eagerness to listen to the +simple, beautiful service with which they had grown +up and to kneel once more—more humbly and sincerely +than ever before—in the house of the God who +had been instrumental in their various escapes.</p> + +<p>It would have been better if Mrs. Guthrie had not +been so carefully shielded—if she had been made to +share with the Doctor the blame,—at any rate for the +mistakes which the two girls had made,—from the +fact that she had let go the reins of duty and discipline +with which she had held them in their early years and +given them their heads—if she had been strong +enough and wise enough to maintain over Belle and +Ethel, without autocratically putting a stop to their +having "a good time," the authority of respect, won +by love and the exercise of sympathy and common +sense—if, in short, she had not been content to slip +into a position that allowed these high-spirited girls +to say to themselves quite so early in their lives, "Oh, +poor, dear little mother doesn't understand. She<span class="pagenum">[349]</span> +doesn't know anything that modern girls have to go +through." She was shielded because it was understood +that she was a sort of sleeping partner—not +an active member of the firm. She was regarded as +being so sweet and soft and old-fashioned that she +couldn't possibly appreciate the conditions of the times +in which the girls lived. Their early positions had +become reversed. It was the girls who mothered their +mother.</p> + +<p>It was a strangely silent party that returned home +that Sunday morning, headed by the Doctor and the +little mother. Betty had been invited by Mrs. Guthrie +to join them and was to stay to lunch. It was while +they were in the hall, and just as Betty had gone upstairs +with Mrs. Guthrie, that the Doctor turned +quickly. "I want you all to come to my room," he +said. "I won't keep you more than a few moments," +and led the way.</p> + +<p>Wondering what was going to happen, but taking +trouble to avoid catching each other's eyes, Peter, +Graham, Belle and Ethel followed their father across +the library into the room which, for the two boys, had +associations that they were never likely to forget, +and for the two girls had hitherto been a place to +avoid.</p> + +<p>As soon as they were in the room the Doctor shut +the door and, from force of habit, went over to his +desk. With one thin hand on it, and with a shaft +of winter sun on a face that was very lined and pale +he stood there for a moment in silence. His lips trembled +a little, but there was a look in his eyes behind<span class="pagenum">[350]</span> +those strong glasses that his children had never seen +before.</p> + +<p>"Peter, Graham, Belle and my little Ethel," he said +brokenly, "I'm going to ask you all, on a day that +means a great deal to your mother and to me, and +so to you, to forgive me for not having been all that I +ought to have been to you I know that I've failed +in my duty as a father. You have always been my +most precious possessions and it is for you that I've +worked so hard and so closely, but because of all that +I went through as a child and because I never struggled +as I ought to have done to overcome a foolish +shyness that has made me self-conscious, you and I +have never been friends—have never understood each +other. I take all the blame for whatever you have +done that has made you suffer and of which you are +ashamed. Very humbly, I stand before you now and +ask you, as I asked Peter, here, in this room, to give +me another chance. Let's make a new beginning from +to-day, with the knowledge that I love you better than +anything in the world. I want you all to meet me half-way +in future, to look upon me no longer as the shy, +unsympathetic, unapproachable man who, by accident, +is your father, but as your closest and most intimate +friend whose best and dearest wish is to help you and +listen to your worries and give you all the advice in +his power. I want this room to be the place to which +you'll always come with the certain knowledge that +you'll be welcomed by me with the greatest eagerness +and delight. Don't let there be anything from to-day +onwards that you can't tell me. Promise me that. I<span class="pagenum">[351]</span>—I've +told myself two or three times that it's too late +for me to be of any use to you—that having failed I +could never repair my mistake or ever hope to win +your confidence and friendship."</p> + +<p>His voice broke so badly that he was unable to +speak, and the painfulness of this strange little scene +was almost more than those young people could bear. +It hurt them enough to stand facing a man who +opened his soul for them to gaze into, especially when +that man was their father. It was dreadful to see him +blinded by tears in the middle of an appeal which they +all realized called for such extreme courage and +strength of character to make.</p> + +<p>They all wanted to do something to help him and +force him out of a humbleness that made them horribly +self-conscious. It was Peter who did it. With +two strides he stood at the Doctor's side and put his +arms round his shoulder.</p> + +<p>The Doctor looked up into the face of the great +big, tender fellow, whose eyes were eloquent, and +smiled. Then he found his voice again and forced +himself to the bitter end of what he had determined to +say. "Something in the way you've all treated me +since Peter has been ill," he said, "has given me hope. +That's why I put myself in your hands, my dears. +Shall we make a new beginning? Will you take me +into your friendship? Will you all give me another +chance?"</p> + +<p>With a little cry from her heart Belle went forward +and put her arms round her father's neck, and Ethel, +with hot tears running down her face, crept up to<span class="pagenum">[352]</span> +him and put one of his hands to her lips. Graham +bent over the other, which he held tight, and Peter, +who had longed for this moment through all his illness, +didn't give a curse who heard his voice break, +patted the Doctor on the back, and said: "Dear old +man, my dear old father!" over and over again.</p> + +<p class="h3">THE END</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/diagram-2.jpg" width="144" height="134" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chapter" /> + +<p class="h2"><i>Books by</i> Cosmo Hamilton</p> + +<p>The Blindness of Virtue</p> + +<blockquote><p>"A plea to mothers to tell their daughters frankly all the +laws of nature before they arrive at years of possible indiscretion +through innocence. Its characters are uncommonly +well drawn and might have stepped out of life."—<i>New York +Evening Sun.</i></p> + +<p>"A beautiful piece of work dealing with a stupendously +difficult subject with the most dexterous blending of delicacy, +dramatic strength and wholesome candor."—<i>London Daily +Chronicle.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>307 Pages. <i>$1.35 net.</i></p> + +<hr class="thin" /> + +<p>The Miracle of Love</p> + +<blockquote><p>"One of the most notable novels of the year, well worth +reading by those who are seeking more than a pleasant hour, +but wholly delightful merely as a story."—<i>New Haven +Register.</i></p> + +<p>"It is a fine, well told and purposeful tale, with brilliant +and quotable passages."—<i>Detroit Free Press.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>325 Pages. <i>$1.35 net.</i></p> + +<hr class="thin" /> + +<p>The Door That Has No Key</p> + +<blockquote><p>"A work of genuine power; it is impossible to read it +unmoved."—<i>Providence Journal.</i></p> + +<p>"A novel to re-read and preserve. A wonderful piece of +work, alive with emotion."—<i>London World.</i></p> + +<p>"Discusses marriage and divorce. With its brilliant characteristics +it is a notable novel."—<i>New York Evening Sun.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>324 Pages. $<i>1.35 net.</i></p> + +<hr class="thin" /> + +<p>The Blindness of Virtue</p> + +<p>A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS</p> + +<blockquote><p>In this drama of two girls' careers Mr. Hamilton +shows powerfully just how far innocence, +that is only ignorance, is a protection. He +levels the finger of accusation against parents +whose cowardice of silence, masquerading as refinement, +threatens ruin in their children's lives.</p> + +<p>"It is the biggest sermon on the subject that has ever +been preached."—<i>Dorothy Dix.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>126 Pages. $1.00 <i>net</i>.</p> + +<hr class="thin" /> + +<p>A Plea for the Younger Generation</p> + +<blockquote><p>"It is a little bomb which any one at all interested in +children—parent, teacher, eugenist—would do well to read +and consider. It is written with the glow of conviction and +there is merit in it from cover to cover."—<i>Chicago Tribune.</i></p> + +<p>"It is a very small book, but into its compass the author +contrives to say nearly all that is worth while on 'the +tragedy of half truths' on sex matters when they are told +to children."—<i>San Francisco Chronicle.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>16mo. 75 cents <i>net</i>.</p> + +<p class="h4">LITTLE, BROWN & CO., <i>Publishers</i>, BOSTON</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Sins of the Children, by Cosmo Hamilton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN *** + +***** This file should be named 37664-h.htm or 37664-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/6/6/37664/ + +Produced by Roger Frank, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://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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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Sins of the Children + A Novel + +Author: Cosmo Hamilton + +Illustrator: George O. Baker + +Release Date: October 7, 2011 [EBook #37664] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN + + + [Illustration: And over them both ... hung the moon and stars.] + + + + + THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN + + _A NOVEL_ + + BY + COSMO HAMILTON + + + WITH FRONTISPIECE BY + GEORGE O. BAKER + + [Illustration] + + BOSTON + LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY + 1916 + + + _Copyright, 1916_, + BY COSMO HAMILTON. + + _All rights reserved_ + + + Published, October, 1916 + + + THE COLONIAL PRESS + C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. S. A. + + + To + + MY WIFE + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PART ONE--YOUTH + + PART TWO--THE CITY + + PART THREE--LIFE + + + + +PART ONE + +YOUTH + + +THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN + + +I + +When Peter Guthrie laughed the rooks stirred on the old trees behind the +Bodleian and the bored cab-drivers who lolled in uncomfortable attitudes +on their cabs in St. Giles perked up their heads. + +He threw open his door one morning and leaving one of these laughs of +his rolling round the quad of St. John's College found the recumbent +form of Nicholas Kenyon all among his cushions as usual, and as usual +smoking his cigarettes and reading his magazines. The words "as usual" +seemed to be stamped on his forehead. + +"What d'you think?" cried Peter, filling the room like a thirty-mile +gale. + +"You ought to know that I don't think. It's a form of exercise that I +never indulge in." Kenyon lit a fresh cigarette from the one which he +had half-smoked and with peculiar expertness flicked the end out of the +window into St. Giles Street, which ran past the great gates of the +college. He hoped that it might have fallen on somebody's head, but he +didn't get up to see. + +"Well," said Peter, "I was coming down the High just now and an awful +pretty girl passed with a Univ. man. She looked at me--thereby very +nearly laying me flat on my face--and I heard her ask, 'Who's that?' It +was the man's answer that makes me laugh. He said: 'Oh, he's only a +Rhodes scholar!'" And off he went again. + +Nicholas Kenyon raised his immaculate person a few inches and looked +round at his friend. The Harvard man, with his six-foot-one of excellent +muscles and sinews, his square shoulders and deep chest, and his fine, +honest, alert and healthy face, made most people ask who he was. "If I'd +been you," said Kenyon, "I should have made a mental note of that Univ. +blighter in order to land him one the next time you saw him, that he +wouldn't easily forget." + +"Why? I liked it, from a man of his type. I've been 'only a damned +Rhodes scholar' to all the little pussy purr-purrs ever since I first +walked the High in my American-made clothes. I owe that fellow no +grudge; and if I meet that girl again--which I shall make a point of +doing--I bet you anything you like that his scoffing remark will lend a +touch of romance to me which will be worth a lot." + +"Was she something out of the ordinary?" + +"Quite," said Peter. + +He hung his straw hat on the electric bulb, threw off his coat, rolled +up his sleeves and started to tidy up his rooms with more energy and +deftness than is possessed by the average housemaid. He flicked the +little pile of cigarette ash, which Kenyon had dropped on the floor, +into a corner. He gathered the weekly illustrated papers which Kenyon +had flung aside and put them on a back shelf, and then he picked up the +man Kenyon in his arms, deposited him in a wide arm-chair in front of +the fireplace and started punching all the cushions. + +Kenyon looked ineffably bored. "Good God!" he said. "What's all this +energy? You shatter my nervous system." + +"My dear chap," said Peter, "you seem to forget that this is Commem. and +that my people have come three thousand miles to see their little Peter +in his little rooms. I'm therefore polishing up the knocker of the big +front door. My mother has a tidy mind and I want my father to gain the +impression that I'm methodical and responsible. He has a quick eye. They +wired me from London last night to say that they'll be here at five +o'clock to tea. I dashed round to the Randolph early this morning to +book rooms for them. Gee, it's a big party, too! I can't make out why +they want so many rooms. It'll be like my sister to have brought over +one of her school friends. I guess I shall be darned glad to see them, +anyway." + +There was a touch of excitement in the boy's voice, and his sun-tanned, +excellent face showed the delight that he felt. He had not seen his +mother, brother and sister for two years, having spent his vacations in +England. + +Nicholas Kenyon got up slowly. He did everything slowly. "Well," he +said, "I thank God that my people don't bother me on these festive +occasions. To my way of thinking the influx of fathers and mothers into +Oxford makes the whole place provincial. However, I can understand your +childish glee. You are pretty badly dipped, I understand, and with the +true psychology of the rasping undergraduate you are first going to +throw the glamour of the city of spires over your untravelled parent and +then touch him for a fairly considerable cheque." + +Peter gave a sort of laugh. "Touch my father!" he said. "Not much. I +shall put my case up to my mother. She's the one who does these little +things." + +Kenyon was faintly interested. Being perennially impecunious himself and +unable to raise money even from the loan sharks, he looked to the advent +of Peter's parents to bring him at least fifty pounds. He always +borrowed from Peter. + +"Oh, I see," he said. "It's the old lady who carries the money-bags, is +it?" + +"No, it isn't," said Peter; "but as a matter of fact I never have gone +to my father for anything and I don't think I ever shall. I don't know +why it is, but none of us have ever been able to screw up courage to say +more than 'Good-morning' and 'Good-night' to the Governor, although of +course we all think he is a very wonderful person." + +Kenyon yawned. "I see," he said. "Bad luck. I should hate to have such a +disagreeable devil for a father--one of the martinet type, who says +_don't_ all the time when he ought to say _do_, and makes home a sort of +pocket-hell for everybody." + +Peter twisted round and spoke quickly and rather warmly. "So should I," +he said, "but luckily I haven't. I didn't want to suggest that my father +was that type of man. He's one of the very best--one of the men who +count for something in my country. He's worked like a dog to give us a +chance in life and his generosity makes me personally sometimes feel +almost indecent. I mean that I feel that I have taken advantage of +him,--but--but, somehow or other,--oh, I don't know,--we don't seem to +know each other--that's all. He hasn't the knack of winning our +confidence--or something. So it comes to this: when we want anything we +ask mother and she gets it for us. That's all there's to it. And look +here, Nick, I want you to be frightfully nice to the Governor. Get out +of your ice-box and warm up to the old man. I can't, you see; but as he +has come all this way to look me up I want somebody to show some +appreciation." + +With his eyes to the small relief which the visit of Dr. Hunter Guthrie, +of New York City, might bring him, Nicholas Kenyon nodded. "Rely on me," +he said. "Butter shan't melt in my mouth; and before your father leaves +Oxford I'll make him feel that he's been created a Baronet and appointed +Physician in Ordinary to His Majesty the King. Well, so long, Peter! I'm +lunching with Lascelles at the House this morning. I'll drop in to tea +and hand cakes round to your beloved family." + +"Right-o," said Peter. "That'll be great!" And when the door closed and +he found himself alone he arranged a certain number of silver cups which +he had won in athletics all along his mantel-piece, for his father to +see, gazed at them for a moment with a half-smile of rather +self-conscious pride, finished tidying his room, gazed affectionately +for a few moments at the familiar sight of Pusey House through the +leaf-crowded trees that lined the sunny street, and then sat down to his +piano and played a rag-time with all that perfect excellence and sense +of rhythm which had opened the most insular doors to him during his +first days as a fresher. + + +II + +This fine big fellow, Peter Murray Guthrie, who had done immensely well +at Harvard in athletics and was by no means a fool intellectually, could +afford to be amused at the fact that he had been scoffingly referred to +as "only a Rhodes scholar." He had been born under a lucky star and he +had that wonderful gymnastic faculty of always falling on his feet. If +with all his suspicions aroused he had gone up to Oxford in the same +rather timid, self-conscious, on-the-defensive manner of the average +Rhodes scholar who expected to be treated as a creature quite different +from the English undergraduate, he would have found his way to the +American Club and stayed there more or less permanently, taking very +little part in the glorious multitudinous life of the freshmen of his +college, and remained a sort of pariah of his own making. Freshmen +themselves, the Lord knows, are forlorn enough. Everything is strange to +them, too,--society, rules, customs, unwritten laws and faces. They are +solitary creatures in the midst of a bustling crowd. If they do not come +from one of the great public schools and meet again the men they knew +there their chance of making friends is small and for many dull +disappointing weeks they must mope and look-on and envy and find their +feet alone, suffering, poor devils, from a hideous sheepishness and +wondering, with a sort of morbid self-consciousness, what others are +thinking of them. But Peter was unafraid. He stalked into Oxford +prepared to find it the finest place on earth--with his imagination +stirred at the sight of those old colleges whose quadrangles echoed with +the feet of the great dead and rang with those of the younger generation +to whom life was a great adventure and who might spring from those old +stones into everlasting fame. He strode through the gate of St. John's +with his chin high, prepared to serve her with all his strength and all +the best of his youth and leave her finally unsullied by his name. He +didn't give a single whoop for all this talk about the snobbishness and +insularity of English undergraduates. He didn't believe that he would +find a college divided and sub-divided into sets; and if the statement +proved to be true--well, he intended to break all the barriers down. + +Therefore, with such a spirit added to his fine frank, manly +personality, irresistible laugh, great big friendly hand and the rumours +that came with him of his bull-like rushes on the football field, he +became at once a marked man. Second-year and even third-year men nudged +each other when he passed. "By Jove!" they said. "That's a useful +looking cove! We must get him down to the river." Or, "I wonder if that +American can be taught to play cricket?" As for the freshers--all as +frightened as a lot of rabbits far away from their warren--they gazed +with shy admiration and respect at Peter, who, expecting no rebuffs, +received none. + +Finding that he could not live in college until he was a second-year +man, Peter had looked about him among the freshers for a likely person +with whom to share rooms. He had come up in the train with Nicholas +Kenyon, whose shell he had insisted upon opening. He, too, was entered +at St. John's and was very ready--being impecunious--to share lodgings +with the American whose allowance he might share and whose personality +was distinctly unusual. These two then gravitated to Beaumont Street, +captured a large sitting-room and two bed-rooms on the ground floor, and +from the first evening of their arrival were perfectly at home. Peter at +once hired a piano from a music shop in the High which he quickly +discovered, bought several bottles of whiskey and a thousand cigarettes, +besides several pounds of pipe tobacco, threw open his window, and as +soon as dinner was over started playing rag-times. + +Kenyon had been interested and amused. He had not expected to find +himself "herding," as he put it, with a damned Rhodes scholar. He took +it for granted that these "foreigners" would live apart from the +ordinary undergraduate, as uncouth people should. He had been quick to +notice, however,--psychology being his principal stock in trade,--that +Peter had made an instant impression; and as he sat on the window-sill +listening with what he had to confess to himself was keen pleasure to +Peter's masterly manipulation of the piano and saw all the windows +within near range of their house open and heads poke out to listen, he +was able--without any propheticism--to say that Peter would quickly be +the centre of a set. He would certainly not be sulking in the American +Club. + +Very quickly P. M. Guthrie, of St. John's, became "Peter" to the whole +college--and stroke in the freshers' boat. The other Rhodes scholars +owed everything that was good to him. He stood by them loyally, made his +rooms their headquarters, and all who wanted to know him were obliged to +know them. He introduced swipes at the first freshers' concert in the +Hall, with enormous success, selecting Forbes Nicholl, of Brasenose; +Watson Frick, of Wadham; Baldwin Colgate, of Worcester; and Madison +Smith, of Merton, all good Americans, for the purpose. Even Dons stayed +to listen on that epoch-making occasion and the fame of their curious +and delightful method of singing spread all over the university. It was +easy. There was nothing else like it. + +Quite unconsciously Peter was for a little while the whole topic of +conversation at Dons' dinners. These hide-bound professors were really +quite surprised at the remarkable way in which, at one fell swoop, this +man Peter Guthrie had managed to weld together the English and American +undergraduates for the first time in their knowledge. Some of them put +it all down to his piano playing--and were very nearly right. Others +conceived his great laugh to be mainly responsible--and were not far +short of the mark. But it was Nicholas Kenyon, the psychologist, who put +his finger on the whole truth of this swift and unbelievable success. He +said that it was Peter's humanity which had conquered Oxford, and in so +doing proved--impecunious only son of an absolutely broke peer as he +was--that he would be able to make a very fair living in the future on +his wits. It may be said that he never intended to work. + +It was part of Peter's honesty and simplicity to remain American. He +made no effort to ape the Oxford manner of speech. He would see himself +shot before he got into the rather effeminate clothes affected by the +Oxford man. He continued to be natural, to remain himself, and not to +take on the colors chameleon-wise of those about him. His Stetson hat +was the standing joke of St. John's. Nevertheless, there was not one man +in the college who would not have hit hard if any derogatory remarks had +been thrown at the head inside it. His padded shoulders, upholstered +ties and narrow belt were all frequently caricatured, but the sound of +Peter's laugh gathered men together like the music of the Pied Piper of +Hamelin. It was just that this man Peter Guthrie was a _man_ that made +him not only accepted in a place seething with quaint and foolish +habits, out-of-date shibboleths and curious unwritten laws, but loved +and respected. Here was one to whom merely to live was a joy. To the +despondent he came therefore as a tonic. He exuded breeziness filled +with ozone. His continuous high spirits infected even those foolish +boys who were encrusted with affectation and stuccoed with the petty +side and insolence of Eton. He worked hard and played hard and slept +like a dog, ate hearty and drank like a thirsty plant. Also he smoked +like a factory chimney. He had no crankish views--no tolerance for +"isms," and was not ashamed to stride into chapel and say his prayers +like a simple boy. In short, "unashamed" was his watchword, and he had +been endowed with the rare gift of saying "No," and sticking to it. And +to Nicholas Kenyon, who frequented the rooms of the so-called +intellectuals--those "little dreadful clever people" who parroted and +perverted other men's thoughts and possessed no originality of their +own--it was a stroke of genius on Peter's part to have nothing but the +photographs of his family all over his rooms. He must be a big man, +Nicholas said to himself, who could afford, among the very young, to +dispense with the female form divine in his frames--the nudes so +generally placed in them--in order to convey the impression of being +devilish wise and bad. Also it showed, according to this human merchant, +a peculiar strength of character on Peter's part to bolt his door +regularly one evening a week so that he might sit down uninterrupted and +write a tremendous screed to his mother. However, that was Peter the +man-boy--Peter the Rhodes scholar--Peter the Oxford man--who always +wound up his musical evenings with the "Star Spangled Banner." And there +was just one other side to this big, simple fellow's character which +puzzled and annoyed the bloodless, clever parasite who lived with him +and upon him,--women. + +Now, Nicholas Kenyon--the Honourable Nicholas Augustus Fitzhugh +Kenyon--was a patron of the drama. That is to say, he had the right +somehow to enter the stage door of the Theatre Royal at all times, and +did so whenever the theatre was visited by a musical comedy company. He +was known to innumerable chorus girls as "Boy-dear," and made a point of +entertaining them at luncheon and supper during their visits to the +university town. He brought choice specimens of this breed to Beaumont +Street for tea and tittle-tattle and introduced them to Peter, who liked +them very much and would have staked his life upon their being angels. +But when it came to driving out to small unnoticeable inns, Peter +squared his shoulders and stayed at home. + +"The devil take it!" said Nicholas one night, with frightful frankness +which was devoid of any intentional insolence. "What's this cursed +provincialism that hangs to you? I suppose it comes from the fact that +you were born in a shack to the tinkle of the trolley-car!" + +Peter's howl of laughter made the piano play an immaculate tune. +"Wrong," he said. "Gee! but you're absolutely wrong. The whole thing +comes to this, Nick: One of these fine days I'm going to be married. The +girl I marry is going to be clean. I believe in fairness. _I'm_ going to +be clean. That's all there is to it." + +So that, one way and another, Dr. Hunter G. Guthrie, of New York, as +well as St. John's College, Oxford, had several reasons to be rather +proud of this man Peter. + + +III + +One o'clock that afternoon found Peter still hammering on his piano, not +only to the intense delight of three snub-nosed tradesmen's boys who +delayed delivery of mutton-chops and soles, which were only plaice, but +also of five people who had come quietly into the room. They stood +together watching and listening and waiting for him suddenly to discover +that he was not alone. One was a tall, rather angular, clean-shaven, +noticeably intellectual man whose thin hair was grey and who wore very +large glasses with tortoise-shell frames, through which he looked with +pale, short-sighted eyes. He held a grey hat in his thin hand and stood +watching the boy--who made his piano do the work of a full band--with a +smile of infinite pride on his lips. Another was a little lady, all soft +and sweet, with a bird-like face and a curious bird-like appearance. All +about her there was a sort of perennial youthfulness, and the goodness +of her kind heart gleamed so openly in her eyes that they asked beggars +and cripples, itinerant musicians, ragamuffins, street dogs and all +humbugs to come and be helped. At that moment they were full of tears, +although little lines of laughter were all about them. Another was a +slight, exceedingly good-looking young man whose hair went into a series +of small waves and was brushed away from his forehead. He was grinning +like a Cheshire cat and showing two rows of teeth which would make a +dentist both envious and annoyed. There was a slight air of precocity +about his clothes. Two girls made up the rest of the party. Both were +young and slim and of average height. Both were unmistakably American in +their fearless independence and cleanness of cut. One was dark, with +almost black eyebrows which just failed to meet in the middle. Her eyes +were amazing and as full of danger as a maxim,--large and blue--the most +astonishing blueness. They were framed with long, thick, black lashes. +Her lips were rather full and red, and her skin white. She might have +been an Italian or a Spaniard. The other girl was blonde and slim, with +large grey eyes set widely apart, a small patrician nose and a lovely +little mouth turning up at the corners. + +How long all these people would have stayed watching and listening no +man can say. Suddenly, in the middle of a bar, Peter sprang up and +turned round. His cry of joy and the way in which he plunged forward and +picked up the little bird-like woman in his arms was very good to see. + +"Mother!" he cried. "Mother! Oh, Gee! This is great!" and he kissed her +cheeks and her hands, and then her cheeks again, all the while making +strange, small, fond noises like a little boy who comes back home after +the holidays. + +"Oh, dear, dear Peter!" said the little woman, between tears and +laughter. "How splendidly rough you are! You shake me to pieces! Where +_shall_ I be able to tidy my hair?" + +Then, with a rather constrained air and a touch of nervous cordiality, +Peter turned to his father and took his hand. "How are you, father?" he +asked. "You look fine." + +Dr. Hunter Guthrie swallowed something and gave a murmur which remained +incoherent. Before he could pull himself together, Peter was hugging his +sister, who squealed like a pig from the tightness of this man's mighty +grasp. And then the brother came in for it and winced with pain and +pleasure as his hand was taken in a vise-like grip. + +"Hello, Graham!" + +"Hello, Peter!" + +And then everybody except Peter burst out laughing. He stood in front of +the fair girl, with his mouth wide open, and held out his hand and said: +"I was going to hunt the whole place for you,--I beg your pardon." It +was when he drew back, with his face and neck the color of a beet root, +that the laughter reached its climax. + +Belle Guthrie was the first to find her voice. "Well, Peter," she said, +"that's going some. Is an introduction superfluous in Oxford? Where did +you meet Betty Townsend?" + +"I haven't met her," said Peter. "I saw her this morning in the High for +a second--" He ran his finger round his collar and moved from one foot +to the other and shifted his great shoulders. No man on this earth had +ever looked so uncomfortable. + +And then, with consummate coolness, Betty Townsend came to the rescue. +"Just after we arrived this morning," she said, "and you were all buying +picture post-cards, I passed Mr. Guthrie when I was walking along the +High Street with Graham's friend. I recognized him from the photographs +that you have at home, and I think he must have heard me ask, 'Who's +that?' I naturally gave him a friendly look. That's all." + +"I didn't catch the friendly look," said Peter. But he did catch the +friendly tone and stored it up among his treasures. Then he suddenly +stirred himself, being host, picked up his mother and placed her on his +elaborate sofa; gave his best arm-chair to his father; waved his sister +into the window-seat with her friend, and tilted Graham into a deck +chair. + +Standing in the middle of the room, beaming with pride, he said: "How in +thunder did you get here so soon? Your wire said that you were coming to +tea, and I was going to meet the train leaving Paddington at +three-thirty. Gee! This is the best thing that ever happened! Will you +lunch here?" + +"Oh, no, dear!" said Mrs. Guthrie. "So many of us will worry your +landlady." + +Then out came one of Peter's huge laughs. "Worry my landlady? One look +at Mrs. Brownstack would show you that she got over being worried before +the great wind. Why she's kept lodgings for undergraduates for twenty +years. It's the same thing as saying that she's spent the greater part +of her life sitting on the top of Vesuvius. I can give you beer, beef, +pickles, biscuits, cake, swipes they call coffee, some corking Nougat +and three brands of cigarettes." + +"I think," said Dr. Guthrie, with a suggestion of haste, "it might be +better if you lunched with us at the hotel." Like all doctors, his first +thoughts were of digestion. + +"Right-o!" said Peter, and he dived into his bedroom for a more +respectable coat. His brother followed him in and the two stood facing +each other for a moment, eye to eye. They had not met for two years. +Instinctively they grasped hands again and the minds of both were filled +with most affectionate things--a very flood of words--but one said "Old +man!" and the other "Peter!" And while Graham brushed his kinky hair +with a temporary suggestion of throatiness, Peter hauled out his best +coat and whistled to show how utterly unmoved he was. + +They returned to the sitting-room together. Dr. Guthrie was examining +the conglomeration of books that loaded the shelves. The plays of +Bernard Shaw rubbed shoulders with "Masterton on Land Taxes." +Stevenson's "Treasure Island" leaned up against Webster's Dictionary. +"Tono-Bungay" had for a companion a slushy novel by Garvice--and on them +all was dust. + +The little mother, all a-flutter like a thrush, was at the window +looking through the trees at the warm old buildings opposite. The two +girls were peering into a cupboard as into the "Blue Room," where they +found nothing but a few whiskey bottles, several packs of cards, a box +of chess-men, a couple of mortar-boards with all their corners gone, +and a large collection of white shoes in all grades of dilapidation. + +"Are you all ready?" asked Dr. Guthrie, with a curious gayety. Among all +this youth even he felt young. + +"Rather," said Peter. "I could eat an ox." + +He opened the door, touched his mother's soft cheek with his finger as +she passed, tweaked his sister's hair, refrained from catching Betty +Townsend's eyes, winked at his brother and drew back for his father. + +Once in the quad Mrs. Guthrie whispered to Graham and went quickly out +into St. Giles, beckoning to the two girls to follow. She was very +anxious that Peter should walk with his father, and this--rather pleased +with himself--Peter did. He would have taken his father's arm if he had +dared, he was so mighty glad to see him. Several times the Doctor seemed +about to do the same thing, but his hand hesitated and dropped. And so +these two fell in step and walked silently along towards the Randolph +Hotel, passed by men in twos or threes, many of whom, to the Doctor's +inward delight, cried out, "Hullo, Peter!" with tremendous cordiality. +It was not until they turned the corner that the Doctor spoke. + +"It gives me real pleasure to see you again, Peter," he said, with a +quick self-conscious glance at the young giant at his elbow. + +"Thank you, father," said Peter, looking straight ahead and getting as +red as a peony. + + +IV + +Nicholas Kenyon more than lived up to his promise. In clothes into which +he seemed to have been poured in liquid form, he handed hot toast and +cakes to Peter's family at tea-time with that air of deferential +impertinence which was his peculiar property. He had the same effect on +the Doctor and Mrs. Guthrie and the two girls as he had on Peter when he +first saw him on the train. His complete self-control, his indolent +assurance, his greyhound look of thoroughbredness and the decorative way +in which he phrased his sentences all charmed and amused them. For +Peter's sake he came right out of his shell at once and behaved like a +man who had been a favorite in that family circle for years. In the most +subtle manner he implied to the Doctor that his fame as a bacteriologist +had spread all over Oxford, and even England. He refused to believe that +Mrs. Guthrie was the mother of her children and not her own eldest +daughter. He asked Graham almost at once to do him the favor of giving +him the name of his tailor, and told Betty that he had shot with her +father, Lord Townsend, many times, well-knowing that he was a portrait +painter in New York. With consummate ease and tact he put everybody on +the best of terms with one another and themselves, thereby winning still +more of Peter's admiration and liking. With great pleasure he accepted +the Doctor's invitation to dine at the Randolph Hotel, and in return +invited all present to be his guests at the Open Air Performance of +"Twelfth Night," later in the week, by the O.U.D.S., in the beautiful +gardens of Worcester. In a word, he played with these people as a cat +plays with a mouse and as he had always played with Peter. He used all +his brain not only to win their confidence and friendship but to make an +impression which might afterwards be of use to himself. + +Nicholas Kenyon was one of those men who are born and not made. He +opened his eyes to find himself in an atmosphere of aristocratic +roguery. The beautiful old house in which his father lived was mortgaged +to the very tops of the chimneys. It was maintained on money borrowed +from the loan sharks at an exorbitant interest. It was filled with men +and women who, like his own parents, were clever and intellectual enough +to work for their livelihood, but who preferred to live on their wits +and cling to society by the skin of their teeth. In this +atmosphere of expert parasites--an atmosphere as false as it was +light-hearted--Nicholas was brought up. He was a complete man of the +world at fourteen. Even at that age he gambled, raced and borrowed +money; and in order to provide himself with the necessities of life he +ran a roulette table in secret at Eton and made a book for the racing +bets of the little boys of his own kidney. Highly gifted and endowed +with a most likable personality, with the art of eluding punishment for +misdeeds brought to a masterly completeness, he could have been shaped, +under different circumstances, into a man whose name would stand high in +his country. With the proper training and discipline and the right +sense of duty which is given to those lucky lads whose parents are +responsible and honorable he had it in his power to become a famous +diplomat. As it was, he entered Oxford as a parasite and would leave the +university for the world in the same capacity. He was entirely +unscrupulous. He had no code of honor. He quietly used the men about him +to provide him with amusement, money, hospitality, and to insure him +against having to work. He turned his personality into a sort of +business asset--a kind of limited liability company--which brought him +in regular dividends. His breeding and good form, his well-known name +and his inherent ability to slide comfortably into any set or society, +made him wholly irresistible. No one suspected him, because his +frankness disarmed suspicion. His knowledge of human nature told him +that the paradox of his being poor lent him a sort of romance, and he +always began by telling new acquaintances that he was broke to the wide. +In this way he struck the honest note of the men who disdain to convey +false impressions. He was poor, but proud, and made himself so +attractive and companionable that men were delighted to be put to great +expense in order to entertain him,--and he wanted everything of the very +best. His clothes were immaculate. His cigarettes were freshly rolled. +When he drove a car it had to be of the best known make. He was a most +fastidious reader and had once read a paper on modern poetry which had +startled the Dons of his college. He contributed short satirical +articles to the Isis from time to time which tickled the intellect of +the more discriminating; and as a fresher had given a performance of +Puck in one of the productions of the O.U.D.S., over which undergraduate +critics went raving mad. Even in his dealings with his friends, the +chorus girls, there was a certain touch of humour which made it +impossible even for the most straightlaced to say hard things of him. + +In a word, Nicholas Kenyon was a very dangerous man. His influence was +as subtly bad and pernicious as a beautifully made cigarette heavily +charged with dope; and he would at any time if necessary have stolen his +mother's toilet set in order to provide himself with caviar, plover's +eggs and a small bottle of champagne. + +And this was the man who had shared rooms with Peter Guthrie during his +terms at Oxford, and of whom the Doctor spoke that first night of his +stay at the Randolph Hotel as an unusually charming person whom it was a +pleasure to meet. + +In fact, he was the sole topic of conversation in all the bedrooms of +Peter's family party before the lights were turned out. Mrs. Guthrie +said, as she sat in front of the dressing-table combing her hair: "How +lucky it is, dear, that Peter has found such a wonderful friend here! He +is so English and so refined--in every sense of the word a gentleman." +The Doctor thoroughly agreed with her and made a mental note to invite +Kenyon to his house in New York in the autumn. + +Belle Guthrie took her brushes into Betty's room, which was next to her +own, and looking extremely attractive in a pale pink kimono, with her +dark hair all about her shoulders and her naked feet in pink, heel-less +slippers, gave a ripple of excited laughter and confided to her friend +that she was going to have a more bully time even than she had hoped. "I +love St. John's College," she said, "and these wonderful old streets and +all the church bells which strike so frequently--but I'm perfectly crazy +about Nicholas Kenyon. He is so,--so different--so witty--says such +perfectly wonderful things--and oh, my dear! _did_ you see the way he +looked at me when he said 'good-night'?" + +Betty shook her head--her little golden head--her rather wise little +head. "I didn't look," she said. "The light was shining on Peter's face, +and that was good enough for me." + +What Graham thought of Kenyon came out in Peter's rooms, to which he had +gone back with his brother when the family were left at the hotel after +their return from a jaunt on the river in the moonlight after +dinner,--the quiet, soothing, narrow stream on which they had floated in +punts all among cushions and listened with keen appreciation to the +throbbing song of the nightingale and the deep voice of an undergraduate +singing "Annie Laurie" in the back water to the thrumming accompaniment +of a mandolin. + +Kenyon himself had gone round to the rooms of some friends of his to +play bridge, so the two brothers were able to talk undisturbed. The +night was deliciously warm and Peter's old windows, with their numerous +leaded panes, were wide open. It was eleven o'clock and the life of the +town had almost ceased, although from time to time little parties of +undergraduates passed along St. Giles and their high-spirited laughter +drifted up. + +After having put cigarettes in front of his brother, Peter flung himself +full stretch upon his sofa, with a pipe between his teeth. "Now for your +news, old man!" he said. "I'm glad you like Nick. He certainly is one of +the best. What seems perfectly amazing to me is that while I'm still a +sort of schoolboy, rowing and reading, you're a full-blown man earning +your living. I'd give something to see you buzzing about Wall Street +with your head full of stocks and shares and the rise and fall of +prices. How do you do it?" + +Graham ran his hand rather nervously over his mouth. "It's great!" he +said excitedly. "That's what I call life. Gee! You've no idea how +fascinating it is to gamble on the tape and get a thrill every time you +hear it tick. It's like living among earthquakes. I love it!" + +"Gamble!" Peter echoed the word with a touch of fright. "Good Lord; but +you don't gamble surely? I thought you were a broker and looked after +other people's concerns!" + +Graham shot out a short laugh. "Other people's concerns? Why, yes; but +we're not in Wall Street for other people. I've had the luck of the +devil lately though,--everything I've touched has gone wrong. However, +don't let's talk about that. I'm here for a holiday and a rest, and I +need 'em. I believe I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown before I +came away. When I get back I shall have to straighten things out. At the +present moment I'm out about twenty thousand dollars." + +It was his young brother who said these things--the boy who two years +ago was only just out of Harvard. Peter sat up--in two senses. "You? +Twenty thousand dollars! Have you told father?" + +"My God, no!" said Graham. "I shall get it all back of course; +otherwise,--Phut! As to telling father,--well--well, do you ever tell +father anything? I'd rather face electrocution than go into father's +room with such a tale. Once before--about six months ago--when I had to +meet a bill for five thousand dollars, I had a little talk with mother, +and after she had a fit she gave me a handful of her jewels to pawn. She +was afraid of father, too. Within two months I got them out again. Steel +did me very well that time; and mother,--bless her dear heart!--called +me a very clever boy, and said: 'What a brain you have, darling, but +please don't do it again!' Oh, my God, Peter! You don't know what Wall +Street means. It's hell! It's marvellous! It's life! One of these days +when a real good chance comes I'll go some plunge, and then you'll see +me living quietly in the country breeding ponies or dogs or chickens or +something, and I'll marry and settle down." + +Peter got up, re-loaded his pipe, and said: "Just think of it! You're +two years younger than I am. I've not begun to live and you're in the +whirl of money and risk. In the meantime there's father so busy +experimenting with microbes that he hasn't one idea of what his boys +are doing, or are likely to do--absolutely content to let them find +their feet unaided! Well, I suppose he knows what he's doing,--but what +you've just told me makes me wonder whether it wouldn't be wise for him +to experiment a little bit with us for a change. What d'you think?" + +Graham shrugged his shoulders. With the light on his face he looked +older than his brother, and there was something in his eyes which showed +that he had already gazed at life very much more closely than the big +healthy fellow who was his host. "Oh, well," he said--pouring himself +out a rather stiff whiskey--"we've never known quite what it was to have +a father,--I mean except as a sort of aloof institution, a vague person +who educated us and placed us out. I should resent his butting in now. +There's someone coming up your stairs, isn't there?" + +There was. It was Kenyon, who rattled money in his trousers pocket with +a little smile at the corners of his sophisticated mouth. + + +V + +Peter put in the time of his life during the next few days, and like the +great big simple fellow that he was, revelled in being the little hero +of his family. + +From morning until night he kept them on the move, taking them to all +his favorite haunts in the town and out in the country, introducing to +them whole flocks of his friends, with whom they had tea and lunch; +guiding them into the strange quiet chapels that were filled with the +aroma of dead years like a bowl of dry rose-leaves; going with them into +the sweet, quiet, sacred, stately seclusion of New College Garden and +into the echoing cloisters of Magdalen. They were good days, memorable +days, giving them all mental pictures that even time would not blur nor +age rub out. To Peter the best of all the afternoons was the one when he +looked up at the St. John's barge as he paddled out into the river in +the College Eight and caught the eager and excited eyes of all the +people who meant so much to him, and especially those of Betty. He rowed +that afternoon as he had never rowed before, carrying with him all along +the stream the raucous shouts of the members of his college who tore +along the tow-path almost demented with enthusiasm, firing pistols, +turning rattles and screaming "St. John's! St. John's! Give her ten! +Give her ten! Up! Up!" And finally, when he staggered out of the boat +almost sick from exertion, his knees shaking under him, the thought that +came to him as he heard the incessant cries of "Good old Peter!" was +"Thank God for this! The Governor will get something back for all he has +done for me." He just waved his hand to his people, felt his way into +the barge, laid himself flat on the floor and underwent the soothing +process of being rubbed and sponged down--and all the while he smiled +and was very happy. + +He didn't catch the look of maternal agony in his mother's eyes nor her +remarks--which was perhaps just as well. Seeing her great big boy +crumpled up over his oar before he was assisted out of the boat, seeing +him stand rocking like a drunken man with his great chest heaving and +his face the color of a green apple, she leaned over the rail and cried +out: "Oh, my dear, what _have_ they done to you? Oh, Hunter, you must +_not_ let him do these things, he'll kill himself! Oh, Peter, Peter!" + +As a matter of fact, no one heard her. There was too much good solid +roar going on. Every lusty-throated St. John's man was shouting at the +full capacity of his lungs. Oh, but it was a good scene! And for the +quiet, studious Doctor who had sat day after day for the greater part of +his life watching bacteriological experiments, with the most intense +interest, it was one that caused his blood to move almost dangerously +through his veins and make him shout for the first time in his life. + +It had a different effect upon temperamental Belle, who danced with +excitement and kept on saying, in a sort of refrain, "Oh, I'm crazy +about all this--simply crazy!" As for Graham, even the thrill of Wall +Street seemed poor to him in comparison with this stirring scene,--the +wild rush of men, the rhythmetic plunge of oars, the glorious muscular +effort and the frenzied outburst. + +Betty merely smiled, clasped her hands together and held her breath. It +seemed to her that in Peter all the heroes of her youth,--Brian de Bois +Guilbert, Ivanhoe and the rest,--were epitomized in the form, the +splendid young giant form of her fellow-countryman. Above all things in +the world she wanted to lean over and put a wreath of laurels on the man +who stroked the St. John's boat to victory. As it was, she cried a +little, quietly and simply, not caring who saw her tears; and in her +heart, for a reason which she herself found unexplainable, she sang "My +Country 'tis of Thee." She had never in her life been so deeply stirred, +and who can wonder at that? There is indeed something full of +inspiration about these undergraduates' struggles on the water and the +fervent partisanship of the colleges. It is unique and splendid and +sends young men out into the world with good and beautiful memories and +with the love and loyalty for their alma mater which makes them better +able to serve the women who need them and the country to which they +belong. + +And when, having changed his shorts and got once more into his flannels, +Peter went up to the roof of the barge, stinging with health and glowing +with very natural pride and satisfaction, it was the Doctor whose hand +he first took, and the Doctor who said: "My son, my dear son!" It was an +extraordinary moment for Peter, who had never in his life before felt +the indescribable barrier which existed between his father and himself +so near to crumbling. + +That night, while his father and mother and Graham were taken to the +theatre by three of his fellow Rhodes scholars, to see a performance of +one of Gilbert and Sullivan's plays, Peter and Nicholas Kenyon took +Betty and Belle to the Worcester Ball, the two girls being under the +wing of the wife of one of the Dons. + +It was one of those warm, clear, silver nights which the fickle climate +of England sometimes produces apparently to show what it can do when it +likes. The moon was full and the sky was bespattered with stars. The +trees on the smooth lawn round the old college flung their shadows as +though in sunlight and it was to a seat under one of these that Peter +led Betty just before midnight, having very nearly danced her off her +feet. They sat down panting a little, and laughing for no reason, and +listened for a moment to the strains of the band which drifted through +the open windows of the hall. + +It was not in Peter to do anything by halves. He worked and played like +a Trojan and put his back into everything that he took up. He knew by +this time, short as it was, that he was wholly and completely in love +with the little girl, the first sight of whom had made him catch his +breath. With a peculiar kind of grimness he had made up his mind that +she was for him if he could win her, and all the previous night he had +dreamed of her as his future wife, as the girl who would stand by his +side, helpmate and everlasting lover, and for whom he would work well +and live well and carry her with him rung by rung to the top of the +ladder. He told himself when he awoke that he was a presumptuous ass +even to dream that she would care for him. What was there in him for +such a girl to care about? All the same, he set his teeth and from that +moment laid all his future plans and his hopes and ambitions and all the +best of his nature, at her little feet--and knew perfectly well that if +Betty could not love him eventually he would walk alone through life. + +Odd, romantic or foolish as it may seem, when youth falls in and out of +love so easily, this was true. Peter had, with a sort of unrealized +solemnity, kept his heart free and pure. He was no trifler--he had never +philandered. Like the boy who, perhaps unduly imaginative, believes that +he will find the place where the rainbow ends, Peter said to himself: +"One day I shall find my girl. I want to go to her heart-whole and +complete." + +There was nothing of sentimentality about this. It was simply the +outcome of the effect of the mother-influence upon the boy which had +become a very concrete thing. Somehow, ever since he was old enough to +remember and to think, he had looked upon his mother as his sweetheart, +and when she bent over his cot at night and asked God to bless him and +left the touch of her soft lips upon his forehead she had impressed upon +him the unconscious ambition to make another such woman the centre of +his own home. The numerous tender services, the exquisite maternal +thoughtfulness of this little mother-woman, had been built up by him +into a protection and a lode-star. Betty came--a girl in whom he +recognized at once another mother--and she just touched his heart with +her finger and walked straight in, fitting into the place which had been +kept for her like a diamond into its setting. + +Poor dear old Peter! No one would have thought, who looked at him +sitting there in his big awkwardness and incoherence, that he was a man +in love, although a psychologist or even an ordinarily observant girl +could very easily have told how Betty felt. + +"Topping, isn't it?" he said. + +"Simply wonderful," she replied. + +"Tired?" + +"Not a bit." + +"Pretty good floor, eh?" + +"Perfectly splendid." + +"Gee! I shall miss this place." + +"Why, of course you will." + +"All the same, I shall be mighty keen to get at things,--and begin." + +"Yes, of course you will." + +"How do you know?" + +"Oh, that's easy." + +"Is it? How?" + +"Well, don't I know you?" + +"Do you? I wish you did." + +Up in the branches something stirred. It may have been Cupid--probably +it was. + +But silence followed this conversational effort--a silence broken by a +great heaving sigh, mostly of excitement, and the strains of the band +which drifted out of the windows of the College Hall. + +And over them both, as over all other men and women, young and old, at +the beginning and at the end, hung the moon and the stars. + +How good it is to be young and in love! + + +VI + +Unnoticed by Mrs. Guthrie and her two boys, there was something more +than a little pathetic in the Doctor's eager, wistful attitude toward +the rather thoughtless, high-spirited, seething youth in the middle of +which he found himself for the first time. + +This man had never been young. The atmosphere of the farm on which he +had been born killed youth as foul air kills a caged bird. Poverty, +sordidness and the grim, constant struggle to live made his childhood +and early days utterly devoid of the good sweet things. His mother, worn +out and dispirited, died in giving him birth, and his father, bitter, +lonely and filled with the irony that comes from a long and unprofitable +hand-to-hand fight with mother-earth, let him bring himself up. He was +turned out to work at a time when most lads are sent to school. He had +to trudge daily into the straggling, one-eyed town, at an early hour, to +report at the chemist's store where he obtained employment as an errand +boy. Most of the small wages he earned were required by his father. From +almost the very beginning life was to him a sort of whirling stream into +which he had been flung before having been taught to swim. Mere +self-preservation demanded that he should keep himself afloat. He picked +up education as a stray dog picks up an occasional bone. There was, +however, great grit in this boy and deep down in his soul an ambition to +become something better than his father, whose daily wrestle with +nature--the most relentless of task-mistresses--had warped his character +and stultified his soul. Young Hunter shuddered at the thought of living +always on the farm, of grubbing in the earth, of planting and hoeing and +reaping, of facing the almost inevitable tragedy of spoiled crops and +ruined hopes, and the yearly set-backs of advancing freights and higher +wages. He looked with growing horror and detestation at the farm +implements among which his father spent his life; and while he ran his +errands, carrying medicines and soda syphons, he nursed a dream in his +little cold heart, which grew out of the smell of medicines and the talk +of illness that was all about him in the chemist store. It was to become +a doctor and tend the needs of humanity and, if it was in his power, to +save to other children the mothers who brought them into being. + +No wonder Dr. Hunter Guthrie wore strong glasses over his short-sighted +eyes. At all times, with a sort of greed and an almost terrible +eagerness, he read every medical book on which he could lay his +hands,--in bed by the light of one candle, in the cubby-hole at the back +of the store under the glare of the unshaded electric bulb, in +trolley-cars and trains, and on the stoop of the shabby farmhouse so +long as the light lasted. Later, after his day's work, he attended night +classes, and even as he walked from the farm to the town he read. +Spending sleepless nights and living laborious days he followed the +example of many other brave and determined boys whose names gleam like +beacons in the history of their country. He worked his way through the +necessary stages until finally, after a struggle so relentless that it +nearly broke his health, he became a qualified doctor. In order to earn +the money for his courses he was at different times bell-boy in a +country hotel, an advertisement writer in a manufacturer's office, a +clerk for a real-estate man and a traveling salesman for safety razors. +His vacations were more arduous than his terms, and during these he +earned the money with which to pay his college expenses. Every step up +the ladder of innumerable rungs--which sometimes seemed to him +impossible to climb--was painful and difficult. So much concentration +was needed from the very beginning--so much condensed determination and +energy required--that at the age of twenty-five he seemed to have lived +twice that number of years. No wonder then that the all-conquering +youthfulness of all the undergraduates amongst whom he found himself at +Oxford awoke a sort of envy in his heart and startled him who had never +been young. There was no meanness, jealousy or sense of martyrism in his +feelings as he watched the kaleidoscopic picture of university +life--only a sort of wonder and amazement that there were men in the +world so lucky--so indescribably fortunate as to be able to carry +boyhood and all its joys forward to an age when he had forgotten that +such a period existed. Many times during those interesting and stirring +days he stopped suddenly and thanked his God that he had been able to do +for his own boys those things which no one had ever done for him, and +give them such a chance in life as he had never had. Actually to see +Peter, his eldest boy, proving his muscular strength and his mental +ability and moving among his fellows with such splendid popularity, +filled him with pride and gladness. Here indeed was a very concrete +evidence of his reward for that long, arduous struggle. + +Like most men who have concentrated upon one thing, Dr. Guthrie was a +child when it came to others. Athleticism, of which he knew nothing, +filled him with admiration. The knack of conversation amazed him. Even +to his wife he found it difficult to talk. To force himself to confide +was almost impossible--it was like blasting a rock. One afternoon +however he got nearer to an intimate expression of his feelings than +ever before--perhaps because he was still under the influence of the +intoxication of the youthfulness all about him. + +Kenyon had driven them out after tea to Shotover Hill. All the young +people had gone on to Cuddesden, leaving the doctor and his wife to sit +and look down into the valley far below in which nestled the town and +all its colleges and spires. It had been a golden day and the sun was +setting with all the dignity and pomp of early summer, making the thin +line of the Thames shine like a winding silver ribbon. There was +something of exultation over the earth that evening and of +untranslatable beauty, and the evening song of the birds was like that +of choristers in a great cathedral. + +Unusual words seethed in the doctor's head. He was moved and thrilled. +The rest and the relief of leaving his work, all the bustle and stir of +the new life in which he was a temporary figure, seemed to take him +back to his own early days when, with the little woman who sat by his +side, he had stood with her in their first house, newly married. + +He took his hat off, put his arm round the shoulders of that faithful +woman and kissed her cheek with a touch of passion and gratitude. "My +darling," he said, "I wish I could say properly some of the things that +I feel about you and my children and the goodness of God. There are +tears in my heart, and strange feelings. I feel oddly young and strong. +I want to laugh and cry. I'd like to pick wild flowers and make a little +crown for your head. Don't laugh at me--please don't laugh." + +The little woman took his thin hand and pressed it to her cheek. "I +laugh because that is how I feel, too," she said,--"young and glad and +very happy to see my big Peter doing such wonderful things, and still a +boy. Dear old man, we have much to be thankful for! I know how you've +worked and striven,--and how fine it is to see some of the results of +it. I was a little afraid before we came here that we might find Peter +different--altered--perhaps older--but he's just the same. He's exactly +like you." + +The Doctor shook his head and a sudden pain twisted his thin, studious +face. "Oh no, no," he said, "I was never like that. I wish to God I had +been. But it was to make Peter what he is that I've worked night and +day. He's my idea of a man. He's doing all the things that I'd like to +have done. He's me as I might have been if I'd had any luck--any sort +of a chance. Do I regret it? Am I jealous? No; because if I hadn't +lived such an opposite life I mightn't have desired to give my boy all +this." He waved his hand towards the spires that rose in all their +significance out of the town away below. And then, with intense +eagerness and a ring of wistfulness in his voice that brought tears to +his wife's eyes, he bent towards her. "Do you think he realizes this, +Mary? Does Graham ever stop to think how hard I've worked to put him in +Wall Street? Does Belle ever wonder what it's cost me in youth and +health to give her so much more than she needs? I'm--I'm a queer, +wordless, foolishly shy man. Old since the time they all three began to +think and use their eyes,--necessarily concentrated and aloof away in +that laboratory of mine, and--and sometimes I wonder whether my children +know me and understand and make allowances. Do they, Mary, my dear one? +Do they?" + +"Yes, my man, my brave and splendid man," she replied, "they do, they +do!" And in saying this she deliberately lied,--out of her great and +steadfast love for this man of hers she lied. + +No one knew so well as she did that the father of her children might +almost as well be a mere distant relation who lived in their home for +reasons of convenience and allotted money to their requirements at the +proper time. No one knew so well as she did that Hunter Guthrie's tragic +lack of childhood had dried out of his nature the power of understanding +children. Never having been a child in any sense of the word--never +having known the inexpressible joy of a mother's love--remembering +nothing but a father who was either working hard or tired out--he was +unable to conceive what his own children needed in addition to all that +they got hourly from his wife and from his own work. It had always +seemed to him that in the possession of a mother they had everything +good that God could give them. It seemed to him that his own part was +performed by providing for their needs. No man desired to be the father +of sons and daughters more than he did. No man was prouder in the +possession of them than he was and had always been. To hear the patter +of their little feet about his house sent him to his work with that +sense of religion of which Carlyle wrote. To watch them shaping from +childhood into youth was the most satisfactory and beautiful thing in +his life. To be able, year after year, to do better and still better for +them was his best and biggest reward--far greater and more glorious than +the distinction he earned for himself and the international reputation +that increased with each of his discoveries. And when, six months after +Peter had left home to go to Oxford with a Rhodes scholarship, he found +himself unexpectedly endowed to the extent of over three million dollars +under the will of a late wealthy patient, so that he might, in the old +man's own words, "devote himself, without the fret and fever of earning +a livelihood as a practitioner, to the noble and limitless work of a +bacteriologist for the benefit of suffering humanity all over the +world," it was for the sake of his children that he offered up thanks. +With what immense pride he notified the authorities at Harvard that his +son was independent of the scholarship, which was free to send another +man to Oxford. With what keen pleasure he was able to buy Graham a seat +on the Stock Exchange, bring Belle out as a debutante and send his +little Ethel to the best possible school. These things he could do, and +did, but he could not and had never been able to do for them a better +thing than all these,--win their confidence, their deep affection and +their friendship. That gift had been killed in him. It could not be +acquired, taught or purchased, and he had always been as much out of +touch with his boys and girls as though he were divided from them by a +great stone wall. It had always been with them, "Look out! Here's +father!" instead of "Hello! Here's Dad!" His entrance into their +playroom was the signal for silence. The sight of his studious face and +short-sighted eyes and distrait, shy manner chilled them and reduced +them to quietude and self-consciousness and suspicion. If he had treated +them always as human beings, played with them, sat on the floor and +built houses with their bricks, thrown open the door of his study to +them, if only for half an hour every day, so that there might be no +possibility of its becoming a Blue Room; if he had, as they grew into +the habit of thinking and observing and remembering, told them about +himself and his own boyhood and in this way inculcated a mutual +interest, a desire to respond and open out; if, before the two boys had +gone to college he had had the courage to act on the earnest advice of a +friend and speak to them on the vital question of sex, give them the +truth as he so well knew it and warn them bravely and rightly of the +inevitable pitfalls that lined their youthful path, no brick wall would +have existed and he would have been their pal as well as their +father,--a combination altogether irresistible. + +As it was Hunter Guthrie's wife, who loved him deeply and devotedly and +recognized in him a great man as well as a most unselfish father, was +obliged to lie in reply to his questions. She would rather have died, +then and there, than hurt him and bring down his house about his ears. +The sad and tragic part of it all was that she knew utterly that no +good, no change could be brought about by telling the truth. It was too +late. + + +VII + +Belle had told Betty that she was "crazy" about Nicholas Kenyon. There +is usually a wildness of exaggeration about this expression which +renders it almost harmless. The exuberant type of girl who uses it +applies it with equal thoughtlessness to a new hat, a new play or a new +set of furs. She will be crazy about a tenor and a pomeranian, a +so-called joke in a comic paper and the sermon of a fashionable +preacher. In regard to Kenyon, however, Belle was really and truly crazy +in its most accurate dictionary sense. After the Worcester Ball, during +which she gave him nearly every dance,--to the flustered concern of the +Don's wife who was her chaperon,--she went to no trouble to conceal from +Kenyon the fact that she found him vastly attractive. Kenyon was not +surprised. Already he was a complete expert in the art of making himself +loved by women. He knew exactly what they liked him to say and he said +it with a touch of insolence which took their breath away and a +following touch of deference which gave them back their self-respect. +Belle was very much to his liking. Her rather Latin beauty, which was +rendered unexplainable by the sight of her parents--her incessant high +spirits and love of life--her naive assumption that she was the mistress +of all the secrets of this world, amused, interested and tickled his +fancy. Her beauty, freshness and youth pleased him as an epicure, and he +went out of his way to be with her as much as he could. He had no +intention whatever of falling in love with her,--first of all because it +was all against his creed to fall in love with anyone but himself; +secondly, because his way of living demanded that he should have no +partner in his business,--all that he could win by his wits he would +need. Nevertheless, he was quite as ready as usual to take everything +that was given to him, and give nothing in return except flattery, +well-rounded sentences and a good deal of his personal attention. + +During the week that passed so quickly he had only been able to see +Belle with her people, and when he found that this bored her as much as +it bored him, he set his brain to work to devise some plan by which he +could escape with her from the party for a few hours. Needless to say he +succeeded. + +On the night before the party were to leave Oxford he arranged another +evening trip on the river, maneuvered Peter into one punt with his +father and mother, Graham and Betty, and got into another with Belle. +For some little time he poled along closely behind them, but as the +river was full of similar parties he found it easy to drop behind and +dodge deftly into a back water. Here he tied up to a branch, set himself +down on the cushions at Belle's side and lit a cigarette. + +"How's that?" he asked. + +Belle laughed a little excitedly. "Very clever," she said. "I wondered +how you were going to do it." + +He didn't find it necessary to tell her that he had performed a similar +trick a hundred times. "Under the right sort of inspiration," he said, +"even I can develop genius. Tell me something about New York, and what +you find to do there." + +"I should have to talk from now until to-morrow morning even to begin to +tell you," she said. "I only came out last winter, but the history of it +would fill a book. New York is some town and I guess a girl has a better +time there than anywhere else in the world. Why don't you come and see +something of it for yourself?" + +Kenyon leaned lightly against the girl's soft shoulder. "That's +precisely what I'm going to do," he said. "Your father has given me a +cordial invitation to stay at his house, and I shall go over with Peter +in October." + +"Oh, isn't that fine!" cried Belle. "You'll love the place--it's so +different." + +"I'm not worrying about the place," said Kenyon. "I'm simply going for +the chance of dancing with you to the band which really does know how to +play rag-time. It'll be worth crossing three thousand miles of +unnecessary water to achieve that alone." + +"I don't believe you," said Belle; but all her teeth gleamed in the +moonlight and her heart pumped a little. How wonderful it would be to +become the wife of the Honourable Nicholas Kenyon, who seemed to her to +be everything that was desirable. + +Kenyon picked up her hand and just touched it with his lips. "You don't +believe it? Well, we'll see." He knew very well that if he had chosen to +do so he could have kissed her lips, but his policy was to go slow. His +epicurianism was so complete that he liked to take his enjoyment in sips +and not empty his glass at a gulp. This girl whose imagined worldliness +was so childlike was well worth all his attention. He looked forward +with absolute certainty to the hour when he should place her on his +little list of achievements; but like all collectors and connoisseurs he +added to his pleasure by winning his point gradually, step by step, with +a sort of cold-blooded passion. + +Belle was accustomed to men who were a little crude in their naturalness +and who immediately voiced their admiration and their liking with boyish +spontaneity. She had strings of beaux of all ages who immediately sent +her flowers and presents and dogged her heels from dance to dance and +rang her up constantly on the telephone and generally showed their +eagerness with that lack of control which was characteristic of a +nation which had deliberately placed women in the position of queens. + +Perhaps it was because this man's methods were so different that she +found him so attractive. He fed her vanity and piqued it at the same +time. He said more by saying nothing than any man had ever ventured to +do, and he retired so quickly after an amazing advance that he left her +assuming more than if he had never advanced at all. It was perfectly +natural, although she had already dipped into the fastest New York set, +that she should believe that at the end of every man's intention there +was a marriage and a sort of throne in his house. She little knew +Nicholas Kenyon. She had had the good fortune to meet men in New York, +and not collectors. + +"What are your father's plans when he leaves Oxford?" asked Kenyon, +leaning a little more closely against the girl's soft shoulder. + +"Why, we're going to Shakespeare's country, to the English lakes and +then to Scotland, where father's ancestors lived; and then in August we +shall go to London for a week, and go home on the _Olympic_. Why don't +you go over with us?" + +"I should like nothing better," said Kenyon, "but as a matter of fact I +shall wait until Peter has got through his various engagements. He rows +at Henley in July, you know,--the boat is entered for the Lady's +Plate,--and then he comes home with me. He wants to shoot my father's +birds in August and see a little of English country life before he +settles down to his law work in America." + +Belle was silent for a few moments. She wished that this wonderful week +could be extended over the whole of her holidays. She knew, and was +really a little frightened at knowing, that when she left Oxford the +next day she would leave behind her a heart that had hitherto been quite +untouched. She was amazed and even a little annoyed to find that a mere +week had brought about such a revolution in all her feelings and in her +whole outlook on life. She had meant to have a perfectly wonderful time +before falling in love. + +"I suppose," she said, "that we shan't hear anything of you until we see +you again, unless,--unless you write sometimes to mother and tell her +how you are and what Peter is doing." + +Kenyon didn't even smile. "Peter will write to your mother once a week, +as usual--he's very consistent--and I'll get him to put in a postscript +about me, if you like. I shall have some difficulty in preventing myself +from writing to you from time to time, although I'm a child in the art +of letter-writing." + +"Why should you prevent it? I should simply love to have your letters." + +"But isn't your mother a little old-fashioned?" + +"Maybe," said Belle, "but does that matter? You've not met any American +girls before--that's easy to see. We do just what we like, and if our +mothers don't agree they don't dare to say so. Shall I tell you why? +Because it wouldn't make any difference if they did." + +"Then I shall write," said Kenyon, "and give you brief but eloquent +descriptions of English weather, English politics and the condition of +my liver,--that is to say, the three inevitable topics of this country." + +Belle laughed. "Then it will be perfectly safe for me to leave your +letters about," she said. + +"Perfectly,--always supposing that you censor the postscripts." + +"I'm crazy about you!" said Belle; and this time her laugh awoke the +echoes of the river and filled a nightingale near by with a pathetic +ambition to emulate its music. + +And then they heard Peter's great voice shouting, "N-i-c-k!" Whereupon +Kenyon gathered himself together, not unpleased at being disturbed, +stood up gracefully and pulled back into the main stream. "The call of +duty," he said--"such is life." It was consistent with his policy to +conduct this most pleasant affair by instalments. + +When he saw the other punt he asked Peter, with a touch of beautiful +petulance, why he had deliberately lost them, and turned a deaf ear to +Graham's idiotic chuckle. + +The landing stage was in the shadow, which was just as well. When Kenyon +gave his hand to Belle to help her out of the punt, he drew her close +against him and with a touch of passion as unexpected as the sudden +flash of a searchlight across a dark sky left a kiss on her lips that +took her breath away. + +All the way back to the hotel she hung on Peter's arm and dared not +trust herself to speak. For the first time in her young life she had +caught a glimpse of its meaning. It left her strangely moved and +thrilled. + +Little Mrs. Guthrie walked back with Kenyon, very proud of the fact that +he was Peter's friend. + +Poor little mother! + + +VIII + +On the steps of the Randolph Hotel, Mrs. Guthrie turned to Kenyon and +asked him, with one of her most motherly smiles, to have some supper +with them. Telegraphing quickly to Peter and Graham that they were not +to accept the invitation, Kenyon said: "Nothing would give me greater +pleasure--absolutely nothing. Unfortunately Peter and I have already +accepted an invitation from two of our Dons and we cannot possibly get +out of this dull but profitable hour." + +"How very disappointing!" said Mrs. Guthrie. + +"How silly!" said Belle. + +Betty merely said, "Oh!" but the rest of her sentence was condensed into +one quick look at Peter. + +Peter, utterly without guile, turned round to Nicholas Kenyon in blank +amazement. "It's the first I've heard of it," he said. "What on earth do +you mean? Two of the Dons? Who are they?" + +But Kenyon was an artist and a strategist, and therefore a liar. "My +dear old boy! What would you do without me? I'm your diary, your +secretary, your guide, philosopher and friend. If you've forgotten the +engagement I certainly haven't." And he shot at Peter a swift and +subtle wink, in which he included Graham. + +Scenting adventure and gathering that the two Dons were in all +probability coming from the chorus of "The Pirates of Penzance," Graham +joined in quickly. "I suppose I can't come and listen humbly to the +learned conversation of these two professors?" + +"But why not?" said Kenyon. "No doubt you can tell them more about Wall +Street in five minutes than they would ever learn in their lives. +Therefore, dear Mrs. Guthrie, I'm afraid we must all say 'good-night.' +We'll rejoin you in the morning for breakfast as arranged, and wind up +what's been the pleasantest week of my life, by driving out to Woodstock +for lunch." + +It was all done in the most masterly manner, and when the three men left +the hotel arm in arm they were not guided by Kenyon toward St. Giles, +but to the theatre, where the curtain was just about to fall with the +last act. + +"What's all this?" asked Peter, impatiently. "Mother had set her heart +upon having us to supper." + +"Mother has had us all day," replied Kenyon. "Bear in mind the fact that +there are other women in the world to whom we owe a little gallantry. +You and Graham are going to eat Welsh Rabbit at the somewhat humble +rooms of my little friends, Lottie Lawrence and Billy Seymour." + +"I'll see you damned first!" said Peter. "I've no use for these people. +Come on, Graham, let's go back." + +Kenyon's face was wreathed in smiles. "It can't be done, dear lad," he +said. "Your mother would be the last person on earth to permit you to be +discourteous to our two distinguished Dons, and by this time in all +human probability Betty will be preparing for bed." + +Peter had been building all his hopes on another hour with Betty. She +was leaving Oxford with his people the next afternoon and he wanted +above all things, however incoherently, to let her know something of the +state of his feelings. He had never been so angry with Kenyon before. +"Curse you!" he said. "You've spoiled everything. If you must play about +with these chorus girls why can't you do it alone? Why drag me in?" + +Kenyon's eyes narrowed. "Only the angels die young, Peter, my friend," +he said. "As I've been obliged to tell you before, you stand a pretty +good chance of an early demise. Have you ever heard the word 'priggish'? +For a whole week I've played the game by you and devoted myself, lock, +stock and barrel, to your family. Mere sportsmanship demands that you +make some slight return to me by joining my little party to-night. Don't +you agree with me, Graham?" + +Graham's vanity was vastly appealed to by the fact that this perfect man +of the world had taken him into his intimacy. Hitherto he hadn't met +English chorus girls. He rather liked the idea. "Why," he said, "I can't +see why we shouldn't go. I'm with you, anyway. Come on, Peter. Be a +sport." + +But Peter held his ground. He had all the more reason for so doing +because he had met Betty. "All right!" he said. "You two can do what you +jolly well like. Cut me out of it. I shall turn in. If that's being +priggish--fine. Good-night!" + +He wheeled round and marched off, and as he passed beneath the windows +of the Randolph Hotel he drew up short for a moment and with a touch of +knightliness which was quite unself-conscious he bared his head beneath +the window of the room in which he believed that Betty was to sleep, but +which, as a matter of fact, harboured a short, fat, wheezy Anglo-Indian +with a head as bald as a billiard ball. + +Kenyon disguised his annoyance under an air of characteristic +imperturbability. "Well, that's our Peter to the life," he said, taking +Graham's eager arm. "He's a sort of Don Quixote--a very pure and perfect +person. One of these days he's likely to come an unholy cropper, and +that's to my way of thinking what he most needs. I don't agree with a +man's being a total abstainer in anything. It narrows him and makes him +provincial. Then, too, a man who fancies himself as better than his +fellows is apt to wear a halo under his hat, and that disgusting trick +ruins friendship and leads to a hasty and ill-considered marriage with +the first good actress who catches him on the hop and makes use of his +lamentable ignorance. Come along, brother, we'll see life together." + +"Fine!" said Graham. "Me for life all the time." + +So these two,--the one curiously old and the other dangerously +young,--made their way to the stage door of the Theatre Royal and +waited among the little crowd of undergraduates for the moment when the +ladies of the chorus should have retouched their make-up and be ready +for further theatricalisms. + +Lottie Lawrence and Billy Seymour were the first out. The latter's +greeting was exuberant. "What-ho, Nick! Where's the blooming giant you +said you were going to bring?" + +"Otherwise engaged, dear Billy; but permit me to introduce to you a +financial magnate from the golden city of New York." + +Billy was young and slim and so tight-skirted that her walk was almost +like that of a Chinese Princess. Even under the modest light of the +stage door-keeper's box her lips gleamed crimsonly and her long +eyelashes stuck out separately in black surprise. Her small round face +was plastered thickly with powder. She was very alluring to the very +young. Her friend had come from an exactly similar mould and might have +been a twin but for her manner, which was that of the violet--the modest +violet--on a river's brim. + +Kenyon hailed a cab, gave the man the address in Wellington Square and +sat himself between the two girls, with an arm round each. + +Billy Seymour had taken in Graham with one expert glance of minute +examination. "Graham Guthrie, eh?" she said. "It smacks of Caledonia, +bag-pipes and the braes and banks o' bonnie Doon. I take it your +ancestors went over on the S. S. Mayflower, of the White Star Line--that +gigantic vessel which followed the beckoning finger of Columbus--and +started the race which invented sky-scrapers and the cuspidors." + +Graham let out a howl of laughter and told himself that he was in for a +good evening, especially as the ladies' knees were very friendly. + +Lottie Lawrence placed her head on Kenyon's shoulder, sighed a little +and said: "Oh, I'm so tired and so hungry; and I've a thirst I wouldn't +sell for a tenner." + +Kenyon tightened his hold. "All those things shall be remedied, little +one," he said. "Have no fear." + +The first things which met their eyes when they entered the sitting-room +of the sordid little house in which a series of theatricals had lodged +from time immemorial, were a half-dozen bottles of champagne--sent in by +Nick's order. The two girls showed their appreciation for his +tactfulness in different ways. Billy fell upon one of the bottles as +though it were her long-lost sister, pressed it to her bosom and placed +a passionate kiss upon its label; while Lottie, with an eloquent +gesture, immediately handed Graham a rather battered corkscrew. "Help me +to the bubbly, boy," she said. "My throat is like a limekiln." + + * * * * * + +All the clocks of the City of Spires were striking three as Kenyon and +Graham supported each other out into the quiet and deserted street. +There was much powder on Graham's coat and a patch of crimson on +Kenyon's left cheek. + +"Life with a big L, Graham, my boy," said Kenyon a little thickly. + +"A hell of a big L," said Graham, with a very much too loud laugh at his +feeble joke. "You certainly do know your way about." + +"And most of the short cuts," said Kenyon dryly. "Presently I shall +scale the wall of St. John's, climb through the window of one of our +fellows who's about to take holy orders, and wind up the night in the +hospitable arms of Morpheus." This eventually Graham watched him do, +with infinite delight, and was still wearing a smile of +self-congratulation as he passed the door of his mother's bedroom in the +hotel and entered his own. + +His father heard the heavy footsteps as they went along the passage, but +imagined that they were those of the night watchman on his rounds. + +Fate is the master of irony. + + +IX + +The following morning at eight o'clock Peter, as fit as a fiddle, +stalked into Kenyon's bedroom and flung up the blind. The sun poured in +through the open window. Innumerable sparrows twittered among the trees +in the gardens and scouts were moving energetically about the quad. From +the other windows the sounds of renewed life were coming. The great +beehive of a college was about to begin a new and strenuous day. + +Kenyon was sleeping heavily with a blanket drawn about his ears. His +clothes were all over the floor and a tumbler one-fourth filled with +whiskey stood on the dressing-table among a large collection of +ivory-backed brushes, links, studs, tie-pins and other paraphernalia +which belong to men of Kenyon's type,--the bloods of Oxford. With a +chuckle, Peter dipped a large sponge in the water of the hip-bath which +had been placed ready on the floor, and throwing back the blanket +squeezed its contents all over Kenyon's well-cut face. + +The effect was instantaneous. The sleeper awoke, and cursed. Peter's +howl of laughter at the sight of this pale blinking man with his +delicate blue silk pajamas all wet round the neck advertised the fact to +the whole college that he was up and about. + +Kenyon got slowly out of bed. "There are fools--damned fools--and Peter +Guthrie," he said quietly. "What's the time?" + +"Time for you to get up, shave and bathe, if you want to breakfast at +the Randolph. How late were you last night?" + +"Haven't a notion," said Kenyon. "The first faint touch of dawn was +coming over the horizon, so far as I remember, when your little brother +watched me climb through the window of the man Rivers, upon whose +'tummie' I planted my foot. For a man who's about to enter the Church he +has an astounding vocabulary of gutter English. You look abominably fit, +old boy--the simple life, eh? Heigh-ho!--Manipulate this machine for me +while I'm doing my hair." He picked up the small black case of his +safety-razor and threw it at Peter, who caught it. Then he got into a +very beautiful silk dressing-gown, stuck his feet into a pair of +heelless red morocco slippers, and with infinite pains and accuracy made +a centre parting in his fair hair, in which there was a slight natural +curl. + +From his comfortable position on the foot of the bed Peter watched his +friend shave,--a performance through which he went with characteristic +neatness. It was a very different performance from the one through which +Peter was in the habit of going. Soap flew all round this untidy man, +giving the scout much extra work in his cleaning-up process. + +Kenyon didn't intend to enter into any details as to the orgy of the +night before. He knew from previous experience that Peter's sympathy was +not with him. For many reasons he desired to stand well with his friend, +especially looking to the fact that he needed an immediate loan. One or +two of his numerous creditors were pressing for part payment. So he let +the matter drop and took the opportunity to talk like a father to Peter +on another point which had grown out of the visit of his people. "Tell +me," he said, "what is precisely the state of your feelings in regard to +your sister's friend? It seems to me that you're getting a bit sloppy in +that direction. Am I right?" + +"No," said Peter, "'sloppy' isn't the word." + +"Oh! Well, then, what is the word? I may be able to advise you." + +"I don't want your advice," said Peter. "My mind is made up." + +Kenyon turned round. "Is that so? Quick work." + +Peter nodded. "It's always quick when it's inevitable." + +"Oho! What have we here--romance?" + +"Yes; I think so," said Peter quietly. + +"Who'd have thought it? Our friend Peter has met his soul-mate! Out of +the great crowd he has chosen the mother of his children. It is to +laugh!" + +"Think so?" said Peter. "I don't." + +Kenyon put down his razor and stood in front of the man with whom he had +lived for several years and who had now apparently come up against a big +moment in his life. It didn't suit him that Peter should be seriously in +love yet. He looked to his friend to provide him with a certain amount +of leisure in the future. His plans would all go wrong if he had to +share him with someone else. He had imagined that his friend was only +temporarily gone on this little girl whose brief entry into Oxford had +helped to make Eight's week very pleasant. It was his duty to find out +exactly how Peter stood. + +"Do you mean to tell me," he asked, "that you've proposed to Betty +Townsend?" + +"Not yet," said Peter, "but I'm going to this morning--that is if I have +the pluck." + +"My dear fellow," said Kenyon, with a genuine earnestness, "don't do it. +I've no doubt she'll jump at you, being under the influence of this +place and seeing you as a small hero here; but take the advice of a man +who knows and bring caution to your rescue. What'll happen if you tie +yourself up to this girl? After all, you can't possibly be in love with +her--that's silly. You're under the influence of a few silver nights, +and that most dangerous of all things--propinquity. Dally with her of +course, kiss her and write her letters in which you quote the soft stuff +of the poets. That'll provide you with much quiet amusement and assist +you in the acquisition of a literary style; but, for God's sake, don't +be serious. You're too young. You've not sown your wild oats. What's the +use of taking a load of responsibility on your shoulders before you're +obliged to do so? I'm talking to you like a father, old man, and I've +the right." + +"Oh yes," said Peter, "you've the right--no man better--but you and I +look at things differently. I want the responsibility of this girl. I +want someone to work for,--an impetus--an ultimate end. It may seem +idiotic to you that I know the right girl directly I see her, but all +the same it's a fact. You see my undergraduate days are almost over. +When I go home in the fall I shall start earning my living. What am I +going to work for? A home, of course, and a wife and all that that +means. If that's what you call romance, thank you, it's exactly what I +want. Do you get me?" + +Kenyon shrugged his shoulders. "Then I don't see that there's anything +more to be said. Does all this mean that you're going to chuck me? +Supposing Betty accepts you? Are you going to dog her footsteps for the +rest of the summer and leave me in the cart?" + +"Oh Lord, no!" said Peter. + +"Thank God for small mercies! And now if you'll give me a little +elbow-room I'll have my bath." + +"Right-o!" said Peter. "Buck up! Breakfast at nine o'clock." + +He went out, not singing as usual but with a curious quietness and a +strange light dancing in his eyes. + +Kenyon was left the sole master of that little bedroom. As he finished +dressing he marshalled his thoughts and into them entered the figure of +a certain very beautiful person who lived in a cottage on the borders of +his father's estate. Before now she had twisted young men, quite as +romantic as Peter, out of their engagements to simple little girls. He +would see that she worked her wiles on Peter. He didn't intend that his +friend should devote himself to any person except Nicholas Kenyon so +long as he could prevent it. + + +X + +It was a rather curious meal,--this final breakfast at the Randolph +Hotel. There were several under-currents of feeling which seemed to +disturb the atmosphere like cross winds. The Doctor and Mrs. Guthrie +were genuinely sorry that the week had come to an end. It was one which +would be filled with memories. Graham would very willingly have remained +at Oxford as long as Kenyon did. He had fallen a complete victim to the +attractions of this master of psychology. He regarded him as the very +last word in expert worldliness. He paid him the highest tribute that he +considered it was possible for one man to pay another, by calling him "a +good sport," and he looked forward with enormous pleasure to the time +when he would be able to show Kenyon the night side of New York, with +which he had himself begun to be well acquainted. + +As to the two girls, wonderful things had happened to both of them +during that emotional, stirring, picturesque and altogether "different" +week. It seemed almost incredible to them they had been in that old town +for so short a time, during which, however, their little plans--their +girlish point of view--had undergone absolute revolution. The +high-spirited Belle, who had hitherto gone through life with a +consistent exuberance and rather thoughtless joy, was rendered +uncharacteristically serious at the knowledge that she would not see +Nicholas Kenyon again for some months. Not for a moment did she regret +the fact that she had fallen badly in love with him. It was a new +sensation for her, and young as she was, it was the new thing that +counted. Her mind was filled with dreams. In imagination she walked from +one series of pictures into another and all were touched with +excitement, exhilaration and a sense of having won something, the +possession of which all her friends would envy her. + +In going over in her mind all that Kenyon had said to her, she could +not put her finger on any actual declaration on his part; but his subtle +assumption of possession, the way in which he touched her hand and +looked at her over other people's heads with eyes which seemed to +embrace her, seemed to her to be far more satisfactory than any +conventional set of words ordinary under such circumstances. Then, too, +there was that wonderful and sudden kiss on the landing stage in the +shadow. Why, there was no doubt about it. She had, like Caesar, come and +seen and conquered. She was to be the Hon. Mrs. Nicholas Kenyon, +daughter-in-law of Lord Shropshire, of Thrapstone-Wynyates. What a +delightful surprise for father and mother, and how proud they would be +of her! + +Betty knew that Peter intended to make her his wife. She knew it and was +happy. His very incoherence had been more eloquent to her than the +well-rounded sentences of all the heroes of her favorite novels, and if +he never said another word before she left, she would be satisfied. In +her heart there was the sensation of one who had come to the end of a +long road and now stood in a great wide open space on which the sun fell +warmly and with great beauty. + +Not much was said by anyone, and the question of the afternoon train +which was to leave at four-thirty was consistently avoided by them all. + +Breakfast over, the whole party followed Kenyon into the street, where +two cars were waiting for the trip to Woodstock. They were to lunch at +the old inn which stood beneath the gnarled branches of the oaks that +had sheltered the Round Heads and Royalists. The first car was Kenyon's +roadster, in which he placed Mrs. Guthrie, the Doctor and Graham. He had +intended that Betty should sit by his side as he drove, and that Peter +should take Belle in his two-seater. But Master Peter was too quick for +him this time. He had touched Betty on the arm and said: "You're coming +with me." And before Kenyon could frame a sentence to break up this +arrangement these two were off together with the complete disregard for +speed limits which was peculiar to the Oxford undergraduate. Kenyon had +the honesty to say about this to himself that it was well done, but all +the same he was immensely annoyed. As he drove off with Belle on the +front seat he was not, for at least a mile, a very talkative companion. +Belle put his silence down to the fact that she was going away that +afternoon. + +Along St. Giles, past the burial ground, the Roman Catholic Church, +Somerville, and into the Woodstock road as far as the Radcliffe +Infirmary, Peter kept the lead, and then the big car overtook him and +left him behind. Graham waved his hand and shouted something which Peter +didn't catch. It was probably facetious. As far as Wolvercote Peter kept +in touch with the car in front, when he began to fall gradually behind. +He had a plan in the back of his head. + +The morning seemed to suit all that he had to say, if he found himself +able to say it. The earth was warm with the sun. The hedges and trees +were still in the first fresh vigor of early summer. Everywhere birds +sang and were busy with their young. + +Peter pulled up short at the edge of a spinney. "Let's get out of +here," he said, "I want to show you a corking little bit of country." +And Betty obeyed without a word. She rather liked being ordered about by +this big square-shouldered person. + +They didn't go far,--hardly, in fact, fifty yards from the car,--and +when they came to a small opening among the beeches where bracken grew +and "bread and cheese" covered the soft turf with their little yellow +heads, Peter said: "Sit down; I want to speak to you." + +And again Betty obeyed without a word. It was coming--she knew that it +was coming--and the only thing she was afraid about was that Peter would +hear the quick beat of her heart. + +He laid himself full stretch at her feet, threw off his cap and ran his +fingers through his hair. "You know this place," he said. + +"I? No, I've never been here before." + +"Yes, you have. You've been here with your friends. They come out every +night from the first of May until the first of October. Can't you see +the marks their feet have made as they danced here in the ring? It's +awfully queer. This is the first place I came to after I got to +Oxford--all the leaves were red--and I sat here one afternoon alone and +wondered how long it would be before I should look up and see you. I've +often come here since, winter and summer, and listened for sticks to +crackle as you came along through the trees to find me. Why don't you +laugh?" + +"Why should I?" + +"I knew you wouldn't. If you had it wouldn't have been you." + +He turned himself round on to his elbows and looked up at her, and +remained looking and looking. And Betty looked back. Her heart was +beating so loudly that it seemed to her that someone was whacking a +carpet somewhere with a stick. She wondered whether she would be able to +hear Peter when he spoke again,--if ever he did. + +And Peter said: "I'm going to begin to be a man exactly five months from +to-day. That is to say, I'm going into a law office in New York to make +a beginning. I'm going to work like the dickens. Do you know why?" + +Betty shook her head and then nodded. He was a long time coming to the +point. If he wasn't quick she'd simply have to scream. Her heart was up +in her throat--it was most uncomfortable. + +Peter went on. Somehow words came easy to him. The earth was so friendly +and so motherly and so very kind, and after all this was his spot and +she was there at last. "I forget the number of the house," he said, "but +up on the eighth floor of it, facing south, there's a most corking +apartment. The rooms are large and can be filled with big furniture and +enormous book-cases. I'm going to work to get that. I don't know how +long it'll take, but I'm going to ask you to help me to get it. Will +you?" + +Betty nodded again. Someone was beating the carpet in a most violent +manner. + +Peter, without another word, sprang up, put two large strong hands +under Betty's elbows and set her on her feet. She came up to the top +button of his coat and he held her there tight and it hurt her cheek. +But oh, how fine and broad the chest was behind it and how good it was +to nestle there. She heard him say much that she forgot then, but +remembered afterwards--simple boyish things expressed with deep +sincerity and a sort of throb--outpourings of pent-up feelings--not in +the very least incoherent, but all definite and very good. And there +they stayed for what appeared to be a long time. The man with the carpet +had gone away, but without looking up Betty knew that there were +hundreds of little people dancing around them in the ring and the little +clearing full of the yellow heads of wild flowers seemed to have become +that great open space and out of it, between an avenue of old trees, +stretched the wide road which led to,--the word was the only one in the +song that filled her brain,--motherhood! Motherhood! + +A rabbit ran past them frightened, and Betty sprang away. "Peter! What +will the others say?" + +Peter shook himself and his great laugh awoke the echoes of the woods. +"I don't care what anybody says," he answered. "Do you?" + +"Yes. Let's go. We shall be late for lunch." + +And Peter picked her up, carried her to the car, kissed her, put her in, +and drove away. + + +XI + +Peter and Kenyon left the station arm in arm. They had watched the train +round the corner and disappear. Many hands had waved to the crowd of +undergraduates who had come to see their people and friends off. Peter +had stood bareheaded with his hand still tingling with the touch of +Betty's. + +They walked slowly back to college, each busy with his thoughts. +Exultation filled Peter's mind. Kenyon was wondering how much he could +touch Peter for. In the procession of returning undergraduates they made +their way under the railway bridge and along the sun-bathed but rather +slummy cobblestone road over which the tram-cars ran. They passed the +row of little red brick houses--most of which were shops--and the +factory, stammering smoke, and turned into the back way which led by a +short cut to Worcester. + +Oxford had resumed her normal atmosphere. Fathers and mothers, uncles, +guardians, brothers, sisters and cousins, who had all descended upon the +town, had departed. No longer were the old winding streets set alight by +the many colored frocks of pretty girls, nor were they any longer +stirred into a temporary bustle by the great influx of motor-cars. +Undergraduates held possession once more and with their peculiar +adaptability were making hasty preparations for the long vacation. + +Peter led the way to his sitter, loaded his inevitable pipe, and sat in +the sun on the sill of the open window. With fastidious care Kenyon +stuck a cigarette into a long meerschaum holder and laid himself down on +the settee. He had worked very hard during the week and had very much +more than carried out his promise to Peter to make himself pleasant. The +moment had come when he might certainly lead the way up to his reward. + +Peter took the words out of his friend's mouth. "What d'you think?" he +said. "When I was saying good-bye to the Governor on the platform he +took me aside and gave me a cheque. He did it in his curious apologetic +way which always makes me feel that he's someone else's father, and +said: 'I think this will see you through for a month or two.' Gee! It's +some cheque, Nick! I don't think I shall have to touch the old man down +for another bob until I have to book my passage. His generosity leaves +me wordless. I wish to God I'd been able to say something nice. As it +was, I had to tell mother to thank him for me." He went over to his +desk, fished out a cheque-book, sat down and made one out in his large +round boyish handwriting. + +Kenyon watched him intently. He hoped that it might be for himself and +for fifty sovereigns. That amount, carefully split up, would keep some +of his more pressing tradesmen quiet for a short time. + +"Is this any good to you, old man?" said Peter. He dropped the cheque on +to Kenyon's immaculate waistcoat. It was for a hundred pounds. + +The master parasite was taken by surprise almost for the first time in +his life and he was sincerely touched by this generosity. "My dear old +Peter! This is really devilish kind of you! I'm exceedingly grateful. My +exit from Oxford can now be made with a certain amount of dignity. I'll +add this amount to your other advances, and you must trust in God and my +luck at cards to get it back." + +"Oh, that's all right," said Peter. "You'd have done the same for me. +What's the good of friendship anyway if a man can't share his bonuses +with a pal? Well, well! There goes another Commem:--the last of them for +us. Everything seems awfully flat here without,--without my people. What +d'you think of the Governor?" + +Kenyon folded the cheque neatly and slipped it into a small leather case +upon which his crest was embossed in gold. It was one of the numerous +nice things for which he owed. "Your father," he said, "is a very +considerable man. I made a careful study of him and I've come to the +conclusion that all he needs from you and Graham is human treatment. If +he were my father I should buy a metaphorical chisel and an easily +manipulated hammer and chip off all his shyness bit by bit as though it +were concrete. Properly managed there's enough in Dr. Guthrie to keep +you in comfort for the rest of your life without doing a stroke of work. +What age is he--somewhere about fifty-three I suppose? In all human +probability he is good--barring accidents--for another fifteen years or +so. Then, duly mourned, and, I take it, considerably paragraphed in your +newspapers, he will go to his long rest and you will come into your +own. With even quite ordinary diplomacy you can use those fifteen years +to considerable advantage to yourself,--dallying gently with life and +adding considerably to your experience, making your headquarters at his +house. You can do the semblance of work in order to satisfy his rather +puritanical notion,--but I can't see that there'll be any need for you +to sweat. For instance, become a poet--that's easy. There are stacks of +sonneteers whom you could imitate. Or you could call yourself a literary +man and do nothing more than establish a sanctum-sanctorum in which to +keep a neat pile of well-bound manuscript books and acquire a library. +If I were you I should adopt the latter course--it sounds well. It'll +satisfy the old man and all the while you're not writing the great book +he'll pat himself on the back and congratulate himself on having had you +properly educated. During all this time you can draw from him a very +nice yearly income, and then make your splash when nature has laid her +relentless hand upon the old man's shoulder." + +There was a moment's pause, during which Peter looked very curiously at +the graceful indolent man who lay upon his settee. "If I didn't know +that you were talking for effect," he said, "I should take you by the +scruff of your neck and the seat of your breeches and hurl you +down-stairs. I know you better than to believe that you are the +cold-blooded brute that you make yourself out to be. Anyhow, we'll not +discuss the matter. The one useful thing you have said--and on which I +shall try to act--is that Graham and I must try to be more human with +the Governor. He deserves it. What's the program?" + +"For me," said Kenyon, "dinner with Lascelles and bridge to the early +hours. With good cards and a fairly good partner I shall hope to make a +bit. What are you going to do?" + +"I shall dine in Hall," said Peter, "and then go out for a walk." + +"I see." Kenyon got up, filled his cigarette case from Peter's box and +stood with his back to the mantel-piece. "You proposed to Betty to-day, +didn't you?" + +"How the deuce did you know that?" + +Kenyon laughed. "My dear fellow," he said, "everybody knows that. You +exuded romance when you arrived late at the Inn. The very waiter guessed +it, and was so stirred, being Swiss, that he very nearly poured the soup +down your mother's neck. And when your mother looked at you I saw +something come into her eyes which showed me that she knew she had lost +you. I wouldn't be a mother if you paid me!" And then he held out his +hand with that charm of which he was past-master. "'Friend that sticketh +closer than a brother,' three years; dashed bit of a slip of a girl, one +week,--and where's your friend? Well, good luck, Peter! She's a nice +little thing. Dream your dreams, old boy, but don't altogether forget +the man who's been through Oxford with you." + +Peter grasped the hand warmly. "Don't be an ass!" he said. "Go and brush +your back hair. It's all sticking up." + +And when he was alone, except for a golden patch of evening sun which +had found its way through his window and had spilt itself on his carpet, +Peter pulled out a little white glove from his pocket and kissed it. + +"O God!" he said. "Help me to become a man." + + +XII + +No one knew, because no one was told, of the many hours of grief which +little Mrs. Guthrie endured after she left Oxford. There were two +reasons for this grief. One, the inevitable realization that the time +had come for some other woman to take her place with her son. She +remained his mother, but she was no longer first. The other, that Peter +had not told her about Betty at once and had left it for her to find +out, as the others did. And this hurt badly. He had always been in the +habit of telling her everything,--first at her knee, then as he stood on +a level with her, and finally when he looked down upon her from his +great height. Every one of his numerous letters written while he was so +far away from home contained the outpourings of his soul--his troubles, +difficulties, triumphs, wonderings and short incoherent cries for help. +As Kenyon said, she had only to look at him once when he marched into +the Old Inn at Woodstock with Betty to know that she had lost him. She +waited for him that afternoon to tell her,--but he never spoke. Even as +he put her into the train she hoped that he would remember, but he +didn't. That wasn't like her Peter, she told herself again and again. +What was she to think but that it only needed one short week and a very +pretty face to make him forget all the long years of her love and +tenderness. It was very, very hard. + +It is true that for the remainder of their holiday, during which, with +her husband, Graham, Belle, and Betty, Mrs. Guthrie went from one +charming place to another, seeing shrines and looking down from famous +heights on garden-like valleys of English country, Peter's letters came +as regularly as usual. They were no shorter and no less intimate; and in +the first one that she received, the day after leaving Oxford, he told +her his great news,--but he hadn't spoken of it--he hadn't come to her +at once, and she felt with a great shock of pain that she was deposed. +Also she was well aware of the fact that the same posts which brought +her letters brought letters to Betty--and she was jealous. + +Uttering no word of complaint, even to the Doctor, little Mrs. Guthrie +nursed her sorrow and went out of her way to be very nice to Betty. Her +mother-instinct told her that she must win this girl; otherwise there +was a chance that she might in the future see very little of Peter. In +all this she had one small triumph, of which she made the most. Her +letters from Peter contained more news than those written to Betty, and +thus she was able to score a little over the girl. With an air of great +superiority, very natural under the circumstances, she told Betty and +the others the manner in which Peter had gone down from Oxford; of the +dinner that was given to him by the American Club,--a great evening, +during which he was presented with a silver cigarette box covered with +signatures,--of the farewell luncheon with his professors and the +delightful things that they said to him there; of his strenuous doings +at Henley, the stern training, the race itself in which his boat was +beaten; of the wild night on the Vanderbilt barge; of the few cheery +days spent in London with a bunch of the Rhodesmen; and finally his +preparations for his visit to Thrapstone-Wynyates, in Shropshire, the +famous old Tudor House of Kenyon's father. + +Three times during these pleasant weeks Peter ran down to see,--not her, +but Betty, and went out with her with his face alight and then hurried +back to his engagements, having given her, his mother, who loved him so, +several hugs and a few incoherent words. It was the way of life, youth +to youth, but it was very hard. + +On the afternoon of the fifth of August, when the party crossed the +gangplank at Southampton to go aboard the _Olympic_, little Mrs. Guthrie +told herself that in a few minutes she would see Peter's great form +elbowing through the crowd, although he had not said that he would be +there to say good-bye. She almost hoped that something might prevent him +from being in time, because she knew that he would not come solely to +hold her in his arms, but for another reason. Nothing, however, did +prevent him. He followed them almost instantly on board; and although he +never left her side, he surreptitiously held Betty's hand all the time. + +A smile of unusual bitterness crept all about the little woman's heart. +It was very hard. He was her boy--her son--her first-born and the apple +of her eye. She had come up for the first time to one of the rudest +awakenings that a mother can ever know. And presently when the cry, "All +ashore that's going ashore!" went up and Peter put both his big arms +about her and said, "Good-bye, mummie, darling, I shall come home soon," +she broke into such a fit of weeping and kissed him with a passion so +great that the boy was startled and a little frightened. There was no +time to think or ask questions. There was his father's hand to shake, +and Graham's, and Belle to kiss. There was also Betty, and she was +suddenly hugged before them all. + +As the big liner sent out its raucous note of departure and moved away +from the dock the little mother was unable to see the bare head of her +boy above the heads of the great crowd. Her eyes were blinded. "He +doesn't understand," she said to herself. "He doesn't understand." + +Poor little mother! It was very hard. + + +XIII + +The cottage on the borders of Lord Shropshire's park was just as pretty +and just as small as the little lady who lived there. It was +appropriately called "The Nest," although there was no male bird in it +and it was devoid of young ones; but Mrs. Randolph Lennox was so like a +bird, with her trilly soprano voice, her quick dartings here and there +and the peculiar way she had of getting all a-flutter when people +called, that the name of her charming little place--first given by +Kenyon--stuck, and was generally used. + +It was perched up on high ground overlooking the gardens of the old +Tudor House,--those wonderful Italian gardens in which Charles II had +dallied with his mistresses on his return from his long, heart-breaking +and hungry exile. It was tree-surrounded and creepers grew up its old +walls to its thickly thatched roof. For many years it had been occupied +by the agent of the estate, until--so it was said--it was won by Mrs. +Lennox from the present Lord Shropshire as the result of a bet. + +No one had ever seen Randolph Lennox and many people didn't believe that +he was anything more than a myth; but the little woman gave herself out +as the widow of this man and was accepted as such. Her income was small, +but not so small as to preclude her from playing bridge for fairly large +stakes, dressing exquisitely, riding to the hounds and keeping an +extremely efficient menage, consisting of two maid servants and an +elderly gardener. It enabled her also to spend May and June in London +yearly at a little hotel in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly, from which +utterly correct little house she was taken nightly to dinner and to the +theatre by one or other of the numerous young men who formed her +entourage. Never taken actually into the heart of London society, she +managed with quiet skill to attach herself to its rather long limbs, +and her name was frequently to be found in the columns of society papers +as having been seen in a creation by Paquin or Macinka at Ranalagh or +Hurlingham, the opera, or lunching at the Ritz. + +At one time the tongue of rumor had been very busy about Mrs. Randolph +Lennox,--"Baby" Lennox as she was commonly called. It was said that she +had been lifted out of the chorus of the Gaiety at the age of nineteen +by His Serene Highness, the Prince of Booch-Kehah; that she had passed +under the control of Captain Harry Waterloo, and eventually, before +disappearing for a time, figured in the Divorce Court as a +correspondent. The tongue of rumor is, however, in the mouth of Ananias, +and as Baby Lennox never spoke of herself except, a little sadly, as a +woman whose brief married life was an unfortunate memory, her past +remained a mystery and people were obliged to accept her for her present +and her future. She was so small--so golden-haired--so large eyed--so +fresh and young and dainty--so consistently charming and birdlike--that +she was the Mecca of very young men. With the beautiful trustfulness of +the male young they believed in her, and over and over again she could +have changed her name to others which were equally euphonious and which, +unlike her own, could be discovered in the Red Book. But as there was no +money attached to them she continued to remain a young and interesting +widow and to live in the little cottage on the hill and to pop in and +out of the Shropshire house as the most popular member of its +kaleidoscopic parties. + +Whether there was any truth in the story that the present Lord +Shropshire was related to her in a fatherly way no one will ever know, +except perhaps Nicholas Kenyon, who in his treatment of her was +uncharacteristically brotherly. These two, at any rate, had no secrets +from each other and both regarded life from the same peculiar angle. As +parasites they had everything in common and they assisted each other and +played into each other's hands with a loyalty that was praiseworthy even +under these circumstances. + +Nicholas Kenyon's mother--a very large, handsome woman with brilliant +teeth and amazing good-nature, who, even when in the best of health, +never finished dressing till four o'clock in the afternoon and then +never put much on--was undergoing a rest-cure in the west wing of +Thrapstone-Wynyates when the boys arrived for the shooting. For nearly a +year she had been playing auction every night until the very small hours +and had, while in a nervous condition, stumbled across an emotional +pamphlet written by a Welsh revivalist, which sent her straight to bed. +She was really greatly shaken by it and perhaps a little bit frightened. +It did not mince words about the future of women of her type, and she +was shocked. Heaven seemed to her to be a place into which she had the +same inherited right to walk as the Royal Enclosure at Ascot; but this +vehement little book put a widely different point of view before her. +Therefore it happened that the first woman to whom Peter was introduced +was the little widow, "Baby" Lennox, who was acting as hostess. + +Two evenings before she met Peter she had received a letter from Kenyon, +which ran as follows: + + Carlton Hotel, + Dear Old Girl: + I shall turn up at home on Thursday in time for tea. I hear + that mother is enjoying herself in the throes of some very + pleasant imaginary complaint of sorts and has retired to the + solitude of the west wing. After a busy season she no doubt + wishes to read Wells' new novel of socialism and seduction and + the latest Masefield poems, which always remind me of the + ramblings of rum-soaked sailors in a Portsmouth pub. I, for + one, shall miss her florid and inaccurate presence and the + deliciously flagrant way in which she cheats at Bridge; but if + father has gathered round him an August house-party on his + usual lines, I look forward to a cheery time,--dog eating dog, + if I may put it like that. I am bringing with me the man with + whom I have shared rooms at Oxford,--Peter Guthrie. He's the + American of whom I have spoken to you before. I am especially + anxious for him to meet you, because, while under the hypnotic + influence of Oxford in all the beauty of late spring, he has + been fool enough to get himself engaged. Now, not only is + Guthrie very useful to me, having a wealthy father and being + himself a generous soul, but I am going to New York with him in + October to see if that city can be made to render up some of + its unlimited dollars, and I don't want him to be hanging, + booby-eyed, at the heels of a girl until such time as I have + found my feet. You have a wonderful way with the very young and + unsophisticated and I shall really be enormously obliged if you + will work your never-failing wiles on my most useful friend and + draw his at present infatuated mind away from the nice, + harmless little girl who has just sailed. Fasten on him, my + dear, and make him attach himself to you for the remainder of + our holiday. Go as far as you dare or care,--the farther the + better for my sake and eventually for his own. He is one of + those admirable, simple, big, virgin men to whom women are a + wonderful mystery. At present he has refused even to look + through a glass, darkly, at that pleasant and compensating side + of life, and he needs to be brought down from his self-made + pedestal. It will do him good and me a service. Honestly, I + find it more than a little trying to be in such close + association with an Archangel. Turn your innocent blue eyes on + him, Baby dear, and teach him things and, above all, get him + out of this silly, sentimental tangle of his. Incidentally, he + has money and can procure more and I feel sure that you will + not find him a waste of your good efforts. He is a splendid + specimen of what my particular Don was wont to call 'young + manhood,' and when he plays ragtime he puts the Savoy, or, for + the matter of that, any other English orchestra into a little + round hole. + Yours ever, + N. K. + +Quite unconscious of this scheme, Peter fell into the light-heartedness +of this beautiful old house with his usual gusto. To his unsuspicious +eyes Baby Lennox was quite the most charming woman he had ever met. + +He was delighted, a little surprised and even a little jealous at the +relations which existed between Kenyon and his father. He was quick to +notice that they treated each other more like pals or brothers, than +father and son, were entirely open and frank with each other, walked +about arm in arm, played tennis and billiards together and often spent +hours in each other's society, laughing and talking. He noticed, too, +that Kenyon always called his father "Tops," a name which had grown into +daily use from the time when, as a tiny lad just able to talk, the +things that most caught his fancy were Lord Shropshire's riding-boots, +in which he seemed to live, being mostly on horseback. "Nicko" was what +his father called Kenyon,--that and old man or old boy. He wished most +deeply that he and his own father were on such good terms. + +If Peter had heard the sort of things these two talked about and +confided to each other, his surprise would have elaborated into +amazement. The elder man took infinite pleasure in telling the one who +was so complete a chip off the same block the most minute details of his +love affairs during the time that he was at Sandhurst for his army +training, while he was in a crack Cavalry regiment and while he knocked +about London and Paris and Vienna before and after his marriage. Also he +revelled in relating his racing and gambling experiences, describing the +more shady episodes with witty phrases and a touch of satire that was +highly entertaining to the younger man. They both agreed, with a +paradoxical sort of honesty, deliberately and inherently, that they were +not straight and accepted each other as such, and the father used +frequently to speculate from which of his dull, responsible and worthy +ancestors he acquired the tendency. It was certainly not from the late +Lord Shropshire, whose brilliant work as a Cabinet Minister in several +Governments and as one of the most valued advisers of Queen Victoria +had placed his name permanently in the annals of his country. "We get it +from one of the women of the family, I suspect, Nicko," he had a way of +saying, after a more than usually excellent dinner. "A dear, pretty +creature who lived a double life with delightful finesse--the great lady +and the human woman by turns. What d'you think, old boy? At any rate, +you and I make no pretences and, 'pon my soul! I don't know which of us +is the better exponent in the delicate and difficult art of sleight of +hand. I wish I were going to America with you. I fancy that we should +make in double harness enough to enable us to retire from the game and +live like little gentlemen. As it is, you'll do very well, I've no +doubt. From what I hear, the country reeks with wealthy young men +waiting to be touched by an expert such as you are. Do some good work, +old fellow, and when you come back you shall lend me a portion of your +earnings, eh?" + +They were a strange couple, these two, capable, outwardly charming and +cut out for a very different way of life but for the regrettable +possession of a kink which caused them to become harpies and turn the +weaknesses of unsuspicion of human nature to their own advantage. Some +psychologists might have gone out of their way to find excuses for these +men and endeavor to prove that they would both have run straight but for +the fact that they were always pushed for money. They would, however, +have been wrong. Just as some men are born orators, some with mechanical +and creative genius and some with the gift of leadership, these two men +were born crooked, and under no conditions, even the most favorable, +could they have played any game according to the rules. + +The men of the party were all excellent sportsmen and good fellows, and +the women more than usually delightful representatives of English +society. As a matter of fact, the men were all,--like Kenyon's +father,--living on their wits and just avoiding criminal prosecution by +the eighth of an inch. They called themselves racing men, which, +translated into cold English, means that they were people of no +ostensible means of livelihood, who attended every race meeting and +backed horses on credit, taking their winnings and owing their losses +until chased by crook solicitors. They all bore names well known in +English history. They had all passed through the best schools and either +Oxford, Cambridge or Sandhurst. One or two of them were still in the +army. One had been requested to resign from the navy, the King having no +further use for his services, and one was a Member of Parliament, having +previously been hammered in the other house,--that is to say the Stock +Exchange. The women of the party were either wives of these men or not, +as the case may be. At any rate they were good to look at, amusing to +talk to, and apparently without a care in the world. And if Lord +Shropshire, in welcoming Peter to his famous house, had said, like the +spider to the fly, "Come into my parlor so that whatever you have about +you may be sucked dry by us," he would have been strictly truthful. +Several other such men as Peter had gone into that web sound and whole, +but they had come out again with many things to regret and forget. + +Who could say whether Peter would escape? + + +XIV + +Peter had, as he duly reported to his mother and to Betty, a corking +time at Thrapstone-Wynyates. + +Although an open-air man, an athlete, whose reading had always been +confined to those books only that were necessary to his work,--dry law +books for the most part,--Peter was far from being insensible to the +mellow beauty of the house, and his imagination, uncultivated so far as +any training in art or architecture went, was subconsciously stirred by +the knowledge that its floors and stone walks and galleries were worn by +the feet of a long line of men and women whose loves and passions and +hatreds had been worked out there and whose ghostly forms in all the +picturesque trappings of several centuries haunted its echoing Hall and +looked down from its walls, from their places in gold frames, upon its +present occupants. + +The atmosphere of Oxford, and especially of his own college, had often +spun his thoughts from rowing and other strenuous, splendid, vital +things, to the great silent army of dead men whose shouts had rung +through the quad and whose rushing feet had gone under the old gate. But +this house, standing bravely and with an indescribable sense of +responsibility as one of the few rear-guards of those great days of +chivalry and gallant fighting for heroic causes, moved him differently. +Here women had been and their perfume seemed to hang to the tapestries, +and the influence of their hands that could no longer touch was +everywhere apparent. Often Peter drew up short, on his way up the wide +staircase, to listen for the click of high heels, the tinkle of a spinet +and the rattle of dice. Everywhere he went he had a queer but not +unpleasant sense of never being alone, just as most men have who walk +along the cloisters of a cathedral whose vast array of empty prie-dieus +have felt the knees of many generations and in whose lofty roof there is +collected the voices of an unnumberable choir. + +Up early enough to find the dew still wet on flowers and turf he enjoyed +a swim every morning in the Italian bathing pool beneath the Cedar trees +with Baby Lennox. Then he either went for a gallop, before breakfast, on +one of Lord Shropshire's ponies--again with Baby Lennox--or had a round +of golf with her on the workmanlike nine-hole course which had been laid +out in the park. She played a neat game, driving straight, approaching +deftly and putting like a book,--frequently beating him. + +The picture of this very pretty little person as she stood on the edge +of the bathing pool that first morning was, as she intended it to be, +indescribably attractive. She came from her room in a white kimono +worked with the beautiful designs which only the Chinese can achieve. +Her golden hair was closely covered by a tight-fitting bathing cap of +geranium red, most becoming to her white skin. "Mr. Peter!" she called +out. "I can't swim a bit, so you must look after me like--like a +brother." And then, as though to show how silly that word was, she flung +off the wrap and stood, all slim and sweet, in blue silk tights cut low +at the neck and high above her little round white knees. Peter thought, +with a kind of boyish gasp, that she looked like a most alluring drawing +on the cover of a magazine. With an irresistible simplicity and utter +lack of self-consciousness she stood, balanced on the edge of the pool, +with the sun embracing her, in a diving attitude, in no hurry to take +her dip. And when Peter, suddenly seized with the notion that he might +be looking at her too intently, dived in, she gave a little cry of joy +and dismay and jumped in after him. "You must hold me, you must hold me, +or I shall go under!" she cried, and he swam with her to the steps. In +reality she swam like a frog, but her beautiful assumption of inability +and her pluck in jumping into deep water again and again to be taken +possession of by him, filled him with admiration at her courage. With +her tights wet and clinging and the water glistening on her white flesh +she assured herself that she deserved admiration, having carefully +calculated her effect. Practice makes perfect, and the very young are +always alike. + +The first morning on which she appeared in riding kit she again made a +charming picture. She always rode astride, but few women would have +ventured to wear such thin and such close-fitting white breeches. Her +coat, cut like a man's, was of white drill. Her stock was white and her +hat, with a wide flat brim was of white straw, but her boots were as +black and shiny as the back of a crow. "Your hand, Mr. Peter," she said, +raising her little foot for the spring,--it was "Mr. Peter" +still,--"what a gorgeous morning for a gallop." And for a moment she +leaned warmly against his shoulder. Yes, she was quite pleased with the +effect. Peter's face was flushed as they started off together. + +When they golfed she had a delightful way of making her conversation +from green to green into a sort of serial. With her head hatless, her +short Irish homespun skirt displaying much blue stocking which exactly +matched her silk sweater and her large befringed eyes, she made a +fascinating opponent and companion. "No wonder you loved Oxford and all +that it gave you. Quite a little tee, please. Thanks. To a man with any +imagination--" A settle, a swing, a nice straight ball and silence while +Peter beat his ball pressing for all he was worth; the picking up of the +two bags and on side by side. "A man with any imagination must feel the +beauty and underlying meaning of that inspiring atmosphere,--as of +course you did. You, I can see, are highly susceptible to everything +that is beautiful. You, I think, of all men, you who have managed to +remain,--I'm sure I don't know how!--so unspoiled, will always remember +and feel the influence of your college. A cleek, I think, don't you? No? +A brassie? Just as you say." And so she would continue chatting merrily +away all round, but always keen on her game and doing her best to do it +credit, letting out nice little bits of flattery with so naive an air +and with such frankly appreciative glances, that poor old Peter's +vanity, hitherto absolutely dormant, began to bud, like new leaves in +April. + +It must be remembered that Peter was a rowing man. Always, except when +out with the guns, he was with Baby Lennox. They were inseparable from +the first day of his visit. Even in the evening they hunted in couples, +because she was sick of Bridge, she said, and he gave out that he knew +nothing at all about any card games and had no desire to learn. After +being frequently pressed to cut in by Courthope, Pulsford, Fountain and +the other men who could not bear to see him with an unscathed +cheque-book, and tempted again and again by their well-groomed and +delightfully friendly wives to try a hand, Peter was left alone. They +were annoyed and irritated but they found that when Peter said "No" he +didn't mean "Yes," like so many of the other young men whose weakness +formed the greater part of these people's income; and so they very +quickly gave him up to Baby Lennox, were obliged to be satisfied with +his jovial piano-playing and make up for lost time with the inevitable +members of the _nouveau riches_ who lived near by and were only too glad +to pay for the privilege of dining at Thrapstone-Wynyates in the odour +of titles. + +The nights being warm and windless, Peter sat out on the moon-bathed +terrace with Baby Lennox listening to her girlish prattle and thinking +how particularly charming she looked with the soft light on her golden +hair and white arms and dainty foot. Sometimes, suddenly, her merry +words would give place to sad ones, and Peter's simple, honest heart +would be touched by her artistic and mythical glimpses of the unhappy +side of her life. + +"Oh, Peter, Peter!" she said one night, unconsciously showing almost a +yard of leg in a black lace stocking patterned with butterflies. "I +wish, oh, how I wish that I'd been born like you, under a lucky star! +I've always been in a smart and rather careless set and I've never +really had time to see visions and walk in the garden of my soul." She +spoke in capital letters. "If I'd met you when I was a little young +thing you might have become my gardener to pluck the weeds out of my +paths, and train the flowers of my mind. You might have planted seeds so +sweet that in my best and most devout hours their blooms would have +filled my thoughts with scent. Oh dear me, the might have beens,--how +sad they are! But, in one thing at least I can take joy,--I'm all the +better for knowing you, dear big Peter." + +But these graver interludes never lasted long. Mrs. Lennox was far too +clever for that. She would break the monotony of conversation by walking +with her little hand on the boy's strong arm, or by dancing with him to +the music of a gramophone placed in the open window of the morning room. +How close she clung to him then and how sweet she was to hold! + +And then, she would say, with a wonderful throb in her voice. "Oh, +Peter, Peter! Isn't life wonderful--isn't it just the most wonderful and +thrilling thing that is given to us? Listen to the stars--there's love +in their song! Listen to the nightingale--love, all love! Listen to the +whisper of the breeze! Can't you hear it tell us to love and touch and +taste all the sweets that are given us to enjoy? Oh, Peter, Peter! +Listen, listen,--and live!" + +In her picturesque and slangy way she announced to Kenyon, as soon as +three days after the commencement of the house-party, that she "had got +Peter well hooked." It was not, however, an accurate statement. It is +true that Peter's vanity had been appealed to. Whose wouldn't have been? +This attractive young thing was hostess. She was far and away prettier, +younger, more alluring and more complex than any other woman in the +party. And yet she had made a favorite of Peter at once and showed a +frank pleasure in being with him at all possible times. He had hardly +spoken for longer than an hour with her before she had said, in the +middle of his description of the Henley week, "I _must_ call you Mr. +Peter, I _must_. May I?" She sent him little notes, too, charming, +spontaneous little notes, to say "Good-night," and how greatly she had +enjoyed the evening, or the swim, or the round of golf, beginning "Dear +Big Man" and ending,--at first without a signature, and eventually with +"Baby." At the beginning they were brought in by the man, or placed on +the dressing-table against a bowl of flowers. Then they were thrust +under his door by her after he had gone up to his room, or thrown +through his open window from the narrow balcony that ran round the +house. Her room was next to his. She had seen to that. In a hundred +unexpected and appealing ways she had set out to prove to him that they +were indeed, as she had said they were, "very, very close friends." + +Now, Peter had never been a woman's man. To him women and their ways +were new and wonderful. He suspected nothing. Why should he? He accepted +Mrs. Randolph Lennox on her face value, which was priceless, as so many +other excellent and unsophisticated young men had done. He believed in +her and her stories and was very sorry that she had been unhappy. He +believed that she was sincere and good and clean and that she liked him +and was his friend. + +Kenyon, who watched all this, called Peter an easy mark. He was. What +else could he be in the expert and cunning hands of such a woman? + +As for Mrs. Lennox, her performance,--it was rather in the nature of a +performance,--was all the more brilliant and effective because Peter +appealed to her more than any man she had ever met. His height and +strength and squareness, his fearless honesty, his unself-conscious +pride and boyish love of life,--she liked them all. She liked his +clean-cut healthy face and thick hair and amazing laugh. But, above +everything, she liked him for being untilled soil, virgin earth. It was +this that piqued her seriously and set alight in her a desire which grew +and grew, to test her charms upon him, to taste him, to stir him into a +first great passion. And this was the real reason that she gave him so +much of her time and company. The gratification of this desire was the +thing for which she was working, upon which she had set her mind. Hers +was not a record of failures. Peter stood a very poor chance of getting +out whole. + + +XV + +Nicholas Kenyon has promised himself that, one of these days, when +abject poverty forces him to work, he will write a whole book about +Peter and Baby Lennox, and call it "Another Temptation of St. Anthony." + +Not only did Kenyon watch this, to him, rather extraordinary incident, +with keen interest, but so also did the members of his father's +house-party, who came to regard Peter as a kind of freak. They all +knew,--because they were all psychologists,--that Mrs. Lennox was badly +smitten, as they put it, on this young American. They all knew,--because +one of the women made it her business to spy,--that their temporary +hostess was going through all the tricks of her trade to seduce this +unconscious boy. + +The incident provided Lord Shropshire and his friends with endless +amusement, and bets were made as to how long Peter would hold out. Every +morning something new was reported to them by the lady who had appointed +herself to watch. One day it was that Baby had taken Peter to see her +cottage after dinner and had had a little fainting fit in her bedroom +while showing him the view from the window. Another that she had twisted +her ankle on the eighth hole and had been obliged to ask to be carried +back to the house. There was, however, no evidence, not even of a +circumstantial nature, to prove that Baby had succeeded. It was +presently agreed that either Peter was a fool or an angel. + +There was one incident, however, which escaped unnoticed,--one of which +even Kenyon knew nothing. It took place three nights before the party +broke up. + +After a gorgeous day of hard exercise and splendid fresh air, an hour at +the piano after dinner and his usual talk to Baby under the moon, Peter +went up to bed at eleven o'clock. He was very sleepy and meant to be up +earlier than ever in the morning. He didn't say good-night to Kenyon or +his satirical father. They were, like the others, very seriously at work +making what money they could. There had been a fairly large dinner-party +drawn from the surrounding houses, and there were eight bridge tables +occupied in the large drawing-room. He left Mrs. Lennox in the hall +looking more delicious than ever and went up to his room to smoke a +final pipe and look over an illustrated paper before turning in. + +His room was large and square and wainscotted, with dull grilled +ceiling, and an oak floor so old that here and there it slanted badly. +His bed was a four-poster, deeply carved at the back with the Kenyon +arms, the motto underneath rather sarcastically being "For God and +Honour." In front of the fireplace, with its sprawling iron dogs and oak +setting, there was a long, narrow sofa filled with cushions, and at its +side a small writing-table on which stood two tall silver candlesticks. +These gave the room its only light and added to the Rembrandtesque +atmosphere of it. It was a room which reeked with history and episodes +of historical romance, love and sudden death. The windows which led to +the balcony were open and the warm air of a wonderful night puffed in, +causing the candle flames to move with a gentle rhythmic dignity to and +fro. + +Peter read and smoked for half an hour in his dressing-gown, while +Quixotic moths flung themselves passionately into the candle-light one +after another to die for some unexplainable ideal. From the drawing-room +below a woman's throbbing voice drifted up, singing an Indian love song, +and when it ceased the whole night was set a quiver by a nightingale's +outburst of appeal. These things, and the silver wonder of the moon and +stars, the touch of Mrs. Lennox's soft hand on his lips and the feeling +and almost psychic undercurrent of strange emotion in that room in which +so much had taken place, all stirred and thrilled the boy and sent his +blood racing in his veins. + +He stayed up longer than he intended, listening and wondering and +wishing, for the first time in his life, that he had read poetry, so +that he could fit some immortal lines to his mood and his surroundings. +It was this, to him, curious thought which set him laughing and broke +some of the spell. "Gee!" he said to himself, "can you see me spouting +Shakespeare or mouthing Byron?" He shied his dressing-gown into the +sofa, put both flames out with one huge blow and leaped into bed. + +Almost instantly he heard his name urgently called. He sat up. Was he +dreaming? Who should call at that time of night? Could it be Baby? He +heard the call again. It was nearer. A little shadow fell suddenly upon +the floor of his room. And then, in the window, with the shaft of +moonlight all about her, stood Mrs. Lennox. + +Peter caught his breath and clambered out of his bed. "What is it?" he +asked. "What's the matter?" + +The woman ran in with a glad cry. "Oh, Peter! I thought you had gone out +of your room," she whispered, "and I didn't know what to do. I saw a +hideous figure walk through my wall just after I had put out my light, +and when it came towards me with long, bony fingers, I rushed out and +came to you. Oh, hold me, Peter, hold me! I'm terrified and as cold as a +frog!" + +She slipped into his arms, all young and sweet and incoherent, trembling +like a little bird in a thunder-storm. It was a most calculated piece of +perfect acting. + +Peter's heart seemed to jump into his mouth. The flowing hair of the +little head that lay on his chest was full of the most intoxicating +scent. + +"I'll--I'll go and see what it is," he said abruptly. + +"No, no! Don't go. I can't let you go, Peter. Stay with me!" + +"But, if there's a man in your room----" + +"It wasn't a man. It was the ghost that belongs to the family. It always +comes before some dreadful accident. Oh, darling, stay with me! Take +care of me! I'm terrified!" + +She clung to him in a very ecstasy of fright and the closeness and +warmth of her body sent Peter's brain whirling. He tried to speak, to +think of something to say, but all his thoughts were in the swirl of a +mill-stream, and he held her tighter and put his face against her hair, +while his heart pumped and every preconceived idea, every +hard-fought-for ideal went crash. + +"I love you. I love you, Peter. My Peter!" she whispered. "Who but you +should shelter me and hold me and keep me in your arms! Keep me with you +always, night and day. Look into my eyes and see how much you mean to +me, my man." + +She raised her head and stood on tiptoe. The jealous moon had laid its +light upon her face and her eyes were shining and her lips were parted, +and the slight silk covering had fallen from her shoulder. The whiteness +of it dazzled. + +"Oh, my God!" said Peter, but as he bent to kiss her mouth, momentarily +drunk with the touch and scent of her, someone shouted his name and +thumped on his door, and Mrs. Lennox tore herself away and ran through +the window like a moon-woman. + +The door was flung open. Fountain came in, his voice a little thick. "I +say, Guthrie, are you getting up early in the morning? 'Cause, if so, +I'll take you on for nine holes before breakfast. What d'yer say? Goin' +to get healthy, d'yer see? What?" + +Peter found his voice. "All right!" he said. + +"Will you? Good man. Give me a call at six, will you? We'll bathe in the +pool before coming in. So long then." And out he went again, lurching a +little and banging the door behind him. + +For several queer minutes Peter stood swaying, with his breath nearly +gone as though he had been rowing, and one big hand on his throbbing +head. And as he stood there the posts of the bed seemed to turn into +trees and its cover into soft grass all alive with the yellow heads of +"bread and cheese," and among them sat Betty, with her eyes full of +love, confidence and implicit faith,--Betty, for whom he had saved +himself. + +And then he started walking about the room. Up and down he went--up and +down--cursing himself and his weakness which had nearly smashed his +dream and put his loyalty into the dust. + +And when,--she also had cursed,--Mrs. Lennox stole back, as sweet and +alluring as ever, and even more determined, she found that Peter had +re-lit his candles, got into his dressing-gown again and was sitting at +the table writing. + +"Peter! Peter!" she called. + +But he didn't hear. + +"Peter!" she whispered, and went nearer and nearer until her body rested +against his shoulder. + +"Oh, I beg your pardon," he said, rising. "Is it all right now? That's +fine. It's just a touch cold. Don't you think you'd better be in bed?" + +Baby Lennox had seen the beginning of the letter, "My own Betty." She +nodded, drew back her upper lip in a queer smile and turned and went. +She was clever enough to know that she had lost. + +And then Peter bent again over his letter, and in writing to the little +girl whom he adored with all his heart, he was safe. + + + + +PART TWO + +THE CITY + + +I + +"Mother took the car to Lord & Taylor's," said Belle, looking herself +over in the long glass with a scrutiny that was eventually entirely +favorable. "I guess it'll do us good to walk." + +"I'd simply love to," said Betty. "But I must just run in and tell +father I'm going to have dinner with you. I won't be a minute." + +"All right, my dear. Time's cheap. Don't hurry on my account." + +Belle went over to the dressing-table. She had only recently powdered +her nose from the elaborate apparatus from which she rarely permitted +herself to be separated, but a little more would do no harm. She burst +into involuntary song as she performed a trick which she might so well +have afforded to leave to those ladies of doubtful summers to whose Anno +Domini complexions the thick disguise of powder may perhaps be useful. +Tucked into her blouse there was a letter from Kenyon which had come a +week ago. It was only a matter of days before she was to see him again. + +And Betty ran out of her bedroom and along a passage which led to the +studio. A stretch of cloudless sky could be seen through a recess +window, and the far-below flat roofs of the old buildings on the corner +of Gramercy Park. She knocked and waited. There was a grunt, and she +went in. + +Into the large lofty room--a cross between a barn and an attic--a hard +north light was falling with cruel accuracy. It showed up stacks of +unframed canvasses with their faces turned to the dark wall and the +imperfections of several massive pieces of oak, the worn appearance of +the stained floor, the age of the Persian rugs and of a florid woman who +sat with studied grace and an anxious expression of pleasant thought on +the dais, with one indecently beringed hand resting with strained +nonchalance on the arm of her chair and the other about an ineffably +bored Pekingese. + +Ranken Townsend, the successful portrait painter, had backed away from +his almost life-size canvas, and with his fine untidy head on one side +and irritation in his red-grey beard was glaring at it with savage +antagonism. + +The lady on the dais had crow's-feet round her made-up eyes, and a chin +that could not be made anything but double however high she held it. +Also--as the north light seemed to take a hideous delight in +proving--her figure was irreclaimably dumpy and plump. The lady on the +canvas, however,--such is Art that runs an expensive studio, good wines +and well-preserved Coronas,--was slight and lovely and patrician, and +should she stand up, at least six feet tall. No wonder Townsend grunted +and glared at the commercial fraud in front of him, at which, in his +good, idealistic, hungry Paris days he would have slung wet brushes and +the honest curses of the Place Pigalle. He was selling his gift once +more for five thousand dollars. His wife dressed at Bendels. + +Anger and irritation went out of the painter's eyes when he saw the +sweet face that peeked in. "Hello, sweetheart!" he sang out. "Come in +and bring a touch of sun. Mrs. Vandervelde, I'd like you to meet my +little girl." + +Without turning her head or breaking a pose that she considered to have +become, after many serious attempts, extremely effective, the +much-paragraphed lady, whose lizard-covered mansion in Fifth Avenue was +always one of the objects touched upon by the megaphone men in +rubber-neck wagons, murmured a few words. "How d'you do, child? How well +you look." + +Betty smothered a laugh. Mrs. Vandervelde had acquired the habit of +looking through her ears. "I'm going home with Belle, father, and I +shall stay to dinner. But I'll be back before ten." + +"Will you? All right." He tilted up her face and kissed it. "I'm dining +at the National Arts Club to-night, and I guess I shall be late." He +pointed his brush at the canvas and made the grimace of a man who's +obliged to swallow a big dose of evil-smelling physic. So Betty, who +understood and was sorry, put his hand to her lips, bowed to the +indifferent lady and slipped away. The room was perceptibly colder when +she left. The picture was already four thousand two hundred dollars +toward completion, and Betty was just as much relieved as her father, +who returned angrily to work to paint in the diamonds. He was sick of +that smile. + +While waiting for the elevator, Belle gave a rather self-conscious +laugh and lifted her tight skirt quickly. "Seen the latest, Betty?" She +showed a tiny square watch edged with diamonds worn as a garter. +"Cunning, isn't it?" + +"Why, I should just think it was! Where did you buy it?" + +"Buy it? My dear, can you see me paying three hundred dollars for +something that doesn't show? Harry Spearman gave it to me last night, +and put it on in his car on the way to the Pierrot Club." + +"Put it on?" + +Belle threw back her beautiful head and burst out laughing. "You said +that just like the Quaker girl in the play at the Hudson. Why shouldn't +he put it on? It amused him and didn't hurt me. He's a sculptor, and +like the bus-conductor, 'legs is no treat to him,' anyway." + +They entered the elevator, dropped nine floors to the wide foyer of the +palatial apartment house, and went out into the street. It was a typical +New York October afternoon--the sky blue and clear, the sun warm and the +air alive with that pinch of ozone of which no other city in the world +can boast. The girls instinctively made their way towards Fifth Avenue, +warily dodging the amazing traffic, the struggling wagons and plunging +horses going in and out of buildings in course of ear-splitting +construction, and coal-chutes in the middle of the sidewalks. + +"But you were not at the opening of the Pierrot Club last night," said +Betty. "I heard you tell Mrs. Guthrie that you were dining with the +Delanos and going to their theatre party." + +"I know. But Harry Spearman sent round a note in the afternoon asking me +to have dinner with him at Delmonico's and go on to the Club to dance. I +had such a severe headache that I rang up Mrs. Delano and reluctantly +begged to be excused. To quote Nicholas, theatre parties with elderly +people bore me stiff. As it was, I had a perfectly corking time till one +o'clock and danced every dance." + +"Did you tell Mrs. Guthrie?" + +"For Heaven's sake, Betty, what _do_ you take me for? Mother isn't my +school-teacher and I don't have to ask her for permission to live. I +have my latch-key and dear little mother is perfectly happy. As she +never knows what I do she never has to worry about me; and, as she +always says, I can only be young once." A curious little smile played +round her very red lips. "It's true that Harry Spearman is rather +unmanageable when he gets one alone in a car after several hours of +champagne and ragtime, but--oh, well, I guess I can take care of myself. +Do you know, I don't think the Pierrot Club's going to be as good this +winter. It's a year old, you see. Everybody's going to the new room at +the Plaza--that is, everybody back from the country. It's rather a pity, +I think. I like the Club, but the motto of New York is 'Follow the +Crowd' and so the Plaza's for me." + +Betty's admiration for her school-fellow and closest friend was +invincible and her loyalty very true. It made her therefore a little +uneasy to notice about her a growing artificiality which was neither +attractive nor characteristic. She knew better than anyone that Belle +was a remarkable girl. She had a kind heart. She possessed that rarest +of gifts, a sense of gratitude, and if her talent for writing had been +properly developed she might eventually have made her mark. She had a +quick perception--sympathy and imagination not often found in so young a +girl--an uncanny ear for the right word--and if she chose to exercise +it, quite an unusual power of concentration. It seemed to Betty to be +such a pity that, just at the moment when Belle left school with her +mind filled with ideals and the ambition to make something of herself +and do things, the Doctor found himself a rich man. The incentive to +work which the constant need for economy had awakened in her went out +like a snuffed candle. From having before been in the habit of saying, +with eager enthusiasm, "I'm _going_ to do such and such a thing, +whatever the odds," she immediately began to say: "Oh, my dear, what's +the use?" Everything for which she had intended to work became now hers +for the asking. Her father gave her a free hand in the matter of +entertaining her young friends. She could order what books she wished to +read from Brentano's, and she had a generous allowance on which to +dress. Like a chameleon she quickly changed the rather dull colors of +her former surroundings for those bright ones which the sudden accession +to wealth made it easy to acquire. Her outlook was no longer that of the +daughter of an overworked general practitioner whose income had to be +carefully managed in order to live not too far up-town and educate a +family of four, but of a debutante whose parents entertained +distinguished men and women in a fashionable street and whose friends +were equally well off. Her inherited and cultivated energy was, of +course, obliged to find vent in some direction, since it was not +employed in the development of her talent; and it was now burnt up in a +restless search of enjoyment, a constant series of engagements to lunch +and dine, and do the theatre and dance,--especially dance. The ordinary +healthy, high-spirited young man, who had not much to say for himself, +quickly bored her. Her wits required to be kept sharp, her latent +intelligence needed something on which to feed. It was therefore natural +that she should throw her smiles at men much older and far more +experienced than herself and who, from the fact that they did not intend +to give anything for nothing, exercised her ingenuity and native wit to +keep them in order. In a word, she found that playing with fire and +avoiding being burned kept that side of her in good condition which, in +her old circumstances, would have been devoted to work. And so with a +sort of conscious superficiality she had allowed herself to flit from +one unmeaning incident to another and entered into a series of +artificial flirtations with men who had no scruples and one passion +simply in order to kill time. Her carelessness led her into episodes, +the merest hint of which would have thrown dear little Mrs. Guthrie into +a panic, and her coolness permitted her to escape from them with perhaps +more ingenuity than dignity. Even upon her return from England with her +heart full of Nicholas Kenyon, and with a desire to see him again that +kept her awake at night, she frittered away her superfluous energy with +this Harry Spearman, whom no woman with any respect for her daughter +would willingly allow within a mile of her, even if properly chaperoned. + +Betty, being one of those girls who had never been suspected of any +talent, but who nevertheless had it in her to perform a far more womanly +and beautiful thing than to write books or plays--to be in fact a good +wife to the man she loved and a good mother to his children--looked at +Belle's way of living with growing anxiety. She was not a prude or a +prig. She had not been allowed out in the world with eyes all curious to +see the truth of things through a veil of false modesty. Her father, a +wise and humane man, had seen to that. She delighted in enjoyment, went +to the theatre whenever she had the opportunity and danced herself out +of shoes. But, not being ambitious to shine, she was content to apply +her energy to the ordinary work that came to her to do,--the practical, +everyday, undramatic, domestic things that cropped up hourly in the +strange house where the father was an artist and the mother suffered +from individualism and was a leader of new movements. Leaving school to +find a home in a constant state of chaos, her father rarely out of his +studio, her mother always in the throes of committee meetings and +speech-making,--she knuckled down to set it in order, to clear out an +extravagant cook with an appetite for hysterics, and a sloppy Irish +waitress whose hairpins fell everywhere and whose loose hand dropped +things of value almost before it touched them. This done she found +others and appointed herself housekeeper, and the duties of this +position kept her both busy and happy,--the one being hyphenated to the +other. But even if her father had been, like Dr. Guthrie, a rich man +instead of one who lived up to every penny that he earned and generally +several thousand dollars beyond, she had nothing in her character that, +however little she was occupied, would have allowed her to look at life +from the modern standpoint of Belle and her other friends. She was--and +rejoiced in the fact--old-fashioned. Most of her ideas were what is now +scoffingly called "early Victorian," because they were not loose and +careless, and the many things that Belle and others found "fearfully +amusing" were, to her, impossible. She didn't, for instance, leave her +petticoat in the cloak-room when she went to dances, so that her +partners might find her better fun. She didn't go to tea alone with mere +acquaintances in bachelor apartments, or for taxi rides with her partner +between dances. She never made herself cheap, and went out of her way to +avoid men whose eyes ran calculatingly over her figure. These things and +many others merely appealed to her as the perquisite of those girls who +did not place a very high value upon self-respect. + +The Guthries lived at 55 East Fifty-second Street. It was the house +which the man whom Dr. Guthrie called his benefactor had built for +himself and left to the doctor whom he was proud to endow. The architect +who had been employed had been given a free hand. He had not been +required to mix his styles or perform extraordinary architectural +gymnastics of any kind. The result of his efforts was good. It was a +house such as one sees in one of the numerous old London squares within +sound of the mellow clock of St. James's Palace. Addison might have +lived in it, or Walpole or Pepys. Its face was scrupulously plain and +its doorway was modelled on those of the Adams period. Standing between +two very florid examples of modern architecture it made one think of the +portrait of a charming early Victorian gentle-woman between the +photographs of two present-day chorus ladies in hoopskirts and a cloud +of chiffon. The rooms were large and lofty and were all furnished with +great simplicity and taste. There was nothing in them except old +furniture which had been collected in England by its late owner, piece +by piece, and its oak chests, armoires and secretaries, china closets, +corner pieces and Chippendale chairs were very good to look at and live +with. So also were the pictures,--Cattermoles, Bartalozzi engravings, +colored prints and a half-dozen priceless oil paintings by old +masters,--which made the small, cunning, unscrupulous, eager mouths of +the numerous art collectors of New York water with desire. The library, +too, out of which led the Doctor's laboratory, was almost unique, and +contained first editions and specimens of rare and beautiful +book-binding which filled the Doctor's heart with constant pleasure and +delight. It was nearly a year before the man who had struggled so hard +to lift himself out of his father's small farm could believe that he +wasn't walking in his sleep when he passed through these beautiful +rooms, and often he was obliged to pinch himself to make sure that he +was not dreaming. + +There was however one room in this house which would have given its late +owner many shudders to enter. This was the little mother's own +particular room, the windows of which looked out upon that row of small, +red, bandbox-like houses opposite which had managed to remain standing +in spite of the rapacious hands of reconstruction companies which are +never so happy as when destroying old landmarks and tearing down old +buildings. Into this room Mrs. Guthrie had placed all the furniture of +her first sitting-room,--cheap, late Victorian stuff of which she had +been so inordinately and properly proud when she started housekeeping +with the young doctor. From these things Mrs. Guthrie could not be +parted. They were all redolent with good and tender memories and were to +her mind far more valuable and more beautiful than all the priceless old +oak pieces put together. + +Curiously enough--or perhaps not curiously at all--this was Peter's +favorite room, too, and he never entered it without renewing his vows to +climb to the top of his own tree, as his father had done. Belle, Graham +and Ethel all laughed at the little mother for clinging to this +"rubbish," as they called it, which was so out of keeping with the rest +of the house. But Peter sympathized with her and never failed while +sitting there in the evening, in close and intimate conversation with +the dear little woman who meant so much to him, to get from it a new +desire to emulate his father and make his own way in the same brave +spirit. + +When Belle and Betty arrived at East Fifty-second Street--a little tired +after their walk--they found Graham in the hall. "Oh, hello!" said he. +"Been shopping?" + +"No," answered Belle, "nothing tempted us. We've walked all the way home +from Gramercy Park,--some walk! Everything I've got on is sticking to +me. Aren't you home early, Graham?" + +Graham nodded. "Nothing doing," he said. "Besides, I'm dining early." He +turned to Belle with a rather curious smile. "I thought you were to be +with the Delanos last night." + +Belle tilted her chin. "I was. I dined there, went to the Winter Garden +and then danced at Bustanoby's." + +"I caught sight of you in Spearman's car somewhere about one o'clock in +the morning. Did he drive you home?" + +"I guess he did, dear boy," said Belle, blandly, "and by the way, we saw +you, going in to supper somewhere with a girl with a Vogue face and an +open-air back!" + +Graham laughed. "That's different," he said. "Spearman isn't the sort of +man I care to see my sister going about with alone. I advise you to be a +little more fastidious." + +"Thank you, Graham darling," said Belle, quite un-moved, "but I'm old +enough to choose my own friends without your butting in. Just for fun, +would you tell me what _you_ know about the word fastidious?" + +"That's different," said Graham again. And he went up-stairs to his own +room with rather heavy feet. + +Belle looked at Betty and a little smile curled up the corners of her +beautiful red mouth. "I don't see anything wrong with Harry Spearman, +and he's an old friend of the Delanos. My word, but isn't Graham a good +sport?" + +Presently when they went into the drawing-room they found little Mrs. +Guthrie sitting in front of the table with a more than usually happy +smile, and Ethel lying on the sofa looking the very epitome of an +interesting invalid. With a slightly critical frown on her pretty face +she was reading Wells's latest novel,--a full-blooded effort well +calculated to improve the condition of a girl of fifteen who had not +gone back to school on account of anaemia. + +With quick intuition, and one glance at her mother's face, Belle knew +she had heard from Peter. "Any news?" she asked eagerly. + +"Yes, darling,--the very best of news. A Marconi from my boy," said Mrs. +Guthrie. + +"What does he say?" + +"Oh, what does he say?" asked Betty. But the question was asked +mentally, because little Mrs. Guthrie was happy and must not be made +jealous. + +Putting on her glasses with great deliberation, Mrs. Guthrie picked up a +book, and with a smile of pride and excitement hunted through its pages +and eventually produced the cable form, which she had used as a marker. + +"_Do_ hurry, mother, _dear_!" cried Belle. News from Peter meant news +from Nicholas. + +"Now please don't fluster me, Belle. Of course I would unfold it the +wrong side up, wouldn't I? Well, this is what he says: 'Expect to dock +day after to-morrow, dearest Mum. All my love.'" + +"Is that all he says? Is there nothing about his--his friend?" + +Ethel gave a quiet chuckle, of which Belle coldly took no notice. + +"There are a few more words," replied Mrs. Guthrie, "and I expect they +were very expensive." + +"Oh, mother, darling; _do_ go on!" + +"Let me see, now. Oh, yes. 'And to Betty.'" + +"Oh, thank you," said Betty. "Oh, Peter, my Peter!" she cried in her +heart. + +This time Ethel laughed. But no one noticed it. It was rather +disappointing. + +"At last I shall see Nicholas again," thought Belle,--"at last!" + +And the little mother folded up the cable very carefully and slipped it +back into the book. Peter had sent it to her,--to her. + +And then Belle turned her attention to her little sister, who not only +looked most interesting, but knew that she did. "I think you +condescended to be amused, Grandmamma," she said, in the most +good-natured spirit of chaff. Like everybody else in the family she was +really rather proud of this very finished production of an ultra-modern +and fashionable school. + +"I seem to have missed a lot of fun by not going to Europe," replied +Ethel. "It would have been very entertaining to watch you and Betty fall +in love." + +"I guess so," said Belle. "The only thing is that you would have been +very much odd man out. They draw the line at little school-girls at +Oxford." + +"Now don't begin to quarrel, girls," said Mrs. Guthrie. "I'm very sorry +Ethel wasn't with us. The trip would have widened her view and given her +much to think about. But never mind. She shall go with us next time." + +Ethel stifled a yawn. "Thank you, mamma, dear. But when I go to England +I may elect to stay there. I think it's very probable that I shall marry +an Englishman and settle down to country life, doing London in the +season." + +Belle's laugh rang out. "That's the sort of thing we have to put up +with, Betty," she said. "You're going to marry a Duke, aren't you, Baby, +and be a Lady in Waiting at Court, with a full-page photograph every +week in the _Tatler_? When Peter comes home he'll find you a constant +source of joy. My descriptions of the way in which you've come on while +he's been away always made him laugh." + +Ethel rose languidly from the sofa, at the side of which a little +nourishment had been served. Mrs. Guthrie, who had been busily at work +knitting a scarf for Graham--a thing that he would certainly never +wear--went quickly to give her a hand. "Are you going to your room now, +darling?" she asked. + +Ethel caught Belle's rather sceptical eye and, with exquisite coolness, +entirely ignored its suggestion that she was shamming. "Yes, mamma, +dear. I shall go to bed almost at once. There's nothing like sleep for +anaemia. Of course I shall have to read for a little while, because +insomnia goes with my complaint, but I shall fall off as soon as I can. +Please don't come in to-night, in case you disturb me. I'll tell Ellen +to put my hot milk in a thermos." + +Belle burst into another laugh. "You beat the band," she said. "Any one +would think that your school was for the daughters of royalty. I know +exactly what Nicholas Kenyon will call you." + +Ethel turned towards her sister with raised eyebrows. With her rather +retrousse nose, fine, wide-apart eyes and soft round chin she looked +very pretty and amazingly self-composed. Her poise was that of a woman +who had been a leader of society for years. "Yes? And what will that +be?" + +"The queen of the Flappers," said Belle. + +Ethel picked up her book, carefully placing the marker. "Oxford slang +leaves me cold," she said, loftily. + +"I certainly hope that he'll call her nothing of the sort," said Mrs. +Guthrie. "'Flapper.' What a terrible word! What does it mean?" + +"It means girls under seventeen who have discovered all the secrets of +life, the value of a pair of pretty ankles and exactly how to get +everybody else to do things for them. It's the best word I heard in +England." + +"Nicholas Kenyon sounds to me rather a precocious boy," said Ethel. + +"Boy! Nicholas Kenyon a boy--! Well!" Belle acknowledged herself beaten. +She could find no other words. + +The little mother put her arm, with great affection, around the +shoulders of her youngest child, of whom she was extremely proud and a +little frightened. "Never mind, darling," she said. "Belle doesn't mean +anything. It's only her fun." + +"Oh, that's all right, mamma. I make full allowance for Belle. She's a +little crude yet, but she'll improve in time." + +Belle gave a scream of joy. Her sense of the ridiculous, always +extremely keen, made her delight in her little sister and the perfectly +placid way in which she sailed through existence with the lofty +superiority of her type--a type that is the peculiar result of +supercivilization and the deferential treatment of fashionable +schoolmistresses who bow to wealth as before a god. + +"Run in and say good-night to father. He won't mind being disturbed for +a moment by you." + +"I don't think I will," said Ethel. "The sight of his laboratory may +give me a nightmare. I really must be careful about myself just now. +Good night, mamma dear. Don't sit up too late. Good night, Belle. I +should advise you to go to bed at once. Your complexion is beginning to +show the effects of late hours already." + +"Oh, you funny little thing," said Belle. "You give me a pain. Trot off +to bed; and instead of reading Wells, Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw, try +a course of Louisa Alcott and a dose of Swiss Family Robinson. That'll +do you much more good and make you a little more human." + +But even this plain sisterly speaking had no apparent effect. Ethel gave +Betty, who had been watching and listening to the little bout with the +surprise of an only child, a small peck on the cheek. "Good night, dear +Betty," she said. "I'm glad that you're going to be my sister-in-law. +Unless Peter has changed very much since he's been away he'll make a +good husband." + +And then, with quiet grace, she left the room. No one, not even Belle, +whose high spirits and love of life had led her into many perfectly +harmless adventures when she was the same age, suspected that Ethel was +up to anything. They were wrong. The self-constituted invalid had +invented anaemia for two very good reasons. First, because she was not +going to be deprived of welcoming her big brother when he returned home +for good, school or no school, and second because she had struck up a +surreptitious acquaintance with the good-looking boy next door. At +present it had gone no further than the daily exchange of letters and +telephone calls. The adventure was in the course, however, of speedy +development. The boy was going to pay her a visit that evening, by way +of the roof. No wonder Ethel didn't want to be disturbed. + +With an unwonted burst of extravagance Betty took a taxi home as soon +after dinner as she could get away. "Is there a letter for me? Is there +a letter for me?" she asked the moon and all the stars in the clear sky +as her rackety cab bowled swiftly downtown. + +She let herself in and the first thing that caught her eyes was the +welcome sight of a thick envelope addressed in Peter's big round, +honest, unaffected hand. + +"Peter, oh, my Peter!" she whispered, pressing the letter to her lips. + +Within five minutes she was sitting on her bed, in the seclusion of her +own room, and what Peter had to say for himself was this: + + Carlton Hotel, London, + September 28, 1913. + + My dearest Betty: + Gee! but I was mighty glad to find a letter from you this + afternoon when I got in, so glad that I dashed out of this + Hotel, went across the street to the White Star offices and + asked them to exchange my bookings to a boat sailing a week + earlier, because I just can't stand being away from you any + longer. I don't know what Nick will say, and don't much care. + He's at Newmarket staying with a man who trains horses. I've + just sent him a telegram to say what I've done, and as he's + very keen to see New York and is only killing time, I don't + think he'll kick up a row. I would have sailed on the + _Olympic_, which left the day after I said good-bye to + Thrapstone-Wynyates, if I hadn't promised father to go up to + Scotland and see the place where his ancestors lived. I + couldn't back out of that, especially as goodness only knows + when I shall come to Europe again,--perhaps not until I bring + you over on a honeymoon, my baby, and we go back to Oxford + together to see how the fairy ring is getting on. We must do + that some day. You don't know how I love that little open space + where the trees haven't grown so that the moon may spill itself + in a big patch for all our friends to dance in on fine nights. + I've read your letter a dozen times and know it by heart, like + all the others you've written to me. You write the most + wonderful letters, darling. I wish I knew how to send you + something worth reading, though I'm quite sure you don't mind + my clumsy way of putting things down, because you know how much + I love you and because everything I say comes straight out of + my heart. + + My last letter was written in Scotland, Cupar Fife. I shall + always remember that quiet little place where the red-headed + Guthries,--they must have been red-headed from eating so much + porridge,--tilled the earth and brought up sheep in the way + they should go. The village seems as much cut off from the rest + of the world as though it were surrounded by sea, and every + small thing that happens excites it. The man who kept the Inn + that I stayed in (feeling frightfully lonely, though really + very much interested) had words with his good woman one night + and the rights and wrongs of the perfectly private matter have + since divided all the inhabitants. Best friends don't speak and + the minister is going to preach about the affair next Sunday. I + saw the house the old Guthries lived in and was taken all over + it by a kind old soul to whom father gave more money than + she thought existed when he was there. Gee! but my + great-grandfather must have had precious little ambition to + live his whole life in a little hole like that. In most of the + rooms the beds were in small alcoves and needed climbing up to + like bunks. Mrs. McAlister, who lives there now with her + married daughter and her seven children, sleeps in one of these + fug-holes in the kitchen. Think of it! And she said that the + floor swarms with beetles--she can hear them crackling about in + the night. All the same, by Jove! this primitive living makes + men. I can see from whom father got his grit and determination. + + I was glad to find myself in London. I've only been here for a + night or two at various times and it's a wilderness to me. I + lose myself every time I go out and have to ask Bobbies how to + get back. Topping chaps, these Bobbies. They mostly look like + gentlemen and are awfully glad to get a laugh. To hear them + talk about the 'Aymarket, Piccadilly Surcuss, Wart'loo Plaice + and Westminister Habbey first of all puzzles one and then fills + one with joy. As to the Abbey,--oh, Gee! but isn't it away + beyond words! I spent a whole day wandering about among the + graves of its mighty dead, and finally when I got to the end of + the cloister and came upon that small, square, open space where + the grass grows so green and sparrows play about, I was glad + there was nobody to see me except the maid-servant of one of + the minor Canons who was taking in the milk for afternoon tea. + There are one or two vacant niches among the shrines of men who + have done things and moved things on, in which I should like to + stand (not looking a bit like myself in stone) when I have done + my job, and if I were an Englishman I should work for it. As it + is, I shall work for you and all you mean to me, my baby, and + that's even a higher privilege. + + I went to a theatre last night,--Wyndham's. I thought the play + was corking, but the leading actor--an ugly good-looking + fellow--wasn't trying a yard, and let it away down every time + he was on. Also he spent his time making jokes under his breath + to the other people to dry them up. No wonder the theatres are + in a bad way in London. There's no snap and ginger about the + shows except the ones of the variety theatres, where they + really do take off their coats for business. It's fine to hear + rag-times at these places, although they're as stale on our + side as if they had been played away back before the great + wind. By the way, I'm a bit anxious about Graham. His letters + have a queer undercurrent in them. + + I'm going to the National Gallery, the British Museum and South + Kensington to-morrow, and in the evening I'm dining at the + Trocadero with eight men who were up at St. John's with me. + They're all working in London and hate it, after Oxford. It + seems odd to me not to be there myself and I miss it mighty + badly sometimes. All the same it's great to feel that one's a + man at last, with real work to do and that apartment waiting + for us to win. This is the last mail that I can catch before + sailing and so I just have to tell you once again, in case you + forget it, that I adore you and that if I don't see you on the + landing in little old New York among the crowd I shall sink + away like an India-rubber balloon with a pin in it. So long, my + dearest girl. All, all my love, now and forever. + PETER. + + P. S. Do you think your father can be brought to like me + somehow or other? + + Kiss this exact spot. + + +II + +A good sport! Oh, yes, Graham answered admirably to that +description,--according to its present-day use. Graham, like Belle, was +suffering from the fact that everything was too easy. His father's +so-called benefactor had taken all the sting of life for that boy. +Fundamentally he had inherited a considerable amount of his father's +grit. He needed the impetus of struggle to use up that sense of +adventure which was deep-rooted in his nature. He was a throw-back. He +had all the stuff in him that was in his ancestors,--those early +pioneers who were momentarily up against the grim facts of life. He was +not cut out for civilization. He needed action, the physical strain and +stress of hunting for his food among primeval surroundings and the +constant exercise of his strength in dangerous positions. He would have +made a fine sailor, a reckless soldier or an excellent flying man. He +was as much out of his element in Wall Street as a sporting dog which is +doomed to pass away its life sitting beside a chauffeur in an elaborate +motor-car. The daring recklessness which would have been an asset to him +as a hunter of big game or a man who attached himself to dangerous +expeditions, found vent, in the heart of civilization, in gambling and +running wild. It was a pity to see such a lad so utterly misplaced and +going to the devil with an alacrity that alarmed even some of his very +loose friends. If his father had continued to be a hard-working doctor +whose income was barely large enough to cover his yearly expenses, +Graham could have used up his superabundant energies in climbing, rung +by rung, any ladder at the bottom of which he had been placed. As it +was, he found himself, through his father's sudden accession to wealth, +beginning where most men leave off, with nothing to fight for--nothing +to put his teeth into--nothing for which to take off his coat. It was +all wrong. He made money and lost it with equal ease--although he lost +more than he won. He was surrounded with luxuries when he should have +been faced daily with the splendid difficulties which go to form +character and mental strength. Somehow or other his innate desire for +adventure had to be used up. With no one to exercise any discipline over +him, with no steady hand to guide him and control, he flung himself +headlong into the vortex of the night life of the great city and was an +easy prey for its rastaquores. At the age of twenty-four he already knew +what it was to be haunted by money-lenders. Already he was up to the +innumerable dodges of the men who borrow from Peter to pay Paul. He was +a well-known figure in gambling clubs and the houses in the red-light +district, and he numbered among his friends men and women who made a +specialty of dealing with boys of his type and who laid their nets with +consummate knowledge of humanity and with the most dastardly +callousness. He was indeed, in the usual inaccurate conception of the +word, a good "sport," and stood every chance of paying for the privilege +with his health, his self-respect and the whole of his future life. + +To have seen the nervous way in which he dressed for dinner the next +evening, throwing tie after tie away with irritable cursing, would have +convinced the most casual observer of the fact that he stood in need of +a strong hand. His very appearance,--the dark lines round his eyes, the +unsteadiness of his hand,--denoted plainly enough the sort of life that +he was leading, but the short-sighted eyes of the Doctor in whose house +he lived missed all this, and there was no one except the little mother +to cry "halt" to this poor lad and, in her experience, of what avail was +she? + +He drove--after having dined with three other Wall Street men at +Sherry's--to an apartment house on West Fortieth Street, little +imagining that fate had determined to put him to the test. Kenyon had +recommended him to try it. He had heard of it from Captain Fountain's +brother, who had called it "very hot stuff" in one of his letters,--the +headquarters of a so-called "Bohemian" set in which Art and gambling +were combined. It was run by a woman whose name was Russian, whose +instincts were cosmopolitan, and who had been shifted out of most of the +great European cities by the police. "The Papowsky," as she was called, +spoke several languages equally fluently. She was something of a judge +of art. She had an uncanny way of being able to predict success or +failure to new plays. She knew musicians when she saw them and only had +to smell a book to know whether it had excellence or not. Her short, +thin body and yellow skin, her black hair cut in a fringe over her eyes +and short all round like that of a Shakesperian page, her long, dark, +Oriental eyes and her long artistic hands were in themselves far from +attractive. It was her wit and sarcasm however and the brilliant way in +which she summed up people and things which made her the leader of those +odd people--to be found in every great city--who delight in being +unconventional and find excitement in a game of chance. + +The apartment in which she held her "receptions" and entertainments was +unique. The principal room was a large and lofty studio, arranged like a +grotto with rocks and curious lights and secluded places where there +were divans. Here there was a dais, at the back of which there was an +organ, and a grand piano stood upon it in a French frame all over +cupids, and it was here that the most extraordinary exhibitions of +dancing were given by the Papowsky hand-maidens and others. + +The other people who lived in this apartment house had already begun to +talk about it in whispers, and its reputation had gone out into the +city. One or two feeble complaints had been made to the police, but +without any avail. At the moment when Graham had first entered it, it +was in its second year and was flourishing like the proverbial Bay Tree. +The magnets which drew him to this house of Arabian Nights were the +roulette table in a secluded room at the end of the passage, and one of +the hand-maidens of the Papowsky, whose large, gazelle-like eyes and +soft caressing hands drew him from other haunts, and followed him into +his dreams. + + +III + +Graham's hat and coat were taken by a Japanese servant, whose little +eyes twinkled a welcome. + +The long, brilliantly lighted passage which led to the studio was hung +with nudes, some of them painted in oils with a sure touch, some highly +finished in black-and-white, and the rest dashed off in chalks,--rough +impressionist things which might have been drawn by art students under +the influence of drink. Between them in narrow black frames there was a +collection of diabolically clever caricatures of well-known singers, +actors, authors, painters and politicians, each one bringing out the +weaknesses of the victims with peculiar impishness and insight. The +floor of the passage was covered with a thick black pile carpet, which +smothered all noise. + +As Graham entered the studio several strange minor chords were struck on +the piano and a woman's deep contralto voice filled the large studio +like winter wind moaning through an old chimney. + +The Papowsky, who was giving an evening for young artists, and was +half-covered in a more than usually grotesque garment, slid out of the +shadow and gave Graham her left hand, murmuring a welcome. Exuding a +curious pungent aroma, she placed a long finger on her red, thin lips +and slipped away again. For some minutes Graham remained where she left +him, trying to accustom his eyes to the dim--though far from +religious--light. He made out men in dress clothes sitting here and +there and the glint of nymph-like forms passing from place to place, +springily. The scent of cigarette smoke mixed with that of some queer +intoxicating perfume. The sound of water plashing from a fountain came +to his ears. + +On his way to find a seat, Graham's arm was suddenly seized, he was +pulled into a corner and found himself, gladly enough, alone with the +girl who called herself Ita Strabosck. There was one blue light in this +alcove and by it he could see that the girl was dressed like an Apache +in black suit with trousers which belled out over her little ankles and +fitted her tightly everywhere else. She retained her close grip and +began to whisper eagerly to him. Her foreign accent was more marked than +usual, owing to the emotion under which she obviously labored. Her heart +hammered against his arm. + +"You have come to zee me?" + +Graham whispered back. "Don't I always come to see you?" + +"You like me?" + +Graham bent forward and kissed her mouth. + +"You love me?" + +The boy laughed. + +"S-s-s-h! Eef you love me, eef you really and truly love me, I vill +to-night ask you to prove eet." + +"I've been waiting," said Graham, with a sudden touch of passion. + +"Zen take me avay from this 'ell. I 'ave a soul. Eet ees killing me. I +'ave a longing for God's air. Take me back to eet. The Papowsky ees a +vile woman. She lure me 'ere and I am a prisoner. You do not know the +'orrors of zis place. I am young. I am almost a child. I was good and I +can be good again. At once, when you come 'ere, I saw in you one who +might rescue me from zis. I love you. You say you love me. I beseech you +to take me away." + +Graham was stirred by this emotional appeal whispered in his ear, by the +young arms that were flung round his neck, and by the little body that +was all soft against him. His sense of chivalry and his innate desire +for adventure were instantly set ablaze. At the same time, what could he +do with this strange little girl? Where could he put her? + +He began to whisper back something of his inability to help, but a hand +was quickly placed over his mouth. + +"Eef you believe in God, take me away. I do not care what you do with +me. I do not care eef you make me work for my bread. You are not like ze +rest. You too are young and you are a man, and I love you. I will be +your servant--your slave. I will kiss your feet. I will give you myself. +I will wait on you 'and and foot. Give me a little room near ze sky and +see me once a day, but take me out of this evil place--I am being +poisoned. Vill you do zis? Vill you?" She slipped down on her knees and +clasped her hands together. + +In the faint blue light Graham could see the large eyes of the girl +looking up at him through tears, as though to a saviour. Her whole +attitude was one of great appeal. Her young, slim body trembled and the +throbbing of her voice with its curious foreign accent moved him to an +overwhelming pity. Here then was something that he could do--was a way +in which he could exercise his bottled up sense of adventure which had +hitherto only been kept in some sort of control by gambling and running +risks. + +"Do you mean that you're forced to remain here,--that you can't get out +if you want to?" + +"Yes, yes, yes! I tell you I was caught like a wild bird and zis ees my +cage. Ze door ees guarded." + +A great excitement seized the boy. He lifted Ita up and put his mouth to +her ear. "You've come to the right man. I'll get you out of this. I +always loathed to see you here,--but how's it to be done? She has eyes +in the back of her head, and those damned Japanese servants are +everywhere." + +"Eeet ees for you to sink," said the girl. "You are a man." + +"I see," said Graham. "Right. Leave it to me." + +He liked being made responsible. He liked the utter trust which this +girl placed in him. He liked the feeling of danger. The whole episode +and its uncanny romance caught hold of him. It was not every day that in +the middle of civilization the chance came to do something which smacked +of mediaevalism--which had in it something of the high adventure of +Ivanhoe. + +He said: "Get away quick and put your clothes on. Don't pack +anything--just dress. There won't be any one in the roulette room until +after twelve. Go in there and hide behind the curtains and wait for me. +Quick, now!" + +Once more the girl flung her arms about him and put her lips to his +mouth. + +For several minutes Graham remained alone in the alcove, with his blood +running swiftly through his veins--his brain hard at work. The woman on +the dais was still singing. In the vague, uncertain light he could see +the Papowsky curled up on a divan near by, smoking a cigarette. Other +people had come in and made groups among the foolish rockery. Then he +got up quietly, went out into the passage and looked about. He had never +before explored the place, he only knew the studio and the roulette +room. It dawned upon him that this apartment was just beneath the roof +of the building. Somewhere or other there was likely to be an outlet to +the fire-escape. That was the idea. He had it. The girl had said that it +would be impossible to take her away by the main door. Those Japanese +servants were evidently watch-dogs. Even as he stood there, wondering, +he saw that he was eyed by a small, square-shouldered Japanese whose +head seemed to be too large for his body and whose oily deferential grin +was not to be trusted. He lit a cigarette, and putting on what he +considered to be an air of extreme nonchalance, strolled along until he +came to the roulette room. No one was there. The candelabra were only +partially alight. He darted quickly to the window and flung it up. The +iron steps of the fire-escape ran past it to the roof. "Fine!" he said +to himself. "Now I know what to do." + +He shut the window quickly and turned round just as the man who had been +watching him came in. "Say!" he said. "Just go and get me a high-ball. +Bring it here." He followed the man to the door and into the passage and +watched him waddle away. He had not been there more than a moment when +the door opposite opened bit by bit, and the girl's face, with large +frightened eyes, peeped round the corner. In a little black hat and a +plain frock with a very tight skirt she looked younger and prettier and +more in need of help than ever. Without a word, Graham caught hold of +her hand, drew her into the passage, shut her door, ran her into the +roulette room and placed her behind the curtains, making sure that her +feet were hidden. Whistling softly to himself he sat down and waited. +The man seemed to have been gone half an hour. It was really only a few +minutes before he waddled back on his heels. Graham took the drink. "How +soon do you think they'll begin to play to-night?" he asked, keeping his +voice steady with a huge effort. + +The Japanese shrugged his shoulders. "As usual, sir," he said, smiling +from ear to ear and rubbing his hands together as though he were washing +them. "Any time after twelve, sir--any time, sir." + +"All right!" said Graham. "I shall wait here." + +He kept up the air of boredom until he imagined that the small, +black-haired, olive-tinted man had had time to get well away. Then he +sprang to the door, saw that the passage was empty, darted back into +the room and over to the window. + +"Come on!" he said. "Quick's the word!" and climbed out, giving the girl +his hand. For a moment they stood together on the ledge of the +fire-escape, the stairs of which seemed to run endlessly down. With a +chuckle of triumph Graham shut the window, as the girl gave a little cry +of dismay. + +She had called that place hell, but from the height on which they stood +it seemed as though they were climbing down from the sky. + + +IV + +"Uptown," said Graham to the taxi driver. "I'll tell you where when I +know myself." + +A knowing and sympathetic grin covered the big Irish face and a raucous +yell came from the hard-used engine, and the taxi went forward with a +huge jerk. + +The little girl turned her large eyes on Graham. "You do not know vhere +you take me?" she asked. + +"No, by thunder, I don't. I can't drive you like this to a hotel, you've +got no baggage. Most of my friends live in bachelor apartments, and the +women I know,--well, I would like to see their faces if I turned up with +you--and _this_ story." + +The girl's foreign gesture was eloquent of despair. She heaved a deep +sigh and drew into the corner of the cab. The passing lights shone +intermittently on her little white face. How small and pitiful and +helpless she looked. + +The sight of her set Graham's brain working again. In getting her out of +the Papowsky's poisonous place and leading her step by step down the +winding fire-escape and, when it ceased abruptly in mid-air, into the +window of a restaurant, he had been brought to the end of one line of +thought,--that of getting the girl safely out of her prison. He now +started on another, while the cab rocked along the trolley lines beneath +the elevated railway, sometimes swerving dangerously out and round the +iron supports. + +Suddenly Graham was seized with an idea. He put his head out of the cab +window and shouted to the driver: "Fifty-five East Fifty-second Street." + +The girl turned to him hopefully. "What ees zat?" she asked. + +"My home." + +"Your 'ome? You take me to your 'ome?" + +"Why no, not exactly. I'm going in to get a bag for you. It won't have +much in it except a brush and comb and a pair of my pajamas, but with +them we can drive to any quiet hotel and I'll get a room for you. In the +morning I'll find a little furnished apartment and you can go out and +buy some clothes and the other things that you need. How's that?" + +Ita caught up his hand and held it against her heart. "But you are not +going to leave me?" + +"Yes, I must," said Graham. "I shall have to register you as my sister. +You've just come off the train and I've met you at the station. Oh, +don't cry! It's the best I can do. It's only just for one night. I'll +fix things to-morrow and you'll be very happy in a little apartment of +your own, won't you? I'll see you every day there." + +With a sudden and almost painfully touching abandon of gratitude the +girl flung herself on the floor of the cab and put her head on Graham's +knees, calling on God to bless him. Something came into the boy's +throat. + +The taxi crossed Fifth Avenue behind a motor-car that was also going +towards Madison Avenue. It looked very familiar to Graham. Supposing it +was his father returning from one of his medical meetings! He put his +head out again, sharply: "Stop at the first house on East Fifty-second +Street!" he shouted. Almost before the cab had stopped he leaped out. +"Wait for me here," he added. + +"Sure an' I will." The driver threw a glance at his taxi-meter. Not for +him to care how long he waited. + +Graham darted along the street and up the steps of Number fifty-five, +and just as he had the key in the door he heard his father's voice. + +"No, no. Let my car take you home. Yes, a wonderful evening. Most +inspiring. Good night! Let's meet again soon!" + +Graham made up his mind what to do. He held the door open for the Doctor +and stood waiting for him, with the bored look of one who has had a +rather dull evening. "Oh, thank you, Graham," said Dr. Guthrie. "Have +you just got back?" + +"Yes; I thought I'd get to bed early to-night." + +"You look as though you needed sleep," said the Doctor. "But--but don't +go up at once. Please come and have a cigarette in my room. I've--I've +been speaking at the Academy of Medicine,--explaining a new discovery. A +great triumph, Graham, a great triumph. I would like to tell one of my +sons about it. Won't you come?" + +There was an unwonted look of excitement on his father's thin face and a +ring in his voice which made it almost youthful. It was the first time +that Graham had ever received such an invitation. He was surprised, and +if he had not been so desperately anxious to slip up-stairs, lay quick +hands on the bag and get away again he would have accepted it gladly. +For a reason that he could not explain he felt at that instant an almost +unbearable desire to find his father, to get in touch with him, to give +something and receive something that he seemed to yearn for and need +more urgently than at any other moment in his life. As it was, he was +obliged to back out. "I'm frightfully tired to-night," he said, yawning. + +"Oh, are you? I'm sorry," said the Doctor apologetically. "Some other +night perhaps--some other night." + +The two men stood facing each other uncomfortably. Exhilaration had for +a moment broken down the Doctor's shyness. It all came back to him when +he found his son's eyes upon him like those of a stranger. He took off +his coat and hat, said "Good-night" nervously and went quickly across +the hall and into his library. + +He was deeply hurt. He stood among those priceless books with a curious +pain running through his veins. "What's the matter with me?" he asked +himself. "Why do I chill my children and make them draw back?" + +Graham shut the door, and then as quickly as an eel ran up-stairs to his +bedroom, turned on the light, opened the door of the closet and pulled +out a large suit-case. Then he began to hunt among the drawers of his +wardrobe for some pajamas. He threw these in. From his bathroom he +caught up a brush and comb and some bedroom slippers. These followed the +pajamas. Then he shut the case, picked it up, crept quietly down-stairs, +across the hall and out into the street, shutting the door softly behind +him. He gave the taxi-driver the name of a small hotel frequented by +actors, and jumped into the cab. + +Ita Strabosck welcomed him as though he had been gone a week. "'Ow good +you are to me!" she cried. "Eef you never do anysing else een your life, +zis that you 'ave done for me vill be written down by zee angels een +your book." + +Graham laughed. "The angels--I wonder." + +All the same he was a little proud of himself. Not many men would have +perfected the rescue of this little girl so neatly from a house in which +her body and soul were in jeopardy. It had been an episode in his +sophisticated life which was all to his credit. He felt that,--with +pleasure liked the idea of being responsible for this poor little soul, +of having some one dependent entirely upon his generosity and who +presently would wait for his step with a fluttering heart and run to +meet him when he came in tired. He liked also the thought that this girl +would be a little secret of his own,--some one personal to himself, to +whom he could take his worries--and he had many--and get sympathy and +even advice. + +The cab drew up. Graham released himself from the girl's arms and led +her into the small and rather fuggy foyer of the hotel, which was a +stone's throw from Broadway. A colored porter pounced upon the bag and +an alert clerk looked up from the mail that he was sorting. + +"I want a room for my sister," said Graham, "with bath. Got one?" + +"Fifth floor," said the clerk, after gazing fixedly for a moment at +something at the back of the screen. He then pushed the book towards +Graham. + +Without a moment's hesitation, Graham wrote "Miss Nancy Robertson, +Buffalo," and took the key that was extended to him. "Come on, Nancy," +he said, and led the way to the elevator, in which was waiting a tall, +florid woman carrying a small bulldog in her arms. She had obviously not +taken very great pains to remove the make-up from her face which had +been necessary to her small part. Graham recognized her as an actress +whom he had seen some nights before in an English play at the +Thirty-ninth Street Theatre, and he thought how queer life was and what +odd tricks it played. Not a foot away from each other stood two women, +the one just back from a place in which she had been aping a human being +in a piece utterly artificial and untrue, the other who had played a +part in a tragedy of grim and horrible reality, out of which she had +been carried before the inevitable climax. + +The colored boy, with a hospitable grin on his face, led the way along a +narrow, shabby passage whose wall-paper was much the worse for wear, and +finally opened the door of a small bedroom, switching on the light. + +"I'll undo the case," said Graham quickly. + +The boy drew back. "Sure." + +"And say! If you'll see that my sister gets what she rings for I'll give +you five dollars." + +"You bet your life, sah." There was a dazzling glint of white teeth. + +"Thanks." + +"You welcome." + +The cry of joy and relief which made the whole room quiver, as soon as +the porter had gone, went straight to Graham's heart. "I guess it's not +much of a room," he said, a little huskily, "but we'll change all this +to-morrow." + +The girl ran her hand over the pillow and the bed-cover. "Oh, but eet +ees zo sweet and clean," she said, between tears and laughter, "and no +one can come. Eet ees mine. You are zo, _zo_ good to me." + +Graham undid the case and spilt the meagre contents on the bed. Then he +put his hands on Ita's shoulders and kissed her. "Good-night, you poor +little thing," he said. "Sleep well, order anything that you want, and +don't leave this room until I come and fetch you. Your troubles are +over." + +She clung to him. "But you vill stay a leetle--just a leetle?" + +"No, I'm going now." + +There was nowhere in Graham's mind the remotest desire to stay. A new +and strange chivalry had taken the place of the passion that had swept +over him earlier in the evening when the blue light had fallen on her +slim body. + +She looked into his face, nodded and put her lips to his cheek. "Good +night, zen," she said. "You 'ave taken me out of hell. You are very +good." + +And as Graham walked home under the gleaming moon and the +star-bespattered sky, there was a little queer song in his rather lonely +heart. + +Poor, simple, sophisticated lad! How easy it had been for that cunning +little creature whose one ambition was to be the mistress of an +apartment in business for herself, to take advantage of his unfed sense +of adventure. She, and fate, had certainly played him a very impish +trick. + + +V + +The _Oceanic_ had been timed to dock at four-thirty, but the thick mist +at the mouth of the Hudson had caused some delay and her mail had been +heavy. The consequence was that she was edged in to her dock +considerably more than an hour late, to be welcomed by an outburst of +long-expectant handkerchiefs. + +During the period of waiting--by no means unpleasant, because the sun +fell warmly upon the wonderful river--several brief, emotional +conversations took place between the people who had come to greet Peter. +The Guthries were there in a body,--even Ethel had pulled herself +together and had come to be among the first to greet her favorite +brother. Graham wouldn't have missed the occasion for anything on earth. +His love for Peter was deep and true. And it was good to see the +excitement of them all and of the little mother, who was in a state of +verging between tears and laughter all the time. Her big boy was coming +home again and once more she would have the ineffable joy of tucking him +up at night sometimes, and asking God to bless him before she drew the +clothes about his ears as she had done so often. Even the Doctor found +it necessary to take off his glasses several times and rub them clear of +the moisture that prevented him from seeing the approaching vessel which +seemed to have given herself up to the bullying of the small but +energetic tugs whose blunt noses butted into her. + +Betty brought her father; and these two, with a delicacy of feeling +characteristic of them, placed themselves among the crowd away from the +Guthrie family. Intuitively, Betty knew that much as Mrs. Guthrie liked +her, she would rather resent her presence there at such a moment. +Belle's quick eyes very soon discovered them, however, and presently +they permitted themselves to be drawn into the family group. + +It was a curious moment for Ranken Townsend and his feelings were not +unlike those of little Mrs. Guthrie. "My God!" he said to himself as he +stood looking out at the wide river, its marvellous and strenuous life +and the amazing sky-line of the buildings on the opposite bank; "has the +time arrived already for me to lose my little girl? Am I so old that I +have a young thing ripe enough for marriage and to bring into the world +young things of her own?" + +The artist had only met the elder Guthries once before, although Belle +was a particular friend of his, having been frequently brought to his +studio by Betty. He knew Peter only from having seen him in the +treasured snapshots which his little daughter brought home with her from +Oxford. He had to confess to himself--although his natural jealousy made +him unwilling to do so--that Peter looked just the sort of man whom he +would like his daughter to marry when her time came. And so he singled +out Mrs. Guthrie almost at once and drew her aside. The breeze blew +through his Viking beard, and a fellow-feeling brought into his eyes an +expression of sympathy which immediately warmed Mrs. Guthrie's heart +towards him. "I didn't want to come this afternoon, Mrs. Guthrie," he +said. "Shall I explain why?" + +"No," said the little mother. "I quite understand." + +"Your boy and my girl are following the inevitable laws of nature, and +it's rather hard luck for us both, isn't it?" + +Mrs. Guthrie put her handkerchief up to her mouth and nodded. + +"Betty's a good girl and I've only to look at you to know that the man +to whom she's given her heart is a fine fellow. Well, it brings us up to +another milestone, doesn't it?--one that I wish was still some years +ahead. However, let's face it with pluck and with unselfishness, and be +friends. Shall we?" + +"Please," said the little mother, giving him her hand. + +Ranken Townsend bared his head. + +And then Dr. Guthrie came up and peered at the man who was talking to +his wife. He vaguely remembered the artist's picturesque appearance and +fine open face, but he had forgotten his name. + +Mrs. Guthrie hurried to the rescue. "You remember Mr. Townsend, of +course, Hunter," she said. "Betty's father, you know." + +"I beg your pardon," said the Doctor. "Of course I remember you, and I'm +very delighted to see you again. You have friends coming on the +_Oceanic_ too, then?" + +Townsend laughed. "No, I don't know anybody on her--not a soul. All the +same I've come to meet your son." + +"Indeed! It's very kind of you, I'm sure." And then the Doctor suddenly +remembered that sooner or later he'd be obliged to share Peter with the +man who stood before him, and just for a moment he--like his wife and +like the other father--felt the inevitable stab of jealousy. He covered +it with a cordial smile. "What am I thinking about? Betty brought you, +naturally. We must meet more often now, Mr. Townsend." + +"I should like nothing better. I don't know your boy yet except through +his photographs and my having met his mother, but I'm very proud to know +that my little girl is to bear a name that will always be honoured in +this country." + +Dr. Guthrie blushed and bowed, and put his hand up to his tie nervously. + +It was a curious little meeting, this. All three parents were +self-conscious and uncomfortable. They would have been antagonistic but +for the very true human note that each recognized. They were all +reminded of the unpleasant fact that they were in sight of a new and +wide cross-road in their lives, along which they were presently to see +two of their young people walking away together hand in hand. Parenthood +has in it everything that is beautiful, but much that is disappointing +and inevitable--much that brings pain and a sudden sense of loneliness. + +There was a very different ring in the conversation of Betty and Belle, +who stood a few yards away surrounded by people of all the strange +conglomerate nationalities which go to make up the population of the +United States. Good-tempered, affectionate and excitable Hebrews were +already shouting welcomes to their friends on the _Oceanic_, as the +vessel drew slowly nearer. Temperamental Irish were alternately waving +handkerchiefs and daubing their eyes with them, and others--of French, +German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian and English extraction--were +trying to discern the faces of those who were near and dear to them +among the passengers who were leaning over the rails of the vessel. It +was an animated and moving scene, very much more cheery than the ones +which take place on the same spot when the great trans-Atlantic Liners +slip out into the river. + +"Look!" cried Belle. "There's Nicholas. Isn't he absolutely and +wonderfully English?" + +"And there's Peter!" said Betty, with a catch in her voice. "And isn't +he splendidly American?" + +"Oh, I'm so excited I can hardly stand still. I've dreamed of this every +night ever since we came home." + +"So have I. But this is better than dreams. Look! Peter has seen us. +He's waving his hat. Even his hair seems to be sunburnt." + +Belle laughed, though her eyes were full of tears. "I can almost smell +the violet stuff that Nicholas puts on his." + +Then there was the usual rush as the liner slid into her berth, and as +Mrs. Guthrie was swept away with it, holding tight to Graham's arm, she +said to herself: "He waved to Betty first. O God, make me brave!" + +All the same, it was the little mother to whom Peter went first as he +came ashore, and he held her very tight, so that she could hardly +breathe, and said: "Darling mum! How good to see you!" and there was +something in that. + +The Doctor took his boy's big hand with less self-consciousness than +usual. He wished that he might have had the pluck to kiss him on both +cheeks and thus follow the excellent example of a little fat Frenchman +who had nearly thrown him off his balance in his eagerness to welcome a +thin, dark boy. + +"Hello, Belle! Hello, Graham! Hello, Ethel!" And then Peter stood in +front of Betty, to whom he said nothing, but the kiss that he gave her +meant more than the whole of a dictionary. "Oh, my Peter!" she +whispered. + +Nicholas Kenyon followed with his most winning smile, and was cordially +welcomed. He had charming things to say to everyone, especially to +Belle. After close scrutiny, Ethel's inward criticism of him was that he +had "escaped being Oxford." + +And then Ranken Townsend held out his hand. "But for me, Peter Guthrie," +he said, "you wouldn't have had a sweetheart. Shake!" + +A wave of color spread all over Peter's brown face. He grasped the +outstretched hand. "I'm awfully glad to see you," he said. + +"And I'm awfully glad to see you." The artist measured the boy up. Yes, +he was well satisfied. Here stood a man in whose clean eyes he +recognized the spirit of a boy. Betty had chosen well. "Do you smoke a +pipe?" + +"Well, rather." + +"I thought so. Bring it along to my studio as soon as your mother can +spare you and we'll talk about life and love and the great hereafter. Is +that a bet?" + +"That's a bet," said Peter. And he added, putting his mouth close to +Betty's ear: "Darling, he's a corker! He likes me. Gee, that's fine!" +Then he turned to his mother, ran his arm round her shoulder, walked her +over to the place in the great echoing, bustling shed over which a huge +"G" hung, and sat down with her on somebody else's trunk which had just +been flung there, to wait with unapproving patience for that blessed +time when one of the officialdom's chewing gods, having forced a prying +hand among his shirts and underclothing, should mark his baggage with a +magic cross and so permit him to reconnect himself with life. + +Nicholas Kenyon, as immaculate as though he had just emerged from a +bandbox, slipped his hand surreptitiously into Belle's. "Are you glad to +see me?" he asked, under his breath. + +Belle said nothing in reply, but the look that she gave him instead set +that expert's blood racing through his veins and gave him something to +look forward to that alone made it worth crossing a waste of unnecessary +water. + + +VI + +"A very pleasant domestic evening," said Kenyon, standing with his back +to the fireplace of the library. "The bosom of this family is certainly +very warm. Peter, my dear old boy, I had no idea that you were going to +bring me to a house in which a Prime Minister or the President of the +Royal Academy might be very proud to dwell. Also, may I congratulate +you upon your little sister? She's a humorist. I found myself +furbishing up all my epigrams when I spoke to her. By Jove, she's like a +Baliol blood with his hair in a braid." + +A quiet chuckle came from Graham, who was sitting on the arm of a big +deep chair, looking up at Kenyon with the sort of admiration that is +paid by a student to his master. "I don't know anything about Baliol +bloods," he said, "but Ethel takes a lot of beating. When she quoted +Bernard Shaw, at dinner, father nearly swallowed his fork." + +Peter was sitting on the table, swinging his legs. + +"Oh, she'll be all right when she gets away from her school. She'll grow +younger every day then. What awful places they are--these American girl +schools. They seem to inject into their victims a sort of liquid +artificiality. It takes a lot of living down. Upon my soul, I hardly +knew the kid! Two years have made a most tremendous difference in her. I +thought I should throw a fit when she looked at me just now in the +drawing-room and said: 'The childish influence of Oxford has left you +almost unspoiled, Peter, dear.'" + +Kenyon laughed. "Excellent!" he said. "I know the English flapper pretty +well. It'll give me extreme delight to play Columbus among the American +variety of the species." He looked round the beautiful room with an +approving eye. "That must have been a very civilized old gentleman who +made this collection. I wonder if he bought some of the books from +Thrapstone-Wynyates! My father was forced to sell some of them shortly +after he succeeded to the title. As the long arm of coincidence +frequently stretches across the Atlantic, I should like to think that +some of the first editions in which my grandfather took so high a pride +have found their way into an atmosphere so entirely pleasant as this. +One of these fine days, Peter, they may raise a little necessary bullion +for you." + +"I hope not," said Peter. + +Graham got up. "It's only eleven o'clock. Suppose we get out and see +something. Everybody's gone to bed, we shan't be missed." + +"A very brainy notion," said Kenyon, "but what's there to do?" + +"Oodles of things," said Graham. + +"Well, lead the way. I'm with you. The dull monotony of life aboard a +liner has given me a thirst for twinkling ankles, the clash of cymbals +and the glare of the lime-light. You with us, Peter?" + +"Yes, unless--one second." He went over to the telephone that stood on a +small table in a far corner of the room, looked up a number in the book, +asked for it and hung on. + +Kenyon shot a wink at Graham. "Get your hat, old boy," he said. "Peter +would a-wooing go. He's the most desperately thorough person." And he +added inwardly: "Hang that girl." + +"Can I speak to Mr. Townsend? Oh, is that you, Mr. Townsend? Peter +Guthrie, yes. May I come round and have a jaw--? Thanks, awfully! I'll +get a taxi right away." He turned back to the other two men. "Great +work," he said. "You two will have to go alone to-night. However, we've +a thousand years in front of us. See you at breakfast. So long!" + +"Wait a second," said Graham. "I'll ring up a taxi and we'll all ride +down together." + +"Right-o!" said Peter. "I'll rush up to my room and get a pipe." + +When he came down again he found Kenyon and Graham waiting at the open +door. A taxicab was chugging on the curbstone. Kenyon got in first, with +his long cigarette holder between his teeth and a rakish-looking opera +hat balanced over his left eye. He carried a thin black overcoat. All +about him there was the very essence of Piccadilly. Peter sat beside him +and Graham opposite. The cab turned round, crossed Madison into Fifth +Avenue and went quickly downtown. The great wide street, as shiny as +that of the Champs Elysee, was comparatively clear of traffic. Peter +looked at the passing houses with the intense and affectionate interest +of the man who comes home again. At the corner of West Forty-second +Street Graham stopped the cab. "It's only a short walk to the best of +the cabarets," he said; "we'll let Peter go straight on. Come on, +Nicholas, bundle out." + +"Where are we going?" asked Kenyon, making a graceful exit. + +"Louis Martin's, old boy," said Graham. + +"Pretty hot stuff, I hope. Au revoir, Peter. Do your best to make the +bearded paint merchant like you. You'll have some difficulty." And with +that parting shot, contradicted by one of the winning smiles which he +had inherited from his delightful but unscrupulous father, Nicholas +Kenyon took Graham's arm and these two walked away in high spirits. + +When the cab stopped at the high building on the corner of Gramercy +Park, its door was opened by Ranken Townsend. "I timed you to arrive +about now, my lad," he said cordially. "I took the opportunity of +getting some air. It's mighty good to-night. Come right up." He +continued to talk in the elevator, which had a long way to go. "Betty +has gone to a party. You may meet her mother, I'm not sure. She's out at +one of her meetings--she spends her life at meetings--and if she comes +in tired, as she generally does, she probably won't come into the +studio. However, that need only be a pleasure deferred. Do you speak? If +so, she'll nail you for one of her platforms." + +"I,--speak?" said Peter, with a shudder. "I'd rather be shot." + +Townsend laughed, led the way into his apartment and into the studio. In +the dim light of one reading lamp which stood on a small table at the +side of a low divan, the room looked larger than it was. It reeked with +the good ripe smell of pipe tobacco and seemed to be pervaded with the +personality of the man who spent most of his life in it. One of the top +windows was open and through it came the refreshing air that blew up +from the Hudson. Peter caught a glimpse of the sky, which was alive with +stars. It was a good place. He liked it. Work was done there. It +inspired him. + +The artist took Peter's hat and coat and hung them in the alcove. Then +he went across the room and turned up the light that hung over a canvas. +"How d'you like it?" he asked. + +Peter gave an involuntary cry. There sat Betty with her hands folded in +her lap. To Peter she seemed to have been caught at the very moment when +from his place at her feet he looked up at her just before he held her +in his arms for the first time. Her face was alight and her eyes full of +tenderness. It was an exquisite piece of work. + +Townsend turned out the light. He was well pleased with its effect. +Peter's face was far better than several columns of printed eulogy. "Now +come and sit down," he said. "Try this mixture. It took me five years to +discover it, but since then I've used no other." He threw himself on the +settee and settled his untidy head among the cushions. + +The light shone on Peter's strong profile, and when Townsend looked at +it he saw there all that he hoped to see, and something else. There was +a little smile round the boy's mouth and a look in his eyes that showed +all the warmth of his heart. + +"And so you love my little girl as much as that? Well, she deserves it, +but please don't take her away from me yet. I can't spare her. She and +my work are all I've got, and I'm not lying when I say that she comes +first. Generally when a man reaches my age he has lived down his +dependence on other people for happiness and his work has become his +mistress, his wife and his children. In my case that isn't so, and my +little girl is the best I have. She keeps me young, Peter. She renders +my disappointments almost null and void, and she encourages me not +wholly to sacrifice myself to the filthy dollar--an easy temptation I +can assure you. So don't be in too great a hurry to take my little bird +away and build a nest for her in another tree. Does that sound very +selfish to you?" + +"No," said Peter; "I understand. Besides--good Lord!--I've got to work +before I can make a place good enough for her. I've come back to begin." + +"I see! Fine! I thought perhaps that Oxford might have taken some of the +good American grit out of you. It just occurred to me that you might be +going to let your father keep you while you continue to remain an +undergraduate out here in life. A good many of our young men with +wealthy fathers play that game, believe me." + +"Yes, I know," said Peter, "but there's something in my blood,--I think +it's porridge,--that urges me to do things for myself. Besides, I +believe that there's a feeling of gratitude somewhere about me that +makes me want to pay back my father for all that he's done. I'm most +awfully keen to do that, Mr. Townsend! His money has come by accident. +I'm not going to take advantage of it. I'm going to start in just as if +he were the same hard-working doctor that he used to be when he sent me +to Harvard, skinning himself to do so. I think he'll like that. Anyway, +that's my plan. And as to Oxford,--well, I should have to be a pretty +rotten sort of a dog if I didn't gain something there--that wonderful +place out of which men have gone, for centuries, all the better for +having rushed over its quads and churned up the water of its little old +river and stood humbly in its chapels. Don't you think so?" + +"I do indeed, my dear lad; but somehow or other the younger generation +doesn't seem to take advantage of those things, and the sight of the +young men of the present day and their callous acceptance of their +fathers' efforts make me thank God that I never had a boy. I should be +afraid. Think of that! What are you going to do, Peter? What is your +line of work?" + +"The law." + +"The law? Well, I guess that's a queer sort of maze to put yourself +into. An honest man in the law is like a rabbit in a dog kennel. Is that +your definite decision?" + +"Absolutely," said Peter. "I chose the law for that reason. I think that +honesty is badly needed in it. I've got a dream that one of these days I +shall be a judge and make things a bit easier for all the poor devils +who have made mistakes." + +"God help you!" + +"I shall ask him to," said Peter. + +The artist looked up quickly. In his further keen and rather wistful +scrutiny of the great big square-shouldered man with the strong, clean +jaw-line and the firm mouth there was a little astonishment. "Do you +mean to tell me that in the middle of these queer undisciplined, +individualistic times you believe in God?" + +The room remained in silence for a moment, until Peter leaned forward +and knocked out his pipe. "If I didn't believe in God," he replied +quietly, "would you be quite so ready to trust Betty to me?" + +At that moment the door was swung open and a tall, stout, hard-bosomed +woman with a mass of white hair and the carriage of a battleship sailed +in. Her evening clothes glistened with sequins and many large beads +rattled as she came forward. She wore a string of pearls and several +diamond rings. Unable to fight any longer against advancing years and +preserve what had evidently been quite remarkable good looks, she had +cultivated a presence and developed distinction. In any meeting of women +she was inevitably voted to the chair, and in the natural order of +things became president of all the Societies to which she attached +herself, except one. In this isolated case the woman who supplanted her, +for the time being, was even taller, stouter and harder of bosom,--in +fact, a born president. + +The two men rose. + +"Ah, Ranken, still up, then! I half-expected to find the studio in +darkness. You'll be glad to hear that we passed a unanimous resolution +to-night condemning this country as a republic and asking that it shall +become a monarchy forthwith." + +Townsend refrained from looking at Peter. "Indeed!" he said gravely. "An +evening well spent. But I want you to know Peter Guthrie, Dr. Hunter +Guthrie's eldest son, just home from Oxford." + +Mrs. Townsend extended a large well-formed hand. "Let me see! What do I +know about you? You're the young man who--Oh, now I remember. You're +engaged to Betty. But before I forget it, and as you are just out of +Oxford, I'll put you down to speak at the annual meeting next Tuesday at +the Waldorf, of the Society for the Reconstruction of University +Systems. Your subject will be 'Oxford as a Menace to the Younger +Generation.' There will be no fee--I beg your pardon?" + +Peter's face was a study in conflicting emotions. He looked like a +lonely man being run away with in a car that he was wholly unable to +drive. Townsend turned a burst of laughter into a rasping cough. "You're +awfully kind," said Peter, almost stammering. "But I believe in Oxford." + +"Ah! Then you shall say so to the Society for the Encouragement of +Universities, on Thursday at eight sharp, at the St. Mary's Public +School Building, Brooklyn." + +"As a matter of fact, I don't speak," said Peter. "I--I never speak." + +"Why, then, you shall be one of the chief thinkers at the bi-monthly +meeting of the Californian Cogitators. I'm not going to let you off, so +make up your mind to that. And now I'm going to bed. I'm as tired as a +dog. Good-bye, Paul,--I mean Peter. Expect me to call you up one day +soon. There's so much to do with this world chaos that we must all put +our hands to the wheel." And with a wave of her hand, Mrs. Townsend +sailed majestically away. + +Peter gasped for breath and the artist subsided into the divan and gave +way to an attack--a very spasm--of laughter, which left him limp and +weak. + +"Never allow Betty to get bitten by the meeting-bug, son," he said, when +he had recovered. "It isn't any fun to be married to a bunch of +pamphlets. What! Are you off now?" + +"I'm afraid I've kept you up, as it is, Mr. Townsend. I--I want to thank +you for your immense kindness to me. I shall always remember it. Good +night!" + +Rankin Townsend got up, stood in front of Peter for a moment and looked +straight at him. He was serious again. "Good night, my dear lad," he +said. "I feel that I can trust Betty to you and that takes a load off my +mind. Come often and stay later." + +Peter walked all the way home along Madison Avenue. That part, at any +rate, of the great sleepless city was resting and quiet, and the boy's +quick footsteps echoed through the empty street. He was glad to be back +again in New York--glad and thankful. Somewhere, in one of her big +buildings, was his love-girl--the woman who was to be his wife--the +reason of his having been born into the world. No wonder he believed in +God. + + +VII + +The following afternoon Peter was to call at the apartment-house on +Gramercy Park at half-past-four. He had arranged to take Betty for a +walk,--a good long tramp. There were heaps of things that he wanted to +tell her and hear, and several points on which he wanted to ask her +advice. He was not merely punctual, as becomes a man who is head over +heels in love--he was ten minutes before his time. All the same, he +found Betty waiting for him in the hall, talking to a big burly Irishman +who condescended to act as hall-porter and who looked not unlike a +brigadier-general in his rather over-smart uniform. This man had known +Betty for many years and watched her grow up; had received many +kindnesses from her and had seen her bend by the hour over the cot of +his own little girl when she was ill. His face was a study when he saw +Peter bound into the place, catch sight of Betty and take her in his +arms, and without a single touch of self-consciousness pour out a burst +of incoherent joy at being with her once more. + +Catching his expression, in which surprise, resentment and a sort of +jealousy were all mixed, Betty said, when she got a chance: "Peter, this +is a friend of mine, Mr. O'Grady." + +Peter turned and held out his hand. "How are you? All Miss Townsend's +friends have got to be my friends now." + +The Irishman's vanity was greatly appealed to by the simple manliness +of Peter's greeting, his cheery smile and his utter lack of side. He +smiled back and, having given the hand a warm grip, drew himself up and +saluted. At one time he had served in the British Army, and he wanted +Peter to know it. He would have told him the story of his life then and +there with, very likely, a few picturesque additions, but before he +could arrange his opening sentence the two young people were out in the +street. He watched them go off together, the one so broad and big, the +other so slight and sweet, and said to himself, rolling a new quid of +tobacco between his fingers: "Ah, thin; it's love's young dream once +more! And it's a man he is. God bless both of them!" + +"Are you feeling strong to-day, darling?" asked Peter. + +"Strong as a lion," said Betty. "Why?" + +"Because I'm going to walk you up the Avenue and into the Park and about +six times round the reservoir. Can you stand it?" + +Betty laughed. "Try me, and if I faint from exhaustion you can carry me +into the street and call a taxicab. I'm not afraid of anything with +you." + +"That's fine! This is the first time we've been really alone since I +came back. It'll take from now until the middle of next week to tell you +even half the things I've got to say. First of all, I love you." + +"_Darling_ Peter." + +"I love you more than I ever did, much more--a hundred times more--and I +don't care who hears me say so." That was true. He made this statement, +not in a whisper, but in his natural voice, and it was overheard by +several passers-by who turned their heads,--and being women, smiled +sympathetically and went on their way with the deep thrill of the young +giant's voice ringing in their ears like music. + +They stood for a moment on the curbstone trying to find an opportunity +to cross the street. Betty gave herself up to the masterly person at her +side without a qualm. She adored being led by the arm through traffic +which she wouldn't have dared to dodge had she been alone. It gave her a +new and splendid sense of security and dependence. + +The rain had begun to fall softly. It gathered strength as they turned +into Fifth Avenue, and came down smartly. Betty didn't intend to say a +word about the fact that she was wearing a new hat. It had escaped +Peter's notice. Her face was all he saw. He wasn't even aware that it +was raining until he took her arm and found her sleeve was wet. + +"Good Lord!" he said. "This won't do. Dash this rain, it's going to +spoil our walk. Where can we go? I know." A line of taxis was standing +on a stand. He opened the door of the first one. "Pop in, baby," he +said. "We'll drive to the Ritz and have tea. I can't have you getting +wet." + +Betty popped in, not really so profoundly sorry to escape that strenuous +walk as Peter was. + +Being a wise man he took full advantage of the taxicab, and for all the +fact that it was broad daylight and that anybody who chose could watch +him, he gave Betty a series of kisses which did something to make up +for lost time and a long separation. The new hat suffered rather in the +process, but what did that matter? This was love. Hats could be +replaced--such a love as his, never. + +"Your father is a great chap," said Peter. "We had a good yarn last +night. By Jove! I wish my father had something of his friendly way. I +felt that there was nothing I couldn't tell him--nothing that he +wouldn't understand. Well, well; there it is. Graham and I will have to +worry along as best we may. Everything'll come out all right, I hope." + +"How did you like mother?" asked Betty. + +"Well," said Peter, considering his answer with the greatest care, +"she's undoubtedly a wonderful woman, but she scares me to death. The +very first thing she did was to ask me to speak at one of her meetings." + +Betty burst out laughing. "What--? Already? When are you speaking? What +are you going to say?" + +"Good Lord! What can I say? I can recite the Jabberwocky or the alphabet +in English, French and American, but that finishes my repertory. Can you +see me standing on a platform as white as a sheet trying to stammer out +a few idiotic sentences to a room full of women? Look here! You've got +to get it out of her head that I can be of the slightest use to her. +Tell her I stutter, or that I've got no roof to my mouth--anything you +like--but, for goodness sake, have my name taken off her list. Will you +promise that? Already I wake up in the middle of the night in an +absolute panic." + +"Don't worry," said Betty, "Mother's a very strong-minded woman, but +she's awfully easy to manage. And now I want you to promise me +something." + +"Anything in the world," said Peter. + +"Well, then, don't mistake the Ritz for that dear little open place +where the fairies dance, and suddenly kiss me in front of the band and +all the people having tea." + +"Hard luck," said Peter. "I'll do the best I can. But you're such an +angel and you look so frightfully nice that I shall have all I can do to +keep sane." + +The cab drew up and they got out, went through the silly swinging doors +which separate a man from his girl for a precious moment and into the +Palm Court where the band was playing. Peter gave his hat and stick to a +disgruntled waiter, who would have told him to check them outside but +for his height and width. + +The place was extraordinarily full for the time of year. Everywhere +there were women, and every one of them was wearing some sort of erect +feather in her hat. It gave the place the appearance of a large chicken +run after a prolonged fracas. The band was playing the emotional music +of _La Boheme_. It was in its best form. The waiter led them to a little +table under a mimic window-sill which was crowded with plants. Many +heads turned after them as they adventured between the chattering +groups. It was so easy to see that their impending marriage had been +arranged in Heaven. + +"What sort of tea do you like?" asked Peter. "Anything hot and wet, or +have you a choice? Really, I don't know the difference between one and +another." + +But Betty did. Hadn't she kept house for her father? "Orange Pekoe tea," +she said, "and buttered toast." + +Peter made it so, and in sitting down nearly knocked over the table. He +was too big for such places and his legs got in the way of everything. +At the other end of the room Kenyon was sitting with Belle. Betty had +seen them at once, but she held her peace. For the first time in her +life she appreciated the fact that two is company. Both men were too +occupied to recognize anybody. + +Peter was very happy and full of enthusiasm about everything, and Betty +was an eager listener as he talked about her and himself and the future, +while she poured out the tea. It was all very delightful and domestic +and new and exhilarating, and it didn't require much imagination on the +part of either of them to believe that they were sitting in their own +house, far away from people, and that Peter had just come home after a +long day's work, and that the band was their new Victrola performing in +the corner. Only one thing made Betty aware of the fact that they were +in the Ritz Hotel, and that was the pattern of the teacups. She never +would have chosen such things, and if they had been given to her as a +wedding present she would have packed them away in some far-off +cupboard. She had already made up her mind that their first tea service +was going to be blue-and-white, because it would go with her +drawing-room,--the drawing-room which she had furnished in her dreams. + +"I don't think you'd better do that, Peter," whispered Betty suddenly. + +"Do what, darling?" Butter wouldn't have melted in his mouth. + +"Why, hold my hand. Everybody can see." + +"Not if you put it behind this end of the tablecloth. Besides, what if +they can? I'm not ashamed of being in love. Are you?" + +"No; I glory in it. But----" + +"But what?" He held it tighter. + +"I think you'd better give it back to me. There's an old lady frowning." + +"Oh, she's only a poor benighted spinster. And anyhow she's not +frowning. She put her eyebrows on in the dark." + +"Very well, Peter. I suppose you know best." And Betty made no further +attempts to rescue her hand. + +She had two good reasons for leaving it there,--the first, that she +liked it, and the second that she couldn't take it away. But she made +sure that it was hidden by the tablecloth. + +"Won't you smoke, Peter?" + +"Oh, thanks. May I?" + +"All the other men are." + +Peter took out his case and his cigarette holder. It was very easy to +take out a cigarette with one hand, but for the life of him he couldn't +manoeuvre it into the tube. Was he so keen to smoke that he would let +her hand go? + +He gave it up and broke into a smile that almost made Betty bend forward +and plant a resounding kiss on his square chin. "Well, I'm dashed," he +said. "I believe you asked me to smoke on purpose to get free." + +"I did," she said. "Peter, you're--you're just a darling." + +And that was why he upset the glass of water. + +Presently he said, when peace was restored: "What d'you think I've done +to-day? I've fixed up a seat in the law office of two friends of mine. +They were at Harvard with me--corkers both. I intend to start work next +week. Isn't that fine? We're going to mop up all the work in the city. +Darling, that apartment of ours is getting nearer and nearer. I shall be +a tired business man soon and shall want a home to go to, with a little +wife waiting for me." + +And Betty said: "How soon do you think that'll be?" + +Before Peter could answer, Belle's ringing voice broke in. She and +Kenyon had come up unnoticed. "The turtle doves," she said. "Isn't it +beautiful, Nick?" + +"Well, rather!" + +And the spell was broken. They little knew, these two who were so happy, +that in the fertile brain of the man who stood smiling at them was the +germ of a plan which would break their engagement and bring a black +cloud over the scene. + + +VIII + +The family dined early that evening. Graham had taken a box at the +Maxine Elliott Theatre. He and Kenyon and Peter were to take Belle and +Betty there to see a play by Edward Sheldon, about which everybody was +talking. Little Mrs. Guthrie, who was to have been one of the party, had +decided to stay at home, because the Doctor was not feeling very well, +and so she was going to sit with him in the library and see that he went +to bed early, and give him a dose of one of those old-fashioned cures in +which she was a great believer. + +Naturally enough, although he was not an ardent play-goer, Peter was +looking forward with keen pleasure to the evening because he would be +able to sit close to Betty and from time to time whisper in her ear. +During dinner, however, which was a very merry meal, with Kenyon keeping +everyone in fits of laughter, Peter caught something in his mother's +eyes which made him revolutionize his plans. The little mother laughed +as frequently as the rest of them,--to the casual observer she was merry +and bright, with nothing on her mind except the slight indisposition of +the Doctor. But Peter, who possessed an intuitive eye which had a knack +of seeing underneath the surface of things and whose keen sympathy for +those he loved was very easily stirred, became aware of the fact that +his mother was only simulating light-heartedness and stood in need of +something from him. + +He threw his mind back quickly, and in a moment knew what was wrong. +During the short time that he had been back in the city he had forgotten +to give his little mother anything of himself. That was wrong and +ungrateful and extremely selfish, and must be remedied at once. + +Without a moment's hesitation he decided to cut two acts of the play and +do everything that he could to prove to the little mother who meant so +much to him that, although he was engaged to be married, she still +retained her place in his heart. + +Dinner over, he went quickly to the door and opened it, and as his +mother passed out he put his arm round her shoulders and whispered, +"Mummie, dear, slip up to your room and wait there for me. I want to +talk to you." The look of gratitude that he received from the dear +little woman was an immense reward for his unselfishness. Then he went +up to Graham and said: "Look here, old boy, I find I shan't be able to +go along with you now, but I'll join you for the last act." + +"Oh, rot!" said Graham. "What's up? Betty'll be awfully upset." + +"No, she won't," said Peter. "I'm going to send her a note." And while +the others were getting ready, he dashed off a few lines to the girl +who, like himself, understood the family feeling. It contained only a +few lines, but they were characteristically Peterish and were calculated +to make Betty add one more brick to the beautiful construction of her +love for him, because they showed that he understood women and their +sensitiveness and realized their urgent need of tenderness and +appreciation. + +As soon as the party had driven away, Peter collected a pipe and a tin +of tobacco and went quickly up the wide staircase. He rushed into his +mother's own particular room with all his old impetuosity and found her +sitting at a table by the side of a great work-basket in which he saw a +large collection of the socks that he had brought home with him and +which stood badly in need of motherly attention. No man in this world +made so many or such quick holes in the toes of his socks as Peter did, +and he knew that she had ransacked the drawers to find them. He drew up +a chair, thrust his long legs out in front of him and made himself +completely comfortable. + +This little room was unlike any other in the house. In it his mother had +placed all the pet pieces of inexpensive furniture which had been in the +sitting-room of the little house in which she and the Doctor had settled +down when they were first married. It was unpretentious stuff, bought in +a cheap store in a small town,--what is called "Mission" +furniture,--curious, uncomfortable-looking chairs which creaked with +every movement, odd little sideboards, which would have brought a grin +either of pain or amusement to the face of the former owner of the +beautifully furnished house which had been left to the Doctor. The +walls were covered with photographs of the family in all stages,--Peter +as a chubby baby with a great curl on top of his head--Belle in a +perambulator smiling widely at a colored nurse--Graham in his first +sailor-suit--Ethel bravely arrayed in a party frock, "Thinking of +Mother"--and over the mantel-piece one--an enlargement--of the Doctor +taken when he was a young man, with an unlined face and thick, straight +hair, his jaws set with that grim determination which had carried him +over so many obstacles. It was a room at which Graham, Belle and Ethel +frequently laughed. But Peter liked it and respected it. He felt more at +home there than anywhere else in the house. It reminded him of the early +struggles of his father and mother and touched every responsive note in +his nature. + +"I'm sorry you're not going to the theatre, dear," said Mrs. Guthrie. + +"No, you're not," said Peter. + +"Oh, indeed I am. I like you to enjoy yourself with the others, and +Betty'll be there. Only stay a few minutes; and, as the curtain always +goes up late, you'll be in time to see the whole of the play." + +"Blow the play!" said Peter. "I'm going to talk to you just as long as I +like. I can go to the theatre any night of the week." + +Mrs. Guthrie dropped her work, bent forward and put her cheek against +Peter's. "You're a dear, dear boy," she said. "You're my very own Peter, +and even if I were a poet I couldn't find words to tell you how happy +you make me; but I did my best not to let you see that I was just a wee +bit hurt because you haven't had time to spare me a few moments since +you came home. After all, I'm only a little old mother now, and I must +try to remember that." + +"Oh, don't," said Peter. "I'm awfully sorry I've been such a thoughtless +brute. But, no one--no, no one--can ever take your place, and you know +it." He went down on his knees at her side and wrapped his strong arms +round her and put his head upon her breast as he used to do when he was +a little chap, and remained there for a while perfectly happy. + +He couldn't see the Madonna look which came into the eyes of the little +mother, whose pillow had frequently been wet with tears at the thought +that she had lost her boy. Nor did he see the expression of extreme +gratitude which spread rather pathetically over her face. But he felt +these things and held her tightly just to show how well he understood, +and to eliminate from her heart that feeling of pain which he knew had +crept into it because he had found that other little mother who was to +be his wife and have sons of her own. + +Presently he returned to his chair and to his pipe, and began to talk. +"By gad!" he said, "it's good to be home again. I find myself looking at +everything differently now--quite time, too. I should have been at work +years ago. Universities are great places and I shall never regret +Oxford, but they take a long time to prepare a fellow to become a man." +Then he laughed one of his great and big laughs, and his chair creaked +and one or two of the old pieces of furniture seemed to rattle. "I hid +those socks, but I knew you'd find them. What a mother you are, mother! +I'll make a bet with you." + +"I never bet," said Mrs. Guthrie, who was all smiles. + +"I'll bet you a hundred dollars you never mend Graham's socks. Now then +tell the truth." + +"Well, no, I don't. He doesn't like socks that have been mended; and, +anyway, he isn't my first-born. You see that makes a lot of difference." + +"There you are," said Peter. "Pay up and smile. Oh, say; I'm sorry +father's seedy. He sticks too closely to those microbes of his. I shall +try to screw up courage and take him on a bust now and then. It'll do +him good. Think he'll go?" + +Mrs. Guthrie looked up eagerly. "Try," she said. "Please do try. Now +that you've come home for good I want you to do everything you can to +get closer to your father. He's a splendid man and he's always thinking +about you and the others, but I know that he'll never make the first +move. He doesn't seem to understand how to do it. But he deserves +everything you can give him. If only you could break down his shyness +and diffidence,--because that's what it is,--you'd make him very happy." + +"Yes, that's what I think," said Peter. "I've been thinking it over, +especially since I saw the way in which Kenyon's father treats him. I +shall pluck up courage one of these nights, beard him in his den and +have it out, and put things straight. I want him much more than he wants +me; and, d'you know, I think that Graham wants him too." + +"I'm sure he does," said Mrs. Guthrie. "Graham's a good boy, but he's +very reckless and thinks that he's older than he is. He comes to me +sometimes with his troubles, but how can I help him? I wish, Peter, I do +wish that he'd go sometimes to his father!" + +"Well, I'm going to try to alter all that," said Peter. "It's got to be +done somehow. Father's always been afraid of us, and we've always been +afraid of father. It's silly. What d'you think of Nicholas? Isn't he a +corker?" + +Mrs. Guthrie smiled. "He improves on acquaintance," she said. "He's +certainly one of the most charming men I've ever met. Do you think"--she +lowered her voice a little--"do you think there's anything between him +and Belle?" + +"Good Lord!" said Peter. "I never thought of that. Is there?" + +"Well," said Mrs. Guthrie, "I've noticed one or two little things. He's +been writing to her, you know." + +"Has he? By Jove! Well, then, there must be something in it. He's a lazy +beggar and I don't believe I've ever seen him write a letter in his +life. Gee, I shall be awfully glad to have him for a brother-in-law! +That topping place in Shropshire! Belle would make an absolutely perfect +mistress of it, although there's plenty of life in the old man yet. By +Jove, it was good to see the relationship between Nick and his father. +It staggered me. Why, they were as good as friends. They go about arm in +arm and tell each other everything. It used to make me feel quite sick +sometimes. Think of my going about arm in arm with father!" + +"Think of Belle becoming the Countess of Shropshire! I should like that. +It would be another feather in your father's cap,--your father who used +to carry siphons in a basket." + +"More power to his elbow," said Peter. "It might have been better for me +if I'd carried siphons in a basket. After all, I'm inclined to believe +that there's no university in the world like the streets. Think of all +the men who've graduated from windy corners and muddy gutters--It'd be a +fine thing for Ethel, too, if Belle marries Nick. Isn't she an +extraordinary kid? Upon my word, she takes my breath away. She's older +at sixteen than most women are at thirty. By the way, what's the matter +with her? What's anaemia, anyhow? She looks as fit as a fiddle." + +"Oh, she'll soon get over that," said Mrs. Guthrie. "I think they bend +too much over books at her school. You know the modern girl isn't like +the girls of my generation. I didn't have to learn geometry or piano +playing. I didn't think it was necessary to know Euclid or a smattering +of the classics. We learned how to make bread and cook a good steak and +iron clothes. You know husbands don't come home to hear Mozart on a Baby +Grand and enter into discussions about writers with crack-jaw names." + +"I know,--Ibsen, Schopenhauer, Hauptmann and Tolstoy. No; they don't +fill a hungry tummie, do they?" + +"No, indeed they don't," said Mrs. Guthrie. "And that reminds me that I +must go and give your father his little dose. When a doctor isn't well +he never knows how to look after himself." She got up and put down her +work, and then bent over Peter. "Thank you for coming up to-night, my +dearest boy. I've had a queer little pain in my heart for a long time, +but you've taken it all away. Now run along and see your Betty, and +don't worry about your little mother any longer." + +Peter got up and put his hands on his mother's shoulders. "Listen!" he +said. "I love you. I shall always love you. No woman shall ever come +between me and you." And he caught her in his arms and kissed her. + +And then she bustled down-stairs to the library, where the Doctor was +taking it easy for once and dipping into one of the numerous books that +surrounded him. There was a smile on Mrs. Guthrie's face which was like +the sun on an autumn morning. + +On the way to his bedroom Peter passed the door of Ethel's room, and +drew up short. He had heard her say she was going to bed early. He +hadn't had many words with her since he got back. So he decided to go in +and wipe off that debt, too. When he tried to open the door he found +that it was locked. He started a devil's tattoo with his knuckles. "Are +you there, Kid?" he shouted out. + +The answer was "Yes." + +"Well, then, open the door. I want to come in." + +After a moment the door was opened and Ethel stood there in a very +becoming peignoir. She looked extremely disconcerted and did her best +to block the way into the room. + +But that wouldn't do for Peter. "What's all this?" he asked. "We lock +our door now, do we?" + +"Yes, sometimes," said Ethel. "Why aren't you at the theatre?" She shot +a surreptitious glance towards the window, which was open. + +"I've been having a talk with mother," said Peter. "Hello! I see you've +been trigging up your room. Frightfully swagger now, isn't it. New art, +eh? You're coming on, my dear, there's no mistake about that. I'm afraid +you find us all appallingly provincial, don't you?" + +The broad grin on Peter's face was no new thing to Ethel. He had always +pulled her leg and treated her as though she were a sort of freak. All +the same, she liked his coming in and was flattered to know that he +thought it worth while to bother about her. But she began to edge him to +the door. He had come at a most unpropitious moment. + +"Oh ho!" said Peter. "So this's what higher education does for you? A +nice mixture--cigarettes and candies--I must say. Now I know why you +locked your door. With a marshmallow in one hand and an Egyptian Beauty +in the other you lie on your sofa in the latest thing in peignoirs and +see life through the pages of,--what?" He picked up a book from the +table. "Good Lord!" he added; "you don't mean to say you stuff this +piffle into you?" It was a collection of plays by Strindberg. + +"Oh, go to the theatre!" said Ethel. "You're being horridly Oxford now +and I hate it." + +"You'll get a lot more of it before I've done with you," said Peter. +"All the same, you look very nice, my dear. I'm very proud of you, and I +hope you will do me the honour to be seen about with me sometimes. But +how about taking some of that powder off your nose? If you begin trying +to hide it at sixteen it'll be lost altogether at twenty." He made a +sudden pounce at her and holding both her hands so that she could not +scratch, rubbed all the powder away from her little proud nose and made +for the door, just missing the cushion which came flying after him, and +took himself and his big laugh along the passage. + +Immensely relieved at being left alone, Ethel locked the door again and +went over to her dressing-table, where she repaired damage with quick, +deft fingers. With another glance at the window,--a glance in which +there was some impatience,--she arranged herself on the settee to wait. + + +IX + +No wonder Peter had made remarks about this room. It was deliciously +characteristic of its owner. Large and airy; all its furniture was white +and its hangings were of creamy cretonne covered with little rosebuds. +The narrow bed was tucked away in a corner so that the writing-desk, the +sofa and the revolving book-stand--on which stood a bowl of mammoth +chrysanthemums--might dominate the room. Several mezzotints of Watts' +pictures hung on the walls and a collection of framed illustrations of +the Arabian Nights, by Dulac. The whole effect was one of naive +sophistication. + +Through the open window the various sounds of the city's activity +floated rather pleasantly. There was even a note of cheerfulness in the +insistent bells of the trolley-cars on Madison Avenue and the chugging +of a taxicab on the other side of the street. Before many minutes had +gone by a rope ladder dangled outside the window, and this was followed +immediately afterwards by the lithe and wiry figure of a boy. Wearing a +rather sheepish expression he remained sitting on the sill, swinging his +legs. "Hello!" said he. "How are you feeling?" + +"There's some improvement to-night," said Ethel. "Won't you come in? +Were you waiting for a signal?" + +"You bet!" + +He was a nice boy, with a frank, honest face, a blunt nose and a +laughing mouth. His hair was dark and thick, and his shoulders square. +He was eighteen and he looked every day of it. He lived next door and +was the son of a man who owned a line of steamships and a French mother, +who was not on speaking terms with Mrs. Guthrie, owing to the fact that +the Doctor had been obliged to remonstrate about her parrot. This +expensive prodigy gave the most lifelike and frequent imitations of +cats, trolley-cars, newsboys, sirens and other superfluous and +distressing disturbances on the window-sill of the room which was next +to his laboratory. So this boy and girl--unconsciously playing all over +again the story of the Montagues and Capulets--met surreptitiously night +after night, the boy coming over the roof and using the rope +ladder--which had played its part in all the great romances. Was there +any harm in him? Well, he was eighteen. + +"What'll you have first?" asked Ethel, in her best hostess +manner--"candies or cigarettes?" + +"Both," said the boy; and with a lump in his cheek and an expression of +admiration in both eyes he started a cigarette. He was about to sit on +the settee at Ethel's feet, but she pointed to a chair and into this he +subsided, crossing one leg over the other and hitching his trousers +rather high so that he might display to full advantage a pair of very +smart socks, newly purchased. + +"I hope you locked your bedroom door," said Ethel, "and please don't +forget to whisper. There's no chance of our being caught, but we may as +well be careful." + +The boy nodded and made a little face. "If father found out about this," +he said; "oh, Gee! What did you do with Ellen after she bounced in last +night?" + +"Oh, I gave her one of my hats. I told her that if she kept quiet there +was a frock waiting for her. She's safe. Now, amuse me!" + +For some minutes the boy remained silent, worrying his brain as to how +to comply with the girl's rather difficult and peremptory request. He +knew that she was not easy to amuse. He was a little frightened at the +books she read and looked up to her with a certain amount of awe. He +liked her best when she said nothing and was content to sit quite quiet +and look pretty. After deep and steady thought he took a chance. "Do you +know this one?" he asked, and started whistling a new ragtime through +his teeth. + +It was new to Ethel. She liked it. Its rhythm set her feet moving. "Oh, +that's fine," she said. "What are the words?" + +The boy was a gentleman. He shook his head, thereby stimulating her +curiosity a hundred-fold. + +"Oh don't be silly. I shall know them sooner or later, whatever they +are--besides, I'm not a child." + +The boy lied chivalrously. "Well, honestly, I don't know +them,--something about 'Row, row, row'--I don't know the rest." + +She knew that he did know. She liked him for not telling her the truth, +but she made a mental note to order the song the following morning. + +And so, for about an hour, these two young things who imagined that this +was life carried on a desultory conversation, while the boy gradually +filled the room with cigarette smoke, and remained reluctantly a whole +yard away from the sofa. It was all very childish and simple, but to +them it was romance with a very big R. They were making believe that +they had thrown the world back about a hundred years or so. He was a +knight and she a lady in an enemy's castle; and, although their mothers +didn't speak, they liked to ignore the fact that Mrs. Guthrie would have +had no objection to his coming to tea as often as he desired and taking +Ethel for walks in broad daylight whenever he wished for a little mild +exercise. But,--he was eighteen, and so presently, repulsed by her +tongue but enticed by her eyes, he left his chair and found himself +sitting on the settee at Ethel's feet, holding her hand, which thrilled +him very much. She was kinder than usual that night, sweeter and more +girlish. Her stockings were awfully pretty, too, and her hair went into +more than usually delicious ripples round her face. + +"You're a darling," he said suddenly. "I love to come here like this. I +hope you'll be ill for a month." And he slid forward with gymnastic +clumsiness and put his arm round her shoulder. He was just going to kiss +her and so satisfy an overwhelming craving when there was a soft knock +on the door and Dr. Guthrie's voice followed it. "Are you awake, Ethel?" + +The boy sprang to his feet, stood for a moment with a look of peculiar +shame on his face, turned on his heels, made for the window, went +through it like a rabbit and up the troubadour ladder, which disappeared +after him. + +Ethel held her breath and remained transfixed. Again the knock came and +the question was repeated. But she made no answer, and presently, when +the sound of footsteps died away, she got up--a little peevish and more +than a little irritable--kicked a small pile of cigarette ash which the +boy had dropped upon her carpet, and said to herself: "_Just_ as he was +going to kiss me! Goodness, how _annoying_ father is!" + + +X + +The following morning Belle took Nicholas Kenyon for a walk. Dressed in +a suit of blue flannel with white bone buttons, with a pair of white +spats gleaming over patent leather shoes and a grey hat stuck at an +angle of forty-five, Kenyon looked as fresh and as dapper as though he +had been to bed the night before at ten o'clock. He had, as a matter of +fact, come home with the milk; but he was one of those men who possess +the enviable gift of looking healthy and untired after the sort of +nights which make the ordinary man turn to chemistry and vibro-massage. + +Belle had sported a new hat for the occasion. + +This fact Kenyon realized with that queer touch of intuition which was +characteristic of him. "By Jove!" he said. "That's something like a hat, +Belle. Hearty congratulations. You suit it to perfection." + +Belle beamed upon him. "But you would say that anyhow, wouldn't you?" + +"Perfectly true; but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred I shouldn't +mean it." + +They turned into Madison Avenue. It was an exquisite morning. The whole +city was bathed in sun, but the refreshing tang of late autumn was in +the air. Most of the large houses were still closed, their owners +lingering in the country or abroad. All the same there was the +inevitable amount of traffic in the streets and apparently the usual +number of passers-by. The city can be--according to the strange little +creatures who write society news--"utterly deserted" and yet contain +all its teeming millions. + +"And what may that be?" asked Kenyon, pointing to the heavy white +buttresses of a church which backed on the street. + +"Oh, that's the Roman Catholic Cathedral." + +"Roman Catholic, eh? I noticed churches everywhere as we drove up from +the docks,--more churches than pubs apparently, and yet I suppose it +would be quite absurd to imagine that New Yorkers imbibe their alcohol +entirely in the form of religion." + +"Quite," said Belle, dryly. "Although we have a hundred religions and +only five cocktails." + +"I see you also go in for antique furniture." + +Belle laughed. "You have a quick eye," she said. "There's so much +genuine Old English stuff in this city that if it were sent to England +there wouldn't be room for it on shore. Tell me; what are your plans?" + +"Well," said Kenyon, "I'm going to accept your father's perfectly +charming hospitality for a fortnight and then take rooms in a bachelor +apartment-house, of which Graham has told me, for the winter." + +"You're going to settle down here?" cried Belle. + +"Rather,--for six months. I'm here to study the conditions, make myself +familiar with the characteristics and draw from both what I hope will be +the foundations of much usefulness." Kenyon considered that he had +enveloped his true mission--which was to lighten the pockets of all +unwary young men--with a satirical verbiage that did him credit. + +"I thought that perhaps you'd come for some other reason," said Belle, +whose whole face showed her disappointment. + +Kenyon shot a quick glance at her. How naive she was--how very much too +easy--but, nevertheless, how very young and desirable. "That goes +without saying, you delicious thing," he replied, closing his hand +warmly round her arm for a moment and so bringing the light back to her +eyes. "By the way," he continued, "what's the matter with Graham?" + +"I don't know that anything's the matter with Graham." + +"I think so. I notice a worried look about him that he didn't have at +Oxford; that he seems to be always on the verge of telling me something, +and drawing back at the last minute. I must make a point of finding out +what his trouble is. Peter and I were discussing it this morning after +breakfast. We're both a bit anxious about him. Do you know if your +father has noticed it?" + +"Father? Oh, he doesn't notice anything. He believes that Graham is +working very hard and doing well. He knows less about what goes on in +our house than the people who live next door." + +"That's rather a pity. I'm all for complete confidence between father +and son. However, I shall play father to Graham for a bit and see what +can be done for him. He puzzles me. There's a mystery somewhere." + +Something of this mystery was disclosed to Kenyon and Peter that night. +After dining them both at the Harvard Club--a place which filled Kenyon +with admiration and surprise--Graham suddenly suggested, with a queer +touch of excitement, that they should go with him to his apartment. + +"Your apartment?" said Peter. "What on earth do you mean?" + +"Well, come and see," said Graham. + +The two elder men looked at each other in amazement. Kenyon's quick mind +ran ahead, but Peter, the unsophisticated, was quite unable to +understand what in the world Graham wanted an apartment for when he +lived at home. They all three left West Forty-fourth Street in silence +and walked arm in arm down Fifth Avenue as far as Twenty-eighth Street. +Here they turned westward and followed Graham, who was wearing an air of +rather sheepish pride, up the steps of an old brown stone house with +rather a shabby portico. + +"Dismal looking hole," said Peter. + +"Wait!" said Graham, and he put his finger on a bell. The door opened +automatically and he led the way into a scantily furnished hall and up +three flights of stairs, whose red carpet was in the autumn of its days. +Drawing up in front of a door on the left of the passage he rang again, +and after a lengthy pause was admitted to a small apartment by a colored +maid, who gave a wide grin of recognition. + +"Come right in," said Graham. "Lily, take our hats and coats. Don't +leave them about in the hall. Hang them up and then go and get some +drinks." + +Kenyon looked about him curiously. He could see that the place was +newly furnished and that everything had been chosen by a man. He glanced +into the dining-room. The pictures were sporting and the furniture +mission. He detected no sign of a woman's hand anywhere. He began to be +puzzled. He had expected to find something quite different. But when +Graham opened the door of the sitting-room and said: "Well, here we are, +Ita!" and he saw a small, dark, olive-skinned girl rise up from a settee +and run forward to Graham with a little cry of welcome, he knew that his +deduction of the situation had been a right one. So this was the +mystery. + +Still with the same air of sheepish pride, Graham said: "Peter, this is +Miss Ita Strabosck. My brother, Ita. And this is Nicholas Kenyon, who's +a great friend of mine. They've just come over from England, and so of +course I've brought them to see you." + +The little girl held out a very shy hand, and said: "I am so glad. Eet +ees very good of you to come." + +In a curiously plain tight frock of some soft black material, cut square +across her tiny breasts, and leaving her arms bare almost to the +shoulders, she stood, with one knee bent, looking from one man to the +other with a sort of wistful eagerness to be treated kindly. She held a +tiny black Teddy bear with red eyes against her cheek, like a child. + +Peter, for a reason which he was unable to explain to himself, felt a +wave of sympathy go over him. He not only accepted the girl on her face +value, but somehow or other believed her to be younger and more +romantic than she looked. She seemed to him to have stepped out of the +pages of some Arabian book--to be a little exotic whom Graham must have +discovered far away from her native hot-house. He liked the way in which +her thick hair was arranged round her face, and he would have sworn that +she was without guile. + +Not so Kenyon. "Great Scott!" he said to himself. "Here's a little devil +for you. Our young friend Graham has had his leg pulled. I've seen +mosquitoes before, but the poison of this one will take all the +ingenuity of an expert to counteract." + +He sat down and watched the girl, who threw one quick antagonistic +glance at him and attached herself to Peter, to whom she talked in +monosyllables. She might only very recently have left a Convent School, +except that her dog-like worship of Graham seemed to prove that she owed +him a deep debt of gratitude for some great service. + +Graham watched her, too, and his expression showed Kenyon that even if +he didn't love her he believed in her and was proud of himself. + + +XI + +By a sort of mutual consent the three men left the apartment in +Twenty-eighth Street early. They did not desire to finish the evening at +any cabaret or club. They called the first passing taxicab and drove +home. By mutual consent also they never once referred to Ita Strabosck, +but discussed everything else under the sun. Kenyon had never been so +useful. With consummate tact--but all the while with the picture in his +mind of the cunning little actress whom they had just left--he led the +conversation from dancing to baseball and from country clubs to women's +clothes. Whenever the cab passed a strong light Graham made a quick, +examining glance at Peter's face. He knew old Peter as well as Peter +knew his piano, and he was quite well aware of the fact that although +his brother laughed a good deal at Kenyon's quaint turn of phrase he was +upset at what he had seen. + +It was just after eleven o'clock when they went into the smoking-room of +the house in Fifty-second Street. Mrs. Guthrie and Ethel had gone to +bed. Belle had not returned from a theatre party. The Doctor was at work +in his laboratory. He heard the boys come in. The sound of their voices +made him raise his head eagerly. He even half-rose from his chair in a +desire to join them and hear them talk, and laugh with them and get from +them some of that sense of youth which they exuded so pleasantly, but +his terrible shyness got the better of him once more and he returned to +his experiments. How ironical it was that with complete unconsciousness +he was leaving it to such a man as Nicholas Kenyon to play father to his +second son, who had never in his short life needed a real father so +badly. + +For some little time--smoking a good cigar with complete +appreciation--Kenyon continued to give forth his impressions of New +York so far as he knew it. He was especially amusing in his description +of the effect upon him of the first sight of the Great White Way. Then, +all of a sudden, there came one of those strange pauses. It was Peter +who broke the silence. "Graham, old boy," he said, "tell us about it. +What does it all mean? Good Lord! you're only twenty-four. Are you +married?" + +Before Graham could reply, Kenyon sent out a scoffing laugh. "Married! +Is he married?" he cried. "My good old grandfather's ghost, Peter! But +how indescribably green you are. Hang me if you're not like a sort of +Peter Pan! You've passed through Harvard and Oxford with a skin over +your eyes. It's all very beautiful, very commendable--and what Belle +would call 'very dear' of you--and all that sort of thing, but somehow +you make me feel that I've got to go through life with you in the +capacity of the sort of guide one hires in Paris--the human Baedeker." + +"But if Graham hasn't married that poor girl," said Peter, bluntly, +"what's he doing with her?" + +Graham sprang to his feet and began to walk about the room. All about +his tall, slight, well-built figure there was a curious nervousness and +excitement. Even in the carefully subdued light of the room it was plain +to see that his face was rather haggard and drawn. The boy looked years +older than Peter. "I'll start off," he said, "by giving you fellows my +word of honor that what I'm going to tell you is the truth. I have to +begin like this because if either of you were to tell me this story I +don't think I should be able to believe it. Some time ago I was taken--I +forget by whom--to a pestilential but rather amusing place in Fortieth +Street. It's a huge studio run by a woman who calls herself Papowsky. +It's what you, Nick, would call the last word in supereffeteness. Ita +Strabosck was one of the girls. I liked her at once. I didn't fall in +love with her, but she appealed to me and it was simply to see her that +I went there several times. I knew the place was pretty rotten and I +didn't cotton on to the people who were there or the things they did. I +even knew that the police had their eyes on it, but I liked it all the +more because of that. It gave it a sort of zest, like absinthe in +whiskey." + +"Quite!" said Kenyon. "Fire away!" + +"The last time I went there, Ita took me into a corner, told me that she +was never allowed out of the place and was a sort of White Slave, and +begged me to take her away. I don't think I shall ever forget the sight +of that poor little wretch trembling and shaking. It was pretty bad. +Well, I took her away. I got her out by a fire-escape when nobody was +watching us. Dodged through a window of a restaurant on the first floor, +and so out into the street. It was very tricky work. The day after I +took the apartment that you came to to-night, furnished it, and there +Ita has been ever since. I go there nearly every night until the small +hours. She's happy now and safe and I don't regret it. She hated the +place and the things she had been forced to do and nothing will make me +believe that she was bad. She was just a victim--that's all. And if I +have to go without things I don't care so long as she has all she needs. +That's the story. What d'you think of it?" + +Peter got up, went over to his brother and held out his hand silently. +With a rather pathetic expression of gratitude in his eyes, Graham took +it and held it tight. "That's like you, Peter," he said, a little +huskily. + +Kenyon made no movement. He looked with a pitying smile at the two boys +as they stood eye to eye. The whole thing sounded to him like a fairy +tale and for a moment he wondered whether Graham was not endeavoring to +obtain their sympathy under false pretences. Then he made up his mind +that Graham--like the man with whom he had lived at Oxford--was green +also, for all that he had knocked about in New York for two years. Not +from any kindness of heart, but simply because he wanted to use Graham +as a means of introducing him to the young male wealthy set of the city, +he determined to get him out somehow or other of this disastrous +entanglement. He would however go to work tactfully without allowing +Graham to think that he had made a complete fool of himself. He knew +that if he wounded this boy's vanity and brought him down from his +heroic pedestal he would set his teeth, put his back to the wall and +refuse to be assisted. With keen insight he could see that this incident +was likely to injure the usefulness of his visit to America. + +"Um!" he said. "It's a pitiful story, Graham. You behaved devilish well, +old boy. Not many men would have acted so quickly and so unselfishly. +Now, sit down and tell me a few things." + +Gladly enough Graham did so, heaving a great sigh. He was glad that he +had made a clear breast of all this. He was too young to keep it a +secret. He wanted sympathy urgently and a little human help. Peter +loaded and lit a pipe and drew his chair into the group. + +"This girl Ita What's-her-name loves you, of course?" + +Graham nodded. + +"Anyone could see that," said Peter. + +"But she'd been in that studio some time before you came along, I take +it,--I mean she'd been anybody's property for the asking?" + +Graham shuddered. "I hate to think so," he said. + +Peter kicked the leg of the nearest chair. + +"How d'you feel?" asked Kenyon. + +"Awfully sorry for her," said Graham. + +"Yes, of course. What I mean is, are you all right?" + +Graham looked puzzled. "I find it rather difficult to pay for +everything," he said, "especially as I've been damned unlucky lately." + +The man of the world involuntarily raised his eyebrows. "Good Lord!" he +said to himself. "And this boy is the son of a specialist. +Blind--blind!" Then he spoke aloud, passing on to another point. "How +long do you think it is incumbent upon you to make yourself the guardian +of this girl?" + +Graham shrugged his shoulders. "She comes from Poland. Her father and +mother are dead and she has no one to look after her." + +"I'll help you," said Peter. + +That was exactly what Kenyon didn't want. He got up, went over to the +table and mixed a drink. "Potter off to bed, Graham, old boy," he said. +"Get a good night's rest. You need it. We'll go further into the matter +in a day or two. It requires serious consideration. Anyway, I +congratulate you. You're a bit of a knight, and you've my complete +admiration." He led the boy to the door, patted him on the shoulder and +got rid of him. Then he returned to Peter, whose face showed that he was +laboring under many conflicting emotions. + +"Nick," he said, "he's only twenty-four--just making a beginning. He did +the only thing he could do under the circumstances, but,--but what would +father say?" + +"I don't think it's a question as to what your father would say," said +Kenyon. "If I know anything, the way to put it is what can your father +do? Of all men in the city he's the one who could be most useful in this +peculiar mess-up--Peter, you and I have got to get that boy out of this, +otherwise----" + +"Otherwise what?" + +"Otherwise--quite shortly--the police are likely to fish out of the +river the dead body of a promising lad of twenty-four, and there'll be +great grief in this house." + +"What d'you mean?" + +"Exactly what I say. That girl's a liar, a cheat and a fraud." + +"I don't believe you." + +"I don't care whether you believe me or not. She's rotten from head to +foot. She's as easy to read as an advertisement. She's taking advantage +of a fellow who's as unsuspicious as you are. You're both green,--green, +I tell you,--as green as grass." + +"I'd rather be green," cried Peter, hotly, "than go through life with +your rotten skepticism." + +"Would you? You talk like an infant. Graham will want to marry some +day,--and then what? Good Heavens! Hasn't anybody taken the trouble to +tell you two any of the facts of life? You are neither of you fit to be +allowed out in the streets without a nurse. It's appalling. Skeptical, +you call me. You're blind, I tell you. Blind! So's the old man in the +next room. There's an ugly shadow over this house, Peter, as sure as +you're alive. Don't stand there glaring at me. I'm talking facts. If +you've got any regard for your brother and his health and his future; if +you want to save your mother from unutterable suffering and your father +from a hideous awakening, don't talk any further drivel to me, but make +up your mind that the girl, Ita Strasbosck, has it in her power to turn +Graham into a suicide. She's a liar--a liar and a trickster and a +menace--and I'll make it my business to prove it to you and Graham." + +"You can't." + +"Can't I? We'll see about that. And you've got to help me. We've got to +make Graham see that he must shake her off at once,--at once, I tell +you. The alternative you know." + +Peter got up and strode about the room. He was worried and anxious. He +didn't, unfortunately, fully appreciate the gravity of this affair, +because, as Kenyon had said so tauntingly, he was a child in such +matters. But what he did appreciate was that his only brother had done +something, however sympathetic the motive, which might have far-reaching +consequences and which did away with the possibility of his going, as it +was Peter's determination to go, clean and straight to a good girl. + +He turned to Kenyon, who had made himself comfortable. "I'll help you +for all I'm worth, Nick," he said. + +"Right," said Kenyon. "I'll think out a line of action and let you know +to-morrow. There's no time to be lost." + + +XII + +Kenyon got rid of Peter, too. + +Apart from the fact that he was going to wait up for Belle, he wanted to +be alone. He was angry. It was just like his bad luck to come all the +way to America and find that the two men who had it in their power to be +of substantial use to him were both fully occupied,--one being +hopelessly in love, the other in money trouble and in what he recognized +as a difficult and even dangerous position. With characteristic +selfishness he resented these things. They made it necessary for him to +exercise his brain,--not for himself--which was his idea of the whole +art of living--but for others. There were other things that he resented +also. One was the fact that Peter was what he called a damned child. He +had no admiration whatever for his friend's absolute determination to +look only at the clean things of life. A thousand times since they had +shared the same rooms he had cursed Peter because of his sweeping +refusal to discuss a question which he knew to be of vital and +far-reaching importance. At these times Peter had always said something +like this: "My dear Nick, I'm not going to be a doctor, a woman-hunter, +or a sloppy man about town. I don't want to know any details whatever of +the things which stir up other men's curiosity. I've no room in my brain +for them. They don't amuse me or interest me. I'm jolly well going to +remain a damned child, whether you like it or not, so you may chuck +trying to drag me into these midnight discussions of yours with the men +who hang nudes all over their walls and gloat over filthy little French +books." + +And then there was Graham. He, like untold hundreds of his type, had a +certain amount of precocity, but no knowledge. He had merely peeked at +the truth of things through a chink. He had looked at life with the +salacious eyes of a Peeping Tom. And what was the result? Worse than +total ignorance. Deep down in whatever soul he had, Nicholas Kenyon +honestly and truly believed in friendship between father and son. He +knew--none better--because it was his business to observe, that a young +man was frightfully and terribly handicapped who went out into the world +unwarned, unadvised and uninitiated. He had often come across men like +Peter and Graham whose lives had been absolutely ruined at the very +outset for the reason that their fathers had either been too cowardly or +too indifferent to give them the benefit of their own experience and +early troubles. In fact, most of the men he knew--and he knew a great +many--had been left to discover the essential truths and facts for +themselves. The inevitable end of it was that they made their +discoveries too late. + +Fate certainly must have had a very grim amusement in watching Nicholas +Kenyon as he walked up and down the library of Dr. Hunter Guthrie's +house that night, blazing at the delinquencies of fathers. Nevertheless, +Kenyon had the right to be indignant, whether his reasons for being so +sprang out of his selfishness or not. His own father was an +unscrupulous, unserious man, that was true, but at any rate he had given +his son a human chance. He could take it or leave it as he liked. And +when Kenyon, piecing together all that he had heard of Dr. Guthrie from +Peter, from Graham and from Belle, added all that to the very obvious +fact that these two boys were out in the world with blind eyes, he burst +into a scoffing laugh. In his mind's eye he could see the excellent and +distinguished Doctor rounding his back over experiments for the benefit +of humanity, while he utterly neglected to give two of the human beings +for whom he was responsible the few words of advice which would render +it unnecessary for them to become his patients. + +If Kenyon had been a more generous man--if in his nature there had been +one small grain of unselfishness--he would have gone at that very +moment, then and there, to the door of the Doctor's laboratory--into +that wonderful room--sat down opposite the man who spent his life in it +with such noble concentration and begged him to desert his microbes and +turn his attention to his sons. As it was he neglected to take an +opportunity which would have enabled the recording angel to make one +very good entry on the blank credit side of his account, and +concentrated upon a way in which he could use Peter and Graham for his +own material ends. He was immediately faced therefore with two "jobs," +as he called them,--one to queer Peter's engagement with Betty, in order +that he might achieve his friend's whole attention, the other to lift +Graham out of his ghastly entanglement, for the same purpose. Bringing +himself up to that point and relying upon his ingenuity with complete +confidence, Kenyon mixed himself another high-ball and listened with a +certain amount of eagerness for Belle's light step. + +He hadn't long to wait. He had just gone into the dimly lighted hall +with the intention of getting some air on the front doorstep, when the +door opened and Belle let herself in. + +"You keep nice hours," he said. + +Belle had been dancing. Her cheeks were glowing and her eyes bright. She +had never looked so all-conqueringly youthful or so imbued with the joy +of life. She came across to him like a young goddess of the forest, with +the wild beauty and that suggestion of unrestraint which always made +Kenyon's blood run quickly. + +"Have you waited for me?" she asked. "How perfectly adorable of you." + +"What have you been doing?" + +"Oh, the usual things--dinner, theatre, dancing." + +Kenyon went nearer and put his hands on her arms, hotly. "Curse those +men!" he said. + +"What men?" + +"The men who've been holding you to-night. Why have I come over? Can't +you scratch these engagements and wait for me? I'm not going to share +you with every Tom, Dick and Harry in this place." + +A feeling of triumph came to Belle--a new feeling--because hitherto this +man's attitude had been that of master. "You're jealous!" she cried. + +Kenyon turned away sharply. For once he was not playing with this girl +for the sport of the thing, just to see what she would say and do in +order to pass away the time. The whole evening had tended to upset his +calculations and plans. He had found himself thrown suddenly into a +position of responsibility,--a state that he avoided with rare and +consummate agility. And now came Belle, radiant and high-spirited, from +an evening spent with other men,--more beautiful and desirable than he +had ever seen her look. + +Belle turned him back. "You _are_ jealous, you _are_." + +"Oh, good Lord, no," said Kenyon, with his most bored drawl. "Why should +I be? After all it isn't for me to care what you do, is it? It's a large +world and there's plenty of room for both of us--what?" + +He walked away. + +Triumph blazed in Belle's heart. She saw in Kenyon's eyes that he was +saying the very opposite of the thoughts that were in his mind. She +almost shouted with joy. She had longed to see into the heart of this +man who was under such complete and aggravating self-control,--even to +hurt him to obtain a big, spontaneous outburst of emotion from him. She +loved him desperately, indiscreetly--far too well for her peace of +mind--and she urgently needed some answering sparks of fire. + +She didn't move. She stood with her cloak thrown back, her chin held +high and the light falling on her dark hair and white flesh. This was +her moment. She would seize it. + +"Yes, there _is_ plenty of room for us both," she said, "and the fact +that I shall go on dancing with other men needn't inconvenience you in +the least. I don't suppose that we shall even see each other in the +crowd. There are many men who'll give their ears to dance with me,--I +mean men who can dance, not bored Englishmen." + +She drew blood. Kenyon went across to her quickly. "How dare you talk to +me like that! Curse these men and their ears. Who's brought me to this +country? You know I came for you,--you know it. I _am_ jealous--as +jealous as the devil. And if ever you let another man put his arms round +you I'll smash his face." He put out his hot hands to catch her. + +But, with a little teasing laugh, Belle dodged and flitted into the +library. The spirit of coquettishness was awake in her. _She_ had the +upper hand now and a small account to render for missed mails, and an +appearance of being too sure. She threw off her cloak and stood with her +back to the fireplace, looking like one of Romney's pictures of Lady +Hamilton come to life. + +Kenyon strode in after her, all stirred by her beauty. "In future," he +said, "you dance with me. You understand?" + +Belle raised her eyebrows and then bowed profoundly. "As you say, O my +master!" And then she held out her arms with a sudden delicious abandon. +"Take me, then. Let's dance all the way through life." + +Kenyon caught her, and all about the room these two went, moving +together in perfect unison, cheek to cheek, until almost breathless +Belle broke into a little laugh, stopped singing, and said: "The band's +tired." But Kenyon held her tighter and closer and kissed her lips again +and again and again. + +With a little touch of warning in its tone the clock on the mantel-piece +presently struck two, and Belle freed herself and straightened her hair +with a rather uncertain hand. "I must go now," she said breathlessly. +"Father may be working late. Supposing he came through this room?" + +"Serve him right," said Kenyon. + +They went upstairs together on tip-toe, and halted for a moment on the +threshold of Belle's bed-room. Through the half-open door Kenyon saw the +glow of yellow light on the dressing-table, and the corner of a virginal +bed. Once more he kissed her and then, breathing hard, went to his own +room, stood in the darkness for a moment, and thanked his lucky star for +the gift of Belle. + + +XIII + +The following afternoon, Peter, Kenyon and Belle went to see Ranken +Townsend's pictures and to have tea with Betty. The little party was a +great success. Peter and the artist got on splendidly together, which +filled Betty with joy and gladness, and Kenyon had added to the general +smoothness and pleasantness by offering extremely intelligent and +enthusiastic criticism of the canvasses that were shown to him, drawing +subtle comparisons between them and those of Reynolds and Gainsborough. +Like all true artists, Townsend was a humble man and unsuspicious. He +believed, in the manner of all good workers, that he had yet to find +himself, although he had met with uncommon success. He was, therefore, +much heartened and warmed by the remarks of one who, although young, +evidently knew of what he was talking and proved himself to be something +of a judge. When Kenyon received a cordial invitation to come again to +the studio he solidified the good impression that he had made by saying +that he would be honoured and delighted. + +There had been a sharp shower during tea, but the sky had cleared when +they left Gramercy Park, taking Betty with them, and so they started out +to walk home. + +Belle and Betty went on in front, arm in arm, and the two friends +followed. This suited Kenyon exactly. He had laid his plan and had +something to say to Peter. + +Belle was very happy, and she showed it. She looked round at Betty with +her eyes dancing. "I can see that you're dying to ask me something," she +said. "But don't. You and I don't have to ask each other questions. +We've always told each other everything, and we always will." + +"Belle, you're en-ga----" + +"S-s-s-h! Don't mention the word." + +"Why?" + +"Well, we've been talking this afternoon and Nicholas says, and I think +he's right--though I wish he weren't--that he doesn't want to go to +father until he's been here longer and has made up his mind what he's +going to do. You see, he's not well off. He's got to work,--although I +can't fancy Nicholas working,--and so we're not going to be really +engaged for a few months. Meantime, he's going to look round and find +something to do. That'll be easy. You don't know how clever he is,--not +merely clever--a monkey can be clever, or a conjurer--the word I meant +to use was 'able.' Aren't you glad? Isn't it splendid?" + +"Oh, my dear," said Betty, "wouldn't it be perfectly wonderful if we +could be married on the same day? Of course I've seen it coming----" + +Belle laughed. "I knew you'd say that. Personally I didn't see it +coming. After we'd left Oxford I began to think that Nicholas had only +been flirting with me. He wrote such curious, aloof little letters and +very few of them. They might have been written by an epigramist to his +maiden aunt; but last night,--well, last night made everything +different, and this afternoon we've had a long talk. Of course I wish we +were going to be openly and properly engaged, but I'm very happy and so +I don't grumble." + +"As the future Countess of Shropshire, I wonder whether you will ever +give a little back room in your beautiful English place to the young +American lawyer and his wife!" + +"Betty, I swear to you that I don't care a dime about all that now,--I +mean the title and the place. It's just Nicholas that I want--Nicholas, +and no one else. I wouldn't care if he were what he calls a 'bounder' or +a 'townee.' My dear, I'm mad about him--just mad." + +"Isn't everything as right as Truth?" said Betty. "The more I see Peter +the more I love him. He's,--well, he's a man, and he's mine. He's mine +for another reason, and that's because he's always going to be a boy, +and I'm here to look after him. He'll need me. And I must have him need +me, too, because I need to be needed. Do you understand?" + +Belle nodded. "You're the born mother, my dear," she said, "whereas, +I'm,--well, not. I want love--just love. I'll give everything I've got +in the world for that--everything. Love and excitement and movement,--to +go from place to place meeting new people, hearing new languages, seeing +new types, living bigly and broadly, being consulted by a man who's +brilliant and far-seeing,--_that's_ what I need. That's _my_ idea of +life. Ah-h!" She shot out a deep breath and threw her chin up as though +to challenge argument. + +Betty watched her with admiration. She had never looked so unusual, so +exhilarated, so fine. All about her there was the very essence of youth +and courage and health. There was a glow in her white skin that was the +mere reflection of the fire that was alight in her heart. Given +happiness this girl would burst into the most fragrant blossoming and +gleam among her sisters like a rose in a pansy bed. Given pain and +disillusion she had it in her to fling rules, observances, caution, +common sense and even self-respect to the four winds and go with all +possible speed to the devil. + +"What would have happened to us both if we hadn't gone to Oxford?" asked +Betty, with an almost comical touch of gravity. "Think! I should be +doomed to be a little old maid, with nothing but an even smaller dog to +keep in order, and as for you----" + +"I? Don't let's talk about it. I should have gone top-pace through +several years and then, with thirty looming ahead, married a nice safe +man with oodles of money who would spend his life following me round. +Thank Heaven, I shall never be the centre of that ghastly picture!" + +And so they went on, these two young things, opening up their hearts to +each other as they walked home and flying off at all manner of feminine +tangents. + +Kenyon, perfectly satisfied with his talk to Belle, whom he had secured +without binding himself to anything definite, was wearing white spats, +and so he picked his way across the wet streets like a cat on hot +bricks. For several blocks he permitted Peter to talk about Betty. His +affectation of interest and sympathy was not so well done as usual. He +had determined, with a sort of professional jealousy, not to allow Ita +Strabosck to trade on Graham's credulity any longer. All his thoughts +were concentrated on his plan to smash up that burlesque arrangement, as +he inwardly called it. If anyone were to make use of Graham he intended +to be that one. The girl, at present a humble member of the great army +of parasites in which he held a commission, must be cleared out. She was +inconveniently in the way. + +When Peter was obliged to stop for breath, Kenyon jumped in. "Look +here!" he said. "You're coming with me to the shrine of the pernicious +Papowsky to-night." + +"You mean on Graham's business?" asked Peter. "Is it absolutely +necessary to go to that place?" + +"Absolutely. You'll see why, if everything works as I think it will, +when we get there." + +"Right. And how about Graham?" + +"You and Graham are going to have dinner with me at Sherry's. I shall +have to see that he has half a bottle too much champagne. That'll make +him careless and put a bit of devil into him, and when I suggest that he +shall take us to Papowsky's, he will jump at the notion, He's awful keen +to show us what a blood he is. Once he gets us inside the rest will +follow." + +"I see. By Jove, I shall be thundering glad when Graham's plucked out of +this wretched mess. The only thing is I'm booked to dine with Mr. +Townsend at his club to-night." + +"It can't be done," said Kenyon. "Directly you get home you must +telephone. Say that an urgent matter has just cropped up and beg to be +excused. Call it business--call it anything you like--but get out of +it." + +"All right!" said Peter. "I'm heart and soul with you, old boy. I'm very +grateful for all the trouble you're taking. You always were a good +chap." + +"My dear Peter, add to my possession of the ordinary number of senses +one that is almost as rare as the Dodo,--the sense of gratitude. Hello! +Here's some of the family in the car!" + +They had halted on the steps of the Doctor's house as Mrs. Guthrie and +Ethel were driven up. Kenyon sprang forward, opened the door and handed +the ladies out with an air that Raleigh himself would have found +commendable. + +"Blood tells," said Belle, who watched from the top step, with a proud +smile. + +"Yes," said Betty, "but I prefer muscle. Look!" + +The pavement was uneven in front of the house and the rain had made a +little pool. So Peter picked his mother up, as though she were as light +as a bunch of feathers, and carried her into the house. + +"My dearest big boy!" she said. + +"Darling little Mum!" said Peter. + + +XIV + +Kenyon, turned out as excellently as usual, led the way into the +dining-room at Sherry's. It was a quarter to eight. Every other table +was occupied. The large room was too warm and was filled with the +conglomerate aromas of food. Peter sat on the right of his host and +Graham on the left. Both men were quiet and distrait,--Peter because he +was anxious, Graham for the reason that he had not been able to leave +behind him the carking worries that now fell daily to his lot. Kenyon, +on the contrary, was in his best form, and even a little excited. Apart +from the fact that he rather liked having something to do that would +prove his knowledge of life and the accuracy of his powers of +psychology, he was looking forward to be amused with what went on in the +studio-apartment of the Papowsky. + +"By Jove!" he said, looking around and arranging his tie over the +points of his collar with expert fingers,--a thing which Graham +immediately proceeded to do also,--"this place has a quite distinct +atmosphere. Don't you think so, Peter?" + +"Has it?" + +"One would, I see, choose it for a trying and dull-bright dinner with a +prospective mother-in-law or with some dear thing, safely married, with +whom one had once rashly imagined one's self to be in love. Waiter, the +wine list!" + +Graham laughed. + +Kenyon, scoring his first point, continued airily. "For my part, I shall +make a point of dining here one night with an alluring young thing fresh +from the romantic quietude of a Convent School. I feel that these +discreet lights and reserved colours will give a certain amount of +weight and even solemnity to my careful flattery--A large bottle of +Perrier Jouet '02, and be sparing with the ice. Peter, I think you'll +find that this caviare gives many points to the tired stuff that used to +be palmed off on us at Buol's and other undergraduate places of puerile +riotousness." + +The dinner, which Kenyon had ordered with becoming care, would have +satisfied the epicureanism of a Russian aristocrat. During all its +courses the host kept up a running fire of anecdote which quickly made +the table a merry one. He also saw to it that Graham's glass was never +empty. They sat laughing, smoking and drinking Creme Yvette until they +were the last people in the room except for an old bloated man and a +very young Hebrew girl. The band, which had mixed ragtime +indiscriminately with Italian opera and Austrian waltzes, and played +them all equally well, went off to acquire the second wind and the +relaxed muscles necessary for a later performance, and the waiters had +long since rearranged the table for supper before Kenyon suggested +adjourning to a club for a game of billiards which would amuse them +until it was time to begin the business of the evening. So they walked +round to the Harvard Club, and here Peter--the only one of the party who +was completely his own master--became host. + +They played until a little short of twelve o'clock. By this time, having +been additionally primed up with one or two Scotch whiskeys, Graham was +ready for anything, and it was then that Kenyon suggested that he should +take them to the famous studio. Graham jumped at the idea, falling, as +Kenyon knew that he would, into the little trap set for him. "We're +children in your hands, Graham," he said, with a subtle touch of +flattery. "Lead us into the vortex of art with the lid off. I'm most +frightfully keen to see this place and it'll be great fun for you, duly +protected, to find out whether the Papowsky has discovered whether you +were the Knight Errant who rescued one of her victims. Romance, old +boy--romance with a big R." And so Graham, more than a little unsteady +and with uproarious laughter, led the way. + +When they arrived at the studio-apartment in Fortieth Street they found +the hall filled with people. It happened that Papowsky was giving an +Egyptian night and nearly all of the habitues were in appropriate +costumes. With the cunning of her species this woman knew very well that +few things appeal so strongly to a certain type of men and women as +dressing up,--which generally means undressing. The Japanese servant who +took their hats and coats welcomed Graham with oily and deferential +cordiality. "We are having a big night, sir," he said, with the peculiar +sibilation of his kind and with his broad, flat hands clasped together. +"It is Madame's birthday, sir. Yes, sir. You and the gentlemen will +enjoy it very much." + +Peter and Kenyon followed Graham into the studio. Their curiosity, +already stirred by the sight of the men and women in the hall, was added +to by the Rembrandt effect of the high, wide room, whose darkness was +only touched here and there by curious faint lights. The buzz of voices +everywhere and little bursts of laughter proved that there were many +people present. As they went in, a powerful lime-light was suddenly +focused on the centre of the room and into this slid a string of young, +small-breasted, round-limbed girls. Led by one who contorted herself in +what was supposedly the Egyptian manner, they moved to and fro with bent +knees and angular gestures, and rigid profiles. Music came out of the +darkness,--the music of a string band with cymbals. + +"Good Lord!" said Kenyon. "What an amazing mixture of exotic stinks!" + +"Look out for your money," said Peter, with a touch of blunt +materialism. + +Graham made for an unoccupied alcove, in which there was a flabby +divan. On this they all three sat down and began to peer about. A few +yards away from them they presently made out an astonishing group of +young men dressed as Egyptians. They were sitting in affectionate +closeness, simpering and tittering together. On the other side they +gradually discerned an overwhelmingly fat, elderly woman holding a kind +of Court. She was almost enveloped in pearls. Otherwise she was scantily +hidden. Her feet were in sandals. Several mere boys had arranged +themselves in picturesque attitudes about her and half a dozen maidens +were grouped round her chair. One was fanning her with a large yellow +leaf. The blue light under which Graham had sat listening to the +whispered appeal of Ita Strabosck fell softly and erotically upon them. + +"Circe come to life," said Kenyon. + +"Ugh! I don't quite know how I'm going to prevent myself from being +sick," said Peter. + +"Ah! but wait a bit," said Graham. "The show hasn't begun yet." + +It made a fairly good beginning as he spoke. The girls in the circle of +light brought their attitudinizing to an end and their places were +instantly taken by two painted men in coloured loin-cloths. To a +screaming outburst of wild and incoherent music they gave what seemed to +Kenyon to be a perfect imitation of civet-cats at play. They crawled +along on all-fours, sprang high into the air, crouched, bounded, whirled +round each other and finally, amid a roar of applause, rolled out of +view wrapped in each other's arms. + +"Um!" said Kenyon. "After just such an exhibition as that Rome burst +into flames." + +There was insistent demand for an encore. The performance was repeated +with the same gusto and relish. The three men saw nothing of it. Just as +the band burst forth again, Kenyon made a long arm, caught the skimpy +covering of a girl who was passing and drew her into the alcove. + +"Come and cheer us up, Minutia," he said. "We feel like lost souls +here." + +The girl was willing enough. It was her business to cheer. She stood in +front of them for a moment so that the blue light should show her +charms. She looked very young and tiny. Fair hair was twisted round her +head. She wore nothing but a thin, loose Egyptian smock, but her small +snub nose and impudent mouth placed her, whatever might be her costume, +on Broadway. "Say! Why are you muts dressed like men?" she asked with +eager interest. + +"Oh, well," said Kenyon, "we happen to be men; but I swear that we won't +advertise the fact." + +The girl greatly enjoyed the remark, but her scream of laughter was +drowned by the band. Then she caught sight of Graham. "Oh, hello, Kid! +So you've come back." + +Graham made room for her. He rather liked being recognized. Kenyon would +see that he knew his way about. "Yes, here I am again. It's difficult to +get the Papowsky dope out of the system." + +"Don't see why you should try. It's pretty good dope, I guess." She +snuggled herself in between Graham and Kenyon, putting an arm round +each. She bent across Kenyon to examine Peter and gave an exaggeratedly +dramatic cry of surprise and admiration. "My God! It's a giant! Say, +dearie, you'd be the King of all the pussies, in a skin. All them dinky +little love-birds would hop round your feet and chirp. Oh, gosh, you'd +make some hit among the artists, sure!" + +"Think so?" said Peter. He would have given a great deal for a pipe at +that moment, so that he could puff out great clouds of smoke as a +disinfectant. + +"A gala night," said Graham. + +"Sure. If the police were to make a raid to-night,--gee, there'd be a +fine list of names in to-morrer's papers!" + +"Think they will?" asked Kenyon. "By Jove! I wish they would. Think of +seeing these people scuffling like frightened rabbits. It would be +epoch-making." + +The girl turned a keenly interested eye on Kenyon and looked him over +with unabashable deliberation. "You've got a funny kind of accent," she +said. "What is it? English?" + +It was the first time that Kenyon had ever been accused of speaking with +an accent. He was delighted. It appealed to his alert sense of humour. +He laughed and nodded. + +"The giant ain't English, is he? Are you, dearie?" + +"No," said Peter. + +"That's fine. I guess I don't like the English much. They always strike +me as being like Americans, trying hard to be different." + +"You don't dislike me, I hope? That would be a very bitter blow," said +Kenyon, tweeking her ear. + +"Oh, you're a comic," she said. "You're all right. Is this your first +visit?" + +"Yes. Have you been here long?" Kenyon asked the question carelessly, as +though to keep the ball moving. It was, as a matter of fact, the +beginning of his plan to disillusion Graham. + +"Oh, I've been in the business ever since it started. Ask the kid, he +knows. Don't you, kid?" + +"Rather," said Graham. + +"I used to be in the chorus, but this is ther life." + +"I suppose so," said Kenyon. "Variety, gaiety, art,--what more can any +girl desire?" + +"Dollars," she said dryly. "And I make more here, by a long way." + +"That's good. But,--but don't you get a little fed up? I mean it must be +hopelessly monotonous to be shut up in one place all the time." + +"Don't know whatcher mean. Translate that, won't you?" + +"He means never getting out," said Graham. + +"Never getting out! I don't get you, Steve. Me and my sister get away +after the show, same as any other." + +"What!" Graham was incredulous. It struck him that the girl was lying +for reasons of loyalty to her employer. He knew better. + +"Oh, I see!" said Kenyon, leading her on carefully. "You don't live +here, then?" + +"Live here? Of course I don't. I come about ten o'clock every night and +leave anywhere between three and four in the morning. Earlier if there's +nothing doing." + +"Oh, I thought that the girls here are,--well, held up, kept here all +the time,--prisoners, so to speak." + +A shrill amused laugh rang out. "Oh, cut it out! What's all this dope? +Say! you've been reading White Slave books. You're bug-house--dippy. +Why, this is a respectable place, this is. This is the house of Art. +We're models, that's what we are. We're only here for local colour. If +we choose to make a bit extra on our own, we can." She laughed again. It +was a good joke. The best that she had heard for years. + +Kenyon threw a quick glance at Graham's face. He could just see it in +the dim light. The boy was listening intently--incredulously. So also +was Peter, who had drawn himself into a corner and was hunched up +uncomfortably. + +Kenyon began to feel excited. Everything was going almost unbelievably +well. The girl was so frank, so open and obviously spontaneous. It was +excellent. "Of course you tell us these things," he said, voicing what +he knew was going silently through Graham's mind. "But we know better. +We know that you, like that poor little girl, Ita Strabosck, are watched +and not allowed to get away under any circumstances. Now, why not tell +us the truth? We may be able to help you escape, too." + +Again she laughed. "Oh, say!" she said. "What are you anyway? Reporters +on the trail of a story? I'm telling you the truth. Why not? As for +Ita,--Oh, ho! She put it all over a boob, she did. She's ambitious, she +is. She was out to find a mut who'd keep her, that was her game. She +told us so from the first. We used to watch her trying one after another +of the soft ones. But they were wise, they were. But at last some little +feller fell for her foreign accent and little sobs. She had a fine tale +all ready. Oh, she's clever. She ought to be on the stage playing parts. +Most of us go round to her place in the daytime and have a good time +with some of her men friends. I've not been yet. But from what my sister +says, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if she gets her man to marry her. +From what she says, he's a sentimental Alick, and, O Gosh! won't she +lead him some dance!" + +At last Graham broke forth, his face white, his eyes blazing and his +whole body shaking as though he had ague. "You're lying!" he shouted. +"Every word you've said's a lie!" + +The girl, entirely unoffended at this involuntary outburst, bent forward +and looked at Graham with a new gleam of intelligence, amusement and +curiosity. "My word, I believe you're Mr. Strabosck. I believe you're +the boob. Oh, say! come into the light. I guess I must have a look at +you." + +Graham got up, stood swaying for a moment as though he had received a +blow between the eyes, and staggered across the room and out into the +passage. + +"Now he knows," said Kenyon. "Come on, Peter. We shall have our work cut +to hold him in. There was blood in his eyes." Utterly ignoring the girl, +Kenyon made for the door, forced his way through new arrivals and found +Graham utterly sober, but with his mouth set dangerously, standing in +front of the Japanese. "My hat and coat, quick!" he was saying, "or I'll +break the place up." + +"Steady, steady," said Kenyon. "We don't want a scene here." + +"Scene be damned. I tell you something's got to break." + +The Japanese ducked into the coat-room. + +"Where's Peter?" Graham looked back expecting to see his brother's head +and shoulders above the crowd. There was no sign of him. + +By accident the lime-light which had been suddenly turned on for a new +performance fell on Peter as he was marching towards the door of the +studio. Instantly he found himself surrounded by half a dozen +good-natured men who had all taken a little too much to drink. They, +like the other people present, were in Egyptian clothes and obviously +glad to see in Peter a healthy normal specimen of humanity. + +"Oh, hello, brother, where are you off to?" asked one. + +"Out!" said Peter shortly. + +"I'll be darned if you are. Come and have a drink!" + +"No, thanks, I've other things to do." + +"Oh, rot! Be a sport and stay and help us to stir things up. Come on, +now!" + +Peter tried to push his way through. "Please get out of the way," he +said. + +But a jovial red-headed fellow got into it. "You're staying, if I have +to make you." + +Something snapped in Peter's brain. Before he could control himself he +bent down and picked up the man by the scruff of his neck and the cloth +that was wound round his middle and heaved him over the heads of the +crowd into a divan, and then hitting out right and left cleared a path +to the door, leaving chaos and bleeding noses behind him. Without +waiting to get his hat and coat he made a dash for the elevator, caught +it just as it was about to descend and went down to the main floor +dishevelled and panting. + +Out in the street he saw Kenyon trying to put Graham into a taxicab. +Kenyon saw him and called out. "Come on, or Papowsky will make it hot +for us." + +On his way home from a late evening at one of his clubs, Ranken Townsend +caught the name Papowsky, whose evil reputation had come to his ears. He +threw a quick glance at the men who were leaving her place and saw that +one of them was Peter. He drew up and stood in front of the man in whom +he thought he had recognized cleanness and excellence and told himself +that he was utterly mistaken. + +"So this was your precious business engagement," he said, with icy +contempt. "Well, I don't give my daughter to a man who shares her with +women like Papowsky, so you may consider yourself free. Good night." + +And the smile that turned up the corners of Kenyon's mouth had in it the +epitome of triumph. All along the line he had won. All along the line. + +Peter watched the tall disappearing figure. He felt as though he had +been kicked in the mouth. + + + + +PART THREE + +LIFE + + +I + +That night was one of the most extraordinary that Peter ever spent. +Although he was smarting under the terrible injustice of Ranken +Townsend's few, but very definite words, and felt like a man who had +suddenly come up to an abyss, he took Graham in hand and devoted +himself, with all the tenderness of a woman, to this poor boy. + +All the way home in the cab Graham had been more or less held down by +Kenyon and his brother. His brain was in a wild chaos. The realization +that he had been tricked and made a fool of hit him hard. In his first +great flush of anger he was filled with an overwhelming desire to go to +the apartment in which he had placed Ita Strabosck and smash it up. He +wanted to have the satisfaction of breaking and ripping apart every +piece of furniture that he had bought to make her comfortable and happy, +and make an absolute shambles of the place. He wanted also to order that +girl out into the street. At that moment he no longer cared what +happened to her or where she went. His vanity had received its first +rude shock. All the way home he shouted at the top of his voice and +struggled to get away from the men who were looking after him. It took +all Peter's strength to hold him tight. It was by no means a good sight +to see this young man, who only half an hour before had been +exhilarated by champagne and the feeling that he was really of some +account as a man of the world, reduced to a condition of utter weariness +by his violent outbursts. At first he absolutely refused to enter the +house and insisted upon walking up and down the street. Finally, by +making an appeal to his brother's affection, Peter persuaded him to go +in quietly and up to his own room. There, pale and exhausted and +entirely out of spirits, Graham turned quickly on his brother. "Keep +Kenyon out," he said. "For God's sake, keep Kenyon out! I want _you_." + +Kenyon heard these words and smiled to himself, nodded to Peter, and +went downstairs again to make himself comfortable in the library and +have a final cigarette before going to bed. He had every reason for +self-congratulation. Graham was free,--there was no doubt about +that,--and it looked as though Peter also would now be able to be made +useful again. Luck certainly had been on his side that night. + +It was not much after one o'clock when Peter shut the door of Graham's +bed-room. From then onwards he turned himself into a sort of nurse, +doing his best to concentrate all his thoughts on his brother's trouble +and keep his own until such time as he could deal with it; and, while +Graham poured out his heart--going over his story of the Ita Strabosck +rescue again and again--Peter quietly undressed him, bit by bit. "Yes, +old man," he kept saying, "I quite understand; but what you've got to do +now is to get to bed and to sleep. Let me take off your coat. That's +right. Now sit down for a second. Now let me undo your shoes. It's a +jolly good thing I came home. You bet your life I'll stand by you and +see you through--you bet your life I will!" + +"And you swear you'll not say anything about this to mother or Belle, +and especially father--even if I'm ill,--in fact to any one? You swear +it?" + +"Of course," said Peter. + +There was something comical as well as pathetic in the sight of this big +fellow playing the woman to this distraught boy,--undoing his tie, +taking off his collar and gradually getting him ready for bed. It was a +long and difficult process and needed consummate tact, tender firmness +and quiet determination. A hundred times Graham would spring to his feet +and--with one shoe on and one shoe off, minus coat and waistcoat, tie +and collar--pace the room from end to end, gesticulating wildly, sending +out a torrent of words in a hoarse whisper--sometimes almost on the +verge of tears. He was only twenty-four--not much more than a boy. It +was very hard luck that he should be up against so sordid a slice of +life at a time when he stood at the beginning of everything. + +But Peter knew intuitively that it was absolutely necessary for Graham +to rid his system of this Strabosck poison and empty out his heart and +soul before he could be put to sleep, like a tired child. And so, with +the utmost patience, he subjected himself to play the part of a mental +as well as a physical nurse. Better than that, he mothered his brother, +smoothed him down, sympathized with him, assured him again and again +that he had done the only possible thing; and finally as the first touch +of dawn crept into the room had the infinite satisfaction of putting the +clothes about his brother's shoulders and seeing his dark head buried in +his pillow. Even then he was not wholly satisfied. Creeping upon tip-toe +about the room he laid hands on Graham's razors and put them in his +pocket. He was possessed with a sort of terror that the boy might wake +up and, acting under a strong revulsion of feeling, cut his throat. It +must be remembered that he had watched a human being under the strain +and stress of a very strong and terrible emotion and he was naturally +afraid. He knew his brother's excitable temperament. He had heard him +confess that the girl had exercised over him something more than mere +physical attraction, and although he was no psychologist it was easy for +him to see that, for a time at any rate, Graham was just as ready to +hurt himself as to hurt the girl. Some one had to be paid out for his +suffering and it was Peter's business to see that his brother, at any +rate, escaped punishment. Not content with having got Graham to bed and +to sleep and secured the razors which might be used in a moment of +impetuousness, Peter stayed on, sat down near the bed and listened to +one after another of the sounds of the great city's awakening. It was +then that he permitted himself to think back. He didn't remember the +fracas in the studio apartment or the unpleasantness of the place with +the unhealthy, unpleasant creatures who had been there. He repeated to +himself over and over again the words--the cold, cruel words of Ranken +Townsend,--"So this was your precious business engagement. Well, I don't +give my daughter to a man who shares her with women like Papowsky, so +you may consider yourself free." In his mind's eye he could see the tall +artist march away. He felt again as though he had been kicked in the +mouth. + + +II + +Ranken Townsend had arranged a sitting with Madame Mascheri, the famous +opera singer, at eleven o'clock. He entered his studio at ten, and the +first thing he did was to ring up one of his best friends and get into a +quarrel with him. He had already so surprised his old servant at +breakfast that she had retired to the kitchen in tears. He was angry and +sore and there was likely to be a nice clash in the studio when he said +sharp things to the spoiled lady who considered that all men were in +their proper places only when they were at her feet. + +Ranken Townsend was more than angry. He was disappointed--mentally +sick--completely out of gear. He had seen Peter Guthrie--and there was +no argument about the fact--come out of a notorious house, dishevelled +and apparently drunk. It was a sad blow to him. A bad shock. The effects +of it had kept him awake nearly all night. Betty was the apple of his +eye. He was going to protect her at all costs, and he knew that in doing +so he must bring great unhappiness into her life. He had believed in +Peter Guthrie. He had seemed to him to be a big, strong, clean, honest, +simple, true fellow who had gone straight and who meant to continue to +go straight. It meant a tremendous amount, an altogether incalculable +amount to him as a father to have found that his estimate was wrong. He +realized perfectly well that his words had been harsh the night before. +He detested to have been obliged to say them; but, for the sake of his +little girl, he was not going back on them. The evidence was too strong. + +The telephone bell rang. He stalked across to it. "Well?" he said. +"What's that? Who did you say? Send him up at once." And then, with his +jaw set and his hands thrust deep into his pockets, he took up a stand +in the middle of the studio and waited. + +It was Peter. He came in quietly and looked very tired. "Good morning, +Mr. Townsend," he said. + +The answer was sharp and antagonistic. "I don't agree with you." + +Peter put down his hat and stick, went up to the artist and stood in +front of him squarely and without fear. "You're going to withdraw what +you said last night." + +"You think so?" + +"Yes." + +"Why?" + +"Because it was unjust and no man is hanged in these times before he's +given a chance to defend himself." + +"No one is going to hang you, Peter Guthrie. You've hanged yourself." + +"No, no," said Peter, "that won't do. It isn't like you to adopt this +attitude and I must ask you to treat me properly." + +Townsend shot out a short laugh. "There's no need for you to ask me to +do that. My treatment of you is going to be so proper that this is going +to be the last time you'll come into this studio. I've done with you. So +far as I'm concerned you're over. Betty isn't going to see you or hear +from you again. I consider that it was a mighty good accident that took +me into Fortieth Street last night. That's all I have to say." + +Peter didn't budge. He just squared his shoulders and tilted his chin a +little more. "I don't think that's all you've got to say," he said. "I +quite understand that you had a bad shock when you saw me coming out of +that place last night. If I were in your shoes I should say just what +you're saying now." + +"It's something to win your approval," said Townsend, sarcastically, +"and I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you for coming down town to give +me your praise." + +"Oh, don't talk like that," said Peter. "It doesn't do any good and it +doesn't help to clear things up." + +"You can't clear things up. Neither of us can. You began by lying to me +when you said you had a business engagement, and you wound up by coming +out drunk of the rottenest house in this city. And, see here! I don't +like your tone. I'm not standing here to be reproved by you for my +attitude in this matter. I might be more inclined to give you a chance +if you made a clean breast of it." + +"I wish I could," said Peter, "but I can't. All I can tell you is that I +had to go to that place last night for a very good reason. I'd never +been there before and I shall never go there again. I hadn't even heard +of the place until a few days ago. You've got to accept my word of +honour that I went there with a friend of mine to get a man who means a +very great deal to me out of bad trouble." + +"It's taken you sometime to think that out," said Townsend, brutally. + +Peter winced as if he had been struck. He had gone to the studio under +the belief that everything would be quite easy. He was honest. His +conscience was clear. He was not a liar. Surely his word would be +accepted. Whatever happened he wasn't going to be disloyal to his +brother. Apart from the fact that he had sworn not to give Graham away, +he wasn't the kind that blabbed. He tried again, still keeping himself +well under control, although he was unable to hide the fact that Ranken +Townsend's utter disbelief in him hurt deeply. + +"Mr. Townsend," he said, "I don't want to do anything to make you more +angry than you are. It's perfectly simple for you to say that you won't +have me marry Betty. But remember this: I've only got to go to Betty and +ask her to marry me, with or without your consent, and she will. If you +don't believe me, you don't know Betty." + +"Ah! but that's exactly where you make your mistake," said Townsend. "I +_do_ know Betty. And let me tell you this, Peter Guthrie: My girl has +been brought up. She hasn't been dragged up or allowed to bring herself +up. The consequence is that she's not among the army of present-day +girls who look upon their fathers and mothers as any old trash to be +swept aside and over-ridden whenever it suits them to do so. I'm the man +to whom she owes all the happiness and comfort that she's known. I'm the +man who's proud to be responsible for her, to whom she belongs and who +knows a wide stretch more of life and its troubles than she does,--and, +not being an empty-headed, individualistic, precocious little fool, she +knows it too. She belongs to a past decade--to an old-fashioned family. +Therefore, what I say goes; and if I tell her that, for a very good +reason, I don't want her to have anything to do with you, she will be +desperately unhappy, but she'll not question my authority or my right to +say so. These are facts, however absurd and strange they may appear to +you. I think it would be a damned good thing if other fathers took the +trouble to get on the same footing with their daughters. There'd be less +unhappiness and fewer grave mistakes if they did." He was almost on the +verge of adding, "Look at your sister Belle if you don't believe me." + +Peter had nothing to say. + +The two men stood facing one another, gravely, in silence. They were +both moved and stirred. And then Peter nodded. "I'm glad you're Betty's +father," he said at last. "She owes you more than she can ever pay +back. I give you my word that I shan't attempt to dispute your +authority. I respect you, Mr. Townsend, and when I marry Betty I want to +have your consent and approval. I also give you my word that it was +absolutely necessary for me to go to Papowsky's last night, without any +explanation whatever. Are you going to take it?" + +"No," said Townsend; "I'm not. Even if I'd known you for years what you +ask is too much for me to swallow. Good Lord, man! can't you see that +I'm protecting my daughter--the one person I love in this world--the one +person whose happiness means more to me than anything on earth? Why +should I believe that you're different from other young men,--the +average young man whom I see every day, who no more cares about going +clean to the woman he is going to marry than he does for running +straight afterwards? I don't know you and hitherto I've accepted you on +your face value. When it comes to the question of a man's trusting his +daughter to the first person who comes and asks him for her, he's got to +be pretty sure of what he's doing. In any case, I don't hold with the +old saying that 'young men will be young men.' You may sow your wild +oats if you like, but they're not going to blossom in the garden of a +little girl who belongs to me. In that respect I'm as narrow-minded as a +Quaker. And let me tell you this finally: I know the sort of place that +Papowsky's is. I know what goes on there and the sort of people who +frequent it. To my mind any man who's seen coming out of it does for +himself as the future husband of any good girl. If you have, as you say, +a good reason for going there, tell it to me. If not, get out." + +The artist had said these things with intense feeling. Hard as they +were, Peter had to acknowledge that they were right. Just for one +instant he wavered. He was on the point of giving the whole story away. +Then his loyalty to his brother came back to him. He would rather be +shot than go back on the man who had trusted him and with whom he had +grown up with such deep affection. "Very well," he said, "that settles +it. I've nothing more to say. But one of these days I'll prove that my +word of honor was worth taking. In the meantime, you can't stop me from +loving Betty and you'll never be able to stop Betty from loving me." + +He turned on his heel, took up his hat and stick and went out. + + +III + +Graham was sitting up in bed when Peter returned to his room. He was +looking about him with an expression of queer surprise,--puzzled +apparently to find himself in his room. + +"Oh, hello, old man!" said Peter. "How d'you feel?" + +Graham put his hand up to his head. "I don't know yet. Have I been +asleep? I thought I'd been in a railway accident. I was looking about +for the broken girders and the ghastly signs of a smash." + +He got slowly out of bed, put on his slippers and walked up and down for +a few minutes with a heavy frown on his face. The emotion of the night +before had left its marks. He stopped in front of a chair on the back of +which his evening clothes were hanging neatly. He remembered that he had +thrown them off. He noticed--at first with irritation--that the things +on his dressing-table had been re-arranged--tampered with. It didn't +look as he liked it to look. Something had been taken away. It dawned on +him that all his razors had been removed. "Removed,"--the word sent a +sort of electric shock through his brain as it passed through. He went +over to the window and looked out into the street. The sun glorified +everything with its wonderful touch. Good God! To think that he might be +standing at that very moment on the other side of the great veil. + +"I don't know--I don't know what to say to you for all this, Peter," he +said. + +Peter sat down, thrust his hands into his pockets and his long legs out +in front of him. Reaction had set in. He felt depressed and wretched. +"One of these days," he said, "I may ask you to do the same thing for +me." + +Something in his tone made Graham turn round sharply. "What's wrong?" + +"Everything's wrong," said Peter. "But I'll tell you some other time. +Your affair has got to be settled first." + +"No; tell me now," said Graham. He dreaded to feel that he was the cause +somehow or other of bringing trouble upon his brother. Never before in +all his life had he seen Peter looking like that. + +"Mr. Townsend happened to be passing Papowsky's last night and saw me +coming out. I'd had a scrap up in the studio with a bunch of men who +were half drunk. I must have looked like it. He told me that he wouldn't +have me marry Betty, and he repeated it this morning. I've just come +away from his place. That's what's the matter with me." + +"Oh, curse me!" cried Graham. "Curse me for a fool!" + +Peter sprang to his feet. "Don't start worrying about me. And look here; +don't let's waste time in trying to scrape up spilt milk. I'm going to +marry Betty, that's a dead certainty, and sooner or later Mr. Townsend +will withdraw the brutal things he said to me. And you're going to wipe +your slate clean, right away. So buck up and get busy, old man. Have +your bath and get dressed as soon as you can. I'm going to help you to +fix your affair as soon as you're ready." + +"How?" asked Graham. + +"I don't know quite. I think I'll ask Kenyon." + +"No, don't. Let's do it together. I don't want Kenyon to see,--I mean +I'd rather Kenyon was out of it. I'd rather that you were the only one +to look on at the remainder of my humiliation,--that's the word. He +knows quite enough as it is." + +"All right!" said Peter. "Hurry up, then. We'll go round to the +apartment and see Ita Strabosck. I cashed a cheque on the way back from +Mr. Townsend's. We can't let her go out into the street with nothing in +her pocket,--that's impossible." + +Graham nodded. He couldn't find words to say what he felt about it all. +There was a look of acute pain on his pale face as he went into the +bath-room. + +And then Peter sat down at his brother's table and wrote a little note +to Betty: + + My own dearest Baby: + + Something has happened and your father--who's a fine fellow and + well worthy of you--believes that I'm such a rotter that he's + told me to consider myself scratched. I'm going to play the + game by him for your sake as well as his. Don't worry about it. + Leave everything to me. I won't ask you to go on loving me and + believing in me, because that you must do, just as I shall go + on loving you and believing in you. _It has to be._ I've got to + think things over to see what can be done. + + In the meantime, and as long as I live, + Your PETER. + +He addressed the letter and put the envelope in his pocket. Then he went +to the bath-room and called out: "Old man, shall I have some breakfast +sent up for you?" The answer was, "No; the sight of food would make me +sick." + +Graham dressed quickly and nothing more was said by either of the +brothers until they went out into the street together. + +"We'll get a cab," said Peter. + +"No; I'm too broke. Let's walk." + +And so they walked hard, arm in arm. It seemed rather an insult to +Graham that the day was so fine, the sky so blue and equable and that +all the passers-by seemed to be going on their way untroubled. He'd have +been better pleased if the day had been dark and ugly and if everybody +had been hurrying through rain and sleet. His own mind was disturbed by +a storm of the most unpleasant thoughts. The girl whom they were on +their way to see had exercised a strong physical fascination over him. +He had believed in her absolutely. She had meant a great deal to him. +Her deceit and cunning selfishness brought pessimism into his soul. It +was a bad feeling. + +As they came up to the house with its shabby door, a man well-past +middle age,--a flabby, vulgar person, with thick awkward legs,--left it +rather quickly and walked in the opposite direction. The two boys went +in and Peter led the way up the dark staircase. The door was open and +Lily, the colored maid, was holding a shrill argument with a man with a +basket full of empty siphons on his arm. Her face broke into an odd and +knowing smile when she saw Graham. They passed her without a word and +went along the passage into the sitting-room. It was empty, but in a +hideous state of disorder. There was about it all that last night look +which is so unpleasant and insalubrious. The windows had not been opened +and the room reeked with stale tobacco smoke and beer. Cigar stumps lay +like dead snails on the carpet. Empty bottles were everywhere and dirty +glasses. Through the half-open door which led into the bed-room they +heard a flutey, uncertain soprano voice singing a curious foreign song. + +After a moment of weakness and indecision, Graham pulled himself +together and called out: "Ita! Ita!" sharply. + +The song ceased abruptly. There was a cry of well-simulated joy and the +girl, with her hair frowzled and a thin dressing-gown over her +night-dress, ran into the room with naked feet. She drew up short when +she saw the expression on Graham's face and Peter's square shoulders +behind him. "Somesing ees ze matter," she said. "Oh, tell me!" Second +nature and constant practice made the girl begin to act. This was +obviously an opportunity for being dramatic. + +With a huge effort Graham controlled himself. "I'm giving up this +apartment to-day," he said. + +"You are giving up----?" + +"I said so." + +"And what ees to become of me? You take me somewhere else?" + +"No. I hope I shall never see you again--never!" + +The girl burst forth. How well he knew that piteous gesture--that +pleading voice--the tears that came into those large almond eyes,--all +those tricks which had made him what he had been called the night before +at Papowsky's--"a boob". "What 'ave I done? Do you not love me any more? +I love you. I will die for you. You are everysing to me. Do not leave me +to ze mercy of ze world. Graham! Graham! My saviour! I love you zo!" + +Graham shook her off. "Please don't," he said. "Just pack your things +and dress yourself. All I've got to say to you is that I've found you +out. Perhaps you'd better go back to Papowsky's. You're very +clever,--they all say so there. Find another damned young fool--that'll +be easy." + +The girl suddenly threw back her head and broke into an amazing laugh. +The sound of it,--so merry--so full of a sort of elfin amusement,--was +as startling to the two boys as though a bomb had been dropped into the +room. "I could not find such a damned fool as you," she said loudly and +coarsely, "eef I 'unted the earth. Eef you 'ad waited to come until +to-night you would 'ave found zis little nest empty and ze bird flown. +There ees a better boob zan you. Perhaps you met 'im going out. 'E +marries me to-morrow. I vas to keep zat for a leetle surprise. Oh, yes, +I am clever, and eet kills me with laughing to zee you stand there like +a school teacher. You turn over a new leaf now, eh? Zat ees good. Zo do +I. To-morrow I am a wife. I marry a man. My time with babies ees over." + +She picked up a glass that was half-full of beer and with a gesture of +supreme contempt jerked it into Graham's face. Then, with the quickness +of an eel, she returned to her bedroom and slammed the door. They heard +her laughing uncontrollably. + +Graham wiped his face with his handkerchief, and dropped it on the floor +with a shiver. "I shan't want to borrow any money from you, Peter," he +said in a low voice. "Let's go." + +And they went out into the street together--into the sun, and took a +long breath of relief--a long, clean breath, untainted by stale tobacco +smoke and beer and the pungent scent of Ita Strabosck. + +Peter made no attempt to put into words his intense sympathy, but he +took his brother's arm and held it tight, and Graham was very grateful. +Right out of the very bottom of his heart two tears welled up into his +eyes as he walked away. + +After all, he was only twenty-four. + + +IV + +On her way up to her room that night, Ethel drew up short outside +Graham's bedroom door. She knew that he was in, which was in itself +unusual. She thought there must be something the matter, because she had +seen Graham leave the house in the morning long after his usual time. +She had also watched his face at dinner and had seen in it something +that frightened her. It was true that Peter was her favorite brother, +but she was very fond of and had great admiration for Graham. Also she, +herself, was in trouble. Trouble seemed to be an epidemic in that +family. Her Knight Errant next door, in spite of her signalling and the +fact that she had laid out as usual the cigarettes and the candies, had +deserted her. In order to receive his visits and feed herself on the +excitement with which they provided her, she was still maintaining her +pretence of invalidism, and the worst of it was she now knew that she +had grown to be very fond of the boy, who at first had only been a +source of amusement. + +So, with a fellow-feeling for Graham, she listened outside his door. She +wanted very badly to slip in and give her sympathy to her brother and +receive some of it from him. She didn't feel quite as individualistic as +usual. The artificiality of the flapper left her for the time being and +she felt as young as she really was and rather helpless, and awfully +lonely. + +Hearing nothing, she tapped gently on the door, opened it and went in. +Graham was sitting in an arm-chair with his elbows on his knees and his +head between his hands. He made a picture of wretchedness which would +have melted the heart of a sphinx. Ethel went over to him and put her +hand on his shoulder. "Is anything the matter, Hammie?" she asked, using +the nickname that she had given him as a child. + +Graham didn't look up. "Oh, Lord, no!" he said, with a touch of +impatience. "What should be the matter?" But he was very glad to feel +that touch of friendliness on his shoulders. + +"Can I do anything for you?" + +"Oh, no. I'm all right--as right as rain." + +Ethel knew better. She knew also that she would have said those very +things to Belle if she had been caught in a similar state of depression. +So she sat down on the arm of Graham's chair and put her hand against +his cheek. "I've got about a hundred and seventy-five dollars, if that's +any good to you," she said. + +Graham gave a scoffing laugh, but all the same he was very grateful for +the offer. "My dear kid," he said, "a hundred and seventy-five +dollars--that's no better than a dry bone to a hungry man." + +"Is it as bad as all that, Hammie?" + +"Yes, and then some." + +Ethel thought deeply for a few minutes. Her characteristic selfishness, +which had been almost tenderly encouraged at school, had given way +temporarily before her own disappointment. "Well," she said finally, +"I've got four brooches and five rings, a watch and a dressing-case. You +can sell them all if you like." + +Then Graham turned round, gave his little sister one short, affectionate +look and put his head down on her shoulder. "Don't say anything, +please," he said. "Just let me stay here for a minute. It does me good." + +And he stayed there for many minutes, and the two sat silently and +quietly, getting from each other in their mutual trouble the necessary +help which both needed so much. A strange, new feeling of motherliness +stole over the girl. It surprised her. It was almost like being in +church on Christmas Eve, or listening to the most beautiful melody. + +It was a long time since these two had taken the trouble to meet each +other half-way. The thoughts of both went back to those good hours when +Graham had put his little sister on a sled in front of him and pushed +her, laughing merrily, over the hard snow in the park. He had never even +dreamed in those days of money and the fever that it brings, or women +and the pain they make. + +And then Graham got up, just a little ashamed of himself,--after all, he +was now a man of the world,--and saw that Ethel's cheeks were wet with +tears. It was his turn to try and help. "Good Lord!" he said. "You don't +mean to say that you're worried about anything. What is it?" + +She shook her head and turned her face away. "Oh, nothing--nothing at +all." + +All the same she felt much, ever so much better for the kiss that he +gave her, and went along to her own room half-determined to be honest +with herself and go back to school the next day. She was rather startled +to find the smell of cigarette smoke in her bedroom, which was in +darkness. She turned up the nearest light and almost gave a cry of joy +when she found the boy from next door sitting on the window-sill. + +"Jack!" she cried. "I thought you were--I thought you had----" + +Jack threw his cigarette out of the window and got up awkwardly. "I got +your note just now," he said, "and so I've come." + +Ethel went to the door and locked it. All the clouds had rolled away. +She was very happy. She had evidently made a mistake. He must have been +prevented from coming. She wished he'd given her time to powder her nose +and arrange the curls about her ears. As it was, she opened the box of +cigarettes and held out the candies to him. + +"No, thanks," said Jack. "I'm off chocolates and I've knocked off +smoking to a great extent." + +With a womanly touch which she and all women have inherited from Eve, +who never forgot to stand with her back to the sun and took care, if +possible, to remain in the woods until after breakfast, Ethel turned on +a shaded light and switched off the strong overhead glare which made her +look every day of her fifteen years. Then she sat down with the light +over her left shoulder. She was quite herself again. All was well with +the world. + +"Where have you been?" she asked, a little imperiously. + +"Nowhere," said Jack. + +"Then why haven't you been to see me? I have signalled every night. I +can't understand it." + +"I know you can't. That's why I've stayed away." + +Ethel was puzzled at the boy's solemn tone. "Of course, if you don't +want to come, please don't. I wouldn't drag you here against your will +for anything." + +"Yes, but I _do_ want to come. I stay away for your sake, and I'm not +coming again after this evening." + +That was exactly what Ethel wanted to hear. She'd been afraid that Jack +had found some one else. Now she knew differently. "Don't be silly," she +said. "Have a cigarette. Come and sit on the sofa and don't let's waste +time." + +But Jack didn't move. He had gone back to the window-sill and remained +hunched up on the narrow ledge, holding on with both hands. "I'm off in +a minute," he said. "I'm just going to tell you one or two things +before I go. Would you like to hear them?" + +"If they're pleasant," she said. + +"Well, they're not pleasant." + +"Well, then, tell me." + +For a moment or two Jack remained silent. Perhaps he was trying to find +careful words into which to put his thoughts. When finally he spoke it +was with a suppressed emotion that sent a quiver through the quiet room. +"I can't stand coming here," he said. "I can't stand it. I don't know +what you are--whether you're a mere baby who knows nothing, or an +absolute little rotter. You tell me I can say what I think, so I'm going +to." He got up and went a little nearer to the sofa. "What d'you think +I'm made of? Look at yourself in the glass and then see whether you're +the sort of a girl who can let a man into her bedroom night after night +for nothing. I tell you I can't stand it. I stayed away, not because I +wanted to, but because I didn't want to do you any harm. I was a fool +for coming here at all. If I didn't believe that you are simply a silly +girl I'd stay to-night and come every night as I used to do, but I'm +going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Next time you signal to a +man take care to find out what he's made of and be a bit more careful. +There, now you've got it. Good night and good-bye. I've a darned good +mind to put the note you sent me to-night in an envelope and address it +to your mother. It would save some other fellow from a good deal of +unnecessary discomfort. I'm frightfully sorry to be so brutal, but I +don't believe you know what you're doing. Perhaps this'll be a lesson to +you." + +He turned quickly, swung himself out, went up the rope ladder hand over +hand and drew it up after him. + +Ethel closed her eyes and sat rigid. The boy might have planted his fist +in her face. + + +V + +Kenyon had taken Mrs. Guthrie and Belle to the Thirty-ninth Street +Theatre that night. A quiet little romantic play, quite unpretentiously +written, had found its way to that theatre either by accident or as a +stop-gap. The manager who put it there had arranged, even before the +opening performance, to replace it at the end of the week with something +which had a punch,--a coarse, vulgar, artificial piece of mechanism such +as he had been in the habit of producing all of his managerial life. His +intention to do this was strengthened by the press notices, which all +agreed that the new piece was a very little play about nothing in +particular and which made too great a demand upon the imagination of its +audience. That last remark of the critics was worth a million dollars to +the play's author. The theatre remained almost empty until the Friday +night of its first--and if the manager had anything to do with it--only +week. The scenery for the new production was already stacked on the +stage. But to the amazement of all concerned, except the author, the +theatre did business. The house was almost full and the box office was +so busy that the young man who looked after it,--a past-master in +rudeness,--became quite querulous. On Saturday night there was a full +house and the booking was so big for the following week that the notices +of withdrawal were taken down and the play with a punch had to find +another home. The manager, greatly put out, watched this little play +sail into a big, steady success, and whenever his numerous +acquaintances--he had no friends--caught him in an unbusy moment, he +would say: "I can't make it out. It beats me. Look at the notices. I +couldn't understand a word of the thing when I read it. I only put it +into the theatre to keep it warm. My word, I don't know what the public +wants." He didn't, and he never would. But the author knew. He had made +a play which appealed to the imagination of his audience. + +Peter had watched the party go to the theatre after an early dinner; had +seen Graham go up to his room and his father drive away to a meeting at +the Academy of Medicine; and then, anxious to be alone and think things +over, he too left the house for a long, hard tramp. He went into the +park and walked round and round the reservoir. The night was fine and +clear, and up in the sky, which was pitted with stars, a young moon lay +on her back. From all sides the music of traffic came to his ears in a +never-ceasing refrain, and high up he could see the numerous electric +signs which came and went with steady precision and monotony. Every now +and then he caught sight of the Plaza, whose windows all seemed to be +alight. It gave a peculiar touch of fantasy to that side of the Park. + +Peter found himself thinking of some of the things which Ranken Townsend +had said to him. Without bitterness, and certainly without anger, he +began to see something in the artist's bluntness which gradually made +him long, with a sort of boyish anguish, to go in to his own father. The +more he thought about this the more it seemed to him right and necessary +and urgent to beard the Doctor in his den and break down the curious +barrier which shyness had erected between him and his children. He +realized at that moment that he stood desperately in need of a father's +help and advice. It was quite obvious to him also that Graham needed +these things even more than he did. If only they could both go to that +wise and good man who stood aloof and get something more from him than +the mere money with which he was so generous. He knew--no one +better--that he always received from his mother the most tender +sympathy, but how could he discuss with her some of the things with +which he was faced since the Ita Strabosck episode had come into his +life? Kenyon had done much to make it plain to him that it was not good +to continue to walk in blank ignorance of the vital facts with which his +father dealt daily. He was a man and he had to live in the world. His +boyish days among boys were over. They belonged to the past. + +It was borne in upon him as he went round and round the wide stretch of +placid water in which was reflected the moon and stars, that his father +should know all about Graham. Certain things that Kenyon had said stuck +to his mind like burrs. If he could persuade Graham to make a clean +breast of it to the Doctor, the brother who meant so much to him might +be saved from a disaster which would not merely affect himself, but +others,--a wife and children perhaps. Kenyon had hinted at this and the +hint was growing in Peter's mind like an abscess. It was time that he +and his brother faced facts and knew them. Who could initiate them +better than the distinguished doctor whose life had been devoted to such +serious questions? + +Having brought himself up to this point and being also tremendously +anxious to tell his father of the position in which he stood with Mr. +Townsend, Peter determined to strike while the iron was hot--to go home +and see his father at once. He left the park quickly, and when finally +he let himself into the house was astonished to see how late it was. The +servant told him that his mother and sister had come back from the +theatre and had gone to bed. "Mr. Kenyon," he added, "came back, but +went out again at once. Mr. Graham went to bed early and the Doctor has +not returned yet." + +"Good!" thought Peter. "Then I'll wait for him." He gave up his hat and +stick, went through the quiet, dimly lit library, and after a moment's +hesitation opened the door of the Blue Room,--that room in which he had +been so seldom, hitherto only under protest. He had opened the door +quietly and was astonished to see Graham sitting at his father's desk +with the light from a reading lamp shining on his dark head. "By Jove, +Graham!" he said. "You must have been thinking my thoughts. This is +extraordinary." + +Graham looked up with a start and thrust something under the +blotting-pad. His face went as white as a sheet and he stammered a few +incoherent words. + +Quite unconscious of his brother's curious embarrassment, Peter sat on +the corner of the desk. "I've had it out with myself to-night," he said, +going, as he always did, straight to the point. "I've made up my mind to +make father into a father from now onwards. I can't stand this detached +business any longer. Let's both wait for him and have it out." + +"What d'you mean?" asked Graham. "I don't get you." He put his hand out +surreptitiously and scrunched up one of the sheets of note paper on +which he had been writing. + +"Listen!" said Peter, with intense earnestness. "I've got to know +things. So have you. I've got to have advice. I've got to be treated as +a human being. What's the good of our having a father at all if we don't +get something from him? I don't mean money and a roof, clothes and +things to eat. I mean help. I'm in a hole about Betty. I want to talk +about my work--about my future. Graham, let's give father a chance. Many +times he seems to me to have fumbled and been on the point of asking us +to meet him half-way. Well, I'm going to do so. Stay here and let's both +see it through. Have the pluck to tell him about your trouble and throw +the whole responsibility on him. It's his and he ought to have it. Wait +a second. Listen! If Ranken Townsend had been your father you never +would have gone near Papowsky. You wouldn't have come within a thousand +miles of Ita Strabosck--that's a certainty." + +Graham got up quickly, but kept his hand heavily on the blotting-pad. +"No," he said almost hysterically. "Count me out. I'm not in this. It's +no good our trying to alter father at this time of day--it's too late. +He's microbe mad. He knows nothing whatever about sons and daughters. I +could no more tell him about the mess I'm in than fly over the moon. +He'd turn and curse me--that's all he'd do. He'd get up and preach, or +something. He doesn't understand anything about life. I'd a jolly sight +rather go to mother, only I know it would hurt her so, and anyway my +story isn't fit for her ears. No; cut me out, I tell you. I'm not in +this." + +Peter got up and put his hands strongly on his brother's shoulders. He +didn't notice then how near he was to a breakdown. "Graham, old man, +you've _got_ to be--you've just _got_ to be. What Kenyon said is true. +You and I are blind and are damned children wandering about--stumbling +about. We need--we absolutely need a father more than ever we did in our +lives. So do Belle and Ethel. We all think that we can go alone, and we +can't. I know I'm right--I just know it--so you've got to stay." + +A puff of wind came through the open window. Several pieces of paper +fluttered off the desk and fell softly on the floor. Peter stooped and +picked them up. On them the words "Hunter G. Guthrie" had been written +over and over again. + +He laughed as he looked at them. "What on earth has father been writing +his name all over these sheets for? How funny! What a strange old chap +he seems to be. It's a sort of undergraduate trick, this,--practising a +signature before writing a first cheque." + +"Give 'em to me!" said Graham sharply, and he tried to snatch them away. +His voice was hoarse and his hand shook. + +Peter looked at him in great surprise. It was impossible for him not to +be aware of the fact that something was dreadfully wrong. As he stood +and looked into his brother's guilty face the fact which stood out most +clearly was that Graham had himself been writing his father's signature +all over those sheets of paper. Why? A man did a thing of that sort for +one reason only. + +He seized Graham's hand which was pressed on the blotting-pad, jerked it +up, pushed the blotting-pad aside and picked up the cheque-book that +laid beneath it. + +"Don't touch that," cried Graham, "for God's sake! Let me have it! I'll +tear out the cheque. I think I was mad. Oh, God! I'm so worried I didn't +know what I was doing!" + +There was a struggle, quick and sharp, and in an instant Graham found +himself staggering across the room backwards. + +With his heart standing still, Peter opened the thin, narrow, +brown-covered book. A cheque for three thousand dollars had been made +out to Graham Guthrie. The signature had been forged. + +"You've done this," he said. "You've actually--" + +Graham was up on his feet. His lips were trembling. He put out a shaking +hand. "My God!" he whispered. "Father's in the library." + +The sound of the Doctor's thin, clear voice came through the half-open +door. Frozen with fear, Graham seemed to be unable to move. His very +lips had lost their colour. + +With an overwhelming anxiety to hide his brother's frightful fall from +honesty and sanity, Peter pounced on the little book, thrust it into +Graham's pocket, snatched up the give-away slips of paper, tore them +into small pieces and threw them in the basket. + +"Don't give me away. Don't let him know. If you do, I swear to God +you'll never see me again!" + +There was still something to be done, and Peter did it. He took his +brother up in his arms, realizing that he was, in a way, paralyzed, +carried him to a chair that was out of the ring of light and sat him +down. "Get yourself in hand, quick," he whispered. "Quick, now!" + +And Graham, strengthened by his brother's vitality, forced himself into +some sort of control. + +Striding to the fireplace, Peter stood there waiting for his father, +with a strange pain going through his body. He felt just as though he +had been told that Graham, his best pal and dear brother, had had an +appalling accident and might not live. + +The Doctor's voice, as he gave directions to a servant, came nearer and +nearer. + + +VI + +With his hand on the handle of the door, the Doctor paused. "I want you +to call me to-morrow at half-past-seven, Alfred. Don't forget. I have a +busy day. Good-night." + +The two boys watched him come into the room. His head was high and there +was a little smile round his usually straight mouth. He walked with a +sort of sprightliness, as though moving to music. He looked +extraordinarily young and exhilarated. + +He saw what was to him a most unusual sight in that quiet, lonely +work-room. He was surprised into an exclamation of great pleasure, and +he quickened his pace until he stood between his sons. Graham got up and +put on a nervous, polite smile. "This's what I most wanted," said the +Doctor,--"my two boys waiting for me here in this room. I can't tell +you--I can't tell you, Peter, and Graham, how often, how strongly, how +eagerly I've wished to see you where you are now. I can't tell you how +I've longed to have you here after my meetings, to tell you how I'm +getting on, moving things forward, and to ask you share in my successes. +My dear Peter--my dear Graham." + +It was pitiful. The strange, almost incoherent outbreak of the shy man +nearly made Peter burst into tears. He would almost rather his father +had treated them coldly and with raised eyebrows. His present +attitude--his unhidden joy--his eager, and even wistful welcome, had in +it something of tragedy, because it showed all the waste of years during +which the sympathy and the complete, necessary and beautiful +understanding of these three might have been welded into one great, +insurmountable rock. + +The Doctor, with an obvious desire to play host,--an intuition which +again touched Peter deeply,--went quickly to a little chest which stood +in a corner of the room. "What will you have?" he asked anxiously. "I've +got a very good cigar here, or cigarettes if you would like them better. +Let me see! What do you smoke, Peter?" + +"He doesn't even know what I smoke," thought Peter. "A pipe," he said. + +"Oh, yes, yes! Well, this is generally said to be a very good mixture. +Try some." He gave a jar of tobacco to Peter. "These are nice, though +perhaps they are a little too dry." And he extended a box of cigars to +Graham. + +The boy helped himself, trying to keep his hand steady. "Thank you," he +said. + +"And now," said the Doctor, "let's sit down and have a long yarn. Shall +we? I would like to tell you about to-night. The meeting was of vital +interest and importance." He drew his chair forward so that it might be +between those of the two boys. He looked from Peter's face to Graham's +as though afraid that he was asking too great a favour. "You--you'll +forgive my talking about myself, I'm sure--at least I hope you will. I +so seldom have the opportunity,--with those I love, I mean--with those +for whom I'm working. To see you here like this, at last, makes me very +happy." He slipped his large glasses off and wiped them openly without +attempting to hide the fact that they had become suddenly useless to +him. + +A short silence followed--a silence in which the emotion with which the +room was charged could almost be heard. Peter threw a quick glance round +it, almost as though he expected to see the curious experimental tubes +turn and point accusingly at his brother. The laboratory was filled with +such tubes and other curious instruments,--all of them silent witnesses +of Graham's act of madness. + +The Doctor re-lit his cigar, put his glasses on again and clasped his +long, capable hands over one thin knee. "I wish I could even suggest to +you," he said--more naturally and with keen enthusiasm--"the intense +excitement that we bacteriologists are all beginning to feel. For years +and years we've been experimenting, and little by little our work is +coming to a definite head. Every time we meet we find that we've moved a +step further on the road to discoveries. It makes me laugh to think that +my early theories, which, only a few years ago, were scoffed at and +looked upon as dreams, are taking shape. It's been a long, uphill fight. +Science is beginning to win. It's all very wonderful." He noticed that +Graham's cigar had gone out. With extreme politeness, such as a man +would use to very welcome guests, he held out a box of matches. + +The boy took it. "I don't feel like smoking," he said, with a catch in +his voice. + +Something in his tone made the Doctor peer closely at him. "You look +pale, my dear lad," he said, "pale and tired. Aren't you well?" + +"Oh, yes; he's perfectly all right," said Peter hurriedly, trying to +steer his father to another subject. + +Graham threw his cigar away. "I'm not!" he cried, with a sudden, +uncontrollable outburst. "I feel as rotten as I am. I can't sit here and +listen to you, father. Don't be kind to me, I can't stand it." He put +his head down between his hands and burst out crying like a boy. + +The Doctor was startled. He got up quickly and stood hesitatingly. He +wanted to put his hands on the boy's shoulders, but the sudden breakdown +brought back his shyness. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Peter, do you +know?" + +Peter nodded. He then made up his mind to let things take their course. +"Let him tell you," he said. "This may be the turning point for all +three of us." + +Graham drew the cheque-book out of his pocket, opened it and threw it on +the desk under the reading lamp. "Look!" he said. "That's what I've come +to." + +For some moments the Doctor saw nothing but a cheque drawn by himself in +favor of his second son for three thousand dollars. The fact that he +didn't remember having made it out, and the fact that it was for so +large a sum made at first no impression upon him. He was so puzzled and +so taken back at the sudden outburst of emotion which had broken up what +he hoped was going to be a charming reunion that the sight of this +cheque conveyed nothing to him. Both his sons watched him closely, not +knowing what he would say or do. He was such a stranger to them--his +feelings and characteristics were so unknown to them that they found +themselves speculating as to the manner in which he would take this +dreadful piece of dishonesty. A great surprise was in store for them. + +When the Doctor realized what had been done,--that the signature on the +cheque was not his own, although it was very cleverly copied,--they saw +him wince and shut his eyes. After a moment of peculiar hesitation he +drew his chair up to the desk and sat down. Holding his breath, Peter +watched him tear the cheque out and quietly make out another for +precisely the same amount. Then the Doctor got up and stood in front of +Graham with the new cheque in his hand. All the sprightliness and +exhilaration with which he had entered the room had left him. He looked +old and thin and humble. His shoulders stooped a little and the cheque +trembled in his hand. + +"Am I such an ogre that my children are afraid to bring their troubles +to me?" he said, in a broken voice. "What have I ever done to deserve +this, Graham? You'd only to come to me and say that you needed money and +I'd have given it to you. Who am I working for? For whom have I always +worked?" He held out the cheque. "Take it, and if that isn't enough ask +me for more. I'd like to know why it is that you need it, if you'll be +good enough to tell me; but, for God's sake, don't hurt me like this +again." + +Without a word--without, indeed, being able to find a word,--infinitely +more crushed by this kindness than he would have been by an outburst of +anger and reproach,--Graham took the cheque, turned on his heel and left +the room, walking like a drunken man. + +Peter watched him go. There was a feeling of great relief in his heart. +Nothing that he could have done or said--nothing that Kenyon could have +said in his most forcible manner, with all the weight of sophistication +behind it, could have pulled Graham up and set him on a new path so well +as the unexpected generosity of his father and the few pathetic words +with which he underlined it. + +But when Peter turned round to his father with the intention of taking +him, for the first time, into his confidence and treating him as he +would have treated Ranken Townsend under the same circumstances, he saw +that the Doctor was crumpled up in his chair with his hands over his +face and his shoulders shaking with sobs, and so he held his peace; and +instead of obtaining the help that he needed so much he put his strong +arm round his father in a strange protective way, as though he were the +stronger man. + +"Oh, don't, father," he said. "Please don't." + + +VII + +There was a good reason why Kenyon didn't stay out his fortnight at Dr. +Guthrie's house. He had already begun to know several young men whose +very good feathers were waiting to be plucked. It was obviously +impossible for him to invite them to East Fifty-second Street, and it +became necessary, therefore, that he should take a bachelor-apartment in +which to set up business. There he could play cards until any hour that +suited him and settle down seriously to make his winter in New York a +success. Also, he confessed to himself, the atmosphere of the Doctor's +house was not conducive to his peace of mind or to his rigidly selfish +way of life. He hadn't come over to the United States in order to play +the fairy godmother, or even the family adviser to the young Guthries. +He had worked hard to clear the one thing out of Graham's life which had +rendered him useless, and he had had the satisfaction of seeing Peter's +engagement broken, for which admirable accident he was profoundly +grateful, because Peter also would now be free. In fact, these two +brothers could now easily be brought to concentrate upon Kenyon's +deserving case and take round to his apartment any friends of theirs who +enjoyed gambling and could pay when they lost. + +Kenyon possessed a neat and tidy brain. It was run on the same principle +as a well-organized business office. It had its metaphorical card +indexes, letter-files and such like; so that when he made up his mind +to go into his own quarters he gave the matter the closest and most +careful consideration. He paid several visits to the well-known bachelor +apartment-houses in and around West Forty-fourth Street. They would have +been very suitable but for the existence of irksome rules and +regulations as to ladies. He went further afield and, with Graham's +assistance, examined several apartments in private houses. What he +wanted was a place somewhere on the map where his breakfast would be +cooked especially for him at any hour he desired, and which would be +free of elevator boys, clerks, and the watchful eye of a manager. +Finally he discovered exactly such a place on the second floor of a +fairly large old-fashioned house in West Forty-eighth Street. In this +the elderly lady who, as Kenyon at once saw, was blessed with the +faculty of being able to look at things with a Nelsonian eye,--having, +poor soul, to earn her living,--lived in the basement with her parrot +and her Manx cat. Two young business men shared rooms on the first floor +and a retired professor--who spent the greater part of his time in the +country--rented the third floor. The servants slept in the attic. + +Into this house Kenyon moved,--much against the wishes of all the +Guthries, especially Belle,--the day after Peter's attempt to get in +touch with his father came to such an utter failure. He was very well +pleased with his quarters. They gave him elbow-room and freedom from the +responsibility of looking after another man's sons. The sitting-room, +arched in the middle, ran from the front to the back of the house and +it was well and discreetly furnished. There was a particularly nice old +Colonial mirror over the mantel-piece, and what prints there were +hanging on the walls were very pleasant. The bedroom across the passage +would have been equally large had it not been broken up to provide a +bath-room and a slip-room for baggage. + +Fate, however, with its characteristic impishness, interfered with +Kenyon's well-laid scheme. At the very hour when he was arranging his +personal photographs a cable addressed to him was delivered at Dr. +Guthrie's house. It so happened that Peter was in the hall when the +servant took it in, and he started off at once to take it round to his +friend. He was glad enough to seize any excuse to see Kenyon again. He +felt horribly at a loose end. Graham's affairs had completely upset him +and disarranged his plans. He was longing to see Betty, but was not +going back on his agreement with Ranken Townsend until such time as he +could make the artist eat his words; and, as to his father and his +endeavor to break down that apparently insurmountable barrier, he was +utterly disheartened and depressed. He was shown into Kenyon's rooms at +the moment when he was standing in front of a very charming photograph +of Baby Lennox which he had placed on the sideboard. It showed her in a +little simple frock, with a wide-brimmed garden hat, standing among her +roses with a smile on her face. She looked very young, pretty and +flower-like. + +"Hello, Peter!" + +"I've brought this cable round. Otherwise I wouldn't have rushed in on +you quite so soon." + +"My dear old boy," said Kenyon, "you know very well that you have the +complete run of whatever place I may be living in, at all hours of the +day and night. A cable for me, eh? What the devil--? I was jolly careful +to give my address here to very few people in England. Too many are +anxious to serve me with summonses. Baby Lennox is going to be married, +perhaps, and sends me the glad tidings. By Jove, I wonder who she's +nabbed!" He shot out a laugh and tore open the envelope. "Oh, my God!" + +"What is it?" asked Peter, anxiously. + +Kenyon held out the cablegram and remained standing rigid, with his +mouth open and his eyes shut, and his face as white as a stone. + +It was from Baby Lennox. "Your father died last night. A heart attack. +Come home at once." + +"Oh, my dear Nick!" said Peter. "My dear old boy! I can't tell you +how----" + +"No," said Kenyon; "don't say anything. Just sit down and wait for me. +Whatever you do, don't go." And he went out of the room and across the +passage to his bedroom, and shut himself in. + +Peter waited. The few cold, definite and even brutal words contained in +the cablegram would have hit him much harder and rendered his sympathy +for his friend very much more real if he could have felt what it would +have been to him to hear of the death of his own father. While he +waited, mechanically holding that slip of paper between his fingers, his +respect for his friend's grief widened into an odd and powerful feeling +of envy. The man who was dead had been infinitely more than a father. He +had been a friend and a brother as well. It made him sick and cold to +feel that the receipt of such a cablegram bringing to him the news of +the death of his own father would have moved him only to extreme +sympathy for his mother. He was ashamed and humiliated to realize that +no actual grief would touch him, because his father was nothing more +than a sort of kind but illusive guardian or a good-natured +step-father--altogether unused to children--who effaced himself as much +as he could and threw all responsibility upon his wife. + +It was an hour before Kenyon reappeared, and during that time--which +seemed to Peter no more than a few minutes--he went over again in his +mind the scene which had taken place in the Doctor's laboratory, out of +which he had gone stultified and thrown back upon himself. He was as +grateful as Graham had been for the Doctor's generosity, but appalled at +the thought that he had utterly failed to realize not only the gravity +of Graham's act, but the long years of parental neglect which made such +an act possible. It seemed to him that the way in which his father had +taken that deplorable incident was all wrong. He should not have written +another cheque. He should have had Graham up in front of him, strongly +and firmly, and tried him as a judge would have tried him if his act had +been discovered and dealt with by law. He should have gone into all the +circumstances which led up to the forgery and thereby have cleared the +way for a new understanding. As it was, his acceptance of it was so +weak that it gave Peter and Graham a feeling almost of contempt for that +too kind man to whom children were obviously without significance, and +the unmistakable knowledge that he was unable to understand his grave +responsibility and the fact that he, alone among men, must take the +blame for all their misdeeds and mistakes, because they had been allowed +to enter life unwarned, unguided and unhelped. The outcome to Peter of +this hour's bitter thought was finally this: That if news were brought +to him at that moment of his father's death the only sorrow that he +could feel would be at the fact that he felt no sorrow. + +When Kenyon came back into the room it was with his usual +imperturbability. He might merely have left it to answer the telephone +or interview the man who had come to collect his clothes to be ironed. +But his eyes were red. In his own peculiar way he had loved his father +and admired him. It was the first time that he had wept since he had +been a child. + +"Thanks, so much, for waiting, old boy," he said. "I hope you've been +smoking, or something." + +"No," said Peter; "I have things to think about too." + +Kenyon looked about, with a queer little smile. "I was just settling +down," he said. "Very decent room, this, isn't it? Well, well, there it +is. You never know your luck, eh?" + +"When will you sail, Nick?" + +"The first possible boat. Do you know anything about the sailings? Ah, +this paper will have it. I detest the sea and its everlasting monotony +and blandness, and the dull-bright propinquity that it forces upon one." +He opened the paper and searched among its endless columns for the +Shipping News. "Here we are. 'Trans-Atlantic Sailings.' I have a wide +choice, I see. There's a White Star and a Cunarder leaving to-morrow at +twelve-thirty. The _Olympic_, I see! That's good enough,--if she's not +full up. I'll see to it this afternoon. There's sure to be a cabin +somewhere at this time of year." + +"I shall miss you badly," said Peter. + +"Thanks, old man. I know you will. And I shall hate going. Well, well!" + +Peter picked up a book and put it down again; opened and shut a box of +cigarettes and pushed a bowl of flowers nearer the middle of the table. +"Do you want any--I mean, can I----?" + +Kenyon laid his hand on his friend's square shoulder. "Not this time, +Peter, old son. Thanks, awfully. I've had one or two good nights and my +pockets are full of dollars. They'll see me home with perfect comfort. +Well, here ends my visit to the United States. To-morrow night I shall +have left the hospitable Statue of Liberty behind me. But she'll see me +again. I'll dash round in the morning and thank your people for their +extreme kindness to me. You'll see me off, won't you?" + +"Yes," said Peter; "of course." + +"Of course. We won't dine to-night. I--I don't feel like it." + +"I understand, old man," said Peter. + +"So long, then." + +"So long," said Peter. + +"The Earl is dead!" said Kenyon, with a sudden break in his voice. "Long +live the Earl!" And he raised his hand above his head. + + +VIII + +Not for the first time in his comparatively short life, Nicholas Kenyon +was able to put to the test his often boasted power of self-control. It +was his creed to accept everything that might happen to him, whether +good or bad, with equanimity. It was part of his training to allow +nothing to interfere with the routine of his day and the particular +scheme that he had worked out for himself. He was, however, utterly +unprepared for his father's death. Only the day before he had received a +very cheerful and amusing letter from the Earl of Shropshire which had +provided him with many quiet chuckles. When the blow came in that sudden +fashion it knocked him down and for an hour reduced him to the level of +an ordinary human being--of a man who had not specialized in +individualism and who did not set the earth revolving round himself as +its hub. Shut up in his bedroom he gave way to his real and best +emotions, the genuineness of which surprised him. He was a master +egotist--a superindividualist--the very acme of selfishness. Therefore, +odd as it may seem, he was somewhat ashamed of his deep feeling, because +it proved to him that one of the links of his carefully forged chain of +philosophy was weak. He defined the word philosopher as one who is +profoundly versed in the science of looking after himself. + +As soon as Peter had left Kenyon's rooms, the new Earl of Shropshire +took himself in hand and "carried on" as they do in the Navy after +casualties, accidents and the issue of new orders. He continued to +arrange his photographs round the room. He considered that he might as +well make himself completely comfortable until the time came for him to +pack up again and leave the country. He called up Belle on the telephone +and had a little talk with her. He told her of his father's death and of +the fact that he would have to sail within the next twenty-four hours. +He listened with satisfaction to her cry of anguish, and arranged with +her to come to see him that evening. It appeared that she was engaged to +dine with some friends and go with them to hear Alfred Noyes read his +poems at the AEolian Hall. He insisted upon her keeping her engagement +and begged that she would come round to his rooms alone at eleven +o'clock. + +He didn't intend to leave the United States, even under such +circumstances, without adding Belle to his little list of conquests. The +cold-bloodedness of such an intention was peculiarly characteristic of +the man. "No weakness," he said to himself--"no weakness. No matter what +happens, what had happened, is happening or may happen, you must carry +on. You've built up a creed, stick to it." And then, very +quietly--having changed his tie to a black one--he went forth to +discover the offices of the White Star Steamship Company,--having +obtained the proper directions from his landlady. He took the subway to +the Battery, interviewed a clerk of Number One Broadway, had the good +fortune to find that there was a state-room vacant on the boat deck of +the _Olympic_; wrote his cheque for it; pocketed a bundle of labels; +paid Graham a brief visit in his office on Wall Street and walked all +the way home again, endeavoring to count the German names all along the +most amazing street in the world, and giving up his temporary hobby in +despair. On the way home he sent off a cable to Baby Lennox, giving her +the name of the ship on which he was to sail. By this time he was tired +and a little dazed at the amazing stir and bustle of Broadway, with its +never-ceasing lines of cable-cars and its whir and rush of human +traffic. He was glad of a cup of tea, and presently arranged himself for +a quiet nap on the sofa in his sitting-room. + +Later, with his mind concentrated solely on Belle's impending visit and +what he intended to achieve, he dined alone at the Ritz, dropped in to +see a turn or two at the Palace, and strolled back to Forty-eighth +Street at half-past-ten. As he went into the house he heard the landlady +talking to the two young business men who lived on the first floor. She +was asking them to be good enough not to play the piano that evening, as +the Professor had come back from the country and was very unwell. She +had sent for the doctor, and he would be more comfortable if the house +were as silent as it could be made. + +Knowing that Belle would be punctual that night, of all nights, he went +down just before eleven o'clock and waited for her at the front door. It +was his intention to get her into the house unobserved, more for his own +sake than for hers. The night was clear, but half a gale was blowing, +carrying before it all the dust of the city and sending odd pieces of +paper swirling into the air and making the hanging signs outside shops +and small restaurants creak and groan. In its strong, vibrating song +there was a note of wild passion that fitted exquisitely into Kenyon's +frame of mind. + +Belle drove up in a taxicab a few minutes after eleven. "Not a word +until we get upstairs," said Kenyon, as he helped her out. And then when +she stood in his sitting-room, with all her emotions in a state of +upheaval, nothing was said for many minutes. He took her in his arms and +kissed her, delighting in her young beauty and freshness with all the +appreciation of a connoisseur. + +There seemed to Belle to be no indiscretion in this visit. Was she not +engaged to be married to this man? + +As a matter of fact, she was not. Kenyon had been playing with her; and +now that he had succeeded to his father's title he had even less +intention of dealing seriously by her than ever before. Marriage was not +in his thoughts or plans. The title was his and the old house that went +with it, but he was no better off than he had been as Nicholas Kenyon, +the Oxford undergraduate. On the contrary he now had responsibilities of +which he had hitherto been free and he must look out for some one who +could buy his name for a substantial sum. If Belle had read into his +vague and indefinite remarks a proposal of marriage it only showed that +she possessed a very lively imagination. He was not going at that point +to undeceive her. He was merely going to take from her everything that +she was gracious enough to give. His trip to New York had provided him +with very little in actual substance. He was determined that it should +not be altogether empty, and that Belle should furnish him with a +charming memento. + +He broke into Belle's preliminary remarks of conventional condolence by +saying, "Thank you; but please don't say a word about my father. Let's +talk about ourselves. We're alive. The next few hours are our property. +Let's make them memorable. Let's give each other something that we can +never forget." And he took her cloak and led her to a chair as though +she were a queen, and stood looking at her with very greedy eyes. + +But Belle's temperament was Latin. Ever since Kenyon had spoken to her +over the telephone she had been unable to control her feelings. She +loved this man overwhelmingly. She had given him all her heart, which +had never been touched before. To her it seemed amazingly cruel that +fate had come along with its usual lack of sympathy and circumspection +and put a sudden end to all the delightful hours to which she had been +looking forward. The death of a man whom she didn't know meant very +little to her. She was young, and to the young what is death but a vague +mystery, an inconvenient accident which seems to affect every one but +themselves? Indeed, she rather resented the fact that Kenyon's father, +in dying, was to take so suddenly out of her life the one human being +about whom her entire happiness revolved. + +"Oh, Nicholas, Nicholas! Must you go? Must you leave me? Let me go with +you. I have the right. I shall be miserable and unhappy without you." +And she clung to him with all the unreasonableness of a child. + +Kenyon was not in the least touched by this appeal--only extremely +pleased, because it showed him that Belle was in the right mood to be +won. He put his hand on her round, white shoulder. "You must be brave," +he said. "I know how you feel, but you must help me. Don't make things +more difficult than they are. I may be able to come back quite +soon,--who can tell?" + +"I believe you're glad to go!" cried Belle. + +Kenyon drew back. He wanted to make her feel that she had hurt him. He +succeeded. + +In an instant, full of self-reproach, Belle was on her feet and in his +arms again. "What am I going to do without you? I almost wish you'd +never come into my life. I've been looking forward to your being here +the whole winter. How am I going to get through the days alone?" + +A motor-car drew up at the house. Neither of them heard Dr. Guthrie's +voice giving a quick order to the chauffeur or recognized his step as he +passed upstairs on the way to see his friend, the Professor, on the +floor above, to whom he had been called by the landlady. + +Presently, having turned out all the lights except a shaded lamp on the +table, Kenyon began to let himself go. He threw aside his characteristic +calmness and became the lover--the passionate, adoring man who was about +to be separated, under tragic circumstances, from the girl who was +equally in love. He threw aside his first intention of finessing Belle +into his bedroom on the plea of asking her to help him to pack. He +remembered that the old man above was ill and that the landlady and +others would be passing to and fro. This was distinctly annoying. He +was, however, a past-master in the art that he was at present pursuing +and set the whole of his mind on his opportunity. Belle was, naturally +enough, as putty in his hands and her despair at losing him made her +weak and pliable. + +He sat down on the sofa and held Belle in his arms and kissed her again +and again. "I love you! I love you! I don't know--I can't think what I +shall be like without you," he said, bringing all his elaborate cunning +to play upon her feelings. "More like a man who's lost his arms than +anything; and we were to have come nearer and nearer this winter, +finding out all the best of each other and all the joy that it is to +love wholly and completely." + +"Oh, don't go, don't go!" cried Belle, making a pathetic and almost +child-like refrain of the words, "I love you so! I love you so!" + +Kenyon bent down with her until her head was pillowed on the cushions, +and kissed her lips and eyes. "You must love me, sweetheart, you must. +It's the only thing that I can turn to and count on now. Go on loving +me every minute that I'm away. I shall need it,--and before I go let me +have the precious proof of your love to store up in my heart. Give me +the priceless gift that is the only thing to keep me living till I come +back." + +"Nicholas, Nicholas!" she whispered, with her young breasts heaving +against him. "I love you so! I love you so!" + +The moment of his triumph had almost been reached when the Doctor, on +his way down, saw something glistening in the passage outside Kenyon's +sitting-room. He stooped and picked it up. He was puzzled to see that it +was a little brooch that he had given to Belle on one of her birthdays. +Her initials had been worked on it in diamonds. For several moments he +held it in his hand, wondering how it could have been dropped in that +place. He was utterly unaware of the fact that Kenyon lived in the house +which he knew to be given up to bachelors. Then the blood rushed into +his head. Almost for the first time in his life the Doctor acted on the +spur of the moment. He was filled with a sudden sense of fear before +which his inherent shyness and hesitancy were swept completely away. He +tried to open the door. It was locked. He hammered upon it, shouting: +"Let me in! Let me in!" + +Kenyon, cursing inwardly, sprang up from the sofa. "It's your father," +he said. "Go and sit by the table, quick, and pretend to be arranging +these photographs." He could have ignored that knocking, but the result +would be that the Doctor would go down to the landlady and there would +be a scandal. How in the name of thunder did he know that Belle was in +the room? He dashed over to the mantel-piece, collected a handful of his +pictures and threw them on the table in front of Belle, who, with a +touch of panic, tried to smooth her hair. Then he went to the door and +opened it. + +"Good evening, Doctor," he said quietly. "This is very kind of you. +Belle is here helping me to pack, and Peter should have been here, but I +expect something has detained him. Do come in." He saw the brooch in the +Doctor's hand and cursed Belle's carelessness. + +As Dr. Guthrie entered the room the blood slowly left his head. A +feeling of intense relief pervaded him. He saw Belle sitting at the +table with the utmost composure putting one photograph on top of +another. At his side stood the man who had recently been his honored +guest and who was the best friend of his eldest son,--the man of whose +sad loss he had heard that afternoon from his wife. He thanked God that +everything was well and hastened to accept Kenyon's suggestion that he +had come there for the purpose of saying good-bye to him. It saved him +from the appearance of having lost his head and made a fool of himself. +"I--I'm indeed grieved to hear of your father's death, my dear Mr. +Kenyon," he said, stammering a little. "I was called to see an old +friend of mine who lives in this house, who isn't at all well, and I +thought I'd take the opportunity on my way down----" + +"I'm deeply obliged to you," said Kenyon, giving the weak, nervous man +before him the credit of having seized the hint so quickly. "It helps me +very much to have so many good friends. I sail to-morrow at two-thirty. +This is a good opportunity for me to thank you very much for your +delightful hospitality. Will you wait for Peter?" + +"No; I think not, thanks," said the Doctor. "It's getting late and, as +you say, Peter has in all probability been detained. Belle, dear, I +think you'd better come with me, now." + +Kenyon was still quite placid and courteous and undaunted. "Oh, but +mayn't she stay until Peter turns up?" + +"I think not," replied the Doctor, astonished at his own firmness. "It's +very late." + +"Curse it! Curse it!" cried Kenyon, inwardly. But with a little smile he +went over to Belle and gave her his hand. "You've helped me a lot," he +said. "I can easily finish packing now. Good night and good-bye." + +Choking back her sobs and full of resentment at her father's clumsiness +and interference, Belle rose and allowed Kenyon to help her into her +cloak. + +By a strange accident she, like Graham, had been saved from a disaster +which might have followed her into the future. God's hand must have been +stretched out to help that man, who, by his unconscious neglect, had +made it possible for these two children of his to stand on the brink of +irreparable misfortune. + +Kenyon, keeping up a quiet flow of conventional remarks, followed them +down-stairs and out into the street. He could have drawn Belle back into +the hall while the Doctor went out to the car, and kissed her once +again. But,--it was over, what was the use. He watched her fling herself +into the motor-car and sit all hunched up with her hands over her face, +and then he took the Doctor's hand and shook it warmly. All the angels +in Heaven must have shuddered as he did so, and cried, "Judas! Judas!" + +"Good-bye again, then," said the Doctor. "I'm deeply sorry for the +reason that takes you away from us. I hope we may see you again soon." + +"I hope so, too," said Kenyon. + +Standing in that quiet street he watched the automobile drive away, and +cursed. His mind was filled with impotent rage. He felt as he did when +he was a child and some one had hurt him. He wanted to find the thing +which that some one treasured most and break it all to pieces, and stamp +on it. Then he returned to his rooms, switched on all the lights, and +with a gesture almost animalish in its baffled passion, swept all the +photographs from the table. + +He was kicking them savagely, one after another, when he heard the +whistle which he and Peter had used at Oxford to attract each other's +attention. He ran to the window and opened it. There stood Peter with a +glint of moonlight on his great square shoulders. + +"Come up!" said Kenyon. "By God, my luck's come back! Now I can make +that old fool pay for ruining my evening!" + + +IX + +With a fiendish scheme in the back of his head and with a most +unpleasant smile on his face, Kenyon went over to the sideboard. He +brought out two glasses. In one he mixed a whiskey high-ball and in the +other he poured a concoction of neat whiskey and brandy, adding +everything else that his bottles contained,--a mixture calculated to +dull the senses even of the most hardened drinker. Then he waited--still +with this unpleasant smile upon his face. + +When Peter came in he looked tired and pale. His boots were covered with +dust and there were beads of perspiration on his forehead. "I saw that +you were up," he said, "so I whistled. If you hadn't called out I should +have gone home. Hope you don't mind." + +"Mind!" cried Kenyon. "I never was so glad to see anybody in my life. +You look like a tramp. Where've you been?" + +Peter threw his hat on the sofa and sat down heavily. "I wasn't in the +mood to go home to dinner. I've been walking hard ever since I saw you. +God knows where I've been. At one time I stood under the apartment-house +in Gramercy Park. It's a wonder I didn't go up and have it out again +with Ranken Townsend. But it wouldn't have been any use." + +"Not the smallest," said Kenyon. "You'd only have given him the +satisfaction of standing on his hind-legs and preaching to you. Will you +have something to eat?" + +Peter shook his head. + +"Well, then, have a drink." And he put the poison in front of Peter. "I +was going to drink to myself,--a rather dull proceeding alone. Now you +can join me. On your feet, Peter, old man, and with no heel-taps, I give +you 'the new Peer! The most decorative member of England's +aristocracy,--Nicholas Augustus Fitzhugh Kenyon, Eighth Earl of +Shropshire, master of Thrapstone-Wynyates--the man without a shilling!' +Let it go!" + +Peter stood up, clinked his friend's glass with his own, emptied it and +set it down. "Good Lord!" he said, with a frightful grimace. "What in +thunder was that?" + +Kenyon burst into a derisive laugh. "'Some drink,' as you say over here. +Away goes your water-wagon, Master Peter. Off you come from your self +made pedestal. Drunk and incapable will be the words that will presently +be very fitly applied to you, my immaculate friend." And he laughed +again, as though it were a great joke. It would do him good to see Peter +"human," as he called it, for once, to satisfy his sense of revenge--to +pay out Dr. Guthrie for his cursed interference. + +Peter was glad to get back to his chair. "I don't care what happens to +me," he said. "What does it matter? I've got nothing to live for--a +father who doesn't care a damn what becomes of me, and a girl who's +given me up without a struggle." + +He had had nothing to eat since the middle of the day. He was mentally +and physically weary. Although he was unaware of the fact, he had +caught a severe chill. It was not surprising that the horrible +concoction which Kenyon had deliberately mixed went straight to his +head. + +Everything vile lying at the bottom of Kenyon's nature had been stirred +up. At that moment he cared nothing for his friend's repeated +generosity, his consistent loyalty and his golden friendship. With a +sort of diabolical desire to amuse himself and see humiliated in front +of him the man who had stuck to his principles so grimly, he filled his +glass again, to make certainty doubly certain. "This time," he cried, +"I'll give you another toast. Come on, now. On your feet again, and +drink to 'that most charming family, the Guthries, and in particular to +the eldest son--to the dear, good boy who has run straight and never +been drunk, and has treated women with such noble chivalry. In a word, +to Peter, the virgin man.'" He raised his glass, and so did Peter. This +time the stuff almost choked him and he set his glass down only half +empty. But he put on a brave front and sat up straight, laughing a +little. "Nice rooms, these," he said. "Large and airy. Bit nicer than +our first rooms at Oxford, eh?" How different this hideous poison made +him look. Already he was like a fine building blurred by mist. + +"It's extraordinary what you dry heroes can do when you try," said +Kenyon. "All I hope is that you'll come face to face with your fond +parent presently when you fumble your way into your beautiful home." He +bent down and picked up his photographs and went on talking as though to +himself. "Yes, there's some satisfaction in making others pay. I've +tried it before, and know. I remember that plebeian little hunx at +Oxford who was going into the Church. His name was Jones,--or something +of the sort. I think he was a damned Welshman. He once called me a 'card +sharp.' I didn't forget it. The first night he turned up in his Parson's +clothes I doped him and he woke up next morning in the gutter. I loved +it. Now, then, Peter, give me a hand with these things and bring them +across the passage to my bedroom." He pointed to some books and left the +room with his photographs. + +Peter got up unsteadily and rocked to and fro. He picked up the books as +he was directed and staggered after his friend. He lurched into the +bedroom and stood in the doorway, supporting himself. "I'm--I'm drunk," +he said, thickly. "Hopelessly drunk. Wha--what the devil have you done +to me?" + +Kenyon burst out laughing. Many times he had threatened to do this for +his friend, whose attitude of consistent healthiness and simplicity had +always irritated him. He delighted at that moment in seeing Peter all +befogged and helpless and as wholly unable to look after himself as +though he were a baby. + +"Now you'd better go," he said sharply. He was tired with the episode. +"I'm sick of the Guthries! Go home and cling to your bed while it chases +round the room. I'll have mercy on you however to this extent. I'll put +you in a taxi. There's sure to be one outside the hotel down the street. +Come on, you hulking ex-Oxford man. Lean on me. Rather a paradox, isn't +it? Hitherto I've always leaned on you." He got his visitor's hat and +jammed it on his head, all cock-eyed. And then, still talking and +jibeing and sneering, he led the uncertain Peter down-stairs. + +There were two taxicabs drawn up outside the hotel to which Kenyon had +referred. He shouted and waved his hand. A chauffeur mounted his box, +manoeuvred the car around and drove up, glad to get a fare. + +As he did so, a night butterfly flitted past, on her way home. She had +had apparently an unsuccessful evening, for she stopped at the sight of +these two men. Her rather pretty, thin, painted face wore an eager, +anxious look. "Hello, dearie!" she said, and touched Kenyon on the arm. + +"By Jove!" said Kenyon to himself. "By Jove!" + +He was struck with a new inspiration. He had made his friend drunk. +Good! Now he would send him off with a woman of the streets. That would +complete his evening's work in the most artistic fashion, and render +Peter human at last. And who could tell? It might hit the Doctor fair +and square,--"the tactless, witless, provincial fool." + +"Wait a second," he said to the girl, and with the able assistance of +the driver put the almost inanimate and poisoned Peter into the cab. +Then he turned. The night bird was eyeing him with a curious +wistfulness. She was too smartly dressed and the white tops of her high +boots gleamed sarcastically. "Well, dearie?" + +"There's a customer for you," said Kenyon, jerking his finger towards +the cab. "Take him home. He has money in his pocket. Help yourself." + +The girl gave the driver her address--which was somewhere in the +Sixties--and then, with a little chuckle, jumped in and drew the door to +behind her with a bang that echoed through the sleeping street. + +The cab drove away, and Kenyon's laugh went after it. + +He was revenged. + + +X + +But for the chauffeur, a burly and obliging Irishman, Nellie Pope's +unwilling and unconscious customer would never have reached her rooms. +They were on the top floor of a brown-stone house which had no elevator. +The struggle to earn his own daily bread made the chauffeur sympathetic. +So he got Peter over his shoulder, as though he were a huge sack, and +carried him step by step up the narrow, ill-lit, echoing staircase. On +the top landing he waited, breathing hard, while the girl opened the +door with her latch-key. + +"Where'll I put him?" + +"Bring 'im into the bedroom," said the girl. "I'm sure I'm obliged to +you for the trouble you've taken, mister. You'll 'ave a glass of beer +before you go down, won't you?" + +"Sure!" + +He lumped Peter on to the bed with an exclamation of relief. It groaned +beneath his dead weight. Mopping his brow and running his fingers +through a shock of thick, dry hair, the Irishman looked down at the +great body of his own customer's evening catch. "I guess I've seen a +good many drunks before," he said, "but this feller's fairly paralyzed. +It's a barrel he must have had, or perhaps he's shot himself with one of +them needle things. Anyway, he's a fine-looking chap." + +Nellie Pope, who had heard these remarks as she was pouring out a bottle +of beer,--it was one of those apartments in which every sound carries +from room to room and in which when you are seated in the kitchen it is +possible to hear a person cleaning his teeth in the bathroom,--went in +and stood at the elbow of the chauffeur. Switching on a light over the +bed she peered into Peter's face. Her own lost most of its prettiness +under the glare. There were hollows and sharpnesses here and there, the +roots of the hair round her temples were darker than the too-bright gold +of the rest of it. There was, however, something kind, and even a little +sweet about her English cockney face and shrewd eyes. "Yes 'e's a fine +looking chap, isn't 'e,--a bit of a giant, too, and looks like a +gentleman. Poor boy, I wonder what that feller did to 'im!" She put her +hand on Peter's head and drew it back quickly. "'E's got a fever, I +should think. It looks as if I should 'ave to play nurse to-night. Oh, I +beg pardon, mister, 'ere's your beer." + +The Irishman took the glass, held it up against the light, made a +curious Kaffir-like click with his tongue and threw back his head. "I +guess that went down fine," said he. "One dollar and ten cents from +you, Miss, and I'll make no charge for extras." He held out a great +horny hand. + +Nellie Pope opened her imitation gold bag. "Bin out o' luck lately," she +said. "Don't know whether I've got--No, I 'aven't. Oh, I know!" With a +little laugh she bent over Peter again and hunted him over for some +money. Finding a small leather case she opened it. It contained a wad of +bills. With a rather comical air of haughty unconcern she handed the +chauffeur two dollars. "Keep the change," she said. + +He laughed, pocketed the money, handed back the glass and went off, +shutting the door behind him. + +Miss Pope, who had a tidy mind as well as an economical nature, took the +glass into the kitchen and finished the bottle herself. And then, +without removing her hat and gloves she sat down and counted the money +that was contained in the case. "One hundred and twenty-five dollars," +she said. "Some little hevening!" + +She put the case into her bag, where it lay among a handkerchief, +steeped in a too-pungent scent, a small, round box of powder, a stick of +lip salve, and a few promiscuous dimes. Then she took off her hat--a +curious net-like thing round which was wound two bright feathers--her +coat and her gloves. The latter she blew out tenderly, almost with +deference. They were white kid. All these she put very carefully on a +scrupulously clean dresser. Singing a little song she arranged a meal +for herself on the table,--having first laid a cloth. Bread, butter and +sardines made their appearance, with the remains of a chocolate cake +which had been greatly to the taste of her last night's customer, who +had not been, however, a very generous person. Extremely hungry, she sat +down and, with the knowledge that her purse was full, laid on the butter +with a more careless hand than usual. While she ate she enjoyed the +bright dialogue of Robert Chambers in a magazine which, having first +broken its back in order to keep it open, she propped up against a bowl. +Half way through the meal, she jumped up suddenly. "'Ere!" she said. +"You can't leave that poor boy like that, you careless cat, and 'im +lying with a fever!" She went swiftly into the bedroom, and once more +stood looking down at the inert form of poor old Peter. Then she laughed +at the difficulty of taking off his clothes, and with a shrug of her +shoulders started pluckily at his boots. She hung the coat and waistcoat +over the back of one of the chairs,--there were only two,--and having +folded the trousers with great care, returned to her supper. It was +after two o'clock when finally she crept quietly into bed. + + +XI + +A little over twenty-four years before, Nellie Pope had been born to two +honest, hard-working country folk. They lived in a village of about two +dozen cottages a stone's throw from the great cross cut by the Romans on +the chalky side of Chiltern Hills, in England. Her parents' quiver had +already been a full one and there was indeed very little room in it for +the new arrival. Eight other boys and girls had preceded her with a +rapidity which must have surprised nature herself, bounteous as she is. +The father, a deep-chested, brown-bearded, very ignorant, but +good-natured man, worked all the year round on a farm. His wages were +fourteen shillings a week. The wife, who had been a domestic servant, +added to the family pot by taking in washing and, if able, helping at +the big house when guests were there. Neither of them had ever been +farther away from their native village than the town which lay in the +saucer of the valley, the steeple of whose church could be seen glinting +in the sun away below. + +Little Nellai, as she was called, was thrown on her own resources from +the moment that she could crawl out of the narrow kitchen door into the +patch of garden where potatoes grew and eager chickens played the +scavenger for odd morsels of food. Her eldest sister was her real +mother, and it was she who daily led her little brood of dirty-faced +children out into the beech forest which stood in strange silence behind +the cottage. The monotonous years slipped by one after another, +enlivened only by a death or a birth or a fight, or a very occasional +jaunt to the town in one of the farm wagons, perched up on a load of hay +or wedged in between sacks of potatoes. Little Nellai's pretty face and +fair hair very soon made her a pet of the lady at the big house, and it +was from this kind, but mistaken person, from whom she obtained the +seeds of discontent which at the early age of sixteen sent her into the +town as a "help" in the kitchen of a man who kept a garage. It was from +this place, on the main road to London, that Nellie Pope saw life for +the first time and became aware of the fact that the world was a larger +place than the little village perched up so near the sky, and caught the +fever of discovery from the white dust that was left behind by the cars +which sped to London one way, and to Oxford the other. + +During this first year among shops and country louts, Nellie became +aware of the fact that her pretty face and fair hair were very valuable +assets. They procured her candies and many other little presents. They +enabled her to make a choice among the young men with whom to walk out. +They won smiles and pleasant words not only from the chauffeurs of the +cars which came into her master's garage to be attended to, but also +from their owners. Eventually it was one of these--more unscrupulous +than most--who, staying for a few days at the "Red Lion," carried Nellie +away with him to London, after several surreptitious meetings in the +shady lane at the back of the churchyard. There it was that she saw life +with very naked eyes, passed quickly from one so-called protector to +another, was taken to the United States by one of a troupe of gymnasts, +and then deserted. For two years she had been numbered among the night +birds who flit out after dark--a member of the oldest profession in the +world. There were, however, no moments in her life--hard, terrible and +sordid as it was--when she looked back with anything like regret at +those heavily thatched cottages which stood among their little gardens +on the side of the hills. She could put up with the fatigue, brutality +and uncertainty, the gross actuality of her present life, with courage, +cheerfulness and even optimism, but the mere thought of the deadly +monotony of that peaceful village, where summer followed winter with +inexorable routine, made her shudder. The first pretty frock which had +been given her by the lady of the big house had begun the work. The +candies and the little presents from the country louts had completed it; +and here she was, still very young, with a heart still kind and with a +nature not yet warped and brutalized,--a danger to any community in +which she lived, the deliberate spreader of something so frightful that +science and civilization stood abashed in her presence. + +Vanity has much to answer for, and out of nature spring many plants +whose tempting berries are filled with poison. + +It was in the bed of this wretched little woman that the unconscious +Peter slept that night. + +It was ten o'clock in the morning when the weary girl faced another day. +She didn't grumble at the fact that she had been frequently disturbed +and had watched many of the hours go by while she attended to Peter with +something of the spirit of a Magdalen. She kept repeating to herself: +"Poor boy! Poor boy! I wonder what his mother would say if she saw him +like this." + +She bathed his head, listened with astonishment to his babbling, and +tried to piece together his incoherent pleading with Ranken Townsend and +his declarations to Betty of his everlasting love. She listened with +acute interest to the broken sentences which showed her that this great +big man-boy was endeavoring to stir up his father to do something which +seemed to him to be urgent and vital, and she wondered who Graham was, +and Nicholas. + +The first thing that she did when she was dressed and had put the kettle +on her gas stove to boil, was to hunt through Peter's pockets to find +out who he was. It was obvious to her that he was not so much a customer +as a patient. She was a little afraid of accepting the whole +responsibility of his case. The only letter she found was one signed +"Graham," headed with the address of an office in Wall Street. In the +corner of it was printed a telephone number. Graham, it was plain to +her, was a Christian name. She could find no suggestion of the surname +of the writer or of the man who lay so heavily in the next room. + +"I dunno," she said to herself. "Something has got to be done. That +boy's in a bad way. 'E's as 'ot as a pancake and I shouldn't think 'e's +used to drink by the way 'e takes it. Suppose hanything should 'appen to +'im 'ere. I should look funny. What 'ad I better do?" + +What she did was to have breakfast. During this hasty meal she thought +things over--all her hard-won practicality at work in her brain. Then +she put on her befeathered hat and her white gloves, a second-best pair +of shoes, and went out and along the street, and into the nearest drug +store. Here she entered the telephone booth and asked for the number +that was printed on Graham's note. By that time it was just after nine +o'clock. Having complied with the sharp request to slip the necessary +nickel into the slot, an impatient voice recited the name of the firm. +"I want to speak to Mr. Graham," she said. "No such name--? Well, keep +your 'air on, Mister. I may be a client--a millionaire's wife--for all +you know. I'm asking for Mr. Graham and as 'e's a friend of mine, and +probably your boss, I'm not bothering about his surname. You know that +as well as I do--Do I mean Mr. Graham Guthrie? Well, yes. Who else +should I mean?" She gave a chuckle of triumph. "All right! I'll 'old +on." + +In a moment or two there was another voice on the telephone. "How d'you +do?" she said. "I'm holding a letter signed by you, to 'Dear +Peter,'--Ah! I thought that would make you jump--It doesn't matter what +my name is. What's that--? Yes, I _do_ know where he is. I've been +looking after 'im all night. Come up to my place right away and I'll be +there to meet you. Dear Peter is far from well." She gave her address, +and feeling immensely relieved left the box. But before she left the +store she treated herself to a large box of talcum powder and a +medium-sized bottle of her favorite scent, paying the bill with Peter's +money. She considered herself to be fully justified. + +On the way home she dropped into a delicatessen shop and bought some +sausages, a bottle of pickles, a queer German salad of raw herring +chopped up with carrots and onions, and carried these away with her. On +her way up-stairs--the bald, hard stairs--she was greeted by a +half-dressed person whose hair was in curl-papers and who had opened her +door to pick up a daily paper which lay outside. "Hello, Miss Pope! +Anything doing?" "Yes," said Nellie Pope, "the market's improving," and +she laughed and went on. + +Peter was still lying inert when she bent over him once more. She felt +his head again, put the covers about his shoulders, pulled the blind +more closely over the window, and after having put the food away +returned to make up her face. She wasn't going to be caught looking what +she called "second-rate" by this Mr. Graham Guthrie when he came. + +There being no need to practice rigid economy at that moment, she gave +herself a glass of beer and sat down to pass the time with her magazine, +in which life was regarded through very rosy spectacles. + +When finally she opened the door, in response to a loud and insistent +ring, her answer to Graham's abrupt question: "Is my brother _here_?" +was "Yes; why shouldn't he be?" She didn't like the tone. The word +"here" was underlined in an unnecessarily unpleasant manner. + + +XII + +"What's my brother doing here?" asked Graham. + +"What d'you s'pose? Better go and ask 'im yourself." + +"Where is he?" + +"In bed, if you must know." The girl answered sharply. She found her +caller supercilious. She followed him into the bedroom, telling herself +that this was a nice way to be treated for all the trouble that she had +taken. + +Graham bent over the bed. "Good God!" he said. "What's the matter with +him?" + +"Drink!" said the girl drily. + +"Drink! He never drinks." + +"Then 'e must 'ave fallen off the water-wagon into a barrel of alcohol +and opened 'is mouth too wide. Also 'e's got a fever." + +Graham turned on the girl. "How did he get here?" + +"In a cab. You don't s'pose I carried 'im, d'you?" + +"Where'd you find him?" + +"I didn't find 'im. Some one gave 'im to me as a present--a nice +present, I must say." + +"Don't lie to me!" cried Graham. "And don't be impudent." + +"Impudent!" cried Nellie Pope, shrilly. "Here, you'd better watch what +you're saying. I don't stand any cheek, I don't, neither from you nor +anybody else, and I'm not in the habit of lying. I tell you I was made a +present of 'im. I was told to take 'im 'ome by a young fellow on +Forty-eighth Street, who 'ad called up a cab." + +"Forty-eighth Street,--are you sure?" + +"Well, if I don't know the streets, who does? The young fellow was a +gent. He didn't talk, he gave orders. He was tall and slight and he 'ad +kinky hair. Quite a nut. English, he was, any one could tell that." + +"Good God!" thought Graham--"Kenyon." He sat down on the bed as though +he had received a blow in the middle of his back. Only an hour before he +had telephoned to Kenyon to say good-bye and wish him a pleasant +crossing, and all that he said about Peter was that they had seen each +other the night before. "No doubt he's all right," he had said, in +answer to Graham's anxious question. What did it all mean? What foul +thing had Kenyon done? + +Graham had been up all night waiting for his brother. He had good news +for him. He had pulled himself together and gone to see Ranken Townsend +during the time that Peter had been walking the streets. To the artist +he had made a clean breast of everything, so that he might, once for +all, set Peter right in the eyes of his future father-in-law. That was +the least that he could do. He had carried away from the studio in his +pocket a short, generous and impulsive letter from the artist, asking +Peter's forgiveness for not having accepted his word of honor. Armed +with this, Graham had waited while hour after hour slipped by, growing +more and more anxious as Peter did not appear. At breakfast he told his +mother--in case she should discover that Peter had not returned--that he +had stayed the night in Kenyon's rooms, as they had much to talk about +and one or two things to arrange. He had been in the house when Kenyon +had rung up, apologizing for being unable to come round, and thanking +Mrs. Guthrie for her kindness and hospitality. + +And there lay Peter inanimate and stupefied. In the name of all that was +horrible, what had happened? Graham got up and faced the girl again. +"You mustn't mind my being abrupt and rude," he said. "I'm awfully +sorry. But this is my brother, my best pal, and I've been terribly +anxious about him, and you don't know--nobody knows--what it means to me +to see him like this." + +"Ah! Now you're talking," said Nellie Pope. "Treat me nicely and there's +nothing I won't do for you. If you ask me--and if I don't know a bit +more about life than you do I ought to--I have a shrewd idea that your +brother was made drunk,--that is, _doped_. 'E was quite gone when 'e was +put into the cab, and from the way that kinky-headed chap laughed as we +drove off together,--I mean me and your brother,--I should think that 'e +'ad it in for him, but of course I don't know hanything about that. +Perhaps you do." + +Graham shook his head. "No," he said; "I don't know anything about it +either. But what are we going to do with him, that's the point? He's +ill, that's obvious, and a doctor ought to see him at once." + +"That's what I think," said the girl, "and I don't think 'e ought to be +moved, 'e's so frightfully 'ot. 'E might catch pneumonia, or something. +What I think you'd better do is to call up a doctor at once, get him to +give your brother a dose and give me directions as to what to do. 'E +can stay 'ere until 'e's all right again, and I'll nurse 'im." + +"Yes, but why should you----?" + +"Oh, bless you, that's all right. I'm glad to have something to do. Time +hangs heavy. Besides, the poor boy is just like a baby. I like 'im and +you needn't be afraid that I shall try to get anything out of 'im, +because I shan't." + +Graham snatched eagerly at the proffered assistance. He was intensely +grateful. "Have you a telephone here?" he asked. + +Nellie Pope laughed. "What d'you take me for?" she said. "I'm not a +chorus lady. When I want to use the 'phone I pop round to the drug store +and have a nickel's worth. That's how I got on to you." + +Graham caught up his hat and left the apartment quickly. One of his +college friends was a doctor and had just started to practice. He would +ask him to come and see Peter. He agreed with the girl that it would be +running a great risk to move Peter, and he was all against taking him +home in his present condition. It would only lead to more lies and would +certainly throw his mother into a dreadful state of anxiety. + +While he was gone, Nellie Pope set to work to tidy up the bedroom. She +put her boots away in a closet, got out a clean bedspread, rubbed the +powder off her mirror and arranged her dressing-table. This doctor, +whoever he was, should find her apartment as tidy as she could make it. +It was a matter of pride with her. She still had some of that left. One +thing, however, she was determined about. The doctor must not be +allowed to look too closely at her. + + +XIII + +Graham came out of the telephone box in the drug store. Dr. Harding was +unable, he said, to leave his office for an hour and a half, when he +would drive to Nellie Pope's address and meet Graham in her apartment. + +But as he was hurrying back to Peter's bedside, Graham drew up suddenly. +The rage that had entered into his soul when he had gathered that Kenyon +was responsible for his brother's condition broke into a blaze. Almost +before he knew what he was doing or what he was going to do when he got +there, he hailed a passing taxi and told the man to drive to Kenyon's +apartment. He remembered that the liner was not due to leave until +two-thirty. Kenyon would therefore be at home for some time yet. He told +himself that he _must_ see him--he must. He owed it to Peter first, and +then to himself as Peter's brother and pal, to make Kenyon answer for +this dirty and disloyal trick. Yes, that was it, he told himself as the +cab bowled quickly to its destination. Kenyon must be made to answer, +or, at any rate, to offer some extenuating explanation if he could. It +would be something that would make him wake up in the middle of the +night and curse himself if he let the opportunity slip out of his hands +to face Kenyon up before he went immaculately, unquestioned and perhaps +unpunished out of their lives. How could he face Peter when he was well +again? How could he look at his own reflection in the looking-glass if, +for reasons of his personal admiration of Kenyon and disinclination to +force things to an issue, he let him escape without finding out the +truth? + +The cab stopped. Graham sprang out, paid the man, ran up the flight of +stone steps and rang the bell. None too quickly it was answered by a +girl with a mass of black hair and a pair of Irish eyes which had been +put in with a dirty finger. + +"Is Mr. Kenyon in?" + +"Yes." + +The hall was filled with baggage. A very distinct "K" was on all the +baggage tabs. + +"All right!" said Graham. "I know my way up." + +Rather sharply Kenyon called out "Come in!" when Graham knocked on the +door of the sitting-room. + +In a much-waisted suit of brown clothes, a brown tie and a pair of brown +shoes which were so highly polished as to look almost hot, Kenyon was +standing with the telephone receiver to his ear. He was saying +"Good-bye" to one of the men to whom Graham had been proud to introduce +him and whose pockets he had already lightened by a fairly considerable +sum. He finished speaking before turning to see who had entered, and +hung up the receiver. + +"Oh, hello, my dear fellow!" he said. "I didn't expect to see you. How +extremely and peculiarly pleasant!" + +Graham wondered if he would think so by the time that he had done with +him. But, with a strong effort of will, he kept his self-control. He +intended to let Kenyon give himself away. That seemed to be the best +plan. + +Kenyon gave him no chance to speak. "Not satisfied with wishing me 'bon +voyage' over the wire, eh? By Jove, this is most friendly of you. You'll +help kill the boring time before I drive off to the docks with all my +duly and laboriously labelled luggage. Make yourself at home, old boy, +and give me your news." + +He took his hat and stick and yellow gloves out of the one comfortable +chair and waved his hand toward it. + +Graham remained standing. Having seen Peter lying in such a bed, inert +and humiliated,--Peter, of all men,--he resented Kenyon's suave +cordiality and glib complacency. "I've just come from Peter," he said. + +Kenyon burst out laughing. "Oh, do tell me! How does he look? Is his +head as big as the dome of St. Paul's this morning? It ought to be. I +gave him the sort of mixture that would blow most men skyhigh. It's +never been known to fail." + +"It hasn't?" said Graham. "So you _did_ give it to him!" he added +inwardly. "Good! You'll pay for _that_." + +"I was amazed to see the thirsty way our abstemious Peter lapped it +down. I've a sneaking notion that he liked it. It was on an empty +stomach, too. He seems to have been in an emotional mood +yesterday--tramping the streets. Ye gods, how these sentimentalists go +to pieces under the influence of a bit of a girl! He came up here fairly +late, just after Belle--I mean, just after----" + +"Belle? Was Belle here last night, then?" Graham's voice rang out +sharply. + +"Yes," said Kenyon, with a curious smile. After all, what did it matter +now who knew? He was on the verge of sailing and he hoped that he might +never see this family of Guthries again. "Yes, Belle was here." + +There was a look in the corners of Kenyon's eyes that sent a spasm of +fear all through Graham's body. What was this man not capable of doing +since he had deliberately turned Peter, his friend, over to a +street-walker, having first rendered him senseless? "Then I'm here for +Belle, as well," he said to himself, "and whatever you did you'll pay +for that too." + +There was an empty cardboard collar-box on the floor. Kenyon gave it a +spiteful kick. "Yes, Belle and I had,--what shall I call it?--a rather +tender parting scene here last night,--quite tender, in fact. All very +amusing in the sum total of things, eh? I was peculiarly ready for Peter +when he dropped in. And, by the way, how on earth did you find out where +he spent the night, learning, I trust, to shake off some of his Quaker +notions?" + +"She rang me up," said Graham, whose fists were clenched so tightly +that every finger contained a pulse. He was almost ready to hit--almost. +He was only waiting for one other proof of this dirty dog's treachery. + +"Oh, did she? Found your name and address in Peter's pocket, I suppose. +Well, she came along last night at the exact psychological moment. The +alacrity with which she took dear old drunken Peter off my hands at the +merest hint had a certain amount of pathos about it. _He's_ off his +immaculate perch now, eh? _He's_ left his tuppenny halo on a pretty +sordid hat-peg, at last, eh? He'll thank me for having done it for him +one of these days, I'll be bound." + +Graham went slowly over to him. "Not one of these days," he said with +extreme distinctness. "Through me, thank God, to-day--now." + +Kenyon darted a quick look at the man who had always caused him a +considerable amount of inward laughter, whom he had labelled as a +precocious provincial. He saw that his face had gone as white as a +stone--that his nostrils were all distended and that his eyes seemed to +have become bloodshot. No coward, Kenyon had an inherent detestation of +a fracas, especially when he was dressed for the street. He decided to +avert a row with a touch of autocratic authority. It had worked before. + +"Let there be no vulgar display of pugilism here," he said, sharply. "If +you don't like my methods, get out!" + +Everything in Graham's nature seemed to have become concentrated in one +big ball of desire to hit and hit, and hit again--to hear the heavy +thud of his blows on that man's body--to see him lying squirming and +broken on the carpet with a receipt in full upon his face for all that +he had done. + +"Put up your fist," he said, "or I shall have to hit you cold." + +"Curse you, get out!" cried Kenyon, catching Graham one on the mouth +before he was ready. + +Graham laughed. He needed that. By jove, he needed that. He let out his +left. "That's for Peter," he said. + +Kenyon staggered. His left eye seemed to fill. With a yell of pain he +jumped in and hit wildly. + +Graham waited a second chance and got it. "And that's for Belle," he +said. And his knuckles bled with the contact of teeth. + +Kenyon went in again. Chairs fell over and the table was pushed aside. +And all the time that he failed to reach Graham's face he screamed like +a horse whose stable is in flames. + +But Graham, cold, icy cold, and cooler than he had ever been in his +life, played with him. He had never been so much a man in his life. He +warded and guarded and waited hoping that he might once more feel the +sting of pain that would make his last blow unforgettable--epoch-making. + +He got it,--but with Kenyon's foot. + +And again Graham laughed,--for joy--for very joy. Now he could hit, and +hit honestly. + +"You little gentleman!" he said. "You perfect little gentleman--I've +paid you for Peter, and for Belle. Here's my debt, with a hundred per +cent, interest and then some." + +The blow, hard and firm from the full shoulder, caught Kenyon on the +point of the jaw, lifted him off his feet and laid him out full stretch +on the broad of his back. + +For several moments, breathing hard, Graham stood over him, looking down +at the dishevelled, unconscious dandy, with his bad blood all over his +face and clothes. His collar had sprung, his beautiful brown tie had +gone round under his ear, his shirt cuffs were dabbled with red, one eye +was bunged up and his mouth was all swollen. + +Then Graham rang the bell, and while waiting tidied himself up in front +of the glass in which he now felt that he could look. + +The girl came in and gave a shrill cry. + +"Just see to that man, please. Cold water at once will be the best +thing." + +He caught up his hat, went out, shut the door, ran down-stairs, let +himself into the street and was out of sight and into a taxicab before +the girl had recovered herself. + +"Paid in full," he said breathlessly to himself, as he bound up his +knuckles--"in full." + + +XIV + +With wide-eyed anxiety, Graham, having driven straight back, waited for +the doctor's verdict. The two young men stood alone in the little +sitting-room. With a touch of delicacy, which they were quick to notice, +Nellie Pope made no attempt to follow them in. + +"Um!" said Dr. Harding. "A very close shave from pneumonia. He can't be +moved yet, unless, of course, you'd like me to send for an ambulance. +That's up to you." + +Graham shook his head. "No," he said. "I don't want that. I think he'd +better be--I mean I don't want my father--Oh, well, I dare say you +understand." + +"Yes," said Dr. Harding, "I'm afraid I do. God knows what the percentage +of disaster is from men having soused themselves like that. It seems to +me that your brother, who had obviously caught a severe chill, must have +set out deliberately to make himself drunk, and mixed everything in +sight." + +Graham held his peace. But his blood tingled at the knowledge that he +had given Kenyon something that he would never forget and which would +make it necessary for him to remain in the seclusion of his state-room +for some days at least. + +The young doctor sat down and wrote a prescription and went on quickly +to tell Graham what to do. Finally he rose. "I'll look in again this +evening," he said. "You'll be here, won't you? Of course we shall get +him all right in a couple of days or so,--that is, right enough to go +home,--but----" + +"But what?" asked Graham. + +"Well," said Dr. Harding, "I may have to leave the rest of the treatment +to your father." He shook his head several times on his way to the +door. He had taken one or two close, examining looks of Nellie Pope. + +"Mr. Guthrie, you're wanted." + +Graham turned sharply. Nellie Pope, waiting until the doctor had gone, +put her head in at the door. "Come on in," she said. "Come on in!" + +Graham followed her into the bedroom and bent over Peter. Opening his +eyes with some difficulty, as though they hurt him, Peter looked about. +The room was strange. The face of the girl was strange. The whole thing +seemed to belong to a dream. Then he recognized his brother. "You got +away, then," he said. + +"Got away?" + +"Yes. By Jove, what a blaze! The last time I saw you, you were carrying +mother along the passage. I could hardly see you for smoke. I got Betty +out into the street and dived back into the house. Father was the only +one left. Good God, what awful flames! The library was red hot. I got +into the middle of it, choking and yelling for father, when something +fell on my head. Is he--dead?" + +"No," said Graham. "He's all right." + +A little smile broke out on Peter's face and he sighed and turned over +and went to sleep again. + +Nellie Pope made a comical grimace. "I don't wonder that 'e's been +dreaming about a fire," she whispered. She arranged the covers over +Peter's shoulder with a deft and sympathetic hand, and then took +Graham's arm and led him out into the passage. "You've got your work. +Push off. I'll see to the medicine when it comes. Don't you worry. Get +back as soon as you can, and while you're away I'll look after 'im like +a sister. I like 'im, poor boy! My goodness! why don't somebody put the +lid on all the distilleries? Half the troubles in the world 'ud be +prevented that way!" + +Very reluctantly Graham acted on the girl's suggestion that he should +return to his office. He was in the middle of very important work. He +held out his hand. "You're a damned good little sort," he said, "and I'm +intensely grateful." + +Nellie Pope's eyes filled with tears. It had been a long time since she +had been treated so humanly or had her hand so warmly clasped. But she +screwed out a laugh and waved her hand to Graham as he let himself out. + +She spent the rest of the day in and out of the bedroom. With her eyes +continually on her clock, she devoted herself untiringly and with the +utmost efficiency to looking after her patient. To the very instant she +gave him his medicine and said cheery, pleasant things to him every time +she had to wake him up to administer it. It was an odd and wonderful day +for her, as well as for Peter,--filled with many touches of curious +comedy, the comedy of life--and many moments of queer pathos. Once she +had to listen to a little outburst of incoherent love, when Peter +insisted on telling her what an angel Betty was. Once she was obliged to +hear what Peter had to say about his father, from which she gathered +that this man was responsible for the burning house from which this boy +had only just been able to escape alive, having saved his family. The +obsession of fire remained with Peter until the evening, when he woke up +with a clear brain, and having taken his medicine, looked at her with +new eyes. + +"What's all this?" he asked quietly. "Where am I, and who are you?" + +"Oh, that's all right," said Nellie Pope. + +"Is it? Are you a nurse?" + +"Yes," she said. + +"Is this a hospital?" + +"Yes,--that is, a nursing home," she said. + +"Oh!" said Peter. "Where's Kenyon?" + +"I don't know, dearie." + +"What on earth was that filth that he gave me to drink? I carried the +books into his room, and then I'm hanged if I can remember--I've got a +most frightful headache. Every time I move my head seems to split in +half. How long have I been here? Was I poisoned, or what?" + +"Now don't you talk or you'll get me into trouble. You go off to sleep +like a good boy. You'll be all right in the morning." + +"Shall I? That's good." And he heaved a big sigh and obeyed. It was +extraordinary how sleep came to his rescue. + +He was still asleep when Graham came back at six o'clock. Nellie Pope +opened the door to him. "'E's getting on fine," she said. "You can take +that line out of your forehead. 'E's been talking quite sensibly to me. +What I don't know about your father and your family isn't worth +knowing." + +Graham tiptoed into the bedroom, drew a chair up to the side of the bed +and sat down. And while he waited for the time to arrive for Peter's +next dose many strange things ran through his brain,--his own +precocity--his own desire to be smart and become a man of the world--his +own evening in the little shabby theatrical lodgings in Oxford with +Kenyon--his dealings with Ita Strabosck--the night he had spent in his +bed-room when Peter took his razors away--that awful hour when he +sneaked into his father's laboratory and under the pressure of great +trouble forged his name. The only thing that gave him any sense of +pleasure out of all this was the fact that he carried in his pocket a +warm and spontaneous letter from Ranken Townsend, which he knew would be +better to Peter than pints of medicine. + +And while he sat watching, Nellie Pope ate her sausage in the kitchen +and finished the instalment of the love story in her magazine. + +What a world, O my masters! + + +XV + +It was late when Graham let himself into his father's house that night. +He had done many things that day. He had also been through much anxiety. +He felt that he deserved the right to turn in at once and sleep the +sleep of the just. But Kenyon had said that Belle had been alone in his +rooms the night before and the queer expression that had come into his +eyes as he made the remark lived most uneasily in Graham's memory. He +now knew Nicholas Kenyon to be a skunk--an unscrupulous individualist +devoid of loyalty, incapable of feeling true friendship and in every way +unfit to have any dealings, unwatched, with a girl unless she was in his +own set or belonged to the same class as the two chorus girls for whom +he had waited outside the stage door of the Oxford Theatre. + +He was well aware of the fact that Belle had been something more than +merely attracted by Kenyon. He had even hoped that she might be engaged +to be married to him, being very proud to believe that some day soon she +might become the wife of the man under whose spell he, like all the rest +of the family, had fallen. Now, however, in the light of Kenyon's +hideous treatment of Peter, he saw his one-time hero with eyes from +which all the glamour of his appearance had disappeared and he was +filled with an overwhelming desire to see Belle at once and make it +clear to her, bluntly and finally, that she must clear Kenyon out of her +mind as a house is rid of vermin. Belle was, as he well knew, a +high-spirited, amazingly imperious, independent girl, with strong +emotions. She was not one who would be turned lightly, or even driven, +out of a line of thought. She was, on the contrary, as difficult to +treat as an unbroken filly and could only be managed with the lightest +of hands. If she really and truly loved Kenyon and still believed in +him, he knew that he could not say anything that would prejudice him in +her estimation, even by telling her what he had done to Peter. She would +be able to produce reasons, however far-fetched, to make that incident +seem less ugly. There was, however, the chance--just the chance--that +she would be open to conviction. After much inward argument and +hesitation he decided to go up to Belle's room, and if she were not +asleep, to have a little talk with her and find out how the land lay, +and if he could see any possibility of adding to his punishment of +Kenyon to do so by putting him in his true colour before Belle. + +It took him some time to come to this decision and screw up his courage +to face Belle. For nearly an hour he paced up and down the quiet +library, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Belle was likely to tell him +to go and hang himself if she considered that he was butting into her +private affairs. He knew this,--no one better. He had often done so +before. He decided, however, to run this risk and, in the hope that she +might still be up, went upstairs and stood for a moment listening +outside her door. He could hear no sound in her room, no movement, no +creak of a drawer being opened or shut. He knocked softly and +waited,--was just going to knock again when the door was opened. + +With her beautiful black hair done for the night and a pink kimono over +her night-dress, Belle stood in the doorway with an expression of +surprised inquiry in her eyes. These two had not taken the trouble to be +very good friends for some years. + +"Oh, it's you, Graham," she said, but made no move. + +"It's awfully late, I know; but, if you're not too tired, may I come +in?" Graham hated himself for being self-conscious. It seemed absurd +with his own sister. He wished then that he had not been quite so +selfish and self-contained since he had considered himself to be a man, +and had gone out of his way to keep up his old boyish relations with +Belle. + +He was a little surprised when she said, "Come in, dear," and made way +for him. He noticed quickly as soon as she stood under the light that +her eyes were red and swollen, and that there was a most unusual air +about her of gentleness and dejection. He noticed, too, with immense +relief, that a large photograph of Kenyon in hunting-kit which he had +seen standing on her dressing-table had been taken away. A good sign! + +The room was very different from Ethel's. It had nothing of that rather +anaemic ultra-modern air so carefully cultivated by the younger girl. On +the contrary, everything in it was characteristic of Belle. It was full +of ripe colours and solid comfort. A mass of silver things jostled each +other untidily on the dressing-table. A collection of monthly fashion +papers with vivid decorative covers lay on a heap on a chair, and a +novel, open in the middle, had been flung, face down, on the sofa. There +was no attempt at carefully shaded lights. They were all turned on and +were reflected from the long glasses in a large mahogany wardrobe. The +carpet all round the dressing-table was bespattered with white powder. + +"I was reading when I heard your knock," she said,--"at least I was +pretending to read. Sleep was miles away." + +Graham sat down, hanging a pair of stockings over the arm of the chair. +"Why?" he asked. + +"Oh, I don't know, I've been thinking,--for a change. It's such a new +thing for me that it knocked sleep out of my head. Not nice thoughts, +either." + +She seemed glad to talk, Graham thought. "Anything the matter, Bee?" he +asked. + +"I guess it's nearly a century since you called me Bee," she said with a +queer little laugh. "Would you say that anything was the matter if you +had just picked yourself out of the ruins of a house that had fallen +about your ears?" + +Graham got up suddenly, sat on the sofa at Belle's side and put his arms +round her shoulder. "Don't dodge behind phrases, old girl," he said. +"Just tell me in plain English. Let me help you if I can." + +But Belle shook him off,--not angry with him so much as with herself. +She detested weakness. This unexpected kindness on Graham's part made +her feel like crying again. In her heart she longed for some one to whom +she could pour out her soul, and Graham's affection almost caught her +before she could stop herself. Not to him, she told herself, nor to any +member of her family, was she going to confess the sort of thoughts that +had choked her brain ever since that hour alone with Kenyon. Not even to +Betty, to whom she told most things, was she going to lay bare the fact +that, in the cold light of day, she found herself deeply hurt and +deeply humiliated at Kenyon's treatment of her. In fact, she had herself +only that night begun to realize the state of her feelings and was still +suffering under the discovery. + +Graham, whose nature and character were as much like those of Belle as +though they were twins, caught her mental attitude as she stood +struggling between pride and a desire to tell the truth. It was as plain +to him as though she had already confessed that Kenyon had done +something which had shaken her belief in him. His photograph, which had +dominated her room, had been put away. Her eyes were red and swollen. +All his sympathy was stirred. At the same time he rejoiced in the eager +thought that he had it in his power to clear Kenyon finally out of her +mind. + +He set to work quietly. "I'm going to tell you about Peter," he said. + +She turned quickly. "Peter? There's nothing wrong with Peter, is there?" + +"God knows how much wrong there is. I'm going to tell you all I know. +We're all in this,--through Kenyon, and because we've been thoughtless +fools running amuck through life." + +The idea of there being anything wrong with Peter brought Belle quickly +out of self-analysis and the self-indulgence of her own pain. "Don't +beat about the bush," she said. "Please tell me. You told mother this +morning that he had stayed with Nicholas last night." + +"That was a lie. This is what happened. After a rotten day worrying +about an upset with Betty, he went to see Kenyon late last night. He'd +had nothing to eat. I believe because Kenyon had been disappointed about +something earlier in the evening,--but I only make a guess at that from +the way he looked when I saw him to-day,--he deliberately took it out on +Peter." + +"On Peter? How?" Belle understood this disappointment only too well. + +"He made him drunk." + +"Drunk!--Peter!" + +"Dead drunk,--by doping him with a fearful mixture of all the drinks he +had. He had always threatened to do it, and this time he caught Peter +napping. That was a foul enough thing to do anyway, but it didn't +satisfy him. He got him into the street and instead of putting him into +a cab and sending him home he called a passing woman----" + +"Oh, no!" cried Belle. + +"Yes,--and gave Peter over to her and there he's been, in her bed, in a +little hole of an apartment, ill and poisoned, ever since." + +"Oh, my God!" cried Belle. + +"The woman rang me up early this morning and I got Ralph Harding to go +and see what he could do. I've been there most of the day,--except for +ten minutes with Kenyon--the best ten minutes I ever put in--ever." + +He got up and stood looking at Belle with a gleam of such intense +satisfaction in his eyes that she guessed what he had done. + +"That's our admirable friend Kenyon," he added. "That's the man who +shared rooms with Peter--whose charm of manner got us all at Oxford, and +who was made one of the family by father and mother when he came to this +country. I hit him for Peter, for you and for myself in that glorious +ten minutes to-day. I left him lying on the floor in his rooms all over +his own black blood, and if ever I meet him again, in any part of the +world, at any time of my life, I'll give him another dose of the same +sort--for Peter, for you and for me--That's what I came to tell you, +Bee." + +He bent forward and kissed her, turned round and left the room. + +That was Kenyon, Graham had said. + +Standing where he had left her, with this story of utter and incredible +treachery in her ears, Belle added another count to Graham's +indictment,--that of trying to seduce her without even the promise of +marriage, when her grief at parting with him made her weak. + +For a moment she stood chilled and stunned. That was Kenyon--All along +she had been fooled--all along he had been playing with her as though +she amounted merely to a light creature with whom men passed the time. +It was due to her father,--of all men, her father,--that she stood there +that night, humiliated but unharmed, with her pride all slashed and +bleeding, her self-respect at a discount, but with nothing on her +conscience that would make her face the passing days with fear and +horror. + +She suddenly flamed into action. "Yes; that's Kenyon!" she thought, and +making a sort of blazing pounce on the middle drawer of her +dressing-table she pulled it open, took out the large photograph of a +man in hunting-kit, and with queer, choking cries of rage and scorn, +tore it into shreds and stamped upon the pieces. + + +XVI + +Belle got very little sleep that night. Having finally decided, on top +of her talk with Graham, that Kenyon had intended to treat her much in +the same way as he had treated Peter, she endeavored to look back +honestly and squarely at the whole time during which that +super-individualist had occupied her thoughts. She saw herself as a very +foolish, naive girl, without balance, without reserve and without the +necessary caution in her treatment of men which should come from proper +training and proper advice. + +She laid no blame upon her mother,--that excellent little woman whose +God-sent optimism made her believe that all her children were without +flaw and that the world was full of people with good hearts and good +intentions. She blamed only herself, and saw plainly enough that she had +allowed her head to be turned by her father's sudden acquisition of +wealth which made it unnecessary for her to be anything more than a sort +of butterfly skimming lightly through life without any duties to +perform--without any work to occupy her attention--without any hobbies +to fill her mind and give her ambition. She felt like some one who had +just escaped from being run over in the streets, or who, by some divine +accident, had been turned back from the very edge of an abyss. It was +indeed a night that she could never forget in all her life. She lay in +bed in the dark room with her eyes wide open, hearing all the hours +strike one by one, watching herself with a sort of terror and amazement +passing through Oxford. All the incidents that had been crowded into +that short and what had appeared to be glorious week, came up in front +of her again, especially the incident in the back-water with Kenyon and +the night of the ball at Wadham College. These were followed in her mind +by the scene in the library in her father's house, and finally that +dangerous hour in Kenyon's rooms when, but for the intervention of that +man who seemed of so little account, she might have been placed among +those unfortunate girls of whom the world talks very harshly and who pay +a terrible price for their foolishness and ignorance. And when finally +she got up, tired-eyed but saner than she had been since those good, +strenuous days of hers at her college when she had intended to make art +her mission in life, she told herself with a characteristic touch of +humour that the reformed criminal was a very good hand at preaching, and +made up her mind to go along to Ethel and improve the occasion. It was +very obvious to her that if she did not do this nobody would, and she +was eager to give a sort of proof of the fact that she was grateful for +her own escape by giving her young sister the benefit of her suffering. +And so she put on her dressing-gown and went to her sister's room--the +little sister of whom she was so fond and proud. + +Ethel was sitting at her dressing-table doing her hair. There was a +petulant and discontented expression on her face. Still shamming +illness, she had not yet recovered from the smart of what she called +Jack's impertinence. There was a surprise in store for her,--she who +believed that she had managed so successfully to play the ostrich. + +"Why, Belle!" she said. "What's the matter? You look as though you had +been in a railway accident." + +Belle sat down, not quite sure how she would begin or of the sort of +reception that she would receive. She always felt rather uncouth in the +presence of this calm, self-assured, highly finished little sister of +hers. "Well," she said, "I have been through a sort of railway accident +and a good many of my bones seem to have been broken,--that's why I'm +here. I want to stop you, if I can, from going into the same train." + +"I don't think I quite understand you." + +"I don't suppose you do, my dear, but you shall--believe me." And then, +in the plainest English she gave Ethel the story of her relations with +Kenyon, without in any way sparing herself. And when she came to the +parting scene in Kenyon's rooms she painted a picture that was so strong +and vivid--so appalling in its proof of foolishness, that she made even +Ethel forget her complacency and sit with large, frightened eyes. + +Then she got up and began to walk about. "I'm not a fool," she said, +"and this thing is going to teach me something. Also, I'm not a coward +and I've told you all this for a reason. You think that you're a very +wise little person, kiddie, but in reality you're no better than I am, +and just as sentimental and every bit as unwatched and as resentful of +guidance. Why are you here instead of being at school? You think no one +knows that. Well, I do. You're playing ducks and drakes with mother and +father and your education in order to have what we call a 'good time.' +You have shammed sickness so that you could have an adventure with the +boy next door." + +"How d'you know that?" cried Ethel. + +"Easily enough, my dear. I was told by the girl who used to bring your +thermos up to this room and who had caught you with the boy. Two days +ago she left to be married, but before she went she blurted out the +whole story. It wasn't for me to interfere then. I didn't much care, to +tell the truth,--in fact, I thought it was rather a good joke. I rather +admired you for the cunning way in which you had arranged everything. I +thought you were a good sport. I don't know how far it has gone, but I +hope to Heaven that you've not been quite so insane as I was. I'm not +going to tell mother or do the elder sister stunt, or anything of that +sort. I'm just going to ask you to chuck it all and go back to school +and play the game for a change, and to try to bear in mind that you owe +father and mother something,--a thing we all seem to have +forgotten,--and when you do go back, just remember--and always +remember--what I've told you about myself. We're very much alone, you +and I,--like two girls who are staying in a house with somebody else's +father and mother,--and so let's help each other and get a little +honesty and self-respect and see things straight. What d'you say, dear +little sister?" + +Ethel got up, and with a complete breakdown of all the artificiality so +carefully instilled into her by her fashionable school, slipped into her +sister's arms and burst out crying. + + +XVII + +It was not until the next afternoon that Peter was allowed to get up. +His superb constitution had stood, rock-like, against the chill which +the doctor's medicine had helped to throw off. He had done full justice +to a broiled chicken which Nellie Pope had cooked for him; but when, +having put on his clothes, he stood in front of the looking-glass, he +felt as though he had been under a steam-roller and flattened out. + +"Good Lord!" he said, when he saw his pale, unshaven face. "Good Lord!" +But he was very happy. He had read and re-read Ranken Townsend's +generous apology. Betty was waiting for him--thank God for that. + +And then he began to look round. Was this a nursing home? The +dressing-table, with its tins of powder and a large dilapidated puff, +its red stuff for lips, its shabby little brushes and a comb with +several of its teeth gone, looked as though it belonged to a +woman,--poor and struggling. The door of the closet, which gaped a +little, showed dresses hanging and a pair of very high-heeled boots with +white uppers. He opened a drawer in the dressing-table. It was full of +soiled white gloves, several veils neatly rolled up, and a collection of +small handkerchiefs. A strong, pungent scent rose up from them. + +An ugly suspicion crept slowly into his mind. He looked at the bed with +its frilled pillows, at the flower papered bare walls, at the rather +worn blue carpet, at the flimsy wrap hanging limply on a peg on the door +of the bath-room, at the little bed-room slippers tucked away beneath +one of the white, painted chairs---- + +He turned and called out: "Nurse! Nurse!" + +Something in his tone brought Nellie Pope in quickly. + +He was standing with his hand on the big brass knob of the bed. "You +told me that this was a nursing home," he said. + +The girl laughed. How should she know what Peter had done with his +life--of the ideal that he kept so steadily in front of him? She only +knew the other kind of men. "So it is," she said. "It's _my_ home and +I've had to be your nurse. Pretty well put, I think. Don't you? 'Ow +d'you feel, dearie? A bit groggy on your pins?" + +The girl's cockney accent, her made-up face, her cheap, smart clothes +were noticed by him for the first time. Her insinuating, cheerful manner +and that sort of hail-fellow-well-met intimacy that was all about her, +came to him with a new and appalling meaning. He had been spoken to by +just such women in London after dark, and on Broadway and its side +streets as he passed. They belonged to the night life of all great +cities. They were the moths who came out attracted by the glare of +electric light. Good God! What was he doing in that place? + +The keen remembrance of this woman's inestimable kindness, the supreme +lack of selfishness which had inspired her to bend so frequently over +his bed, the charity of her treatment of him as he lay ill and helpless, +made him anxious above everything else not to hurt her feelings. But +there were things that he must know at once,--urgent, vital things which +might affect all the rest of his life. There was Betty his +love-girl--the girl who was to be his wife--who was waiting for him with +the most exquisite and whole-hearted trust---- + +"I want you to tell me how I came here," he said. + +Nellie Pope went over to the dressing-table. "That's easy," she replied +lightly, adding a new coat of color to her lips. "The night before last, +not having 'ad any luck, I was 'aving a last look round and 'appened to +be in Forty-eighth Street just as you staggered out of a 'ouse on the +arm of a young gent. I reckoned 'e didn't 'ave any use for me, being +outside 'is own place, but I passed 'im the usual greetin' from force of +'abit, just as 'e 'ad called up a taxi. With a funny look on 'is +face,--a curly smile I called it to meself,--'e suddenly gave me orders, +lumped you into the cab, blind to the wide, and told me to get in and +take you 'ome, and 'elp meself to any money you 'ad on you. Well, I did, +and the next instalment of the serial you know as well as I do. Feeling +weak, old dear?" + +Peter sat heavily on the foot of the bed. + +Nellie Pope went on,--simply and naturally, like one who is glad to +talk, glad to hear her own voice, indescribably, pathetically glad to be +in the company of a man who asked for nothing, who was not a guest, but +a friend--a fellow-creature down on his luck. "Me and Graham," she +said,--"and, I say, what a good-looking boy that is, and fairly devoted +to you, dearie,--well, 'im and me think that you must 'ave done +something to get the goat of this young feller. 'E doped you, that's +certain, and then passed you off on me. Enjoyed the joke, as it were, +too, according to what I noticed. Is that likely?" + +Peter didn't answer. The joke--? Back into his mind came the many things +that Kenyon had said to him at Oxford: "You need humanizing, old boy. +You want to be hauled off that self-made pedestal of yours. One of these +days you'll come to an unholy crash--" Back into his mind also came +Kenyon's taunts made to him as he stood with his back to the fireplace +in the library the night after they had returned from having seen Ita +Strabosck: "You're blind! Blind! I tell you, and in that room sits a man +whose patients you may become." + +Utterly ignorant of the feeling of revenge which had surged through +Kenyon's brain after Belle had been saved by the Doctor, it was borne +in on Peter, as he sat on the bed of this poor little night-bird, that +Kenyon had set out on purpose--with calculated deliberation--to make him +human, as he called it, before he returned to England. He had made him +drunk in order to carry out the joke. He had given him something to +render him insensible, well knowing that in no other way could this +fiendish desire be fulfilled. + +"What time is my brother coming?" he asked. + +Nellie Pope was busy daubing powder on her face. "Not until about nine +o'clock," she said. "'E and me talked it over this morning. The idea is +that you're coming in on the train that arrives at the Grand Central at +eight-forty-five. Now don't forget this. You stayed the night in your +friend's apartment, but you couldn't see 'im off the next morning +because you'd taken on a bit of business for 'im which meant going out +of town. Your brother is going to meet you at the station. That's the +story. And you're going 'ome together. 'E went back to get one of your +bags. 'E will sneak it out of the 'ouse and bring it round here. Oh, I +think we're pretty good stage managers, 'im and me. You see, the notion +is that Ma mustn't be upset. Poor little Ma!" + +"What's to-day?" asked Peter, whose whole body seemed suddenly to have +been frozen. + +"Sunday, dearie." + +"Then I've been here two nights?" + +"That's so," said the girl. + +Peter was consumed with a desire to explore the apartment. He wanted to +discover whether there was another bedroom. "Are you comfortable here?" +he asked, a little clumsily. + +Nellie Pope was rather flattered at his interest and so genuinely +delighted to see this great big man-boy on his feet again that she could +have broken into a dance. "Come and 'ave a look at my suite," she said, +laughing at the word she chose. "You know the bedroom,--I don't think +you'll forget that in a 'urry. On the right I 'ave the sitting-room +which I only use for my customers, preferring to sit in the kitchen, +which we now come to." She led him into it, with her hand on his +arm--she was apeing the manner and the phraseology of the guide. "In +this bright little apartment, beautifully furnished with a gas stove and +dresser--not exactly Jacobean--a plain, but serviceable Deal table and a +nice piece of linoleum which 'as worn very well, the sometimes popular +Miss Nellie Pope passes most of 'er leisure. 'Ere she cooks her own +meals and washes up after 'erself,--she's a very neat little thing,--and +before going out on the long trail in all weathers, reads about life +with a big L in the magazines, in which 'eroes with curly 'air, who +stand about six-feet-six, make 'onest love to blondes with 'eads like +birds' nests, who are nearly always about six-feet-one, and never fail +to wear silk stockings,--and there you 'ave it. A charming suite for a +single lady who earns 'er own living. The only drawback to it is that +the rent 'as to be paid monthly in advance, and the blighter who +collects it gives no grace. This is the sort of thing: 'Say! Got that +rent?' 'Well--' 'Come on now, ain't got no time to waste here. Pay up +or get out--' I tell you what it is, dearie, there's a little Florida in +Hell for them men who let out apartments to us girls, and the heat there +is something intense." She laughed, but there was a curious quiver to +it. + +Behind all her badinage and cheery pluck Peter could see a vein of +terror which touched his sympathies. Poor little painted, unfortunate +thing! Was there no other way in which she could live and keep her head +above water? He sat down and leaned on the table with his elbows. "Will +you tell me," he said, "what brought you to this?" + +"Brought me to it?" Nellie Pope shot out a laugh. "You dear, funny old +thing!" she said. "Nothing brought me it. I chose it." + +"Chose it! Chose _this_?" + +"Yes, this! A great many of us choose it. It's the easiest way. That +shocks yer, doesn't it,--you who come from a comfortable home and whose +sisters 'ave everything they want. But, you listen to this and don't be +too fast to pass judgment. I was one of a big brood of unnecessary kids. +My father earned fourteen shillings a week by grubbing in the earth from +daybreak till sundown and my mother took in washing. We lived perched up +on a 'ill among a dozen dirty little cottages. What was the outlook for +me? Being dragged up with meat once a week and as a maid-of-all-work +down in the town, being ordered about by a drab of a tradesman's wife, +with not enough wages to buy a new 'at and a little bit of finery for +Sundays, and then be married to a lout who got drunk regularly every +Saturday night and made me what mother was,--a dragged, anaemic, dull +animal woman, working up to the time I 'ad a baby and working directly +afterwards,--no colour, no lights, no rush and bustle, no decent clothes +to put on, no independence. Yes, I chose it, and if I 'ad my time over +again I should choose it again. See! It's the easiest way. Oh, yes, we +die young and nobody knows where we're buried, but we've 'ad our day, +and it's the day that every woman fights for, the same as every man. Oh, +by the way, 'ere's your purse!" She pushed it over to Peter. + +"My purse?" he said. + +"Yes; don't you recognize it? It hasn't got so much in it as it 'ad, +because I was told to 'elp meself, and I did. I 'ave jotted down what I +'ave taken; 'ere's the account." She held out a piece of paper on which +Peter could see a list of spendings, which included a taxicab fare and a +nickel for telephoning. At the end of it there was an item entitled +"Fee, thirty dollars." + +Peter shuddered. He pushed the remainder of the money back to her across +the table. "Please keep it," he said. + +Nellie Pope laughed again. She was full of laughter. "I hoped you'd say +that," she said. "It'll come in mighty useful." + +Peter felt in his pocket and took out his cheque-book. He looked about +and saw a bottle of ink and a pen on the dresser, with a piece of +dilapidated blue blotting-paper. Watched with peculiar interest and +excitement by Nellie Pope, he got up, went over to the dresser and +wrote a cheque. "Will you accept this?" he asked. "I wish I could make +it larger. But if it was ten times the amount it couldn't possibly cover +my gratitude to you. You've been awfully kind to me. Thank you, Nellie." +He held it out. + +The girl took it and gave a little cry. "Five hundred dollars! Oh, Gawd! +I didn't know that there was so much money in the world." She burst into +tears, but went on talking. "Mostly I can't afford to cry, because it +washes the paint off my face, and it's very expensive. But what do I +care, with this blooming cheque in my 'and? I shall be able to take a +little 'oliday from business and, my word, that's a treat. God makes one +or two gentlemen from time to time, 'pon my soul he does. Put it there, +Peter." She held out her hand with immense cordiality and gratitude, and +Peter took it warmly. + +But he had discovered what he wanted to know. There was only one bed in +that apartment, and back into his mind came Kenyon's words. "Blind! +Blind!--both of you--and in that room sits a man whose patients you may +become." + + +XVIII + +Graham was before his time. He hurried in, as anxious to get Peter out +of that apartment as Peter was to go. He found his brother sitting on +one side of the kitchen table and Nellie Pope on the other. Both had +magazines. The girl tore herself out of the marble house of the +heroine's father with reluctance. Peter had been holding his magazine +upside down for an hour. He had been looking right through it and into +his father's laboratory. There was not even the remote suggestion of a +smile on his pale face when Graham threw open the door. + +"Come on, old man," urged Graham. "The taxi's waiting." + +Peter got up. "Well, good-bye, Nellie," he said. "I'll come and see you +soon." + +The girl darted a quick look at him. She saw that she was mistaken. "Oh, +yes, that'll be very kind of you. I 'aven't got any friends." + +"Yes you have," said Graham,--"two." + +Nellie Pope led the way into the narrow passage, stood on tiptoe, made a +long arm and got Peter's hat off the peg. Then she stood in front of him +and her lips trembled, although her well-practised smile curled up the +corners of her mouth. "Not good-bye, but orevoy, eh? Well, good luck and +God bless you. I shall miss you both most awfully. It's been a fair +treat to 'ave you 'ere." + +Peter waved his hand and went down the bare stairs. His knees felt weak +and shaky and his eyes seemed to be at the back of his head. He drew +back to let a woman pass. She cocked her golden head at him with an +enquiring eye and a flash of teeth and pushed open the half-closed door +of an apartment. Her high-pitched metallic voice rang out. "Say, Kid, +there goes Nellie Pope's boarder. By Gosh, don't yer think some one +oughter stop her?" + +The two boys drove home in silence. They had both caught the meaning of +those significant words. + +Graham, the self-imagined man of the world, who had picked up a large +collection of half-facts--as all the precocious do--but who, for all +that, or in spite of that, had walked into the trap set by Ita Strabosck +without the faintest perception of his danger, threw those words aside. +Everything would be right, he told himself, and if _he_ had been coming +out of Nellie Pope's apartment in the ordinary way and had overheard her +rival's loud comment, he would simply have shrugged his shoulders, like +the rest of the young men of his type and spirit, and knowing only the +tail end of the truth, told himself that all men take "chances" and that +the odds were largely in his favor. And what would this attitude of +puerile bravado have proved? That he and all the men like him were just +as much a menace to society from knowing the half-facts which did +nothing more for them than allow them to take "chances," as the men who +were wholly ignorant and so blundered blindly into tragedy. + +To Peter, the words of the painted woman came as a finishing blow. In +his crass and culpable ignorance, into which Kenyon had flung one most +terrific fact, he came away from Nellie Pope not knowing whether he was +immune--not able to assure himself that he was safe. Think of it! Big +and strong as he was, he remained a mere child in the matter of plain, +necessary and urgent truths, and if ever a man knew himself for a fool +he was Peter Guthrie, as he drove home. + +No less grateful to God than ever for having been assisted to go +through Harvard and Oxford clean and straight, he cursed himself for not +having sought out the facts of life,--not from grinning and salacious +arguments of half-informed young men, but from a proper source,--since +his father had not conceived it to be his duty to give them to him early +in his life. If Kenyon had not opened out a new and awful vista of +thought the night that he talked about Graham and Ita Strabosck, Peter's +ignorance, so jealously and mistakenly preserved, would have remained so +colossal that he would have gone home humiliated, but unworried. As it +was, this one thing at any rate--this one most awful thing--had sunk +into his mind, making him dangerously less ignorant but without proper +knowledge. He arrived home a prey, therefore, to the most hideous fear. + +Luckily there were people dining with his father and mother. Belle had +gone out of town for several days, suffering from the shock of finding +out the truth about Kenyon, and Ethel had returned to school. Peter was +able to go up to his own room unnoticed. + +Graham, whose loyalty and concern had been good to see, went up with him +and threw the suit-case into a corner. + +"Gee!" he said, with a touch of emotion that he made no attempt to hide, +"but I'm glad you're home, Petey." It was many years since he had called +Peter by the name that he had gone by in the nursery. He seemed to have +come so close to his big brother during those recent hours. + +Peter did a surprising thing. He turned quickly, strode over to Graham, +put his arm round his shoulder and kissed his cheek. For just those few +moments both men had gone back through the years and were little boys +again. + +Two things happened to Graham. He blushed to the roots of his hair, and +swallowed something that threatened to choke him. + +"You said you had something on, didn't you,--supper, or something?" said +Peter. + +"Yes; but I'll cut it out if you want me to." + +"No, don't. Why should you? I feel pretty rotten and I shall turn in +right away. Don't bother about me any more, old man." + +"I'd rather stay with you." + +"Yes, I know you would, old boy, but you push off and have a good time. +As a matter of fact, I rather want to--to be alone for a bit. D'you +see?" + +"All right, then." And to show that he had become a man again and his +own master, Graham went off whistling the latest tango. + +And by letting his brother go at that moment, Peter did a very unwise +thing. He was still weak and ill. His brain, which had not recovered +itself from the effects of Kenyon's poisonous mixture, was in no +condition to be tortured by solitary thought. He needed to be kept away +from self-analysis--to be set to work on the ordinary commonplaces of +everyday life. Most of all, his thoughts required to be put to rest by +sleep. + +Left to himself, Peter sat down, almost in the dark, with his arms +folded, his legs stuck out and his chin buried in his chest, and +thrashed the tired machinery of his brain into action. All that had +happened in the last forty-eight hours coming on top of the suffering +that he had undergone through having been separated from Betty and +having failed to bring about the new relationship with his father, upon +which he had set his heart, gradually became distorted. He began to look +at everything through an enormous magnifying glass and to see himself, +not as one whose loyal, simple and unsuspicious nature had been taken +advantage of by Kenyon, but as a common drunken creature who had had to +be lifted into a cab and who had spent two nights in the apartment of a +woman of the street. He began to look at himself with so deep a +humiliation and disgust that the mere thought of his ever again holding +Betty in his arms seemed outrageous. And having by stages, made +conceivable by the condition of his health and the strain that had been +put upon him by all the things that had happened since his return from +England, come up to this morbid and hyperconscientious point in his +self-condemnation, he stood up suddenly, obsessed by a new and appalling +thought. He said to himself: "I'm not only unworthy of Betty, I'm +unclean, and so unfit to live." And having seized at that with the +avidity and even triumph that comes with a sudden disorder of the +understanding, he began to dramatize his death--to ask himself how to +make it most effective. And then his father entered his thoughts. "Ah!" +he cried inwardly. "Father--it's _father_ who is responsible--it's +_father_ who must be made to pay! I'm his eldest son. He's very proud of +me. He shall come into the room to-night in which he spends all his +time for the benefit of other men's sons and find the one he neglected +lying dead on the floor. That's it! Now I've got it! There's a hideous +irony about this that'll sink even into his curious mind. I'd like to be +able to see his face when he finds me. There'd be just a little +satisfaction in that." + +If only Graham could have come back at that moment, or the little mother +to put her arms round that poor, big, over-sensitive, uninitiated lad +and bring him out of his mental dejection with her love and warmth! + +There was a revolver somewhere among his things. He had bought it when +he went camping during one of his vacations from Harvard. He hadn't seen +it for several years. With feverish haste he instituted a search, going +through one drawer after another, flinging his collars and socks and all +his personal things aside, talking in a half-whisper to himself, until, +with a little cry of glee, he found it with a box of cartridges. And +then, with the most scrupulous care he loaded it, slipped it into his +pocket and crept out of the room and downstairs. The door of the +drawing-room was ajar. He heard laughter and the intermingling of +voices, heard some one say "Good-bye." He dodged quickly past, through +the library and into the room in which he had last stood with his hand +on the shaking shoulders of his father. _He_ would give him something to +weep about this time,--yes, by jove, he would! _He_ would make him wake +up at last to the fact that his sons were human beings and needed to be +treated as such! + +He welcomed the fact that away in the distance a storm had broken with +the deep artillery of thunder, and that already heavy rain was swishing +down on the city. It fitted into his half-maddened mood. + +He shut the door. He walked quickly about the room, speculating as to +the most effective place to be found outstretched. He had a decision and +then, so that there might be no loop-hole for his father, sat down to +write a final indictment. + +Time fled away. He covered page after page of note paper, pouring out +all his soul, making a great appeal for the right treatment of Graham +and his sisters, and finally signed his name, having scrawled in his +large round writing, "This is my protest." + +The storm had come nearer. Outbursts of thunder rolled over the house +followed by stabs of lightning. + +He then deliberately placed himself on the chosen spot, cocked the +trigger and put the cold barrel of the revolver to his temple. + +There was a sort of scream. + +Peter swung round, with his nerves jangling like a wire struck suddenly +with a stick. + +There stood his father, unable to form a sentence, his face grey, his +eyes distended and his arms thrown out in front of him. + + +XIX + +Peter was angry, like a child disturbed just at the moment when he was +planning a surprise. + +"Why couldn't you have come in five minutes later?" he cried out, with +queer petulance. + +The Doctor tottered forward and peered into his son's face. "Why were +you going to do that? Tell me, tell me!" + +"You'd have found it all there," said Peter, pointing to the pages which +he had left on the desk. "Not very nice reading, I can assure you. But +if you want me to tell you instead, I will. And then you can see how a +man dies, instead of finding him dead. Perhaps this is the best way, +after all." + +He went to the door and locked it, still holding the revolver. The sight +of his father did not stir any pity or sympathy in his heart. On the +contrary, it added to the fever that had attacked his brain and acted as +an irritant. He went back and stood in front of the grey man. There was +an expression of contempt on his altered face. The pattering of heavy +rain against the windows seemed to please him. Nature, like himself, +seemed to have burst into open protest. + +"Sit down," he said. + +The Doctor obeyed. The blaze in his son's eyes contradicted his +unnatural calmness. He had to deal with temporary madness. He could see +that, and he was chilled with a sense of impending danger in which the +most poignant solicitude was mixed. + +"Now," said Peter, weighing his words with odd deliberation, "you're +going to hear something that'll shake you out of your smug +self-complacency and your pitiful belief that everything is all right in +this house--You're a good man, a better man than the average father. +There's nothing in your life that isn't to your credit. Even since you +had children you've worked like a dog to give them a better education +than you had, and you've gone without things to provide us with money +and make things easy. We all know that and we're grateful. We all know +that we ought to be proud of you as a doctor--as a man who has made +discoveries and added to the scientific knowledge of your profession. +Well, we _are_ proud of you. But in the last words that you'll hear me +speak I'm going to tell you what you've failed to do and why, in spite +of all your kindness and unselfishness, not one of your children +respects you or loves you, and why I, your eldest son, have got to put +an end to myself because of your neglect." + +Dr. Guthrie sprang to his feet. The calculated cruelty of this +indictment was more than he could endure. "What does this mean? If you +don't respect and love me, the others do. In what way have I neglected +you?" He stood up to Peter like a man, whipped into sudden anger. + +Peter liked that. It meant that he could hit out and put facts into +naked words without feeling that he was ill-treating a weakling. "That's +what I'm going to tell you," he said. "But there's lots of time and I'm +not going to leave anything out. What makes you think the others respect +and love you? Do they ever tell you so? Do they ever tell you anything? +Do they ever go out of their way to come in here for a little talk? And +if they did come in would you get out of your shell far enough for them +to see that you're a human being? Would you meet them half-way in their +desire to get something besides your money from you? Have you ever once +in your life been sufficiently inspired with a sense of your +responsibility as to make you get up and leave your work and come among +us to play with our toys and get known? Have you ever once in all the +years that we've been growing up been courageous or wise enough to take +Graham or me for a walk and tell us _any one_ thing that we ought to +know? In what way have you ever neglected us? In the most vital way of +all. We could have done without your money and the education that you've +been so delighted to give us. We could have done without comfort and +servants and good food and easy times. They mean nothing in the sum +total of things that count. Most men never have them at the beginning. +They make them. What you've never given us is _yourself_. And we +_needed_ you. What you've never given us is common sense. You've been a +good father in every inessential way, but no father at all in all that +goes to make us men. You've lived in a fool's paradise. You've let us +find our own way. You've not given us one human talk--one simple +fact--one word of warning. You've utterly neglected us because you're a +coward and you've hoped and trusted that others might tell us what +you've been afraid to say. Afraid,--to your own flesh and blood,--think +of it!" The Doctor cried out again. He realized much of the truth of all +this. He had confessed himself to be painfully shy to his wife many +times and had spent God knew how many anxious hours wondering how he +could get to know his boys. But it was too much to stand and be whipped +by his son. + +"There are thousands of fathers who hold my views and act as I have +acted," he said. + +"And there are so many thousands of sons who have to pay for those views +that you and men like you spend your lives in trying to save them." + +The Doctor drew in his breath. "Wh--what d'you mean?" he stammered. + +"Ah! that gets you, doesn't it? Now you're beginning to see what I'm +driving at, don't you? Put your mind back to the night you found Graham +here with me. You saved him from forging your name, and that was good. +But what led him up to that? Did you ask yourself? Did you go to Graham +and gain his confidence? Did you wonder whether there was a woman behind +it all who would never have come into his life if you had dealt by him +like a man and a father,--the sort of woman who has made necessary these +things round your laboratory and caused you to bend over your +experiments for years and years?" + +"Good God! What do you mean?" + +Peter raised his voice. "Why should your sons be immune? What have _you_ +ever done to render them so? Why am I now standing here with this +revolver in my hand? Look at me! A few hours ago I had health and +everything in the world that makes life worth living, except a father. +At this moment, because I've never had a father, I'm so terrified that I +should be a criminal if I married the girl I love that I'm going to kill +myself." + +"Why? What have you done?" + +"I've been two nights in the bed of the sort of woman whose work you are +trying to undo." + +The Doctor staggered, and then rose up in his wrath. "_You_ have? You, +_my_ son,--with such a mother--with such home influence! You mean to +tell me that you've descended to such depths of immorality that you've +gone back on everything that your education has made of you? It's +unthinkable--unbelievable. You must be a mere animal to have done such a +thing." + +What else he would have said in his emotion and horror no one can say. + +A cry of pain and rage rang out. The injustice of his father's narrow, +inhuman point of view, his inability to show him, even by his impending +death, that he must wake up to his duty and stand by Graham and his +sisters, sent the blood into Peter's fevered brain. + +"My God!" he cried. "You dare to talk like that to me? You dare to kick +me in the face after I've told you that I'm ignorant--without listening +to my explanation as to how I got into that woman's apartment. All +right, then, I'm not going to be the only one to pay. You shall take +your share of it. The sins of the children are brought about by the +neglect of the fathers, and we'll go and stand together before the Judge +to-night for a verdict on that count." + +He raised the revolver, aimed it at his father's head, put his finger on +the trigger---- + +There was a blinding flash of lightning. A yellow quivering flame +seemed to cut the room in half between the two angry men---- + +An instant later the Doctor saw Peter standing with both hands over his +face. The unfired revolver lay on the table in all its ugliness. And +presently, when he had realized what had happened, he went nearer. "God +didn't intend that you should do that," he said. And then his voice +broke and he went forward to put his arms round Peter's shoulders. "Give +me another chance, my dearest boy!" he cried. "Give me another chance!" + +But before he could reach his son the great big hurt boy crumpled and +fell in a heap at his feet. + + +XX + +For three weeks Peter's bedroom was the one room in the house to which +the eyes of all the family were wholly turned. There, in the dark, he +lay a victim to an attack of brain fever. Never in a condition of great +danger, poor old Peter was ill and the Doctor, who, better than the +rest, knew that death has many doors through which life goes out, eyed +the specialist who had been called in with pathetic eagerness. + +The little mother and Belle were joined at once by Betty, and the three +women sat very close together, speaking and even thinking in whispers +during the first two days. To the one whose first child he was and the +one who waited to be his wife, Peter meant everything good that life had +for them, and in their terror that he might be taken away their +imaginations ran ahead, as they always do in moments of such poignant +anxiety, and they were afraid to look out of the window in case they +should see Death, the black camel, kneeling at the gate. + +While the shadow seemed to rest on his house, Dr. Guthrie did many +things. First of all he went over all the terrible words that Peter had +said to him that bad and unforgettable night. With great humbleness and +deep emotion he accepted them as the truth. He sat for hours at his desk +with his hands over his face and tears leaking through his fingers. +Metaphorically he placed his old hard-working, concentrated self in the +criminal stand and his new startled, humbled and ashamed self in the +Judge's seat and summed up his life as a father. It was very plain that +he had failed in his duty to his boys. He had made no great effort to +conquer that queer shyness which had affected him from the beginning. He +had allowed his children to grow up to regard him as Bluebeard. He had +thrown upon his wife's slight shoulders all the onus of the +responsibility for the human development of their characters, and +because she had succeeded while they were young he had, like a coward, +neglected to step in and take upon himself his obvious duty when they +had grown old enough to need more--much more--than the soft guiding hand +of a mother. He had allowed them to make an early start,--the girls, as +well as the boys,--without understanding the vital necessity of duty and +discipline which he alone could inspire in them, because no man or woman +in all the country, in any school or college, gave a single thought to +either. He had hidden behind a hundred weak and foolish excuses in order +to avoid the so-called difficulties of speaking manfully to these two +embryo men. He had permitted them to grow out of boyhood without giving +them the benefit of his own uninitiated struggles, or the simple +warnings and facts which take the glamour away from temptation and make +straight ways easy. He "took chances," and hoped that some one else +might by accident give them the facts of sex or that they would find +them out themselves, as other young men were obliged to do,--never mind +how. + +Remorse and regret made Hell for this man in those honest hours,--this +good, exemplary, distinguished, self-made man whose name would live by +his professional efforts and scientific discoveries and who had +succeeded in everything except as a father. + +And then he called Graham into his room, and sitting knee to knee with +his second son, was brave enough to tell him wherein he now knew that he +had failed and asked of him, as he had asked of Peter, for another +chance. It was a pathetic and emotional talk that these two had, during +which both told the truth, hiding nothing, reserving nothing. The +outcome of it was good for them both, as well as for Peter. They went +together to see Nellie Pope and heard from her lips, to the Doctor's +unspeakable thankfulness, that Peter was in no danger from her. From +that time onwards that little, kind, wretched girl became one of the +Doctor's patients in the proper hospital, eventually to be placed by +him at work which rendered the need for her following her chosen +profession unnecessary. + +And finally the day came when Peter was able to receive visitors, and a +very good day it was. The little mother went in first--she had the +right. Peter was sitting in his dressing-gown by the window. To his +intense relief he had just passed through the hands of a barber, whom he +had asked to make him look a little less like a poet. He turned his head +quickly towards the door as his mother went in. His old high spirits had +returned. The sun was shining and life looked very good. His imagination +made him as well aware of the fact that his mother had been through some +of the most anxious hours of her life as though he had seen her sitting +in her room below with a drawn white face and her hands clasped +together. He got up and went to meet her. He took her in his arms and +held her very tight. What they said to each other was far too sacred to +put into cold print. They spoke in undertone, because the trained nurse +kept a jealous eye upon her patient and moved in and out of the +dressing-room adjoining. The interview was not allowed to be a long one. +The last thing that Peter said to his mother made her very happy. "I +think that the Governor and I are pals," he said. "I think we've found +each other at last. Isn't that just about the best thing you ever +heard?" + +In the afternoon Belle was allowed in. To his great relief she told him +in her characteristic, concise way, how she felt about Kenyon. He caught +her young, she said--marvellously young, "and if he should ever come +back to New York all he'll get from me will be two fingers. I've quite +recovered. So you may take that line out of your forehead, old boy. One +of these days when you're out and about again we'll walk about four +times round the reservoir and I'll tell you something of what's been +going through my mind while you've been ill. In fact, we'll have a very +substantial pow-wow about Nicholas Kenyon, and I don't think we shall +leave him quite as immaculate as he usually is by the time we've +finished, do you?" + +"No," said Peter, "I don't. All the same, I'm grateful to him for one +thing. He has brought father out of his shell,--that's about the best +thing he ever did in his life." + +There was something amusing as well as touching in the way in which the +two brothers met again. It was the next morning early. Peter was still +in bed, with his hair all frowzled and the remains of sleep still in the +corners of his eyes. Graham had ten minutes before he was obliged to +leave the house to go downtown. + +"Hello, old sport!" said Graham. + +"Hello, sonnie! Rather a hot thing in ties, that, eh?" + +Graham cleared his throat and put his hand rather self-consciously to +the black-and-white effect newly designed by his pet firm of +haberdashers. "I think it'll make the senior partner blink all right," +he said. "How d'you feel this morning?" + +Peter showed his teeth. "I'm sitting up and taking nourishment. Probably +before the end of the week you'll see me in shorts and a zephyr +sprinting round the park before breakfast." + +"I'd like to," said Graham, and he held out his hand. + +Peter took it and gave it a scrunch which had in it nothing of the +invalid. "Give my love to the subway," he said, "and my kind regards to +Wall Street." + +Graham grinned, waved his hand and left the room. He found it necessary +to blow his nose rather hard on his way down-stairs. "Oh, Gee!" he said +to himself. "Oh, Gee! Only think if Peter had--" He didn't allow himself +to finish the thought. + +And then came Betty, and the way in which she and Peter came +together--the way in which they stood only a step or two from the door, +inarticulate in their love and thankfulness, was too much even for the +trained nurse, to whom love and death and the great hereafter were mere +commonplaces. She withdrew to the dressing-room and stayed there for a +whole solid quarter-of-an-hour, eliminating herself with a tactfulness +for which Peter blessed her and Betty became her friend for all time. + +"My baby!" said Peter. "We shall have to begin all over again. We're +almost strangers." + +But Betty shook her head. "No," she said. "No. There hasn't been one +moment during all this time that I haven't been with you." + +And Peter nodded. "That's dead true," he said. + +And then they sat down very close together and the things they said to +each other are lost to the world, because we joined the nurse in the +next room and shut the door. + + +XXI + +It happened that the anniversary of Doctor and Mrs. Guthrie's wedding +day,--they had been married twenty-eight years,--fell on a Sunday that +year. + +The night before, at dinner, the little mother, thankful and happy at +having Peter back again at the table, asked a favour. In having to ask +it, instead of simply saying that she desired her children to go with +her to church the next morning, she proved her knowledge of the fact +that she had joined the ranks of mothers whose children have outgrown +them. + +Mrs. Guthrie was, however, one of those rather rare women who had grown +old gracefully. The hand of time, whose natural treatment she had made +no sort of endeavor to combat, had added to her beauty. Optimism, a +steady faith in God and His goodness, and the usual gift of accepting +whatever came to her without kicking against the pricks, had mellowed +her. It was without any of the spirit of martyrdom that cakes the nature +of those women who have not been able to acquire the best sort of +philosophy that she frankly made this very natural and easily fulfilled +desire a favour. Peter was well again and she wanted to kneel before the +altar of the Great Father and give thanks, surrounded by her children, +on the anniversary of the day that made her a wife. + +The family had grown out of the habit of going to church,--Belle was +tired, as a rule, after a late Saturday night, Graham was an inveterate +week-ender, Ethel was a modernist, and Peter played golf,--and so, when +they all agreed without any argument the little mother was almost as +surprised as she was delighted. + +The conspiracy of silence which the family had tacitly agreed upon +during their recent trouble, in order to spare her from unhappiness, +left Mrs. Guthrie wholly without any knowledge of the fact that they +were all glad of an excuse to join her in church, because they all felt +a curious eagerness to listen to the simple, beautiful service with +which they had grown up and to kneel once more--more humbly and +sincerely than ever before--in the house of the God who had been +instrumental in their various escapes. + +It would have been better if Mrs. Guthrie had not been so carefully +shielded--if she had been made to share with the Doctor the blame,--at +any rate for the mistakes which the two girls had made,--from the fact +that she had let go the reins of duty and discipline with which she had +held them in their early years and given them their heads--if she had +been strong enough and wise enough to maintain over Belle and Ethel, +without autocratically putting a stop to their having "a good time," the +authority of respect, won by love and the exercise of sympathy and +common sense--if, in short, she had not been content to slip into a +position that allowed these high-spirited girls to say to themselves +quite so early in their lives, "Oh, poor, dear little mother doesn't +understand. She doesn't know anything that modern girls have to go +through." She was shielded because it was understood that she was a sort +of sleeping partner--not an active member of the firm. She was regarded +as being so sweet and soft and old-fashioned that she couldn't possibly +appreciate the conditions of the times in which the girls lived. Their +early positions had become reversed. It was the girls who mothered their +mother. + +It was a strangely silent party that returned home that Sunday morning, +headed by the Doctor and the little mother. Betty had been invited by +Mrs. Guthrie to join them and was to stay to lunch. It was while they +were in the hall, and just as Betty had gone upstairs with Mrs. Guthrie, +that the Doctor turned quickly. "I want you all to come to my room," he +said. "I won't keep you more than a few moments," and led the way. + +Wondering what was going to happen, but taking trouble to avoid catching +each other's eyes, Peter, Graham, Belle and Ethel followed their father +across the library into the room which, for the two boys, had +associations that they were never likely to forget, and for the two +girls had hitherto been a place to avoid. + +As soon as they were in the room the Doctor shut the door and, from +force of habit, went over to his desk. With one thin hand on it, and +with a shaft of winter sun on a face that was very lined and pale he +stood there for a moment in silence. His lips trembled a little, but +there was a look in his eyes behind those strong glasses that his +children had never seen before. + +"Peter, Graham, Belle and my little Ethel," he said brokenly, "I'm going +to ask you all, on a day that means a great deal to your mother and to +me, and so to you, to forgive me for not having been all that I ought to +have been to you I know that I've failed in my duty as a father. You +have always been my most precious possessions and it is for you that +I've worked so hard and so closely, but because of all that I went +through as a child and because I never struggled as I ought to have done +to overcome a foolish shyness that has made me self-conscious, you and I +have never been friends--have never understood each other. I take all +the blame for whatever you have done that has made you suffer and of +which you are ashamed. Very humbly, I stand before you now and ask you, +as I asked Peter, here, in this room, to give me another chance. Let's +make a new beginning from to-day, with the knowledge that I love you +better than anything in the world. I want you all to meet me half-way in +future, to look upon me no longer as the shy, unsympathetic, +unapproachable man who, by accident, is your father, but as your closest +and most intimate friend whose best and dearest wish is to help you and +listen to your worries and give you all the advice in his power. I want +this room to be the place to which you'll always come with the certain +knowledge that you'll be welcomed by me with the greatest eagerness and +delight. Don't let there be anything from to-day onwards that you can't +tell me. Promise me that. I--I've told myself two or three times that +it's too late for me to be of any use to you--that having failed I could +never repair my mistake or ever hope to win your confidence and +friendship." + +His voice broke so badly that he was unable to speak, and the +painfulness of this strange little scene was almost more than those +young people could bear. It hurt them enough to stand facing a man who +opened his soul for them to gaze into, especially when that man was +their father. It was dreadful to see him blinded by tears in the middle +of an appeal which they all realized called for such extreme courage and +strength of character to make. + +They all wanted to do something to help him and force him out of a +humbleness that made them horribly self-conscious. It was Peter who did +it. With two strides he stood at the Doctor's side and put his arms +round his shoulder. + +The Doctor looked up into the face of the great big, tender fellow, +whose eyes were eloquent, and smiled. Then he found his voice again and +forced himself to the bitter end of what he had determined to say. +"Something in the way you've all treated me since Peter has been ill," +he said, "has given me hope. That's why I put myself in your hands, my +dears. Shall we make a new beginning? Will you take me into your +friendship? Will you all give me another chance?" + +With a little cry from her heart Belle went forward and put her arms +round her father's neck, and Ethel, with hot tears running down her +face, crept up to him and put one of his hands to her lips. Graham bent +over the other, which he held tight, and Peter, who had longed for this +moment through all his illness, didn't give a curse who heard his voice +break, patted the Doctor on the back, and said: "Dear old man, my dear +old father!" over and over again. + + THE END + + +_Books by_ Cosmo Hamilton + + +The Blindness of Virtue + + "A plea to mothers to tell their daughters frankly all the laws + of nature before they arrive at years of possible indiscretion + through innocence. Its characters are uncommonly well drawn and + might have stepped out of life."--_New York Evening Sun._ + + "A beautiful piece of work dealing with a stupendously difficult + subject with the most dexterous blending of delicacy, dramatic + strength and wholesome candor."--_London Daily Chronicle._ + +307 Pages. _$1.35 net._ + + +The Miracle of Love + + "One of the most notable novels of the year, well worth reading + by those who are seeking more than a pleasant hour, but wholly + delightful merely as a story."--_New Haven Register._ + + "It is a fine, well told and purposeful tale, with brilliant and + quotable passages."--_Detroit Free Press._ + +325 Pages. _$1.35 net._ + + +The Door That Has No Key + + "A work of genuine power; it is impossible to read it + unmoved."--_Providence Journal._ + + "A novel to re-read and preserve. A wonderful piece of work, + alive with emotion."--_London World._ + + "Discusses marriage and divorce. With its brilliant + characteristics it is a notable novel."--_New York Evening Sun._ + +324 Pages. $_1.35 net._ + + +The Blindness of Virtue + +A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS + + In this drama of two girls' careers Mr. Hamilton shows + powerfully just how far innocence, that is only ignorance, is a + protection. He levels the finger of accusation against parents + whose cowardice of silence, masquerading as refinement, + threatens ruin in their children's lives. + + "It is the biggest sermon on the subject that has ever been + preached."--_Dorothy Dix._ + +126 Pages. $1.00 _net_. + + +A Plea for the Younger Generation + + "It is a little bomb which any one at all interested in + children--parent, teacher, eugenist--would do well to read and + consider. It is written with the glow of conviction and there is + merit in it from cover to cover."--_Chicago Tribune._ + + "It is a very small book, but into its compass the author + contrives to say nearly all that is worth while on 'the tragedy + of half truths' on sex matters when they are told to + children."--_San Francisco Chronicle._ + +16mo. 75 cents _net_. + + +LITTLE, BROWN & CO., _Publishers_, BOSTON + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Sins of the Children, by Cosmo Hamilton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SINS OF THE CHILDREN *** + +***** This file should be named 37664.txt or 37664.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/6/6/37664/ + +Produced by Roger Frank, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://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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